Marketing Tasks You Can Implement Now!

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1. Listen to (and write down!) the questions your clients ask. They're clues to the problems you can help them solve. They're also topics for your next article, talk and e-newsletter. Don't invent this stuff - just listen!

2. Plan and write out your next sales conversation. Got a meeting next week with a hot prospect? Write down the words you will use to find out who the decision makers are, what the budget is, the scope of their problem, and how you'll ask them to take next steps. If you have no idea how to do this, send me an email and I'll help you think through it.

3. Read a marketing article. Most non-marketers don't go out of their way to read about marketing. A painless way to stay motivated, though, is to read one new article every week. Start here: YOUR BLOG HERE :-)

4. Pay attention to the marketing messages all around you. See if you can pick out the WIIFM (What's In It For Me?) and call-to-action (what they want you to do). Practice thinking like a marketer.

5. If you manage others who perform your client work, visit a client with your employee to show interest. This keeps you fresh and demonstrates your commitment to the client. It also shows the client that there's more to your organization than their sole point of contact.

6. Give a copy of this article to your staff and ask them to come to the next staff meeting prepared to talk about the ideas that this generates. Ask people to commit to one new task. Have them give a progress report at the next meeting. Rinse, repeat.

7. Draft a 3 or 4-question survey to do short, conversational telephone interviews with your target audience to find out what they struggle with...what's on their wish list...what they want from you.

Do NOT ask them if they want to buy anything from you. This is a relationship-building task, NOT a sales call. That comes much later. Ask others you work with to pick two clients or prospects and call them. Compare notes and discuss your findings.

8. Think of small solutions that you can offer to important problems. Or small solutions to little problems. The key is to think small. It's less intimidating for your customer to "sample" you and makes it easy for them to take a first step.

9. Practice saying your Positioning Statement out loud. To the mirror. In the car. In the elevator. If you don't know what your Positioning Statement is, that's a problem. Email me and I'll give you a hand.

10. Visualize doing any one of these things successfully. Really - it's what professional athletes, speakers, performers, and successful people do all the time. Visualize it, and it will be so.

The next time a scientist tells me they can't market, I'll know better. These ideas clearly prove that theory wrong!

Why You Should Consider Using Wordpress For Your Business Site

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WordPress is a pretty simple platform. There isn't a lot of danger or ptifalls associated with it. I don't want to scare anyone but there is one issue that can be quite dire. WordPress may infect you and your site with a disease...Plugin Fever. This plugin fever will start before you know it and will have you mindlessly activating plugin after plugin until the inevitable happens...plugin fever! Symptoms include;

lethargic response time

on page confusion

ugly design lesions

In some rare cases - outright fatal errors.

Chilling, I know! Luckily this disease is easily avoidable and fully curable. You just need to protect yourself with these steps:

1. Self Analysis - Take a step back and think about if you really need a plugin. Plugins add a lot of great features to a site but do you need to have each one that tickles your fancy? My guess is no. Take a look at your installed WordPress plugins and really think about if you need them. Does your plugin help generate traffic? Does it help keep people engaged? Does it offer a feature you need on your site? If you say no to all of these you might want to think about deleting that plugin. When you start adding plugin after plugin you are risking slowing your site. You also risk a possible conflict between plugins or a plugin and your theme.

2. Eliminate Redundancy - One of the quickest ways for plugin fever to set in is to have multiple plugins that do the same thing. Go through your plugins and see if any of them offer you the same functionality. If they do, then one of them is redundant. You don't need 4 SEO plugins. You only need one XML sitemap generator. There are plugins that will help your visitors submit your site to social bookmarking sites -- one will do the job. Every redundant plugin you have has a chance to break or slow down your site. Instantly remove any redundant plugins.

3. Upgrade - Once you have trimmed the number of plugins you use, make sure all of your plugins are upgraded. This is an easy process and should be taken care of quickly. Plugin upgrades will usually address security and any possible conflicts. You can do this in your back office easily so there are no excuses. Everyone has some plugins, and they need the same care you give the rest of your site.

These three steps can help ward off Plugin Fever. It is up to you to ensure your site is in perfect working order, and these three steps can help optimize your plugins. It is easy to get carried away with plugins since they can do just about everything. You need to remember that too many plugins can slow down or break your site. They can also conflict with each other and your theme so be very selective.

One last piece of advice. If you ever notice serious issues with your WordPress site - then deactivate all plugins and see if that fixes the issue. If it did, reactivate each plugin until you find the one that caused the error. Remove the error causing plugin. This will come in handy at least once in your WordPress days, that I can promise you. Good luck and may all your plugins run smoothly!

The Rights and Lefts of Tracking Program

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What if Jonas Salk hadn’t tested the polio vaccine? Or, what if Einstein never tested his theory of relativity? Do you think they would have been successful? In the science world, definitely NOT, and in the marketing world, testing is every bit as important if you want to achieve success.

Any number of tracking programs are out there from Hits Connect to Track That Ad to the new Link Brander. Even server-side tracking scripts are available for purchase. Regardless of what you use, tracking every ad that you post, whether it be to a traffic exchange or to a safelist, you need to know how successful your marketing is. Why? Because if you don’t track your ads, you may spend tons of time and money chasing a dog that you’ll never catch.

Tracking works simply. You place the ad URL into the tracker, which devises a new URL for you to use in its place. Every time you employ the tracker URL, that “hit” is recorded by the tracking system.

Let’s say you buy 1,000 hits at XYZ traffic exchange. How will you know if they have been delivered, unless you’re using a tracking system? You won’t, and though it’s the exception rather than the norm, you may not get the hits you paid for.

What should really interest you are actual click-throughs. That tells you how many times someone has actually seen your page and clicked on the link to take them to the site you’re promoting. In this case, you will use the tracker link as the URL in your “call to action” (the click here, join now, etc.) button on your splash page. Or, use it as the link in your safelist mailing, as an FFA link, or in any other form of traffic generation system. By using the tracking link, you’ll know every time someone clicks because the tracking system will tell you.

As another example, let’s say we advertised site ABC on traffic exchange XYZ and we used a tracking link for our call to action. We did the same thing at traffic exchange 123. At XYZ, we got our 1,000 hits and only 15 people clicked through to our page. At 123, we got 1,000 hits, but 100 people clicked through to our page. In which traffic exchange do you want to promote that particular page more heavily? No brainer, right? At 123, of course.

The only way that you can possibly know whether your advertising is working is by tracking the results. Check out several tracking services to see which fits your budget and has the features you like. Then, either buy the script or sign up for a subscription. A tracking system is one tool in your marketing toolbox that you cannot afford to be without.

How to Find and Join Facebook Groups

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Video: Finding and Joining Facebook Groups

How to set up a capture form using your autoresponder software

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Video: Setting up a lead capture form using your autoresponder software.

Harnessing The Power Of Wordpress Widgets

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WordPress offers a lot of advantages when it comes to web publishing. There are a lot of reasons people use WordPress. One of the easiest to use functions of WordPress are widgets. Most WordPress themes come with "widget ready" sidebars. From the back office of WordPress you can drag and drop widgets into your sidebars. Widgets can add such things to your site as:

Calendar

Search

Recent Posts

Categories

Text/HTML

The above list is only touching on the functionality you can add with Widgets. If you want to take it to the next level you can also add widgets that don't come standard with your WordPress install.

I will share 3 that I have found very handy. Most of these widgets are added by using plugins.

1. Video Widget - This plugin will add a video widget that you can add to your sidebar. It will allow you to choose from over 25 video services. You can control video size within the widget. With this widget you only have to add the video ID as well - no embed code. Lastly, this widget will also allow you to add a list of videos that will be randomly chosen for your visitor.

2. Sexy Bookmarks Sidebar Widget - A quick note first, this plugin works with the original Sexy Bookmarks plugin so you will need that installed for this to work. It is a great and unique social media sharing plugin that you will find handy even if you don't want this widget. The widget itself will allow you to add Sexy Bookmarks to your sidebar. This widget looks great and should lead to more social media submissions for your site.

3. Flickr Widget - Flickr is one of the best and easiest ways to both store and share your images. With this plugin you will get a Flickr widget that will display your latest Flickr images in your sidebar. The widget will display up to 10 photos from a Flickr photostream.

These 3 widgets are a drop in the bucket compared to all of the widgets available out there. If you want to add something to your sidebar and can't figure it out - check out the WordPress plugins, they may have an add on widget that will give you exactly what you need.

One last suggestion: Please don't pack your sidebar so full of widgets it stretches out the screen. it looks sloppy and unprofessional, not to mention people usually don't scroll beneath your content to see your sidebar so it is wasted.

When used properly widgets can be a powerful addition to your WordPress site.

Setting Up Your Facebook Profile

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Video: Facebook Profile

How To Make Money Using Blogs?

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Blogs have been around for a while. And even though they have gone through some changes, they are still as popular as ever, if not more so. This may because it's so simple to get started with blogging, because there are some good blogging platforms, or because people have figure out ways to make money with blogs. Whatever the reason for their continuing popularity, there is still a strong need for good blogging advice.

The first bit of blogging advice is to just do it. Yep, that's it! Okay, what that really means is that there is no reason not to get started. There are several ways you can test the blogging waters for free; namely Blogger and WordPress. Both of these platforms give you plenty of options for customizing the appearance of your blog, and they make it easy to get up and running. Blogger allows some commercial content (such as AdSense), while WordPress doesn't allow it if you host your blog using a free website address through their hosting. Which leads to the next bit of advice...

Get a domain name and paid hosting as soon as you can. If you already have them, then you don't have to use the free address and hosting, and can set up your blog directly on your own domain name. Now, don't freak out. You can get good hosting for around $10 a month, and a domain name usually costs around $10 per year. However, you can often find deals that bring the cost down by quite a bit. That being said, you also need to look at what you get for your money. For example, be sure your hosting package has everything you need.

You will also need to think about the topic of your blog. If you just want it to be for friends and family, then you blog about the events of your day, without giving it much thought. However if you are interested in making money with your blog, then you need to have a more narrow focus.

Whichever type of blog you decide to have, it will require you to update on a regular basis. The more often you post to it, the stronger your following will be; whether it's family and friends, or potential customers. Posting every day or two is best, but once a week should be okay in most cases. Because you will have to update it often, it's a good idea to select a topic that interests you. Otherwise it will become too much of a chore, and you will soon stop updating.

So, how do you make money with a blog? The two main ways are through Google AdSense and selling affiliate products. The best bit of blogging advice for making money with a blog is to treat it like a business. This means you need to invest some time and a little money to get it to start producing serious income for you. The good news is that blogging is pretty low maintenance and the costs for running it are very low.

Using Facebook Applications

Selling Domain Names

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If you are aware of the best practices, reselling domain names can earn you a considerable amount of money. There are some factors that you need to consider for this. First of all, you must be able to speculate what names would sell the most and generate most demand. Let us look at all the points one should consider when looking to sell domain names to make some good money out of this business.

How To Choose The Best Selling Names

A small domain name is much more desirable than a large and complicated domain name. It is easier to type and remember for the surfer. Because of this, small domain names are very effective for advertising through word of mouth.

Once you have a domain name, try to get it a good ranking with search engine optimization. This greatly increases the value of the domain name. It can be achieved by good advertising and following the other methods of search engine optimization. Any business that purchases it will have a good ranking and hence get more visitors to their website with the domain name.

Selling Domain Names

Now that you have a good domain name that will get you a good price, how do you go for selling it? It is very simple. Try to go for the various forums, blogs and auctioneering websites and post the domain name and the price you are looking to sell it for. This generally gets a lot of people and businesses getting back to you provided your domain name is good enough.

The best thing to do is to wait for some time before actually selling off the domain name. In the mean time you can check the price of similar domain names and how they are selling. When you feel that the prices being offered are good enough, advertise about the domain name and sell it off at the best price obtained.In this way you can make very good money by selling domain names. Even when you have the domain name parked and are waiting for the best price, you can use it in various ways to generate money. Affiliate marketing, pay-per-click programs, etc are some of the ways for you to go for it.

Domain name reselling business is a great money maker requiring very little effort from you. If you are a bit careful and go for this business intelligently, you can make a lot of money with the minimum effort applied.

When To Use SEO vs PPC

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The online community is definitely a large market place that you cannot ignore, especially if you have an Internet business. There are thousands if not millions of consumers that you can tap in the Internet.

At the same time, the Internet also poses a quite different challenge. The easy access that Internet provides also gives you as much competition as you can imagine. It is too crowded and congested.

Having a website is not enough to make your business running and able to compete. You must take other alternatives to give way for the online community to access your website at any rate or chance possible.

You have to expose your website. Make it known. It has to be visible. It has to be frequently targeted by consumers and surfers.

Invest in marketing your Internet site. There are basically two options available to you, the SEO and PPC. These two are probably the most desirable alternatives you can get for your Internet business as strategy for search engine marketing.

1. SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Some researches indicate that 60% - 70% of Internet surfers and users actually resort to using the Google search engine to find and locate web sites and pages, for any topic they desire. SEO is the process taken to make sure that the Internet uses will find your website when ranked among the top results of a search. This way you can make sure that you will be visible and can clearly stand out from the rest.

To get a search engine optimization, you will have to build on your own Internet site frequently hit Internet links to web site pages. The process will involve IBLN or Independent Back-Linking Network, wherein hundreds or even thousands of pages will be utilized to promote a particular website of a client.

In SEO, there is no need for you to pay for the clicks although it will require you to spend time doing research to get a favorable combination of ads and target audience. The SEO process is a long term one. It requires months, 6 months at the least, before the proper outcome is fully achieved, but once the goal is accomplished, you will definitely get a steady source of profit.

2. PPC

PPC gives way in advertising on a search engine. These are sponsored listings that you see whenever you make a search. There will be a charge whenever a visitor or web surfer clicks on any of your ads. There will first be a bidding process. The highest bidder for the price per click will definitely get the chance to be first listed in the search engine.

With this kind of advertising, you can still basically control your campaign as you get to create your own ad. You will also manage the target audience and still stay within the bounds of your budget. Most of the providers of PPC advertising will allow you to specify the target market, either by topic, industry or geographical location. You can also very well check if your ad gets to be shown at all and if it is competitive with the rest.

There are some guaranteed benefits when you get to maximize the PPC strategy.

PPC lets you advertise to the whole of the online community. It is also relatively easy to set up.

At first glance, PPC advertising may seem very expensive. Could it possibly happen that someone out there will go on clicking on your ad? This will definitely give you a large bill without the expected profit on your part. If this provides a lot of worries, be rest assured that there is a protection for you. Networks are able to recognize fraudulent clicks.

You can also set a budget for a certain period. The moment your budget has been used up by the target number of clicks, your ads will no longer be displayed until the next period you want it again displayed.

You will also be able to adjust well to changes in market demands and trends.

In deciding which of the two strategies will work right for you, think of your goals and of your resources. They definitely offer benefits and advantages that will work for your good. The better way to approach this two is to evaluate according to your short term and long term plans. Take the PPC course for your short-term goals and choose SEO if you have long term ones.

There world is out there for you now. Just make sure you do what will work best for your entrepreneurial endeavors and visions. The secret to success lies in your hands. Just study your options well and you’ll get exactly what you want!

Leveraging Social Networks To Promote Your Niche

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You’re probably well aware of how helpful social networking tools can be when it comes to getting attention for your business. In fact, social networking has become such a salient topic in recent years that it’s developed its own marketing acronymâ€" just as Search Engine Optimization has SEO, social networking has Social Media Optimization, or SMO.

Yes, it’s true â€" there are people who make their living by controlling the Twitter accounts and Facebook profiles of people and businesses. The good news is that if you’re a small operation, there’s absolutely no reason why you can’t manage your own social media optimization. There’s very little about the process that’s acutely difficult â€" the most annoying thing about it is that it can be time consuming, which is why some companies choose to outsource the work. Once your social media optimization reaches a certain point, you might deem it necessary to outsource it as well, but for people who are just starting on the path to social medial optimization, it’s recommended that you take control of it yourself.

The reason why social networking is so pivotal when it comes to niche marketing is that the entire point of social networking in the first place is to find a niche. Think of it this way â€" when you create a personal profile on these sites, you’re seeking to find people who you can network and connect with. On personal profiles, these are likely friends that you know in real life, so you can build up your communication methods with them. In essence, you’re creating your own little niche where you can find others easily through social networking, and others can find you.

Working through social networking with a business is the exact same thing. You’re putting your business out on the waves, looking for people who might be interested in your goods and services, or what you have to say. The art behind using Twitter and LinkedIn is the same as it would be with email advertising or working on forums. Post regularly enough so that your account is obviously an active account and people stay aware of your existence, but don’t spam the accounts of your friends and colleagues multiple times a day. To do so is to becoming annoying, and even though you’re looking to keep a steady stream of conversation going, if you become irritating, people will “defriend” your social network account.

Good things to make your “friends” on social networking sites aware of are promotions, blog updates, sales, discrepancies in business (like if you will be away from the computer for a while or the business will be closing for a period of time), or tips and tricks. Keep your updates fun, interesting, and relevant. A good rule of thumb is that if you don’t have anything to say, don’t say it. However, you should have something to say about your business at least two times a month â€" should this not be the case, you need to work on making your business more dynamic!

Getting to the Top of Google Easily

Customizing your theme menu in WordPress with ease

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Video: How to customize your theme menu in Wordpress

Add a Contact form to your WordPress Blog

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Video: How to install contact forms on your Wordpress site

Why You Need Forum Marketing

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Internet forum marketing is the form of marketing where you market your business through online discussion groups. First you join a forum and start adding posts to the discussions. You are though not allowed to advertise or market directly through your posts, this is called spamming.

After registering as a member of the forum you can create your own signature file.

In this signature file you can hyperlink a keyword phrase back to your website, which when clicked can bring on the traffic to your site.

The following are the five benefits of forum marketing.

1. Always remember when you are posting you are helping out someone. It is a great felling when you are of any help to the other person. If you are a believer of the law of when you give you always receive something then online forum marketing is the place for you.

2. You get to learn a lot for free. When I started my Team-Schuman.com website I never felt the urge to post. I only read other people’s posts. I hung out in the Warrior Forum and learned a lot which helped me grow the business.

3. You’ll get free advertising from your signature profile. People read your posts and view your signature profile and click on the link for your website. This type of traffic is very passive and a great source of sales.

4. Search engines would give you credit for a backlink when you hyperlink your keyword phrase back to your website. As for example, my article writer website hyperlinks the phrase article writer. And now we feature in the top 10 on Google because of the backlinks from forum marketing. I try to be very regular and post on these forums several times a week. You can try Google search and you will get a large list of forums and discussion groups. Find the few which has any form of relevance with your business.

5. One other huge benefit I get is that I acquire ideas to write articles on my blog by going through the different kind of questions people ask. A good question usually stimulates a lot of discussion. Such questions can be made into good articles.

 

These are several reasons good enough for you to include internet forum marketing to be part of your advertisement strategies. Be consistent and rip the benefits.

Easily edit WordPress themes using CSS

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Video: How to edit Wordpress themes using CSS

Making More Money Fast Through These Websites

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CPC (Cost Per Click Advertisers) - These sites let you place ads on your site that when simply clicked earn you money:

Google Adsense

Adbrite

Chitika

Kontera

Clicksor

CPA (Cost Per Action Advertisers) - With these sites your web traffic must click an ad and then follow an action (usually a purchase):

ClickBank

Commission Junction

Linkshare

ShareASale

Max Bounty

Amazon

CPM (Cost Per 1000 Impressions) - With these companies you will earn a set amount of money for every 1000 displays of an ad. Note - most of these sites require a certain high amount of traffic per month before they will approve your site.

Burst Media

ValueClick

Tribal Fusion

If you want to start monetizing your current website, or build a website that is monetized from the start - check out the options above and you are sure to find some sort of offer that you can use to make some money.

The Power of Forum Marketing

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Video: Brad talks about what forum marketing is and why it’s important to get involved in forums.

Your Newbie Guide To Search Engine Optimization

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the cornerstones to an effective online presence. It is estimated that almost 90% of all web traffic is from a search engine of some sort. A good SEO plan is a great first step in any inbound marketing efforts. If you can consistently rank on the first page of any web searches, you will be positioning your business to be found by eager consumers.

This short report will cover the most critical items you need to be aware of when it comes to search engine optimization.

Google Rules: As of today, Google has a stranglehold on the search engine market. They hold about a 70% market share. When you are optimizing for the search engines, it usually means Google. It has the best chance to consistently send you leads.

It’s All In The Keyword: The strength of SEO is that you can attempt to rank for whichever keywords you want. Keywords are the terms users search for on a search engine. The strongest SEO campaigns will begin with properly researched keywords. The basic cycle is to brainstorm a list of words you think people would search to find your business or offering. Then you plug this list into online tools like the Google Keyword Tool, and you will be given even more options. You can also view the competition and the amount the keywords are searched. This way you can figure out which keywords are worth ranking for.

Think Local & Long-tail: Quite often ranking for a location based keyword is easier than just the keyword itself. Similarly, ranking for keywords that are 3-4 words long is also easier than one word queries. For example, ranking on the top of Google for “Bakery” would probably be very hard. If you add a local flair to it, it becomes much more likely. Ranking for “Tallahassee Bakery” will be a lot easier. Even easier than that would be a long-tail term like “Tallahassee Wedding Cake Bakery”. Each of those keyword terms are progressively easier to rank for, but the trade off is they are searched less. Counter that by trying to rank for as many related long-tail terms as possible.

Your Web Platform Matters: While any type of website can rank in the search engines (so breathe easy if you already have a website built), the platform you build it with can speed up the SEO process. The single most powerful platform I have used is WordPress. Google seems to love it...and for good reason. WordPress was initially a blogging platform, so it makes it very easy to add new content. Google loves new content (more on that later), so WordPress is favored since it likely includes fresh content. WordPress also includes many free plugins that are designed to boost your SEO rankings. The navigational set up of WordPress is also more inline with the type of interlinking Google values. They want to send people to sites that are easy to navigate. If you are choosing one platform to build your website with, seriously consider WordPress.

On-Page and Off-Page: Once you have your website platform chosen and list of keywords you can begin to optimize your website. The two major ways are on-page and off-page. It is a widely held belief that you should spend 20% of your time on-page optimization and 80% off page.

On-page optimization is making your site search engine friendly. One of the major concerns you want to address are the title tags on every page. Each page should have it’s own title and include a different keyword term. This way each of your websites pages can rank for a different search engine term. If you use WordPress you can install plugins like All in One SEO to help with this. You will also want to make sure your keywords show up in your site’s content but do not stuff them in. They have to be used moderately and naturally. Other on-page concerns include cleaning up any broken links on your site, including a sitemap, a privacy policy and proper working navigation.

Off-page optimization comes down to almost purely link building. One of the best ways to get your website into the search engines is if lot’s of people link back to your site. Actively building backlinks can be a grueling process but it works. For best results you will want your keyword to be the actual text of the link. Whatever words form the actual link are known as “anchor text”. You want your anchor text to be your chosen keywords! To get started add your website link to any online profiles you may have.

Consistent Content: This is one of the best ways to properly optimize your site for the search engines. You must be creating and posting content on your site regularly. It doesn’t have to be daily (although that would rock!) but I think weekly is a great goal. If you can’t do that yourself, you can get an employee to take that on, or find cheap outsourcing solutions.

Content is the lifeblood of your website. It is why people come to it and why people stay. Creating content also gives you more chances to rank in the search engines. If you are posting helpful articles to your site, make sure to get some keywords in the title so they can show up in the search engines. This is why WordPress is so powerful, it makes adding content easy.

Google loves fresh content as well. Sites that have fresh updated content are more relevant by their very nature in Google’s eyes. Commit to creating content consistently and you will see your search engine rank grow along with your traffic and revenue.

Search Engine Optimization is one of the best advertising opportunities online today. Start your SEO efforts today, and soon you won’t have to worry about cold calls because your customers will be finding you.

Adult Social Networking: What Good Could It Bring You?

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Social networking is a great way to connect with people that you know personally and people that are customers or potential customers for your business. There are a number of different social networking sites on the internet and the main focus is for these websites to be safe for adult conversation. Adults can use networking websites to socialize with friends and family all over the world and they can also use it for business or marketing purposes. Social networking is the best way to connect with other individuals either for business or socially.

When you are using social networking sites to connect with other people you need to have an idea of the sort of person that you want to connect with. So open up a document on your computer or just get out a piece of paper and write the characteristics and specific qualities that you are looking for in the people that you want to connect with.

When you know what sort of person you want to connect with then you can create an account at the social networking and create your profile accordingly. You can post information about yourself in your profile and other members will be able to view this information.

So when you want to connect with a certain type of person then you want to create your profile including information that would be of interest to the sort of person that you want to attract either personally or professionally. You want your profile to be personal and to describe characteristics about yourself that will match those characteristics in the people that you are trying to attract. For example, if you are looking to connect with people that are interested in art then you should include in your profile that you like art.

If you are creating a profile to market your business you don't want your whole profile to be about that business. You want to connect with your potential customers on a personal level first so leave any mention of your business until the end of your profile and even then only mention it briefly. When it comes to adult networking sites it is a good rule to get to know people personally first.

Some networking sites will promote networking for business and these sites can be very good for business. When people look at your profile they are aware that you are there to market your business so if they are attracted to your profile then there is a lot of potential for them to be a future customer.

You can also include a photo in your profile but if you do always have a photo that is professional. By having a photo in your profile you are reaching your customers on a personal level. You can also upload a video to your profile which can also be a very effective way of connecting with people on the network.

Social networking websites really do have enormous potential for your business marketing if you use them correctly. Remember to reach out to your future customers on a personal level and build a relationship with them and your business can grow in leaps and bounds by using social networking websites.

How To Write An Ebook?

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Writing a free ebook is a great way to sell more affiliate products. The ebook can work for you in two different ways and I encourage you to use both methods in each free ebook you write.

The first way is to promote affiliate links directly in your ebook where appropriate. You can casually mention a product in the body of a particular chapter, review a product as part of your ebook, or add an “Additional Resources” section to the end of the book.

The second way is to link to your content site from your ebook. You can offer additional information on the site or link to a review page. By sending your readers to your website you get the chance to expose them to additional affiliate products and have the opportunity to get them on your newsletter list.

Let’s take a look at how you can get started on your first ebook.

Find a topic that you are fairly knowledgeable about and come up with an overall theme for the book. What are people looking for on the particular topic? For example, parents of infants will be interested in tips and strategies to get their baby to sleep through the night. A mom looking for a work at home job may be interested in how to spot a work at home scam and where to look for legitimate jobs.

Come up with an outline, or group some related articles you have written on a particular topic. Now all you have to do is flesh it out a little bit and of course incorporate your affiliate links.

An ebook typically consists of at least 25 pages. That may sound like a lot, but you should keep your font size fairly large to make it easier to read on a computer screen.

Let’s talk about format for a moment. You can purchase software to create an ebook, or you can make it a PDF document. PDF documents will work on just about any computer and people are comfortable downloading them.

I usually write my ebooks in Microsoft Word, format it in there, add any pictures or graphics and then turn it into a PFD. You can either do this with Microsoft Acrobat, or use one of the free PDF creation services on the web.

Your next step will be to get the ebook circulating. After all you are not going to make any affiliate sales if no one reads your book. You can offer it as a free download on your site or give it away as a bonus for subscribing to your newsletter. I also like to add a note in the footer of each page that the reader is welcome to pass the book along to others who might be interested in the topic.

Offer the ebook as a free giveaway to other website owners and post it on the free ebook directories. Then sit back and watch the book do the work for you. After a few weeks you should see the affiliate sales come in. Time to move on to another book.

Easy ways to Set Up Page Order on Your WordPress Blog

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Video: How to change the order of navigation links in your Wordpress blog.

Get Your Site Reviewed To Suck In More Prospects

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People love reviews. One of the reasons why Amazon.com became so popular (and there’s a list the length of the Nile regarding why that site became one of the biggest deals on the Internet since Al Gore) is due to its extensive review system. Customers like to read about those who have bought the product or visited the store before they have done so themselves. Most people these days are savvy enough to realize the point of advertisingâ€" they know that commercials are out there for a reason, namely, to make the place of business or the product look good. Reviews, on the other hand, are ostensibly written by those who are not being paid cash to promote the product in a positive light, making potential customers trust them more.

We’re assuming here that you’re running a steady operation that customers like to visit and return to. If you have a business that you’re proud of and you feel as though people would review it positively, then it’s a good idea to put your business in a position where it can garner those positive reviews.

Two great sites to start off with when it comes to getting your place of business reviewed by customers are Yelp and Google Maps. Once you put your site up on these sites, customers can submit reviews â€" both positive and negative â€" regarding your offline business and what they thought of it. Both of these sites see a lot of traffic per day, and if you are confident that the masses would review your small business positively, this is a great tool to convince others to stop by your place of business. After all, all businesses know that the best advertising available is the golden word of mouth recommendation â€" and if you can get positive reviews on a social review site, it’s essentially the same thing. Just virtual.

It’s a good idea to advertise the fact that your business is up on Yelp or Google Maps at your place of business. This will encourage your visitors to write a review on your business, particularly if they’ve had an excellent time. Yelp in particular even allows the business owner to respond to comments left on their business by those who leave reviews. This is a great way to thank customers for their reviews if they’re positive, defend yourself if there is a bad review, or offer your condolences and suggest ways that both you and the customer can ensure a better visit next time if the review is less than glowing.

Social review sites can literally be a way to strike gold when it comes to an offline business’ foray into social media advertising. Even better, assuming that you’re running a legit place of business that the customer is pleased with, you don’t even have to do that much work. Just sign up for a profile and let the positive reviews roll in!

Using PLR To Sell During Webinars

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have mentioned it before, but a personal goal of mine is to help reduce the stigma of PLR.  So many people instantly think “low quality crap”.  Well, I think stories like this will prove that there is some great PLR content out there, and more importantly, it can be used to make money right “out-of-the-box”.

So recently Justin (if you don’t follow us, he is my biz partner and one of the “founding fathers” of Best Quality PLR) was approached to give a webinar.   When you are working in the online world there will be a lot of these kind of opportunities.

People will approach you to do a webinar based on reputation

Someone in your social network will need a webinar guest

You can offer joint venture opportunities to people with big mailing lists who can schedule a webinar

You can speak on someone’s web show â€" people are always looking for guests

There are even websites directed solely to generating webinar traffic.

Hold your own webinar â€" set up landing page and direct paid traffic to it.

Anyways, creating webinar opportunities is a post in itself.  What we want to discuss is how PLR helped us make some money. When doing a webinar there are two things you really need:

Webinar Content

An Offer

We were able to use our PLR products for both.

After being approached by someone who needed a basic SEO webinar, Justin created a slideshow from our SEO related products.  He didn’t skimp on the info, the goal is to deliver some quality content.  Delivering a webinar can be a lot of work, but having this content did speed up the process.

So while Justin perfected the webinar content, I worked on putting together a package.  I took some of our SEO related products, slapped our branding all over them (could have increased profit by adding our affiliate links through out but we didn’t in this case) and zipped them up.  I believe we used 3 eBooks.  We packaged them for $27 and that was our upsell.

Justin delivered the webinar to 80 people.  This is a good number of people for a webinar.  Now, one thing to keep in mind is Justin is a total natural on the camera, and has a knack for creating webinars and video content. We have that inherent advantage over a lot of marketers, but you can get good and comfortable as well â€" it just takes practice.

Easily add youtube videos to WordPress automatically

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Video: How to automatically add youtube videos to Wordpress

Your List Has Partners In It

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Now as far as turning your list into joint ventures goes, this is a pretty easy but also open ended and rather variable in results until you actually see what these people are capable of further down the line. Similar to previously, when we talked about gaining feedback from your list you can in the same way, gain joint ventures from your list, again, as in the above example with the affiliates, this is often far more widely used, and for good reason.

I urge you once again, not to relegate your joint venture prospects to those who visit your website, and the individuals you pick out through the top performing affiliates, but to actively seek them through your list. The reason we're doing this is simply because there's a good chance someone will be out there that won't progress down your line of resources otherwise. If they're experienced, have a big list of their own, or the ability to get in touch with your target market, you're going to miss out if you’re not telling them that you want their services.

For example, an experienced marketer that subscribes to a selection of lists to keep up with what’s going on around them, happens to subscribe to your list where you're selling an info product such as this. He or she won't buy your how to product, because they’ve got their system set up already and it just so happens, that they only promote their own stuff to their own lists, unless it's a joint venture (this is very common among the big guys by the way), they won't buy your big product for the same reason, and they won't be joining your affiliate program for the above reason. He or she is a heavy hitter with a big list, but you're missing out. These are the people you're aiming to cater for here. It's not good if you're leaving massive holes like this, because you're missing out on some massive profit potential. In fact, as we speak the majority of marketers out there are very obviously leaving these types of holes.

The problem with joint venturing through a list at this stage is it becomes kind of a lottery if you're not careful. You can't just send out a mailing asking for anyone with a list over ten thousand people to contact you for higher commissions, because then everyone else feels cheated and you may alienate some potential affiliates. In general terms joint ventures should be a private thing, the deal will also vary from person to person, depending on your product, their list size, what they want in return and what you can grant in return. The best way to go about this is to keep it that way. Don't do a mass mailing just requesting joint ventures for the reasons above, we can't do that for this particular resource.

What I'd suggest you do instead, which you should be doing with your list anyway, is carry on as your normally do, sending out your un-intrusive surveys to help with your research and find out as much info as you can about the people on your list, for something in return. For example a short valuable report that you've written on your area of expertise. In exchange you're getting vital info that not only allows you to tailor your ads to your list providing a better response rate, but at the same time you're building up a picture of who the good joint venture prospects are. Once you've done that, you can go through the results you've collected, and pick the top performers, the knowledgeable, and the people with the most resources, and contact them individually.

Why You Should Target Low Competition Keywords

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If you’re a savvy business owner who is looking to get into the world of pay per click advertising, then you’re already aware of the salience that low competition keywords hold. For those who aren’t aware, here’s the long and short of it: low competition keywords are less obvious words that still relate to the product being sold by the merchant. For example, “auto” is a lower competition keyword as compared to “car.” Low competition keywords aren’t just limited to individual words, though â€" a “keyword” could conceivably consist of a pair of words or even a phrase. “Motorized vehicle” would also be a keyword that has a lower competition rate than does “car.”

The question being, though, is that in the case that a business owner is searching for those low competition keywords, where might they be found? The first place to check is, of course, your own head. Or a thesaurus. Look up all the synonyms for your main high competition keywords that you can and see which ones seem to make the most sense insofar as your products or services are concerned.

Of course, the usefulness of the word game stops at some point. Low competition is important, but you also want the keywords to be relevant and current. For example, “horseless carriage” might well be a synonym for “car,” but it’s not exactly highly relevant in the current market. It’s likely a keyword that has low competition, but it’s not very likely that a car dealership selling Ferraris is going to find it particularly helpful to their cause.

The real secret to using low competition keywords correctly is to find the keywords that are both low competition but yet highly searched for. Yes, these do exist! But where to find them?

The long and short of it? Software.

The bad news is that most of these software programs are paid deals. The good news is that once you have the software under your belt, it will end up saving you tons of money in the long run, so its definitely a worthwhile investment if you’re looking to use low competition keywords to the best of what they can offer.

There are several software programs on the market that are entirely dedicated to finding what keywords are low competition but yet deliver a major impact on the Google charts. Another good thing about having the software that searches out these keywords be for-profit is that it means that not as many people are taking advantage of the software as could be doing so, so those low competition high click keywords stay ripe for your picking.

Simply do a Google search on “keyword software” and you’ll get several options from which to choose. Do some research and pick the program that seems most intuitive to you â€" and then buy. You won’t be disappointed, and you’ll make up the cost of the purchase in the long run.

Discover the Most Effective Way to Say, "I'm here and how can I help you?"

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Most businesses spend a huge amount of time and money looking for NEW customers. We advertise, make phone calls, even travel cross country for meetings, all in the pursuit of the ever elusive stream of new customers.

What we're probably forgetting is that up to 80 percent of our sales growth can and should come from PAST customers. People who have bought from you before are pre-sold on you, your products, and services. It often just takes a simple reminder to get them

to buy again and again.

A while back I was talking to a group of realtors. When I asked how many followed up with old customers, only a couple of hands went up. Even though most customers will sell their home and buy another within just a few years, hardly any of the realtors

were considering how MUCH that repeat business could increase their sales.

I don't mean to single out realtors. Just about ALL of us could increase our business simply by getting in touch with our past customers.

I've found the most effective way to say, "I'm here and can help you," is to send a genuine paper greeting card by regular mail. It's FAR more effective than sending an email, mailing a sales letter, or even placing a phone call.

Paper greeting cards say "I appreciate you." Everyone loves them! Send cards to past customers to let them know you miss them, send them to employees for a job well done, send cards to prospects on birthdays. These are just a few tried and true ideas, and I'm sure you can think of many more.

Now I'll admit choosing, buying, and mailing a greeting card can take a lot of time and a fair amount of expense (figure $3 for the card, $4 for the gas to get to and from the store, and even more for postage).

The time and trouble involved is one reason why greeting cards are so effective. First of all, the recipient doesn't receive many cards, and secondly, they intuitively know just how much trouble you went to.

But let me share a little secret with you. There are new systems now that let you log onto a web site, choose your card, affix your digitized signature, then the service regular mails your card for you. The cost for the entire package can be as little as $1 per card, and it only takes a few seconds to do.

Can't remember important dates? These same services will let you enter all your dates for months, then send your cards out automatically.

If you've got lots of relatives to keep up with, your customers would appreciate this special gesture, or you know your employees would be motivated by a nice pat on the back -- then sending paper greeting cards is a communication tool you shouldn't be without.