Sunday, April 30, 2006

Advertising your Website on Television

Have you noticed that almost every company that advertises on television has a website that they flash up on the screeen at the end of the ad? Have you thought about "Advertising on Television"? Unless your business is getting pretty big, this would be quite a bad idea. You'd have trouble producing and airing an ad even on local cable channels for less than $10,000. Of course, if there's a market for your product and you've got the budget for this, you could take a gamble and make a mint. The home businesses that tend to do best out of TV ads are ones that have a 'unique and useful invention' product with easy-to-demonstrate benefits -- think infomercial. Research shows that you can sell almost anything given a 60-second ad, a free phone number and a price point of $19.95.
In some markets advertising on TV is quite reasonable locally but be sure to mention your website in your ad. It is unbeleivable the number of big business owners that forget to do this. Mention your website on everything you have your company name printed on. Sometimes people are more apt to go to a website before they even call you on the phone because they don't want to have to deal with salespeople or being put on hold.
If you need help with your advertising online please contact me or visit my internet advertising website. - Thanks for reading my blog - Ann Menke

Saturday, April 29, 2006

Ways to Advertise Your Website

To continue my discussion about other types of advertising to day I will talk about advertising on the Radio: Wherever you are, the chances are that there's a local radio station. Once your home business grows to a decent size, you might consider buying some time on it.
Really, though, the only kind of home business that can benefit enough from radio ads to justify the cost is one that has anything to do with cars. Since radio is almost entirely limited to use as in-car entertainment now, you know that almost everyone your ad reaches will be a car-owner, and so might be interested in what you're offering. If you offer something that people need cheaply or even for free, you can get a big response.
Unfortunately, that response could be a little too big -- thanks to the time-sensitivity of radio, you'll get mobbed the next day, and then everyone will forget you again. Radio advertising offers the listener no opportunity to keep your ad and refer to it later, or to find it again in the future. You will find that any ads involving a phone number are spectacularly useless. It does help of course to repeat your website address at least 3 times in the ad in the hope they will write it down or remember it.
More to come tommorrow about ways to advertise your website.
If you need more website advertising advice please contact Ann Menke

Friday, April 28, 2006

Advertising Your Website Offline

The media is a powerful thing -- the average person spends an enormous amount of their life consuming it in one form or another, and will spend a significant percentage of that time looking at, listening to or watching advertisements. If you want to use the power of the media, though, you need to know what you're doing otherwise your investment will be a financial disaster. Listed below are the most common forms of media advertising. No doubt you can think of others as well.
Advertising in Newspapers and Magazines:There are two kinds of advertising you can get in newspapers and magazines: classified and display. Classifieds are the small ads towards the back of the publication, while display ads can be almost any size, from a small corner of a page to a massive double-page spread.
I like putting classified ads in local papers with just a website address such as: Used Heavy Equipment at floridaearthmovers.com, Semis, Boats, Motorcycles. It is a very cheap way to advertise and gets enough hits to justify using it from time to time.
Look at your local penneysaver or hometown paper and see if a little local ad can't add some hits to your website.
More about these other forms of advertising tommorrow:
Radio, Television, Billboards, Movies, the list goes on.
Thanks for visiting my website advertising blog -Ann Menke

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Writing for the Internet

It`s a well-known fact: Large blocks of copy are intimidating and will often send people running for the hills or at least the Delete button. The solution? Break up paragraphs into two to four sentences. Use several subheadings throughout your emails and newsletters. And use asterisks, dashes, and ellipses (...) to give your copy more rhythm. Bullet points are excellent eye-catchers - use them whenever appropriate.

To convince people to buy your product or service, you must make them believe that your offer is credible and that you (or your product) will deliver as promised.
How do you do that?
Here are three ways you can buildcredibility with the readers of your sales letter:
- Provide testimonials.
- Include endorsement letters from authority figures in yourindustry
- Make your offer and promises sincere and believable.

If you need help writing ad copy or creating a newsletter for your website please email me and I will tell you what I can do to help.
Thankyou for visiting my website advertising blog - Ann Menke

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Free Places to Advertise Your Website

There are lots of free places to advertise. Here are a few that I use quite a bit to sell used heavy equipment. When you open a new account you can put two free ads in the http://www.truckpaper.com Be sure to put your website address in the description of your ads.
For used Antique Tractors and Equipment try YTMag.com-they only allow one picture though.
You can post as many ads as you like with lots of pictures at http://used-heavyequipment.com and let's not forget one of the biggest free advertising sites on the internet http://www.craigslist.org.
Of course be sure not to abuse these sites and follow their policies. It's also a good idea only to place ads on craigslist that are close to home if it is a vehicle you are advertising as most people won't travel very far to look at it seems. But I have been wrong about that before as I recently shipped a Kenworth semi truck to Italy so your buyers can come from very far away.
I even shipped a Mack truck and dump truck to Africa last year.
I hope these links come in handy for you - thanks for visiting my internet advertising blog - Ann Menke

Friday, April 14, 2006

Writing Good Ad Copy

Sit down and write every conceivable benefit your product has. Don`t know the difference between features andbenefits? Features describe the product; benefits describe the results of using the product. Features appeal to logic...logic justifies emotion...emotion drives sales. Here`s a rule of thumb for benefits: ask yourself "What can my product or service do for my customer?" Then begin to write your letter telling your reader WHAT`S IN IT FOR THEM.
Tell them how much better life will be for them after they buy from you. Tell them how much better they`ll feel. Tell them how their peers will respect them more.
AN EMOTIONAL APPEAL
When promoting anything to anybody, you must remember that buying decisions are based upon emotion and later backed up by logic. Before you write a single word, determine what emotional hot buttons you need to push to "jumpstart" your prospect. Selling dump trailers? and at a loss for words? Go for the "fear of disaster" button with "Making Hurricane Cleanup Easier." Selling political bumper stickers? Hit the "anger" button with: "Let the President Know What You Think of His Policies." Other buttons include: curiosity, greed, ego, vanity, hope and/or fear of scarcity or security.
Check back tommorrow for how you can make your product appear more credible.
Thanks for visiting my Internet Advertising Blog - Ann Menke

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Writing Newsletters that Get People to ReVisit Your Site

Having a webpage alone is not enough - one of two things will happen: the sale is closed or the prospect will leave the page and never return. That is why you need to send out newsletters to people who have visited your site. By placing a simple email box on the front page so they can sign up for your newsletter you are building an email database. Yes it is good to have a contact form but some people don't like filling out long forms. So keep it simple and just ask for an email address on the front page of your site. Then when you send them a newsletter that contains useful information at no cost into their inbox at periods specified by you, you will remind them of the product they thought they might want later, and often this will prompt them to revisit your site or call you. Be sure your newsletters content is directed toward the specific reasons to buy the product, but doesn't come across as "sales pitch". Fact filled uses for a product and ways that the product will make life better and more enjoyable; these are the points on which to focus. Be sure you include a compelling subject line in the email and don't use the word "free" because some of the older spam filters will cause your mail to be dumped into the junk mail box before anyone reads it. Convince the reader who signed up for your free newsletter that they simply can't live without your product! Offer up a few testimonials in it or a link to your happy customers page. Prompt them to revisit your site by giving them an easily clickable link in the text of your newsletter. If you need help creating a monthly newsletter to help get more visitors to your site-A1AWEB Internet Advertising can do that for you. To see an example of a blog newsletter I created for Maxi Dump go to Dump Trailers and Utility Trailers.
Thanks for visiting my blog - Ann Menke

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Advertising is an Expense that Increases the Value of your Business

Do you cringe at the thought of spending more and more money to advertise your business, product or service each month? If you can change the way you look at advertising costs and change the way you advertise your business will grow beyond your wildest dreams. As a small business owner, you should always be looking for ways to cut expenses and increase revenue. Expenses are anything that is required for your business to function. This can include web site hosting, copywriting or ghost writer fees, office rent and utilities, payment processing fees and even payroll for your office staff. Anything that is designed to bring in sales or leads (and is measurable) is not an expense. Measurable, trackable advertising costs and sales force commissions and salaries are not expenses. These costs are an investment in your business and your future. Measurable advertising that is designed to produce a certain measurable action is referred to as "direct response marketing". Advertising dollars spent on directing a targeted audience to respond via a web site, email address or a special phone number is always an investment, not an expense.
For a home business or small business, it is not always practical to try and "get your name out" to your target audience (known as "branding") by spending thousands and thousands of dollars. A more effective way to advertise would be to run ads that attract the attention of your target audience and entice them to perform "your most desired action". The desired action may be to visit a product web site, which could result in an immediate sale. A heavy equipment business for example that considers advertising an investment would make sure that the desired action at their web site is to collect lead information above all else. That web site could make some sales, but a mechanism to capture personal contact information of interested visitors will generate many more qualified leads. Through follow up contact, these leads could produce many more sales over time than the initial visit to the web site would. Another desired action in your ad could be for the prospect to call a phone number for more information. They would give the phone person their mailing address (to receive a promotional package) and their phone number (that a sales person would use to contact them).
If you are thinking of investing more in your business and need more help with online advertising please contact Ann Menke

Monday, April 10, 2006

Use Keywords in your Anchor Text

When doing link exchanges make sure you are using keywords in your anchor text. That is the text that shows up right after your URL. It is the title of your link. Rather than using your company name which most people will not know to search for use the most important 2 word phrase that you feel people would type in when doing a search for what it is you are selling. For instance if you are selling dump trailers you would use the words "dump trailers" as the title to your link or which is also called your anchor text. Here is an example of a well written link exchange:
"Dump Trailers - from Maxi Dump come in many different types and sizes and can be pulled by most heavy duty pickup trucks." As you can see I used the word dump trailers as the anchor text. You can also use other 2 -3 word phrases for this type of site such as Trailer Dumps, gooseneck dump trailers, small dump trailers, etc. In case you are wondering how to create a link exchange page for your site you can see an example of a well made link exchange page here.
Thanks for visiting my Search Engine Optimization Blog - Ann Menke

Friday, April 07, 2006

Search Engines are Getting Smarter-Are You?

As search engines gets smarter, tricks get cheaper and we get nearer to coming full circle to an original goal of Internet search: that website content is, indeed, king. It cuts across the grain of some notions we've held in the industry for some time, that there are shortcuts aplenty in the hunt for better search engine rankings. A1AWEB Internet Advertising discourages customers from thinking that they can or should fool Google and Yahoo. Instead, I show you solid methods that work. Above all else, your website needs superior content that anchors your search engine optimization strategy.
Algorithmic innovation, much of it by Google's engineers, has thankfully rendered search engine spamming a fruitless endeavor. This has made the search engine a far greater tool for us to use and, in turn, has sparked the online advertising industry.
Nevertheless, Google and other search engines closely guard their Search secrets. Their constant tweaking compels smart webmasters to not rely on keyword strategy alone. Your site must be prepared to weather the ensuing fallout from any change in web-crawler browsing instigated by their engineers in those far-off, unseen laboratories.
Search engines take link relevancy into account when ranking webpages.
Your white hat optimization plan means shoring up whatever online relationships you can with other sites for link exchange, promoting your site with new ones for more link exchange, and joining web directories. This is not an instantaneous process, it takes time to optimize a site for the search engines- but it is indispensable for your long-term online planning.
The focus is now on content. Content requires actual work, anathema, perhaps, to those seeking quick rewards with no effort, but this work pays off. You need to produce fresh, relevant content that - gulp - someone might even want to read!
I've yet to hear of a web crawling spider that purchases anything online. Until this starts happening, you should start writing (or rewriting) your website's content with an ideal reader in mind: your customer. For instance, if you're marketing dump trailers, describe each trailer individually, Be genuine.
State the aim of your site's business by using clear and direct language early in your text, or "up there" on the page. Indirectness or misleading intros may not only divert the attention of people and cause them to leave, but the same for web crawlers, too. State your business early.
The goal is to win people over right from the get go.
If you need help with creating content for your site please email Ann Menke
Thanks for visiting my blog.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Newsletters Help Your Site to Get More Visitors

If you’ve attracted a user to your site, you want to make sure he comes back. If he didn’t click on other pages during his last visit, he might click next time. And if he did click on other pages during his last visit, then that’s definitely the sort of user you want returning. Satisfying your users with valuable content will help, but even the most satisfied user can still forget to check your site regularly. That’s why a newsletter is such an important tool. You should always be trying to capture your users’ email addresses. You’ll be able to remind them that you’re out there, tell them that you have good information and suggest that they come back to your site.
This is especially good if you have new inventory you want them to see. You can put links to your products directly into the newsletter itself. One way to create a newsletter and use it to generate more visits to your site is to fill it with original content and make sure that your URL is well displayed. If people feel that they’re getting good content from your newsletter, they’ll come to the site to find out more. The other method is even easier. Every time you create a new blog post or write a new article simply take the first paragraph or two and paste it into your newsletter template. When the template is full, mail it off to your list. To read the rest of the article, those old users will have to visit your site. If you’re not sending a newsletter to your users, you’re also missing a valuable way to generate traffic from previous visitors.
If you would like to find out more ways to generate traffic to your site please visit:
How To Improve Your Websites Performance.
Thanks for visiting my blog - Ann Menke