I LOVE Comment Luv!  How about you?  That almost sounds like a cheer doesn’t it? 

But I do really love the plugin, CommentLuv and there is a hot new WordPress plugin coming soon! Cathy Stucker is giving away a free copy at her book marketing site, SellingBooks. Learn how you can enter and win by visiting Cathy’s CommentLuv Premium giveaway page.

If you are not familiar with this plugin, it builds backlinks, increases traffic to your blog, makes it easier for your readers to share your posts on Facebook, Twitter and others social networking sites and leaves a link for your last post on any other blog you comment on that has the plugin installed.

I highly suggest you take a look at this plugin and install it on your WordPress site.  You’ll LUV it!

Using traditional offline marketing techniques to market your online blog seems like it could be a daunting task, rife with frustration and needless papers and phone calls. However, by doing all of your marketing online, you leave out a huge number of potential readers. If you are blogging for fun or for money, the point is you want people to read what you write. Without readers, all of your work and fantastic writing is for nothing.

You don’t have to worry; though…integrating tried-and-true offline marketing methods with more modern techniques is not as hard as it sounds. There are 3 easy ways you can get started advertising your blog offline. Each of them is unique and helpful on its own, and they work well together. All of them are low-cost, and have proven effective time and time again.

Business Cards

One of the best ways to get the word out about your blog is with the use of good, old fashioned business cards. Keeping these handy in your wallet, glove box, and jacket pockets (don’t wash them!) will enable you to network everywhere you go. They are relatively inexpensive to print – you could even do them yourself, if you really wanted to save money. Here are 3 tips to help you with your amazing business cards:

•  Don’t print too many. Your contact information, address, job title, or logo may change. It is recommended that you print no more than 1000 cards at a time for the heavy distributor; 500 should be sufficient for the average at-home self-promoter.

• Don’t be too flashy. The goal of a business card is for people to be able to contact you at a later date. Unless you can do it tastefully, try to avoid a multitude of sparkles, glitter, graphics, and logos. Utilize the free space on both sides of the card. Remember: people will contact you and have a better chance of visiting your blog if your business cards are neat, clean, and easy to read.

• Do treat them like candy. Give them to everyone you know. Post them on community bulletin boards. Check out local businesses and schools; a lot of them have cork boards available for community and business-related information.

Fliers

Fliers can be an invaluable resource when you are thinking about reviving your blog with some updated offline marketing techniques. With virtually any option available in size, color, cost, and quantity, using and creating fliers is easier than ever. A number of popular office services companies are available to help you design a flier, or you can hire a graphic designer. Just like with business cards, you can post them everywhere. Be sure to do a little research with your city or county to make sure you are only posting fliers in appropriate areas.

Conventions and Lectures

Depending on your prime reading target, there may be conventions or lectures held in your area – or even outside of your immediate area if you are willing to travel relevant to your blog topic. Purchasing space – or getting it free – at a convention is a great way to draw potential readers to your blog. If you choose the right place, you are guaranteed to have patrons that are already interested in what you have to say. They did come to the convention, after all.

Regardless of the method you choose, remembering the many options available to you via offline marketing will be helpful in increasing your overall reader base. When you blog, you want people to read your blog. Taking advantage of some offline techniques will help to ensure people find you…even when they are away from the internet.

Jen Silva is a writer for Choosewhat.com. ChooseWhat is a company that provides product reviews and test data for business services and products such as business cards and PBX services. Their goal is to help small companies make informed buying decisions on business solutions that help their business.

Enjoy this guest post by Ben ~

Social media has become an essential part of web promotion. Not only is it effective and helpful for increasing the popularity of your business or website, but it is absolutely necessary! Proper use of social media such as Twitter and Facebook will not only help your site gain exposure, but it will act as a catalyst for making your content more prominent and even viral.

The easiest and most important step to take when stepping into the “social” scene is adding buttons to your site to help visitors share your content. In other words, make your website “shareable” because the last thing you want to do is inhibit their ability to advertise your business for you. People love to communicate and we also love to share. Social media is the Internet’s analogy for word-of-mouth advertising. Neglecting to add buttons on your site for visitors to share your content is a lot like stripping them of their voice – let them talk!

TweetMeme is a fantastic tool for making your content very shareable. It adds a simple button at the top (or bottom) of all of your posts that people can use to tweet your content with literally 2-clicks. A common trend you will notice when observing popular sites in almost every niche is the overwhelming amount of tweets in comparison to “likes” on Facebook. Tweeting is easier and faster, and in an online world where we skim almost everything we read, we need to have quick sharing options for our visitors.

A common and effective layout for making your site easy to share is to include a button at the top of every post for Twitter and/or Facebook, a set of buttons at the bottom for a few popular social sites, and also the presence of similar sharing buttons consistently displayed on your sidebar. For the sidebar, the most important inclusions are Twitter, Facebook, and your RSS Feed. You might have other sites like LinkedIn that you like to use or a series of videos on YouTube – these would be good additions for your sharing buttons.

To further emphasize the importance of properly using social media, lets cover a scenario:

1. Someone visits your site and reads an article. They really like it, but they don’t see any sharing buttons and so it may not even cross their mind to tweet it or like it, so they move on with their day.
2. This same visitor comes to your site and reads the same article. However, this time there are social sharing buttons featured prominently on the page. This visitor tweets the post and it is quickly exposed to all of this user’s followers (dozens, hundreds, even thousands of people).

And it doesn’t stop there. The people who see that tweet might tweet it too, they might look through your site and tweet another post, or they might follow you on Twitter and become exposed to all of your new tweets. Simple processes like this can quickly multiply and expand upon your daily traffic, and all of this happens simply because you have made your website shareable.

Supplement your social media strategies with SEO. Check out our FREE SEO Course or download our FREE OnlyWire Account Creator to make social bookmarking effortless.

Second article in a three-part series on Social Media ROI

Social media has become a driving force in American society, and the greater human society as a whole. Almost everyone under the age of 30 is aware of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and a variety of other social media outlets. As people increasingly turn away from face to face engagements and toward online networking, businesses are trying to adapt their practices to take advantage of the opportunities provided by social media and online networking sites.

Businesses always think in terms of money; how much money is going out and how much money is coming in? When economic times get tough businesses always look first at where their money is going out before worrying about where money is coming in from. Return on Investment, or ROI, is a very big term in business. With the evolution of social media, businesses are increasingly turning to this new media outlet for marketing. As such, many businesses are trying to determine the ROI of their social media practices.

Determining how social media initiatives impact a business’s ROI is difficult because the results will not jump out on a spreadsheet revealing their impact in plain sight. Instead, businesses looking for social media’s impact on ROI need to go beyond cash flow, costs, and stats on paper. A better approach to measure ROI from social media should include the following:

• Providing a face for your business
• Get input from customers
• Join the discussion
• Encourage involvement
• Build business relationships

Most employees at any given company have passions related to their company, and passions that are unrelated to the business. Keying in on a passion an employee has that relates to your business, and then allowing that individual to run a social media program puts a human face on your company’s online profile. For example, if a moving companies’ provider has an employee who considers themselves an amateur photographer they should be encouraged to create an online presence where employees and customers can share photos from their travels.

Social media’s biggest impact might be in providing customers with a louder voice for the company to hear. Allowing marketing and sales departments to run social media programs will allow them a direct link to the customer base. This not only allows them to focus in on exact customer bases, but also receive feedback from those customers.

Word of mouth has taken on a greater impact in our social media age than it ever could have before. The internet allows information about your business to reach every corner of the world. Engaging in discussion and discourse with customers in a positive manner creates good word of mouth about your company that can reach much farther than just around the block or in the next town.

Lastly, the ROI of a company’s social media efforts can be seen by encouraging involvement and building business relationships. Companies from different industries can come together through social media connections to support projects that benefit the greater good, and even encourage their customers to get involved as well. Travel insurance companies, for instance, can encourage their customers to support community development projects in a region they routinely visit. It can be as simple as a donation, or as involved as volunteering time to the cause.

Social media’s impact on a company’s ROI is definitely there, but it won’t jump off the page of a spreadsheet. Rather, businesses need to dig deep for ways to make social media work for them.

In years gone by, direct mailers were the premier form of business to business and business to consumer advertising. Direct mail consists of flyers, newsletters featuring advertisements, and coupons mailed directly to the consumer’s home. This required businesses to investigate all kinds of shipping services, gather quotes, and compare shipping companies. While this is still a valuable resource for targeted markets, people seem far more interested in exploring online technology and viral marketing and advertising options.

With the advancement of technology, the Internet has given small and large businesses alike a nearly equal playing field. Though not completely dead and forgotten, direct mailers as advertisement has taken a backseat to the more popular and effective advertisement forms the Internet has made available.

Businesses today all have the opportunity to use the web and social media to promote their services. High tech or ecommerce businesses, for example, would benefit more from using the Internet opposed to using direct mail due to its global potential of customers. Blog articles, appealing websites offering online discounts, Internet printable coupons, and savings offered on social media sites have allowed businesses to reach out to a broader base of consumers.

Due to the rapid advertising the Internet provides, businesses no longer have to wait for consumers to receive direct mailers and then wait for them to respond. The Internet has given businesses a prime opportunity to reach out to customers through social media sites and email advertisements the same day the company is having a special sale or savings offer.

Business owners additionally have a chance to email, share, or tweet to thousands of potential customers and essentially recruit new customers or encourage them to look at and contact your company.

Long term success for any business in today’s world generally means participating in some sort of Internet advertisement and campaigning. Inexpensive advertisement can be readily had through the Internet and creative and optimized websites. A company that is diligent about advertising on the Internet as well as knowing when to use direct mailers will have far more success than a company who relies on only one method for their primary form of marketing and advertising to the public.

Have you seen those crazy little square boxes on websites and catalogs and wondered “what in the world” they are?  Me too!  They are QR Codes or Quick Response codes.

According to PCMag.com the definition of QR Code is:

A two-dimensional matrix bar code that is used to identify products. It can store up to 4,296 alphanumeric or 7,089 numeric characters. Depending on the level of error correction applied, it can restore from seven to 30% of the missing data.  Read the rest of the definition at PCMag.com.

So basically it’s a new code that businesses use to help their customer locate them.  Mobile phone users can snap a picture of the code and be taken to a specific product or service or to the businesses website.  On my iPhone, I installed the QR App and when I access the app, it automatically brings up my phone’s camera for me to snap a picture and then uses the code to take me to the site that the code is directing me to.  It’s pretty cool!

You can also get a custom QR code for your business at Google Places.   It is a great way to show off your website or products in advertisements, catalogs, flyers or emails.

Here is my code for Tasting The Internet -

Give it a try, take a picture and see what happens.  But remember you might need a special application to make it work on your phone.

Do you have a Landing Page?  Sometimes called a Squeeze Page.  Most successful Internet Marketers have many of them to drive traffic back to their websites and blogs.  Want to create a landing page that will convert those visitors into email subscribers?  Here are a five tips to do just that.

• Offer a freebie in exchange for your visitor’s email address. This is a must!  It is a great way to show you know your stuff and to encourage your visitor to sign up for your mailing list. You can offer a special report, a video series of your top tips, an audio lesson sent daily for seven days, or a sample of your paid product in exchange for their name and email address.

• Make your page stand out in the crowd! As you develop your page, keep the visitor in mind.  Why have they come to your website?  What are keywords that brought them to you?  If your keywords are “growing roses” then give them examples of beautiful rose gardens, successes you have achieved by using your methods, testimonials from others who have used your expertise to grow roses.   Sell them on how great you are with your content and images.

• Keep it brief. Your landing page doesn’t have to be long. As a matter of fact, I really don’t like long landing pages or sales pages.  I’m busy and don’t have time to read through a 10-page landing or sales page, and neither does your visitor.  They have come to you for a specific purpose, so give them what they are looking for and don’t make them weed through all the chatter to get it.  As long as you write an attention grabbing headline, a brief introduction and offer,  and you point them to the freebie to sign up, you have an excellent chance of converting more than 60 to 80 percent of your visitors into subscribers.

• No other links allowed! Other than your opt-in form, certain disclaimers and terms, there shouldn’t be any other links on your landing page.  As the old saying goes, “a confused mind takes no action.”  And that’s exactly what will happen if you fill your page with a lot of other options for the visitor.  Give them a clear direction, even say it, Enter Your Name and Email in the Box to the Left! Make it easy for them.

• Give them your best stuff.  Just asking them to sign up for your newsletter won’t do the trick anymore.  Most visitors are looking for and expecting to receive a good valuable freebie for allowing you to market to them through their Inbox.  So give it to them.  If you give away some of your best information, they are more likely to come back to you for more because you have proven how great your content is to them.  Also, when you do market to them, they will not only open the email, but read it!
  

If your not really techie, you might be interested in these hot video squeeze page templates to make your landing page really stand out!

If you liked, “Create a Landing Page that Converts Everytime” please share it by clicking the links below.

Have you heard the phrase Long-tail Keywords? Do you know what they are or how to use them?  If you are an online marketer you really need to understand the impact long tail keywords can have on being found through search engines.

Long-tail keyword searches are often used when someone is trying to look for a specific thing. They might type a question into a search box with their keyword phrases within the question. (ex., Where can I find a pink polka dot bikini?) Pink Polka Dot Bikini is a long-tail keyword.  Typically people will search for just the generic keyword term, bikini, if they are only interested in bikinis in general. However, if they are ready to buy a pink polka dot bikini, that’s the phrase they will use for their search.

Internet Marketers have been using these keywords and keyword phrases for awhile now to help rank in the search engines and get their websites positioned in that #1 spot. What this does is help them better answer the question their potential customer is asking.  By using the keyword phrase, pink polka dot bikini, when someone searches for the exact term, it’s a perfect match for the person searching and will most likely result in a sale.

The more specific you can make a keyword phrase, the better chance you have for someone to find you with that phrase. When you decide to target long tail keywords, you are positioning your site to be found by those who are typing in a more specific targeted search. If you are trying to rank high with other more popular keyword phrases and are aiming to get on the top spots in the search engines with the more common or generic keywords, you could possibly be losing out on these more specific searches. However, if you want to be found by those people who are ready to buy when finding exactly what they are looking for with the long tail keywords, this method works much better. According to Wikipedia statistics recent long tail keyword research has found that long-tail searches often exhibit a higher conversion rate by up to 200% compared to short tail (generic) keywords, and can be extremely profitable for search engine marketers in terms of a lower cost per action and higher return on investment.

If you are a marketer who is interested in using Pay Per Click as one of your advertising methods, choosing long tail keyword phrases could end up saving you money.  By using the more popular keyword phrases since they are more in demand can cost you a pretty penny. By targeting long tail keyword phrases, you not only have less competition, but have a better chance of reaching the exact target market you would like that will end up purchasing your product.

Doing your keyword research to find these long tailed keyword phrases is crucial to determine which ones are the best phrases to use. Wordtracker is a great program that will enable you to type in various keywords and find the best long-tail phrases that are being searched for within that niche. Also, Google’s keyword tool is another good resource. You should always track your results when using keyword phrases so you can see which ones are producing better sales and views. Once you have found a few long-tail keyword phrases that have desirable statistics, you can then use these for other marketing methods to gain as much as you can from your advertising efforts.

Do you have other keyword tools that you use?  Share them in the comments section.

Also here’s another great post about using keywords for SEO.

Please Share – What you need to know about Long Tail Keywords by clicking the social media links below.

I’m sure you have been on Craigslist for one reason or another.  Whether you are looking for a great deal on a piece of furniture or looking for a job, Craigslist has become a “go-to place” for most online deal hunters.  However, Craigslist can prove to be an excellent avenue for business promotion. Whether you have a small business that you operate on a part time basis or a thriving business which has become a time consuming lion, Craigslist can help to increase in profits and popularity.

The two main components to successfully promoting a business on Craigslist include reaching the target audience and running a marketing campaign to attract your target audience.  Let’s dig a little deeper in these two areas to see how we can best benefit from both.

Reaching Your Target Audience

Promoting a business on Craigslist isn’t a difficult process. It has some similarities to the process of promoting your business offline. The main similarity is that you must determine your target audience and where they are hanging out.

Even the most well thought out and innovative marketing campaign will fail if it isn’t reaching the intended audience. So be sure to categorize your ads correctly to ensure they reach your audience. The majority of posts on Craigslist are available free of charge with the exception of job listings in certain major cities. Therefore, small business owners can take advantage of a free posting on Craigslist to reach their target audience in a number of different locations.

Here’s an example of a company offering moving services in Nashville, TN. A small moving company that is relatively new might want to take advantage of the free advertising available on Craigslist. To have the best opportunity to reach the target audience this company should place a services offered posting under the labor and moving category for the counties in which the services are offered. By placing the post this way it will be more likely to reach an audience of those who are planning a move in the desired county than it would if the same exact advertisement was placed as a job advertisement under the category of labor or transport.

Besides being free for most postings, Craigslist offers additional benefits. The most significant benefit is a large audience. Craigslist receives over 20 billion page views per month.(at the time of this post) With such a large audience, who wouldn’t want to promote your business on Craigslist. However, be careful to categorize the ad correctly to ensure your reaching your target audience.

Effectively Marketing on Craigslist

Marketing effectively on Craigslist is not very different from other forms of media. One of the most important elements of an effective marketing campaign on Craigslist is dynamite copy that appeals directly to the target audience. Hiring a freelance writer skilled in writing sales copy is an excellent idea. As the business owner you might be quite knowledgeable about your business but do you have the skills to convey the purpose of the business while effectively convincing those who read the posting to perform a specific action or “call-to-action?” That call-to-action may include visiting a website and making a purchase, requesting additional information about the products or services or performing some other desired action such as visiting a traditional store or place of business.

The other component to marketing effectively, as previously mentioned, is placing your advertisement in the correct section of Craigslist. Categorizing correctly is important, but it’s also important to place the advertisement in the right physical location. Products and services which are only offered in a limited area such as a particular city or county should be advertised only in these exact locations. However, if you offer products through your website you might consider placing an ad in all of the locations to where you are willing to ship to.

If you haven’t used Craigslist to reach your target audience, give it a try.  And if you have other tips on using Craigslist for promoting your business, please share them in the comments section below.

If you enjoyed, “Reaching Your Target Audience on Craigslist” please share it with your online friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

So your thinking of setting up an online business.  There are so many things you must do to get ready to have your business on the internet and I’ll talk about some of those in the other blog posts. (Search the Categories Section)  But when I first started online, like many others, I searched for low-cost or free resources that could help me get started without having to take on a second mortgage!

One of those resources is conference calling.  Many online entrepreneurs use teleclasses and webinars to promote their business or to just stay in touch with members of their community and sometimes even with their virtual team.  I have tried several conference calling services, and have found Free ConferencePro to be the best free service for me.

Free ConferencePro has many of the same features of the paid conference calling services, so you don’t have to give up quality.  Here are some of the great features I enjoy each time I hold a teleseminar:

• Personal Dashboard – you can schedule meetings, access recordings, access reports of past meetings, and set your call preferences, like whether your callers will hear music while they wait or if the callers are muted or unmuted.
• Host Keypad Controls  - lets you manage callers, security, and settings right from your phone keypad. You can see in real-time who is on the call and you can manually mute and un-mute the participants.
• Customize Welcome Recording -Unlike some of the more expensive services, Free ConferencePro offers the host the opportunity to record a welcome greeting for your company or organization so your callers hear “Welcome to the MyCompany conference center, when they access the call.”  (this is very cool!)
• Call Recording – you can easily record each call and within less than 30 minutes after the call have an MP3 or WAV file ready to send to your participants.  Or you can even use the recording feature for Podcasting.

This is one of those great services that you just can’t believe it’s free…but it is.  So check out Free ConferencePro next time you need a conference call service.

If you enjoyed, “Free Conference Calling for the Online Newbie” please share it with your online friends by clicking the social media icons below.