If your line of work involves long-term projects or if you are in a business-to-business setting, then there are even more techniques you can employ to encourage contacts to sign up for your mailing list.

One simple way to do this is to advertise your newsletter or product on the most important and practical contact point that everyone has: your business card. Just put down a few words describing your mailings and leave a URL. When they see it, they will sign up, drawing you more subscribers than expected. Since they were interested enough to read through your business card and apply, you can expect them to be very high-quality and high-converting subscribers. And do not forget your letterheads and invoices.

Another suggestion is to promote your list during events wherein you speak or present information to an audience. You can tell them all about your list and how their signing up will be beneficial to them. Afterwards, all you have to do is pass around a sign-up sheet or have a bowl to collect business cards for people who would like to subscribe.

As you can see, reaching everyone you meet in a professional capacity is quick and easy. Potential customers will become aware of the additional information that you provide, which in turn will keep them up-to-date on your products and services.

Here are some dos and don’ts that you have to observe if you want launch an effective email marketing campaign:

Dos

1. Carefully word your emails. Catch and hold your subscriber’s attention by avoiding big words, long and dragging praise on your product’s merits. Just keep it short and simple. Don’t try your subscribers’ patience by putting in details they would never even be remotely interested in.

2. Check out your website statistics frequently. This way, you will be able to easily measure the response of your subscribers to your email promotions. There are free trackers on the Internet that you can use, as well as available features of your emailing service that can do the job.

3. Don’t forget that personal touch. Every customer wants to feel that you value them, that you give them your personal time and attention. To do this, your emails should contain special offers and information relevant to your target market. Use programs that automatically address the email message to their first names.

Don’ts

1. Some companies purchase an email list instead of building their own. This can save a lot of time for Internet marketers, but then again, everyone has different needs and wants. What one person would be eager to purchase can be something another person would find no use for.

This means that out of that email list, which probably contains hundreds of names, only a small fraction of the people behind them will be willing to buy your product. The rest will probably find your emails annoying and block you off their inbox. This is why building your own email list is important. It will consist only of people who are interested in your goods and who want constant updates. The list might be small, but it is one that consists of a solid client base.

2. Avoid clutter in your email. Create a strong message for your product and focus on that. If properly accomplished, you’ll find out what works and what doesn’t in persuading customers to buy. This might be an exercise of hit and miss, but developing a tried and tested procedure is guaranteed to boost your sales.

3. Don’t expect too much too fast. It takes time to build a solid client base. It takes a lot of effort for consumers to trust your company. Just continue developing your product and services. Be consistent in both quality and marketing so that eventually, you’ll be able to cultivate an image of respectability and credibility, two important qualities that you can’t easily buy with money

Step 1: Choose a blog platform
Many people around the world use Blogspot and WordPress to run their blogs. These are free services that you can upgrade if you buy a domain name and pay for monthly or yearly hosting. Once you’ve chosen a blog platform, register your unique blog URL to start blogging. Voila!

It’s really a no brainer to put up a blog since blogging platforms are constantly trying to make it easier and smoother. Set it up with a good stimulating theme to attract visitors. You can hire a web designer for this or make your own if you can. Just remember that the more unique and tasteful, the better.
Step 2: Decide on the content of your blog
What do you want to write in it? The most effortless topic to write about is usually the one that you are most passionate about. It could be sports, news, politics, beauty and lifestyle, travel, entertainment—these are the most popular topics, and the ones that attract advertisements from companies both online and offline.

It helps to choose a niche where only a few bloggers venture in, since you won’t share the traffic with other similar blogs. Being unique definitely has its rewards on the web. However, take care not to choose topics that are too specific and only interest a few people; your goal here is to get as much traffic as possible from visitors in order to increase your revenues.
Step 3: Produce content
This is the most crucial step. Instead of writing blog posts, you may want to make podcasts, video posts, or photo galleries. Always make your content interesting, fresh, and concise. Do not plagiarize other people’s works because this can get you blacklisted if the real owner finds out. If the revenues start to kick in more consistently, then you may opt to hire writers for your blog. All you have to do then is to sit back and watch the money coming in. Blogging is as fun as it is profitable. However, it takes time and patience to carve your little place in the Internet before you start to earn from advertisements. Don’t expect to earn immediately. You need to build your reputation and credibility first before this happens.

While everybody—including your competition—is waiting for his website to rank in Google, it is a good idea to submit your website to MSN. The MSN marketplace isn’t as crowded as Google’s so it takes less than half the time to rank high. Although the bulk of your market remains loyal to Google, you shouldn’t alienate the handful who exclusively use MSN or those who use MSN with Google.

2. Visit top-ranking forums
Use this time to immerse yourself with your niche. Forums that host topics relevant to your website content can give you a lot of information—consumer insight, market trends, and even new niche vocabulary.

Participating in forums is an accurate way of gauging market behavior so that you can immediately tweak your website content to help speed things up with Google and for you to maintain your top position with MSN.

Moreover, being genuinely helpful and interested in what others have to say will surely up your credibility. Eventually, when you include specific links with your forum posts, people will feel better about taking a peek and giving the rest of your website a chance.

3. Visit credible blogs
Apart from forums, top-ranking blogs are also a rich source of market information. These blogs rank high due to the credibility that they already posses. If you can leave appropriate comments, do so. This shows how much interest you have for the topic, and like in the forums, you can eventually leave links when you’ve established your credibility.

The goal is to have these blogs link to your site, and you can do them a favor and have your site link to these blogs.

4. Start your own social bookmarking account
Social bookmarking has proven itself to be an important component of successful Internet marketing. Social bookmarking websites allow the public to share websites that they think are relevant or fun.

More than bookmarking your own websites, having your own social bookmarking account gives you control over which sites to share. When you’ve built a solid network, you can then start introducing your website gradually, until others bookmark them. This way, you won’t break any rules that could result to your account and your website being banned from the bookmarks.

5. Continue updating your content
Updated content is just as important as optimized content. You have to be consistently relevant and fresh to attract more search hits. Not only does this speed things up between you and Google, it also shows your niche how dedicated you are to helping them out and giving them information.

Being updated also helps you maintain a good relationship with your link network that includes blogs and other websites. Fresh content also ensures visibility in social bookmarking websites. Make sure you check for spelling and grammar errors before you publish any of your content

Here is a list of the 5 best uses for your keywords.

1. Your website’s content
Your content is the most important part of your website. This is the reason people will give you their time of day. It’s easy to naturally sprinkle your keywords all over your content as long as you make good sense.

It is important to keep your niche market in mind as you write. Your keywords will be made more visible to search engine spiders if the tone of your writing suits your market and the information you provide is relevant. Remember to check your keyword density. You want to stay between 3% and 8%.

2. Your pages’ titles
Page titles appear on the topmost bar of the window. Your page titles are considered text content and search engine spiders also crawl over them.

However, make sure you don’t just put a garble of keywords on this part. Google is very strict on content relevance and it will know if your title doesn’t have anything to do with your website. You could be labeled as spam and be booted out of Google’s index.

3. Your blog entries
Maintaining your own blog that is linked to your website is a brilliant idea. This gives you more room to talk about a variety of things related to your product or service.

Less formal writing with appropriate humor is highly encouraged. Using the right keywords in your blogs also follows the keyword density rule. Having the right blog posts will get you noticed on the blog sphere and the social bookmarking websites. Keep it up and your blog will achieve good rankings, pulling your website up as well.

4. Your video description and photo captions
Videos and pictures help you get your point across and help visitors make sense of your content. However, search engine spiders only crawl over text content.

Maximize both keywords and your visual aids. Put descriptions to accompany your videos and put captions on your photos. Make sure that your photo captions are placed as separate objects. Don’t Photoshop the caption into the photo—this would make it an object file that spiders can’t crawl over.

The great thing about this is that even if your site or blog ranks lower, your video or your photo could rank first if it becomes really popular. This will pull everything up!

5. Comments and answers you leave in other blogs and forums
This is the way to spread your keywords beyond your website and blog. Commenting on other people’s blogs and sharing relevant information on forums brings attention to your expertise and people will start wanting to check you out.

If you craft your responses and posts really well, you can naturally integrate some of your keywords and search engines would be able to pull up specific posts that contain your keywords.

Filling out the email form fields

The “From” is the first thing that your reader will see when he or she checks the inbox so what you put in there is crucial. It is better if you put a personal name or the company’s name (or both) rather than just the email address on the form field. Why? Because it gives your email a personal touch. You can also bank on the name of the company, if it is well-known, to encourage the reader to click the message.

Another crucial point in your email is the “Subject” field. Phrase your words carefully because this is a deciding factor whether your email will actually be read. Try not to sound like you’re advertising another of those useless products. Do not promise anything you can’t deliver. Lastly, relate the subject to your reader’s concerns.

In filling out the “To” field, there are certain things to be aware of. If you know the recipient’s full name, use that. It is preferred over just an impersonal email address. Do not use the recipient’s first name, as this might then appear too personal to be tasteful.

What your newsletter email should contain

Your email’s headline and subheads should be able to summarize the content of your email as concisely as possible. At one glance, the reader should be able to understand what you’re saying, and see it clearly. This is the reason for using bigger fonts and a different color from the text body for your headline and subheads.

The body of your email newsletter or promotion should be short and simple, no more than 2 to 3 paragraphs at most. This ensures that you keep your reader’s attention from wandering, which would defeat the purpose of your promotion.

Placing pictures of your product in your email can help your subscribers visualize what you’re selling. As they say, a picture paints a thousand words, so while the receiver of your email might not read the text at first glance, he or she might be encouraged to do so once an interesting and well-taken picture is placed strategically in your email.

Take it easy on using graphics, colors, blinking GIFs, and elaborate fonts. You don’t want to irritate your reader by sending an email full of eyesore. Aside from being aesthetically repulsive with all the unnecessary glitz, your email might become hard to read, thus ending up in the “Spam” folder of your subscriber’s email address.

Lastly, the signature of your email can either be your digitized signature or your company’s logo. It must contain a link to your website and other relevant contact information.

Good articles that get updated give your niche a reason to visit your site regularly and to check out your online catalogue. To make sure that your content remains relevant, do periodic researches on your niche to find out what issues are important to them and relate these issues to your brand.

2. Video and channel marketing
YouTube has revolutionized the way people interact and express themselves. Everything in YouTube (from the video titles, video description, down to the user profiles) is search-engine friendly. Search engine spiders are able to pull up videos and channels relevant to a keyword inquiry made on most search engines.

You can set up a YouTube channel for your brand. Make sure you write a good profile with the necessary keywords and place a link to your website. Produce quality videos that are visually appealing with relevant content. Enable others to embed your videos in their blogs or websites.

Of course, also apply the keywords when you come up with a description for each of your videos, and pick a relevant landing page to link back to. It is a good idea to add a new video on a regular basis so that your channel subscribers always have something to look forward to.

3. Build both internal and external links
Most online marketers tend to focus on building links from outside their website. Although this is effective, it is equally important to build links within your pages. When a user lands on any part of your site from an external link, it would be great if he could explore other parts of your website that are relevant to him so that he gets to know more about your brand.

4. Forum marketing
Online forums make great venues for you to build your brand’s credibility. Participating in discussions related to your brand will allow you to come up with recommendations to people’s needs and eventually solutions that your brand can provide. As people take notice and as you reply more to their posts, trust is built and you can begin leading them to your website.

When you include links in your posts, make sure that the landing page addresses the concern or is relevant to the thread. Immediately leading people to your online catalogue could make your credibility suffer.

Since you’re in the forums anyway, also keep an eye out for changing market trends and the keywords that might be useful for your article marketing.

5. Online viral marketing
Like the common cold, viral marketing begins with one amazed person and then it spreads to everyone in his network—and beyond. A funny or an incredibly informative video embedded in your site, a cool widget exclusively from your website, or a screensaver that can be customized only through your website are just some executions of viral marketing.

While creative and out-of-the-box ideas are great, keep in mind relevance and your market’s behavior.

Dubious companies prey on misinformed decision makers. Starting their sales pitch with a very complicated picture of SEO, they end with attractive (yet misleading) solution packages that offer “instant rankings, thousands of visitors daily, and presence in hundreds of search engines!”

Legitimate SEO companies know that successful optimization takes time and a certain amount of discipline. They advise you on what options you have, showing you the pros and cons of each in a manner that you can understand. This is why you shouldn’t completely drop off SEO companies from your list.

To help you make informed decisions, we are sharing with you the 5 signs that warn you of bad SEO companies.

1. Promises a high keyword density
Keyword density measures the frequency of your keywords relative to the entire body of your content. Some SEO companies promise to deliver a 15% keyword density.

Note that the acceptable percentage is between 3% and 8%. Having a density higher than 8% will make search engines think that your website is just spam—all keywords and no useful content.

2. Promises a big link network in a very short period of time
SEO miracle packages also offer mass link building. Keep in mind that link building is important. It allows search engine spiders to crawl over more of your pages. Moreover, a good link network makes it easier for prospects and clients to find you.

However, link building is building your credibility online. Mass link building—without knowing who you’re linked to—can negatively affect your image. Unknowingly, you can “accidentally” get linked to sites that have illegal or questionable content. It is best to build your own links, so that you control to which sites you are associated.

3. Promises website submissions to thousands of directories or search engines
Your niche customers spend most of their time using the top 3 search engines—Google, Yahoo, and MSN. There is no need for you to spend money on other search engines or directories that your target market doesn’t even visit.

Presence in hundreds of search engines is not a determinant of improved rankings. Channel your efforts towards creating better content. Remember that spiders crawl over text. This is what matters the most.

4. Promises of getting you on the front page of all major social bookmarking websites
Social bookmarking websites are a great way to connect and interact with your market. You can receive constructive feedback and act on them immediately. BUT, there are rules and standards that you have to abide by, the foremost being not to post duplicate content.

Having others work on your social bookmarking will give you the same control problem as automated or third-party link building. Moreover, if your site has been tagged as self-promoting, you will be banned.

5. Offers unethical SEO techniques
Unethical and black hat SEO techniques will give you short-term benefits. However, your market will immediately discover your dirty tricks. You could risk being boycotted. SEO is an art that needs time and nurturing. Just give it the time it needs and you’ll soon reap the many benefits

Here are 5 of the most important things you need to get right. The more you do these, the better you will become and the easier it will be to maintain a top spot.

1. Have a blog marketing plan
A marketing plan serves as a fantastic guide for online businesses. It gives your team something tangible to refer to when decisions need to be made.

Good marketing plans aren’t one-sided. They seek to protect both your business and your consumer—who should be the center of your focus anyway. Your marketing plan will definitely make things easier as the Internet landscape changes time and again. You’ll have data to look at, which tell you when changes need to be made.

2. Know what you want to focus on
You blog should be a vehicle to establish you as an expert in your field or category. Maximize your blog to play up on your strengths and knowledge. Credibility is the currency of the blog sphere, and the tangible manifestation of good standing is a thriving community housed in your blog.

The fast route to good credibility is to earn the approval of fellow bloggers who are at the top of their game. Check them out to learn best practices. Leave relevant comments, useful information, and thank them if they reply to your questions. When you’ve established a relationship with them, you can ask them to check out your blog, and hopefully, they’ll link you up on their blogs.

3. Research on your readers
Having a good grasp of who your readers really are will help with content generation. You start and end each post with your readers in mind. Although the message comes from you, the way you deliver your message will rely heavily on the personality and behavior of your market.

Invest in research, and make sure you conduct one periodically. Web 2.0 is composed of a fluctuating market—the only way to be effective is to keep up.

4. Optimize for the right keywords
How searchable your content will be depends on how well you choose your keywords. Your niche keyword list depends on your market research data: the insights that you’ve gathered and actual responses.

Go the extra mile and scour blogs in your category and check out how readers post their comments. Be sensitive to the words that they use, including the words they commonly misspell.

5. Track and measure
Make sure that your host can generate periodic reports. Tracking and measuring are important because these will tell you how well you’re doing. If you make changes, shifts will occur to tell you if it’s worth pursuing or not.

There are a lot of hosts out there to choose from. Each of them hypes a particular set of capabilities, and there won’t be one that is perfect. However, all good hosts should be able to provide you with good service on the most basic blog requirements, and these are the first things you should check before you spend time evaluating the more complex functions and services. Below are 5 of the foremost things to consider before you decide on a host.

1. Search engine friendliness
Before going any further, check first if your host has good standing with the 3 biggest search engines. You wouldn’t want to anchor your brand’s publicity on a host that is on the black list of Google, MSN or Yahoo.

Also make sure that the host’s platform is accessible to search engine spiders. The easier you make it for spiders, the better they can crawl over your site and identify keywords.

2. Ease of customization
How relevant your content is depends on how often you update. Everyone who has anything to do with creating and updating content should be comfortable with how your host handles content management. If your team finds it complicated, chances are, less updates will happen and your content will fall behind. Make sure you always give your market a reason to come back to your blog. See to it that your host doesn’t make it difficult for your team.

Ease of customization doesn’t stop at content. This should also include aesthetics and special features for your blog to become truly unique, which brings us to the next point.

3. Space for uploading photos, videos, and files
Another basic service you should look for is provisions for data file and media file storage. Having a good storage and retrieval system in place can help your team plan content timelines.

Remember to have text content accompany each media file. Search engine spiders only crawl over text, so it’s important to have video descriptions and photo captions in text so that these also turn up as search engine results, ultimately driving traffic to your blog.

4. Room for comments
Most blog hosts now offer an optional comments section. You can opt to turn this section off or on, depending on your blog’s direction and objectives. For SEO purposes however, it is advisable for you to maximize this feature.

Comment posts are considered text content and will be crawled over by search engine spiders. It is also ideal for you to reply to your readers’ comments to promote interaction.

5. Availability of blog activity reports
Blog reports are a good way to measure and track your blog’s performance. When you implement updates and changes, you can see how these affect your blog’s popularity and you can adjust accordingly.

Make sure that your host can give you regular reports so that your team can have valid and relevant data for analysis.