Expand Your Network - Forum!

Author: Pat Marcello

Forum posts are a way to connect with other marketers and just as in offline business, networking is what online marketing is all about. When people get to know you, they trust you and this may spark them to buy your product or join the program you’re promoting. And, it’s always a great way to make new friends.

The first thing you must do after joining is to introduce yourself to the other members of the group. Usually, this will include information about where you live, what your interests are, and a blurb about being happy to be in the forum. Keep it simple and allow veteran members to welcome you. Then, respond to their comments or questions. It’s a great way to get your feet wet and to satisfy the “getting to know you” requirement of most forums.

Then, just read posts for a while. Old-timers in a forum, those who have been members a while, can often be great sources of information. You can learn a great deal just by reading posts, especially if the forum is very active. Take advantage of the free tutoring. It’s worth its weight in platinum.

Another advantage of posting to a forum is that you are usually able to use a signature file, meaning a link to a program or product you’re promoting underneath your signature. This is a great way to advertise! Your link attaches to every post you make or will ever make and it will add up to a lot of free advertising over time. Just be sure to follow the rules about posting signature lines. Some forums allow several, while others may allow none at all, and the last thing you want to be is a forum rule breaker. The members will never let you forget, if you do it consistently over time.

Don’t become a forum lizard, either. Posts that have no substance are generally frowned upon.

These are the “Yahoo!” posts or the “Sure, I agree,” posts with no relevant comments to legitimize them. Don’t spend all your time in forums, either. Find a thread or two that interest you and post something important to those. Reading every post by every member can take up most of your day in large forums, if you allow it. Just be involved enough to become known as someone whose point of view holds interest by providing food for thought, interesting URLs on a topic, or especially humor, if you’re able to write funny things without being corny. Forum members won’t mind if you post once or fifteen times, if what you have to say resonates.

So, get out there and make some posts, even if it’s only to respond to what others have posted.

First, read the terms and conditions of the forum and read some posts before you go barging into someone else’s living room. Get a feel for the tone of its posters. And never post ads, unless the forum has a specific board for doing so. That’s a big no-no and will get you into trouble. But don’t be shy. People in forums are generally nice and very helpful, and networking is what n-e-t-w-o-r-k marketing is all about!

About the Author: Pat Marcello is the owner of OVMarketing.net, OVEditing.com, and OVBLogger.com. She is also the author of 10 traditionally published books. Her favorite forum is NetMarketingForum, where you can find her most days of the week.

The Importance of Using Keywords in Blogs

Author: Brenda Boggs

If you've wandered around the blogosphere (yes, people really call it that), you may have come across discussions about using keyword-rich content. This is an important process to know, as it can help you get more traffic and better rankings in searches.

First, you need to understand what "keywords" really means. We're not talking about meta keywords here, we're talking about keywords in the content. When somebody does a search on Google, for example, the results will depend on the keywords Google finds on specific pages. If your blogs are keyword optimized, your blogs are more likely to be displayed.

When writing a blog, I would suggest writing it as you usually would. Before hitting that "Submit" button, though, go back through your blog. What is your topic? Who is your target audience? When people are searching for information, what might they search for that will bring them to your blog?

Choose a few keywords or short phrases, and work them into your blog entry. Don't over do it!

Nobody wants to read a blog that's just an obvious set of keywords.

For example, say you are writing a blog about working from home. Choose the phrase work from home and stick with it, using it when applicable.

Other ways to make the search engines know that specific words or phrases are important is by bolding them. Don't over do that, either, though, or it will be annoying to read and will just confuse things.

Using keywords in the title of your blog is important, too. Your blog title should be descriptive rather than vague, so that a reader knows at a glance what it is they're clicking on, and it should contain the most important keywords.

Knowing what kind of keywords people are searching for is the next step, to help you actually choose the right keywords to use. Here is a tool I use quite a bit and have found to be very useful. Plug in some keywords you're thinking about using and it will give you variations on it and the number of times they are searched per day at

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/.

About the Author: Brenda Boggs is an Internet guru, in marketing, Search Engine Optimization, and new technologies. She successfully runs two revenue sharing websites, http://www.bloggerparty.com and http://www.reviewparty.com, where members actually MAKE MONEY just by participating.

Two Vital Tools For SEO – Well, For Me

Author: Halstatt Pires

The Internet has revolutionized business and you need a presence to make money in the digital age. While everyone has their favorite tools, I prefer two in particular.

Most businesses build sites without really having a clue regarding how to go about it. The first step in developing a business site is not building it. Instead, you have to focus on the internet marketing aspect of the business and design accordingly. To this end, there are two tools that can be considered from my point of view.

The single best tool you need to become familiar with is Wordtracker. This tool is the proverbial golden egg of Internet marketing. Wordtracker lets you take a keyword and find out all the phrases people are using that incorporate the keyword. You can then take the list of keywords and find out how many searches are occurring on any of the big search engines – Yahoo, Google and MSN. On top of this, you can also determine how difficult it will be to get top rankings for the keyword phrases through search engine optimization.

Wordtracker is great because it allows you to determine if there is a market for your idea before you waste time and money on it. It can also be used to come up with ideas for sites. You simply type in a keyword like “travel” and see if there is a niche with a lot of traffic and a nominal amount of competition for rankings. If you find the niche, you tailor a business idea to it and make a boatload of money.

As if Wordtracker isn’t enough, there is a second tool I have come to love. Introducing the article directory. The key to being really profitable on the Internet is getting free traffic. You do this through search engine optimization or by getting publicity. With either area, this has traditionally been accomplished through link trading. Essentially, you agree to put another persons link on your site in exchange for them doing the same with yours. As you might imagine, it takes a long time to build up enough links to get high rankings and publicity. Article directories solve this problem, which makes them great internet marketing tools.

An article directory is exactly what it sounds like. You write an article and deposit it in the directory. Webmaster and editors from all over the world search the directories looking for content for their sites. When they republish your article, you get free publicity. Even better, you will create links in the author area of your article and they will publish those on their site as well. You are either reading this article in a directory or it came from one. Or someone ripped me off…lol.

Everyone has their favorite tools they use to have a go at marketing and SEO. I prefer these, but others would argue for others. In response, all I can say is this work for me and I am far too lazy to go find something new.

About the Author: Halstatt Pires is an internet marketing consultant with MarketingTitan.com. Visit us to read more Internet marketing articles.