Practical eMarketer

Taking an Extended Vacation

2009-09-25T07:38:00.000-07:00

This week I’ve revealed more about myself and my reason for starting my website and this blog. I’ve made these admissions because I want you to understand that my physical debility causes me to take a leave of absence.

Not even my need to feel that I am helping people (that I’m not just taking up space) no longer compels me to do what needs to be done for both my website and blog.

The truth is I’ve been struggling all summer to keep going. This morning my husband really had to keep after me so that I would get up. I felt I could have gone on sleeping forever.

While these spells, which I call “sinkers”, have come and gone throughout the course of my illness; I never quite recover to the full vigor that I enjoyed prior to one of these episodes. Whether I will get to the point where I feel I can once again join the conversation remains to be seen.

But you’ll continue to find everything you need to know about starting an internet business from your home computer both here and at Personal-Business-Protection.org.

You can still contact me through my website and I hope to be able to continue to answer emails.

Whether I am gone a week, a month or never make it back at all, please know my thoughts are with each one of you.

My Home Business Goal

2009-09-24T08:29:00.000-07:00

Monday, I reviewed Michel Fortin’s advice about telling your story. Yesterday I talked about how I got into sharing marketing tips online. Today, I’m going to reveal more of my own story and tell you my own “home business” goal.

There is a reason why I was retired in 2007. In 2000, I was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. This particular cancer is quite rare. I’ve had it so long that the handful of researchers who study it have renamed it!

I had no idea why I was still alive seven years after the diagnosis. But after our daughter was scammed, I strived to attach a purpose to my survival. I was too late to help her, but I could launch an information hub.

I made my goal to keep others looking to make money online from getting scammed.

Having owned two businesses back in the 60s and 70s, I know what goes into business ownership. I also know that most people, regardless of what they want to believe about themselves, are not really prepared to spend the 15-hour days that it takes to operate their business, keep records, handle taxes, manage employees, and run the public side of their business.

The goal of my previous businesses was to make money doing something I loved and believed in. Without the conviction that I was making a difference for the people I served, I could not have stuck with either of them.

The goal of my current business has less to do with making money. Of course, I did create my own product (quite by accident), an ebook, and I am an affiliate for a handful of products and services that have served me well.

An internet business has additional challenges.

First and foremost is the technical side. Without programming skills, you won’t get that business idea launched, unless you select a modular website model like Site Build It (SBI), which I discovered back in April of 2008. I am an SBI affiliate, too.

(Of course, you can upload your own programming into SBI. When I talk about it I usually stress the features for beginner marketers, because that is my audience).

Second, internet marketing is based on communication skills; most of it written. If you hate to write and freeze up at the thought of picking up a phone to talk to strangers, you’re going to have a tough time running an internet business unless you have the money to outsource these necessary chores.

Third, every business whether it is educating, providing a service or products relies on salesmanship.

Not one of us has escaped the hard sell pitch. Very few of us have avoided being talked into buy something we didn’t want. We carry scars of purchases that sit in our basements. We don’t like sales.

Despite that, unless you are able to support your reason for being online out of your own pocket, you need sales skills both written and spoken, to make the time you spend online profitable.

I’m a big believer in the Bell Curve. If you picture the silhouette of a typical bell, you know the center of the bell is the thickest tapering to narrow flares at both sides.

Suppose you take a group of people, any group, and measure them for a specific ability. The majority will fall in the middle; this establishes the average for that ability in that group. A few will fall into the narrow sides; one side represents the overachievers and the other represents those who will fail.

As a former teacher, I can tell you most students in my classes were average. A few excelled and a few were never able to focus on the class material to their advantage.

The same holds true of any given group wanting to make money online.

Some will investigate the information necessary to make a business succeed. Others will not bother. Of those who conduct their own research, most will be able to apply the information they have learned. A few will apply those lessons assiduously and soon put their own stamp on it to excel in ways the rest of us can only dream of.

Knowing that the majority of my readers will break even or lose money, I provide a list of legitimate internet employers on my website.

The work is not glamorous. Few of these employers offer benefits. But it is an option for the many thousands of people out of work whose true goal is to make money online until the economy recovers.

Internet Marketing Resources

2009-09-22T07:53:00.000-07:00

From time to time I share marketing resources from around the web that you may find useful.

Marketing

Charlie Cook is a business mentor and coach who provides a range of internet marketing resources from free marketing plans to ad copy analysis on his website Marketing for Success. Opt-in required.

Scheduling

At the end of the day do you wonder where your time has gone? Download a desktop calendar and planner from BizWare Magic and stay on schedule!

Skype Apps

Pamela for Skype is a personal digital assistant for Skype that allows you to do many things, such as recording your calls into .mp3 files, recording your text chats and also record video calls for future reference. The basic version is free and lets you record 15 minutes of every conversation. There are also three premium plans available.

PrettyMay is an add-on for Skype that allows you to record and replay your calls. Save your Skype chats in MP3 audio format and also listen to the same background music with friends while conversing with them. Share your recordings with your friends. In addition, you can set PrettyMay to answer calls while you are away from your computer or you don't want to be disturbed. PrettyMay requires a download. It is compatible with Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Free to use.

Teach Yourself Internet Marketing

Learning is an ongoing process that you can achieve at your own pace and for minimal investment at Success Book Club. In fact, several free tutorials are available there and at Small Business Classes.

Storytelling and Blog Comments

2009-09-21T06:57:00.000-07:00

Last week Michel Fortin gave three tips for “magnetizing” your copy.

In case you haven’t heard of him, Michel Fortin is a direct response copywriter and marketing consultant. He’s one of a handful of guys on the internet who I love to read, even when his message doesn’t relate to me, simply because his writing is so darned good.

One of the tips he offered about keeping your reader on your page is to tell a story.

The truth is telling a story isn’t difficult; writing a story is time consuming.

When you’re blogging five days a week as most of us are, it is hard to justify making the effort to share your information through the structure of a story.

Nevertheless I’m going to frame this post on blog comments as a first person story.

I was one of the hundreds of people last week who took time to comment on Problogger’s article about the value of commenting on other people’s blogs.

I was inspired to share my own experience with commenting when I launched Practical eMarketer back in January.

I did in fact seek other blogs in my niche and when I discovered a post that covered a subject that I had discussed here or on my website, I added my own experience to the conversation.

Since I have analytics on both of my sites, so I am able to see not just the number of hits on each page, but where the visitors come from and where they go next.

Back when I set aside 30 to 45 minutes a day to make comments, I did in fact pick up subscribers and the occasional commenter. But between Twitter, two other sites that I regularly contribute to, and posting on this blog weekdays, I ran out of steam.

I stopped making visits to other blogs for the purpose of commenting. Nowadays I make comments only because I’m inspired by some deep feeling to say something.

The result is that two months may pass before I see a new subscriber. While I was actively commenting, I was picking up a couple of subscribers each month.

And commenting here on Practical eMarketer has fallen off, even though I added a new comment feature this summer.

However, the number of people visiting this blog has steadily risen.

I suppose the takeaway from this is: if you are actively seeking the opportunity to network or need to interact with your readership, you should set aside some time each day to comment on other blogs in your niche. If you are satisfied with a hundred or so views most days, then that extra time might be better spent on posting articles on other sites.

Do You Use Alltop?

2009-09-18T08:07:00.000-07:00

Alltop is designed to answer the question, “What’s happening?”

Guy Kawasaki describes his news aggregator Alltop as a “magazine rack” of top stories. Members create their own home page featuring blogs that cover subjects of interest them. Membership is free to those who use the service.

You can suggest your own blog for inclusion in Alltop, providing it fits one of the categories allowed there. Acceptance is not automatic. There is a decision-making process but there are no published details about the elements being judged.

The question you need to ask yourself before getting involved in any sort of social media site is, “Is it worth my time?”

Not being tech-savvy, I always worry about getting involved in anything that requires a tutorial. But since autopinger is no longer a free service and since I’ve found nothing else that compares to it, I’ve drifted back to the notion of using Alltop.

According to Quantcast, Alltop receives an average of 120,000 US visitors monthly for a total of 207,000 hits from around the world. But most of its traffic data has been hidden by Kawasaki. So there is no way of knowing the demographics of those who use the site.

Quantcast only reveals that most visitors access Alltop from their home computer. Roughly one third of its audience comes from the business world.

Last year Michael Arrington gave Alltop “a big thumbs down” which he called “a big pile of nothing.”

My question for Alltop members is, Has your use of Alltop helped your business in a measurable way?

Please be sure to add your business category in your comment.

Can Playing Games Teach Business Skills?

2009-09-17T06:16:00.000-07:00

As children we played games. We pretended we were moms. We pretended we were soldiers. We pretended we were astronauts exploring alien worlds.

The question is did we learn anything from those games that serve us in our lives today?

Even if we didn’t grow up to be cowboys, is it possible that those long hours of pretending to be a cowboy taught us about getting along with others? You might recall that certain friends in your group continually directed everyone else with their ideas about how the game should be played or setting the game goals.

Here are five online games designed to teach business skills in a surprising number of areas.

IBM’s Innov8 offers three different scenarios to teach how to analyze existing traffic patterns and re-route traffic based on incoming metrics; develop more efficient ways to respond to customers in a call center environment; and balance supply and demand while reducing environmental impacts.

Informationist is a multiplayer business game that helps develop real life business skills. The game features 16 scenarios. You can practice developing joint ventures, offers 35 real estate markets, and a stock exchange to teach you how to buy and sells stocks, as well as how to select employees.

EIS puts you on a team of 22 people within an established company. The goal of your team is to get company decision makers to adapt a new policy or technical innovation. This teaching program is aimed at managers and teaches evaluating proposed changes, keeping the team on the same page and getting the company decision makers to yes within a 6 month virtual timeframe.

Robo Rush teaches salesmanship and business building in this online Sim game.

Indiana University developed Quest Atlantis to teach 9-16 year olds strategies used in the commercial gaming environment with lessons from educational research on learning and motivation. QA has also been cited for teaching empathy, which is vitally important to any business strategy.

Social Media Lead Generation

2009-09-16T07:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I passed along some statistics that would be useful to email marketers.

We’re told the importance of building a list of subscribers and reaching out to them regularly is because it takes an average of 5-8 contacts with a potential customer to make a sale.

Email is a logical method of making and keeping those contacts.

Michelle Jones over at HubSpot ran a similar blog yesterday. She compared leads generated in marketing/PR, software, construction, and law niches. It is worth a click over there to view the graph.

PPC for example works very well in the construction industry but performs so poorly for marketing/PR firms that they hardly use it. Software does well with PPC, too.

Michelle separated HubSpot from other marketing/PR firms and demonstrated email performs very well for her business.

I would have to guess that HubSpot does so well with email because their messages are tied to free, quality webinars of interest to their subscribers.

Of course, what the HubSpot report was all about is the importance of lead generation via social media. According to wikipedia “HubSpot models the behavior it teaches its own customers by promoting itself through conversations, not one-way broadcast, and by the 'publish your way in' (or 'think like a publisher' or 'always be publishing (ABP)') mindset.”

My own experience in marketing advice and business startups has been that consistent contribution to free social media sites does bring a steady flow of traffic to this blog and my website. But I’m also in the marketing/PR niche.

Whether this approach is equally successful for other niches is less certain because involvement in social media depends on many factors.

You will find more statistics on consumer behavior and interests in my book Social Network Marketing, which details social media marketing on a shoestring budget.

What Statistics Say About Email

2009-09-15T07:04:00.000-07:00

Whether you’re newsletter covers model trains or internet marketing, you need to know about your subscribers. Regardless of interest, they share common traits.

The following statistics on email usage come from a survey of 1500 internet users in December 2008.

If your target audience is in the 14- to 17-year old group, chances are you the only way you’ll reach them is through text messaging. Only 27% even use email and few check email regularly.

By the time they are 24, however, they receive their messages equally between texting and email.

Fascination with texting drops dramatically in the 25- to 34-year old group. 58% check their email at least once a week.

The takeaway here is: if your niche supports developing and sending out newsletters make sure the bulk of your target audience is 25 or older.

The next statistics regarding email come from a study conducted by an email service provider.

While email tends to be opened throughout the day, more emails are opened between 8 am and 11 am than at any other time. The amount of time spent reading email is longest between 8 am and 9 am. The highest open rate of emails was at 8 am and that rate was just 50%.

Even though subscribers are more likely to spend more time reading email in the morning (an average of 13 minutes), tracking showed that email recipients are more apt to act on quick, direct offers throughout the afternoon and early evening.

Ball State University studies groups of online consumers by age. The largest group of internet users is men, 18-to 34-years old, unmarried and without children. 87% of them have made at least one purchase as the result of an email. They rate customer service in online purchases as their most important issue.

While ads, messaging and banner ads did not appeal to this group, they are highly motivated by sweepstakes offers.

9% more female college students have made purchases online than male college students. 50% of both sexes have been influenced by emails to make an online purchase.

Women 18- to 34-years old are equally divided between “tech” and traditional media. Their preferred form of communication is the telephone. 99% of the tech group use email regularly. They prefer to receive offers through direct marketing and email. 53% have made purchases based on an email offer.

Professionals between 35 and 54 have the most discretionary income. 93% of them have made online purchases. They are less influenced by direct marketing than all other age groups questioned in the study and the least likely to be influenced by sweepstakes and contests. 89% say they have been influenced to make a purchase because of email. They spend more money online and off than any other age group.

The Ball State Study also revealed that 73% of retirees online have made purchases because of an email offer; 81% have made purchases online.

We’ve seen that email definitely influences purchases among all age groups. But does that mean you should invest the time and money to develop your own email campaign?

Hitwise measures internet usage by Americans for clients in this country and abroad. September 9, Hitwise reported that Capital One in the UK received more visitors in April of this year from its Facebook presence than its email campaign on Hotmail or even Google. That was a fluke, of course. That company’s website generally receives 20% of its traffic from Google. With the exception of a couple of spikes, its email campaign draws less than 5% of its total traffic.

Creating PPC AdWords Campaigns

2009-09-14T07:14:00.000-07:00

Last week David Frey hosted Joel Peterson and Jon Shugart in a webinar as part of the prelaunch of their software Keyword Rockstar. The program is designed to get help advertisers shorten the process of building an AdWords campaign.

The reason I listen to these webinars to get a better understanding of the nuts and bolts of internet marketing. I came away with a lot of information I want to share with you about Content Network Advertising--those ads that show up on websites.

The goal of PPC marketing is to make more money than you spend.

To make PPC work you need to get your cost per click as cheap as possible.

It starts with keyword discovery, which I’ve written about.

Peterson walked attendees through the process of using Google’s Keyword tool with the synonym option to enter the primary description of the particular product you intend to promote.

He advised repeating the process for each relevant synonym using Google’s get-keyword-ideas option.

Peterson creates 200 ad groups per campaign, and 25 campaigns per account using 5000 keywords or keyword phrases (long-tail). Keywords or search phrases should be 1-4 words long.

Once you have a Google account, you can create more than one Ad Words account at Google Professionals and selecting the Advertiser option.

For text ads, your keyword needs to appear in your ad three times! If it won’t fit, then your text needs to be keyword rich. The example Peterson used was for a teeth whitening product.

The headline: Need Teeth Whitening?
The text: Simple Teeth Whitening that Works.
How to get Teeth Whitening Today.
The Link: ToothWhitening.com

To create the volume of text ads you will need, use Google’s AdWords Editor.

The method Peterson and Shugart use is keyword targeted banner ads. The reason they use banner ads is that there is an excess of advertising space on the web for banner advertisements. Tracking shows not only do they work, but depending on your niche, banner ads can pull more traffic than text ads.

The number of people using image or banner ads 2001 is the same number using them today. During that same time period, web “real estate” has grown exponentially. So it is a good opportunity for placing cheap ads.

Banner ads are more expensive to create if you don’t have the technical skills to create images. However, Peterson and Shugart showed that they create so-called banner ads with text.

They shared an example of text laden banner ads for acai berry.

Sandwiched between two lines of red stars was the headline: Acai Berry – Lose Weight

Below this headline was the text: Find Out How to Lose Weight Quickly Using the Acai Berry!

The clickable link was: AcaiBerry.com which was circled in red with red arrows pointing to it.

When he got started in 2004, Peterson created his ads using The Logo Creator and Photoshop. However, because of his phenomenal profits from banner ads, he now outsources this work. His programmers also make duplicates of each ad for every banner size available.

Peterson advises targeting your audience demographic—age, sex, etc. and country. The landing page your ad sends readers to must be relevant and optimized for the keywords in your ad. Your page title should match the primary keyword in your ad.

According to Peterson the real secret of success in PPC advertising is quantity. More ads create more traffic. He should know. At the beginning of the interview he showed that his ad campaigns had received more than 6 billion impressions and 29 million clicks in a single month.

Is there a lot of work involved in creating these types of ad campaigns?

Joel Peterson did not equivocate. His answer was “Heck, yes!” Was it worth it? Again his answer was “Heck, yes!” because Peterson has earned hundreds of millions of dollars using this method.

Is there a way to simplify the process? That is what webinar was about. Jon Shugart has created software to help automate the process. It simplifies the keyword selection process, allows the mass creation of both text and banner ads. It even creates automated ads.

The demonstration of the software starts about 40 minutes into the video created for the launch of their product which will become available to the general public in October.

I am not an affiliate of Keyword Rockstar.

Motivating MLM Recruits

2009-09-11T07:20:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago I received an email from a contact on a marketing site where we are both members. The man who wrote it is in an MLM and was bemoaning the fact that while he was signing up 10 leads every month, so far not one of them had made a sale.

He wanted to know how to motivate his recruits.

I was in a hurry but didn’t want to leave his message unanswered, so I passed along the Wayne Dwyer quote: “Never underestimate your power to change yourself; never overestimate your power to change others.”

The hungry person is supposedly motivated to make his own success in the world. But not everyone is equipped to achieve that success in the same way.

As much as we might like the idea of “residual income” and the payment structure of MLM companies, success in MLMs relies on salesmanship skills.

You can explain until you are blue-in-the-face how you taught yourself to paint, or learned Spanish, or grow award-winning violets on your window sill, but if you are talking to someone who lacks the basic skill set in these areas, you are wasting your time and theirs.

My advice to him should have been: learn to recognize people with sales skills. Focus your attention on them; not the mom who is worrying about how to pay off her credit card bills and whose only job experience was working as a dental hygienist before the kids were born.

In network marketing, you are looking to put together a tight-knit organization that produces results each and every month. That doesn’t mean disqualifying the former hygienist. She might prove to be a team contributor in other ways.

Depending on your company, there are a number of strategies you can employ to make sure she gets enough recruits to satisfy her financial needs while fulfilling other team requirements like providing customer assistance or maintaining the team’s private website.

About a year ago, I added a ton of information about taking your MLM business online on my website. There’s nothing to buy and no opt-in required.

You’ll find the three key elements for running a successful MLM business, building a team and suggestions from authority sources for implementing them.

How to Build a List

2009-09-10T06:23:00.000-07:00

“The money is in the list,” is one of those urban myths that happens to be true.

Research tells us that it takes about 7 contacts between seller and customer to achieve a sale. If you’re marketing online, that repeat contact is most often achieved through email.

That email can be your current blog post that goes out to subscribers or it can be a newsletter or ezine that you create specifically for visitors to your website and mail out at regular intervals.

Here are 15 ways to build your email list.

1. Put your newsletter opt-in form on every page of your website. Don’t rely on a single opt-in page on your site to get the job done.

2. Offer a bonus for opting into your mailing list. This bonus should be tailored to the subject of your site (and newsletter). Ideally, it is a PDF compiled of outstanding articles you have already written on your primary topic. But you can offer PLR products that tie into your theme.

3. Give new subscribers special access to an audio product. Depending on the theme of your site, it could be an interview with someone well known in your field. Or it could be a recorded conference call with a few of your friends discussing the merits of your services. Audio products are free to produce using online sites. Your only possible investment could be a decent microphone to produce clean quality recordings.

4. Consider using exit pop-up windows on your site. As the visitor clicks away, the pop-up asks the reader to subscribe to your newsletter. Pop-ups can be annoying. Make sure any pop-up software you use can tell if the person leaving your page has already seen it so that it will not continue to appear.

5. Buy leads. For as little as $25 you can purchase a list of “leads” from reputable internet companies in your business niche. Know ahead of time that many of the addresses you receive will no longer exist, that most of the leads will not be interested in your newsletter. Even so, out of 10,000 leads you might add 100-1000 subscribers to your list. Always investigate lead sellers on sites like comScore to make sure the company has been in operation for several years.

6. Archive you newsletters so that subscribers can access them. Promising new subscribers instant access to previous published content can motivate some people to part with their email address.

7. Get involved in forums in your niche. Create a signature with a link to your newsletter opt-in page.

8. Write a newsletter review article. That’s right! Write a synopsis of three or four newsletters in your niche, including your own. Make it a real review, not some sales pitch. Then contact the other newsletter publishers to let them know about your article, ask them if they would like to review it before it is published, and ask if they would like to post your review on their site. This will widen the awareness of everyone’s newsletters.

9. Contact other newsletter publishers in your niche to recommend each other’s newsletters on each of your thank you pages. Your thank you page might read something like this: “Thank you for subscribing to Household Shortcuts. In a few minutes a confirmation link should arrive in your mail box. Once you confirm, you will receive your first issue. While I provide lots of shortcuts for routine household chores, you might also be interested in Mary Doe’s 25 Minute Meals, loaded with quickie recipes for busy families.”

10. Buy ezine solo ads. Contact newsletter publishers in your niche and ask to send a solo ad to their list. Rates will vary. A solo ad is really a sales pitch for your newsletter. You will want to choose the primary benefit your newsletter provides your reader and incorporate it into a compelling headline. A well-crafted headline gets the email opened. As a solo ad, your sales page is the only copy that will appear in that email. So make a strong, detailed list of reasons for someone to subscribe. While some might advise you to keep the copy short, the truth is a sales page of 300-450 words is more apt to attract subscribers who will actually open your newsletters and read them.

11. Buy classified ads in ezines. These ads are short: usually no longer than 4 or 5 lines. Again, the headline is vitally important. The reason to select ezine classifieds in your niche is that the readers have already chosen to receive this type of information and have selected this media as a preference. So the likelihood that subscribers generated in this way are interested in what you have to say and what you have to sell is good.

12. Depending on the nature of your newsletter, it might be worth promoting with an occasional press release. You could provide a synopsis of a particularly newsworthy article in your latest newsletter and include a link to your opt-in page.

13. Offer new subscribers to a paid newsletter a free e-Course. If your newsletter is free, offer a “sales price” on a paid e-Course. Perhaps offer one lesson free to get past trust issues.

14. Make your newsletter content available to readers in their own emails, blogs or websites. Just make sure they keep your name as author and any links within your piece.

15. Create your own PLR products with links to your newsletter. Use your best content to create a PDF and market it to other publishers in your niche.

How to Choose Affiliate Programs

2009-09-09T07:30:00.000-07:00

Most internet marketing beginners start with affiliate marketing. Affiliate programs pay you the marketer for directing traffic to the advertiser’s site. You don’t need to develop your own product.

At its most basic affiliate marketers create a site on a topic that interests them, provide plenty of content on that subject to attract visitors, and provide links within the text for readers to get to the advertiser’s page.

But not all affiliate programs are equal. Some advertisers withdraw their offers before ever paying a penny in commissions. Others withhold payment until difficult criteria are met.

New marketers think they should look for high commissions or recurring commissions. If you are establishing a legitimate online business it means that you are going to be in the business for years.

Instead of looking at “making a killing” on some high paying product that could be taken off the market in hours or days, look instead at the value of the product and how long it has been around.

Choose proven sellers that are going to be around next year and the year after. If other buyers continue to buy the product, chances are your readers will be grateful to you for introducing it to them.

Internet marketers need to establish a relationship of trust with their buyers in the same way brick-and-mortar retailers have.

Here are some pointers in choosing affiliate programs.

1. Know the product. Never recommend a product you are unfamiliar with to those you seek to establish a long term relationship of trust with.

2. If joining an affiliate network of advertisers, make sure you know the companies involved. If unsure, you can always conduct a quick search on Google or even Twitter to learn what is being said online about most companies and affiliate programs.

3. Before making a final decision about a product category, run several keywords through Google’s keyword tool. You want products that produce steady or growing traffic. Identify another affiliate offering the same product. Check their site traffic volume using Quantcast or similar service.

4. Read the fine print. Know that some programs like Clickbank have minimum quotas that you must meet before they pay.

5. Look for affiliate programs that offer free tools and possibly a forum for their members. Resources like these help you learn the business faster. Some programs like CPA networks hold contests as an additional incentive for their affiliates.

6. Any affiliate program you join should have a back office where you can keep track of your referrals. You should always add tracking to your own affiliate pages and links.

Start your investigation of affiliate programs on Allan Gardyne’s site. His affiliate directory lists nearly 11,000 affiliate programs!

Marketing to Moms

2009-09-08T08:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I talked about work-at-home moms. If you are one and are interested in earning extra income why not market to other mothers online?

In today’s economy, moms are looking for ways to stretch their dollars.

Whether working at home or up to their eyebrows in caring for their children and home, many moms venture online for advice about saving money, housekeeping shortcuts, meal prep, educating their children and keeping fit.

A mom site should offer your audience the ability to interact, leave comments, tell their own story, and share their tips.

You will want to provide plenty of information, written in a friendly, conversational tone.

While you might have a number of ideas, don’t try to employ them all at once. Focus on three major topics related to taking care of a house and children. You can always add additional topics if your audience asks for it.

Even without your own product, you can make money as an affiliate marketer.

Say you have an interest in writing about healthy meals and snacks. Aisle-by-Aisle, a software program offered through Clickbank, allows you to zip through the grocery store saving time and money. Cents Off and Coupon Surfer are just two of many affiliate coupon programs that you could recommend to moms to save them money. Or you can sign up at Jigsaw to hunt for contacts within major food corporations to get coupons for your site.

No matter what your topic preference, trust that there are affiliate products available that will fit in with the news you write about. About 40% of Amazon’s sales are made by affiliates. Their affiliate program is free to join.

And if you are pressed for time or uncertain how to start building the information base of your site, don’t forget there are plenty of PLR products out there. (About a week ago I discussed PLR products and their uses.)

The one pictured at the top of this blog provides a useful list of 200 problem solving tips from getting a broken key out of a lock to removing odors with products already in the home.

Imagine the value in having a product like this to build a mailing list! Invite your readers to join your Tip-of-the-Week mailing list. The tips are already written. When you have the time you could add a link back to your site for your subscribers to read new content you’ve added or a product review.

You could create a Twitter account. Use keywords like Stay-at-Home Moms, Moneysaving tips, childcare, household budgets—whatever you primarily write about—and Tweet a tip there, including a link back to your opt-in page.

This product alone provides nearly two years of content!

You’ll find the complete package free at Success Book Club under Marketing to Work-At-Home Moms.

Work at Home Moms: Tales of two Michelles

2009-09-07T06:45:00.000-07:00

Michelle Shill is a work at home mom.

In 2004, she launched her first Site Build It (SBI) site Style Hair Magazine.

In 2007, just shy of her third anniversary online, Michelle was approached by a large media group to join their network of advertisers. Upon joining, ads from industry giants began appearing on Michelle’s site, tripling her income.

Michelle didn’t stop with just one SBI site. She also operates Beauty & Fitness Savvy and Discover Salt Spring Island.

Michelle Shill is just one of thousands of work at home moms who have found success online using SBI. In fact, her mother is now semi-retired because she too has launched several sites that she runs from a houseboat in Mexico.

Another Michelle in Pennsylvania launched her site in 2005 as an adjunct to her in-home decorating business. Her site had slick appearance loaded with pictures of some of Michelle’s outstanding remodels. While her clients liked the site, it never generated a single new customer for her. She took it down two years later to save on fees.

The Michelle in Pennsylvania had paid a programmer to build her site. Apparently he knew little about how to discover niche long tail keywords or Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Worse, the pictures that the site relied on had been taken by Michelle, often in poor lighting. As she knew nothing about programming, she had to pay the programmer whenever she added new pictures to her site.

With SBI you can do it all yourself without knowing the first thing about programming or uploading pictures (or video, for that matter).

SBI has brainstorming built in, so you don’t need to know how to pick profitable keywords. Just follow the simple instructions.

In fact, you don’t need to know SEO either. SBI comes with a full internet marketing course that teaches the fundamentals of SEO. Each time you upload a page, SBI analyzes it for SEO so you can make improvements right on the spot, which is why SBI sites rank higher in Search Engine Return Pages (SERPs) than other sites.

Michelle Shill writes, “Motivation was never an issue for me, but even the most motivated person can waste countless hours searching for answers on HOW to achieve their goals. The SBI package put it all in one place for me so that I could focus on the DOing rather than scrambling around trying to piece together the HOW.”

I mention these two Michelles because I know there are a lot of women wanting to be at home with their children or who are at home and wish for additional income.

Learn more about how you can work at home with SBI.

Free Review

2009-09-04T07:11:00.000-07:00

This weekend I finally had the opportunity to look up Chris Anderson’s much anticipated book “Free.”

Chris Anderson is editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine a much praised periodical that covers tech and current trends.

In 2006, Anderson published his book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More, in which he claims that many products in low demand can collectively exceed the sales volume of a few highly popular items.

In his new book Free: The Future of a Radical Price, the author argues that in a digital marketplace the most effective price is, well, free.

Anderson lays the groundwork for his book by talking about Monte Python. Apparently tech savvy geeks uploaded portions of the group’s films onto You Tube and other video sharing sites breaking about a jillion copyright laws.

Monte Python responded by uploading quality dupes of their material on their own You Tube channel. The result, they got millions of views and their movies flew off Amazon’s warehouse shelves. Anderson claims the group’s movie sales increased 23000%.

The idea of giving away something for nothing is a hard concept to grasp when your sole reason for starting a business online is to make money.

But nearly every guru out there will tell you that they did precisely that to get people interested in their paid services.

For other recommended business and marketing books be sure to check out Success Book Club.

Free Marketing Resources & Tools

2009-09-03T06:46:00.000-07:00

Here are more free resources and tools for online marketers.

Analytics

Clicky Web Analytics is available free for a single website. Clicky provides real time analytics of what actions each of your visitors make on your site, where they go when they leave as well as a host of other features.

Video Marketing

Jing lets you capture screens and create 5 minute videos for your STP website or other video websites.

ReelSeo is a great blog to subscibe to for video marketers. Stay on top of the current trends in video marketing.

Outsourcing Collaboration Tool

Huddle is a collaboration system that allows you to work with outsourcers. Say you live in California and you hire someone in the Philippines to create a series of articles for you to backlink to your website or blog. Your outsourcer can create an article and upload it into Huddle while you are sleeping. When you get up, you can sign into Huddle, review the article, make changes, or sign off on it. No more sending file attachments in email or wondering what your outsourcer is doing. Huddle supports up to a Gigabyte of storage space free.

Time Saver for Salespersons

Jigsaw provides a directory of business contacts for sales people. You can join Jigsaw Connect and get paid for sharing your contact that someone else is looking for. Primarily Jigsaw saves time by listing telephone numbers and email addresses for the decision makers you are seeking to contact.

Share your favorite marketing resource here!

Market Yourself

2009-09-02T07:32:00.000-07:00

I got a tweet last week that led me to the video below.

It is a series of scenes taken from the movie Pay It Forward that was released back in 2000 starring Haley Joel Osment, Helen Hunt and Kevin Spacey.

In the movie teacher Eugene Simonent (played by Spacey) challenges his class to think of ways in which to change the world for the better.

What does this have to do with marketing your home business? Everything!

Everyday tens of thousands of internet hopefuls launch new business websites and blogs hoping to make money. And everyday thousands of others give up, worn out and broke.

Why? Because they failed to differentiate themselves from the thousands of other home business owners grasping for the same dollars.

Internet business success is all about two things: trust and standing out from the crowd.

The “gurus” know this. Each year they launch new products and continuity programs. During their launch they give away a lot of extremely useful information.

These valuable giveaways create an image of trust in their customer’s eyes. And how they interact with the rest of us make them distinct in our memories.

While the idea behind “Pay It Forward” may seem trite and even foolish, I challenge you to watch it and see if you aren’t inspired to stop thinking about yourself, your personal goals, and think instead about the customers you hope to serve.

Home Business Success Starts with You!

2009-09-01T07:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I talked briefly about the importance of setting goals and sticking to them.

That said: it is important to know the steps you need to take that are necessary to completing those goals.

For example, many owners of home business startups are attracted to the idea of free promotion using social media.

Who wouldn’t be attracted to the possibility of linking up with hundreds if not thousands of people who share your interests without paying a cent out of your pocket?

But if you’ve taken those first wobbly steps onto Facebook or Twitter, you may have already noticed your network of friends on those sites are not retweeting your tweets or commenting on your Facebook blog. Chances are they don’t know what is involved in social media marketing and networking either.

Last year at this time, I was struggling to get myself organized. In particular, I was trying to put together all the social media marketing strategies I had gleaned over the course of nearly four months online.

My primary website had attracted fewer than 10 people the first month it was up. But as I started wading into social media sites, those numbers began to rise—dramatically.

I not only saw and reaped the benefit of maintaining a presence on specific social sites; I also realized I had collected a wealth of information on social network marketing that would benefit anyone new to marketing on the web.

I put that information together in what I call an all-in-one reference to social media marketing and networking. In fact, you can scroll down the sales page for my ebook Social Network Marketing and read the complete Table of Contents.

I guarantee it will teach you the principles and best practices of social network marketing and show you exactly what you need to do to get the job done. If you apply the information in Social Network Marketing, you can even turn a failing business around.

What my book won’t teach you is how to write or construct a webpage. But if you are a good conversationalist, Social Network Marketing lists resources for putting together videos and podcasts for little or no money to reach your target audience.

Is Multitasking in Social Media Marketing Dooming Home Businesses?

2009-08-31T08:43:00.000-07:00

Brian Solis recently posed the question Does social networking impair learning?

Solis, an author and head of a PR firm, cited a Stanford Study published this month, which found that multitaskers are “suckers for irrelevancy.”

Solis included this quote from the Stanford study, “People who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information do not pay attention, control their memory or switch from one job to another as well as those who prefer to complete one task at a time.”

If that were true, that would mean that most people trying to market their home business online using social media are wasting a significant portion of their time.

I suggest that the Stanford researchers did not include mothers of preschoolers in their study. Mothers must learn to multitask.

When my children were young, I could follow and participate in their play, handle the laundry (which included ironing in those days), prepare meals on time, pull weeds, touch base with friends and read a book all in a day—without losing sight of priorities.

Later, I applied that skill as an editor. Today I use that skill to use social media marketing to spread the word about my own home business.

I am still able to send birthday greetings to people in my social network, comment on other people’s blogs, discover marketing posts to tweet and retweet, post a blog 5 days a week, and add content to my primary website. I also post on social media sites.

Now that I’ve got the basics down, I can do this all in 90 minutes; although it took twice as long when I was starting out.

Getting organized, prioritizing your workload and avoiding distractions until you accomplish the basic goals you’ve set for yourself is essential to anyone—whether you are an employee in the brick-and-mortar world or working for yourself online.

With all the talk about ADD and ADHD, it is easy to blame “faulty wiring” in our brains for our lack of ability to concentrate, switch tasks and fulfill necessary obligations.

While I don’t doubt that there are some people who fit into this medical category, I suspect the majority of people who get sidetracked simply lack the skills and practice of recognizing what is essential to get done: focusing on the most important task, then the next and the next until they are completed.

This statement seems to confirm the Stanford study; but I assure you it is possible to multitask—switch from one task to another—and get it all done.

How to Use PLR

2009-08-28T08:21:00.000-07:00

Last week I received a direct tweet from Leon Ware asking me to look at this PLR site run by Leon Tunney & Mervyn Johnson.

For signing up I was allowed to choose up to 220 reports, tutorials and PDFs to download. Some came with Private Label Rights (PLR), Master Resale Rights (MRR) and Branding Rights (BR).

What do these rights mean?

PLR generally means you can edit the product, put your own name on it, use it as part of your website content, and, of course, offer it for sale.

It is important to look at the PLR License Text, which appears in a folder after you unzip the product. Some PLR licenses allow you to give the product away; others do not.

MRR lets you sell the product you just downloaded PLUS give your customers who buy the product the right to sell it, too.

BR lets you claim the product as your own and put your own affiliate link in it. Generally, but not always, the product includes software to let you accomplish this.

So what is the advantage of using PLR products?

First, they give you structured content you can easily add to your website.

Second, you can use them as a product to up-sell at a deep discount or give away as an inducement for opting in to your newsletter.

Third, not all PLR products are information products or pdfs. Some are software applications that can be handy for you or your website visitors.

Fourth, they can be offered as a reward for contests, given as gifts for joining your membership site, or given as a thank-you.

Fifth, you can reformat or repurpose an ebook into a PowerPoint slides and convert them to a video to sell.

Sixth, you can auction PLR products on sites like eBay.

What Happened to Autopinger?

2009-08-27T06:07:00.000-07:00

After posting my blog two days ago, I went to autopinger, a free service which I never joined but often recommended, to “ping” my blog post.

I got an error message—twice—and concluded the service was down.

Yesterday after posting, I returned to autopinger and this time got a message that I was not authorized to view the page.

Disgusted, I typed “free blog ping service”. I selected Ping 4 from the search engine results page and learned I would have to sign up if I wanted to use their service. Irritated, but pressed for time, I signed up.

As feared, I’ve gotten a couple of automated emails. One contained the information I would need to access their service, which did not work.

Another email led me to a 40-minute video with Google’s Michael Cutts talking about how to get page rank for your website or blog. In it he dispels myths about keyword stuffing and discusses exactly what the Google search engine looks for in determining ranking for your pages.

I let it play in the background while I got my emails out of the way. Even with my non-technical background I understood 98% of what he had to say.

I thought that video worthy of my website, where I maintain lots of free resources for home business owners.

If you are interested in seeing it, I’ve added it to my Small Business Classes page under the title How to Improve Page Rank.

As for autopinger, does anyone know what has happened to it?

Teaching as a Business

2009-08-26T07:10:00.000-07:00

What do the top internet gurus all have in common? They all run teaching businesses.

Brian Clark, founder of Copyblogger, teaches how to set up your own teaching business.

In preparation for the launch of his new course, Clark is giving away some excellent reports to whet your appetite. If you are in the “how-to” or self-improvement business sign up at Teaching Sells for your free downloads.

Teaching Sells was first launched in 2007. Maki, the writer behind DoshDosh (another of the internet’s top blogs), investigated Clark’s initial course, which has since been updated and expanded. You can read Maki’s 2007 review at Building Membership Sites: Teaching Sells review.

2-Step Wikipedia Link Strategy

2009-08-25T07:04:00.000-07:00

Do articles describing your niche, product or service appear in Wikipedia?

I received an interesting email last week with a marketing tip for creating a wikipedia link back to your site.

It caught my attention because if you are able to take advantage of it, you can create an authoritative backlink to your website without having to write an article!

1. Conduct a keyword search in Wikipedia to find out if someone has posted a relevant article to one of the information articles on your website. (Do NOT link a sales or opt-in page to a wiki page).

2. Create your own wikipedia account and add a link to the appropriate page on your website.

Suppose you are a copywriter and you have a website with an article that discusses the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) in writing for the web. If you type “copywriting” in the Wikipedia search engine, you’ll find an article that defines copywriting.

Toward the bottom of the page you’ll find a section called "See Also" with links that take the reader to related subjects within Wikipedia. I followed the link to an article describing SEO Copywriting.

At the very bottom of the page is an External Links section. One of those links took me to SEO Copywriting Tips.

Notice that the page briefly describes the elements of writing for search engines. The article also links to a copywriting course offered by the website publisher. But the link from wikipedia is not to the sales page for that course.

Whether you are selling a tonic made of exotic organic ingredients or offering information on how to make money as an affiliate marketer, chances are you’ll find an article where you can add your own link among Wikipedia’s three million articles.

Although I have not employed this strategy, I would recommend not creating more than a single backlink per week. If you suddenly added a dozen or so backlinks from Wikipedia to your site, chances are one of the many volunteer editors there may see this as a sales strategy and remove your links.

Home Business Marketing Resources

2009-08-24T05:42:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of free resources to help you market your home business.

Article Marketing

Articles from the following sites have been showing up in Google keyword searches. So if use article marketing, consider adding these sites to your list.

Articles Base

Article Gallery

U Publish

RedGage doesn’t require you to create a unique article: it allows you to syndicate content from your website, blog or Squidoo Lens. You can even upload pdfs!

eBooks

Are you thinking about writing and marketing your own eBook? Check out Successful Ebook Publishing that uncovers the process of selecting your topic to marketing it.

Are you thinking about writing a serious novel? Are you looking for feedback or collaboration? Look no further than Book Oven. Learn about the inspiration for this site and what you can hope to achieve at Book Oven Self-Publishing eBooks.

Forums

Do you use forum marketing? For those of you in the “making money online” or entrepreneur niche, check out Income Diary.

White Papers

Perry Marshall offers a free mini course: How to Write a White Paper, a useful marketing strategy for affiliates offering services or digital products. (Opt-in required).

Do you have favorite marketing resources you use to promote your home business? Share them below!

Why Advertisers Flock to CPA Networks

2009-08-21T06:55:00.000-07:00

Nearly 50% of all CPA network advertisers are recognizable companies like Blockbuster Video and Dish Network. They are looking to expand their market reach without a heavy dollar commitment.

Some of the CPA networks I listed Wednesday offer services like customer support for advertisers.

Should a small home business like yours be advertising through a CPA network?

The draw here is pay-per-action. Unlike pay-per-click advertising you only pay for the action you specify. So it you are paying for leads to build your email list, you could offer a dollar or less for each person who signs up to receive your newsletter.

On the other hand, you may be paying more than you bargain for. Read the terms of any CPA network you join. Some charge as much as 25% over the commissions you are expected to pay the affiliates.

Here are some reasons to consider CPA advertising.

• Poor ad performance. If your current PPC campaign is resulting in slow sales or poor response CPA advertising may help you improve your advertising campaign performance. CPA networks want you to succeed and may offer the advice you need to get your sales moving. Also expect experienced affiliates to study your offer. A major clue that your page or offer needs work is having few affiliates sign up to promote it.

• Testing an affiliate program. If you plan to offer an affiliate program of your own, using a CPA network is a good way to test without entering long-term contracts. Again, check CPA sites to find out what time commitment they require.

• Limited advertising budget. CPA-based advertising can be cheaper than PPC. First, you are only paying for a specific result. In PPC you are paying regardless of result. Just make sure any additional fees paid to the network doesn’t exceed what you are paying for PPC. You can access your PPC account at any time and stop it. That isn’t always the case with CPA.

Don’t forget Google has a CPA program called Google Affiliate Network for advertisers who qualify. When considering any advertising program, be sure to read the fine print.

5 Tips for CPA Affiliates

2009-08-20T07:33:00.000-07:00

This week we’ve explored CPA networks and how they work. Today I’ll offer five tips to getting your site accepted and producing the results you the affiliate publisher and advertiser want.

These tips can be applied to all forms of affiliate marketing.

1. Start with keyword research and minimum SEO. The primary keyword for your review page should be a long-tail search phrase. The keyword for your text link should come from the advertiser’s landing page and it should be worked into your copy.

2. Make your page simple and interactive. Keep in mind that your visitor should reach his destination in no more than two links.

3. If providing a review, use pictures or video to illustrate results but don’t include a picture of the product itself. People tend to skip over blatant ads and it is not the affiliate’s job to sell.

4. While your page ideally relates your experience with the product or service, ask for comments on Twitter or niche-based social media sites in which you are involved. Ask for permission to interview respondents about their experience with the product. Publish their comments, with their permission, on your site. OR disguise the user’s identity and use their comments as the basis for an article offsite about the product or opportunity you are promoting.

5. Always include a clear and identifiable call-to-action. “To find out more go to…” “To get started, sign up at… You’ll only be asked for your email address.” “To get your moneysaving coupon go to… and enter your zip code.”

Tomorrow we'll look at CPA network advantages for advertisers.

List of CPA Networks

2009-08-19T07:47:00.000-07:00

CPA networks act as brokers between advertisers and affiliates much in the same way advertising agencies operate offline but generate their profits differently. CPA advertisers and affiliates don’t pay for their accounts: the networks charge a fee for advertisers and sometimes take a percentage from affiliates. Check their payment plans. Advertisers can be charged as much as 25% over what they pay their CPA affiliates.

CPA networks often have built-in metrics to help you track your performance so that you can measure the success of your campaigns as well as making sure you get paid (or getting what you pay for if you’re an advertiser).

This list of CPA networks is by no means inclusive, but will give you a starting point if you aspire to get paid for cost-per-action as an affiliate.

Affiliate.com (formerly CPA Empire)

AZN (Azoogle)

Clickbooth

Commission Junction

CPALead

CX Digital

Hydra (HydraNetwork)

MarketLeverage

Neverblue (NeverBlueAds)

PepperjamNETWORK

Revenueloop

RocketProfit

XY7

CPA networks want their members to be happy and that starts with successful affiliates. You’ll find most of these networks maintain blogs that keep track of industry trends or training sections to help you reap profits from your promotional efforts.

What CPA Networks Do

2009-08-18T08:03:00.000-07:00

CPA networks or programs bring affiliates to advertisers that are willing to pay for specific actions.

Some advertisers pay for “email-submit” offers. The affiliate recommends a newsletter to their readers, provides a link to the advertiser’s opt-in, and gets paid for each person from their site who signed up. (I frequently recommend publications on this blog, but I’m not an affiliate of any of them).

Email-submit offers generally pay very little, but it is a good way for new affiliates to get started and learn the ropes of cost-per-action marketing.

Some CPA networks specialize in financial and investment opportunities. Others are more general. You’ll have to investigate each one to discover if your website, blog or readership fits with any of their advertisers.

Unlike the Clickbank affiliate marketplace or Amazon, you will have to apply to a CPA network.

Most require that you have website. Some will want to know how long you’ve had that website and how much traffic it generates.

CPA networks frequently conduct a phone interview with prospective affiliates. You might be asked how you intend to promote the network’s products and services. If you intend to use email, you may be asked how many subscribers you have. They will also want to know how much you spend on advertising for your own and other affiliate promotions.

You have to understand the value of CPA networks for advertisers.

With increasing regulation coming to the internet (spam, false claims, identity theft) companies want to know that their affiliates are playing by the rules. CPA network administrators help cut down on opportunists who might resort to underhanded marketing tactics that would reflect poorly on company reputation—or even force them to defend themselves in court.

Even so, not all the advertisers you’ll run across are necessarily good guys.

I’m sure you’ve gotten oodles of emails offering free samples of a product. You are only asked to pay for shipping and handling. Buried in the small print of that offer is the fact that you are actually subscribing to a monthly delivery of that product, unless you take some action to cancel it.

A variation of this is the 14 day offer. The company makes it clear that you are signing up for a subscription program in their sales offer. But the free trial product only arrives 10-14 days later, giving you little or no time to determine its value. The subscription kicks in and you are left paying for at least a month of the product even if you don’t like it.

Still another variation is the express mail option. For $6 or $7 dollars more, you will get the product in 48 hours. The actual cost of processing could be half that amount or less. It is just another way of getting money out of the customer.

Tactics like these are not ethical and the Federal Trade Commission is investigating complaints.

If you decide to become an affiliate for an advertiser on a CPA network, be sure to read the offer carefully. Not only read your agreement with the advertiser, but take time to go through their sales process to make sure that the sales terms are transparent and easy to understand.

The truth is as an affiliate you should buy and try any product or service you intend to promote. How can you reasonably offer a review of it or give it a recommendation without being fully aware of its usability and function?

What is CPA?

2009-08-17T06:41:00.000-07:00

In internet advertising, CPA stands for cost-per-action.

While you are probably familiar with pay-per-click ads where the advertiser agrees to pay each time anyone clicks on a particular link, advertisers using CPA only pay for specific actions.

For example, a CPA link could lead to an opt-in form on the advertiser’s site and the advertiser agrees only to pay for visitors who join his list.

Currently, signing up for a free sample of a product or a free trial of a membership site has improved conversion rates for companies. You can expect to find many of these opportunities offered on CPA sites.

CPA is really an affiliate opportunity. Again, the publisher/affiliate does not have a product; he is promoting or reviewing someone else’s product.

CPA networks help advertisers and affiliates get together and determine fit. For example, if you publish a gardening site, you wouldn’t want to offer freelance copywriting services.

CPA networks often run competitions for their affiliates. In addition to any commission you might earn for getting prospects to perform a specific action, you might also win a prize. I noticed one network offering an African safari.

Since there are at least three CPA tutorials being launched this week, I thought we’d delve into the ins and outs of CPA marketing this week.

Free Affiliate Marketing Publications

2009-08-14T07:16:00.000-07:00

In order to be a successful affiliate marketer, you need to understand the process of selecting affiliate products and marketing them. The more you read what successful marketers do, the better you’ll get at it.

Here are some free publications to help you keep on track.

Revenue Magazine calls itself a super affiliate site for online publishers and advertiser. It launched in 2004.

Anik Singal’s The Affiliate Classroom Magazine launched in 2005 and covers everything from SEO to affiliate programs.

The Affiliate Summit offers FeedFront, which launched last year.

All of these publications come in pdf format filled with interviews, advice and reviews of various affiliate programs. You can subscribe and have them sent to your email account or you can download your copy each month at their home site and perhaps avoid receiving other promotional material.

Each year The Affiliate Summit publishes the results of a survey of affiliate marketers. The 2009 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report is available free but you have to opt-in. You’ll find out how many affiliate programs 450 top affiliates promote, how many domains they own, whether they cloak links and how they select affiliate programs in the first place.

Timely Affiliate Programs

2009-08-13T07:20:00.000-07:00

As their kids head off to college, parents and friends want to keep in touch. Most often touching base with each other takes place over the phone. In the next month or so parents and out of state (or out of country) college students are going to discover the price tag for keeping that connection.

If you were around in the 80s you might recall prepaid calling cards that gave a deep discount to long distance phone calls.

Considering the expense of sending a child to college, your readers might be interested in cutting costs by as much as 90%.

If you are in the money saving or bargain niche check out these affiliate programs for prepaid calling cards.

• Calling Cards Affiliate Program

• Nobel Affiliate Program

Prepaid calling cards might be the financial relief parents with college students are seeking.

Affiliate Marketing Forums

2009-08-12T09:33:00.000-07:00

The problem with starting an online affiliate business from home is that you are continually bombarded with advice and offers but you don’t have a good enough feel for the business yet to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Do you really need to purchase that software; is there no free version that would help you accomplish the same thing?

You can often find the answer to questions like these on free forums. And if you are in affiliate marketing, you’ll want to visit forums in your niche.

In general, you’ll learn about the best affiliate programs, marketing concepts, and what you actually need to get started.

Membership and participation in affiliate marketing forums can also help you get known, find partners, and later locate buyers for your website. Links in your profile provide link juice for your website. Links in your signature help attract visitors back to your site.

This is by no means a comprehensive list, but these are among the most established free affiliate marketing forums online.

ABestWeb bills itself as having the largest membership of affiliate marketers online.

Associate Programs is slanted toward beginners and intermediate affiliate marketers.

Digital Point is actually a webmaster forum, but it is a good place to buy and sell domain names and websites. Also a good site for general and specific website tips that improve customer experience.

5 Star Affiliate Programs is a gathering place for affiliate marketers to discuss industry news and share insights and tips. Supports the Google Affiliate Network.

Get Paid Forum offers programs that pay you for taking surveys, clicking on ads, and reading emails as well as affiliate opportunities.

SEO Chat is primarily focused on improving SEO but it also has affiliate threads.

Warrior Forum is not the professional site it once was. There is an awful lot of screaming for attention here, but it was once the online water cooler for just about any marketer you can name.

WickedFire is focused on affiliate marketing and traffic building. Not really for newbies.

You’ll definitely pick up much more specific ideas reading posts in affiliate marketing–related forums than you will reading most affiliate blogs. Just be wary of the time you spend, unless you intend to use your membership as a marketing tactic, and don’t believe everything you read.

Narrow Your Focus

2009-08-11T07:33:00.000-07:00

Are you trying to compete with Amazon.com?

One of the toughest concepts for anyone new to marketing online is understanding the importance of keeping your products, services and information focused on a single market segment.

On one hand, we’re advised to seek multiple streams of income. The next guru stresses the importance of narrowing our niche.

These concepts are not mutually exclusive.

Say you ventured online to sell a health tonic. All the pages on your site should deal with that tonic: how it was developed, the research that supports the value of the tonic including comparisons of your tonic to other popular tonics, and the personal stories of those who use the tonic—including your own.

You might offer a free white paper about the ingredients in your tonic and use an opt-in form inside your download to create a mailing list. Perhaps there are books from Amazon you could offer as an affiliate that tell the story of the development of your tonic.

Just because the primary ingredient in your tonic comes from South America doesn’t mean you should be offering blankets woven in Peru! You have plenty of opportunities to create “multiple streams of income” with products related to your tonic.

Remember, the more topics you cover on your website, the broader the audience you attract.

You didn’t set up a website or online business to speak to the multitudes: you got online to sell your tonic. You want an audience that is looking for the benefits your product provides—not people seeking to learn the average annual rainfall in the Amazon.

People seeking general information are not looking to solve a problem or make a purchase. You want your website to attract prospective buyers for your product.

GM Teams with eBay?

2009-08-10T07:32:00.000-07:00

The big internet marketing news this week comes from GM.

According to Associated Press writer Rachel Metz, General Motors will offer Chevrolets, Buicks and Pontiacs on eBay in a trial program that begins tomorrow and ends September 8.

250 GM car dealerships, all in California, will participate in this trial program.

Bidders will be able to haggle over price, investigate financing options as well as determine if their current clunker qualifies for the government “cash-for-clunkers” program.

eBay users in California bid on vehicles or buy them at a fixed price. Winning bidders can pick up their cars at various GM dealerships around the state.

Marketing Strategies I Hate

2009-08-07T06:47:00.000-07:00

I began this week talking about upcoming coaching programs, "marketing secrets" videos that were devoid of secrets, and wondering who needs a luxury vehicle to get from Point A to Point B.

I’d like to finish the week with a marketing strategy I saw employed in two of these pre-launches.

First, I’d like to point out that I know I’m treading dangerous territory here. Some months ago (September 2008) the owner of Workaholics4Hire railed over endless upsells and “bonus whoring.” (Her words, not mine).

Actually, those weren’t her only marketing peeves. You can still download all three parts to Sylvie Fortin’s Internet Marketing Sins.

What bothered me this weekend was learning that part of what new subscribers would get for signing up for their latest program was their previous year’s product – free. One of those products had sold for $2000!

Why would anyone feel good about a $2000 purchase they made 12 months ago now being offered as a free bonus?

True, this year’s customers are still paying for this year’s marketing course, because that is what these launches boil down to. So last year’s product isn’t precisely free.

Still, it rubbed me the wrong way.

Six months ago a very well-known, well-respected internet marketing firm did something similar. They offered their original product free, with the purchase of their latest update.

At the time it made me wonder about the price of the original product. Was someone looking at the new offer while they were still paying off the original purchase on their credit card?

I’m curious to know what you think of this marketing tactic. Is it just me or would you feel cheated in some way if you had purchased an item only to see it being offered a few months later as a free bonus for some other product?

4 Home Business Killers

2009-08-06T07:08:00.000-07:00

Here are four business killers that will doom your online dreams. They are not prioritized; each one will sink a business.

Doing it all yourself.

While I write a lot about how to set up a home business website and put free marketing strategies to work, it is unnecessary and worse, actually dooms your home business if you try to do it all yourself.

When you start out on a shoestring like most of us, you do have to do the work yourself.

Performing page optimization, getting inbound links, publishing to article directories, adding content to your site, helping others on social networking sites, developing free products, and keeping an eye on analytics all teach you to identify the steps that help your business grow. You might even develop an eye for telling if those tasks are being done correctly.

But as soon as you start developing a list and selling products, you need to start handing some of the workload off to professionals. This frees up your time to take your business “to the next level” using advanced networking strategies.

Making unguarded statements online.

It is no secret that potential employers check around the internet to learn more about job applicants. We’ve read the stories about how unguarded comments regarding drug use and sexual behavior have led to perfectly qualified job applicants losing out on jobs.

The same holds true for online business owners. People considering purchasing a product or service from your site, may conduct their own online investigation to find out what others are saying about you.

Comments made on a social media sites live forever. It takes little investigation to discover your unguarded moments.

It isn’t just about confessing to outrageous behavior; you also don’t want to get caught in a lie online.

Exaggerating product benefits and lies of omission are two biggies that you won’t survive.

If your product is aimed at intermediate marketers, say so; don’t market to beginners. If your product covers four of five necessary steps to complete a project, say what it doesn’t do.

If there is a gap in your product, always tell the potential purchaser upfront.

Essential to any business is your online image of professionalism and honesty. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot with unguarded statements.

Having a victim mentality.

If you are always looking at the negative side, tend to blame others, feel that you are cursed by fate or that you are trapped by circumstances, you view yourself as a victim.

Victims do not seek alternatives to their current circumstances; do not view setbacks as challenges to be overcome. A victim doesn’t ignore naysayers and other non-supporters in their lives.

They truly believe they bought the wrong advice, lack the prerequisite talent, and are unable to get out from under the negative effects of a bad economy.

“Victim mentality is not a good thing under any circumstances, but it’s particularly lethal when applied to an entrepreneur,” notes Marty Zwilling of Startup Professionals, Inc.

Expecting quick profits.

If your goal is to make a million bucks overnight or even within the first year of launching a business online, you are setting yourself up for disappointment so staggering that you may not be able to overcome it.

Colossal disappointment saps your strength and determination. It makes it hard to push ahead and get done what needs to be done to build your business.

Chances are you won’t break even in your first year online.

Even if you are thinking more realistically about replacing your current income, just be aware it takes a lot of hard work: a large authority site, a trusted online presence, a list, and a network of affiliates with shared goals before you start making sizable profits online.

Most entrepreneurs make less than $100,000 a year.

Unreasonable expectations like the desire for quick profits tops The Small Business Administration’s list of reasons businesses fail.

What does it take to succeed in an online business? Read Web Economics 101 available at Personal Business Protection.org.

Measuring Engagement

2009-08-05T05:49:00.000-07:00

Social media marketing remains the buzz for now. Joining social media sites where your prospective clients are likely to be. Joining the conversation already taking place on those sites. Developing rapport and name recognition.

All of this takes time. A huge chunk of time. And what if none of the obvious indicators are taking place?

As we touched upon yesterday, just because you provide a way for people to comment on your blog doesn’t mean they will.

Just because we offer an opt-in to our mailing list doesn’t mean our reader is willing to sign-up.

You can use Google Analytics to tell which pages are getting the most hits and where readers click next. You can even measure the amount of time your readers spends on a page. All of these are good indicators. After all if you are getting 50 visitors to your site each day and over half of them click away in seconds you can safely infer there is something unclear in the message that brought them to your page in the first place.

This is where split testing comes in. If you change your headline or reorganize the information on your page will readers stay longer?

But you also need to know how often information on your site is being downloaded. Maybe you market to a busy audience, a non-contributing audience that does not willingly leave comments.

Do you know how many other sites are linking to yours? Those links not only tell Google something about the value of the information you are publishing but how others in your niche judge what you have to say.

How do you find that information about your site?

When you are starting out, free metrics are hard to interpret. Some aren’t even available to you until you’ve been up for a year. It was 12 months before I could check my site’s performance on Alexa, for example. Other services like Compete.com and Quantcast require their code to be added to every page on your site and only after months or a year will you start seeing your metrics.

A better choice for newer sites is Vistrac, which will let you add their code to 10 pages on your site and track the behavior of up to 500 visitors for free each month.

Patience is a virtue but it is in short supply within the internet marketing community.

That is one of the reasons why I recommend most people considering launching a home business get a job online instead. They aren’t glamorous; they don’t pay well; few offer benefits. However instead of wasting time and money investing in hosting, autoresponder fees, paid advertising and outsourcing with money and time you may not have, you could at least be bringing some money in to help out with bills.

Danielle is a work-at-home college student who recently published a Squidoo lens that offers numerous job sources online. Danielle also maintains a blog called Fast Recession Money.

For more online jobs, you can search Guaranteed Home Employment on my site.

Sales Stories | Advertorials

2009-08-04T06:31:00.000-07:00

Telling sales stories is not just one-way conversation anymore.

At one time I wrote advertorial pieces for The Tampa Tribune. Those were one-way stories that highlighted customer satisfaction and sometimes awards for local businesses.

It worked like this.

The stories were grouped under a “Focus on Local Business” banner. Each story ran 8 inches. If I was writing for a physical therapy clinic, I might interview a client, speak briefly about the conditions the person suffered and how specific therapists at the clinic connected with them to form a partnership for recovery. That interview would form the basis of the advertorial.

The stories were true. What readers did not always understand was that these stories were paid advertising even though the business address and phone number always appeared in each sales story.

What made advertorials effective marketing tools was the fact that potential clients could see the benefit of the service to real people who shared their predicament.

Our online readers may like the benefit of our product, service or action steps we report on. They may even the benefit from the story we shared. Some will be motivated to conduct further investigation on our product or service that leads to an eventual sale, but they won’t necessarily come back on their own to discuss their personal experience.

On the web, we’re seeking that two-way conversational as much as we want to make sales. We believe in our products and we want to our customers to share their successes. This is the basis of viral marketing.

How well did newspaper advertorials work for the advertisers?

Several Tampa businesses like an auto repair shop, restaurant, spa and an artist coop remained with us for years, others like physical therapy clinics and specialized dress shops did not, which tells me that the advertorial marketing concept doesn’t work for all businesses. And not every online advertorial campaign will elicit the comments you so desperately want.

By the way, advertorials are not news stories: the majority are opinion pieces. The word advertorial is derived from advertising editorial. You’ll find advertorial examples on the Info Marketing Blog, a great resource for advertising copy ideas.

Tomorrow we’ll look at how to tell if your social media marketing strategy is working for you and an alternative solution to generating an income online other than selling.

Moneymaking Secrets

2009-08-03T05:41:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I caught up on my email and learned that a couple of new high end programs are getting ready to be rolled out. Remarkably detailed videos on secret “million dollar business models” were part of the pre-launch.

Future subscribers will get keyword brainstorming software and other resources like fill-in-the blank sales letters.

There’s no “secret” involved in any of this. The “niche business model” has been around since the World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau of CERN in 1990, which was quickly followed by browsers and search engines.

Ken Evoy put together a package of website hosting, domain name registration, keyword discovery and optimization back in 1999. His company Site Sell is still in business. Anyone who opts for a Site Build It (SBI) website is treated to dozens of hours of video tutorials and thousands of pages of a complete internet marketing course that if followed is guaranteed to get you into the top three per cent of search engine results in your niche.

Yes, this is niche marketing. And I have a hard time understanding why newbie marketers are willing to pay five times what Evoy charges for other programs.

I liken it to the automobile. Essentially the automobile is a form of private transportation for most of us. Its sole purpose is to take us from one place to another.

We drive the vehicle, keep filling it with fuel, replace its tires and battery as needed, and it takes us where we want to go. Whether you drive a Cadillac or a Prius, you still have the opportunity to wind up at the same destination depending on your driving skills and maintenance.

On the internet people come to you rather than you driving to them. When they arrive, looking for information, they just want to find that information easily on a professional-looking site. SBI provides that visitor experience.

Unlike other marketing systems, you will find SBI is taught at countless community colleges and universities in many countries, including the US. Why? Because it is a rock-solid internet marketing course combined with step-by-step tutorials.

Learn real moneymaking secrets at a fraction of the cost of other programs with nothing extra to pay for to get your business found online.

7 Triggers to Yes

2009-07-31T06:06:00.000-07:00

Russell Granger, author of The 7 Triggers to Yes: The New Science Behind Influencing People’s Decisions, uses everyday examples of human interaction to illustrate psychological triggers at work on his Seven Triggers blog.

Today we're looking at how these triggers work in making sales decisions.

From sales to politics, imaging studies reveal that the brain relies on emotional factors over intellect when making decisions.

Granger defines these triggers as:

1. The Friendship Trigger
2. The Authority Trigger
3. The Consistency Trigger
4. The Reciprocity Trigger
5. The Contrast Trigger
6. The Reasons-Why Trigger
7. The Hope Trigger

(If you’re thinking that these “triggers” reflect Robert Cialdini’s “weapons” you’d be right).

How do these triggers motivate buyers?

Look at Hope. If you ask a prospective client what they hope for they’re going to tell you. You can use their answer to help structure your sales page or pitch.

Say you sell computers. You ask what brand they currently use. You ask when they purchased it. You ask: “What did you hope this computer would do for you [your business] when you bought it?” You simply state those features back to the buyer with the improvements that have taken place since his purchase. And you might toss in a feature or two of your product that could be important to a person in your buyer’s situation.

Maybe the current computer was a family computer, a machine that the kids’ used to do their homework; where the wife kept up with family and friends through email. It was purchased for price rather than for performance. Maybe there was no home business back when this computer was purchased.

Authority is important in any transaction. You need to be fully conversant with the features of older model hardware as well as software, cell phones or whatever your niche is. If it is true, tell your prospect that their previous purchase was a good one and why. When you explain the newer features of your product they’ll lean toward your recommendation because they will see you as a specialist, something we talked about Monday.

Authority also comes from knowing your figures. If you are offering a subscription product or asking for an investment you need to let your prospect know exactly what it is going to cost him and how much it is likely to save him over the product or service he is currently using.

Consistency is a discovery process. You find out how your buyer reached his buying decision for the product he currently owns by asking. If he cites Consumer Reports, then let him know what Consumer Reports has to say about your product. This keeps your prospect in his comfort zone.

Contrast your product against competitor’s products. Demonstrate how it saves money, time, or contributes to a better experience. Do NOT contrast your product with your buyer’s recent purchase. The message becomes: “You’re an idiot for buying that.” No one likes being told that they are stupid or gullible.

Friendship is a trigger cited by Brian Tracy; people buy from people they like. Liking promotes trust.

If you’re looking to become a friend, you can use the internet to discover what subjects your prospect is likely to tweet and the subject of photographs he’s uploaded onto social sites. If you share his interests let him know. If not you might say: “I saw your tweet a few weeks back on the President. I thought it was pretty gutsy. What kind of reaction did you get?” Or, “I saw your vacation pictures to the Grand Canyon. I’ve always wanted to go there. Have you got time to tell me what you liked best about it?”

Developing rapport is the first step toward friendship and trust that can lead to sales and even future joint ventures.

You’ll find Granger’s book at Amazon using my affiliate link below.

The 7 Triggers to Yes: The New Science Behind Influencing People's Decisions

What’s in it for me?

2009-07-30T06:47:00.000-07:00

It isn’t price. It isn’t a pretty webpage. It isn’t heavy involvement in social media.

Making a sale involves your ability to articulate to a prospective buyer or lead the answer to their number one question “what’s in it for me?”

You must demonstrate the value of your product for the prospect’s life or business.

Of course there are psychological triggers to help you get the job done.

There are actual words you can include in your sales pitch that will give you an edge as you explain how your product or service will improve your prospect’s present circumstances.

We’ve talked about the importance of asking questions on the phone or face-to-face to motivate the buyer.

Asking “can you see how my service fulfills your needs?” is a powerful one. It let’s you backtrack and provide additional information your prospect wants to hear.

Here are more powerful words and phrases to add to your sales script whether it is written or spoken.

Your prospect’s name, actually, please, thank you, because, what do you say?

“Don’t” turns into “do” in the customers mind.

Use “might” as in “You might want to try this out for yourself.”

The word “secret.” People love secrets. Secrets elevate the importance of information.

“Here’s a secret about this product: people often overlook this [benefit] until they start using it. Then they wouldn’t be without it.”

--or--

“Let me let you in on a little secret; if you buy tomorrow, you’ll get $50 off.”

Tomorrow we'll conclude this series on making sales with a look at 7 Triggers to Yes.

Getting Your Lead to Call You Back

2009-07-29T06:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we talked about making sales over the telephone for home business owners who cannot complete a sale or sign-up online.

There are four elements to concluding a business deal over the phone.

1. Be persistent.

2. Stay with the customer and follow-up.

3. Let your prospect tell you how to sell them by asking questions. “What is most important to you in this kind of product?” or “Now that I’ve told you about the top three features of this product, can you see how it would benefit you?”

And if you lose the sale or sign-up, ask: ”Is there anything I could have done that would have changed your decision?”

Not every customer will buy. But you can refine the information on your website contact form, possibly overcome a deal-killing objection and at least get some ideas about how to improve the outcome of your next sales call.

4. Prepare your customer for the follow-up. At the end of each call get your prospect to tell you what happens next.

When you follow-up, say “Hi, this is John, the purpose of my call is to hear about your partner’s reaction to my information from our last conversation. Also, I spoke with another account that made me think about your current situation and how our service [product] will [provide a solution for your current situation]."

What do you do when communications break down and you can’t reach your prospective customer?

• Depending on your potential profit, consider sending a pre-paid phone with your number programmed in. Include a message: “After 2 weeks of not hearing from you, I worry your phone service might be out.”

• Send a “minute”-product (that won’t make a mess) like a box of minute rice. Include the message: “I need the length of time it would take you to prepare this product. Give me a call at –“

• Fax your phone request. Businesses have fax numbers, why not fax a brief note requesting that your party call? You might write: “Did you forget our telephone meeting [Wednesday]? Please call me at 000-000-0000 at your first opportunity regarding [subject]. I need to know your decision this week.”

• It might have been Benjamin Hart who tells about including a crisp dollar bill inside clear plastic stuffed into an envelope along with a letter asking for a return call. Money never gets overlooked. You might refer to it as “a penny for your thoughts – after inflation.” Tactics that stand out from the rest of the pack increase the chances of getting a callback.

Tomorrow we’ll look at the single most important ingredient for closing a sale whether it is online, on the phone or in person.

Rules of Phone Sales

2009-07-28T07:20:00.000-07:00

Not every home business sale relies exclusively on internet communications. Sometimes you have to pick up the telephone!

Simple rules for making sales on the phone

Always establish the best time to call. Assuming you have spoken to your prospect, ask for the best day and time of day to call back. If your lead comes from an opt-in form, include fields for anyone requesting a call to supply that information.

People form an impression of you within seconds of initiating the call. Speak well. Don’t hem and haw.

Start the conversation with a positive statement. Don’t talk about products or sales. Make a statement that piques their curiosity.

Sample Service Call: "Hi, [name], I’m [your name] and I’m calling to determine if I can save you money with your current custodial costs."

Sample Product Call: “Hi, [name]. I’m [your name]. You requested information on how to save money on your electric bill. How may I help you?”

Sell by asking questions. Ask for their pains and needs, before you give your presentation.

Have a clear objective for your call. Is it to identify the qualification of the speaker, make an appointment, or get a commitment to what is going to happen next?

Always ask your prospect what has to happen next. Sometimes your lead needs to speak to a spouse or business partner. Repeat that action back to your lead and ask “when you’ve talked to your partner [spouse] you’ll be ready to make a decision? When would be a good time for me to get back with you?

Tomorrow we’ll talk about the prospective customer or lead who doesn’t call you back and whom you cannot reach.

Writing for Business

2009-07-27T04:52:00.000-07:00

Take a look at the literally millions of marketers vying to make sales online. Yes, you are just one in millions with more arriving on the internet daily.

The way to make a sale is through marketing: promoting a product, service or even ourselves.

Promotion involves branding, linking, and networking through social sites through the written word.

Even if you use audio or video, that script begins with the written word.

We marketers are advised to publish content daily to add to the size of our digital footprint to turn the chances of getting found in our favor. If you think about it, when someone arrives on your site it is a miracle.

For instance when I launched my site last year my “niche” had 16,000,000 competitors! Heaven knows what that number is now. But I have managed to get a steady stream of growing traffic to my site and break into the top 3% within 9 months.

Going into content publishing with the mindset of promotion can undermine your publishing efforts. Visitors don’t come to my website or blog to buy: they are looking for information.

But the sales mindset often causes us to publish continual information about our products; in short, sales pitches.

When you stick up a new sales page do you tweet about it? Is the link in your Twitter profile a sales page?

This is not the first page you want your Twitter network to see. It is a turnoff.

Make Yourself Known for Service

If you introduce yourself as a specialist providing information adapted to specific related subjects you’ll be rewarded with customers.

Give your readers the gift of straightforward information about your niche.

Offer the equivalent of a service in your articles. You can accomplish this by teaching them something about your niche.

Each information article and how-to should be followed up with a link to even more information about that subject.

This additional information can be linked to a download.

For more on writing for business, see Four Viral Marketing Tips.

Websites that Build Traffic

2009-07-24T07:30:00.000-07:00

All week we’ve been looking at how to attract thousands of interested visitors to your site using various traffic building strategies.

Today I'll give you a quick tour of some traffic building sites to give you ideas for improving your own site. Be sure to look at these pages in View Source or Page Source mode to see their optimization techniques.

Board Game Beast ain’t pretty but its daily visits rose from 42 on May 11, 2009 to 5,612 (of which 4,878 were unique) on July 11, 2009 according to its SBI site owner Ashley Cotter-Cairns. As you can imagine, her profits skyrocketed, too. How did she accomplish this? Not through advertising. She added 80 pages of content all developed around a single game. Takeaway: Quality content attracts traffic.

Freelance Switch; social site for freelancers with advice, training and job boards. You can see why Freelance Switch’s focused content keeps visitors on the site exploring pages. The site receives between 110,000 and 165,000 visits per day. Most traffic comes from the Google search engine. Takeaway: Current conditions play a role in boosting traffic to specific niches.

PSDtuts is optimized for “Photoshop Tutorials”. Part blog, part free membership site and part paid membership site, it is just months old but on a good day attracts as many as 13,200 visitors. Takeaway: Domain names don't matter as much as page optimization in getting visitors to your site.

Smashing Magazine uses a Wordpress platform for its mash-up of blog and website. An average of 143,000 visitors from the U.S. searches the site each month. There are about 26,000 who currently receive site updates through subscriptions to the site. Takeaway: You don't have to choose between a website, blog or membership site. Incorporate all three.

Storenvy is a site that enables users to build a free online store. Another community site, it averages 3,722 visitors daily that click on an average of 57,215 pages. Takeaway: Be wary of not owning your own domain. While the site owner is getting plenty of page views, what about the individual store owner in this super mall?

TrendHunter.com was launched a year and a half ago by Jeremy Gutsche after he left his job at Capitol One. It now receives as many as 1,000,000 views per day. If you examine his marketing model you’ll discover he used article marketing (managed to take and hold the top three positions on Yahoo Buzz! every day for nearly two months) and invested heavily in social media sites like Facebook, which is appropriate for his media niche. Takeaway: You can build a highly profitable online business without a product and without paying for traffic.

Get More Newsletter Subscribers

2009-07-23T05:25:00.000-07:00

When you launch a new business on the internet no one has heard of you. You can have the greatest products in the world, but without a relationship of trust, few people will be willing to get out their credit cards.

This is where email marketing and newsletters come into play. People are unlikely to revisit your site even if it is a great one. But they will open emails with intriguing headlines that speak to their problems and interests. Over the course of 6 to 10 emails containing useful information, trust is built and you are more likely to earn a customer from your subscriber list.

But getting your website visitors to opt-in to your newsletter is also a slow process, particularly if you are only getting 100 or so visitors per day to your site.

So is there a way to get more newsletter subscribers faster?

Last week Troy McDonald launched ListCrew, a free project that networks business owners in such a way that brings more exposure to your newsletter.

Martin Avis explains in this video how ListCrew might possibly help you.

Martin Avis Testimonial for ListCrew.com from Troy McDonald on Vimeo.

Interested in learning more? Visit ListCrew for details.

Current Traffic Boosting Strategies

2009-07-22T07:28:00.000-07:00

What strategies are currently being employed by e-business owners to boost traffic to their sites?

Lee Odden of TopRank Online Marketing published the results of a recent survey of 500 internet business owners to find out what strategies they were using to bring more traffic to their sites. This is what he learned.

• Blogging (34%)
• Microblogging (Twitter) (29%)
• Search engine optimization (28%)
• Social network participation (Facebook, LinkedIn) (26%)
• Email marketing (17%)
• Social media monitoring & outreach (17%)
• Pay per click (14%)
• Blogger relations (12%)
• Video marketing (10%)

How does blogging help increase traffic to your business website? By publishing current news that relates to your niche, you can incorporate links back to specific pages within your website. This serves the dual purpose of bringing traffic back to your site and creating links that search engines look at when determining the authority of specific pages on your site.

How can Twitter help increase traffic? Presumably those people in your Twitter network share your niche interest. When you tweet your latest blog post or other content members of your network who are online and see your announcement may take the time to read what you have written. If they find your content interesting, they may choose to retweet your link.

How does search engine optimization help bring traffic to your site? By selecting popular search terms for your keywords, you improve the chance that someone seeking your product, service or information will locate you when they use a search engine.

All of these strategies for boosting traffic to your site are well-known to successful marketers. There are no “insider secrets.” Getting traffic boils down to publishing useful content on a consistent basis and making that content easy for readers to spread.

Spread Your Content

2009-07-21T06:41:00.000-07:00

This week we’re talking about increasing the number of free visitors that come to your website or blog. Yesterday we looked at two elements that absolutely must be in place on your website. If you missed it, please read Get More Free Traffic.

Every page on your site should provide the opportunity for readers to share your content. This means adding RSS feed to your business website. Basic RSS is included in many blog platforms.

Know where your content will attract interest.

Add buttons to make it simple for readers to spread your content to social media sites like Better Networker, if your niche is MLM, or Sphinn, if your niche is marketing.

I would suggest an artist establish an active presence and provide links to niche sites like DeviantArt or Tribe.net.

Don’t ignore other social media options like tweeting new content on Twitter and updating your social networking sites. Bigger businesses than yours like Dell and Zappos attract many customers outside of their regular pay-per-click campaigns by simply maintaining a presence on social media sites.

Open your content to conversation.

While blogs immediately come to mind, websites can integrate comments onto any page. Family History Products and Everyday Wisdom, both SBI sites, grow with each story a reader submits. Owners of these sites can optimize the comments and even add pictures. Each comment adds a separate, new page to their sites. Thus this website grows with little effort on the part of the owner – he only has to approve it.

Learn more about user-generated content on SBI sites that help you grow your site and customer base.

Get More Free Traffic

2009-07-20T06:55:00.000-07:00

This week we’ll be looking at ways to get more free traffic to your website or blog.

Troy Janisch, writing for WTN News, calls this strategy “sweat dollars”: investing in SEO and content to attract visitors to your site.

Adding to your customer base is part of the daily marketing strategy home business owners should employ everyday.

This time investment includes adding fresh content at least weekly to an established e-business site; oftener on a blog platform. If your website is new, you need to be adding content daily. Adding a blog feature to the site simplifies syndicating your content.

Getting found, getting more traffic starts with a plan. Just as a magazine plans its feature articles months ahead of publication, you need to develop a list of features, subjects and products you will be covering on your site.

Once you have an idea of where you are taking your website in the next two-to-three months, you’ll want to create a publishing schedule. It is so easy to veer off course with your marketing plan, especially when you are new to internet marketing.

Here are two points to review before tomorrow’s post.

1. Is everything on your site -- categories, art, primary products, affiliate products – related to each other?

2. Are your page elements optimized? (Each page on your site should have a primary keyword and related keywords sprinkled throughout your text. Likewise, graphics and videos need to be tagged with your primary keyword. Your page title, headlines and text links should contain keywords).

I mention these because I received an email last week from a self-employed artist asking for advice about getting more traffic to her site.

Let me share what I found on her commercial blog.

I discovered that none of the perfect photographs of her artwork were keyword tagged. The search engine spiders, which determine what your page is about, cannot currently determine what pictures, video or audio elements are about. You have to tell them with keyword tags.

In its current state, a prospective customer using the search engine to locate the subject of a painting, jewelry or pottery won’t find hers because she failed to use tags to tell the search engine spider that hers exists.

With the exception of her headline she had written nothing. She let the photographs of her artwork “do the talking.” Sorry, you need content, at least 150 words with keyword rich descriptions to describe a product.

Remember, she is marketing from a blog.

What shows up when someone stumbles upon your blog? Your last blog post.

Interspersed between this artists’ blog posts of photographs of her creations, were photographs of her family on vacation and household celebrations. While these are nice to share, they should be on a separate blog site. Perhaps a link to family activities could be included in the “About Me” section of her business blog. And a link to her business blog could likewise be included in her family site.

Once you’ve incorporated the SEO and focus to your e-business site you’ll be ready to follow the tips I’ll be sharing the rest of this week to get more free traffic to your site.

Resources for Solopreneurs, Affiliates and Home Business Owners

2009-07-17T07:14:00.000-07:00

Here are some useful websites for solopreneurs, affiliates and home business owners.

Blellow is a social network site for solopreneurs and freelancers looking for jobs, to collaborate, and find solutions to technical problems often in real time.

Similar to Twitter, comments are limited to 300 characters.

At Freelance Switch you’ll find a job directory for freelancers along with advice and resources.

Affiliate marketers unsure of the best keywords to use in their text should consider signing up for the Niche Chick’s daily “niche package” which includes a niche, active groups in that niche, and keywords to include in your copy.

The Niche Chick’s latest blog Using Twitter for SEO is worth the read and the sign up for her daily “niche” picks is right below it.

If you owned a brick-and-mortar store, you’d know immediately how many potential customers entered your premises each day, how long they stayed, what percentage of visitors bought, what merchandise grabbed their attention and what they ignored.

Online, Google’s free analytic tools monitor traffic on your business site. However, understanding how to set up Google analytics and understand the information it returns is confusing to first time business owners.

Worse, Google’s help articles are often vague. I wish they’d hire a teacher to rewrite all their help notes into useful, actionable steps, but that isn’t likely to happen soon.

Smashing Magazine reports on how to use Google Analytics in easy-to-understand, nontechnical terms.

New Pew Study: The Internet and the Recession

2009-07-16T07:36:00.000-07:00

A new study entitled The Internet and the Recession has been released by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Among its findings is that 69% of all Americans have used the internet to hunt for bargains, jobs, ways to upgrade their skills, better investment strategies, housing options and government benefits. That translates to 88% of all adult Americans.

The survey, taken between March 26 and April 19, 2009 was just published this month.

The average American is using two-to-three sources of information to make sense of what is happening and to plan personal coping strategies, the study found. They have joined networks to talk about the crisis. 2% of them have joined financial groups on Facebook and have posted comments on Twitter.

Of this hard-hit group, 46% had fulltime jobs, 13% worked part-time, 19% were retired and 17% were unemployed.

Still, of this group only 18% hunt online daily to find ways of achieving the goals listed at the top of this article. Pew found that bargains and job-related searches lead the types of information being sought.

52% of all Americans have been hurt by the current economy. Whether the economic impact comes from loss of investments, loss of value in their homes, loss or reduction of benefits or job loss, the Pew report shows there are millions of American adults seeking solutions in this economy.

Think about your niche and how it might benefit your internet neighbors. Can you point them to legitimate jobs, provide skill training, or give strategies for getting everyday items for less money? What about sharing cost-saving alternatives to everyday items? If you are retired and have had experience in investments, you know the best places to protect assets. Why not share those strategies. Or how about teaching others to generate income online?

Jacqui Cheng, who first reported on the Pew study, The Internet and the Recession, wondered, “Surely other parts of the Internet are experiencing a growth in popularity thanks to the downturn too, such as video sites and online gaming. After all, people need to blow off steam (and do it cheaply)—we're willing to bet that people watch multiple YouTube videos for every job search performed. You know, for balance.”

Does Sales Copy Have to be True?

2009-07-15T07:21:00.000-07:00

Last month Mike Whittaker sold his 25-year old washing machine in an online auction for $5,160.

How was that possible? Imaginative sales copy.

Mike claimed his noisy Kelvinator washing machine once shook so violently that it ripped a portal to another time dimension!

The washer, which was auctioned off on New Zealand’s Trade Me on June 18, captured reader and media interest because of wild claims Whittaker included in his sales description.

The purchaser could not reasonably believe that the seller had actually seen a dinosaur peering at him through a time portal. Nor could the buyer reasonably believe Whittaker’s other claims like the one about the temperature of his laundry eerily dropping unnaturally during wash cycles.

Jeff Sexton wrote about a $7 pack of Pokemon cards that sold on eBay for $103.40 due to an imaginative sales story.

Claire Zulkey is experimenting with a fictionalized sales story in her eBay auction for a Fred Flintstone Pez Dispenser.

Is this trend likely to catch on?

Mike Whittaker’s washing machine got over 800,000 views and wound up on television.

Whether Whittaker’s results provided inspiration for Significant Objects (launched last week) is unknown, but if the creative muse is restless in you, visit the site for ideas for unloading unwanted household items on eBay.

I think the real take away here is that exciting, imaginative copy captures attention and is viral in nature.

Marketing Trends | Relationship Marketing

2009-07-14T07:59:00.000-07:00

A new trend is surfacing in internet marketing circles. It is called relationship marketing, a strategy aimed at keeping customers. And it really isn’t new at all.

Relationship marketing originated offline in the days before commercialization of the World Wide Web. Today this form of marketing is aimed in part at overcoming trust issues caused by marketing mavericks that once promised much but delivered little.

Six years ago you could construct a mini-site, one of those never-ending sales pages, invest a few hundred dollars in AdWords ads and watch people swarm to your site.

Heck. Entrepreneurs are still building that kind of site and some hucksters out there still promoting moneymaking schemes that are based on the mini site; lots of mini sites.

The internet has matured, thanks chiefly to Google and other search engines that demand quality from the sites they recommend to people conducting online searches.

Internet customers have gotten a lot savvier, too.

To get your e-business to show up in the search engines today, you need to provide quality content both on your site and off. That is unless you are willing to spend money on advertising and want to be constantly building new sites with fad products that capture the imagination of customers for a few months before falling off the consumer radar.

Six years ago the goals of internet marketing were to get found and make sales. Essentially those goals have not changed, but the strategy today is toward building a business that will grow in the coming years.

These goals are being achieved through relationship marketing that puts emphasis on customer retention and satisfaction.

Relationship marketing is just what it sounds like: developing a relationship with a prospective customer, one that is built on trust and respect. Once the prospect becomes a customer, the business continues to nurture that relationship.

On the internet, the main currencies of relationship marketing are information and service.

Offsite articles, a robust blog, apt postings on niche social sites and a website rich in information, resources and products related to your niche are the cornerstones of relationship marketing with email providing the ongoing engagement between business and customers.

Email campaigns have rules

2009-07-13T07:38:00.000-07:00

Getting people to sign up for your newsletter is considered the Holy Grail of internet marketing. Why? Because nearly 40% of all sales that take place online can be tracked back to an offer made in an email.

The Email Experience Council, part of the Direct Mail Association, recently asked Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook email holders to define spam.

76% of the participants identified spam as “Any email I didn't ask for, even if it's from a brand I know.”

What do these survey participants do with email in their inbox? (Participants were allowed to check more than one action). 71% of the participants said they'd delete an email they don’t want. Depending on the content 39.3% said they’d mark it as spam or junk and 39.3% said they’d unsubscribe.

First Rule: Don’t spam. Even with a double opt-in your subscribers will quickly opt off your list if you email them daily.

Second Rule: Target your message. If you are an affiliate marketer, it is tempting to send news items about all the products you offer even if they are unrelated. Don’t.

Third Rule: Have a reason for emailing. Is it to build your authority and trust with a reader you hope will become a customer sometime in the future? Or is it to notify existing customers of sales, product releases, and changes to existing products or services? Keep these email lists separate.

Fourth Rule: Keep it brief. Instead of including an entire article in your newsletter, consider including the headline and first paragraph with a link to the full article on your website.

Fifth Rule: Eye candy. Your email should stand out from the crowd not only from the standpoint of content, but it should have eye appeal, too. Don’t overdo it, but have a colorful banner and a picture that personalizes your content. Offer your emails in a choice of text and html formats.

Sixth Rule: Send email at least on a monthly basis to your list so they do not forget you.

To add viral marketing to your email, be sure to read Four Viral Marketing Tips.

For more ideas on getting your readers to help spread your message check my full series on Viral Marketing.

Viral Marketing Explained, which includes a video interview with Seth Godin.

Elements of a Viral Marketing Campaign: three components that must be part of any viral marketing campaign.

The Viral Nature of Video. This includes links to both free and paid video software from my book Social Network Marketing.

Add a Survey to Increase Leads and Profits

2009-07-10T08:13:00.000-07:00

Surveys help you create content about the benefits of your products or services by tailoring your articles and blogs to your potential customers’ needs.

Surveys can uncover the words potential customers use to define their problems or the solutions they seek. You can turn those phrases around to create headlines that attract more readers.

Surveys can be employed on your website or blog. You can post a link to them from Twitter or any other social media site. You don’t need thousands or even hundreds of responses to get a good feel for what your audience is seeking to learn.

As your survey results start coming in, start creating your side of the conversation. Just as if you were meeting face-to-face with the respondent, explain one benefit of your product or service without actually naming the product or price.

This is article marketing, which is the lead generation portion of your marketing plan.

You are not selling. You are branding yourself as a credible resource by sharing useful information. This begins the trust-building portion of your marketing plan.

Your articles can appear off-site in free article directories, as posts on your blog, or as thoroughly researched reports on your website. You should consider using a combination of all three.

Each offsite article links back to a specific page on your website. These backlinks add authority to that page.

You can decide to link to a sales page, but if you are unknown as most small business owners are, your best choice is to link to a downloadable report.

Within that report you add an opt-in for the reader to receive other reports you have prepared.

Email allows you to establish a relationship with your prospective customer.

We’ve talked about email marketing before and looked at the mix of messages along with the frequency of mailing.

You can sign up for a free trial of Survey Monkey. The company’s tutorials will teach you how to get the best results from your survey. You can later opt for the paid version, which runs about $20 a month. You can cancel the service at any time, which makes this a small investment in a tool that has the potential of increasing your leads, improving your relationship with prospects and leading to greater profits.

Key Elements of a Working Website

2009-07-09T07:14:00.000-07:00

Your website speaks literally speaks volumes about your home business. If your current bounce rate is high, study these four elements then take another look at your website through fresh eyes.

1. The appearance of your website should be clean and consistent.

That means no flashing images, few small graphics, and colors that blend together.

Unless you have a children’s game site, you should avoid blinking images. Use graphics only where necessary and keep them small so that your pages load quickly. Colors can contrast or blend, but usually muted colors are less distracting.

The same banner and navigation features should appear on every page.

2. Your content should be easy to read.

While “content is king” internet surfers want quick solutions to their pressing problems. Make sure you keep your paragraphs short. Numbering and bullets help draw the reader’s eye down your page. Subheads also keep the reader’s eye moving.

Keep your page background pale, preferably white, and your font easy-to-read.

Fonts and headlines should be consistent from one page to the next.

Incorporate keywords into your text, but read your article aloud to be certain it makes sense. Sometimes “keyword stuffing” leads to awkward or senseless sentences.

3. Simplify site navigation.

Generally you have a navigation bar on each page that can take a reader to the top page of major categories on your website. But add linked text within your content, too.

Not only does internal linking help your visitor locate additional information on the subject he is researching, but it helps the search engines understand how the pages on your website fit together.

The anchor text of each link should relate to the primary keyword of its destination. These often appear within the text but may also appear at the end of an article.

Correct use of anchor text: Learn more about starting a home business.

Incorrect use of anchor text: To learn more about starting a home business, click here.

“Click here” is not a keyword!

One last word on site navigation: your visitor should be able to locate the information he is seeking in no more than three clicks.

4. Your pages should load quickly.

By sticking with a simple appearance and a limited number of small, properly tagged graphics, your pages should load fast.

If you have a lot to say on a subject, break the document into smaller chunks on multiple linked pages.

Here’s a tool you can use that will let you figure out page weight or size of any page on your site. Page size should never exceed 64K. Professional website builders recommend a far smaller page – 15K to 25K!

Still Uncertain Why Your Bounce Rate is High?

Use 4Q website survey to learn from your website visitors why they came to your site and if they found what they were looking for. It's free.

Finding Your Niche

2009-07-08T08:21:00.000-07:00

Without a doubt, failure to thoroughly research a niche before setting up a website or blog is the single biggest reason for online failure.

I witnessed a wonderful example of this in one of Eric Holmlund’s lessons where he investigated the UFO market. (Who of us wasn’t addicted to the X Files?) His research took his students through the entire gamut of UFO topics including Area 51.

But while there were hundreds of thousands of pages on these topics and there were thousands of searches conducted each month about aliens and unidentified flying objects, few people were offering anything for sale related to this subject.

In short, there is enough free information available online to satisfy people’s curiosity about this subject. UFOlogy is not a profitable niche.

Chances are whatever niche you are interested in pursuing is already crowded with competitors. Does that mean you should give up before you start? No. It makes no sense to pursue a niche where people aren’t currently making money.

Can you improve your chances of success before you commit to a niche? Certainly!

Conduct research before you publish a website. This phase is called brainstorming. Your research will help you decide upon a niche and discover the best keywords to use as you later write your articles or tag your audio recordings, videos and graphics.

Keywords are how your audience finds your site.

If you are planning to launch your first internet business, there is no better place to start than Site Build It (SBI).

You don’t need to know html (the language of web pages) to get started. And SBI includes the most comprehensive package of brainstorming tools on the internet – tools that others pay a hefty subscription for.

Make money online by choosing a profitable niche and profitable keywords. Learn how to develop content prospective customers want to find. Provide a professional looking business site that inspires trust and is easy for your visitors to navigate.

Learn more about getting and growing traffic with an SBI niche site.

Finding Leads

2009-07-07T07:12:00.000-07:00

Leads are the lifeblood of any business and a portion of each day the home business owner should be looking for customers.

One technique for finding leads for your products is “profile fitting.” This is a technique employed by B2B companies but you can adapt it to your own use.

Use search tools to locate people who have expressed an interest in your primary keywords.

For example, if you are selling copywriting services, conduct searches on “advertising”, article marketing, website content or variations on the word “blog” in Twitter.

Once you identify those talking about your subject, visit their website or blog. Learn their subject. Determine if and how your service could help them.

Even if they appear to be adding regular quality content, a brief timely message like: “Ready for a vacation? Let me write your [blog]” could produce business.

Or you could write: “Let me develop 5 new inbound links for you this week.” In this promotion you would offer to publish 5 articles in different article directories on the client’s subject that link back to a specific page on his site.

Make finding leads part of your daily routine.

Outsourcing | Dealing with Creative People

2009-07-06T07:23:00.000-07:00

Some of the goals I set for myself in setting up my online business had to be outsourced.

I’ve been online over a year now and I still cannot program a page. I selected a webhost (SBI) that provided a “block builder” so that I could publish a website without knowing html.

But I wanted a different look for the sales page for my ebook Social Network Marketing, so I had to hire someone to create that page for me.

As for the ebook itself, I wanted it loaded with features like live links that were attractive and took advantage of current technology. So I outsourced it, too.

When you contact someone to do the creative work for you, they are not sitting idly waiting for your email or phone call. They are already busy with other projects. And if you aren’t clear about your timeframe, you can end up extremely frustrated.

If you hang around internet “water coolers” where freelancers hang out, you can hear the common threads that run through their conversations.

Programmers, copywriters and graphic artists are unlike most of us. They are creative. And dealing with creative people in an effective manner to achieve a good outcome is unlike dealing with a virtual assistant, for example. (A virtual assistant can be a creative individual, but that is not why you hired her or him).

Mark McGuinness has written numerous articles on how to manage creative members of your staff. Some of his advice is commonsense, but he adds a slant to motivate those creative contractors we home business owners must turn to from time to time.

First, set goals for your project prior to entering a contract. Actually, those goals should be part of any contract you make with a freelancer and the freelancer should provide samples to show he can accomplish them.

Second, the goals should have squirm room. The creative person doesn’t necessarily want to hear “The header should be a black silhouette of children at play against a medium gray background.”

Let the artist do his job – which is to find the most effective way to create, in this example, your header.

Instead, you might say, “I see the header containing children at play, possibly in silhouette. The header should reflect the idea of children and playground equipment without distracting readers from the headline.”

Creative people want input into the process.

Third, your goals should be tied to a timeline.

Fourth, when you receive sample art or copy, reply immediately. If you let those samples sit in your inbox for hours you tell your freelancer that his timeliness is not valued. You are setting your project up to run over deadline.

Five, avoid changing the rules. Sometimes your freelancer will hit you with a powerful suggestion that makes you strike your forehead like a character in a V8 commercial and wonder aloud: “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Before agreeing to any major changes in the job ask yourself: will this change improve [sales, opt-ins, keep readers on the page longer, open rates]?

Ask the freelancer, how much will this cost and how will this change affect the time schedule.

McGuinness has written a 58-page report on how to Motivate Creative People (Including Yourself) which you can download free at Success Book Club.

Crafting an Irresistible Offer

2009-07-03T09:10:00.000-07:00

Your offer is the single most important element of your sales message.

All week we’ve been talking about sales writing: from how to construct a sales story, crafting headlines and effective sales copy to examining actual words that motivate sales.

No matter how well you construct these other elements, your success hinges on your offer.

The sales offer answers the buyer’s two basic questions:

What am I buying?

How much does it cost?

The first question is easily answered if you’ve followed previous advice about targeting your ideal buyer. That means you have identified his problems and provided information and research on solutions through an ongoing dialog.

You are offering a solution to the reader’s problem for a price.

Correct pricing is more difficult to determine. If you are selling an information product, you could investigate the price tags on similar products but it won’t really help you decide on a fair price if the other products are being offered by well-known marketers and you are the new kid on the block.

Of course the obvious question your buyer has is can he get his money back if your product doesn’t deliver the solutions he’s seeking.

It goes without saying that you should always offer a full money back guarantee.

But you can take this guarantee further. You can call it a “full refund, no-questions-asked” guarantee. This puts the buyer’s mind at rest about having to run a gauntlet of questions to recover his investment.

You can also increase your likelihood of finalizing a sale with free samples. For example, if you are selling a subscription to a newsletter, give your prospect 72 hours to comb through back issues archived on your website.

If you are offering a paid membership site, give the prospective member 24-hour pass to explore your site.

If you are selling a video course, send the first video for the cost of the dvd and mailing. Include a form that tells the customer if they mail it back in 30 days, they will cancel their order for the remainder of the course.

Cheaper and less complicated would be to offer a free download of a sample of your video or information product. A chapter from your book or a segment of your video course will convince prospective purchasers of the value of your offer.

This concludes our week long look at sales messages.

Words that Make Sales

2009-07-02T06:29:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of words that have proven to motivate sales.

Mistake
Because
Free sample
Free trial
Hidden
How, When, Why
If…Then
Secret
Test
Win

Be completely honest in all your sales messages.

This cannot be stressed enough. From you own perspective selling to someone who has already bought from you is much easier than developing new clients.

For that reason alone, you want to avoid hyped up claims about what your product or service will do for your customer.

Always acknowledge your personal weakness and flaws or the gaps in your product first before you tell about your strengths or the benefits of owning your product.

Your sales prospect is completely familiar with sales messages. Make your sales message stand out.

Don’t treat him like an idiot by making extreme claims. Avoid using hackneyed and red-flag* words like these:

Amazing
Awesome
Best ever
Greatest
Incredible
*Last Chance
*24 Hours

Leave red-flag words out of your headlines in your emails. Red-flag words signal a sales message. Even people on your list are not necessarily in the mood to read another sales message.

How to Construct Your Sales Story

2009-07-01T07:09:00.000-07:00

How you construct your sales story is as important as the story itself. Today we are going to see how we can adapt a lead qualifying strategy from major corporations to our own sales message.

The reason for writing sales copy is to make a sale. Duh. But some sales are more complicated than selling a How-To book, for instance, particularly in B2B.

B2B products are often expensive and require input from various departments. So the first questions a corporation asks is: am I addressing the correct reader; who are the decision makers in the buying process; where are these people in the buying process?

It’s good to adapt a qualifying process to your own sales strategy even if you aren’t selling high-end equipment.

Do you recall the first rule of sales? Write what your reader wants to know about.

Instead of blasting out product details through a press release or article and hoping the reader will take a link back to your sales page, pose a single problem your product solves and tell how it solves it without mentioning your product.

Then identify additional problems your product solves followed by links to various opt-in pages on your site.

After each additional problem, ask would you like to learn more? The value to this targeted marketing is that any additional information you provide is tailored to the specific interest of your reader.

Remember, your customer is interested in solving his problem. He has an appetite to learn solutions to the problem that is plaguing him.

You can apply a similar strategy on your website.

Instead of directing your readers immediately to your sales page, direct your readers to a short survey of True or False statements keyed to each specific problem your product or service solves. Each answer leads the reader deeper into your website. Along the way, the reader is actually qualifying himself for the purchase.

Can your prospect sell himself?

The answer is yes. Seth Godin advises marketers to create a sales story that the customer wants to hear: one that lets that customer persuade himself that he wants to buy.

Arrange your sales story in such a way the reader convinces himself that you understand his problem and that you are an authority on his problem.

Tomorrow we’ll look at specific words that engage readers in the sales process.

Sales Headlines and Postscripts

2009-06-30T07:13:00.000-07:00

Today we will look at the importance of headlines and postscripts in your sales copy.

Your headline motivates your reader to follow a link to your article or open your email. A good headline taps into fears, desires and curiosity.

Examples of good headlines are:

21 Days to Quit Smoking

6 Secrets to Growing Healthy Roses

I Lost 7 Pounds in 7 Days

How to Clear Up Your Complexion in 3 Days

The #1 Mistake in Sales

Your headline must be true and your sales copy must contain part of the information promised by that headline.

Following the headline “How to Clear Up Your Complexion in 3 Days” you might write:

Three days before my senior prom, I was devastated when I woke up with pimples on my nose and above my eyebrows. How was I going to get rid of them by Saturday night?

Of course I could try masking them with makeup but I knew the bumps would show through. No, I needed to get rid of those lumps.

I was brushing my teeth when I first saw those horrible red spots and I can’t tell you what made me try this, but I…

The Postscript

The P.S. is a popular tactic for briefly repeating your Call to Action, providing instant gratification, or bonus.

Example:

P.S. If you buy [this product] right now, I’ll also send you my report How to Eliminate Weeds for the Entire Growing Season: Using common household products to keep weeds from reemerging.

Sales Copy

2009-06-29T06:50:00.000-07:00

My recent posts have focused on making sales online. We’ve talked about branding yourself as an authority. Previously we looked at article marketing and key elements of landing pages and opt-in pages. Last week we looked at elements of email campaigns.

This week we’re going to examine more closely your sales copy.

Sales messages have two underlying rules:

1. Write about what your reader wants to know about.

2. Even if your sales copy appears on a page of your website to be seen by hundreds or thousands of readers or it appears in an email going out to tens of thousands: write to a single person.

Your sales copy needs to start at the point where your reader is. Think of it as a conversation already taking place in your reader’s mind. Just as you won’t have success trying to convince an adult male without an infant in the house to purchase disposable diapers, you need to present your sales message to someone who actually needs whatever it is you are offering.

Keeping these two rules in mind let’s look at the elements of sales copy.

1. Your lead paragraph needs to provoke curiosity or fear.

Examples:

If I told you that you could add $300 a month to your current income without spending a dime for a one-time investment of less than an hour of your time, would you be interested?

If your preadolescent child is 10 pounds overweight today, research shows he will be 25-30 pounds overweight by the time he reaches his 20s. Obesity leads to low self-esteem, emotionally abusive personal relationships and a host of diseases that on average shortens life an average of 15 years.

Are you embarrassed by personal body odor?

I just got back from a conference in Denmark attended by world renowned specialists in the field of skin care and have learned a promising new treatment for acne.

Three years ago my sister died of breast cancer. If her doctors had this report, she’d be alive today.

Tired of your baby waking up in an hour or less of being put to bed for the night? I was, too, until I found this excellent advice from a leading pediatrician.

2. You need to articulate a proposition.

Examples:

If you will read this page in its entirety I will tell you exactly what steps you need to take to start seeing extra income in your PayPal account in as soon as a week.

If you can devote 35 minutes a day to your overweight child, I will tell you exactly what you need to do to help your child achieve and maintain a healthy weight for the rest of his life.

All people are not created equal. Some of us have a lifelong battle with body odor. Let me show you how to get off those expensive prescriptions with their devastating side effects.

If you will take 5 minutes to fill out this survey, I will send you a link so that you can download my latest report entitled “How to get your baby on a schedule.”

Tomorrow we’ll look at two more elements every sales message should have.

The Affiliate Sales Story

2009-06-26T05:54:00.000-07:00

Seth Godin, founder of Squidoo and author, once defined marketing as “the art of telling a story that a consumer wants to hear, that lets them persuade themselves that they want to buy something.”

The sales story has three features:

• A product consumers want

• The story has to be true

• The story has to be so remarkable that people who read it want to pass it on

Select products in your niche worth talking about.

As an affiliate marketer, you can choose virtually any category of products on the internet.

Whether you stick to one of the top-three niches: health/wellness, relationships/dating, and investments/making money, or choose a category based on your interests like travel or consumer electronics, you will have success so long as you follow the rules of online marketing.

All week we’ve been talking about the sales process. Please review them for ideas on establishing authority, sales triggers and using email to make sales.

Free Resources

The New Rules of Sales Enablement by Jeff Ernst. Written for sales managers, but excellent ideas for anyone in sales. Free download.

The New Rules of Viral Marketing: How word-of-mouse spreads your ideas for free by David Meerman Scott. Free download; no sign up.

Successful Email Marketer’s Handbook. Offered by MailerMailer.com. Free download; no sign up.

Last but not least, read Mashable's previous advice for setting your sales story apart from the rest of the affiliate herd; Social Media Gimmicks.

Email Marketing Campaigns

2009-06-25T06:52:00.000-07:00

Research tells us that six-to-seven interactions need to take place between sellers and customers before a sale takes place. It is unlikely your potential customer will return to your website that many times.

This is where email marketing comes in.

According to Eric Groves of Constant Contact, you should tailor your mailing lists.

As an example, Groves pointed to the travel industry. He maintains that people travel for a variety of reasons including business and pleasure. He believes hotels should develop one email campaign for families and another for couples. A third would be geared to the business traveler.

Web publishers could start the targeting process at the point of email sign-up, but if you have a single customer (say, business traveler) you can create tracking links within your emails to see which subjects get more clicks from your readers.

In a survey of email recipients MarketingSherpa found that 58% of those who stop reading or unsubscribe cite "lack of relevance" as a key factor. (Another complaint was that they had received too many communications from a single company).

Groves went on to say that “open rates” are difficult to gauge. For instance more people are accessing their email from Blackberries and iPhones. Right now that kind of access cannot be measured.

Email Structure

• In general, if your business or product is not well known, the “from line” should be your name @ your domain.

• Use images to breakup text. Just as you would for a web page, use plenty of white space.

• Give your reader a choice between reading your email in html or text.

• Include a “forward to a friend” link.

• Include a link to a reference library on your website with good articles, videos, podcasts and third-party research so that your customers will recognize you are the “go-to” authority in your niche.

• If you are emailing a newsletter, use a compelling headline and a single paragraph for each article followed by a “read more about [primary keyword] link” back to your website.

Consistent prospecting followed by direct, meaningful conversation between you and your prospects and customers are vital to successful email marketing.

For more information on email marketing get Turning Emails into Customers: Email Marketing Starter Guide offered by MailerMailer.com. Free download; no opt-in required.

Psychological Factors in Sales

2009-06-24T07:33:00.000-07:00

We’re talking this week about the psychology of sales.

Jens Thang once wrote “higher credibility lowers barriers.” Customers prefer to buy from people they know and trust.

The psychology of sales begins with establishing your authority. That authority comes not from talking about your product or service, but by giving truthful, verifiable information in your niche.

The path to authority begins with the question: who can I help?

In social media we have abundant options for interaction: public social sites, niche sites, Twitter, commenting on blogs and in forums. We’ve discovered the importance of listening – not just to find out what problems our customers needs solved, but finding the terms they use to describe their problems (to add to our keywords).

When you identify a problem and provide a free solution, you activate reciprocity, the feeling of obligation that is triggered when someone does a favor for us. We are likely to talk about random acts of kindness with others. Favors make us willing to do something in return. That “something in return” might be as simple as signing up for a mailing list or agreeing to provide a testimonial.

People place value on what is rare. Scarcity is a common psychological trigger in sales. “Only 14 copies remain,” is one example. But another is the unique offer. “This is the only ebook currently available that walks you step-by-step through making slides and converting them to video.” You can also point out the benefits that will be lost if they miss the deadline for signing up today for your [class, membership site].

Introducing limited availability of an offer discourages people from clicking away from your page and forgetting about your offer.

Trustworthiness also ties into authority. You must be regular in posting to your blog and replying to comments in a timely manner.

In face-to-face negotiations you can ask what the client most hopes to achieve without tying that question to your particular product. Once you’ve heard their aspirations you can talk about how your product or service will fulfill all or part of them. If your prospect states three desired outcomes and your product only provides two, start by telling them “this product won’t [make you rich overnight] but it will [list the benefits].”

Trustworthy people never fudge; they admit to not knowing and confess their mistakes.

Provide safety. This principle ties into trustworthiness and authority. Be available and be nice. People as we learned yesterday are looking for solutions to their problems – so provide solutions, not lectures. When people feel safe with you, they like you.

Safety extends to your landing pages and squeeze pages. Always add a disclaimer beside or under your opt-in box that email addresses will not be shared or sold. Always offer a full money back guarantee on any product you sell.

Social Proof is what others have to say about you or your product. Most commonly they are testimonials about your product that you include on your sales page. But it can also be a link to an article that someone has written about you.

Psychology Makes the Sale

2009-06-23T07:31:00.000-07:00

This week we’re talking about the psychology of sales.

The National Business Association (NBA) recognizes that purchases are motivated by impulse or emotion. Only later do buyers apply logic to explain the circumstances of their purchase decision.

The NBA advises marketers that the people they connect with, those potential leads, want desperately to be understood and cared about.

The language you use in blog posts, articles and even ads must address a specific need. And you must convey the feeling that you care about the person who finds himself in that dilemma.

Then the follow-up article (landing page or squeeze page) must articulate that need and provide a clear vision of the solution.

The University of Alabama offers a course in The Psychology of Sales that teaches how to relate to customers on their own terms.

“Market to their needs,” Lynne Richardson, Ph.D., professor and associate dean of UAB’s School of Business, advises students.

Kevin Wilke and Mike Gill use terms like “diabolical tactics” and “mind control” in their sales copy for Joe Sugarman’s ebook Triggers. Descriptions like these can backfire. Immediately I think about car salesmen who traditionally use high pressure to get customers purchase vehicle models with upgraded options they don’t need.

Wilke and Gill further claim “You can initiate your prospect’s buying sequence at the snap of your fingers when you know the secret codes known as "triggers".

No wonder there is so much “buyers’ remorse” and debt in this country!

“Initiate your prospect’s buying sequence at a snap of your fingers” creates the impression that if you can get your sales message in front of someone, anyone, they will be unable to resist buying your product.

All you need to know are “the secret codes.”

The word “secrets” has been a long-time motivator. We curious humans want to know the “inside” facts, that story behind the story.

Just think about all the time people spend reading about celebrities, even the unlikeable ones. NBC devotes more than an hour a day of network programming to getting the “inside scoop” on famous people.

Mario Lavandeira developed the commercial blog Perez Hilton (and subsequent fashion line) around celebrity secrets.

Curiosity is innate in us. We are prone to believing in conspiracies and secret knowledge. The word “secret” indeed speaks to volumes that trigger our imagination and desire.

Salesmanship is a two-edged sword. What you offer can either be a blessing or a curse in the buyer’s life and budget.

Will Instant Gratification Get You?

2009-06-22T06:38:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I wondered what it is that draws people to investing hundreds if not thousands of dollars in get rich schemes and avoid the reliable advice about building an internet business given for free by companies like HubSpot.

Or what about StomperNet’s 30 Day Challenge – which is mostly free. The 30 Day Challenge teaches you the technical aspects of everything you need to know about SEO, market research and building blogs and websites. Participation in this class series also helps you develop a schedule for accomplishing your goals.

Even ordering an inexpensive book or two from Amazon would put you far ahead of the game, but instead I hear about people who have wasted as much as $17,000 in “formulas” and still not have a sustainable online business.

I decided to look at the psychological side of the get rich quick equations.

For example, how do people afford to spend hundreds of dollars each month on continuity models like clubs and magazines?

Presumably their sole purpose in building a business from their home computer is to support themselves and/or to get out of debt.

Speaking of debt, Psychology Today reported that Americans owed $455 billion dollars on their credit cards at the end of the 90s, or about $7000 on average.

By 2007, that figure had risen to an estimated $790 billion, according to the Center for American Progress. More than a third, 35% were routinely late: that means paying extra fees.

Part of the motivation behind paying for lunches, dinners, the latest business formula with the credit card is the desire for instant gratification.

According to Psychology Today “our inability to make sacrifices now for greater future rewards and our desire to take the path of least resistance” is all part of our need for instant gratification.

In its report Hope, Greed and Fear: the Psychology behind the Financial Crisis published in April by the Wharton school of business these three emotions led directly to our national economic crisis. (This report is available in pdf and audio format).

What, besides emotions coupled with lack of education, would motivate you to enroll in an online program that promises to teach you how to grow your own online business in hours or days when you have had no previous technical experience, or have a life history of hopping from one project to another, while you are already collecting unemployment and can no longer meet your credit card obligations and, in some cases, even your mortgage?

This week we'll be delving into the psychology of sales and engagement.

Why Home Businesses Fail

2009-06-19T06:30:00.000-07:00

This week I shared some of the highlights from HubSpot’s Inbound University, a series of free online classes teaching best practices of social network marketing: using social media to engage customers and make sales for your home business.

Although I was unable to attend all the classes, I certainly appreciated the examples of business websites that are getting inbound marketing right.

When I run across valuable information like this for free, I wonder how it is that so many home business marketers continue to invest so much money in schemes, secrets and overnight riches. Worse, I wonder how they hope to succeed without learning the basic rules of internet marketing.

The other day I was making notes on my website and reread one of the first reports I wrote. I called it Web Economics 101. In it I gathered a lot of data to help the reader determine if he or she should even consider starting an online business from their home computer.

One of my resources for that report was The Small Business Administration (SBA) and its list of Top 7 Reasons Businesses Fail.

As I reread the list, I saw a correlation with a piece Mack Collier posted earlier this year on his blog. Collier was a guest professor this week at HubSpot’s Inbound University.

Collier’s insightful piece was entitled Six reasons why no one likes you online. I strongly recommend that you read this if you are dissatisfied with your current level of conversions.

You think of monetization first headed Collier’s list, which relates to the SBA’s Wrong Reason (tied for top position in their list of why businesses fail).

“Entrepreneurs who venture into business on their own to get rich, to gain more personal time, and/or to escape an employer telling him what to do will quit in the first year.”

It is probable that impatience, lack of education, and unrealistic expectations attract people who are destined to not only fail in their home business endeavors but will add to their credit card debt.

(You can read my full report online or download Web Economics 101).

Building Community

2009-06-18T06:11:00.000-07:00

This week I've been covering highlights from HubSpot's Inbound University series. The third class -- Social Media and Building Community -- was taught by Chris Brogan of New Marketing Labs.

Principles of a Successful Community

Chris defined a successful online business community as one that connects people, builds better relationships, and generates loyalty and leads. A successful business community leader does not push products or drone on about his accomplishments.

So what do you talk about?

Chris advises you first learn to listen so that you can speak to the subjects and concerns of your target audience. He walks you through the process at http://www.chrisbrogan.com/grow-bigger-ears-in-10-minutes/ Grow Bigger Ears in 10 Minutes.

Advice on community engagement:

• Don’t be the cop; let the community lead the conversation.

• Be grateful, humble.

• Don’t use your community to do things for your product.

• Celebrate your customers with kudos; pass along business customers’ valuable information, bookmark their posts.

• Create Walls of Fame that recognize contributors to your community.

Chris advised getting started on established communities. Think of people online as a nomadic tribes, always being attracted to new meeting places. Watch for opportunities to shanghai members to your own community.

Equip people to be more successful. Give your audience good tools, good information for free.

Set goals. Measure results.

Finally, he told us not to outsource community interaction. “If your customer is the most important resource for your business, do not let a third-party handle and cultivate your relationships.”

Good Community Examples

Chris noted that Dell’s Idea Storm community was a superior blend of community engagement and marketing.

Work Shifting.com is geared for people who work from outside the traditional office.

Tools

Chris recommended these tools to facilitate your social network marketing:

BatchBook is a monthly subscription service to maintain information about individuals and manage your social network; track your to-dos and communications, send email, and customize data you gather with your own tags.

Visible Measures measures video views, even discovering what parts of the video is most watched. Paid service. They also publish the previous week’s top videos. You can watch these for free and perhaps integrate ideas for your next video.

Listening tools:

Open a second Twitter account to follow only those people who you find worth listening to.

Scout Labs' paid service offers social media monitoring across all social networks to find out who is saying what about you, your business or your product.

Quibble

None.

For more ideas and resources for starting your own community site or simply getting started in an established on community sites within your own niche get my social media reference book Social Network Marketing.

Business Website SEO

2009-06-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

Lee Odden of TopRank Online Marketing taught the second Inbound University class that covered SEO Crash Course to Get Found.

Odden launched his class with an April 2009 comScore report that found 14 billion people conduct searches everyday with more than 63% using Google – a persuasive argument for organic search and SEO.

Example Sites

Smart-Kit an online game site broke 300,000 visitors a day after applying SEO techniques. The company accomplished this in just 6 months after launch.

Odden went on to compare the Adidas website which does not appear in the first 100 search page results for the term “running shoes” with Patagonia that appears in the number 2 search result for the term “outdoor clothes.”

The search results vary because of SEO techniques that are applied to pages. (Google is looking for content in addition to any pictures or video on a site. Adidas’ home page is just a gallery of pictures with little content and poorly optimized text tags like “shop here” which fails to give search engines enough information about their subject).

SEO Tools

Lee Odden recommended using SemRush a tool similar to SpyFu to discover your competition and see what keywords they are optimizing.

Odden also suggested trying Eric Miraglia’s Page Inlink Analyzer to discover how many inbound links you have to a particular page on your site as well as how many links that linking page has coming into it.

Page Inlink Analyzer showed for example that I have 325 links (far above the norm) to a blog post I made last month that was distributed in an industry newsletter.

Basic Rules of Business Blogging

• Make sure your content is added on a regular basis. Just like blogs, you need to continue to add to your content. Add RSS.

• Make sure your pages and content are optimized as well as the text links between pages.

• Make sure all your content is related to your niche. (Don’t write about baseball if you are educating the public about and selling birdseed).

• Strive to get inbound links from other sites. Make this an ongoing commitment.

• Set goals for your site and regularly monitor your results.

Quibble

Odden did not talk about the importance of including Google’s relevant keywords in your copy, which is basic to getting your content understood by the search engine.

Effective Business Blogs

2009-06-16T07:04:00.000-07:00

Did you sign up for HubSpot’s live Inbound University being held this week? The first seminar was presented yesterday by Ann Handley of Marketing Profs Ann and Mack Collier. Their hour course covered How to Blog Effectively for Business.

If you attended, let me know what you thought about the information covered. I’ll cover the points that stood out for me.

General Information on Business Blogs

Blogs allow you to quickly publish content and get feedback on that content.

Collier tells business owners that if you don’t maintain a blog then you won’t have a say in the conversation taking place online about you or your business.

This is not too important for newbies: chances are no one even knows about you, much less is talking about you.

Before you blog, know it takes time to create consistent posts. There is nothing worse than having a customer come to your blog and seeing the last post is months old. Know too that you need to interact with commenters in a timely manner.

They recommended Wordpress for people who are comfortable with coding.

Examples of Business Blogs

They shared some examples of successful business blogs.

I liked the idea that the Best Western blog talks about travel and Carpetology talks about interior decorating – not motel rooms or carpets.

This approach increases their readership by attracting a larger audience.

Think about it. By bringing news about your larger niche, you can still promote your own subniche (like motel rooms or carpeting). Chances are a person contemplating a vacation is likely to be interested in a place to stay. Likewise people interested in redecorating a room are going to consider flooring.

You could provide banners for your product in the sidebar to induce readers to visiting your sales site without ever employing a sales message within your content.

Collier suggests optimizing your blog sidebar to increase reader participation like Twitter comments, polls, and video.

Quibble

Their main advice was to provide useful information for your reader, but the presenters really didn’t talk about how to discover your audience’s interest or concern when you are starting out. They recommended using polls and posing direct questions to readers, but that isn’t particularly useful when you don’t have commenters in your readership or you’re only getting a few people even coming to your site.

Tweeting for Business

2009-06-15T06:43:00.000-07:00

Nielsen Online recently looked at the number of people using Twitter. In February 2008, approximately 475,000 people had signed up for Twitter; a little over a year later 7 million people had accounts on the microblog.

Harvard Business School professor Mikolaj Piskorski wondered how Twitter was being used and if there was something in it for businesses.

Like Joel Comm, who has written a couple of books on the Twitter phenomenon, Piskorski looked at companies like Jet Blue, Dell and Comcast.

Jet Blue, an airline, uses Twitter to notify customers of schedule changes and even gives links to advice on packing. Comcast addresses customer complaints on Twitter.

While these successful Twitter campaigns increase income based on savings in customer service divisions for these companies, does social media actually generate sales for small business owners?

I looked at a report published this May by Knowledge Networks, another online marketing research firm, for a better idea of how social media can be used for selling products or at least generating warm leads to your primary website.

This survey was generated from users of a variety of social sites, not just Twitter, but the results are useful. The question posed to survey participants was: "How often do you refer to social media websites or features as a resource for information, reviews, or recommendations when in the market for [category]?"

Proportion of Social Media Users Who Turn to Social Media
When Making Purchase Decisions
(by Listed Product/Service Category & Frequency)

The first number listed is the percentage who "regularly" use social media for purchase decisions; the second number reflects the percentage who "sometimes" turn to social media.

Travel or travel services: 4%, 24%
Banks or financial services: 4%, 10%
Clothes or shoes: 3%, 23%
Eating out or restaurants: 3%, 21%
Cell/mobile phones & service: 2%, 21%
Personal care products: 3%, 15%
Cars or trucks: 2%, 15%
Groceries or food: 2%, 13%
Prescription or OTC drugs: 1%, 10%

Offline businesses are building customers on Twitter. In March, National Public Radio reported that a food cart business in Los Angeles generated lines of diners traced to their tweets on Twitter.

But I don’t own a restaurant. Nor do I run a nationally recognized company like Dell. Probably you don’t either.

You may need to modify your expectations about what you hope to gain from your time on Twitter and other general public social sites.

To help you track your Twitter impact, Andy Jenkins of Stompernet recommends a new third-party application called PeopleBrowsr. It enables you to create and save complex custom Tweet searches, reply, direct message, and retweet all in one click.

PeopleBrowsr comes in three levels: Lite, Advanced and Business.

Once you set up your free account, check the video button at the bottom of the page to see tutorials on using the features of each level. Features include being able to set up groups, find who retweets you, running reports and creating your tweets in advance to publish automatically on a schedule you select. You can change your level Lite-Advanced-Business at any time.

Measuring Your Blog Reach

2009-06-13T07:31:00.000-07:00

Douglas Quenqua, writing last week for The New York Times, covered the downside of blogs.

As a home business owner, you know the hype attached to blogs. There isn’t a “guru course” on the market that I’ve seen that doesn’t include the recommendation of including a blog as part of your internet marketing strategy. In fact, I devote an entire section to blogs in my social media marketing book: Social Network Marketing.

Quenqua’s article included results of a 2008 Technorati survey that found that out of the 133 million blogs the company tracked only 7.4 million blogs had been updated in the previous 3 months. “That translates to about 95% of blogs being abandoned,” Quenqua concluded.

Not all bloggers entered the blogosphere to sell something. Many were if fact just keeping a public diary. But the trend toward moneymaking blogs has risen astronomically in the past few years.

One of the bloggers Quenqua interviewed was Mrs. Nichols, a 52-year old stay-at-home mom. She is just one of many who were intrigued by an infomercial that promised “mommy bloggers” could make $4000 per month from their home computers.

Despite being a professional writer, Mrs. Nichols’ blog generated very few comments. Within months she became disheartened.

Unfortunately reader comment is no indication of how many people are actually reading your blog.

A better indication of readership would be to add analytics to your blog. Quantcast offers simple copy-and-paste code that you can add to any blog that even gives you demographics of your site visitors that makes it easier to tailor your message.

Rate Your Marketing Efforts

2009-06-12T08:10:00.000-07:00

When you start marketing online, it is difficult to judge precisely how well you are doing. You really don’t have enough website traffic to monitor. Last year SEO experts advised waiting until your site generated 100 hits a day before testing elements on your website. Now some recommend waiting until you get 200 visits per day.

In the meantime we internet marketers exploit the free marketing available to us through social media to gain recognition and spread our message.

Personal branding -- becoming known and respected in the marketplace -- is important to your success, just like getting your page elements right.

You may not have enough traffic on your website to measure yet, but there are free tools you can use to track your “branding” progress across the social media sphere that will help you determine if your current marketing approach is working; and if it is likely to pay-off in the future.

Social network marketing – using free social media sites and tools to carry your business message -- is something I know about having written a complete reference on the subject.

Some of the tools I use are:

Topify emails me requests to follow, perform direct messages and even notifies me if someone stops following me on Twitter. Topify provides an assessment of Twitter behaviors of people asking me to follow them.

When I recommend a news item (related to marketing) on Twitter, I use bit.ly to shorten the URL. Under the submission box is a history of my recommendations and how many people clicked on that link. This gives me a clue about whether others find my input into the "conversation" interesting.

TwInfluence rates the overall effectiveness of your Twitter interactions based on the size of your current network.

Online ID Calculator measures your name recognition and response across the entire social media sphere.

If you use these tools and graders and discover you aren’t doing as well as you had hoped, learn to tailor your message effectively at Inbound Marketing University. Some of the most successful social network marketers online will be participating in this 5-day course that starts June 15, 2009. There are no fees.

Can’t attend the live sessions? Sign up anyway. The live content will be archived.

Stop guessing about whether or not you are using social media effectively to promote your business. Grade yourself using TwInfluence and Online ID Calculator. If you see room for improvement, then sign up for HubSpot’s free Inbound Marketing University.

“Transform the Lives of Your Readers”

2009-06-11T06:34:00.000-07:00

Or so Rajesh Setty advised recently.

Setty described 9 ways readers respond to Tweets, articles, blogs and other content you create online.

The response you don’t want is to have your reader click away.

Self-serving, self-promotional content is considered bad “netiquette”. If what you post offers nothing of benefit to the reader, they won’t stick around for long.

In article marketing, it is the headline that brings the reader to your page. Make sure your first paragraph starts delivering the information your headline promised.

Your first paragraph also lets your reader know he’s going to be rewarded for the time it took him to click to your page.

Setty wrote: The transformational article affects the reader so deeply that it shifts some of their values and beliefs.

When I read that, my eyebrows involuntarily raised. I remembered the 80s when “paradigm shifts” became part of the New Age lexicon and wondered how an internet marketer could provoke such a reaction to copy geared to get the reader to follow a link to buy or opt-in.

As home business owners we know our primary job is to attract people to our sites. We hope that warm audience, on the trail of additional information we promised to them in one of our articles, will opt-in to our newsletter.

Sometimes we get carried away with the goals we set for ourselves.

Time and time again successful marketers warn us: don’t reinvent the wheel.

Discover what the top marketers in your niche are doing and do it better. If the other guy has 50 links pointing to his site, get 60 to yours. If your top competitor has 70 pages on his site, strive to get 80 on yours. Or check out his SEO to see if you can’t do a better job of optimizing your pages.

I promise you that if you pick a product niche that sells, identify profitable keywords that relate to your product(s), invest in setting up a website that is functional and fully optimized -- one that you regularly add quality content to and use the social web to brand yourself; you will make money online.

Get Read!

2009-06-10T07:41:00.000-07:00

So far we’ve seen article marketing is cheap. Usually there is no cost involved.

It helps create authority for your site by creating relevant inbound links.

Also the articles you publish off your site has the potential of being found by warm traffic – readers interested in the topic of your article that relates to a benefit of a service you provide or a product you sell.

I’ve also repeatedly urged you to take 5 minutes to watch a video made by my friend Omar Negron that proves article marketing generates traffic. It simply takes commitment to consistently publishing content on article sites.

We’ve also discussed keyword optimization to improve the likelihood that your article will be read.

Today, I want to discuss the readability of the article itself.

• Your article should focus on a single problem that your own product or affiliate product solves.

• This article will link to your site page that covers additional solutions, a product comparison, an opt-in page for a free report, or a page on your site that briefly covers related problems and links to other articles on your site.

• The headline should reflect the pain or solution and contain your primary keyword.

• Your offsite article should run 300 to 450 words. Remember, you want the reader to follow your link(s) back to your website for more information and spend time there.

• The first text link in your article is the most important one. Place it as high as possible in your story.

• Your article has to appeal to the eye. Forget what you learned about paragraphing in school. Use newspaper style. Keep paragraphs short.

• Using bullets or numbering is a good way to drive the reader’s eye down the page.

• If you are publishing to a site like Openzine, take advantage of the ability to add eye-appealing graphics or video. Just make sure to tag them with your keywords.

Make Your Links Count

2009-06-09T07:29:00.000-07:00

There are hundreds of article directories and submission sites. In this series, we’ve already explored the reasons for using articles to build authority and popularity with the search engines.

One more strategy to consider is filing your offsite articles in categories that relate to your site. All these article directories provide primary topics like business, and subcategories like home business.

Conduct a search for your topic in the article search engine to see how other authors filed stories similar to yours.

Also, if you sell pet products online, you don’t bother linking your articles on dating back to your website, even if you are interested in that topic. The same holds true for commenting on blogs.

Google uses inbound links to your site to determine relevance and authority. Don’t confuse them with off-topic links.

How does Google rate the quality of your inbound links? Many have written on this issue, but here are a few factors most SEO experts agree on.

• Authority; does the link originate from a ranked site?

• Community links. If you’ve created a profile on a community site, does that site relate to the subject of your website or blog.

• Growth rate of inbound links. If the last time Google crawled your site and you had no links to your site and on its current visit it finds dozens of links to your site, you could find your website lowered in ranking. Add links consistently. Do not pay to join link farms.

• Link age; how long that link has existed.

• Number of relevant links optimized for your keywords.

• Relativity; does the link originate from a page or site that contains information consistent with your page?

Summing up, don’t create links from social sites, article site categories, forums or blogs unrelated to your niche. Always use a keyword in your link that is related or is optimized on the page your article or comment links to.

SEO | Reach Your Target Audience

2009-06-07T05:20:00.000-07:00

Help your target audience find your articles and your website content by choosing good keywords.

I’ve devoted numerous articles to free keyword tools and optimization strategies so I won’t repeat them here.

If you missed them, here are three of the most comprehensive:

Choose Profitable Keywords

Long Tail Keywords

Selecting Keywords for anchor text in backlinks

You’ll need this information to get the best results from this series on article marketing. Search engine ranking does factor in the number of relevant links to specific pages on your site, but it starts with keyword choice and optimization.

Cheap Marketing that Works

2009-06-06T07:47:00.000-07:00

No doubt about it. Traffic to your website or blog comes from one of four sources.

1. Outside links, like posting a link to your latest article or website update via Twitter.

2. Search engines, either for appearing near the top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) for a specific keyword or from your paid ad.

3. Someone types your URL into the search engine.

4. A subscriber to your site or newsletter receives an update for your website and decides to investigate it.

Article marketing, publishing content off your website that links back to it, is a reliable method of bringing warm traffic back to your site.

Article sites are likely to be older and larger than your own website. That means a search engine like Google sees it as having authority. When you create a link back to a specific related page on your website from an authority site, your page improves in the SERP for your optimized keyword.

That alone is worth the effort of writing and submitting articles in article directories.

If you have any doubt that article marketing can work for any business, view this video. Omar Negron, who is involved in MLM, shares his results using article marketing to drive traffic to his website. His video sells nothing. He simply shows the results he's had publishing article consistently that produce visitors to his site and opt-ins.

Effective and Cheap Traffic Generation

2009-06-05T09:16:00.000-07:00

Visitors to Practical eMarketer come for two reasons.

1. They are building their first online business and are looking for proven techniques to build traffic and get conversions with minimum out-of-pocket expense.

2. They got lured into online marketing, have paid hundreds of dollars for advice and systems they did not understand or were technically unable to implement, and are hoping to make enough money to at least get their investment back.

Whatever your reason for being here, running a business online from your home computer takes planning and time.

There is no better online marketing strategy to sell your own product, service or affiliate product than through article marketing, which helps boost authority for your website and brings traffic to it.

Even better, submitting articles to directories is mostly free. I say “mostly” because submitting your first 10 articles to a site like eZinearticles.com is free, but they charge a fee to submit more than that.

Other well-known article submission sites like Hub Pages and Squidoo don’t charge no matter how many articles you build on them.

Article submission comes after you’ve created content on your own website. Site Build It (SBI), the block builder service and host provider I use, recommends creating a minimum of 30 pages of content, broken into categories, before you start inviting visitors to your site.

One strategy for article marketing is to create an introduction to a website article and post a link back to that specific page within your site.

For example, if your niche is consumer electronics and you have a product review on your site that compares two or three laptop computers (for which you are an affiliate), your article might address laptops as a gift for the college bound student.

You would write about how laptops are used by today’s college students. You’d write about a key feature – weight, battery life, screen size – that parents or grandparents should consider before investing in a laptop.

Or the focus of your article might argue whether a Mac or Windows based laptop is more useful at major universities.

Newsletters Increase Trust & Customers

2009-06-04T06:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we looked at offering a free solution for a common problem facing folks on niche sites. We offered our solution to the problem in exchange for their email address. We accomplished this with a Squeeze Page.

If you give good, reliable content that interests and helps your target audience, they will be more apt to buy from you later.

This is the first step of the sales funnel that I’ve written about before.

Don’t go to the sales message right away. Expand that relationship of trust through a series of mailings or newsletters.

The advice you gave in exchange for their email information actually starts the relationship through an auto-responder system. That “free report” was the first issue.

In the second issue -- that you have already written, already set to be mailed three days later -- tell the reader about you. Reveal one story about yourself that they can identify with.

If you relate your story in a believable manner, your future customer will identify more fully with you. Your story, the problem you once faced and the same problem your reader is now experiencing, builds a bond between the two of you.

Tell them if they found the solution in your report helpful, offer four links to previous articles you have written on that problem that offer additional suggestions. OR say that people facing this shared problem, often have problem in other areas too. Offer four links to previous articles you’ve written that cover related problems faced by your niche audience.

Generally speaking you should have a minimum of 10 prewritten newsletters. Know ahead of time their purpose.

1. Let your future customer get to know you by sharing your experiences or confessions with them. Link to articles on your website or blog that reveal your level of expertise.

2. In one issue ask your reader if they have had a chance to implement any of the action steps in your initial report. Provide a link on your website where they can share their opinions and experiences.

3. In two of the 10 issues, offer links to product reviews that compare books, products, or services for which you are an affiliate.

4. If you have your own product, devote an issue to a compelling argument about why they should have it. DON’T repeat the information on your sales page verbatim. Of course, include a link to your sales page.

5. If you are an affiliate for membership sites like dating sites, acknowledge that online dating can be risky. While dating services strive to keep out married cheats, etc., at the bottom of your review page, you might offer another free report about how to date safely online.

6. One of your issues could contain your take on a well publicized celebrity situation related to your niche. For example, Michael J. Fox’s recent hour special or Farrah’s Story for the health niche. You’ll want to go in and rewrite this issue as newer publicized stories overshadow older ones. Why? This keeps the feel of your newsletter current and makes your advice appear timely.

If you plan 10 issues spaced three days apart, you’ll have about 30 days to create a relationship, establish your authority, and make a sale.

How to build a Squeeze Page

2009-06-03T07:21:00.000-07:00

A squeeze page is an opt-in page for an emailed free report, a downloadable free report (pdf), or a free newsletter.

The Squeeze Page is a continuation of a conversation you’ve already been having with your potential customer on targeted niche sites.

You can have any number of Squeeze Pages on your website. Each one exchanges a solution or information on a specific subject for an email address.

In my previous post I used health care products as an example for getting the conversation rolling. In today’s example, let’s use the dating niche.

Say the conversation in the group you’ve joined is talking about dating after divorce.

You’ve been offering opinions, perhaps reporting on research and providing links to current dating articles, and now you see an opening for inviting someone who has been posting a lot about their bad luck. Perhaps their last few relationships were with people who turned out to be married. This person is lonely but afraid to date for fear of being hurt again.

Write a report, open letter, or newsletter edition that addresses the pain of getting involved with losers. Sprinkle this document with some of the comments you’ve read in this and other groups you belong to.

Your report doesn’t have to be long and involved; but the advice on recognizing and avoiding manipulators, etc. should contain information actually agreed upon by dating and relationship experts.

Then let the posters in this forum know that you have a solution for identifying losers on a first date.

You might say: “A lot of people seem to get involved in dead-end relationships. You’re not alone. In fact, there are tens of thousands of books on the market that tell you how to get out of these kinds of relationships.

“But I say wouldn’t it be easier just to recognize these people before getting emotionally involved?

“I’ve actually written down all the warning signs that you should look for on a first date to avoid becoming involved with the wrong person. I call it Learn to Spot a Loser on the First Date. Of course I don’t charge anything for it.”

Make the title of your report a live link if you can. (Some sites don’t allow it).

When a curious group member follows your link, they end up on your Squeeze Page.

Your headline and page title should be the same.

Example:

Headline: Learn to Spot a Loser on the First Date

http://www/yourdomain.com/learn-to-spot-a-loser-on-the-first-date.html

Your subhead should expand on the headline:

Learn to Spot a Loser on the First Date

Eliminate manipulators, sexual predators and the currently married from your life

A simple paragraph describes exactly what your report contains:

“Why do you keep getting involved with emotional manipulators? I had that problem, too, until I finally figured out how to spot them on the first date. Now I’m in an emotionally rewarding relationship and looking forward to taking the next step.”

Give a specific call-to-action:

“Tell me where to send you my free report. Just fill in the box below and my report Your First Date will arrive in minutes!”

Next comes your opt-in box form. Ask for as little information as possible. First Name and email address is enough.

Under the box let your reader know you will not share or sell their information. If your auto-responder operates a double opt-in, let them know that, too.

While a graphic of your report isn't absolutely necessary in some niches like dating, Eric Holmlund recently released ECover Engine that lets you add a title to a photograph and convert it into an ebook cover. At $27 dollars it will pay for itself if you use it to create two or more covers. (His software also creates cd covers, spiral-bound report covers and even membership cards for your membership site).

Tomorrow we’ll take our customer deeper into our sales funnel with email.

Connecting with Your Customer

2009-06-01T07:33:00.000-07:00

Mark Widawer, successful internet marketer and author, teaches that the sales process begins with finding your customer, listening to what it is they want, and creating a message tailored to their needs.

With tens of millions members on Facebook it seems like the best place to start your marketing efforts. But numbers don’t tell the whole story. What are Facebook members doing? They are keeping up with friends and locating new ones. In short, they aren’t there to buy or discuss products.

Facebook might be an option if your niche is travel or relationships, but it is not your best option for B2B, software, most MLM products, real estate or for most other products and services.

Sick as you are of hearing the comparison of social sites to social gatherings, it is valid. Party goers don’t want to hear about your products.

So I recommend searching for groups in your product niche. The people involved are there solely to exchange information on that subject.

If you sell organic health products, join discussions centered around that topic. Check out support sites for medical conditions that your products prevent or alleviate.

• Learn all you can about the causes and symptoms of the conditions discussed in these forums and groups. Develop a list of links to authority articles, then get involved by giving pertinent advice.

• No, you aren’t setting yourself up as a doctor. In reply to a query for advice, you can say “I read on WebMD, that –“

• Include a synopsis and a link to the article you are citing.

Other opportunities will arise so that you can say “I read that advice, too, but neither I nor my sister who suffers from the same [condition], got any relief.”

You can expand the conversation by saying, “I’ve heard this claim (or problem) over and over again. I wrote a report about how I and others have actually gotten relief. There’s no charge. I’m happy to share the information with you.” Provide a link back to your site that takes interested readers to your Squeeze Page.

NOTE: I’ve been advised by our power company that they will be working on our lines tomorrow. Hope to see you back here on Wednesday when we’ll look at constructing a Squeeze Page.

Making Sales Online

2009-05-31T06:52:00.000-07:00

Whether you are attempting to sell your own product or someone else’s, as a business owner your sole reason for marketing online is to make sales.

Before 2006, the most common way to achieve that goal was to slap up a mini site that often contained only a never-ending sales page.

You would write numerous articles -- each describing one emotional need that your target customer hoped to satisfy. Then you would submit your articles to various publishing sites – all linking back to your sales or landing page.

This had two effects. The links back to your site from massive article sites brought up your ranking in the search engines. And, readers searching for more information about their problem could click the link back to your site.

Or you could invest in pay-per-click Google Adwords (or similar advertising elsewhere).

By 2006, Google dominated search and decided to apply a quality score to each site it indexed. Suddenly sites went missing. Advertisers that had been paying 30-cents a click needed to bid $3 for the same click!

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information, but it also wants to make sure that when anyone types a search term into its engine that the searcher is directed to sites with the actual information they are seeking, not just an endless sales letter pitching a product.

Today, online marketers are still striving for notice (traffic) and conversions (opt-ins and sales).

Added to the mix of SEO, content quality and size of your site, social media sites do have a role. But not the role you think.

With everyone signing onto MySpace, Friendster and the like, it was no wonder marketers raced to join up, adding to the hype about the value of social network marketing.

But it was like the story of the Emperor’s Clothes: lots of sellers were spamming the value of marketing on social sites, but few sales actually took place.

Make no mistake. Despite the study conducted by comScore in October 2008 that found that only 1% of people use social networking sites to look for products or product information, social media sites offer advantages to marketers seeking to increase their website quality score as well as being tools for prospecting future customers.

This week I’m going to take you through the process of finding potential customers using social media and making sales.

Can you make money from social initiatives?

2009-05-30T07:47:00.000-07:00

Over the past week, we've asked is there money to be made from social media promotion. We've looked at the latest research questioning the profitability of social network marketing and read comments from business owners who have not made a dime from their time investment in public social sites like Facebook and Twitter.

These reports don't mean that there is no money to be made, no customers to be earned. Plenty of established companies are reporting profitable results from social networks, even if much of those profits are in the area of customer service.

In a recent interview with Finance Week, Adam Sarner research director of Gartner, a technology research firm, predicted that over half of the Fortune 500 companies currently adapting social media in their marketing strategy will fail to meet their ROI (Return On Investment), increase favorable awareness for their product, or improve customer loyalty.

Does that mean you should abandon your social media efforts? Sarner says no. Profiting from social media boils down to doing it right.

It all starts with your target audience. Where are they? More and more surveys are pointing to the fact that even if our potential customers are on general public social sites like Facebook and Twitter, only about 5% of them are searching for products or services.

If you've ever tried to hook up with a friend on MySpace, you know how difficult it is to find someone you already know. Now think about the likelihood of a total stranger finding you if he was even looking for you.

A better return on your efforts would be niche sites where the membership is already looking for the types of advice, service or product you offer.

Once you've investigated the site you also need to ask: do you have the time to invest in providing consistent, relevant input there? Are you exposing yourself to legal or financial risks? Or risks to your reputation? Are you allowed to try to sell products to other members or do you have to invite them to your website? If so, what is your strategy going to be? Do you need to create special pages or downloads for visitors from your niche membership site?

Sarner offered some recommendations for achieving social media success.

• Define your goal(s) for becoming involved with social media.

• Invest in improving your social skills to get the most return for your online interactions.

• Encourage community participation and reward it.

• Employ analytics to determine if you are meeting those goals. (This last one is my own recommendation).

What is Social Network Marketing doing for your Business?

2009-05-29T08:25:00.000-07:00

Forbes magazine just ran an article that attempted to answer the question: Is social network marketing a waste of time?

Wikipedia defines social network marketing as social level marketing: an advertising method that makes use of online existing communities to increase web presence.

Social network marketing, which I define as self-branding, product awareness and building business relationships, can be a huge time sink, especially for the home business owner trying to do everything on his own.

Ian Boyd, creative director of Cosmic Planet, a digital creative studio in San Francisco's Presidio, is one of 28 business owners interviewed by Fredric Paul for Forbes.

Boyd told Paul that while he’s invested considerable time on Twitter and Facebook he has never gotten a single customer out of it.

Likewise, HubSpot’s Mike Volpe commented in a video seminar last year that while his company’s Facebook presence is had received more than a thousand hits, and about a quarter of those visitors had headed to HubSpot’s corporate website, at the time Volpe made the video only one visitor from Facebook had signed up for HubSpot’s services.

I don’t have a clue about Boyd’s Cosmic Planet profile on Facebook, but without seeing it I have to believe that HubSpot’s page on the social network giant is perfectly optimized.

The lesson for home business owners is twofold:

1. We are drawn to novelty and hype; two criteria that Facebook and other social media sites have in spades.

2. Before business owners use sites like Facebook and MySpace you should first research if your target audience is there and determine ahead of time what your audience’s goals are for being there.

As an online marketer working from home, you could be wasting precious time on social networking sites where you have zero chance of meeting up with customers or partners.

This lack of results – either opt-ins or sales -- may discourage you and cause you to quit too soon. The process of making business relationships using social media requires consistent, relevant and educational input.

Just because social media is being hyped in the news doesn't mean your future customer or partner is likely to find you on Twitter, Facebook or any other major social site.

So what’s the answer? Does your business lack conversions because you are marketing in the wrong place, using the wrong approach, or because you haven’t given your strategy enough time?

I wrote my ebook Social Network Marketing to bring together verifiable research, best practices and (mainly) free resources to help home business owners locate and create online connections with people who care about their niche topic, service and product.

Like a business mentor who would charge hundreds of dollars for advice on how to increase traffic and conversions (and you'd still have to do the work yourself), Social Network Marketing lays it all out for you at a fraction of the cost you’d pay for an expert to give you the same information.

In addition to SEO, research, and best practices you’d get from a coach, my book is imbedded with hundreds of live links that take you to resources and tools to build a profitable blog, create your own membership site, create podcasts, run free webinars, as well as make, edit and upload video content.

Just as I recommend in my book, Business Week advises joining niche, rather than general social sites.

Two of Business Week’s recommendations include the Intuit Community and Bank of America’s online community for small business owners.

Schoemaker Offers Free Marketing Course

2009-05-28T11:49:00.000-07:00

You're probably familiar with this picture. It has been floating around the internet for several years. You are looking at internet marketer Jeremy Schoemaker.

Jeremy Schoemaker knows "a little something" about internet marketing. His blog Shoemoney is the 19th top money making blog on the internet. Jeremy is currently offering a 12-week course (you receive one lesson per week) that takes you through ALL the tasks that lead to a profitable online business.

Why should you be interested in Schoemaker's free course?

No matter how well your home business is currently doing, you'd probably like more traffic. Sites can always be improved. SEO, site creation, content creation, best use of social media are all areas that we could improve. Perhaps you've even promised yourself to go back and conduct split testing on specific pages, or reorder your content, or perhaps add Flash video that doesn't take so long to upload, but haven't made time to do it.

Internet marketing classes teach us more about what we need to do online, how to do it (I'm hoping for time-savers) and they keep us on schedule.

Here's a quick overview of the course:

Week 1 - The Beginner's Guide To Internet Marketing
Week 2 - Affiliate Marketing 101: Everything You Need To Know To Start Promoting Products
Week 3 - Market Research: How To Crush Your Competitors And Discover Hot Niches
Week 4 - Pay Per Click: How To Earn Cash With Each Click
Week 5 - SEO: How To Rank Higher And Increase Traffic
Week 6 - Site Creation: How To Build A Site With Zero Programming Knowledge
Week 7 - Content Creation: How To Create Articles That Attract Users And Increase Sales
Week 8 - Marketing: How To Use Social Media To Spread Your Brand
Week 9 - Make That Cash: 10 Ways To Monetize Your Site And Increase Profitability
Week 10 - Testing & Tracking: How To Optimize Your Site & Make Sense Of The Figures
Week 11 - Building Your Team: How To Network With Others And Find Long Term Partners
Week 12 - Launch Day: How To Kick Start Your Business And Manage Your Projects

I am unfamiliar with Jeremy's class and teaching technique, but I believe his course is definitely worth looking into. After all, if you don't like it, you can unsubscribe.

Five Minute Video Worth the Look

My friend on MySpace Omar Negron shows the value of article marketing in his new video.