Micro Business Tips – Page 3 – Micro Business Specialist

How to Choose Your Marketing Model and Avoid Chasing Rabbits, Dead Ends and False Rainbows

The Following Article is from Marlin Sanders and is used with permission. In the article he promotes his recent release the Writer’s Secret. I recommend this to you, if your meet the criteria Marlin explains in the article below.

—-

If you were to look at the inbox on my email account, you’d see a zillion billion emails from marketers telling you all the things you need to buy to succeed online.

Whew!

You can’t buy all of ’em, read all of ’em or do all of ’em.

What a pickle you have yourself in now! What do you do?

I just keep teaching and preaching the road less taken. Here’s how to avoid dead ends and stay on the straight and narrow path to online success by focusing on the ONE thing you must do.

Know what model you’re following

There are different models for making coin online.

1. The affiliate model

You promote affiliate programs by getting organic search engine ranking or buying pay-per-click or other types of ads.

If you DO use affiliate marketing, make SURE you’re building your own list BEFORE you promote affiliate products. Your list is absolutely key.

— Article marketing is an organic seo (search engine
optimization) play. This is what MOST people do who are on the affiliate model.

Article marketing DOES work. But it’s much better if you drive your clicks to what we call an email capture or name squeeze page. That way you can get people on your email list and follow up.

Just understand that if you’re doing article marketing, it’s a play to get traffic from the search engines and also the article directories you submit to.

The downside of the affiliate model is you’re doing the hard work of getting new customer and putting them into someone else’s funnel. The hardest thing you will EVER do is get a new customer.

So as an affiliate, you typically do the HARD part and often make only a 1-time commission for this while the OTHER person, the merchant, sells product after product to that new customer and pays you nada.

Now, I have an affiliate program. But we pay on many back-end or follow up sales and not just the initial sale.

But would you rather be at the top or the bottom of the food chain? I advocate being at the top where others are YOUR affiliates.

Understand that a lot of people who advocate the affiliate model use that approach as a trojan horse to recruit affiliates for THEIR products.

Nothing wrong with the affiliate model to start with. But become a producer and promoter as soon as you can.

— Buying ads

Anything that focuses on pay-per-click (ppc) or other methods of buy advertising is usually an affiliate model.

2. The Web 2.0

For the most part, all the talk you hear about web 2.0 translates into getting higher rankings in Google or the search engines. So it’s an organic seo play.

Web 2.0 sounds like it’s some new beast. For the most part, it’s a way to get inbound links to your web sites with higher authority and trust. There’s also the possibility of getting traffic from the web 2.0 sites themselves.

You’re still either promoting your own products or someone elses as an affiliate. And if it’s the latter, you’re doing the hard part of getting new customers and putting them into someone else’s funnel who will THEN suck out the lifetime value (that is, a whole bunch of other sales in a compressed time frame) and pay you zilch on those sales.

I try to play fair by paying backend commissions to my affiliates.

3. The CPA model

CPA (cost per action) is an affiliate model where you typically get paid per action like lead generated vs. per sale.

You’re STILL promoting someone else’s product vs. your own.

The challenge with the CPA model is you typically aren’t building a list that has clear cut needs you can sell to over and over.

What you ARE doing is putting people into someone else’s recurring billing system. MOST CPA offers are built on recurring billing. With Visa’s new crackdown, that will likely change.

There’s nothing wrong with this model. But I prefer an evergreen model where I build customer equity. In other words, I build a list of loyal customers with common needs and desires who buy from me over and over again.

4. The organic seo model

This concept dominates a lot of the affiliate models and a lot of online marketing talk.

I actually enjoy learning about this model and have a filipina working on it (I hired her using the gameplan at outsourceplan.com).

Anyway, the downside of this model is it’s SLOW to get those rankings and requires skill and know how. And the big thing is, you’re subject to Google slaps, whims and algo changes.

Google can change HOW it ranks sites and overnight your income can be zapped. OF course, there ARE other search engines and you can lower your risk by spending part of your time focusing on those also.

I think seo has a place if you outsource it properly. But I think it’s risky to build your whole business on it.

One of the problems in learning how to do organic seo is there are so many theories about what works and doesn’t.

The main game here is to get inbound links to your website. But Google changes their mind about what types of links are acceptable and what aren’t.

So you have to always stay on top of the game. And there is a ton of conflicting information. I’ve invested a lot of time and money just boiling the topic down to some evergreen things you can do that aren’t likely to get zapped by Google.

The other problem with this model is that the amount of competition for keywords KEEPS increasing! More and more people keep looking for low competition keywords.

So the competition for low competition keywords keeps increasing and you have to work harder to maintain rankings for those “easy” keywords.

This is OK. It’s all a game. And with proper effort and outsourcing it’s doable. I wouldn’t base my entire business on it because of the risks involved.

The MAIN thing to know here is when you see people tout all these huge numbers from an organic seo model, you can BET there’s a whole lot of something going on in the background. And probably quite a bit more than they let on about.

5. The PPC model

My friends Joel Peterson and Kirt Christensen totally rock at this.

PPC is good if you can watch your numbers very closely.
You’re spending money so you have to really stay on top of it.

The risks are similar to organic seo. Google likes to change the rules as soon as most people figure out WHAT those rules are!

Which isn’t all bad. It weeds out the competition.

You should know that a LOT of the gigantic numbers printed in sales letters for products about ppc are from selling things that are very broad market like ringtones.

If the product being promoted isn’t revealed in the ad, this should be a clue.

You’ll ALSO find out that a lot of the big success stories involve products that are either recurring billing or very large ticket like $3,000. If you can get people on a webinar and sell something for $3,000, by all means DO IT!

I’ve never concentrated on verbal selling enough to do that. I don’t like doing it. It’s not my cup of tea. Just understand that anytime you see really large numbers tossed around, what is actually DONE to make those numbers usually isn’t revealed.

Which is my beef with some of the products sold on the topic. If you don’t show me HOW to do what YOU do but CLAIM you do, then you didn’t play fair.

Is the method fully disclosed? From what I see, a lot of the ppc stuff never reveals HOW the numbers in the sales letter were actually generated.

PPC is a pretty complex Game. Still, if you focus on it, you can do well.

I don’t like having my future depend on the whims of Google. Yuk!
I also don’t like watching numbers that closely.

But if you’re willing to spend 25 g’s in a month to bring in 100 g’s, you CAN do it via ppc.

If you DO PPC, you’ll probably need automation tools like the one Joel Peterson showed on the webinar I did with him the other day.

Very cool tool. I also like buying banner ads as Joel does because there’s a lot less risk of a Google slap than with search.

I’m EXPLORING doing ppc with this software. I need to see if I can get a process worked up that my oursourcer can use. I don’t do this kind of thing myself but don’t mind outsourcing it.

6. The Writer’s Secret model

The Writer’s Secret is about producing and promoting your OWN products.

And it’s about getting traffic via your OWN affiliate program, which is hands down the best source of traffic in many niches.

Here are a few advantages of the model:

a. Full disclosure

There isn’t some deep dark secret you have to join a high-end coaching program to discover.

b. It’s simple, logical and practical

I’m NOT saying anyone can do it. I AM saying it’s pretty darned logical and practical. And it’s reasonable to think someone who works at it can do it.

c. It’s evergreen

Nothing about it that’s going to “stop working” or “get slapped” tomorrow.

========================
How To Choose Your Model
========================

1. Know what you ARE and are NOT good at

If you’re good at spreadsheets and detailed work, ppc is a great choice for you.

If you’re good at routine, sustained effort over an extended period of time and you’re analytical, organic seo may be your cup of tea.

If you’re good at writing, creating or talking on video or screen capture video, the Writer’s Secret approach may be for you.

2. Choose a method with full disclosure

Do NOT start using a method where all the secrets aren’t revealed (or available at a cost you can afford) and where you have to spend $250, $500 or $1,000 a month for coaching to get the REAL scoop.

A lot of systems sound good. But the info product on it is really a glorified teaser for the coaching program. So the method isn’t actionable to you.

You MUST have an actionable, doable method that does NOT have these deep dark secrets you don’t know that are required for success.

3. Ask yourself if your model matches your abilities

Right now, the idea of video sales pitches is making the rounds.
It’s a great method.

Really works.

BUT — if you can’t talk, don’t like to talk, aren’t verbal or articulate, then save your money.

If you like to write, follow a writer’s path.

If you like to talk, then do video products and teleseminars, webinars or video sales letters to sell your products.

4. See through the fad pitches

When your inbox gets POUNDED with people endorsing a new product or method, it has LITTLE to do with how great the product or method is and a LOT to do with how skilled the person was in doing reciprocal mailings, networking and pulling off a major launch.

It has VERY little to do with the actual value of the product FOR YOU.

Keep your head screwed on.

5. Once you know your model, focus on your model.

Cut out the noise.

You can’t know everything nor do everything.

=======================================================
Marlon Sanders helps people with hopes and dreams figure out how to turn those into reality by selling stuff on the Internet. http://www.thewritersecret.com

//////////////////////

REPRINT RIGHTS: You have permission to use the above article without omission and including the resource box.
You have the right to insert your reseller URL for any products I mention

Builiding Your List with Giveaways

The Giveaway is Back. While I feared it may have died last year in a flood of same old events vanilla events it appears to be alive and kicking due in large part to Rodger Hyatt and friends.

He has put together two very successful events in the past few months and has just announced a third which is now open for Joint Venture partners called EZ-IM Giveaway.

The secret to Rodger’s approach is that he has discovered ways to make it worthwhile for people to promote the events. And he has built a huge following of large and small marketers to participate in the process. If you are building a list and have a product you can contribute, you too should join as a JV partner.

In his last effort with Gary Simpson and Stephanie Mulac, called the Self Improvement Giveaway I had 130 people download my gift and join my list.

Now these days, I sometimes get that many and more from some of the ad swaps I do, but if you don’t already have a list in the thousands or tens of thousands, a hundred plus people is pretty good. Had I upgraded, (and I wish I had) I could have offered three gifts and I probably would have easily double that number.

Now I going to repeat the old saying here. Bear with me. The money is in the list. There I said it. It’s actually in the relationship you build with your list, but the saying is a truism. One I heard but didn’t fully understand and more unfortunately did not take action on as soon as I should have.

Once I did, through giveaways and then ad swaps my income has dramatically improved. If you are relatively new to internet marketing and haven’t focused on list building yet. Start.

And a good way is via Giveaways. What ever your niche, create a short report you can giveaway. Create a Short Squeeze page, and get your product listed in the EZ-IM Giveaway. It opens on February 5th at 10:00AM EST. Join today and get your product ready if you don’t already have one.

So why are these events successful? Well in large part because they have been designed to encourage people with lists to actually promote them. The upgrade money flows to the people who recruit the JV’s, which encourages participation. This increases the variety of products offered so there is even more reason for members to go to the event and shop for gifts they can actually use.

I don’t know what Rodger and his partners, The Mutrie Boys, Charles and Philip, have in mind for this event, but I am expecting some mid event promotions to encourage promotion by the JV’s. This is good for everybody.

In the past on most giveaways the bulk of the action occurred on the first few days and then next to nothing there after. In the SI event I was getting sign-ups all through the event, and a big burst toward the end. It was gratifying.

I don’t normally write about Giveaways on this blog. I have another where I regularly post current and upcoming events. http://AskEarlAbout.com/GiveAways

I do so today, because these guys have made a difference that can be of real value to you. This event will get a lot of traffic, and if you have an attractive report that highlights your niche, I can promise you will get a nice list of prospects. If you don’t have a report yet, use this event as the reason to create it. You have a few days to do so. Get it done. You can use it over and over again. Sign up today and get busy.

EZ-IM Giveaway

Four Times? He’s Serious About This!

I am impressed with Marlon Sanders. Now let me be honest, he scared me away with his frentic style the first few times I encountered him. He talks a mile a minute and looks a tad bit crazed, but there is definite method to his madness.

Here’s a short video I created that emphasizes a key point or feature of his current offer for his Marketing Dashboard.

Now Check out his offer:

Marketing Dashboard

What Are The Advantages in Niche Marketing?

There are several advantages to our simple marketing plan of focusing on niches online.

The first is that by narrowing our topic to something very specific, we allow ourselves the opportunity to become an expert on that narrow niche. To be effective as a marketer, you want to be seen as an authority, someone you customers can trust. Because trust is a key element of the buyers decision making process.

It’s much easier to learn everything important there is to know about Ice Fishing lures and gear than it is to learn everything there is to know about fishing in general.

By selecting a niche and learning about it through research, you will be viewed as an expert who provides solutions for your audience.

Additionally, by focusing on a smaller niche market you will have more targeted customers and less competition. This means you will be in a position to be the dominant force within your niche market.

In other words, you will be the big fish in the little pond, as opposed to being a little fish in a big one.

In niche marketing, the concept is first to identify an audience or customer base. Then to study and understand them so that you have a good handle on what they are looking for, what they are hungry for. And then you feed it to them, by promoting a relevant product to meet that demand. That product may be someone else’s or your own, but the key is that before you go to the trouble of promoting it, you have already identified the people who want it, and understand how and why it will meet their needs. It then is a simple matter to sell it.

The primary advantage of niche marketing is that it reduces resistance to the sales process. You are no longer trying to get people to buy something they don’t want. Instead you are helping them solve their specific problem. As such you become their hero, which is a far more satisfying outcome.

Starting From Scratch: Deciding What Niche to Pursue

Whether you are just starting out for the first time, or adding to an existing internet marketing empire you need to start with a simple marketing plan to find a new niche online.

The advantage of the internet is the ability for people to find specific information on narrow topics of interest to them. With hundreds of millions of people searching for everything under the sun, it becomes possible to do target market marketing by narrowly focusing on a lucrative market where there is demand for products. The trick as a marketer is to identify what niche you can effectively exploit.

In the next several blog postings we will discuss the topic of finding niches that you can develop into your own little piggy banks. Once we have finished that we will move on to how to properly develop those niches.

So what is a niche?

A niche market is a subset of the market on which a specific product is focused. Ultimately that means that every product has its own niche, but to start by focusing on the product is generally a mistake.

For niche marketing internet style, it’s best to first identify the niche, and their needs before you get to the product or solution.

So this implies that a niche is a group of people with a common interest. As an example, millions of people will identify themselves as fishermen or women. But within the overall category of fishing, you will find people who when more specific will say they are into Deep Sea Fishing, or Trout Fishing, or Bass Fishing, or even Ice Fishing.

Within any of these narrower categories there may be additional categories or sub niches, such as Bass Fishing Boats, Bass Fishing Vacations, or Bass Fishing Tips, etc.

As a marketer, our simple niche marketing strategy calls for us to seek out a small segment of larger markets, and identify the needs of the people in that small niche and then provide specific solutions to those needs by selling them solutions to fulfill their demand.

Easy enough to say, but how do we identify profitable niches, where people are hungry for solutions? That will be the topic of our future posts.

Muscle Your Way to Profits

I was going to write the third of my planned three part series on free traffic tools I’ve been experimenting with today, but I will save that for after Thanksgiving.

Because, today Doug Champigny just released another of his famous PLR 3 packs. The fitness niche is huge with a lot of people spending big bucks to bulk up and get fit. As such, it is a natural niche for you to spend a little money and some time on. And with this package from Doug, it couldn’t be easier.

Each of the three packages comes with the product, a ready made sales letter and 25 articles you can use as part of a follow up email campaign or rewrite and set up on the article directories to drive traffic and backlinks to your new site.

Fitness PLR Pack

The topics are…

Mixed Martial Arts
6 Pack Abs
Gaining Wright 101

To be most effective in using these products you want to…

1. Do some quick keyword research to find terms that have at least 500 searches in a month, but less than 50-100,000 results when you search for the keyword in parenthesis: “keyword” These are the keywords you will have the best chance at getting traffic from fast.

2. Pick a couple of the best of these, and search for a good domain name. Now sometimes I cheat and just add it to my www.askearlabout.com/keyword site, but you will get better results if you spend $10 and get a niche specific url.

3. Decide if you are going to sell the eBook or give it away. If you already have a list in the area, I would consider selling it. If you are just starting in the niche, offer it as a freebie to start building a fitness niche list you can sell to for years to come.

4. Review the eBook and make any edits you want and add links to it to other products you have, and/or to affiliate products. This is how you make money even when you give the books away.

5. Load the sales page to your site, and make any changes or edits you wish, although the sales page provided is great as it is.

6. Add a blog to support the project. You can use the 25 articles as content over time.

7. Alternatively, you can use some of included articles as a series of follow-up emails to keep in touch with your new list, and build loyalty and trust with them, or rewrite some of them articles and submit them to the article directories. I usually, put these in my blog first and then upload them to the directories. That allows them to do double duty, and gets my blog the initial credit in Google’s eyes.

8. Now that you’ve finished the first of the three packages, repeat of the rest. If you decided to give away the first eBook to build a list, consider selling the other two to the list you have built. The choice is yours. But with three eBooks on closely related topics, you have the makings for a nice niche that you can grow and develop over time. Or consider offer one or two of the ebooks as a bonus when people buy one.

So now it’s time to take action. This package will save you countless hours compared to creating your own similar products, and could easily be the core of a great new profit center for your online enterprise.

Go grab Fitness PLR Pack and put some muscle into your online profits.

By the way any one of the products in this package is well worth what Doug is charging for all 3.

Free Traffic Resources

When I first started to learn my way around internet marketing, I came across a variety of Free Traffic Resources. Since I had little money I was willing to risk online, I tried a couple of traffic exchange programs where I would spend 1/2 hour to a couple of hours looking at other people’s ads to build credits so they would look at my ads.

I did my level best not to buy anything from the ads I looked at and for the most part my fellow travelers largely did the same. Now since then I have come to learn that these exchanges actually can work, when an effective back end process is paired to an enticing free offer.

But personally, I didn’t have the patience to waste time scrolling through offers, even when I got things set up to do five different traffic exchanges at the same time. So I pretty much gave up on the entire genre some years back.

Now I know some people who swear by the traffic exchanges, but they generally have developed front and back end offers that work and they buy the clicks rather than earn the free credits. Once you have a handle on how many views it takes to convert into a purchase, it makes sense to do so – as long as the combo turns a profit.

Recently, I have been experimenting with three different systems and my opinions of free traffic generation is going through a reappraisal.

Most recently, I took part in the launch of the newest system out there called the Perfect Traffic Storm. Now I haven’t made a lot of money yet, as it is only a few days old, but I have made my first sales, so I can say I am in the chips.

Perfect Traffic Storm is free to join, and is actually pretty exciting. Here is an example of how it works.

I am actively promoting the 100% Giveaway that opened today. I created a new link in Perfect Traffic Storm by inserting my affiliate link for the Giveaway into the form on the perfect traffic storm page.

Then I used the new url they generated to serve as my hyperlink for the Giveaway. When someone clicks on the hyper link, they are taken to the Giveaway, but at the bottom of the page viewers will see another ad from one of the other advertisers who has an ad in the Giveaway category. This last about 10 seconds at the bottom of the page and is clearly visible but not too obstructive, and then just fades away.

Every time someone clicks on one of my links, I get credits to show my ads on other people’s pages. Like I said, I had my first payoffs already even though I have been using the site for only a couple of days.

To see what the ads look like, click on my link for the 100% Giveaway. Then come back and click on my link for the Perfect Traffic Storm and join it.

I was able to send a twitter broadcast today using the Perfect Traffic Storm link to the Giveaway and got 56 hits that went to the Giveaway which was a good way to promote the Giveaway and Got 168 credits for ads on the Perfect Storm site.

I am pretty sure I will be using these links on a regular basis for my twitter posts, and possible much wider as well. I think you should consider doing so as well.

Mental Manure for the Growing Business Person

Ideas are the mental manure for growing businesses. And to be worthwhile they need to be your ideas, because only then will you work them the way they should be worked, hard and fast.

How do you get actionable ideas worth pursuing? By exposing yourself to highly intelligent conversation on the issues affecting your business by the best minds in the world.

Perhaps you already have a lot of ideas, how do you most effectively put them into action? Ponder that issue as you listen to the insights of 54 of the world’s leading business minds – participating as members of

The League of Extraordinary Minds

And if you sign up now, you can be sure to get access to their insights for

FREE

–More world-class business experts, mega-bestselling authors and famous icons than anyone, anywhere has ever assembled.

–36 hours of 100% content-rich, non-selling expert panel interview series

–No one else anywhere has ever had access to this caliber, quality, desirable collection of famous, prominent, brilliant real-life experts that we’ve assembled. No one else has even come remotely close.

This tremedous event has been put together by Rich Schefren and Jay Abraham. If you do not know who they are, suffice it to say you should. For there are few people who could have drawn all these people together in an event that turns out to be free to you.

My hope is that this business oriented mind meld will stimulate tens of thousands of new business initiatives to lead the new economic recovery.

More importantly, I hope you take advantage of this perhaps once in a lifetime event. The value of the ideas you will develop from this may well be worth more than a semesters worth of MBA training.

This free six week event will get sold out. So be sure to register for it today. I am proud to be associated with Jay Abraham and Rich Schefren on this project. I am confident you will benefit mightily from it as well. Register Now!

The League of Extraordinary Minds

The League of Extraordinary Minds

Man, just when I think Rich Schefren and Jay Abraham have topped themselves, they go and do something even more amazing…

Best part is that both you and I stand to make some money from it.
https://schefren.infusionsoft.com/go/affr/EarlNetw

Yeah, you read that right.

More than 50 of the world’s most brilliant business and marketing minds – All in one place. And all ready to help you achieve the success of your dreams.

For six unforgettable weeks, you’ll sit at the feet of the masters in a series of intimate panel settings, listening intently as they reveal their most closely hidden secrets for building a mega- profitable business.

Seriously–this “Group Think Tank” process has the capability to increase your profits by up to 1,000%–or more–before the year is over.

And the best part about it? The COST.

Because, well….there is none.

https://schefren.infusionsoft.com/go/affr/EarlNetw

That’s right–you can get six weeks of in-depth mastermind training from the foremost experts on marketing and business building…for no charge.

But you gotta hurry. Rich and Jay are only allowing a certain number of people inside. And since the entire industry is buzzing about this,
those spots will fill up in a heartbeat.

So go here NOW and grab yours.

https://schefren.infusionsoft.com/go/affr/EarlNetw

I’m only scratching the surface on what you’ll get with “The League of Extraordinary Minds”…

There’s TONS of powerful information inside, including:

How to successfully deal with skeptical/apprehensive prospects and buyers…

How to instantly build granite-like trust and credibility…

– How to build a huge online loyal community…
– How to make your sales efforts 75% more successful…
– Keys to direct marketing success…
– How to persuade different personality types to buy from you…
– The formula for becoming the ultimate entrepreneur…
– How to make big things happen – fast!
– The one business system that works today…
And on and on and on.

But you gotta go here right now to grab Rich and Jay’s no-charge special offer. Can you say NO BRAINER?

https://schefren.infusionsoft.com/go/affr/EarlNetw

What ever size list you have, you owe it to yourself to sign on as an affiliate and mail this to your list. It can never hurt to be associated in your lists mind with Jay Abraham, Rich Schefren, Tony Robbins, Fran Tarkington, et al.

Climb Up The Google Rankings!

You’ve made your website, written your copy, and prepared yourself for the onslaught of visitors. But when it comes to launch day, they’re nowhere to be seen. It seems bizarre; you’ve written the content, created the product, and built the network of websites, but there’s nobody to be seen visiting them. Don’t worry — it’s not about your content’s quality or your ability to create a good website, it’s just the nature of the internet manifesting itself in poor traffic.

You see, without the great exposure that’s possible through search engines, your website may be doomed to failure from the beginning. Without a powerful traffic asset on your site, be it a link on a popular website, an article promoting your business, or a link appearing in search engine results, you’re not going to see the results that you want. However, by using some innovative SEO strategies, you can fight back against the powers holding you down the search engine rankings, and see your website shoot up the ranks and sit where it belongs.

You could be number one. It’s not simply a matter of age or size, as we’ve all seen corporate giants toppled on the web by smaller, faster and smarter competitors. It’s about strategy and technique, and the incredible dynamics that come from a small and incredibly dedicated team or keyword system. With just a fraction of the resources of your competitors, you can craft the strategies that shoot them down the rankings and put your website in the top spot, where it belongs.

So how to you accelerate your search engine rankings? For many of us, SEO is a static concept. It never moves quickly, it waddles forward at a leisurely pace and frustrates us all. Don’t let that shape your strategy. By using some simple strategies you can supercharge your SEO and have it move much more quickly that it normally would. This free report, packed with insider information and highly valuable SEO strategies, is the perfect place to start on your quest for the perfect search engine rankings.

Click Here To Download Your Free Keyword Report

Take a look at the front page, because that’s where you’re going to be. The days of scrolling through ten pages just to find your website are long over. With just a small amount of time, you’ll be ranking front and center for the keywords that you pick. Using this free report, you can guide your strategy, boost your rankings, and enjoy the income that comes with a number one Google ranking.

Click Here To Download Your Free Keyword Report

Instant Relief: How to Make Money with Clickbank.

Have you tried to make money with Clickbank?

I have and while I have had some success, my record has been spotty at best.

Yes, I’ve bought a ton of ebooks on how to do it. And many of them are actually pretty accurate. It just takes a ton of work, and a leap of faith that the product you are going to push is worth all the work required.

Work? What Work?

Well, to do Affiliate marketing right you need to create your own pre-sell page rather than sending people directly to the offer. Now I’ve tried the other way, and have had some success with direct linking. But mostly my campaigns either failed, or just barely broke even.

No it turns out you get better results when you do a presell. You want to capture the prospect’s name and followup with an email campaign.

But it takes a lot of time and effort to do this. And that’s true even when you know what you are doing. It is almost an insurmountable obstacle for many new people who haven’t yet learned how to do their own sites yet.

There is a lot to learn, from taking charge of your own web site, learning how to make basic pages, set up an auto-responder and then write copy on the page and the follow-up messages.

Now I believe you should learn how to do these things. But it takes time. I have some resources listed elsewhere on this page that I recommend to those of you just learning your way.

But if you are interested in making money with clickbank in the meanwhile, until now you were largely out of luck. Until yesterday…

Yesterday, Clickbank Pirate opened its doors to an enthusiastic rush of new members. I was one of them.

You see they have set up an affordable membership plan where people from the rawest newbie to the most advanced marketed can benefit. All the work is done in the form of initial videos, free reports to gather opt ins, and professionally done follow-up.

The new marketer will still need to drive traffic which is a critical task not to be ignored. Thankfully they have a powerful “how to” traffic module inside to teach newbies how to do just that.

The best part is that they offer a 60 day guarantee, so you really can try the system out and it will either work for you or it won’t.

If you don’t make what you’ve invested after 59 days, just ask for a refund. But I bet that if you give it half a try you will find yourself in clover and happy to stay on board.

This is one of the neatest things I’ve seen online. If you haven’t grabbed your membership yet, do so now. Just click on the banner below and sign up.

Breaking Barriers Starting with Basic HTML

Learning how to use the internet is not easy.

Despite the claims of all the eBook peddlers selling their alchemists stones, the reality is that there are many barriers to success online.

There is much to learn. And it appears to never end. At least I still have a variety of hurdles yet to overcome. I have made some progress though, and will in the next several posts here discuss how I made it over some of the hurdles that may still be holding you back.

These will be pretty basic for some of you, and for others hopefully just what you are looking for.

The first discussion is HTML. The code that sits behind much of the web.

I am not a programmer, and have no desire to become one. But as I got serious about establishing a presence online it soon became clear to me that I needed to learn at least some basics.

You can get by not knowing HTML by using various WYSIWYG services to design, highlight, bold etc you text and even insert images. But as time goes on, you will eventually come to the place where you will want to learn how to create anchor text, insert photos, create ordered lists, etc. by the use of HTML.

If you are depending on “your computer guy” to make tweaks to your pages, a lot of tweaks end up not getting made, or get made wrong as a result of the time lag and communication barriers. When you can do it yourself, you are freer to make changes, and then change things back. And that ability to tweak a page is critical to your success in the long run.

I found myself looking things up on Google, which worked well. But my retention of information wasn’t very good. And it seemed that there were actually too many places to get free help. All arranged differently, all with a different level of assumed prior knowledge.

In my case, I did not really break through until I came across the chance to acquire rights to a short ebook called HTML in Simple Terms. I originally got it for my own use. Over past few years I have given it away and or sold it to almost a thousand different people.

I printed a copy of it out, and keep it by my computer, and use it as a quick reference. As time went on, I learned the bulk of the material by doing it over and over again.

I may be old style yet. But I have found it easier to look up items on paper. It seems easier to find my place again, when I am going back to double check things.

HTML in Simple Terms will walk you through the steps needed to create your own web page. It explains basic tags, how to add links, work with images, using tables, setting up meta tags, using fonts and colors.

I still don’t know it all. But I know I can find it when I need it, as my copy is always handy. That’s what I like best about having my own copy. I know where it is when I want it.

I am selling copies of this useful text at HTML Guide

Top Dogs Talk Traffic Tips

Thursday July 2, 2009, 9PM EDT two of the top dogs online are hosting a tele-seminar you do not want to miss. Sign up now, it’s for pre-registered guests only. I want you to be my guest, because you will learn a ton from it.

Top Traffic Tips Seminar

Doug Champigny and Willie Crawford, two long time 6 figure internet marketers cover the waterfront on how to generate traffic. This event is free, if you sign up now on the above link, but the recording of this event will become a hot product for resale when the event is over.

Willie Crawford will cover Article Marketing, Video marketing, Podcasts, Pres releases, Forum marketing, Blog Talk Radio and JV’s and Affiliates.

Doug Champigny will cover Blog Marketing, Web 2.0, Twitter, Giveaways, Ezine Swaps, Tele-seminars, and Viral eBooks.

That’s a lot of ground and you can be sure it will be packed with good ideas. Register now, and mark your calendar. This is one event where you will need a large pad of paper and a spare pen or pencil just to be safe.

Save yourself some cash and get a well rounded lesson in the various traffic techniques from two masters. This seminar will be released as a for sale product, but you can get in to the live broadcast Free by registering now. Do it.

Top Traffic Tips Seminar

I can’t wait. It’s going to be good!

Four Top Picks You Don’t Want to Miss Out On

Happy Victoria Day to my Canadian Friends.

I have 4 items of above average value for you today. I have already been promoting one of them the new Teleseminar service that launches on Tuesday. This new service will solve the glitches that caused headaches with prior systems and is a genuine cutting edge improvement. One of my mentors makes his entire business off of doing tele-seminars. They are quick, easy to set up, incredibly inexpensive and powerful. The new system will make things even more fool proof.

Go to http://cli.gs/zQ3Uy7 for details.

—

If you are an internet marketer like me, you have been bombarded over the years with different platforms to manage to various critical support systems needed to effectively run this seemingly simple but incredibly complex business of online marketing. Sometime very soon, perhaps by the time you read this John Delavera’s new platform will be released for free. This is not something to miss. I repeat, don’t let this opportunity pass you by. I did once. At least I passed by an earlier version when I was just starting out and frankly confused about all the different elements involved in this process.

In hindsight and from conversations with other successful marketers I’ve learned that Johns system has the best reputation out there. It might not have been the most hyped, but the most stable. Now he kept adding tons of stuff to it and evolved it into a monster that I couldn’t afford and or spend the time to learn. Recently he decided to cut it down to the key essentials and that is what he will be making available free later today or already. Be sure to sign up for it. At free you can’t go wrong, and it may very well make your progress online go a lot easier an cheaper than you could ever imagine.

That link is: http://cli.gs/W0Q2yM

—–

The next topic is another giant in business Dr Glen Livingston. His expertise is in understanding the psychology of pay per click advertising. He is a psychologist who has made a tremendous contribution to the field. I have been learning from his email for several years now. I don’t know of anyone who provides as much top caliber free material. If you do any pay per click work at all, or just have an idle interest in the psychology of marketing, you will learn a ton from Glen. I know I have.

To take advantage of his wisdom go to: http://cli.gs/R0hLaW You won’t regret it.

Now Glen has low price products and some very high priced product as well and if you are interested in finding a vendor you could be 100% confident in and proud to represent, I invite you to join me as part of

his affiliate team. http://cli.gs/RmX214

—-

Finally, I want to recommend a product from another friend of mine, Mike Paetzold. While less monumental, and I do think each of the above are monumental in their own ways, Mike’s newest project is still basic and valuable. For those of you still exploring which niche to pursue, or those who like me pursue multiple niches pay attention.

Mike’s new product is called the Niche Affiliate System, but what it really is, is a guide on how not to spend time and money chasing a niche idea down a blind alley. Let me tell you, I have several projects that I have spent big chunks of time, and sweat on that I did not properly evaluate up front. Several of them are just digital dust, a few are producing but at no where the level I had hoped. What Mike’s new eBook does is walk you through a process to evaluate a niche before wasting your time and effort only to find that what sounded like it would be a winner is a dud after-all. It takes some effort up front, but if you follow this process, you will be able to enthusiastically launch into your next project confident of success. And let me tell you that is well worth the effort. You can get Mikes eBook at: http://cli.gs/UAmpnU

I highly recommend all of the above. I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have on them.

Getting to the Top of the Search Engines 3

The hidden essentials to attract the search engine bots are your title tags, your keywords and your meta description. In addition, your keyword should appear on your page in an <h1> tag. We will discuss each in this article.

First let’s talk about where to find your hidden code. Go to a place on your website where there is text and not an image. Right click, and a box will appear with a number of options. Look for one that says View Page or View Page Source, click on it. It should bring up the HTML code that is behind your web page.

Near the very top will be a header tag. It looks like this <head>.

A variety of different types of code can be placed here. For our purposes, the three important items are the title tag, the keywords, and the description. Sometimes one of more of these will be missing.

This section of code always ends with an end tag that looks like this: </head>

The next section of the code starts with the body tag, <body> and this is where the parts of the page that are visible appear. But except for the <h1> tag we won’t be dealing with that today.

Title Tags.

Each page of your web site has a title tag. The title tag will show at the very top left of your browser when you are on the page. When you go to some people’s web page you will see the word “Home” in the top left. That’s because they named their home page “Home.” More frequently you will see the company name, ABC Jones & Company or something similar.

In terms of search engine optimization, you would be better off to include your primary keyword and your primary geography. So if you were ABC Jones, I would consider putting “ABC Jones & Co San Diego Home Staging Experts” or “ABC Jones New Jersey’s Best Wedding Arranger.”

The title goes between the <title> and the </title>

Each page has a different title so you might add a Pipe sign after that and use, About us, Contact us and your other page names on the relevant page.

Keywords:

You should also see a line of code that starts with, <meta name=”keywords” content=” and then a series or word separated by commas.

Most businesses have more than one keyword that people use when they are trying to find you. Hopefully you have identified the primary one or ones. Keyword research is a major topic on its own, and one you should pay attention to. For example, while home staging is the dominant keyword to use in the home staging business, about 10% of people will type in “house staging” when looking for a home stager. You want to include the keyword “house staging” in your keywords.

Note that this two word phrase is still a keyword. Internet marketers have long know that you want to use keyword phrases, because that’s what some people type. Two and three word phrases and sometime longer yet can generate positive results for them. If you are the only person who puts “best specialty cold cuts in Chicago” in your keywords, and also in the body of your site, there’s a pretty good chance you will pop up pretty high if someone actually searches for that term. Now don’t go hog wild, as relatively few people will use the phrase.

The key here is to focus on what people who don’t really know what to ask for are likely to use when they are trying to find you.

Finally, I recommend that you use not only “fresh cut flowers” as a keyword but “Toronto fresh cut flowers” if you are a Toronto florist. Use the suburbs you sell to as well. When someone searches for Pizza in the search engines millions of sites appear. When they search for Pizza, 55417 a zip code, they get those closest to home.

Description
Similar to the Keywords, you should see a line of code in the meta tags called description. This should be kept to 160 characters. Some search engine results display this description when your site comes up in their listings. As such you may want to make it a sales pitch. You want to come up with a coherent statement using as many of your best keywords as possible, especially including your primary geographical reference points.

If you say, “Dog Walker in Minneapolis, St. Louis Park, Edina….etc.,” even though you might not come up number one on the listing yet, a person from Edina or St Louis Park will recognize that you are in their bailiwick. They may check you out before the top guy, just because they see that you are local to them. This is a side benefit, worth getting, but your primary intention is to rank high when the search for “dog walker Edina,” rather than “dog walker Minneapolis.”

While you want to focus your site on your largest geographical target, consider using the smaller ones as well, but don’t get carried away, you only have 160 characters. When consulting with others, I try to include at least the top three keywords and then work as much geography as I can all the while trying to make a strong sales pitch. It’s an art form.

<H1> Tags

You may have a header on your web site that may have been designed as an image or may be in HTML code. Many web sites will consider this their headline and launch right into the body of their message on their main page. This is a mistake.

Start you page with a headline. That headline should include if at all possible your primary keywords including you primary geographical market. This is done by using <h1> tags in the HTML code for the headlines. Thus while the headline is visible the code isn’t.

So if you are a Hair Salon in South Omaha, you might top you page with </h1><h1> South Omaha’s Premier Hair Salon </h1> in the meta tags. This will automatically make it headline size on your actual page. More importantly, it will let the little bots searching your page that these are important words and what your page is all about. And that is what you want.

The four steps outlined above are crucial first steps to getting your page optimized for the search engines. We’ve covered a lot of material here. If you have any questions, let me know.

In the next issue we will talk about some of the visible on page factors. This ran a bit long today, so I may break the next section into two parts.

—-

If you would like to have me take a close and personal look at your web site, I am offering a special deal on my new diagnostic service. The price is incredibly low, and the service a great value. I will look and see what if you need to make any changes to your site and actually call you and discuss them with you. For more info go to www.askearlabout.com/WART/index.html

Getting to the Top of the Search Engines 2

There are two main areas of attention when discussing how to move your website to the top of the search engines. The first are the on-page factors and the second are the off-page factors.

The on-page factors are the easiest and quickest to deal with and are where we will start to focus our attention. They are critical but not the most important. The off-page factors will in the long run carry more weight. But that said, if your on-page factors aren’t set up properly you can and will lose much of the benefit your off-page efforts could supply.

We will talk about 10 on page factors. Of these four are invisible, and of the six that are visible, one may already be cast in stone for better or worse.

The invisible elements are the Meta Tags. The meta tags are in the hidden code that the search engines can see, but your visitors normally don’t see. You will learn how to see them, and anyone else’s when we discuss them in detail in our next section.

The meta tags include your title tags, your description and your keywords. The fourth of the invisible items is called an H1 tag. The results of it are visible, but since it’s also HTML code (of the simplest kind) I am listing it as one of the invisible factors. Almost all of you will be able to make improvement to these elements on your web page. For some of you this alone will make a significant difference in your page ranking. So stay tuned.

I’ve been surprised at how few websites I’ve reviewed have had adequate meta tags. Even those done by expensive web designers are often poorly done or in some cases missing altogether.

The visible elements include your first 50 words specifically, and the total number of words altogether. The total keyword count within your text and the percentage of the whole they comprise. We call this keyword density. The visible elements also include the internal links you have on your site and the way you link them, as well as the originality of your content.

The one item that may already be locked in stone is your domain name itself. As we will discuss, you will do better with the search engines if your web site includes you main keywords in it. If your site is already up and established you may not want to change it. That’s understandable. But if you are just now starting up and or are considering a complete makeover of your web presence, give serious thought to including your keywords and geography if appropriate in your new domains.

In our next article we will focus in detail on the hidden items. That will be followed by a look at the visible elements. Once we have covered those we will move on to discuss the off-page strategies.

—-

P.S. I have just launched a new service I call the WART Analysis and Consultation

I have been testing it over the past week or so with home stagers and it has been very well received. I’ve got the service rock bottom priced for a short while, but will be raising it soon, so check it out now and take advantage while the price is so low.

Getting to the Top of the Search Engines

What’s a top listing on Google worth?

Whether you are a home stager in Philadelphia or a shoe store in Omaha, or a Dentist in Los Angeles, getting your business to the top of local search engine results can make a significant difference to your profitability.

How much more traffic does the top listing get, compared to the number two listing? I don’t know. It varies. But I have seen estimates that claim the top listing can expect from 1.5 to 3 times as many visitors compared to the number 2 listing. These same estimates suggest that the number three listing gets roughly the same drop off compared to the number two listing.

What’s that mean in numbers?

Say on a given day or week, 100 people search for “Chiropractors in Minneapolis,” the odds are that 95 of them will look at the top listing. (Count on 5% doing something else)

If the ratio of drop offs is one and a half – on the low end of the above estimate, that means about 63 people would see the second listing and just 42 the third listing.

What’s that mean to your business?

Fewer eyes on your website results in fewer eventual conversions, which is marketing talk for sales. No matter how effective your web site is, it can’t create customers out of people that don’t see it.

Now some web sites convert better than others. And just getting a lot of traffic isn’t a substitute for having a web site that produces, but that is another topic. The first objective is to get eyes on the page. Then we will worry about getting those eyes to do something.

If that first website is a dog, the second one will see more traffic as a result. If it’s great, the second site may see even less traffic, as it scoops up all the business right then and there. This and many other factors may affect the actual drop off in your market, for your specific keywords.

The bottom line is that there is a drop off, and it matters to you and your business whether you are on top or not.

Now, what if you are no where near the top? Your web site can still be useful if your drive traffic to it by other advertising efforts. So don’t give up on your site. But there may be ways to climb from page 3 or 23 to the top in many markets, once you learn a few of the tricks to search engine optimization.

For many locally based businesses, getting on the first page of the search engine listings is very doable. The reason I say that is because the majority of your competitors don’t understand search engine optimization either. If you follow me and this series, and apply what I will be sharing with you, most of you will be able to make some significant progress.

Just for the sport of it, pick one keyword you would like to rank for in your market. In the example above I used, Chiropractor in Minneapolis. Find one appropriate to your business and market. Now go to Google or MSN or which ever search engine you use and figure out where you web site is. Write it down.

At the end of this series, I’d love to hear from those of you who made the greatest progress. If you’re already number one, don’t get too comfortable, one of your competitors may be reading this and planning on overtaking you.