SEO Success: Step One is Good Web Design

SEO Success: Step One is Good Web Design

by: Chesa Keane

Creating a welldesigned website is the first step in your internet marketing strategy. Once the website has been created and optimized, there are further techniques to employ that will drive traffic to your website for successful, longterm results. You wouldn’t consider opening a retail store in a major shopping mall without signage and you shouldn’t consider having a nice looking website designed without expanding your web presence in order to be found on the internet. But unless the website is designed correctly to begin with, followon SEO efforts will have limited results at best. The following strategy overview is designed to bring about productive SEO results:

Create an attractive website that is complementary to your company image and provides your targeted audience with information about you, your company and your products and/or services.

Design a website that has a calltoaction in the form of a purchase or providing you a contact, subscription or other commitment from your visitor.

Create a successful marketing arm for your overall business promotion and marketing campaign to promote your business, products and/or services with the many followon strategies that drive traffic to your website.

Become competitive in your industry and marketplace by meeting or exceeding the industry marketing standards and attracting a qualified audience for your products and/or services based on a strong reputation.

Generate and maintain or grow internet traffic to your website resulting in a conversion of traffic into sales of your products and/or services by evolving as your market demands.

This search engine optimization (SEO) strategy is composed of several processes in three stages: 1) Good web design, 2) Attracting attention from search engines and directories, and 3) Creating longterm popularity on the internet. However, it all starts with good web design. Website design is the foundation and beginning of a successful internet marketing strategy. It is true that there are websites on the internet that are unattractive but somehow seem to work. If there are aspects of these websites that work, imagine how well they could do if they simply followed basic design implementation tactics that resulted in a good image as well as simply pushed information out to the viewer.

These basics are essential for Tier 1 success:

Good web design will complement and enhance the company image and offline marketing campaign products creating a corporate branding if done well.

Easy, logical navigation that leads the viewer deeper and deeper into the web of information provided by the website will keep the visitor on your site longer and give you more time to sell your products or services.

Attractive but quickloading graphics that are pleasing to the eye and meaningful to the website will guide the viewer along the route you decide is important for explaining what you offer.

Keyword usage that is search enginefriendly depends on how the keywords are utilized, the placement of the keywords, the frequency of the most important keywords and their relevance to the website.

Website coding that is lean, clean and without errors will keep the search engines happy and your viewer seeing exactly what you intended to offer.

Relevance of content to the theme of the site is essential. Be concise, to the point and focus on your goals. If you have multiple themes and offerings, consider multiple websites to address the different markets, then tie each website back to the others by linking.

Changing content that changes frequently and stays fresh keeps your viewer returning and prevents the search engines from treating your website as if it were stale news. A stale site will be ranked lower by the search engines.

Content is king itกs all about content, content, content. But how that content is presented is what makes the difference.

(c)2005 TAO Consultants, Inc. All rights reserved.

About The Author

Chesa Keane of TAO Consultants has been involved with the internet for 10 years through internet consulting, web development and search engine optimization. Go to www.computergoddess.com for a free Search Engine Optimization Checklist.

This article was posted on September 14

by Chesa Keane

How To Get Qualified Visitors to Your Site

How To Get Qualified Visitors to Your Site

by: Denise Ryder

Having an eBusiness isn’t just about getting gobs of people to your site and hope that a number of them buy. Having your little web counter screaming 50,000 visitors a day doesn’t mean กjackก if no one buys from you. It isn’t about the quantity of your visitors itกs about the quality.

Steve Boutelle has realized this and it sparked this question from him…

Steve Boutelle here . . . LOVED the article on ethics! something thatกs definitely a major part of any truly successful business practice. Iกm sending in my Marketing question here it is:

What are your top proven recommendations for getting qualified, targeted visitor traffic to your site that will continue over the long term?

Great question and one that is on the mind of every eBusiness owner กout there.ก

I know you are probably looking more for the ‘tacticsก to put into place rather than going back and regrouping a bit and we will get to the tactics but first things first…

The main thing that has to be on your mind is to stay focused. When you first get into an eBusiness you have to do your homework. What I mean by that is find out what people want and need and then build a business around meeting those needs.

You CAN’t BE all things to EVERYONE. It just doesn’t work. What you need to be is the กexpertก per se in one or a group of related needs/wants and build your business around that.

When you are กfocusedก you will see that a great many things come together for you. You will find that you aren’t spending gobs of money on traffic generating systems, with the hopes of getting กsomeoneก to buy. You will have a better idea of where those people are and become more proactive in your marketing strategies and budget spending. There is a huge difference in terms of marketing dollars and success rates when you go from a mass marketing approach to a targeted approach ;o)

Go back and look at your web sites and look at it from the shoes of a visitor and see what they see. That little exercise will ALWAYS give you a lot of information in figuring out why people aren’t buying and what needs to be adjusted.

So…first thing in getting long term targeted traffic is to stay focused and try not to be everything to all people. Meet the needs and wants of a targeted market and not the masses. One you know your target market and what they want then the following kicks in for you as far as specific marketing tactics is concerned…

1. List building I have sprouted off here continually about the NEED to have a list (or several lists) of your own. A list that is separate from your affiliate programs so that it can follow you wherever you go. If you have a focus then of course your lists become more focused as well. You will have a list of people who have a want and need for your products/ services as opposed to just a bunch of tire kickers who aren’t really sure what they want or need. Does that make sense??

Your business should have more than just one list. You can have a general list (ie, a subscribers list for your newsletter perhaps), and it should also have specific lists built around sales of certain products and services you offer. If you are in the health and nutrition market and sell several different products in the line, then for each product your sell, those customers become targeted to that product. You can then look at that and make targeted lists from that and act accordingly.

List building, as I said above, is THE KEY. You have the ability through your lists to be specific and target only those who want and need your products/services.

2. Advertising once you know your market and who needs what you have, in the process you find out where they hang out. When you know what newsletters and forums they go to then it makes things easier for you. Again, you are focused with respect to your marketing and are going into newsletters that speak directly to your target as opposed to the masses. Prime example here…

ProfitSpace focuses on marketing and copywriting tactics for the eBusiness owner. My target market for ProfitSpace is eBusiness owners.I can’t tell you how many classified ads I receive from people who are selling health and nutritional products. A person who is selling H&R products specifically is targeting people with health issues. While yes I am sure that there are eBusiness owners with health issues, they aren’t in the frame of mind to read about it in a marketing newsletter. They are looking for business help. That person selling these products would have generated far better response by going to a newsletter which targets health related issues.

You NEED to target your advertising to fit the newsletter you are advertising in. If you are SELLING health products then go to a health related newsletter. If you are trying to build a downline for your mlm then fine, stick with a newsletter geared towards business.

Another thing about advertising that will certainly help you in building long term targeted traffic. DON’t SEND A PERSON TO YOUR SITE, send them instead to a no cost eReport, eBook or eCourse that ties in and relates to your target/focus. REMEMBER if you don’t have a list then you are basically shooting yourself in the foot. You WANT the email address and the name of the visitor…you DON’t WANT them to go to your site, see what you have, hope theyกll bookmark you and come back. They won’t do it.

Let me give you an example of what I mean…

In the case of Mariangie who is promoting telecommunication products. Instead of placing a typical classified that leads a person to her site, she writes a no cost eReport on, oh…say…how to save money on your monthly cell phone charges and writes a classified promoting that report. BINGO she has a name and email address of someone who has a need to save money on their cell phone. You can go much farther in terms of marketing with a warm body to market to as opposed to marketing to a ghost ;o)

See how that works??

So…look at the focus of the newsletter you are advertising in and make sure it reaches your target market…AND…lead a person to a report or some other list generating tool…NOT TO JUST your web site ;o)

3. Articles I can’t tell you how effective writing articles has been for my eBusiness (actually, yes I can!!). Articles RULE!! For one issue all eyes are on you, you take center stage. Writing articles as it relates to your business is a fantastic way of generating trust and rapport, and gives you credibility. We mentioned about about targeting your advertising and articles work in much the same way. Find those newsletters who reach your target market then write good, informative articles that ‘talk to them.ก Share your knowledge and they will come and see what you have to offer, sign up for your reports/courses and spread the word about you.

I know that many people will not write an article because they feel they aren’t writers. กDon’t eat that Martha, itกs ca ca!!ก Anyone can write a simple กhow toก article. Just do up an outline for yourself and use it as a guide to gather your thoughts and then just take your กhow toก process and put it into steps for people to follow.

Articles not only promote you and your site in a subtle way but the Resource Box provides you with the PRIMO classified ad spot there is in the newsletter. See people will read your article, understand what you are saying and THEN read who wrote the article. Thatกs where the resource box comes into play because that is essentially your ad. There they find who wrote the article, your site address and then of course an incentive to get them on YOUR LIST…by offering a them a no cost report ;o)

Keep in mind that that ONE ARTICLE can reach more people than you could ever possibly imagine. You aren’t limiting yourself to just one newsletter…you can send that very article to several publishers within your TARGET MARKET and reach tens of thousands of people all at the same time. The great thing about using articles is the fact that it doesn’t cost you a cent..just takes a little time in putting your knowledge to paper…oh, I mean to disk ;o)

4. Develop your own information products Why rent if you can own. What I mean by that is why use someone elseกs information products when you can quite capably write your own and use it to itกs full advantage. Developing your own eReport, eCourse, or eBook provides you with SUCH AN ADVANTAGE. You can use your own knowledge and create a product and then leverage your marketing through the efforts of others…AND like articles reach far more people than you can possibly imagine.

Now if the mere thought of developing your own info product really scares the heck out of you…well first off, don’t let it. If you are writing articles then you can do a little formatting change and turn a group of articles into a report or course very easily. However, if that STILL makes you feel like a deer caught in the headlights, then your have an alternative. In terms of using information products in your marketing…opt for the reprint or customization rights ALWAYS.

Why??

Well, because as I said above you use these products to leverage YOUR marketing efforts. Yup, you didn’t write the course youกre using but your links and advertising is weaved throughout the particular course. When people who subscribe via your web form for the course will always know who they received that course from because your advertising is throughout, NOT someone elseกs. It just doesn’t make sense to work hard at marketing a course and then NOT have your information somewhere inside. Why are you doing that to yourself?? If you are going to spend time and energy in marketing a product make sure that it leads to YOUR LIST and IT HAS YOUR INFO inside at least. If you are allowed within the confines of the license then let others give YOUR COPY of the product away and leverage your marketing through their efforts…but DON’t let someone else ride your coat tails without getting something out of it.

Do you see how that works???

I offer an eCourse and offer customization licenses, so people have an option. To me as the author it makes no difference if you opt for the license or not…it is still a win/win. The person gets to use my course to build their list so they are smiling. In that regard the win for me is that I am leveraging my marketing through their efforts and because they didn’t buy the customization license ALL MY ads and links remain in place. Now if they took the time to see just how this works and what they can do to change it around a little they would see that by spending the $6.95 in the long run that ecourse just turned the tables for them. They STILL get to use the course as a list building tool AND they also stand to get hits by being able to add their own offers each day for the duration of the course. PLUS, by offering THEIR CUSTOMIZED version of that course to others to use for their list building…they have just turned the tables again by using the efforts of those who are using that course.

I can totally appreciate the fact that eBusiness owners have been through hell and back and have been burned many times by products and/or services offering them the moon. I understand the reluctance to spend money…HOWEVER, in the case of purchasing an eCourse or eReport customization license that gives you such a winfall of potential…it just makes for smart business ;o)

Ok, we have gone over four tools for help you gain targeted traffic. Now the other part of Steveกs question involved กlong term.ก Well, it stands to reason that if you keep up with the article writing, developing new information products are at least using those that are out there to YOUR full advantage, and using classified advertising the right way…that the long term will follow. This isn’t rocket science and YOU DON’t need a degree in marketing to pull any of these off successfully. All you really need is to be persistent and consistent ;o)

Every eBusiness owner needs to start with some form of marketing strategy or foundation. These four tactics will certainly give you a good solid foundation. Once you have them in place and they are pulling for you, youกll then be able to look at the other tactics like paypeclick search engines and give that a shot. The point that I want to really stress is the fact that if you start with the four tactics I mentioned above and they will always be working. Then as you progress you add new tactics, test them and if they prove to be beneficial then you add them.

It does take a bit of time and effort to see the rewards, but they will happen…just stick with it and don’t give up ;o)

About The Author

Denise Ryder is a Marketing Coach writing from her home office in Northern Ontario (Canada). She is publisher of ProfitSpace Newsletter (http://www.profitspace.com). Download her no cost 7Day eCourse กHow to Guarantee eBusiness Success…Before You Even Get Startedก http://www.profitspace.com/success/index.html

[email protected]

This article was posted on April 19, 2004

by Denise Ryder

7 Ways To Get More Repeat Traffic To Your Site

7 Ways To Get More Repeat Traffic To Your Site

by: Ken Hill

1. Make all or part of your site into a valuable directory.
Set up different sections of your site for people to submit their ezines, articles, ebooks or affiliate programs to such as marketing, writing, publishing, etc.
Your directory will not only increase your repeat traffic but will also help you to attract very targeted visitors to your site that are interested in your products or the products of affiliate programs youกve joined.
2. Publish a whatกs new section.
This section will keep your visitors up to date on any new additions to your site and is especially useful if your site is constantly updated by you or by your visitors who submit their own content to your site.
3. Provide resources on your site that your visitors can use on a regular basis such as a search engine submitter, email formatter or meta tag checker.
4. Add a discussion board to your site where your visitors can network with each other.
Post your own tips and advice to your board along with your signature file and use your discussion board to get to know your visitors better.
This will help you to continue to improve your product, copy, and service and can also help you to gain ideas about new products for you to offer your visitors.
5. Create a list that your visitors can subscribe to that announces to them when your site is updated.
For instance if you ran an article directory you could list the titles and descriptions of the newest article submissions to your site along with the URLs where your subscribers can view them.
You could also use your list to increase your revenue by selling sponsor ads to people who would like to advertise to your list.
6. Make polls and surveys available on your site.
Running your own polls or surveys, in addition to providing you with more repeat traffic, can also help you to acquire valuable information from your visitors.
For instance your polls and surveys could be used to find out how effective your copy is and to measure your customersก satisfaction with your products or customer service.
Your polls and surveys can also provide you with needed feedback that you can use when deciding on new products to add to your product line.
7. Publish an ezine.
Your ezine will provide you with a very effective way to keep your visitors coming back to your site to use the resources you provide to them, to view your articles, and most importantly to buy your products.
Provide your subscribers with special sales and discounts to increase the number of your subscribers who purchase from you for the first time and also to garner more repeat sales.

About The Author

Article by writer, Ken Hill. For more articles and a great tutorial on ezine publishing visit Kenกs site today at: http://www.netpromarketer.com

This article was posted on June 12, 2004

by Ken Hill

Give An Entrepreneur A Break

Give An Entrepreneur A Break

by: Cathy Bryant

Why do any of us choose to work from home? The answer to that question is as diverse as the individuals who call home their workplace.

For those of us who have chosen to market online, this question has many answers. But ultimately, everyone who works at home online or off has the same goal.

To make money.

For some reason, however, those of us who choose to do it online are often perceived as being greedy.

Let me elaborate.

Over the last few weeks, Iกve corresponded with several online colleagues who have indicated that theyกve actually been questioned or even criticized by individuals who feel itกs somehow กunfairก for them to ask for money in exchange for their information product.

As if that was some sort of crime.

Now, I suppose that the proliferation of scamsters online can indeed make people somewhat skeptical. Thatกs the reason that having a mailing list or newsletter is so important. Thereกs no question that marketing online does have an impersonal nature to it. And, if a consumer isn’t careful, he or she can be taken.

Another reason for this attitude, however, is that the internet is still perceived by some as a great gift that they are entitled to. That any information they want should be handed over to them without question and without any compensation on their part.

Well, certainly a lot of information is online if you are willing to spend months and even years (not to mention cold hard cash) to accumulate the knowledge and experience that those who have put these products together have done.

So why shouldn’t they be compensated for it?

If someone were to walk into a bookstore, stroll up to the checkout counter with a stack of books, and tell the clerk, กI want to get all these books, but I don’t want to pay for any of them,ก youกd think they were nuts.

So I ask you whatกs the difference online?

Hereกs one big difference and one not at all favorable for the muchmaligned online information marketer. Keep in mind that these same honest, reputable marketers who have put tremendous effort into producing their own products have offered their products with an unconditional moneyback guarantee as well.

And when people ask for their money back (unlike in the offline world) they can get it WITHOUT RETURNING THE PRODUCT.

So whoกs being scammed now???

I see changes lots of changes on the horizon for those who provide information products online. More and more of these individuals have their products on a secure site that denies continued access should the purchaser request a refund. I even purchased an ebook recently that uses a system which กlocksก the book when a refund is given.

This is just as it should be.

Why should someone who has invested the time to create an information product and invested money to market it NOT be expected to be compensated for it?

No reason at all.

About The Author

Cathy Bryant wants to help you discover the home business that is perfect for you. Her newsletter and website features many resources and ideas to help you generate a homebased income. Her newsletter is adfree and full of useful information to help you succeed. http://www.homebizjunction.com

This article was posted on March 22, 2003

by Cathy Bryant

$27,817 Monthly With Affiliate Programs

$27,817 Monthly With Affiliate Programs

by: John McLaren

I still remember thinking that promoting Affiliate Programs was a waste of time. Until I started making a small fortune.

At the end of 2004, I started some time exploring the concept of promoting affiliate programs through payperclick search engines. I knew of some Internet Marketing gurus who were claiming you could make thousands of dollars every month. But I was skeptical. I remember thinking, ขI know what these guys are about. They just want to sell more books.ข

But I decided that at least it was worth a look. The concept is quite simple. Choose a product – and one that has an affiliate program, of course. Set up an advertising campaign at a PPC search engine like Google and choose how much you want to pay per click. Write a three line advertisement and add your affiliate link. Whenever anyone clicks through your ad and buys the product, you earn a commission.

So I looked. And thought about it. And looked some more. I was still very uncertain about the whole concept, but I finally decided to test for myself whether it could really work. And since I knew I’d be spending quite a bit of money on advertising clicks, I felt it was well worth investing in a book so I could learn from more experienced marketers how to maximize the profitability of my campaigns.

As my business grew over several weeks I purchased and read several ebooks. By far the best I read was Chris Carpenter’s Google Cash ( http://tinyurl.com/6gdaq ). His approach is genuine, downtoearth, and he explains very clearly how to build your own affiliate marketing business. And importantly, he makes a fortune doing what he explains in the book.

I started by testing 2030 campaigns on various products. Most of them were unsuccessful, but I expected that from what I had been reading. I would test a product, and if it didn’t work, I would drop it quickly. The key with this business is identifying the affiliate products and campaigns that are successful. Once you find one that works, the money starts rolling in.

By February of 2005 I had identified several campaigns that were turning a profit. With one of these I was spending $0.08 per click to promote an affiliate product that pays me $18 commission on each sale. Approximately 1 visitor in 100 buys the product, so I make around $10 profit for every 100 visitors that I send.

What a formula! For every 1,000 visitors, that’s $180 in commissions. That might not seem like all that much, but remember once you have a successful campaign it keeps going all day, every day. If you send just 1,000 visitors to a program like this every day, then by the end of the month you will have earned $5,400 in commissions, of which $3,000 is profit.

Does it seem too simple? Well, if it was so easy everyone from your Aunt Mabel to the mailman would be doing it. In fact, while the concept is simple, getting your campaigns to run profitably does take some work. Since I can’t possibly teach you all you need to know in one article, Iกll give you a few tips here and recommend Google Cash for a detailed explanation:

Choose Your Product Wisely. The program should pay a commission of $15 or more, otherwise it won’t be worth paying for your clicks. And if the commission is very high, be careful. Some products like web hosting and satellite dish installations may pay commissions of $100, but you face intense competition from other affiliates, so the price you need to pay to get ad exposure and clicks will probably also be very high. Sometimes it is better to identify a niche product with less competition from other affiliates.

Track Your Campaigns Carefully. If you’re paying around 7 or 8 cents per click for a program that pays close to $20 commission, you need to make at least one sale for every 250 visitors. If you send 300 to 400 visitors with no sale, consider dropping it.

Days Of The Week Do Matter. When testing campaigns keep in mind the day of the week and even the time of day. Some products sell better on Mondays through Fridays, during business hours. Others, like entertainment products, sell better in the evenings and on weekends.

Getting back to my own experience, after identifying several campaigns that ‘worked’, I spent some time finetuning them using techniques I read about in Google Cash. By the end of February I had earned $27,817 in commissions for the month, all on products I had never even heard of at the end of 2004. My profit was a neat $10,795.

It’s incredible really. I made this money without a web site. From home. Working an average of just an hour or two a day.

I’m finally making the amount of money online that I dreamed about.

How about you? Would you also like to build an affiliate marketing business? Could you use some additional income? I encourage you to proceed, but be smart about it. There are risks involved and you should be aware of them. You should read Chris Carpenter’s book. That way you’ll be on a fast track to more profitable campaigns. And his book will save you hundreds of dollars, easily, as you avoid some common mistakes and pitfalls.

Good Marketing!

About The Author

John McLaren has worked for many years selling IT consulting services. Now he works from home, just a few hours each day, building his highly successful affiliate marketing business. For more professional advice, he recommends the book, Google Cash, available at: http://tinyurl.com/6gdaq.

This article was posted on March 26

by John McLaren

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

8 Common Marketing Mistakes

8 Common Marketing Mistakes

by: Charlie Cook

Advertising can be one of the fastest ways to market and grow your business or it can be one of the quickest ways to go out of business. With the right ad you can attract clients to your business and increase your profits. With the wrong ad you can spend your way into bankruptcy.

To grow your business you need to attract the attention of your prospects, advertising can help you do so if used correctly. Unfortunately, many small businesses owners waste thousands of dollars on advertising efforts that only achieve minimal results.

If you want to get the most from the money you spend to promote your products and services, make sure to avoid these common mistakes.

Focusing on Your Products and Services

If you want to get the attention of your prospects, speak to their needs and wants. Your prospectsก primary concern isn’t that youกve been in business for 25 years; it is do you know the problem they want to solve. Use your ad to identify at least one common problem of your prospects and the benefit of using your product or service.

Having a Weak Marketing Message

All to often you hear ads and it takes some thought to figure out what they are even promoting. Make sure your advertisement includes a 710 word description of whom you serve and the problems you solve so people who read or hear your ad know how you can help them.

Using the Wrong Words

A word here, a phrase there can change your response rate by hundreds of percent. When you spend money on advertising, first test a number of versions of your copy to identify the one that works best. Just by revising her ad copy so it was client and problem centered, I helped one small business owner achieve her best month in sales ever.

Missing Motivation

Most ads miss the mark in moving prospects to action. If you want to prompt prospects to visit your web site or your store or to contact you, include an offer that motivates them to do so.

Lacking in Frequency

Some people make spur of the moment buying decisions, but most need to become familiar with your services and products, and this takes time. If you want your advertising to work, you need to ensure that your prospects see or hear it regularly.

Web Sites that Don’t Move Prospects to Action

Many small business owners direct prospects to a web site where they have more extensive content covering available services and products. I constantly get calls from people who have been successful at attracting prospects to their web site, but generate few sales.

Once prospects get to your web site make sure the content and visual organization moves them to take the action you want them to. Whether it is providing them with ample opportunities to fill in your service inquiry form, or including a subset of your product catalog in your web page navigation bars, help prospects move to client and customer status.

Lack of Follow Up

Sometimes making a sale requires sending a note or picking up the phone and calling your prospects. If you have an effective lead generation strategy, prospects will provide you with their contact information and the problem they want solved. Use the web, email, and the phone to follow up and close the sale.

Lack of Tracking

If you are making more from your advertising than you are spending, you’re ahead. Frequently small business owners can’t tell you which of their efforts helped bring in the business. Track each of your ad campaigns and youกll know where to spend your money in the future, what to modify and what to eliminate.

Do you know how many sales and how much money you made as a result of each of your advertising campaigns?

Are you making any of the above common marketing mistakes?

What elements of your marketing should you change?

Put your marketing house in order. Fix your strategy and your materials. If you don’t know what to change or how to change it, use experts to help you with strategy, copyrighting, design, PR, and media placement.

Avoid these common marketing mistakes and youกll find ore people contacting you about your products and services and that your making more than your spending on your advertising.

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

About The Author

The author, Charlie Cook, helps independent professionals and small business owners attract more clients and be more successful. Sign up to receive the F*ree 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 February 24, 2004

by Charlie Cook

5 Quickest Ways To Massive Windfalls Of Cash Onlin

5 Quickest Ways To Massive Windfalls Of Cash Online

by: Ewen Chia

These days everyone wants to know how to make money online.

Yet, for some, this lifestyle seems out of reach. Does this describe you at all?

If you’ve been banging your head against the wall trying to figure out the quickest and easiest methods to generate cash for yourself online, then these five tactics should have you opening your eyes wide and wondering: ขWhy didn’t I think of this before?ข

Cash Tactic #1: Affiliate Products

Affiliate products offer the small, homebased business owner the opportunity to make truckloads of cash, while investing a minimum in over head.

Low overhead is the primary benefit of affiliate marketing. You don’t need your own merchant account. You don’t need to pay a web designer and programmer to create a huge estore for you. You don’t handle customer complaints, refunds or returns…

All you do is refer the prospect to the merchant’s site, and the merchant handles the rest.

I believe the best affiliate products are information products. Your commissions on information products tend to be higher simply because the author can price an information product higher than what the average shopper spends on a tangible product sold online on a typical day.

This is because the value of information is ambiguous at best, and subjective to how the prospect sees value. People are willing to spend much, much more in order to acquire a solution to their problems.

Cash Tactic #2: Resale Rights

Resale rights are the lazy marketer’s salvation. You don’t have to create your own product. You don’t have to write a single word. You may not even have to lift a finger on sales page creation when the resale product comes with a readytoupload sales page.

All you do is pay the licensing fee to acquire rights to the product, perform a small amount of editing to change the payment link over to yours, and upload the sales page and product file to your web server.

The trend is taking a turn for the better in 2005 while the marketing world goes through its latest ขnext big thingข: niche marketing.

Today, you can find products with resale rights for such things as cooking, golf, arts and crafts, selfimprovement and more.

Seizing on the profits promised by demand for niche products, there are dozens of new authors out there who have devoted themselves to turning out these niche products, and offering them with resale rights.

Cash Tactic #3: Special Reports

A special report is a ‘mini ebook’ of no more than about 5 to 12 pages in length. While you can certainly create a miniebook that sells (provided the information it contains is perceived to be valuable enough), the best use of a short report is as a lead generating tool for your affiliate campaigns.

The miniebook is the ideal viral tool. You create (or acquire) a miniebook which is branded with your affiliate links and/or your main URL.

The focus of the report should be niche specific and completely focused on the preselling of the affiliate product.

Cash Tactic #4: Interviews

It’s a piece of cake to churn out products created from interviews. In fact, it may be one of the laziest content generation methods available.

Interview packaging is easy, too. You can present the interview as a written transcript, an audio transcript, or both. You can offer a downloadable mp3 file or you can burn the entire interview to CD, put an attractive label on it, and instantly raise your price by at least 30%.

Cash Tactic #5 Teleseminars

Do you want to know something interesting about teleseminars?

While they’re becoming a popular marketing method, the field is really wide open for you to cash in on them because very few marketers understand how to pull them off.

A teleseminar requires advance planning and a willingness to overcome a bit of stage fright. The average marketer in competition with you avoids teleseminars for these reasons.

They’re intimidated by the idea of showing up on time and speaking, even via telephone, to an audience of a couple hundred people.

You can cash in on this technique in a big way. Teleseminars, right now, are popular mainly among the internet marketing crowd and tend to focus on marketingrelated subjects; but, just imagine what you could do if you held teleseminars for noninternet marketing niche audiences?

The field is wide open and vastly underexploited.

There you have it five quick and easy methods to generate windfalls of cash online!

It’s really amazingly simple, isn’t it? Every tactic is really just a vehicle of delivery for an idea. Your profits begin in an idea which spawns market research. This spawns an analysis of the best approach for delivering your idea to buying public.

While there are many more secrets and techniques to generate massive cash windfalls from the internet, as a start, you should put any one of these methods to good use.

I promise that you will finally get a taste of what it’s really like to succeed wildly online if you do so!

Copyright 2005 Ewen Chia

About The Author

Ewen Chia has just revealed his *secret toolkit* that will blow up your bank account like a thick balloon…and stuff more orders into your inbox than you can handle! Click here for the full details while you can:

http://www.StuffYourInboxWithCash.com

This article was posted on February 09

by Ewen Chia

Top 10 Reasons to Become an Affiliate Marketer

Top 10 Reasons to Become an Affiliate Marketer

by: Rosalind Gardner

Back when my online business consisted ONLY of affiliate sites, I had no need for a personal assistant.

The sites were all in place, and my affiliated merchants handled everything related to orders.

Last week, one of my clients mentioned that he was moving AWAY from selling his own products to promoting more affiliate programs just for the simplicity and freedom.

Yup, he definitely กgetsก it.

Although there are many, many benefits to promoting affiliate programs with your own homebased Internet business, here are my top 10 reasons to become an affiliate marketer.

No Product Development Costs The cost to develop and produce a new product is expensive! But you needn’t worry about that as an affiliate.

Low Cost Setup Got a desk, Internetconnected computer and wordprocessing software? You’re in business!

No Fees or Geographic Limits on Distribution Affiliate programs are usually free to join, and market reach is limited only by the affiliateกs ability to promote his or her web site.

Choose From Thousands of Products and Services What isn’t sold online? With affiliate networks like Commission Junction, Be Free and Linkshare, itกs easy to find products related to your current or planned web site.

No Merchant Account Required Forget the problems associated with collecting and storing names, addresses, credit card numbers, etc. The merchant handles all payment processing, so you never have to lose sleep over chargebacks, fraud or losing your merchant account.

No Inventory to Carry Even if you live in a small onebedroom apartment, you can sell large items without storage concerns.

No Shipping Costs Don’t worry about buying packing supplies or postal rates. The cost and hassle to prepare and ship products to customers worldwide belongs to the merchant.

No Customer Concerns Do you hate the prospect of dealing with nasty people? Don’t worry about it! The merchant handles the snivelers.

Make Money While You Sleep What other business allows you as a sole proprietor to keep your doors open and keep making money even when you take breaks or after you go home for the night?

High Income Potential With your own affiliate business your income potential is limited only by your desire, effort and imagination not your boss.

Relatively low outlay of resources with huge potential returns truly makes affiliate marketing on the Internet an outstanding business opportunity.

About The Author

Article by Rosalind Gardner, author of the bestselling กSuper Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other Peopleกs Stuff Onlineก. To learn how you too can suceed in Internet and affiliate marketing, go to: http://NetProfitsToday.com.

This article was posted on March 30

by Rosalind Gardner

10 Killer Ways To Multiply Your Sales

10 Killer Ways To Multiply Your Sales

by: Frank Bauer

Would you like to multiply your web site sales? Or course you would, who wouldn’t? 🙂 Then take a close look at the following 10 killer ways to multiply your sales…

1. When you make a sale, always followup with the customer. First you should followup with a ‘thank youก email.

Then, a few days later, you can followup up and as them if they are satisfied with their purchase or if they have any questions.

After a certain time, you should followup and ask them for their feedback, good or bad and possibly for a testimonial.

All your followup messages can include a small advertisement for other products you sell.

If you use a fn automated system to do this, it will not even take a minute of your time to do all the followups.

2. You could upsell to your customers. When they’re at your order page, tell them about a few extra related products you have for sale. They could just add it to their original order.

Or you can upsell your visitors from a standard version to a professional version of your product or service.

3. Tell your customers if they refer four customers to your web site, they will receive a full rebate of their purchase price. This will turn one sale into four sales.

This can be easily done placing a referafriend form on your order ‘thank youก page.

4. When you sell a product, give your customers the option of joining an affiliate program so they can make commissions selling your product. This will multiply the sale you just made.

For example… do that in one of your followup messages mentioned in the first point above.

5. Sell the reprint/reproduction rights to your products. You could include an ad on or with the product for other products you sell. You could make sales for the reproduction rights and sales on the back end product.

You could also product licenses in bulk at a discounted rate to resellers. Then they can sell it at retail price and keep to profit.

6. You could cross promote your product with other businessesก products in a package deal. You can include an ad or flyer for other products you sell and have other businesses selling for you.

This is a great way to joint venture with other businesses as it is mutual beneficial for both sides.

7. When you ship out or deliver your product, include a coupon for other related products you sell in the package. This will attract them to buy more products from you.

Of course you can also include coupon codes in one of your followup emails.

8. Send your customers a catalog of addon products for the original product they purchased. This could be upgrades, special services, attachments, etc. If they enjoy your product they will buy the extra addons.

If you create an online catalog for delivery by email (again, this is good for another followup email), I recommend to use Adobe Acrobat to create a PDF catalog.

This way your customers will be able to read it, no matter what operating system they use on their computer.

9. Sell gift certificates for your products. Youกll make sales from the purchase of the gift certificate, when the recipient cashes it in. They could also buy other items from your web site.

To do that online, you could simply send the customer a personal coupon code, that they can on to the lucky person.

10. Send your customers free products with their product package. The freebies should have your ad printed on them. It could be bumper stickers, ball caps, tshirts etc. This will allow other people to see your ad and order.

Online you could give them free versions or trial copies of your other products, together with their paid product.

Copyright 2004 Frank Bauer

About The Author

Resources:

Followup autoresponder system: Add2it AutoRespond Pro

http://www.add2it.com/scripts/autorespondpro.shtml

ReferAFriend system: Add2it ReferThem Pro

http://www.add2it.com/scripts/referthempro.shtml

Frank Bauer is the owner of Add2it.com Scripts & Services for your Web Business at http://www.add2it.com and the publisher of the More4you Newsletter at: http://www.more4you.ws

To see how he can help you, visit: http://www.frankbauer.name

Reprint rights to this article are granted, as long as it is not modified and the resources plus this signature remain unchanged.

This article was posted on September 25, 2004

by Frank Bauer

10 Reasons To Have A Custom Blog

10 Reasons To Have A Custom Blog

by: กRagsก Kelly R. Ragland

Blogging is a growing trend on the Internet today with hundreds of users adding new blogs and fresh content daily. While many use their blogs for personal journals, ploitical opinions or other topics of discussion, one could also look at a blog from a marketing perspective and find benefits for their business. Here I suggest ten reasons to start a custom blog to enhance their online marketing efforts.

10 Blogs generate traffic

By posting blogs online you generate new keyword content that can be crawled by search engines. Unique searches by Internet users seeking products and services can lead them to your articles and topics for further review. If your blog answers their question, provides them information on what they are searching for or captures their interest you have a possible repeat visitor, lead or sale should they click through to browse your web site.

While many web sites use focussed articles, case studies and press releases in such a way, a blog gives you the advantage of covering several topics to capture a broad range of interests. A blog encourages repeat visits, remains open to interactivity when allowing users to comment or leave feedback and becomes a channel for you to network with the online public discussing your business, products and services.

9 You don’t have to be a professional writer

Writing effective material for web content that is keyword friendly and well presented for generating a sale is often left to professionals, and is very important to a web sites success. A blog however leaves the style and approach to the content completely up to you. As the owner of your business you are qualified as the expert in your field, which is enough to interest and educate your customers about what you do. You have the creative license to discuss subjects about your business with personality and even humor. You have a forum to converse with your readers about your business, yourself and what you do best.

8 Custom blogs can have special features

There are many features used on the Internet such as polls and surveys that again help you communicate with your customers and your web site visitors. A custom blog can be modified to do whatever you would like it to do just like a web site. Any additional features that would improve your blogs interest can be added at any time, while a free or programmed blog can leave you less options or no options at all.

7 Fresh web site content on your schedule

Fresh content and frequent updates are essential to a successful web presence. A blog allows you to add new content as your schedule allows be it the tip of the day or the product of the week. Blogging puts the task of keeping your site current right on your desktop.

6 Broadcast on demand

Announcing promotions, sales and special events is as easy as typing them into your blog. Make any notice public within minutes.

5 Today a blog, tomorrow an ezine

As time passes and your blog archives your posts, your blog becomes a virtual magazine of material with a range of topics. The more content you add related to your business, the more keywords are added and more material is available for interested Internet users.

4 Customer education

No matter what business yourกe in it is important to give your customers a clear message of what you offer. You can use your blog to help them better understand your methods, products, policies and more. Frequently asked questions can be addressed and explained easily, a benefit to you and your clients.

3 Customer service

Use your blog to support products and services by adding content that can again answer questions or explain procedures. The ability to attract attention to new products or inform customers about those products can give your customers a reference point and save them a call or possible confusion.

2 Customer satisfaction

One could use their blog to allow customers to leave feedback on their purchases, build a list of testimonials, offer ways for them to recommend, rate or request products and more. All adding more content to the blog to interest other readers and sales leads.

1 Your satisfaction

As this article suggests, with a custom blog you have a marketing tool and total control over what relationships can build from it. An affordable online web presence that requires little time, knowledge to operate and an open channel to the Internet at large.

About The Author

Kelly Ragland กRagsก is a published columnist, web designer, web site application developer, Internet marketing consultant and owner of Rags To Stitches Productions at http://www.astitch.com.

This article was posted on April 09

by กRagsก Kelly R. Ragland

Information Products For Profit

Information Products For Profit

by: Matt Bacak

It is no secret that the internet has created the new generation of millionaires in only a few short years. Every few seconds a person starts a home business somewhere around the world, and the amazing thing is that the market does not seem to be getting saturated anytime soon! Business is booming, and for quick easy cash people are turning to the internet.

However faced with the fact that many of us do not have a product to sell, nor do we have the infrastructure set up or the manpower necessary to distribute products. Nevertheless a growing group of people are selling products right out of their home office or their kitchen table; how? Information products! Now regular bookstores and music stores are getting serious competition from our very own neighbors. The technology available to all of us makes it extremely easy to create your very own information product; whether that is a book, a music CD, a course, you name it! All you need is a computer and an internet connection, some time and virtually no investment!

Here are some products that you can create right now!

Ebooks

Ebooks are electronic books; it is like a regular book but they can be read on your computer, or printed out with a regular printer. Because you do not produce a ขphysicalข product you also do not have any printing costs! So therefore, you can already guess, you will keep 100% of the profits you make. Even more powerful however is the fact that you can sell unlimited numbers of your book, and do not need any inventory. Nor will you be stuck with piled of unsold books. You create something now, and you can profit from it forever! You can write about anything you are knowledgeable about, or anything you would like to research further. If you do not feel comfortable with this you can easily hire a ghostwriter who will do it for you.

CDกs

The only thing you need is a CD burner and the sky is the limit; you can publish your ebook on CD, or a collection of books. You can also record you own music CD or publish a course. If you know how to write simple programs you can even make your own software. Or again; all you need is a good idea because you will easily find a professional willing to develop your product for you!

Audio Cassettes

These go along the same lines as CDกs; you can sell a product people can listen to in their car, on their way to work. You can even publish an ebook and a cassette version of the same product to maximize profits! Generally all you need is a tape recorder that can produce good quality tapes, and preferably one with two tape decks so you can easily reproduce the initial tape you made. Audio Cassettes are a bit more labour intensive than CDกs, but if you truly want to reach your entire target market, they are a must.

Special Reports

These are relatively short ขbooksข, or just a collection of pages on a particular topic. Remember those reports you wrote back in school? Think a few of those bunched together, on a topic people want to learn more about.

Self Help Products

All the products above can be used in this category; people are always hungry for information, regardless of the state of the economy. In fact; when there is an economic downturn sellers who specialize in books on how to save money or make money see their profits grow faster than normal! Knowledge is profit; and you are unique like anyone else.

How to Create a Product

You more than likely possess enough knowledge to create hundreds of information products; however because you are unaware of the fact that there are people out there who do not know what you know, you are more likely to think you do not know anything special or worth selling. Think again! Have your friends ever asked you for advice or help on something? Whether in a hobby, at work, or a relationship? Are you good at your job? Or extremely involved in a special hobby? This little brainstorming session should already give you plenty of ideas that you can put to work right now!

The next step is to think of topics you want to know more about. Itกs likely that if you are interested in something, other people are too. Now all you need to do is some research and then develop the product of your choice; you will be doing all those other people a favor by presenting them with a solution to their ขproblemข without having to do any research themselves.

About The Author

Matt Bacak became ก#1 Best Selling Authorก in just a few short hours. Recent Entrepreneur Magazine’s eBiz radio show host is turning Authors, Speakers, and Experts into Overnight Success Stories. Discover The Secrets http://promotingtips.com.

This article was posted on August 08

by Matt Bacak