Four Common Mistakes in Online Advertising

By Kenneth (LeadsLeap Admin) 

Today we are going to discuss the common mistakes that marketers make when advertising online. By understanding these mistakes and avoiding them, I hope you can improve your success rate in any form of online advertising.

Without further ado, here is the first mistake:

1. Bark Up The Wrong Tree

I once heard a story that goes like this:

Someone once asked a notorious bank robber why he only robbed banks. The robber looked a little surprised and simply answered, ‘That’s where the money is.’

This story becomes popular in the teaching of success philosophy because that’s the essence of success in doing anything. The same principle applies to online advertising. Before you start to advertise, the first question you need to ask is, ‘which online sites does my prospects frequent?’. Whatever the answer is, your challenge is to find ways to reach out to those sites and channel the traffic to your own site.

One common thing I hear from advertisers is they think their product is for everybody. If you think that your product is for everybody and you simply advertise everywhere to get traffic, chances are most of your advertising effort may be wasted.

2. Not Having A Bait

Most advertisers simply use a hook to catch fish instead of using a bait. They have a salespage that tries to sell something and they expect people to buy. This will work if the traffic has been ‘presold’. But if the traffic arrive at the salespage without learning about your product from somewhere else, the chance of making a sale is slim. If you have a mechanism to convert them into your list, you may have a second chance. Else, you will miss them forever.

A bait system is different in the sense that the objective is not in the sales. The aim is to reach out to people who can be your potential buyer by giving them part of your product free (not just giving away a freebie to build list, but to give away part of your product to let them have an experience with what you are selling). Say if you are selling a software, you can give away a ‘lite’ version of the software.

The concept of a bait system is very simple. Basically there are only 2 groups of people, let’s call them group A and group B. Group A are those who are not interested in what you are offering. Group B are those who are interested. In Group B, there are 2 more sub-groups, Group B1 and B2. Group B1 are those who are ready to pay and Group B2 are those who are not ready to pay. Most advertisers only target Group B1. In a bait system, your target is Group B. Once you have people in Group B in your net, sales is almost guaranteed, provided you deliver true value.

3. Too technical

Everyone knows it is important to prepare a good ad, but most people are too obsessed with the technical details. One typical example is they focus too much on the ‘features’ rather than the ‘benefits’.

You may ask, what’s the difference?

Features are the language for techies whereas benefits are the language for layman. For example, if you are selling a download manager, one of the features of your product may be ‘to be able to split files into parts and download them at the same time’. If you just leave it as it is, it may not make much impact. But if you translate that feature into its benefit, that may mean that your software can ‘download files 4 times faster’. ‘Downloading files 4 times faster’ is a benefit that will appeal to normal users, as compared to telling them about the technical aspect of it.

Another example is if you are selling a course on how to create a WordPress blog, instead of advertising it as ‘how to create a WordPress blog in 1 week’, you should say ‘how to create a money-making blog in 1 week’, or if you have a testimonial to back you up, you can even say ‘how to create a blog that makes $1,337 in its first week, starting from scratch!’.

Just remember, it’s the benefits that will appeal to people, not the technical details or the process of how to do it.

4. Lack Of Following Up

Last but not least, many marketers focus on generating traffic but fail to follow up with the traffic generated. When I say ‘follow up’, I don’t just mean converting the traffic into sales. That part of following up is important, but it’s not the only follow up you need to do. Another follow up that is equally important is encouragng the traffic to promote you.

As I always said, advertising is like a fire starter. You need it to start a fire, but if you want the fire to sustain and grow big, you’ll need to tactfully position lots of charcoal around it. That ‘charcoal’ is your follow-up system that encourages your existing traffic to bring in referrals.


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Home Is Where The Online Money Is

Blog for Money  How many of you have the desire to work at home in your PJs? Well, it is something that doesn't escape many people. Getting in your car early in the morning, downing some coffee, and desperately trying to motivate yourself to complete work you hate doing is something that you're probably desperate to eliminate in your life as soon as possible.

This may well be a cliche by now, but the good news is that you can make money at home online to supplement or even replace your income. It's all made possible through blogging!

Don't we all who are Internet savvy read blogs all the time? There are literally millions of blogs out there on every conceivable topic.

However, you might not have considered yourself a blogger before! It's important to get rid of the thoughts that you are not a blogger right now, because this could be the way you are able to change your life for the better.

Instead of sneaking a peek at some blogs at your 9-to-5 job, you can be the one sitting at home and writing these blogs that other people read! That sounds really good, isn't it? Now you are thinking you are your own boss!

You'll not only be providing great content for people, you'll also be pulling in some great money that can literally change your life.

Getting rid of the doubt that you can do this is going to be an important first step. As long as you are able to compose and send an e-mail, you can be a blogger!

All you need is a tutorial that will show you step-by-step how to do this. Of course, none of this will come about  unless you also have the motivation and encouragement to move forward. The absolute best place to get this online is The Niche Blogger. If you have not heard about this membership site, then it's about time you do by paying it a visit.

This membership site is good for the newbie and intermedia marketer. In fact, many of the people who join the membership site are brand-new.

The good thing is that there is a whole mix of experience levels so you are sure to be able to find help among the community whenever you need it.

The startup cost is incredibly low as well -- making sure that those who want to join to escape their jobs are able to do so. Even if you're happy with your job, it never hurts to get some added money coming in. Blogging is fun!

You are probably aware that companies spend millions and millions of dollars in order to attract customers. Part of their advertising costs online go to affiliates.

These affiliates place ads on their websites and blogs and their readers often make purchases. When readers make purchases, the blog owner makes money! It really is as easy as that.

All you need to do is be on the other end of things and become the one whose links customers buy through.

The main difference between being able to make money at home online and going to a 9-to-5 job is that you are now in business for yourself.

There is no reason to limit yourself into thinking that you have to stay at a job you don't like forever. Become your own boss and work at home in your PJs so you can do what you want to do, when you want to do it.

Writing Articles For Affiliate Programs

By Nick Kaplan

Why write articles. 

Writing articles can make your affiliate pages unique and drive more traffic from the major search engines, resulting in more sales. In some instances the merchant's affiliate program may not provide you with more than a banner and a few text links.

If your traffic levels are low than this will not do much to drive traffic to your affiliate links.

If the merchant does provide you with content then this can be viewed by search engines as duplicate material depending on how many affiliates are promoting the same product with that content.

Beginning Your Article

First begin by reading all the information on the merchant's site about the affiliate program, if you are not already familiar with the product.

It is very important that you learn what it is that you are offering to your customers such as,product features,capabilities,limitations and specifications.

Many merchants will include these details with the description.

Researching your article

Use one of the many free or paid keyword suggestion tools to build your list of niche keywords.

Google Adwords, Digitalpoint and CBtrends all have really useful keyword tools which are free. Experimenting will help you discover search trends.

Testing these keywords in major search engine will give you a sense market saturation and competition.

Include Keywords In your Article

When writing for search engines your article should be keyword rich. Include long tail keyword phrases in your article title and subcategories. Product specific keyword phrases will help drive targeted traffic from search engines to your specific niche.

What to include in your article

Creating an outline will help you organize your article and supporting subcategories sequence.

Including descriptive keywords such as, size, color and dimensions in your article will further help drive targeted visitors to your site.

Helping your visitors solve a problem

When promoting affiliate programs through article writing, bring attention to product features that will help your visitors resolve a problem.

Use examples and illustrations of how these features can be applied in real life situations.

If your product is easy to use, then bring attention to why you believe it is better than similar products.

Ways to emphasize product features

Use bullet points, numbering or italics when writing articles to emphasize and bring attention to helpful product features.

Free content

Articles provide free instant content for ezines,newsletters and website publishers. This free content is used to optimize and attract free search engine traffic.

Submitting to article directories

There are countless popular free article directories, where your can submit your article for publication. Arcanaweb publishes a list of many popular directories. These directories allow anyone to reprint the article as long as the resource box is included at the end of the article.

Read and follow the guidelines before submitting your articles

* Do not include affiliate links in your article or resource box.

* This may cause your article to be rejected by the directory.

* Do not plagiarize another writers material.

Resource box and backlinks

Writing articles can increase the number of one way links or backlinks to your site.

Included at the end of every article is a resource box,where you can include a brief bio and link back to your site.

Free article directories

Free article directories will allow you submit content but you are not paid for your article. Goarticles,Isnare and Articledashboard are among some of the large high traffic free article repositories.

Article distribution and submission services

Article distribution services will submit your article for a fee to article directories,ezines,newsletters,article email groups, social bookmarking and article announcement sites.

Article submission software

Article submission software such as Artemis Lite and Article Submitter 2.2 are free and may expedite the process once your are registered. You will need to do a manual submission for sites using an access code.

Paid article directories

These directories will pay you for writing articles or reviews.

Compensation may be in the form of revenue share or per word.

Paid to write reviews

In addition to getting paid for writing articles, reviews can be another avenue to earn extra income. Review rates can range anywhere from $2.00 to $200.00.

Reviewme, Reviewstream, Softwarejudge and Epinions are just a few of the popular paid to review sites that can put extra cash in your pocket.

You can also earn money with your clickbank id at Reviewsarena for up to 60 days.

Paid to blog

Writing blogs are yet another alternative for earning extra income.

Payperpost and Smorty are blog sites that pay weekly and compensation may range anywhere from $5 to $100. In some cases, you may be able to negotiate a price with the advertiser.

In conclusion

Do your research before writing an article, use targeted keywords on affiliate product landing pages. Submit to high ranking article directories to increase the number of quality backlinks. Check site stats for increase traffic levels. Test and improve your writing skills by reading writing tutorials and ebooks. Learn from mistakes and continue writing articles.

About The Author: Nick Kaplan, Internet marketeer and writer, provides useful resources and products for Internet visitors.