Everyone’s talking about SEO: do this, do that, create good content…

You see…today, in order to succeed in internet business; it is NOT ENOUGH to create good content. Yeah, that’s right, it is NOT ENOUGH to create good content.

You have to go beyond creating good content, you need to create entertainment, but not to the price of suffering content. You need to provide content that will bring real experience to the reader.

This practice even started to show in the internet marketing arena. Ever heard of the Thirty Day Challenge? Not only is it a good site for internet marketing beginners, but the concept is interesting. It’s a challenge and at the same time a contest. The contest is to make your first $10 online. Brilliant.

I’ve seen many other marketers in different niches who have tried to become successful in this stuff. Many have made it but yet many others failed miserably.

There are several traits that I’ve noticed about successful marketers which clearly show they’re not doing the same things as everyone else, and therefore, not getting the same mediocre results!

Here are some of them:

• They create a different category

  In the dating industry, Eben Pagan created the category called “dating advice”. In the cooking industry, Oliver James with his unique show created totally another category for cooking by merging his cooking passion and entertainment.

  Why will you be successful if you do this? Well, people will not perceive you like the same ol’ cr**, but as something new. They create a space in their mind about your new category and you’re the first one there. The others will have to play the game of catch up!

• They stand out from the crowd…

  Nial created a great article here about contests. Contests are a great way to stand out from your competitors. But, guess what, there will be one day when they’ll not be so effective anymore! Here’s the good news: There will be ALWAYS new ways to stand out from the crowd. ALWAYS. That’s the beauty of this concept.

• They leverage things

  Almost all successful marketers use leverage.

  For example, in recent years the trend is leveraging online video, many web 2.0 platforms and who knows what else! Lesson: Don’t be a loner, leverage! You’ll introduce something new, and in that way, make your business more entertaining for your customers.

That’s my take on the ideal approach. Feel free to let me know what you think

Contests can be seen as a stunt. In my opinion - a stunt is something new and out of the ordinary that catches peoples attention, and when it comes to marketing, if done correctly a stunt can generate a lot of positive attention.

Contests can be used to attract people to your website, to build your email list and even to build links. Online contests can be a very effective tool for marketers with any budget.

Before running your own contest, one thing you should be aware of is that online contest have mixed reputations in the minds of consumers. Many online surfers have been enticed to click on links offering them a “free iPods” or a “free trip” only to be rewarded with an inbox full of spam. Keep this is mind, you may have to earn peoples trust before they decide to enter your contest.

Build Links With a Link Building Contest

We all know that quality content and quality inbound links are the key to Google’s heart. You might already have great content, but anyone who has tried their hand at link building knows it can be tedious at best. Luke mentioned in his post last week that he has had some success in generating links by networking with influential bloggers and using social media. Another great way to build links is to have a link building contest.

A link building contest is a way to entice people to link to your site in return for the chance of winning something. To see how this is done you can check the This Week in Photography (TWIP) contest page. TWIP is part podcast and part blog. They are currently running their second quarterly link building contest. At the end of this quarter they will randomly select one link and award the webmaster or blogger a Drobo from Data Robotics. This is a $500 prize, and I’m sure the links generated by this contest will be worth a lot more than that.

TWIP also has a bi-weekly photo contest where they give away photography related prizes like books and software to the winning photographer. Their Flickr Photo Challenge Group now has over 2000 members.

Turn A Product Launch Into a Contest

Firefox made an event out of it’s Firefox 3 release by inviting the entire web community to make/break the world record for most software downloads in a single day. Not only did this “stunt” generate 8 million downloads in 24 hours, but it generated a lot of excitement and created a lot of free press for the second most popular web browser. One week later, Guinness is still reviewing the record breaking attempt, and Firefox 3 has now been downloaded 19 million times. If and when Guinness confirms the world record, Firefox will get more free press, more downloads, and as a result more profit.

Don’t Forget To Promote Your Contest

Once you have decided to have a contest, you will need to get the word out. A good place to start is by posting comments on popular forums in your niche (try not to SPAM) and contact contest blogs.

Legal Note

Before running a contest you may want to check with your lawyer, there are certain restrictions when it comes to running contests. If you run your website out of the US you are probably safe as long as you restrict your contest to US residents over the age of 18.

While surfing the web today, I came across Who Needs Designers and had a really good laugh at the video on their site.

Any designer that deals with clients should also have a good chuckle.

“You paid your brothers nephews friend $50 for that whopping logo.”

You may have noticed that I haven’t been writing as much on this blog over the past couple months. That’s mostly due to us being extremely busy on some client projects and a personal project.

In that time I’ve learned a few things about internet marketing that I’m going to share with you now.

1. Social media is very important
Some background about myself: I’m a bit of a laggard when it comes to new things and new technology. (That’s actually an understatement.) Here’s a few examples:

• I still use FreeHand MX instead of Adobe Illustrator.
• I don’t own a cell phone.
• I still use a PC. I know I need to switch to a Mac.
• I’m at least 2 versions behind on Flash.

I never really paid much attention to social media. I knew it existed. I even knew that it was important. But it wasn’t until about 5 weeks ago when one of our web sites made it to the home page of Delicious that I really got on board with it. After seeing the amount of traffic and new links that being on the home page of Delicious brought, I could no longer afford to ignore social media. I recommend that every internet marketer learn how to harness social media asap.

2. Market your web sites to the influencers
We made it to the home page of Delicous because the editor at a Top 10 Technorati site wrote about us on their blog. Then a few other large blogs wrote about us and then about 15 smaller blogs as well. Prior to this, my strategy was to email the smaller blogs and let them know about our site. My guess is that 1 in 10 to 15 ended up writing about us. It takes a lot of time and effort to individually email bloggers. In fact to get 15 small bloggers to write about us would take as many as 225 emails.

Instead the better strategy is to target the influential bloggers in your niche. If they write about you, then the smaller bloggers will write about you too. Now you just have to figure out how to get the influencers to write about you.

3. Having a great web site is VERY important
It’s a lot easier to get people talking about you and build links, if you have a great web site. People won’t talk about a web site that isn’t unique or different from the mold. Spend the extra time making a unique and useful web site that people can’t not talk about. Your link building will go so much easier.

It’s been a great 2 months and I think I’ve learned even more than these three points. But I have to get back to work now.