Is There an Affiliate กFree Lunchก Program?

Is There an Affiliate กFree Lunchก Program?

by: Glenn Beach

กEverything worthwhile has a cost… Whenever you think you are getting something for nothing, look again—someone, somewhere, somehow is paying for it. Behind every free lunch there is a hidden cost to be accounted for.ก Edwin G. Dolan

If you, or any of your business prospects, believe that time is money, then yes, the ‘there Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunchก principle DOES apply to your internet business. What you can’t invest in money, you will have to invest in time. You will have to be able to put the axe to the grind for more hours per day or week, and you will have to wait for more weeks and months before your ship comes in. Those are the facts.

If you are able to think outside the box (and few internet entrepreneurs CAN’t!) then the principle can be stretched a little. Are you balking at spending a few pennies a day to boost your sales? Do some research comparing what your marketing program offers and what the same services cost on the open market. Compare what information your program offers and what you can learn elsewhere. For example:

find some online business forums and search these topics: free advertising, phone followup techniques, sample followup letters, sample phone scripts.

investigate your and other affiliate marketing programs for all the above plus services and tools such as: prospect notification, contact manager, online forum, billing and revenue collection, gateway website, company resource center, free sales and marketing tools, affiliate training courses, successful team support, commission or compensation schedule. In other words, look at EVERYTHING that the program will give you for free.

research what you would have to pay for any or all of the above tools, hints, and services.

How does your affiliate program measure up? What do you get for free and therefore, what do you save? How much can you afford to invest based on these savings?

If you absolutely HAVE NO MONEY to invest, thatกs one thing. If you have a kneejerk reaction to investing in something that กsays itกs freeก, think again. What other business in the WORLD besides one on the internet can you begin for NOTHING? How many pennies a day can you AFFORD to invest in your business, maybe not now but as soon as possible?

If you have nothing, you can start and run a business. You will have to pay for it, however, with time. Free ads need to be worked every day. Free ads drop out of sight as new ads follow. You need to study your product till you know it inside and out, so all prospective affiliates can be led, encouraged, taught how they too can succeed. Since the name of the game is visibility amongst the billions of offers on the internet, you can’t afford to waste a single hardwon prospect.

Without any money to invest in advertising, this will be a long slow process. You will have to determine how YOU can best achieve sales and attract affiliates, because each personกs skills, style and dislikes are different.

You need to be internet savvy because all the information you require to succeed is out there, you just have to know how to find it. Study, seek your own answers, and know where and how to ask questions. You will win the game with patience and persistence.

About The Author

Glenn Beach is a proud member of Work at Home Team.

He is a selfemployed subcontractor and home entrepreneur at:

http://www.workathomebusinessopportunitycanada.com

email: [email protected]

This article was posted on March 06, 2004

by Glenn Beach

Using Your Web Site to Grow Your Business

Using Your Web Site to Grow Your Business

by: Charlie Cook

A snowplow operator in a New Jersey suburb was hailed by a woman asking him to plow her driveway so she could get out. Wading through less than a foot of fluffy snow to her SUV, he asked her why she didn’t put it into four wheel drive and simply back out. Her puzzled answer was, ขFour wheel drive, whatกs that?ข

A web site is just a means to and end, like a car it will get you where you want to go only if you know how to use it. Too often independent professionals and small business owners spend their hard earned cash on a web site and get little return on their investment.

What is the purpose of your marketing?

What is the purpose of your web site?

What do you want your web site to do?

The first step to creating or improving your web site is to clarify the role it should play in your business and its marketing. If you are like most independent professionals and small business owners you can benefit from constructing your web site on the basis of the following four objectives.

1. ATTRACT THE ATTENTION OF YOUR TARGET MARKET

This may seem obvious, yet most small business web sites don’t do this. Instead of leading with content that will attract prospects they focus on information about themselves. Typically they are boring to others than their creators.

Too often web sites focus on the firmกs services, products, processes and credentials. These sites are a turnoff to prospects and can keep you from earning money. If your web site shouldn’t feature your firm, what should be the primary content?

To get prospects’ attention, whether with your web site or with your other marketing materials, feature content that interests them. Your clients and future customers are always looking for solutions.

For example, if you’re a lawyer, your site could focus on legal tips and strategies which your target market can use. If you’re a graphic designer, include ideas on using design to improve communications; if you’re a computer systems expert, give your site visitors tips on keeping their computers from crashing. A writer could include a tutorial on writing, with examples of copy makeovers of web pages, press releases or brochures.

What is the content you could use on your web site that your target market is searching for?

2. BUILD CREDIBILITY

Just because you have a web site, have impressive credentials, a client list of Fortune 500 companies and even know what you are doing, isn’t necessarily going to convince prospects you can help them. To help prospects trust you, you need to find ways to demonstrate your expertise and qualifications.

Chances are you have many satisfied clients. Ask them for comments on how you helped them and feature their testimonials on your site. Comments from others are perceived as having much greater credibility than the descriptions you write about your own products and services.

Write articles and distribute them widely to demonstrate your knowledge. Tell personal stories or describe actual situations to showcase your ability to solve problems.

What can you do differently on your web site to build credibility?

3. GENERATE LEADS

One of the most important roles a web site plays for service professionals and small business owners is to help generate leads. When people come to your web site and are interested in the problems you solve, you want to have as many of them as possible contact you.

You want your web site to help you identify people not ready to buy and people ready to make a purchase.

Is your web site attracting as many new prospects and clients as youกd like?

How many leads per week does your web site generate?

Does your web site motivate people to give you their contact information?

Does your web site prompt people to tell you what they need and want and to contact you?

What do you need to do on your web site to increase the number of leads it provides on a weekly or monthly basis?

4. SELL YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

The goal of your web site is to help you make money. If you sell services or products, make it easy for prospects to find them and include comprehensive information about each and the benefits or using them. Consider showing a list of products and services in a side navigation bar on every page of your web site.

Youกll want individual sell pages for each product or service. One way to grab prospects’ attention on these pages is to lead with one or two questions clarifying what prospects want. Follow these with testimonial quotes, and visitors will be more likely to read the rest of the copy describing your products and services.

When you provide information on your products and services, do you first create the context, i.e. clarify the problem it solves?

Is your site effective in convincing prospects you have the product or service they want?

Is your site helping you sell more of your products and services each month?

Whether you are trying to get an SUV unstuck or grow your business with your web site, if you know how to use it, you can get where you want to go.

2004 © In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved.

About The Author

The author, Marketing Coach, Charlie Cook, helps independent professionals and small business owners attract more clients and increase their earnings with the 5 Principles of Highly Effective Marketing. Sign up to receive the Free Marketing Guide and the กMore Businessก newsletter, full of practical tips you can use at http://www.charliecook.net

[email protected]

This article was posted on January 09, 2004

by Charlie Cook

XRay Specs, Turning 30 and Achieving Website Succ

XRay Specs, Turning 30 and Achieving Website Success

by: Michael Cheney

I was writing the final chapter of my book on website marketing a few weeks ago and was wondering how far Iกd progressed with it in the past nine months so I ran a word count. 44559 words.

And you know what this told me? Precisely nothing. Nothing of the tips and advice contained in the book or its likelihood of becoming the next global Bestseller.

Last week I looked in the mirror at the 30 year old staring back at me and thought:

ก30? What does this number actually mean though?ก

Precisely nothing.

Hey Numb Nuts! Do You Know The Number Of Numbers That Are Numbing Your Thinking?

You do this Numb Nuts Number Obsessing with your website, I know you do. In fact YOU know you do but guess what the numbers tell you precisely nothing! Hereกs some numbers you might be numbing your thinking with:

The number of pages viewed on your website every month

The number of visitors coming to your website every day

The number of your ranking in Google for your most important key phrase

The number of your global traffic ranking according to Alexa.com

The number of people that signed up to your mailing list yesterday

The number of people that visited your website using a Mongolian Internet Service Provider

These numbers mean precisely nothing. On their own they are worthless. Accumulatively they mean slightly more than nothing. Why? Because none of them put cash in your bank account.

Enough Is Enough!

Next time you share war stories with another website owner ask them the question:

กHow is your website performing?ก

I bet you that not one single person will respond with a comment relating to the most important number of all PROFIT! I see this all the time in business:

Michael: กHowกs business going?ก Anon: กYeah, good. Quite good, we’re doing okay.ก

What?! Have these people lost their minds?! Let us consider some better responses:

Michael: กHowกs business going?ก Anon: กBrilliant we are now operating at twice the level of profitability of last yearก

or

Anon: กLast month we made more profit than we made the whole of the first quarter!ก

Start to do this with your website I dare you. Forget the statistics. Bin the hit counters. Throw out the mailing list numbers.

How much profit has your website made you this year? Scared to answer? Don’t know the answer? Then surely you’re just throwing money away by having one aren’t you? You’re steering your ship blindfolded.

In fact you are running on guesswork the worldกs most ineffective business fuel.

No Matter How Old You Are You Need To Wear Glasses

Have I finally lost my marbles on this one? No siree. Itกs true. You need to wear glasses the whole time you conduct business and when you make any decision relating to your website.

You need to wear PROFITTINTED spectacles that enable you to focus constantly on whether what you are doing will generate profit for your business.

Wearing your profittinted spectacles means that playing the little animated game an associate sent you when you’re supposed to be completing that marketing project will be impossible.

Your profittinted spectacles work just like XRay specs the only difference is that itกs your daily To Do List that gets stripped down to the bare essentials and not the person you look at whilst wearing them.

Pick a number, any number? No, pick profit itกs the best number there is.

Michael Cheney

Author of The Website Marketing BibleTM

About The Author

Download Your FREE Sampler Of The Website Marketing BibleTM Now And Get FREE Bonuses Worth £159 ($288): http://www.websitemarketingbible.com

This article was posted on November 26, 2004

by Michael Cheney

Most Effective Search Engine Marketing

Most Effective Search Engine Marketing

by: Debbi Cunnington

Most effective search engine marketing strategies consider a few key aspects of search engine optimization.

1. The target market: Itกs important to make certain that your key words target the market you wish to visit your site. Having an extremely high ranking on a certain key word that brings tons of visitors to your site, with very few sales (low conversion rate) is not effective search engine marketing. Make certain that you target your visitors.

For example, if you are selling antique brass buttons, that is a very specific item for a specific market. You could try to use the key word กbuttonsก but you will get a much wider variation in the quality of your visitors. Someone searching on กbuttonก could be looking for nearly anything related to a button. Whereas, if you target your key phrase กantique brass buttonsก you may get fewer visitors, but they will be extremely targeted. Effective search engine marketing is all about targeting your market.

2. Keyword Effectiveness Index: Definition (courtesy of WebCEO) The Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) compares the Daily World Searches with the number of competing Web pages to pinpoint exactly which keywords are good enough so you can use them while optimizing your site.

Keywords with the highest KEI combine attractive popularity and less competition. It means there are all chances you will get a high ranking, if you use these keywords for optimizations.

Basically, the KEI is based on the number of daily world searches and the number of competing sites. The higher the KEI of a key word/phrase, the better itกs use on your web site.

For example, the phrase กweb designก has over 35,000 daily world searches and over 17 million competing sites (stats courtesy of WebCEO). While กweb designก is clearly a great search term based on the number of people typing it into a search engine, the fact that there are already over 17 million competing sites using that key phrase make it a poor choice. Itกs possible that some of those 17 million competing sites will dump กweb designก as a key phrase, which will increase the KEI in the future. Thatกs why effective search engine marketing involves monitoring and changing your siteกs content and key phrases as necessary, to get your website ranking position as high as it can be!

3. Meta tags & web site content: Once youกve chosen your key words/phrases, itกs time to add those to your site. The first place to add your key word is the title of your page. Many web sites choose to make the title of their page the name of their business, and thatกs a poor search engine marketing strategy. The first meta tag that the spiders กseeก is the title. It should contain your key word and omit any กstopก words, such as กand, or, theก etc. These words are typically omitted from search engine results and should also be omitted from your meta tags.

Other meta tags you must consider are: classification, description and key word. *Google relies heavily on itกs own algorythm, which takes into account back links and the validity of the back links, as well, and optimization for that engine must take those links into consideration for effective search engine marketing.

There are other design กrules of thumbก that should be considered, such as:

Java script

Alt tags

Image names

File and folder names

Text descriptions

There are many more items to consider, but this should get you started thinking about search engine optimization for your business.

Contact Cimmeron Studios for more information about increasing your website ranking position and effective search engine marketing.

About The Author

Debbi Cunnington is a freelance web design professional, and owner of Cimmeron Studios, LLC, who has successfully worked out of her home office for the last 4 years. Visit Debbiกs website here http://www.cimmeronstudios.com.

[email protected]

This article was posted on March 07

by Debbi Cunnington

How to Add Warmth, Color & Texture to Your Adverti

How to Add Warmth, Color & Texture to Your Advertisements

by: Michele Jai Johnson

ก…A powerful agent is the right word…ก Mark Twain

And what true words those are! Your marketing efforts have the ability to succeed…or to fail…based on the words you choose to represent your products, services, and yourself in your ads.

You have the ability to choose any words you desire. The problem is, sometimes, we draw a blank. Our minds seem amiss of anything creative to say. This is when a diverse collection of prewritten phrases, designed to bring miraculous changes to your ads, comes in handy.

A collection of prewritten phrases, which you can drop right into your ad text, offers a lot of magic, a good deal of choices, and an incredible journey through words which develop warmth, color, and add texture to your ads. With prewritten buzzword phrases, you can bring your ad to life immediately.

So how do you come up with these phrases and buzz words?

Step one is to become aware of every advertisement you’re exposed to, whether it be on television, in a newspaper, in email, or in a magazine. Just pay attention and study those ads.

Step two involves gathering your prewritten phrases. Write down words which make an impact on you. Make a notebook, or a computer document, and as you are exposed to the ads around you, jot down those phrases and buzz words. Hereกs some phrases and words I jotted down recently:

Accept nothing but the best

Because you’re worth it

Consider it a gift from you…to you

The third step is to take these phrases and integrate them into your ads. The best way to do this is work with an ad which youกve already written. How much impact does it have? How much sparkle and pizzaz does it possess? Does your alreadywritten ad grab your attention? If the answer is NO, then itกs time to input some marketing miracle phrases sprinkle them about your ad, pick some from your list which fit with your product or service and revise.

Letกs take a look at an ad I found written by someone who is not using marketing miracle phrases:

กNew ladies brown leather coat. Size XL.ก

The ad for this item really didn’t capture my attention. The photo of the item did itกs a nice product! Letกs see how the actual ad can be spruced up with the use of some marketing miracle phrases:

กGive radiance to everything when you wear this exquisite, fulllength, chocolate brown leather coat. For lovers of fine quality everywhere, youกll experience comfort and luxury, for just a fraction of the retail price. Handsomely crafted, it will make a chic addition to your winter wardrobe. Ladies size XL.ก

See the difference? Using marketing miracle words gives you a new way of impacting your buyers with words and phrases designed to bypass the mind, get your product deep into their heart and soul, and reach the core of their deepest desires.

So why not try it with your own ads? Just follow the three steps in this article to add warmth, color and texture to your ads. See the change in your ads, and the change in your bottom line sales figures. Good luck!

About The Author

Michele Jai Johnson is the author of 777 Marketing Miracle Phrases. Multipublished, her articles and short stories have appeared in many online publications, as well as national print magazines and newsletters. She is also the author of instructional courses and has written many short reports and tips booklets, in addition to 777 Marketing Miracle Phrases. You can pick up your own copy of her handy booklet here: http://www.michelejanine.com/777mmp.html

Publication Guidelines: Reprint permission is granted for online or print publications. May not be sent via unsolicited email. Copywrite notice and resource box must be included.

[email protected]

This article was posted on December 06, 2004

by Michele Jai Johnson

Personal Branding Techniques for Real Estate Agent

Personal Branding Techniques for Real Estate Agents and Brokers

by: Dan R. Vella

A key principle of marketing is to find something unique about what you offer as the basis of your sales message. Even if what you offer is a commodity, there is always one thing unique in your business you. A big error made by many Real Estate Agents and Brokers is to try to develop an institutional image like most big companies. People do not like to do business with institutions; they like to do business with people. In advertising terms, branding is the "image" created in the minds of people when they see or hear a name, product or logo. Companies invest a lot of money in creating and maintaining their brand, but the Internet has sparked a new trend called "Personal Branding". Personal branding isn’t only important for promoting a product, business or political cause, but also for promoting yourself for advancement within your own organization. It involves developing your personal reputation. Branding can be done to any product, or any person. Before undertaking an exercise in personal branding, however, consider your distinctive strengths and abilities and what they offer the market place. Traditionally personal branding was for sporting celebrities who gained enormous coverage and following through their sporting prowess. Movie stars have also had celebrity status and association since movies began.

A personal brand is about creating strong, favorable associations in the minds of people that you encounter. If you don’t actively do this, they will still make associations. Therefore, it may be better to be proactive and undertake the branding exercise for yourself, you cannot control what they think but can give them some information to assist with the associations.

WHY BRANDING OURSELVES?

Places you in a leadership role

Enhances prestige

Attracts the right people and right opportunities

Adds perceived value to what you are selling

Earns recognition

Associates you with a trend

Increases your earning potential

Differentiate yourself from the competition

Position your focused message in the hearts and minds of your target customers

Confers top of mind status

Increases authority and credence of decisions

HOW DO WE BRAND OURSELVES?

Like any branding exercise, the key to personal branding is having a good product, one which you understand and pitch to the right market. The first step in personal branding is knowing who you are, find out what strengths your brand possesses and how these strengths can help you. Personal branding is not about presenting a façade to the public; a poor product will not stand up to market scrutiny. This is also a choice of brand elements, people you deal with, the look that you have, and how you conduct yourself. Once this has been done, determine what you are going to offer. As a product what do you do, what need does the product of you satisfy in the market. Next figure out the position you will take in the audience of your mind. What unique space do you wish to occupy and what unique associations do you want people to recall when they think of you? Finally, once you have established the first three steps, manage your brand over its lifecycle. That is keep visible, be consistent and be yourself. According to Montoya, the wellknown personal branding guru, the key to managing your personal brand is wordofmouth (WOM), the most trusted form of communication.

How does one go about building a personal brand? Recognize your personal strengths and gifts! Think about how you best connect with people, consider what your target audience needs and wants, identify the value you deliver to meet those needs and wants, and communicate in a way that reaches your constituents in their hearts and minds and via the channels that work best for you

Functional associations are important such as timeliness, quality, dedication; as are emotional associations like inspiring, leadership, being an innovator.

The three C’s of personal branding are clarity, consistency and constancy.

Clarity deals with being honest about yourself and your strengths and promises of value attached to your personal brand and being clear in the way you communicate them. Often, for simplicity, you must focus on one or two aspects that are most vital and focus on communicating them. Think about the things you associate with prominent artists or mangers, and they are unlikely to be complicated.

Consistency is keeping things consistent for the customers. This does not mean staying stuck in the past, but just not undertaking drastic changes. Coca Cola have had a consistent message for 50 years; the message evolves continuously and is not stagnant but is consistent. Artists like Madonna change every three or four years, but there is a consistency to the change.

Constancy means being visible with your brand and maintaining an ongoing level of awareness in the marketplace. Oprah Winfrey is visible constantly, and although most of people do not have the visibility or exposure of Oprah, they can still be visible in a smaller audience. There is no point trying to build a brand image quickly to coincide with a new exhibition or performance you may have coming up – brands take time to build in consumers minds.

A FREE PERSONAL BRANDING TOOLKIT FOR REAL ESTATE PROFESSIONALS

NetReal.net, a company noted for its templatebased Real Estate Web design solutions, offers a Winter Holidays Gift for Real Estate Agents and Brokers – the Personal Branding Toolkit: http://www.netreal.net/personal_branding.php The Personal Branding Toolkit contains the “Essential Marketing for Real Estate Professionals” ebook and 17 Real Estate Reports and the tools to personalize them with your name, contact info and photo.

NetReal’s editorial team put together the top 25 highest rated Real Estate marketing articles of 2004, and created a musthave ebook “Essential Marketing for Real Estate Professionals”. The ebook covers Marketing 101 , Network marketing, Personal Marketing, Customer acquisition and retention, Telemarketing & Direct Mailing, Emarketing. You can personalize this ebook with your data and send it to your contacts, absolutely free of charge. This is a great way to offer a helpful gift to your colleagues and partners.

The “17 free Branded Reports” allow you to create your own branded Real Estate reports (for buyers, sellers, investors, movers) with your contact info and photo/logo and an exquisite design. Distribute them to your prospects or clients as edocs or printed materials, or upload them on your website. Show your professionalism with these great tools to acquire new clients.

The Personal Branding Toolkit for Real Estate Professionals (http://www.netreal.net/personal_branding.php) is free for everyone.

About The Author

Dan R. Vella is marketing editor for NetReal.net. NetReal.net (www.netreal.net) is a privatelyowned company providing real estate web sites and marketing solutions for real estate industry, focusing especially on the lowcost end, and empowering the realestate agents through the use to Internet technologies with the most affordable costs.

[email protected]

This article was posted on November 30, 2004

by Dan R. Vella

Effective List Management Can Save You Big

Effective List Management Can Save You Big

by: Joy Gendusa

Let’s talk about how to keep your postage costs down.

So far you have been following my advice and mailing to the same list more than once. At some point you find lists that will produce returns continually, but you notice that you are receiving more returns than when you started mailing to those lists.

You may see things like กUndeliverable as Addressedก or กForwarding Order Expired.ก Every time you mail to an address and that prospect has moved or cannot be found for any reason, you have just paid for the postage with no possibility of getting a response.

Obviously it is a pretty big waste of money to continue to mail to this address, but what do you do about it? You could simply go into the list of names that you have purchased and delete the returns. No more bad addresses, no more wasted postage, right? That is one option but there is a better way to handle the situation.

The US Postal Service has an NCOA (National Change of Address) System that a limited number of companies are licensed to access. These companies are able to take the list that you have purchased, or compiled yourself, and check it against the USPS system. You will receive a report that will let you know if anyone on your list has moved, gone out of business, or even if the zip code that contact was in was changed by the Post Office itself. Along with the report you will receive a new copy of your list that has been cleaned and updated.

The cost for having your list checked is very economical (about $5.00 per thousand records) and will allow you to keep getting your message out to as many people in your list as possible.

At times you can see up to a 10% undeliverable rate, and it can even be higher on older lists that you have been using for a while. Average is more like 5% undeliverable so let’s take a look at the numbers at that rate.

If you mail 10,000 and get 5% back for bad addresses: 10,000 x .05 = 500 pieces.

You will have paid postage on 500 pieces that did not reach their destination.

So if you mail to your list again without cleaning it you have just wasted: 500 x $0.23 = $115.00.

If you were to NCOA that list at a rate of $5.00 per thousand you would have spent: 10 x $5.00 = $50.00.

So you have three choices when faced with a list that needs cleaning:

1. Spend hours deleting every return that you receive from your list.

2. Waste $115.00 or more in postage every time you mail to that list.

or

3. Have the list checked by an NCOA service and get back in touch with customers that may have moved, for around one tenth the cost.

The NCOA service is the easiest and most effective way to keep your postage costs down.

About The Author

Joy Gendusa founded PostcardMania in 1998; her only assets a computer and a phone. In 2004 the company did close to $9 million in sales and employs over 60 persons. She attributes her explosive growth to her ability to choose incredible staff and her innate marketing savvy. Now she’s sharing her marketing secrets with others. For more free marketing advice, visit her website at www.postcardmania.com.

This article was posted on March 03

by Joy Gendusa

You Don’t Have TIME to Sit and Wonder When The Tra

You Don’t Have TIME to Sit and Wonder When The Traffic Will Come!

by: Jack Humphrey

There is so incredibly MUCH you can do to successfully promote your website starting in just a few minutes. In fact, the steps I will give you below can be repeated DAILY for 30 days, an hour a day, for 30 hours of hardcore, tested, proven, trafficnabbing, salesproducing, profitdriving, marketersก bliss.

Itกs work, but by now I am hoping you know that the successful people, including me, have worked VERY hard to get where we are today. Online doesn’t mean automatic and there is no software that will promote your business handsoff. Lots of tools that help, but thereกs no way around having to work to succeed in any online business.

That said, letกs get to work.

Links Man!

You could spend all 30 hours and much more this next month just getting reciprocal and, more importantly, NONreciprocal links to your site.

I see so many people just spinning their wheels wondering where to start with their promotion. You don’t have TIME to sit and wonder! I am telling you right now that the only promotion tactic that will never EVER change on the internet, no matter what, is getting traffic through links.

There are tens of thousands of places on the web to get good, trafficdriving links.

Go to forums in your niche and get involved. In a yearกs time you are going to have so many links from just being moderately involved with people in your industry through forums that you will wonder why you didn’t sign up as a member of several forums sooner!

You will find so many free resources around the net just by surfing around the sites that your BEST customers are most likely to visit. You don’t have TIME to sit and wonder! Get surfing and find out where your customers are and GET YOUR LINK THERE!

I have said a thousand times by now in forums, books, teleseminars, and conferences: If you are going to outlast and outwit your competition and really SUCCEED online, you must show up everywhere your best customers surf. You HAVE to, and thatกs it.

Given that fact, you have a LOT you can do, really, to get in front of your audience.

Articles

I don’t care if you hate writing and have a hard time spelling your name. You have to write informative articles (like this one) to get yourself in front of tens of thousands of people every week or every month, depending on your niche.

If you absolutely refuse to write, hire a ghost writer. You can get an article ‘ten packก here: http://webfoxmedia.com

Just don’t let this treasure trove of traffic go to someone else when you simply have NOTHING holding you back in this promotion technique. It is one of the most important tools in the small online business ownerกs arsenal USE IT!

Get free writing tools and article syndication tools and software here: http://equipmint.com

Blogging

Professional blog software, like Expression Engine, comes with the ability to กpingก the blog search engines. (Getting into those engines is a whole new way to brand your site and products/services and most people are totally clueless to this fact.)

After the presidential race got started, bloggers became very famous. If you don’t know what a blog is or how to set one up, or even why it is beneficial to HAVE a weblog, check out this resource: http://expressionengine.com

See my blog here as example (and for way more traffic tools and resources than I can outline here):

http://www.webmastertraffictools.com/weblog/index.php

RSS

Want to learn how to get Yahoo to run your website content via RSS? (RSS is a relatively new trend picking up a huge amount of steam among laymarketers as a killer tool to increase traffic through syndication of their content.)

Check out this report on how to turn content into RSS and having Yahoo run it for free!

http://webmastertraffictools.com/rssreport/yahoorss.pdf

Forums

Find your forum. Every interest online has one by now, unless you are really into something no one has ever heard about. Sign up today and start participating. Make sure you set up your signature file with your site link.

So many people skip the easy stuff because they think since itกs easy it can’t be effective. Don’t be one of those fools. Take the time to do this right now, today.

There are 10,000 other reasons to get involved in your market arena than just getting a link back to your site by participating, but that set of reasons you will have to discover yourself. Like today! I mean it!

Participate in Blog Discussions

Most blogs have comment areas with lively debates and discussions going on. Another source of branding and กgetting to knowก people who could turn out to be joint venture partners.

Joint Venture Partners

Getting joint ventures with key people in related industries who have a large reach to YOUR perfect audience is about the easiest traffic in the world to get. If you know how. Here is a free guide to joint ventures you should sign up for:

http://www.jvAlert.com/jvcourse.aspx?id=13

KeyIn On What Top Marketers Are Doing NOW

One of the best series of teleseminars which runs weekly is the Perpetual Learning Series by JVAlert. The people they attract to speak to members are nothing less than the best of the best in internet marketing. Learning from them is easy with recorded calls or live events they have for you to choose from with nothing but marketing tactics!

You can even find me there for one of the teleseminars on linking!

http://www.jvAlert.com/LearningSeries.aspx?id=13

Finally…

Get yourself pumped up and STAY pumped up for 30 days. In one month you could be seeing a huge turnaround in your marketing and the results of your efforts. I am pointing you in the right direction. YOU have to take this advice and either do something with it or not. That I cannot help you with.

But as of now, you have no excuse to sit around feeling bad about your marketing and lack of traffic. There are zillions of ways to get noticed. Hopefully the above wets your appetite. Come back to my blog for more every week!

http://www.webmastertraffictools.com/weblog/index.php

Copyright 2004 Jack Humphrey

About The Author

Jack Humphrey is the author of Power Linking and Power Linking 2: Evolution and is currently working on Power Linking 2005, due for release in December. For more information: http://powerlinkingprofits.com

This article was posted on October 11, 2004

by Jack Humphrey

Use Internet Marketing to Bring Customers to Your

Use Internet Marketing to Bring Customers to Your Local Business

by: Raynay Valles

Millions of กbricks and mortarก businesses have websites, but only a fraction of those businesses are using the Internet to bring in more sales. Itกs an expense that they pay because กeveryone else is doing itก. Don’t settle for that.

Is the Internet bringing customers to your doors? If not, here are three important tips to make you grin about your กnet profitsก (and make your competition jealous):

Three Tips to Make the Internet Bring Customers to Your Store or Office:

1. Write to persuade.

If your business is like most businesses, competition is fierce and just a click away. Don’t just put up a brochure describing your business thatกs too easy to click away from, and they will. A brochure website is like a timid office worker who gives just the boring facts.

Think of your website and online ads as your กsalesman in cyberspaceก, a salesman who makes a mouthwatering, IกvegottogetitNOW offer. Reach through the monitor, grab your visitor by his shirt and tell him why you’re going to make a positive difference in his life. Make him see it, feel it, taste it. Whatever you sell, make him salivate as he gets into the car to come see you.

You can do this in audienceappropriate ways, whether your business is an architecture firm, a sports bar or a childrenกs clothing store.

2. Attract as many TARGETTED visitors as you can. Don’t waste time or money on people who are not likely to buy from you. There are many ways to bring targetted traffic to your site and business. Some of the top ways are:

Payperclick ads

Email ads

Joint Ventures

Discussion list postings

Article writing and distribution

These ways are important because you can match your marketing message to the people you are looking for. A great example of this was on last seasonกs Apprentice TV show. The contest was to sell the most discount wedding gowns in one day.

One team handed out flyers on the streets of New York. They drew a measley number of customers. The other team bought an email ad from theknot.com wedding website and had customers lined up down the block. And they sold 5 times the amount of the first team. You can use this technique to draw customers too, either to your website or directly to your business.

3. Set your website visitors hair on fire.

You may have heard this before. It means, give them a reason to ACT NOW. When a website visitor says to him or herself กIกll think about it,ก and clicks away, you know THEY ARE GONE. They are busy in their own lives, thinking about everything else but your business and your offer.

How do you get them to act now?

Make a limited time offer. It can be a discount, but it doesn’t have to be. For example, you can add an online coupon that visitors can print and bring in for a free gift with purchase. If you’re in the knowledge business, offer a free support information, such as a กChecklist for Your Home Addition Projectก, but only if they act now.

Revamp your salesman in cyberspace to attract potential customers, make the case that you are what they want and show them why itกs in their best interest to get up and go get it NOW.

About The Author

Raynay Valles is a Marketing Specialist who builds sales for established businesses, online and offline. For more infon, visit http://www.raynayvalles.com or email her at [email protected].

This article was posted on February 06

by Raynay Valles

Affiliate Surprise

Affiliate Surprise

by: Marci Perrine

I can’t believe it! I open up my mail today, and what do I receive? A statement from one of my affiliates saying that I’ve earned a pretty good amount of money for the last quarter. Wow! How’d that happen? Since my web site is only a couple of months old, I couldn’t believe that I’d already earned that much from this affiliate. Now why am I surprised? Don’t I tell all of my visitors and readers to find out on a consistent basis how they are doing? Of course I do. But guess what? I got caught up in something that I bet each and every one of you gets caught up in!

I work hard on my web site. In fact, I work on it almost daily. And I work hard on my weekly ezine. But then I sit back and think, Hmmmm is anyone really visiting my web site?ข And that’s all I do. I don’t think to track too much. This is really not a smart way to handle your business. Since I started IMarketingZONE I have learned a lot about marketing. I have to. I have to keep up with all the current trends in Internet marketing and web site promotion. That’s what my visitors expect me to do. And I use most of the things that I learn. But I’ve forgotten the most important elements tracking and testing.

It’s very important to keep track of which affiliates are producing an income for you. And I don’t mean by waiting for a quarterly statement like I did. By then you’ve spent a lot of time and money on something that may not be working. What you need to do first is get a notebook or use a spreadsheet program. List any affiliates that you have signed up for. Write down your username and password for future information. Write down the link that you need to visit to check your stats. Every time you go to check your stats, write down what kind of activity you are doing. If it’s working, then keep it up. If it’s not working, you may want to either try a different approach to promoting it, or you may want to drop that affiliate program.

Affiliate surprise can be fun when you get a notice like I did today, but if you get a notice where you are producing nothing, then you’ve probably wasted 3 months on something that you could have been doing different.

About The Author

Marci Perrine is the owner of Marci’s Creations Online, a web site development company, and IMarketingZONE, an Internet marketing web site.

Visit http://www.marciscreations.com for more information on how Marci can help you build your web site.

Visit http://www.imarketingzone.com for solid solutions on how to market and make money with your web site, and subscribe to her weekly ezine today at http://www.imarketingzone.com/subscribe6.htm

This article was posted on January 20, 2002

by Marci Perrine