Internet Marketing Online Tips

The more accounts you create, the simpler it is going to be for you to earn money. Usually, however, you should create at least five Instagram accounts, and it’s better if you may create more. Instead, you have to run several Instagram accounts. There are those around who wish to acquire popular Instagram accounts in order that they can market to the account’s followers.

If you wish to earn money with Instagram but need help getting there, have a look at my course Infamous to Influential! Making money a part of nature, and struggle is a symptom which you are out of harmony with the stream of nature, how things do the job. Everyone wants to earn money with Instagram as it’s an incredibly popular social network. If you wish to make money by a legit way then chose an ideal platform that teach you everything to generate money. You can earn money with Instagram and other social networking platforms.

The way to ensure your content is getting seen by the appropriate quantity of your followers is to ensure that your strategic content advertising plans are well thought out. Instagram users no longer depend on the cell phone for a source of images. There are several users on the Instagram that there isn’t any product to sell them.

You really only have to focus in on how to generate income with Instagram and I’m confident you’ll be one of them. The way to create cash with Instagram is to promote products which you love using Affiliate links. Then, it is going to be difficult to earn money on the website. Following that, you’re going to be in a position to earn money on the website.

Evidently, you are here in order to learn to make cash with Instagram. Then you can earn cash with Instagram now. You can not earn money if you don’t have some product On the flip side, if you need to accomplish a fantastic success in comparison to your product then something needs to be different which is unavailable in the industry. Once you do so, you will be prepared to begin making some money. If you wonder how can you earn money with Instagram I will reveal to you now.

In case you have followers that are interested in earning money online, share your referral link so they can become affiliates under you for second tier commissions. If you own a lot of followers, you should earn a lot of sales. Many people believe you need a bunch of followers to produce cash with Instagram, but that’s not accurate. If you really need to increase followers on Instagram then click the highlighted link. Real followers are the sole way for you to really profit from Instagram. Unlike the ideal selfie, though, to earn cash with Instagram you will have to have many followers that believe you’re influential.

Ways to Get Started with Instagram to begin with, you will need to have sufficient number of followers before you can begin considering posting sponsored posts. As soon as you get a large number of followers, you may sell your Instagram account to willing buyers. If you’ve got huge numbers on your Instagram to show off to your pals, the majority of them will most likely be shocked. There are a lot of methods in which you may earn money from your Instagram account. Thus, a good following of users ought to be developed.

First and foremost, however, making pictures seem good takes immense period of time and practice. How to generate income with Instagram is more simple that you believe. Now you get a complete idea about ways to make cash with Instagram. When you’re happy, you’ve got happy thoughts and you’re feeling happy. When you’re sad, you’ve got sad thoughts and you’re feeling sad. It is possible to also discover that friend in the business who will make you do more daily. Possessing a very best friend in the company is so essential for long-term success.

Fortunately, you can get Instagram proxies in bulk. Once you get your Instagram proxies, you can make numerous accounts and build a next. Instead, you must utilize Instagram proxies and respective strategies so as to earn money with the social network.

The huge challenge with having a very low barrier of entry is that it’s also way too simple to stop. In actual numbers, from about 1000 followers upward you will have the chance to place advertising and make money. As you probably already know, the secret to any social network success is consistency and Instagram isn’t a difference.

There is a need to look at the what-should-NOT-be-done side of things as well. This is essential so that you do not fool yourselves into thinking that you are on the right path and keep wasting money without getting an ROI.

When you know that you don’t know something, you can find out. However, when you don’t know that you don’t know, such a situation is risky. Here, is a list from my side to make you aware of some undetectable errors you might commit in your digital marketing pursuit.

1. Promoting Rather than Problem Solving:
Beating your own drum is something that doesn’t go well with the internet-savvy people looking out for any product/services. They are bombarded with promotional information continuously, you don’t want to do the same thing and get lost in the crowd.

Don’t boast about how good your product/services are, tell them how it can help solve their problems. They have come to your site or your ad, looking out for a solution, provide them that and you will hit the bulls-eye.

While it is okay to display your achievements, stage even that to appear more for ‘you-the-customer’ rather than the ‘I-me-myself’ attitude. How? Show client testimonials! And let your audience think if you can solve the problem for your existing clients, then you can for them as well. Be customer-centric, portray your product/services as solutions and see the magic.

2. Relying Heavily on any one Marketing Channel:
Doing this mistake would not only throw your digital marketing budget out of balance, but can reverse slingshot your revenue. You may have implemented many strategies throughout your experience, out of which say one or two may have worked the best.

And its the digital marketing mantra that one should maximize efforts on what works best; relying too much on this mantra could be dangerous. What if this channel suddenly becomes ineffective? What if the organic traffic that you were so proud of drops overnight thanks to the unannounced updates search engines come up with.

Such a repercussion would cause serious damage to your bottom line revenue. Therefore, resist the temptation to pour all the efforts into one channel and create a robust well-rounded multi-channel based marketing strategy.

3. Ignoring some Marketing Channels:
This point is similar to the point above, yet different in the way that it proposes using every channel whenever the time is right for your business. It is understandable that a few channels like pay-per-click might instantly thrust you into the limelight, but you should not ignore the other seemingly slower channels.

While it important to leverage the high-ROI-producing channels at the beginning, at a later stage venturing out into the others should be the aim of your marketing strategy. Invest your due efforts in SEO, no matter how time-consuming. 6 months down the line, when the search engines would start paying you back with relevant traffic, you will thank yourself you did it.

Go social; get your name out there. But, select the social channels carefully. LinkedIn and Twitter works best for B2Bs and the famed Facebook is the go-to channel for B2Cs. As you progress, throw in email marketing into the marketing mix, you will be surprised with its potential.

4. Not Assigning Numbers to Campaign Goals:
“Isn’t this basic”, you may think! Well… we usually deep-dive into the advanced stuff and forget the basics most of times. So, set measurable goals for your campaigns! Say, you want to increase the number of leads generated for a B2B company, set a goal of +20% in a given month, then work towards it.

Don’t just say, I want to increase the leads – that’s just wishful thinking! If you define your goals in terms of numbers is when you’ll be able to scale your efforts, otherwise you’ll keep stepping in all directions without moving an inch ahead.

In addition, remember, you are investing money in your efforts; the person who is carrying out the campaigns doesn’t come free. Moreover, if you are investing money in paid marketing, not setting measurable goals is sure-shot recipe for disaster.

5. Poor Data Interpretation:
If you have ever seen the analytics dashboard, you’ll see how it shows different traffic channels like organic, direct, paid, referral etc. Now, direct traffic interprets into people manually typing in your website’s URL and coming in.

However, you need to make sure that the direct traffic numbers doesn’t consist of your internal employees. Ignoring this would result in data dilution and wrong interpretation of data.

Besides, choosing the wrong metric to define your data could be disastrous. For example, if you have a high ‘pages per visit’ or ‘average visit duration’, you may feel that your customer is spending more time on the site, whereas the reality would be your visitors are not finding what they are looking out for.

In conclusion, the 5 points given above are not about the tips or tricks of digital marketing, but more about its core. If you avoid these, you can make any campaign rock, while extracting the maximum bang for your buck.

The scope of Digital Marketing is really vast and it has come as a boon for businesses. But, the people who needed Digital Marketing most desperately are the entrepreneurs who are launching their start-ups. Unlike the already existing companies, startups don’t have enough funds to make a presence in this competitive market. They need cheap means to get to the level where existing companies already are and achieve their goals. Here are the best Digital Marketing growth hacking strategies & tips that would help start-ups to grow faster.

1. Responsive Web Design & Easy Navigational Structure

The answer to “how to engage the readers for more time on our website?” is the website design and navigational structure of a website. It is really important for start-ups to optimize their website design and structure for good Search Engine Optimization standards. This is so because the design is the first thing that the user notices on your website. So you need to make sure that your website has a unique design and responsive theme. Also, a good structure can help in improving your website traffic.

Website design & structure tips:-

• It is recommended to make your site responsive by optimizing it for different devices (Mobiles, Tablets, Laptops) and screen resolutions.
• If you have owned a WordPress site, use a responsive theme for your site.

2. Create Worthy Content

When it comes to the content, it should be practical, interactive and engaging so that when a user reads it, they don’t get bored of it. The content should be written in an interactive conversational language we use in our day-to-day life with words that can be understood by any kind of user.

Tips for creating worthy content:-

• Write the click enticing title and heading tags.
• Create the context and mention your own experiences (if possible).
• Use visuals — images & videos.
• Convert a bit of content into an image (info-graphics).

3. Take Advantage Of Social Media

Social media optimization is the best way to maximize your reach to your audiences. Share your blog posts various social media platforms to public attention and gain more user engagement to your site. Encourage them to comment/share and talk to them in the comments section. working in accordance with their wishes increases the faith and trust of your startup.

Tips to improve social sharing and content out-reach:-

• Promote your content through experts and online influencers by mentioning their name in posts.
• Mention your audience names in comments.
• Don’t hesitate, ask your audience for share.
• If you have a WordPress site use plug-ins automate sharing of your recent work.

4. Track Your Stats With Web Analytic Tools

Analytical tools are best friends for digital marketers.

These web analytical tools help marketers to know what is working and what’s not. Not just that, from where the traffic is coming to their site, what is the traffic source & medium, how much time they spent on the site, etc.,

Such tools help marketers to keep track on conversion rate, and gives insights into audience thus they can create content for those specific audiences. These analytical tools help startups to give their audience exactly what they want and reap more benefits.

5. Understand Your Audiences

This is the fundamental rule of any digital marketing campaign as it allows the marketer to know his audience in accordance with their psychological and demographic factors and helps them strategize in accordance with that. Knowing one’s niche helps the marketer to know, exactly what kind of content should be posted at what time intervals and in which ways.

Everybody wants results yesterday, without doing any work.

But, if you’ve spent any time in the real world, you know that results take time and often involve hard work.

So, how do you appeal to people’s craving for instant results without lying or manipulation?

You have to understand that all gratification is instant.

Here’s the thing:

Imagine you were studying to become a doctor.

And, getting a degree takes forever (I have no idea how long exactly, but it’s over five years or so).

Now, if you didn’t have the ability to get a sense of gratification during those five years, only after you got your degree, how many people would keep doing it?

So you have to chunk the gratification up. You’d get some gratification out of studying every day.

You’d get gratification out of passing a difficult test.

These are some examples of how, even without achieving the ultimate result, you’d get instant results.

How can you do that in marketing?

There are ways you can give people a sense of achievement even without them passing a difficult test or whatever.

For example, you can give them an opt-in bribe that solves an urgent problem right away.

A valuable tip that gets them results right after reading your report.

For example, if you were in the bodybuilding niche, you could give them a tip on improving their bench press they can implement immediately after reading.

That’s an instant improvement, even if they haven’t packed on ten pounds of muscle right away with that.

So you can change the structure of your marketing campaign and frontload an instant result.

Then, for the hard and arduous work, you can keep that for your product (you’ll learn more about how to improve your product in a second).

It even works for sales letters.

I saw this applied in Eugene Schwartz’s “Burn Disease Out Of Your Body” ad.

In the ad, he gives away one of the ideas in the book he sells.

You hold your hands a certain way and experience an instant flow of energy.

When people read the ad, they try it out, it works right away, and they’re more likely to buy.

This is a great technique for two unrelated reasons: it demonstrates the product and gives valuable information.

Another reason this is a wonderful technique is because even if the rest of the book takes time to implement, they know it works because they had instant results once already.

It makes them more likely to go through with the rest of the course even if they don’t get instant results.

And, you can even apply this to a product.

If you’re a freelance copywriter writing a sales letter for someone else, this might not apply to you.

But who knows, maybe you’ll create your own products soon.

Either way, if you’re creating a product, the same applies.

Give people a few tips they can apply right away. That way, even if your information takes time to implement and achieve results with, they’ll get fast results.

And, if possible, give people some milestones. The fitness niche is always a good example for this, because you can give people different progressions.

Once they hit a certain amount of repetitions in one tier, they progress to the next.

That way, they get a constant sense of achievement and keep going.

Why is doing this important?

As a marketer, of course you want to make money.

But, even if your goal is to make money, there’s one thing you should keep in mind.

It’s a quote from Earl Nightingale that you’d do well to heed.

“Our rewards will always be in exact proportion to our service. If you don’t like your income, you must devise ways and means of increasing your service.”

If you serve a lot of people, you make more money.

So serving people better is good for you on two levels:

First of all, you make more money, which is nice.

And second, you’re actually making a difference in people’s lives, which makes you feel better about yourself, too.

I talk more about the ethics of selling in my book, “Copy That Sells.”

And, demonstration and delivering value, as mentioned earlier.

The book costs $12, but you can get it free if you sign up to my newsletter today.

You’ll also get daily marketing and copywriting tips like this straight to your inbox.

For simple day-to-day understanding, content is a form of marketing that essentially revolves around the creation and circulation of online content. Content can be in the form of blogs or social media content, but it need not always be text it can also be videos.

The primary thing that you need to keep in mind as far as content marketing is concerned is that you should not promote your brand openly. You have to sell without selling by stirring up curiosity with your content. Content marketing is a continuous process of converting your prospects into customers, and customers into repeat buyers.

#ContentMarketingTip 1

Get the right information to the right audience at the right time.

Three important pillars of a full-proof content marketing strategy

1. The purpose of the content
2. Quality of the content
3. Clear defined target audience

Content has always been a cyclic process and to understand the steps of the buying cycle you have to figure out why content marketing is important to your business.

• Creates awareness – Your customer should relate to the subject and get to know something more than his/her existing knowledge. Always add to your user’s experience.
• Background research – You can never think you are your customers only option. You have to remember that he/she will perform a background research but make sure your content is so that it stops at you. You need to have the final say.
• Re-emphasizing on your content – Once your prospective customer compares you and his other options you are already in line. You have to ensure you are giving that extra edge that will help you be on top of the list
• Buying – The final step is a transaction in your favor states that your content strategy is done right.

#ContentMarketingTip 2

Always add value and increase your prospects knowledge base, it is the best way to reach your target audience.

With a varied range of options available in content strategy, a customized strategy can be made to fit every business in every industry.

How to plan a content strategy?

1. Content that grabs attention – If you can spin out the right content and target the right audience is reached half your job is done. There has to be a story that you need to tell with your content compels the reader to return to your site over and over again.
2. Ask for engagement – The most important thing about content is that more it gets viral the better it is. Keep your content so engaging that your audience is compelled to comment either on your blog or social media. Give your audience a nudge with a debatable question at the end of your blogs and asks for opinions.
3. A killer social media strategy – Social media is one of the finest ways to promote your content and reach a large audience. If you have a well-structured social media marketing strategy that is perfectly tailored for your business you visibility rapidly increases.
4. Result oriented goals – The results you get by the end once your content goes online is all that you aspire for. The right time to the niche you target should be your ultimate aim.

Guest Blogging an integral part of Content Marketing

There is a stark difference between spamming about with short 300-word blogs all over the net and guest blogging. Guest blogs are majorly about awareness or polished articles that showcase the company’s area of expertise and its contribution to the industry at large. In most cases, guest blogs are professionally crafted non-promotional articles.

It is one of the most advanced forms content marketing as it can reach audiences that you might not even know existed and turned them into customers. It is one of the best forms of brand promotion and brand credibility. If you reach high-authority sites and post your content on them, it gives your brand the much-awaited push.

The future of marketing…

Content marketing is the present and the future of marketing. As popularly said that content is king most industries are shifting their focus to content marketing, and it is proving to be beneficial for them. Content marketing can help you save big bucks yet improve and increase sales. With content marketing, you can attract better customers who are loyal to your brand.

Table of Contents

Best Ways To Start Online Marketing With Little Money

6 Things IMers Need to Know About Your Marketing Campaign

1. Marketing Campaigns Don’t Come Free… or do they?
2. Free Marketing Tools… Yes!
3. Don’t Underestimate Social Media
4. Tell Your Story – It Matters
5. How to Start Online Marketing with Zero Experience
6. Don’t Just Walk Away

Best Ways To Start Online Marketing With Little Money

Anyone who has ever started a marketing campaign can tell you that marketing is a very tricky business. However, the days when marketing was simply about throwing up a few fliers and sending out some snail mail are long gone. Today, most marketing campaigns are done on the Internet, and that is a whole other ballgame. With that being said, read on below for a few of the top things you need to know about your marketing campaign.

If you want to make sure that you are giving your IM business the best chance at success, then you are going to have to invest some time and a little bit of money into online marketing. This is vital if you want to make sure that you are keeping up with your competition. If all of your competitors are making use of proper marketing techniques and you are not, it is only a matter of time before things for your business start to dwindle and you want to prevent that from ever happening.

There are 6 Things IMers Need to Know About Your Marketing Campaign if you want to build a successful Internet Marketing business online.

However, First Things First… You want to get it out of your head that you have to have a lot of money in order to properly market your company. In fact, some of the best online marketing tools and techniques do not require a ton of money. They might need a little bit of money, but mostly, they require time and effort. If you have that – then you can make it work with no problem.

To help you with this, you will want to make sure that you are taking the time to make use of the following tips.

6 Things IMers Need to Know About Your Marketing Campaign

1. Marketing Campaigns Don’t Come Free… or do they?

This is a MUST for anyone who hopes to have even a remote chance of succeeding with an online business as an Internet Marketer (IMer). There are plenty of programs available that will provide you with the ability to build your own “free” site. However, you want to be very careful as to what exactly “free” allows for and doesn’t.

Your initial attempts at internet marketing, until you acquire the necessary skills and know-how, should always be with programs that are “free” (or at minimum offer free trials of at least 30 days). This will allow you some time to become more knowledgeable prior to engaging in any paid internet marketing system or promotional campaigns.

Nonetheless, whether free or paid, you want to have some specific requirements that must be met if you are to have any chance of success in your journey as an IMer. They are simple and should include (but not be limited to):

• Free hosting (for at least 6 months)
• Offer ease of use
• Provide reliable support and last but never least
• Be reasonably priced (stay within what you can comfortably afford)

You can easily obtain most, if not all, of this information online by checking reviews. – Be Sure To Do That!

Do your due diligence and you WILL find “Exactly” what you are looking for and need.

“Your Website Should Earn You Money… NOT Just Cost You Money.”

While launching a marketing campaign certainly isn’t easy or completely free, it doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg. Remember, there is nothing more revealing than a well-placed YouTube video or taking a chance on social media. Get your feet wet free of charge, sign up for a social media page for your business (if you haven’t, yet). With this in mind, you want to make sure that you start planning to set aside a budget (even a modest one) for your marketing campaign if it is to be effective.

2. Free Marketing Tools… Yes!

You need to start understanding the online marketing tools that are offered to you free of charge. After all, your IM business will financially benefit if you make sure you are using them correctly. Then, with the extra money that you have earned from those techniques, you will be able to move on to bigger and better online marketing strategies.

So what kind of online marketing tool is free of charge?

Social media – that’s what! Sure, you might have thought that social media pages are for people to keep in contact with their family and to show off vacation pictures to all of their friends. However, while it is that, it is also so much more. You can create a nice business page on a social media website, update it as needed with valuable information, and interact with people who you hope to turn into customers one day.

3. Don’t Underestimate Social Media

As much as you might hate to, marketing on social media is where it’s at. By getting yourself out there and showing the world what your business has to offer, you will find that you will be much better off! Social Media are used 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and nothing gets the word out there like social media can.

4. Tell Your Story – It Matters

In the marketing world, your product isn’t the only thing that matters. When you start a marketing campaign, you automatically become a piece of media. No one wants to watch an advertisement for a product that is boring, no matter how sensational that product may be. These days, you have to sell your brand, not just your product. The best way to do this is by making the customer feel what the product can do for them. Telling a story matters, if you want your product to sell and your brand to succeed.

5. How to Start Online Marketing With Zero Experience

Do not make the mistake of falling into the trap where you assume that you have to have a ton of internet marketing experience in order to make it work for you. This is nonsense because someone who has absolutely zero experience with internet marketing can become very successful with it. And the best part? It might not take as long as you think! This is because there are a lot of easy ways to get started. Since there are multiple ways to make use of internet marketing, you will find that there is always something you can do to make this an easier thing for you to accomplish.

Remember, one of the first things you can do, and with little experience if any, is to assure that you are setting up some social media accounts for your business. You will then want to make sure that you are spending enough time throughout the week interacting with the people that like your page. Utilize your time wisely, not for simple SM chit-chat. This is a time consuming but much-needed process, particularly if your budget is low – Let’s call this Time-Equity.

6. Don’t Just Walk Away

Simply setting up the page and walking away is not going to cut it because people will forget about you. They are also not likely to view you as an authority figure in the field that you are in. If you are tight on time, you can always have a friend or family member help you with your social media pages throughout the week. Since we are only talking maybe an hour or two of work a week, this should not be a hard thing to do.

Your Website & Content

There are also resources available that, for a fee (very small in some cases), will write content for you to publish on your site and SM pages. You want to ensure that your content is 100% unique and of the highest quality related to your niche so be sure to discuss your requirements clearly, if you are to source out your content writing.

Whether you set up the website on your own or you get help with it – it is all about keeping it up to date with fresh evergreen/unique, high-quality content. Show your potential clients or customers that you are the person to go to when they need a little help. Even a whiff of knowledge and sharing that knowledge can really go a long way!

Recap

These are but a few of the things you need to know before you launch a marketing campaign. Make sure that you don’t forget them and your campaign should be a roaring success. Marketing has come a long way, get on board for the success you have always wanted to achieve today.

It is important to make sure that you are doing everything that you can in order to get the name of your IM business out there. This way, you will be able to help more people than ever before. You will also be able to find that you are making more money than ever before. So, how can this be accomplished? One way to achieve this is to pay diligent attention to the things you need to know about your business and its marketing campaign.

Become laser-focused on internet marketing best practices for your IM business. This might seem a bit intimidating, especially if you have never given internet marketing a try, but it’s really not difficult to achieve.

Sign up for a social media page for your business right away, if you haven’t already. This is absolutely free and in today’s world, probably one of the best online marketing tools out there. This is because so many people find themselves spending a great deal of their free time online social media websites. It simply is not something that you want to pass up on.

Then What?

Of course, you are going to have to take it a step further; don’t just setting up the business social media page and walking away. You are going to have to make sure that you are being interactive with the people who visit your page. Post updates on your SM pages; Link articles/posts/blogs from your site to your SM pages; Offer free advice.

Do anything you can in order to gain the trust of your future customers.

Become very familiar with the things you need to know about your Internet Marketing business. Learn about and invest in some online marketing strategies whenever possible. Do not be surprised when this, and this alone, starts to give you some cushioning in your profit margins; which will come in very handy when you decide to venture and expand your market even further.

Need a boost with content writing for your site? I can help you with Unique, High-Quality content for your website or blog specific to your niche and ready for SEO; with a green light for both Readability & Keywords.

3 Steps to Not Fearing These Marketing Techniques; Embrace Them Instead

From increasing conversions to enhancing the customer experience, all types of companies use data mining and retargeting.

They’re very effective marketing techniques, but many consumers view them as creepy rather than creative.

Remember when Facebook was in the news for data mining? Cambridge Analytica created a quiz app to gain access to millions of Facebook user accounts. While both companies claim users technically gave consent by agreeing to the terms, it’s incidents like these that make people afraid of data collection.

As a marketer of your own business, you need to be careful not to let data mining and retargeting scare off your target audience… let alone be afraid to use it yourself.

First Things First… What is Data Mining?

Data mining is extracting and analyzing data from a larger set of raw data.

For example, retail stores look at items a customer browsed in order to suggest related products. Mobile providers use data such as customer service interactions to predict who is likely to leave the company (known as ‘churn’) then target them with incentives to stay.

What is Retargeting?

Retargeting, or remarketing, is a technique to bring people who have left your website or mobile app back to it.

This is done by putting a simple Javascript code on your site and when a new visitor arrives, the code drops an anonymous browser cookie. The cookie is stored on the user’s computer while they browse, allowing you to ‘follow’ them online and show them your ads.

Retargeting Examples:

• A tech website displays and ad for the laptop you looked at when on their site, as you move on to read your favourite blog.

• A travel site shows you limited-time discounted flights after you’ve left their site and moved on to shop for shoes.

By using data mining to retarget interested consumers, businesses can be ultra focused when it comes to serving their target market the most relevant ads.

Retargeted users outperform new users when it comes to engagement and likelihood of buying with the logic being if they were on the website looking at that item, they are more likely to go back and purchase if reminded of it later.

3 Steps for Successful Data Mining & Retargeting

If done correctly these marketing techniques can reduce customer acquisition costs and improve conversions and sales. You should:

1. Be targeted. You can’t message everyone in the same way. If someone abandons their cart, they need different messaging than a visitor who landed on the homepage.

2. Build confidence. Whether it’s making return policies clearer or assuring customers you’ll never share their data, generate trust.

3. Go pro. There’s much more to data mining and retargeting than I can cover here. Our team can help you build an effective retargeting campaign that gets results!

Susan Friesen, founder of the award-winning web development and digital marketing firm eVision Media, is a Web Specialist, Business & Marketing Consultant, and Social Media Advisor. She works with entrepreneurs who struggle with having the lack of knowledge, skill and support needed to create their online business presence.

Review Websites have been a standard way to make money online for the past 20+ years.

Not only do they provide users with the ability to determine which products / services / solutions are best for them, but also gives you the ability to list the various vendors that are most trustworthy, too.

The “model” is very simple – provide a legitimate resource through which people are able to identify products they may want/need to purchase. The premise of a “reviews” site is that you remove all the corporate bias, instead providing an objective resource for people to identify the best way to obtain what they want.

The way the “model” worked was – back in the day – to attain Google ranks.

For “buy” keywords (“buy Product X UK” / “buy X product Texas”), conversion rates were typically very high (due to the way in which most of the traffic were people who had already made the decision to purchase the product).

Even if you had a website with 5 top “Google” ranks for a number of products, you could expect ~20 visitors per day for each of them. These visitors might not have been big in number, but the likelihood was that a large proportion of them would eventually go on to purchase based on your recommendations (if they were good).

This meant that if you were looking at getting the most out the “review” opportunity online, you’d basically be tied to getting Google ranks. Whist this worked well, added competition, changes in Google’s algorithm and the rise of “mega” e-commerce stores such as Amazon, lead the “review” model to wane in the past 5+ years.

That’s not to say that “review” sites are dead; like most things in the commerce world – when one opportunity fades, another rises. This is what’s happened with “review” websites…

What Are Review Sites?

As explained, “review” websites are sites dedicated to the “review” of different products. They earn money as commissions on the sales they refer to the various companies on their pages.

The point of such websites is to provide unbiased references for different markets. We actually see this quite prevalent in the “personal finance” space – with a myriad of “comparison” websites for the likes of insurance, loans and banking services.

Whilst I would not recommend getting involved with finance (unless you have a genuine desire to do so), the underpin of it is that the “review” model still exists, but has shifted towards a much different structure.

The classic “review” website is basically made up of several different elements:

• Main “home” page (where summary of reviews are kept)
• 5+ Review pages (the actual reviews for different products)
• 10+ Content pages (this works as a cross between a blog and tutorials site) – the content on these pages is generally very “rigid” / “static”
• Blog (opinions on industry news etc)
• About/Contact/Legal pages

These are populated with content to provide users with the ability to determine which products are best etc.

The most important thing to understand here is that in order for these sites to have any value at all, they need to be seen and used. This can only happen if you’re able to effective promote them – which is typically why most people relied on Google ranks to make them viable.

The problem with this – as mentioned – is that if Google decided to kick the site off (which happened back in 2007), the site effectively becomes worthless. Thus, to gauge the true value of the strategy – you need to be able to determine the best ways to get traffic to it.

How Review Sites *Actually* Make Money

“Online”, there are several ways to bring traffic to an offer…

• Referrals (from other websites including article directories, news sites etc)
• Direct (people typing your site in directly)
• Search (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc)
• Marketplaces (Amazon, eBay, Envato, Fiverr, etc)
• Social (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube)

The level at which your audience connects with you depends on how many of the above communities you’re dealing with. As mentioned, most people just wanted to get their sites listed on the first page of Google (which would typically work for Yahoo and Bing too) – but as you can see, this was not a bullet-proof strategy.

Today, many marketers have taken to providing a more in-depth approach to the promotion of the sites. Moreover, many of the above “traffic sources” do not provide equal value visitors, hence the idea that the “model” has died (which is untrue).

Ultimately, the key with the modern web is authenticity. Traffic is attracted by how authentic an offer is. Using your real name, face and likeness form part of this. Without getting into depth, the point is that if you’re looking at “making money online”, one of the most assured ways to do it is through showcasing your work through the various outlets mentioned above.

The point is that if you’re creating a site such as one to showcase various products, you need to be sure about how it’s actually going to bring in traffic

Modern Review Sites & The Opportunity Moving Forward

As mentioned, the most important thing to appreciate with review sites is that they will need to bring traffic through the door.

The most effective (& leverage) way to achieve this (today) is by utilizing the power of SOCIAL media. Social media is simply any sort of website that requires you use your own identity to engage with others. This isn’t just limited to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Instagram either (although they are obviously some of the most popular).

Gaming websites, creativity websites and other communities are also considered “social” media. The point is that if you’re relying on traffic from the likes of Google etc, you’ll typically build a website around that intention (static, boring pages).

If you’re looking at a more sustainable model of cultivating traffic & revenue, you’ll NEED to cultivate an actual brand and other essential elements. This is where “social” plays such a vital role – it pushes the need for a much more authentic marketing strategy.

To this end, you really need to appreciate what makes a modern “review” site feasible and effective. I’ll cover this in depth another time – essentially, you have to provide a core SERVICE with the site. The service needs to be DEEPER than straight products – it has to deliver an underlying result for the buyer. The more lucid this result is, the more people actually want to deal with you. The more people who want to deal with you, the more traffic you’ll receive through the various “social” channels open to us today.

Reviews and testimonies from your existing clients are extremely important for your business. People can write reviews for you whether you are selling products and/or services. The testimonials and reviews are solid evidence that you not only have those products and/or services to offer but that they are effective and valuable as well. Of course, it is important for you to understand that you are the only person who cannot write a review or a testimony for your business. Simply, they would hold no credibility coming from you.

Listening to what other people have to say
If you are anything like most people who have the intention to buy something from someone else, you will check to see what other people have experienced and how they feel about that experience before you even consider buying from a particular business.

If a large percentage of the reviews or testimonials are negative, you probably will look for another business that is selling the same products and/or services. If that second (or third or fourth) business has more positive reviews and testimonials, you will probably choose to buy from that business. That is just common sense. Why would you want to buy something that is inferior and doesn’t work the way that it is supposed to work? With the level of competition out there, as a business owner (or as a representative of that business), you need to offer only excellent products and/or services. Otherwise, you will be finished before you even get started.

There are two possible mistakes that a person can make when he or she is considering buying something. The first one was just discussed. The second one is if that person doesn’t look for any reviews or testimonies at all.

Every business needs reviews and testimonials
When it comes to reviews and testimonials, it isn’t a matter of their being something nice to have. They really are a necessary part of your business. There is often no other way to get the idea across to a large number of people that what you are offering is something of value and something that other people should pay attention to because it (they) will benefit them and their business. It is really that simple.

In fact, it isn’t even enough to simply gather reviews and testimonies. You need to share them on your social networks, through Email, etc., so that other people become aware of just how much you can do for them. You may not realize exactly how powerful positive reviews and testimonials are for your business. If you don’t have any yet, it is definitely time to start collecting them. Once you have been able to do that, the next thing that you will need to do is to make sure that people in your online social circles are able to access them as well. At this point, you may be wondering exactly how you are going to achieve that.

• Organization: You may have gathered positive reviews and testimonies but they may be currently living in a repository, without being organized in any way. Keeping on top of everything that other people are writing about your brand and your business is critical to your leveraging those reviews and testimonies fully. The first thing that you will want to do is to come up with a way to combine those reviews and testimonies with the rest of your content marketing strategy. If you do that, they will be at your fingertips to be able to use at will. That will allow you to take the greatest advantage of what you have and the chances are very good that it will propagate more reviews and testimonials of similar nature.
• Respond: In truth, you will probably get mostly positive reviews and (definitely) positive testimonials. However, mixed in with the positive reviews are probably a small number of negative ones as well. It is very important that you understand how to deal with those negative reviews constructively and effectively. In fact, it is probably safe to assume that you will learn more from the negative than the positive reviews and that the negative reviews are the ones that will allow you to tweak your business approach so that it causes positive results.
• Pay attention to the metrics/analytics: This is really important for your business. If you don’t pay any attention to the analytics, how are you going to understand what is working and what is not working? It is easy to gather the analytics because there are programs that actually do it for you and they have been proven to be extremely effective. The analytics will show you where you need to make adjustments (or abandon certain practices entirely). It is very important for you to keep your finger on the pulse of your business at all times.
• Use reviews and testimonials to increase your brand’s exposure: Most likely, your business, just like most businesses, is a word-of-mouth business. If that is the case, reviews and testimonials from other people will fortify what you are offering. Those reviews and testimonials will increase your visibility, give you added credibility, and boost your professional reputation, not to mention giving you invaluable added brand exposure.

Conclusion
Reviews and testimonials are critical to your brand’s success. The consumer may be willing to do extensive research on the types of products and/or services that you are offering but it is a shortcut for that consumer to be able to read the opinions of another person who has already had the experience.

If you feel that you have not been able to gather enough reviews and testimonials so far, ask for them. In general, people will be more than willing to help you out. In fact, it is a part of the solid, enduring relationship that you are building with the other person. Reviews and testimonials are the only way that another person will decide whether to hire you (or buy something that you are selling) or hire someone else. They certainly will not believe you when you say that your brand is the best, at least, not if you have not been able to prove it yet!

Michael Cohn is the founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CompuKol Communications. He has over 25 years of experience in IT and web technologies. Mr. Cohn spent a significant amount of time at a major telecommunications company, where his main focus was on initiating and leading synergy efforts across all business units by dramatically improving efficiency, online collaboration, and the company’s Intranet capabilities, which accelerated gains in business productivity. He also reduced company travel and travel costs by introducing and implementing various collaboration technologies.

His expertise includes business analysis; project management; management of global cross-matrix teams; systems engineering and analysis, architecture, prototyping and integration; technology evaluation and assessment; systems development; performance evaluation; and management of off-shore development.