There are two types on internet marketing, Paid Advertizing and Search Engine Optimization.
Paid methods include:
1. PPC – pay per click
2. CPA – cost per action or acquisition
3. CPM- cost per impression
4. Banner ads
5. Paid Textlinks
6. Newsletter advertising
Search Engine methods include, but are not limited to:
1. Article marketing
2. Videos
3. Podcasts
4. Press releases
5. Backlinks
6. Social Media
What is the key difference between them?
Paid advertisements are great for driving traffic to your site TODAY, BUT there are no long term benefits! When you stop paying, the ad comes down, and your traffic stops.
SEO methods are the opposite. They don’t work in a hurry, but if you implement a good marketing campaign, the results will last for years- without any additional work or expense.
SEO marketing works by placing CONTENT on the web. This content contains backlinks pointing to your site. Backlinks do two things- drive traffic to your site AND increase your rankings in the search engines. It takes a little while, but once the backlinks add up it stays there forever. Therefore we are going to concentrate on methods that help us in SEO rankings.
Paid Advertising FAILS on both counts
When you stop paying, they cease to exist, so they have NO STICK RATE whatsoever! Nor do they have any organic growth capabilities.
ORGANIC STAYING POWER
Now let’s look at organic marketing methods such as articles, videos and podcasts. We’ll address stickiness first. Once submitted to directories or media sharing sites, do you have to pay to keep them there? Nope, not as far as I have seen. Do you have to continually go back and keep reloading the data? No again!
Can you put up a video or article today and still find it in the search engines a year or more down the road? Unless you have broken a major rule, of course you can! Matter of fact, we have articles that are five years old that still show up. The internet doesn’t forget. The content remains forever as far as we can see! As long as it is relevant content and provides good value to search engine users, your submissions can actually thrive and go viral, creating hordes of traffic and backlinks!
Organic marketing methods PASS on both counts!
I am not against paid advertising. However I do know these simple facts:
1. No matter how much paid advertising we have done or how much we have spent, it NEVER helps our organic search engine rankings.
2. No matter how much money we’ve spent on advertising in the past, there are never any future freebies. When we stop paying, the ads stop. Period!
3. The higher up in the organic search we rank, the less we need to spend on PPC.
4. Once up in the organic search with good quality relevant content, the easier it is to stay there.
5. Organic search has a much higher click through rate than PPC, because it has a higher trust factor; and this can equate to 3-8 times more traffic in the top spot!
6. Organic has stick and duplication properties. Many times we will have articles or videos that were sent out a year earlier, that now deliver more backlinks than they did originally.
7. CONTENT IS KING! Therefore, we spend the majority of our marketing time on organic SEO methods that will keep working long after we do; and the minority on tweaking our paid methods, just makes sense! (And works really well too!)
Now that we’ve established why organic marketing is key, let’s look into the marketing methods you should use and why.
Whom Are You Trying To Reach?
Whose attention are you looking for? Is it folks looking for information? Is it people looking to buy cruises or vacation packages? Is it the search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing? Or is it all of the above?
It’s ALL of them, of course! By targeting keywords in your marketing efforts, you are telling all parties including the search engines what your site is all about! This is the basis of any solid SEO campaign.
Core Methods of Organic Marketing
By the way, I call it organic marketing and not SEO because SEO applies to all search engine optimization techniques used to raise your ranking position. Whereas organic marketing focuses only on the methods with self duplicating growth built in.
The following is a brief overview to introduce the methods to you,
1. Article Writing
This is where I being. Why? Because writing is in my comfort zone, and truthfully it probably will be yours too. You need content for your site and it’s a logical place to start!
2. Blog Posting
Not much to add here, as this post is simply your original article you created, just posted on your site. The key thing here is to post it on your site BEFORE you submit it elsewhere so that YOU get the credit for the original content before some other site does!
3. Article Marketing
Article marketing is broken down into two types- manual and automated. Manual article submission is just that. You create accounts at article directories and then submit your content for inclusion into their directory. Time consuming, but well worth the backlinks you get.
Automated services multiply your efforts by helping you create unique versions of your content and then distributing it to large networks of sites for posting. This DRAMATICALLY increases the backlinks you receive with very little additional work.
4. Press Releases
Is the subject of your article newsworthy? Does it announce a breakthrough or a discovery? Does it discuss current events that are in the news? Are you talking about a newly formed business partnership or a buyout? Then it may be of interest to the newswires such as PRWeb and PRNewsWire. Learn what a news release consists of and see if your article applies. If it does, Press Releases can be a very high value addition to your marketing arsenal.
5. Video Creation and Distribution
Once you have an article written, you literally have a fresh new video script created. Take your article and create a PowerPoint presentation and record it in Camtasia. Or if you are more old school, talk about the content of your article on camera and use a whiteboard. Or just shoot a straight up video. It doesn’t matter as long as you are passionate about your topic; the passion will come through in your presentation.
As with article marketing, there are automated services like TrafficGeyser, that will not only save you time on distribution, but also post your content to more places than you would bother to do manually!
6. Podcast Creation and Distribution
Podcasts are downloadable or “streaming” audio feeds you can take or create from your content- usually after you have shot your video. Services like TrafficGeyser are also great for distributing your podcasts.
Quality Counts
You’ve heard “Content is King!”- Well, then “Quality is Queen”. They work hand in hand!
Do you know what the difference is between a good article and a bad article; or a good video and a bad video? About 15 minutes; it’s true! Spend a little more time on your articles and videos before you push them out the door and the quality that comes from that will pay for itself many times over!
I know in our quantity driven marketplace it can be difficult, but take the time to create quality content. Case in point! The top internet marketers don’t put out hordes of content, but they do put out quality information that people are looking for and are reaping the rewards for doing so.
Don’t put all your marketing eggs in one basket!
I see this all the time in the online world as everyone likes to tout that there is only one way to do something- and as you can imagine, that one thing is exactly what they promote for monetary gain. Anybody who tells you that all you need is the one product or service they promote is doing you a great disservice because they are curtailing your online success. So just run away!
For example, we specialize in providing marketing, training, systems, and tools, so naturally I think that article marketing is one of the core principles for any online venture, but so is PPC; so are podcasts; so are videos; so are Press Releases and social media. We would never tell you that the only thing you need is our service.
As a serious marketer, you need to be using ALL of these core service ALL of the time on a consistent basis. Marketing is not about using one method for a month, then switching to something else for a month, then doing nothing for a month, and then coming back wondering why the traffic is fluctuating up and down like a yo-yo! Marketing is about consistency with the processes you know that work. Consistency helps you build a solid foundation to work on.
Realistically not all of your customers go to YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Likewise, not everyone reads articles; listens to podcasts; or receives newsletters either, but some of your customers do and the search engines see them ALL! SO YOU SHOULD USE THEM ALL!
Show Me A System That Works.
Alright, let’s get started by expanding on the methods we talked about earlier and throw in a few tips and techniques along the way…
Step 1. Write an article- you need content for your site anyway, so this is a logical place to start.
a. Identify your targeted keywords and key-phrases using tools like Market Samurai or Google’s Keyword Tool.
b. Either composes or commission an article based on your keywords.
c. Ensure your keyword is in the title – this is critical.
d. Ensure your keyword is in the first paragraph – this is where the excerpts in the search engines come from.
e. DO NOT keyword stuff or keyword load your article – it makes your article read badly and, even though opinions vary, I don’t think the search engines can be fooled that easily any longer!
f. Don’t put links in your article body – use the body to give value to your readers and leave the sales pitch for the resource/author bio box. Again, opinions vary, but this has been proven as a best practice by the largest article directory on the net – EzineArticles.com
g. Post your article to your site if that is what the content is for.
Step 2. Use your article as a script for a video.
a. Use the same targeted keywords and key-phrases that you found from using tools like Market Samurai or Google’s Keyword Tool … See a pattern here?
b. Review your article and strip out key points for your video content, or;
c. Read the article as it is (if it suits your style), or;
d. Create a PowerPoint presentation with a voice over; be creative!
e. Make sure you put your keywords in the name of the video and the alt tags if applicable
f. As for actual filming, the most important things are;
i. Get a good quality microphone. No matter how compelling the content is, if the audio is bad, people will leave!
g. If you are shooting live motion (e.g. YOU) then make your lighting the best you can. Three lights are best – a key light behind and two on the subject at 45 degree angles. Or use a natural light source from a window on one side and a table lamp on the other. Have someone look through the viewfinder to see what looks best.
h. If you are shooting live motion and your camera has manual white balance capabilities, use it. The easiest way is to set up your lighting for best effect and then have your model hold a white piece of paper close to their face; zoom the camera in; and set the white balance off that. This will keep you from getting weird hues and skin tones. Every time you change the lighting, you need to reset the white balance. Your camera will do the best it can automatically if you don’t have this feature.i. Upload your video to your computer and complete any necessary edits.
i. Upload the video to your hosting provider, or if you use an outside source like AmazonS3, post it there.
j. Put the video on your site via embedding or streaming.
Step 3. Create a podcast from your article or video.
a. Use your targeted keywords and key-phrases from Market Samurai or Google’s Keyword Tool
b. Strip the audio out of the video for a podcast or;
c. If the audio does not standalone from the video, create a new one from your article.
d. Embed the podcast into your site.
Step 4. Look at your article, is it newsworthy? Or can it be modified into a newsworthy story? If so, create a Press Release.
a. Decide whether your content really has news value to it
- Does it introduce a new feature of your system?
- Does it announce a new publication
- Does it announce a new business partnership?
- Is it really news, or is it just a thinly veiled advertisement for your site? If it is the latter, DON’T SEND IT
- Having a couple of quotes (with full names)
- Dates and times of the event.
- The story is written in the third person.
OKAY, I did that. Now What?
Now we get into content distribution.
1. Your article
a. Take your article and rewrite it and send itnto a few of the big sites that require unique content like EzineArticles and Buzzle.
- Signup for an account at each site.
- Review their submission guidelines and submit accordingly.
- Wait patiently for your article to be approved
- If you are going to use article distribution services, it is best if you learn how their content needs to be structured and then rewrite to those guidelines to save you extra steps.
- Start out with QUALITY content that you would put your name on. These services still submit to other people’s sites and directories and if you submit garbage it will just get deleted! Don’t waste your time, money and effort.
- Enter articles in the format required by the system.
- These services submit to hundreds and thousands of sites and directories – if they give you tools to make your articles unique – USE THEM! The more unique the versions are that get sent out, the more backlinks you’ll eventually get in the search engines.
- If there is a tool to create unique titles, use it.
- If there is a tool to spin words and phrases in the body, use it – BUT REMEMBER: NO automatic spinners!
- If there is a tool to embed your videos, podcasts, or images; USE IT!
- If there is a tool to create multiple resource boxes; USE IT!
- Be sure to select the proper categories for your submission. If you don’t, many sites will not change this for you, they will just delete your content.
- If you can stagger the number of articles submitted per day; do it!
1. New site: 1-5 submissions per day (one article at a time)
2. Three month old sites: 5-10 submissions per day.
3. Six month old site: 30 per day (I use this on all my sites.
4. Quality first. Content second.
2. Your Press Release
Submit to PRnewsWire.com and PRlog.com What if I can’t write? Go to MyArticalExpress.com of Ineedanartical.com. The internet thrives on content. Give it what it wants, and you will prosper.
Whatever else you do to market, make sure you do this:
- White an Article
- Post it on your blog.
- Submit to as many article directories and blog as you can.
- Repeat once a week until you have all the leads you want.
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