If you’re like most people today, you are feeling the pinch from the weakened state of the economy. However, regardless if you own a blog, website or ecommerce store and assuming that you are interested in making some money via the web, you simply must spend some money on internet marketing. This doesn’t mean that you have to break the bank by spending a small fortune. You can be very frugal in your internet marketing efforts as there are inexpensive techniques you can use which cost under $30 a month.

Press Release

A well-written press release is a good way to spread the news about your site. A press release is simply an announcement of sorts which is related to your website and which is written for the media. You can hire a freelancer writer with experience in writing professional press releases to write your press release for you. You could easily find a writer online who will write you a 500 word or so press release for around $20 to $25. You then can submit it to PR websites. The search engines look favorably upon press release sites which means that your keyword rich, well-written press release will be indexed quickly, giving your website or blog a nice temporary boost.

Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising

Another inexpensive internet marketing technique to use is pay per click (PPC) advertising. The beauty of PPC is the fact that you can spend as much or as little as you want and that you can purchase traffic that is very targeted. While Google Adwords is the largest PPC program online it is also one of the most expensive. A good alternative to Adwords is to use second-tiered PPC programs. Among the best of these is 7Search as they have good traffic which converts quite well. The key to succeeding with 7Search is using very broad keywords. It costs just $25.00 to set up an account and with a minimum bid of just one penny, you can count on a lower cost per visit and more affordable overall costs than with higher profile programs such as Adwords.

Blogging

Another option is blogging. You can blog your way to the top as blogging is a highly effective method to use for achieving high search engine rankings. Use one of the free blogging platforms and then buy an inexpensive domain to park it at. WordPress is a top choice as it features plug-ins which automate many of the processes and which integrates pinging to drive traffic to your blog. The trick with blogging is to do it regularly and to choose your tags carefully. The content must be deemed useful and informational for readers. If you become lucky with your blog an owner of a high ranking website or blog will link to you, giving you a nice source of highly targeted traffic.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is another proven tool. Millions of internet users are using social bookmarking sites to store, organize and manage websites that interest them on public bookmarking sites instead of storing it on their computers. When you bookmark your sites with social bookmarking sites, you will automatically obtain access to potentially large numbers of people which visits sites like StumbleUpon, Reddit and Digg. Social bookmarking can be very time-consuming task. You have to create accounts at each site before manually submitting your page to them. This is good reason to use a service like Social Maximizer as the social bookmarking will be done for you. 100 submissions would cost you less than $20.

Directory Submission

Finally, do not overlook submitting your site to directories. Google, MSN and Yahoo put a high value on the number of incoming links which point to your site when deciding where your site will rank. Submitting your website to directories is easy to do. However, you will have to have quite a bit of time available as you’ll need to find a good list of directories and then have the details about yours site submitted properly to each of them. For a low cost you can easily hire a directory submission service like Directory Maximizer which will do the work for you and in the most effective way. Expect to pay under $20 for having 100 submissions done.

Tightwads and misers can successfully market online without the need for huge budgets. The internet does offer some great low cost opportunities for the most frugal among us and it it also allows you the chance to market for free. By all means, take advantage of these low cost and free internet marketing options so that you can drive traffic to your website without busting your budget.

Directory Submissions are one of the easiest methods of getting links. The practice has been in place since the concept of link building came into effect when Google started judging a sites' ranking potential based on the number of incoming links it had.

From SEO pros with years of experience to relatively new website owners, a host of people with varying levels of expertise turn to Directory Submission everyday, because they all realize that it is one of the first few steps needed for a website to get indexed by the search engines.

Many of us forget to consider just what Directory Submission involves and how it can best aid our SEO efforts – indiscriminately submitting a site to a bunch of directories will hardly prove to be effective or helpful. There are a number of of factors to consider before you have your site submitted to a directory. Smarter search engines, tougher-than-ever competition and ever-changing SEO trends have made it very important that directory submissions are done with a lot of care and any possible help from experts.

Listed below are the basic do's to consider while submitting to a directory, follow the pointers below to make your submissions more effective.

Directory Submission Tactics

1. Submit only to directories that are recognized by the search engines. The directory should not have their link pages with the 'rel=no follow' attribute for a link, this will prevent the search engines from finding your site in the directory.

2. Submit to the most appropriate category available in the directory. Sites submitted to inappropriate or unrelated categories may be rejected or removed.

3. Read and follow the guidelines before you begin the submission process.

4. Include your target keywords in your anchor text, but don't resort to 'keyword stuffing'.

5. Keep a detailed record of your submissions. You want to avoid submitting to the same directories again.

6. Use relevant targeted keywords instead of popular broad-based keywords as your title. E.g. "Duplex Houses for Sale in Florida" instead of 'Real Estate – Florida'.

7. Have as many titles and descriptions as possible.

8. Keep submitting to directories from time to time – do not stop.

If you find all this too complicated and cumbersome, you could consider using a directory submission company like Directory Maximizer to have all this taken care of you while you focus on other methods of promoting your site.

Anyone can get lost in the world of SEO, it doesn’t matter how experienced you are, there are so many things that you might not know still. With so many sites dedicated to SEO, searching for relevant (and more importantly correct) information is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Of course, there is no dearth of information but they’re usually outdated myths or just a repetition of 1-2 articles.

I decided to compile a list of informative and useful SEO resources. I’m sharing it with you so that you need never go back to those days when you spent hours looking up a single piece of information. This list is going to give you each and every conceivable bit of information about everything from A-Z of SEO. The list includes free sites as well as professional sites that charge for information, tools or services.

To make things easier for you, I’ve listed them under the following headings: Basic Info, Video Tutorials, Forums, Blogs, Articles and News, Tools and Conferences.

So, instead of Googling and checking out random sites, you can now use this list for all your SEO needs!

FREE RESOURCES

Basic Info

1. SE Roundtable

You no longer have to hunt for interesting information and discussions, hopping from one site to another. SE Roundtable chooses reports on interesting threads from many SEM forums all across the web, in addition to providing a forum for its own members. The mission of the Search Engine Roundtable is to provide you with a single source to locate the best search engine marketing threads on the Internet. It also adds its own synopsis, giving you greater details on these threads.

We recommend:
•   On Page SEO VS. Off Page SEO: Which Trumps?
•   Are Competitors Stealing Your Links?

Video Tutorials

2. Google Webmaster
This is a collection of all videos in which Google’s most famous and visible anti-spam engineer Matt Cutts answers questions sent to him by people.  He discusses how to optimize your site and what you should avoid while optimizing.  Matt Cutts has released many Webmaster Help videos that are simple and clear to understand even for beginners. His videos are one of the most sought-after resources in the SEO world.

We recommend:
•   Is there such a thing as building too many links?
•   What is the best way to check your own site for keyword rankings?

Read the rest of this entry »

I ain’t no soccer fan and I’ve never watched the World Cup, but this time, I felt an urge to watch it live on television, the result being no fights for the remote! For the first time, I feel the spirit of the football world cup, not because of an instant awakening, but because it’s all around – newspapers, television, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube everywhere!  Even in the online world, it’s almost impossible to stay away from the spirit of the FIFA World Cup 2010! Here are some examples of how a few websites are spreading the joy of the FIFA World Cup 2010 and how they have benefitted from it too.

1.   Oleole.com
Oleole.com has managed to bring the football community closer on the web. It was created in 2006 and has stayed active to witness and hold discussions on all major football Cups. The World Cup section offers live scores, travel info, and interesting facts about the game and matches. More than anything else, you have an ultimate community for football lovers to hold discussions which is full of football-driven content. You can join fan clubs for Football Leagues, podcasts, wallpapers, blogs and videos about football.

2.   Southafrica.info
We have seen South Africa tourism steer towards the World Cup as their new tourism mantra. World Cup 2010 is expected to be a turning point for South Africa in terms of tourism and development. Southafrica.info, a site which gives information for investors, tourists, citizens and South Africans abroad, has an exclusive page for the World Cup – www.southafrica.info/2010/. It includes an SA 2010 Fan kit which gives information about African culture and football, informative articles, match schedule and news about the World Cup.

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Apple hates Google. Who would have thunk it! The one-time bosom-buddies, who even joked about merging the companies and naming it AppleGoo, have now turned not merely rivals, but enemies engaged in a fierce battle for supremacy. If you are about to compare this to the battle of wills and copyrights that Apple and Microsoft engaged in for years, you’d better stop, because you’d be way off the mark. Apple, it seems, is waging a very personal war on Google.

Apple (read, Steve Jobs) believe that Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who served on their board of directors for a number of years, has not merely betrayed their trust by venturing into the mobile technology business arena, but that he may even have drawn ‘inspiration’ for their future products from the many iPhone discussions he was part of. (Surely, Steve couldn’t be accusing the Google CEO of corporate espionage? Or could he?)

The growing rift between Apple and Google was first suspected in August of 2009, when they mutually decided that Eric Schmidt would give up his position in Apple’s board of directors, because his continued presence on the board would undoubtedly lead to conflicts of interest as Google was encroaching on more of Apple’s core business areas with Android technology and Chrome OS. (Not to put thoughts in anyone’s head, but does Google’s advancements in these core areas coincide with Schmidt’s stay at Apple?)

Things went steadily downhill after that.

The rift (only) grew wider when in November 2009 Google acquired AdMob, a leading mobile advertising platform that Apple had its eye on. Google apparently paid a premium of 25% just to keep Apple from going after it. Jeeze, Google, competitive, much?
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There is little doubt that social media is truly revolutionary, the 400 million users of Facebook, the glitterati-twitterati and the numerous bloggers who found celebrity by dint of their blogs, they will attest to that. Hence, as a small business, you will want to take advantage of this concept and try to get as much benefit out of it as possible, which in this case is marketing. While trying to do so, you would want to also ensure that you don’t come across as a desperate company that is bent upon hooking customers every possible way. The trick is to maintain a fine balance between marketing and creating brand awareness, without overwhelming them.

Here is a checklist that will help you work out a social media plan relevant to your business and also guide you in your efforts to execute it.

Know What You Want From Social Media: On social media, brand awareness can go in either direction. If your social media plans don’t pan out, you can end up with a lot of unwelcome negative publicity on your hand. So, be clear about what you want to use the platform for, and how you intent to achieve it. Do you want to use it as an instrument to gauge customer reaction, or would you rather use it as a forum your customers can use to air their views and grievances? Unless you are clear about your expectations, your social media plan in all likelihood will remain a haphazard exercise that will leave you with zero ROI.

Test The Waters: if you are one of those people, still mildly bewildered by the very idea of Social Media (really, there is no shame in admitting it), my advice to you will be to take things slow. Pushing too much promotional information into their followers’ signal stream is a mistake that most businesses new to the space end up doing. You can start by building a blog or creating profiles in the more prominent social sites to touch base with your customers, then slowly ease into your interaction model. The goal is to lure in potential customers and familiarize them with the product, try not to go trigger happy (or more specifically in some cases, tweet happy), and inundate your followers with messages they’ll be forced to label ‘junk’. Read the rest of this entry »

The other shoe has dropped. Google has officially made a foray into the realm of social networks. (No, now is not a good time to bring up Wave, which Sergey insists is a success – yeah, whatever you say, Sergey.) On 9 February 2010, they unveiled Google Buzz – “a Google approach to sharing”. And apparently, the only solution for the problem of ‘oversharing’ of social expressions on the web. It is but the natural course of events, considering Google’s we-need-to-have-a-finger-in-every-pie attitude. And web domination is not (quite) web domination without a social networking tool.

Coming back to the topic at hand, what exactly is Buzz? From what I can see, it is a robust, not to mention ambitious, email application masquerading as a social networking platform, which also doubles as an aggregator – of status updates, images, videos and links – all in the name of social curation.

Now, how does it work? In a clever move that almost makes up for the mess that is Wave, Google has released Buzz directly into Gmail. So, the next time you log in to your account (this is when I interrupt myself  to say that only Gmail users get to use Buzz), you may just find yourself with a spanking new Google Buzz account. No need to sign up anew, no installation of any kind required. Just click on the Buzz tab beneath the Inbox tab and you can get Buzzing. As Google reports on their official Buzz page, they are still in the process of rolling out this service, and it may take a couple of more days before it is active in all Gmail accounts.

When Buzz is active in your account, you’ll be taken to such a page when you log in.

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Social media had a smashing year in 2009. No one can dispute that. The web-wide popularity of social networks and social media sites reached a never-before high, and set the ball rolling for several revolutionary changes on the Internet. It is expected to do even greater things and touch greater heights in 2010. Let’s take a look at what social media experts think this year has in store for social media.

1. Social Media Will Get Real – The web is already beset by the real-time craziness, and I am so not overstating things. When real-time search debuted (on social media) last year, it was received so well that all the traditional search folks jumped to get a piece of all the real action. This year social media will take the real-time aspect on web one step further and work as a veritable web trend forecaster.

2. Social Media Marketing and Businesses – This year social media marketing will gather momentum as more and more businesses turn to this revolutionary method of internet marketing to promote their wares on the internet.

3. Social Media Vs. Email – The days when marketers almost exclusively depend on email marketing for all their promotional activities on the Internet will soon be over. This year will see online marketers choosing the very versatile social media with multimedia elements and nifty sharing options over emails.

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Over the past few months, some important changes have been underway at Facebook. Some are already noticeable when one visits the site, but there are others yet to become apparent. If you have no idea what I am talking about, come a little closer, I’ll tell you, “Facebook’s ditching its regional networks!” (I know, it’s no scoop, but did you really see that coming? If you subscribe to the Facebook blog, you probably did.)

My reaction to this revelation, though, is largely that of indifference, it doesn’t affect me one way or another. Probably because my activities on Facebook have never been network based, I have always taken care to set my privacy settings at ‘Only Friends’, which ensures that only the people on my friend list have access to my profile and the contents. And to be honest, except for the fact that it could possibly indicate the geographical location of a user, I’ve found the concept of regional network rather useless. In my defense, even Facebook admits (sort of) that these networks turned out to be pretty useless, apparently only 50 percent of the users ever joined regional networks.

Facebook first mentioned of a change in status quo in their 03 June post on their blog:

“…To make the site easier to understand, we’re taking the first step towards removing these regional networks…since they did not adequately reflect a world where people choose exactly the audience with whom they wish to share…made sense for those who wanted to be more open when Facebook was small, but they lost their utility as the site became global…”

In addition to frequently publishing posts regarding the matter on their blog, over the months, they have also maintained an active discussion thread for users to comment, air views and give suggestions.

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Some cool and interesting facts about Facebook:

1. 60+% of people online use Facebook to stalk their ex! Now are you one of them?

2. Close to a billion photos uploaded on Facebook every month! I’m sure many of these pictures are taken just to post on Facebook.

3. More than 300 million active users on Facebook! You’re not alone!

4. 30+ million profiles have their status messages updated at least once every day. Here’s a link to some funny facebook status messages.

5. 70% of college students on Facebook log in every single day, that’s no surprise now, is it?

6. Facebook deletes accounts of mothers or anyone who posts pictures of breastfeeding. So you want to be careful now about the pics you think of putting up!

7. Facebook deletes accounts with strange sounding names like “Leboe”, “Allien”, etc. Guess it’s do with their policy of not allowing fake accounts and them thinking these are not valid names?

8. There’s something known as a Facebook Addiction Disorder (FAD)! Wonder how many of you suffer from that?

9. Founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, is the world’s youngest billionaire! Mark’s surely made money off all of us.

10. Syria has banned Facebook (it’s a country [for those that don't know]), apparently to prevent an uprising of sorts by people getting together.

11. Facebook has ruined the careers of many a politician. More details about the political facebook scandals can be found here.

Credit to all these points must go to the original “Weird Facebook Facts” blog post, which covers each of these points in more detail. Facebook themselves have a page dedicated to some of their stats: Official Facebook Statistics

So how many of you identify with any of these? Your comments please!