‘Word of mouth’ advertising simply means spreading the words about a site, product or anything via humans. In other words, it is the most easiest, super performing and cheapest forms of advertising and/or marketing method. In our daily life, word of mouth is everywhere. Remember when your friend suggests you a song? Or a favorite restaurant? Or which car to buy? Or did they show you a amazing website they just found? How about that weight-loss product they which they used?

All of these are ‘word of mouth’ free marketing. It is a good method as long as your website, blog or forums falls under ‘general’ categories such as entertainment, music etc

Consumer vs Seller

How can word of mouth marketing benefit consumers?

I am no marketing genius, but i can tell you this. If i am about to buy a new car, i would definitely take advices. If i am going on a movie we would definitely watch the one which everyone seems to be talking about. Won’t you? As a result ‘word of mouth’ advertising is very beneficial to the consumers. Because it gives the us, the consumers the knowledge we need, the reviews, the experience and information of the product or simply the recommendation of what/what not when we need something.

For a seller, word of mouth is viral. If people are talking about ‘it’[assume 'it' to be whatever you want] then that ‘it’ is a hot money maker.Period. Every form of business uses the ‘word of mouth’ advertising methods. Be it by creating stunning advertisements for there products or creating controversial stories or reviews. This form of advertising cannot be out-beaten by any other. People are tend to do, to buy or to see what there family members, friends and everyone else is.

however its useless if you trying to sell something, do affiliate marketing, make money via adsense or cpa. because you are making your own family members and friends to buy something which isn’t worth the time or efforts you put in.

How can ‘word of mouth’ help small business/sites?

Specially on the Internet? Does word of mouth just means telling about your creations to your family and friends?

word of mouth is not limited to just ‘you telling your friends & family’ but in a more simplified sense, if your site is amazing and worth the time for your visitor then those visitor [who ever they are, from any corner of the world] will definitely tell others about your site, that is the word of mouth.

like how we come to find about sites such as facebook, youtube, blogger, bing, etc etc most of them are via word of mouth, not advertisements that you come across. Always remember content is king, no matter what your niche is, if you want to dominate it then concentrate on quality. Put your self in the shoes of your visitors and think like them.

Here is what i do, when i create a website, or a blog post or anything online. I first test it out myself and ask my friends to test it too. Then ask yourself,

• do i like this website?
• will i buy this product?
• is this webpage worth my time?
• am i enjoying the sites design?
• is this site user friendly?
• are these posts and information valid and worthy?
• Will this benefit me?
• Is this the right price?
• Are these information relevant to the topic?
• Will i recommend these to my friends?

be honest to yourself because you are visiting the site as a visitor and do what you would do while surfing other websites on the Internet.

How can i start the next ‘word of mouth’ revolution??

Easy there. Don’t get carried away, its not easy to get people talking. Specially for us bloggers, no one actually reads blogs these days – thanks to the countless number of ‘unwanted’ and ‘repetative’ blogs out there. But there is still hope.

Word of mouth is a very hard advertising & Marketing form. But it is very well worth the time & efforts you put in aswell.

There are always ways to make your site popular by ‘word of mouth’, how?

1. Create topics that are short, simple and to the point. Give your visitors what they are looking for, don’t send them on a wild goose chase.

2. Write about controversial topics, this would definitely get you lots of criticism, but on the other hand it is a good way to give short term boost to your website traffic, this method works best in sites related to celebrities and current world issues, etc

3. Comparison – compare a subject, a product or website with others or with yours. Give your honest opinion about these. This will help the visitors make a better choice while you play the role of a middlemen

4. Write about hot and current topics. Share your view, after all this is the Internet and the only reason you are going to be successful is by being honest to yourself and giving your opinion, within limits of course.[make sure you don't go wild, it could do the opposite of what you want lol]

5. Don’t try to force your visitors or clients into doing ‘word of mouth’ advertising, this is mostly seen in the case of ‘e-mail this to your friend’ ’share it with your friend’ ’send this to your friend and get this/that free’ etc. Such tricks are short-lived, maybe to get something those visitors might do as you ask, but you are forcing them to do so. And its a proven fact that the others who receive those emails or any sort of info from friends are less likely to visit your site or even try it out. It will be somewhere in the spam/junk folders.

6. Be funny, creative and think out of the box. No one is going to talk about you, if you are like every other ordinary blogger/seller. Word of mouth works when there is something ‘unique’ or should i say ‘crazy’ to discuss. But remember, it could be also embarrassing and life destructing if you do something extreme foolish, like most of those youtube stars do nowadays.

7. Don’t create a hoax, never lie. Have you seen about the story on CNN recently about a 6 year old boy flying away in a hot air balloon? and later it turned out to be a hoax. This is a best example of ‘word of mouth’. Sure it created a story and made it a international news. But now that is turned out to be a hoax, it is going to be opposite of the parents might have expected. Long story short, don’t lie just to get fame or popularity. Specially in the online world, fame & popularity is useless because its only limited to your ‘user name’ or a particular site. Creating a hoax in order to be famous or get good ‘word of mouth’ visitors is going to be very harsh later on. The consequences can be fatal in some cases lol

8. 1 small trick for ‘freebies sites’ is to give freebies for ‘free’. Did that make sense? Well here’s the thing, nowadays 90% of the freebies sites on the ‘Internet’ are NOT free. The site owner obviously wants to make money, its either a CPA or some sort of obstruction the visitor has to face in order to get his freebie. If your freebies are ‘free’ it will definitely get you lots of ‘word of mouth’ visitors. But then again, how will you make money? The answer to that question is easy. You make money by giving freebies. Do a search on google, there are many CPA networks that have ‘freebies’ offers which you get ‘paid’ for to promote. So imagine if you are extremely popular in your niche, this 1 cpa offer can bring you big bucks without forcing your visitors to fill unwanted surveys, etc.

Last but not the least remember to go according to your long term plans. Word of mouth can also be achieved if you keep it simple, honest and don’t concentrate on just making money!

Good luck & i would like to apologies for my delayed posting – thank you for being patient everyone.

regards, SJ

We all know that every company, person and brand seeks reputation. Reputation, respect, popularity, domination all go hand in hand. Without reputation no company can get good clients or sell any of there products.

But in the online scenario this might be different a bit. No questioning the fact that online giants such as Google, Microsoft, yahoo,etc are all about reputation. Google won’t stand and watch if someone tries to hurt their reputation, they got a reputed search engine. And there competitors such as yahoo and bing wants to get a share of that online reputation. That is the reason why the have signed contract with each other, to bring down the giant. Its all about reputation in the industry!

However small companies and websites can’t be bothered much about reputation. Every company has some sort of reputation. Even hackers and scammers have a reputation to maintain, ironically they love the popularity and reputation they get. One such example is the a group of people who call themselves ‘RELOADED’, they got a reputation for hacking games and providing free versions and patches via torrents. No one is afraid since in the online world, you can hide your real identities quite easy.

I want money, one way or the other.

That is the mentality of most people in the ‘make money online’ niche. Actually not just this niche, but the entire www. Why do you think people and companies invest so much in online development and products? Because the web is easy to access and explore. And there are huge advantages to those who want to make money. In the online world, you can sit at home and be newton.

There are lots of people who wants to make money online. Some of them get lucky and earn a ton. Some fail miserably and quit. While some keep trying and become desperate! Most of the time they don’t make a single buck online, even after years of trying.

This creates a tendency among desperate people seeking income solutions. 60% of these are involved in the GPT [get paid to] industry. The rest run sites and sell duplicate, warez, stolen content to make money. There are many rings of sites and people that are involved in scamming. They don’t care for reputation, Only money. And they get them one way or the other.

Reputation does matter!

The path you chose decides the future. If you chose the path of making money the wrong way, then you will definitely get caught one day or the another. The risks are always high. Digital retailers and payment gateways are getting very serious regarding this. There are stiff rules and if you got bad reputation, then those companies will just kick you off. And yes i am talking about companies like clickbank, amazon,adsense, paypal,etc. Without those making money online is very hard and nearly impossible.

Yet there are some people who want to scam others, there reputation gets worse and worse. And what is worse about them is that they don’t regret what they do, take a look at the screen shot below. I receive such phishing mails from paypal[not really paypal] everyday and they ask me to register in those sites. If you are not cautious then you might get scammed! But thanks to the scam watching services who keep us up-to-date with the reputed scammers.

Here is the link to the phishing paypal site : http://mkbae.com/stageon/paypal.com/ [DON'T ENTER YOUR ACCOUNT DETAILS!] but if you got free time, give them some trouble by spamming the heck out of them!

Bloggers on the other hand can’t survive without reputation. And you earn reputation by your blog posts and reaction to your readers. Making money with blogging is impossible  unless you got good reputation. Because everyday there are thousands of blogs born, but still there are only a handful of them that make more then $1000 per month. These includes people such as jhon chow, carl ocab,etc. So if you are looking to make money by blogging then you need to build reputation.

How to build good reputation?

There are many ways you can build reputation.

• Interact with your readers, visitors and customers.
• Build a network of loyal visitors, build forums to interact further.
• Reply to readers comments and encourage discussions.
• Giveaway freebies, everyone loves freebies.
• Don’t spam them, this includes spamming there emails, co-blogger,etc.
• Act as a authority of your niche, not just ‘act’ but ‘be’ the authority of your niche.
• Don’t talk about, promote or teach anything that you yourself don’t know much.
• Do not spam your blog with lots of advertising, pop ups, pop under, etc
• Write valid, up-to-date, interesting, thought provoking, controversial and informative posts.
• Warn readers of other scammers, illegal stuff, harmful affects of certain ‘illegal’ or ‘immorale’ subjects in your niche.
• Don’t start selling as soon as you see your first few positive visitors. You will make them run away too.
• Be patient, don’t push yourself. When the time comes you will see good results.
• Join other webmaster,make money online and blogging forums, or any forums related to your niche.
• Interact with other bloggers, comment on there blogs, follow them on twitter, etc.
• Advertise your blog and get traffic, try to convert each of those visitors into RSS subscribers.
• find out your own ways to earn better reputation among your niche. The possibilities to gain respect are endless but hard. Don’t quit trying.

It takes years to build reputation, but a mistake to kill it!

Yes it’s true. It takes years to build good reputation and a single mistake could kill everything!  So if you are building a good reputation i would advice you to stay clear of anything that is wrong.

This includes staying away from ‘bad sources’ and people affiliated with it. One small mistake and there goes the rep. Since things in the Internet spread like wildfire you won’t even know how far and quick rumours can travel!

That is why companies like horizon sue there own customers for tweeting things. But i doubt you will have the money to sue all badmouthers. So buckle up and stay focused on your goals.

Reputation = money

That is the secret of most brands. No matter how close the competitors are. Or how better there products and pricing are, if a brand has reputation. Then they can merely sell anything they want. There are lots of real life examples of this. And the same applies on Internet Marketing as well.

Which brings  us to our lesson. Reputation is money. Without reputation you can’t make money, well not legally at least. So before you start building money, build relationships and reputation. Get respect and become the athuroty in your niche. Before you know it, money will start coming your way.

Hope you understand the value of reputation and how it can change your buisness. Consider this scenario as a Game and reputation takes you a level higher. And bad reputation will drop your level. It’s up to you now, how you play the game and write your own story.

good day and happy rep building,

SJ