The Good, Bad, and Ugly Side of Marketing Online

You wouldn’t have launched an online business if you didn’t see the positive side to making money online. There’s the unlimited amount of profits, the ability to become self-employed and work less while earning more, but there are also some drawbacks that hinder your goal of achieving brand recognition and customer devotion.

With a decent computer and an Internet connection, you have the ability to create a space where your customers can congregate. That may mean a static website where you convert a sale or a forum where members can interact with others and yourself.

You can contact them, provided you adhere to permission-based contact and don’t violate their trust by flooding their inbox with irrelevant offers just to seize the opportunity to beef up your bank account – which almost always backfires and results in complete loss of credibility and a depleted mailing list.

But you can’t smile and look them in the eye and shake their hands to make them realize you’re a trustworthy person. You can’t speak to them and instantly get their feedback and respond to their objections, questions, or complaints. What’s the solution?

Reaching Out to Deliver a Personalized Experience

What are the primary ways you want to build a connection to your customer? You know you want to build a brand and image. That’s the first course of business. Once you have recognition, it means you’ve positioned yourself as a leader among a sea of competitors.

You can achieve brand recognition through smart marketing tactics. Never abuse your customers’ email addresses, but do contact them whenever you feel you have a truly valuable product or service to give them. Do your best to research the offering, the reputation and/or experience of the person behind it, and study the product or service to be sure it’s worthy of your stamp of approval. Your reputation is at stake – be diligent!

Time your communications and launches so that they’re not back-to-back where they prevent people from buying, but they’re not spread so far apart that the customer forgets who you are in between offers. Better yet, intersperse these offers with emails containing helpful, valuable information pertinent to the reason they’re on your list to begin with. Even if you do a brief, monthly Top Five Tips, your offers will be more readily received and likely to be taken more seriously.

Remind your customers whenever you interact why you’re contacting them in the first place. Tell them what product they purchased in the past and never assume they’ll recall doing it. Some of these purchases or memberships are made in the wee morning hours on the spur of a moment when a friend made a quick recommendation.

The second thing you want to do is provide quality customer service. Whenever anyone accesses your site, they should be able to access you. That doesn’t mean they can call your cell phone at 2 o’clock in the morning. But if they can email you and get a response within 24 hours, you’re providing a doorway into your world that most online consumers will accept and appreciate. 

Every site you launch should have a troubleshooting/FAQ area where the person can find help instantly or contact someone for assistance. This is especially true if a purchase has just been made with the promise of an immediate download, and the customer then finds he or she can’t download the product as promised.

In each email you send out, make sure the recipient has a way to unsubscribe or respond to the communication if they wish. Intruding on someone’s email can be a bothersome thing to many people, even if they agreed to receive information.

The third and last thing you want to do to build a bridge of communication is set your contact system on autopilot. Email Autoresponders allow you to drip information and offers to your clients on a regular basis, setting up systems that go into place depending on which action the customer took.

If they bought one particular eBook from your site, then your system might encourage them to become a member of your other site that complements their original purchase. Or, if they’re members already, your system might promote an information product purchase.

Even your email settings should be set up so that, if you aren’t glued to your inbox all day (which you shouldn’t be), it automatically sends a note out to let the person who emailed you know that you received their communication and you’ll be reviewing it and get back to them at a later time.

There are many options to making the Internet a personal experience. If your customers need a face to the name, then add your photo or an audio or video file that lets them feel close to you in a friendlier environment. Always strive to find ways to humanize and personalize the online businessrelationship experience. Show your customers that you value their business and will work hard toward maintaining a long-term, trusting relationship. This will leave them with a positive impression of you as an entrepreneur and will increase your chances of leveraging the power of communication for your ultimate online success.

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But they do have some drawbacks that discourage many users. For one thing, they are also considered the most expensive PPC network. Since they have more traffic, they also have a lot more competition. This drives prices way up. AdWords also has  more rules than most of the other networks.

Because of things like intense competition, high prices, and rules that many believe to be a bit excessive, more and more marketers are looking for other options.

One of the best alternatives is MSN AdCenter. MSN/Bing is one of the most popular search engines, and they do have a decent level of traffic. It’s obviously nowhere near the level of Google, but they do have enough traffic to make using them worthwhile. Their prices are generally cheaper than AdWords, making them an attractive option.

Yahoo Search Marketing  is also popular. Yahoo has been a leader in the search engine marketplace for many years, and they provide a decent level of traffic. Their prices are reasonable, too.

Kanoodle  has been popular for several years. They boast pretty good traffic and competitive prices. Although they don’t have the level of traffic that one of the big three could provide, they still have enough to provide a steady flow to some of the bigger search terms.

AdBrite  is a network that pays webmasters to put their ads on their sites. Because they have a relatively large number of Non-AdWords Options for Pay Per Click Marketing advertisers, they can provide a fair number of visitors. Since they have to pay their advertisers, their prices aren’t quite as low as they could be, but they are still generally far less than AdWords. Personally I haven’t had much success with them.

One of the networks that many webmasters recommend staying away from is GoClick. This network is notorious for providing high volumes of very low-quality traffic. Their clicks are generally very inexpensive, and they can provide very high traffic volumes, but most webmasters claim the quality of the traffic is so poor that it’s practically impossible to even break even, much less make a profit.

There are several other networks that might have potential for some website owners. Some of them have decent traffic levels and good prices. It’s best to put a few dollars into several networks and test the traffic before you make a decision on which ones to use in a bigger way.

Some others you may want to try include: 7 Search, Miva, LookSmart, Ask.com, Search 123, Search Feed, ABC Search, Findology, Local.com, and Pulse 360.

Although Google Adwords should be your first choice do try several of these PPC networks to see which one works best for your niche.

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Narrowing your focus to just a few sites and then building from there is the best way to approach social networking, especially if you want to make money. A strategic plan will help you build traffic in a measurable way without scattering your time and energy in many different directions.

At the core of your social networking plan is your “launch pad,” the site to which you will drive all of your online traffic. This can be a blog, a website, or a squeeze page. For the purposes of this plan, we’re going to make it a blog.

There are several reasons why using a blog for your launch pad is a good idea. Blogs have a higher level of interactivity with the audience. The content on a blog is constantly changing, so it always stays fresh and therefore ranks higher in search engine results. A blog will help you build a relationship with your niche and become a more trusted advisor.

You should use either Blogger or Wordpress to set up your blog. Do some keyword research in your niche and find a blog title that incorporates a popular keyword. This way you will get some automatic traffic from the title of the blog itself.

In fact, you should develop a short list of keywords that you will use to tag your content later on in the other social networking sites. When you focus your keyword choices around a short list, you will be able to rise in the rankings for those keywords pretty quickly.

When you start your blog, you will need to focus on creating interesting, compelling content. Map out five to ten blog posts and add them before you start promoting your blog through social networking sites.

For example, let’s say you are in the wedding niche. You have an affiliate relationship with a company that sells wedding favors. You decide that you want to develop a social networking plan to promote this particular company’s products.

Looking at some keyword results, there are many different types of wedding favors to choose from and many are the focus of lots of searches each day. You could use a URL that is general like www.weddingfavorinfo.com and then offer information on the many different types of wedding favors. On your blog, you can use banner ads or small graphic ads to link back to the affiliate site. You can also provide text links within your blog posts for visitors to click on as they read your suggestions.

Once you have your blog up and running, then it is time to create some Squidoo lenses (www.squidoo.com) and Hubpages (www.hubpages.com). To start, you should create three lenses and three Hubpages on similar keywords, all pointing back to your blog. With our wedding favor example, you could start with the three most popular types of favors and build pages around them (golf wedding favors, cheap wedding favors, unique wedding favors).

After you have built your lenses and pages, you can network within each site with people who are interested in what you have to offer. You can post comments on other people’s lenses or pages, and link to their sites. Look for people who have similar sites and network with them.

You can add your blog’s RSS feed to your lenses and pages. This way they will be constantly updated with the fresh content from your blog. In addition to the links back to your blog, you can also have links to the affiliate program within your lenses and pages.

Over a period of time, you can begin to add to the network of lenses and pages until you have criss-crossed all of your major keywords. Stumble Upon is a terrific tool for adding more power to your blog, lenses, and pages. When you sign up for Stumble Upon and download the toolbar, you will be able to check “I like it” as you visit your own sites and sites that are within your niche. Over time, you develop a list of your favorite sites which becomes a catalog of popular sites within your niche.

It is important, as you use Stumble Upon, that you not limit yourself to just

bookmarking your own sites. Your Stumble Upon profile will have much more impact and draw if it covers a wide breadth of sites within your niche. What makes Stumble Upon a great social networking tool (better than many social bookmarking tools out there), is that you can find users who have similar interests. On the main site, you can search the community for keywords and then make contact with people interested in your niche.

When you add someone as a friend on Stumble Upon, they will very likely look over your list of sites and bookmark them. Then your links will spread throughout the community, bring you traffic and make you more money.

These simple steps will create a broad network of backlinks and some

great Web 2.0 traffic. It will help you establish your site as an authority in

your niche market, and bring you targeted, interested traffic. The type of traffic that makes you money online!

If you found this information useful consider joining my free membership with over $500 worth of bonuses inside.

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How to Increase Traffic to your Website

Approach the following list as you would a smorgasbord…use what most appeals to you, and if you get good results, go back for seconds.

Google Adwords: When you open up the Google search engine on your browser and type in a keyword, the results page will generate three sections of results. Directly underneath the search box are the sponsored results, which are high-dollar marketing campaigns. Beneath those are the natural, or organic search results. And to the right side of the page is a list of more sponsored results run through AdWords.

Depending on the keyword or phrase entered, you might see a single pay-perclick ad to the right side of the page or you might see a list going down the page for dozens of pages. It all depends on how much competition there is for that keyword or phrase.

People utilize the AdWords option on Google because some find it hard to achieve a top 10 position on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Instead, they launch a PPC campaign and within five minutes, their ads are showing on page one of the SERPs, without having to wait for Googlebots to crawl and index their sites.

Google AdWords can be a powerful marketing tool if utilized the right way. A lot of Internet Marketers use Google Adwords as their primary source for traffic.

For a run-down of the way AdWords works, click here.

SEO: The goal of Search Engine Optimizing a site is to increase traffic, but smart SEO also increases the relevancy of the traffic. The more relevant your traffic, the better the odds that those who click on your site in the search engine returns will be looking for what you offer, meaning more conversions
in the way of sales, ads, or affiliates, sign ups for your newsletter, or whatever action you want you want your visitors to take.

A successful SEO plan includes these basic elements:

- Relevant, popular, and competitive keywords used wisely in the Web page’s title, content, meta tags, head tags (or headings and subheadings in large/bold font), anchor text, and image alt tags in a manner that is both search engine friendly and reader friendly.

- A user friendly and search engine spider friendly site.

- Backlinks from well-ranking Web pages.

- Patience, as it will take time for a new site to rank.

Click here for more information on SEO.

Social Networking: Using this method, you can connect to people on a personal level. Social networking – basically online communities sharing similar interests — can be a powerful marketing tool, but by the same token it can attract droves of traffic to your site.

If you’ve never been much of a social butterfly, give it a try anyway. If you post on forums, you’ve already taken a step into networking. Many of those who are shyby nature enjoy socializing through instant messaging and web-based platforms such as Twitter and Facebook where they can post updates, chat, blog, etc. and of course attract others to their sites.

Keep in mind that successful social networking calls for subtlety and transparency. Attraction, not promotion is the name of the game. Keep most of your posts positive as well. Contribute to the community, and without being overly promotional be sure they know how to find your site. Again, successful social networking is all about attracting likeminded people, not pushing. And it really can be a whole lot of fun!

Social networking websites are being used regularly by millions of people, and it looks like online social networking will become a lasting part of everyday life.

Create Viral Articles: This is another free-to-use, traffic-building tactic that can also double as a marketing tool.

In a nutshell, here’s how it works: you write and optimize interesting articles (how to articles are very popular) on your niche topics, placing your link and a blurb in the appropriate area of the article. Then you upload at a high-ranking article directory such as EzineArticles.

Newsletter and ezine publishers looking for content regularly trawl sites like this and subscribe to the RSS feeds of their favorite writers. Articles that get syndicated this way may be read by thousands, even hundreds of thousands.

Also well-optimized articles at EzineArticles have a very good chance of making Google’s first page. Look for the specifics on viral marketing coming later in this series.

Blogging: Another staple in many a site owner’s pantry of traffic-driving tactics. Matt Cutts of Google has said in interviews that along with social networking and video sharing, blogging is one “the best things one can do to promote their sites.”

Since Google’s Blogger was launched in 1999, blogs have reshaped the web, impacted politics, shaken up journalism, and enabled millions of people to have a voice and connect with others. While some people talk about writing “articles” for their blogs, a great blog post is much more personable than an article.

A blog provides you the opportunity to really connect with your readers who can then, if you choose, comment on your posts (you can approve the comments first). Readers who are interested in what you have to say are more apt to click to your site. And a blog is a terrific way to jumpstart traffic to your site because blogs tend to get indexed by Google much faster than websites. Plus blogs work so much better with cool tactics like pinging and RSS feeds.

• How to start a blog
• How to ping and use RSS feeds for crazy amounts of traffic.
• The two leading blogging platforms: Google Blogger and WordPress.

Share Videos: Another free traffic-driving (and marketing) tactic with huge potential, video sharing is very much akin to social networking in that your videos do best when they attract not promote. In fact video sharing sites are a form of social networking. People comment on the videos, interacting with the poster and each other.

Sites like YouTube give you a personal page, often that you can design, and where you can list other videos and share more about yourself and link to your site.

Many videos are viewed by thousands, where video posters often develop followings, meaning more traffic to their sites.

• How to create a video or slide show

Build a List: Having a list of email subscribers that you send automated emails and broadcasts is a basic for those selling products, but it’s also a big traffic booster because your emails, if written properly, will entice readers to keep coming back.

Really interesting, well written newsletters or tips or whatever you call your emails also have a good chance of being shared by your subscribers with their friends. And when you link from an email to a great new page of content, there’s always the possibility of attracting one of those important
quality backlinks.

The challenge is creating emails that your subscribers – who probably have Inboxes already jammed with promotional emails – will actually open and read.

Podcast: Audio and video podcasts are another terrific way to attract traffic to your site. Like a blog, a podcast is syndicated through Web feeds, except podcasts are syndicated to portable MP3 players, such as iPod, in addition to personal computers. When you add new content, it gets downloaded automatically. Podcasting is a terrific way to boost traffic as well as expert status, which in turn boosts traffic.

You can Podcast audio interviews with experts in your niche, audios of you reading from a script you write, videos you shoot with your digital camera. People like listening to audio – it provides a break from all the online reading and is more personable than text. And video of course is very popular.

• The how-to of podcasting.

Publish & Ping: How to put Squidoo, HubPages, Google Knols, and WikiSpaces to work for you to create wild amounts of traffic volume. The traffic may only last a few days, but if you have a great page set up on your site, you’re likely to snag a good amount of returning traffic as well as backlinks and new subscribers to your list.

Social Bookmark:  Sites such as Digg.com, StumbleUpon.com and Del.icio.us can bring you huge amounts of traffic. When you’ve published a really good Web page ask a few friends to tag it for you. If your site gets on the front page, hundreds more will see your site and potentially link to it.On most social bookmarking sites you have only 24 hours to get to the front page and stay there. So don’t post when most users (and especially your supporters) are sleeping. By the time they get up, you might have gone to the 20th page.

A word of caution: Avoid automated submitters. Besides being unethical, these often carry malware in them or are used for stealing passwords, which can of course ruin your reputation and get you banned.

News: Press Releases, when syndicated, can be a terrific traffic booster. A press release should not read like an advertisement for your site. Save your press release writing for newsworthy topics. To learn how to write compelling, newsworthy press releases, read the PRWeb Press Release Tips. You can even go the extra mile by tracking who picks up your articles or press eases. and then offering them exclusive news or content.

Two of the best online press release services are PRWeb and PRLeap. Neither is free, but you can find free ones by searching Google.

You can also send your press release in the body of an email to handpicked journalists and bloggers. Send personalized emails, and keep the subject line interesting and under 50 characters.

Post to Forums: Contribute to forums in your niche and include a link to your site in your signature. Check out Google Groups – lots of opportunities here for subtly promoting your site.

Sponsor a Contest: The prize doesn’t even have to be expensive if the contest and prize are fun. Then SEO the page well, promote the contest and get ready for company!

Comment on Blogs: Another form of social networking, commenting on blogs can bring you backlinks (unless the blog is “nofollow” which instructs search engines not to include the commenter’s link’s rank when indexing) and clicks to your site. Many blogs do use “nofollow” You can check in your browser’s View Source for the tag.

Not to be confused with the meta tag that instructs Google bots to not index a page, the nofollow attribute was created by Google for bloggers who want to discourage comment spamming, and it simply prevents PageRank from being shared. However, it does not prevent others from clicking through to your page.

Answer Questions: Helping people will definitely build a nice group of followers for you. Answer questions on Yahoo! Answers or Wiki Answers, and remember to leave your link in your signature. Answer questions on Google Groups and provide links to relevant resources.

Wikipedia: If you have an authoritative article on your site that is relevant to a Wikipedia topic, add your article’s link to the external links at the bottom of the Wikipedia page. The goal of Wikipedia is to list the most authoritative sources, so if there’s one obviously more authoritative than yours, don’t edit.

An example would be if you have a travel page describing the Australia Zoo, but the official Australia Zoo website is already listed. Instead, find a gap in a Wikipedia article’s sources and fill it with a truly helpful, non-promotional article of your own. Wikipedia editors are swift and ruthless, so be sure to read the guidelines.

Google Coupons: If you sell a product or service, you can use the free Google’s Coupon Tool to create your own coupon that Google then places in relevant local searches. The traffic could be well worth the discount given.

Email Signatures: Add your URL, in the form of a live link with anchor text if possible, to all of your outgoing email. Add a tag line below the link – a catchy phrase to help others know what the site is about.

Free Classifieds: Besides the obvious purpose of selling, free classifieds are also used to drive traffic to sites. If you’re offering a free digital product in exchange for an optin to your email list, try advertising your free product in relevant classifieds. Because most do use the nofollow, don’t look to free classifieds as a means to get backlinks. This is purely for clicks to your site.

Look for classified ads sites that have good PageRank, such as Craigslist because if you optimize your ad well, this increases the chances of the ad making it to Google’s first page where it may remain for weeks.

Local Promotion: If you have a local, brick and mortar business, ask your Chamber of Commerce for a link.

Offer Free Photo Downloads: If you can take quality photos or create nice clip art, create a free stock photos page, relevant to your niche, with easy to view thumbnails that open to medium to high-resolution images.

Learn about the types of stock photos that are in highest and by visiting the photographers’ sections (sign up is free) at www.Shutterstock.com and www.iStock.com If you optimize the images properly with alt tags and keyword captions, they will get indexed well in Google Images as well as in the search engines. Offer an opt-in to your newsletter for updates on new photos. This can attract a good deal of traffic.

Flickr and similar photo sharing sites are also good sources of traffic.
You may also want to submit to free photo directories, provided they give links back to your site.

Programmers and Designers, Take Note: If you write programming code or create widgets, plug-ins or other tools, offer some of these for free, optimize the free offerings pages for traffic, and also include a link to your site in the code for more traffic.

Or create and release open source site design templates for content management systems like WordPress. Don’t forget the “Designed by you.com” bit in the footer! Release a Firefox browser extension. Make sure you have a download and/or support page on your site that people can link to.

Link Bait: The term “link bait” may have a black hat feel to it, but link bait is smart, white hat SEO. This is not to be confused with “Bait and Switch.” Matt Cutts of Google has given his nod to Link Bait: “I feel that creating some amazing, highly linkable and high-quality content is one of the best ways to target the engines naturally and build links through the social networks, blogs and news outlets of the web…”

Here are some ideas to get you started (remember to stay relevant to your niche): a “Top 10” or “101” list, an extensive esource list for a specific topic(ex hovercraft boats), a “Myths & Facts” article, a really honest review of a product or place that is fair but opinionated, a list of gurus/experts, and so on.

Learn how to increase traffic to your website and you cannot fail to make money online!

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In fact, this concept is so widespread that it’s become abused and misunderstood by newcomers who think becoming an online success means logging on in a single day, launching five new businesses and waking up to a bank account full of money.

The Myth of Multiple Streams of Income

We all know there are a million different ways to make money online. You can launch your own products, become an affiliate salesperson, be a service provider, launch a membership site, or take a dozen other different routes to passive profits.

The problem comes about when an entrepreneur fails to monetize a single stream before trying to build the next one.They get too many plates spinning in the air and all at once, they come crashing down until the person finally gives up in despair, believing all Internet marketing concepts are just a scam.

It is true that you can and probably should develop multiple streams of income. It’s the most natural way to create backend opportunities for your initial product line. For instance, let’s say you begin by building an AdSense site on a niche topic – like gambling.

You start seeing a lot of traffic coming in. As your site begins to make money on AdSense, you then introduce affiliate products on things such as “How to Win at Poker.”

Instead of also starting something else right away, you want to focus on building your AdSense content up to levels that will boost your ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPs) and also test which affiliate items have the highest conversion rates for you.

Once you see maximum returns on your investment so far, then you introduce a new element to our income stream. It might be a product that you develop on How to Play Nickel Slots and Win Big. This way, you get to keep 100% of the earnings and not split it with someone else.

Launching your own product takes a lot of time and effort to get it to take root successfully. At the same time, you have to be capable of maintaining your other income formulas – the AdSense site and affiliate revenue.

If at any time you focus on the newest endeavor and completely ignore the previous ventures, then your income will dip again until you provide some attention to it and run each one as if they’re separate businesses that each need a CEO in charge.

Jack of All Trades…Master of None

You want to take your multiple streams of income journey slowly, but not put it on the back burner forever. You have to get good at one thing – become a master at one thing – before you move on and try to tackle something else.

Anyone who tells you that online entrepreneurs have it easy is lying. Its hard work, but if done properly, it works and provides you with unlimited profit potential like no other business in the world.

Too often in the online marketing world, an entrepreneur will think he’s getting a great education by tuning into (and paying for!) what all the gurus have to say and staying abreast of changes in the online marketplace.

But how often do you get sidetracked and want to jump on to the “next big thing” before anyone else does it? You’re intimidated by saturation and don’t want to miss the boat while many other entrepreneurs go after the goldmine that’s yet to be tapped into.

Here’s where you can stay afloat above the crowds. You want to let everyone else make a fool’s rush to the new concepts while you stay focused and prepared to monetize your own efforts.

Compare your online business to a garden. You can’t plant seeds and expect to see flourishing plants the very next morning. First, you have to space the seedlings apart and give each one room to grow; you have to water and feed them on a regular basis; and, just as a gardener has to remove weeds that could jeopardize the health of their plants, you, as a cyberpreneur, must devote time in your day to evaluating your online strategy and tweak it so that you’re not spinning your wheels and impeding your success.

Don’t let product launches and new ideas get the best of you. Hold onto your wallet and save your purchase for a later date when your schedule is open to developing your next stream of income.

It’s too easy to see the next big thing on the horizon and invest in it just because you’re hoping to hit one out of the ballpark and have a million dollar day. Just keep reminding yourself, “Do I want to spend time and money and only to wind up back to square one in six months, or spend my time wisely and see substantial profits in six months?” Be a wise business owner and your efforts will pay off as others chase the instant profit mirage.

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Bottom line is this: your website is a tool to make money online and you need to make sure it’s being used to make every sale possible. Here are the Big 3 – your website’s reason for existing, if you will:

1) Bringing In Customers – That seems like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised at how many sites were built for just that purpose only to fall dreadfully short of hopes and expectations.

So how can you attract new customers to your site and then turn them into customers who buy something from you? The answer to this question has two parts. First:

- Get your site noticed by making sure that it’s a visually appealing site with lots of good information.

- Get your site noticed by making sure it’s search engine friendly and that you’ve got some excellent-quality backlinks in place.

- Get your site noticed by branding yourself in several areas of the web – use social networking sites to your advantage.

Now that you’ve gotten your site noticed, and the customers are visiting it:

- Make sure your website tells each new visitor what you’re offering and why they need it in very clear language.

- Clearly let your customers see all of the benefits of making a purchase of one or several of your products and services.

- Make it easy for your customers to  complete a purchase. Show them where to sign up for emails and newsletters and give them a good reason for doing so (this will come in handy later).

- Make it clear to your customers that you are a trusted expert and that they can look to you in the future for other great products and services.

When your site brings in new customers and converts them to sales, you both win. Even if a customer doesn’t make a purchase, if you’ve made a positive impression, they may come back later and you might get another chance.

2) Bringing Customers Back Again – Once should never be enough.

You want you get your customers to visit you again and again. So once your customer has been at your site, and hopefully made a purchase, how can you bring him or her back?

- Customers that have signed up for your newsletter or regular update emails will always have your name stuck in their memory because you will be periodically sending them interesting and exciting emails and newsletters. This is perfect because they’ll think of you when they need something that you offer.

- You can bolster your retention by offering specials and promotions via these emails and newsletters.

- You can offer weekly Podcasts or a blog feed to your customers. Give them plenty of useful information about things that are related to your business, and special offers for subscribers.

- Encourage feedback in the form of forums or comments. You can also incorporate a contact form into your site where customers can send you a question or comment.

- Offer tutorials or exclusive reports to those who have purchased products as a special incentive to come back.

Part of getting your customers to stick around is just helping them remember your name over and over, and part of it is getting them excited about what you’ve got to offer.The last part ofthe equation is reminding them that you care and that they can look to you for assistance with what they need.

The third component of the Big 3 reasons for your website’s existence is:

3) To Add Onto Existing Sales – Whatever it is that you’re selling, you can bet that there’s something else (or a number of items) that you could sell along with it to boost revenue.

One time offers, cross promotions, and affiliate marketing will add to your revenue on existing sales and each of these methods should be considered.There’s probably a long list of items that would go with your product or service.

Focus on which of your products sell best and be sure to offer your customers add-on products with each sale – at the time of the sale. If you have products that are lagging behind in sales, pair them with something that may help bolster them as a special offer.

Use the information you have on what your bestsellers are and which customers bought which products to send out special offers in your newsletters and emails to your customers.

If your site isn’t doing each of these, or not doing them well, it’s time to ramp up your efforts and make a few changes. When these three elements are working, you’ll make more money and your customer retention rate will improve.

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