Why do we tolerate sucky blogs? Maybe we’ve just come to accept suckage as the way things are. Blogs don’t have to suck. Boycott sucky blogs! (then maybe they’ll either go away or clean up.)

Here are some telltale signs that a blog sucks:

* Autoplay Music: NO! Let ME decide if I want to play the music or not.
* Bloatware: I don’t wait for slow loading blogs. Put it on a diet.
* Too much widget clutter: It looks like a teenager’s room. Clean it up!
* Content free: All embedded You tube videos and links or (worse) plagiarized articles. Be original or at least take articles that you’re authorized to take.
* Hurdles: Popups, peel aways, and splash screens are not cool. Ditch them.
* Poor writing: Learn proper grammar and spelling. 1337speak and/or lolcatese is never appropriate.
* Lacks focus: Growing Kumquats in Denmark should be about growing kumquats in Denmark.
* Hard sell: You are all about selling before you give me a reason for buying. Build credibility and expertise first.
* Pay per post: You were paid for the blog post. Your opinion CANNOT be unbiased if you’re being paid to post it. PERIOD.
* Huge Header: Your blog has this huge header that takes up my whole screen. Don’t make me scroll; make your header smaller.

These opinions are mine. There may be people somewhere who like being surprised by Kazhakstan traditional polka music at two in the morning or who find themselves tingling with delicious anticipation while the little loading animation goes round and round.

http://dorkage.net

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When marketing your product or service, you need to have a firm understanding of your audience, the message you want to deliver, the offer you’re willing to make, and the optimal timing for your marketing campaign.

Too often novice marketers, even marketing veterans, make costly mistakes that result in poor performance of their marketing campaign. Common marketing mistakes can be avoided with adequate planning, attention to detail, and ongoing measurement and evaluation.

If you’re considering a traditional marketing campaign, an Internet marketing campaign, or something that’s never been tried before, be sure to avoid these common marketing mistakes.

1. Timing. You may have a great list, a fantastic offer, and even a well designed marketing piece, but if your timing is off, so too will be your results. As an experienced marketer, I have seen some very expensive marketing campaigns that were very compelling but failed to produce results. This is because the campaign reached consumers at a time in which they had no interest in buying the product. For example, trying to sell snow shovels in July would not be considered good timing.

2. Failure to Test Your Headline. As the first thing your prospect usually reads, the headline is essential for luring your prospective buyer into the message, your offer, and the action you want them to take. Regardless of the medium, you should continually test your headlines (or subject lines) by running split tests and evaluating response. This ensures that your marketing message attracts the largest number of prospective buyers.

3. Failure to Test Your Offer. In direct marketing, the offer is directly correlated to 40% of your response. If you have the right offer, people respond. There are other factors to consider as well, but providing a compelling offer is required in most instances. Offers can range from discounts to “hurry while supplies last”, but the commonality remains. Test your offers for optimizing response.

4. Having a Good List. Having the best offer and award-winning design is not enough. For many types of marketing campaigns, success is directly tied to having a targeted list. With today’s sophisticated list generation tools, you can acquire lists that are highly segmented based on demographics, psychographics, buying behavior, and many other characteristics.
The key here is not to be penny wise and pound foolish. If you’re wondering where to invest your marketing dollars, spend them on developing a good house list (names you acquire on your own) or by renting/purchasing a well segmented marketing list.

5. Relying on a Single Communication. On average, consumers are hit with over 2,000 marketing messages everyday. In fact, recent studies have indicated that consumers need to see your marketing message an average of 12 times before they take notice. If there is any truth to the claim in part or in whole, it means that you must communicate to prospects on a regular basis. Placing a single ad in the newspaper or sending a single email cannot deliver effective results. Determine the media that prospects use to gather information and develop an ongoing campaign that works within your budget.

6. Not Measuring Campaign Effectiveness. Over time, your business is going to do a lot of marketing. Even if you are a small business wondering how you’re going to communicate to a prospective audience, you’re going to eventually have some type of communication. Regardless of the marketing campaign size or expense, you need to track your results. This can be done with a simple spreadsheet or a multi-million dollar CRM system. The bottom line is you need to record what works and what doesn’t so that you can improve your results in the future.

7. Failure to Continue the Dialog. After consulting for a number of large companies, I’m still amazed at how many fail to communicate to customers on an ongoing basis. Often times, consumers or businesses only hear from the seller when its time to buy again. If you have an established customer base, chances are you’ve worked hard to acquire them. You should be spending some of your marketing budget to retain them. Be sure to open a dialog with customers, solicit their feedback, and communicate with them regularly. This will help to build your business over the long-term.

If you’re new to marketing, have experience as a marketing professional, or simply want to improve your current marketing results, be sure to learn from the mistakes of others. To be successful, continually work towards improving your marketing effectiveness. Avoid the 7 most common marketing mistakes, and you’re on your way to delivering tangible results.

Vanson Tan, Honors In Engineering (University of Queensland) has been teaching individuals for over 5 years and developed multiple streams of internet incomes across the globe.

He focused on teaching Internet Marketing to open up the minds of those who wanted to have an extra source of income without quitting their day job, thereby enhancing the lives of the individuals.

His ability to help individuals is also reflected in his blog (massivecashgenerator.blogspot.com) where he targets scaling the business from the inside out. He believes that everyone wants to get rich, but lack of confident. Therefore he created MCG to allow them to start their internet business while keeping their day job until they have grown their internet business massively to escape from rat race forever!

His most recent work can be found at http://www.massivecashgenerator.com where he aims to help those who wants to have massive income with no or minimum capital.

Vanson is the author of best selling ebook “MassiveCashGenerator”, which improves the lives of many within the shortest time possible.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Vanson_Tan

Are you looking to increase your earnings? One of the best ways is to work for your self by creating income on the internet.

The most important reason to work in internet marketing (IM) is that you can develop semi-passive income.

Semi-passive income is a term I have coined for the activity of using your brain and effort to create an information product that you sell with an automatic sales system over the internet.

Once you have created the product, your effort drops to a minimal level and you can move on to the next project. This can be accomplished on any level. You can start with practically “0″ dollars. After you build up some capital you can then outsource tasks to whatever level you are comfortable with.

Unlike a traditional brick and mortar business, you can invest your spare time and build up an income stream with very little risk. There is untold value available on the internet itself. You can trade your time and use the internet to read and absorb the information with an eye towards building passive income.

Why passive income? It’s really the secret to becoming wealthy. Create PASSIVE income that EXCEEDS your expenses.

There is a world of difference between passive income and earned income. One kills you while the other sets you free.

99% of all people on the planet work for earned income. There is an absolute limit on what they can earn. There are only so many hours in the day. They have no leverage. Their earnings depend 100% on their own efforts.

The passive income workers work to create something once that will pay us for a long time to come without any more involvement in it.

Self-employment is not freedom. Not yet.

FREEDOM is the day that your passive income exceeds your expenses.

It can be a huge shift in your thinking, but if you can focus all of your efforts in IM on creating nothing but passive automatic hands off income from this day forward, you will start to command an hourly rate that most people won’t comprehend.

Filter all of your “business model” searches through the passive income screen.

About the Article Author
Craig Glenn is a professional author, business owner and marketing expert. Get information, ideas and tips on creating your own passive income streams by clicking here: http://www.craigglenn.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Craig_Glenn