Dec
29th
By Mert Erkal in Internet marketing | Comments (11)
WordPress has always been my favorite blogging platform since the beginning of my blogging journey. I always admire WordPress because of its flexibility and functionality. I would like to tell you the story of my first e-commerce website which I launched last month.
Since very long time I have dreamed of an e-commerce website powered by WordPress. I have tried various WordPress plugins throughout my journey. However none of them did not satisfy me. I decided to postpone my dream to future.
One day while I was surfing the web, I discovered ShopperPress by luck. Basically it is a premium WordPress plugin (with various theme options) that lets you setup your own shopping cart / online store quickly and easily in 10 minutes. It turns a standard WordPress blog into a feature rich shopping cart website used by thousands of people worldwide for many purposes.
Well, I was excited with the idea of having my first e-commerce website with ShopperPress that I immediately downloaded the free version. The theme was performing very well, thus I decided to purchase the VIP version.
Bearing in mind that the Christmas shopping rush was so close, I decided to launch my website at the beginning of December. Even though there wasn’t enough time to compete with other websites, I thought it was one of the best periods of the year in terms of testing a shopping website.
Having spent a few hours in Google Adwords Keyword tool, I came out with a nice name for a shopping website: Web Shopping Bag. I checked name.com and found out that the domain was free. Bull’s eye! I grabbed the domain, installed WordPress via cpanel, and then installed the ShopperPress plugin. It took 3-4 hours in total to decide the domain name, grab it, install WordPress&ShopperPress. Finally my dream came true: Web Shopping Bag
It’s been only three weeks since I launched the website, but the number of visitors increase day by day. This can be expected from a WordPress driven website. All search engines like WordPress blogs. ShopperPress themes are also SEO ready. That is why it performs better than a standard WordPress blog.
If you are looking for an easy and flexible WordPress shopping cart plugin, ShopperPress could be the best solution.
Sep
30th
By Mert Erkal in Internet marketing | Comments (2)
Aweber Email Autoresponder has recently become a standard for most of the internet marketing gurus. Building an email list is essential for internet marketers and bloggers. Even though Aweber have been widely used by bloggers and internet marketers since very long time, majority of its members still can not use it effectively. Most who pay their monthly fee for Aweber service either let their account sit or they use only the very basic services and never take full advantage of this incredibly powerful tool.
In order to help these people, my blogging buddy Alex Sysoef has put together a series of 15 detailed videos that will show you how to use Aweber effectively. Let’s check the contents:
- creating a list with Aweber
- creating a web form with Aweber
- verified opt-ins
- how to broadcast an email with Aweber
- how automate your follow up messages
- how to organize your lists
- list automation
- sending an email to multiple lists
- click tracking – measure your e-newsletters
- split tracking – which mail delivered the best results?
- what is blog broadcasting?
- campaign sharing
- Aweber tips and tricks
What Can You Do With Aweber?
- Send engaging email newsletters using built-in newsletter templates
- Publish a sign-up form to your blog (like I did for my blog, take a look at my blog’s header and sidebar)
- Welcome or educate your subscribers by setting up sequential auto-responder messages.
- Create your own blog mentoring course.
- Manage unlimited mail campaigns.
- Send blog newsletters.
- Evaluate the outcome of your email campaigns with Aweber’s tracking functionality.
- Integrate your shopping cart into your mail campaigns.
Watch Aweber Unleashed video series and learn how to use Aweber effectively.
Jul
1st
By Mert Erkal in Internet marketing | Comments (5)
Facebook continues to grow. Chances are you have already seen quite a lot of discussions of how marketers should be using it to connect with potential customers. For the bloggers who are running Facebook pages, there is now a quick way to add visitors and fans as your email subscribers.
If you are using Aweber for your email marketing campaigns, it is just a piece of cake to add an opt-in form to your Facebook page (do not confuse it with your profile page though!). All you need is to add an application to your page that lets you insert HTML. Then you can paste in sign-up form HTML just like you would on any other blog or web page.
There is a nice tutorial where you can find a step by step guide on how to add an opt-in form to your Facebook page. You may check out the tutorial.
Jun
17th
By Mert Erkal in Internet marketing | Comments (1)
In the first two parts we took a look at the key essentials to write a hot newsletter. Now let’s take a look at things to avoid and things to do in order to write a hot newsletter.
Things To Avoid For Writing a Hot Newsletter
- Make sure your newsletters don’t have typos, grammar mistakes, and spelling errors. This is vital for having a professional looking newsletter.
- Don’t write long sentences. Keep your sentences short. Short sentences are easy to scan and understand. Your subscribers are busy. They don’t have enough time to read two pages long newsletters. Make your newsletter so well that they can easily scan it in a few seconds.
- Do not list email addresses in the TO field. Your subscribers will not be happy when they see that you are sharing their email addresses with others.
- Do not provide broken links. Check each one of them carefully before you send.
- Do not try to fool your subscribers. They know that you are trying to sell something to them. But don’t overdo this. The fewer, the better.
Things To Do For Writing a Hot Newsletter
- Content is the key element of a hot newsletter. Be creative when writing content for your newsletter.
- Your open and response rate will increase if you add value to your subscribers businesses with every newsletter.
- Spend most of your time thinking about how to create a subject line and content that is going to be the most attractive one for your audience.
In the next part we will take a look at the subject lines, body, and style of a hot newsletter.
Jun
12th
By Mert Erkal in Internet marketing | Comments (0)
In Part 1 I talked about the basics of email marketing. Now let’s take a look at the do’s and don’ts of email marketing.
- Find target subscribers: Generate a list of subscribers who are interested in your products or services. If you try to add every email address in your mail list, you will end up with lots of subscribers to whom you will never ever have any chance of selling your products or services.
- Never ever use a free auto-responder: Your success in email marketing depends on your ability to deliver your newsletters and emails to your subscribers. If you use a free auto-responder, chances are your emails will end up in spam folders. Aweber and GetResponse are paid and premium auto-responder services, because they deliver your emails and newsletters to your potential customers.
- Personalize your messages: Starting your newsletters with the subscriber’s name will help you build a rapport with that subscriber. Set your email auto-responder to send personalized messages.
- Proofread your newsletters:Would you buy from an Internet marketer who regularly makes spelling errors, and can’t even get an affiliate link right?
- Don’t send too many email newsletters (or too few!) : The quickest way to get people unsubscribe to your email list is to bombard them regularly with your email newsletters. Send one email a week at least. If you send once in a month, probably most of your subscribers won’t even recognize who you are. They might even think you are a spammer.
- Don’t sell your email list: Don’t sell your email list to others no matter how much money they pay. Once you lose your subscriber’s confidence, you will never ever have any chance of selling a product in the online world.
- Include a call to action: If you want your subscribers to click on a link, tell them to click on it. You should not assume they will do it by themselves. It is much better to give them a reason to click on the link.
- Give tips and advice: It will take some time for your email list to become responsive. You should first give before you expect them to buy something from you. Send regular tips and advices, and get personal with them. You should make them feel valued. Your efforts will pay off in the long run.
In Part 3 we will take a look at things to do, and thing to avoid when writing a hot newsletter.
