Technology Toolkit

When it comes to Internet marketing, variety can certainly spice up your website. It’s not good enough to have a website and just throw words onto it indiscriminately. While quantity of content is good, variety is even better.

Variety can come in many forms. The days of the same static, dry, infrequently updated text content are over. To keep your target market coming back for more it’s important to add that variety to your site. That means, graphics, video and even animation if appropriate for your type of business.

The following are five tools to enhance your communication efforts. Using variety to market your business online can add to your visitors’ web experience. Use one or more of the following to spruce up what may be an uninspired website.

Animation

Animation is one way to give a vibrant and energetic feel to your website. Animation works well when it comes to marketing popular consumer products and services. Those already viewed as trendy and fun benefit from the use of animation. Look at certain food, electronics, sports and other product commercials use of animated characters.

Of course, if your products appeal to children animation works well. However, don’t discount its use in reaching an adult audience. Many enterprises use animation when advertising. It’s a way of giving a fresh, colorful, light-hearted aura to products they sell. Do you want your products viewed this way? Then consider the use of this tool on your website.

Graphics

Sharp and colorful graphics can add to the look and feel of your website. Graphics can be a logo or other visual representations presented artistically on your pages. A graphic can communicate in a precise manner quickly. This is through a striking visual and a short snappy tagline.

You can also incorporate an attractive graphic within your text content. They can be at the top to highlight the content to follow. You can also place them strategically throughout a long text piece on a page. This breaks up long blocks of text and adds some color to a page. Just make sure the graphics are appropriate to the written words.

Quality graphics in the form of a logo or page design are actually a way of branding your business. Visitors come to recognize your business persona the more they see your graphics. They then associate the graphics with your entire business and all it has to offer them.

Photos

Photos on a website are great for giving reality views, artistically. These are the people, places, things you want to display concerning your products and services. Photos, especially with today’s digital devices, are typically alive with sharpness, color, contrast, shading, and such. This quality in and of itself lends a freshness to your web pages.

Yes, a picture is worth a thousand words too. Sometimes a photo and a few short sentences, or no sentences at all speak volumes to your customers. Quality product photos can work wonders when it comes to promoting your own products or affiliate products.

Use quality photos for your affiliate marketing efforts to encourage interest in those products. Your program manager can probably supply you many good photos. For your own products take care to take crisp clear photos that highlight them in the best way.

Video

You can’t beat moving pictures. Video content is exploding on the Internet. On your site, consider adding video that truly gives useful information through visuals. Don’t add video content that is too long. Don’t add boring, “says nothing” video just for the sake of having video.

Just like your article writing as part of your article marketing efforts, video must impart detailed information. You will annoy visitors to your site who spend time viewing video that shows them nothing new. In addition, make sure your video feeds are of the highest quality. Poor video akin to a cheap quality B movie will also annoy. Therefore, give top-notch information presented with the utmost visual and sound clarity.

Virtual Assistant

This is also becoming more prevalent on the web. A virtual assistant, in voice and in view, are great for serving customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Again, your virtual assistant must be of the best sound and picture quality. If you have a website where you want to walk people through certain ordering and paying processes, consider a virtual assistant. Sometimes a virtual assistant is great for answering questions and guiding users to proper sections of your website.

Look at your website and determine whether any of the above tools can help it. Try one or more of them and see what response you get from visitors. Keep your website alive and fresh, so your revenue streams follow suit.

The most cost effective method of advertising your information marketing business, whether you are selling an info product or affiliate marketing, is article marketing. The easiest way to produce a number of quality articles in a short period of time is finding some Private Label Rights articles and editing them to your preference. Products with Private Label Rights and PLR article packs are offered for sale all over the Web. Entire membership sites or forums are springing up offering downloads of PLR products on a weekly or monthly basis.

As an observer, this indicates a very strong market for PLR articles to fuel the constant need for new content by any Internet Marketer. As a marketer, it provides a lot options for the content you need on almost a daily basis.

Getting your hands on an interesting pack of PLR articles is just the beginning of your journey to article marketing success. It is not a difficult process to master as long as you pay attention to the basics involved to provide quality information to your customers.

One of the major basics to master is making sure that your article topics are timely and bring real value to your readers. The outdated PLR articles you’ve been stacking on your hard drive for a year might be too old to be of value to anyone, but could still help you generate ideas when you get stuck.

A title that makes the reader interested enough to read the article is an absolute necessity. Boring, plain titles do not get clicks. Most people searching for answers are victims of information overload and will just pass over titles that do not capture their curiosity and attention.

You might ask a question in your title that makes the reader want to know the answer. It is just as effective if the reader only wants to see if he knows the answer already. Clicks are clicks. Once you have eyes on your article, you have a chance of a sale or subscription.

Here’s a simple comparison to illustrate an intriguing title. Which one would make you want to read the article?

* Raising Cats As Family Pets
* Are Cats Really As Innocent As They Look When You Come Home From Work?

Don’t be afraid to be slightly provocative with title selection. Your only goal is to get the reader to click on YOUR title in a list of similar titles on the same subject. Think about the example above. Which one would attract your eye and mouse click?

Use a conversational tone in all your articles, whether PLR rewrites or original masterpieces you wrote yourself. Write like you are talking to your best friend or your mother. Forget about what you were taught in school. Grades aren’t important here. Use “you” and “us” and make the reader feel like you are talking directly to him, face to face. Creating reader interest in what you have to say and getting visitors to read your article is the only grade you have to worry about. Anything less will not generate income for you.

Any decision to buy anything is an emotional choice. If you can provide answers to the age-old question, “What’s In It For Me” (WIIFM), with real benefits for purchasing or owning your products, you will have a sale. Think about it. How many times have you plopped your credit card down to buy something you didn’t need or couldn’t see the value for you if you bought it?

One last consideration for your articles is to select a good set of keywords that any reader might use in a search engine to find you. Google “keyword search tools” and you will have a list of free ones and some that require a paid membership for use. When you have a list that satisfies you, write your article using the keywords logically in your sentences. Don’t just stuff them anywhere or over use them in every sentence. Keep the flow of your points easy.

The end of your articles should always have an author’s box with a link back to the site or service you are promoting. If you are unsure about how to create one, go to any article directory and read a few author’s boxes until you get a feel for doing your own.

The only task you have left is to post your article on as many article directories as you can. It does take time to do it yourself, but there’s several very good article submission services that will submit your article to hundreds of directories for a moderate fee. Time is money to marketers.

Article marketing is all about content. Don’t waste your time or your reader’s time with poor quality content. The higher the quality of your articles, the more loyal customers you will have eager for your products. It’s simple.

If you are like me, all those creative scripts, fictional fairy stories, and forced literature that I was obliged to compose during my schooling years somewhat put me off the idea of writing professionally – at least for a while. But when I actually sat down and decided to write about a topic with which I was familiar, everything suddenly felt much better.

I believe that this is the problem with our modern day society – as far as writing is concerned. We all feel obliged and forced to write about things prescribed by others – so much so that we lose sight of the fact that writing can be a great way to express emotion, feeling, and knowledge.

In this article, we will take a quick look at the difference between writing for business, and writing for pleasure, and see if it is at all possible to combine the two. Certainly, with my experience in the industry – I think it is very possible. Firstly, writing for business requires a specific mindset.

Whether it is for your business, or the one which you represent, business writing is distinguishable because of its focus on the product, service, or company. The themes that run through the article will be somewhat rigged. By “rigged”, I mean that the article will hold a particular bias in favour of what is being discussed. Immediately, you see this will sway the way it’s written.

Writing for leisure on the other hand does not require this bias. The very fact that we choose to do it or not is the key here. If we didn’t want to write the article, we wouldn’t. Therefore, there is no pressure, no obligation to “get it right”, and no forced information that needs to be included.

It’s totally up to you. In 2007, a survey of 500 typical consumers indicated that over 90% of them could identify whether an article had been written for business purposes, or for the pure enjoyment of it.

This brings us to the question – is it possible to combine the two? By this I mean, is it possible to write an article for business whilst maintaining a consistent “leisure” feel and flow? As I said previously – yes. The idea here is to not feel in any way obliged to conform to any specific format. As soon as you are told that you need to include this, this, and this, that’s the end of it.

If this is indeed the way your company works, here is a small tip for you to try. Truly believe in the product or service. Even if you don’t, you must convince yourself before you begin writing that what you are about to discuss is absolutely as good as you are about to describe it. Trust me – I’ve done this many times before.

By combining this lack or pressure with a strong belief in the good / service, your article will be sure to come off in a reader friendly way. It takes a bit of practice – but once you master the art of doing so, those leisurely, free flowing articles will spill from your mind as easily as speech. Give it a try – you have nothing to lose.

Writing. It’s a skill we learn once, and never forget. Whilst almost none of us sit down to write a letter with ink anymore, new forms of writing have emerged – including emails, texting, social network messages, and memos.

Typing in fact is still considered writing. So, given that we all write from time to time, are we able to convert this skill into an activity that generates income? You already know the answer don’t you.

Of course, in this world of endless opportunities, the answer is yes. So sit back, take this article in, and prepare for a new option to generate a few extra dollars each week.

I hate to break the excitement so early in the piece, but if you think I’m going to talk about getting paid to text your friends, or send mass emails, you’re somewhat mistaken. Wishful thinking has no place in a solid income generating system. When I say “writing”, I mean the cold, hard writing of articles.

Need an example – well, your reading one right now! This is an article, and this is the type of thing you can get paid to compose. So, just how could this possibly work? Well, here’s a five step plan to get you on your way.

Firstly, choose a topic with which you are familiar. It doesn’t have to be one of those stereotypical topics like “casinos” or “gambling”. The truth is, it can be anything you like!

The internet is an open book, and you are able to put anything inside it that you so wish. For this reason, chose a topic that you already have knowledge in. “Sculptures from the 16th Century” is excellent for someone with an interest in history, but will be an absolute bore for someone else.

The less research you have to do, the more efficiently you can spend your time. Having selected a topic, brainstorm a short list of possible article titles. Continuing our theme of sculptures, you could identify titles such as:

“Sculpturing tools in the early ages”
“The ideas behind some of the most famous sculptures”

Here are two of an endless list of possibilities. Now, given that you are just beginning, perhaps I should add step three as – ensure you can write an article.

Having the ability to text and email is certainly a good indicator that you may fit into this industry, but if you know of nothing else, you may need to do a short course on writing proper articles. The internet has an array of information on this, so you can avoid a trip to the literature library.

Step four? Write an article! Seriously, just dive in to it. Let you ideas flow through on to paper (or screen in our case), and try to be as coherent and clear as possible. Notice in this article, I am giving you exact steps to follow.

Interestingly, when it comes to this type of topic, people like being told what to do. Hence, don’t be afraid to instruct your audience or give your opinion.

500 to 1000 words will ensure that you convey the necessary information, without boring your reader too much. Be sure to proof read your article once finished. Spell checking is very important.

Finally, you are ready to submit your article. There are a number of options here. Either you can publish them yourself on a website or blog (earning you advertising revenue when people come to read), or you can sell your article directly as unique content, hence earning an up front payment for your writing.

Either way, surely you can see that writing does not have to be contained in the domain of social interaction, but can instead be a great way of earning a few extra dollars each and every week! Don’t put it off – start today if you are genuinely interested.

Article Marketing is a small world but has the power to draw thousands of users to your website. When we talk of drawing users to a website we are talking about online article marketing strategies. Strategies that will increase the profits you earn from your business whether it be a small scale business or a large firm. Article marketing has been from a long time since the birth of mass print either in paper form or online form. Marketing is the backbone of every industry that includes advertising, selling and distribution and proves to be the best way to anticipate customers future needs.

The basic concept behind article marketing is to promote ones product or service by writing articles on the related topics. These articles describe the features of the product you sell or the service you offer and then posted on different article directories. Such article directories own a big space on popular search engines, making your article visible to thousands of users which in turn provides you with leads or users who are really interested in buying your product or hiring the service you provide.
You should follow certain norms while writing articles for the sole purpose of marketing your business.

Follow these norms strictly and you will definitely notice the benefits of article marketing.

1. Each and every article you write must be informative and should NEVER contain content that user might not be interested in reading. Writing informative articles is the first key to success.

2. The headline of the article must force the reader to read the articles. Once they are in, give them another strong reason to continue reading your article.

3. Article directories are a major source to promote your articles over the web. So, publish your articles on every article directory on the web and increase your chances of getting noticed by several users online.

4. You should publish your articles on your website too and include a copyright so that another user might not copy your stuff to promote his/her product or service. This has been a trend over the web to copy others stuff and promote it under ones name.

5. Back links have their own importance, so do not forget to place a back links in your articles. You can also include other websites links in your articles because thats how a chain is created and you should be a part of it if you want to grow your business over time.

6. Another good way is to make an eBook out of your articles and publish it over the web for a small fee or distribute it freely and include a byline about every product you sell or service you offer. You can also create affiliates and send your articles to these affiliates who in turn will promote your articles for you.

7. The most important tip is to write original articles and choose a keyword for your article because search engines return the results based on keywords. The ratio of keywords in the articles should be 3 to 5 percent and not more than that otherwise; search engines will ban your content for spamming.

Follow the above tips of successful article marketing and see your business grow on and on and on. Remember, publishing just one article will not give you success; instead, you will have to write several articles that will make your business grow over a period of time. Article marketing is a slow process but generates high quality results over time.