Why You Should Measure The Effectivity Of Your Ad

You have an ad. You run it. And then what do you do next? Do you just sit and wait for your target clients to call you? Or you go out and make sure that you know if your marketing campaign has good results or not?

One of the important tasks you need to do when running an advertising campaign is to measure the results. When people ask you what happened to your ads, are you ready to answer that you got great results or none at all? Even with poor response, you need to be able to measure it so you can make changes to your ad and hopefully sales will also improve.

Your task of marketing doesn't stop when you've already sent out your marketing campaign. In fact, the job has just started. You have to measure the effectivity of your ad so you will know what to improve on or how to further enhance it.

First off, you need to differentiate your ad's response rate to its results. You have a 'response' when your target reader acted on your call. Say, you want him or her to call you or visit your website. If your prospect did one of those things, then you have a 'response'.

On the other hand, your 'result' is when your target reader takes the action and then buys from you. Your sale is your 'result'.

So now you determined after measuring your print ad produced by a professional commercial printing company, that there's no response at all. One of two things must have happened. It's either your ad didn't generate interest because it was poorly designed and the content is badly written; or, your marketing campaign did not reach the right target audience.
The next step would be to determine the cause of the 'no response'. You can do it by testing your ad again but this time around, you may want to post it in another location or place it on a different website. If you get a positive response then you'll know that it must be the exposure. But if it does not improve at all, then you better change your ad fast.

Now comes the hard part – you have a response but there are no results. Your prospects contact you or click on your website as you've asked them to, but no sale has been made. The only probability to this scenario is that you don't have a good content or offer to support your marketing campaign. Changing or improving your copy or design would surely change your results.

And then again, testing is the key. Run your new and improved ad to test whether it'll get results or not. If again you get low response rate or results, go back to your drawing board and do it all over again – change an ad, improve it, run it again.

It may take a while and it will definitely cost you. But having an unproven ad can cost you more especially when you don't get the response or results that you expect for your business.

For more information, you can visit this page on http://www.justprint.com 

How to Use Pictures On Your Blog To Boost Traffic Starting Now!

Studies show that readers are often much more interested in blogs that offer pictures. Blogs that use pictures are shown to be accessed more often than plain text blogs. If you are looking for an interesting way to boost traffic to your site, you might want to think about including pictures. Adding pictures to your blog is typically not a hard task. Most blogging programs will have areas in which you can quickly and easily add pictures. Keep in mind that if you are involved in a program such as Google Adsense, pictures won't always correspond as well for your ads as text will however. Overall pictures provide readers with a better understanding of what you are trying to convey over your blog. If you are wondering why pictures boost traffic, consider these explanations.

Scanability

One surefire way to boost traffic on your blog is to create a blog with a high level of scanability. When your blog can be easily scanned for content, viewers are more likely to want to visit your blog again. Experts say that it takes almost 25% more energy for the eyes and brain to read words on a computer in contrast with reading them on paper. Therefore, although readers may not know it, they are likely to read much less on their computer screen. This is because it takes longer to read the words and uses up more energy.

Sixty percent of the people who read your blog will not read it word for word. They will simply scan through it looking for your main points. They almost always read the headlines and also look at the pictures. Pictures always help make your blog more easily scanned because they offer a break for the eyes and the brain. The eyes and brain will look at the picture in a different manner than they look at words on a blog. Offering the eyes and brain a "break" will allow your blog to be scanned easily. In turn, when it can be scanned easily, the readers will keep coming!

Keeping the Interest

One thing that bloggers tend to do is go on and on about one thing endlessly. It is important to limit each post to a small amount of words because if you don't, your reader will get bored. To avoid losing a reader's interest you can shorten posts and bring your main point to the forefront. You can also add pictures to your blog. Adding pictures is the perfect way to keep the interest of your readers. If you are talking about a lovely plant you have grown in your yard or an unusual looking dog you just adopted, consider adding a picture of it to your blog.
You would be surprised at how much more traffic you can bring to your site. People will be able to connect more with you about the subject you are posting about. They will be able to laugh with you at pictures you find funny and admire those that you treasure. You will be maintaining a "friendship" through your pictures with your readers.

If you want to add pictures to your blog, you might want to consider investing in a digital camera, if you don't already have one. This will make putting the pictures onto your computer a much easier task to begin with. After you master this task, read the "help" information on your blogging software to understand how you need to add the pictures to your blog. Pay special attention to any size requirements or suggestions. Some blogs will only allow a specific amount of space for graphics, so you will need to be aware of that amount.

Adding pictures to your blog is a great way to allow your blog to be easily scanned and to keep the interest of your readers. When you do use pictures you will see your improvements easily. Your readers will return to see what you have to say and new visitors will be interested and entertained. By connecting with those who read your blog via pictures, you will be building lasting relationships with your readers. Just be careful about what types of pictures you add. You should not post someone on your blog without their permission so if you are posting a photo of someone you know, be sure to ask them first.
 

The Secret Of Effective Article Marketing and Posting

Submitting articles to article directories is a proven to attract more visitors to your site, give you a higher page rankings and, ultimately, make you more money. However, search engines and article directories are getting tougher on the articles you submit. In this article we give you some tips on how to submit articles successfully.

Changes in the way search engines and article directories work in recent times mean that article marketers need to be a bit more savvy about how they go about submitting their articles. There was a time when you could write a good article, submit it to hundreds, if not thousands, of directories and watch your profits grow. These days it is not quite so simple.

The easiest way to get your article published on a lot of directories quickly is to use an article submission service. It is possible to do it by hand but this is a laborious and tedious task, unless you submit to just a small number of directories.

There are many article submission services available online, both free and paid, or you can invest in software that will do the job for you. These can be effective but there is a danger that article directories will reject your content if they suspect you are using an automated submission method. In a worst case scenario you could be banned from submitting to the directory again.

So, if you are using an article submission service check that their methods will not cause you problems with the directories. If you are submitting articles yourself, do not submit too many articles to any one directory at the same time.

Duplicate content

An even bigger problem for article marketers is that the major engines now penalize duplicate content. In the past you could submit an article to 100 article directories and the likes of Google and Yahoo! would award you for having 100 backlinks to your website. You would also be awarded when the article was picked up and used by other websites. However, this has changed.

The search engines can now recognize duplicate content. So, even if your article appears on 1,000 different websites you will still only be awarded for one backlink. You will of course gain traffic that accesses your website directly through the link provided with your article. However, this makes it much more difficult to use article submissions as a search engine optimization tool. <
The only way to get around this is to submit a unique version of each article you write to each article directory. Again, if you only submit articles to a small number of directories you could tweak each article yourself so you have a number of different versions. However, if you are submitting to hundreds of directories this is out of the question.

It is not really known just how much an article needs to be changed to become unique. Some argue simply switching paragraphs within an article is enough, while others think that the text within the paragraphs needs to be changed too.

There are a number of possible solutions to this problem. Many article submission services have been quick to move to address this issue. As well as submitting your articles to multiple article directories they will also create different versions of each article for you or provide you with a tool for doing so yourself.

Alternatively, you could invest in some software that helps with the re-writing of articles. These are also known as article spinners and will automatically replace words with other words of a similar meaning. For example, the word 'small' might be changed with the word 'little' and so on. However, the software needs to be configured to do so manually. Others will simply change the order of paragraphs in articles. This can also be very time consuming and may not do enough to make the different versions unique in the eyes of the search engines.

One final option could be to get outside help. There are many websites such as elance.com and getafreelancer.com where you can post rewriting projects for professional writers. The quality of the work will vary but rates can be quite cheap.

It may be a good idea to try out these methods and see how they work for you. You will have to invest some money but it will be worth it if you find a workable solution to duplicate content.

Writing articles and submitting them to article directories can be as beneficial a marketing and SEO tool as it has ever been. However, doing it successfully is a little trickier than it was before. 

Cool Ways to Track Your Website Visitors

If you can't measure it, you can't manage it. It's a cliché, but it's true. As an online business you have understand how many visitors your site receives. You have to know how much time they spend there, where they come from, and what pages they view.

Page View/ Page Impression – the number of times a web page is accessed, regardless of how many hits generated.

Unique View - A page view by a unique person or robot. If a someone has visited your web page yesterday, and they are returning today, their visit would qualify as a page view. The visit yesterday would qualify as a page view since it is the original page view within the measured time period.

Referrer – An external page that links to your site. By studying your referrers, you can determine who is linked to your site. Understanding your referrer data can help you where your search engine traffic is coming from.

Counters

Perhaps you remember seeing page visitor counters on website you have visited in the past. You may have seen a box showing that you are visitor number 37. Counters are normally located in the bottom section of a web page. Page counters are a sign newbies. They are ugly and unprofessional. Worse, they are useless. The data gained from counters are unreliable. Don't use them.

Trackers

Trackers offer a more sophisticated option to analyze user behavior and site traffic. They provide more indebt information than simply page counters. A tracker will break down your visitor statistics by date, time, visitor, unique visitor, browser, page viewed, referrer, and many other values.

Using Your ISP's Statistical Package

Most hosting companies offer complimentary tracking software. Some of the most popular tracking programs are AWStats and Webalizer. Both are open source programs, and they are free. Programs are easy to use. Each has a graphical user interface. The statistical data is presented in an easy to understand layout. Both AWStats and Webalizer will give you insight into where your site visitors are coming from, what web pages they are visiting, how much time they spend there, and what browsers they are using. Before you commit to a hosting company, check to see what statistical package they offer.

Top 5 Things Not to Do on Facebook

1. Having 2 Profiles: Personal and Professional

Not only do you not want to have two profiles (I'll explain why), but also if Facebook catches you, they will shut your account down. Now, you really don't want to have two profiles because, honestly, do you want to have two accounts to update all the time? On top of that, how are you going to determine the line between the two accounts - which account will you show to your friends from work or your college roommate who now works in your industry? The lines between personal and professional worlds are blurring and you should be transparent and confident enough to let them blur. Sure, you may not want your boss seeing photos of you drinking in college. But Facebook has amazing privacy settings that you can customize so your professional connections are limited to what they can see on your account. There is no reason you need to have two separate accounts.

2. Creating a Profile for Your Business Instead of a Page

Profiles are meant for people, pages are meant for business. Because pages were meant for businesses, they have different features to them that make them incredibly more valuable for a business. For example, business pages don't need to "accept" friend requests, they can get "liked" by anyone. Also, business pages come with analytics on engagement so you can understand your reach and marketing effectiveness on Facebook. If you think that a profile has something you want for your business that a page doesn't have, you're wrong.

3. Turning Off Wall Posts for Your Business Page

The point of Facebook is to interact with your community that's already hanging out there. Turning off wall posts or comments on your page is like saying to your customers, I don't want to hear what you have to say. Maybe you are scared of what they'll say - what if it's negative? - but keep in mind, you can't stop people from saying things about your brand. What you can do is let it happen on your turf where you can respond. Plus, every time a user interacts with your page, that interaction gets in front of that user's network, spreading your reach far beyond your existing customer base.

4. Not Updating Your Business Page

As with wall posts or comments from your users, you want to be interacting on your own page as well. Your Facebook page should be a living, breathing thing where you can share content and engage with your customers. If you update your business page with interesting content, your users are more likely to engage with your page, and their interactions get shown to their networks, expanding your reach exponentially. This virality is what makes Facebook such an incredibly powerful tool for businesses. Don't miss out on Facebook's key benefit.

5. Not Being on Facebook

Finally, if you're not on Facebook, what are you waiting for? Facebook has over 500 million active users, many of whom log in every day. Unless your target market is 70 year old grandfathers, your audience is on Facebook. Some of the fastest growing demographics are users over 55 and the majority of Facebook users are older than college age. Whether you think your audience is not on Facebook (you're likely wrong) or you think Facebook is a fad and will be gone in a few years (it doesn't matter, it's big now), you're missing a huge opportunity by not being on Facebook.
Any other major mistakes businesses or professionals are making on Facebook? Please share them in the comments below!

Another 8 Sure Ways To Increase Your Traffic Starting Right Now

Internet. Business. Profit. To fully integrate all of these words into a successful merging you will need another word. Traffic. Every article you will find about making your site or company successful would always include the importance of generating traffic.

So, we all know that in the core of it all, traffic is the most essential thing to a successful internet based business company. Aside from ensuring that you have a great product to sell, and you have your company's internal organization well taken core of, it would be time to get to the nitty gritty of things, generating traffic.

If you already have a site and you want think that you're not getting the traffic that you're supposed to be getting, then its time to reconsider. If you are contending in these very competitive business, you should always be a step ahead of your competition, increasing your traffic flow should have been done starting yesterday.

Timing is essential, that's an old adage known to everyone. But with generating traffic, you should always be on your toes and be a day ahead of everyone. Never think of today and tomorrow as a starting point for making your site traffic laden, it should always have been yesterday.

To help you out in generating more traffic for your site, here are some seven surefire ways to increase your traffic starting from yesterday.

1) Invest in good advertising with search engines

Google's Adwords and Yahoo's Overture provide great advertising schemes that are very truly popular and assures great traffic. Although with this surefire way to increase your traffic would cost some money. While some would shy away from spending money to increase traffic, it is imperative in this case to do so because Adwords and Overture is the top surefire way to increase your traffic.

You could see for yourself the success this search engine advertising methods have reaped rewards for so many companies. Lots of site feature these advertising system and many have signed on to reap the benefits. Do not be left behind. Every penny is worth it with using Google and Yahoo's advertising.

2) Exchange or Trade Links with other sites

With exchanging links with other sites, both of you will benefit from the efforts both of you do to enhance your sites traffic. When one site features another sites link, they could provide one another with the traffic one site generates. The efforts are doubly beneficial because it would seem like both of you are working to generate more traffic. The more links traded with more sites the more traffic could be expected.

3) Use Viral Marketing

Viral marketing allows you to spread the word about your company and product without any costs or if ever low costs only. This is a marketing method that can be quite sneaky; you can attach your company's name, product or link to a certain media such as a funny video, entertaining game, an interesting article or a gossip or buzz. With this method, people get infected with the creativity and entertainment of the medium that they will pass it on to many people.
4) Search and use proper keywords or keyword phrases for your sites content

Search engines look for certain keywords that they would show in their results page. In doing so, having the right keyword and keyword phrase is a high requirement in ranking in high in search engine results. You could write your own content or you could hire someone to do it for you.

5) Write Articles that can lead traffic to your site

Submit articles to sites that would contain the same subject that your site deals in. If you sell car parts write press releases and articles about cars and car parts. Attach your sites description and services at the end of the article as well as the link.

6) Join forums and form online communities

Capture a market and show your expertise and credibility. When you found a good foundation for your site, people will trust you and your site and will pass on to many people their trust. Traffic will certainly increase because they know that you can provide what they need.

7) Offer newsletters.

If many people know what you are about and your existence is shared with many others, you will find a loyal traffic that can provide you with more traffic by recommendation. If you arouse the curiosity of your customers they would be pushed to help you with your traffic.

8. Lastly, sign up for Bid 4 Keyword Position - It's an economical way to search engine advertise. Take over any existing keyword position in this search engine by placing a higher bid. For example: By placing a bid as little as one cent more per click (PPC) you can obtain the number one position for any keyword you want. Bids start as low as .01 cents per click for some keywords. Type in a keyword or a key phrase in the box above and click the search button. In the results page you'll see that some of the ads have a "cost to advertiser" price listed next to them. From your members control panel you could place a higher bid for that keyword and your ad would automatically replace it in that position. http://caribbean-marketing.net/ad_rates.html#search

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

The author has a FREE CONTENT ARTICLE DIRECTORY located at http://authorarticles.com where you can get free content for your web site, newsletter or ezine. Additionally, If you have your own original articles you can submit them at this site. You are allowed to place an authors resource box at the end of your article containing a link pointing back to your web site. This is a proven way to add more in-bound links to your web site and improve your site's popularity.