by Rahimah Sultan

In James Stone’s article, Building an Internet Sales Funnel for Your Products, he starts with the question, “What is a sales funnel?” In his discussion he points out the benefits of setting up a sales funnel for your business. A sales funnel, which can be used in almost any business, gives you a single place to advertise, and you only need one list, one blog, and a single squeeze page.

You need a place (funnel) to advertise that has one entry point for all your products and/or affiliate products. Once people are on your list, they will find out about everything you have to offer, and hopefully become a customer at some point.

You need a WordPress blog that will be working for you all the time to bring in organic traffic, which is free traffic. You use an autoresponder and your squeeze page, which builds your list, to automatically let your prospects know everything you have to offer.

A sales funnel for your business is a single blog for which you write useful material to attract internet traffic. Posting quality material to your blog on a regular basis brings this free traffic to your site (blog).

Doc Stone says, “You know, it will be a lot of work at first to get this built. But once it’s built, life gets a lot easier. You really can spend just a few hours a day tweaking your system and doing your marketing.” (Read Article)

Click here for information on setting up A Sales Funnel for Your Business.

by Rahimah Sultan

When you visit a website are you curious about who owns or operates it? Do you check it out, especially if it contains something that peaks your interest? What is the first page you look at?

Your ‘About Us’ page is a vital part of any website. It is actually one of the most visited pages of any and every website. If you want to find out about a company, an organization or an individual, you will probably look at this page first. That is why I have included it in my Tips for Promoting Your Website. So, take advantage of this fact when promoting your website.

Personalize Your Page

One of the first impressions you can make on a potential consumer is from your ‘About Us’ page. This is good news for everyone because it is one of the best pages on your website for you to get creative with and truly personalize.

If your business has a particularly interesting, or unusual, back story relating to how it came about, that could be a fun way to make the most of your ‘About Us’ page. You can use fun images or a pleasing color scheme.

One thing to remember when you’re creating a good and effective ‘About Us’ page is to personalize it enough to suit you and your business. Reveal the how, why, and what your business ultimately stands for. Do not overload your consumers with too much information.
Your ‘About Us’ page should not be too long. Explain succinctly what your company does, and what the goal is, but in a fun and relatable manner.

Optimize your website

Be sure you optimize your website for relevant, repeat organic traffic from search engines. Your title, description and meta tags should reflect what your site is about. The description should be a sentence or two describing the content of the webpage. Now use the main words of the description for the keywords meta tag. If you have a blog update it regularly and optimize each post in the same manner so the search engines can find it.

Post actively on forums and blogs

You can participate in forums where your target audience is reachable. Post useful responses to questions, and include a signature with your website on your profile. You could possibly incorporate your own tips for promoting your website in a discussion. Do not spam as you most likely will be banned.

Publish an e-zine

An e-zine is an online magazine like a newsletter. You can publish your own or subscribe to others. You can find many free directories where you can add your digital newsletter and articles. Ezine Articles is one of the top directories.

Social Media Marketing

Use the strength of social media sites – mainly Twitter and Facebook – to reach your marketing objectives.

So, do not ignore the importance of your “About” page. Use it to your advantage.

You can benefit from the free online advertising tips discussed here. There are many no cost resources on the internet to promote your business, and of course you have the option of paid advertising. I’m sure that using these Tips for Promoting Your Website can be beneficial.

by Rahimah Sultan

Social Media Optimization (SMO) involves implementing changes both on-site and in social accounts to make content more visible, liked, shared and linked to via social networks. Using SMO Strategies in Internet Marketing opens up a communication avenue with current and future customers.

Did you know that having a solid social media optimization (SMO) strategy can also improve your SEO performance and organic rankings?

Good SMO strategies will drive traffic from social sites and search engines and shares, and leverage the power of social sharing to create benefits for your website.

When you create social media profiles and pages, for your business you are creating a platform for discussions/conversations and a community for your fans. Your social profile pages become a form of word-of-mouth advertising.

There are seven steps you can take to improve your SMO Strategies in Internet Marketing that include building your reputation, engagement, and becoming an authority.

“The author of this article states that, “Social media is an ideal platform to communicate your sales messages instantly and in a cost-effective manner. When you include social marketing to your overall marketing strategies, you open up a very powerful avenue of communication with your current and prospective customers.”

For some SMO Strategies in Internet Marketing, Click here to read Tips to Boost Any Business With Best Smo Strategies.

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by Rahimah Sultan

This is a great time of the year for me as I prefer cooler weather, and I like to walk and run outdoors in the fresh air, for daily exercise. There are a lot of squirrels where I live, and as I exercise I see them busily preparing for the cold months ahead by gathering and storing acorns.

As marketers, we have entered a new season of Internet Marketing for home business owners. Have you planned for the colder months? Summer has turned to fall and the holidays are fast approaching. Have you planned your seasonal marketing strategy? Do you have a blog for which you are providing updated content? Are you using search engine optimization techniques? Have you submitted your blog or other site to the major search engines? (See article)

As a home business owner you must continually market to get your site seen as much as possible in order to develop a client base for your products and services. Do you have a marketing plan? If not, make one today so that you will be well on your way to implementation before the holidays. Internet marketing for home business owners is very important if you are serious about succeeding in your business.

Write out a marketing plan that fits your budget and start implementing it now. You can use free resources if you are just starting your business, and then add paid sources of advertising as your budget permits. Use these tips to help with Internet Marketing For Home Business Owners.

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by Rahimah Sultan

So, you finally stopped dabbling in this thing or that for internet marketing and have set up your own website over which you have total control. Now you need some help with launching your website so the world will know about you and your services or products. Or maybe your site is not new. You just want more traffic. Hmmmm, how do you go about it?

I happened across this article that has some ideas. The author discusses how to create a good message that incorporates a gift which includes your branding, and where to broadcast this message. Of course your branding is the important thing in internet marketing. Then you use social networking sites and free and paid traffic sources to distribute your message when launching your website.

Put on your thinking cap and come up with places and traffic sources to either post the content or post a blurb with a link to the content? You want to leverage your internet marketing when launching your website.

Click here to read the article.

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by Rahimah Sultan

Building a successful online marketing strategy is just like building anything – it starts with a solid foundation. That foundation comes from understanding three basics of online marketing:

Search Engine Optimization
Content Marketing
Social Media Marketing

SEO should include:
Relevant Keywords
Valuable Content that is Shared
A Website that Loads Quickly
Both Images and Content
Backlinks from Respected Websites

Content marketing is important because it helps build your brand and inspire confidence in you.

Blogs, training videos, podcasts, and even video games can be used in your successful online marketing strategy. Be sure your content is good quality so it will not adversely affect your rankings and damage your brand. It must be free of grammar and spelling errors so that you look professional. Remember that the content you put on your site might be the first impression a prospective client gets of you.

You can use other people’s materials with permission and proper attribution. However, if you author the material, it positions you as an expert.

Once you have provided something of value and positioned yourself as an expert, you are much more likely to build the trust necessary to sell something. You can feature your products or services with a banner ad on your blog or by inviting the prospect to click through to the ecommerce portion of your website.

Social Media Marketing

In order to make the most of a social media marketing strategy, you need to interact with your fans and create a true community. Show that you are accessible by allowing people to ask questions, voice concerns, and even complain. Then address these issues in a professional manner. Provide them with content that is interesting, not just promotional. Remember, social media is just that – social!

Gaining a certain number of followers or obtaining a target click through rate can be wonderful short-term objectives. However, the final objective of Internet Marketing is sales.

The Internet in general and social media specifically can be wonderful tools for generating sales. But, like all tools, they have to be used properly to produce the desired results.

Always keep the marketing basics in mind in your strategy. Ask yourself these three questions:

1) Why would a prospective customer buy my product or service rather than the offerings of a competitor?
2) Is there a segment of the market that would value the things that differentiate my product or service and is it large enough to support my business?
3) What is the most cost-effective way to reach this segment with the message that my product or service is different?

Then, only launch an Internet-Marketing campaign if it is the most cost effective way to reach your specific target market with your message.

Using a successful online marketing strategy is the way to open the door to sales.

by Rahimah Sultan

Russell Armstrong states, “For anyone who needs to clear out the cobwebs on their social channels and sharpen their effective social media marketing strategies, here are a few techniques to employ so you can take back control and rise in the ranks.”

Develop a Strategy and Follow It If you don’t have a solid plan in place, your content will probably be lost and never seen. For example, set a reasonable limit on how many tweets to publish every day. Adjust the number as needed, but definitely have a goal. Even publishing just five tweets a day gives you somewhat of a benchmark to work with.

You need to build trust by responding to tweets or posts on your channels. If you don’t reply people will turn to your competitors for answers or guidance.

While tracking is generally thought of as time-consuming and tedious, it needs to be done at least once a month.

Remain active on Google+ as that is essentially free advertising for your brand when other people search for you on Google.

There are five key platforms that you should use to grow your brand.

Click here to read the article.

by Rahimah Sultan

With everyone focused on Search Engine Optimization (SEO), many overlook the importance of Social Media Optimization (SMO). For business owners and entrepreneurs using social media optimization across social media platforms is crucial to generate results.

Social Media Optimization is the process of making content that is generated for a specific brand easily shareable across several different social media platforms and sites referred to as the social media web.

The focus on SMO is not necessarily to drive larger loads of traffic to your site, but to get your content seen in order to get organic traffic. Social networks are actually driving more traffic to professional websites than Google, the most popular search engine.

One way to effectively spread branded content across the social web without requiring users to visit your website is the use of widgets and badges. Badges count as backlinks, which can improve Search Engine rankings. Another optimization strategy is the social sign-in strategy which eliminates the need for filling out a long form.

Click here to read Russell D. Armstrong’s Step Up Your Promotion With Social Media Optimization

by Rahimah Sultan

You must use good website promotion techniques to get your site noticed. This article covers a few tips on web site promotion for home business owners.

Website promotion is an ongoing process for attracting visitors to your website. It includes techniques such as web content development, search engine optimization and search engine submission.

Content

High quality unique content is one of the most effective ways to improve your online presence. Without good content your website could go unseen. Good content gives you lead generation, increased traffic and search engine rankings. Be sure your search engine optimization (SEO) is done correctly. If you are just starting a home business this might be new to you. Just do some research or get someone to help you. There are plenty of resources available.

Search Engine Submission

Submit your website directly to major internet service providers, such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, and others. Major search engines will eventually find your website if you do not submit it to them, but many webmasters believe it speeds up the process. Most of your traffic will probably come from search engine clicks so you want to make sure you list your site with the popular search engines. It will take a few days for your site to begin showing up in searches.

Connections

Submitting your website to other high ranking sites and blogs will help you gain back links (Read Article) to your website. Google and other search engines measure and rank your website by the importance and quality of other websites linking to you. Be very careful where you place your links. Be sure these links are not associated with spammy directories or link farms. These types of sites can have a detrimental effect on your rankings.

Website Promotion

Promote your website as many ways as possible. Here are a few:

Use a blog to gain followers and get useful information and feedback from potential customers.
Advertise on internet message boards, discussion forums and online communities.
Put your URL on everything connected with your business: letterhead, business cards, flyers, etc.
Build business partnerships with businesses offering complementary products.
Write ezines about your business, products and services.
Use social media.
Join Google +.
Use images and videos.

Start with the basics and as you become more knowledgeable and comfortable with the various processes, include more strategies. Your success online depends on your ability to attract visitors to your website. These tips on web site promotion for home business owners will help.

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by Rahimah Sultan

The concept of the sales funnel begins at the very start of a marketing phase where you are trying to capture the interest of as many visitors and prospective customers as you can. Some techniques used for this are:

**Writing good and targeted content and articles on your blog

**Building a list using email signups through your blog by offering free gifts

**Using social networks to signup people in order to be able to broadcast your special offers or latest blog post

**Using a landing page and/or sales pages with a call to action (signup, buy, etc) and many more.

Before even considering the construction of your Internet Sales Funnel, you will need a product or service to offer to sell to your visitors.

These can be physical products, your own digital creations such as eBooks, videos or software and also things such as membership programs or consultation services. If you don’t have your own product you can use affiliate programs such as Clickbank, Amazon or affiliate programs available that you can use in conjunction with blogging from your website.

It is very important that before choosing a product to sell that you try to identify a niche which people are demanding and then supply this need to them.

An Internet Sales Funnel is really a marketing framework which represents all of the stages from your initial leads to actual sales.

Ezine writer Kate Franklin states, “Basically a sales funnel is a way of funneling prospects into your business and building trust.”  Click here to read her article.

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