A Clever Spell

http://www.ideavirus.com

The recent bloodbath among online content peddlers and digital media proselytisers can be traced to two deadly sins. The first was to assume that traffic equals sales. In other words, that a miraculous conversion will spontaneously occur among the hordes of visitors to a web site. It was taken as an article of faith that a certain percentage of this mass will inevitably and nigh hypnotically reach for their bulging pocketbooks and purchase content, however packaged. Moreover, ad revenues (more reasonably) were assumed to be closely correlated with “eyeballs”. This myth led to an obsession with counters, page hits, impressions, unique visitors, statistics and demographics.

It failed, however, to take into account the dwindling efficacy of what Seth Godin, in his brilliant essay (”Unleashing the IdeaVirus”), calls “Interruption Marketing” - ads, banners, spam and fliers. It also ignored, at its peril, the ethos of free content and open source prevalent among the Internet opinion leaders, movers and shapers. These two neglected aspects of Internet hype and culture led to the trouncing of erstwhile promising web media companies while their business models were exposed as wishful thinking.

The second mistake was to exclusively cater to the needs of a highly idiosyncratic group of people (Silicone Valley geeks and nerds). The assumption that the USA (let alone the rest of the world) is Silicone Valley writ large proved to be calamitous to the industry.

In the 1970s and 1980s, evolutionary biologists like Richard Dawkins and Rupert Sheldrake developed models of cultural evolution. Dawkins’ “meme” is a cultural element (like a behaviour or an idea) passed from one individual to another and from one generation to another not through biological -genetic means - but by imitation. Sheldrake added the notion of contagion - “morphic resonance” - which causes behaviour patterns to suddenly emerged in whole populations. Physicists talked about sudden “phase transitions”, the emergent results of a critical mass reached. A latter day thinker, Michael Gladwell, called it the “tipping point”.

Seth Godin invented the concept of an “ideavirus” and an attendant marketing terminology. In a nutshell, he says, to use his own summation:

“Marketing by interrupting people isn’t cost-effective anymore. You can’t afford to seek out people and send them unwanted marketing, in large groups and hope that some will send you money. Instead the future belongs to marketers who establish a foundation and process where interested people can market to each other. Ignite consumer networks and then get out of the way and let them talk.”

This is sound advice with a shaky conclusion. The conversion from exposure to a marketing message (even from peers within a consumer network) - to an actual sale is a convoluted, multi-layered, highly complex process. It is not a “black box”, better left unattended to. It is the same deadly sin all over again - the belief in a miraculous conversion. And it is highly US-centric. People in other parts of the world interact entirely differently.

You can get them to visit and you get them to talk and you can get them to excite others. But to get them to buy - is a whole different ballgame. Dot.coms had better begin to study its rules.

About the Author

Sam Vaknin is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He is a columnist for Central Europe Review, United Press International (UPI) and eBookWeb and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com.

Visit Sam’s Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com

Sending out link requests is a time-consuming business. So wouldn’t it be wonderful if other sites linked to you without being asked?

Sound impossible? Well, it can be done and here are ten strategies to prove it. Why not start 2005 by making sure you use them?

In a link building campaign, you have to find target websites in the first place, review them to decide if asking for a link is worthwhile, identify the contact person and send them a customized link request. If you can do all that in 15 minutes per request, you’ll be doing very well. On that timing, you’ll be able to send out 160 requests in a 40 hour week and with a success rate of say 10%, you’ll get 16 links for your efforts.

Perhaps there is a better way to spend those 40 hours.

Sometimes the best way to get links is not to ask for them. That doesn’t mean you should sit back, do nothing and wait for links to appear. Spend time creating content and making your site as attractive and easy to link to as possible. There are lots of things you can do to build your link popularity without sending out link requests.

Here are some suggestions:

1. Make it clear on your own website that you want links - ask for them directly and make it easy for people to link by writing the linking code for them (using keyword phrases in linking text of course). Explain why it will help: “If you’ve found this site useful, please link to us so that others can benefit”.

2. Play an active part in online discussion groups and forums. Not only will you learn, but you’ll become known and will spot the movers and shakers - and if your people post good opinions and helpful advice, people will link to you.

3. Publish a regular newsletter and republish the content on your website. Encourage people to link by asking, “if you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, you can link to the permanent version at (insert URL)”.

4. Publish articles on other websites - ezines, information sites, media sites, even article banks. This works well. You can find site to submit articles to by doing a Google search, e.g. - intitle:”submit an article” business - this produces over 1,000 results. Spend time looking for niche ezines and newsletters that serve your market, scan the type of content they publish and adapt your writing to their style.

5. Create an interactive tool. My favourite of old was ‘The longevity text’. You answered about 20 questions and the tool predicted at what age you would be likely to die. Irresistible - I still remember that my prediction was 83. The test was designed and published by an insurance company - could they have been trying to sell me a pension? A little bit of creativity in thinking about such tools will be time well spent and a good programmer will be able to create a tool in just a few hours.

6. Create great content. (OK, it’s an old trick, but it still works) Just keep publishing great stuff. One of the best at this is search engine marketer and prolific writer Jill Whalen. Her weekly newsletter from http://www.high rankings.com is a model of consistency and genuine value to her many thousands of readers.

7. Submit your website to legitimate award sites. Mike Corso’s Cool Site of the Day, http://www .coolsiteoftheday.com is a must together with any others you can find. You’d be surprised at how high your chances of success are.

8. Praise and link. When you find genuinely useful resources, write a short, complementary review together with a link. Then publish on your website and click on it just to make sure it ends up in your target’s referrer logs. Larry Chase of Web Digest for Marketers publishers a monthly newsletter that reviews about 10 web resources - you’ll find it at http://www.wdfm.com . A few days later he writes to each reviewed site and allows them to quote his comments in return for a link.

9. Become a source of quotes. Provide sharp, useful, timely quotes for the media. You can get yourself known and you’ll find journalists will seek you out. Sign up for services such as http://www.prleads.c om ($99 per month) or the premium priced http://www.sourc ewire.com (£1,200 per annum).

10. Volunteer to become an editor for several directories. You’ll be able to submit reviews of your own sites and you’ll have opportunities to get to know your market better - that inevitably leads to more linking opportunities. Go beyond the obvious - as well as http://www.dmoz.org, try http://www.joeant.com, http://www.skaffe.com and http://www.web-beacon.com.

Sometimes we can get too wrapped up in sending out link requests. Steeping back and thinking of some creative ways to get people to link without being asked will be time well spent.

Ken McGaffin is author of The Linking Matters Report and publishes a regular newsletter on linking strategy. He provides training and consultancy in
link building and online marketing.

One of the most popular ways to generate free traffic to your website these days is to use a free traffic exchange service.

A traffic exhange is website service that enables you to view someones website, and others in turn view yours. You earn credits when you view someones site,
and you use those credits to have others view your site.

Internet marketers would like to know how to bring traffic to their
websites quickly, without spending any money. Traffic exchanges can
accomplish this.

The greatest benefit comes in when you sign up others and receive
traffic from their efforts.

The different types of exchanges are start page exchanges,
manual surf, and auto surf.

The key is to join more than one exchange, it could be start page,
manual or auto surf exchange, and promote them to get referrals.

Go to any search engine such as yahoo or excite, and search for traffic
exchanges. There are hundreds, with new ones being established everyday.

With all the traffic exchanges you find from the searh engines,if you
join them,you will increase your traffic greatly.

Paul Kellum is the webmaster of a new website
that sells over 3500 products with some of the lowest
prices on the internet. Our fantastic affiliate program
is free to join. http://www.great-web-deal.com
http://tinyurl.com/4vgt4

Web sites are a major part of the tourism marketing success strategy
used by international tourism promoters in the new millennium: tourism
boards, Associations, lodging, tour operators, etc. If your tourism web
site does not have these four primary elements clearly and quickly
represented, you are missing opportunities and losing sales.

1. Creates a desire to use your tourism services, visit your destination or
participate in your unique tourism option

2. Clearly informs prospects of travel and service benefits, options, sites,
nature/environment, activities

3. Answer questions and concerns a typical visitor may have

4. Motivates prospects to contact you quickly (not your competitor) for
more information, travel options and dates, answer questions and
address concerns

If your site achieves all these goals, then the prospects that have visited
your site will be more excited, motivated, qualified, informed and much
closer to giving you a booking or visiting your country. This article is not
about web design and layout theory, but why the written word and
consumer psychology is a prime factor in influencing arrivals and sales.

Create a desire to Visit your destination or travel with your
company

Prospective travelers may or may not choose to visit your destination
based on what they read on your web site - usually just your home
page.

Read the article Tourist Safety and Security on Adventure Business
Consultants, then you’ll know how crucial it is to first communicate to
prospective travelers that your destination and/or tour is a safe, secure
and fun place to visit. With so many global destination choices online
and so much international turmoil, you MUST communicate clearly it is a
safe and fun destination quickly.

The best place to first communicate safety, security and fun is on your
home page, not buried deep in your site. When someone first comes to
your web site, you literally have five to twenty seconds to grab their
interest and compel them to want to know more about your destination,
tours, etc. If you don’t grab them on your home page, they are gone.
Those prospective tourists are back to surfing the web, seeking out a
more interesting, compelling tourism web site and vacation destination.

If you look at your log report, (the statistical report that your internet
service provider should make accessible to you) that monitors your web
visitors activity, i.e. pages visited, length of time on your site, key words
used to find your site, etc., you may notice that the majority of visitors
may stay less then a minute. On a poorly written and designed web site,
maybe less then fifteen seconds. So grabbing their attention and
motivating them to want to know more is the first obstacle and
opportunity. Testimonials and photos of happy tourist are perfect for
communicating safety and experience quickly. Use them liberally.

Tourism Web Site Must Clearly inform

One of the prime reasons people travel is to experience “something
different” from their ordinary life and location. Active and ecotourists
want to learn about new cultures, see different houses, hear and speak
a different language, reflect on ancient religions and buildings, marvel at
unbroken vistas, or try a new activity. This is exactly what most
ecotourism operator and destinations are selling and what you must
communicate to your web visitors.

Too many web sites that give web visitors unknown destinations instead
of activities or types of regions. Most people surfing your web site are
not going to know, for example, what they’ll find in Hosgol, Khenti, or the
Gobi - which are major regions of Mongolia I discovered during two
consulting projects I did there for their tourism Association and ministry.
You be better off to define what type of regions they are and what they
have to offer. Use descriptive words that everyone will understand. For
example:

Hosgol -Mountains • Lakes • Fishing • Horseback Riding • Hiking

Khenti - Steppes • Rivers • Fishing • Horseback & Mt. Biking •
Religious Sites

Gobi - Desert • Camel Riding • Trekking • Archeology

You must use descriptive text and compelling words that paint a
desirable mental picture.

Summarize your trips in bullets and short headlines and sub-
headlines

Use descriptive verbs and compelling words in the body of the text to
give substance and details to the headlines and sub-heads.

Effective Tourism Marketing Web Sites -Answer Questions and
Concerns

When a prospective tourist is considering a destination, in addition to
types of regions and activities, they have additional questions and
concerns that must be addressed to earn their visit or booking. The
same holds true with Out Bound Booking Agents, but even more so.

Some of these travelers questions and concerns include:

Safety precautions and procedures • How you are going to protect their
safety? • Length of vacation • Costs • Difficulty of trip • Travel options to
Ulaan Bataar • Lodging - hotel, camping or Ger • Food- vegetarian or
special restrictions • Water - Is it safe? • Medical emergency/1st aide
resources • Qualifications of staff • Experience level of company •
Exchange rates & procedures • Times of year to visit • Group discounts
• Children - minimum age/experience • Insurance needs/options •
Cancellation policy/minimums for departure • In-country transportation
& equipment • Visa requirements • Inoculations/disease precautions •
language

One of the best ways to deal with all the typical questions you’ll get from
prospective clients is a Frequently Asked Questions and Answers page
- FAQ’s. You should also create a pre-written response E-mail that
responds to these questions and more. Testimonials and pictures that
address these questions are great too.

Successful Tourism Marketing - Motivates prospects to Buy

Remember that:
Marketing is the actions and steps to getting prospective and qualified
visitors/clients to call or e-mail you.

Selling is the transference of enthusiasm from you to the prospect.

Sales is getting those prospective visitors/clients to feel comfortable
and excited enough about your destination/or trip, to give your money
and book a trip.

Your tourism web site quickly communicates that region and your tours:

Are fun, safe and secure on the home and subsequent pages

Effectively answer questions and concerns

Uses a blend of testimonials and images of happy visitors (especially
celebrities and/or recognized media)

When prospects call or e-mail, they will far more motivated and excited.
If you are excited in your spoken and written words too, then making a
sale is ten times easier. If you or a staff member can effectively speak
the foreign language of your prospect, can be excited about what you
are selling and can ask for the booking, it would be better to schedule a
phone call with serious prospects at your expense whenever possible.
This will radically increase your odds of converting that web site visitor
into a paying client.

Web site Samples and Resources

See the following web sites for good use of testimonials, compelling
headlines, layout, photos and descriptive text that clearly informs
prospects of travel options, sites, nature, activities, etc. How a site looks
is important, but it is the words and how they are expressed, that is most
important.

www.BajaTravelVacations.com/
www.AdventureBizSuccess.com
www.Alaskadogsledding.com
www.Anotherland.com
www.california-river-rafting.com
www.tightlinesfishing.com

How-to Create Tourism Web Sites that Sell - Guaranteed

Here is one of the best resources to help you define and
communicate your most important information to prospective visitors and
guests. This will motivate them to call, e-mail and give you a booking:
Tourism Marketing Success©2005. http://
www.AdventureBizSuccess.com/tourismmarketingbook.php

This special print or E-book will take you step by step through the
process and helps you create effective and profitable Tourism marketing
communications for brochures web sites, tradeshow booths, advertising,
videos and more.

Tourism Web Site Check List for Success

Web sites are a major part of the marketing success strategy used by
international tourism promoters.

Prospective travelers may or may not choose to visit your region or use
your tour, based on what they read on your web site - usually just your
home page.

Your web site quickly communicates that your destinations and tours are
fun, safe and secure.

Your web site effectively answers questions and concerns.

The best place to first communicate safety, security and fun is on your
home page, not buried deep in your site.

You must use descriptive text and compelling words that paint a
desirable mental picture.

Summarize your trips in bullets and short headlines and sub-headlines

Use descriptive verbs and compelling words in the body of the text to
give substance and details to the headlines and sub-heads.

One of the best ways to deal with all the typical questions you’ll get from
prospective clients is a Frequently Asked Questions and Answers page
- FAQ’s.

Don’t forget that your web site must show up in the top 1 -20 positions of
directories and search engines from a relevant key word search. Without
this, no matter how well written and laid out your web site is, you will
loose out on the majority of prospective clients. See
www.AdventureBizSuccess.com for articles on search engine success
and more E-marketing strategies for tourism professionals.

Since 1994, Tim Warren and Adventure Business Consultants, has
helped dozen’s of ecotourism, adventure travel, nature and cultural tour
operators, travel agents, destinations, tourism associations and boards
with training, consulting and creating exceptional marketing material.
Click Here For Free Bimonthly E-zine - Outdoor Tourism Marketing
Business Success - http://www.AdventureBizSuccess.com“>http://
http://www.AdventureBizSuccess.com

News, tips,
tools and specials that you can use to increase your tourism marketing
and business success. 800-707-7570.

Beyond all the hype, what makes a viral marketing campaign successful? While many factors come into play, I believe that a desire to help others to succeed is the most important piece of the puzzle. In that spirit, here are eleven ways to succeed brilliantly with viral marketing.

1. Give people an opportunity to make more money than you do-much, much more! Operate with the mindset of a franchise owner. Mcdonald’s only keeps 3% of the profits from its many restaurants, but takes in billions of dollars every year!

2. Create a “mini-system” that people can easily apply to start profiting almost immediately. Give them every tool they need to start giving a free item away.

3. Put the “duplication factor” into play, again in the spirit of a franchise owner. Create a proven system for wealth, keeping a small percentage of the profits, and let people teach one another the system, or give them a central location they can come back to again and again for training.

4. Be a kind of “mentor” to the people that you want to give away your free items. Constantly help them to succeed, and by doing so you will succeed greatly yourself.

5. Develop a relationship with whoever you would like to give your your free items away to. They will in effect become loyal to you because you have demonstrated your willingness to serve them.

6. Occasionally e-mail your list with updates regarding the viral marketing campaign. Always keep it fresh, so they stay
excited about it.

7. Constantly refine and improve on your viral marketing efforts, and also add to them as well.

8. Help people to create their own viral marketing campaigns in a manner that benefits them as well as you.

9. Sell your product and offer generous affiliate commission to entice people to promote it.

10. E-mail newsletter owners (make sure they don’t mind you
e-mailing them) and give them an incentive to be part of your viral marketing campaign.Explain the benefits. For example, how much they can profit by taking part in your viral marketing campaign.

11. Line up joint venture deals that allow your joint venture partners to profit immensely-give them a lot while you take a little.

Success in Internet marketing, and in anything else in life,
requires ingenuity, creativity, determination and drive. I wish you much success with your Internet marketing campaign!

Can two sales lead to infinite income?
=> http://www.easyincomesystem.com

By far the best way to get traffic to your website is to set up a successful affiliate program. However, the learning curve for doing that is a bit steep.

The second best way to get traffic to your website is actually quite simple. You can get traffic within days and the effects will be long lasting.

So, what is the second best way to get traffic to your website? By writing valuable content and then giving it away.

Want proof? First let me tell you my method of using this tactic. Write an article. (I’ll tell you more about how to do it in a bit.) Put it on your website. Include it in your Google sitemap. Update your sitemap. Wait for the search engines to ping it. (I usually wait a week even though they will ping it within a few hours usually.) Then post it on all the major article sites and email it to ezine publishers.

Sound like a lot of work? Read on. I’m going to show you how to do the whole thing with just two hours work.

Now for proof. You can keep track of how well your article is being distributed by picking a unique title and then looking at the search engines to see how many times it is listed. Here are the stats for my first article: Day 1-3, 0; Day 4, 41; Day 5, 754; Day 6, 32,200; Day 7, 26,400; Day 8, 26,500; Day 9, 36,800; Day 10, 43,300.

Now, let me tell you that not all of those hits in the search engine will have a link to your website. However, if you have written interesting content, people will start to look for your name. Then they will eventually look you up.

So, you will get some immediate traffic from people that will publish your whole article with a link back to your website. And you will get long term traffic from name recognition.As you get better at picking titles and writing, you will get more exposure. Consider the stats from one of my more recent articles: Day 1-2, 0; Day 3, 414; Day 4, 435; Day 5, 25,200; Day 6, 72,100; Day 7, 140,000; Day 8, 146,000. Think of that! 146,000 references from just two hours work!

Now, you are asking how you can pump out an article and distribute it with just two hours work. First, if you have not already done it, pick a general area that you can easily write about and has a decent demand on the web.

I picked three areas.The first - internet marketing - because that is what I’m doing with my other two areas. So, I can chronicle my successes here and hopefully make a bit of money on the side.

The second - my offline career - because that is something I know a lot about and can crank out an article in a very short time. The downside is that when I’m off work I like to do something else, so I have to push myself to work on that.

Third - a recreational interest - now there is something that is fun to write about and has some good interest on the web as well.

Now try to pick an interesting title. The title I picked for the article that got 146,000 references is A Bite on the Toe says Time to Go. Hmm, I wonder what that is about. See, it makes you want to look and see what you might find out. You can also give away your subject, but make it something that people are dying to find out about.

Now write somewhere between 500 and 1500 words on your subject. Here is a simple formula for you to use: identify a problem, expand on the problem, give a solution. Something very powerful is to put in a story in the middle section.

Don’t worry if your first few articles are not that good. You will get better.
Once you have your article put it on your website and let Google know it is there with your Google Sitemap. If you need an easy way to do that, XSitePro is excellent both for making your website and automatically making your Sitemap for Google. It is the program I use and I highly recommend it. There are many other features that make it ‘the bomb’ for creating great affiliate and AdSense websites. I’ll write more about that later.

Now wait until you can see that Google and others have spidered your website. This will make sure they know that the article was on your site first and you will get a bump for unique content from that.

Now is the time to put your article on all the article sites. All you have to do is go to Google and do a search for “submit article” and you will find many sites. Look especially for ones that are high traffic general sites and ones that specialize in your niche. Then sign up as an author on each site and submit your article. Be sure to write down your login information. The first time through will take a lot longer than usual.

But, as you can see, even without having to sign up at each website, putting in the same information over and over will take you a long time. That is where article submission software comes in.

There are many article submission programs available. But, since you are going to be doing this a lot - at least I hope so, because you cannot lose with this method - you should get the program that works the best, is easiest to use, and gives you free updates.

The one I use is ArticleAnnouncer. I know it’s a bit spendy, but it is easily worth the money.With those two tools, you are well on your way to getting over 100,000 references for one of your articles.

Ron McCluskey started marketing online before the web. He had a bulletin board system on an Apple way back in 1986.
Marketing since then has changed a lot, but Ron has kept up with current trends.
Find his latest internet marketing tips and techniques at Extreme Affiliate Income.

Many successful Internet marketers have found out that one of the best ways to drive traffic to their websites is by writing articles. Getting their own articles written, distributed and published on the Internet is one of the very best Internet marketing techniques in existence.

An author of a good article usually becomes an instant authority because visitors could obtain some useful information from it to help them in their own business. As a result, it is very likely that they would click the link in your article resource box to visit your website to get more information. Also, the chances of them signing up with you in one of your recommended business opportunities or buy one of your recommended products would be greatly enhanced.

Some marketers might decide to write their own articles if they have the ability to do so while others might choose to join an article cooperative to get access to private label articles or hire someone to write articles for them.

There are three possible routes opened to Internet marketers:

1)Conduct Own Research and Write Your Own Articles.
Those who choose to write their own articles enjoy the advantage that it is “free” and it would give them a sense of pride in accomplishment. There are a wide range of subjects to write about but it is advisable to stick to those relevant to the current businesses the writers are involved in. The disadvantage is that it could be time consuming to conduct some basic research work.

2)Join An Article Cooperative to Get Pre-written Articles.
Hundreds of pre-written articles could be obtained for free or a small fee. From these you could choose those discussing subjects related to the content of your website. These are commonly known as the “Private label articles” which you have full permission to use and also add your own name and article resource box to the article as the author.

3)Hire Someone to Write Articles For You.
Some might find writing own articles too much a hassle especially when they are new to this business or if they do not fancy pre-written articles due to lack of originality, writing articles using ghost writing service could be a possibility to put their own ideas into writing

2)For article marketing on the Internet, articles written with between 400-700 words would suffice. It goes without saying that your articles must be relevant to your Internet business. Hence topic of your articles should be related to: “working at home”, “home based business”, “Internet marketing”, “making money online”, “promoting a website”, etc.

Below are some routes you can use to maximize the readership of your articles:

1)Article Directories
The best practice is submitting your articles to Article Directories. Many publishers of websites, blogs, and ezines visit the sites of these Directories. Hence your articles will be quickly exposed to people who have a large amount of traffic.

2)Article Lists/Newsletters
You could also submit your articles to article lists such as newsletters on Yahoo and Topica. Articles from such sources are normally better received by publishers. As a result, when a submission is done by you via an article list, publishers have more confidence in your articles and would very likely use them.

3)Individual Related Websites
Most websites are focussing on providing valuable information and educational materials to their readers. You could submit your articles to these sites if your articles are relevant to what they need. It is best that you only contact sites where the readers would have an interest in the topic of your article.

4)Ezine Directories
When your articles have been submitted to directories and article lists as mentioned earlier, you could start contacting individual publishers such as the publishers of ezines that are related to your topic. Choose those who accept articles and write to them and convince them that your articles would be of value for their purpose.

5)Give The Articles to Your New Affiliate members
To help your affiliates especially the newly “recruited” ones, you could give them your articles as a way to help promote your site. They could either publish them as they are or they could substitute your link with theirs in the resource box of the article. They would be impressed by such generous gesture from you.

Submitting articles and getting them re-published on others’ websites and newsletters/ezines is therefore one of the most powerful Internet marketing strategies. Your articles will then start working as a free advertisement for you for a long time.

Copyright © 2006 John Woon (Sung-Liang Woon)
http://www.johnwoon.com

About The Author: John Woon (Sung-Liang Woon) is a Latex Consultant with about 30 years of experience.

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