Internet Marketing Blog

Are you using widgets on your blog? Remember the plain old WordPress themes like Kubrick? Today blogs can be much fancier.  WordPress is the industry standard in blogs and can be great for monetization and SEO and it’s quite widget-friendly.

What do widgets do?

Widgets can simply dress up your blog or they can provide function as well. They’re simple to insert and generally you can just paste the code into a text widget and place it where you like.  Many sites offer widgets for you to grab and use.  They can help you put advertising on the site as well as direct your traffic elsewhere. Here are some examples of blog widgets you might consider using:

Twitter or Plurk

These widgets can sit on your site and tell people what you’re doing. You can get the widget from your user settings and it’ll allow your website visitors to read your statuses, click to subscribe or follow your updates as well as let them see others on your friends list.

EzineArticles

Ezinearticles.com has a widget that feeds your articles to your site which can be great for your marketing efforts.

My Favourite Widgets

I’m a bit of a self-professed widget junkie.MyBlogLog has one of my favourite widgets. There are a few to choose from that look great and can show people your various blogs or your activities in social marketing so people can see the sites you Digg or Stumble as well as links for new posts in cyberspace. Wink offers my other favourite options as it also lets people check out a lot of different aspects of your online activity and is customisable so it’ll blend well into just about any template.

Social profile sites often have widgets you can use that can help you with social bookmarking and networking as well as dress your blog for success. There are also functional ones that feed internet marketing ads and other blogs for advertising and link exchanges. What widgets do you use and why?

Being an active member of an online community such as MySpace can take up valuable amounts of time each week. Some people end up getting sucked into spending more time on these sites than they do promoting their business and figuring out how they can sell more online. There’s a point when social marketing and Web 2.0 can turn into a time waster.

Too Many Online Communities?

That’s where you need to be wary of how many online communities you join. There is no definite number, and what one person finds to be unmanageable might be just the right amount for someone else.

The key to getting the most out of your own online communities is to find out what your happy number is. If you get to the stage where keeping up with them all is getting difficult – and your work is suffering as a result – then you know you’ve got too many.

It can also depend on how particular online communities are set up. Some are much easier to understand and use than others, and by their very nature it’s going to be the easy to use ones that will get to stay if you find you need to start paring down your efforts in this area.

Get the Best Response

But you should also consider which sites get you the best response, and funnel the largest amount of traffic over to your website. Those will ultimately be the ones that should stay, since they are bringing in the largest volume of interested people.

Social networking has great potential when it comes to locating the target audience for whatever you are selling. When the sites don’t allow you to advertise directly to other members, you can still make a name for yourself because people will start looking for you and your website.

So choose your online communities wisely. Sometimes less really can be more.

Although yesterday we talked about new internet marketers focusing on something until you find that it’s working before you add to the mix, today we are going to talk for the benefit of those who have been at the online money making business for long enough that they can see patterns in what they’re earning and how they’re doing.  This can be helpful information for a novice and for those who have had more than just a few affiliate cheques come in.

Internet marketing can be a lot like exercise. Once you’ve done the same thing for a while your routine can stop showing you results. Diversifying income and switching up your marketing tactics is important. While some things continue to work and bring you results, there comes a time when you’ll want to stretch a little so you can reach new goals. Just like exercise routines need to periodically be adjusted so do advertising methods.

Signs you may need to switch your marketing tactics:

• Slow down in traffic
• Slow down or level out of dollars earned
• Loss of search engine positioning

Things you can do to switch things up:

• Try a new article directory
• Do some social marketing with new social media tools
• Read some e-books and find out about the latest new trends, ideas and tools.

Staying up to date on the latest and greatest internet marketing news and trends can help you stay ahead of the curve so you don’t flatline in your earnings. Tested and true can work but try to stay ahead of the game by trying new techniques every few months as well.

StumbleUpon.com provides a rather addicting and symbiotic social bookmarking service that you can use to find websites and do some shameless self-promotion as well.  The Stumbleupon toolbar sits out of the way on your browser and whenever you need it, it can entertain you or help your online business with the click of your mouse. It’s a great tool with extensive capabilities. Here’s a glimpse into it:

Stumble Around Cyberspace

The internet is a neverending entertainment zone. You might have several areas of interest you browse and StumbleUpon knows what you want. How? When you set up your profile, you define the types of sites you want to see. It could be blogs, food or health or internet marketing or internet tools or  photography or another area you like to see.

When you hit the Stumble button, it’ll show you sites in your category. You can vote for a thumbs up or a thumbs down and the tool decides whether you’d like to see more of those types of sites (based on the categories in the listing) or not. The more thumbs up, the more often people will be shown that page.

Bookmarking Your Own Posts

Social bookmarking is something that can definitely help you get relevant traffic and search engine positions. When you use this tool to give a thumbs up to your own site, you have a great chance of getting some traffic to your website.  By using relevant tags and categories people who want to see what you have on your site are more likely to see it. They can give it a thumbs up or down as well.

Friends on Stumbleupon

If you follow friends on this tool, you can also see what they like and browse their favourites. They can browse yours as well.  There are some great tools and options worth exploring on this social marketing tool.

In summary, this is one of my favourite tools for bookmarking for myself as well as finding interesting content. Actually, it can be downright addictive!

Should you do social bookmarking on your blog? Today’s post covers the how and the why? Having a blog of your own is fabulous and can build your SEO on your site as well as sell your wares as a marketer but only if people find it and read it.

Why Use Social Bookmarking?

Today, the web is all about Web 2.0 and the social side of the Internet and that’s one of the reasons blogs can be so effective and profitable. Not only does the way the web works with social bookmarking give you the ability to get more exposure for your blog but it helps you find more relevant websites to link to and to gain knowledge from as well. Web 2.0 tools can be integrated into your site and you can also use them yourself after you’ve created a new blog entry. Here are a few tools you can use and a few tips:

Technorati

Technorati is a blog directory. Once you list your blog, people can find you. The more popular you are, the more potential new visitors you get. Technorati is a robust tool worthy of a full post about it which we’ll explore another day but for today, let’s just say that by using technorati tags in your blog, you can increase your blog visitors based on people who want the information you’re sharing. This is also a great tool for keeping up with blogs you are interested in reading.

Blog Catalog or MyBlogLog

Joining Blog Catalog or MyBlogLog gives you access to another directory of blogs and people can find you in those directories. There are also some great widgets you can display to dress up your blog and by visiting other blogs in your niche, you can display your face on other blogs and entice new visitors.

Digg

Digg is a great tool for getting traffic to specific articles. By logging into the tool and submitting specific articles, you can bring traffic to your site. When you put a digg button on your post, you also get the bonus of letting your blog subscribers or visitors show their appreciation by giving you some social love.

There are dozens and dozens of social tools out there to help you maximize your blog and website’s potential which can help you make more money online.