When I was doing my yearly planning for 2010, I listed the five marketing strategies that I intended to carry out. Number one on that list…Article marketing. I set a  goal to write and submit an article at least once every two weeks (I am short by one, so not too bad)

In case you’re not familiar with article marketing yet, it involves writing informative and useful articles and distributing them to article directories – giving permission to anyone to republish your article as long as your author resource box is left intact.

Two of the main results you can experience from article marketing are:

1. Traffic to your website
2. Increased rankings in Google and other search engines.

High authority article directories, like Ezine Articles, enjoy a lot of traffic (we’re talking millions of visitors every month). Many of those who read articles invariably click on the links in the author resource box and end up going to the author’s website. This is free traffic that otherwise would not have been able to learn about my site!

Search engine optimization (SEO) experts say that one of the most important ways to get high Google rankings for your target keywords is to have lots of links from other sites pointing to yours. The trick is the anchor text of those links should be the keywords you’d like to rank high for.

This strategy works so well that a Internet marketing guru once succeeded in having his website rank number one in Google for the keywords “coolest guy on earth” (or something like that!) – just by having all his buddies link to his site with that anchor text. That’s how powerful linking is.

These are the same links you get from the usually high-authority article directories all linking back to your website through the author resource box.

I realize many of you will immediately think – No way – no more writing! I have no time for that.  You have to think about it as marketing not writing. Write what you say to clients when you are telling them about your business and how it helps clients. Tape it if need be and just write down what you say – or hire a Virtual Assistant to take your words and turn them into articles.   Be targeted and use key words – words that people will use when searching for solutions on the internet.

A simple marketing strategy every business can use.  Are you?

Technorati Tags: buzz marketing, marketing strategy, online marketing

We are in the process at Time on Task of switching to 1 Shopping Cart for our newsletter and auto responder system.  That has meant checking into our list of subscribers and cleaning up the names and information to import to the new system.

I had been thinking that this is a task to do regularly with an email list – check your reports – especially after talking to a new client and discovering she had been using an automated newsletter system for a few years now and never once checked her bounce/delivered reports.  One quick call determined she had many errors, current clients on the bounce list and many old and out of date ones as well.  She also had no idea how many were getting opened every month and if anyone was clicking on the links in her articles. Keeping this list up to date is important for a few main reasons:

1. When you are paying a different fee with different subscriber levels -you will want to ensure that invalid emails are not going out every month – causing your numbers and thus your fees to be higher.
2. Knowing if there are entry errors on your list and that people who should be getting your emails are not.
3. You are investing time and money into creating your newsletter – what if not one soul was reading it? Would you change things around with your content, try something new or maybe even stop altogether and use your time/money elsewhere?

You would not know the answers to these questions if you are not checking your reports.

It is important to take a few minutes and review your bounce list each month and see if anything is out of place. Bring it up to date, fix the errors and get rid of the invalid emails. Sometimes you will come across emails you are uncertain what to do with.

Mickey.... one of my email Subscribers

Which brings me to the point of my post today… Mickey Mouse is on my Newsletter list. Yep – Mickey Mouse. The big-eared one himself… and I am sure it is him because of the email address – mmouse at a Disney domain name (I can’t publish full email addresses you know). An interesting dilemma…

I was going to delete him, but then realized his email was being delivered and opened – I checked my reports, again the importance of checking these reports comes out.

Curiouser and Curiouser…  I think for now I will leave Mickey alone and be happy I have such a celebrity on my list.

What would you do? and more importantly, do you regularly check your reports/list?

Technorati Tags: Business planning, efficient business, newsletters, Organization

Whether you are a Brick and Mortar Business or an online business – events are happening everywhere – Online, Live and Local. Live events are a great way to network with others in your business field. Human interaction builds strong relationships especially relationships that have a foundation online. They are also a great way to practice networking skills in person. But what events are right for you? The trick is knowing where to look. Here are a few suggestions:

• Check local Business organizations for posted events.
• Visit your favorite blogs/websites for information. If these people are speaking or attending a conference they will want to let their readers know about it.
• Visit online forums. Business forums usually have a place where they list upcoming events both online and offline.
• Visit social networking sites. These are great for business connections – Facebook is one main place where many people or groups post events and send out invites.

Now that you have found some options, how do you choose one?  Look at what your goal is for attending the event? You will want to choose live events that are relevant to your business. You wouldn’t attend a crafting seminar if you sell gardening supplies. And, you probably would pass on a seminar that highlights how offline businesses can get into online markets if you already own an online business.

Here are some pointers to making a decision:

• Check geographic location – Your first time out, you might want to stay close to home to lower costs. Money is often tight when you are starting a business.
• Look at event registration costs – Will you recoup the fees?
• Look at the speakers – Who is coming to regale you with their business savvy? If the speakers involved are other business owners or role models in your industry that you have been wanting to meet, don’t pass up the chance to have your questions answered and gain some insight. Adding a face to face will really help gel your connections as well.  Contacts made at events can have long lasting benefits.

Choosing a live event to attend doesn’t have to be a hard decision. Gather as much information as you can about upcoming events, their location and fees so you can map out your networking strategy. And it should all be about strategy – why you want to attend and what you will gain from attending.

I recently attended NAMS in Atlanta – Niche Affiliate Marketing Systems.  I chose to go for a few reasons:

1. I wanted to learn more about Affiliate Marketing and how it works.

2. It was an opportunity to meet two of my clients in person – one from British Columbia and one from California.

3. There were many other top internet marketers there I have been following for more than one year and it was a chance to listen to their wisdom in person as well as meet them face to face.

When you make conference/event choices by strategically choosing reasons why or why not to go you will find your investment well worth it!

Tawnya Sutherland of VAnetworking

Denise Wakeman of the Blog Squad

Technorati Tags: business networking, conference, events

Have you ever tried to teach your Mom – via phone – that the google search box is NOT the address bar on her browser? And that the website won’t open if she types the ‘www thing‘ in there. Life cannot get more frustrating than this!

During one – on – one training sessions with clients, I sometimes run into the same type of frustration as I help them learn to maneuver about in their twitter and facebook accounts. Teaching them what to look at, what to click and where to go to find something. Describing the screen and where I want them to click or visit can get frustrating because descriptions of buttons and links don’t always sink in easily.

Lately, I have started using Skype’s Share Screen feature with people to easily be able to show them what I mean. It allows you to chat via Skype with your computer screen visible to the other party – they are not logged in and cannot use your computer, but they can see it and more importantly, your mouse. In my case it allows the other party to see what I am talking about and we make much more effective use of our time and with less frustration.

Skype can be used for text chat, video chat or phone chat as well, in order to use the Share Screen feature, you need to be upgraded to the latest version which has the Share Screen function. Check it out and save yourself some frustration. Of course you may need to walk ‘Mom’ though the download of Skype – but it will be well worth it!

Here’s a quick video on using the share screen function…

and thanks to Grace White of Virtually Amazing for helping us on the screen share video!

Technorati Tags: office solution, virtual training

The past few weeks have been very busy for me as I complete client work but also prepare to head to a conference for nearly one week. It has made me appreciate the systems and processes I have setup for my business. These systems help when interruptions, new contacts and other things not written in my daily planner happen during my workday, I can easily deal with most of them and not get off task.

Staying on task for me is vital, I have many different things in my daily work that must be completed for each client. If I get backed up or behind then it is not affecting only me, but my clients.

What can get you off track? When you work from a home office, it’s a myriad of things and not just clients. For me it can be the dog, the kids, my home phone as well as contact from new clients, new requests from present clients, computer issues, internet issues … the list goes on and on.

What systems help me? The main ones are:

• New Client Inquiry procedures/info packets
• A 10 minute per hour break time
• My own business scheduled time each day

How do these help?   The new client inquiry packets save me time in that I have the info ready when someone asks for it. The hourly break time allows me time to grab some laundry, a coffee, check on the dog or deal with other items that happen. Having time for my own business allows me to stay on top of my own social media tasks and blog writing and other marketing efforts for my business. This time also gives me space in my day to deal with the unexpected that may take even more time.

All of this helps keep my stress levels lower as I have time set aside to deal with the planned and the unexpected. When things are on a roll and your hours are filled every day it is important to be able to deal with new business/contact or other tasks that pop up, and deal with them in a way that does not adversely affect your day.

What is your top tips to handing the busy-times of your workday?

Technorati Tags: busy, Time Management