Internet Marketing Strategy to Make Money Online

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Last week I talked about how SEO as an industry is changing but is certainly not dying. This time around I’m going to describe SEO from the perspective of an independent webmaster publishing new sites for profit - much like me and many of you here. How does the changing search engine landscape affect us? What can we do now to capitalize on these shifts?

This is one of my favorite Nike commercials, mainly because it’s so applicable to life in general. Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all time, talks about all of his failures, the missed shots and the lost games, and attributes them as the reason why he succeeds.

Now I don’t know about you, but that line hits home for me in all areas of my life. There have been so many instances where I failed and wanted to give up, but little did I know that my failures were paving the way for future success.

One of the beauties of the Internet is that it allows potentially limitless distribution, free of charge. All you really need is an online accessible computer and you can easily and instantly connect with billions of people around the world.

So let’s shift our perspective a little bit by drawing parallels between the online and offline worlds. Just how big is your online audience?

Below are some of the audiences (by Feedburner RSS subscribers) of the top Internet marketing blogs - compared with real world crowds. The Internet seems a heck of a lot bigger than you thought right?

What’s the beef with SEO? The industry is constantly attacked with negative criticism and SEO’s have unrightfully been compared to used car salesmen. Sure there are people out there who take advantage of ignorance and scam others with shady SEO, but I don’t think this is what the industry really represents. True SEO has benefited the lives of millions and has:

• enabled companies to take their businesses online and reach a wider audience of targeted potential customers without cost.
• helped writers and publishers to reach out to people who are interested in a specific subject matter.

What would you do if I told you that there’s a golden word in copywriting that could completely revamp your marketing strategy and potentially bring you thousands of new visitors to your site?

Would you use it?

The word may not come to you as a surprise. In fact you may already be using it. What’s this key word I speak of?

Think back (or forward) to your college days. What did you get out of the experience? Has it shaped you to be the best Internet marketer you can be? The Internet is still extremely young and many people don’t understand the economy of the web and how industries like SEO and online advertising work. There are no courses in any of the top universities covering Internet marketing and yet businesses online are growing at a rapid rate. When will the US schooling system catch up?

How Much is a #1 Google Ranking Worth?
Aaron Wall has put together another quality article that analyzes the value of a #1 ranking in Google. If you’re not currently ranking #1, some of the data included here will motivate you to work harder to achieve that position.

Will Your Website Pass a Google Review?
Do you have a strong brand that forces Google to include your site in its index? As the search engines look to purge the web of thin affiliate sites and spam, it’s becomingly increasingly important to send the right signals that show you have a quality site.

I really have to give Market Leverage credit. The affiliate network has recently been featured on many of the top Internet marketing blogs by utilizing a very creative marketing campaign. The team has been attracting loads of attention by taking photos of themselves wearing blogger t-shirts and sending valuable and personalized gifts as well. Way to go guys!

Below is the Market Leverage team decked out in Winning the Web t-shirts.

For more Market Leverage t-shirt shots, see the following:
Market Leverage Staff - ShoeMoney Shirt Spotting - Shoemoney
ProBlogger T-Shirt Models - Problogger
Money “Reigns” at Market Leverage - Zac Johnson
MarketLeverage Really Understands Leverage! - Amit Mehta of Super Affiliate Mindset
MarketLeverage is Dressed for Success - Shawn Collins of Affiliate Tip

Daniel Scocco of Daily Blog Tips had a great idea and decided to coin May 1st as the official RSS Awareness Day. Not only is this effective link bait (heck I’m linking to his site here aren’t I?) but it promotes a good cause as well.

For those of you that don’t know, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a format used to deliver updated content from websites via feeds. The main benefit of RSS is that it enables people to stay connected with their favorite websites without having to visit them. All they have to do is subscribe to the feeds using a feed reader like Google Reader. Updated posts and articles are then delivered in real time. It’s actually a very powerful tool that benefits everyone involved - marketers, bloggers, site owners, and end users.

If you didn’t already notice, the web is a very social place with sites like Facebook, Myspace, and LinkedIn popping up all over the place. Interactions in the real world tend to transfer over to the Internet and people rush to what’s popular and what everyone else is doing.

If you’re promoting a website these days and really want it to take off, you absolutely need to utilize social proof. Prove that your site is worthy by showing off your users and your popularity. It’s generally human nature to follow the crowd so the bigger your following, the more people will pay attention and follow you as a result. A site with strong social aspects will usually have an exponential growth model that spreads virally.