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Author: Douglas Titchmarsh Article source: http://www.kabish.com/. Used with author's permission.
The current climate on the internet is very unfavourable to the small business
operator. All forms of advertising are becoming blocked, or too expensive.
Email is becoming difficult to send, and even more difficult to ensure
it arrives at its destination due to spam filters.
Ads on sites are being blocked, popups are blocked by peoples browsers, and
it's taking more and more effort to actually get noticed if you do make it
into view.
So what's the internet marketer to do to advertise on a budget these days?
Well here are 10 tips which could help you to get your ads and your
business noticed.
1 Avoid spam complaints in the first place by building your own
in house opt in list. Put a subscribe form for a newsletter or
update alert emails on every page of your site. And then make sure
it's double opt-in, that is all subscribers have to confirm before
they are added to your list.
2 To defeat the spam filters at the user end of things, format your emails
to avoid the most filtered words. All the spammers have used the words
F.ree and millions to the point of making them useless anyway, but they
are still the ones guaranteed to trigger the filters.
3 Until recently adding a popup to a webpage would almost guarantee it
got seen, and used correctly would make sales. But now almost everyone
has a popup blocker, and all the main browsers have them as standard.
There are ways around them, and in some cases they can be much more
eyecatching than the original popups too. Try Spinning Popup Generator
see http://www.cashinonline.info/spg for more information.
4 When the world wide web was young, banners were a good way of promoting
sites, or products. But once again the over use of them has rendered them
less effective. That is they do still have a place, but they need to be
done correctly to get a response. There are also ad blockers which block
image ads, they aren't completely effective though and I recently discovered
at least some of them only block images with no width and height tags. So
always include width and height tags, and use an alt tag for including
alternative text for when the banner doesn't display.
5 Most people are so fed up with email adverts because of the amount of
spam they get that you need to really be different to get them to open
your emails. There is a caveat to this though, don't try to mislead
people into opening your emails. Use a catchy subject to entice people
to open your mails, but be careful of those spam trigger words.
6 Publish a free ebook and give it away from your web site or in your
e-zine. Include links to your site in the book, and this will increase
your traffic, sales and e-zine subscribers.
Allow others to give it away too, and you will have a viral ad going out
all around the internet bringing you free exposure.
7 Build alliances with other online businesses. You could trade links or
ads, create joint venture deals,cross promote your products, etc. This way
you both double up on your chances of getting your ad seen.
8 Add a message board or chat room to your web site. If people enjoy it,
they will revisit your web site to participate regularly. You could even
include a section for ads in your message board, and people will come
to your site to post ads, and may read yours too.
Make it a members only forum, and they will have to give their email
address to sign up, giving you another avenue to promote through.
9 Write and send press releases for your web site. Use a strong
headlines, make it newsworthy, and tell the journalist why their readers
would like it.
10 Write articles and submit them to e-zines, web sites and magazines
that accept article submissions. Include your business information and
web address at the end of the article. Whenever and wherever it gets
published you also get your link seen. Targeting your articles to
your market will get the best response too, as people looking
for content in your market will use them, and people reading that
information are looking for your products or skills.
Bonus advertising tip
11 Participate on message boards. Post answers to other people's
questions, ask questions and post appropriate information. Include your
signature file at the end of all your postings. You will also gain
a reputation for being an expert in your chosen field, giving you
more credibility. People will start searching you out then. BIO
Doug Titchmarsh runs several sites including
http://www.cashinonline.info and
http://www.titchmarsh.com and publishes
an e-zine for marketers online and off
which you can get by sending an email to
douglastitchmarsh@getresponse.com
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