Month: November 2009

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How to Acquire and Retain E-Commerce Customers

With the rise in popularity of Internet, it seems like everything can now be done through the World Wide web. In fact, it is now possible to transform your entire business and put it online. Business transactions happening on the Web are commonly known as e-commerce. It is actually an extraordinary way to profit from e-commerce customers.

However, e-commerce also needs effective marketing strategies just like offline businesses to ensure success in the long run. Though the e-commerce marketing strategies are somewhat similar to the marketing strategies being used in conventional types of business, the means of delivery of marketing messages to e-commerce customers are different.

If you are a novice in the world of e-commerce, then you should make sure to arm yourself with some effective marketing strategies to attain success at the end of the day. Some of the most impressive, as well as effective e-commerce marketing strategies are the following:

– Set up an outstanding online business. This is in fact the very first thing which you should do. You have to make sure that the online business which you want to set up is something which is in line with your interest and passion so that it would be easier for you to manage it.

– Look for a profitable niche on the World Wide web. You have to see to it to establish your business in a profitable and lucrative niche or market. In doing so, you can be certain that you can have more profits in the days to come. Some of the profitable niches are money, health, and self-improvement.

– Market your business properly and effectively. After looking for a niche, the next best thing which you should do is to market your business. There are actually a lot of ways on how you can do your business or product marketing. Some of these ways have to do with participating in forums, using search engine optimization techniques, posting classified ads in free classified sites, writing and publishing articles, publishing blogs, etc.

Indeed, you need useful and competent e-commerce marketing strategies to be a successful online business person. You just have to make sure to give all your best for the sake of your online business. After all, it is you who will benefit from all your efforts at the end of the day.

Once you acquire e-commerce customers, you have to serve them with transparency to make them come back to you for repeat business. Keep in touch with them through Facebook, your own weekly e-newsletter, or a forum. Solve their problems as soon as possible.

Of course, you also have to be very cautious when it comes to doing business online. This is because scams are by now very rampant on the worldwide web. Hence, it is safe to say that necessary precautions are also essential to make sure that you and your business are truly safe.

Like any offline business, the goal of an online business is to acquire e-commerce customers and retain them for the life of your online business. Now you know some the techniques.

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A New Strategy For Inbound Links

This article revisits the oldest Web marketing strategy – inbound links. The importance of inbound links to your Web site never diminishes. Search engines still value quality inbound links to a Web site for higher rankings. However, the emphasize is now on the quality, not the quantity of links. A dozen quality links to your site from useful sites are more valuable to a search engine than 700 links obtained through a link exchange program.

Before going into the details of how to obtain quality inbound links to your site, you should know some don’ts of inbound link strategy. Never participate in an automated or manual link exchange program. These programs are useless; they don’t benefit you and sometimes the search engines may even penalize your site for such links. Also, stop soliciting link exchange from other sites where your links will be placed in a link farm on a page along with hundreds of other links. The two don’ts are – link exchange program and link farms.

The number one strategy is to write articles with your resource box attached. Your resource box should mention your expertise in the subject and only one link to your site’s home page. If you have already started frowning on the idea of writing articles to promote your site, you are not alone. Most probably, you already know that writing article for site promotion is not a new strategy and it has been going for the past few years.

Thousands of articles are written everyday and distributed through article directories and submission services. You can still continue promoting your site using article directories and submission services. However, this article will discuss a few new twists to the old article publishing idea to distinguish you from the pack.

Write original articles. If you buy private level rights to an article, rewrite it to make it unique. You don’t have to buy the rights to private level articles to create original article. Using the Internet, find good quality articles on the subject that interests you and read those articles. It requires a few hours of time commitment every week.

On the weekend, take an additional few hours and write in your own words what you have read in the preceding week. Voila, you have a good quality original article. Remember, you can always write in your own words the ideas that you have read in other articles. You cannot simply copy verbatim from other articles. That will be copyright violation.

If you are good at writing humorously, do exploit that skill while writing on any subject. Humor is very powerful and it attracts more readers. People love a bellyful of laughs. If possible, say something bold or controversial without being a hate monger. This will also attract others’ attention.

Once you have your original article written, find a few quality content rich site (not article directories) and offer them your article for free with your resource box attached. You are not asking for any link exchange, you are just giving away your high quality articles for free to a few selected sites.

Once you have a few good articles on the same subject, compile them into an e-book. Write a short bio(less than 300 characters) with your Web site link and ask a few selected site owners to distribute your e-book for free to their visitors. You can also ask other site owners to include your e-book as a free bonus in some of their prime selling products. Ask the site owners to distribute the e-book from their sites with courtesy notes and links back to your site.

If your Web site has a forum, offer other sites to use it from their sites. Setup your forum so that it has almost seamless integration from other sites. Ask other sites to directly link to your forum from their main menu. In return, tell them that you will write nice reviews of their sites and their offerings and publish those reviews in your site.

Develop a tips and tricks section on the subject of your Web site and update it regularly. Allow other sites to publish your tips and tricks for free with courtesy links to your site. Make the process automated (using RSS other techniques) so that when you update your tips and tricks page, all sites publishing your tips and tricks are also updated.

Whenever you get an opportunity, use your cell phone to shoot short videos and take pictures. You need to get a good cell phone with a camera. Give your pictures and videos to other sites for free. Ask them to put links back to your site below every video and picture they publish in their sites.

Join a few social networking sites like MySapce, etc. Create your Web pages on those sites with videos and pictures. Provide links back to your site from those pages. Update your Web pages in social networking sites periodically with fresh videos and pictures.

Publish link to your articles in community based popularity sites like digg. A well “dugg” story can generate thousands of hits to your site. If you have a controversial or humorous story, the chances are even better for “digging” your articles from these type of sites.

Write reviews of products and services, related to your site’s subject, that you have used and publish those reviews on different review sites with a clever way to put links back to your site. Some creativity is required to achieve this feat. You cannot simply spam these review sites. Be genuine and at the same time marketing savvy.

Network and build good rapport with a dozen or so good site owners. Help each other in site promotion, idea and content exchanges. For all content exchanges, don’t forget to include resource boxes with links back to your site.