Internet Marketing Strategy to Make Money Online

Learn more about Internet marketing strategy by subscribing to my RSS feed - free and updated daily!

As the Internet grows and matures, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for webmasters to “fake it and make it”. The days of spam, blackhat SEO, and thin affiliate sites are numbered as Google tweaks its search algorithm and Internet users become more savvy online. Sure, there will always be ways to game the system, but they will probably take just as much time and effort as it does to create a leading authority site that actually provides value to users.

You’ve seen me put on a crazy contest. Now it’s time I participate in one of my own.

I recently submitted a guest post to Search Engine Journal for an entry into their latest guest blogging competition. There are over $10,000 in prizes and I think I have a legitimate chance of taking it home.

My guest post is entitled 12 Steps to Complete Search Engine Domination - From Zero to Hero in Just 6 Months and I outline the exact SEO process you can take to achieve top rankings for competitive keywords in your niche. Be sure to check it out.

Every weekend here on Winning the Web, I usually publish a post from the Winners of the Week series, a roundup of the most interesting and useful posts in Internet marketing from the past week. These posts include up to 20 links to articles I think readers would appreciate followed by short blurbs providing my own thoughts and insights into why the “winning” articles are important. If anything, they help you all to cut through the clutter and find the best Internet marketing content available.

RevResponse (by NetLine) is a new type of ad network that enables website owners to generate revenue by providing users with free business resources such as trade magazine subscriptions, white papers, books, and software trials.

What makes RevResponse different from most other ad networks is that it’s not based on a CPC model (like Google Adsense) nor is it based on affiliate commissions since the offerings are free.

It’s actually been a while since the end of the Craziest Internet Marketing Contest You’ve Ever Seen, but I haven’t really had the chance to share with all of you the results and the impact the $14,000 contest had on this blog. I won’t go into too much detail on how I did it (that’s for a future post), but I wanted to dedicate this space to the success of the contest backed up by real numbers and real stats.

The contest began on March 10 with a prize pool value of around $5,000 and ended on April 2 with almost 3 times as much - $14,575. That just goes to show you the effectiveness of viral marketing. By the last week of the contest, people were asking ME if they could sponsor a prize in the contest. I was absolutely loving the role reversal there.

I know some of you are disappointed that you were unable to win a prize in the contest, but the winners were selected by chance - and those with more entries were more likely to come out on top. If anything, the contest is still a great case study that you can learn from and use to explode your own blog to new levels. That’s more useful and more valuable than anything you can win by chance anyway.

Below are some of my stats from running the successful contest. I use this Internet marketing blog primarily to experiment with ideas for marketing and monetizing and then report my findings back to you guys. I hope you find this information useful and motivating and like I said, I’ll be disclosing the “how” either in a future post or in an ebook coming soon.

Lots of great articles this week that I thought would be helpful to everyone involved in Internet marketing and making money online. Enjoy.

The Triple Threat Interview: Stuntdubl, Graywolf and Sugarrae on Independent Webmastering
Gab Goldenberg is an up and coming SEO who had the chance to interview 3 SEO superstars at SMX West: Michael Gray, Todd Malicoat, and Rae Hoffman. That’s a pretty impressive lineup and I’m sure one day we’ll be saying the same thing about Gab. The conversation centered around independent webmastering and how each of them creates content and develops link bait for their personal projects. I highly recommend everyone aspiring to make money online read this, whether or not you’re interested in SEO.

Over the past 6 months that I’ve been blogging here at Winning the Web, I’ve always focused on pumping out quality content on a daily basis. Admittedly, there are days when I’m unable to meet this quota, but it’s been more or less a guideline for myself.

I’ve seen pretty good success with this strategy and the blog now has over 800 subscribers and loyal visitors that regularly come back to peruse the articles. However, I’m now wondering if there could be more in terms of traffic, links, and exposure. This isn’t out of greed or anything like that but I’m realizing more and more the value of quality content - especially in a crowded and saturated niche like Internet marketing.

As many of you know, the Craziest Internet Marketing Contest You’ve Ever Seen was a huge success for sponsors, for many contestants, and for Winning the Web. The contest closed with over $14,000 in prizes and quite possibly could have been one of the biggest and most eventful blog contests of all time.

WTW doubled it’s subscriber base from 400+ to 800+ in a matter of 3 weeks. Not only that, but traffic increased by over 50% and Winning the Web established itself as a more prominent resource in the Internet marketing industry.

So what now?

After a long hiatus, I’ve decided to bring back the Winners of the Week series here on Winning the Web. The main reason why I haven’t been continuing with these is because they simply take up a lot of time. I have to read the most recent articles in the Internet marketing blogosphere, determine which ones I’d like to feature, compile and post the list of links, and write commentary for each of the entries. Now all of this is fun to do and I usually keep up with the latest news anyway. However, I’ve been slipping in terms of realizing the impact of linking out to others in the industry. I’ll be describing the benefits of “roundup” links in a future post. Stay tuned.

elite retreat" />I got back from Elite Retreat in San Francisco a week ago but haven’t really had a chance to talk about my experience there until now.

As many of you know, I won the pass through John Chow’s Rocket Profit contest so I was able to enjoy all of the great benefits for free. Admission usually costs a steep $5,000 but I think the conference is well worth it for serious Internet marketers and business people. Where else can you network and learn from guys like Shoemoney, Aaron Wall, and Brian Clark on a personal level?