The truth is that a giveaway is not truly free. In order for you (or your referral) to receive your free gifts, you have to give your email address away to every marketer whose product you download. Not only can that clog your mailbox with emails promoting one thing or another several times a day, everyday, it can be most inconvenient.  It is, however, the price you pay for your new load of ebooks and software.

Since Giveaways seem to be a permanent and very popular online event, let’s check out how they work.

Let’s look at how Giveaways work for contributors …. A contributor is someone who provides a gift that is included in the Giveaway event.  As a contributor to the event, you will get a new subscriber to your list for every person who downloads your products. Seasoned contributors often offer multiple products to the Giveaway, which multiplies their opportunities for list building. For contributors, a targetted giveaway event is a great way to build your list.

Giveaways are also great for the giveaway owner.  In fact, the site owner benefits most from a giveaway event, as they get the benefit of your initial signup when you first visit the Giveaway plus all the referrals (people) you send to the site because you normally have to opt-in with your email address before you can even see the products being offered for free download.

Can I Really Make Money?

There are several ways for you to make money as a contributor to a Giveaway.  The main way you can make money is indirectly – by building your list, it is possible to bring in a steady income if your list likes the products you are offering them in your follow-up emails.

Another way to make money is by promoting the Giveaway to your lists, on forums and in your signature anywhere you use it. This is because when you become a contributor, you are given a link to send your referrals to – this is also known as an affiliate ID or affiliate link.  When someone uses your affiliate link to visit a Giveaway and buys the One Time Offer (OTO), you as the referrer gets the commission for the sale.

Other Benefits…

Another benefit of using your affiliate link, is that when you refer people to the Giveaway event, your offer is ‘ranked higher’ and is displayed on ‘higher’ or ‘earlier’ pages on the Giveaway event. By having your gift displayed on pages as close to the first page as possible, you increase the number of optins you will receive.

Promoting a Giveaway Event that you contribute too is an absolute must!  Not only is it ‘correct etiquette’, the more referrals you make the more you will benefit. Some events won’t allow you to add a product, or display your product, to the Giveaway until you have sent a certain amount of traffic through your affiliate link.

Dee and Khai have put together offerings that include:

Google Traffic Pump System, by Heri Rosyadi

Odinn Sorensen’s 2 Day Profit Plan

VIP Membership to Twitter Effects from Kathe Lucas and

Shelby Carrs’ How To Write Blog Posts That Suck Visitors In

Plus a bundle more products to help you grow your online business.

Visit the Home Business Breakthrough Giveaway to get your free products before February 15th.

1. The reader sees an article title that interests them
2. They open the article and start reading it
3. They read all the way to the end
4. The reader then clicks on the link in the resource box because they want to know more and…

Arrive at your site, likes it, and opts in to your list and/or buys your product.

Simple! So here are some tips to help you create great Articles:

The Title is everything.

If the title doesn’t catch a readers attention, they definitely won’t read the article. In fact, they probably won’t even see your

article in the list of articles they’ve seen… Your title needs to offer them something – What’s in it for them? How can it solve their problem?

Your title should evoke curiosity. “The Number One Mistake New Parents Make” would certainly gain the attention of new and first time parents, “How To Double Your Sales In 6 Weeks” will gain the attention of a business owner seeking to grow their business.

Words that are considered to be curiosity triggers are words like “Top 10 Tips”, “Secrets To…”, and “How I…”

Your title must contain your keyword phrases, not only for Search Engine Optimization, but also so that the people who would be interested in reading your article can find you.

The first paragraph is also very important.

The first paragraph needs to grab the reader’s attention so they will continue reading. When writing the first paragraph, you should identify with your reader by explaining the problems your article will be discussing. It is also important to write in a way that connects with your Target Audience.

Consider the length of the article.

There is a lot of discussion about the length of an article. Many readers will not read long articles however, the articles have to be informative and contact enought information to encourage the reader to want to learn more. On average, a 400 word article seems to work – it gains readers and will also allow for your article to be ’syndicated’ on other sites.

Be informative, but incomplete.

First of all, you need to give valuable information in your article to encourage people to keep reading however, you don’t have to give it all. For example, your article can include 3 of your top 7 tips and the other 4 can be found on your website or in the product on your website.

Link to the correct page.

When you create your author resource box, make sure you have the right page linked. There is nothing more frustrating than clicking on the a link in someone’s bio box and being sent to a ‘page not found’ page, or worse – to a page that has nothing to do with the subject of the article.

If you’re linking to a specific topic on your blog – make sure you link to the article on your blog, not just the front part of your blog.

Make your bio box work for you.

Your author resource box, or bio, can be the conclusion of your article. Bring your article to a graceful close in the body, but use your bio area to invite the reader to learn more, get a free report or a free gift by visiting your site. Of course, use your keywords for the article as your anchor text (that’s the text that is clickable) for better Search Engine Optimization.

From experience, Article marketing is an effective tool to bring visitors to your site and help make you sales, but only if implemented correctly. Take these tips and use them to grow your article marketing efforts.

Have you signed up for my Free 3 part Article Marketing ECourse?

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There are benefits to having a list…

* You don’t have to start over and find new people to sell to. You already have a ready-made group of people who have decided that they want to hear what you have to say and have probably already bought from you.

* Typically, if you’ve built a targetted list and treated your subscribers well by sharing valuable information (as opposed to continually promoting to them), the bigger your list, the more money you can make.

* If you are an affiliate marketer, having a responsive list can help you to become a Super Affiliate, which not only equates to more income – it also means that you may have a chance to win cool prizes in affiliate contests. Being a Super Affiliate also means that you can becoming sought after for large launches.

List building however, requires bringing traffice to your website. Here are some ways to get traffic and build your list.

1. Give them something for free. This is the obvious way however, make your free item something other than the usual pdf ebook.

Consider creating a podcast (mp3) with an expert, or even yourself sharing some great tips about your niche. You can also have someone interview you and record the interview to give away. Another idea is to create a video demonstrating a ’secret technique’ or discussing some of your strategies in a visual way? If your software developer, why not give away some software in exchange for their email address?

2. Post on your blog regularly – using your chosen keywords. Try this – write a blog post (with good content and keywords) every day for 2 weeks and check your traffic stats – you should have more traffic! Do You?

3. Giveaway events are another way to build your list – make sure you create an opt-in page so that you can get the email address.

It’s important to make sure your offer is something that stands out in the sea of all the other Giveaway offers.

4. Build a Squidoo lens or Hub Page and point people to your site. Squidoo lens and Hub Pages are fun to put together, and relatively quickly to make. Take advantage of it and generate some traffic to your site.

5. Write articles and submit them to directories like Ezine Articles. Be sure to use your chosen keywords to the article and create an author resource box that will encourage people to click through to your site. Create articles that have great content and are informative – the content doesn’t have to be your best writing, but it should still be good.

6. What forums exist in your niche? Join a forum (or 2 or 3) and set up your signature to graciously promote what you do. The way (and when) you set up your signature block completely depends on the forum – make sure you read the Terms of Service first. When creating your signature, remember to ’sell a benefit’ and get readers curious enough to click through.

7. Ad Swaps are certainly an excellent way to grow your list fast and effectively. Find another business in your niche that has a similar size list (or similar response) and send each others offers of a free item to your own list. The key is, to plan your swaps with offers that will appeal to your niche and not to do it too often, as you will ‘desensitize’ your list.

8. Twitter is another great resource to help you generate traffic to your site. A well written, 140 character tweet can entice people to want to know more and click through. For more information on how to use Twitter to drive traffic to your site, pick up your free Twitter Blog Magic report.

9. Pay Per Click advertising can be an effective way of traffic generation. A well designed AdWords campaign will be seen on a number of others people sites – and increase your reach incredibly. Spend some time developing your AdWords campaign to make sure you pay the ‘right’ price for the advertising.

10. If you like to write and you have something valuable to say, guest blogging is a good way to go. Blogging on your own blog means you have your readers, blogging on other people’s blogs (preferably higher traffic blogs) means you have their readers too, and these people will see your name AND your link.

Building traffic to your site, and list building, requires work from you – it doesn’t happen overnight and whilst you can outsource a lot of the work, understanding the basics will definitely help you. Building your list will most certainly help you create a sustainable, and profitable business.

Your sales letter is incredibly important and should exhibit a level of friendliness, whilst still being direct and to the point.

Many Internet Marketers struggle with writing an effective sales letter and realize that if the sales copy doesn’t speak to their target audience, in a way that the target audience will appreciate and understand – they are wasting their time.

Not only should a sales letter speak to your site visitor in a way that they can relate to, it must also address the reader’s main interest – generally a problem they are experiencing that requires a direct solution, or specific training or another need that requires filling.

Here are six tips for keeping your potential customers, your readers, very interested and convert readers into buyers:

#1…It is imperative that you know why your visitors will buy your products or services. Your visitors really aren’t interest in your EBook or service – you would be wrong – your visitors are are only interested in what your product will do for them.

When writing your sales letter, you need to stress the benefits your potential clients will get if they buy your product.

There is an emotional component to all sales and it is that emotional component that prompts buying. The emotional component is the bit that contains the “WIIFM” or “What’s In It For Me?” Provide the answer to that question with the benefits of your product or sevice and you will make sales.

#2…The first thing your visitors see when they land on your page is the headline – possibly even before they see your graphic header.

Whilst it’s important that your graphic header needs to be professional, the headline must grab the reader and makes them want to read more.

Your headline is the most important part of your entire sales letter. If you can add your readers name to the headline, you will have a magnetic response.

Check your autoresponder or webmaster for the script that will automatically add your readers name to the headline – you will be amazed at the response.

#3…Your sales copy shouldn’t ramble. Your sales copy should be direct and specifically focused on the benefits of owning your product.

There is no Golden Rule about the length of sales letters, it should be as long as it needs to be. Some sales page will be one page and some will be several pages long. As long as you stress your benefits and make your copy as long as it needs to be to make your points (WIIFM).

#4…Readers tend to skim through endless paragraphs of text and the look of your page is important to your conversion and as such, you should keep your sentences and paragraphs short.

Large blocks of text get skipped by scanning eyes. Use bullet points and subheads to direct and focus your reader’s attention and put a space or two between paragraphs to make your page easy to read.

Formatted text boxes will attract attention for special information or calls to action.

#5…Many successful Internet marketers believe that including a PS or two at the end of your sales letter, after your signature at the end, will increase your conversion rates dramatically.

This may, or may not be true – it would depend on your target audience. Split-test your copy with a PS and without – see what results are achieved.

#6…Often, when new Internet marketers write their first sales page, they forget to add several calls to action. A Call To Action literally tells your reader what to do – gratiously and politely. The Call To Action is generally a request to actually buy the product or service.

If you check out any good sales page, you will usually find two or three opportunities to purchase the product on the sales page, complete with a statement of urgency and the PayPal button.

Once you have led the reader through your benefits and listed the bonuses available after they buy the product, you have to tell them what to do next.

These six tips are a great but your best training tools can be found on the sales pages of any of the very successful businesses. Review lots of sales pages, note things like colors, placement of the “Buy Now” button and the general layout of the page. Find pages that appeal to your target audience and duplicate what already works.

There is a lot of hype around how website owners can get hundreds and thousands of visitors to their site and how they can get their site on Page 1 of the Search Engines – yes, a lot of it is hype and some of it is true.

There are a couple of excellent ways for Small Business Owners to gain targetted traffic to their site including:

1. Pay Per Click Marketing (Google AdWords)
2. Search Engine Optimization – so your business can be found in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)
3. Social Marketing
4. Offline advertising

Out of all of these, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the one method that site owners should have a basic understanding of, because it’s the one method that is ongoing and, in my opinion, most beneficial.

Search Engine Optimization is literally about having your website listed in the SERPs (indexed) for the search terms you want to be found for. SEO is also about having your site found as high as possible in the Search Engine rankings for those keywords – preferably on Page 1.

However, SEO is an ongoing process – once you’ve got your site listed, it takes ongoing work to improve the ranking of your site, and then maintain it.

Whilst a lot of the SEO work can be outsourced, it pays to understand the SEO Basics and why they need to be done – that way, business owners will understand whether they are getting a fair price and whether the work being offered by SEO companies is the right type of work.

My one single tip to ensuring that website are indexed, and start ranking for their chosen keywords is to write great content. Don’t be fooled by the stories that you can get your site ranked with a little bit of content – whilst you may get your site listed and ranking well for a while, it will most likely be temporary. Writing great content is the way to ensure you maintain and improve your rankings.

When you write your content, use one of your chosen keywords throughout that content – but no more than 1 to 2 times in every 100 words to avoid ‘keyword stuffing’. Once you’ve written your content, read it aloud before publishing it to make sure it sounds natural.

My final advice with this tip, is to use formatting like bold, italics and underlines to highlight your keywords and bring attention to them.

This tip is only one part of a series steps to optimizing your website for Search Engines, but I consider it one of the most important parts to the process.

I have created a simple report (and email series) where I share my 11 Steps To SEO that I use when setting up a clients site. You can obtain a copy of Get Ranked: 11 Steps To Search Engine Optimization here. However, I’m going to share one tip with you here.

Until now, one of the things that has been lacking, is the ability to create a ‘nice looking’ form, without having a reasonable understanding of HTML.  This can be very challenging to some business owners, as they don’t really want to know HTML at all.

Which is why I was really impressed last night, when I logged in to my AWeber account and created a new webform – the new Form Generator is live and it is great!

AWeber have been teasing us with the ‘new way to do forms’ for a few weeks now – giving us tantalizing glimpses of what’s possible – but now that I’ve experienced it, I love it.

You can find out more about the new form generator over at the AWeber blog: Easy Web Forms

The one thing I like most about the new generator, is the standard templates they provide you with to use. I’m going to create some of my own templates (eventually) and upload them to the custom template area, but for now – the standard templates are wonderful and eye catching.

Here’s what I like:

• The drag and drop resize option – make the form wider or narrower with a point and click, just wonderful to make the form fit your page layout
• Easily adding an image to your form and placing it
• Quickly add a link to the AWeber Email privacy policy on your form
• Configure the Thank You page to be a the Aweber ‘basic’, ‘audio’, ’smart video’, or you can specify your own page or ‘do nothing’.

I’m still playing with the generator – but it makes life a whole lot easier. Oh yes – if you have an existing form, you can update it to the new generator simply by editing it….

Have you trialled the new webform generator yet? What do you think – leave your thoughts below.

Wishlist Member

I’m sure you’ve heard of Gary Vaynerchuk, THE “social media” expert behind the now famous WineLibrary.tv. Gary has a new book out called “Crush It” – and you can get a free copy when you purchase Wishlist Member.

But – you can only get the book free when you purchase in October 2009.

Wishlist Member will also be conducting an interview with Gary which is also included with this offer.

There have been a number of improvements with Wishlist Member – which is the sign of a great product with excellent support. The new improvements include:

Full InfusionSoft Integration: You can now run shopping cart fully integrated with WishList Member.

Run Your Own Affiliate Program: Wishlist is now integrated with iDev Affiliate Tracking Software, which means anyone running a membership site can now incorporate a full affiliate program into their site.

Chris Garrett (a high profile blogger) was interviewed on how he has developed several
membership sites using WordPress. You can listen to Part 1 of the interview below:

[audio:http://wlmember.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/Stu-ChrisGarrett-pt1-final.mp3]

Wishlist Member now integrates with:

• Clickbank
• Paypal
• Aweber
• 1 Shopping Cart
• InfusionSoft
• iDevAffiliate

and takes less than 10 minutes to install and configure your first membership level.

If you are considering creating a membership site – consider using Wordpress and Wishlist Member – and consider it for October 2009, you will pick up some wonderful bonuses.