Vision boards and affirmations can do wonders for accelerating your path to your dreams. I happen to be a BIG fan of Abraham-Hicks and find Abraham’s words to be the most fulfilling in helping get in the Vortex. This video is great and I strongly encourage you to listen and share as you see fit.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
Since the introduction of Google in 1998, it has progressively become the world’s most popular search engine. Processing over one billion requests and twenty petabytes of data every day, the word has even worked its way into everyday usage and been awarded entries into various English dictionaries. Although it quickly surpassed more traditional search engines such as Yahoo and MSN Live, its rapid growth attracted a lot of criticism – specifically in the marketing and publishing industries.
With its acquisition of popular Web publishing program DoubleClick in 2007, the corporate monolith also acquired a large list of DoubleClick’s clients. The technology featured in the program allowed Google to utilize behavioral targeting to its fullest, drawing criticism from users that this invaded their privacy by tracking their behavior on the Internet.
Although 99% of Google’s revenue comes from its advertising programs, they come with many disadvantages and have received complaints about their difficulty of use. Because of concerns with click fraud, search engine optimization firms have criticized AdSense as a source of invalid clicks, driving up advertising costs for companies. Google also withholds payment on an AdSense account until it reaches $100, an amount that may take years to reach for smaller companies. Many accounts have even been shut down before they were due to receive their first paycheck, inciting a lot of fury from legitimate account owners and publishers.
With the introduction of Bing marketing, publishers breathed a sigh of relief. For a mere $5, users can import their settings from Google and can even expand ads and marketing efforts to mobile search ads. Bing lists all its demographics and is incredibly simple to use, especially when compared to Google.
Yahoo! also provides a host of options for publishers and businesses. Allowing users to create banner ads, advertise in search results, host their own website and even reach customers looking for local businesses, it seems to be more versatile than Google which is more oriented towards large businesses (which form a minority of overall marketing actions).
With their inability to combat click fraud on AdSense and the complicated method of setting up AdWords, a lot of users have left Google in search of something better and easier to use. Even DoubleClick, a program created specifically for marketing and Web publishing, is complicated to use and understand, with a non-intuitive interface which new users find difficult to navigate. The program has been linked to the spyware controversy since the cookies it adds track user actions as they travel across the Internet. Many commercial organizations such as Adaware and Symantec consider Doubleclick as malware and remove it when detected. It has also been criticized due to its lack of opt-out options for IP address-based tracking, which means advertisers can see where users are located and where their clicks are coming from.
Despite all the problems and criticisms associated with Google and its marketing options for businesses, it still seems to have the stronghold on small business Web publishing, although Bing is quickly rising because of the intuitiveness of its user interface and ease of use.
“Business has only two functions – marketing and innovation.” – Milan Kundera
The above quote applies to all businesses, even those on the internet. Innovation is something which can only be brought about when you know your business thoroughly and are passionate about it. That way, you will keep coming up with innovative ideas to make it different from the rest. As for using internet marketing for your online business, one of the best and also the most productive method is using article marketing.
Writing is a powerful skill that is useful for countless reasons — the most in the world of internet and internet marketing, writing articles to market business has more power than you ever thought of. Think of it this way, your website, blog or social network profile is a tiny shop in a huge marketplace. Now, how will buyers find their way to your shop when they have so much to choose from? One of the ways people will try to find you are to type in certain keywords in a search engine and then visit the websites which offer them with what they want. The power of article marketing is that it is a cheap method; you can write from home and advertise your business, products or services.
Still confused? Here’s how article marketing links your website and makes it popular:
Let’s say you run a small business online selling leather bags. You will most likely find a lot of competitors who have there websites and online businesses on the same niche, i.e selling leather bags and goods. So, how do you become visible on the internet and increase traffic to your site? You write short articles, ideally 400-700 words on different topics related to leather bags (how to clean a leather bag, the best quality leather, differentiate between faux pas and real leather etc) and submit it the various article directories adding a little ‘About You’ at the bottom and giving links to your website. In this way, when people read your article they will then visit the link given below too!
“Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.” — Leo Burnett
That is what article marketing is all about –writing simple, yet attractive articles so, you can attract more traffic to your website. The only other thing you should keep in mind is to add your chosen keywords to the content and submit your articles to article directories. One or two articles won’t improve the traffic on your website; you will have to write regularly! Then just watch your sites traffic go up through article marketing.
Article marketing is also powerful because it brings up your rankings on search engines. For example, if I want to hire an interior designer to renovate my daughter’s bedroom, I should be able to write ‘Home décor services’ or ‘interior designer services’ in a search engine and thousands of websites will pop up. Mostly people select from the first twenty websites that show up. Your sites ranking in a search engine all depends on several things, among which article marketing is top of the list. Article marketing basically means to write an article of ideally 400-700 words describing your business, why you’re good at it, dishing out advice on topics related to your business etc. What it does is that, it builds content of your website and then those information and keyword-rich articles become a source of one way links. Linking your website will bring your business’ ranking way up on the search engines.
There are countless powers of article marketing, one of them also being that it increases your credibility as an expert in your field. People will want to buy from you because you just have so much to say about your business, which shows your dedication and passion to selling it, therefore making you a credible source to buy from. You can share your personal experiences as well, which gives an even better insight into who you are and why you know better than the rest.
There is also a high possibility that well-written and information laden articles be shared on social networking websites, linking your site to more and more people. Article marketing requires little or no monetary investment, and once you get used to it, you will be writing several articles in a day! Imagine where your websites ranking can go! Article marketing is an excellent tool in internet marketing and promoting your online business, so what are you waiting for? Organize yourself and write away!
If you think you have so much in your hands and can’t take any more work, why not hire a help? In other words get it ‘Outsourced’! Yes, outsource your work. Everybody does that, however, one has to be sure that the person you are hiring is reliable, but then that’s a long story. Though, I’ll write about it in my upcoming blogs. Outsourcing is similar to hiring an employee in a company or organization, the only difference is that you don’t necessarily need the person to work with you in a physical environment/set up. To clarify myself, I’m talking about to outsource your work online. Outsourcing is the practice of hiring consultants, employees and take services from other service providers from the outside — like freelancers — for planning, implementing, and getting various tasks done.
If you want to start your own small business online, the best strategy to employ would be to get different tasks outsourced. Remember, launching an online business is one thing, but maintaining it on the internet is another because you will need to constantly update it, maintain your website/profile, stay in touch with your clients, and write articles and so on.
You see, you may be selling the best fashion accessories through the internet but your website’s content is uninteresting and unexciting, then you can’t expect people to visit your website. A website without web traffic is the same as organizing an art exhibition and only 2 people visit it. I couldn’t have come up with a better example — imagine the feeling of having an ‘art exhibition’ and nobody coming – it’s hopeless and ineffectual! Writing isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, so if you think you are pitiable writer, then it’s no use of making attempts. The best solution would be to outsource the work and give it to a freelance writer. But then, it’s likely that you can write well, but don’t have the time to manage it, again, outsourcing is what helps the best. Similarly, if you know nothing of internet marketing, better not take risk and go on employing dire methods to get your website promoted. The bottom line is whatever online business you want to start, never let anything become a barrier in your quest to venture deeper into marketing your business online. I often come across people who find internet marketing a bit difficult for them. Most probably because of lack of time or deficient of technical know-how behind it.
If you too, facing these issues, then it’s about time you consider outsourcing some tasks so you can focus better on your business. Outsourcing is not as easy as it may sound, but this is not meant to scare you away. There are some things you would want to keep in mind before you start outsourcing your internet marketing tasks:
1. Outsourcing will cost you money so, you should check out rates of various providers or companies proficiently offering such services and how much they charge.
2. The people you hire will be working from another location, possibly even a country miles away from you, so you need to develop a relationship with the company and have regular communication with the outsource workers.
You should outsource as soon as possible if:
• You think you cannot handle the work pressure, then you should share some of it by outsourcing the internet marketing task.
• If you are facing time constraints and you cannot manage your time between expanding your business and marketing it on the internet.
• The tasks you’re supposed to carry out for internet marketing do not fall into your area of expertise; you should definitely outsource the tasks because your business repute depends on it. Remember there should be no compromise on the quality of your marketing techniques.
When outsourcing your internet marketing techniques, play smart. Outsourcing work is a once-in-a-while deal that will last for a longer period of time and benefit you all the while. This way, your business will run smoothly and professionally and put a good impression of your business on others. We don’t want to compromise on our first impressions right? Afterwards, if you feel that copywriting or updating your blog/profile/website is not your piece of cake you should outsource this job to someone who is an expert in it. For example, there are ways of making your website visible on search engines that you might not know of or are not an expert in, hand the job over to someone who is.
Don’t outsource your work if you feel that you will go out of budget, even though it is advisable to invest in outsourcing because it begets returns, however if you feel it is too early in the business for you to invest in it then don’t. The regular business rules apply to outsourcing too –investment versus profit etc.
“Success is simple. Do what’s right, the right way, at the right time.” Arnold H. Glasgow
All you need to do is to act smartly, invest wisely and be organized in giving tasks to the people you hire. Also, outsourcing does not mean that you outsource all of your work!
