Marketing state, experiences and strategies

there's a world out there for forums and blogs...

2009-04-01T01:04:00.000-07:00

yes forum posting and blog commenting has been the ears and eyes of internet marketing nowadays. it wasn't that "in" before, as far as i can remember, people are not that so passionate about forums and blog commenting. Nowadays, people tried to really make a way to maximize their participation in forum sites and at the same time they're having fun, gained more knowledge from a lot of experts and impart to others what they have to offer.

it isn't that hard to earn money from blogging, you just have to optimize your site well, make it catchy, nice to look at (soothing to the eyes of the visitors) and informative. promote your site to different forums or blogs that speaks of the same subjects as you. if you want others to do it for you because of your busy schedule, there are as well people who can help you with. there's LITTLEDAZZLE, one of the greatest and effective posting service i've known so far.

actually there are lots out there that you can do, to make the most of your internet hobby.

Improve Your Site's Google Page Rank

2009-02-10T07:38:00.000-08:00

Why is it important to be indexed by Google and/or Yahoo search engines? As it has been known that once you’ll reach that spot there, it can make your business grow. Good and quality contents are the main factors in achieving such rank and by theory if you have those contents you shouldn’t spend time trying to meet the terms with search engine requirements. I have come up with a list of other factors that will help you be noticed by Google and Yahoo aside from providing contents to your site you must also be aware of these things:

1. Google Sitemaps, check on how Google will track your site.
2. Participate on communities who also specializes the same subjects as you
3. Try to engage yourself on creating some blog articles or articles related to your niche submitted to other sites and link back to your site
4. Try to make use of those keywords that has lesser competitors if you’re also using PPC campaigns for your site
5. Understand the ways your competitor runs their business and how they are behaving like in dealing with customers and the sort

Those were just a few of the hundreds of ways that you can optimize your site and monetize the traffic. Don’t just stick on the old ways, try to experiment and you’ll see that there are lots of them out there. Just explore, you’ll learn and you’ll see your business will then start to grow!

clickable image ads on Craigslist?

2009-01-01T04:14:00.000-08:00

Yeah, i strongly agree with Lucas Adamski (a Craigslist expert)when he introduces these new features on playing with Craigslist. It is such a fact that images will not only attract customers to view your ad but at the same time it would be a great factor that your ad ill stand-out especially that it'll linked directly to your site. Isn't it great? With no hassles on creating such a message, the clickable image will just explain it all.

He even cited that by using such feature in your Craigslist advertising, you can simply attain these following fast & easy:

1. CTR is MUCH higher using images than simple text
2. More hits > More customers > More $$
3. You can use your image for a very long time and Craigslist won't know it
4. Simple to use, you don't need to write every time unique text ad, just put unique image link and make it clickable
5. Effective and build trust with your customer

to see some of his samples, click here.

Places to find freelance writing jobs

2008-11-21T13:05:00.000-08:00

Part of an online marketing job is to look for resources where you can advertise or promote your products/services. One of the services we’re promoting is our website content writing service this includes article writing, web content writing, blog commenting, forum posting and the likes. Now, I have been doing a lot of research almost every day just to harvest and be updated with the latest projects that most people/employers are advertising on. I have discovered that many sites come and go, and there are a rare few that actually stick around for the long haul. I have picked over some of the best and worst sites and have found some that were even worthy of mentioning.

After doing a lot of research and trial & error, i have compiled the best freelance writing sites which I think will help you in looking for the best and latest freelance writing jobs online.

CraigsList - is a central network of online communities, featuring free online classified advertisements – with jobs, internships, housing, personals, erotic services, for sale/barter/wanted, services, community, gigs, resume, and pets categories – and forums on various topics.

Elance - is an online workplace where businesses connect with qualified professionals to get work done. Businesses use Elance to get work done by qualified professionals whenever they need it. Service providers use Elance to meet customers and get paid for doing what they do best.

Guru – is a free service to search for and find freelancers. Post your project. Get free quotes within hours. Outsource your contract work today.

ScriptLance – is where you can outsource your projects to freelance programmers and designers at cheap prices

oZLance - is the easiest, and most effective way, for businesses to connect with talented freelance professionals from Australia, New Zealand and the rest of the globe.

Freelance Writing – is where you’ll find a huge selection of freelance writing jobs locally & internationally

Journalism Jobs – is where you’ll find list media job opportunities with newspapers, TV, radio, online media, magazines , and related categories in the US and abroad.

Get A Freelancer – it is a place where they will help you find freelance programmers, Web Designers and Copywriters

Suite 101 – is the world's most comprehensive independent online magazine: written and edited by professionals, trusted by over twelve million monthly readers
iFreelance - 1000's people uses this site in looking for daily freelance jobs from artists and graphic designers to programmers and writers

Pro Blogger Job Board - is where bloggers looking for jobs and companies looking for bloggers to hire meet

poewar - News, articles, information, writing jobs, and freelance markets.

freelancewrite.about.com - The place to be for aspiring and new writers, we cover all the basics needed to break into the writers market and start writing as a career.

writersweekly - Free listing of paying markets for freelance writers. Also includes links to various resources for writers.

worldwidefreelance - One of the best resources for freelance writers around the world. 2200 writing markets listed.

I am sharing these resources because they have helped my job a lot easier and that promoting my site has never been that simple. It also helped me obtain valuable publicity and understanding. I hope to help you “lift-off” too!

10 Ways to More Website Traffic

2008-11-19T13:11:00.000-08:00

The purpose of internet business advertising is to generate traffic. Are you a hurry to get traffic to your website? How do you get highly targeted web site traffic?
Every website needs more traffic. This traffic needs to be as targeted as possible to the site you are promoting. No traffic then there is No business, this is the means of support of an online business.

I have here some of the compilation of the most popular methods.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

This will help increase your exposure, and give fast results. Of all the pay per click search engines, Google Adwords is the largest and most popular.
There is just a need for you to be always updated with their rules and policies, since they always changed it. You have to go by their rules or else you’ll be left out. There is a one-time fee for registering an account, once registration is approved you can then set up your campaign and if they’ll get approved as well you will see your ad will be running in a minute.

It’s just so easy setting up an account for Google Adwords, all you have to do is to keep your keywords updated.

Link Popularity

This is a way when someone links to your site.
The important thing is to have quality web sites linking back to your site since this adds perceived value and makes your site popular, so others will want to link to you.

Reciprocal Links

This creates a resource that visitors will want to return to. You can create a links page on your site.

Ezine advertising

The word "ezine" or "e-zine" is a contraction of "electronic magazine". Is a type of advertising in which businesses write short articles related to their respective industry. These articles are made available for distribution and publication in the marketplace.

Article Submissions

Submitting articles is a great way to build back links and web site visitors. Your articles can become 'viral' when others want to re-publish them on their sites, or use them in their newsletters and ezines. You include links to your site in the author resource box offering more free information. The resource box is your chance to convince the reader to visit your web site.

Two of the most popular places to post your articles are http://www.goarticles.com/ and http://www.EzineArticles.com.

Forum Posting

Prior to joining any forum, you must do some research. Join relevant forums that are in some way related to the promotion's primary sales market. Choose popular forums. There is no point in wasting your time and energy on forums that few members and few posts. Page raking and the amount of active members are two good ways to check for this. Choose forums that allow sig tags. Read the rules before joining and pay attention to them.

In addition, if you find this very time consuming and/or you can’t spend much time in doing so, there are a lot of services online that offers such for your website/s. I’ve known www.littledazzle.com to be very good in this field. They’re a small company with a group of professional writers who write just about anything. I have seen some of their works and have known them from a friend, and their works are really impressive. Not that I do sell them here but because i’ve just seen the quality of works they have provided their clients and so i was just impress. If you’re planning to ask or will try for this kind of system, try www.littledazzle.com and you will see what i’m talking about.

Social Bookmarking

In a social bookmarking system, users store lists of Internet resources that they find useful. These lists are both accessible to the public or a specific network, and other people with similar interests can view the links by category, tags, or even randomly. Some allow for privacy on a per-bookmark basis.
People looking for the latest information on certain topics usually refer to these types of services.

The most popular today are these two:
http://digg.com/
http://technorati.com/

Viral Traffic

using free reports - ebooks etc.

Directory Submissions

Submit your website url's to the search engines Google, Yahoo, MSN.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The better optimized your web page is, the higher a ranking it will achieve in the search engines. Most people searching the internet only look at the first couple of search results.

Search engines find and catalogue web pages using spidering software. Basically, it is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.

So far, these are the ones that I could think of and basically have practiced them in my day-to-day managing my websites.

One of the Internet's strengths is its ability to help consumers
find the right needle in a digital haystack of data. ~ Jared Sandberg

SlideRoll on YouTube

2008-10-16T10:10:00.000-07:00

Part of my job is to think of ways on advertising our sites and should come up with a nice strategy other than the usual procedures that we're currently doing. Apart from creating social bookmarking sites, we've thought of advertising our products on YouTube. Great! What a nice idea we got there. Since we all know that there are already number of advertisers who are taking advantage of YouTube's popularity and are taking a great return out of that. With this, I have tried creating a slideshow of our products (real estate properties) using this very nice software from Slideroll. I just found it on Google when I searched for a free software - flash slideshow. I've tried it for the first time and I was really impress with their impressive plugins or features unlike other related softwares that really don't work for me. Our plan is to upload videos on YouTube 'cause that's where we want to advertise our site and what's nice about Slideroll is that you can download your saved slideshow by just paying $7.50, that's their bimonthly rate ($3.75 per month) to be exact. It's really worth to pay for such affordable amount 'cause by doing so you can:

* Upload up to 5000 photos.
* Create an unlimited number of slideshows.
* Create slideshows of any size and shape.
* Create higher quality, larger slideshows up to 800 x 600 pixels!
* Download your slideshows and keep them forever.
* Create larger videos in the Video Creator!
* Fast-loading, Ad-free slideshows.
* No Slideroll logo in the corner of your slideshow nor in your videos.

It's such an experience and the procedure in creating a slideshow has never been that easy, indeed it's a user-friendly. I strongly recommend this if you're looking for some video maker or slideshow creator.

improving and monetizing website

2008-10-14T14:33:00.000-07:00

A lot of online marketers nowadays are trying to do their best to compete with the sudden changes of the networks that they are advertising with. Aside from Craigslist' issue of verified phone accounts, we also have Google. The thing is, they have implemented some kind of a system where sometimes ads shown are not really that quality ads or maybe ads just have lesser amount of click through rates. The conversion is just so minimal and I just can't imagine how they are giving their advertisers a minimal return for a well paid PPC ad.

Clear enough, I can't beat their system so I did not take much attention to my PPC campaigns anymore but still ads are running but I have just set a minimal bid for my keywords. At the same time, one of the ways to advertise my products & services is by joining number of social bookmarking sites. There are actually a lot of them that I've joined and to name some we have:

• Propeller.com
• Slashdot.org
• Digg.com
• Technorati.com
• Del.icio.us
• Stumbleupon.com
• Twitter.com
• Reddit.com
• Tagza.com
• Fark.com
• Newsvine.com
• Furl.net
• swik.net
• Connotea.org
• Links Marker
• Sphinn.com
• Blinklist.com
• Faves.com
• Mister-wong.com
• Spurl.net
• Netvouz.com
• Diigo.com
• Backflip.com
• Rawsugar.com
• Bibsonomy.org
• Folkd.com
• Linkagogo.com
• Indianpad.com
• Plugim.com
• Myjeeves.ask.com
• Buddy Marks
• Connectedy
• MyLinkVault
• Google Bookmarks
• Jumptags.com
• Fetch
• OYAX
• A1 Webmarks
• Bookmark Tracker
• myVmarks
• Mixx.com
• Wirefan.com
• Dizzed
• Danogo.com
• Symbaloo
• Ximmy
• Erollover
• YuppMarks
• Health Ranker
• Ka-Boom-It.com

These are just some of the social bookmarking sites that I am working with and so far even without my PPC campaigns, site traffic and earnings are just coming in so easily. This is so because using this kind of optimization will help you promote your site easily and effectively. And to simply make your site be noticed, you just need to maintain and update it regularly.

eid'ul fitr

2008-09-23T04:41:00.000-07:00

October 1 is declared to be a non-working holiday here in the Philippines in observance of Eid'l Fitr (end of Ramadan, a Muslim holiday). Ramadan is an Islamic holy month of fasting, Eid is an Arabic word meaning "festivity", while Fiṭr means "to break the fast" (and can also mean "nature", from the word "fitrah") and so symbolizes the breaking of the fasting period.

I personally witnessed Arabs or Muslims observe their special occasion when I worked in Al Ain, Abu Dhabi 5 years ago. I’ve seen that most people visit bazaars and shopping malls, with their families and children, for last minute Eid shopping. Women, especially young girls, often paint each others' hands with traditional "henna" and wear colourful bangles. Basically, it specifies and marks the end of the fasting of Ramadan so every Muslim wants to celebrate it with their love ones. Usually they wake up early, have a small breakfast and attend mosques for the Eid prayers. Their practices are very solemn and I can still even remember those days when the clock almost strikes at 6pm, people will go rushing on to our store to grab their foods ‘cause they haven’t eaten for the whole day. They really do have a very tough fasting and I think when they do it, it’s a fulfilment on their part. That’s how they are devoted and genuinely respect on what they believed in, and it’s really impressive. It was known that during Ramadan, Muslims all over the world fast from dawn (before sun rise) to sunset, having their first daily meal at sun down prayer time. The purpose of fasting is to teach Muslims patience and humility, as well as to remind Muslims that they are fortunate and should help the needy and less fortunate. The main benefit of Ramadan is for the Muslims to train themselves to exercise restraint with the result being a closer relationship with Allah (God) and this is meant to feel how the poor people are without food or water, there’s a healthier more appreciative self by the end of the month. Also during this celebration gifts are given out and also traded between friends and family.

Craigslist's bad move

2008-09-15T09:59:00.000-07:00

been struggling to get that code that they were saying. have entered our Colorado number for five times already but got no call from them. have also used four Colorado phone numbers already but all of them cannot be verified according to craigslist. is it because we are using a VOIP? but they must have provided us with a valid reason and not that same repeating error message.
yeah, craigslist (CL) is basically data mining so they can sell info to 3rd party taggers. two of the sites that we're working on are mainly depending on CL and now that they are very strict on the postings that we're making, obviously business is not quite working well for the moment and it's kinda hard 'cause there are no other sites that can be compared to it. Kijiji.com and Backpage.com are not that effective, you will experience a lot of errors even while you're still in the process of posting your ad. It's kinda frustrating! We swear if ever CL will continue and live to that verification procedure and always not attend to our problems, we'll totally leave them and go to another site like many other online marketers are doing for sure.
They better fix what they screwed up or they wont have any business left.

Virgin of Guadalupe

2008-09-07T06:32:00.000-07:00

We thought we can't do our regular Sunday rosary to our Mother Virgin of Guadalupe, because there was a strong wind then suddenly it started raining very hard. That was the time when we took our dinner and which was supposedly after that we'll do the rosary. We know Mama Mary tried to test us if we really are true to our words that we'll be holding such activity every Sunday evening but we really do it because we are keeping our promise and we're true to Her we don't want to fail Her. We have faith in Her and we love Her, praying together is just our one way of thanking Her for all the blessings that we receive each day especially for the good health. We really don't care if we're not that blessed enough financially but what's important is that we're happy being together - the whole family and the harmonious relationship that we have.
I personally would like to tell this story of mine why i get close to Her and it all happened in my dream. Basically i dreamed of Her when i was 20, it was on that afternoon when i was sleeping in the couch of our living room and in my dream i really was sleeping but i was awakened by that songs I've heard sung by little babies or say voices of children. So i get up and stood in our front door and looking outside to see & figure out where those voices came from, i look up at the sky 'cause it seems like those voices I've heard came from above and that's when suddenly i saw two angels floating in the sky then slowly by slowly Virgin of Guadalupe showed up and they are slowly moving & going up to the heaven. She didn't spoke to me, i never heard Her voice, She never told me anything I just saw Her. And it happened twice but not on the same day, i can't really remember the second incident though but i know it was also in my dream.
Virgin of Guadalupe is not that popular here in our place i mean there are only few people here who devoted this image of our Mother Mary. I know She was Virgin of Guadalupe because of the movie MariMar when I always saw her image/picture on tv.
This was the same story i've shared to my whole family when we finished praying the Holy rosary four hours ago.

My Primary Marketing Strategy: Email Marketing

2008-09-05T13:24:00.000-07:00

Ever felt that happiness in your heart when someone really appreciates what you're doing and find you genuine? I have felt it just yesterday at work. Basically, part of my job is to do replies on emails regarding this particular website that we are promoting and that of course all emails speaks about the products & services that we are offering. Now for almost 4 months in this job, it was just yesterday when i felt that at least there is someone out there from a very far place appreciates what i am doing or obviously what our company has been offering. We basically sell this stuff to our customer by announcing these products on free classified ads on the net, customers found our postings then they'll send email/s to us saying that they're interested. For most of the times, I'll just have an offensive replies from them since there is this process that they have to fill up first and some of them just don't like it. To think it's not even hard for them it's just a basic online purchasing. Well anyway, this thing about yesterday makes me like my job now 'cause he is nice and his response is very soft and respectful. He even said that his daughter will really be happy since she will finally have that opportunity to witness that event. And because he thought that those postings that we have made on classified ads are fake or something like not genuine but he said he was wrong and good thing he tried contacting our email address 'cause by doing so we proved him wrong. He even told me that i should inform my boss about the closed sale i've made, maybe because he wants me to get a commission out of that sale. Because of that nice email response i gave him, he in return had replied a very nice email as well.
Lesson learned is that no matter how much you have tried to respond hundreds, thousands or even millions of emails everyday just to complete your task on that day will give you a feeling of satisfaction in your online business, you're absolutely not making any sense at all and for sure you'll not be making a good return out of that. What's important is that you're doing it with quality, with emotions and with a very kind approach, and by that it's not only a feeling of satisfaction at work but there is also an assurance of a better return on investment with it. Do it now and you'll have an effective email marketing.

being an online marketer

2008-08-20T13:13:00.000-07:00

this can be referred to as internet advertising or eMarketing and from the word itself, it is marketing or selling your products over the internet. i have been in this business for over 2 years now and with that span of time i find it very interesting and fun since you will be able to meet a lot of opportunities and chances of meeting a lot of people over the net. eMarketing has become one of my interests for some time now because it is relatively inexpensive compared to other means of promoting your products or services. You can reach a wide audience for a small fraction of traditional advertising budgets. And this is ideal for those who are planning to dispose and sell their products effectively.

The nature of this type of business allows consumers to research and buy products and services at their own convenience. Therefore, businesses have the advantage of appealing to consumers in a way that can bring results quickly. The strategy and overall effectiveness of marketing campaigns depend on business goals.

To be successful in this field, you just have to work hard, devote yourself in what you're doing and most importantly you have to embrace adversity and failures, they're really part of the process and you can learn from them.

miss u guys!!!..

2006-09-21T21:56:00.000-07:00

Just when i thought of my friends & my life back there in Emarat... Nothin' much to write but just expressing myself of what I'm feeling as of the moment, I'm kinda feelin' bored and all! I miss them & all the crazy stuffs that we did! Hehehe... Way back, we share every pain, every heartache & everything that we have including BOYS!!! Hahaha just kidding... LOL!! But really we treat each other as sisters since we live together, we eat together & we celebrate occassions together like Christmas & birthdays.. Life is different in there because of the different culture that we have to practice & there are so many rules that needs to be followed! But whatever it is, my life has never been this great with friends around even if they're far from me but this I would say, we're the kind of friends that even in silence the nice bonds remains... I miss you guys! :)

just feeling the grief of what you called LIFE..

2006-09-20T23:50:00.000-07:00

Nowhere to go & no one to run to.. Life's like that, too risky & unstable huh! hehehe... It's just intended to be like that for us to taste the sweetness & goodness of life... Maybe you're wondering why on earth i'm talking like this??!! lol.. But because I just love life & I'm feeling its grief! tnt... :)