Tag Archives ⇒ building

Using Yahoo! Answers to promote your blog

· Brandon Hann

I signed up for Yahoo! Answers a long time ago because I remember searching for some information and I was amazed at how much mis-information there was out there! It was then that I discovered that I could share some of my knowledge, help people out and be able to build a reputation all at the same time.

Enter the world of cross-promotion. I talk about this all over my site as a means to help pollinate your image/brand in as many places as you can (without being obtrusive). I say “obtrusive” because you don’t want to come off as spamming. If you have a general passion for your topic of interest, you’re going to love spreading the word about your knowledge. For me, I love helping people out with their computer problems or website questions.

What is Yahoo! Answers

So as not to override the point of this post, I’ll be quick. Yahoo! Answers allows anyone with a Yahoo! login to go to the site, submit a question they want answered and then other people viewing the site who might know the answer can post their opinions. As a member, you can also ask questions as well.

As an answerer, you earn points for every answer you submit and even more points if the asker selects your answer as the best choice. Other members can also vote your answer up to the best choice too. After certain levels of these points are acquired, you can do more things on the site like answer more questions, ask more questions, receive more ratings, etc. More about how Yahoo! Answers works.

Yahoo! Answers as a promotional tool

Just like any other member site, you can create a profile. In this profile you have your standard avatar, email address, website link, etc. All these are quite obvious as promotional tools, but Yahoo! Answers inherently goes a step further. Since you’re answering people’s questions about any topic imaginable, you get to answer freely. This means, you can reference external websites, cite sources, talk about how well you know a particular topic, etc.

So here’s what I do. We all know that I blog about marketing online and building websites and such. Every now and then, I toss in a few posts about computer repairs and fix-it utilities.

Naturally, I go over to Yahoo! Answers and look for questions related to my blog and begin answering them. In some cases, I have already written a detailed blog post that better illustrates my answer and I’m able to insert a link directly into it. This allows the asker (and everyone else reading) to access my link and see my blog post!

What not to do

As time goes on, your answers (with your links) are all floating around Yahoo! and other major search engines which will generate more traffic for your site. However, this can be abused just like every other traffic-technique so you want to make sure you not only follow Yahoo!’s guidelines, but also some search engine one’s as well.

Here are some things not to do:

  • Don’t submit just a link for your answer
  • Don’t add more than 2 links in one answer
  • Don’t give half-assed answers–put some thought into your responses
  • Don’t link to webpages that don’t contribute to your answer

My two cents

The main point of Yahoo! Answers is to help people answer their questions. Make sure that you are actually contributing to the cause. The more help you provide, the better your reputation will be. If people start viewing you as a credible source of information, then they are more likely to view your site and if they run sites of their own, they might link back to you. You can see how the dominoes fall from here.

List Building – Newsletter

· Brandon Hann

This is what it all leads up to. All that hard work of creating the structure around your mailing list has finally come down to what it is you’re actually mailing. There’s no need for me to explain what a newsletter is, but I will give you some advice on how to make it more effective.

I want to start by explaining why it is important to even have one of these in the first place.

Purpose of a newsletter


Think of it this way. You have a website and on it you sell a product. If someone finds your product through a search engine or an ad you placed somewhere out in the world, they can go to your site and buy it. That’s great, but what happens when they leave? Do you sell more products? And if so, will your customers come back to buy them too?

These are all valid questions that most businesses often ask and one major solution to getting your customers to come back (besides offering quality products and service) is to tell them why they should come back. Newsletters are great promotional tools. Here are some things you can include in a newsletter to increase its effectiveness:

  • Provide information about special offers for products on your website.
  • Attach coupons for more money-saving opportunities.
  • Send free stuff like ebooks, offers to other websites and helpful downloads.
  • Offer helpful information that a customer can use to get more out of the products they bought from you.
  • Include direct links to specific areas of your website to help people find things easier.

Use to bring in more income

Newsletters can used in conjunction with your mailing list to send out mass offers for your website that can bring in extra income at just about any time you wish. As an example, if you have a list of 10,000 people and only 3% actually respond to a $20 offer you sent, you can potentially make $6000 in one email blast! Now that’s power.

Building your mailing list is a vital tool for promotion of your website, your products and services and a way to get related offers, discounts and important information into the inboxes of your trusted visitors.

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List Building – Follow Up

· Brandon Hann

One important thing to remember when communicating with your mailing list is to continuously provide follow up communications. There’s no sense in creating a wonderful newsletter one time, blasting it out to your list and then never speaking to anyone ever again. This might generate some buzz in the beginning, but think about the long term. How could you continue making money online without constant follow up?

You’d be surprised how many websites out there are here one day and gone the next. There are countless people that hear the get rich schemes on late-night tv, pour a little money into them, start a website and gain some traffic, but then give up after realizing this whole process is not as easy as it sounds.

Constant Contact

This term is such an industry standard, that there’s a company named after it! Big companies that sell products that are familiar to everyone in the world practically sell themselves, right? Then why does a large company like Coca-Cola spend millions of dollars every year to send out marketing materials emails to people like you and I?

The reason is because they understand that constant contact with consumers is the only way they will survive! The Internet marketing industry is no different, but this term is much more important here. The competition is much heavier and it’s much harder to get your name out there.

Consistency

One key element to keeping follow ups going smoothly is to maintain consistency with your messages. If you’re mailing list offers a weekly newsletter, send one every week. It’s that simple. The moment you lose this pattern, you’ll see your viewership dwindle.

If you promise specific things like content or free downloads, make sure you keep the same patterns going when performing follow up messages.

My two cents

Don’t lose your current subscribers because of something as simple as follow up. Let them know that you’re always there for them and that they can expect certain things from you, your website and your mailing list.

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