First I have an apology to make. I have been slacking on updating the blog and have got some complaints and have to ask for your forgiveness on that. I have sort of a excuse however which I can offer. Some idiots decided to rip some of my articles from this blog. This made me really mad as I spend alot of time and effort on my articles. Well to make a long story short we got the guy to remove it. If this happens again we will follow the appropriate legal action to have the site shut down.

Now on to the article….

As many of you know there is a craze that goes on before during and after Thanksgiving. Anyone who didn’t take advantage of that missed out big-time. It is projected to be the biggest spending day in the year. That is one ban-wagon any logical webmaster wants to be on. There is a similiar one that goes on for Christmas however this one is spread out over a longer period of time and ends at Christmas. After Christmas the money is all spent and if you didn’t take advantage of this big spending spree you lost out on a big increase in sales.

How exactly do you take advantage of these crazes and get in on this super-shopping-spree that goes on during these holidays?
In this article we will discuss some of the best ways to roll in those prospective buyers and roll in alot more cash.

First of all if you haven’t already you need to setup a mailing list. Yeah I know there are millions of those and who needs another boring mailing list especially if your the one on the receiving end. Mailing lists can be very useful and if done correctly you can gather a list of a bunch of people who will buy anything you advertise as long as you do it right. I don’t mean send them a email everyday offering a product. That type of letter goes in the trash. Use your mailing list to offer help, resources and advice in your field. Right articles on bad business practices of related groups and how to keep from being scammed by them. If you get your visitors enjoying your letters they will be open to your products and services as well.

Whatever you do DO NOT use email addresses that have not specifically asked YOU for YOUR MAILING. Just in case you missed that I said do not buy email addresses or otherwise send your mailing to a list that has not requested it from your site. This is wrong, rude and infringement on their privacy and is highly ineffective not to mention the bad reputation that comes with it.

Right about now your probably thinking: ‘what exactly does mailing lists have to do with seo?’. Alot actually. Seo done properly can bring the traffic but what you do with it is now another problem. There are some sites that get massive amounts of traffic but are not developing their websites to be most effective with this traffic. You need both to be a successful webmaster. Numbers mean nothing if those numbers aren’t making dollar signs. A healthy site should be gaining new visitors but also should have a steady flow of repeat visitors who keep coming back. A mailing list is a good way to keep them coming back.

Now you got a mailing list what next? Again keep the letters targeted the user interest and information that will keep them reading. There is nothing worse than a dead letter. It might also be a good idea to setup a page for users to submit feedback and ask for ideas on future mailouts. Maybe even setup a bulletin board or something where users can discuss it. Forums are also a grand way to keep visitors but are also sometimes hard to maintain and keep growing when new.

Write a killer title that will get the user to open the email. That is the first step. Once they do the first paragraph or two must get them interested or it is likely to join the other 250,000 emails in the trash. Operate like a news station. Write about contradictory news, information that will keep the user reading maybe even unintentionally. At the end make an offer without appearing to make one. But keep in mind offering deals all year long is going to may take away from the excitement of the christmas deals.

Just before a holiday such as thanksgiving or christmas send out a letter. In this letter first off offer a thank you to your list for subscribing and bearing with you. Thank them for their support of your website and work and then say you want to offer a exclusive deal ONLY to your mailing list. This deal will last for 36 hours wherein product such and such or service such and such is marked down 50% but that isn’t all. You also get 4 bonuses. Make sure you offer a killer deal and then offer some bonuses. Also make sure you make it known the deal is over in 24-36 hours. Don’t give them that much time or they may forget or decide not to buy. Offer them many reasons to buy and then at the very end say as a special thank you for reading the email you will offer an additional 10% or whatever off the price. Of course writing it out just like I did is going to be quite ineffective and blunt. You will have to add your own jazz and make it sound great substituting prices and percentages with realistic ones for your niche and competition. Your offer should be very competitive but doesn’t have to be if written well.

Your probably saying “But I don’t have a product, service or tool to offer. How can this work for me?”. It depends alot on the site what it can do to induce business. If you only have adsense or affiliate ads(not spam but normal affiliatation resources) you will want to get them interested in purchasing or clicking those ads but KEEP IN MIND asking or otherwise insinuating you want someone to click a ad is against TOS, is unethical and will get you banned. Not to mention if I ever catch you doing it you will never get a email from me again - everyone runs to write a letter to their list asking them to click -

If you sell a good amount of software for a certain company whether directly associated with them or through a affiliate database such as clickbank they may be interested in doing a deal with you for the christmas season. Send them a email and be sure to note the profit you make them. They won’t want to lose it if it is any kind of money at all. Ask them if they can offer a killer deal which you plan to roll over to your mailing list. Usually they will especially clickbank guys who have very little into their products overall except for the initial creation. Some just write an e-book which costs nothing except the guys time.

If you have adsense ads you can still get that christmas craze running on your site by offering ideas for Christmas, resources, information and news preferably related to your site. Maybe offer ideas for products for Christmas while offering a affiliate link to a service selling them or just let them click the ads but DON’T tell them to.

The key to selling the reader is in presenting a deal that seems to good to pass up and also appears to be limited(which it is) to a certain period. You can also say we are setting aside say 500 of these products at this price. After they are sold out the price will go back up to retail. Make it very easy for them to order and provide customer assistance.

During the holidays their is a big spending spree. Afterwards things die down pretty good. There is no reason why you shouldn’t take advantage of this money going around. Small sites that receive less than 1000 hits/month will be harder to pull in the revenue but still very possible.

START A ADWORDS CAMPAIGN
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If you don’t get that much traffic try using google adwords to pull in a little more. It is cheaper than you might think if you only write a good description. Why? Because google shows the ads based on relevance and click-throughs which means if 75% of the clicks go to your site and they seem to stay a good time your listing will appear higher and higher. The pay-per-click amount is factoring in after this so it is very possible to pay $.50-1.00 or even more less than the rest of your competition. Just remember a good description should pull the visitors but also describe the product/service well so they don’t just click back out.

Don’t just advertise using one keyword. Select a variety of long-tail and higher competition keywords. Put your bid about 50-75% lower than the lowest other bid. On the long-tail alot of times it is very easy to get high positions even paying 75% less than the others.

If you think Adwords is expensive your wrong. It is very effective if you do it right and very reasonable. Again you pay less if you have a good listing. And that is all under your control.

Setup a landing page for these visitors with a informational on the service or product and a hype. Make sure it keeps their attention. Then you can use this page in Google Analytics to track what those visitors did when they got their and use a separate goal pattern to track those sales. See how well you do for this holiday. Make changes using the analytics data for the next holiday so you are more effective. I guarantee you in no time you will get the hang of what your visitors want and begin hauling in a hefty bit of extra cash.

I hope you have learned a few things from this article which will help you make a little extra cash for the holidays. Save this extra for next holiday spending
I meant to make it a lot larger and more in-depth but decided against it. If you have any additional questions/comments I do want to hear your input. And I will be sure to answer all of them that have not been previously addressed.

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