Lacking any information to the contrary, many businesses still think that all they need to do to get new clients is to put their name and face in the Yellow Pages or online social directories – Facebook, Twitter to name a few, get some professional looking business cards, a website and hey presto! It’s the old adage “build it and they will come”.

Trouble is, that’s what their competitors are doing and in this day and age, it’s just not enough.

Does Your Business Stand Out Online?

Most advertising on the Web follows a time-honored format, although some might call it a time-worn format as it does little to differentiate itself. You can bet that a high percentage of this advertising will be ignored and the money spent on it will be wasted.
So how does a small business stand out from the crowd online?

Thanks to an oversupply of similar text, claims, and presentation constantly be streamed at your target audience – coupled with a short 21st century attention span – your website has less than ten seconds to move your visitors to action. If it doesn’t, that visitor will click away… end of story. Therefore, it’s critical that you find a way to break through the noise your competitors and even other online advertising media is making. But even that’s not enough.

Statistics show that even the best-looking websites generate conversion rates of under one percent, so for every 100 visitors you do manage to get, less than one will call or email you.
Sound pretty bleak doesn’t it? Thinking of redirecting more of your advertising budget back to the Yellow Pages? Don’t. You’re on the right track – you just haven’t leveraged all the power available to you online.

One-to-Many Communication. One-on-One Feel.

Most websites are little more than electronic versions of Yellow Page advertising. For the most part, they don’t encourage interaction beyond the obligatory “Contact me for more information” plea. These sites don’t encourage trust any more than their print counterparts. They don’t give visitors the warm-and-fuzzy feeling that a face-to-face meeting would.
But they can.

Searching for a local service provider online can be a daunting prospect, but even more daunting than the search is deciding which provider to use once you get to the page, especially since most websites promise the standard good service, competitive pricing and high quality.

So how does a business differentiate itself from the sea of competition? Web video makes this possible and the awesome thing is, that it is easier than you think to implement.
Thanks to rapidly improving technology, it’s easier than ever to add that warm-and-fuzzy, face-to-face element to your site, replicate an in-person interview, and offer your visitors an opportunity to check you out before picking up the phone. With Web video, you can present an interview that addresses all the questions and concerns of potential clients. You can keep them on your site longer and give them insight into the “business behind the business.” In a way that wasn’t possible even a few years ago, business owners can now speak directly to their audiences and showcase their personalities and areas of expertise. This is especially helpful if you are a professional service provider.

Any business that relies on conveying trust-ability will benefit from this type of web marketing. Really, it’s one-to-many communication with a one-on-one feel. It’s the perfect ice breaker and an efficient means of generating the interest and trust needed to compel potential clients to make an call and do business with your company.

A high-quality Web interview placed strategically on your site is a huge timesaver for you and prospective clients because you reach a wide audience in minimal time. Potential clients get the information they need to pre-qualify – and pre-sell – themselves before they call.

Online video delivers some of the best returns on investment of any advertising medium today and if set up properly, is actually ranks higher than text now by the major search engines like Google. Short of spending valuable face time with a potential client (often times a poorly qualified potential client) there is simply no better way to forge a personal connection with them. With that in mind, here are 10 tips to help you get the most of your online video marketing efforts.

7 Tips for making the most of Online Video

1. Make sure your video is professionally done.
This is an absolute must. The whole point here is to establish credibility and trust, but you’ll do the opposite with a poorly executed and produced video. Yes, many of the videos you find on sharing sites are mediocre at best, but that is changing rapidly as companies begin to see the value of promoting themselves in this manner.  Find a personable, engaging interviewer and a top notch production crew to really stand out.

2. Submit your video to as many outlets as possible.
While YouTube is the clear leader here as far as syndicating your video, there are many other video sharing sites worthy of consideration. Here are some others you might want to consider:

• Google Video, http://video.google.com
• Daily Motion, http://www.dailymotion.com
• MetaCafe, http://www.metacafe.com
• Revver, http://www.revver.com
• Veoh, http://www.veoh.com

But then again, you could just distribute your video to all of these and more using TubeMogul.

3. Insert your video on the front page of your website.
Don’t hide what’s going to become one of your most effective selling tools on a dusty inside page of your website. Get it out front. Customers and search engines will love you for it.

4. Find out what search terms your potential clients are using and put them in your video’s title.
If you don’t know what words clients in need of your services are typing into Google and other search engines, get professional help or use some of the resources featured on this page. Once you’ve identified these terms, use the most popular in your video’s title.

Use these free resources to get a handle on the terms that potential clients are using to search for you right now.
Wordtracker
Google AdWords

5. Make your tags and descriptions search engine friendly.
Most video sharing sites let you tag videos with keywords and post a short description, so get the most out of these by sprinkling in the search terms you’ve identified.  Search engines love content from video sites, so you will be surprised at how well a carefully search engine optimised video can rank.

6. Don’t forget your thumbnail.
A thumbnail is a still shot from your video that appears along with search results. Don’t waste this opportunity to present yourself in the best light possible – choose a key moment from your video, preferably one where you’re smiling as you speak with your interviewer.

7. Link back to your site.
Put your URL near the top of your video’s description. You’ll get a higher search ranking and potential clients will quickly learn where to go for more information.  Also use it as a call to action at the end of the video , or even have it display on the bottom of the video.

An awesome system for getting you huge amounts of video traffic is the system called Traffic Geyser.  Check it out right here.

So many people now days are looking for quick wins to making money online.  People, and maybe that includes you, hear a lot about how they (read you) can simply make a fortune promoting someone elses product… And you don’t even need your own website!  Cool, right?  While this is true, I still think having your own website, even if you are just promoting other people’s products off that site is so much more powerful than simply linking directly to an affiliate sites.  This is for many reason, including the fact that you get to build a list or database of potential future customers in the niche market that you are promoting affiliate products for.  That means, you have to me a “double-edged” sword.   Why?  Simply because you don’t just make money once from the sales that you receive from promoting an affiliate’s product, you have the opportunity to create a longer term business.  Once you have a list in a niche, you can continue to market to these people, providing them with value, and creating more sales by upselling to other affiliate products… And possibly, down the track, your own product in that niche, where you keep 100% of the profits. 

Can you see how you are potentially missing out on this, by simply linking directly to the the affiliates site? 

Now… I will get off my soap box, and get to the real point of this post.  You have read this far, and you think to yourself… “Yeah, Yeah Tim…” I know all that, but I just want to start making money online.  “Show me the money, and tell me the secret?”.

Ok.. So, here we go -  If you are still keen to try things out… get in the game so to speak, and don’t want to setup your own site.  And if you are a really tight budget but still want to get started selling on the internet, then I want to share some simple secrets to helping you get started.  Yes, without your own website.

First off, I would suggest picking a niche market.  Micro-niche is even better, but a niche market would be a great start.  Think a smaller part of a broader market.  So many people miss this step, and think I know there is a massive demand for people wanting information about “weight loss”.  And, yes that is completely true.  But think about the competition in this broad market.  It is a huge! 

What if you focused instead on a smaller part or a niche within the weight loss market.  There may be some competition, but your chances of success are greatly increased if you can compete without lossing your shirt in trying to get traffic – even to your affiliate site.  So, may looking at something like “weight loss for celiacs” – that is people with a gluten intolerance.  Smaller part of the overall market.  Now, I know nothing about this market, nor whether it is even hot, I just picked it to highlight a point.  If you are struggling to identify a hot niche market, try using this awesome keyword tool from Market Samurai.

Now, once you have your niche market – identify a strong affiliate product that you can promote.  You can try affiliate networks like www.clickbank.com or www.paydotcom.net as places to start.  You will be able to create your own affiliate link, which basically means that when someone goes to the affiliate link you have been provided, you are paid a commission based on the %commission structure set for affiliates of that product when someone buys.  Simple enough right?

Now, what do you do with this affiliate link.  Here is where the secrets come in.

Step 1: Register a domain name that relates to that niche market.  Try use keywords in the domain name that relate to niche market.  You can get cheap domain names at places like www.cheapdomainsfromscratch.com. 

Step 2: Forward the domain name you have just bought using the domain manager to forward permanently through to your affiliate site URL.  Remember, this is the site URL or website address that you were provided by the affiliate network to promote your affiliates site.  Don’t just use the affiliates actual site, otherwise you are just going to end up sending traffic to that site without getting paid for the traffic.  Turn on the cloaking in the domain manager, so that basically, when someone types in your new domain name, they won’t see that they have been redirected to your affiliate link.   If you are not sure on this, contact the domain name registrar’s support and ask them to help point you  the right direction.  It should take about 24hours for this change to take a effect, so that when you type in your new domain name, it goes straight to your affiliate linked site.

Step 3: Traffic – now, this is where you need to get traffic going to your new domain name.  Sounds simple enough – get traffic to the site, and you make money.  Yes, true, but if you are tight budget, paying for Google Adwords or any other forms of online advertising may not be an option.  So, how do you get traffic.  Well, here are just 3 ways you can start getting traffic:

1. Article Marketing:  You can either write articles yourself, if you know something about the niche that you are promoting, or have someone write these for you by finding a writer with skills in the niche on www.elance.com.  This will cost you a minimal amount of money and only need to be 300-500 words in length.  You would then create what is called a resource box entry.  This is what appears below each of the articles you have written.  You should use this to promote back to your affiliate link, but instead of inserting your actually affiliate link you insert your domain name.  Submit these articles to sites like www.ezinearticles.com or www.goarticles.com or even use services like www.articleautomation.com.  The more targeted you can make your articles around specific keywords in that niche, the better your articles will perform.  Then, there are two ways your articles are picked up.  Either in the natural side or free side of Google or other search engines.  Or when someone actually publishes your content in their email newsletter or ezine.  Either way, the people reading your article could be clicking through to your domain name, giving you free traffic to promote sales of an affiliate product.  Nice!
2. Video Marketing - This works the same as article marketing, in the fact that you are trying to get free traffic, but this time it is using video content rather than text based content.   So, if you can create a simple video, possibly talking about your experiences in using the particular affiliate product to solve your problems, or use pictures relating to the niche market and lines of text that you can customise from the affiliate site, to highlight the major problems in the niche and the benefits of the affiliates product in helping solve these problems, you can use services like Animoto.com to make this into a short video. ”But how is this going to help me get traffic?”  Well, firstly make sure you plaster your domain name across the bottom of the video.  That way when you are finished actually making the video, your domain name is across the bottom.  Then, you take your video and submit it to video sydnication sites  like Tubemogul.  This will basically submit your video to many different video sites.  If you target the video with keywords that you found to be relating to the niche, and use these in the video title and description – remember, these can’t just be weight loss for example.  Then you should see your video start to rank fairly rapidly for the keywords you targeted.  People search for the keywords, watch the video and then if they find the information useful, they visit the website domain on your video.  Free traffic!  Affiliate sales!A great system that can seriously help you get results fast, is Traffic Geyser, which allows you to submit your videos to many different video sites and social networking sites.  This means that if you correctly target your keywords in the title and descriptions for the videos you are submitting, you can potentially end up with a lot of views, that converts to truck loads of people visiting your domain name and buying off your affiliate link.  Cool, hey?
3. Forums  - Forums are online communities.  There are online communities for all sorts of niche markets.  Find the ones that are most actively talking about the niche market you are promoting.  You can join these forums, and then start adding content / comment to forum posts, leveraging information that you collected for the articles you had written in the article marketing part of this post.  Remember, you want to be adding value to the community and not just be seen to be there to sell something.  After your forum posts, put a promotion back to your domain name.  Because it won’t look like an affiliate site because of your domain name, people would trust it more and particularly if you have given good content, they will want to find out more.  Every click you get on your domain name results in free traffic to your affiliate site.  This is obviously fairly time consuming to look after, but if you have more time and limited budget, this can work well for you.

Ready to learn more about Internet Marketing? Join me LIVE in Sydney, Australia 19th-20th of September 2009, where you will actually be able to join a very unique event.  One where you get to bring your laptop and work on your own online business LIVE! 

But seating it limited – only 21 7 spots left, so act fast and get along to http://www.timlivenow.com  for full details and to register.

Every website and business owner is looking for simple and effective ways to get traffic. Now, if you are internet marketer, then I don’t need to tell you all the ways to get traffic fast, but if you are a business owner or new to internet marketing, have you considering using online video marketing to drive traffic to your website?

Some of the biggest and most content rich websites on the internet, are online video hosting sites, including Youtube.com, Yahoo Video, Myspace Video and Google Video. By putting a video up on one of these sites, you could literally have viewers from across the global watching your video. And, if you have your website address plastered across the bottom of the video, you have the perfect opportunity to send traffic to your website.

Here is how a video can rank on Google for a given keyword search:

Now, what this also means, is that because there is so much video content on these sites, these sites will very often appear in search engine results, displaying a video that is related to the keywords you have just searched for. The reason for this, is that these sites have so much video content, that very often they are seen by search engines like Google as being a valid source of information on the topic relating to the keywords you as the user have just typed into Google.

Now, I am not going to go into too much detail here on how natural search engine ranking happens, but there is a simple approach which means that you can have videos that you create and post to these video hosting sites, achieve front page ranking on major search engines, for the keywords that you select. And, if the video has your website address all over it, you will start to get increased traffic from people watching the video.

So how do we do this?

1. Create a video for an aspect of your website or business that you want to promote. This video could be an advertorial, where you feature a particular product or service. Another option is doing a “How to video” for the market you are targeting. If you are recommending someone’s product or website as an affiliate, you could do a “I recommend” video, with your affiliate link website address in the video. You can use various video software to create this, one being Sony Vegas Studio. Remember, that when you are starting out with this, the video does not need to be perfect.

As an example, you could create a video using a recording of a PowerPoint presentation, recorded off your screen by screen capture software like camstudio.org and using a mic to record the sound of the recording. The most important thing to remember, is to make sure you put your website address across the bottom of the video.

2. Do your keyword research: To get the maximum results from the video you have created, you must make sure that the keywords that you use in the title for the video are the keywords you are going to want to have your video found on in the search engine results. You can do keyword search using several tools, including Google Keyword Tool, Wordtracker.com or Keyworddiscovery.com.

Remember, you want to focus on not just the most trafficked terms, but those keywords that will deliver you with the highest quality viewers in relation to the product, service or website you are promoting from the video. Using what is called “long tail keywords”, could deliver you the best results. For example, if you had website about massage and massage therapy, and you had a video on how to treat back and neck pain, instead of just using massage therapy or massage as the keyword in the video title, you could focus on the long tail within “massage”, like “massage for back and neck pain” or “Healing Back and Neck Pain with massage”.

When you submit your videos, you are going to build your title using the keywords you have found from this research. Use these keywords in the title, the tags for the video as well as in the description of what the video is about. A hot tip, is to start the description section of the video with your website address, that way if your video does rank on the search engines, and the person doesn’t watch it, they may just visit your website directly.

3. Submit your videos to get them distributed: Submit your videos to multiple video hosting websites, including Youtube.com, Google Video, Yahoo Video and Revver.com.

Now, obviously submitting your video to all these sites is going to be very time consuming and tedious. To speed up this process for you, I would recommend using a system called Traffic Geyser. Traffic Geyser will allow you to post your video to many of the big online video sites, including Youtube.com, Google Video, Revver and many more. It will also allow you to post your video to podcast directories and video blog websites. This will give your video massive distribution.

So if you have done the correct keyword targeting in the title based on step 2, and used these in the title, you should see you videos start to rank for the keywords you selected in 3-4 days. The more views you get of your video, the more traffic you are likely to generate.

Here is one of my videos that took 3-4 days to rank on the first page of Google.  This video was actually placed onto a blog.

More traffic = more leads = more sales = increased profits to you and your website or business.

You can use other video distribution software to do the same thing, but my personal recommendation is Traffic Geyser. And remember, always include your website address at the bottom of the entire video, so no matter where a viewer is at in the video, they know how to get more information. The biggest key to the success of this process will also be the correct selection of keywords, so make sure you do this properly and do not skip this step.