| Hello again Name and welcome to How to harness the power of forums AND use Google to make easy money!
--------------------------------------------------- 1. The power of forums Forums are one of the things that make the internet a unique medium. A successful online forum leads to customer loyalty, repeat visits and more sales. An online forum is simply a place where people with common interests gather and share ideas, news, views, jokes and so on. It's a 21st century version of the public meeting with all of the passion, wit and fervour that such meetings create. If you can harness positive emotions around your business, you'll be in a powerful position - always remember, people buy on emotion. To get a flavour of forums, try those at Yahoo groups. Other good ones are at www.tripadvisor.com , www.ultrashock.com and Michael Green's internet marketing forum . Like any discussion group, an online forum needs rules, guidelines and quality control - it's a serious undertaking but potentially very powerful and profitable. There are also legal issues particularly those relating to data protection and defamation. Go to www.dca.gov.uk for more on this. 2. Where to get resources that will get you started If you want to learn about using a forum to make money, try these excellent resources: You should also identify discussion forums in your sector. Take part, contribute and weave in subtle references to your site and business. It's a fantastic way of generating free traffic to your site. Be careful to check the forum's etiquette before you take part. Some are strict about obvious promotion. The trick is to be seen as a 'giver' not a 'taker'. If you offer help on the net,' your cup will runneth over'. 3. Advertising your site - the formula for success As with affiliate marketing, there are two sides to advertising on the net. You can promote your business on other sites or offer adspace on your own site. In some ways, advertising is anathema to the internet. The net's a 'pull' medium - people use it to find information they want. They're in control and anything that gets in their way is potentially unwelcome. To overcome this, your advertising has to attract attention and be relevant . A few years ago advertising on the net was very expensive. It's now much more reasonable, especially with the advent of Pay-per-click advertising(PPC). But you can still waste more money on it than on any other activity, if you don't track the results. If you need traffic quickly or for a short term boost, run a PPC campaign and test different ad ideas and different sites. You can use your site logs to analyse whether the ads are directing traffic to your site. Or try Adminder , the tool I use to track all my promotions. Measure response rates and conversion, both to sales and ezine subscription. 4. Two ways to make easy money from advertising on your site. If you've got a website, you're effectively a publisher and can allow people to advertise on your site. The easiest way to do this is through Google Adsense. You can subscribe at www.google.com/adsense . The way it works is that Google serves up Adword ads to your pages that are relevant to your site. You get paid every time someone clicks on an ad. You can customise the appearance of the ads too so that they fit with your site. But probably more profitable is affiliatepowerads. Instead of getting a few cents per click you can earn over $100 per sale. It's just as easy as Google Adsense and a lot more lucrative. To find out how go here. Advertising is a great way of adding interest to your site and generating some extra revenue, provided it doesn't interfere too much with what you want people to do. If they click on an ad, they'll leave your site. The fact is though, that a high proportion of visitors won't buy from you, so offering a relevant and potentially lucrative alternative makes sense. That's it for now. All the best, Paul --------------------------------------------------- Protect your business from crashes, viruses and hackers. Incise subscribers save over 15%. Depositit is the leading online data back-up solution. Incise subscribers get nearly 20% off standard prices. Find out more here --------------------------------------------------- paullock@incisecomms.co.uk NOTES 1. Please forward this course to anyone you think might find it useful, whether they're considering starting an online business or already running one. To get the email, they can sign up in less than 10 seconds at http://www.incisecomms.co.uk 2. As a reader of my course, you're my most important critic and commentator. I welcome all reader feedback. Emailme anytime at paullock@incisecomms.co.uk 3. If you really don't find the course useful, please reply to this email with the subject field 'unsubscribe'. I'd appreciate any feedback. 4. Lastly, I've taken every care to check the information and advice I give. However, I regret that I can't be responsible for any loss that you may suffer as a result of the advice or from any omission or inaccuracy. This disclaimer also applies to 3rd party links. © Paul Lock 2005. All rights reserved. No copying or extraction without permission from service@incisecomms.co.uk |