Internet Marketing Strategy

Hey guys, welcome to another installment of Monday’s Marketing Mashup, where DaftSEO brings you the latest by the greatest in search engine strategies and marketing tactics!

10 Way to Launch a New Blog With a Bang
Web Designer Depot shows us what it is to truly be prepared to take on a new blog, and what it takes to truly make a new endeavor successful.

Link Building is Faster with BuzzStream
Colin LaHay takes a look into the new Link Building CRM software, BuzzStream, and shows us how to manage our backlink campaigns.

7 Rules for Link Building in 2009
Eduard Blacquiere, also known as EdWords, gives us a couple tips for having a really solid link building strategy, maximizing the points of inbound traffic and link juice.

Well, that’s all for now, stay tuned for the next Marketing Mashup!

If you’re like me, you have a pretty busy work day, and sometimes you just can’t spend the precious moments you have off (or you can’t afford to pay someone) doing smaller tasks (that of course, must be done) because you’re focusing on the big picture, working on something larger in your project.

Here are a bunch of time and money saving resources that will help you in both online and offline marketing.

Free 125×125 Entrecard Badges & Advertisements
Free 125 Cards provides quality 125×125 for public use, and provides a web interface to customize them on the fly!

Free Web 2.0 Badge Button Generator
Fresh Badge lets you create smooth looking badge graphics for use in your website or emails, or even pip icons for rankings! (Honorable Mention: Web 2.0 Badges)

Free Web 2.0 Logo Generator
Creatr lets you choose from six different styles that mimic popular Web 2.0 logos to make your own.

Free Web 2.0 Icons
UtomBox provides some great Web 2.0 themed icons to use on your website for linking to your RSS feeds, popular social networking websites, and more. If you’re just looking for icons to link to your RSS feeds, check out Feed Icons.

Free Tabbed CSS Menus
Exploding Boy has some really sweet looking CSS based navigation menus that can easily be incorporated into any website you are designing. Explore the rest of the site for more excellent resources.

Free Chart / Graph Generator
Maani.us’s XML/SWF Charts can help you out if you’re in a swift bind to get a presentation ready for the meeting you have in the morning with Mr. Kawasaki, fresh off his red eye flight.

Free Vector Imaging / Conversion
Vector Magic is an online utility that will take images you upload, and convert them into vector format. You can download your vector in EPS, SVG, PDF, or PNG.

Free HTML to RSS Converter (RSS / HTML Content Scraper)
RSSxl is a really useful web application that lets you take content from an HTML page and convert it into an RSS feed you can publicize or handle with a web scripting language, like PHP. Many things can be done with this.

Hope you guys found something you can use!

Many people complain that when they ask for links, or try to share their link on various communities, that they experience little to no success, or even get banned from the venue they are trying to reach.

Well, you have to make sure to follow the rules!

When you’re posting your links on forums, make sure it is allowed by the community to append your link to your signature. Don’t post your link in new threads and replies all throughout the message board, instead, look for an advertising or promotion specific forum where the administrators want these sort of threads to be placed. (e.g. a “post your link” forum, or a “review my site” forum.)

When posting comments to blog, don’t clutter your post with links to your blog, instead focus your energies on contributing something back to the blog (provide information, ask a question, etc.) and leave your link in the URL field. I can pretty much guarantee your comment will be approved and you will gain a relevant backlink.

I hope this has helped you out, following these guidelines has ensured that 99.9% of my comments get approved, and I’ve never been banned from a message board for promoting my website within a reasonable means.

Someone asked this question on a message board I frequent, and, while this question is asked all the time, day in and day out, I realized that no-one in all the blogs, message boards, and documentation websites I visit has seemed to visit this topic yet.

There is really only one answer.

Ready? I’m going to sound like a broken record.

Constantly update your site with fresh, related content and always be on the lookout to build quality backlinks with other sites in your niche.

Sound familiar?

Also, be sure to stay on top of new search trends and marketing strategies, you must stay informed so you can inform others.

Now you have the knowledge of how to receive 10,000 visitors under your belt, happy?

1. Title and header tags are the most important seo elements on your website.

Definitely true, true search engine experts structure their whole website around these elements, that’s why there are so many plugins for various content management systems that make it easier for you to make changes to these tags. Title and header tags probably hold more value in SEO weight than meta tags do now.

2. Relevant keywords contained within your domain name (base or full URL) is an excellent search engine strategy.

Having a TLD that contains the keywords for the niche you are targeting is a very powerful asset in your mission to brand and market your product and/or website, in fact I’d say it is one of the most important aspects of optimizing your website, aside from number one.

3. Image descriptions help increase traffic.

Aside from being compliant, alt tags on images will give even more weight to your page by letting search engine spiders know even further exactly what your product is and which market to deliver it to.

4. Good quality links are good quality links.

And you can’t go wrong with that. Search engines currently do and will always give high value and increase your search engine rank positioning as you accumulate links from high traffic and/or high quality websites and networks.

5. New, unique content will bulk up your traffic.

As long as you keep updating your website, search engine bots and readers will keep coming back to your website, hungry for more information that you can provide them with. So keep it up!

So remember to adhere to the standards, because they will always guide you in the right path.

Sure, on the long run, from a statistical point of view, if you have steadily increase your flow of traffic, you will steadily increase your conversions. But you are not increasing your conversion rate, merely adding to the tally of actual conversions.

A website that converts well naturally gains more traffic, so it’s good to make this your focal point. Make sure you try and test different advertising strategies and placements. Maybe you should try to find another venue or medium to market your brand in.

Perhaps you need to change the way you write your headlines. Could it be possible you aren’t submitting your social bookmarks to the category that most fits your article?

Is AdSense not converting well for you? Try out another pay per click network, or maybe experiment with some affiliate programs!

Just remember, don’t ever be afraid to try something new! It just might be worth it!

What have you done in the past to increase conversions?

So your inbox is flooded every morning with the latest guru tips, newsletters, and ebooks on how to make $3,435 every 10 minutes, how to get 8,425 targeted visitors in a day, how to boost your AdSense income by thousands of dollars in just a couple weeks, how to get a gazillion people to subscribe to your rss feed, and you still have yet to achieve these coveted goals?

That’s because these money making schemes don’t work for anyone but the person who created it, and those who suckered you into purchasing the piece of crap through an affiliate link.

99.9% of these crud filled emails are relaying false or regurgitated information. Everything they have to say can be found already on the internet in a cleaner format, and it’s not cluttering up your inbox! Sure, there’s an occasional gem once in a while, but you’re better off just subscribing to the rss feed of someone you KNOW is an authority in your niche.

You don’t get e-mails flooded with advertisements and more sales pitches, you just get a nice update every time the specialist has something new to teach you. It’s better that way, trust me.

So unsubscribe from that crappy mailing list, subscribe to TYPELiFE, and start getting real, experience driven information today! : )

1. So I know your mouth works fine, but will you listen to what I have to say?

So many webmasters are puzzled because they can’t attract the same audience someone else can, or they can’t get the same links someone else can, or they can’t solve the same problem someone else can, and are forever baffled. Well, you already have the best examples to gain experience from, SOMEONE ELSE. Make sure to read other blogs in your niche and profit from their knowledge and past experiences.

2. You have something to share, but no one knows you or respects your opinion.

This is because you don’t network with other bloggers and webmasters in your area of expertise. You’re a nobody. If you help people solve their problems, they will look to you in the future for more help. If you initiate a conversation with someone, they will recognize you in the future as well.

3. You don’t actively engage your readers.

Maybe it isn’t your style because you are a journalist or reporter blogger type … but always make sure to respond to comments your readers make, and try to bait them into conversation by asking questions or requesting feedback.

4. You haven’t set a goal for yourself to achieve.

You can’t just say, “I want it to make me rich!” and not expect there to be pit stops on the way. Set monthly quotas for yourself, outline realistic traffic and profit goals and do your best to match or exceed them.

5. I can’t find my way around your website.

An easy to use, uncluttered interface is the way to go. Sometimes a website I’m visiting might have all the information I need, but I can’t get to it or the page is so obscured by funky styling and obnoxious advertisements that I don’t even read a word before I’m looking for that little red x.

I’m curious, did your blog or website fall into any of the five? Did I help you stop choking?

Good God, I’ve resorted to making a list of tools and utilities that are well employed by any internet marketing specialist or seo practitioner.

ValidRank - Provides an analysis of a website’s PageRank and checks to see if the data projected is accurate or not.

Google Ranking Factors - Good resource for double checking your own website’s optimization strategies.

SEO Test - Rates the search engine optimization techniques used on your website, provides a nice basis to improve your SEO.

Shoemoney SERPs Tool - Easy to use SERP checker, check your URL against your keywords.

NoFollow Check - Check if a website or blog has the nofollow attribute enabled.

Page Strength - Rates your website’s relative importance and net visibility.

StatCounter - My favorite website metrics and analytics utility.

Backlink Checker - Categorizes the backlinks by domain linked from, useful tool.

Hope you found the list useful, if you have any really neat utilities I failed to mention here, please leave a comment, thanks!

No longer self employed and self proclaimed, living from odd job to odd job. I was hired this week by Geek Works Unlimited, a local computer company with a web design subdivision located in sunny Palm Desert, CA.

I was placed on the Geek Works web design staff, and I am already updating a local real estate website for a client.

There’s even a sort of internet marketing and advertising division, who work with various advertising agencies and PPC campaigns like AdWords, AdSense, BidVertiser, and AzoogleAds.

They set me up with my own work desktop (on my very own desk, in my very own cubicle) as well today, as well as requested from me a list of software I would like them to install by tomorrow.

In the words of Peter Griffin … “Freakin’ Sweet!”