Anyone who is interesting in catapulting his or her online presence into the big league needs to consider buying a domain name. Whether it is for a business-oriented site or one that is more personal (such as a blog or hobby site), no one is going to want to visit unless you have a proper web address. After all, a 70-character blog URL doesn’t quite fit very well on a business card. Fortunately, buying a domain doesn’t need to be difficult, and can actually be a pretty fun process. As long as you know what you’re getting yourself into, you’ll have your new address in no time.

Domain names basically act as placeholder addresses. For instance, let’s say Bob’s Boats in Portland, wants to lift their online presence from the current address they have (xyz,com), and they would like their customers to be able to log on to bobsboat,com. If someone else isn’t already using the URL in the world, Bob’s Boats has the opportunity to buy it. From here, they can either use the URL to forward visitors to their current blog, or can even have their site hosted by the same service that provides the domain name.

Buying a domain entails perusing the many web sites that offer domain and web hosting services to customers. Be careful, as there are quite a few of these sites on the net that aren’t conducive to customers in that they bombard you with ads and try to trick you into signing up for useless services. Do some research online, or ask someone you know who owns a domain about where they bought it and whether or not they’re happy with the service.

Since there are many web sites to choose from for domain purchasing and web hosting, you shouldn’t feel as if you have to rush into anything. Be sure that whatever site you use provides instructional tutorials regarding how to set up either your hosting services or forwarding services. Also, remember to shop prices, as one site might charge double what another would for the same thing.

Steve Duval is a Successful Internet Marketer Helping Others Learn the Skills required to Be Able To make Money Online http://www.your-online-income.com. To Find Out More About Steve and how he can help you http://steve-duval.com/profile/profile.html. To your Success

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_Duval

I took a drive up country this past weekend with my business partner. We looked back over the 70 plus websites we have and started to think about where we would go with niche marketing in the next part of 2010. One thing was quite clear when we looked at what we had done this year.

As the search engines tighten their algorithms in an effort to squeeze out the guru marketing tornadoes, the average small entrepreneur is left chasing scant bits of information about how to nail down local markets. Just as the stock market likes a stable environment, so too does the Internet marketing business.

What I noticed about much of what we did with our websites over the past 6 months boils down to a simple formula. We find someone with a great product who doesn’t have a clue how to market himself. Mostly we’ve found these people to be the geeks and scientists among us. Some of them have really brilliant products, but have no way of knowing what potential their markets hold.

One example is retirement property. The whole reason we went up country was to scope out what we heard was a decent piece of retirement real estate. When I got to the property, I was blown away by its awesomeness! It had everything. And the developer had spared no expense putting in paved driveways, offering free geothermal drilling and a range of other stuff.

I asked him how many of these 3 acre lots he had sold last year. He indicated the number was about 12. I was a bit shocked. My search engine research had already told me that over 1800 people per day were looking for properties like his. Since his prices were good, and the location was outstanding, why weren’t the sales at least triple?

The developer was a hard working man of the earth. He knew real estate well and knew how to make the best product. He was not so good at getting seen. Granted, he did a superb job of creating a free DVD for his project, but still the traffic had not materialized.

Enter Internet entrepreneurs like you and me. What we do here is perform a ton of keyword research, find the right domain name, register the domain, create the hosting account, choose the platform for the site, write some killer content, include videos, a landing page, a squeeze page, and an auto-responder form, then publish the site.

After that, we go to work seeding the site with content and creating backlinks. As customers begin to find the site, the developer starts to get the traffic he rightfully deserves.

It is a very different environment out there today. We need to understand how it works and we must realize that there are very few who can put it all together and make it work. You are reading this article and that means you are likely one of the few.

Nick Walsh is a professional researcher and information technology analyst with 30 years experience in alternative health care, strategic information technology, and entrepreneurial development. Nick maintains several blogs on alternative health care, anti-aging, green energy systems, technology, and internet marketing in general.

Nick has been a successful internet marketer since 1996. Consistently reviewing the internet marketing industry, Nick is always up to date with the latest successful internet marketing tools and resources.

Nick works from his home in Vancouver, BC.

http://retirementcommunitiesinbc.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nick_Walsh

Some of the most successful Internet marketers are the ones who have learned how to maximize the power of articles. While many marketers focus solely on the value of inbound links from popular article directories via the resource box, articles have a much greater marketing potential.

Traditional article marketing depended on multiple inbound links from niche-focused websites. As many marketers fear or misinterpret the “duplicate content” penalty, they have avoided this option, fearing it will get their site blacklisted. However, there are strategies that can minimize the risk without resorting to ridiculous “spinning” tactics or promoting the same article with multiple titles.

But perhaps the single most powerful aspect of article marketing is the fact that it helps to establish the author as an “expert” in his field. For example, if you are promoting your SEO services, the more articles you write about SEO, the more your potential clients will recognize you as THE go-to person for SEO.

SEO fads come and go as marketers try to get an edge by decoding search engine algorithms in order to trick search ‘bots and get the initial search results. However, keeping top search results requires quality, relevant content. And some of best content is the original article.

Articles are also excellent for lead generation in a two-step marketing process. Instead of a resource box that invites the reader to click to a website, these articles offer a free on-topic report, white paper, or tip-sheet free by autoresponder. This immediately capture’s the prospect’s email address for later follow-up, while the freebie serves as a “teaser” for the Product.

If you’re going to write articles, don’t stop at the inbound links from the article directory. Harness the power of articles to establish yourself as an expert and generate warm leads for your products and services.

I am a member of Yournetbiz Online Business opportunity offering to answer any questions you may have re the business opportunity. Please feel free to contact me for more information http://www.steve-duval.com

http://www.your-online-income.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_Duval

Article Marketing and List Building are a perfect combination when you want to build a highly qualified and hyper-responsive list. If you are having trouble building the kind of list you want and need, this just may be the cure you have been looking for…

5 Simple & Repeatable Steps

With Article Marketing there are 5 simple and repeatable steps for building a great list. Let’s take a closer look at these 5 steps.

Article – First you want to craft a great quality article with a compelling title that pulls the reader in. Make sure your article lives up to your title, and delivers at least one gold nugget of information the reader can use right away.

And don’t stop there! Don’t be one of these folks that say “Well, I wrote a few articles and it just didn’t work for me.” This process takes more than a few articles. Remember each article is an “article agent” out on the Internet working for you 24/7/365. You want to create an entire army of agents working for you.

Resource Box – At the end of every article you get to invite the reader back to your web world in order to get more information from you. Make sure what you are offering in the Resource Box is a no brainer for someone that has just read your article, by offering something that is related to the article and a sample of one of your products that will start the reader down the road to achieving their goals.

Opt-In Page – You want your Resource Box to invite the reader to an opt-in page where they can trade their email for more good information from you. Make the instructions clear, and be sure there is nothing else on that page to distract them from the action you want them to take – opting in!

Follow Up – Both your future and your fortune is in the follow up. Whether you do it automatically with auto-responders, live with teleseminars, or some combination of these and other strategies. make sure you are following up with those who join your list.

When you do so you are doing what most marketers fail to do, and you begin to stand out.

Great care – When you serve and lead your list community you are taking great care of them. And always remember this:

When you take great care of your list community, they will take great care of you

And now I would like to invite you to claim your FREE Instant Access to my List Building Instant Article Creation Template when you visit http://www.ListBuildingArticleTemplate.com

You’ll get get a “plug-n-play” Instant Article Creation Template – just plug in your info! And you’ll get a 13 minute instructional audio on how to create a list building article.

From Jeff Herring – The Article Marketing Guy and The Great Article Marketing Network.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jeff_Herring

You have your website, blog or splash page and it has a box for you to collect contact details for your prospects. By now, you have probably been rudely interrupted by mine…so I am sorry, but I’m sure you’ll love what you will get as a result of entering your details onto my opt-in box.

The whole idea of collecting contact details is to build your mailing list. I’m sure you won’t mind that because, firstly it will work for you too…and secondly, it will provide you with valuable information that you can use to dramatically improve your internet business, and in doing so, dramatically improve every area of your life.

So, what should be used as an incentive. Think about this carefully. Put yourself in the shoes of your prospects. What would they value from you? What would you be able to offer them? Thinking about the answers of these questions, what would be the easiest and most appealing incentive you could give. My incentive is particularly good. I think the best way I can improve on my freebie is to offer just as good information in a few more products. I advise you to concentrate on ebooks, but you could also try freebies of your product. With my FM business, I can get samples of our products for 15p each and when people try the products, they always want to give you repeat custom as the quality and the price are excellent. You might even be able to use a voucher for your products, but I advise you to use this as a freebie in conjunction with other freebies.

Article Marketing quickly became my niche once I came online full time in 2007. So some people are a little surprised that I teach Social Marketing in addition to Article Marketing.

To me, Social Marketing is a natural outgrowth of Article Marketing. And together, they form a powerful one-two punch for more traffic and profits.

Article Marketing

First, let’s dance with the one that brought me. Article Marketing brings you at least 3 powerful forms of traffic:

Immediate – When I want more traffic, I write more articles. When you submit and publish a brand new article on the Article Directories, that one action brings in more traffic.

Consistent – Consistent traffic occurs in 2 ways: 1) New prospects keep find your articles that are already online, and 2) You continue to create and publish more articles.

Evergreen – Once an article is up on the Article Directories and then is picked up and used by other web sites, blogs and newsletters, it is there forever. In fact I have one article that I created in August of 2005 that still brings in 1500 – 2000 new views each and every month.

Social Marketing

Imagine if you could get samples of your information and expertise in front of where the traffic is going and then redirect that traffic exactly where you want it to go.

That is exactly what you can do with Social Marketing. This is one reason why marketing expert Bill Glazer says that “Social Media Marketing is the biggest marketing opportunity of our lifetime.”

Alexa.com ranks web sites based on the amount of traffic a site receives. The #1 spot is held by Google. Facebook is #2, YouTube is #3, and Twitter is #11.

Are you getting this?

There is no doubt the traffic is going to the Social Marketing platforms. The smart move is to get your information in front of it by maximizing your presence on sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

When you do this, you are getting yourself in front of where the traffic is going. And once you are in front of where the traffic is going, you can then redirect that traffic exactly where you want it to go.

You can direct the traffic to your articles. You can direct the traffic to your web site or blog. You can direct the traffic to your opt-in page. You can direct the traffic to…

Well, I think you get the idea, right?

And, by the way, you get to profit from all this too, all from the powerful one-two punch of Article Marketing and Social Marketing.

And you can claim your Free Instant Access to a video training series that shows you how to leverage Article Marketing and Social Marketing for more traffic and profits when you visit http://SocialMarketingBlueprint.com

You’ll get access to 3 training videos that show you insider secrets for how leverage Social Marketing, case studies of successful students, and so much more!

From Jeff Herring and THE Social Marketing Blueprint.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jeff_Herring

Article Marketing is well know for the ability to drive large amounts of traffic. But did you know that Article Marketing is great way to create information products as well? Allow me to walk you through 7 steps to creating your information products with Article Marketing. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by what you can do with just one article.

7 Steps to Information Product

Step 1 – Choose a specific topic in your niche – While it may sound like the opposite of what you should do, the reality is the more narrow the topic the more hungry customers you will have. Do not try to be all things to all people.

Step 2 – Come up with 7 tips for that particular topic – If you can only get 3 – 5 that’s OK. The goal is to come up with as many as fit for your topic.

Step 3 – Add about 60 words for each tip – Explain how to use each tip and the advantages of doing so. Remember, it’s only 60 words a tip. Do this 7 times and this gives you a good article to promote your new product. But we are getting ahead of ourselves (only a little bit, though).

Step 4 – Turn each tip into a chapter – Go into more depth for each tip. Provide examples and perhaps include case studies, use quotes that relate to each tip and explain the quotes. Do this for each article and you now have a 7 chapter ebook.

Step 5 – Create and hold a teleseminar – You already have the outline and content created, now you are going to speak it on a teleseminar. Make sure you record your teleseminar as this will become the audio portion of your info product. By the way, it does not matter how many people will be on the teleseminar, the recording will be the same.

Step 6 – Create a 7 tips video – Create a power point slide for each tip. Record the slides with you explaining each tip. This is called a screen capture video. You now have a video component to your info product.

Step 7 – Now you bundle your 7 chapter ebook, your teleseminar based on your 7 tips, and your video based on your7 tips, and now you have your multi-media information product ready to go. And remember, you created your multi-media product beginning with just a 7 tips article.

And now I would like to invite you to claim your FREE Instant Access to 2 of my Instant Article Creation Templates when you visit http://www.TheArticleGuyBonus.com. You’ll get get two “plug-n-play” article templates – just plug in your info! And you will also get a 30 minute Audio Replay of a teleseminar about writing more articles in less time than you ever thought possible. From Jeff Herring – The Article Marketing Guy and The Great Article Marketing Network.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jeff_Herring

7MFQS3BJQ4A9 – YouTube is a great name for the video marketing site because it simply implies – you, on the tube. In other words, when you are harnessing the power of YouTube you are harnessing the power of the video TV screen that most of us grew up with.

With video you have such a powerful resource to build an online presence and drive traffic. There’s just a few things you need to do to make sure you are getting your fair share of traffic and online visibility.

Your 7 Step YouTube Blueprint

Step 1 – Your name – When you get your YouTube account, get your first one in your name. Your niche may change, your focus may change, it’s less likely that your name will. Secure that virtual real estate.

Step 2 – Your brand – Don’t be satisfied with the generic themes that YouTube gives you for your background. Create your own brand visibility. In fact, your YouTube, Twitter, Facebook Fan Page and Blog should have a similar appearance to help brand you.

Step 3 – Your bio – I know it sounds like your bio should be all about you, right? Wrong. Craft your bio so that it demonstrates the benefits someone is going to get from watching your videos and learning from you.

Step 4 – Your video – If ever you have doubts or apprehension about doing video, please visit my YouTube Channel and check out some of my earliest videos. I’m concentrating so much on the technical end of things that I look angry in some of the first videos.

I hope my more recent ones are a little bit better.

There are 2 basic types of video you can do. One is the talking head video where it is just you chatting about a topic in your niche. The second type brings good news for those of us who might believe we have a face made for radio – screen capture videos! Here you are recording your computer screen while talking and you don’t even have to show up in the video at all.

Step 5 – Your video file – Big insider tip here! This tip helps your video to rank higher on YouTube for your main keyword(s). When you are saving your video file, do not call it “video 1″ or something like that. Name it with your main keyword(s).

Step 6 – Your video title – Make sure the first four words of your video title contain your keyword(s). So the title “The Top 3 Ways to Skin a Possum” becomes “Strategic Possum Skinning – The Top 3 Ways to Skin a Possum.”

Step 7 – Your video description – This is where most marketers lose out at best, or put their prospect to sleep at worst. Most folks will use their description to say “This video is about……” ZZZ

Use your video description much like you would your Resource Box in an article. Invite your prospect to one of your web pages, preferably an opt-in page, where they can get more good information from you in exchange for their email address. This one tip will bring you so much more traffic from your YouTube videos.

And to get started with your YouTube Blueprint you can claim your Free Instant Access to a 4 part video training series that shows you how to leverage Social Marketing for more traffic and profits when you visit http://SocialMarketingBlueprint.com

You’ll get access to 4 training videos that show you insider secrets for how leverage Social Marketing, case studies of successful students, and so much more!

From Jeff Herring and THE Social Marketing Blueprint

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jeff_Herring

TRT2SZHC6BJ8 – In the world of online marketing, we don’t really hear about many ways to advertise offline, but there are some great ways of spreading your company message, website or other contact details.

One such way is by having a number of pens produced with your company information on them. Pens can travel over a large area. People lose pens and when they do, the pens often find themselves in the possession of someone completely different. When the new owner sees your advertising, they may well go and take a look at your site.

Pens can cost anything from 5p to £1.20 each, but if you buy 100 pens for £25, you aren’t over-spending and you can test this sort of advertising for yourself.

So, you have your blog and want to generate traffic to it.  Let’s face it, there’s not much point in trying to promote yourself and your business with your blog, unless you actually get people reading it.  Now, you are asking, what is (or rather are) the best ways of generating traffic to your blog.

There are a few ways and, just like anything else, your blog needs to develop.  You are not going to get regular readers over night.  It takes time to build up your readership and here are some of the best ways of developing your readership so that your numbers increase.

The best ways are

1. You need to visit other people’s blogs, read through the posts (articles) and leave a comment.  Do NOT spam other people’s blogs.  If you want to promote your own site, you need to write something relevant about your blog and how it relates to the post that you have just read.  If you want to find other people’s blogs, perhaps the best way, is through Technorati – one of the largest directories of blogs on the internet.
2. You need to add your blog to Technorati and other blog directories and news sites.  I will be giving you details on all these sites in future posts.
3. Give people valuable content.  By this, I mean content that people interested in your industry can learn from or a list of the different resources etc that can be found on the internet.  Maybe you can use a quiz or give people an incentive or a freebie for signing up for your list.  They say, ‘the money is in the list’, and this is too true.
4. Another good way is by doing something that you will find on my blog – my language translator.  You can translate it to more than 40 languages by clicking on any of the flags on the translation widget.
5. If you use a business card or a covering letter, you should always include your blog details on it.  I always add my blog url to the bottom of my emails, so that, if people wish to view my blog to check me out, they always have that option.
6. Post new posts as often as possible.  If you are worried that you will run out of ideas, subscribe to the feeds of article marketers on sites like Ezine Articles  Search for writers who you appreciate and respect for their knowledge.  You are free to sign up to my feed in the Articles Alert box at the top of the blog (the red and white box at the top).
7. Use videos.  I’m guilty of this one, but you have to remember that people will always love a video.  I always prefer to listen or watch tutorials and other interesting things, rather than read them.  It may be because I am visually impaired and find it much easier to listen or watch rather than read.
8. Become a regular contributor to sites like Ezine Articles or Squidoo.
9. Once in a while, you need to consider revamping your blog.  Give it a total facelift.  People always value a totally new-look blog and it will keep them coming back.
10. Make sure that you have a photo of yourself on the blog that you are happy with.  If you have put together a free WordPress or Blogger blog, you should put your photo on the top of your blog.  If you are a total geek, you should be able to imbed your photo in the design of your blog.  Personally, I’m not geek enough to know how to do that.  A friend designed this blog for me.  However, I did choose the widgets myself.