Top 5 Benefits of Article Marketing

The primary concerns of a newly-established online business are building credibility and driving site traffic. There are many methods to use: paying for ads, submitting site maps, SEO and article marketing, to mention a few.

Article Marketing is creating original articles about your trade and publishing them online through various article directories. Part of the article is a resource box where author information: name and website link, can be found. Article marketing is a good method to use, whether you provide a product or service. Here are the top five benefits of article marketing.

Establish you an expert on your niche. The articles you submit and publish provide helpful tips about your products or services, allowing you to share knowledge and provide solutions to your readers. This establishes you as an expert on your niche, eventually, building your credibility.

Helps pre-sell the product/service. Before anyone buys a product or avail of a service, they would want to know more about the product/service. They eventually turn to search engines and article directories to read related articles. Since your article is not a sales pitch, your readers are more likely inclined to buy your product or avail of your service, thus pre-selling.

Increase Site Traffic. If you include a teaser on the resource box and or write your content in a way that will make your readers want to know more about your product/service, your readers will visit your site. The more readers you have, which is the case in article directories, the more people will visit your site.

Increase ranking with search engines. Article directories allow publishing of your articles on other websites as long as the whole article including your resource box is unchanged. If you create quality and solid content, your readers would want to share your article by putting it up on their site. The more people use your articles, the more links to your websites there are. Ranking with search engines is determined by the number of quality links to your website.

Article marketing is free. Article directories offer free membership. The only investment you need is time to create your quality and original content.

How To Start A Copywriting Career

Internet copywriting makes a good home-based business. With the growth rate of the web, demand for copywriters will continue to increase.

Typically, copywriters are tasked to promote a website through ads. Also, some are paid to write content for blogs of several small internet-based businesses.

However, internet copywriting is not easy. Yes, you get paid well but there is a price to pay. You have to start right by setting up your credibility. Also, obtaining and handling clients is as important as your writing skills. This entails long hours of studying the internet market, practice writing and getting your name on the internet. You will find that internet copywriting is a whole lot different than the usual media.

So, how do your start an online copywriting career? Here are some tips on how.

First of all, read copies/ads on the internet. Copywriting deals mainly with advertisements. Read ads and find out what makes an effective copy and what doesn’t. Also, copywriters may find themselves creating content or newsletters for websites and blogs for specific or broad trades/topics. Find out which trade you may write for, but eventually, with research you may find yourself writing for any trade.

By reading ads and web content, you may notice the repetition of several words or a phrase of words. These words are called keywords. They key to advertising online is keyword. Search engines use spiders that read only keywords. Study how and where to place keywords that would make the content search engine optimized but still makes it an effective copy.

Secondly, be your own client: write samples. Your samples will make up your portfolio since you do not have any published work yet. Write as many samples of any kind of copies taking care to search engine optimize them. It would be a good idea to own a blog where you can post your samples. There are several free blogs that are user-friendly. Choose one that will be easy for you to maintain.

Another way to fill your portfolio is to do apprentice work for a copywriter. This will be good training ground for you. Eventually, you will know how things work.

The next step is to build your credibility. When you start getting your own clients, they would want to check your credibility. Be sure that they would check you on Google or Yahoo. So, get your name on the internet: promote your name and blog. There are several methods to do this: submitting site feeds and site maps, joining blog directories and article marketing, to mention a few.

Article marketing is a guaranteed way to get your name on the internet. This deals with creating good and original articles and, submitting them to various article directories. Since, you already have a blog with original content; this will just be a copy-paste procedure. Article marketing would not only get your name on the internet but will make you an expert on your niche and may obtain you possible clients.

Finally, get clients. Article marketing would have obtained you clients but it would also be good to know where to get clients on the internet. You can look it up on search engines where, you will be provided with websites that posts freelance projects and or portfolios. These sites offer free membership but paying for a membership would not hurt as the ROI will be far greater. Also, paying members obtain a greater percentage of the projects available.

Start your copywriting career right: work both on your copywriting and client acquisition skills. Copywriting requires a lot of work but can be a lucrative home-based business.

Online Advertising-Beginners Guide

Online advertising is considered an essential part of many marketing plans in almost all kinds of trade. There has been a substantial shift from print advertising to online advertising for the reason that, the target markets: the young or old and male or female are spending more time online than on any other media. Also, recent statistics show that there has been an increase on the percentage for online advertising, while the percentage for print advertising decreased.

However, precaution must be undertaken in venturing into online advertising. It can be risky if you do not know much about the internet market. State of competition and customer preferences must be checked out. Also, below are the important things to consider about online advertising.

Advertising Method. There are several advertising methods online: banners, cost-per-click and search engine optimization, to mention a few. Search engine optimization is considered most effective because people use search engines to search for products and services online. However, the benefits and limitations of each method should be evaluated to find the suitable method that will complement your marketing plan.

Whatever method you choose, engage the services of a reliable advertiser who can advice you on the progress of your ad campaign.

Website. Having a website, that is anchored to your ad, is important because it is where your potential customers can learn more about your product. There are several free sites but it would be best to avail of hosted websites. Free websites has limited features that may limit web promotion. Also, if having a website proves too much to maintain, hosted web pages are available.

Content. The key to writing headlines and content is keyword. Search engines uses spiders that only read keywords. The content must be keyword-rich to please search engines, however, it should also make sense to your readers. Write content that gets directly to the point: avoid inclusion of unnecessary words. Also, put equal attention to the design of your ads and website.

It would help to engage the services of competent copywriters and web designers to maintain your site. Its content must be constantly changed and updated to adapt to competitors.

Online advertising can increase your sales. It is important to study your market and the state of competition to adapt the right methods to make your advertising a success.

Biometrics in Security Systems

Business establishment admit they are not as protected as they would like to be. With product developments and equipment acquisitions that happen every so often, they are constantly faced with security and safety issues. For this reasons, there is a need to focus efforts on adapting systems that accurately authenticate the identity of their employees/users.

Authentication can be done in three ways. First, by something that the user knows: a password or a specific answer to a question. This is commonly used in e-mail accounts. Secondly, by what the user has: a key. Lastly, by something the user is: a genetic trait, otherwise known as biometric authentication. The first two authentication systems have drawbacks because they can be guessed, reproduced and stolen. In biometrics, these drawbacks are almost eliminated.

Biometrics may or may not be the answer. So, proper evaluation should be done to discern the need to engage in this authentication system. The type of data/equipment being secured must be considered. If the cost of setting up the biometric system is higher than the value of data/equipment being secured, then it is wise to stick to the conventional authentication systems. Also, the type of biometrics must be considered. There are many biometric products on the market, yet, no product is a definite answer. User acceptability, business structural design and security of the system are among the factors to be considered.

Whichever authentication system you choose, make sure evaluation and research must be made. To help you, look up biometric authentication. You will be provided with a list of websites that provide helpful tips on the use of biometric products. Some even provide reviews for the different products available in the market.

Market Segmentation-A Power Tool

A product’s success can be attributed to it’s delivery to the right market. The right market or your target market is the set of buyers where a product is perceived to have more profit and potential growth. The product’s promotion, price and delivery should be considered within the target market’s preferences.

Selecting the target market and delivery of the product is not a one-step process but a sequence of processes that needs to be done every so often. The first step involves market segmentation. This involves dividing the broad market into segments according to their needs and behaviors. Let us say, hypothetically, that a company is involved in the manufacture of apparel for women-the broad market. Since apparel style preferences of women differ, it is decided to segment the market by classes that have purchasing power-college students, working women and housewives. After research and profiling, it is proven that the college students segment is less broad and where competition is lesser. So, it is perceived that the college student segment has more potential in profit and is established to be the target market.

The next step involves deciding on the quality and price of the apparel. The research and profiling showed that the target market is sensitive to price and quality. Two segments-one that requires cheap apparel and the other, quality apparel, were formed. With this, it is recommended to product development to produce two kinds of apparel, cheap apparel and a higher-priced quality apparel.

The last step involves advertising and distribution. Again, research showed that the target market has different shopping behaviors. The market was divided into segments-mall/store shopping and online shopping, this point according to shopping behavior. Percentage for online shopping showed to be material so, online advertising and distribution were done aside from the traditional mall distribution and vicinity advertising.

Segmentation is a powerful tool if used correctly. However, it does not follow that each segment of the target market must be addressed. This should depend on the company’s resources and goals/visions. Moreover, segmentation and target marketing should not be done as a one time process because of changing needs and competitor strategies. It should be done often to adapt to these changes for the product to obtain a large share in its target market.