This is a guest post by Nic Penrake

The first launch I did – it was a WSO, an ebook on marketing with squeeze pages – was pretty lame, I have to admit. But hey, I was new to the whole thing. About the only thing I got right was the sales copy – I’m a copywriter – but even that was probably not hard-hitting enough, because I was so unaccustomed to writing so-called ‘sales’ copy back then; ad copy is quite different, being so much more economical and restrained by comparison.

Sadly, the product was pretty good – and I still sell a few copies every week, and not one refund to date. So it wasn’t the product that was naff, it was my marketing of it.

Over the past year or so I’ve had time to take note of my mistakes. Lots of notes, lol. Now that I’m 2 -3 weeks away from launching a new product, I’ve at least got a much more complete picture of the preparation involved. And boy, there’s plenty of it.

Where do I even begin?

OK… so… you write your sales page. Which in my case has been a sales video on powerpoint/Camtasia AND a sales page because, as we all know, videos often convert better than long form sales copy.

I’ve written the dedicated affiliate page. With all the essential tools for affiliates, such as email swipes, articles, blog posts, etc.

The upsell? For some time, I was in two minds over what to offer. It would have been easy enough to go buy some PLR and do an editing job on it and sell it on – but I wanted to offer a logical EXTRA to my main product. For me, that meant coaching.

Now coaching’s kinda tricky. Because:
a) You have to charge at least $30-40 per hour to make it worth your while
b) Your prospect almost certainly knows very little about you, so trust is a major hurdle you must overcome

So let’s say my new product markets at $9.90 on the Warrior Forum – a typical price for most Warrior Special Offers (WSOs). Buyers go through to the upsell, where I pitch my coaching. If I now present my customer with a coaching package, which is going to be in excess of $97, I’m unlikely to make any sales because the leap from 9.90 to 97 + is just too big for most people.

Solution? Make the upsell no more than a pitch to get people interested in your coaching program. You ask them to sign up to your FREE 25 minute consultation, during which time you will show them what you can do for them. No obligation to buy with the promise that even if they don’t take you up on your great offer, they will finish the call a little wiser than when they started. The more entrepreneurial, go-getting minority will sign up – and that way the upsell kicks in.

What else?

Collect some testimonials. I will be approaching some of the top marketers I know to request a testimonial. But I’ll have to offer something in return. I could offer the biggest fella some space on my download page, for example. Of course I will have to provide access to my product – top affiliates have to feel they can back your product or they just won’t bother.

So far I’ve a couple of good testimonials I could put on my sales page, but I’d like to get a couple more before launch date, so that’s one of my tasks right now.

I’ll have to write some articles with titles which match my product name – partly to generate traffic, partly as components in the tool kit I must offer my affiliates.

I must build a simple review site – something like myproductnamereview.com.

I must put together at least 3 videos that serve as a pre-sell. I’ll have to find a way of offering some useful content, relevant to my product, that whets the appetite of potential buyers. I’ll have to maintain momentum in my pre-launch so that people don’t lose the thread of my ‘story’ and are eager and keen come launch day.

Video marketing. Following the launch I must put the sales video up on youtube, metacafe, daily motion, etc. etc.

I must also put the word out to:
- Twitter
- Facebook
- My list
- And social bookmarks

Write some PR, so it’s ready to go out come launch date…
Can you see how involved this all is? I tell you, the next one I’m outsourcing a whole big chunk of it!

But can you see how important it is not to rush a launch? You have to have all your ships in a line. It’s like preparing an invasion. And it’s not even over once you’ve launched. You have to be ready to reply to questions and comments on e.g. the Warrior Forum. And as John Thornhill rightly points out in his recent WSO Domination, you need to show you are confident of your product. It’s essential you don’t get into a scrap with anyone and always come across as helpful.

You might also need to tweak your sales copy if it’s converting less well than you’d thought.
And when the dust settles, finally, you might consider launching at a higher price – via webinar, say – in a month’s time. You could also turn the digital offering into a physical product and try marketing that at 6 or 7 times the price.

Two months later you need to analyze your strengths and weaknesses so your next one will be bigger and better.

I don’t pretend that this list is exhaustive. But I think this is plenty to take in for a lot of readers. For those expert marketers reading, I’m sure readers would welcome your tips for making a good launch great.

Now I am not going to show you some kind of black hat method that is going to get you 1000′s of backlinks by clicking your mouse.

We don’t like them methods anyway and they will just come and bite you on your bum some day.  So lets all try and keep things clean!!  It is a very simple way of getting a backlink from your own blog, just by commenting in a slightly different way.  So I have made a very short video to explain how to do this.

You will need a plugin to do this.  There is a free and a paid version.  It is called Comment Luv and Andy Baily the developer of the plugin has just released the Comment Luv Premium version to the public this week.

He is only making it available for one week at a discounted rate.  If you are not sure what the premium version can offer you then I will let Andy tell you all about it from his video below.  He told me that he just chucked it together one weekend.

But I think he spent all week on it trying to perfect it!  With Andy being the developer he can explain things a whole lot better than me, so I will hand you on over to the man himself

Sorry there is not an add to cart button below this video as I did not want to ram your face in it.  I will give you a link to the sales page here Comment Luv Premium  and yes that is an affiliate link.  If you want to buy it through my link then great it will help me to keep this blog going and provide more content in the future.

If you would like the direct link then here you go Comment Luv Premium  If you would like the free version of Comment Luv which will still give you the feature in my video and bring up the last blog post you had whenever you leave a comment on somebody elses blog that has the comment luv plugin installed then Click Here

It is something you should really look into especially if you have a blog or write for a website.  As it will give you/your clients a bit more sxpesur

This guest post is by Charles Mburugu

Blogging is a great way of spreading messages, facilitating conversations, sharing news and so much more. However, blogging is not just about putting your thoughts and ideas down in words. It is important to learn how to get blog posts published more successfully so as to maximize the benefits from your blogging experience. When you are successful in publishing blog posts, everybody benefits.

The following are some tips that will enhance the effectiveness of your blog posts.

1. Titles

Your post title should be able to grab the attention of readers. In addition, it needs to be able to make it easy for search engines to find you. Every blog post should have a title. Make sure yours is concise, strong and keyword oriented.

2. Introduction

You need to start your blog entry with the very same keyword or phrase which you put in the title. This will help emphasize your theme, thus showing your readers what exactly you want to address.

3. Information

Your blog should be very informative and helpful for your readers. Share your knowledge and experience with them. This will help them make choices that are informed and educated. Focus primarily on teaching, not just advertising.

4. Be a resource

Through blogging effectively and on a regular basis, you can eventually become an expert or an authority in your area. Your readers need to see you as an online source of information. My blog, which features ediet coupons and weight watchers discounts, is presented in a way that facilitates discussion and conversation, thus encouraging interaction with readers.

5. Make the blog dynamic

You need to encourage feedback. A blog that has comments, feedback and discussions will attract more and more visitors. It will also present your blog as dynamic and interactive, thus creating more interest in your content. Blogs which are static and unchanging are not very effective as marketing tools. Therefore, you need to ensure that your blog is constantly evolving and dynamic.

6. Think search engines

When you start blogging, always remember to think about search engines. Your content needs to be keyword oriented. Make sure you have lots of fresh content which is rich in keywords. This will make it easier for search engine spider to find your blog. However, the keyword should be used in moderation.

If you apply all these tips, you will find it easier to publish blogs. In addition, your blog posts will be more effective and will attract increased traffic to your blog.

The All New Dancing Comment Luv Premium Plugin

So When I landed back home from my holiday and started to go through 957 emails I had a lovely surprise from the creator of Comment Luv Premium Andy Baily.

He was asking for beta tester’s of his new premium plugin.  As I have already been a user of his free comment luv plugin and I think its a great plugin on its own.   The new premium plugin does way much more and is actually 6 plugins in 1 so it was time to have a little clean up.

As you should know by now you can slow your site down with too many plugins so if you actually had all the plugins that comment luv premium uses then you would really benefit from having this plugin.  Andy has dedicated its own site for beta tester to help improve any aspects of the plugin.  With feedback and future suggestions to help with updates

Video From Andy Explaining All About The Comment Luv Premium

Not only did I rush over to register to become a beta tester as I knew this would be an excellent plugin as I have been very very happy with the free version, but I got accepted and have the comment luv premium plugin now installed on my site.

Andy has done a really good on all the features and benefits of his new comment luv premium plugin but with the added plugins all integrated into one it is a must for anybody having the other plugins

Comment Luv Premium Gives You 6 for 1

1. CommentLuv
2. GASP – GrowMap Anti-Spambot Plugin an alternative to Akismet
3. Twitter Link Comments – commenters get a link to their Twitter account
4. KeywordLuv (Andy’s updated version is called Keyword Name)
5. DoFollow – with the flexibility to switch back and forth to NoFollow as you wish!
6. TrackBack validation

Andy is accepting beta tester but only until the 6th September so you might have run out of time as you read this, so if want a chance to become a beta tester then I suggest you get your skates on.  To see if you can still become a beta tester click the banner below and register to become a beta tester.

Andy has gone into great detail explaining how each section of the comment luv premium plugin works.  If you want a full detailed explanation then you can visit his You Tube page here

Leave a comment, tweet, like or add to +1 and see how the plugin works.  Of course if you have the free version then you will already know how good this plugin is.  You will get a chance to see your last 10 blogs post to link back to it from my blog

If you are a beta tester of the comment luv premium plugin then let me know what your thoughts are and how you are finding it.

I  have been on fire recently with adding more and more content to my blog.  Not only my self but I had a guest blogger add some content this week.  It was from Mitch O’Conner.  He did a post about on-page optimization and how important it is and 5 easy steps to getting your pages better optimized.

The reason why I have been adding content is because 1 I have been a little shy with the content here lately and 2 I am off on holiday tomorrow so wanted to get some stuff sorted before I left.

I was doing my usual blog hoping to my favourite sites and over at Barry Wells Blog he has put down a challenge and called it “I Am Showing You Mine But Will You Show Me Yours?”  It is all about creating a video on our blogs.  It can be about anything IM related.  I really did not have time to do it but I just love a challenge.

Even thought it is 2.22am as I am uploading this and I am off on holiday tomorrow so I can sleep then!  But I have created a video about a technique me and Kim Roach have been working on.  I call it the “War Room Method”

Check The video below!

So there you have it!  Now if you are not a member of the War Room then you can sign up up by clicking here.  If you need any more info or you have any questions then please do leave them in the comments box below.  There is a slight problem as I going on holiday on the 2oth August so I will not be able to answer any questions until I get back

I do not want you to think I am ignoring you.  Unless I get a good signal in Portugal or slip away to an Internet cafe with out my wife spotting me!

If you are wanting to join some new Giveaway events then I am involved in a couple at the moment.  I do tend to be very selective of these now or will be possible holding some myself in the future.  Goodluck with your list build and I will see you all when I get back!!

My Products

This is my first paid product about SEO and how I got a niche site to page 1 of Google.  I also conducted 4 interviews with some SEO experts these included John S Rhodes, Joe Finn, Richard Legg & Shane Melaugh

Inside this FREE report you are going to discover how to get 1000′s of subscribers in only 30 days.  The methods and techniques you will have revealed to you are one’s that you can start implementing today

Now once you have spent some time trying to figure this whole Internet Marketing game out youwill come to realize that you can not do everything your self, or you just don’t want to do the mundane work of backlinks or web design.  So I have put this FREE report together explaining how to use the site Fiverr.  To get the best Gigs on the site!

5 Ways to Improve Your On-Page Optimization for

SEO Dominance

Today’s post is by a guest blogger called “Mitch O’Conner”.  This is the first guest post that I have received on my blog and hope to do more in the future.  So please enjoy the article by Mitch

While guest posts, inbound links, social networking and affiliate marketing can all be effective tools for improving your site’s visibility, you should never neglect on-page features. Google’s Page Rank algorithm uses a variety of factors to determine the rank of a given page, but it pays close attention to the organization of your content and site as a whole. Understanding how to effectively optimize your website is a critical part of mastering the art of SEO.

Clean Up Your URL Structure

One on-page practice that can improve your page’s ranking involves finding more suitable URLs for each page. You should typically shoot for a URL that describes the topic of the page it represents, preferably including pertinent keywords. For instance, if your content is designed to help people diet and exercise, you might consider using a URL like “yoursite.com/health/weight-loss-tips.html” instead of “yoursite.com/?p=8″.

A URL like this stands out to both search engines and web users and instantly tells them what your page is about. Try to keep most of your URLs within your domain’s main directory. This should help improve each sub-page’s rank.

Editing your permalinks to use a clean URL structure may be difficult for some users. While blog services like WordPress allow you to do so easily from your Settings page, you may be forced to learn how to edit .htaccess files to help you restructure your URLs. This is important, as incorrectly changing your URLs could lock up your entire website.

Optimize Your Titles

Picking the right titles for your pages and posts is a key part of on-page optimization. Your title must appeal to your readers, but it must also get noticed by search engines. Try to give your content titles that include targeted key words and other commonly searched for words and phrases. One common way of improving titles is to add modifiers like “best,” “top” or “2011.” In most cases, an article titled simply “Diet Tips” is less attractive to readers and search engines than one called “Top 10 Diet Tips.”

A real world example is the BusinessCards.org blog, which clearly demonstrates this technique. If you’re running a business in which branding is particularly valuable, you might also consider adding your company’s name into the meta titles of your posts.

Create a Sitemap

If you have not included a sitemap in your domain’s root folder, do so as soon as possible. A functioning sitemap allows your content to be more easily indexed by search engines. Since new sites can take months for search engines to crawl, anything that can speed up this process is well worth it. Google’s Webmasters tools even allows site owners to upload their sitemaps directly to Google’s database.

A sitemap can also be a handy navigation tool for visitors, in addition to helping you create internal links between your pages. One easy way to create a sitemap is to visit XML-Sitemaps.com, which automatically crawls all of your content and generates an XML, text, HTML or ROR sitemap. Unless you need to index more than 500 pages, this service is free.

Optimize Your About Page

While optimizing your content for SEO is crucial to success, it is important not to neglect your About page. Influential blogger Chris Brogan discovered that his About page was his top visited page, prompting him to pay closer attention to its content and urging his readers to do the same. Your About page should be able to provide your readers with a reason to read the rest of your content. In some ways, your About page can serve as a pitch, listing your qualifications and explaining why your site is an authoritative source in your field.

The About page is also a great place to list your address, which can help you draw traffic from your area due to Google’s algorithm placing more and more emphasis on local searches. If you don’t have a business address, you could even make one up in order to draw in more readers from a certain region.

Additionally, the About page represents an opportunity to build deep links to your site (these are links that point to a specific page on your site, rather than your homepage). Deep links can significantly improve your site’s ranking. The same applies for your privacy policy, disclaimer and any other similar page. Many bloggers and webmasters overlook these pages and the beneficial link building opportunities they can provide.

Remember Your Readers’ Intent

When you create content and optimize content for your website, always consider the intent with which your readers are visiting your site. Search engines are ultimately driven by user demands and you should use SEO accordingly.

This means that you must go above and beyond simple keyword research. For example, if you use your website to sell a product or service, try using transactional keywords in your content. Prefacing your title with “order” or “buy” can help snag users who are in a purchasing mode. While searches for such phrases tend to be somewhat low in volume, they often result in a better conversion rate.

Thanks Mitch for posting this article I hope people have learnt a bit about on page SEO.  If you would like to become a member of this blog and submit your own guest post then please do so by posting it on the contacts page.  Also I have put together a few guidelines and suggestions for you to write about and also to keep in line so your post will be submitted quickly.  You can find the details here Guest Posting

Recently I have been trying to Guest Post on some highly targeted blogs.  One was problogger but unfortunately they did turn me down as they said that their audience would already know the content I was adding.  So unless you are a professional blogger and have a ton of knowledge inside your mind you might need to add a different twist in getting your story across to be accepted on these higher rated blogs.

I was a little disappointed but took the same article and added it over to maxblogpress.  I am waiting to hear from them for approval.  One site that I did get one of my guest post accepted was over at Barry Wells blog where I gave a detailed explanation of list building.

Barry is a really cool blogger and has a ton of followers and you will see why when you visit his blog.  He has a lot of great articles in learning much about Internet Marketing.  Go over and say hi and mention I sent you over just to sweeten the deal!

Barry Wells Blog

He has just started a little competition that I will be getting involved in before I set off on my holidays.  If you want to get involved then I suggest you go over there and check it out!

So what is my intention of this short blog post.  Well as you can see from the title it is about Guest Bloggging.  I am trying to get more exposure for myself and my blog but just recently I was sent a guest post to be added on my blog.  I was very surprised that someone would want to add their content to my blog but then I thought why not.  So I am now going to be accepting guest post.  I have set up a page with a few rules and guidelines don’t worry they are not going to make you run a mile just a few little rules to keep you in order and make you think a little before submitting a guest post.

My first guest post that I am going to be accepting is from “Mitch O’Conner”  he is going to be writing about SEO the title of his guest post is “5 Ways to Improve Your On-Page Optimization for SEO Dominance”

So keep a close look out as I will be adding this article this week

So if you would like to guest post on my blog then please get in touch over at my contact page and I will have a quick look over your work

Well there is a good reason why I have not been very active here.

I have been in hospital for an operation due to knee ligament damage.  Well not just damage but it has just disappeared.  This has been an ongoing problem for a long time when I first snapped the ACL Anterior Cruciate Ligamnent to my left knee nearly 16 years ago.

I was actually referred to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary to sort the problem out as Carlisle hospital could not take the surgery on.  Also at the time the surgeon up in Edinburgh was the best for the job.  Over the years he actually repaired the ACL twice.  It all started with a Football injury but I have had trouble ever since.

Then the inevitable happened and 2 years ago my ACL in my right knee snapped and I had to have surgery on that.  Unfortunately the surgeon up in Edinburgh had retired and I was sent to a more local hospital “Kendal”

They did a fantastic job and that knee is repaired and all stable.  But for some unknow reason I was over at my inlaws house and slipped on a couple of steps.  Hardly even fell, just tripped just to say.  But as I placed my left leg down to stop me falling I felt my knee give way and just knew it was not good.

With all the pain and problems I have had over the years I just knew it was going to be a serious injury.  So I was referred back to Kendal and they have started the procedure again.  As this will be the third time for my ACL reconstruction things were going to be a bit more difficult.

When you have an ACL reconstruction you have to take part of another ligament from your leg.  The first time was  from my hamstring and the other was from my patella (the front of the knee) so now there is nothing left to repair with.  So the surgeon and I agreed to take it from my right knee.  But due to all the previous work done on my left knee he had to remove all screws, plugs and anything else in there and start a fresh.

So this operation has turned into a 2 stage procedure.  The first one is to remove everything.  The only problem being that when the screws are removed that held the ligiments into place, there will be some holes.  So the surgion needed to take a bone graft from my hip and use it to fill the holes.

Now this will take about 6 months for all the bone to nit together before going back in and fit a new ligament.  The worrying thing is that the surgeon was worried that when he went in to remove everything that there was nothing left of my ligament.  He thought I might be producing some sort of chemical that is eating away at the ligaments.

So there is some extensive research and hell of  alot of finger crossing to find out why my ligaments keep snapping.

On a good note though!  I have been working closley with Kim Roach to improve my marketing techniques.  So I will be posting some of the methods that Kim and I have been working on.

Well as you will have realised from the title of  this blog post it is about an interview I did with John S Rhodes.  But I must admit I have neglected this blog and have not added any content for nearly 2 months.  So I need a good kicking to get my self in order.  What I have actually been doing is working a lot in the background but still this is know excuse to at least just add a little content of what I have been up too.

Here is an over view of what I have been doing in the background

I am still trying to get hold of a few SEO experts to do interviews with and this is what the main blog post is about as I managed to get an interview with a great guy called John S Rhodes.  Now if you know a little about SEO then you are probably familiar with John.  I will explain a little more about John soon.

I have created a new report for my readers and subscribers “List Building Made Easy” which most of you will probably already have but if you are new here then by all means sign up to my list and get your copy.

I have created a new facebook fan page which is still in it’s infancy and only a few “likes” so need to concentrate on building that side up.  It is really a very powerful marketing tool so need to get involved with facebook as it is getting more traffic than google now.  If you want to check it out please visit Craig Sowerby Marketing Advice and click the “like” button.  I will go into some more detail soon of how I set it up and the problems I faced.

I have set up a support desk to make another option for you to get in touch, I used osTicket for this service and it is really easy to set up and looks professional and keeps support tickets in order and easy to sort out as you can always just delete an email and loose the original problem in among all the other emails that get stuffed in your inbox each and every day.  Also there is an option for them to take over some of your support emails which will free up a bit of time so you can concentrate on other aspects of your business.

John S Rhodes Interview

So lets get onto the main content of this post and that is an interview I conducted with John S  Rhodes.  I have been trying to get some interviews with a few SEO experts which I will then be putting together as a product.  I first contacted Daniel Tan late last year about interviewing him.  Daniel is probably the reason why I got interested in SEO as I have many of his products.  He was delighted to do an interview, but was feeling under the weather at the time and would just send over the answers to my questions via email.  I am still waiting for them now, so I am a little disappointed on that lead.

I also contacted Daniel a few times and we exchanged a few emails and he was still up for it but still no joy.  To give him credit he was in the middle of a product launch so was very busy.  So I could have thrown the towel in and given up on my first hurdle.  But I did a little research and decided to find another SEO expert to interview.  I contacted John S Rhodes and he was away on business but I exchanged emails with his wife who was very nice and willing to help me out and get an interview set up with John.  After a few emails back and forth and to arrange a date that would fit in with both of us.  It was all set up and ready to go.  BONUS!!!

I was very very VERY!  Nervous as from the bit of background research that I had uncovered about John S Rhodes was quite outstanding.  He has been in the Internet Marketing scene for over 12 years and has many many products which are also published on Amazon.  So for such a big name marketer to accept an interview with a small guy like me was just a bit overwhelming.

So how did I prepare the Interview with John S Rhodes

I used Skype which is a great piece of software to use to keep incontact with all your friends, family and other business associates.  It’s also free and is an instant message service or even video call.  To record the interview I had to make a purchase of product that integrates with Skype called Pamela.  There are different levels you can choose from starting with basic of €14.95 but they also offer a 30 day free trial, which will be like most free trials.  You will no doubt get full access to what the software can do.  So once the free trial is up if it something you would be interested in then go ahead and make a purchase.  I knew I wanted to get into interviews so I just went ahead and bought the extra software.

I did a dummy run with a friend to get my self familiar with the software and how it all works.  I did not want to make any mistakes when it came to the big day of the interview.  Also with John being such a highly successful marketer he would not have time to do this again and again.  So I felt ready and was just waiting for the day to arrive.

In the mean time I had already put my question’s together and knew what I wanted out of the interview.  I also sent over the question’s to John so he knew what to expect and get his answer’s ready for the call.  When you listen to the interview, you can tell it is my first as I sound very nervous and do repeat my self quite alot “Erm erm erm”          “yeah yeah”  “you know you know” so a few more interviews under my belt and I should be a bit more confident.

When the interview was finished I went back over it and checked to see what it sounded like.  In my opinion It sounded awfull.  But I suppose none of us like the sound of our own voices.  There was a major problem with the recording in that my voice was so much more louder than John’s and I knew I could not put it out as it was.  So I needed to do some editing.

The software I chose for this was called Audacity.  It is free and you can use it to edit, add, chop, delete and make so many different changes to your audio.  So I played around with it until I was happy with the final result.  I came to save it in mp3 format.  The software does not let you save as an mp3 format but does wav format.  More trouble.  So I found out why it would not and started to sort it out.

No matter what you do there is always something there to test us and make our lives a little more difficult.  What I needed was an extra file called lame-enc.dll which would allow me to export my audio to mp3.

So now I had my audio all ready to go and put up on my site.  Now this interview is nearly an hour long so putting up on my server would take up alot of space and probably make loading a bit slow.  So I set up my own Amazon s3 account to store files.  It is very cheap to use and they give you a huge amount of space to use.  I had also purchased Easy Video Player 2 a while back as I knew it was such a good piece of kit and would need it in the future for my marketing plans, which I did for this very moment.

So here goes my first interview with John S Rhodes, all about SEO

If you have any questions concerning the interview then leave a comment or just send me an email to let me know if you liked it, or even ways you think I could improve on my interviewing skills.  Also if you think it is worth a re-tweet or push the like button then go ahead.

One of John’s product Juggurnaut SEO is available if you want extra training in SEO.  If you click the image below it will take you to his SEO product.  And yes if you do make a purchase through this link I will make a commision. Juggurnaut SEO is just one of the many products under the Juggurnaut series.  So if SEO is not your thing he will have something up your street.

So I would like to thank John S Rhodes for giving me the opportunity in interviewing him and giving me so much value on the call!

Thankyou John S Rhodes!