Having your website rank at the top of the search engines will provide you with a stream of traffic ready to read buy or interact with your site. Getting this high first page ranking in the main search engines such as Google Yahoo and MSN is extremely difficult and not to mention time consuming.

Search engines take considerable notice of how many and the quality of incoming links to your site. Traditionally webmasters have sent out link requests asking to exchange links this however is becoming more and more ineffective as people’s email addresses are spammed by automated robots.

Method savvy internet marketers are now using article submissions. Here is how it works. The webmaster writes an article on the topic of their site including a back link to their site. They then submit this to various article directories. In turn some of these article directories list this article and its back link and also distribute it to all their members. Some even pass this onto other article sites.

This can manually take a long time however. A lot of copying and pasting of articles has to happen you have to log in and log out of sites and the whole thing can be very tedious. Over the past 6 months new products have been released that take some of the tedium out of article submissions. These semi-automatically go to the relevant sites and submit your article logging in for you and populating the forms with your article. They can be a great time saver.

Finally there are new services that actually go off and submit your articles for free to other large directories. They advertise on your article page on their site. This is a win-win situation. The article writer gets valuable backlinks to their site or their content read by many people the large article directory gets the extra content and advertising revenue so everyone is happy.

We highly recommend article writing for marketing your site it may take a little time but with the services outlined here it need not be so painful as it once was.

Aweber and Mailchimp for Website Marketing

If you do not have a Mailchimp account or an Aweber account then you are not serious about your website marketing. Both of these companies offer a free signup for new accounts. I have a Mailchimp account and it is used to collect email addresses for me. I just create a new list for every website I build, then create a form for that list, and get the code and paste it into a text widget on my sidebar. Its that easy. Mailchimp does the rest.

Setup 7 auto responder emails to to go out to your new optins

If you set up emails in your account to send out to your optins and certain times, automatically, it will save you time and stress in the end. I usually setup 7 emails to send out over a few months. The more emails you have lined up, the better. In the emails you can link back to your website, add affiliate links, and more. Always give valuable information to keep them wanting more. Setting up this foundation is very valuable. You do not want people signing up to your list and then receiving no correspondence from you. You need to keep your website fresh in their minds and give them a reason to visit.

Local Business Must Ask for Customers Email Addresses

The sad truth is that most businesses, whether they sell high-dollar services or $40 gift-baskets, completely “miss the boat” when it comes to asking for customer emails.  Though email predates the Web, the following 5 mistakes highlight just how much opportunity still remains for improvement in small business email marketing.

Email Marketing Mistakes

Mistake #1: Not Asking

How hard do you work to get people into your store or office?

How much do you pay in advertising to get people to your website?

Cultivating a list of customers and prospects you communicate with via email rates as the most cost-effective way to stay in touch. Nothing else offers the time leverage and speed of communication (no, not even Facebook or Twitter), yet the vast majority of businesses never ask for an email address. ASK! Start using the Internet’s most basic communication tool to build your business.

Mistake #2: Inconsistency

Train your staff to ask for customer emails consistently and tell them exactly what to say and when. Don’t leave anything to chance. You might even try incentivizing your staff to ask for customer emails. Pay them $1 for every customer email they collect (the right way) so they get into the habit of asking. By the way, $1 for a targeted email with name and contact information is pure GOLD and will definitely get your team in the habit of asking consistently!

Mistake #3: No Value Exchange

The majority of businesses that do ask for email don’t operate with a standard script. The request for email comes as an afterthought or with an apologetic “My boss made me ask you” attitude from the person behind the cash register. I experienced that on a trip to Toys-R-Us some years ago when buying a new Playstaion. As the young lady behind the counter rang up the sale, she sullenly asked “Do you want to join our email list?” My knee-jerk reaction was “No! You’ll spam me!”

In other words, when I didn’t see value in the way she asked, I said no.

Mistake #4: Unclear Promise

When you ask someone to give you their email, they immediately fire off a set of internal questions:

• Why do you want my email?
• What’s in it for me?
• Will you spam me?

No matter what size business you operate, asking for email with a simple script that offers a clear promise of value often defuses customer concerns. You can do this either with the name of the list or the offer for joining the list.

For example, you could say:

• Would you like to join our Online Newsletter & Specials Club?
• Would you like a free subscription to our Online Updates & Discount Club?
• Would you like instant access to unadvertised specials and customer-only updates?

Mistake #5: No Obvious Opt-In

When anyone visits your website, you need to let them know they CAN sign up for you list. Though it sounds obvious here, most websites don’t make a big, bold, benefit-driven promise to entice people to sign up. Just as with live people coming into your store, don’t hide the fact that you offer value through email on your website. Always make an obvious and compelling promise for why people should opt-in to your list.

Bottom line:

Sum up the promise of joining your email list in 1-2 sentences and consistently make that offer to new and existing customers. Once you get that email address, follow up consistently, send valuable, relevant information and build anticipation for every message you send to your subscribers. Do this for 30 days and you’ll be amazed at how quickly you can build up a responsive, profitable email list.

Reprinted from http://smallbusinessmarketingweekly.com/email-marketing-mistakes/.

Word of Mouth is great WHEN it happens.  In fact, it’s the absolute
best form of advertising.

But for word-of-mouth to happen, too many variables need to take place.

For example…

1. A person needs to have
a great experience with your
product or service.

2. A person needs to be
talking to another person
that has a need for your
product or service.

3. A person needs to
remember you during
that conversation.

4. A person needs to
open their mouth and
actually refer you.

Too many variables have to line up for a referral to happen with normal word-of-mouth advertising.

What you really need is to get referrals in a more systematic way.

When you have a SYSTEM that generates referrals, a few things happen….

1. You get referrals on a
CONSISTENT basis, day in and
day out, no matter what.

2. You can PREDICT with some
sense of accuracy the amount
of referrals you’ll get and
when you’ll get them.

3. The referral system can
be DUPLICATED, which means
that you can implement the
same system in other
parts of your business and
you can expect to get the
same results.

Thats why you need a list. You need to collect the email addresses of your customers and frequently send out communications to them, even if they are just “Thank yous” for being one of your customers.

How much does this cost? NOTHING. Not a dime once it is in place.

Stop ignoring the power of the LIST! Collect those email addresses and….

• Start publishing a regular newsletter

• Run specials and discounts and let your customers know

• Send thank yous, reminders, and general information about your service or products

Your best source for new sales is your past sales.