Joe Nogood owns a small but thriving gift store. He is middle-aged and he dabbles in the stock market and has survived some major crashes in his time. He is an expert on gifts, having learned the skills over the years. There is only one word to describe him, ordinary.
Joe has been studying the internet for months, surveying the battlefield, as he calls it. One day, he declared to Stan, his longtime buddy. "The dotcom bubble has bottomed out, I see that we are at the beginning of a new uptrend. Let's build an online store".
Setting up a website is like setting up a business in a foreign land. Joe had to learn the foreign language (HTML, XML, PHP, Perl, CGI, Java, CSS, RSS).
The first stage was easy enough. They quickly decided on JoeNoGood.com, it has a counterculture aura around it and a matching slogan as well - We're Good at JoeNoGood.com.
Registering JoeNoGood.com (domain name), finding a web-hosting company to host his site and finding a credit card processor to handle the credit card transactions were simple tasks. There are also some excellent open-source software that, with some basic knowledge, Joe and Stan built their website within two weeks.
The second stage is by far the toughest and will need stamina ? website marketing and promotion. Having a website is like having a billboard pasted with your messages on an island. Now Joe needs visitors (hits) and bridges (links) to his little island.
When a consumer wants to find a product, 80% of the time, this person will use a search engine. Joe's website has to search-engine friendly - when a search is made for a product or service at JoeNoGood.com, Joe want his website's page to be in the top 20 rankings (top 10 would be ideal). This is Joe's first-year marketing plan.
Sending 48 Free-Reprint Articles a year
Joe's marketing plan needs him to write 48 articles a year. He understood that his articles have to be original, informative, entertaining and in plain language. With his buddy during an all-night brainstorming session they agreed on a few ideas.
A Brief History of Gift-Giving would be a good start. Gifts for Positive Response might be another ? not corruption, you blockhead, think about a prelude to a marriage proposal or motivating a teenage student to excel in his studies. Romantics may like to read Gifts for Your Love; the list goes on and on.
Perhaps, a possible topic may be Gift-Receiving Habits of Bushmen Americans, the ones concentrated in the D.C. area. Bushmen use strange language like "I wish to caveat my response" which is hardly understandable by the public. A follow-up article like Bushmen Gifts ? the Impact on Iraq's Economy may provide the scholarly reputation for Joe, a must-read for think tanks around the world.
Publishing 4 Free E-books a year
Since Joe wrote an article a week, within three months, he will have enough material for an e-book. Knowing the hassles, he decides on a commercial website that can convert his articles into an EXE and PDF format and submit this free-for-download e-book to the various depositories on his behalf.
Naturally, since this e-book is free, Joe inserted some messages on his products and services in a non-intrusive manner. Joe thought ? an e-book-cum-catalog, what a clever idea. He wants to persuade without using the ways used by in-your-face marketers. Joe wants his readers to know and believe he is true to his chosen slogan.
On publishing his first e-book and seeing a growing readership, Joe called his printers and ordered a fresh set of new name cards ? Joe Nogood, Owner-Internet Writer-Author. Stan sensed a distinct glow about Joe's demeanor since that moment.
Releasing 4 Free Software a year using Rebrand Software
Neither Joe nor Stan can write software of professional quality. It is true Stan attended a few night classes in programming but writing software that will be used as market promotion tools is a different kettle of fish altogether.
Giving away free software like corporate gifts (golf caps, diaries) will need quality and robust software. When users download and use Joe's software, they will see JoeNoGood.com logo and a link directly to Joe's site. Apart from the onetime costs, there are no extra costs - when Joe gives out this corporate gift to 1000 or 1 million, his outlay is the same. Joe's eyes glistened on hearing this.
Joe found a rebrand software site that will sell him resale rights with adjustments. That is important, because JoeNoGood.com do not want to be associated with cloned software that everybody may have, like many marketing self-help books. He wants some unique feature that will distinguish his corporate gift from the others. Finally, he decided on an RSS news feed reader, stock charting program, a time planner with crypto functions and a computer security tool.
Sending 6 Press Releases a year
Joe understands that sending messages is tricky. From his knowledge of Chaos Theory, which he learned from analyzing stocks, information seeps through the internet at different speeds.
A press release by Google can travel round the world many times in a few hours. On the other hand, a message by Joe may take months just to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Hence, he chose RushPRnews.com headed by a veteran with 15+ years experience to give him an edge over the thousands of press releases filed each day.
A happy ending
At the end of the first year, Joe found he gained about 1000 links for his articles, assuming 20 links for each article. For the 8 free e-books and software titles, he got about 2000 links, assuming 250 links for each title. For the press releases, he found another 250-500 links. 3000-plus inbound links for one year of hard work is indeed gratifying for Joe.
Years down the road, Joe's hard work and determination had paid off. His store is the recognized leader with over 36% of the global share in gift sales. From the meticulous data he has collected over the years, he converted these to marketing data that any advertiser or gift manufacturer would die to get their hands on. Joe wisely published for-subscription-only e-books with the grand title of Collective Consciousness of Gift Buyers by Country, Month and Year and priced them in eGold (equivalent to thousands of Yanks dollars). Joe Nogood struck dotcom gold. The powers in Mountain View are not amused.
JoeNoGood.com and Joe Nogood are fictional. Hopefully readers can see a bit of themselves in Joe as he grapples with the complex issues on the Internet. Stay tuned, folks.
The term Bushmen Americans is hereby released into the public domain. A small attribution (first coined by Stan Seecrets) is appreciated. The usefulness of this term may have a limited shelf life (around Jan. 2009) unless someone named Jeb becomes President then.
The name Joe Nogood is the exclusive copyright of Stan Seecrets. Fair use is permitted.
Anybody who wants to trade his full-featured, hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered, ocean-going yacht for exclusive movie/television rights to Joe Nogood's story can contact this author 24/7.
Stan Seecrets Postulate: We're Good at JoeNoGood.com (figure this one out yourself).
[This article may be freely reprinted provided it is published with the author's bio and activating the link to the URL below. It can be edited, summarized, expanded, and translated into any human language provided the literary integrity is maintained. In the case of print media, the same conditions apply except that the URL must be printed in bold letters.]
The author, Stan Seecrets, is a veteran software developer with 25+ years experience at http://www.seecrets.biz which specializes in digital asset protection and total website management. You can send your views or criticism by e-mail to Stan at seecrets.biz.
© Copyright 2005, Stan Seecrets. All rights reserved
Web site traffic promotion on the cheap is labor intensive... Read More
The shortcut to succeed in business is to do what... Read More
Professionals in tend to under-estimate the power of the web... Read More
You can learn many things you didn't know about your... Read More
Hardly a day goes by that I don't get an... Read More
When the economy is down, your website sales may go... Read More
Depending on your site's subject... Read More
1. Selling To Everyone Means You Sell to No OneIf... Read More
Website promotion is a vital area in internet marketing that... Read More
Links are the main pillar of your website. To navigate... Read More
The internet is a wonderful source of information and full... Read More
According the National Association of Realtors(R) ("NAR") surveys completed between... Read More
The Internet can be a confusing place to do business.... Read More
Giving away content is a powerful way to get free... Read More
Website promotion is certainly a main focus of all business... Read More
Submitting your website to the main search engines should be... Read More
It's a fact. While most link partners are scrupulously honest... Read More
Is your business lagging behind?Are you frustrated?Cheer up.Here are 10... Read More
Promoting a Website is not an easy task. New Website... Read More
Quickly making money with a website is the dream of... Read More
Now that you've built your new website you can sit... Read More
I admit it, I have a problem. I'm a control... Read More
How can one get a good ranking in the major... Read More
Though it's wonderful to get all those hits to your... Read More
Do you want to achieve extra-ordinary success in your online... Read More
Search engine optimization by some is considered a science and... Read More
Everyone would like an increase in traffic to their website... Read More
Website owners and webmasters who are trying to improve their... Read More
Five Nifty Ways to Make Your Site Sticky!'Stickiness' is one... Read More
Once you have finshed designing your website, you want to... Read More
1. Give people a free subscription to your e-zine. Almost... Read More
Well I started out with seven, Free and low cost... Read More
Do you have a website or are you planning on... Read More
Any time you use a URL in an Article, Web... Read More
Imagine that you have a $25,000 marketing budget for your... Read More
Website promotion Internet marketing is perhaps the most important part... Read More
So, you don't have a multi-million dollar advertising campaign? You... Read More
You can learn many things you didn't know about your... Read More
1. Tell people you have a siteThis might seem blindingly... Read More
Have you ever submitted your ad to an FFA page?... Read More
Writing articles for submission and distribution on the internet is... Read More
DMOZ is known all over the internet as being the... Read More
Getting a loyal traffic base for your website is an... Read More
Google Sitemaps is a simple and fast way for your... Read More
It's a fact. While most link partners are scrupulously honest... Read More
Every web business should be using testimonials. Testimonials are extremely... Read More
Giving away content is a powerful way to get free... Read More
Ok. So you've got your website done and stocked with... Read More
Description: one way of jumpstarting you link campaign is to... Read More
Ok, now if you've started reading this article thinking that... Read More
Giving away content is a powerful way to get free... Read More
Who me? Track?Now I realize some turn a blind eye... Read More
In order to have more trust in your visitors' eye,... Read More
1. Using Hidden Links to increase subscribers or for a... Read More
Do you want to achieve extra-ordinary success in your online... Read More
Search engine optimization by some is considered a science and... Read More
At present there are over 3.3 billion pages indexed by... Read More
It is estimated that it can take the average consumer... Read More
Making money with your web site is the dream and... Read More
"One in a million". What do I mean by that?... Read More
You have spent hours creating a HTML masterpiece, you have... Read More
Fresh Web Content Yields Better Search Engine ResultsAll too often,... Read More
I created my first website in 1995 - it was... Read More
What is the accepted standard for signatures? Who sets these... Read More
If you master these nitty-gritty website promotion tactics, you'll be... Read More
Driving traffic to your website can be a time consuming... Read More
Web Site Promotion |