Friday, November 4, 2011

Five Internet Marketing Rules To Follow

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Some misguided marketers think that the “old school” marketing tactics apply to a new, customer-driven business world. The reality is that even if you’re the best, the most convenient or even the cheapest, promoting these virtues on social networks will not get your company the results that you’re seeking.

We all know the potential that kindness, honesty, and generosity have online – they’re welcomed and rewarded! So why is it that “conversations” are getting heavy with sales pitching and self promotion? Not only is this turning off consumers, but it’s making Internet marketing look bad and undoubtedly makes it much more challenging for businesses to convert contacts into sales.

But don’t panic, you just need to set yourself apart with a few key Internet marketing strategies, and in return you’ll be able to transform your social media communities into profitable business. What’s even better is that these activities heavily increase ROI online and refrain from that unwanted sales pitchy trash that everyone hates.

Here are five rules you should follow to successfully convert online contacts into sales.

1. Be generous: Share your expertise and knowledge online. No one is out to get you, shift your thinking and think as if people are out to do business with you. If you’re generous with your expertise and knowledge, people can connect with you much more quickly and will want to do business with you (because you’ve already given them a taste of what you have to offer.)

2. Don’t look desperate: There’s a huge difference between desperation and sincerity. You really need to want to build a relationship to get business, you can’t just approach them with the mindset of getting another deal, or with the reasoning that closing the deal is what you’re supposed to do. Consumers are smart, they can tell the difference, especially when it comes to handing over their money.

3. Create a communication plan: Once you start engaging with people you need to ensure that you have a consistent, ongoing plan to stay connected with them. There’s a variety of ways to do this directly, the best is to get their e-mail or get them to join your Facebook page and send them informative updates, tips, and resources. You want to create and build actual value, not perceived value. People will be much more responsive if you take this approach.

4. Build your social proof: Having recommendations and testimonials on your main site or blog goes a long way. By having social proof you’re essentially proving to your potential clientele that you’re worth doing business with and you don’t have to say a thing. Another good place to post some testimonials is a site such as LinkedIn.

5. Just be yourself: Don’t try to be someone else to try to impress potential clients, leads or business. Consumers want to feel as though they’re going to do business with someone real, not someone who’s insincere.

Above all, diversify! Don’t talk yourself out of reaching out to new industries, groups, or people. The Internet is bursting with millions of potential contacts, so do whatever you can to engage them with sincerity and leave out the sales pitching. After all, that person you invited or accepted your request could be your next big customer. You never know.

Top 10 Internet Marketing Forums

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There are several advantages that business stands to gain by creating Web pages or e-commerce system to market their products or services through the Internet. There are millions of other sites similar to yours that promote the same products and services. Therefore, the trick lies in how well you can reposition their website online, to be visible among the leading search engines. As a new startup business, it is important that you join one of the major online marketing forums. In it you’ll be able to find answers to some questions that have been tapping in relation to Internet marketing. Top 10 Latest always try to share very informative things for our valuable users.


1. Warrior Forum:

Forum fighter is especially recommended for beginners in internet marketing. It offers easy ways to be the best in internet marketing and thus earn more money. Most Internet marketing forums are generally found some rough drafts, but a fighter appears to be different, offering a simple permanent solution that does not include compromising your ethics. Most participants in the forum warrior is more than willing to help new students on ways to make money online.


2. Digital Point forums:

The digital theme is one of the World Wide webs for marketing for fresh and experienced Internet marketers. It is a hub that has been specially designed for people who do want to earn money. There are several forums that are available in digital Point forum, which need to devote time to surf Mon The amount of information available from Digital Point Forum is simply amazing.


3. V7 Web Development Community:

V7 Web Development Community curved a niche in blogging, internet marketing and web design. In this way managed to specific curves for individuals and businesses looking for ways to true to make money online through the means. Through web design forums, one is able to learn the hidden secrets, such as pay per click management and optimization of content. Due to the amount of information available here will receive a busy Marketing Forum.


4. WickedFire:

The above mentioned internet marketing forums, WickedFire not receive much traffic. This can be attributed to the difficult but usable solutions offered WickedFire. If you have a weak heart, then this type of forum will not work for you. The forum is for risk takers than careful marketing.



5. Thirty Days Challenge Forum
 
Thirty forums are designed around the Ed Dale has a thirty-day Challenge. If you are in internet marketing and who want to learn the rope, then this is the forum to be attached.


6. IM4Newbies:

IM4Newbies is another great internet marketing forum of individuals and businesses that are in Internet marketing, but I do not know how to go about it. The website offers functional solutions that are guaranteed to training.


7. NetBusinessTalk.com Forum:

Unlike other forums, just to look at ways to make money online, netbusinesstalk.com community goes further to offer a platform for businesses and individuals to share their online market. It is rather a discussion forum, and as such you may be able to choose from a pointer to the pointer, allowing some of the online business to Excel.


8. High ranking Search Engine Optimization Forum:

High ranking Search Engine Optimization does not really deal with the basics of Internet marketing, however it includes a recess, which is essential for internet marketing is search engine optimization – SEO. As mentioned above, have Web site does not guarantee traffic. The success of any online business depends on how much traffic the site is able to receive. This forum offers ways for business owners and individuals on how to optimize your website.



9. New Bloggers Forum:

The title of this forum, you can easily conclude that the new Bloggers message has been specially designed for the blogging enthusiast. This forum is operated by a Forum Gary Conn. It is a relatively new forum, but offers practical ways you can use to make money online blogs. Other than the forum, you can get more information about making money through blogging blog of Gary Conn.

10. Click on the bank Success Forum:

Click on the bank Success Forum is specifically designed for online marketers looking for ways to make money through affiliate marketing. If affiliate marketing is your main desire, then you can learn about how to start earning money from the forum.

Social Media Marketing Site Research

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In a world filled with social media, it's hard to choose which one to focus on to spread the word about a business. Ad-ology surveyed 752 US-small business owners to see which social media sites were the most beneficial for the success of their companies (via eMarketer.com).


9. Foursquare: 4.3% found it very beneficial

Everyone else found it:
Somewhat beneficial: 9.7%
Not very beneficial: 12.8%
Do not use it: 73.3%



8. LivingSocial: 6.9% found it very beneficial

Everyone else found it:
Somewhat beneficial: 7.7%
Not very beneficial: 11.7%
Do not use it: 73.7%



7. Yelp: 7.0% found it very beneficial

Everyone else found it:
Somewhat beneficial: 11.2%
Not very beneficial: 11%
Do not use it: 70.7%



6. Groupon: 7.6% found it very beneficial

Everyone else found it:
Somewhat beneficial: 8.6%
Not very beneficial: 12.2%
Do not use it: 71.5%



5. Myspace: 10.8% found it very beneficial

Everyone else found it:
Somewhat beneficial: 14.4%
Not very beneficial: 17.7%
Do not use it: 57.2%



4. LinkedIn: 12.9% found it very beneficial

Everyone else found it:
Somewhat beneficial: 20.1%
Not very beneficial: 15.2%
Do not use it: 51.9%



3. YouTube: 13.6% found it very beneficial

Everyone else found it:
Somewhat beneficial: 17.4%
Not very beneficial: 12.6%
Do not use it: 56.4%



2. Twitter: 14.6% found it very beneficial

Everyone else found it:
Somewhat beneficial: 17.6%
Not very beneficial: 14.0%
Do not use it: 53.9%




1.   Facebook: 29.7% found it very beneficial



Everyone else found it:
Somewhat beneficial: 25.4%
Not very beneficial: 12.5%
Do not use it: 32.4%

Recently, the Pivot Conference team set out to learn more about the state of social advertising and the future ahead by conducting an industry survey of 230 brand managers, executives, and marketing professionals.

The participants were asked to share their favourite  sites, blogs, and newsletters for learning the latest about social media marketing trends.

11 .
              

  1. Mashable earned the top spot with 82%
      2. Techcrunch followed with 61%
      3. AdAge earned the third spot with 54%
      4. emarketer – 44%
      5. Brandweek – 36%
      6. MarketingProfs – 27%
      7. SmartBrief for Social Media – 26%
      8. Altimeter Group – 26%
      9. MarketingSherpa – 21%
     10 ClickZ – 20%



Corporate Marketing Managers represented the largest group of individual respondents with 16%, but a three-way tie followed closely behind with participants representing Corporate Presidents/CEO’s/Principals, Directors of Marketing, and Agency Presidents/CEOs/Principals.


What do you think? What are your favourite resources for social media? 


Choosing the Right Blogging Platform

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So you’ve decided that blogging is for you to make money online. Now, one of the things you need to choose is which blogging platform to use. Selecting the right one will make your blogging days easy. Choose the wrong one, and you could end up never enjoying blogging again.

A blogging platform is a program designed to help you in managing your blog. From the first steps of creation, all the way to adding, editing and deleting posts, as well as approving or deleting comments. In addition to these common tasks, your platform may be able to enhance your blog with other elements as well. Therefore, it is important to spend time experimenting with different types available to see which platform is right for you.

Of course you want a user friendly blogging platform that allows you to customize your blog to make it unique. Don’t expect it to just fall right into your lap though, part of this process is to see which one suits you and your needs most ideally. Spend some time feeling them out and testing them before settling with your favorite choice.

When searching for the right one, it will help to know what you are looking for. Do you want one that is simple to use with less features perhaps, or perhaps a highly customizable one that adds features and enhancements is more for you.


One such platform, Moveable Type, is a highly customizable platform, but may be a poor choice if you do not have HTML or Javascript experience. If you are comfortable with code and computer languages or you are an experienced web master, this may be the choice for you.


Conversely, if you are not so technically savvy, an automated platform such as WordPress and Blogger may be your best route to success. If you don’t mind using templates, or are a new blogger, WordPress and Blogger offer an extremely user-friendly alternative for those without skills in coding.

You can’t get an accurate depiction of the best blogging platform out there though. You will have different needs and ideas for your blog than the next blogger. While you may find MoveableType the most appropriate choice, your best friend may find another program more rewarding and therefore, the best.

Also, don’t forget that blogging is as individual as personalities are, and there is no software that will satisfy each individual’s needs. There are many available, and this is because the developers are as individual as the bloggers, and create programs suited for many styles and aptitudes, including your own.

Introducing Twitter Web Analytics

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Twitter is a powerful platform for websites to share their content, and drive traffic and engagement. However, people have struggled to accurately measure the amount of traffic Twitter is sending to their websites, in part because web analytics software hasn’t evolved as quickly as online sharing and social signals. 
 
Today we’re announcing Twitter Web Analytics, a tool that helps website owners understand how much traffic they receive from Twitter and the effectiveness of Twitter integrations on their sites. At present, Web Analytics is rolling out to a small group of partner sites – but don’t fret! Twitter is estimating that it will be available to all website owners over the next few weeks.

The product provides three key benefits:
  • Understand how much your website content is being shared across the Twitter network
  • See the amount of traffic Twitter sends to your site
  • Measure the effectiveness of your Tweet Button integration

Twitter Web Analytics will be rolled out soon to a small pilot group of partners, and will be made available to all website owners afterwards, so watch out for that.



How to find good ideas and content for your blog

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In blogging, content is the lifeline of blogs. It is what makes each blog ticks, come alive or stand out from the rest.

So here is currently what I do to find new blog content or ideas for a blog post:

  • Read other blogs in your niche – First of all, find out what kind of competition exists in your niche. Since I write about technology, I’ve searched through blog directories like BlogCatalog or Blogarama, blog communities like MyBlogLog or Technorati, etc to find other blogs that relate to my topic. Once I’ve found a couple I like, I have looked over their posts and browsed through their list of sources (most bloggers will site sources at the bottom of a post). Now you can create a good list of “source” sites, blogs, forums (Yahoo Answers), etc whereby you can search through and find content. If you can add value to a post someone else has written, post it on your blog and make sure to link back to the original source. There’s no way any blogger can write about everything, so pick and choose topics that specifically relate to your blog. Also, browse through comments on popular blogs as readers will usually post alternatives to the item or solution provided in the main post. For example, a tech blogger writing about a program to help recover data from your hard drive will usually get a bunch of comments on other programs or solutions to recovering data. You could use those ideas as a topic for one of your posts.

  • Social Bookmarking sites – Sites like Del.icio.us, Digg, Yahoo MyWeb, StumbleUpon and many others are great ways to find new blog ideas, especially for tech bloggers. You’ll always find links to startup web sites or cool web apps, etc, etc. However, there are many different topics other than technology, so it’s definitely worth checking these sites out! You can also follow along news sites like Newsvine and Tailrank, which are community-based, but more focused on current events.

  • Audio and Video Podcasts - This is probably one of the best ways to find fresh relevant content for your blog. Audio and video podcasts have the advantage that you can get a lot more information across in a shorter period of time. There are literally thousands of podcasts that you can watch daily ranging from the latest tech news to animal life in the Amazon! One cool piece of software that you can use to find and watch podcasts is Miro. It’s completely free and has over 2000 channels with videos that you can download to your PC, iPod or media player. You can check out other podcast sites like Twit, TeXtra, DL.TV, Blip.tv, etc.

  • Google Alerts – This one might sound a little strange, but it really does work! Google Alerts is a great tool to use to find content on the web specifically related to the keywords you choose. You can easily find any mention of your keywords in the news or in blogs. So if you want to know the day a new product is being released, simply create an alert with those words and you can get the information as it happens. This reduces the time it takes to read through lots of news or blog sites trying to find the information you need.

  • Keyword Tools – Every serious blogger should be using keyword tools to uncover the searching habits of readers. That importance of the data that you can get from these tools is simply too great to overlook. There are several free keyword tools out there, including Google Adwords, Overture, and Keyword Discovery. The numbers may not be exactly accurate, but it’s definitely insightful and good to know when writing titles for your post, etc.

To write good posts, good content is a must. This can be generated if your content follows certain guidelines:

(1) Be attention-seeking

A piece of good content is attention seeking. It contains information that is helpful and valuable to visitors who will return to source for others. Your blog will be bookmarked in the process. It will become a popular resource blog.


(2) Inducing subscription

With the content that is updated on a regular basis, it is good to provide visitors with a subscription feature. They will be able to subscribe through the feed system on your blog.


(3) Always aiming for more links

None is further from the truth that if your blog has more incoming links, your rankings on search engines will vastly improve. This is a result that will happen only after your blog has gained a favorable impression with other bloggers in terms of good blog content. In their eyes, your blog is their valuable resource center.


(4) Welcoming comments

To encourage openness and friendly interaction, always encourage visitors to post their comments on your blog. It is good for self-development. Comments should be taken with a positive mindset.

(5) Encourage action-taking

In your content, it is always possible to arouse the interest and urgency of the visitors to engage them in your call-to-action undertaking. It has to be one call that is strong and emphatic.

The Importance Of Returning Visitors

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More often than I'd like to see, webmasters make the mistake of assuming that the easiest way to increase traffic is to attract as many new visitors as possible.  This belief is partially correct, but a site cannot become truly popular unless it also appeals to these new users so much that they decide to come back again and again. This is very important. There are many simple things that make your website interesting and make your visitors return to your website.

1   High-Quality ContentOffering high quality content is of course a very important factor  when it comes to getting visitors back into your blog/site to read more of your articles/blogposts. So it certainly is worth spending time writing high quality content to provide your readers with the best possible information related to your niche. After all, a great website is something which exceeds the visitor’s expectations.

2)    Start A Newsletter - Running a newsletter takes a lot of work, but brings large rewards in return. If you are able to get your visitors to subscribe, you can then E-mail your newsletter to them without the fear of being accused of spamming. This way they won't forget that your site exists and after reading your E-mails for a while, they will remember its address even in their sleep. You can make use of a free program like Listwire.com to create your own list building campaign. Click on the below link to read more about it
    
ds 

1)      Remind people to bookmark - There are two schools of thought on this subject. The first believes that offering a link to bookmark your site will increase the amount of visitors who do so. Because remembering Internet addresses is difficult for some, being bookmarked ensures that you won't be losing return traffic just because the user happened to wander off and then forgot your URL. You can make use of a site like Addthis.com to make sharing a lot easier for your readers. Just watch the below video to quickly learn how it can help you.






1)     Add Proper Links - You have to be careful about how to add and where to add links on your website. Any outbound links should not be placed on the homepage of your website. Place them in such a way, that the visitors cannot get to those link unless they see all the information on your webpage. Make your website’s own hyperlinks more prominent and include such internal links in the content.

2)      Discussion Forums – Discussion forums are like glue. A well-maintained, busy discussion forum can become a huge success. And you don’t have to know programming to create your own website with a forum where users can register and start posting. You can make use of a content management system like Joomla which is totally FREE. Using Joomla you can quickly create your own website with a forum (You need to use the Fireboard Forum extension for creating a forum using Joomla).







The best part about these boards is that most of the content is produced by the visitors themselves and these content that is produced by the visitors can certainly help when it comes to ranking high in the search engines as well. A good example is the popular internet marketing forum Digital Point forum which is ranked high for a lot of keywords related to affiliate marketing. 

13 Ways You Can Make Money By Blogging

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Heres a list of things you can do to make money using your blog.

1. Ad networks

These are services like AdSense and Chitika but also smaller or more local ones like NuffNang (which operates out of Australia and Asia). They can probably fit in some of the other categories as well, as they use different models to deliver their ads.

2. Cost Per Impression (CMP)

This is where you sell space for an ad and get paid based upon how many times it loads. Usually you get paid per 1000 impressions of the ad. The rate varies a lot, depending upon topic. There are lots of very low, “remnant” ad networks out there that pay you a pittance per impression, but if you have a higher value niche you can get better money. I’ve been paid up to $40 per 1000 impressions.

3. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

These ads pay out only when someone takes some kind of action after clicking the ad. The action might be a sale but could also be them signing up for a service, leaving an email address, etc. 

4. Cost Per Click (CPC)

This is what AdSense used to be: every time someone clicked your ad, you’d get a certain amount. Now AdSense do a combination of CPC and CPM ads—they mix them in.

5. Sponsorships

This is what I do on ProBlogger. I sell ad spots on a month-by-month basis to sponsors for a fixed amount per month.

6. Text links

When you sell a text link on your site, the person buying the link is usually doing it for search engine ranking purposes. As a result, Google frowns on these and you could be risking your own search rankings by doing it. I don’t do this, as I see it as a little too risky, but some bloggers still do. Proceed with caution.

7. Pay per post

Also known as sponsored posts (advertorials), this is where you’re paid to review a product or to promote it in a post. Bloggers have varied ethical stances on this. Generally these days you are required to disclose that you’re being paid for the post.

8. Job board/classifieds

If you operate in a niche where people are buying and selling products or there are jobs that people want to advertise this can be a nice source of income. You need to be able to attract both advertisers and those they want to see the ads to make it work, though—so you need traffic and profile.

9. Newsletter advertising

This is a growing area for me. Some advertisers love to have their brand included in emails that you send to readers. We find bundling some onsite sponsorship banner ads with inclusions in our newsletter is a good way to sell space to advertisers.

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Some ad networks (like AdSense) have ways of doing this but you can also sell sponsorships in your RSS feed directly. We use a WordPress plugin called RSS Footer to add an advertisement in the RSS feed of ProBlogger.
Here are a few more ideas that I should add to the mindmap.

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Ad networks like Kontera offer these, and I think Chitika and a few others do, too. They are ads that appear in your posts, turning certain keywords into little ads (they usually change the color of the word and/or underline it to make it look like a link). When someone hovers over the word a little ad pops up with a description of a product that they can buy. Some bloggers find these ads convert well, but others find them intrusive.

12. Video advertising

If you publish videos, you might be interested in Youtube’s integration with AdSense, which allows you to earn money from ads that appear in your videos.

13. Image ads

Yesterday +Scott Fitzgerald alerted me to ImageSpace Media, who have a system that adds advertisements into your images. These are similar to the ads you might see in Youtube videos that pop up and that can be minimized. There are of course other typs of ads and ads that fit into multiple categories above.

7 content promotion strategies for healthier website traffic

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So how do you go about developing a promotion strategy that makes a difference to your bottom line AND makes a difference to your traffic? This post examines some of the processes that you need to nail to really get your content performing on a global stage.



1) Outreach

As it’s name suggests, outreach is the process of ‘reaching out’ to other bloggers, friends and influencers to ask them for their help in promoting your content. If the network of people you reach is large enough, the chances of your content spreading virally increases. Common sense. So how do you go about finding these influencers?

There are a number of ways to search Twitter with Google, this can be a godsend when looking for particular ‘types’ of people in certain niches.  This post from Tamar offers answers to What gets an influencers attention? Using sites and tools like SocialMention.com, WeFollow.com,  Topsy (Expert Search) and Alltop.com will also help you find top users in your niche.

Services like BlogDash, eCairn and GroupHigh - see this post for a review of blogger outreach tools can all help you group relevant influencers together from these tools and follow up with them later.
Export.ly can help you find more data about the users already following you on Twitter, and whether they follow you back (i.e. are in your sphere of influence). Rowfeeder allows you to follow hashtags that you know are in use within your industry, and report on who receives the most retweets and responses – and finally these masterful excel tips from John Doherty show how to properly analyse influencers inside different niches.

All of these techniques can help you build up a picture of who’s who in your chosen industry. Once you have that data, you can begin the process of getting on their radar.

There is however a right and wrong way to do outreach. Firstly, there is an element of intrusion into the inboxes of the people you target, so the tone and delivery of what you are asking for is important.  This post from technotheory offers practical advice on how to compose an outreach email ‘Without being a kiss-ass or jerk’ and is an entertaining read in its own right. This older post on WebmasterWorld offers some firm practical advice on email outreach as well.
 
Making it personal and offering a way for those people to unsubscribe from future mailings from you is also a good idea. You don’t really want to piss people off in the process.



2) Influencer Networking

Once you’ve found an influencer using the above techniques, you are probably going to want to connect with them. There are a number of ways to do this, but one of the best ways to do this is to become valuable to them.

Hugo Guzman in his article, ‘how to engage with an influencer‘ suggests retweeting their content, putting in the hard work and time to get on their radar. Adding valuable comments to their posts, resharing their content, referring business – and finally meeting them and having a discussion in person makes the difference. One of the under valued techniques is simply picking up the phone and having a chat with the influencer in question, or simply sending a personal email to say you value their content can separate you from the crowd.

It’s important to not only concentrate on big fish influencers, instead connecting to a large number of smaller influencers with targeted interests in a particular niche can reap rewards. For blogger outreach this rings true as well, with the likelihood of multiple smaller blogs running with your PR being much higher than a single large entity – who in turn will likely pick up the story anyway if they are readers of any of the smaller blogs you’ve contacted.


3)  Social

Getting your message out via social networks is one of the common ways suggested to promote your blog. With the wide variety of multiple different kinds of social media platforms out there, it makes sense to not just blanket them with your message, but to truly understand the network before posting in them.
The below diagram highlights typically what you should be aiming your marketing sights at  - illustrating why great content drives traffic.


Choosing the network that matches best with your content will result in increased engagement within that network and there’s only one way to learn that skill – become an active participant inside it to learn what types of content works. This should include learning what tone the communication takes and how you can shape your content to better fit with their existing audience.
 
There are obvious niche social networks that lend themselves to particular types of content, e.g. writing about jobs, and posting on LinkedIn – but if you look closer there are often micro communities within larger social networks that can see improved response rates.

If there are guidelines for posting. READ them. Don’t be selfish. Provide value first,  ask for favours second. Gain the trust of the community, become a valuable part of it, and people will be attracted to you and your content.

Avoid the mindset that your content must be published only on your site and completely controlled by you. Making it easily shareable, embeddable and portable will increase the likelihood of it being shared as does social proof, visible evidence of social sharing and easy to find sharing buttons. With this variety of tactics you’ll be giving your audience all the more reason to share your content with others, and spread your message even further.



4) Email

Email still plays a massive role in driving traffic online. Not convinced? Take a quick look at how Google have integrated it into the launch of  Google+, and view the numerous email notifications within their application.
 
Someone adds you to a circle? You get an email. Someone tags you in a photo? You get an email. You get the picture. As well as that, in the build up to the launch Google released numerous Google Doc spreadsheets to collect users details for later email marketing. (BTW in case you weren’t aware, you too can easily use a Google spreadsheet with a form to profile users, and email from it. )
 
You should be concentrating on building up a list of people to expose your content to as a part of your overall strategy at every opportunity. Newsletters offer your visitors an obvious reason to signup to your site, and if you haven’t already considered it, WordPress offers a cheap and cheerful solution for the implementation.

Bloggers have long been aware of the benefits of building a repeat audience using email subscription. Feedburner is one such service that allows you to email your visitors when new material is published. Doing so automatically gets your content out to an audience who will potentially share it further and improve your site reach. Dynamic signatures of your latest blog article implemented across your organisation can also drive traffic. Think about how much external mail you send in a typical week! SigFeed can handle automation process for you.

If I produce a really great article that I’m proud of, I’ll also typically ask for help promoting it from online friends whom I’ve helped promote in the past. It all comes back to building a network around you and your site.



5) Distribution Networks – other websites

Distribution networks offer a guaranteed source of both links, and exposure for your content. Most niches have low hanging fruit where you can post your link, and expose your content to the existing audience of that website.



Seeding Strategies

I blogged a list of places to seed your content in the web design world some time ago, finding that a number of those website use similar software to allow submissions from their visitors. It’s a trivial task to fingerprint these and find more with Google, and you can use the same techniques to find similar sites in your industry.

Once you’ve posted your article, its important that you get your timing right with the promotion across the sites you’ve found. I tend to time things to coincide with the U.S. waking up, as that is where the majority of these site see their traffic coming from, and when the traffic arrives.


Guest posting

Guesting on other peoples blogs offers an opportunity to reach a new audience. If you treat it as such rather than an opportunity to just drop links, you’ll experience much greater return on your time investment.

Syndication

If you are struggling to grow your traffic – consider a syndication strategy where you provide your content on third party sites, with the end result of links pointing back to you. The key here is to bring value to other sites on the web. Can you curate your content in a particular way that makes it extremely relevant to someone else? For example , providing hyperlocal content to local websites that compliments the existing information found on that site.