How To Find Your Niche

Sensible ideas on how to find your Internet Marketing Niche. The missing link in the expensive Internet Marketing Training courses.

The big buzz-phrase is ‘Niche Marketing’. If you find your niche and market it like crazy (the gurus claim) you can be a zillionaire by March.

Great.
So where is this niche, and how will you recognize it when you stumble into it?

Many expensive courses are offered teaching Internet Marketing, and most have some important links missing. How does the average person find their niche, without a background in marketing? As a beginner, you may just want to supplement your current income, and hopefully, eventually, quit your day job. The very average advice offered for hundreds of dollars is ‘find your passion, research on the internet and Clickbank, develop your own product, and there you go. So let’s help you expand this into a sensible plan.

Grab a pen and paper, and try some new ideas. What did you want to be when you grew up? If you really are a fireman or train engineer, you have an excellent niche, with a lot of information and stories to tell. If you aren’t what you planned to be when you were twelve, take it up again now, study your dream occupation, and become an armchair expert.

Do you have a hobby you are passionate about? Not everyone does, and passion means different things to different people. What subject do you love to talk about that no-one else you know will join you in? What are you willing to keep talking about even when no-one else is willing to listen? These favourite subjects of yours show the basis of passion. The internet is the new galaxy here on earth, and there’s bound to be people outside your little sphere who want to hear what you have to say, and might be willing to pay for that opportunity.

Take notes the next time you go to a magazine rack. What are the first three magazines that grab your attention? Each could be your general niche to start with. Look through your book collection at home, and find a common theme that is obvious, or have someone else do that for you.

A niche can be defined as ‘a position particularly well suited to the person who occupies it’. Where you see yourself fitting in the best might be your niche.

If the place that suits you best is not the number one hot topic on the internet today, that’s ok. Start with one subject that you feel eager to work with, and build a working knowledge that you can develop into an information project. The practice you gain can be used to make a second niche for yourself, and a second on-line business.

There are many other ways to find your little piece of the net, and I’ve found an extremely valuable resource with three free ebooks and several hours of video that will help you generate more ideas than you will be able to deal with in a lifetime. All you need really is sitting in your head right now, you just need the keys to unlock it.

3 Most Popular Ways of Making Money on the Internet

Before starting out an internet business, the online entrepreneur must know his business model or how is he going to make money on his internet business.

Do you know that 95% of the people starting out in their internet businesses fail? In the middle of all the noise and hype on the internet today, not many people realize that all the ideas and techniques you can find are useless if you don’t first understand what your business model is or how are you going to make money on the internet. Even the most remarkable internet marketing technique will not work if you don’t understand how to apply it to your business.

The 3 most popular business models are:

1) Affiliate Marketing

Perhaps the most popular one out there, affiliate marketing provides a good start for newbies. Almost anyone can sign-up for an affiliate program for free and start promoting the chosen product or service. Commissions start coming in if someone will buy or participate in the programs promoted. Affiliate marketers don’t carry any risk, since they do not pay for the creation of the product, they do not handle customer service, they need not know the innards of internet transactions, like merchant accounts, autoresponder (what is that?), reciprocal linking, etc. It’s also possible to be an affiliate even without a website.

Some affiliate marketing programs you may participate in require little up-front investment. Some are free. It’s no surprise therefore that almost everyone and their neighbor promotes an affiliate program or another. In fact, if there is a single reason why the Internet today is so proliferated with ads and banners, it’s because of affiliate programs.

With the millions out there involve in affiliate marketing, only 5% ever make any money and only 1% makes really big money. The “Super Affiliates,” so they are called, do it very differently from the rest, therefore they earn the big checks.

2) Writing an eBook or other type of information product, recording an information CD.

This is a great strategy because there are thousands of possibilities for the type of product that you can create. There are so many niche markets that you can write about. It could be a course on Japanese gardens, how to start your own babysitting business, how to sell your artwork, taking care of your dog’s ears … there are endless topics and still many that have not yet been explored by online marketers. You don’t have to write the information yourself, you can get a ghost writer or hire someone to produce the CD.

EBook authors need to invest more than affiliates do. While affiliates can get something for nothing, the same is not true for the eBook type of business. EBook authors need to learn a lot more than affiliates are required to. They need to spend some amount of money getting the business up and running. However, when done right, the payoff in this online business model is much more rewarding.

These marketers make more money because they have very, very low production and maintenance costs. Once the product is produced, it doesn’t cost a cent to reproduce thousands of copies. Start-up costs can be covered by selling just a few copies of very high-margin eBooks. You can even recruit hordes of affiliates to do the selling for you.

3) Adsense

This has taken the internet by storm. There are tons of testimonials from people making income from Adsense.

Adsense is Google’s advertising program wherein webmasters display ads from Google’s extensive list of advertisers. Unobtrusive text-based ads are served in member sites, who then earn a commission every time someone clicks on the advertisers’ links.

Google Adsense uses a technology to deliver ads that are highly relevant to the content of a page. Google’s engine will scan through the content of the page to determine its topic, and will then serve ads that are relevant to the page’s content. Running Google Adsense is quite simple. First build a website full of content of your desired niche or topic, and then register in Google’s adsense program. Once approved, you then paste a code in your page, and the ads start appearing immediately after you upload the changes to your server.

Google is silent on how it shares the revenue per click with their partners, but how much you will earn per click depends on the topic and the product being advertised. Products with profit margins of $10 for the advertiser will most likely give you a smaller pay per click than a product with a $100 margin. Similarly, ads with high conversion rates will normally give you higher payouts than less effective ads, since they can afford to pay more dollars per click, with a portion of that money going to you.

If you are considering Adsense, install a code or software on your site to keep out bots, even Google bots. These little crawlers can and will click on your Adsense ads and get you banned. So look into whatever is the best method to lock ’em out is today–it changes all the time. You don’t need Google to get traffic since most Adsense training I have seen teaches you to get your traffic from Facebook and Native Ads. The traffic from Facebook is free since you will be building the websites and corresponding Facebook Page committed to a high-interest niche. And Native Ads are cheap.

These are the top 3 most popular online business models today. No matter which model you choose, make sure you understand the basics. Stop buying courses or information not applicable to your business. Information overload can stop you before you even get started.

You Need Your Own Website Whether or Not You Sell Online

Whether your business exists solely on the internet or in a traditional bricks-and-mortar storefront, you will benefit from an online presence. Customers, potential employees or business partners and perhaps even investors can quickly and easily find out more about your business and the products or services you have to offer from your website.

Most affiliate marketers do not realize the importance of creating quality website content to the success of an affiliate business. Providing a constant stream of fresh, compelling content is vital to branding your name and your business. You can’t do this with a cookie-cutter affiliate website; you need one of your own.

Customers research and compare product specifications, quality, and prices. If you are an online affiliate marketer, a cookie-cutter affiliate website will build the mailing list of the product owner; you need your own website to brand your name, your business, and your unique selling proposition. If you plan on selling offline, many of your customers will still appreciate being able to research from home.

Many consumers these days research products online before they buy from a bricks-and-mortar store, so if you provide them with the info they seek as well as the ability to purchase immediately, you may capture customers that would otherwise have ended up buying from your off-line competition.

A well-designed website can project the image and professionalism of a much larger company onto your little home business, so spend some time designing your site carefully.

Internet marketing research firms predict that the number of online consumers will grow at a rate of 30 to 50 percent over the next few years. These numbers alone should be enough to persuade you that your business should have a website presence.

A poorly designed website can ruin your business image by sending entirely the wrong message, so take the time to build a phenomenal site. There are many websites offering professionally-designed templates with prices from free on up. Then you need a domain name and hosting provider and grab a mentor while you’re at it. You’ll be up and running before you know it.

Truths and Lies of Internet Marketing

A long time ago you decided that working all the hours and being away from your family just has to be wrong. You know what? It is. There is a way to right this wrong and it has to do with the Internet. But you knew that already. So what is the next step?

You have been looking online in the search engines and maybe in the newsgroups and you have seen plenty of opportunities. Most of the hype you read sounds much too good to be true and most of it is. However, there are some real opportunities out there. You just have to know where to look. Don’t follow the other sheep, work it out for yourself.

Where do you look? Who holds the keys to this bountiful virtual treasure chest? Do you have a chance at success?

From here on in we’ll confirm some truths and dispel some lies which you’ll find all over the place online.

Lie: I can earn amazing sums of money online really quick. I can quit the 9-5 within weeks!

Truth: Pure hype reigns supreme on the Internet. The claims of huge downlines, 6 figure incomes overnight and massive mailing lists with no effort are complete drivel. Nothing is easy to make a go of and online it’s no different. It’s possibly even harder to make your fortune online since the rules are always changing. Staying on top of and driving these changes is where your success will come from.

Lie: Working your online business is easier than working the 9-5.

Truth: Making a true success of your online business is, more often than not, a whole lot harder. You are directly responsible for the amount of money you put in the bank at the end of the month. You will need excellent time management skills and organizational skills. Possibly the hardest thing is the motivation. To get up every day and motivate yourself to switch the computer on, knowing you have to get down to some hard work can be very tough some days.

Lie: My time is my own. I can work whenever.

Truth: Your time is your most precious commodity. There are daily demands on your time from your family and the business of everyday living. Real life carries on regardless of whether you have a spreadsheet to prepare or not. Managing your time actually becomes a delicate balancing act. You cannot ignore your family if you’re working at home – and anyway, one of the reasons you wanted to work at home was to spend more time with the family, right?

Lie: My children will enjoy the extra time I can spend with them.

Truth: Still with this time thing. Yes your kids will be happier to see you more around the place but they will also become confused as to why you can’t play with them more and may even come to resent this. The delicate balancing act is indeed a thin tight-rope walk and you’ve got to be a masterful acrobat to pull it off. It can be done however and this shouldn’t put you off.

Lie: Build it and they will come.

Truth: While this may have been true in the very early days of the Internet with the most basic of search engines driving traffic, these days nothing could be further from the truth. Building your website and getting it online puts you on the first rung of the ladder. Getting enough traffic to make your website profitable is your next goal. There are many places online which claim to be able to do this for you, only 2-3% of these places will be worth your time.

Lie: The Internet is just one big playground for scammers.

Truth: The Internet, with it’s anonymity, is indeed a fertile breeding ground for the more unscrupulous among us. While scammers get all the press there are plenty of real people like you making some nice piles of coin from the Internet legally. The information revolution is upon us and you had better get onboard.

Lie: All my friends and family will want to join me.

Truth: Your friends and family will think you’re completely mad. While you may find one or two people who’re open to your dreams and visions, most will simply ridicule you so be ready for that. They may not talk about you openly but they will think you’re wasting your time. Ignore them and prove them wrong. You can do it. Success is sweet.

At the final analysis, if you want to work at home on the Internet, become truly financially and spiritually free then the odds are not stacked in your favor. This being said, with the fire of determination burning inside you, with the strong desire to enjoy a life of no money worries and more quality time with your family then you will succeed. It takes time, effort and hard choices but you can do it.

Just do one thing every day to improve your position and that’s all it takes.

Why Effective SEO Is Important For Effective Internet Marketing

Search engine optimization (SEO) should be considered as a critical element of any Internet marketing strategy. This is important because there is so much which can be gained from SEO in terms of Internet marketing and advertising. Failure to optimize your website for search engines can result in a considerable loss in terms of free advertising and traffic which is essentially gained from ranking well with search engines. This article will provide insight into what SEO is and will explain why Internet marketing requires at least some degree of SEO.

SEO optimization is a strategy in which a website is designed to obtain favorable search engine rankings from popular search engines. This may be achieved in a variety of different ways and optimal SEO strategies combine a variety of different strategies to complete one well orchestrated SEO campaign. There are several elements to consider when attempting to optimize your website for search engines. This may include keyword density, prominence, META tags, titles and inbound links. Keyword density is one of the most common SEO strategies and essentially involves using relevant keywords often in the content of a website to demonstrate the relevance of these keywords to the website. This is important because search engines are likely to reward websites with optimal keyword densities with favorable search engine rankings in an effort to provide Internet users with the most relevant websites for particular search terms.

The prominence of keywords should also be considered. This includes how close the keywords are placed to the beginning of the website. The common mistake with this strategy is to believe the first opportunity to incorporate keywords is in the first line of visible text on the webpage. This is not true because search engines crawl the code of a website as opposed to the visible content on the website. This means there are multiple opportunities to incorporate relevant keywords long before the actual visible content on the website. This might include the code for the title as well as the META tags. Business owners who realize the potential for incorporating keyword into the code gain an advantage over competitors who only incorporate keywords into the content on their website.

Another area of concern which is very important for those who are interested in SEO is inbound links. Inbound links are essentially links which reside on other websites and direct traffic to your website. These links are considered important because many search engines place a value on inbound links because they are essentially an example of one website recommending another website. However, when obtaining inbound links it is important to do so from other websites which rank well with search engines because many search engines consider the rank of the original website when determining the value of the inbound link.

Now that we have briefly explained some of the main concept of SEO, we will illustrate why it is important to optimize your website in the first place. SEO is so important because most Internet users highly value the results of search engines and are likely to only visit to ranking websites when they search for a particular keyword. Internet users trust search engines to serve the most relevant content first and are therefore not likely to visit websites which do not fall on the first or second page of search results. This means websites which rank well essentially are receiving a great deal of free advertising from search engines that place their website in a key position. Website owners who do not invest time into optimizing their websites miss out on a great deal of potential web traffic.

Website Traffic Basics to Make Money Online with Affiliate Programs!

The first strategy to make money online is building a list.

This strategy is the most important step to continue to make money long term. If you do not already have some type of autoreponder system you need to get one. Don’t be cheap here either because your entire business will hinge on this one piece of software.

The next step does require you to have a website in order to implement an opt-in list form. Of course if your Affiliate program does offer a list management service then you can send traffic to the affiliate URL, but I don’t recommend it as you will usually not be able to email the entire list with special offers.

To make the most of your opt-in form and get the most signups, you should place it in your sales page text. It should be strategically located in the sales text after you present a problem. The title of your autoresponder email series should address the problem by offering a solution. In the example below we will assume that I am selling a hosting package and I want opt-in subscribers to my email course for back-end sales.
The second strategy to make money online is driving traffic to your website.

When I say traffic, I don’t just mean any old traffic, I mean targeted traffic, people who are motivated and ready to buy can and will make you money.

Blogging is a great way to drive targeted traffic to your website. To get the most out of this technique the blog should be hosted on the same website as the sales page that links to your affiliate program. Once its setup, all you have to do is fill your blog with good quality content.

I recommend writing your own content which specifically relates to your affiliate program and or products. Once you have some content you will need to submit your RSS feed to as many blog search engines as you can. This will put your blog out there for other webmasters to use as content feeds on their websites.

This win-win situation allows webmasters to have quality content on their website, which increases the value of that website while driving targeted traffic directly to you.

This is done by the URL link that you conveniently placed under your name after the blog was written. That means that your link is on a blog feed that is on thousands of websites. Not only do people click those links but Google sees these links pointing back to you and thinks that you’re popular and you are rewarded with a higher page rank.

Article writing is basically the same as blogging except the information in an article will need to have more useful content and be peppered with keywords that the webmasters are looking for. After completing your article you will submit (syndicate) it to content sites as opposed to blog search engines.

Linking is perhaps the most widely used form of increasing traffic and page rank. However, if done incorrectly you could end up hurting your Google page rank and ultimately losing potential buyers. You will need your own website for this technique as you will need a ‘links’ page to place your reciprocal links on.

Many people go and submit their URL links to link farms in an attempt to trick Google into giving them a better page rank. This does NOT work; in fact Google has been known to penalize websites for engaging in these activities.

The secret to linking is to find websites in your niche market which have a Google page rank of 4 or above and enticing the web master to list your link on their website. You may think that you would be helping your competition.  Well, you would be. But your competition would be helping you as well. It’s better to send departing traffic to a partner than just having them close their browser window and, remember, that works both ways.

Reciprocal linking, Blogging and Article writing are great ways to bring massive amounts of high quality targeted traffic to your website. Those strategies combined with an effective sales page with an integrated opt-in email list can make your business soar to new heights.

Last step is to align yourself with quality Affiliate Programs through ClickBank, JVZoo, ClickSure or any of the several other platforms that offer affiliate opportunities in various niches. Because Google is looking for your niche content (your bloggin and articles in this niche), your targeted traffic will be exposed to you offer and opt-in!

1,001 Deals and Steals: A Guide to Online Classifieds

Some naysayers way back in the 1990’s predicted that online shopping wouldn’t last. Sure, and they said television was a passing fad, too! As we all know, just the opposite has occurred. There’s a television in every household, and more than likely, the homeowner bought their television online—along with his books, music CDs, clothes, and maybe even his home.

Internet shopping is bigger than ever. You can find anything and everything for sale online. Many times, you can find it cheaper online than anywhere else. Internet shopping offers so much more than a discounted price tag, though.

Imagine a shopping mall where there are no lines, where there are no jammed parking garages, and no pushy sales clerks. This is no land of make believe. It is the Internet, where you can discover unprecedented selection, convenience, and opportunities. Online shopping gives you the luxury of browsing hundreds of stores from your living room, while saving on time and frustration. It provides you the chance to compare prices to your heart’s delight on a near limitless selection of brands and models.

For even more benefits, try your hand at classifieds and auction Web sites. These sites are like yard sales and flea markets rolled into one. Unlike retail shopping sites, they offer:

Access to super secondary markets. Take your pick of secondhand or brand-new wholesale goods at steeply discounted prices. The vendors at classifieds sites can get away with it because they aren’t paying high rent for a storefront or a warehouse.

Tools to locate unique and rare collectibles. Imagine a classifieds site to be like a sunken pirate boat, laden with cultural artifacts, hard-to-find heirlooms, and priceless antiques. The Internet is your deep-sea vessel, sonar, and oxygen tank all in one.

Reach beyond your neighborhood. Search through the inventory of a vendor from your home town, or if you don’t find what you’re looking for there, try that fellow in California, Texas or Canada for that matter.

Close relationships with vendors. You deal with real people—not big, impersonal corporations—when you buy on classifieds sites. They can provide more details about the product, which you can then use to bargain for a reasonable price.

Despite this bounty of benefits, you might still be hesitant to dive into Internet shopping. Don’t be embarrassed. You have good reason to take your time and weigh your choices. According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, Internet fraud tops the list of the thousands of fraud cases that happen every year. In some ways, WWW could stand for the Wild West Web, in that anything goes. Vendors can be villains in disguise, and there aren’t any online Wyatt Earps to protect you from these bad guys. You’re on your own.

But give yourself some credit. You have the common sense it takes to survive the WWW. It is the same commonsense that helps you make the most of your money on your standard shopping trips. Become familiar and comfortable with an online vendor before jumping into a purchase. Ask questions and do a bit of research.

After doing your research, you’ll feel more confident in searching for your online booty. To refine your findings and whittle your list to only the exceptional sites, look for these additional qualities:

• A focus on local shopping, so you can feel more confident buying from neighbors.
• Free education and advice on safe purchasing.
• No-cost and easy browsing through available merchandise.
• Search tools that let you prioritize items by category, location, and distance.
• A straightforward pricing system that avoids the haggling and risk of auction bidding.
• Quick price comparisons among different vendors.

Unbelievably, a few trustworthy, practical, and exciting Web sites exist that have all of these features. To find these websites, simply browse through Yahoo’s directory under the classifieds category. The best of the online classified sites offer these services free to buyers such as you. Some of these sites can link you at no charge to your neighbor selling the antique lamp that you’ve been hunting for or that retiree looking to unload an incredible piece of real estate—or the cowboy looking to sell his big-screen television.

5 Big Mistakes That Bloggers Make…

If you’ve just entered the world of blogging or if you’ve been blogging for a short time and find that things are not working out as you expected, it will be worth your while to spend some time understanding the common mistakes that bloggers make, mistakes that make it hard to enjoy what should be an enjoyable, satisfying experience.

The five most common new blogger mistakes are:

1. Diving in (rather than wading in)
2. Having unrealistic expectations
3. Losing focus
4. Plagiarizing
5. Ignoring the reader

Diving in! Many bloggers are so anxious to get started that they dive in rather than wading in slowly — its a mistake in an unfamiliar swimming pool or pond and its a mistake when entering a new arena such as the ‘blogosphere.’

Find a focus for your blog . . . a focus that reflects what you know, what interests you and what you enjoy talking and writing about. No topics are out of bounds: politics, religion, science, sexual orientations, comedy, exercise, diet, diseases, etc., etc..

Take the time to read dozens of different blogs: note the colors, graphics and layouts to get an idea of what appeals to you. Also note that some bloggers are long-winded and others are brief and to the point . . . others are just chatty and entertaining and have no particular point to make . . . this too is a personal style you get to choose.

You need a host for your blog, some are free, some charge a small amount per month for their service, some are simple to use and some require more technical knowledge, some have more features than others; choose carefully, once you’ve established your blog and have a few regular readers you may not want to change your address (your URL).

You may or may not want to use your real name on your blog, this depends on many factors, not the least of which is your stance on controversial issues and how publicly you want to be identified with your opinions.

Unrealistic expectations! If you come to blogging expecting instant results: a large readership and many complimentary comments, you may be disappointed. There are tens of thousands of blogs online vying for the same audience. Patience and tenacity are essential on your part. If you write well, find a unique niche to fill, have appealing titles for your posts and tirelessly promote your blog the readership and comments (some of which will be complimentary) will come.

Losing focus! When you started your blog you had a particular reason for doing so; it might have been to express your views on a topic or it might have been to just communicate with a close circle of friends about your daily activities. Readers will come to your blog for the first time and either be interested in your subject matter or not, will either like your style or not and, if they like your subject and style they may comment and then come back later. Once you’ve established a topic and tone for your blog you’re free to change it but to do so you’re basically starting all over. Be aware that you can have more than one blog, each one devoted to a particular topic and each one, if you choose, under a different identity.

Plagiarizing! There are some great bloggers out there and as you surf through blogs you might find one who said something really well, something that resonated with you and something you want to put in your blog. DON’T just copy and paste someone’s words in your blog without giving them credit, making it look to the world like the words are yours. If you write it, write it in your own words and write it better, adding your own thoughts and feelings and then be gracious, mention where you got the idea and provide a link.

Ignoring the reader! Some of the people who read your blog will leave comments; some readers will agree with you and some readers may even praise your insights but most will pick a point you’ve made and criticize it. People leave comments on others blogs for the same reason they themselves blog, to exchange ideas and express their points of view. Always respond to your readers comments; thank them for reading and taking the time to comment (even the severe critics) and then respond, as appropriate, to their comment. If you ignore your comments your readers may end up ignoring your blog.

Traffic Exchanges – Will They Work for You?

The key to successful marketing on the internet is to drive traffic to your website. Having a website that just sits, not promoted, is not only a waste of time, but also highly frustrating.
I have been intrigued by the idea of internet marketing for years, but it has taken me a long time to overcome all the traps involved in actually getting started.
What I have learned is that the internet marketing process can be relatively simple. You have to find a market, develop a product, and build a website to promote the product and process transactions. But, all of your efforts will be useless if nobody visits your website.
There are at least six ways to increase the number of visitors to your site, including word of mouth from one web user to the next (you are reading this post, aren’t you?), buying targeted clicks to your site using paid keyword advertising on search engines such as Google, sending advertising emails to your proprietary list of prospects which you generate by signing up previous visitors to your site, exchanging links for your website with other websites that have similar products to your own, paying someone else with a proprietary email list to send sales letters for you (you can pay for this with a flat fee up front or in the form of commissions that result from the emails they send), and paying fees or commissions to other websites for putting your banners, ads, or links on their pages. By using these techniques you will increase the number of visitors to your site, which is almost guaranteed to increase your sales.

Traffic exchanges, also known as hit exchanges and start exchanges, are a very simple means of driving traffic to a website.

Being in a traffic exchange is like being in a club. You surf, using a specially designed “surf bar” unique to the traffic exchange in question, and view the other club member’s websites. Every time you view a website you get a credit, or a point, and these are exchanged for visitors who view your website. Normally there is a “ratio” involved and – for free members – it is often one return visitor for every two websites that you view. Most exchanges are free to join but many have a “pro upgrade” option where you can get a better view/return view ratio (say 1:1) for a monthly fee, typically a few dollars a month. The large majority of members in the typical exchange are free members.

Traffic exchanges are much maligned – there are many who will tell you that they don’t work. One of the main reasons cited for this is the fact that most of the traffic exchange members are members of the exchange primarily because they are already promoting a business opportunity or product of their own.

Whilst this is almost certainly true it does not necessarily mean that they will not be interested in what you are promoting. If you are offering either an informational product or any kind of tool which could be used to enhance an already existing business then the members of traffic exchanges could very well be an excellent target market for you. For example, if you have an e-zine newsletter aimed at online marketers, then traffic exchanges could offer you very rich pickings indeed.

One of the most common mistakes is to sign up for an affiliate program and then use the standard website that comes with the program on traffic exchanges. This is a waste of time as the exchange members will not have enough time to view the typical information rich affiliate website. It is also likely that there will be several others promoting the exact same website on any given exchange – so your site will blend in to the background and will have little, if any, impact.

However, just by following the guidelines below you can use traffic exchanges to build your opt-in list and then follow up later with your affiliate offerings.

1. Don’t use the standard page that came with your affiliate programme. It has too much information and will confuse viewers. There are probably many other people advertising this page.

2. Use a specially designed gateway page unique to you. Keep it clean and uncluttered. Focus on benefits. Five or six bullet points only. Stand out from the crowd.

3. Use a pop-up or pop-in for emphasis.

4. Give away a free bonus for signing up. A free e-book. A free report. A free newsletter.

5. Collect e-mail addresses for follow up. Feed them into an autoresponder. Put them into your newsletter list.

6. Customise your gateway page for the exchange you’re using. Have a special message for your visitor – “Traffic Swarm user bonus….” “Webmaster Quest bonus…”

7.Monitor your results and don’t waste time with exchanges that don’t deliver.

8. Don’t persevere with an unproductive campaign for too long. Let your campaign run for 4 weeks max and then experiment if you aren’t seeing results.

9. Advertise on a number of different exchanges to ensure a wide range of visitors. Don’t waste hours every day clicking on traffic exchanges – they are only one method for growing your list and you should be using a number of different techniques. However, using the above rules, it should be possible to achieve double digit signups to your opt-in list or newsletter on a daily basis.

Here are some Free Traffic Exchanges:

https://www.10khits.com/

https://www.easyhits4u.com/

https://trafficg.com/

http://www.startxchange.com/

And for more information: http://growtraffic.com/blog/2015/06/42-traffic-exchange-websites-get-free-visits-automatically

Why Do Email Marketing?

Email Marketing is the practice of using email in the marketing communications. It covers every email sent to customer, a potential customer or a public venue.to be more precise it includes:

• Sending direct promotional emails to try and acquire new customers or persuade existing customers to buy again.
• Sending emails designed to encourage customer loyalty and enhance the customer relationship.
• Placing your marketing messages or advertisements in emails sent by other people.

It is somewhat similar to sending mails, a newsletter or e-zine or placing advertisements on a magazine or newspaper.

But now a question strikes our mind, why do email marketing? What is so good that it has to offer? Let us start with the answers of these questions.

• Email marketing is in rage these days because of the following features:
• Sending email is much cheaper than most other forms of communication.
• Email lets you deliver your message to the people (unlike a website, where the people have to come to your message) .
• Email marketing has proven very successful for those who do it right .

Nonetheless, we can not overlook the Benefits of mail marketing which are mentioned below:

• It allows targeting.
• It is data driven.
• It drives direct sales.
• It builds relationships, loyalty and trust.
• It supports sales through other channels.
• Email marketing is an extremely cost-effective marketing tool.
• It increase Your Sales Conversion.
• It generate Repeat Sales.
• It up-sell and Cross-sell Products and Services.
• It gain Valuable Feedback from your Visitors.
• It drive Web Users to Make Offline Purchases.

Modern email marketing services and solutions support database integration, segmentation and various other tricks and techniques for improving the targeting of outgoing messages.

Responsible email marketing is based on the idea of permission. Always keep a few things in mind while opting for email marketing.

• Make sure your emails reflect your brand, through your content, language, tone, imagery and colors.
• Your email campaign may also be an opportunity to manage and further enhance your relationships with your customers.
• Your content should demonstrative.
• Educate your customers or provide additional information.

Email marketing gives your brand an edge in a tough market. Daily, weekly, or even monthly emails will keep your brand in your target consumer’s mind. As more and more of the population begins to use email, email marketing will become a standard in the marketing industry.

If you run a conventional offline business you can use email marketing to drive foot traffic through your door. Finding another marketing method that comes close to all the benefits that email marketing offers is nearly impossible.

Saleforce the marketing company has experience in this area they share here: https://www.marketingcloud.com/products/email-marketing/email-marketing-best-practices/