The traffic statistics page for Robert’s new small business web site starts to load. He scrolls down the page, dismayed. Just one or two visitors daily. Robert sits back and sighs. Most were probably curious friends and family.
When his internet-savvy nephew suggested promoting his small business on the Internet, Robert designed a simple but attractive five-page small business web site. He added meta-tags and keywords, and waited for the search engines.
Robert wonders, “What now?”
Robert’s experience is common among small businesses getting started on the Internet. He has just faced the first big lesson for a small business web site: the web site is not enough. Unlike the weekly advertisement Robert places in the local paper, he needs to promote the web site itself. In a sense, he needs to advertise the advertisement.
What Robert doesn’t realize is that he already has the most valuable asset a small business can leverage online — knowledge and experience. Anyone who runs a small business off-line is an expert on something that other people would like to know about. Writing articles can turn that knowledge into targeted traffic. Article writing is the ideal free method for a small business to promote itself on the Internet.
Every small business has expertise it can share in 500-1,000 word bites. A landscaper could write about the uses for different kinds of turf grass. A window installer can describe new types of energy-efficient windows. A home cleaning service can provide cleaning tips.
Customers ask Robert five questions repeatedly. He can easily write five simple articles to answer them. Then, he just needs to add a “resource box” which advertises and links to his web site.
Robert can also include a few of his web site’s keywords in each article, and, if possible, in his resource box. Robert’s business depends on local customers. Including his city’s name in anecdotes within the articles, or in the resource box, can help his articles to appear in local searches for that city.
Robert would start by uploading his article to a new web page. This gives visitors more to read — and starts to establish Robert as an expert. More importantly, the article becomes “spider bait” for the content-loving search engines to find and index.
He could stop there, but his new article gives him a more valuable opportunity to promote his site.
Next, Robert can offer his article to other web sites. Most article directories accept submissions of articles. They offer those articles for others to use in newsletters or on web sites. A quick search for “article directory” will yield a sizable list of sites that accept article submissions.
Prepared, with a simple text file ready to copy and paste, it takes just minutes to submit an article to an article directory site. Once posted, the article provides a link to Robert’s site. Other webmasters may reprint his article, also linking to his site.
Article marketing is viral, multiplying the links — and visitors — to the author’s site each time an article is republished. Just one popular article can attract a growing number of information-hungry visitors as the article spreads across the Internet.
Many article directories also include new articles in RSS feeds and e-mail announcements to their lists. Robert doesn’t even need his own e-mail list or feed to advertise his web site to readers of his article.
Finally, if Robert has more time, he can search for “ezine directories” to find newsletters that accept articles and offer his article directly to them. If he is willing to spend some money, he could use article submission services.
Over time, the growing number of links to a web site can improve its “link popularity” and Page Rank. As the site rises in the search engine rankings, it attracts even more visitors.
Articles spread those all-important links across the Internet without the tedious process of sending out link exchange requests (often declined or ignored). Better still, webmasters who reprint articles rarely ask for reciprocal links back to their own sites.
The benefit of writing an article builds over time, yet articles require no ongoing maintenance once they are written and submitted. Other options like newsletters, blogs, and forums can demand more upkeep than a small business can afford.
Best of all, articles can remain up on web sites indefinitely, driving free traffic immediately — and long-term. Most other kinds of advertising stay posted only as long as they are paid for. An article’s “views,” “reprints,” and “click-throughs” can increase — without increasing advertising costs.
Writing articles is a powerful way to leverage a small business’ expertise, transforming it into traffic. The currency of the Internet, information, makes advertising a small business web site affordable. Promoting with articles can jump-start the online presence of a small business and continue to market it for a long time to come.
(c) 2006 Wendy MakiMay be reprinted in email newsletters and on web sites. Must be unedited and include the resource box. All other rights reserved.
Posts Tagged ‘Online’
Jump Starting a Small Business Presence Online
Category Small Business
Getting Legal Support Jobs Online
Category Legal
Most legal firms are very particular about the quality of legal support staff they engage – people like the paralegals who complement the works of the lawyers, receptionists who welcome the clients and secretaries who type the various legal documents as they become necessary. The law firms realize that the quality and success of their practice might ultimately depend on the people they engage in these capacities – than on anything else. And based on this understanding, many legal firm administrators are willing to go to almost any lengths to ensure that they get the right people for these jobs. It is therefore not surprising that the lawyers and other legal firm administrators are always on the lookout for any forum through which they can gain access to the very best staff for their operations – and the latest such forum is the Internet.
As it turns out, more and more legal firms are posting their legal support jobs online – and the Internet is indeed the place to find a job if you are, for instance, a legal secretary, a paralegal professional or a legal receptionist.
Most legal firms post their vacancies on the public online job forums – because with the exception of the very top legal firms, most are relatively smaller operations and their websites don’t get that many visitors. In any case, the nature of the legal business is that it can only deal with so many clients at a time- and therefore it might not even be desirable for them to want to attract the masses.
Take note however, that many online job forums may not have specific sections for jobs in legal support. Instead the jobs could be found in various other sections – like for instance, under the section for receptionist jobs. Even if a particular online job notice has a specific section for such jobs in legal support, there is still a chance that a law firm (in a bid to reach the widest possible audience) could post its vacancy for a receptionist under the section on receptionist jobs – rather than on the section for jobs in legal support. In the case where the law firm is looking for a person proficient in a particular language, they could post in the section for ‘language jobs.’ Thus if for instance an international law firm with clients in France is looking for a legal secretary who is proficient in French, they might post the job in the section for language jobs on the online job notice board– rather than on the sections for jobs in legal support or secretarial jobs you would otherwise expect such a job to be posted. The moral here is that it pays to widen your search.
Needless to say, you need to ensure that you are dealing with a credible online job notice board, as a few could be hoaxes. In most other professions, people are advised to look at the websites of the firms they want to work with for vacancies but as noted earlier, the online job forums might be the best places to check for jobs in legal support. It is worth noting, however, that the more prominent law firms do indeed tend to have a ‘careers’ section on their websites, and this is also one of the places you can check for the jobs in legal support. But then again, competition for jobs in legal support in these prominent legal firms tends to be rather stiff and their standards and expectations can be what many people consider a bit too high for them – though on the other side, their salaries and benefits tend to be commensurate.
3 Ways to Create an Online Travel Income
Category Travel
Imagine this: you wake up in the glamorous, exotic, or rustic location of your choice. A smile sneaks its way onto your face. You’re living your dream of traveling the world… and, here’s the best part – you’re getting paid for it. It is extremely difficult to write about this subject without sounding ‘hypey’ and ‘salesy,’ so let me just lay out the facts, and I’ll let you come up with your own conclusions: Hundreds of billions of dollars change hands online every year. • Thousands of one-man-business entrepreneurs are making a portion of this money. • Internet technology has made business possible from anywhere in the world. All you need is a laptop or Internet café… • With a little bit of training and know-how, creating a profitable business online that takes in a few thousand dollars per month takes about 30-90 days. • There’s a growing underground community whose strategies have them making more money than their friends with ‘Jobs’ and they get to travel to wherever they like. There are the facts. If you put it all together, there is no reason you can’t take an extremely small piece of the pie. In fact, if you made .00001% of the money being made online you’d be ridiculously rich!
So what are the methods to make this happen? There’s no selling your friends or timeshares or anything shady like that. These are completely legitimate, entrepreneurial ventures that don’t take any startup costs or a ton of training. There are MANY ways to make money online, but here are 3:1) Sell digital information. If you’re an expert on a subject of any kind, you can quickly and easily create an digitally delivered product and then focus on selling the product online. This can be an ebook, mp3, video file, or even a simple password-protected website. The markup on these products is HUGE because they cost nothing to create or deliver, and they can be sold for $10 to $10,000+ dollars. Say you have a modest $20 download. If you sold a measly 3 products per day, you’re making $1,800 bucks a month. Sell a $50 dollar product (which takes no more work) at the same rate and you’re making $4,500 a month… for doing the work ONCE!2) Sell stuff on Ebay. “Wait!” I can hear you objecting… “I don’t want to carry around old junk to sell while I travel!” By all means… DON’T! You can easily set up an inexpensive account with a fulfillment house and have them ship your auction sales for you. You can hire a high school kid or your little sister to ship stuff. Better yet, just sell digital products on Ebay and don’t ship anything!3) Blogging. This is a great option for writers, photographers, and videographers who want to document their travel. You’re probably going to be at least journaling, taking pictures, or video… most likely a combination of all three. Well, did you ever consider making it into a blog that makes money? Setting up a blog to collect income from your advertisers (and visitors, if you choose) is easier than ever. Some bloggers are making $250,000+ per MONTH just for writing about their lives. Yes, you read that correctly. Per month. Not too shabby! The real key to making money online is to take action and get started. Pick one of these methods, learn as much as you can from experts who have done it already, and then go travel the world!
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The expert authors at www.MoneyForTraveling.com have all made a substantial internet income while traveling or they have been hired and paid well to travel the world. They now teach others how to make money for traveling. Visit MoneyForTraveling.com to discover 12 methods for making money while traveling.