Tips to make a Blog Contest successful

Contesting is an amazing viral tool that gets more exposure for your blog provided you use the contest strategically to leverage growth for your blog.

The objective of any contest should be to create a viral effect and increase user ship for your blog.

Tips to make a blog contest successful :

1 ) Don’t rush:
- Don’t start a contest as soon as you launch a blog, get at least about 30 - 40 good articles on your site before lanching a contest, ensure you have decent amount of traffic to your blog atleast 25 - 35 visits a day to your blog, ensure your content encourages interactivitity from your readers in terms of comments at least about 4 - 5 good commments per post.

Once you have the above you can start to work on a contest as you have now created a solid foundation for the contest to be successful.

2 ) Keep the contest simple:
- Keep focused on the objective of being viral, keep the contest very simple. Let the user do a maximum of 5 action oriented things to gain an entry in to your contest. Anything more than 5 will not go well with the user.Respect your users time for contesting.

3 ) Create a viral buzz:
- Ensure that you give entries or points to users to create a viral buzz for your blog. You should leverage social media sites like Stumble Upon and Technorati to favourite your blog, gain visibility and increase ranking.

4 ) Ensure a link strategy for your contest blog:
- Incentivise users with entries to link your contest post to their blog. This is the best natural form of getting noticed by Google. This will result in high Google ranking and high PR in the next update depending on how many sites link to you.

5 ) Use forums effectively:
- Use webmasters forums effectively to ensure that your contest post is visible. Create a contest thread for your blog on these forum to leverage traffic and entries to your blog. Use at least 10 - 12 webmasters forum for this activity. Ensure that each thread on each forum is different, the will help you in not posting duplicate content for your blog online.

Every webmaster forum has a Contest sub section, make use of this to promote your blog.

6 ) Ensure reputable sponsors:
- Good sponsors and prizes are always an attraction for any contest. Ensure you tie up with reputed blog and sites to build attraction for your contest. High the value of the prizes better the response to your blog contest.

7 ) Get high commenting:
- Ensure that you comment intelligently on top traffic blogs in your niche and drive traffic to the contest post instead of your home page.

PPC Ads--How To Create Them?

13 Tips to Keep in Mind When Writing Your PPC Ads

1. Heading.

This is the most important part of your Ad. The heading is what potential visitors see first when looking at various search results. The better the visitor can identify with your heading the more likely they are to click on your ad and visit your web site. Keep in mind that you headline MUST give them what they want. It must give them the answer they are searching for, if it doesn’t they won’t click. On the opposite side of that. The headline is a good place to qualify your prospects. You don’t just want “lookie loos” on your web site wasting your money by clicking on your ad and not signing up for your product.

2. Use keywords in your title.

Use keywords that people are searching for in your ads. By using the keyword in the heading it captures the searcher and subconsciously they think that your as answers their search because you have the keyword in the title.

3. Benefit.

The first line of the ad should describe the benefit of what you’re offering. Buyers want to know “what’s in it for them” so TELL THEM! For Example: “new affordable pool equipment” In this example, the benefit is that your equipment is new and affordable.

4. Feature.

The second line of your ad should depict a major feature for your particular product or feature.

For Example: “deal with experienced experts” In this example, the feature is that your company is experienced and knowledgeable; “Been is business for over 20 years” is another good feature because people assume that if you’ve been in the business for a long time than you know what you’re doing (which may or may not be a good assumption on their part!)

5. Display URL vs Destination URL.

Google give you two places to note your URL, one is seen on the ad (the display URL) and one is the actual web site a visitor is taken to when they click on your ad (the destination URL), both are very important.

Since the space you are given to get your message across is so small, the display URL is another place that viewers can subconsciously see your information. So, make it simple on them to read and consider using the keyword (of it fits) as a subdirectory of your URL.

For example: www.YourWebSiteHere.com/PoolEquipment For the destination URL, make sure that the landing page (the page your visitor is taken to) gives them the answer to their search. If they were looking for pool equipment, DO NOT take them to the home page. Instead, direct them to a page that lists all the different pool equipment you have available. Simply by doing this one trick you will decrease your bounce rate (or the number of people that leave your site without visiting any other page on your site, more importantly the confirmation page that tracks your conversions!)

6. Capitalize EVERY word!

Although these ads may say the same thing, but which stands out more to you? For Example: Pool equipment New affordable pool equipment deal with experienced experts. www.yourwebsitehere.com

For Example: Pool Equipment New Affordable Pool Equipment Deal With Experienced Experts. www.YourWebSiteHere.com

So, which do you think is going to attract the eye of the potential buyer?

7. Keyword Methods.

There are several methods for choosing keywords

1. [Exact Match]- The search has to match exactly to your keyword with no additional keywords. For example: if [pool equipment] was searched, your ad would only be displayed someone searched for pool equipment and not new pool equipment.

2. “Phrase Match”- Your ad appears when that exact phrase is searched. Your ad will come up even if additional words are used, but you search has to be shown in the exact order.

For Example: if “pool equipment” was searched, your ad would come up new pool equipment, pool equipment store, but not for equipment for your pool.

3. Broad Match- If you do not put your keyword(s) in brackets or quotes, then Google will come up with results for all possible matches of your keyword(s).

For example: if some searched for pool equipment, your ad would show up for new pool equipment, pool equipment for your home, pool equipment store, etc. Unfortunately, there is no one “best way” to match your keywords. You must take a look at your business and decide what works for your product or service. One more tip- if you decide to use broad match make sure you use negative keywords, such as free. This was your ad would not come up when someone search free pool equipment (unless you really had free equipment to give out- and if that’s the case, let me know and we’ll talk).

It is quite easy to note the negative keywords. For example, if you didn’t want free you would write - free in your list of keywords. So you may have a list that looks like this:

[pool equipment] pool equipment - free

And yes, you can most certainly list exact, phrase and broad match keywords.

8. Don’t forget the “www.” Make sure that your use the “www” is your display URL.

No, it is not necessary and the visitor will still reach your site without it; however, today, our brains are so systematic that by including the “www” it not only draws attention to the web site (and the ad) but it allows our brain to process that we are looking at a URL and thus we should remember what we are looking at.

9. Short and to the Point.

You are VERY limited in the amount of characters you get for your ads. Therefore, keep your ads as concise as possible… GET TO THE POINT!

10. Price.

We all know price drives a person. Even in real estate if your home isn’t selling than what’s wrong with it? The price. If you have competitively priced your product or service to be the lowest in your market, consider putting the price in your ad title. If a potential buyer sees your low price they’ll probably click on your ad to see what you’re all about.

11. Free. I like free- don’t you? People inherently like “free” things.

So, if you are truly giving something away for free (like a free consultation, free bonus, free trial) than consider putting free in your title. Again, it will grab the attention of your potential buyer and encourage them to visit your web site.

12. Two things to look at: CTR (Click Through Rate) and Conversion Rate.

Both of these elements are key when you are analyzing the success of your keywords and ads. You must find a “happy medium” between the two elements, because without it, your ads will fail. For Example: If you adjust your ad focusing solely on your conversion rate, although you may be converting more people and thus probably spending more money If you had 1,000 impressions and 4 visitors your CTR would be .04%. Of these 4 clicks, you had 1 conversion for a conversion rate of 25%. Not a bad conversion rate and you’re spending less money to get it. Good right? Well, kind of. Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on the way you look at it) Google places rank of CTR and those ads with a higher CTR will be shown more often (keep in mind this is not the only factor but is one of many). So, although you may think you’re doing better because you’re spending less money and getting more leads/conversions you may sacrifice you position with Google.

13. Test,

Test and Test AGAIN! Unfortunately, even after spending all the time in the world to make sure you have the best possible ad for your product or service you cannot just “set the ad and go.” You must keep testing the ad to see what works. Yes, at times, this re-testing can be a daunting task, but if you don’t continually test your market, ads and keywords you will loose the game because I guarantee you, your competition is still testing.

Classified Ads

How to Promote Your Business Using Classified Ads ?

Classified ads can be very effective in online marketing. Free classified ads fit into every budget. It all comes down to how much time you are willing to spend creating, posting, updating and deleting ads. Depending on your particular product or service, it can be time-consuming to respond to interested parties, deliver goods or services and maintain a high level of customer service.

Selling through free classified ads can help you promote your business. Include your company’s name, product information and a website link in your ads to gain more attention. Include pictures whenever possible to give customers a better idea of what they can expect if they make a purchase from you.

Benefits of Promoting on Classified Ad Sites

Aside from saving you money in advertising costs, placing ads on free classified sites has many other benefits. These include:

• Targeted traffic directed to your website.
• Instant posting.
• Few rules regarding what can be posted.
• The opportunity to test your ad copy at no cost before placing ads on websites that draw more traffic but charge a fee.
• The ability to track your visitors and gauge how successful each ad is.
• The ability to build your opt-in list and follow up with potential customers.

Tips for Promoting Your Business Using Free Classified Ads

Promoting your business with free classified ads is relatively easy. Still, there are some steps that can make your campaign more successful. Keep these tips in mind:

• Familiarize yourself with the terms of the classified ad site before posting. This will help you avoid having your ads deleted.
• Place ads frequently for better results. Update weekly to keep your posts at the top so you get more views.
• Remain professional, both in your classified ads and in dealings with potential customers.
• Make sure your ad shines and stands out from the crowd without being too loud or obnoxious.
• Include keywords to help targeted customers find your ads.

Classified Ads and Niche Marketing

One particularly effective way to get more targeted traffic from your free classified ads is to choose sites that are very specific in nature. For example, if you own a company that sells creative and unique baskets, then you can place your ad on a site for gifts. If you own a used car dealership, however, the gift site is not going to work for you. You can advertise in the automobile section of a general site, but you can also search for classified ad sites that are specifically geared toward car enthusiasts. The key is that visitors to these sites will already be interested in what you have to offer.

Traditional Advertising Versus Online Marketing

The advertising world has changed a lot over the last decade. Traditional print ads are not as effective as they once were. They also can be costly. Online marketing is the most effective way to promote a business, whether it is an online business or actually has a storefront. Free classified ads should certainly be included in your marketing strategy. Carefully track your website traffic to gauge how effective each ad is, and then make adjustments as needed. Online marketing is here to stay. Avoiding this valuable tool is like shutting the door on potential customers.

Manual Directory Submission

What is Manual Directory Submission?

Directory submission is the process of submitting site URL to web site directory. The process is not merely filling the form at directory submission page but also involves more than this. Now the question comes what all is involved in manual directory submission process. So following are the steps involved in Manual Submission of websites.

Select A Web Directory

The first step is to select website directories which accept submission. There are three kind of directories Free, Reciprocal and Paid directories. You have to select directory as per your requirement. Major requirement for selection of directory is that it should be search engine friendly so that vote can pass from directory to website submitted. Quality of Internet directory is also important factor as submission to low quality or spam directory can have negative affect on site submitted. The best selection is niche specific directories.

Search for Website URL

Searching for URL of the website to be submitted in directory to ensure that it has not been already submitted. Directory editors hate multiple directory submissions and will likely remove your site if it is already in their listings. Directory submission process starts if the website is not already listed in directory

Select A Proper Category

Browsing to an appropriate category e.g Computer and Internet > Internet > Web Promotion > SEO Services. This involves deep digging of directory structure to find appropriate category. Web site submission to proper category has more chance of approvals. The best way is to see other site listed in category selected by you. If they are similar to your website it means you have reached at right category.

Create A Valid Email Account

Creation of separate email account for directory submission service. This is done keeping in mind that the email address will likely be spammed though, so don't use a personal email account. Valid Email is also required so that directory editor can notify you of any issues with your submission.

Fill Directory Submit Form

Next step is filling of form after selecting category. Checking of title, and description of other website listed there to access what is editor view regarding title and description length. Filling the proper title and description as specified in the submission form. Other field usually required is Email, Name, Keywords and URL of the website to be filled. Rechecking of the directory submission form to ensure that all fields have been correctly filled and clicking the submit button. Verifying of the success page message to ensue that form have been correctly submitted. Adding in List of Directory Submission Adding the name of directory and particularly the category URL where you have submitted in separate sheet to avoid duplicate submission in future. Checking of Directory Listing Approval Last but not least to check the approval of website submitted. Checking back in a few weeks to see if the site has been added to the directory. This is necessary as in many cases directory editor do not inform about the accepting of website submission. If listing is not approved then again you have to repeat the process with selecting different category, title and description etc.