Earn Web Profits

By now, most webmasters know that they can help drive traffic to their websites for free by submitting articles to directories. In turn, this traffic will lead to more conversions of the products and/or services you offer and more Adsense clicks - which will make you more money.

When you submit to the top article directories your articles will be seen by many people. Some of these people are also webmasters who are looking to add content to their sites. When they pick one of your articles from the top article directories, your site will get more exposure. An added bonus is that most article directories allow you to put links to your site in the body or resource box of your article. Since website owners who use your article can’t change it in any way you’ll get more incoming links to your website. This means more traffic, higher search engine rankings, and more income for you.

You can also use the top article directories to find content to add to your site. You can find many articles that will be on topics that are relevant to your site. Sure, it will be duplicate content, but it still may bring you more traffic.

The top article directory is EzineArticles.com. It has a high PageRank and has been the top directory for some time. You will find thousands of articles covering just about any topic there. If you want to submit articles or get content from the top article directories you should start with them. Some of the other top article directories are: ArticlesBase.com, GoArticles.com, ArticleAlley.com, and Amazines.com. There is also a great list of the top 50 article directories at http://www.vretoolbar.com/articles/directories.php.

Once you start taking advantage of the top article directories you’ll find your website rankings and traffic increase. It will take some work, but it will be well worth it.

Marketing your website can become quite costly if you use conventional methods of marketing. Your advertising budget can be used up very quickly when you’re starting out, particularly if you do conventional advertising, such as mailing pieces, magazine ads, and television spots. While these methods of advertising can bring in big returns, you need up front capital to fund such efforts. However, email is virtually free, and all it takes is some time to set up email software and write your message. This little bit of effort sets you up with legitimate and truly affordable email marketing campaigns.

You can’t just send out email to people if you haven’t gotten their permission to contact them. This is considered spamming and is suicide to an online business! Your search engine rankings and traffic will take a dive and you may even get shut down by your own ISP! This is certainly not the way to go about an affordable email marketing campaign. So how do you get permission to send potential customers email?

What you need to do is build an opt-in list of customers as quickly as you possibly can. One of the best ways to do this is to write some free reports and an e-newsletter to entice your website visitors to sign up. This is the basis of an effective and affordable email marketing campaign. In return for delivering quality information to your site visitor, you get a name and email to which you can send updates, your free newsletter, and occasional promotional pieces. You’ll want to be judicious in sending messages that are purely promotional. Too many of these will wear thin on your readers, possibly resulting in cancellations and the loss of your good reputation in your particular niche. Word travels fast on the internet, and all it takes is a bad review from a popular blogger and you’re toast.

As you continue to promote your free reports and newsletter on your website, your readers will often pass your message on to interested friends. Based on this referral, they may then visit your site for their own copy. Before long, your opt-in list will grow substantially. As your list grows, your affordable email marketing campaign will bring in more and more returns.

When you place your invitation for your customers to subscribe for your free report or newsletter, be sure to let them know that you respect their online privacy and won’t ever give, sell or share their information with others. You’ll also want to build your customer list using the double opt-in. This means that after somebody signs up, you respond with an email that requires that they respond with a reply or a click-back to your site for confirmation that they asked for your offer. This protects you against spamming allegations.

By the time you’ve got your affordable email marketing campaign running strong, you’ll be earning an online income. Then you can think of more expensive online marketing campaigns.

If you’ve had a website for a while, you probably know that an email advertising campaign is one of the cheapest ways to advertise online. However, it requires some finesse to be successful with email advertising strategies. Too many webmasters use a much too heavy handed approach, which often results in a greatly reduced return on investment, as well as reduced credibility and a lot of cancellations from subscribers. Worst of all, your emails may be tagged as spam by those who cancel their subscriptions. You can’t succeed online like this. Here we present some common, but plentifully practiced, techniques for email advertising strategies that you should avoid, as well as tips on making your email marketing campaigns into winners.

Here’s an example of what you don’t want to do if you want to try email advertising campaigns. I once subscribed to a travel newsletter that I found in another newsletter’s feature article. I clicked on the link and found a few items of interest, so I signed up for the newsletter. Soon, I discovered this website sent a newsletter almost every day, which was far more than I cared to receive in my inbox.

Then, I started receiving additional emails from this website that told a story of how somebody had just returned from a trip to Costa Rica, writing a story accompanied by the photos they took on their trip and promptly selling it to a travel magazine for a profit. The story was only a couple of paragraphs, and wasn’t especially interesting or informative. It was basically a thinly disguised lead-in to the sales pitch that followed. The gist of it was that for only $3000, I could attend their next workshop and learn all the tricks of the trade.

After a week or two of reading the newsletter, it became obvious that they had no actual information of any value. A short editor’s note, telling me what he’d been doing that day, was always followed by a long and pushy sales pitch. I ended canceling my subscription. This is the epitome of a bad email advertising campaign. You shouldn’t take this approach since it probably won’t work.

Now let’s take a look at how to construct email advertising campaigns that will do great things for your website traffic and income. You know the value of an online newsletter, but as mentioned earlier, successful email marketing campaigns require finesse. Just as on your website, your newsletter needs to have quality content. If you don’t provide information your readers can use to increase their knowledge, or which is at least entertaining in some way, you’ll be much less likely to succeed. One high quality feature article in every issue is a great way to start building a loyal readership, some of whom will forward it to a friend, which could result in a new subscriber and potential customer.

When doing email advertising campaigns within a newsletter format, your ads should not make up more than 10% of the total content. Two or three ads per issue is usually about right. If you have a particularly outstanding offer, you might feature it. For example: ‘This week I ran across an amazing deal that I wanted to pass on to you’ Then tell them why. Write a review and keep it short and sweet.

If you use the ’special offer’ approach in your email advertising campaign, use it judiciously and don’t overdo it. It’s got to truly be a special offer, time dependent, and worthy of sending in a separate email. If the offer doesn’t meet this criteria, your credibility will suffer, and eventually your readers won’t even open emails from you.

One technique for effective email advertising campaigns is to intersperse ads within freebies and resources at the end of your newsletter. You can make this section a regular part of every newsletter, under a title like ‘Freebies, top picks and other resources’.

Follow these do’s and don’ts of email advertising campaigns and see if you’re not well rewarded!