Most people don’t think about public relations as a way to promote their online business. But the fact remains that public relations is an essential part of any business online or offline. Why should someone worry about building their reputation in a medium aside from the internet? Two reasons: Exposure and Credibility.

Exposure. People also listen to radio, read magazines, and read newspapers. To be able to reach your target market thoroughly, it is important for an internet marketer to think of innovate ways to reach them; this will also improve traffic to your website.

Credibility. Establishing a trustworthy reputation is definitely a challenge for any online business. This is because people are more critical of what they see on the internet. Web visitors will not instantly trust your site even after seeing it. When visitors read about your business on the newspaper or magazine, they will categorize your site above that of the competitor; this is because any business can publish any kind of content on the internet but not all businesses can be mentioned in a magazine.

I know of a website that used to sponsor concerts and other heavily-promoted events; the fee they pay for these sponsorships probably don’t costs as much as what other website owners pay for search engine optimization and other online promotion techniques. Yet, this particular site (which I have no permission to mention) enjoys a lot of everyday traffic as well as advertising revenue from various big-name companies.

Popularity: 9% [?]

What is StumbleUpon?

StumbleUpon is very much similar to social bookmarking sites such as Del.ico.us and Digg but it has a slight difference. This is because while other social bookmarking sites tend to send thousands, if not millions, of visitors your way in a span of several days if your story made the front page; StumbleUpon provides a lower amount of traffic in a more consistent rate. Using StumbleUpon is a good way to drive traffic to your site is a great way to build a loyal base of readers.

How to Use StumbleUpon

Basically, StumbleUpon works when a user downloads a toolbar that allows them to rate a particular website as thumbs up or thumbs down. To receive traffic from StumbleUpon, you must first submit one of your webpage. Then, you should browse your own website and select the thumps up symbol to be able to add it in StumbleUpon.

Increasing Traffic

You can increase your traffic using simple techniques in StumbleUpon. Some of the strategies you can try out include:

· Adding more friends. Having more friends will allow your site to be exposed to a greater number of users who will see the newly added pages on your site.

· Submit new pages. When you create new blog posts, for example, you should submit this URL to StumbleUpon using their toolbar. This technique will increase the number of pages you have in the database so the likelihood of users “stumbling” on your webpage is also improved.

· Categorizing pages property and adding multiple tags. These two techniques will allow you to attract relevant traffic to your site.

· Rate websites. Get involved in the community because it can definitely help your site appear to StumbleUpon users who share the same interest as you. This will increase the likelihood that they will rate your site with thumbs up as well.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Hubpages is definitely the next Squidoo-like site that is set to take the online marketing world by storm. In spite of the fact that only around 15,000 hub pages exists today and that most hubbers are not even that experienced in taking advantage of long-tail keywords, their pages still keeps in popping up into the first several pages of Google search results.

But it is not only their “search engine friendliness” that makes Hub Pages so attractive to marketers because they also allow the use of affiliate links. In addition, they even have a more generous payment system compared to Squidoo; their affiliate programs let you get lifetime commission from the income of your recruited hubbers.

You will also get paid every time you drive traffic to another person’s hubpage and the same is true when they drive people to your page. With this kind of revenue-share strategy where each marketer works to promote the other, you can definitely expect that Hubpages will enjoy a long lasting reputation as a premier affiliate marketing resource.

And unlike Squidoo wherein most of the “niches” are already dominated by a select few, hot niches are still wide open in Hubpages. Marketers just need to find out the right combination for their long tail keywords and tags.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Ever since Seth Godin launched Squidoo, a unique social network site that welcomes both blatant promotions and informative content, rumors have been circulating in the web community as to how online marketers can best use this tool.

Benefits

Probably the best thing about Squidoo is that fact that it’s free for anyone to use. Yes, you can actually take advantage of this great online resource without shelling out a single dime for promotion and optimization. The benefits you can derive from Squidoo is simply incredible because of the huge amount of traffic your site can generate as well as the amount of moneymaking opportunities that becomes available to you once you create a lens. Squidoo is also incredibly user-friendly; you don’t need to be a programmer to use this tool.

How It Works

Squidoo lets you showcase your expertise in the field you choose. In fact, you can choose to create a single account and then just tap into multiple demographics…or you can create multiple accounts (you have to use multiple e-mails). In separating your campaigns using the second method, you can brand yourself as an expert in multiple fields.

Downside

Yet, for all its advantages, Squidoo is not without a downside. Take note that it is not the fault of the Squidoo marketing system itself. Rather, the large number of marketers and spammers who abuse this tool are forcing both Squidoo and Google to take action. Because of its size and web influence, your Squidoo lens can skyrocket to the top of the Google index in just a short week; in some cases, it can even be as short as a few days.

Google is taking a hard line in this because they see this as a loophole. Well, of course, Squidoo can’t accept that their lenses will suddenly drop like flies from the Google index so they are taking a stance against spammers as well as black hat marketers.

So if you plan to use Squidoo in the near future, you must be prepared to put more efforts into this. Be prepared to adapt to the changing internet landscape as well.

Popularity: 13% [?]

There is a unique difference between optimizing your website and optimizing your blog. With blogs, you constantly add pages with each post you publish and you definitely need to get a page 1 ranking for the said pages. There are several techniques that will enable you to do this:

Directories – register at free and paid directions to get a good mixture of both. Free directories will allow you to register your main site but none of the post page. Meanwhile, the paid directories will usually allow their members to enter their post page.

Forums – this is a great place to get one way links and traffic quickly and easily. Put the link on your signature but never spam the forum because it will just irritate the other members; your posts might even be deleted. Also, Make sure you contribute to the discussion so that people will trust you and they will be enticed to click on your link to read more of what you have to say.

Social bookmarking sites – some experts say that social bookmarking sites are the fastest method to get links. Submit a post to the social networking sites and the new blog can be immediately indexed within the next 24-48 hours.

1. Register with Onlywire or Social Marker
2. If you use Firefox or Netscape, put the links in your toolbar or favorites
3. Every time you make a post, click on the Onlywire or Social Marker buttons
4. Add a description and the tags
5. Post this to all social networking sites

Blog comments – the theory behind this is basically the same as that of the forum posts. You need to contribute to the conversation; don’t expect that the administrator will always allow you to post your link though.

Link Exchanges – everyone knows that this is a great technique to get traffic for your blog. There are two ways to get links.

1. Blogroll exchanges – probably the best option because it will bring in a large amount of traffic if used properly
2. Regular link exchanges – in my experience, people are usually more willing to exchange links compared to e-business sites. You can automate the process by using LinksManager.com

Popularity: 7% [?]

Anyone who owns a website has their own favorite optimization trick; we are all familiar with keyword densities, inbound links, and things like that. But the question is, would these tricks work for blogs as well? So today, we touch upon the basics of optimizing your blog. The truth is, both website and blog optimization are the same in theory but the difference lies in the system.

Blog Platform

If you are searching for a blog platform, the highly recommended one is definitely WordPress. Some people actually prefer use Blogger, TypePad, and the Moveable Type but personally, I believe that WordPress is the best there is. This is because you can do so much with Wordpress that will enable you to make your blog as attractive and as search engine friendly as possible.

The Initial Set-Up

While the initial set-up is not really as important as the plugins and the keyword research, it can help with your optimization efforts as well. If you are serious about making money from your blog, you should get your own domain name and hosting. It is recommended that the domain name you choose should contain the main keyword of your blog.

The Plugins

Plugins are helpful in optimization. Some of the plugins you should not do without includes Social networking plugins, Plug IM, Headerspace, and social bookmarking plugins. Obviously, these plugins will not only aid in optimization, it will also contribute greatly in building the community. You should have at least one plugin that enables your visitors to tag your blog and another plugin that optimizes your blog like a normal website.

Keyword Research

Just like optimizing a regular website, keyword research is essential in blogging as well. Try to use WordTracker in your research because it will enable you to find a list of keywords with relatively low competition. You should pick keywords that you can do the blog submission on. And then write a series of informative articles that your target audience would be interested in.

These are just the basics of starting a highly optimized blog. More tips about backlinks and other promotional method will be available tomorrow.

Popularity: 8% [?]

You could be one the greatest Marketers of all time, have a shrine to the amount of awards and recognition you have been given. You could have written some of the best content available to mankind on your Market, Product or Hobby or pretty much anything you can think off. Designed and Marketed some of the best Adverts seen in the world. The sad fact for You is I can beat all of your hard work, months of research, teams of experts who work with you, using one single Powerful Marketing technique that wins every single time!

This big underused technique (not by the Porn industry) is Boobs, large or small, fake or real and the Good looking Sexy Woman that they’re attached too. In general they command almost 99% of the male consumer level. Men are dumb in general really, especially when it comes to Beautiful Looking Women and I am one, so I know what I’m talking about. I love women, but I have rarely used this technique to its full advantage and maybe I should start. It does leave me feeling that I’m lowering my marketing standards by using these techniques but I know they work time after time.

We all know this, just look at the shelves in newsagents for Mens, Bike, Tattoo and Car magazines. I used to buy Car Performance magazines in my youth. Those were the days when they didn’t have to use these techniques to sell their magazines, they could sell them without the use of sexual influences.

Now, it’s used by all the big names in the Magazine Industry. Not just mens but womens Magazines always have a front cover with a beautiful Celebrity on the front cover.

Why?

Because it sells the Product time after time…

This is such a simple but powerful technique and can be used effectively without being seedy. Look at GoDaddy (I’m not endorsing these guys as I do not like their service) but they do know how to market well. Look how they use women in their advertising and on their site to lure your eyes away and make you forget about how you’re not too sure about their prices. This just works and relaxes the brain by being visually stimulated by a nice looking person staring at you. It will hit the part of your brain that doesn’t think rationally.

This same emotional influence happens to women when looking at clothing and especially Shoes. Put a women in a shoe shop and watch what happens, desire for a beautiful product that will make you look sexy and improve the way you feel. Which effects the part of the brain (like endorphins which make you feel good) that will encourage impulse purchases without much thought about the price and if they really need this product or not.

They are drawn by their feelings (emotional rather than rational), the benefits, how great they’re going to look rather than the outrageous price of those gorgeous Christian Louboutins Shoes.

If you’ve tried everything and failed or maybe not failed but need a simple way to attract customers why not try this technique. Just do it in a non seedy way…

Popularity: 20% [?]

It’s Friday and I was hoping to find something celebratory and joyous to tell you about in honor of the coming weekend, so I’ve spent the morning looking at some old haunts for some positive insight. I found something that was truly inspiring.

Unfortunately, it ended up being a dead link.  Dead links are not your friends in the blogging world. They are your arch nemesis.  The most interesting link at the site was to some restricted domain, and the reaction I had to it is the worst kind of reaction you can get to your site.

It’s okay though, Spring cleaning time is almost here!  Take a little time and click through your links - from your side categories to your advertisers - and do that with different browsers.  At very least you’ll want to make sure Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari have no problems navigating and that the site looks decent.

If there is something wrong or the experience isn’t very uniform, take some time to retool and give your site a better look.  Oddly enough, changing the color of your links and buttons can give you a small, temporary boost in views for sections off your main site. This also ends up giving more ad views and usually gets a small boost in ad clicks and visits.

I very rarely would suggest moving your buttons or links.  The only exceptions are when you make tabs for your pages and if you are moving an important or useful link to the top of the page.  Sleek is the word to aim for.

Popularity: 8% [?]

More isn’t always better, especially when it comes to mobile devices and online services.

In-Stat has recently put out a report showing that combining features for mobile devices and web services aren’t seen as useful or wanted by consumers.  Consumers and readers are looking for a combination of functionality and a new interaction model.  If you are aiming your product towards the corporate world, the study also finds that US businesses and business professionals tend to be loyal to older technologies and are unlikely to take on the cost of an unproven invention.

Even with the invention of all these lovely convergent technologies, many users prefer using multiple, redundant devices, over choosing a single phone and single computing device.

“The smartphone is a successful example of a converged device where a single device combines a PDA, computing device and a mobile phone. In this case, the smartphone offers a benefit to the user in the form of real-time data, typically wireless email,” said In-Stat analyst Bill Hughes.

Defining an easy to use and understand product is still the way to go.  If a new idea or solution comes to you, introduce it as an update if it is very small, or as a whole new product if it is of any consequence.  Think of Yahoo! if you need an example, all the services it has developed and canceled after implementation are pretty astounding in number. However, Yahoo! was great with its search engine, and that’s what still makes all the money and gets distributed in every new deal Yahoo makes.

Popularity: 10% [?]

For the past six months I’ve been diving into Internet business models and there is one approach that seems to stand out because it actually works: Acting like your product is worth buying. Whatever you’re selling – whether it be a product for downloading, an SMS or text message service, or something like a blog where you’re selling ad-space – treat it like gold. There are two big things that can help, especially in the world of online businesses.

Sell something, even if it is just you. One trick to making sure your product looks worthwhile is tacking a $, €, and a £ somewhere obvious on your homepage.  You want a number up front and you want it strong. If you aren’t selling something directly to your viewers – as in you sell ads – it still gives viewers, including those advertisers, an idea of how much you value your own product. There is a large difference between $6 and $69, and even if it is not in the front of their mind, it makes a big difference to a viewer.

One of the hardest places to sell your product is one of the most important places to sell it, the press. On a “Contact” or “About” section, a company should have press links – mentions from established bloggers, news services, print media and online media. When a company hits any milestone, it should put out a press statement, even if it is only to services like PRNewswire. Put out a press release and someone will pick it up, wait a week and Google yourself, and then link to that article. Getting a company and product’s name out there is honestly not that hard, it just takes patience and you have to jump off that initial cliff.

Popularity: 10% [?]