Here’s how to find out if your product will sell online:

Step One. Good old fashioned keyword research.  Keyword research is the old stand by because it works.  Keyword research is excellent at showing whether there is demand for your product because it provides accurate information about how many people are searching for your type of product.  It is a great first step however it is only a first step.

Great places to start researching keywords are:

• https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
• http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html
• http://www.wordtracker.com/

Step Two. Explore consumer demand.  Check out online sites to see how well similar items are selling and for how much.  Ebay for example is a good place to begin.  Both eBay and Amazon offer best seller’s lists.  This can help you tap into your target audience and potential demand.

Step Three. Who is your competition?  Demand can also be explored by examining how many companies are already selling your product or products like yours.  Some competition shows that the market is viable however beware of too much competition.  If everyone and their brother are selling the same product then it may be difficult to make your mark in the industry.

Step Four. Ask!  Make friends both online and off and ask them their opinion about your product.  Ask them if it would solve their needs?  Ask them if it would improve their lives.  Ask them if they would buy it.

Step Five. Test for demand.  A great way to test for the demand of a product is to create a ‘flycatcher page.’  Using a pay per click type advertising campaign on Google or other search engine, create an ad which sends traffic to a landing page.

On the flycatcher page tell people about your product.  You can offer a survey or simply have a sign-up form for people to fill out so they can be the first to be notified when your product is launched.  This page will help you learn if there is demand for your product.

Once you’ve determined that your product has a good chance of being successful online it’s time to implement a launch and a marketing strategy.  Happy selling!

Recommended Resources:

• How to Do Effective Keyword Research-an internet marketing sweetie guide
• How to do Market Research and Niche Your Business-an internet marketing sweetie guide
• Want to scrapbook for others? Learn how to become a professional scrapbook artist.

4. Pay attention to your readership. When people comment they would like for you to answer them back. Some ask questions and some just want to let you know that they agree or disagree with what you’ve said. Take the time to talk to them. After all, they took the time to visit and post a comment. Their comments can drive the direction your blog takes in the future if you want to keep them as readers and increase your traffic.

5. Keep your ads to a minimum. Ads are a way for bloggers to make money with their sites. That’s all well and good and a few ads are great and will attract attention. If you post too many, however, visitors might be turned off. You want your content to be the main attraction. If the ads coordinate with your blog niche, that’s good but only a few and at the top of the page if you want them to be clicked regularly by visitors.

Blogging is an art. Creating interesting content and keeping readers coming back is a job. If you already blog, use these five tips to enhance your value to the blogosphere.

1. Not publishing often enough or not publishing regularly – If you want to build a community around your blog, the key is to create content on a regular basis. People like to subscribe to their favorite blogs and make reading them part of their daily or weekly habit. If you’re not providing enough content to satisfy their habit, meaning at least one new post a week, then you’re likely going to lose readers.Additionally, more posts boosts search engine results. Whether you post frequently or rarely is not as important as whether you publish regularly. You need to set your readers’ expectations, so find a rhythm that suits you and maintain it. If you are going to be away, write posts in advance and set them up to be posted automatically at your usual time. You need to maintain momentum.
2. Not connecting with your readers - One of the biggest differences between a blog and a website are the visitor expectations. People expect a blog post to be more personal than an article. Your readers will want to know something about you. You can accomplish this by posting in first person, “I”. You can also share personal stories in your posts and always be sure to include an author biography, and preferably a photo to help you create a relationship with your customers.
3. Not having an option to subscribe - There’s nothing worse than finding a blog with great content and not being able to subscribe to it. Make sure you offer your readers an RSS option. In fact, the more subscribe options they have, the better. Some people like to read posts in a reader, some like them emailed to them and some use iGoogle type pages and want a list of all new posts for easy reading and access. And not having subscribe options does your blog a disservice because you’re losing potential readers. No one wants to have to remember to go read your blog. Make it easy for them and let them subscribe!
4. Not tagging or using some sort of SEO plug-in to optimize your blog for the search engines - With all the technology available today it’s a shame to miss out on search engine traffic when all you have to do is install a search engine plug-in to your blog. These plug-ins make it easy to optimize each post for keywords and to drive traffic to your site.
5. Not collecting data - Do you know what types of posts your audience enjoys the most? Do you know what posts they don’t finish reading? Do you know how long people stay on your site? If you use an analytics program or plug-in like Google Analytics, then you know the answers to these questions and can customize your information accordingly. If you don’t know what your visitors are doing on your site, then you’re blogging in the dark.
6. Not using your data – It isn’t enough to simply install an analytics program: you have to analyze the data and put it to use. For example, many bloggers have found that list-type posts are the most popular posts on their blog and have thus altered their content strategy to include at least one list post weekly. This helps you meet your readers’ needs and helps you retain readers and drive traffic.
7. Promoting too much – Some blogs resemble a series of sales messages. People don’t want to read sales letter after sales letter; they want to read content. It’s okay to promote on your blog. However, it’s important to remember the 80/20 rule: 80% valuable and informative content and 20% promotion.

Blogging mistakes happen. The important thing is to learn from your mistakes and make corrections. The best way to blog is to create a strategy, test and track your tactics and readjust your strategy as needed. Blogging, like many other website endeavors, is a learning process and a business.

#1  Ask a question. Many people don’t comment on blogs because there’s not much to say. The old, “Thanks for the information” becomes tired and feels unproductive most of the time, unless you can actually contribute feedback or answer a question. So ask your readers to get involved, ask them a question.

#2  When people comment, ALWAYS respond to their comment and…ask a question. When subsequent reader see a dialogue going on they’re more likely to chime in and participate. This really works!  Engage your commenter’s, they’ll become more active on your blog and you’ll draw others into the conversation.

#3  Leave something out. Depending on your readers, many times if you leave something out of your post, someone is going to feel compelled to let you know or to share the information. Of course once they do, go back to #2 and acknowledge their input and ask a question – get a dialogue going.

#4 Make it easy to comment. Generally, this requires skipping many of the hoops people have to jump through to comment, like logging in. This is a personal decision for you as a business owner because of SPAM issues, there are other ways to manage your comments.

#5 Some bloggers have found great success by letting people edit their comments. This has its benefits and drawbacks. You certainly don’t want someone to go in and later delete their comment however, it may motivate others to comment if they know they can edit themselves.

#6 Check out a few blogging widgets and plug-ins. There are many plug-ins that enhance the user experience like CommentLuv and the ability to subscribe to a blog post’s comments so you can actively participate in a conversation without having to stay on the page.

#7 Let readers create a profile that links back to their website. Yes, this is a double edged sword because you’ll undoubtedly get the comments saying “thank you for the post” simply so they can generate a link to their site but it does promote commenting and you can always block the folks who abuse the system.

#8 Pay attention to the posts people comment on. You may notice your audience has a preference for a certain topic or type of post. Tracking this information can help you generate a more active, and potentially useful, blog.

Remember that it takes some time to cultivate a following on any website or blog. Continue the strategies and tactics you’re using that are effectively driving traffic to your blog and try to utilize some of these points for getting more blog comments. As always, pay attention to what works for your audience and make the most of it!

You first need traffic, and then you have to convert that traffic to subscribers. Here are six tips to make it happen:

#1) Focus on SEO

Getting ranked in the search engines will probably be your best source of long-term traffic. Just don’t have unrealistic expectations.

It will take some time to start seeing results with SEO. A lot of people get frustrated when they aren’t ranking immediately for their chosen keywords, and give up. However, if you are patient and diligent, you will reap the rewards.

What keywords should you target? It all depends on how much time you want to devote to your blog. If it’s going to be a smaller site, you will want to go after longer tail keywords. However, if you want a bigger site, then more popular keywords will work fine.

#2) Leave comments

This is one of the oldest strategies for getting more blog traffic, but it still works. All you do is make intelligent comments on forums and blogs related to your niche.

Just make sure you do this at places that allow you to leave a backlink to your site. Try to include your keywords in the link. This can provide some traffic, and also help you get ranked in the search engines.

Just be sure to make a useful comment. Many people take the “spammer approach”. This is where they leave a similar comment on every blog and forum that allows a do-follow link. This might help some for SEO, but it won’t give you any traffic.

The better strategy is to get engrained in a few popular blogs and forums, and establish yourself as an expert. This proves you are there to provide meaningful content, and therefore people are going to be more inclined to listen to you.

When your goal is to genuinely help people instead of just getting backlinks, you will build yourself as an expert. This in turn will increase your traffic.

#3) Guest posting

This is where you contribute to other people’s blogs, and get a link to your site in return. If you happen to find a popular blog that you can become a regular contributor of, this can provide you a good long-term source of traffic.

#4) Make it easy to subscribe

Getting traffic is only half the battle. The other half is to get them to sign up for your list. Fortunately this isn’t that hard.

First, make it simple to subscribe. One of the best strategies is to put a subscribe link at the bottom and side of every post. You can test different areas, but these will often produce the most subscribers.

#5) Write great content

This is the most important tip of all. If your free content is good, people are going to be much more inclined to sign up for your newsletter.

Don’t just rewrite some public domain articles. Instead, aim to help people based on your personal experience in your niche. Telling your story is how to get the best results.

#6) Give incentives to sign up

For instance, offer a free e-book or interview when they sign up.

The bottom line is, getting more sign-ups isn’t that difficult. None of these strategies are terribly hard, but they work well. Just be patient, and you will soon have a sizeable list of subscribers you can market to again and again.

Recommended Resourses:

• Business blogging – Increase your business income with a blog
• Practical SEO: Make Friends With The Search Engines To Enjoy More Traffic to Your Scrapbook Business Website!
• Free report ”Six Steps to Six Figures with List Marketing“… this simple, yet powerful 6-step system will show you how to grow your list, provide your readers with the content they crave and start making more money than you ever expected from your list. Do I have your attention yet?

Getting ranked can be a challenge for those who don’t know what to do. However, it’s also not as difficult as you might believe. Here are two ways to make it happen:

#1) Have a good site design

Many people get so focused on off-page factors that they forget their page content makes a huge difference as well.

What’s a good design?

Make sure that your main keyword is the first thing the search engine robot sees. This is why you want to have it at the beginning of each page, as well as in the title.

How many times do you have to include the keyword?

Some people mistakenly believe that they need the keyword five to ten times on their page. However, three times should be good enough. Just make sure it looks natural.

#2) Beat the sites already ranking

Simply copy the sites that are ranking for your keywords. In other words, get the same backlinks as them. Since they are ranking, you know the backlinks are obviously working. So why not get those same links yourself?

Once you’ve gotten as many of the same links as you can, then you just have to do a little better. Just continue building new links as long as it takes to rank. In many instances, just submitting some articles is enough to help you rank.

What if it’s a competitive keyword?

Then you might have to work a bit harder. For instance, after you’ve submitted your article, check and see if other sites have picked it up.

This is a golden opportunity. Sites that are using your article content very often will want regular content contributed. If it’s a more popular site, it might be worth contacting the site, and seeing whether they want a full-time contributor. This could end up providing some long-term traffic.

Why is this better than an article link?

Because the search engines place more importance on links that are hard to get. Therefore, blog, forum and article directory links are not worth as much, because anybody can get a link from them. Instead, independent sites that don’t give away links freely are usually more valuable.

The bottom line is, how much effort you need to put into your link-building campaigns depends on the keywords you are targeting. The more competitive terms generally require more effort to get ranked.

As long as you take care of your on-page factors, and copy the sites linking to your competitors, you should start ranking shortly. This is the best way to get ranked as fast as possible.

Recommended Resource:

Practical SEO: Make Friends With The Search Engines To Enjoy More Traffic to Your Scrapbook Business Website!

They bring visitors to your site faster than search engine optimization. So if you want quick profits, paid advertising is the best strategy. The conversion part is up to your website, which won’t be discussed here.

However, while paid advertising does offer faster traffic, it’s hard to profit from. This is because of all the other sites that you are competing against.

Many people are lured into internet advertising because of the cheap cost. However, if you aren’t careful, you can lose a lot of money in a hurry. Here are two tips to help you become very profitable with your paid advertising efforts:

#1) Decide who your target market is

This is probably the most important question of all. Should you want the greatest ROI, you have to know exactly who your customer is.

“If everyone is your customer, no one is your customer.” By targeting very generic sites and keywords, you are likely wasting money, because you are trying to attract everyone to your offer. Sit down and figure out exactly who is your target customer, and what sites they frequent. Also, consider what keywords they will be typing into the search engines.

Those will be your targets.

This will allow you to tailor your message exactly to your customer. Message-to-market match is critical. No matter how good your ads are, if they are in the wrong place, you will not make money.

And don’t just think about where your customers hang out, but also who you are talking to. Consider the age and gender of your target market, as well as other relevant factors. This will enable you to write ads that appeal to that specific segment. This will make you more effective.

#2) Track you results

Tracking each individual traffic channel is just as important as knowing who your customer is. For instance, if you are targeting 80 keywords, don’t send each one to the same landing page. Instead, have a separate landing page for each.

This will enable you to tell which of your keywords are making you money and which are not. Do the same thing for each individual webpage you are targeting.

The truth is, only a small percentage of your advertising will be profitable. So knowing which campaigns are making money and which are not is very important. This will enable you to eliminate the losers and keep the winners.

So the key to successful advertising is to first identify where you can find your customers. Only advertise in those places. And make sure to track each ad individually. This is how to have online ads that make you money on autopilot for years to come.

Recommended Resource:

• Online Advertising – an internet marketing sweetie report
• Client Attraction Guide – learn who your target market is, reaching your ideal client

Why should you sell there? One of the reasons is that it is one of the biggest marketplaces for hand-made items. So you can really boost your popularity by using it.

It’s a very secure site, which means you don’t have to worry about your personal information getting stolen by a third party. And they accept many forms of payment, such as cash, check, PayPal, and so on.

However, while there are lots of potential customers that use it, there is also a lot of competition. So you can’t just put something up and expect it to sell. Here are four tips for making money on the site:

#1) Do good product research

Without knowing what sells, you won’t make a lot of money. So if you are marketing hand-made t-shirts, first check and see the average selling price of comparable t-shirts on the site. If the sale price isn’t sufficient to make a big profit, either market another product or sell your t-shirts somewhere else.

#2) Use pictures

This will make your product stand out, because a picture is worth a thousand words.

#3) Be active on the Etsy forum

This will help you establish yourself as an expert. Therefore it will be more likely that people will listen to you. Engaging your customers is one of the best strategies for making money.

Make sure to ask them a lot of questions about what they want, and provide useful answers. Giving away great free information is the best way to brand yourself an expert.

#4) Have a good profile

Don’t just use your profile to talk about things like payment methods and return policy. This is not interesting. Instead, tell a little of your story here, such as why you are selling your particular product, what got you into it, and what keeps you motivated. Incorporating personality into your business is important.

Customers do not buy from businesses; they buy from people. So bringing your personality into your marketing is smart. Keep the paragraphs short and to the point, and emphasize your passions for the topic.

Also, mention rewards or publicity you’ve gotten. If you’ve received a write-up in a popular niche magazine or the newspaper, mention it here! This gives you more credibility, and will help build you as an expert without being a blatant ad.

So Etsy is a great site for making money – when you do it right. However, you can’t just throw something up and expect it to sell. Instead, you need to brand yourself as an expert. This is how to make a lot of money on Etsy, selling items you are passionate about.

“Search engine optimization copywriting” or SEO, is a method of writing viewable or easily scanned text on your web page which is very acceptable and readable for the internet user as well as targets certain or exact search terms, having the purpose of ranking high in search engines.

“SEO Copywriting” generally optimizes and enhances other on-page components for search terms being targeted, namely the title, the description and likewise keywords tags, alt text and headings.

Search engines require and look for authentic content pages, rather than additional pages which are designed solely for attaining high rankings; this then, is the concept of “SEO copywriting”.  And for this reason, search engines may not likely consider SEO pages with undesirable copywriting content.

Simply put, your site’s content must follow good marketing standards, having great interaction with your visitors because excellent “SEO copywriting” acknowledges the fact that humans make the purchasing decisions and not “spiders”.

It is recommended that your content comprises of about 250 words that are viewable per page, having a maximum of two targeted keywords or search terms located strategically inside the text as well as in other on-page components.

A good quality and informative copywriting content indeed is the very foundation for a website to be successful. A good content and excellent website setup will direct your visitors to what exactly they desire while collecting or inquiring for information in your website. A well developed and constructed content page really is important for powerful website content and can take a huge bound in your keyword ranking approach.

Always remember that internet surfers do not “read” all of your content, but rather, they tend to scan through the page, searching for prominent and attractive sentences and words. Meaning that for you to magnetize your visitors, you need to write not only convincing and captivating content, but also scannable.

When a prospect visits your site searching for a service or product, it can be due to fact that they find your information educational and helpful; thus it actually depends on the quality of your content and what type of information that you supply your visitors that determines whether they stay or leave your website. Content rich in keywords will leave an enduring impression for your SEO campaign.

Here are a few guidelines on writing good quality SEO content:

1.  Understand and determine your “key phrases” before you begin writing.  Returning and then editing an already existing copy to reach higher keyword concentration can be a difficult task which often results in fragmented sentences, complicated statements and a copy that is stiff sounding. If you already know the “key phrases”, then you are able to construct a complete and flowing stream of ideas.

2.  Know who your target audiences are.  You need to determine your target clients before writing your content, so that you can address them properly. You can not write a good quality, informative and persuading content without knowing your visitors requirements, problems and needs.

Your content should offer a solution to their problems and you need to first identify that problem before you can determine a solution.

3.  Incorporate your “key phrases” in the headlines.  Almost all search engines believe that a headline is a significant part of your copy which means that the text that comprises the headlines bears additional effect.

When you make headlines, be certain to construct them so that they also carry the keyword that you have used in your content. Also take note of the “HTML encryption for your title. When you make bold headlines and incorporating them in heading tags <H>, they will catch the search engine’s attention.

4.  Scatter or distribute your “key phrases” properly throughout the body of your article.  To do this effectively, focus on just a maximum of three primary keywords and let them naturally flow in your article.

There is what is called a “3 percent guideline” which states that 3 percent of the words in your article must be “keywords”. You should take note however, that this is only a guideline; do not ruin a good article just so to achieve the three percent guideline by insisting on the keywords in sentences where it does not fit just so to achieve the “3 percent guideline.”

Just remember that a literature form of writing is not what is required in SEO copywriting; it just makes poor web content. SEO copywriting demands that you specifically need to write for the internet, something that is very much different from a literature or storybook style of writing.

There is more to web copywriting than merely writing well. Keep this in mind:  Effective web copywriting and keywords “search engine optimization” mean the same thing.

Recommended Resource:

Practical SEO: Make Friends With The Search Engines To Enjoy More Traffic to Your Scrapbook Business Website!

The Big Three and Beyond

A blog platform is essentially a product which a blog or website is based on. In many cases they’re the service you use to host and publish your blog. In the blogging world, there are three big players with a host of smaller platforms. The big three are:

• Blogger, now owned by Google
• Typepad
• WordPress

There is also MoveableType.org, which is an open source publishing platform. Another is Joomla, which offers blogging capabilities but is considered more of a website platform than a blogging platform. There are many other website hosts which offer blogging functions; however, they’re not traditional platforms.

When you choose a blogging platform, you’re looking for a few key ingredients. You’re looking for:

• Ease of use – If you have to jump through hoops and read a 1000 page manual to get a blog up and running, you’re not going to want to do it. Intuitive interfaces and easy to find information are essential.
• Functionality – It needs to be user friendly for your customers and prospects, and that means easy to navigate and easy to use.
• Features – You want your blog to be able to do what you want and need it to do, including sell products and services, host contests, take feedback and so on.
• Price – Always a consideration.
• Customization – You want to be able to make your blog look and feel exactly like you want it to without a ton of work, time and money.
• Reputation – You want a platform that’s going to be around for years and years to come so you don’t have to switch your blog to a different platform.

Before you choose a blogging platform you’ll want to spend some time determining what you want your blog to accomplish. If for example you want to optimize your blog for the first page of the search engines, you’re going to want a blog that is easy to optimize and maybe has search engine optimization plug-ins. This means making a list of your requirements before you even begin comparing blogging platforms.

Another important thing to consider is where your blog is going to be hosted. TypePad and Blogger are both hosted blogs, meaning your URL will be http://www.yournamehere.typepad.com/

The same is true for blogger. WordPress gives you the option. You can host your blog on WordPress or redirect it to another host so your URL is whatever you want it to be.

Read everything about your blogging platform before you go through the work to customize it and set it up. Some hosted blogging platforms do not allow advertising, for example, and if that’s something you want to do then you’ll need to consider those restrictions before you sign on.

The good news is that blogging is free and unless you hire a professional designer to customize it then your start-up expenses are nominal. (There’s a $10 fee to redirect a WordPress blog to another host.) Choosing your blogging platform just takes a little time and research. Happy blogging.

My personal experience

I use wordpress for both this blog and my blog at FaithfullyYours.net.  I like WordPress because it is easy to use, affordable and has many customization options.

You can get your own domain for under $10, hosting for as little as $5/mon and easily have a wordpress blog up and running quickly. For more information, visit Website Solutions…

Further learning:

• Business blogging – Increase your business income with a blog