Goin' it Alone - Web Marketing for Entrepreneurs

Black Ink Project Part 2: Week 1 Preparing A Plan

2008-06-18T17:30:00.002-05:00

Week 1 of the Black Ink Project focused on Planning & Preparation. I always thought affiliate marketing was simply slapping links on a web page but not so. All the greats has shown that it takes so much more.Affiliate marketing can be a lucrative career but what I learned in week one is that to be a successful affiliate marketer takes a foundation of planning and preparation as with any

Plain Text & HTML Email Newsletters - A Powerful Marketing One, Two Punch

2008-06-12T11:55:00.002-05:00

One thing I don't see very often anymore are plain text based emails. It seems everyone who is leveraging email marketing rather do so with a beautiful, image laden html based emails. I am of course not an exception to the rule although with every campaign I send I send out both plain text and html email to my subscribers. Why you ask? It seems like the diplomatic thing to do. I want to

The Re-launch of Urban Beauty Online

2008-05-18T21:12:00.007-05:00

I am so happy that I am finally done with the re-design of my site urbanbeautyonline.com it has been a long process but well worth my final result. Initially I was using Dreamweaver and the book Web Redesign 2.0: Workflow that Works. Soon I realized that the site and the amount of content I planned to create would make the site very hard to manage, so I ditched Dreamweaver. But I still used the

The Black Ink Project | Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Affiliate Marketing

2008-05-18T21:05:00.004-05:00

I have always had an interest in affiliate marketing (all the way back to 2001) but soon discovered it is way more tricky than placing links on a web page. Discouraged with less than stellar results I quickly started looking for a new way to start to generate passive income using the Internet.And then last month I got a message from a website that I casually visited that showed you how to make

Single Opt In Newsletters vs. Double Opt In Newsletters Which Is Better and Why.

2007-12-14T08:35:00.000-05:00

One of my first decisions to make when creating my newsletter was whether or not I would make it single opt in or double opt in. If you are as green as I was when I had to make that decision I'll define those terms for you.What are single opt-in newsletters?Single Opt In Sign Up allows visitors to sign up in one easy step. You fill in your email address you click submit and a screen pops up

Using Incentives to Build Your Email List

2007-11-14T08:14:00.000-05:00

Does using an incentive to entice visitors to signup create a tainted list of people truly not interested in your content or just or is the list just as legitimate as one craeted without an incentive? This is a subject that I struggled with twice first when I initially built my subscriber base and then again when I wanted to rebuild my list.My incentive was offering 1 entry into a drawing to win

Hooray for Google Analytics! It's Powerful and it's Free. Part 1: Goal Tracking

2007-11-14T08:12:00.000-05:00

As you can already tell this post is about singing the praises of Google Analytics. First of all no I am not being paid by Google I just love their product. It has so many valuable features that I have used to help make crucial decisions regarding the marketing and design of my site that I wanted to share how they helped me. Also instead of writing one long posting I decided to break it up and

6 Easy Ways To Improve WebSite Usability & Accessibility

2007-11-08T10:12:00.000-05:00

The first time I ever heard of usability and accessibility was when I decided to re-design my site. After doing some research I discovered that no matter how fancy your site is nothing replaces the need for it to be usable or functional to your visitors. Accessibility covers whether or not your site is functional for those with disabilities that may use alternate methods to view websites besides

Managing Your Web Redesign Project

2007-10-01T10:16:00.000-05:00

I read a book a few years ago that affected the way I view any business endeavor I would undertake. The quote is from IBM founder Tom Watson and was contained in the book the E-Myth Revisitedby Micheal E. Gerber."....The third reason IBM has been so successful was that once I had a picture of how IBM would look when the dream was in place and how such a company would have to act, I then realized

Results from Reviving an Old Email List

2007-09-15T11:03:00.000-05:00

These are the results I got after sending out a re-engagement campaign that would take old subscribers I hadn’t sent emails to in a long time to and ask them to sign up for my new list. One thing that I found very important in this campaign was my reminder of subscribers when they initially signed up. I also gave subscribers the option of not responding to the email which would remove them from

Reviving an Old E-mail List

2007-08-29T07:57:00.000-05:00

Before I decided to take my site to a Content Management System I developed an email newsletter and sent alerts of the updated website to my subscribers. Since I was a beginner to email marketing, I used Constant Contact to handle the design, delivery and tracking of my campaign. But like most marketers without a solid plan on how to maintain and develop content on a consistent basis I soon began

Two Simple Ways to Start Branding Yourself

2007-06-25T14:42:00.000-05:00

Purchase your own domain name. If you don’t have a business name and operate as an independent professional like real estate agents use your name as your domain name. This advice is helpful even for people that use free services to start a webpage, social networking profile or blog. URL’s like www.myspace.com/ mycompanyname aren’t professional or memorable. Make it easy for customers to

How to Take Advantage of Website Downtime

2007-05-26T08:00:00.000-05:00

(Above is my custom "parked page")You just bought your domain name and your ready to start building your first web page or you have an existing site that desperately needs an update. Your web hosting company will gladly provide you with a parking page full of links that describes your site as being “currently under construction” but don’t use it.Why? You ask. Well because this is the perfect

Choosing a Website Host

2007-05-21T22:33:00.000-05:00

My first step in transforming the Urban Beauty Online site was transferring my site back to my domain name provider GoDaddy.com. GoDaddy hosted my site initially and I have had no problems with them so I brought my site back gladly. I like the fact that with my hosting account comes with an email account with the ability to add several email address that point back to the single account. So not

Urban Beauty Online.com Background

2007-05-17T06:44:00.000-05:00

I started Urban Beauty Online.com back in 2003 as a website that provides beauty and fashion information for women of color. Response was great for a niche site; I was averaging 5,000 visitors per month. Later as the site began to grow it became a lot more difficult to maintain and at that time every site was moving to Content Management Systems so I decided to do the same and signed up with

Starting Goin' It Alone

2007-05-15T08:55:00.000-05:00

I created this blog to serve two purposes:To chronicle the relaunch of my website to a new design, voice and business model.Give tips and information to other entrepreneurs, consultants, small business owners and home business owners that want to take advantage of web marketing to create relationships and grow their businesses.As the title suggests I am a one woman operation seeking to generate