Author Archives: Tom Antion

Cool Exit Strategies Explained

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Smart Internet marketers make money coming and going . . . that is when their visitors are coming and going. Obviously when your visitor comes to your site you want them to buy. Not so obviously to the new marketer is the fact that an enormous amount of money can be had from people leaving your site if you know what to do. The beauty of many exit strategies is that the person has already decided NOT to buy and by using these techniques you get them to change their mind.

Here are some exit strategies:

Sell down technique: This technique can be used to offer a cheaper price when someone is leaving your sales page without purchasing. You can call the pop up box they get a “Pick Your Price” deal, but in actuality you can pre-select three cheaper price points for them to pick from. “Almost” everyone will pick the cheapest price, but some lovable souls choose from some of the higher priced options. The product they get is the same. This technique is best for digital download products like e-books because you don’t really have any cost of goods sold.

NOTE: You may not see the exit strategy if you have a really good series of pop up blockers. Exit pop ups are being blocked more frequently so this strategy will not work 100% of the time. It can still make lots of money, so don’t discount it’s use just because it’s not 100% anymore.

NOTE 2: Alternative software and scripts are being developed to simulate unblockable exit pop ups. Entry popups using dynamic HTML (dhtml) have been unblockable for a long time . . . exit pop ups have not. Programs like exit splash (very cool effect) http://powertips.exitsplash.hop.clickbank.net are a little bit harder than previous exit pop ups to put into play, but they can be extremely effective in catching people who are leaving your site and turning them into customers, or you also may like popover ads. It’s a little easier to implement than exit splash and gives you lots of options.

Introduction To Pay Per Click Advertising

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Pay Per Click (PPC) is an Internet advertising model used to direct traffic to websites, where advertisers pay the hosting service when the ad is clicked. With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market. Content sites commonly charge a fixed price per click rather than use a bidding system. Google's pay per click program is called Adwords. Other PPC options are Yahoo Search Advertising, Amazon Product Ads, and Microsoft Ad Center. Facebook even has an option for ads.

This means that if you run a business and want to advertise your product, you can pay the search engines to place ads on the search engine results page (SERP). The search engine results page (SERP) is the page that comes up whenever somebody types in a word (or phrase) on a subject they are interested in.  

The SERP will show normal results (organic) in the middle of the page. The Pay Per Click ads will appear on the right. The more money a company or business is willing to pay per each click, the closer to the top of the page the ads are placed.

This is the main focus of businesses involved in online advertising.

How can your expertise in pay per click strengthen your career? 

 

 

 

Most Interesting Jobs

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http://www.imtcva.org

It's never too late to pick an interesting career over a boring one. Learn how you can discover the hottest and most in demand jobs available today. At the Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia, you can get a dedicated certificate in as little as six months and be on your way to a great job. Visit the site to download your free career guide.

Certified to operate by the State Council of Higher Education for
Virginia

Website Analytics – What is a Good Bounce Rate?

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What is the industry standard for bounce rate?

The simple and short answer is that there is no industry standard. There are a lot of factors that influence the bounce rate, so you really can’t compare bounce rates of one site (or page) to another.

The goal of the site should generally be to reduce the bounce rate to as low as possible. The lower the bounce rate the better job the site is doing to keep users engaged. One exception may be a site that is intended to accomplish all relevant user engagement on it’s landing page. This is more common on say, a campaign landing page intended to sign up users for direct marketing emails. Bounce rate is very unique to your site and page.

The best way to know if you are doing better or worse is to set your own baseline and compare your performance over time.

  • Retail sites driving well targeted traffic 20-40% bounce.
  • Simple landing pages (with one call to action such as add to cart) I've seen bounce at a much higher rate, anywhere from 70-90%.
  • Content websites with high search visibility (often for irrelevant terms) can bounce at 40-60%.
  • Portals (MSN, Yahoo groups etc) have much lower bounce rates in our experience 10-30%.
  • Service sites (self service or FAQ sites) again usually lower 10-30%.
  • Lead generation (services for sale) 30-50%

Time On Site: Why is This Important?

“Avg. Time on Site.” This is an important statistic in terms of better search engine placement. Google and other search engines take note of how long a visitor stays on your site as an indicator of authority and importance. Any elements of your webpage that keep visitors there longer is called ‘stickiness.' Elements such as videos, news, polls and MP3 can keep a visitor engaged and attentive, keeping them on the page longer. This statistic in the analytics program can help you measure and track what new elements you'll need to create stickiness.

Increased time on site results in more sales. How can you fix this?

 

 

Using Pinterest For Website Traffic Generation

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Pinterest  

Pinterest, one of the fastest growing social networking sites ever, is a social photo sharing website that allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections such as events, interests, hobbies, and more. It is unique in that it uses a ‘pin-board' style website design that is easy to use and navigate.

Users can browse other pinboards for inspiration, re-pin images to their own collections and ‘like' photos. Pinterest gives it's users the ability to share their ‘pins' with facebook and Twitter followers, interacting with a broad community.

The appeal of Pinterest for marketers is the ability to share photos and videos of interesting material, and then have friends leave comments on the photo. The image itself can be clickable out to a website of the ‘pinners' choice, helping drive traffic to blogs, Youtube channels, Facebook profiles or sales letters / squeeze pages.

The most popular images are those of crafts, hobbies and travel. Food blogs have gained an entirely new way to get free traffic to their posts. Pinners put up images of delicious food ideas and their friends can leave comments. The friends can ‘re-pin' the photo to their own boards where others see it, and they in turn leave comments. This results in a fast-sharing, ‘viralism' of images that when clicked on, lead back to the original source of the image – the food blog.

Once there, visitors can subscribe to the blog, sign-up for a newsletter or purchase a recipe book. This same sharing marketing model can work with jewelry retailers, crafters, book sellers, clothing designers, real estate listings, travel agencies: just about anyone can use images to drive free traffic to their websites and services.

Learn more about how Pinterest can help with website promotions!

The Strategies of Autoresponders – A Useful Formula

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Just like anything else you have to be careful not to abuse the power of autoresponders. What you should do is give at least three customer satisfaction type messages before sending an upsell message. If you hammer people to buy, buy, buy they will quickly get sick of you.

Most autoresponders give the person a link to click on if they want to stop the messages. Hardly anyone unsubscribes to service oriented messages especially if you put in usage and care tips for whatever they bought. A good sequence of autoresponder message would be to send one each day for the first few days and then space them out further over time.
Here's an example of the sequence used for the autoresponder series people get when they buy a professional speaker product.

  • Message 1 Same day they purchase
  • Message 2 Next day after they purchase
  • Message 3 Five days after they purchase
  • Message 4 9 Days after they purchase
  • Message 5 23 Days after they purchase
  • Message 6 37 Days after they purchase

Another thing you can use sequential autoresponders for is to send phone number, PIN numbers, and instructions if you do a teleseminar. The http://www.kickstartcart.com system gives the attendee a custom thank you page where they can download their handout and get their telephone numbers and then the autoresponder kicks in to give them the numbers and instructions again in case they lose the thank you letter.

This reduces hassle enormously when doing a Telephone Seminar. Most of the people won't lose both documents. You can handle a large number of participants using a tool like this.

Using Unblockable Pop-ups For Making More Money

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Unblockable Pop Up Boxes

New technology allows one type of pop up box that can’t be blocked by conventional pop up blockers and another type that gets blocked some of the time, but not all of the time.  You can use both types.

The first is called a “Hover Ad”. This is a box that uses “dynamic HTML scripting language. This language makes a box appear on a page, but the box isn’t really a separate page. It is an appendage to the page it’s on so conventional pop up blockers don’t recognize it as a pop up box.

Hover ads can be quite interesting. Some of them can be programmed to drop in from the top of your web page and bounce several times. It really gets the attention of your visitors. In fact, it doubled the subscription rate the very same day the IMTC founder put it on one of his sites. You can see examples at: https://www.antion.com and https://www.Public-Speaking.org.

Hover ads can only be used on entry to a page. They can be delayed before they appear, but you can’t use them as an exit pop like you would use when someone leaves a page without buying. There are inexpensive generators that help you make these unblockable entry pop up boxes.

Innovative Career Options

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http://www.imtcva.org

There are so many great new career choices that are on the cutting edge of technology. Learn how you can discover the hottest and most in demand jobs available today. At the Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia, you can get a dedicated certificate in as little as six months and be on your way to a great job. Visit the site to download your free career guide.

Certified to operate in Virginia by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.

What is Inbound Marketing?

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While searching around the web for marketing information, you've probably come across the term “Inbound Marketing.” It seems to be gaining more and more steam, and people are more interested in what Inbound Marketing is and how it can help them.

Inbound Marketing is the practice of bringing warm, qualified leads into your sales funnel rather than reaching outward to cold, questionable targets

Traditional “outbound marketing” was largely focused on outbound methods such as cold calls, print ads, attending tradeshows, etc. The idea behind these techniques was to get in front of cold leads and warm them up to the point where they would try your product or service.

This form of marketing was largely a numbers game – you knew you had to, on average, get in contact with a certain large number of people before one of them would be interested and make a purchase. This method was inefficient and expensive, causing marketers to waste time getting in contact with tons of people who may have had no interest in their offering.

Due to the past recession worries, Inbound Marketing has become more popular as marketers look for efficient and affordable ways to acquire new leads. Some of the most popular Inbound Marketing techniques are blogging, interacting on social media, search engine optimization, and webinars.

All of these inbound methods pre-qualify the leads that discover your company, so you can be sure that your message is greeting welcoming ears rather than random outbound contacts. By bringing these warm leads into you, you will greatly save time and money on the old outbound strategies.

 

How Can I Use Inbound Marketing?

The most important part of a successful inbound marketing strategy is creating great content that will bring people into your sales process. Another important element is ensuring that you have a site that is optimized to close leads into deals and engages visitors once they “land” on your website.

One of the most popular methods to accomplish this goal is by keeping an updated blog. A blog can provide many benefits for your organization, and almost all of them relate to Inbound Marketing. By creating great content, you'll rise in organic search results, create linkable content, and educate your audience. All of these outcomes will help you bring in warm leads that have been pre-qualified through a Google search for relevant terms or by reading similar content that links to you.

In addition to blogging, there are many other forms of great content to create that will bring interested visitors. Hosting webinars, offering e-books for download, and article / content syndication will all attract leads that are interested in your offerings and are eager to engage in a conversation with you about your business.

By sticking with these Inbound Marketing strategies, you'll continually bring in new leads and grow in authority, however, it won't happen overnight. While Inbound Marketing will save you money, it does take an ample commitment and patience. You won't be the top Google result for desired terms overnight and your first webinar may only have a few people register, but by making a longterm commitment to inbound marketing you will see results.

This commitment requires that you create quality content through a Content Management System, engage with people through social media, and try new ideas to bring traffic to your site.

Take the next step towards a rewarding career…

 

 

Cool Error Page Selling Technique

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Error Page Customization: Presumably if someone gets a 404 Page Not Found error on your site they will leave. This makes error page customization technically an “exit strategy”. And if you have an active website there will be times when pages disappear or people type in the wrong thing so this technique is a handy way to save them.

Here are some of the things you could put on a custom “Page Not Found” page:

• Search function for your site so people can find exactly what they want.

• Links to commonly misspelled pages on your site. Note: Make the links “absolute links” which means you include the entire http :// www …

• A link to your home page.

• A link to your site map

Note from the Geeks: Keep the page larger than 512 bytes or Internet Explorer takes over and displays its own page. You can get creative with these pages.

What would you be worth in the workplace with this kind of knowledge?