How Steve Jobs Creates Business Presentations is a post from: DerrickMarkotter.com

Here’s a short slide presententation I presented at a local Inner Circle meeting earlier this week:

Why You Should Create A Facebook Page For Your Business is a post from: DerrickMarkotter.com

In outline, the plan is  simplicity itself. Find a popular product on Amazon.com,  create a Squidoo lens specifically about that product, include your Amazon affiliate links and promote the lens by submitting an article to EzineArticles.com. Then do it again – once a week, until by the end of December you have 52 lenses and a consistent revenue stream.

What I like about this plan is that anyone can do it. You’ll learn how to do targeted keyword research, how to find products that people are already buying and how to create a web page that provides value to people who are looking for information about the products you’re promoting.

It’s completely free. Amazon’s Associate Program is free to join; Squidoo is free. These are the only tools you’ll need.

You can download Tiffany’s free report here – there’s no opt-in:
http://www.tiffanydow.com/gifts/52onSquidoo.zip

Hundreds of people are already doing this. You can find out about their progress on the Facebook page Tiffany set up here.

Create a Squidoo account here. This is an affiliate link – Squidoo gives me a small bonus for referring you.

Once you have your lens set up, you’ll need to promote it. You can get tons of ideas for promoting a Squidoo lens from Squidoo Step By Step.

This is not one of those “get paid to do nothing” business opportunities. You will need to knuckle down and do some actual work. The great thing is that you do the work once, and get paid (hopefully) forever.

Make Money Online With Squidoo and Amazon.com is a post from: DerrickMarkotter.com

This is the “official” plugin repository, and there are probably another couple of thousand plugins available which are not listed here.

The plugins which are listed in the WordPress.org directory can be installed with a couple of mouse clicks, from within WordPress. It’s become easier and easier to install plugins, and even those which are not listed in the directory can be installed from within WordPress – no FTP program is needed.

For any specific task, you will probably find more than one plugin which will do the job. All things being equal, one way to decide between similar plugins is by checking how recently the developer has updated the plugin. There are many plugins in the directory which were most recently updated in 2007. They may very well still work, but WordPress has been through a number of major revisions since then. It’s usually best to see that the plugin has been updated to keep up with the latest changes to the system.

Ultimately the decision to use one particular plugin or another is down to personal choice. I’ve experimented with a wide selection of plugins over the years, and the following is a list of the plugins I keep coming back to (in no particular order):

All-In-One-SEO Pack

An SEO plugin is pretty much essential to alter the way WordPress creates the Title and Description tags for your posts. Since these two tags are often used by the search engines as the basis of your listing, they are very important. 

All-In-One-SEO Pack is a ‘quick ‘n dirty’ solution, which doesn’t require a deep understanding of SEO. Greg’s High Performance SEO provides a much better solution from a technical perspective. It’s worth installing just to read the comprehensive explanation of SEO for WordPress. However, it is much more difficult to set up.

WP-SpamFree

WordPress comes with Akismet pre-installed. This is an excellent plugin for preventing comment spam. However, I use WP-SpamFree for two reasons:
1. It doesn’t require a WordPress API key. When you’re building dozens of WordPress sites, removing one or two steps (however simple) is a definite advantage.
2. It includes a simple spam-protected contact form. This is usually enough for affiliate marketing sites. If you need complete control over the forms on a blog, use Contact Form 7.

Antivirus

Security is a concern for any website which is accessible to the public. The Antivirus plugin scans your WordPress installation every day and emails you if it it finds any suspicious files.

Google Analyticator

If you’re using Google Analytics, you need to insert a snippet of Javascript code on each page you want to track. You can do this manually, but if you change themes, you have to remember to do it to the new theme. A Google Analytics plugin does this for you automatically. I like Google Analyticator because it displays a summary of your Analytics results on the WordPress dashboard.

Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin automatically generates an XML sitemap for your WordPress site, updates it when you add a new post and notifies the search engines.

Homepage Excerpts

If you look at the home page of this blog, you’ll see that the first post is displayed in full, and the other posts are shown as extracts. The only place where a blog post should be displayed in full is on its ’single post’ page – the page you get to by clicking on the post title. This plugin allows you to display the older posts as extracts, with the most recent post being the only one to be displayed in full.
This is the only plugin I use regularly which is not included in the WordPress directory.

MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer

One of the differences between a blog-based content publishing system like WordPress and a static site is that WordPress includes the infrastructure to automatically notify a number of blog directories every time you post something new. This plugin modifies the default behaviour of WordPress by preventing it from repeating the notification when a post is edited. It also stops WordPress from sending a notification when a post is scheduled for a future date.

One Click Plugin Updater

This plugin tells you if there are pending updates for any of your plugins, and lets you update all of them with one click.

Plugin Central

This plugin is extremely useful when you’re creating a new WordPress installation. It lets you paste in a list of plugins to be installed, and then automatically installs them for you. It’s much faster than doing each plugin one-by-one, and easier (and faster) than using an FTP program to upload the plugins from your computer.

Sociable

Sociable creates a row of social bookmarking icons at the end of each post, which makes it easy for your readers to bookmark or vote for the post at their favorite social media sites. There are tons of these plugins available, but this is my favorite, partly because it includes some South African sites like Muti and Laaik.it

WordPress Database Backup

Backing up your database is very important, and this plugin takes care of it for you. I set it up to automatically email the backup to my GMail account once a week (you can do it more often if you prefer).
The list of plugins you’ll end up with depends on the purpose of your website. Don’t be afraid to experiment. If you can imagine doing something with a WordPress blog, someone has probably created a plugin to do that.

Affiliate Marketing 8: WordPress Plugins is a post from: DerrickMarkotter.com

1. Choose a product you feel comfortable promoting. There is a lot of rubbish out there, so it’s always best for choose something you’ve actually used yourself, and that you would be happy to recommend to your friends.

2. Create a web page or a blog on one of the many free services on the web. Some examples are: Yola.com, Blogger.com and Weebly.com.

3. Write a review of your chosen product. Try to make it as useful as you can to the prospective customer. Provide as much detail as you can. Write a thorough  run-down of the purpose of the product, its main features and most especially, the benefits it provides.

Don’t by afraid of  mentioning any minor shortcomings of the product. It’s important not only to be honest, but also to be seen to be honest.

End the review with your affiliate link to the product’s sales page. It’s a good idea to buy a domain name so that you can redirect the link – for example, my Micro Niche Finder affiliate link looks like this:

http://scriptxml.kickbutt.hop.clickbank.net

I use a redirect in my website’s .htaccess file to create a ‘virtual directory’, so the affiliate link ends up looking like this:

http://derrickmarkotter.com/micronichefinder

Some people prefer to allocate a domain name to each product, so you might register something like "http://MicroNicheFinderReview.com". With this technique, you don’t even need a website. You can simply set up a permanent redirect at your domain registrar’s site.

4. Promote your review blog. Many people find this the most difficult part of any online marketing project, although it’s actually quite simple. There are dozens of ways to get traffic to your website. The problem is that most methods require consistent, repetitive actions to be performed.

Some effective methods are: writing articles and submitting them to article directories; writing press releases and submitting them to free press release distribution services; posting comments on other people’s blogs and creating ’satellite’ web pages on sites like Squidoo, HubPages and Zimbio.

Once your review blog is receiving a steady flow of traffic, it can continue to generate an income for you for years to come. You may not make a fortune from one review blog, but there is no limit to the number you can set up.

Since you will be making money from affiliate commissions, make sure that your website or blog has a disclosure policy, as required by the FTC.  You can get one here: http://disclosurepolicy.org/

If you’d like to know more about this technique for creating passive income producing review blogs, you might be interested in ClickBank Cash Blogs, a video home study course which walks you through the process in 7 short videos.

Make Money Online By Writing Product Reviews is a post from: DerrickMarkotter.com

The very first Internet marketing course I bought told me to “Get their first name, last name and email address”. Of course, if I’d done that from day one, I’d be in the pound seats today!

From the very beginning, you should be getting prospects to subscribe to your mailing list – and then following up with them effectively.

In fact, list building is almost more important than your website … and you don’t actually have to own a website to start the process.

A well-established method of building your list is Joint Venture Giveaways. You’ll find many of these in the Internet Marketing niche, but they also flourish in other popular niches like Health and MLM/Network Marketing.

The basic process is this:

• A host sets up and advertises a JV Giveway event
• Contributors sign up and add their ‘gifts’ to the website … these are usually e-books, software packages, audios or videos
• These gifts are usually offered free of charge, but members have to subscribe to the contributor’s email list in order to receive their gift.
• After a pre-determined period of contributors adding gifts to the site, the doors open, and members can sign up and see what’s on offer
• Usually it’s a downloading frenzy, a trolley dash where you can download e-products for free… and many of them can be resold for profit
• Members are encouraged to promote the JV Giveaway, and incentives are usually given to encourage this
• Credits or commissions are usually awarded for referring people and possibly downgrade penalties if nobody is referred.

Many people sign up to giveaway events just to help themselves to freebies, and there is nothing wrong with this.

If people didn’t do this, the contributors would not generate any new leads … so a giveaway thrives on its ‘freebie seekers’.

However, there is no better place to be – if you’re serious about your online business and your list building – than at the front of the queue … and that means being a contributor and taking an active part in a giveaway.

For first-timers, it’s best to take a free listing … most, if not all giveaway events, offer a free listing option.

Once you’ve signed up as a contributor, you’ll need to promote the giveaway. Signing up contributors or members is especially necessary if you’re a free member. With some giveaways, you won’t be able to list your product until you’ve referred one or two people. And with most giveaways, the position or ranking of your listing depends on the number of people you’ve referred.

All giveaway events provide promotional ideas and materials, such as pre-written emails, blog posts and Twitter updates. Send an email to your existing mailing list – no matter how small it is. Mention the giveaway on your blog, tweet about it on Twitter and make sure it appears in your Facebook updates.

Some giveaway events even provide free training. I particularly recommend Paul Teague’s New JV Talent Giveaway.

In Paul’s ‘Newbies Bootcamp’ he shows you exactly how to create your first listing at no cost to you whatsoever. This includes finding a product to give away, setting up a lead capture page (or squeeze page) and even setting up a free autoresponder account.

Paul challeges you to sign up your first 10 referrals to convince yourself that this process really works.

Once you’re convinced about the process, having ventured nothing but your time, you can start to get really involved and get the additional benefits of taking an upgrade.

So, what are you waiting for?

Here are some of the giveaways I’m currently involved in:

New JV Talent New Years Giveaway (31 December 2009 – 10 January 2010)
The New Year Giveaway (Jan 1st 2010 – Jan 12th 2010)
The Peoples JV Giveaway 2 (Jan 1st 2010 – Jan 31st 2010)
Self Improvement Gifts 4 (Jan 5th 2010 – Jan 19th 2010)

JV Giveaways – One Of The Best Ways To Build Your List is a post from: DerrickMarkotter.com

Kubrick is not that bad, but it screams out, “Golly, I just didn’t have time to do any work on my site”.

For affiliate sites, you really want a theme that doesn’t get in the way of what you’re selling. There are a couple of schools of thought on this; you’ll need to try a few of these ideas and see what works best for you.

If you have the budget, you could go for a premium theme, like AffiliateTheme or one of the terrific themes from WooThemes, iThemes or StudioPress.

Every premium theme site I’ve come across has an affiliate program, and they seem to have an unwritten law that they’ll exclusively use Paypal as their affiliate payment processor. That means that South Africans, who can’t receive payments through Paypal, can’t make money by recommending premium themes. Fortunately there is one exception – WooThemes have recently introduced their own Payoneer pre-paid Mastercard, as used by 2Checkout, ODesk, iStockPhoto, Plimus and many others.If you’re looking for high-quality WordPress themes to promote, and Paypal doesn’t work for you, WooThemes might be the answer. Thanks Adii!

Having said that, I mostly use free themes. Here are some of my favorites:

Flexibility 2
As the name indicates, the Flexibility theme is very, well, flexible. You can quickly and easily change many aspects of the theme’s ‘look and feel’ from the WordPress dashboard. Really useful for simple affiliate sites.

Corey Miller’s Internet Marketing With Blogs theme
These are two free themes which feature a clean layout and three additional sales page templates. They work pretty well out of the box, but are also easy to modify (if you’re not scared of a little CSS.)

Thematic
This is a theme framework, which gives you the “nuts and bolts” that go into a modern, search engine optimized theme, while being specifically designed to be adapted and expanded by the use of child themes. Very powerful, but the learning curve is a bit steep.

Having chosen a theme (and remembering that it’s dead easy to switch to a different theme if you want), you’ll need to decide how to use it. One of the most effective ways is by putting a big ad on your home page. This could be a simple text link, with some reasons to click on it. Or it could be a graphical button, or even a big banner ad.

The best idea is to test it, and see what works best.

A fresh WordPress installation has (naturally) the blog on the home page. However, you can easily tell WordPress to use any static page as the home page instead. To do this, go to the ‘Settings’ menu. Select ‘Reading’. The first option you’ll see is the ‘Front page displays’ section, where you can select an existing static page for the home page. You can also decide which page to use for the blog – I usually create a page called ‘Articles’ or ‘News’.

If you want your front page to look different from the rest of the pages, you can use a theme which includes different templates – for instance, the Internet Marketing With Blogs theme. Or learn how to create your own page templates – you can start here.

Affiliate Marketing 7: WordPress Themes is a post from: DerrickMarkotter.com

Actually, that’s not strictly true. You can sell affiliate products without having your own website. One way to do this is with (free or paid) online advertising. You would simply use your affiliate link in your advertisements, directing traffic directly to the merchant’s website. Another way is by creating a free web page, or a Squidoo lens, for each product you want to promote, and sending traffic directly to the merchant’s site.

These methods can certainly work, but they don’t give you as much control as having your own website (or your own network of websites). They also place you at the mercy of third party services, like Squidoo or whatever ad service you use.

Having decided that a website is a good idea, there are a few options available. You can build a one-page ‘micro-site’ or a small ‘mini-site’ using nothing but HTML. If you have the skills to do this, that’s great.

You can use a publishing system, or ‘CMS’ (Content Management System). There are dozens of excellent CMS systems available (and some really dodgy ones), but many Internet marketers have chosen WordPress as the foundation for their websites, for some very good reasons.

Why WordPress?

Firstly, WordPress is easy to install – if you chose a hosting company which provides Fantastico, you can set up a new WordPress site in under a minute. If you have to install WordPress manually, you can probably do it in 5 minutes or so.

It’s also easy to use. Content management systems are supposed to be designed to make it easy for non-technical people to update their own web pages, and WordPress makes it easier than most. The developers of WordPress take usability seriously, and it seems that each new release makes the software easier to use.

For example, a year or two ago you would have to upload new plugins and themes to your server using FTP – just like most other content management systems. Now you can choose, install and update themes and plugins without leaving the WordPress dashboard.

Themes and Plugins

Talking about themes and plugins, there are thousands of these available. WordPress “out of the box” is a framework – a very powerful framework, but one which can be easily extended depending on your requirements.

WordPress allows plugins to be added which extend its capabilities in ways that the developers never envisaged. There are plugins and associated themes which turn a WordPress site into a shopping mall, a social networking site, a website directory, a classified ads site, an article directory or practically any other kind of site you can think of.

Because the WordPress framework supplies the core functions like user management, image handling and so on, a developer can concentrate on the features they want to add. This can result in WordPress doing a better job than software which was written specifically for the purpose.

WordPress Security

Some people feel that WordPress is not sufficiently secure. To be frank, if a hacker wants to break in to your website, they’ll probably find a way to do it, regardless of what CMS you’re using. In fact, all they need is your user name and password, and one way to get those is by installing a keylogger on your computer, which sends them the information.

It’s a good idea to make sure that the anti-virus software on your computer is working properly.

OK – I’ve spent most of this post waffling about why WordPress is the way to go. There are many people who disagree, for a variety of reasons. They may prefer to use a different CMS, because of its perceived capabilities or because of familiarity. I’ve tried most of the alternatives, and I keep coming back to WordPress. It’s a bit like Mac fans vs PC fans though – whatever floats your boat.

In order to install WordPress, you’ll need a MySQL database. Most hosting accounts come with this automatically (although it is possible to get a “cheap” hosting account in South Africa without a database, so it’s a good idea to check.)

Installing WordPress (at last!)

Installing WordPress can be done in one of two ways. The quick way is by using an installer provided by your web host. If your hosting account provides CPanel, you’ll usually have access to Fantastico, which is a program which lets you install any of a wide selection of software, including WordPress. All you’ll need to do is fill in a simple form and click a button.

The alternative method is by uploading the files from your computer to the server, using an FTP program like Filezilla. You’ll also need to create a new database, which is easy to do using CPanel. Once you’ve completed these two steps, run WordPress for the first time by entering your domain name in your web browser. WordPress asks you for the database name and password, then installs itself.

If you have any trouble, you can watch Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick’s great free video tutorial series.

Affiliate Marketing 6: Installing WordPress is a post from: DerrickMarkotter.com

Not all hosting companies are created equal – there are vast differences in the areas that count, like service, performance, responsiveness and so on.

There are ways to make sure that you choose the right hosting company from the start, and more importantly, ways to make sure that you can switch hosting companies quickly and easily when you get let down.

How To Choose A Web Hosting Company

There are hundreds of thousands of hosting companies out there. They all offer different packages, different pricing and different levels of service. Here are a couple of sneaky things to watch out for.

1. Many hosting companies expect you to pre-pay for 3, 6 or 12 months in order to get the low prices they advertise. Think about what happens to your money if they go out of business. I would always choose to pay slightly more for a month-to-month contract.

2. Many hosting companies make extravagant promises about up-time.

3. Hosting companies will promise you huge amounts of disk space and bandwidth – much more than you can possibly use. However, hidden away in their Terms of Service will be a list of things you can’t do with the disk space and bandwidth. If you want to start the next YouTube, for example, you won’t be able to do it on a shared hosting account. Make sure you know what the real limits are.

4. Make sure that your web host supports CPanel. CPanel is the most popular ‘back-end’ control panel system. Although it is by no means perfect, it is easy to use and fast.

5. You’ll want a hosting account that allows you to use multiple domain names. That way, there’s no increase in the monthly hosting fee when you add new domains.

6. If you’re in South Africa, and your target market is South Africans, there are some advantages to using a South African web host – there is a small speed advantage and a slight SEO benefit over using a host in the USA or elsewhere in the world.

However, South African hosting tends to be more expensive, because of the iniquitous cost of bandwidth and (presumably) the higher cost of hardware in this country. For example, one of the bigger hosting companies sells an account capable of running ONE WordPress installation (ie with one MySQL database) for R99.00 ($13.51) a month, plus a R199.00 ($27) ’setup’ fee. For that price, I’ll set up and host a Wordpress site for you…

Most importantly – Never, ever sign up for hosting with the same company that registers your domain name. Why not? Because if your domain name is registered somewhere else and you have a problem with your hosting company, you can redirect your domain name to another host within hours. Of course, keeping up-to date backups also helps.

I recommend that as your business grows you consider splitting your money-making sites over a number of web hosts. Remember the maxim, “Two is One and One is None.” Three is the smallest “safe” number of hosting companies.

I’ve been using Hostgator for the last 3 years, with very few problems. I also have accounts at ResellerZoom and Innohosting.

Affiliate Marketing 5: Choosing a Web Host is a post from: DerrickMarkotter.com

It covers the basics you need to know about business websites – why you need one, a little about domain names and hosting, and some of the most serious mistakes made on business websites.

It’s only 9 pages, so it won’t take long to read.

You can get it here:

“The Really Simple Guide To Business Websites”

The Really Simple Guide To Business Websites is a post from: DerrickMarkotter.com