Monday, March 2, 2009

Using The Most Cost Effective Lead Generation Methods

What is the most cost effective lead generation?How about free?While the internet offers us every single type of prospective business, you now have the choice of investing grand amounts of capital all the way down to starting a business for free.Those that are available for free have received a lot of criticism, but with a little creativity and some determination, you can make it work if you want to.

The truth of the matter is that the less money you spend on lead generation the more effort you need to put into it.But if you are serious about creating a new and improved income stream for yourself, and you have to start with little to no capital, your sweat will do.

Online forums and online communities are a good place to start.Here, you can always develop a few business relationships, offer some idea trading solutions, and develop the rapport you need in order to offer a good business opportunity to potential customers or associates.Finding the right demographic is not as difficult as you might believe.There are forums for businesses in every major internet service provider and carrier, as well as plenty of forums that are available through independent servers and developers.Building a positive reputation while you are in there can help bolster your online image and give you a strong grounding for when your business really starts to develop.

Using your wits alone can offer you a distinct advantage.You can start building a mailing list by offering newsletters, freebies, and special bonuses before you even present your business.For most people who don't have the capital, being able to build a reputation first has often led to an easier transition once the capital starts to accumulate.

Being personable, developing a strong reputation, and offering great and creative ideas and free email bonuses will eventually increase the traffic to your website and even lead to additional marketing venues that others are willing to offer up.In some cases, other individuals will be able to point you to other forums that are likely to be interested in what you have to offer.

Link trading is free.It is a very common technique used among internet marketers that offers you a change for more exposure without spending any money.Link trading involves offering a business a link on your website in exchange for a link on theirs.That way, the traffic that hits your site is exposed to their site and the traffic on their site is exposed to your site.Link trading has been around for quite some time, and you are likely to get a handful of clients or associates through this process over time.

Take up your own article writing.There are ample free submission sites that allow you to submit keyword laden articles that are rich in content and useful information.This is a great way to promote your site and there are many professionals who can instruct you on how to drive your traffic from the article to the site.There are numerous methods, but the most common is a backlink, a link within the text that brings people directly to your website.

While there is a lot of effort involved in creating just these three methods of bringing traffic to your site, those who have started with nothing more than sheer determination and a desire to succeed often do when they have to work so hard for it.Simply purchasing a few sign ups and paying someone to do your marketing for you might bring in the financial profits earlier.But there is more to internet marketing than financial profits alone.There are emotional and character building profits that can never be spent.

Thanks to the internet, there really is no limit to what a person can do if they really want to.Any one who wants to create a full time income from a part time work at home program can do so if they throw their heart into it.It's just that few ever really do.You have the power to develop an online business if you want to.You have the power to change your financial picture if you want to.It just takes consistent effort.


About the Author

OR if you would like to succeed immediately to create financial freedom working only 4 hours a week, check out www.

secrets2internetfortunes.com

AND receive a limited FREE copy of the amazing 113 page Book "Online Fortunes A Beginners Guide!
" which is jam packed with so many ideas you can use to instantly create an automated income for life!That's my GIFT to you as a way of saying thank you for reading my articles.

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Saturday, December 20, 2008

3 Ways To Keep MS Word From Killing Your SEO Strategy

Most of us type our content in Microsoft Word before publishing our articles, blog posts, and web content.But did you know that Microsoft Word can actually hurt the SEO strategy of your site?

If Microsoft Word is set up incorrectly, it can cause major issues when transferring the content to the web.Before writing any document, it is important to make a few changes to your Word settings to eliminate these issues.

Smart Quotes, Apostrophes, and Dashes


Microsoft Word automatically converts straight quotation marks and apostrophes into "smart" quotes and apostrophes for a more pleasant look.

It will also automatically convert single and double dashes into an elongated dash.While these might look nice on the Microsoft Word document, these modified characters cause a lot of trouble on the web.If you've ever seen something on the web with "??" where quotes should be or strange jargon in place of a dash, you've seen the embarrassment these can cause.

The good news is that it only takes changing a few settings once to eliminate this problem for every future document you write.This is important because your SEO strategy is only good if your content is good as well.

1.Go the "Tools" menu and select "Auto Correct"
2.
Select the "Format as You Type" Tab.
3.Under the "Replace As You Type" heading uncheck: "Straight Quotes" with "Smart Quotes" and "Symbol Characters (--) with symbols"


Style Formatting


The style formatting toolbar looks innocent enough - but choosing certain settings here can cause hours of additional work over time for the person who is converting your text to the web.

Always choose NORMAL when using Word!

I've noticed that many freelance writers choose something other than normal - or add additional spaces after lines, or double spaces after single returns.While this might look good in Word, all of that formatting disappears once it is put into an HTML editor and then must be completely reformatted in order for your SEO strategy to be effective.If you highlight the text and see extra spaces around the line breaks, then there is something off with the settings.

To ensure that your document does not have any extra Word Doc formatting:
1.
Select "Format" and "Paragraph" from your toolbar:
2.
The "Indents and Spacing" tab should be set to single spacing with 0 spacing before and after lines.
3.The "Line and Page Breaks" tab should have nothing checked other than "window/orphan control"


Pasting Content into Your Website Software from Word


When pasting content into your website software such as Wordpress, Joomla, or other type of website software with a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, it's important to paste the content into the HTML tab - NOT the visual editor.

The reason is that Microsoft Word adds a ton of HTML code "behind the scenes" when you paste directly into the editor.

Pasting into the HTML tab eliminates all of this sloppy extra code that can severely dilute your keyword density and make it more difficult for search engine spiders to crawl your content and decipher the primary topic of the article.And if the search engines cannot determine the focus of your content, your SEO strategy is not efficient.

Taking these few extra steps before you start typing, can eliminate hours of reformatting and ensure that your content is properly read and ranked by search engines.Creating an effective SEO marketing campaign means that you sometimes have to take into consideration all of the small changes you can make as well as the big ones -- every bit counts towards higher rankings!


About the Author

Christine O'Kelly is co-owner of SEO Content Solutions, a leading SEO copywriting firm.

The company provides SEO press releases, articles, blog content and web content to resellers and end users alike.

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Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Website Copywriting for Time Management (and Happy Clients)

When entrepreneurs begin to enjoy business growth, they often
encountertime management challenges.They feel overwhelmed as they juggle
moreprojects, bigger jobs and more queries.For instance, I once hired a
wonderful web designer I'll call "Wendy."Wendy was just starting out so
she was willing to do a lot and accept alow fee.But I am not the only
one who finds hidden treasure.Soon Wendy wasjuggling more clients than
she could handle comfortably.And she wanted alife, too.As a client, I
became frustrated.Suddenly I couldn't phone Wendy forlast-minute
requests.My projects disappeared in a black hole.What could Wendy do?If
she were my copywriting client, she would let herwebsite do the
driving.She would create a page for client policies andclearly state
what she needs from clients to provide great service.Here are 3 policies
Wendy (and any busy entrepreneur) needs to clarifyon the website.(1) How
much notice do you need from your clients?You need notice of anew
project coming in and notice of cancellations.I asked Wendy to redesign
my business card for what seemed like themillionth time."Sure," she
said, "I can do this."But when?I wasn't her only client that week.Wendy
needs to manage her clientexpectations.For example, she could write: "3
days notice to start abusiness card and 7 business days to schedule a
blog theme."For phone or live consultations, 24 to 48 hours has become
the standardcancellation notice for everything from massage therapists
to medicalservices.Design and writing professionals need a kill fee --
an amount that willbe surrendered if your client cancels mid-project.(2)
What is your turnaround time?How many business days do you need togive
clients the quality work they deserve?For my own copywriting service, I
have learned to ask for 10 businessdays for a project where I used to
quote 5 business days or less.But nowI'm busier.I can't work on just one
project this week.So I need tostretch out my delivery time and charge
extra for rush jobs.I have no idea how long it takes to design a website
or a businesscard.But if the designer needs one, three or five business
days, I needto know.(3) What do you need to get started on a project for
a new client?Yourwebsite should help you do away with no-fee get
acquainted calls.As you get busy, even a get-acquainted call represents
an investment oftime -- an opportunity cost, as accountants say.I
recommend offering apaid small sample of your work.For copywriting, it's
a diagnosticproject.For consulting, it's a one-hour call.My system
allows clients to deduct the cost of the initial call if theymove on to
a bigger project.We both win if we achieve the client's goalswith just
the Diagnostic.And I work with clients from the first momentinstead of
trying to sell and close.I've also found that I can let my website do
the driving so I get fewerrequests for phone calls.I recorded a couple
of teleseminars soprospective clients can hear my voice.They listen as I
answer questionsand do one-minute makeovers on callers' websites.And
after an hour orso, they feel they know me.About the AuthorAnd now I'd
like to invite you to find out more by downloading 7 secretsof websites
that really attract clients.Get instant access at
www.HookYourClients.comFrom Cathy GoodwinCopy-Cat-CopywritingRelaited
Links:- How To Create a Traffic Explosion Using Yahoo- Law Firm
Marketing 101- Moving Visitors Of Dental Web Sites Onto The Best
Customer List

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