Colin Klinkert Dot Com

Blogging has become an incredibly popular way to distribute content in the past few years.  Though subjects may vary, all successful blogs have two certain things in common:  regular content updates and content that is valuable to the reader.

While many who are looking to start a career in online marketing may use a blog as an occasional medium for releasing content, many underestimate just how powerful a good blog can be for developing a “hub” presence for online marketing.

Why spend your time developing a blog instead of working on other aspects of online marketing?  There are a few reasons.

First of all, a blog helps to put a personal face to your online business.  If people are able to regularly read things you are writing, and have access to an About or Contact page where they can learn about you or get in touch with you, that makes you an actual person in their minds, instead of a faceless internet entity.  People are more likely to want to do business with “Bill Jones” instead of “productnameplus.com.”

Second, if you provide quality content on your blog, you are able to attract more customers.  For example, if you build a blog about pet training that provides solid resources for web users, then when you use the blog as a platform for promoting a related product, people will value you as person knows what they’re talking about and who has provided a lot of free information to them already.  Having established this credibility, they will be more inclined to try it if it is recommended by you.

You can also add an “opt-in” box where people can sign up for a newsletter or email updates.  This allows you to set up a customer list and have people ask to be on it!  A strong blog with quality content can provide a central hub for all of your online marketing ventures, and can attract quality customers.

A Good Tip:

You can signup to my Optin Box top left to see the process I use. Another good Idea would be to follow me on Twitter. Doing so will trigger a DM sent to you on Twitter from me and you can see how I handle my new twitter followers with the video I send them to and the incentive I give to optin

Using free online classifieds, like Craigslist, can be a good way to get your online business started and generating traffic. What makes these online classifieds worthwhile is the fact that they generally provide highly targeted audiences.

Let’s say that you are promoting a product that teaches people how to cook. Depending on the type of classifieds site you go to, you may find an entire category devoted to culinary instruction. Otherwise, try to fit your advertisement into the most applicable category.

There are pluses and minuses to online classified ads. First, the pluses: most of them are free, so they’ll fit any budget; as discussed above, the traffic is targeted to your specific audience; they are a way to test out your ad copy before starting a pay per click (PPC) or other paid advertising campaign.

Okay, now the minuses: they’re free, so there’s a lot of people who post classified ads, meaning yours could get lost in the clutter; in advertising, you generally get what you pay for, so the amount of time and effort you put into these free ads may not provide the amount of traffic that a paid ad would.

Before posting your ads, make sure to familiarize yourself with the classifieds site’s rules. You don’t want to go through the trouble of posting an ad only to have it deleted a few moments afterwards because it violated site policy.

So are online classifieds right for you? That depends on your current progress in building your business. If you can afford some other, more traditional forms of internet advertising, they’ll probably give you more traffic.

If you are just starting out and don’t have much, or any, money to put into an advertising campaign, online classifieds could provide you with business that can make you the money to pay for other means of advertising.

Brute Force marketers say that doing it all is best, so maybe it’s worth having a look at Craigslist or PRweb for your business?

Virally Explode Your Twitter Followers With ViralFollowers Dot Com

When the internet was young and web programming languages like JavaScript were first coming out, a flashy website was a big customer draw. Now, all those flashy graphics and design structures are passé. These days, internet users are far more sophisticated and are very skilled at finding the exact content that they are looking for. With that in mind, here’s a piece of advice: Forget flashiness, focus on content.

The term “bounce rate” refers to how many people dig into your site. If people link to one of your pages, but then immediately click out to another site, that is a bounce. If they look at one of your pages and then click through to another section of your website, that is a stick.

Which is more likely to cause people to stick around on your website, flashy graphics or compelling and informative content? If your content is well-written and engaging, and it provides the value of either information or entertainment to your audience, then people will stick around and spend time with your site.

Whether your website is designed to sell a certain product or makes its money from advertising, the longer a viewer stays on your site, the better. If the viewer immediately leaves, you won’t be able to charge top advertising rates on the site, and if they leave immediately, you never have a chance to sell them a product.

Compelling content is one of the most important, if not the most important, factor when it comes to creating a website that will be profitable.

Look at websites that attract you. How is the content delivered? Where are the big pieces of information located within that content? How easy is it to link from one piece of content to another interesting article or webpage? Apply the techniques that work for you to your own site.

Something I plan on doing in future is adding a training series via email for my members to opt-in to. try to deliver content in as many different ways as possible to appeal to all your readers prefered viewing and learning methods.

This is a follow-on from a post I recently made about blog commenting. Today we are looking at Effective Forum Marketing. You can watch an intro to this post:  http://viralnetworks.com/view/rVIwm

Forums are a great way to get in touch with potential customers.  There are various forums all across the internet that are devoted to an incredible range of topics.  That means that regardless of the type of product you are working with, there is likely a forum somewhere that is devoted to that field.  The people who frequent that forum are a highly targeted demographic  – they are ‘warm’ prospects, with high conversion potential.

Establish a Presence

But you need to work at establishing a presence.  Forum marketing is not about just posting a couple links and watching the sales come rolling in.  Forums have moderators and administrators who look out for marketing scams and immediately delete those posts and ban the user who posted them.

So how can you use forum marketing effectively?

Trading value for value.  The value that the forum users offer is their attention to your product and possibly buying it.  The value you provide is determined by the nature of the forum.

For example, if you are selling a how-to product that teaches people how to use Photoshop software, then look for forums for beginners to the software.  They will ask questions about how to do certain things, you find the answer and post it.  That is the value you give them.  When you post in a forum, you are usually allowed to have a link to a website either in your user profile or as a “signature” – text or images that appear automatically at the bottom of each of your posts.

Don’t Blatantly Sell

As long as you provide value to the other forum users and don’t blatantly try to sell your product, you will be allowed to stay.  And the people that you advise will often follow your link out of curiosity, or the need for more information. If they see that you have a product that solves their problem or enhances the reason they are in the forum, they are more likely to buy that product.

Forum marketing is being used more and more by internet marketers, and while it does take time to establish a credible preference in the forum, the benefits are great if it is one that is very finely targeted to your niche.

Have You Tried This Yet

Have You Used a Technique like this before or during your product launch? Maybe you have used it as an affiliate for other products… What Results have you seen from Forum traffic?

A Short Video Into To This Post Can Be Found: http://viralnetworks.com/view/XPuSc

If you’ve ever read a blog’s comments section, then you’ve probably come across a comment that was submitted for the sole purpose of generating a backlink. The comment usually reads like gibberish, but has a whole bunch of keywords and links peppered within it.

In order to neutralize these sorts of comments, there are all sorts of spam blockers for blogs (with Akismet being one of the most used) and there are NoFollow HTML codes that prevent search engines from giving any credit for these comments.

That being said, commenting on blogs can still be a great way to build buzz and traffic for your site.

Add Value

The idea of blog commenting is to some sort of valuable contribution. For example, if you read a popular blog in your niche and you have an opinion or idea related to a post, then comment on it and feel free to leave a link to your website. When the administrator of the blog sees your comment, the value of what you wrote in advancing the blog’s community far outweighs the small favor of providing a backlink, so they will likely keep the comment live.

If you comment regularly on a certain blog (or series of blogs), then you can begin to develop a relationship with other people in your niche. These people will visit your site and may even link to you or reference you in their posts if the content you provide is worthwhile.

Commenting in this manner, helps out both parties. The blogger builds his community and makes it more likely that other readers will engage in a conversation and keep coming back, and you get a valuable backlink to your site from a blog that focuses on your niche, ensuring targeted traffic.

Another Place Worth Adding Value

Social Networks that have a target audence is a good place to use to add value. It is for this reason I built ViralNetworks! The idea is that you build a reputation among your peers and make those million $ ventures you hear about, as well as getting people to like and trust you. (These are the only reasons people will buy your products, if they know, like and trust you or of course, your product).

Come join me on the online Business Social Network today!

A lot of people don’t realise it, but since May 2008, it has been possible to travel through the galaxy on your computer. That’s when Microsoft Research released the public beta of WorldWide Telescope, a powerful piece of downloadable desktop software that allows people to zoom through the galazy, visiting planets, constellations, even nearby galaxies.

The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a Web 2.0 platform that allows your computer to function as a virtual telescope—bringing together imagery from ground and space-based telescopes around the world for a seamless exploration of the universe.

You can choose from a growing number of tours of the sky guided by astronomers and educators from some of the most famous observatories and planetariums in the country. You can pause the tour, explore on your own, and then rejoin the tour if you like – just where you left off.

Since its release, almost 2 million people around the world have downloaded this free desktop observatory, called a “phenomenal resource for enthusiasts, students, and teachers,” by PC World.

This week (on March 24) Worldwide Telescope got a boost with the news that NASA and Microsoft are developing technology that will make content including high-resolution scientific images and data from Mars and the moon explorable on WorldWide Telescope,

WorldWide Telescope has been nominated for two awards since its release – an American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) award and the Edison Award. The Edison Awards “symbolize the persistence and excellence personified by Thomas Alva Edison,” recognizing ingenuity, innovation, and creativity in the global economy.

Curtis Wong, and Jonathan Fay, from Microsoft Research drove the creation of Worldwide Telescope, and continue to enrich the telescope’s visuals and add features.

WorldWide Telescope provides a neat segway from inner space to outer space. With Virgin already booking flights for a real space trip, the world is moving ‘up and beyond’.

How long do you think it will be before you and I can take a trip to Space as if we were taking a trip to another country?