Advertising your website is a matter of dollars and sense; as in, where does it make the most sense to put your dollars?

A recent survey conducted by Marketingsherpa.com (as reported in the Marketing Report newsletter) showed that search engine optimization and in-house generated email lists rank neck-and-neck as the top performers when it comes to return on investment.

A few highlights:

• Paid search ads are favored by 49% of marketers as the highest ROI.
• In-house email lists received the top rating for ROI by 47% of those surveyed.
• 34% of marketers plan to increase their spending on search engines by 5% or more.
• Search engine optimization is growing in efficacy; 45% ranked it as a high ROI compared to 33% in 2005.
• In-house blogs are planned by 35% of marketers, compared with 18% last year.

Not a professional writer? Neither am I. I’m sure I’ll learn as much as you from what I post here. After all, good writing skills are very important; and not just for “writers”.

Some newcomers may be wondering what this has to do with marketing. Perhaps it’s better suited for a freelance writing site? Well, that’s obvious, but it is very well suited here as well.

Take a quick glance at the category list…..Article, Ebook, Email, Ezine, Forum, and even Auction marketing all benefit from good writing skills.

Now, I could go on putting such posts/articles in multiple categories. However, I find myself getting annoyed more and more when I see this done on other blogs, so I figure others must also.

This is where you will find them, please enjoy.

Never stop pushing forward!
Dennis

Are you an “email pack rat”? Hundreds (if not thousands) of emails in this folder and that folder, or worse….not in folders?

Let me tell you from past and current experience, GO THROUGH THOSE EMAILS! Seriously. Although I probably should have done this in December, part of new years organization is going through ALL the old saved emails.

Keep what may actually be relevant and quickly toss what’s left. (Immediately empty the trash folder too, too make sure they’re gone.)

As for “keeping what may actually be relevant”, please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying to just put them back into save mode. If you find something you can use, USE IT. Implement whatever it is, ASAP.

If you must re-save it for a week or two, then fine. Make sure you go back to it though. Honestly? You’ve had it for a year or more, you’re not going to need it in a week or a month from now; use it now or toss it.

Your lists are your LIVILIHOOD! Care for them greatly. The following is the simplest yet one of the most important tips you could follow. It’s also one that most list owners just plum forget about…

I realize telling you to always use spell check might seem like an obvious no-brainer, but many still don’t do it, among other things…

Now that that’s outa the way, here’s a little tip that’s just as important, if not more so…Always put yourself on your own list!

It may sound silly, but among other things, it enables you to catch things quickly that you may not notice otherwise. For instance…

Last February I just sent a quick Happy Mothers Day email to my list (and no, I didn’t tack on some cheesy sale to “celebrate” it), but what I did do is I wrote “If you’re celebrating the day with your mom like I am, wish here a great one for me!

I read a great email a while back. It gave an awesome idea of how to take advantage of those certain emails that we all get 20 a day of, mostly jokes.

You know when you scroll down to the bottom of some emails, you’ll often see a link to HotMail, Yahoo or whoever the webmail provider is? Basically any free email provider will have their ad at the bottom of outgoing emails, right?

Wouldn’t it be cool to have your link there?

It would be fantastic!

Of course, how useful this technique is really does depend on your niche, but as long as you’ve got a fairly wide appeal - I can’t see a reason why you should pass up this opportunity to get your link in front of some prospective customers.