Have you ever been horrified and intimidated at the convoluted, jargon-reliant information about Internet marketing available on the Net?

Often it results in many companies becoming confused and therefore reluctant to put
into practice what would be a valuable and simple business resource when understood
and applied correctly.

Market Research consultant for Inteltab, Gordon Goodfellow, who is also an English
literature graduate, decided it was time for a change. Part of this desire to make
Internet marketing more accessible may be due to his past experience as a teacher.

“I was sick of all the gobbledegook that surrounds the Internet, even today,” he
explains. “Marketing on the Net isn’t rocket science and should not be presented as such.

Everyone should have access to it. That’s the beauty of it.”

Having spent four years researching and assessing the best way of getting an effective message across on the Internet, he began to design a basic introduction to Internet marketing. The result of this hard work is Applied Web Marketing. AWM is a comprehensive beginners guide to marketing on the Internet, covering everything from
domain names to e-commerce and merchant accounts, and written in plain English. This is designed for the small business user and the home business user who does not want to spend a fortune on outside “experts”.

The key to most of Internet marketing is search engine optimisation. The key to good
search engine optimisation is keyword research. In other words, knowing which keywords or search terms people are using to find what theyre looking for on the Internet. If keyword research is done properly then there is no doubt that you will get highly targeted visitors to your website. This is obviously the professional way of going about things. It is the antithesis to the “spam” approach (unsolicited commercial emails) which achieves extremely poor results and simply annoys anyone unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end.

But which search engine should you optimise for? The search engine of choice at the
moment is Google. There are two good reasons for this. Firstly, Google is the most popular search engine on the Internet today. It is known for the quality and relevance of its search results, and so people trust it. Secondly, over the last couple of years Google has joined alliances with other search engines and directories. Yahoo, the worlds most popular directory, uses Googles database, so if you have a first page listing on Google you are likely to have a first page listing on Yahoo as well.

AOL and Netscape also share Googles search findings, so youll have similar search
results on the AOL and Netscape databases. Other lesser databases also rely on Google,
so that if you are well represented on Google, then youll be well represented on over sixty per cent of Internet search facilities.

You should also obtain a listing on the Open Directory Project (DMOZ.org) which is not much known about but very well respected in the search engine optimisation industry. The Open Directory does not use the normal search engine “spiders” or robot searchers; instead it uses over thirty thousand volunteer human editors who are ostensibly experts in their own fields. The theory behind this is that it ensures relevancy, accuracy and quality of all listings. A listing in DMOZ will therefore ensure a listing on Google and probably earn you an enhanced ranking there. Then all the others, like Yahoo, AOL, Netscape and the rest are bound to follow.

Optimisation is everything. The Applied Web Marketing website itself has the number
one position on Google out of 1.47 million search results for the search term “applied
web marketing”.

After optimisation is the submission process. Perceived wisdom of the moment says it is best to submit manually. Manual submissions to dozens of search engines and
directories can be very time-consuming, however. There are some good automated and
semi-automated software packages available out there to do the submissions for you.
But for the major players do find the time for manual submissions. Some search
engines, for example Alta Vista, make it impossible for automated submission by
software programs, because of individualised text codes that must be entered by hand at the start of the submission process, so you have to submit to Alta Vista manually as well. But that just takes about three minutes.

Dont bother with ads that say that they can “blast your web site to 500,000 search
engines”. There arent that many search engines; theres only a few hundred in total, and only about a dozen of any major importance. Youll just pay your money and be very disappointed. Most of these so-called search engines are link farms, FFA or free-for-all sites, which nobody every looks at, and which are responsible chiefly for sending out spam. If you link to such web sites you risk being penalised by the bona fide search engines.

The next thing to have lots of is patience. A listing on Google should probably appear
within a couple of weeks if you have optimised your pages properly (incidentally, if you have multiple pages on your web site, as is mostly the case, it is important only to submit the index or home page, and let Googles spider “Googlebot” to find and index the other pages itself using the links that you should have set up on your site.

The Applied Web Marketing guide has useful links to many resources, lots of them completely free, and to the submission pages of the major search engines and
directories, making it a perfect site to begin your journey into the world of Internet marketing.

Gordon Goodfellow is a market research consultant and practising Internet marketer and teacher.

www.appliedwebmarketing.com
gordon@apppliedwebmarketing.com

How to get big results with super-cheap fliers. Kevin NunleyRita started her home-based business after a long illness. Her insurance wouldn’t cover all her medical costs. She figured she could bridge the difference by selling her popular gift mugs.

Friends and the hospital staff had been delighted with them. She found herself busily filling orders for her customers’ relatives and associates.

“Wow,” she thought. “This could be the answer to my prayers. Selling my gift mugs could earn the extra money I need each month.”

One problem remained. In order to make the plan work, Rita needed lots of new customers. Word-of-mouth from friends and past clients was wonderful, but she needed a more powerful way to get the word out quickly.

A man at an ad agency told her to have nice brochures printed, mail them to hundreds of businesses, and place a weekly ad in the Sunday newspaper.

“But you don’t understand,” she protested. “Anything I spend on marketing has to come out of the grocery money. I can’t afford any of the conventional marketing options you’re talking about.”

It’s a situation that most of us have been in at one time or another. All the wonderful marketing ideas the experts talk about–radio ads, mass mailings, card decks–all take money. They require more money than we can spend without sinking down the debt drain.

Here’s one of my favorite solutions to the “no money” marketing crunch. For about 20 dollars you can have your corner copy shop print up 1000 fliers. A cheaper, more effective way to market has never been invented. A well-designed flier is like a full-page ad delivered directly to your carefully targeted prospect. No multi-thousand dollar newspaper ad can make that claim.

Keep your flier copy simple and to the point. Your prospect may only glance at it before tossing it in
the trash. You must make your offer within the first three seconds as her eyes run over the page. Start with a banner headline that sells the benefits your product, service, or organization will bring the prospect. Let them know how their life will be easier, happier, or more successful after they have bought from you.

Instruct the potential customer how to buy what you sell. A short “call me today!” or “stop by our store at lunch!” greatly increases your response. Include your name, phone, fax, email, website, location, hours–and anything else that makes it super easy for the prospect to contact you.

It costs no more to have your flier copied on colored paper, so choose a color that grabs attention but won’t make your copy hard to read. Lighter colors are best.

Many successful fliers have no pictures. Line drawings are easily copied. A photo needs to be half-toned first to give a clear photocopied reproduction. Your copy shop can prepare the photo for you. Also pay attention to the quality of the copier. Some of the newer, better maintained machines turn out photo copies that look as good as offset. The better copy shops often charge slightly more, and you may find the increase in copy quality well worth the slight increase in price.

Many shops have machines that staple rubber bands to each copy. This makes it easy to attach your flier to door knobs at homes and businesses. Be aggressive, but polite, when distributing your flier. Leave no stone unturned. Drop the fliers off on car windshields, under doors, on counters, light poles, community and office bulletin boards, and at schools.

Enlist the help of young people and youth groups to go door to door for you. Tell others with fliers that you will pass their’s around if they do the same with you.

I once put one of my fliers on a light pole in San Francisco. A year later a friend called in hysterics. “You’re in StarTrek IV!” While shooting on location, the movie crew had left my flier in the background of a scene. There was my photo and flier displayed prominently between Spock and Kirk. My message reached millions world-wide for the cost of a single copy–2 cents.

And that’s my two cents about fliers–one of the world’s cheapest publicity weapons.

Kevin Nunley Associates is located at 54 Ponemah Road Amherst NH 03031. We answer email fast. Call us 603-249-9519. Online since 1996. Feel free to use Kevin’s articles on your web site, in your ezine, or in your sales materials.

www.drnunley.com
kevin@drnunley.com

Copyright 2005 Mike Adams

I’ve never been much of an automobile mechanic, but about 25 years ago an old friend instructed me in the mysteries of how to find out why my old car wouldn’t run.

“You see,” he said, “when an engine won’t run, it’s got to be one of three things. It’s not getting enough gas, air, or spark, because that’s all an engine really needs.”

He taught me to check simple things, like pull a spark plug and see if it sparks when the starter turns over. Or pull off the air filter and see if I could smell gas in the carburetor. (That was before most cars were fuel injected!)

I can’t count the number of times over the last 25 years that those simple words helped me during times of car trouble, especially in younger days with cars that were old “beaters.”

If you think about it, Internet marketing is just as simple. All you really need is gas, air, and spark:

1. Targeted traffic – the fuel that powers an Internet business.

2. A product that people really need or want – something you can present as being as necessary as the air they breathe.

3. Sales copy that will sell – the spark that makes the targeted traffic want that product as badly as the air they breathe.

Okay, so maybe that still sounds a little tough, but hey – it’s only three things! Even though I’ll probably never be a skilled auto mechanic, I can comprehend and check three things. And you can catch on to just three things too.

Number 2 and 3 are probably the easiest to master.

There’s no shortage of great products and great ideas for things that people really want. It’s easy to find out what people really want with tools like:

- Wordtracker – find out the most-searched keywords

- Overture’s Keyword Suggestion Tool

- Ad Word Analyzer

- Keyword Equalizer

Once you decide what keywords to focus on, you can check out what other people are selling successfully for those terms, and look at what affiliate programs pop up when you search for those terms. If you want to focus on affiliate sales, chances are there’s some great sales copy already written or that you can modify to fit it to you more individually.

Overture’s Maximum Bid tool will give you an idea what’s working successfully for other people, or Adword Analyzer can really speed that up by showing how many Overture and Google AdWords campaigns there are for various keywords.

Now you just need targeted traffic to send to read that awesome sales copy. If you don’t mind paying today’s gasoline prices for some high-octane gas, and you used Overture’s Keyword Suggestion Tool or Adword Analyzer, you already have a good idea what keywords would be good to bid on at Overture or Google AdWords. That will get you out of the driveway initially, then you can start building keyword-rich pages around the theme of your website and getting links from web sites that fit your theme.

Now you know the secret of how Internet marketing is like a car engine. So when that Internet marketing campaign won’t run, you know you only need to find out what it isn’t getting enough of:

- Not enough targeted traffic?

- Not enough of a market that really needs what you’re trying to sell?

- No spark to ignite the traffic and demand into a sale?

Because just like a car, that’s all an Internet marketing campaign really needs to run.

About the author:
Mike Adams has been building web sites and playing with Internet marketing since 1996. Visit his site for Internet marketing tips, tools, news, articles, and resources:http://www.timberway.com/

Any successful businessfrom a small, locally owned dry cleaner to a colossal, nationally operated department storewill agree that a large part of their success can be attributed to the marketing technique they employ. The simple truth is that consumers need to know about you and the products or services you offer before they can buy them from you. This is a truth companies have been acquainted with and been exploiting for years. From the first newspaper advertisement printed in the early 1700s to the latest Internet marketing technique available today, advertising has had an impact on the economy, on society, on culture, even on politicsthis venture has transformed the twentieth century into the age of the advertising firm.

What many companies dont realize, however, is that the advertising technique that was so effective for their company five years ago is no longer their best option. Traditional advertising techniques, while still beneficial, are not as effective as they once were. Even the once all-powerful 30-second spot on television is losing its strength with the development of such innovations as TiVo and other digital video recorders (DVRs). Now TV viewers can do more than just change the channel to avoid commercials: they can actually program commercials out. Consumers are gaining more control and its beginning to have an effect on the marketing industry.
If consumers are gaining control, how can the marketing industry use this to their advantage? Heres a novel advertising idea: instead of pushing advertisements at people about what we think they like or will be interested inassumptions based on general trends of an audiences demographic typewhy not target what we know they want? This is exactly what Internet marketing can do for you.

The Rise of Internet Marketing
Since its birth in 1989, the World Wide Web, and its worldwide use, has exploded. According to Nielsen/Net Ratings, there are now nearly 900 million Internet users worldwide, over 200 million in the United States alone. Research firm eMarketer reports that U.S. adult Internet users will spend an average of $878 online this year which equates to more than over 100 billion dollars in e-commerce business being generated from the United States alone.
In spite of these astounding numbers, Internet marketingwhich includes such marketing techniques as e-mailing, display ads or banners, rich media, and the most effective: keyword searchis only a $3 billion industry. That may seem considerable, but a study conducted by ZenithOptimedia reports that Internet marketing makes up less than 4% of global spending on advertising, putting it far behind television and newspapers which combined compose more than two-thirds of total global ad spending.
However, statistics show that spending on Internet advertising is increasing at greater percentages than spending on advertising in other media. As reported by JupiterResearch senior analyst Gary Stein at the 2004 Search Engine Strategies Conference: Spending on Internet advertising increased 27% from 2003 to 2004, while cable advertising increased 14.1%, broadcast TV advertising was up 8.2%, radio advertising was up 7.0%, magazine advertising increased 5.0%, newspaper advertising increased 4.8%, and Yellow Pages advertising was up 3.2%.
Internet advertising is growing so much faster than other forms of advertising for a reason: The Dieringer Research Group reported in late 2004 that online product research conducted by consumers the past year was responsible for driving $180.7 billion in offline spending, compared to $106.5 billion in direct online consumer spending. Interlands Business Barometer for Spring 2005, a nationwide survey of over a thousand leaders of small- and medium-sized business, showed that those businesses that are applying Internet marketing techniques are getting a clear return in top-line revenues for their investment.
The simple truth, then, is that if your company is not dedicating a significant percentage of its advertising/marketing budget to the Internet, particularly to search engine marketing (SEM), youre giving up a valuable opportunity. Marketing Sherpa claims that so few marketers are budgeting enough for SEO [search engine optimization] that it can be a massive competitive advantage for you still. Heres why you should.

The Benefits of Search Engine Marketing
Acquire Qualified Visitors
The greatest benefit to SEM is that the people you reach are the ones you want, and the ones who want you, because they are searching for exactly what you sell. SEM has the advantage that it delivers exactly the information the searcher is looking for at the time that they need it. As opposed to television viewers who are watching for entertainment purposes, Internet users, and searchers in particular, are searching with a purposethey want the information.

Enlarge Your Audience
In addition to bringing highly-qualified visitors to your site, SEM exposes you to a much larger audience. Not only is the number of people online increasing but the number of people searching and buying online is also growing, dramatically. Approximately 140 million in the U.S. have Internet in their homes and those who dont have it at home have access to it at work or in public places like libraries. Thats better coverage than you can get through any other advertising medium.

Be Cost Efficient
Because the visitors you are bringing to your site are qualified, youre not wasting marketing money on people who dont matter to you. In addition, Piper Jaffrey reports that search engine marketing is the most cost effective Internet marketing technique available. At only $.45/lead, it far outweighs banner ads at $2.00/lead and direct mail at an astonishing $9.94/lead. Not only is search the most cost effective technique, but its also the most profitable. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, keyword search dominates any other category (including rich media and display ads/banners), producing approximately 41% of U.S. Internet revenue for 2004.

Measure Your Results
There is a vast array of technology available, such as Omnitures SiteCatalyst , to help you track exactly whats going on. You can track such things as the specific keywords that people are using to reach your site or where visitors are entering and exiting your site. This information is quantifiable and it can be gained immediately. Not many advertising firms can boast measuring and quantifying their results with that level of detail.

Revise Your Campaign (Easily)
Unlike TV commercials or magazine ads, which can both be expensive and time-consuming, especially if they fail, your Internet marketing campaign is quickly and easily revised. You rarely need to start from scratch but instead just need to do something as simple as rewrite a page or two on your website.

If you havent jumped on the Internet marketing bandwagon, its about time you do or youll soon find youve been left in the dust. Go beyond your traditional advertising firm and consult one who can offer you Internet marketing techniques with proven, measurable results.

About the author:
Hillary is a web content specialist for www.10x Marketing.com- More Visitors. More Buyers. More Revenue.

As human beings and Internet marketers, we can learn some important life and business lessons from nature’s creatures. Imparticularly, the cockroach.

Without question, cockroaches are truly one of nature’s most amazing and enduring creatures. How amazing? Read on.

Cockroaches are thought to have originated 0ver 280 million
years ago (during the Carboniferous era).

The world’s largest roach (which lives in South America) is
six inches long with a one-foot wingspan.

Cockroaches bleed white blood.

Cockroaches have 6 hairy legs. The tiny hairs found on each
leg gives them their sense of touch.

Cockroaches can hold their breath for up to 40 minutes and
spend about 75 percent of the time just resting.

There are an estimated 5,000 species of cockroaches
worldwide.

Some female cockroaches mate once and are pregnant for the
rest of their lives.

You’ve no doubt heard the legend of the headless cockroach.
Well, in this case, the legend also happens to be fact. A
cockroach can live a week without its head. The roach only
dies because without a mouth, it can’t drink water and dies
of thirst.

Cockroaches can run up to three miles in an hour.

Young cockroaches need only a crack as thin as a dime
(about .5mm wide) to crawl into. Adult males can squeeze
into a space of 1.6mm or the thickness of a quarter.
Pregnant females need the most space to hide: 4.5mm or a
space as tall as two stacked nickels.

A cockroach’s heart is nothing but a simple tube with
valves. The tube can pump blood backwards and forwards in
the insect. The heart can even stop moving without harming
the roach.

Roaches can live without food for a month, but will only
survive a week without water.

Roaches will eat just about anything–including finger nail
clippings, bread crumbs, food scraps off of dirty dishes–
even labels on cans, including the glue.

Most species of roaches live in the tropics. But roaches
live all over the world, including the North and South
Poles. Pest cockroachs can withstand temperatures as cold as
32F (0C), but will die if the temperature goes much below
that. In extremely cold places, however, they survive by
moving in with humans.

Cockroaches can climb walls because they are equipped with a
set of little claws on their feet designed for that very
purpose.

Crushed cockroaches can be applied to a stinging wound to
help relieve the pain.

Roaches use their feelers, or antennae as noses. Their sense
of smell is so great, they recognize family and friends by
their distinctive odors.

Female roaches attract male roaches by producing pheromones.
Pheromones are chemicals that attract male roaches like a
magnet and drives them wild.

Those are some pretty amazing facts, aren’t they?

So, what’s the point of this article? Simple. If you want to achieve truly spectacular success, be an Internet marketing cockroach! That means, take full advantage of your environment and opportunities, be remarkably adaptable and don’t let anything stand in the way of achieving your goals!

Those are truly valuable traits that can be applied to both our personal and business lives!

Marketing Basics specializes in writing articles that teach,
explain and define basic marketing principles and
techniques. http://marketingbasics.blogspot.com/

Looking for a great home business opportunity? Run your own high-profit classified ad website! http://snipurl.com/bwdd