Work Yourself Up!

Starting a Membership Site: Have a Plan

2010-03-16T10:15:00-05:00

What is it that they say? If you don't have a plan, then you plan to fail. The same can be said about starting a successful online business. In particular we are talking about membership sites.

Just about everyone has seen at least one membership site. It is a website where you have to be a paying member to gain access to the content and other materials that are showcased on the site. Members can pay anywhere from $9.99 to about $199.99 or more per month to be a part of the site.

Membership sites are money makers because they have a simple model that provides everything a person needs and they do it all on one spot. If you've ever searched the web for information then you know how frustrating it can be. Some of the content that you find is well-written and some is not. And, even if it is well-written it is not necessarily the truth.

Membership sites help people avoid all that and those people are willing to pay for it. You can capitalize on the new trend towards membership sites with a site of your own. But first, you need to have a plan.

What's in a Plan?

Begin with some thorough research. Check out the blueprint for other membership sites. What are the basics of their offering? What is the fee? These are just two of the questions to ask yourself.

The perception with membership sites is that members will be getting more for less. For a low price each month, they will have access to bona fide information on a certain topic. And this information can take several forms. Here are just a few of the most common membership site ideas you'll find online:

- Private Label Rights
- Internet Marketing Business Owner Training
- Mentoring for Online Business Owners
- Fitness
- One-on-One Coaching

The expectation from your members will be that the quality of your content will be a cut above the others on the Internet. That means keeping your finger on the pulse of the trends in your area of expertise. And, yes, if you know enough about a topic to see a need for a membership site then you are a self-proclaimed expert.

A fully rounded plan will include ways to set your membership site apart from the others. Maybe you offer a new service or a new twist on an existing service. Before you can put that in writing, however, be sure that you can do it. Technical stuff like setting up websites and all of the things that go on behind the scenes are like Greek to many people. But, if you can find someone who can do it for you, then you are in business.

Don't forget about security. This is a private membership site and access to certain areas can only be gained through a password. Maintaining that privilege against gatecrashers is crucial.
Always have a plan before beginning any business venture. Do your homework to come up with a list of services or information that you can offer to a certain group willing to pay for it.

What is List Building?

2010-03-09T10:13:00-06:00

One of the hardest things in business is actually drumming up the business. Whether online or off, you need people to DO SOMETHING if you want your business to be a success. For online business, one way to reach the people that will be most interested in your product or service is through list building.

What is List Building?

In the fewest words possible, list building is the process used to create an inventory of people who fit the niche market you are promoting. The assumption usually is that if you cast a wide enough net, you will eventually find who you are looking for. This method is not only backwards but also costly. Instead, start with your business market and go smaller.

There is more than one way to develop a list for your business. Here are just a few of the more popular (and successful might I add) ways:

- Opt-ins
- Free Giveaways
- Contests
- Email Marketing
- Article Marketing
- Blogging

Whatever methods you use, it is important to know where you are coming from and where you are going before others will follow you.

Getting Your Name Out There

In order for others to follow you they need to know who you are and what you stand for. To that end, you will want to network with others. Your time is better spent building your brand before you build your list.

Do you routinely buy from someone you've just heard of? Not normally right?

Neither does anyone else. That is expected in business. Trust is earned over time and you must begin with curiosity in order to build up to trust.

Viral marketing is one of your best assets when it comes to getting noticed and building your list. Ask friends, family members, school chums, business owners, and others to help you out. If they have websites, blogs or are a part of forums, let them pass the word around about you and what you do.

On your end, visit websites and blogs associated with the product or service that you sell. Get involved, ask questions, and show your face. These are the people you will ask to endorse you to lend credibility to your products.

During your promotion, your traffic will increase. People will sniff you out and see what you offer. Now you can use one, two or all of the above bulleted methods to begin building your list. Visitors will lend you their personal information (name and email) if they like what they see. From that point, it is up to you to keep them interested enough to become a loyal customer.

How to Choose a Website Host without Sacrificing SEO Strategies

2010-03-01T10:12:00-06:00

When you set up your website for business, your primary concern is getting up and running. You may ask friends who hosts their websites to help you decide who to go with. But, choosing the right website host can help with your SEO marketing strategies.

What to Look for in a Host

There are tons of website hosts out there. Some are free and some require a fee. When you are looking for real estate for your business, you don't want to go with the free options. They would be good for those who are producing websites for family and friends or maybe even some affiliate mini sites but not for a full-fledged business enterprise. There are too many limitations.

What kind of server do they have? The server is where all of the information is stored. A server needs hosts websites for the hosting company. When someone wants to access a page on your website, the server lets you access it. More powerful servers are faster at their job and pages appear in seconds for your visitors.

One of the most popular servers is Apache. Apache is open source which means that it is free for web hosts. Also it supports a number of applications including content management systems and blogging platforms. If you use Joomla or WordPress, you are using an Apache-based server.

One problem that users of free hosting services run into is lack of bandwidth. They won't be able to upload files, videos, audios and the other Internet marketing tools used to increase your site's salability. You will be limited in what you can do. Once your site is up and you are promoting it, changing hosts midstream can be a nightmare.

Why is this Important?

Search engine optimization involves a lot of different aspects. You will be optimizing content for your site and uploading it to many different web pages. You don't want to be limited in the number of web pages that you can create either. Each page represents a unique URL and a different keyword that you are focusing on.

You may be the one designing your website or a website designer. You don't want to be limited by your platform as to what you can so. Changing templates for different times of the year or just to fit the way you want to conduct business are important. The wrong web host can make this difficult to tweak templates to be more SEO friendly.

Also, with free hosting you probably won't have full administrative control of your website. You can add files to prevent spamming on your blog (and you can add one with better web hosting) and also to capture website stats or place a web counter on your site pages. Just having enough access to edit content on your site is not enough.

When you are in the planning stages for your business, don't forget to consider web hosting and its impact on your SEO strategies. Choosing the right one can make all the difference.

Creating Titles and Headlines that Draw Traffic to Your Website

2010-02-23T10:10:00-06:00

When you see people perusing magazines on racks, when they find one they want to read, they are not reading every article inside. They look for headlines and titles that catch their eye. The same goes for websites on the Internet. You can learn to write titles that will have visitors stopping in for a spell.

Title Basics

A title is not just a little blurb at the top of your content. That title can be used to further optimize your page. Here is an example. If your website page is about chocolate (a sweet and reoccurring example), the content needs to relate to confections. But, your title doesn't have to be simply "chocolate."

A well-optimized title will include some or all of the following:

- Keywords - You have yet another place on your webpage that keywords can be used to help improve your rankings. If you choose keywords carefully, you can match a phrase that most people are going to use.
- Hook - What is going to entice people to keep reading? Tell them what they will get. "How to Make Chocolate Strawberries" is interesting. Readers know just what they will be learning. Using numbers is even better. "5 Ways to Melt Chocolate" let's readers know that they don't have too much to read and that you will lay it all out for them.
- Focus - Don't take up two lines with your title. Use as few words as possible that will appeal to readers and also include a keyword or a keyword phrase. To reinforce that title, use that keyword again in the first sentence of the opening paragraph.

Even if you have titles on articles you would also benefit from a headline on your webpage. The article is just one portion of the information contained on your webpage. Don't forget that headlines can be optimized as well.

- Font size - Your headline needs to stand out from the rest of the information on the page. Use a larger bolder font but nothing too flowery. You want readers to see it not grimace at it.
- Use keywords - What is the page essentially about? Use that keyword so readers know what all of the information will pertain to.
- Use a link - When someone runs their mouse across the headline they will realize that it is clickable. It can link to the homepage, your site map or anywhere else on your site that would be helpful to visitors.

Titles and headlines are front and center on your page. Make them eye-catching and enticing so visitors will stay and read more.

Take a Genuine Interest in Your Readers

2010-02-17T10:08:00-06:00

When you check the stats you are always looking to see how many unique visitors you have to your website. To see those numbers go up every month, you need a method for attracting new readers. This same method will also keep current readers coming back for more. So, what is it?

Who are you?

Every person wants to know that they matter to others. They can matter to their families, friends and even the people they do business with. Why do you think barber shops and hair salons are so popular? The business is based on delivering a finished product AND building a relationship.

As an online business owner, you readers want to know that their presence matters. They have come to you looking for something. Again, what is it?

It would be naive to think that each person that visits your website or blog is there because of you. They may not have known your name before they clicked on your link in the search results. After they leave your site, they many never remember your name again unless you do something to change that.

What do you want?

You have interests. You started your online business because of an interest or a passion for something. Your readers also have passions. The informative content that you supply could be the final link to someone realizing the dream of entrepreneurship, home ownership or even buying a new car. The best way to find out what you readers want is to take an interest in their likes and dislikes.

Now, your website is about the business that you are building, but knowing something about the people who are getting you there can help your business to evolve. For instance, you may provide information about how to stay organized in business and in life, but the majority of your readers are interested is personal coaching. Starting a personal coaching line of products will meet their needs in a new and more focused way because you took the time to find out about their interests.

How do I help you?

Here are a few ways that you can get in touch with your reader's interests:

- Surveys
- Offer contests for guest blogging spots
- Create a "reader spotlight" or a "customer spotlight" on your website
- Send out feedback emails with purchases

Readers have interests too and they are important for you to know. Now that you know who your readers are and how you can help them, use those tools to find out what they want. Then, give it to them! You'll see an increase in readers, customers and sales because you took the time to find out what they needed and provided it to them.

How to Trick Out Your Entire Website Using Stats

2010-02-09T10:06:00-06:00

Your website is a gold mine. It can take your business from so-so to wow. All you need to do is learn how to use your statistical information to help you get it done.

Website stats tell you a variety of things. You can find out where your products are booming and busting. You can learn what visitors like and dislike about your site. Are your keywords working? That can be explained also.

The sum total of your website is not content. While content is still king when it comes to providing useful information, it is just one aspect that can be optimized on your site. So much has been written about keyword optimization in content that some might wrongly believe it is the only important part of website optimization.

That is what we are really talking about here - website optimization. Start with the content but don't leave it there. Search engines bots will crawl the entire page for keywords not just your content. Let's take a look at other options for tricking out that website and making it sell itself.

1. Anchor Text - Anchor text is the text that is displayed over hyperlinks on your content. If your article refers to information found elsewhere on your site, don't just say "click here" to find more information, use keywords from that page as your anchor text. Not only are you getting credit for the keyword but it links to another page that also is keyword optimized (or it will be once you are done).

2. Picture Text - People love pictures especially on websites and shopping carts. It can be a big mistake to buy sight unseen. Each picture can have a tag associated with it. When someone runs across the picture with their mouse, they can again see relevant keywords for that page.

3. Links to Other Website Pages - One technique for creating your webpage is to list what services you offer or what your product can do on the homepage. That homepage can be doing more. If you have dedicated a separate page to each unique feature, place those links on the homepage as well. In your list of product features, use keyword-rich anchor text to describe them and have each description link to a different page. Search engines love that.

Are you getting the idea? Your website can be more exciting to the search engine crawlers with just a few changes.

5 Things to Avoid When Optimizing Your Website Pages

2010-02-01T10:00:00-06:00

Search engine optimization can be one of the hardest and most rewarding tools in your business arsenal. It helps with marketing, advertising and selling your products or services. Because it is a wide category, there are plenty of places where you can go wrong with it. Here are just five of them.

Under-Using Your Website - Optimizing your website involves every aspect of your site. Most people think that the only important part is the content. Optimizing content is only one piece of the pie. When you concentrate on content and not on leveraging all areas of your site, you are robbing your own pockets.

You will get visitors if your content is on point, but the search engines can rank you even higher if you used keywords in other places. Articles have titles, pages have headlines and pictures have captions. Learn to use them all to your advantage.

Keyword Overload - Search engine bots are smarter than most people give them credit for. Using keywords too much will cause them to just skip over your content and thus give you a lower ranking for those keywords. It seems like you could use as many as you wanted in an article and that would make you more visible but it's not true.

Search engines recognize when people are cheating by overstuffing their articles with keywords. Content that is well written will stay within the allowable keyword density. And, those keywords will show up naturally throughout the article so it doesn't sound like it was thrown together just for the keywords.

Keyword Density - You can have too few keywords as well as too many. Some people write their content without even thinking about keywords. You might have a strong article that talks about cutting edge information but without something to help the search engines look upon you favorably; no one will ever read it. Using the word once or twice in an article is not going to cut it.

No Variety - For better optimization, a website doesn't use just one keyword. If you started with the word "chocolate", your entire website wouldn't be based on it. People use a variety of similar words alone or in combination to find what they are looking for with search engines. If you make and sell chocolate fudge, there are better words to use: fudge, Candace's fudge, how to make fudge, etc. it's like throwing all your eggs in one basket if you don't diversify your keywords.

Reciprocal Links - While it is true that backlinks can increase your search engine ranking, all links are not equal. And search engines like organic links better than simply offering reciprocal link sharing. You want others to link to you because they like your product and what your website presents to others. Using quality content on your site, in article directories and on social bookmarking sites can increase your quality inbound links for higher ranking.

Start out on solid footing with SEO. Learn how to avoid common mistakes that first-timers make.

Creating Content that is Relevant for Readers and Search Engines

2010-01-26T09:59:00-06:00

Want your website to stand out? Pay attention to the kind of articles that you upload. Readers want to be on the cutting edge of topics and that is where you'll want to be to increase your traffic.

Content usually takes the form of articles, blog posts, audio and video too. The first requirement for content is that it be relevant to the topic of your website. If your website is about selling crafts, then the articles that you supply to your readers are going to need to revolve around that subject. In other words, don't be talking plumbing if you cater to crafty moms.

Be Creative

There is a lot of content out there these days so it is not easy to come up with something new. One way is to start with the basic information and add your special touch. Personal experiences go a long way to connecting with your readers and also providing them with information that would be hard to get anywhere else.

Use your failures as fresh content. Did you try to combine a couple of marketing techniques that absolutely didn't work? Create an article that highlights what readers "shouldn't" do. What did you learn from it? Create an article that gives tips for success using that technique.

Your content can be spun off into other types of website media. Create videos and audio files based on your content. It is a way to reach a wider audience who are more attracted to other ways to present relevant information.

Don't Forget the SEO

Now that you have written ideas for your content, decide which keywords would work best in those articles. These are what will make the search engines stand up and take notice. But, in the interest of your readers, your articles will read better if the keywords appear naturally. Don't try to force them in spots where it sounds like you are just adding words to appease the search engine gods. Your readers will be turned off by such contrived content.

Special Features

Your content will serve three purposes: keep current readers happy, satisfy SEO requirements and draw new traffic. To meet the latter, try using these options in your content:

- Bulleted points
- Optimized article titles
- Numbers in your titles

Readers usually scan articles first to see if they are relevant. When numbers appear in the title, they know that they will find a certain number of things that can help them. Bulleted points make for easier reading as do subheadings. Optimized catchy titles make them want to click on your link instead of others in the search results.

Is your content doing all it can for your readers and the search engines? If not, read this article again and then refit your articles to do the best job they can.

Newsletters: Create a Feeling of Community with Your Readers

2010-01-18T09:57:00-06:00

When you started your online business, you knew that you would have to have the traffic to make it a worthwhile venture. With your marketing plan, ideas were already recorded to help that become a reality. Here's one you may not have thought about: newsletters. They bring the reader into the "know" and that could mean dollars and cents to you.

A business website gives visitors the basics of your operation. You want to use your resources to tell them about what you do and why they need to get involved with you. There is not always enough space to put columns or tidbits that would be important to readers but not necessarily part of your main marketing agenda.

Newsletters are designed not only to inform but also to let readers get to know you. There can be a column written by you that thanks them for being loyal readers and customers (leading them to buy if they haven't already). You can share honest appreciation for what they do for you.

The Magic of Newsletters

When you don't have enough room for the fun things (contests, freebie offers) and the more in-depth things (affiliate program info, new products) that you want your readers to know put it in a newsletter. There are several formats for online newsletters:

- One page layout that you email to subscribers
- Multiple page PDF format they can access through a link in email
- Animated links on website

Usually, newsletters are sent to subscribers. These are readers who come to your site and opt-in for it by giving you their email address and name. Each month they get an email with your newsletter or link to the newsletter.

For longer newsletters with more information, you can create a PDF they can access, download, print and share with others. This way, your newsletter goes viral to people who know your readers.

Creating a "Subscriber Only" section on your site gives them access to newsletters that have video or animation that they won't see if they had a PDF. This makes readers feel special that they have a place just for them on your site.

Your format is up to you. Whatever you feel that will engage your readers, use it. In the beginning they may not want a lot of flash since it could be viewed as trickery. Keep it simple until they ask for more.

Customer Spotlight

Newsletters are a way to highlight those readers who want to be known. Maybe you have visitors who have joined your affiliate program or have opted in the previous month for the newsletter. Listing their names gives them a place of importance in your business.

What will you place in your newsletter? Creating one, to catch all the "tidbit" information that readers really love, helps them feel like a vital part of your enterprise.

Start a Business Blog to Connect with Readers

2010-01-12T09:56:00-06:00

It seems like just about everyone has a blog these days: students, moms, churches. So where is yours? Businesses can really benefit from a blog that goes along with their website.

Business websites are for conducting business. You use the pages to tell potential customers about what you do. They can find out all they want to know about hiring a gardener, choosing flowers, buying seeds and landscaping their dream garden if that is where your business is at. What they don't usually find out about is your life.

When you read online, you can connect with a website through the words of their content. Depending on the type of "voice", you'll want to read more. Readers may even want to know what is behind your passion for the sort of business that you have created. They won't find that on a website.

And, words can sometimes be deceiving. People can promise a lot but not deliver. It can be hard to trust a voice coming through words on a screen without a face or any other information to go with it.

Blogs

Blogs came into creation as online journals. They still are in a way. A blog is less business-like and more personal. Personal is what your readers will want from you. On a blog, they can meet you on another level that will help them to appreciate you even more on a business level.

This doesn't mean that you have to spill all your dirty secrets for them to get to know you. It is about building relationships that will last. So, in the interest of that, you can be the first to extend the olive branch.

Blogs are great because readers and customers can interact with you each time you post. They can sign in and give great feedback every day if they want.

Your posts don't have to be very formal. Start by introducing yourself and talking about your road to the online business world. It is an opener that could be just enough to draw your readers in.

Communicating

When readers leave feedback they are responding to posts. Will you leave it at that? Communication is a two-way street. Answer their comments as often as you can - which needs to be more often than not. Carry on a conversation with the people who are willing to give you a chance.

Blogging for business is a useful tool for building relationships with readers and customers. It gives them a chance to see you as a real person just like them and not just a name who wants their sale.