You might be able to get away without having a website if:

• You’ve been in business 100 years
• You’re 100 years old and don’t use a computer
• You’re a national institution
• or an urban legend

On the other hand, you may already have a website, but it doesn’t mean you will get business from it. Perhaps you put it up simply to be a business card online that people go to when they look at your paper business card. However, if it doesn’t get potential customers to take action on something, it’s kind of meaningless.

Here are 5 big mistakes business owners make marketing online

1.Your website has no plan for sales conversion

You may have had your website designed to look smashing, but perhaps didn’t have a clear strategy in mind on how it would help you make money. A website is always more effective with a clear call to action rather than a GINORMOUS slider smacked on the home page with lots of pretty pictures scrolling through. That is, unless you’re promoting your photography, art, fabulous recipes, travel locations, or things of that sort.

If you want people to sign up for your coaching programs, services, or what not, you might be better off with a powerful video with yourself talking about what you do, and a nice fat opt in box to get people to sign up for your email newsletter list. Many web designers do not have a marketing background. Some are simply visual artists. You may be paying through the nose for their graphic arts ability, but would be better off with a design that’s simple and succinct.

2.You aren’t focusing on building an online email marketing list

Your email marketing list is your gold mine. Without a list, you’re losing potential customers. Why wouldn’t you want to be collecting names for your newsletter? Email marketing is still the most effective way to convert online prospects into customers. However… just because you have people on your list, doesn’t mean you’re going to get them to do what you want. Here are elements you need to have in place to make your email marketing work:

Insert an attractive opt in box on your website that is connected to your email marketing service.

You will want to choose aweber, Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, Infusion Soft, or another provider. Although you should also have a simple contact form on your site for people to connect with you directly through your email inbox, many people will not feel comfortable with this. They may be more apt to subscribe to your email marketing list if you give them a good reason to do so. In order to legally communicate with prospects they must give you permission to receive mail from you. That’s the purpose of using an secure email marketing system.

If you’re writing content, you can offer to send viewers post updates when they’re published. However, if you have something FREE to give them, it’s even better. This may be a special pdf downloadable report, a video series, an E-course, printable, or even something physical. (although downloadable is much easier to deal with)

You must have a plan to communicate once people are on your list.

Email marketing services allow you to set up auto responder messages. This means you create a series of emails that are scheduled to go out at specific intervals and contain valuable content your readers will enjoy and benefit from. At the very least you need:
A reminder to confirm to opt in – Once people put their name and email into your opt in box, a good rule of thumb is to have them confirm their opt in by being directed to a page to remind them. This can either be a page on your site with a personal message, or you can use the system’s confirm page. aweber, for example has an option for an audio confirmation that is a recording that tells the person who opted in to check their email to confirm. Some email services will let people go straight to a thank you – download page, but if they do not actually confirm their opt in, they may get the download incentive and then never come back again.

A thank you and download page – This is where your subscribers will go on your site once they confirm,to retrieve their free opt in incentive. You may have direct links on this page to download.

A welcome email – This is an email your subscribers will receive once they have confirmed their opt in. This email may contain the download attachments instead (for security) or be a backup in case the subscriber did not receive the re-direct to the thank you-download page. In your welcome email you may want to include a message about what readers can expect from you and well as a “next step” to take in the conversion process.

Email auto responder messages at chosen intervals. (You can set up auto responder messages to have emails sent every 2 days, once a week, etc) Each auto responder message should be crafted to give valuable information to the reader, but also have a call to action in mind without being a hard sell pitch.

Blog RSS broadcast – Some services have an option to automatically send out an email when you publish a blog post by picking up the RSS feed of the post. You can choose to have your posts sent out every Saturday morning (for example) or immediately. (I wouldn’t recommend sending out a broadcast immediately in case you make a mistake and want to re-edit your post after it’s published.)

Broadcast posts – These are emails sent randomly for various purposes such as the announcement of a new program, event, or other timely news.

3.Your email marketing templates are not set up for mobile devices

Let’s say you have your email opt in sales funnel set up, and have designed a fancy email template Some services such as Constant Contact have beautiful and easy to set up templates that you can use for your email newsletter. The problem is: Most people nowadays are looking at their email using their mobile device or IPad. From their phone, they will click on your email and see a big blank space with a message that says: Click here to display images. The viewer has to click on the link to be able to read the content of your email. Because you have created several sections to make your template look pretty, they have to scroll around to read each section The sections may contain links to click on to view the rest of your articles or webpages. This means the mobile viewer has to click and hope their phone will take them to the website the article is hosted on. Some phones get hung up depending on their wifi connection strength.

To put it bluntly, a plain text email, or email with a simple logo header is easier to read on a phone than a fancy email template. Since almost everyone is reading their email by phone, it’s a better strategy to keep your email as simple and as readable as possible.

4.Your website is not set up to be viewed on a phone or IPad.

Just like email templates, your actual website needs to be easy to view on a mobile or tablet device.

The big thing right now are responsive website designs. Not everyone understands this. What a responsive website will do is break up your content into columns so it can be easily viewed on a phone without having to zoom in and out. You’ll still be able to view your site design on a phone or Ipad, but it will adjust to the size of the device and may look slightly different than it does on a full sized computer screen. The advantage is that apps, videos, and readability will be optimized. Another option for WordPress sites, is to use a mobile plugin such as WP Touch. This creates a separate mobile theme for your site. On a mobile device your site will look completely different than your site design on computer. However, if you do not have a responsive web design, (such as an older WordPress theme) a mobile theme is much better than having viewers struggle to read your content.

5. Your call to action pages are not focused

If you want a prospect to take action on your site such as sign up for your program, buy a product, or other action, it’s a good strategy to create a landing page that’s devoid of other distractions. A landing page generally will not have a sidebar or contain links to other pages or sites. All the viewer sees is content focused on your one call to action. It might be designed to be a long sales page, or may only be a short and simple video with opt in or purchase button. If your prospect has too many choices to navigate and click on, they’ll probably get frustrated and leave your site to go elsewhere. It’s best to keep your call to action pages simple and clear Baby.

On sales pages, a common practice is to include incentives from other marketers as “gifts” if your prospect takes action. You will often see this utilized for tele-seminar summits. I would warn you to be cautious in using this strategy, as your subscriber will be taken to other sites to have them “sign up” for other mailing lists and programs. Once your subscriber is directed off your site, they may get distracted by the next shiny object, get lost in the shuffle, or overwhelmed by vigorous email marketing. Unless you have a powerful message and stand out among all the rest, you will lose them to whomever they feel a strong connection to, and they may eventually unsubscribe from you.

In summary: make sure your online marketing strategy is clear, simple and easy to view. Don’t be taken in by pretty graphics and fancy design, unless it steers people to take your call to action in the quickest way possible. Have a specific plan mapped out for success and make sure each step is implemented and optimized to your best advantage.

Do you need help setting up your sales and marketing system online using WordPress? Contact me and let’s talk about it.

Author information

Rebecca Forstadt-Olkowski

Chief Blogging Officer at Sharp Biz Image

I'm Rebecca Olkowski and I'm a fun loving entrepreneur, voice over actor and Baby Boomer (but I'm very young at heart and have the voice of an 8 year old) .  I love great food, travel, wine tasting and playing with my two puppy dogs.  A few years ago I discovered I enjoyed blogging and found my inner geek.  I turned it into a business.  My dream is to blog my way around the world. Please feel free to tweet and share!

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I have been doing tweet chats on Twitter with various foodies and somehow, through that, I was approached to do a giveaway along with 50 other bloggers. You can read about the giveaway HERE. Feel free to join in too. My giveaway will be live through March 31st.

What’s super cool, is that everyone is part of a brand influence group and we are able to connect with each other, cross promote and share ideas. We even have a private group on Facebook to stay connected. I love the idea of cooperation between bloggers in similar niches, because we are all unique with different approaches and markets.

Several of the bloggers are using a widget that you can embed into your blog post called Rafflecopter. Using this widget, you can have people leave comments, tweet, like your Facebook page and more. They get entries each time they do it. It’s free to sign up for Rafflecopter and use the widget. There are additional benefits if you sign on to a monthly fee, but for what I needed, free was fine. I would suggest the paid version if you do multiple giveaways or want specific features not offered on the free version.

You can use the Rafflecopter widget on your blog post, on your Facebook page or both. Rafflecopter has an easy to implement Facebook app that will create a tab on your Facebook page. All I had to do is go into my Rafflecopter widget page (on Rafflecopter) and click “Install to a Facebook Page.”

It automatically installs the widget. You can add any text or images you want to feature in the box below and make any changes on the Rafflecopter site that will be automatically changed on your widget without having to reinstall it.

To format the text on the widget:

An easy way to format the text is to use your WordPress post editor and write what you need or upload images. Then grab the code by switching from the visual editor to the text portion of the editor. Just drop the code into the Rafflecopter Facebook page in the box indicated when you create the page.

I decided to embed the widget in Facebook and add an opt in box from aweber to my blog post with an incentive for more entry points if people subscribe to my mailing list. The widget on Facebook looks like this:

I debated on whether to put the Rafflecopter widget on both my blog and Facebook, but decided that my main focus on my site was to grow my subscriber list so went with the opt in form. It’s definitely netted me more Subscribers, so I’m ecstatic about that.

A couple weeks before the giveaway went live, I also purchased a Facebook ad for “likes” with a very small lifetime investment of $70. In a matter of days, my “likes” went from 46 (for a new page) to almost 600. It’s been well worth the money for me. Instead of bugging all my friends on Facebook to “like” my page, they have come from people who were genuinely interested in it.

Not all the stats are in yet but I can see a significant rise in my page views both on Google Analytics and Cloudflare (via Bluehost)

Many blogs in all sorts of niches are using giveaways to build traffic to their sites. You can either offer a product that you own yourself, or ask companies if they would be interested in giving you free product to promote. If you are able to combine the promotion with other bloggers, to cross promote each other, as I’m doing, that’s even more fun and effective.

So why not give it a try?

Have you ever done product giveaways? Tell us about how it went and whether or not you would do things differently. Leave a comment in the comment box below.

If you see this post before March 31st check out my product giveaway HERE.

Psssst! It’s food related.

Author information

Rebecca Forstadt-Olkowski

Chief Blogging Officer at Sharp Biz Image

I'm Rebecca Olkowski and I'm a fun loving entrepreneur, voice over actor and Baby Boomer (but I'm very young at heart and have the voice of an 8 year old) .  I love great food, travel, wine tasting and playing with my two puppy dogs.  A few years ago I discovered I enjoyed blogging and found my inner geek.  I turned it into a business.  My dream is to blog my way around the world. Please feel free to tweet and share!

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This is always unnerving.  I called Bluehost.  They said the database was missing.  HUH?  It was fine a half hour ago.  Since they needed to find out what was going on, they wrote me a support ticket.  The next morning THE WHITE SCREEN OF DEATH was still there.

I thought it was a sign.  Maybe I should re-brand and go back to using my own name instead of Sharp Biz Image.  I even went so far as to start redesigning my namesake site.  Then, I thought . . . I should call Bluehost and check again.

A very knowledgeable woman got on the phone with me and calmly found the source of the problem.  It’s too geeky to go into right here, but voila, my site came back.  Sigh of relief.

She told me that Bluehost has a pro-backup plan that’s only $12.99 per year.  There was no need for a pesky plugin that could potentially muck up my sites.  Cool!  I went for it.  I already have an awesome cloning tool if I need to make a complete duplicate of a site to move, and it isn’t a plugin either. The fewer plugins you have on your site, the better.

With Bluehost Site Backup and Restore, every site in your account gets backed up automatically every single day.  It backs up your entire CPanel including email accounts, forwarders, databases website files and settings. A number of versions are saved so you can roll back if necessary. For such a tiny cost per year, it’s definitely worth preserving your piece of mind.   There is a free and pro version, but I recommend the pro, because you can back up individual files and have more control.

I know some more geeky types might disagree, because they want to do all the techie stuff themselves , but for the majority of the rest of us, who don’t know the ins and outs of servers, this is awesome!

Bluehost also integrates Cloud Flare, which is a cloud based content delivery network that helps your website run faster, increases security by preventing malicious attacks, and provides tracking of website traffic.  Because it runs on a cloud, it cuts down on bandwidth usage on your site.

Just recently Bluehost did a major upgrade to their servers and user interface to make it even more user friendly.  Of all the server sites I’ve used for clients, I feel most comfortable with Bluehost and recommend it to anyone who is looking for a hosting account.  (I openly admit some of my links are affiliate links, but only because I believe in the products and feel you would be in good hands if you cared to purchase them.)

Now that my site is back up, I see myself having a nice glass of wine to relax.  Is it 5:00 yet?  It must be somewhere in the world . . .  right?

Need a great hosting provider?  CLICK HERE to check out Bluehost.

Author information

Rebecca Forstadt-Olkowski

Chief Blogging Officer at Sharp Biz Image

I'm Rebecca Olkowski and I'm a fun loving entrepreneur, voice over actor and Baby Boomer (but I'm very young at heart and have the voice of an 8 year old) .  I love great food, travel, wine tasting and playing with my two puppy dogs.  A few years ago I discovered I enjoyed blogging and found my inner geek.  I turned it into a business.  My dream is to blog my way around the world. Please feel free to tweet and share!

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For 10 years I was a direct sales queen. 

I rose up the ranks and went beyond the typical 80 % who never make a dime  in that type of business model to the top 20%.  I even earned all sorts of prizes like cars and other fun stuff.  There is nothing wrong with network marketing when it’s done correctly, but I found it wasn’t something I personally wanted to continue doing.  Even though I officially quit several years ago, I’ve signed up with a network marketing company on occasion to purchase an interesting product as a customer and then contemplated if I wanted to go forward with it as a business.  I finally decided to wean myself off all the programs those slick tongued rascals talked me into and am now free, at least until the next slick tongued rascal comes along.

As someone who was in the top 20% of a company, I know what it takes to actually make the business work and become successful.  However, for me I just wasn’t having fun calling up people who didn’t want to be called, shuffling friends off to meetings hoping they would buy or recruit,  or getting them on three way calls with up-lines who put the pressure on much easier than I felt comfortable doing myself.

To add to that, I’ve recently experienced some of the yucky traits of a few (names not mentioned) network marketing companies. For example:  I went to a business networking event and purchased a product from a nice woman I met.  It was a weight loss product and I thought it might be worthwhile to try.  The next month, I found out I had been signed up to an auto ship even though I had specifically asked the person if that would happen when I purchased it.  That was super sneaky, in my opinion. Since I wasn’t going to continue using the product, I called and demanded a refund.

On another occasion, I received a phone call from a good friend who invited me to something “exciting I want to share with you.”  Because he was a good friend, I decided to show up, but figured it was probably some sort of business venture and started planning how I was going to escape.  His upline also called to thank me for RSVPing for the meeting to make me feel guilty if I decided not to show up.  No one ever mentioned the name of the business.  When I arrived I found out it was a presentation for a company I already knew about and had no interest in.  If they had told me what it was about ahead of time, I wouldn’t have come. It turned out to be a big waste of time not only for me, but also my friend, who didn’t get the sale or recruit.

Even dumber was when I accepted an invitation to go to coffee with someone I had met at a business networking event to “get to know each other.” When I arrived it was not about “What do you do and how can I help you?” Instead he proceeded to launch into a full on presentation of his company only to find out at the end I was already a customer (though not anymore) and that I had been signed up by a friend of his.  Duh!  That was another case of “don’t tell your prospect what company you are with, as if they are ashamed of it.  I can say that with the company I worked with in the past, we were always very up front and honest and that’s why the company has been around forever.

Observation:  Sales scripts.  (They are all the same for just about every network marketing company and you can smell them a mile away) I always found being authentic and truly caring about the person’s needs rather than my wallet worked better for me.

A while back, Rosalind Gardner, an affiliate marketing guru whom I highly respect, created a video with her impression of MLM. It was hilarious, but was also a “tell it like it is” of how certain companies in that business model worked.  It may be worth a watch HERE.

Back to my post title though. 

Below are the reasons I switched over from network marketing to blogging:

As a blogger/online marketer:

• You have the freedom to promote whatever it is that truly turns you on
• You set the rules on your companies policies and procedures
• You are able to market in whatever way feels compatible with who YOU are.

There is no required overhead with blogging aside from initially setting up your website and paying for hosting.

Shared hosting, such as Bluehost, costs less than $100 per year.  If you have a dedicated server, it will cost more, however, there is no need to be on a dedicated server unless your traffic is so large it’s crashing your site.  For most small businesses, this is generally not something to worry about right away  unless you are a celebrity or a rockstar. WordPress, one of the most popular website programs, is free to set up on your server.  Do  it yourself via the 1 click install on many servers, or have someone help you get set up and looking pretty at a very affordable price.

Affiliate Income is Cool

An affiliate product is an item for sale online that is complimentary to your niche.  For instance, if you are writing about puppy dogs, you may want to promote a certain brand of dog collars.  Almost every product imaginable is available at Amazon.com.  Amazon has an associate (affiliate) program that offers commission rates that are only a few percentage points of the purchase price, or you might also find an affiliate program on the product’s company website that offers a larger affiliate commission. Typically affiliate programs offered directly on the product’s website are usually larger with some up to 50% or more of the purchase price.  Look into affiliate networks such as Commission Junction, Share a Sale, Click Bank, or Linkshare.  (there are many more)

To sell affiliate products, all you have to do is sign up as an affiliate with a company that has a partner program FOR FREE. Then you can choose to write articles or reviews about the product with your affiliate link embedded into links within the article.  If you have a mailing list (mucho important to build for most online businesses)  send emails using your email service and mention the products in your message with a link to find out more or purchase.

In all cases affiliate programs are free to sign up. If  anyone wants to charge you it’s probably a scam.

(For network marketers – this includes lead building sites that sucker you in to build up your list of leads and possibly earn affiliate income. It’s rare that you get actual recruits out of those sites. Ironically,  I first found out about affiliate marketing from one of those sites and their training was not bad.   However there is no reason to pay a monthly fee to earn affiliate income. If your primary goal is to sign up more recruits in your business then File Lead Generating Sites in the WASTE OF TIME receptacle.)

People Who are Interested in What You Are Promoting Will Find You Online

In network marketing it’s all about team work and creating income producing connections. (recruits)  For the most part, this is more easily done with one on one relationships and in person.

As a blogger, it’s easy to develop partnerships with people on or offline who have similar interests, and who will help you promote your products and/or services. The difference is that when you write content online, people find you via search engines and seek you out rather then you having to go out and hunt for them.  Even if you want to stay in network marketing, creating content online will set you apart from other consultants in your company.

How to Create Income Via Blogging

There are myriad ways to monetize your presence online besides affiliate income.  (Services, Ebooks, Online Courses, physical products, events, tele-seminars, etc.) Once you have enough targeted traffic to your site, you may even consider creating your own affiliate programs.  Then, others will be out promoting you and multiplying the chances of customers purchasing your products.

You control your paycheck.

It’s simple to set your business up to receive cash via Paypal or Google Checkout. Create an account with either of the two services. Inside your account, create a button and embed the button code on your site or have someone do it for you.

I use a service called Freshbooks to send invoices to clients that has a Paypal link.  I love it! It helps me keep track of all my sales and customers are able to easily print out invoices.

In addition to Paypal and Google Checkout, it’s also possible to take credit cards, checks, cash, or trade for a great massage.  It’s up to you.

Be a Control Freak

In any business, you can’t just sit there and expect money to roll in just because you’ve signed up to work an MLM or set up a website to blog your passion.  You still have to work it and treat it like a real business.

The difference is;  in network marketing, or when working for any type of third party company, you have to adhere to the rules set by your company.

As a blogger/online marketer, you have complete control over your business.  Your website is your own, you have a choice of what you want to promote, there is no monthly fee or (autoship) and, in many cases, no inventory unless you are selling jewelry, T shirts, or the like.

Be as wild as you want depending on your target audience without worrying about getting slapped on the wrist if you fall out of line.

Your Bottom Line

Please realize, I have absolutely nothing against network marketing.  It’s a great business model if you are excited about what you are doing and you are willing to do what it takes to succeed.  However, access your profit and loss statement.  You may find that you are spending more money on products and supplies, meetings, seminars, sales tools, etc., then you are making. The fact that “it takes money to make money” is certainly true in any business, but if you find you are not making enough profit to pay for expenses and are going into debt doing network marketing, (or another other type of business), then you may find blogging and promoting your passion more to your liking.  Or just bite the bullet and get a real JOB like your family is probably begging you to do.

DISCLAIMER: To make money online as a blogger/online marketer takes time, dedication and skill. It’s rare to see an overnight success.  However, if you keep your expenses at a minimum to start off, you will have the time to build your business on the side until your income streams start to kick in.

If you  want to develop your real passion in life, rather than someone else’s passion, and live within your own rules rather than those of super rich network marketing CEO’s who are making the majority of the profit, why not give blogging or an online business of your own a try?

If you are happy in your network marketing business and are making a great profit, by all means, keep it up. Believe me I loved earning new cars.  It was COOL!  But, even still, consider having a backup plan.  Think of your business as the business of YOU, rather than that of your company.  If your company folds, (which happens frequently in that arena) you will be able to keep creating income without interruption.

Without getting snarky, (playing the blame game or whining and complaining) how are you building the business of YOU whether you are in network marketing or not?  Please leave a comment and tweet/ share this post.

Author information

Rebecca Forstadt-Olkowski

Chief Blogging Officer at Sharp Biz Image

I'm Rebecca Olkowski and I'm a fun loving entrepreneur, voice over actor and Baby Boomer (but I'm very young at heart and have the voice of an 8 year old) .  I love great food, travel, wine tasting and playing with my two puppy dogs.  A few years ago I discovered I enjoyed blogging and found my inner geek.  I turned it into a business.  My dream is to blog my way around the world. Please feel free to tweet and share!

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I have quite a few clients who are the complete opposite.  I get emails from them written at 2am in the morning.  They call me late in the evening or even on the weekends.  Sometimes I think they visualize me sitting at my computer for 24 hours a day sort of like Godaddy customer service.  They want me to go to my computer and fix or add something to their website.  I don’t think they realize that I’ve probably had a couple glasses of wine and could possibly be dangerous.  Call them Night Owls.  Hooooot!

It just sort of cracks me up. 

I’ve thought about putting something on my email signature that says “I work office hours – the rest of the time I play.”

Psychology Today says that Owls are more intelligent that morning larks. (We all know that IQ doesn’t necessarily mean street smart)

People have different rhythms.  Circadian rhythms.

Circadian rhythm is linked to the light-dark cycle.  Me, I’m big on LIGHT!

Lark – Morning Chatty    Owl – Morning Bearish

Circadian rhythms can influence sleep-wake cycles, hormone release, body temperature and other important bodily functions. They have been linked to various sleep disorders, such as insomnia. Abnormal circadian rhythms have also been associated with obesity, diabetes, depression, bipolar disorder and seasonal affective disorder.

Interesting.

Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast - Oscar Wilde   Thanks Oscar!

Apparently larks and owls have normal circadian rhythms but their cycles differ. We still need the same amount of sleep – 7-8 hours a day.   Getting out of your normal cycle can reek havoc on your brain. That’s why people who get assigned to night shifts can really have a hard time.

They say your partner should be on the same rhythm as you are.  Uh oh.  I’m in trouble.  I go to bed at 11:30.  He goes to bed at about 4am.  Oh well, at least I get a head start on his snoring.

So for all of you busy sending emails to me in the black of night, just know, I’ll get to them at the break of dawn while you are crashed and burned.

If this sounds dumb it’s because I wrote it at 6:18pm half into my coma.

So who are you?  A Lark?  Or a Night Owl?  Please feel free to leave a comment.  I use the WordPress Comment Luv plugin.  If you use it too, you can leave a link from YOUR website.

Author information

Rebecca Forstadt-Olkowski

Chief Blogging Officer at Sharp Biz Image

I'm Rebecca Olkowski and I'm a fun loving entrepreneur, voice over actor and Baby Boomer (but I'm very young at heart and have the voice of an 8 year old) .  I love great food, travel, wine tasting and playing with my two puppy dogs.  A few years ago I discovered I enjoyed blogging and found my inner geek.  I turned it into a business.  My dream is to blog my way around the world. Please feel free to tweet and share!

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