4 Keys to Internet Marketing Success

Have a blog. Everybody has a blog these days. Your sites need to have them too. Why?

For one thing, a regularly updated blog tells search engine spiders to come visit your website on a regular basis. This will get your pages indexed faster and can only help you rank better in the search engines.

A blog is also a way to brand yourself (or an Internet marketing pseudonym) for your audience. Blogs are expected to be a little more personal than other content on a website. Take advantage of this by using "write-like-you-talk" approach in your blog posts so that your customers feel more comfortable with you (and therefore more likely to buy from you).

Visit forums. Forums are another great way to build consumer trust and put your name out there in front of people. How can you do this? By helping people.

Sign up for the two or three most active forums in your niche. Then spend an hour or so each day reading posts and answering people's questions. You should already have researched your niche well enough to be able to hand out some very good advice.

Once you've made twenty-five or so posts of really helpful and valuable information, go ahead and add your Web address to your forum signature. (Doing it too early can actually get you banned at some forums-unfair, but true.)

You can drive surprising amounts of traffic to your website this way. It won't be just the people you directly helped who visit your website, either. Anybody who sees the kind of information you give away on the forum is a likely candidate for clicking your signature link. It's one of the best advertising methods out there, and it's totally free.

Build a list. Building an Internet marketing in your list is likely to be the single most profitable thing you will ever do online. Once you get people on your list, they are there to be marketed to whenever you feel like it (as long as you don't feel like it five or six times a day). Having an email list can turn what would have been a bunch of one-time sales into a sustainable monthly online income.

Provide an opt-in form on your website. This can be a form people put their email addresses into when they decide they want more of the kind of information that's in your blog or on your website.

This should also be shown to your customers when they buy from you as well. If it's your product they're buying, you can send them there after the purchase. If it's someone else's product (i.e., you're making affiliate sales), give them the option to opt-in to your list (or not) before they reach the main sales page. This will turn one-shot sales into a potential long-term relationship of sales.

Allan King's friend Paul T. Power was a frustrated (and broke) Internet marketer until he sat down and learned how to use -systems- to create passive streams of income. He likes to help others do the same. Visit InternetMarketing Members to learn how you can make money online as well.

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