My SEO Tips – Get Insights to Internet Marketing Tips

An auto-responder is an automated mailing feature where one can setup to send a fix response to the recipient. This feature was created as we humans have to sleep and as the internet boomed, 24 hours service response became standard procedure. The core need auto-responders fulfill is to help save time and automate certain functions like customer support, Signup/Unsubscribe procedures, automated product delivery and timely delivery of scheduled emails.

At least that’s the original functions of auto-responders, however in the course of the internet things has changed with many marketers and webmasters coming up with creative ways to use auto-responders for their business. Here’s a few ways you can use an auto-responder to help your online business.

eZine delivery – If you have monthly or weekly ezines, keeping track of which subscribers received which issue could be troublesome. Using an auto-responder to send your publication out to your subscribers would help remove this issue, as it would automatically send your first issue to any new subscribers. In that case no one will get left out.

Promotional Sales – Using auto-responders to inform your members of monthly or weekly promotions that you have running. If you are selling something on your site, you could preset seasonal sales period like winter or summer sale and send the email out when the start dates for the season arrives.

eCourse delivery – If you sell information products and run ecourses, you could use auto-responders to deliver the course for you. This would free you up to add new course materials and capture new subscribers for your course.

Drive traffic to your site – Send teaser articles available on your site through your auto-responder system. The articles should entice the user to click for more content so that they drive traffic to your website directly.

Upsell products – If your subscriber purchased something from you before, use the auto-responder system to upsell complementary products that would be of use or you could simply run a special member rate on the following items to increase your conversion rates.

Last Minute Ditch – When your subscriber unsubscribe from your list, your auto-responder could be try to save him from leaving your list by maybe offering him a discount if you run a membership site or ask them for the reason that he is leaving in exchange for a gift.

I hope the above list helps provide some ideas on how marketers can tap into the power of auto-responders. Do you have other methods in using auto-responders to help run your internet business, why not share it with us!

I know this isnt a SEO topic however as I work on my clients and personal sites, I tend to seek or broaden my mind on how we can generate and get traffic with other marketing channels and means besides SEO or PPC. That’s why I thought it would be good to share these ideas with like minded marketers like yourself.

In this article, I like to cover promoting websites via the granddaddy of social media. What is it? Simple we call them Forums. Forums used to be the social platform where people congigate before sites like friendster, myspace or facebook. These forums are still in existence today and some have good traction that used correctly can help you increase traffic to your site and open up another traffic source. Besides being a traffic source, visitors on a forum can help provide free user reviews and feedback to help increase your site’s usability which helps increase stickness in the long run.

So how should one go about getting traffic from forums?

Step 1 – You have to search and research the forums that serve your niche or website industry. A simply way is to Google for forums that are of use to you. Try “[Your Niche] forums” or “intitle:[Your niche] forums or “[Your Niche] communities”.

Step 2 – Review the top 50-100 results and evaluate which forum sites should you join. Some tips on evaluating to see if the forum site is worth your while – check the lastest post, how recent are they. Are the content in the threads relevant, informative or are they just filled with spam. When was the lastest user registration, is it recent. For forums that are relevant in content and have recency, I would recommend them worth registering for.

Step 3 – Start the conversation, dont just drop your very first post with “Come visit my new site” Do yourself and the community a favour join in the conversation. As a tip your very first post should be at the introduce yourself section or answer a few threads that you are expert in. Do make sure your reply adds value and not put “nice comments”, “I like it”. If you like it, try to explain more about why you like it. By doing so, you wouldnt be seen as a spammer. For sites that allows things like that, you would be better off not posting in them.

Step 4 – Once you have a few posts in your bag, you can stir towards the section that best suits for you to ask questions or promote your site. Some tips would be like “I need your help with a new site that I am launching.”, “Looking for comments”, I have a site that I am launching which has the follow features, feedback would be appreciated”. You can also ask about your navigation, ask about the content, ask about the colours, or whatever else may be bugging you.

Step 5 – Review the comments provided and followup with the thread. Last use the feedback and work into your webiste, also do keep the thread alive as forums tend to push the most recent thread up to the top which is what people normally see first.

With these 5 steps, you should be able to get some forum traffic coming to your site for the initial launch. However don’t expect thousands of visitors from this method as it really is just one of the many other ways web marketers can use to generate traffic to their site. Remember at the end of the day it’s all about getting the ball rolling and anything you can do to proactively promote your web site has to be considered. So best foot forward and get exploring all those forums.