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Free EPC Calculator – Predict & Engineer Any EPC You Want

Justin — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 14:09:21 +0000

This is HOT!

I came up with a mathematical formula that will tell you how to get any EPC (earnings per click) you want. Then I turned it into a spreadsheet that does all the calculations for you.

If you want your sales funnel to spit out a $5 EPC then just play with the numbers a bit and BOOM POW you’ll know exactly what you’ve gotta do to get to that EPC.

Watch the video above to see the EPC caluclator works. Then click the download button below so you can get started on your EPC’s.

Click the button below to download our Free EPC Calculator

5-Steps To Making More Money With Your Website

Justin — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:16:11 +0000

As a marketing consultant, I’ve looked at hundreds if not thousands of deadbeat websites, but what’s so disheartening is that true monetization is so attainable! Most are too close to the forest to see the trees. So here’s my 5-step website monetization strategy to make 2012 a break through year for you!

STEP 1 – Build A Kick-Ass Website, DUH!

The first step, of course, is to have a kick-ass website! One that looks great, gives you control, and is flexible enough to meet your ongoing, and sometimes ever-changing needs. And my recommendation for this, hands down, is WordPress.

WHY WordPress?

Well, here’s a few statistics that make WordPress a no-brainer:
WordPress is powerful enough for the big boys (CNN, TED, WSJ, Time, Ford, to name a few), but is easy enough for the average, non-technical person to use. In fact, throughout 2011, over 100,000 WordPress sites were created EACH DAY!

A leading marketing research firm conducted a comprehensive analysis and found that WordPress sites were less expensive to build and less expensive to maintain compared to Joomla and Drupal for the exact same site. WordPress 1, Drupal and Joomla, 0.

WordPress received 5-out-of-5 Stars for Out-Of-The-Box-SEO. And, unless you’re an SEO-god, letting WordPress do most of the SEO heavy lifting can save you a ton of time and several sleepless nights of utter frustration.

Did you know that, all things being equal, you’d pay more for PPC traffic if your site was built in Joomla or Drupal? Nearly 1.25 times more for Joomla and over 2 times for Drupal! This is for the exact same keyword, folks! Which means, if you have a Joomla or Drupal site, you’re literally throwing your money away!

Bottom line – WordPress websites get MORE traffic for LESS cost than the other leading platforms.

Take a look at where most businesses stop in their online marketing efforts…

Take a look at the above graphic. Think of how few websites actually integrate any “mojo” into their marketing? It’s crazy – and yet, since the money’s in the mojo, you’d think more people would’ve figured out this simple little formula.

Anyway… moving on!

STEP 2 – Attract Massive Amounts of Free Traffic with SEO!

This is where the men are separated from the boys. Successful website owners know that building a great, attractive website is the starting point, not the end game. They know that in order to truly monetize their site, they need to get found when their prospects are looking for them.

HOW?

We do this through SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. Simply put, this is about getting found in the search engines when your prospects search for keywords related to your product or service. But, you know that…

What you may not be aware of, is that WordPress and SEO are like the Brangelina of the internet. Like it or not, they just work together. As I mentioned above, WordPress received 5-stars for “out of the box SEO” which means a lot of the heavy lifting is already done for you.

Like many, I used to use a plugin called All-In-One-SEO to ignite my SEO efforts. But now, I’m switching all my sites to the WordPress SEO Plugin by Yoast. I like this plugin better for a few reasons:

For one, Google asked Yoast to create the plugin, so I give him some solid street cred for that. Mainly though, I like the way the plugin is organized and structured (making it easier to interact with and use). It provides clear, straight-forward instructions within the plugin itself – a big plus for my clients. I like that it seamlessly connects with Google/Bing Webmaster tools as well as Facebook. For a free plugin, this is easily my top pick for SEO purposes.

Below, I call out a few reasons of what I like about the on-page optimization features:

STEP 3 – Generate Leads

Almost 100% of the websites I analyze for clients struggling with their online business either have NO lead generation mechanism, or if they do, it’s so poor, they might as well not have it.

In order to have an effective way to generate leads, you need 2 main things:

The actual lead generation form
A benefit-oriented promise (ie, the carrot on the other side of the form that compels people to give you them their email in exchange for the carrot. I call this a “Profit-Lure” because every time you lure a prospect with it, you’re that much closer to making a profit!).

Here’s an example of a lead form I made for a supermodel client of mine:

STEP 4 – Nurture Leads

Again, this is another step that many, many UNsuccessful marketers skip. Too often, businesses jump straight into bed with their customer and ask for the sale. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t offer the ability to sell something right away, but for those that aren’t immediately convinced that your business has the right solution for them (hint: most won’t be), you’ll need to nurture that lead until they’re more apt to buy. And we do that through email marketing.

I find that the best way to increase sales is to first fan the flames of desire and interest. Your prospect registered to get your Profit Lure for a reason. When you’ve identified it, you should continue to remind them about it.

Here’s an example of an automated email sequence that would go out after someone signs up using your lead generation form:

Thank you for registering (or thank you for requesting _____________) (goes out immediately after they register).
What did you think about _____________? (goes out next day after registration)
I get a lot of questions about _______________, so I copy/pasted the top FAQs below.(The reason why I say, “I copy/pasted the FAQs below” is because I want the email to look authentic, as if I literally just sat down and sent it to them – even though it’s automated). It would look unrealistic if I sent them a gigantic email with FAQs on it. But, it looks much more real if it’s a 1-sentence email that says, “Hey, I hadn’t heard from you since you registered for _________ and I thought maybe you had some questions about it. I copy/pasted the top questions from my FAQ page below…”
Send them something of high value that gives them an immediate, results-oriented benefit. In the example of the supermodel lead form I referenced above, it could be a report on how to care for your hair during the dry winter months.What information could your business offer that gives an immediate result like that?
Send them an email that reveals more about your beliefs and your purpose. The intent of this email is to help them connect with you or your business on a more personal level. Someone who shares similar beliefs is much more apt to buy from you because they trust you.(Note: I recently conducted an interview with author, Simon Sinek. Simon explains in his book, Start With Why, that people don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it). If you fake this, your audience will know it. So, make sure it’s legit.
It’s around this time that I’ll consider sending out a sales-oriented email. By now, I’ve continued to give them value, built up their desire and interest, answered some objections and bonded with them.

(Note: This will vary depending on your typical buy-cycle, but you get the gist here).

STEP 5 – Maximize Sales

When most business owners want to make more money with their website, they think “get more traffic.” But, almost always, you can increase sales simply by making a few tweaks to your site. Here’s some tips to increase sales without ever paying or getting more traffic.

Create better copy – Great copy is worth its weight in gold. But, how do you write great copy if you’re not a professional copywriter? Well, you can “steal” from the professionals. Create a “swipe file” and keep note of what stands out to you and what you know works. My swipe file contains:

Headlines
Sales pages
Email headers
Email body copy
Design (for sales pages, squeeze pages, buttons, etc)

As always, test your copy against itself to determine which headlines, calls-to-action, etc get the best results.

Ask for the sale more often and in multiple ways – This one isn’t rocket science, and yet when applied, it most always increases sales. Here’s a couple suggestions:

Include an offline order form on your website (Yes, there are still people who actually may prefer sending you an order via fax. Hey, it’s not that hard to set up and to date, I’ve had no trouble cashing extra checks).
Have an 800 number that goes straight to voicemail and solicits orders.
Include a signature line in all your emails that give people the opportunity to click through to your order page.
Include PayPal as an order option. Some customers just like using PayPal, so be sure to include it.
Same thing with Google Checkout.
Use single-step check out – Multi-step check outs are good if you have multiple products and you want a customer to add products to the cart and then click on the “continue shopping” button to add more products. But, if you sell a product or service whereby a customer would add only one or two at a time, then the single-step check out is the way to go.The reason is because the customer clicks on the “buy now” button and it takes them to a page that lists all the information needed to order right there. Any time you add another step, you will see people abandoning the shopping cart before clicking “submit order.” Not good.
Test the order process in various browsers, platforms and devices – It’s not good enough to just have a sales page that works in your favorite browser. Test other browsers and computers to see how it looks and that it’s formatted correctly. Test it on your mobile phone and tablet to see if it works the way you’d expect it to.
Show them the banana – Popular marketing guru, Seth Godin, explains in his book, The Big Red Fez, that – for lack of a better way to think about it – you kinda need to think of your customers as monkeys and it’s your job to show them the banana.Don’t make them hunt around for a buy now button or a registration form. Whatever it is you want your customer to do, make it obvious. Use contrasting colors to draw attention to your call-to-action. Bold important headlines. And don’t overwhelm them with options either. Options may sound like a good thing, but too many can kill your conversions (I recommend two or even just one… No, seriously!)

~ Peter M. King

Peter resides in St Louis, Missouri with his wife and 2 children and is blessed to be providing a full time living from his many online businesses. In the last 6 years, Pete has taught well over 70,000 small business owners, marketers and professionals how to monetize their businesses online, including multi-million dollar manufacturers, information marketers and high-profile supermodels. You can discover the complete blueprint to monetizing your website with Pete’s latest product at: http://www.WPMojo.com. As Pete likes to say, “The Money’s in the Mojo!”

8 Video Types Any Business Owner Can Create Today

David Schloss — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:14:13 +0000

This is a guest post written by David Schloss. You can check him out at Rampify.com.

Video marketing for the local business owners starts with YouTube. You have probably watched a video or two on the site before, and chances are you have frequented the site to find information in the past. Would you have ever guessed that it could be the key to driving more customers to your business? If you choose to embrace video marketing, it could do just that for you.

Video marketing makes you an authority figure in your industry, so consumers trust you. In order to do this, your videos must be accurate, entertaining, and packed with valuable information. If you aren’t quite sure how to create videos that meet those criteria, use this quick list of eight video types that do well on YouTube:

Slideshows

You do not have to choose just one type of video. You should work on creating a variety of different videos in different styles, so each one offers something of value to viewers.

Slideshows are the easiest to create, so they are a good starting point. Throw together some photos that can be combined with background music, and you have a simple slideshow that will represent your business.

Examples:

Interior decoration makeovers
Latest fashion for fall, winter, spring or summer seasons

Text Videos

Text videos are basically slideshows with text added to the slides. You may choose to use a variety of images as well to make your slides more entertaining. PowerPoint has some advanced features that will allow you to make very informative slideshows that are also funny and memorable.

Examples:

Legal tips
Pre-surgery tips and advice

Cartoons

Does your company have a symbol, image or personality that is used for local marketing? If so, you have the perfect idea of an animated cartoon that can effectively brand your YouTube videos. Video marketing is perfect for branding, and cartoons grab attention and leave a lasting impression.

Examples:

The Annoying Orange (YouTube channel)
Animonster (YouTube channel)

Demos

Would you like to show others exactly how your best products work? Do you know you could make more sales if these products could be caught in action? If so, whip out a camera and capture action on film. You are creating a demo video that will hopefully be viewed by millions of viewers online.

Examples:

Facial care demonstrations and tutorials
How to cook a Thanksgiving turkey

Tours

If you are selling products online and want to make it clear where your products come from, a tour video is the perfect option. This is also a great idea if your goal is to advertise online for local customers. Simply walk through your facility and document all the exciting events taking place inside.

Examples:

Housing inspection
How to spot a faulty house

Interviews

If your business depends on your own reputation and trustworthiness, you should consider putting up at least one good interview with yourself (or with the owner of the business, if not you). Make sure to hire someone who can give a professional interview with questions that you arrange ahead of time. The interview should give potential customers valuable insight into who you are and why you are qualified to do what you do.

Examples:

Doctor giving medical advice on new medical conditions
Car specialist that has test driven new car models

Testimonials

Testimonial videos are similar to interviews, but you allow your customers to speak on your behalf. You can have loyal customers record 20-30 second video clips praising your company, and then compile them into one video marketing tool.

Example:

Justin Brooke testimonial #1 (courtesy of Alejandro Reyes)
Justin Brooke testimonial #2 (courtesy of Jay Piecha aka Suite J)

Documentaries

Finally, you have the documentary. Not all businesses can make this type of video, but if you can, it is a powerful video marketing tool. Dig out all of the historical documents and pictures you can find for your business, and show the rich history on video. Consumers feel more comfortable with businesses that have been around for generations, so this could give you a very competitive edge.

Examples:

Super Size Me (trailer)
Forks Over Knives (trailer)

The goal of video marketing is to set up a channel for your local business, and start adding high value videos. These videos should catch the attention of people who have some amount of interest in what your business offers, thus driving some of them through to your website and eventually through the front door of your local business.

About David Schloss…

David Schloss is an Internet Marketing junkie! He works with clientele in various industries and helps strengthen their online presence in the search engines and social media through his online marketing service. He documents all of his successes and failures while working online and provide a wealth of information and results on his blog at Rampify.com.

6 Stealth Tactics to Make Your Webinars Rock Like Gene Simmons

jimmywrex — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 15:13:56 +0000

Webinars often convert at 40%. Not all of them of course because it depends on the niche, the presenter, the offer and a few other factors, but 40% is a good target in my experience.

Compare that to the 1% – 2% conversions you get from promoting Clickbank products and it soon becomes clear why webinars have exploded in popularity over the last couple of years.

You might think that in order to get such an increase in conversions you’d need to keep the price low too. That’s just not the case. I’ve seen products priced at $197 convert better on webinars than offers of $9.90 on the Warrior forum.

Think about that for a moment. Lets say you are doing a webinar. You approach other bloggers and offer them 50% commission on your $197 product. If you get 100 attendees on that webinar and convert at 40% you’ll walk away with $3,940 while your affiliates take the rest. Not a bad payday at all.

Webinars rock like Gene Simmons on crack because you can really grab the attention of the audience and demonstrate value. You can interact and engage on a much more personal level. It’s much easier to get the audience to KNOW, LIKE and TRUST you in person than through an impersonal sales letter.

However, if you want to hit the dizzy heights of 40% you’ll need some stealth ninja tactics. Luckily, I’ve got your back!

Below you will find 6 proven ways to pimp your webinar. Build these factors into your presentations and you’ll send your conversions through the roof.

1. Plant and harvest seeds:

Before you script the webinar make sure to list out the various benefits and features of the product you will promote at the end. As you script the webinar make references to the various components of the product as you go.

So for example, in the body building niche, you might say: “whenever I want to bulk up for a contest I just start the pre-contest diet plan I’ve worked out over the last 3 years. I start this 3 weeks before the contest and it always adds 14lbs of solid muscle.” Then move onto the next item. Later, when you finally reveal your product you mention that included in the package is the pre-contest diet plan that you mentioned earlier. This tactic works because you’ve created the desire without the pushy selling.

2. Yes means yes:

As you present the webinar make sure you ask questions to the audience that lead to either a mental “yes” or a typed in “yes.”

By getting your attendees to say “yes” to small things during the webinar you are conditioning them to say “yes” to your offer. Combine this with the seed planting idea above. Talk about a feature of the product and then say “can you see how that would be useful?” By the time you get to the offer your audience has already admitted to themselves that they want the product. Does that make sense?

3. Build credibility:

You see the gurus doing this all the time. They love mentioning that $1M they made in 24 hours or how they were driving around in their Ferrari. I’m not suggesting you BS or make stuff up but it definitely helps to drop some reasons why people should trust you. For example, if you can drop some important names then do it. It’s called success by association. Aligning yourself with other trustworthy and successful people in the niche can only be a good thing so do it.

4. Use stories:

Stories are how we make sense of the world. The story is by far the most powerful selling tool I’ve ever come across. It allows you to frame yourself as being in the same position as the prospect. That helps you build empathy and understanding. Then you introduce the game changer! The reason why you are where your prospect wants to be. Simple but effective. Just make sure you’ve fully researched your prospects so you don’t miss the mark.

5. Build massive value:

When we did our forex webinar recently I told the presenter to give away some amazing information and to mention during the presentation the price of the $197/mo membership. The idea was to have attendees considering whether or not to pay $197/mo as they were being hit with more and more reasons to join. The idea was to convince them that $197/mo was a great price for the service. Then right at the last minute hit them with a massive discount. We offered them lifetime membership at just $97/mo. More than 50% off! Sales rocketed.

However, this might not always work. In some cases you’d be better off waiting until the end of the content section of the webinar. You could then build the value up by ’harvesting your seeds.’ Work out a price and then offer a discount. This is the normal method used on 99% of webinars I’ve seen.

6. Reason to act now:

Pour more fuel on the fire. By now your prospects understand how and why your product is going to help. They realise they’re getting a great deal. Now for that final push!

Add scarcity into the mix by limiting the amount of places available. This will give people a reason to act now and will even entice the fence sitters who might have wanted to sleep on it. Put this on steroids by offering the first 10 or 20 people a fast action bonus.

Does that sound good?

Don’t be scared off by the logistics involved in doing a webinar. I recently helped set one up and it was nowhere near as painful as I imagined. Just think back to that first website you made or article you wrote. It seemed like a mountain to climb at the time, right? Now it’s a mere mole hill. Well why should webinars be any different?

About Jimmy Wrex

Jimmy Wrex is a Niche Experimenter. You can find more traffic and conversions tactics over at his blog, NicheExperiments.com, where he and his buddy Pete blog about their niche marketing experiences and generally lark about.

How to Breath Life into Your List Building Strategy – It’s More Than Just a Numbers Game.

jimmywrex — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:11:42 +0000

When I first started out online I quickly learned the mantra “the money is in the list.” I heard that all over the forums and so I decided that list building would be the best way to go.

You often hear people describe a list as a “lifetime asset” but I recently learned that the average lifespan of an email address is around 2 years (Charles Kirkland ). So, technically the clock is ticking from the second you get someone on your list. You have a limited time to sell something to them and without a decent strategy you’ll miss your window of opportunity and render the whole exercise pointless.

In this post I’ll share 2 strategies you can utilize to turn email addresses into cash. Please don’t take this stuff lightly, because these are the strategies I have used to double and triple my income in the past.

1. Build the Relationship.

There are 4 parts to this.

You must build trust and you can do this by being honest. If you promote a product, remember to talk about the flaws as well as the benefits.

Be consistent. Your list needs to know what to expect from you. Some people mail offers every single day, get great open rates and make buckets of cash. I didn’t believe it was possible until I saw the stats firsthand.

Some marketers mail out offers quite infrequently, and in-between promotions, mail out gifts, blog posts or other free content to keep the list “warm”. This is a great strategy also. The point here is that you must be consistent or your audience will become confused about your offerings.

Show that you’re an authority. Whatever your niche is, you will definitely improve your sales by appearing to be an authority on the subject. Most of the time this happens organically as you research and write on a particular topic.

Infuse your own personality into your emails and don’t be afraid to give away personal information (for example, the fact you have a beloved cat, not your bank details). This will build up the likeability factor and will make you much more memorable to your subscribers.

2. Buyers Vs Freebee Seekers.

This is something I learned the hard way. My first attempt at list building in the ’make money’ niche was based around getting SEO traffic and putting them into a sales funnel. Then, each email gave them some good information and linked to my offer.

The benefit here is that the leads were free and it all worked on autopilot, once the site was ranked. But, sales were pretty low. I’m sure I could’ve refined my funnel and found a better offer but in the end I stumbled upon a much stronger way of building a buyers list.

You see, a list of buyers is much more powerful than a list of people in a niche. But how do you target buyers specifically? Here are 3 strategies I’ve used myself.

The first one is to make a product and offer 100% commissions to affiliates. If you price the offer low enough you’ll get tons of sales and you can then promote similar things to that list of proven buyers that complement your original product. This method brought in my first ever $800+ day.

The second way is to approach a merchant and ask if you can buy a mailing to their list (known as a solo ad). This can be expensive, so you better be sure you have something unique to sell. We used this method for our forex membership site. We spent $3,350 getting 3 different list owners to mail out for us. The launch is actually going on as I write this, and most prospects are enjoying a weeks free trial of the service, but in the first 24 hours we made over $1000, from people looking to lock in their membership, so we expect a big pay day at the end of the trial.

A third possibility could be to offer a report or ebook for $1 on your website. Although you’ll get for fewer leads, you know that the ones you have are quality. The thing that most people don’t understand is that people don’t value free things, so attaching a price means they are more likely to actually read the report. Just make sure you include another offer or up sell in the report or you’ll need to sell a lot of $1 reports to make a living.

Final thoughts . . .

The strategy you use really depends on your own business model, but the basic elements remain the same. Build the relationship and concentrate your efforts on finding buyers. This has helped me enormously over the last year and I’m sure it’ll help you too.

About Jimmy Wrex

6 Ways to Involve Your Readers and Rocket Your Sales.

jimmywrex — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 16:45:08 +0000

Making a purchase is an emotional act. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. In order to sell your products you must engage and persuade your readers. It’s that simple.

So here are 6 ways to involve your readers. Apply these tactics in your writing and you’ll sell more, and who wouldn’t love that?

1. Questions

Asking questions in your writing is a great way to involve your readers, but stick to mostly asking questions where you’ll always get a mental “yes” from your readers.

By doing this throughout your writing you’re psychologically training your readers to say “yes” and with any luck they’ll say a big fat “YES” when you make them a paid offer. Does that make sense?

2. Stats

Did you know that 87% of all statistics are made up? Well, maybe they are or maybe they’re not, but either way people love stats. Especially if they’re conclusive about how effective something is.

A large portion of my income comes from websites in various health niches. Conversions have been staggeringly higher when a statistic like this has been included on the site:

“Clinically proven to be 83% effective . . . ”

I love it when stuff is “clinically proven” or “FDA tested” because it gives peace of mind to those searching for the solution. Plus, you can’t argue with stats, they take an opinion and make it a fact. Just make sure your stats are right or you’ll lose credibility very quickly.

3. Jedi Mind Tricks

Force your prospects to picture, imagine or feel a specific thing. Just include a sentence opener like:

“Just imagine when . . . ”

“Visualise yourself . . . ”

“Picture this . . . ”

“You know that feeling when . . . ”

Doing this will engage your readers and play on their emotions, and as we said earlier, making a purchase is an emotional act. Just imagine those extra sales flying into your paypal account after implementing this technique.

4. Reason Why

Robert Cialdini (the Godfather of persuasion science) says that people are more likely to comply with your requests if you give a reason why they should. This often works even if your reason why is obvious or nonsensical.

A social psychologist called Ellen Langer put this to the test on 3 separate occasions when she attempted to cut the queue for a Xerox machine. Here are her results:

Test 1:

“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine“?

60% said yes.

Test 2:

“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?”

94% said yes.

So the reason why had a dramatic effect on her end result. But wait there’s more.

Test 3:

“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies“? (well, duh)

93% said yes.

So don’t underestimate the power of the word “because” as it’ll rocket your conversions if used in the correct way. And I know you’re convinced because those statistics couldn’t lie, right?

5. Overcome objections

Try to think of what objections people might have to your arguments, highlight them and then give a reason as to why this isn’t a valid objection. For example:

“Some people have said that backlinking tools of this kind wont be effective in the post panda SEO world, but my tests have proved that to be baloney and here‘s why . . . ”

Doing this will inevitably lead to more sales because you’ll catch the folks who were almost ready to buy, but just had that 1 issue holding them back.

6. Likeability

Infuse your own personality into your writing. Don’t be afraid to make jokes and tell personal stories. People don’t like to be sold to, but they’re more than happy to have a friend recommend a product or service. Try to be that friend, it’ll serve you well in future.

Jump to it!

Add these tactics into your current campaigns and you’ll see a big improvement. I’ve turned many failed campaigns into winners by just rearranging a few words here and there, so don’t be afraid to test and tweak.

About Jimmy Wrex . . .

Jimmy Wrex is a Niche Experimenter. You can find more traffic and conversions tactics over at his blog, NicheExperiments.com, where he and his buddy Pete blog about their niche marketing experiences and generally lark about.

7 Steps to Optimizing Embedded Videos For Even More Free Traffic

David Schloss — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 11:26:57 +0000

This is a guest post written by David Schloss. You can check him out at Rampify.com.

You love adding videos to your web pages, but you haven’t quite figured out how to get them to a high ranking with the search engines. What makes a video page rank, while others don’t? That’s why you’re here! Follow these steps and you will see a boost in rankings for all of your embedded videos:

Step 1: Optimize Your Title Tag

Start out by doing a bit of keyword research to see what people are searching for when they want videos like yours. Write down high traffic keywords with “how to” at the beginning and “video” at the end. Then tag your title tags with these keywords.

For instance, you might choose the following keywords if you are working with videos related to basketball:

How to put a basketball hoop together
Basketball dribbling video
Basketball dunk video
How to jump higher

And so on and so forth.

The title tag should start with your keyword then add the title. The entire title must be 66 characters or less, since that is the portion that will be displayed on Google search engine results pages.

Step 2: Optimize the Meta Description

This will appear underneath your title tag on Google search results pages. This is your chance to describe your post to potential viewers, so use the space wisely.

If you don’t like what is already showing for the description, go into your All-In-One SEO, WordPress SEO, or SEO related plugin for WordPress and make the necessary changes for that post. If you’re dealing with an HTML website, add or edit the Meta description tag in your HTML tags. You can edit what is already there, or add Meta description tags if it is missing.

Step 3: Invest in a Transcription Service

While video is considered content today, Google still cannot “listen” to a video and understand what’s being said (for now). That is why you need to present related written text along with the video. You can come up with something fresh but related to the content of the video or go to a freelance site to have someone transcribe the video.

Here’s an oDesk screenshot with search results for “Transcriber”:

NOTE: Transcription takes longer than just watching the video. Multiply the length of the video by five to determine the estimated time frame for a transcription. Transcribers want to be paid by the hour, so that should help you understand what you might pay for this service.

Step 4: Distribute Your Video Content

It often helps to distribute a few teaser videos on other video websites get more traffic to your main videos. Take some of your videos, break them down to one minute, and have them broadcast on video sites such as MetaCafe and Vimeo. These sites are nowhere near as big as YouTube, but you can pull in significant views if you use them wisely.

TubeMogul (free), Pixelpipe (free), and Traffic Geyser (paid) are distribution tools that can make this process easier and faster.

Step 5: Mini-Videos = Increased Page Views

Go through all of the pages on your website and add a mini video, which corresponds with a regular video on somewhere on the site. This is a bit of a trick because the video will load every time these pages are loaded and you get credit for a video click, even if it was never viewed. It just has to load to be counted as viewed.

An example of a mini video would be a 100 x 75 pixel video placed on a side bar or at the top of the page. Your viewers won’t all look at the video, but since it will load along with the page you will get credit for a view. This is how a small video delivers more page views.

Step 6: Let Others Post Your Video

You probably don’t want others ripping off your written content, but videos are made to be shared. You want to provide code in an obvious place so others can embed your videos on their own pages. YouTube actually ranks videos higher if they are embedded by many other people. This is your ticket to higher rankings.

Embedded code is the proper route to get others to embed a video. This code should appear beneath the video screen with something like “Add this video to your website!”

You can either display the code, or have those interested click a link to get it.

Step 7: Invest in Backlinks

When it comes to rankings, you can’t go anywhere without hearing about backlinks. Many people believe this is the number one thing to consider when getting ranked high for videos.

Deep linking, or the strategy of linking to specific pages rather than the home page, is often more effective than concentrating all your links in one place. If you have many videos, try to build a number of backlinks to each of them.

Where do you get backlinks? Here are some ideas:

Web 2.0 Properties
Article Directories
Guest Blogging
Press Releases
Cross Promotions on Other Sites

If you create high value videos, much of the work will be done for you. Others with websites or blogs related to your site will catch onto this great content and voluntarily link to you.

Follow these steps and you will see that this isn’t much different from getting traffic for a website or a blog. You want to get traffic and gain exposure, but it all starts with simply creating amazing videos with high value content.

About David Schloss…

30 Days Inside An Internet Marketers Inbox [Infographic]

Justin — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 04:20:10 +0000

EDIT: This is a guest blog post written by Neal Bicker and does not reflect the opinions of SITEFling or it’s owners. It was published for it’s truth and data. Many of the marketers listed we believe to be good people and friends like Travis, Michelle, Marlon, Jared, Russell, and others.

I will never fail to be amazed at the ‘Internet Marketing’ industry. Every day is a learning process, and every day I find something of interest. Today was no exception!

To set the scene here (before you all go skipping to the fancy infographic), if you are in the internet marketing business, you will no doubt be aware that capturing leads is of massive importance.

Justin teaches this stuff on a weekly basis, so you should know!

What about when you get those leads?

What are you doing to ensure that the folks stay with you? Are you keen on building relationships, or simply looking to make a quick buck from them?

How I Got Myself Into This Mess

Since entering into the business many years ago, I have been through many email addresses. Some associated with specific blogs, or projects I was working on, and some personal ones too. I even worked out a nice system of keeping work and personal stuff separate. One such tactic I used was to set up a ‘spam’ email account, which I would then use to ‘register’ for anything that was vaguely Internet Marketing related. If I bought one of your WSO’s, or you were new to me in anyway, I used this email address.

From there, those who sent out quality emails – such as Site Fliiiiing – were then added to my business email address for regular reading. Everyone else was forgotten about.

Imagine The Horror On My Face When I Saw 5,000 Emails

Forgotten about until last night, that is. I happened to be passing time before going to bed last night when I decided to check this old email account. Low and behold, over 5000 emails had accrued since I last checked in. Rather than waste time actually reading these emails, I decided it would be much more worthwhile to waste time analyzing them…and this soon lead to a blog post and fancy infographic.

The data was taken from the last full month of emails, September 2011, and is mostly Internet Marketing related. Truth be told I am not sure who a lot of these people are, or indeed how and where I signed up to be on their lists. That being said, some interesting information could be pulled.

And so, without further ado… what was in my inbox? Well, for the month of September, I received a grand total of 415 emails, which I have since learned is below average. These emails were sent from a total of 42 sources, as listed below:

Winebuddy: 41
Seeking Alpha: 30
Mike Filsaime: 29
Fabian Tan & Co: 29
Justin Michie: 23
Penny Sleuth: 21
Jared Croslow: 21
Mighty Deals: 19
Jeff Johnson: 19
Deep Walia: 16
Day Job Killer: 15
Russell Brunson: 15
Free Premier PLR: 14
PMA: 11
Marlon Sanders: 11
Sean Donahoe: 10
Ivana & Alex – Afftricks: 10
Andy Jenkins: 9
Gambit: 8
Desmond Ong: 7
Sarah Staar: 7
Michelle MacPhearson: 5
Alejandro – HTGV: 5
Alex Goad: 5
Jamie Garside: 5
Mike Carraway: 4
Greg Jacobs: 4
Travis @ Bum Marketing: 3
Maulana Malik: 3
Jim Dean: 2
Amish Shah: 2
VRE Empire Monthly: 2
Chicago Chapter: 2
Brian G. Johnson: 2
Performance Marketing: 1
John Meriwether: x =1
Viral Monopoly: x = 1
Tim Godfrey: x = 1
Thomas Power: x = 1
Mario Xiao: x = 1
Ewen Chia: x = 1
Tom Hua: x = 1

Now before the high and mighty start flooding the comments section, I must point out that you should not take offence if you are on this list (unless you think it is ok to send 41 emails in a month). The purpose of this exercise is to analyze the data. The very fact that you are on this list is that I happen to have – at one time – either bought something from you, or found something that you said interesting enough to subscribe. There are also one or two names on here that I have moved into my regular reading email account (Yes, I’m talking to you, Alejandro).

You will no doubt recognize some of the names!

Instead of Crying Let’s Learn Something From This

So, what can we learn from this? Well, first things first, and I hope every single person who is reading this agrees with me: I don’t care who you are, you should not have to email me 1.36 times per day. If you email your list, how often do you do it? Secondly, and Day Job Killer was guilty of this, emailing day after day after day to sell the same product is a waste of both your time and mine. In fact, they emailed on six consecutive days!

Talking of selling…I scanned through the offerings for some people on the list, and Russell Brunson was a good example of mixing it up. His 15 emails were a good split between selling and telling. That is to say he offered a lot of information for free, while also trying to get me to ‘buy in’ to one or two products of his. Alex Goad on the other hand… 5 emails for the month and they all tried selling something.

Well over one thousand dollars worth of products from someone I neither know, nor trust; and someone who gives nothing back. That is to say that every email he sent me was effectively asking me to part with $267. I’m sure there are people on his list that bought stuff, and his emails will make him money, which is why I’m sure he will keep at it. For me though, I think tactics need to be changed!

An Interesting Diamond Amongst The Garbage?

Here’s an interesting one, no one appeared to be sending out emails on the weekend! The infographic will show a steep decline on Saturday and Sunday. I wonder why. Many people trying to break into this business are doing this part time, therefore (and I know this from experience) the time that they have to dedicate to their business is limited to evenings and when? You guessed it….WEEKENDS!

Email is a funny beast, and is becoming the burden of all mankind. I find that if I don’t act on an email as soon as I read it, it is destined to sit in my inbox for all eternity.
Do I have a point, or am I sitting up all night wasting time? Well, the point is this: be kind to my inbox!

What I mean by that is that I know you are all out there trying to make a living, and you have probably read a half a dozen ebooks on how to make money with a list. One of the things that always seems to escape people in this business is to see things from different perspectives, to change things up. As the late Steve Jobs once said, “Innovation distinguishes between leader and follower.”

If you are not making money online, then stop reading too much. If you only spent one minute reading each of these emails, that is almost 7 hours of your week wasted.

Some Words of Wisdom From a Ex-Inbox-Junkie

Start doing something! There are quite literally a million ways to make money online, but reading about it…or flitting from one thing to the next is not one of them. You can start by going to your inbox right now and unsubscribing from all those blogs that you never read. I know they are in there!

Also, if you are sending out email to your list, don’t think that you are the only one. Consider that your email could be lost in a sea of other similar emails. It could also be going into a spam account like mine. Try doing something different, like sending out an email first thing Sunday morning, so that when the budding new internet marketer wakes up early to get a start on business before his daily life takes over, yours is the email he sees. Don’t inundate people with calls for them to raid their Paypal account, and don’t just email them for the sake of it. Make your email marketing count!

Ok, Ok… Here’s The Dang Infographic

On that note, I will hand the blog back to Justin. I hope you appreciate the time and effort that went into the research, the writing and the fancy infographic (my very first) enough to leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Feel Free To Re-post This Image As Long As You Link Back To This Original Article

In case you were wondering…it took almost as much time as it would have done to spend a minute reading each of those emails!

About The Author/Designer

This is a guest post written by Neal Bicker, of Digitalprinceton.com Neal has a wealth of experience in the Internet Marketing business, but his strength is in creating great looking sites for internet entrepreneurs.

Worst Sales Mistake a Website Owner Can Make

shawnhorwood — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 11:27:51 +0000

When it comes to conversions most people talk about headlines, the offer and other standard copywriting stuff. But today I’d like to discuss the biggest hindrance that I experience with conversions and traffic and pretty much everything to do with my business actually and it has nothing to do with standard copywriting practices taught by conversion experts.

Perfectionism

Perfectionism is something that a lot of people struggle with, but may not realize it. I never used to think of myself as a perfectionist (you should see how I mud drywall). But when it comes to my business, this is me putting myself out there for all the world to see.

And that’s TOUGH. I don’t want everyone to think I’m an idiot, I want to actually help people, and I want everyone to think I’m as awesome as I think I am.

When I put out my first product, I was lucky. I just got it done, wrote my first sales letter and started selling it.

But then people started asking me questions, and they wanted me to add a few small things to my product. Not really a big deal – until I moved on to other products.

When I tried to make my first motivation product, I redid it 23 times! I didn’t like the way it was written. I didn’t like the organization. I wanted to make sure I covered everything. I didn’t even like my own humour at some points! But I decided to just get it out there, and the first person I shared it with said it was great information, really useful and helped him a lot.

When I went back and looked at the guide a few days ago – I hated it. I think it sucks. I think I could do a lot better. And the sales letter? It’s even worse (though not online since I’m not selling my motivation info anymore).

But it’ll never be perfect. I can always make it better. There’s always room for improvement. It doesn’t matter though. If I wait until it’s perfect, I’ll never help anyone. I could probably still be working on that one product to this day and it wouldn’t be perfect.

And if I had waited for perfection, that man I first shared it with would probably not have achieved his goals. He would’ve had to keep searching for help and hope he stumbled upon someone who actually knew how to help him.

All the other people that benefited from my information would’ve been left out as well.

Every sales letter I write, every squeeze page I create, every presell page I setup I hate. I’ll be completely honest with you. I HATE the pages I create. I think they suck. I think I could do way better. I think I could hit hot buttons better. I think I could write better bullets. I think I could connect with my audience better.

And truth be told 90% of those pages never go live. And I kick myself for it daily because when I do get a page up and start driving traffic, I start getting results. They’re never as good as I’d like, but they’re a starting point. No, my pages aren’t perfect – but they’re at least SOMETHING.

Low conversions beat no conversions any day.

You cannot get results if you’re not getting stuff out there. You’d be amazed at what works. And sometimes things that you think are terrible end up doing really well. Just because you don’t like doesn’t mean your audience won’t.

Don’t wait for perfection. Get it done and get it out there. As you get feedback (either from your website stats and visitor behaviour or from feedback from your audience), you can improve. Get closer to perfection. You’ll never get it perfect, so don’t aim for perfection.

Remember, every day you’re not selling you’re not helping people who need your help.

If you have no idea where to start with sales letters or squeeze pages or whatever, swipe ideas from successful people. Even use a template if you have to because it’s SOMETHING. You can always improve as you go along.

Action Steps:

Get something out there. Today. Don’t wait for it to be perfect. The longer you wait for perfection, the longer your audience is waiting for your help. You can’t get results if you’ve got nothing to get results with.

I’ve got two more conversion killers I’ll be covering in my next two posts. For now, focus on getting stuff done and getting it out there – even if you don’t think it’s perfect.

ABOUT Shawn Horwood…

Shawn Horwood is a fitness expert, affiliate marketer and information marketer. He makes the majority his income through affiliate marketing at ShawnHorwoodFitness.com and his other fitness websites.

6 Easy Steps to Optimizing YouTube Videos for Search Rankings

David Schloss — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 03:41:26 +0000

YouTube stands out as the world’s second leading search engine, bigger than even Bing or Yahoo. It’s undoubtedly the world’s biggest video search engine.

While it is true the content of the actual video isn’t (yet) searchable, videos now gain a high position in the SERPS since Google’s addition of video into its universal search. Should you have a look at the typical search engine results, you’ll notice that videos frequently secure middle or top positions on the first page.

A highly optimized video can easily obtain tens of thousands of viewers. If you’re lucky enough for a video to go viral, expect to get hundreds of thousands or even millions of views!

Here’s how to optimize your YouTube videos for optimal search rankings:

Step 1: Conduct Video Keyword Research

Just as you would optimize an article for search engines, the first step to optimizing videos is to conduct keyword research on the potential visitor volume and competition for select keyword phrases.

By using the Google Keyword Tool, you can compile a list of potential keywords. When conducting keyword research, you should target a wide variety of keywords, both high and low competition keywords, with high and low volume traffic.

If you would like to further break down your keywords, YouTube has its own keyword tool, the YouTube Keyword Tool, which provides search data for key phrases within YouTube’s search.

Step 2: Determine Keyword Competition and Traffic Volume

Are you competing against some strong competition? When doing keyword research on YouTube, analyze the videos by the following:

Number of views
Number of comments
Number of replies
Number of likes
Number of video responses
Percentage of people who liked the video out of total viewers
Channel subscribers

To view the number of likes, open a video and it will appear under the total view count:

To view the number of comments left for a video, click on “View all Comments” toward the bottom of the video page:

The comment count will be above the comment box:

By analyzing all this data and mapping it out in a spreadsheet, you’re able to gauge whether the keywords you’ve researched are worth targeting for videos.

Try to see whether the number of views to a video match the strength of competition. By weeding out the weak competition keywords with high view counts, you will be able to select keywords with the best volume-to-competition ratio.

Step 3: Write an Attention Grabbing Headline

The video headline is important for two reasons:

It helps get the video to rank for relevant searches.
It convinces people to click on the video.

Title Tag Tips

One of the key elements in writing your title tag is to include your main keyword. Additionally, you might want to also take these factors into account:

Have your video file named with a keyword-rich title.
Try to incorporate keywords at the beginning of your video title.
If your video is part of a series, the series title should be at the end.
Include a few keywords that are compelling and describe the episode (example: crazy, awesome, coolest, love, hate, etc.).

Bonus Tip: Put the term “video” at the beginning or end of the title tag. According to Mark Dulisse, over 38% of searchers are looking for videos and will include the “video” in the phrase.

Description Tips

Having an optimized description for your video is as important as the title. Consider the following:

The description should include a link to your website, blog post, landing page, etc. on the first line. When adding a link to the description, make sure to include “http://” in order to make the link clickable.
The title should be included in the first sentence of the description.
Include links to other YouTube videos and your Twitter, Facebook, and other social profiles.

Step 4: Gather as Many Favorites, Likes and Comments as Humanly Possible

The number of likes, favorites and comments are very important when it comes to ranking videos within universal search. Much like link diversity of websites, the more likes, favorites and comments you have, the more YouTube is going consider your video the most relevant for certain key phrases.

How exactly do you go about increasing likes, favorites, and comments on your videos?

The simplest method: ask people! One method is to send the video to friends, family, and colleagues and asking them for likes, comments, and favorites. Another method, which is much simpler, is to add an annotation within the video.

In order to add an annotation, click the “Annotations” tab when editing your video.

By clicking “Add annotation,” there will be a drop down box with various choices of annotations.

Choose a type of annotation and include a message to get people to add subscribe, comment, favorite or like your video.

Extra Ideas for Annotations

Add a “note” annotation asking viewers to subscribe.
Add a “spotlight” annotation that links to your latest video.
Add a “speech bubble” annotation asking viewers to “click like” or “save to favorites” if they enjoyed the video.

Step 5: How to Rank for Related and Suggested Videos

Two underutilized traffic sources for videos are related videos and suggested videos.

What exactly are related videos and suggested videos?

They are videos that appear after a viewer as finished watching a similar video, or the videos that appear on the right hand side of the video currently being viewed.

So how exactly do you get your videos to appear under related or suggested videos? More importantly, how do you get your videos to appear with high traffic and relevant videos?

Make sure to build the credibility of your video through views, comments, and likes. The more views and comments on a video, the more likely YouTube is willing to suggest or relate your videos.

Bonus Tips: Copy down the keyword tags of videos in your industry. By having closely related (not identical) keywords in your video, this gives YouTube an idea of your video’s similarity to others. Then try to use these keywords in your title. Having a similar main keyword in your video title can help you obtain several suggested and related video spots.

Thumbnail Tips

Make sure to pick a clear, attractive video thumbnail. Besides your title, the thumbnail is what grabs the attention of the viewer. Having a visually appealing thumbnail can have a huge impact on your video’s view count. DO NOT automatically select the default thumbnail, but instead choose a thumbnail that’s more visually interesting.

Step 6: Link Building for Video

Much like you would conduct SEO for a website, obtaining rankings for videos requires backlinks. Link diversity is just as important to videos as they are to websites.

How do you generate backlinks to your videos?

Before you start building links, it’s most important to make sure your video is original and high quality. If you create a video that is informative and it’s something you feel can help others, then you know it’s a video people will naturally link to as a resource.

Though having an amazing video can help your link building efforts, there’s a need for some manual link building. Here are some easy and basic link building methods for video:

Article directory websites with relevant articles linking back to your video.
Link to the video from your own site(s) through a simple blog post or page.
Social bookmark your video on sites like Digg, Reddit, and Stumbleupon.
Write a press release and link to (or possibly embed) the video within the release.
Post the video on other video distribution websites and link back to the original video in the description (use this method with caution).

Do you see the similarity between video SEO and SEO for websites?

If you rather have the link building done for you, I suggest heading over to Fiverr or Microworkers and pay for several gigs that include the methods mentioned above. Depending on your competition, minimum effective dose comes into play: buy 1-2 bookmarking gigs, wait one to two day, and then evaluate whether the video needs more links to move up in ranking. Considering how fast videos seem to rank organically, you can generally determine whether a video will rank on the first page in roughly 4-5 days.

Bonus Step: Boosting Related Video Ranking Factors

Using Fiverr or Microworkers, you can help kick start your video by searching for gigs that help boost the following:

Comments – discussion within your video indicates that is is worth viewing. The more comments the better. Toward the end of your video or in the description, ask a question in order to engage conversation. Make sure to respond to viewer comments in your videos.
Likes and Favorites – Ratings and favorites help YouTube determine a video’s popularity. Videos with tons of likes and favorites are often favored over videos with lower numbers. Use an annotation to encourage people to “hit the like button” and “save to favorites” if they enjoyed the video.
Embeds – Video embedding is a key factor in increasing video views. ALWAYS allow your videos to be embedded in the sharing options. With this option available, bloggers are now able to share your video directly on their website, which can increase the view count dramatically.

It’s Time to Get Started!

It’s important to remember that many YouTubers have NEVER intentionally tried to rank their videos. If you focus on optimizing your videos with each submission, you’re already ahead of the top 1% on YouTube. If you follow the tips outlined in this post, you’re one step closer to outranking your competitors.

ABOUT David Schloss…

David Schloss is a Internet Marketing junkie! He works with clientele in various industries and helps strengthen their online presence in the search engines and social media. He’s also an mobile video blogger and documents his successes and failures while working online. David provides a wealth of information and results on his blog at Rampify.com.

How Watching Game Shows Can Increase Conversions On Your Website

EricTransue — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 03:56:07 +0000

Was Bob Barker really a ninja marketer who was sent though the airwaves in an attempt to make you a better marketer?

After examining game shows a little closer, I think it’s quite possible. Let me explain.

How many times have you seen a game show where the contestant is given 3 doors to choose from, but only one of the 3 contains the BIG prize?

The suspense builds as the contestant looks to the audience with a glazed over “help me” look on their face. I guess they look to the audience because everyone knows game show audiences have some sort of x-ray vision that those on stage don’t. After a few tense moments of people from the audience screaming every choice imaginable – blending their answers into one loud muddled mess – the choice is made.

ERRRRRR! Sorry wrong choice. But here are a few chocolate bars as a parting gift.

Why do I bring this up?

Because it’s quite possible your website is in a similar situation. Instead of physical doors your site has virtual doors. These doors can be links or other calls to action on your site.
By offering too many of these virtual doors on your site, your visitor gets that “help me” feeling.

And guess what? They often make the wrong choice. The only difference your visitor has from being on the game show stage is they have nobody to turn to. Or do they?

Use Your X-Ray Vision To Help Your Visitors

As a website owner you are the one that needs to guide them. You have the x-ray vision that can help them make the correct choice.

Don’t let them guess. Guide them to the exact action you want them to take. You know exactly what is behind each door. Now get them to open it!

Limit The Number Of Doors On Your Website

An even easier way to guide a visitor to the door you’d like them to choose, is to limit the number of choices they have. Give them 100 doors to choose from and you have a 1/100 chance that they’ll pick the right one. Give them 2 doors to choose from and you have a 50% chance of them choosing the right one.

Every link displayed on your sidebar, your header, your footer, and your content is another chance for them to choose the wrong door. Remove all unnecessary links. They are hurting more than they are helping.

Stop Linking Just To Link

This is an easy way to limit the number of doors. Just because you mentioned Google in your content, it doesn’t’ mean you have to link to Google’s site. What good does that do you?

You are trying to get them to open door number 1. But instead they are clicking on your Google link often never to return. Once they leave you’ll be cursing yourself that you didn’t lock that door.

Point Them In The Right Direction With A Call To Action

Once you’ve cleaned things up a bit and limited the number of doors to choose from, grab them by the hand and show them the door they should choose. The door they should choose is the door that is going to provide them the most value.

Did you get that? I didn’t say send them to doors that provide you the most value.

As a site owner you want the visitor to feel that they got some value from your site and your guidance. Just like game shows, if you are running a crappy site and leading visitors to crappy products and situations – they won’t be very happy. And guess what they won’t be very likely to visit again and check out any new doors you’d like to lead them through.

A happy visitor appreciates some one who has their goals and best interest in mind. And a happy visitor will return for more.

So get out your website broom and do a little cleaning. Close the doors that aren’t necessary. Then make the paths to the doors your visitors should be using easy to find and easy to open.

ABOUT Eric Transue…

Eric Transue is a part-time blogger and product creator focused on showing you how to succeed online without all the BS. He’s an original member of the SiteFling 30 Day Apprentice Challenge. Download his free ebook on How To Create Your First Product Online and visit his blog at EricTransue.com to learn more about him.

9 Ways To Create A Bonus That Will Increase Your Conversions

shawnhorwood — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 04:05:04 +0000

One of the easiest ways to increase conversions is to offer a killer bonus. Everyone likes to get more for their time or money, and a bonus is an easy way to give them just that.

Whether you want someone to fill out a survey or buy a product through your affiliate link, nothing is more enticing than a sweet bonus that will help them get closer to their goals.

The most important thing to know about providing a bonus is that it’s all about value. Your goal in providing a bonus is not simply to get more people to do what you want, it’s to provide more value to your audience and give them a better experience with you.

When you provide a better experience, you’ll create raving fans who buy everything from you. If you’re not providing any value with your bonuses, you’re just going to disappoint and maybe even anger people and they’ll probably never buy anything from you again.

You obviously would prefer the raving fans. Not only will your raving fans buy everything you tell them to, but they’ll tell their friends about you too. I know this from personal experience. I am a raving fan of SITEFling, which makes me feel really special to have the privilege of sharing my knowledge on the blog.

Recently I was contacted by a guy who saw me on the Viperchill forum, and I started giving him some marketing advice. A short time later, I ended up telling him to check out SITEFling. I didn’t use any affiliate links (though I guess I could have), I don’t get compensated in any way, I just love SITEFling and know that Justin and Chaunna provide a ton of value, so I thought he would like the content.

You want fans that will do that for you. A great way to turn people into fans who recommend you without any form of compensation is to offer sweet bonuses that add a ton of extra value.

With that said, let me share when to offer a bonus before I get into how to craft the perfect bonus offer to increase conversions and make people your fans.

When to Offer Bonuses

Affiliate Promotions – Any time you’re promoting a product as an affiliate, I feel it is your duty to offer a bonus. No product is perfect, we all know that. So you should make the product one step closer to perfect with some sort of bonus. Think of your commission as their payment for your bonus.
Webinar Registration – Generally the goal of a webinar is to provide great content with some sort of pitch at the end where they can get more information, usually by buying something. People love attending webinars, and if the presenter is any good then the webinar will likely have high conversion rates.With that in mind, you want as many people to register for the webinar as possible. If the webinar is on an interesting topic it shouldn’t be hard to get a lot of people on the webinar, but it never hurts to give people a little more incentive.
Webinar Attendance – Actually attending the webinar is even more important. Often the offer at the end is limited or has some form of scarcity that benefits the people who are actually on the webinar. This creates even higher conversions, so you want to make sure people stay to the end of the webinar to hear the offer. Offering a bonus for those who stay on the webinar all the way through is a great way to get people to attend (and it’s for their own good because the webinar is teaching something that will benefit them).
Surveys – We all know surveys are a great way to get to know our customers/subscribers/audience better. If you’re having trouble getting feedback, you can offer a bonus to thank them for helping you out.
Whenever You Feel Like “Stacking the Cool” – Do you know what I think is awesome? Random, valuable gifts. And I’m pretty sure your audience feels the same way. That’s why product launches start by giving something away. People absolutely love it, and they’re much more willing to buy something from you when you’ve first done something for them. So sometimes it’s cool to just put together something cool and give it away for free.It doesn’t even have to be a pdf or videos or anything, it can just be an outstanding blog post (like the one Chaunna wrote that was 7330 words). As long as it’s something that you could actually sell, it makes a sweet bonus to give to your audience.
Whenever You Want Someone to Perform An Action – Honestly, there are probably hundreds of times when it’s good to offer a bonus. You can offer bonuses exclusive to certain email lists for buying your products (usually for people who have earned it in some way), after refund periods are over, when they share your content, comment on your blog, etc.One thing to be careful of is to not offer bonuses for EVERYTHING unless you want to continue to offer a bonus for everything for the rest of your life. If your audience sees that you’re always offering bonuses for anything they do, then they’ll be trained to act because they get a bonus.Then when you ask them to do something and you don’t give them a bonus, they might not bother because you’ve “trained” (I hate that word, but it’s fairly accurate) them to only respond when there’s a bonus. This is not a good situation to be in.

Now that you know when to offer the bonus, let’s dive into the 9 ways you can craft the perfect bonus to increase conversions as a product owner or as an affiliate.

Crafting The Perfect Bonus

There are two ways you can structure a bonus. You can either base your bonus on a weakness of the product, or a strength of the product.

Let me give you an example from the fitness industry. Your average muscle building program includes some nutrition advice, maybe a full meal plan and workout plan. What’s missing? What about muscle recovery? Your workouts make you sore, and being sore sucks. So I offer a bonus guide showing them how to recover quickly and reduce/get rid of muscle pain from their workouts. This makes the program much more appealing.

Now let’s take a program like Bulletproof Knees. This is an absolutely amazing guide to getting rid of knee pain. But it’s a really big and extensive guide and it’s a little overwhelming. So as a bonus I offer a 10 minute routine for getting rid of knee pain based on Bulletproof Knees. The same routine I personally used to get rid of my knee pain after reading through the entire program.

Plus I tell them about my “secret weapon” that I used that helped me get rid of my knee pain even faster while following the same principles on Bulletproof Knees (this is a bonus I actually offer for the program).

The “secret weapon” costs money, so if they don’t care to spend an extra $30 to get faster results, they still get a routine that will allow them to get started getting rid of their knee pain right away so they don’t have to go through the entire program first.

9 Bonuses You Can Offer To Increase Conversions

For this section, I’m going to be mainly referring to creating bonuses for affiliate promotions, but the same basic ideas apply to whenever you are offering a bonus.

1. Your Products:

The first place you can look for a bonus to offer is your own products (if you don’t have any products, skip this section). This is something you’ve already created, so it takes no extra effort on your part. If you’ve got a product that fits well with the offer, then it can make a great bonus.

The biggest downside to offering your own products is some people will already have them. I usually only offer my own products to people on my subscriber list (after they’ve been given an opportunity to buy my product first) and I make sure it’s for something worth just as much or more so I don’t devalue my products.

Here are 4 things to keep in mind when offering your own products as a bonus.

The product can’t be outdated. If the information is old or no longer useful, don’t offer it as a bonus saying it’s worth $29.95 because that’s what it used to sell for. It’s not anymore, and you’re just going to tick a lot of people off when they find out your bonus is worthless.
Your product can’t be easy to get elsewhere. Of course it should be for sale somewhere, but it shouldn’t be offered as a bonus for everything you promote, it shouldn’t be used a bribe to join a newsletter, etc. Essentially there should only be two ways to get the product – by purchasing the product you’re promoting or by purchasing it from the sales page.
It shouldn’t be PLR unless you’ve edited it to make it awesome. Most PLR is garbage, and if it’s not, it’s still for sale by other people. You need to make it unique and more valuable before using it as a bonus.
The product needs to be relevant to the offer. I operate 99% in the fitness niche. If I have a product on self defense (I’m working on one), that would not make a good bonus for promoting Truth About Abs because it’s not related to the offer. Yes, most people wanting to get in better shape do care about being able to defend themselves, but that’s not close enough.

You can also create products specifically for the promotion you’re doing – even joint products with the product owner you’re promoting. People in the fitness industry do this all the time, and it works really well.

If you’re not knowledgeable on the subject matter, there’s nothing wrong with hiring someone else to create/ghostwrite the product for you. There’s probably someone in your industry who’s an expert on your topic and would love to create a product for you.

You can either have them ghostwrite it so it becomes yours under your name (I’ve done a little ghostwriting myself) or you can have them create a product for you under their name that you have the rights to sell/give as bonus.

There’s also the option of buying the rights to a product. There are tons of people with knowledge, but they don’t know how to sell it. If you come along and offer to buy the rights to the product, they’re happy to accept because then they make some money off their efforts.

You can these types of products in the Clickbank marketplace, other affiliate marketplaces, Google searches on your subject matter, etc. If the website selling the product looks like it was the first website ever created, then as long as the product itself is good, you’ve likely got a golden opportunity in front of you.

2. Checklists, Cheat Sheets & Worksheets:

These are great for getting people to register & attend webinars and for affiliate promotions (especially video & audio products). Checklists and cheat sheets help people to organize the information they’re receiving, and worksheets help people get the important points and pay attention while they’re watching videos or listening to audios.

The SITEFling products do a great job of this (I think that’s Chaunna’s awesome teaching skills), but many products don’t, which gives you a great opportunity to provide the sheets yourself.

3. Interviews:

Interviews are great because you don’t have to know anything about the subject matter. Almost anyone is willing to do an interview if they can get exposure from it, so go ask some people! Many people sell products entirely made up of interviews, so people obviously see value in them, and they position you as an expert because your name appears by a bunch of important people in your niche.

You can even interview a product owner whose product you’re promoting and ask them some of the frequently asked questions about the product and even ask them about stuff they didn’t include in the program that might help your customers out.

You can do short 1 question interviews or long 3 hour interviews. I’ve done two interviews where there was only one question and each interview was only supposed to be 2-5 minutes (I went over 15 minutes on one of the questions though…whoops). Maybe that doesn’t really qualify as an “interview”, but it still works as a bonus.

The length and content of the interviews you do will help you decide when/where it’s appropriate to offer them as a bonus. Transcripts of the interview are a great way to boost the value of the bonus and it hardly costs anything with many of the transcription services available.

4. Case Studies:

Case studies make great bonuses if you position them right. If you position them as an in-depth testimonial, then they just look like an in-depth testimonial. That’s great sales material, but crummy bonus material.

However, if you position the case study as a real life example of how someone just like your prospect used the product you want them to use including how well they followed it, how they changed it in any way, etc then suddenly it’s a way for them to see how people in situations similar to theirs are using the product.

I love reading good case studies, and so do a lot of other people. If you can collect case studies or even just include your own personal case study, then you have a great bonus.

This can work for promoting products or even for webinars (if you’ve seen the webinar previously and can give a case study). Just make sure that it’s not a testimonial, but an actual case study – an example of someone using the product/method/strategy and having success with it.

5. Quick Start Guide/Accelerated Results Guide:

These are bonuses I love offering. quick start guides are really easy to put together, because the information is already there, you just have to condense it. The downside is many product owners have quick start guides, so you can’t offer one as a bonus.

If that’s the case, I like to write what I call an “Accelerated Results Guide”. This actually takes some knowledge of the subject matter (unlike the quick start guide, which just requires you to go through the product. Basically it’s a guide for getting faster results with the product. There are a number of ways to do this. Either by recommending removing a portion of the strategy that doesn’t do much to focus on something more beneficial, or by recommending additional methods that require a little extra work, but get faster results.

For instance in the weight loss niche, supplements can be used for faster results (as long as you actually know anything about them and use ones that work, not the $70 bottles of crap everyone tells you to buy) so in my ARG I discuss supplements that fit with the program as well as tips for sleeping better, muscle recovery, etc. All of these things will help them get faster results and aren’t covered in many programs.

6. Personal Notes:

Only offer this as a bonus if you’re good at taking notes or you’re an authority figure in your market. If you’re a nobody and you suck at taking notes, then this is not a good bonus to offer. However, Andre Chaperon does a great job offering notes as a bonus with http://microbrandmethod.com. I think the screenshot of the notes makes a huge difference. If he had just said he had notes, I’m not sure it would be nearly as appealing.

If you naturally take a lot of notes, highlight stuff, etc then this is a great bonus because you probably created it while you were going through the product anyways. Don’t be afraid to include any ideas that popped into your head, no matter how silly they may sound later. If you think they’re stupid, admit that it was just stuff you thought of as you were going through the product – it may help others to get their creative juices flowing.

And if you’re afraid of someone stealing your ideas, don’t be. Just take action on them. Since you thought of them you should be able to execute them faster and better than the people who look at your ideas later (or maybe you can get a partner and take the idea even further…).

7. Software:

Software is a wonderful bonus if you can provide it. There’s not a lot of software I can provide in the fitness niche, but in the IM niche there are TONS of software ideas.

If you can automate something or make something easier to keep track of with a simple piece of software, that can have a ton of value. Look at how high some memberships are just for access to one piece of software that has only one purpose. Software has a ton of value, so if you can offer it as a bonus then you’ve got a winner.

8. “Little Black Book”:

A little black book is basically just a compilation of resources that will help them use the product. But as long as a few of them are hard (or impossible) to find or need a referral, they have value to your audience.

I’ve paid $50 for a book of someone’s business resources because it meant I didn’t have to go looking at a bunch of reviews of different products or go looking for good prices for the things I wanted, I had it all right there in front of me.

Jeff Anderson sells a product on making your own supplements and he includes a little black book of suppliers for the ingredients. This has insane value because on my own I never would’ve found those suppliers or those prices (and neither would 99.9% of his customers).

And calling it a “little black book” seems to increase perceived value, but I haven’t done much testing on it personally. I just think it sounds way cooler than “collection of resources” or “rolodex” or something along those lines.

9. Personal Coaching:

This is something you only want to offer when it’s worth it to you. I offer email coaching for different fitness programs I promote, but I only take on 25 people at a time and I limit it to 30-60 days after purchase. The great thing about personal coaching is it has a high perceived value and almost no one will take you up on it.

It’s amazing how many people are afraid to ask for help, or don’t want to admit they need/want help, so they never take you up on the offer. However, they love knowing they have you there if they need to ask you.

Plus anyone who doesn’t take action right away doesn’t get coaching, so it encourages people to actually use the products right away.

I always offer coaching with something else because a lot of people don’t want or won’t use the coaching.

The Top 10 Bonuses I’ve Offered (And Still Offer) In the Fitness Industry

Now that you know how to create a killer bonus offer, I thought it might help get your creative juices flowing if I showed you some of the bonuses that I’ve offered in the past and that I’m offering right now in the fitness industry.

Accelerated Results Guide:

I’ve offered ARGs for a lot of products. They’re a great “go-to” bonus for me in the fitness industry. Everyone likes getting results faster, so this bonus has a lot of value. Plus the same general “acceleration” principles apply to each product, so once I have the first guide written it only takes me a few minutes to adapt it for each product I promote.

Motivation Guide

This is another “go-to” bonus for me. One of the biggest reasons (according to most surveys I’ve seen it’s actually THE biggest) people fail to get in shape is because they’re not motivated. Even if they start a program, they never follow through with it. Often they stop just as they’re about to start getting great results.

I consider myself to be a pretty good expert on motivation. I actually sold a product on motivation up until January when I lost all my websites (long story – don’t skimp on webhosting), at which point I decided I didn’t feel like being thought of as one of those “motivation guys”, so I decided rather than re-setup my website (which wasn’t making me too much money anyway) I would just use my motivation expertise to help people actually stick with their fitness program.

My guide to motivation goes with any fitness program (except the two I’ve seen that have their own excellent motivation information that is pretty much the same as mine), so it’s a great bonus to offer. I offer it for almost all my promotions, but I always have another bonus or two just in case someone already has the guide.

Productivity Guide

My third and final “go-to” bonus. Productivity may not seem related, but it is. The #2 reason people don’t get in shape? They don’t have time to workout or cook meals. By showing them how to be more productive with their time, I help them create the time they need to cook good food and get exercise.

I don’t think a lot of people see the value in it, partly because if they have a guide on productivity they lose their excuse for not following through, but also because productivity is boring and most of the stuff on productivity doesn’t work for most people. But I make sure I explain why they want it and I provide other bonuses in case they aren’t interested in this one.

Guide to Better Sleep

Sleep is an important part of healthy living, so I have a short guide on getting better sleep. I only offer it whenever I’m not offering an ARG as I cover sleep in my ARGs. Basically my guide helps teach people how to sleep 7 or less hours a night and be fully rested. None of that silly “9-12 hours a day” garbage. I, for one, am not wasting half my life sleeping. I have way too many things to do.

This guide appeals to those people who are like me and want to have more time in their day to get things done. It also goes really well with the productivity guide. The productivity guide helps them get more out of the hours they have, and the better sleep guide helps them have more hours to be productive with.

Muscle Recovery Guide

This is one I particularly like for the muscle building products, but I can also use it for weight loss products as well. As I mentioned above, it sucks being sore after workouts, and this guide helps eliminate that pain with 10-15 minutes of work after each workout.

Some people don’t want this though because they like that feeling of pain. They associate it with a job well done, a sense of accomplishment. I (and most of the world) think they’re insane, but there are actually quite a few of them and they see no value in a guide like this.

But for people like me, it’s a great bonus. I just don’t offer it to the “insane” section of the market.

Mobility & Flexibility Routines

I’m pretty flexible (I can touch my toes with the palm of my hand) and I like to show off that fact because I know a lot of people who can almost touch their shins. About six months ago while I was working construction for my dad I was talking to one his employees about fitness and I wanted to show him how effective my 10 minute routines are, so I hopped off my ladder and in my work boots (they have 2.5 inch thick soles) I put my feet together and touched the floor with my fists without bending my knees.

When I stood back up I suddenly heard my dad say “Do that again!”. So I did. He was so impressed he asked me if I would show him my routines. My dad had NEVER shown interest in any of the stuff I do or teach before, so that’s when it suddenly clicked.

I had been taking my flexibility for granted. There are a lot of people who can barely touch their knees, and I can show them how to do way better with a quick routine they can do when they get up or before they go to bed.

My dad in a few weeks went from being able to touch the middle of his thigh to touching just below his kneecaps. I’m so proud of him.

HINT: You can get ideas for bonuses by seeing what you do that wows people. If people say “wow”, you’ve probably got a good bonus offer or even a product for you to sell.

Knee Pain Routine + Secret Weapon

I referenced this one above. I promote an excellent product called Bulletproof Knees. It’s the best guide to knee pain I’ve seen, but it’s HUGE. So I took the entire thing and came up with a few routines that will get most of the results from the program in 10-20 minutes/day so people can get started immediately.

This is key because living with knee pain sucks (I know, I’ve got genetic knee problems and I played competitive soccer so I’ve gone through a lot of knee pain) so people want to get rid of it as fast as possible. They don’t want to have to read through 300 pages of stuff before they can start getting some results.

The secret weapon is something I just happened to find out about by being aware of what is going on in my market and I realized that it was perfect for getting rid of knee pain (and muscle imbalances), and I used it to become pain free in under a month.

So I tell people what the secret weapon is, where to get it (and I am an affiliate of it so I can make money off my bonus), and exactly how I use it to get rid of knee pain.

30 Days Email Coaching

I only offer this one when I have the time/desire to actually coach people through email. Basically all I do is I give them my email address and they have 30 days after purchasing to ask me questions about the product and how they can use it/adjust it for them.

Most people don’t even take me up on this, so I’ve stopped offering it nearly as much and I’m planning on only offering more personal (phone + email) coaching for higher priced products and my own programs.

Legend or Myth Myths

This is a bonus I’ve started putting together for a product that is launching in the beginning of October. It’s called Vince Gironda Legend or Myth and it’s basically a bunch of muscle building information from a bodybuilding legend.

The biggest problem with the product is there’s a number of ideas that are flat out wrong, and a good portion of the information is highly disputed. Then there’s the fact that it’s pretty darn easy to find free copies of the guide just by searching for the title of the book.

My bonus basically gives my take on each section and each idea in the book. It’s like my notes on the product, and I help clear up the controversy surrounding the ideas and pull out the good stuff that is hidden in there. Separating the wheat from the chaff essentially.

I’m not sure I’ll actually promote the product since I think there are better things out there, but my bonus might turn out to be a good newsletter bribe or something down the road.

10 Minute Routines

I have a number of 10 minute routines for different goals. Getting rid of neck pain, wrist pain, foot pain (I have flat feet), knee pain, burning fat, building muscle, increasing pushup reps, chinup reps, etc. I can pretty much create a 10 minute routine for any fitness product.

These are great because some days you don’t have time to perform a full workout, so you can refer to one of the 10 minute routines so you still get results. They won’t be as good as following a full program, but they’re way better than nothing. And if you can’t make 10 minutes available, you’re not trying hard enough.

How to Deliver Bonuses

For affiliate promotions there are three main ways you can deliver your bonuses. For Clickbank products I use a WordPress plugin from Jonathan Teng called the Automatic Bonus Delivery plugin. It’s the same one Andre uses on the site mentioned above.

You can also automate bonus delivery with an email address. Just setup an email address that automatically responds to every message sent to it, and have it automatically give them the bonus details. Then tell everyone who purchases to send that email their receipt # and they’ll get the bonuses.

Some people might figure it out and abuse it, but it’s much easier than delivering all your bonuses by hand. So it’s up to you whether or not you want to use this method.

Then there’s always the manual way. They purchase a product, send you the receipt and either you or an assistant checks the receipt to make sure they purchased through your link and then you send them the bonus details.

If you want to give out a bonus for registering for a webinar you have a few options. You can just send everyone who’s on the registration list the bonus, but this requires the ability to email those people. If you aren’t the one running the webinar, then it’s all up to the person who is whether or not you can do this. So if that isn’t an option, then have them forward you the confirmation email or something like that and then you send them the bonus.

If you want them to attend an entire webinar to get a bonus, simply ask them a question that can only be answered if they stay on until the end of the webinar (what was the last slide, how did he sign off, etc.) and have them email you the answer and you can manually send them the bonus. Simple as that.

For surveys you can usually set it up to automatically redirect to a page of your choice. Just have it redirect to the bonus access page.

Additional Tips

Get graphics made of the bonuses. Fiverr is nice and cheap and has some great people. Also, depending on the bonus you can take a screenshot and use that to represent the product (particularly if it’s software). Graphics are appealing, help the person visualize what they’re getting, and often increase perceived value. Just please, please PLEASE don’t use crappy graphics. It’s better to have no graphics than bad graphics.

Come up with a sexy name for the bonus (no, I didn’t use my sexy titles above because I’m always changing and testing them). I could say I have 5 mobility and flexibility routines or I could call it Touch Your Toes In 10 Minutes a Day. Which is more appealing?

Another thing to remember is to not offer bonuses that are worth way more than the product. That’s just stupid. People in the IM niche do this all the time. They promote a $47 product and offer their $2,000 home study course (or a bunch of bonuses equalling roughly that amount) as a bonus.

There are a number of problems with this. To start with, it decreases conversions. If you have to try that hard to sell a $47 product, how crummy is that product, and what kind of upsells/backend sales do they have that make it worth giving away $2,000 worth of stuff? Or maybe your evaluation of your bonuses is garbage, your products aren’t worth nearly as much as you say they are, in which case you’re a liar who will do anything to make a sale. That isn’t increasing conversions or creating a good customer experiences.

Lastly, when people claim their bonuses, get them on a customer list. These people have proven their interest and proven that they’re willing to spend money. They are way cooler than the freebie seekers, so you need to get them on a list where you can treat them like the cool people they are and work them towards the bigger sales (the ones that help them more – not just the ones that cost more).

Take Action!

3 Things You Should Do Now:

Find out where offering a bonus would increase conversions
Figure out what the perfect bonus offer would be & put it together
Set up a delivery system and start offering the bonus

It may seem like a lot of work to create a bonus, and it is if you’re a “fly by night” or build 1,000 websites and hope a few of them make some money kind of person. But I know you’re better than that, so just put in the effort and I promise you it’ll be worth your time.

Remember, having an amazing bonus separates you from all the other “me too” marketers that just plug products and say every high converting offer is the best thing ever (I’ve got lots to say about that at a later date).

Shawn Horwood

ABOUT Shawn Horwood…

Shawn Horwood is a fitness expert, affiliate marketer and information marketer. He makes the majority his income through affiliate marketing at ShawnHorwoodFitness.com and his other fitness websites.

Secrets To Starting Paid Membership Sites in Crowded Markets

Justin — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 21:22:32 +0000

Are membership sites still possible in this down economy and ultra crowded markets?

Rather than guess at the answer, I hit up my list of contacts and got on a call with Ryan Lee. In case you’ve never heard of Ryan, he’s the guy behind Continuity Summit.

He got his start in the fitness industry when he started a train the trainer membership site back when he was still in college. Never once thought of it as a “route to millions” he was just doing what he loved.

Since then he has taken that site and several others to multi-million dollars in revenue. His supplement company, ProGrade is one of the most talked about supplements in the fitness industry for it’s ultra high quality.

He’s fostered some of the Internet’s most popular fitness industry millionaires. I could just keep going on and on with this guys track record. Instead, let’s jump on the call together and hear from the man himself.

If you would like to learn more from Ryan and I, we’ve got a special offer for you.

Join Ryan Lee’s coaching program for just $29.95 and get live coaching once a week from him. Plus all his past products, seminar footage, and other goodies. Then send me your receipt, and as an added bonus I’ll give you access to my weekly live coaching program too!

My specialty is getting traffic and conversions. I’ve built several of my own membership sites, but I’m not the king like Ryan is, however, I can get traffic and sales like no other.

Let me know how I can help, in a comment below. Or just let us know what you thought of the interview.

Increase Your Website Conversions by Telling Lies?

Justin — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 12:51:07 +0000

This is a guest post by Jimmy Wrex. You can check him out at NicheExperiments.com.

Yep, you read the title correctly . . .

But before you close the browser window and or hit the back button let me just say this. All successful marketers are liars. This is how Seth Godin puts it:

Entrepreneurs must forsake any attempt to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and must instead focus on what people believe and then work to tell them stories that fit and enhance their worldview.
(All Marketers are Liars)

Taken out of context that could translate as “say anything to make a sale.” But that’s not what Seth is saying here. The point is that effective marketing relies on good story telling, and good story telling does not include all of the facts.

Stories are how we communicate ideas and make sense of the world, its been that way since the beginning, but good stories alone are not enough to constitute good marketing in this low trust world. Lets face it, if all it took was a good story to encourage action I wouldn’t be writing this blog post now, I’d be desperately writing and sending checks to the Nigerian royal family who’s emails keep ending up in my spam box for some reason.

To make a story truly effective for internet marketing purposes it needs to be 3 things:

Authentic (undisputed origin)
Believable (credible, convincing or realistic)
Exciting (remember that first sale?)

And nowhere is this more vital to your success than on the internet, because as we all know it’s easy to pretend to be something you’re not when hiding behind the computer screen, and as time pushes on we’re only going to become more skeptical and scam savvy.

So take a look at your blog or niche site and ask yourself whether it is all 3 of these things. If not then maybe some changes are needed, but we’ll get to that later.

Let’s take a look at a 2 examples from the internet marketing world that really float my boat (so to speak).

Frank Kern – Man or Myth?

Frank is probably the most famous internet marketer alive today. He’s made millions of dollars from product launches and is revered and hated in the internet marketing world, but never ignored. Frank polarizes opinion, and he’s cool with that.

Franks success is down to his story. The videos he frequently appears in (his medium of choice) tell a story about success. They tell a story about a regular surfer dude who hangs out with his millionaire buddies having fun and making crazy money. It’s no accident that he shows off his expensive computer equipment, fancy cars and luxury home. It’s all about creating desire. Some people love the story and some hate it – but everyone knows it and that’s what matters.

Pat Flynn – The Family Man Done Good!

SmartPassiveIncome.com by Pat Flynn is a perfect storm of internet marketing story telling. Pat makes the story believable by showing an in depth monthly income report. He makes it authentic by constantly reinforcing his values (providing tons of free valuable information). And it’s exciting because he’s the “average guy” who made it to $30,000 per month.

I can pretty much guarantee that although most of Pats readers will claim to be reading his blog for the internet marketing advice, they will also be able to tell you intimate details about his personal life, but of course, only the ones he wants us to know

5 Story Telling Strategies That You Can Implement Today

OK, so now we know that story telling is your conversions weapon. Whether you’re looking to get traffic or sales, telling an effective story is the road to success. Here are 5 strategies to help you implement and emphasize a good story on your website.

About Page – Utilize your “About” page for maximum effect. Of course you should sell the benefits of your website here but don’t forget to also make your emotional connection here too. Let’s face it, if they clicked the “about” tab they are as open as they are ever going to be to hearing your story. Make it authentic, believable and exciting. How you do that will depend on your niche, but get this right and you’ll turn traffic into real fans (and not just Facebook fans).
Guest Posting – Getting your name and website featured on an authority blog (like SITEFling) is like getting a recommendation from them. Remember how Frank Kern is always hanging out with his super successful internet buddies on his videos. I bet he has tons of non internet types as friends too but they just don’t add to the story. We don’t care if his friend Mike is a pilot. So guest posting within your niche is aligning yourself with the real players in your industry. Having your name on their blog is like having them say, “this guy is one of us and that cant hurt your story, right? It’s called success by association.”
Social Media – Facebook and Twitter are the perfect place to share details about your life and to let people get to know you. Robert Cialdini says that, “people do business with those that they know, like and trust.” So allowing people to get to know more about you than just your view on Twitter marketing is a good story telling strategy here.
Social Proof – What tells a better story, a Facebook fan page with 10,000 fans or a page with 10 fans? 200,000 Twitter followers or just 2? How about a blog post with 100 comments or zero? I rest my case.
Blog Design / Theme – Do you want to be seen as an authority like news websites? Would you rather be seen as traditional? Maybe you want to be seen as cutting edge and cool? Choose a design and theme that stands out and tells your story. If you decide to just go for the standard free WordPress theme that everyone uses, well that tells a story about you as well . . . and it’s not a good one.

So there you have it. Choose your story wisely. Make it authentic, believable and exciting, but also make it true (or as true as possible) because you don’t want to be caught telling lies.

ABOUT Jimmy Wrex…

Jimmy Wrex is a Niche Experimenter! He loves nothing more than trying out new money making methods with his buddy Pete, and then documenting the results on their blog at NicheExperiments.com.

8 Steps To a High Performance Landing Page

Justin — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 16:00:21 +0000

Does your website disappoint you with how many sales per day it brings in?

You’re NOT ALONE! Thousands, maybe even millions of website owners are not getting as many sales as they wish they were.

One of the BIGGEST PROBLEMS is almost all of them are driving traffic to their “home” page. The RIGHT WAY to do things is to drive traffic to specially designed landing pages.

When you just let all your traffic go to your home page it’s hard to speak directly to anyone. It will be a mix of different genders, age groups, and interests.

Instead you create a specific landing page for each different “target audience” or even for each different traffic method.

Then your conversions GO NUTS! People start filling out your lead forms and buying your products, because you are targeting their specific interests and hot buttons on that page now.

Here are my 8 steps to creating a great landing page that will surely increase conversions.

1.) Set Goals

Each landing page should focus on one action you want the visitor to take. That can be a click, download, fill out a form, buy something, or click a share button.

Define what action you want your visitor to take and define a response rate you would consider a success. For example, if 25 visitors out of every 100 filled out your form then you consider that a success and anything lower means the page needs some fixing.

2.) Choose Your Audience

I know you want everyone in the world to buy your product. And they can. But you need to create specific pages for each type of person you think would buy your product.

For example, My wife’s parenting site has two main types of visitors. They are both moms and both are women, but they have VERY different needs. One is a first time mommy and the other has between 3 – 5 kids.

One landing page addresses the concerns of a first time mom and the other the concerns of a veteran. You can have as many landing pages as you need, and it’s worth it too because they will increase your sales by ALOT.

3.) Choose Your Traffic Sources

This step is not mandatory like the first two, however, it can significantly improve your conversions. For example let’s say you were getting an endorsement from the White House for your amazing service.

You would want a very clean and professional looking page. You might even mention on the page how thankful you are for the president to endorse your services. Then all of a sudden you get an endorsement from Justin Bieber.

A boring clean professional site won’t do anything for the Bieber fans, they’ll want something bright, busy and fun. Now these are extreme examples but they were to show a point. Google traffic is different from Facebook traffic and Facebook traffic is different from an affiliate who just promoted you to his entire email list.

4.) Create Your Offer

Since each landing age is now going to have a specific action and a specific type of audience, what is the best offer for that audience? If your landing page is to get people to download a report, what report would create the highest response rate?

If your page is to get them to fill out a form, what thing can you give them in exchange for filling out the form. On one of my niche sites, ProTourLifestyle.com, I offer them free interviews with the stars of that market in exchange to fill out my form.

These interviews are from people every visitor to my page will instantly recognize and want to hear from, so my page converts VERY HIGH. Well above 50% of the traffic fills out my form.

5.) Write The Copy

Now it’s finally time to write the words that will be on your landing page. These words should speak directly to your target visitor, match the ad that sent them to this page, and also describe the benefits of your offer.

Start off with a headline on the page that summarizes your offer and explains the biggest benefit. One we are considering for my wife’s child behavior course is “Does Your Child Embarass You.” It’s powerful and any parent who has had a child throw a tantrum while out shopping will instantly relate.

Make sure you have some bullet points that list out all the benefits of your offer. Not the features, but the benefits of owning that offer. How will it make their life better? Finally add in some proof or testimonials that show the visitor that your offer works or has been loved by other people.

6.) Design The Page

When designing the page make sure to use colors that your visitor will like. If I sent new mommies to a page with black banckground, neon green buttons, and blood dripping from the header it wouldn’t work too well.

However if I sent them to a page with a light pink background, white pages with dark grey text, and some cute pictures of babies then it will make them feel like they are in the right place.

Make sure to use element that make important parts of the page stand out or put emphasis on things you want the visitor to do. Arrows work VERY WELL!

7.) Drive Traffic

Start out slow at first, with a low budget. Make sure you are watching how many visitors and howmany actions they are taking on your page. Are they staying on your page long enough to read your message or are they leaving right away?

If they are bouncing right off your page then you’ve done something wrong. They are not interested in what you are saying. Try a different headline or try adding a video to the page.

If they are staying on your page for a couple of minutes or at least long enough to read your copy, but not taking any actions then your offer is not good enough. Try changing it or adding more to it.

8.) Analyze, Test, & Tweak

Ideally, a landing page is never finished. There is always something else you can do to it to get just a little bit more performance out of it. I like to use a tool called Unbounce to create all my landing pages.

Reason why is because it’s got a drag & drop page builder, tracks how many visitors you got, tracks how many actions they took, and also lets you make copies of your landing page with a click of a button.

With those copies of your landing page you can either create slightly different versions for each type of visitor your have or each type of traffic. Then you can create more copies to test different headlines or different color order buttons.

Unbounce was designed specifically for people who do what I’ve just described. In my opinion, it’s the best tool on the market for serious landing page creators. Plus, it lets you use extensions of your own domain name so that everything stays branded to you and no one knows you’re using a tool!

If you have any questions or want me to review one of your landing pages leave a comment below. You might be featured on our live show that airs every Tuesday night at 10pm. Plus, you never know when we might just pick you for a free landing page makeover just so we can have a great case study for our blog ;-D

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Clever Ideas For Increasing Email Subscribers

Justin — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 18:02:18 +0000

Quick, tell me if you’ve ever heard this one…

…The money is in the list

Yeah, i’m pretty sure you’ve heard that a few times. The irony is that IT IS STILL THE #1 PROBLEM FOR WEBSITE OWNERS!

For many people they feel like building their list is something they’ll do after they start making some money. Yet, anyone who is monstrously successful online will tell you it should be the first thing you focus on.

In fact I’m so focused on it, that I brought in a heavy hitter, Derek Halpern of SocialTriggers.com, to help me increase email subscribers on SITEFling.

Enter The Wizard of Opt-in Conversion Optimization

Derek Speaking @SobCon 2011

In case you haven’t heard of him yet, I’ll give you the quick run down…

Derek Halpern is the Chief Persuasion Officer at DIYthemes (Thesis Theme), where he focuses on list building, conversion rate optimization, and blogging.

He also runs SocialTriggers, a blog that teaches you how to improve your internet marketing efforts with the findings from psychology, neuroscience, and obsessive analytics.

Derek has been called the “Drake” of Internet marketing due to his quick rise to fame and powerful history. He’s doing so well that he’s even caught the attention of mega-bloggers Chris Brogan, Jason Falls, and Brian Clark.

Seeing how quickly his success was growing, I immediately contacted this Tyrannosaurus Rex of Internet marketing.

Derek’s Metric Ton of Email Subscription Increasing Tips

The magic behind Derek is his ability to increase leads and sales from your current traffic. If you don’t have traffic then he can help you with that too, but his main focus is on conversion rate optimization.

The top marketers on the web are fighting for a chance to get Derek to critique their websites. Inside these critiques Derek delivers bombshell after bombshell of great advice for increasing your email subscribers. None of them are “hard” to implement either, but all of them are powerhouses.

Below you will find the recorded website critique Derek did for SITEFling. In this video you will learn several clever ideas for increasing your email subscribers.

If your want more great tips from Derek, subscribe here

Prior to this interview/critique with Derek I had been watching all of his other critiques. After watching each of his critiques I immediately make a to-do list of ideas I want to implement for my own site.

Before Derek critiqued my website I had already doubled my daily subscribers. Still he found things I had overlooked and I’ve got another long to-do list of ideas to implement. If you’re interested in increasing email subscribers with your blog, I’ve linked to each of Derek’s video critiques below.

Derek Halpern Critiques SmartPassiveIncome.com

Derek Halpern Critiques ThinkTraffic.com

Derek Halpern Critiques DavidRisley.com

Derek Halpern Critiques DangerousTactics.com

Derek Halpern Critiques ChrisBrogan.com

Derek Halpern Critiques IanBrodie.com

Derek Halpern Critiques VirtualBusinessLifestyle.com

Derek Halpern Interview on StoryView.me.com

I recommend watching them all and making a giant list of ways you can increase your email subscribers.

Before you go, if you liked this article could you do me a solid and share it on Facebook or Twitter. If you have any list building tips that have worked well for you, tell us about them in the comments below. Or if you have questions about building your list, ask in the comments below and either I or the SITEFling community will answer it for you.

Beware The Tyrannosaurus Rex of Marketing

Justin — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 13:00:30 +0000

Imagine if T-Rex were still around today, he would go around eating whatever he wanted.

Running away would be useless…

When confronted with a hungry T-Rex you have two options; You Eat Him or He Eats You.

What if I told you that YOU ARE BEING CONFRONTED BY A T-REX RIGHT NOW?

I’m not talking about the dinosaur anymore, I’m talking about that guy (or gal) in your market who’s kicking ass and taking names. That marketer who is making relationships with all the right people, writing the hottest blog post that are getting shared virally, everyone’s talking about him, and he’s selling more and more product everyday.

Do you know how the T-Rex is in your market? Is there more than one?

If you were out in the jungle back in the dino times, wouldn’t you want to know EXACTLY where all the T-Rex’s were?

Your market is the jungle now, and there are guys/gals out there looking to eat you up. They don’t care about your excuses, heck they eat the excuse makers first. If you want to survive in business you need to be thinking there is a T-Rex after you, literally.

Whether you choose to believe it or not, there is that person in your market who is savagely hungry. He or she is on a tear and they don’t care who is in there path they are determined to become #1. If you can’t even identify them, oh boy, you stand no chance at all. You won’t even see him coming until you feel his bite.

How To Identify, Tame, & Kill a T-Rex

I know i’m having a little fun in this article by referencing a legendary creature. However, I fully believe that the comparison fits. Someone trying to steal the top spot in your market is as dangerous to you as a T-Rex. Now, let’s talk about how to survive and even conquer this T-Rex.

First Step is Identification

If you wanted to identify the real T-Rex you would just need to look for footprints and the loud noises he makes crashing through the jungle.

The T-Rex of marketing leaves footprints and makes lots of noise as well. Just look for multiple guest blog posts as well as interviews or videos with other influencers. If you start noticing several bloggers in your industry talking about or featuring the same person, BE CAREFUL, that’s the T-Rex coming for you.

WARNING: There is a rare and sneaky new breed of T-Rex. This new breed is harder to find because they are hanging out inside emails and private invite only webinars. The only way you can catch this stealthier species is to subscribe to every email list, fan page, and twitter stream in your market (be ready to add Google+ to the mix as well).

When you see 3, 4, or 5 people start sending emails about one particular person in your market. Maybe even sending invites to the same webinar, that’s the T-Rex. Once you’ve identified the T-Rex it’s time to start squaring off, because you can’t run forever and you certainly can’t just let him eat you up!

Tyrannosaurus Taming 101

Have you ever gone to the circus and seen a lion tamer? Ever wonder how they can be in the same cage as the lion and NOT BECOME DINNER?

I’ll tell you exactly how it’s done…

Growing up I used to live next door to a guy who was an exotic cat breeder. That was what he did for a living and his backyard was filled with cages containing some of the rarest cats in the world. Inside one of those cages was A FREAKING MOUNTAIN LION!!!

Can you imagine my 12yr old face the first time I climbed the fence and saw a damn mountain lion in my neighbors yard???

After many days of my neighbor seeing my head popped over the fence, he invited me over. I got to watch him handle all the different cats, he taught me about each species, and then he said he had to clean “Magnum’s” (the name he gave to the mountain lion) cage.

When he stepped into that cage with the mountain lion, I almost messed myself. Then I immediately started shaking because I thought I was about to witness the death of my neighbor. I think he saw how scared I became, maybe it was the knee’s knocking, or maybe it was the slow backward steps I was making?

That’s when he taught me how to tame a lion. He said “Don’t worry he won’t attack me because he thinks I’m a lion too.” As a 12yr old boy I didn’t really understand that too much, but I did understand it later on in my life when I became a business owner.

Now when I recognize a T-Rex in my market, my first step is to show them I am a T-Rex also. I know that if they think I am a T-Rex just like them then they will think twice about trying to eat me, because, a battle of two T-Rex marketers just gets REAL NASTY!

Instead of running away from them, or avoiding them, or watching them eat my lunch… You should contact them, introduce yourself, and ask how you can help them while leaking out some detail that shows them you are a T-Rex also. Maybe this is how many subscribers you have, or how many years you been in the biz, or even just dropping some big names.

Now you have tamed the T-Rex, yes you are helping them, but at least now they don’t want to eat you.

Much better to be a T-Rex buddy than a T-Rex dinner!

Conquering The Tyrannosaurus

After you’ve tamed the T-Rex, you can keep him as a friend. Feeding him more of what he wants over time while also leveraging your relationship with them to feed yourself. Maybe you are blogging about them, or hosting webinars with them. Then they reciprocate with their audience because you are friends now.

Now you can go tame another T-Rex, and another. Until, one day you’ve got an entire iPhone full of T-Rex’s on speed dial.

Once you’ve got all the T-Rex’s in your market tamed you can leverage your army of monsters to send yourself to the top of the market. Be careful though because if any of your new T-Rex buddies smell that you are trying to take food away from them they will turn on you.

It only takes one of them to turn on you, because that’s the one who is going to leverage all the other T-Rex’s against you to shoot themselves to the top.

If you are not too greedy and you still look out for their best interests, making sure they get to eat plenty, then they will willingly help you become a leader in the market. Make sure you are a generous and kind leader though or else you may find yourself confronting a new pack of hungry T-Rex’s helping a new guy take over the throne.

Don’t let the flamboyant imagery of this article fool you into believing this is just for fun. I’m hoping the imagination and unique viewpoint helped you enjoy the lesson, maybe even inspiring you to click the share buttons, but the underlying lesson is CRITICAL to your success.

I’ve been to the top of two different markets and working my way to the top of another right now. The lessons in this article have put over a half million dollars in my pocket and even more for all the T-Rex’s I’ve helped on my way up. If you take this serious, AS SERIOUS AS REALLY BEING CHASED BY A T-REX, then you too can have unlimited success in your marketing.

Remember, it’s not what you know… It’s not even who you know… IT’S WHO KNOWS THEM!

As always I’ll be reading every comment so if you have comments or compliments I’d love to hear them below. Especially if you have an oddball market that you think this concept won’t work in, tell me the market and I’ll tell you how it works.

7330 Words Explaining How I Get Paid To Work At Home

Justin — Tue, 24 May 2011 14:56:50 +0000

Ok so, for the past 3 months I’ve been getting more and more messages from close friends and family asking how they can get started doing “what I do.” What most of them don’t know is how much work actually goes into running an online business from home (I often feel like the picture lol). After spending HOURS writing to them individually I figured I should be posting this somewhere public. So, I dedicate this post to my close friends and family that want to start making money from home.

In this post, you’ll get the short and skinny on the 3 most popular ways to make money form home, a quick how to guide, plus what I’d do if I lost Justin and had to do it all on my own…

A Message From One Of My Best Friends In Middle & High School

In the picture above I only told my friend about two ways to make money from home, but really there are 3 main ways. I’ve broken them down here with a brief description to help you get an idea of what path you want to take. I don’t suggest trying them all at once. Pick one to focus on based on your skill level and the time you have to put into making it work.

1. Running An Internet Business Or Promote One As An Affiliate.

I describe this a little in the picture above, but starting your own internet business involves thinking of something you’re good at – a hobby, a topic, anything that you could teach to someone. Then creating a product which can be a simple ebook, short videos, etc. From there you put up a website, and get some visitors. It’s not all that simple and will take some work, but the results are FAR greater.

As an affiliate you would skip the whole product creation part and just start promoting someone’s product. You’ve most likely seen this before but didn’t realize the person was an affiliate. For this step you’d go out an tell others about products that are helpful and earn a commission for selling it.

In the mom world we have what’s called, “Mommy Bloggers.” They are proud moms sharing all of their experiences online. In the process they post reviews about baby slings, strollers, food, formula, clothing, training programs (like for potty training, or getting your kid to sleep, etc). They spend time every morning writing about products and then if anyone buys the product from their review they earn a commission.

You don’t have to be a mommy to be an affiliate. There are affiliate programs for car parts, travel destinations, pets, the list goes on. If you have a hobby that you LOVE to talk about there is most likely an affiliate program that you can promote and earn money just for talking about something you love to do.

2. Become a Service Provider

This is the one I see most moms gravitate towards especially when they first start out online. They’ve heard of other people that do medical billing or medical transcription from home and earn a decent wage. However, what they don’t know is that there is a HUGE market for online services that is pretty easy to break into. It’s called freelance work, freelancing, or being a freelancer.

There are LOADS of freelance websites where businesses post jobs that they need done and then you’d go in an “bid” for the job. As a freelancer you can do simple tasks and get paid $15 or take on large projects getting paid hundreds per week. It all depends on you.

As a freelancer you can take on tasks like being a virtual assistant, handling customer support for a company, data entry, graphic design, video creation, creating PowerPoint presentations, programming, etc. Pretty much any task a business has can be hired out and believe me, they are hiring freelancers to get it done!

NOTE: I go more in depth on how to get started as a freelancer in the next section of this post. For now, here is a list of available job categories on just one of the freelance websites. See if you can find any you could work in…

3. Turning Your Talents Into Cash

Ever since I was little I have ALWAYS loved crafts. I love scrapbooking, painting, and even taught myself to sew. Many moms have been turning these hobbies into cold hard cash using Facebook, Ebay, and websites like Etsy.com.

Thousands of moms around the world are spending their time making custom items like handmade hats, room decorations, customer outfits and scrapbooks. Then using sites like Facebook, Ebay, and Etsy to put those products out there for moms to buy. This is an amazing way to add some extra income to the house if you’re a stay at home mom (or dad).

I’m sure I’ve left out another way you could earn a living online.. but for me these are the three I know I could make money with any day everyday. So let’s move on to HOW you can get started with each of these methods.

SIDE NOTE: The teacher in me is begging you to get out a pen and paper. If there is anything I know best it is that many people will read this blogpost, go into information overload and give up on working from home before ever giving it a chance.

So do me a favor, pull a sheet of printer paper out and divide it into 4 sections. At the top of each section, write down Business Owner, Affiliate, Services, Talents. Take 10 minutes and ask yourself these questions:

In the Business owner section – ask yourself, “what do I know that other people want to know about?” Child rearing, new mom experiences, programming a computer, hand crocheting clothing, how to make doll clothes, teaching children, counseling through grief, how to shop for the best bargains in town, how to make homemade baby food. ANYTHING you know that someone else might want to know about.
In column #2 ask yourself, “What topics do I love talking about? Or what products do I love bragging to other people about?” And wouldn’t mind getting paid to talk about it everyday…. For example, if you love the outdoors and could talk about hiking, camping, and fishing all day any day – what products do you use when you do those things? Backpacks, boots, fishing poles, canoes, kayaks, hats, clothing etc.
In the service provider section ask, “What skills do I have?” Can you type fast in word processing, are you a killer video editor? DO you know how to build backlinks? Can you install websites? NOTE: if you have no clue what backlinks are or how to build websites you might ask yourself… am I willing to learn how to do one of these (in demand services) very well and offer it as a service that I could do everyday for businesses?
In the fourth column ask yourself what types of things you LOVE to do. Whether it’s scrapbooking, sewing, designing, or making remote control cars. if you LOVE to build it there are people out there buying it. Write it down – it’s a possible income stream.

OK now that you have some ideas on what you could do for each work at home business model it’s time to learn how you can get started…

Let me first start out by telling you that – Getting Started Working From Home IS Going To Take Work!

I want to start off this section by letting you know that “working from home” takes work. Most people have this idea that I get to lounge around on my couch half of the day and then work only an hour or two. That’s not the case at all… I do however have a VERY flexible schedule that allows me to enjoy lunch and movies with friends whenever I want, but it normally involves a longer work day the following day.

In all honesty I work around 5 hours every day. But there are some days when I work “overtime” at 10 hours in a day and other days when I only work an hour just to follow up with email.

Ever heard the phrase, “you get what you pay for?” Well, working from home is the similar only, “you get what you put in.” The more you work on your business the more successful it will be. So, in the beginning you will put in more than just an hour or two every day. If an hour or two is all you can spare – then just know it’ll take you longer to succeed, but you can still succeed.

…Here we go!

Justin and I regularly run challenges that walk people through the process of starting from NOTHING to creating their product and selling it online. It’s a paid product (because it’s our internet business) but it takes you from A-Z of everything you need to know.

With that said, you don’t have to pay for what we’re teaching you. There are THOUSANDS of blogs and forums on the web where you can learn the process for free – it just takes more time and trial and error to get through it all. Choose whichever you’d like, but here are the basics:

You need hosting for your website. We use Hostgator and HIGHLY recommend it. The baby gator plan is enough for the beginning and you can upgrade when you need to (which is normally when you’re making a big profit

You need to build a website (or get one built for you). You can build a website using a free site like Weebly.com. However, I have to admit that WordPress is JUST as easy and you can get one installed for under $20 using sites like Scriptlance.com.

With WordPress there is just a little more of a learning curve than the drag and drop ease of Weebly. When I say learning curve, I don’t mean weeks or months, I mean it would take you a couple of days to learn what you need whereas with Weebly you could have your site built today. Either one is a great option – WordPress just gives you more room to grow.

Now, here is what you’re going to put on your website… you are going to need to write a salesletter that sells the product your offering. Again, to learn how to be a killer salessletter writer (copywriter) you’d have to buy a course or go through one of our challenges. So I don’t expect your first one to be spectacular, but if you’re not up for paying to learn then you can either read through blogs and forums or use a proven salesletter as a template for writing your own.

You’re going to need a way for people to pay you for your product. Paypal is a SUPER easy way to get started and they have tutorials on how to put your “buy” button on your website. However, you should know that in the future you’re going to need a shopping cart. Justin and I use Nanacast for it’s flexibility and awesome features.

Now that you have a website and a way for people to pay, you need to get your product created! This is often a very intimidating step in the process but it doesn’t have to be. Instead of walking you through it here, I am giving you free access to one of the lessons from our coaching series. Learn how to create a product with our 30 Minute Product Creation Lesson.

Getting people to your website. This is an ongoing step where you’ll need to continue to grow and build more and more techniques for bringing people to your website. This step is called “website traffic.”

For my first suggestion, I would tell you to go into the forums in your niche. You’re going to go to Google and type in “your niche + forums.” In the “your niche” section you would type in the topic of your product. For example, counseling, remote control cars, parenting, etc.

Next, you’ll create an account in the forum and start chatting on the topics. In the signature (what shows up at the bottom of your post) you would put a link back to your site. That way, every time you post you’re linking back to your website. When you post an answer that is helpful to the members of the forum they want to learn more about you and end up clicking the link to your site.

This method of driving traffic is free but it takes time. You’re not going to make hundreds of sales, but you will make some. I use this method EVERY TIME I start a new internet business because the links in the forum last for the lifetime of the forum – so you continue to get traffic to your website years after you created it. I still get sales for my very first teaching product that I started back in 2007 and the only traffic going to the course is from the forum marketing that I did.

Once you’re ready to learn more traffic tactics we have step by step traffic training.

As an affiliate you’re going to follow many of the steps as an internet business owner – only instead of taking time to develop a product you’re just going to promote someone else’s.

There are many ways to be an affiliate, but for me there is only one and that’s as a blogging affiliate. A blogging affiliate has their own website. They spend their days writing product reviews ad articles for target keywords in their niche. Then on their blog they would like to related products with their affiliate link (a special link that tracks when it’s clicked and if the clicker purchased the product. If the visitor does purchase the product you would earn a commission which is normally anywhere from 4-75% depending on which product you were promoting.

Here’s how I would start promoting affiliate products.

You need to research a niche that you want to promote products in. For the simplicity of this post I’m going to suggest an “outdoors blog.”

Let’s say that you LOVE fishing. While at work you spend your time thinking about where you’re going to stop and fish on your way home. On your vacations you have favorite fishing spots that you love to hit. And you spend your free time researching the best fishing lures, lines, poles, etc. (OK so this is a little extreme, but hopefully you get the point that you should find a niche that you’re interested in. Writing about something that bores you to death just because other people like the niche isn’t going to help you become successful).

Justin wrote a great post on niche research a while back that goes a little more in depth. You can check it out here – Picking A Niche

You need hosting for your blog. Again, I’d suggest going with Hostgator and installing WordPress (remember you can get this installed for you, or simply call Hostgator and ask them to walk you through how to install it yourself).

I don’t always recommend doing everything yourself because it becomes overwhelming and deflates your excitement for starting to work from home. Having it installed for you for under $20 costs you less time – time that you can spend learning the next step to making money.

You still need a way to get paid. So, you’re going to register for Paypal. Most affiliate programs will pay you direct each month to your Paypal account. You can download/withdraw this money whenever you want to your bank account. OR you can get a Paypal debit/credit card and use the money direct from your Paypal account.

Now that you have a blog and a way to get paid you need to have products that you’ll review and post to your blog. Sticking with the fishing example, here’s what I’d do next… Start writing blogs about your favorite fishing spots and the types of fish you caught. In your post you’re going to talk about the fishing pole you used or a specific fishing technique – these can be affiliate products that you’re promoting.

You can sign up to be an affiliate on Amazon – you’re only going to get 4-8% commission for anything you refer in there though. So, I would suggest that you research a keyword in your niche and then the word affiliate program. This will help you find affiliate programs that you can sign up for in your niche. It may be an information course that shows you how to find the best fishing spots, how to pick out the best supplies. Or you could simply be an affiliate for specific products and websites on the web.

In the mommy world, I get a referral commission for anyone that I get to register for diapers.com and purchase something. There are all sorts of affiliate programs out there. I suggest you find a couple in your niche and start blogging about them – remember you’re not specifically saying – “click here and buy this product.”

You’re blogging (writing articles) about how you’re using the product, what’s makes it so awesome and then waiting for the readers to click the link and register. (NOTE: I’ve used it a couple time in this post alone – I showed you how I was using a website, and then linked you to the site using my affiliate link.)

Now, you need to let the world know your blog is out there. You can share it on Facebook, chat in forums (like i mentioned above). You can bookmark the site. I don’t want to overwhelm you with the many ways you can drive traffic, but just know you need to start driving traffic to the site. The more visitors you get the more affiliate sales you make.

As a freelancer you’re going to need to market a skill that you’re good at. Justin and I are product owners which brings in the majority of our income. However, we often “moonlight” as freelancers for different skills that we have – like copywriting, graphic/webdesign, email marketing, etc. These aren’t skills we were born with. They are skills we learned to do well, and can now offer them out to others in need of them.

We do have experience as freelancers, but I wouldn’t say that we’re experts. With that said, I have to suggest a book that will cover EVERYTHING you need to know.. it’s called, “How To Be A Rockstar Freelancer.” If this is a method to earning an income from home that you want, then I can’t recommend this book enough. They also have a report called “Freelance Confidential” that would be a good read for you to get started too. Ok, now here is a brief overview for getting started.

The first step in this process is for you to decide which skill you’re going to freelance for. This could be a skill you already have or one that you’re going to spend the week learning. For example, my sister was looking for a way to earn some extra cash for her senior year. I needed some backlinks built for one of my websites.

So, I spent the day showing her how to build backlinks for one of my websites (well, I gave her a course that taught her how to build backlinks I should say). She then learned how to build them – practicing on my site. From there we put together a small website and an offer so that she could sell that service to other people in need of backlinks.

You can do the same! There are all sorts of services that you can freelance for online and there are just as many people looking to hire you to do them. The key here is to be good at what you do, deliver on time, and market your services so that you’re seen over all the others out there trying to do the same thing. Check out that picture I posted above and find a service you want to do.

Next, you need to build your portfolio. This will most likely involve you working for free for 2 or 3 projects just so you can get some proof that you know how to do the service, get testimonials/references, and feel confident in yourself that you can do this to make money from home. If it’s a skill you already have then just collecting some references that potential clients can contact is a good idea.

This step is similar to building a resume that you would submit at an interview for a boss. You want to showcase your talents and build a good reputation.

Building your website should come next, however I know many freelancers that don’t have personal websites. They simply use freelance website profiles and get jobs that way. I’d suggest building a site if you intent to do this long term, if you need to showcase your work (web design, copywriting samples, etc.). If you’re going to be a virtual assistant, bakclinks builder, wordpress installer etc there isn’t really a portfolio for you – you would only need good reviews on the freelance websites.

Now, sign up to freelance websites. There are hundreds of websites where you can register, create a profile, and start bidding on jobs around the world right now. Here’s a few that I personally use as well as many of my friends that own businesses: freelancer.com, Scriptlance.com, WAHM.com (Work At Home Mom) and oDesk.com. Odesk offers skills tests that you can take to help you prove your skills to perspective employers (since you won’t have work experience on there when you first register).

If/When you register with Scriptlance, I highly suggest underbidding your price to get hired for a couple jobs in the beginning so you can build good reviews. Many people won’t hire you if you don’t have a track record of quality work.

To find more places where you can get hired I would suggest looking in forums in your niche. For example, the WarriorForum is a popular forum in the internet marketing niche where you can post your services in the “WSO” area as well as look for jobs people are hiring for. Another forum to check out is WealthyAffiliate.com.

You can also do a basic search in Google for “freelance jobs” and find hundreds of sites that you can register to. NOTE: you should never have to pay to apply for a job – this is how many are scammed and I’m trying to prevent that from happening to you.

Finally, you want to market yourself. Just as you would drive traffic to your website for your product, you’re going to drive traffic to one of your profile pages, or your personal services website. If you created a website for your services, then I’d suggest you blogging about your topic. For example, if you are a ghost writer or copy writer, I’d write blog posts on how to choose the best writer for your project, or the 7 tips for finding a highly skilled copywriter, or the top 5 reasons to hire a writer, etc.

This is also where you should ask friends and family to get the word out. We often get web design jobs or copywriting customers based on referrals from our friends and family that know our abilities. The book I recommended before, How To Be A Rockstar Freelancer, also has two chapters that focus on getting hired, making a steady income, and marketing yourself – which will really hep you start earning an income faster.

On a daily basis I can think of a new way to make money online and it drives me BONKERS when I don’t have enough time to get them started… and I go even crazier when I know a friend or family member that could easily run the site if we just took the time to build it. In this section, I want to share how easy it is these days to do something you love and sell it online.

One of my most recent ventures included using some of my hobbies (and inspiration from our new family addition While I was pregnant with Cherry, I was looking to make a couple automatic websites that would earn money and didn’t require a TON of my time since I would be spending a lot of it caring for Cherry. Well, in my free time with my swollen feet up on the couch I was constantly researching different home craft projects I could make to decorate her room.

In the process I found a BUNCH of craft niches where moms, dads, teen girls, literally thousands of people around the world are buying things like hand crocheted hats, cloth dolls, stuffed animals, wall decals, and so much more. They’re looking for information on handmade crafts, decorating rooms, designing dresses for prom, etc. These are skills that you may know how to do already or learn how to do to fulfill a need in a market of buyers. Here’s the next step:

Pick your talent… I know right now you might be thinking something like, “but I don’t have a talent” or “I’m not THAT good at my hobby.” These are cop-outs that you’re giving yourself to NOT be successful working from home. You have a talent, could learn one, or get better at one if you REALLY want to make money from home.

With that said, pick what you like to do and find out what it’s going to take for you to start selling it. For example, while pregnant I often shopped on Etsy.com. The bad thing about that was that I would look through the stores and say.. I could make that. Then I’d spend the day researching how much it would cost me to make it and ship it.

You’re going to do the same thing. Think of something you’re good at or know how to do. Then find our where people are buying it online. How much are they buying it for? How much will it cost you in supplies, time, and shipping? (remember you want to actually make money here – not break even – so be sure you’re giving yourself a wage you’d be happy with).

NOTE: if you’re one of those still doubting that you can make something at home that will make money then I want you to “shop for a hobby” by going to Etsy.com. Better yet, go to Fiverr.com and look through all the THOUSANDS of things people are getting paid 5 bucks to do.

Ever think you could get paid to go to the beach write a persons name in the sand, take a picture, and send it to them? Now what if you went to the beach took 15 names in the sand… that’s $75 a day. Do that 5 days a week and you’ve earned $375 just for going to the beach and writing in the sand.

Look, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist you just have to be clever and determined to make it work. Now, go to Fiverr or Etsy and look through the “popular” or “featured” items and see if you can do/make/or outsource any of the items that are big sellers. Start up a list of things you CAN do or things you’re interested in doing.

Next, you’re going to want to research keywords in the niche. Find out what people are typing in to find those products. For example, when I was looking for room decorations for Cherry, I typed in “butterfly room decorations” into Google. I found HUNDREDS of ideas, but ended up buying card stock butterflies from a mom that sells a package of them for $15 (plus shipping) on Etsy. Could I have made them myself? Yes, but it was convenient for me. Also, how much time do you think it took her to make those?

Here’s how you’re going to research your keywords:

Go to the Google Keyword Tool
Type in the name of your niche – girl room decoration, butterfly wall decal – think of whatever someone would type in to find your product in google. Now write down ALL the keywords that have more than 800 searches a month.
These are most likely going to be long tail keywords that you can rank for just by writing an article on a blog. Once you rank for them, you can start getting traffic to your website, or Etsy store, or Facebook Page where you’re selling the products related to what they are searching.

Make a list with the keyword, then how many global searches it gets per month.
Now go to Google.com and type in those keywords one at a time with quotation marks around them. Just below the search box Google is going to show you a number. This is the number of websites that have that keyword on it. When the number is below 50,000 you can rank for the keyword in the Google easier and faster.
Search Google for every one of your keywords that you wrote down from the previous step and write down how many pages are showing in Google. (once you’ve completed this list, just keep it aside for now – you can use this later.

Once you have something you can make and sell (that also has buyers) you need to make 1-3 of them (depending on how much it will cost you). If its custom scrapbook pages, hand painted signs, or even tutus – you may already have the supplies or it won’t cost you a lot to make a few of them that you can use in the next step.

Now you are going to register to Ebay.com, Etsy.com (if your hobby can be sold on there), Facebook.com and Fiverr.com. These are all places where you can start selling your “talent.” Take time to set up your profiles, contact information, really learn how to use Ebay, Etsy, and Fiverr. You might even buy something from them so you can see the process the customer has to go through to purchase something.

Now you need to market your talent – this is where you’ll actually make money so pay close attention to how to use these sites

Ebay

You can use this site both as a consumer and seller. you may be able to buy your products from overseas a a fraction of the cost you’re paying in retail shops. As a seller, you want to learn how to post your product for sale. But you’re not just going to put the item up for sale – make sure you write a great description that includes WHY they would want to buy it, the best way to use it, and some benefits for having YOUR product.

A good way to get good at writing your Ebay listing is to look at others that are already doing it.What are they writing? Is there someone that’s blowing everyone else out of the water? If so, watch them and follow what they are doing and try to implement it on your own listings. Success is already proven, don’t try to walk a new path – follow what the successful are doing and duplicate their success.

Etsy
This is where you’ll create a store to sell your products. This is also why I had you create 1-3 of your product. Post your product up on etsy. Worried you’re going to do something wrong? DON”T fear of the unknown will paralyze you. Etsy knows your fears and even created an amazing “how-to-do-everything on Etsy guide” that you can follow along with. (BTW – when you take action and your product sells – don’t forget to comeback here and let me know )Here’s a few tips for you…

Create a Brand – don’t just use your name for your Etsy profile. Create a crafty and catchy name – but don’t go too far on this creativity curve. You still want to sell, not just have a cute name. Some of the mommy blogger I follow have etsy pages named after mashing their kids names together, sometimes its just a Rhyming name with theirs or one of the products.
Don’t put up a clipart picture for your logo. Go back over to Fiverr.com and get one created for you for just $5. Search the word “logo” click on “rating” and then select someone from the list that has a good profile. Give them a color scheme you like and some details for what you want to represent you.
Link to your etsy page from your blog (if you created one), your personal facebook profile, and your Facebook page (don’t worry I’ll get to this in a minute). This will help you get the word out about your store. Ask your friends and family to share the link too! They are so proud of you for starting your own business – you just have to ask them for help.
When you’re listing your product for sale, don’t just write “name of craft” $5. You want to be descriptive. Write creative descriptions that show not only how cute and perfect your product is, but how great it’ll look in a little girls room or how great it’ll look on the mantle come Christmas. Talk about the benefit and enjoyment they’ll get out of having it as a conversation piece on their dinner table. Hopefully you’re getting the idea and if you’re not find me on Facebook and we can chat more.

3 Things to remember when you’re listing a product.

When you post your listing ALWAYS post with a picture. Basic pictures (most likely taken from your phone) can get you started, but if you have a “real” camera, or have a family member that loves photography, ask if they’ll come by and take some photos for you. Really showcase the item in the photo so it catches the browsers eye.
When I purchased the butterflies, the lady had photo’s of them in her little girls room near a window using the natural light instead of the flash with glare – I don’t know if they’re still there, but the picture was perfect and i fell in love. I HAD to have them for Cherry’s room – the picture can sell it all.
List often – I hear that the more you list the more active your store stays. When you don’t list, you don’t make sales. SO be sure that you’re regularly adding new items. Also, when you’re ready for it (and in the beginning you’re not) but look into Etsy Treasury. This is where you can be featured on the front page of Etsy. NOTE: It’s not for self promotion, but if you’re product is good, others can nominate you.
Be VERY descriptive in the title. Use some of those keywords that people are searching Google for in the description. When buyers search Etsy they normally have some idea of what they want or they are looking for more ideas. You want to show up in the Etsy search – your title and description are what get you there. This goes for Google too! ..just look at this picture:

>down the road you can even buy ad space on sites that will send more buyers to your store. For now, just do the steps above and then come back to learn more

Fiverr.com
This is a site where you can start selling anything for just $5, and if you’re looking for quick cash or if you’re looking to make some side income – this is where you can do it. I can’t tell you how many times a week I go to Fiverr.com both for business and for personal items that I want/need done. If you’re selling something that costs you $2.50 or less to create then post it for sale on here.

These types of products are normally digitally created (because there is no shipping or supply cost, so you get more of the 5 bucks to keep as profit. BUT, I have sen others selling headbands, socks, etc on here for $5).

So create an account, post what you’re willing to do, and write a KILLER description on the benefit of why the buyer should buy from you. One thing I’ve noticed is that the people with the most positive ratings ASK for it. So once you deliver the product be sure to ask them to leave feedback. The higher the positive rating, the more you sell. NOTE: I haven’t used the featured option, but this might be something you test once you make the money to pay for it.

Facebook
I left this one for last because it has the most room for growth and a TON of ways you can use it. Many of you (especially my friends and family reading this) only use Facebook for personal communication with you old high school buddies, old neighborhood friends, or just to keep up to date with family. That’s exactly what Facebook is for. However, you can take that a step further by using all that “socialness” to get the word out about your products or services.

You have probably already encountered a “fan page” (now called a Facebook “page”). These are pages that businesses, rockstars, movies, magazines, books etc. use to allow their fans to follow them and interact with them. Well, you can use this to build your following for your business. Many moms have created fan pages and regularly post sale items, advertise new items, and even hold midnight auctions to make sales every day for their at home business.

You’re going to do the same thing. Simply create a fan page. Upload your photos and start getting fans. Sounds easy right? Well, it sort of is… getting Facebook is as simple as asking for it. Remember to hit up your friends and family.

Also, search Facebook for other fan pages that have similar items. Become a fan of their page and start talking to them as your page. Their fans will see the interaction and start to get curious and check out your page.

You should also join giveaways. You’re going to supply the giveaway with coupons to your Etsy shop or giveaway some items for free. Then the giveaway members will like your page (spreading the word about you) and if you are consistent with posting more products and chatting with your fans you’ll build up a strong customer based. Believe me – there are a few shops that I frequent just to see what deals I can get, but shhhh don’t tell Justin lol…

You can also use paid advertising through Facebook. You might be a little intimidated to try it, but it’s something that can bring you more fans and more sales. So when you’ve taken in everything I wrote on this post, comeback and read for some more because I promise you’ll have forgotten something.

WOW – this post is really getting lengthy, so I’m going to stop before I completely paralyze you. (I probably already have… but here’s something that will help – I created a cheatsheet for you. I WANT YOU TO SUCCEED – so PLEASE print this and TAKE ACTION. Chaunna’s Become A WAHM (or WAHD) CheatSheet (Right click and save file as)

PS. I know in this example I use a TON of “girly” hobbies – but that is just because I’M A GIRL lol. I don’t have an interest in rc cars, I can’t build tree houses, and I can’t tell you the difference between an airs of gun, pellet gun, or bb gun…those just aren’t my thing. BUT, you could sell custom tattoo designs, blueprints to pimped out tree houses, video training for martial arts, etc. Just find out what people like you are buying and then give it to them.

You know I had a TON of pregnancy hormones running through my veins not to long ago and the over dramatic female came out constantly worried about how I would get by if something ever happened and I was left Justin when I had

a newborn,
an 8 year old,
an entire business (that Justin is the main face of),
and a house of bills to pay

So here’s my plan. (BTW – I’m assuming I’m starting from scratch , not just maintaining the business we already have).

First, pull up my boots, stop whining, and know there is always a solution to a problem. I’ll most likely need to call on friends and family, so hit them up for help watching the kids so that you can get some work done.

You can work from home with your kids, but know that a couple of hours of focused time will be WAY more productive than 20 minutes here and there for an entire day. So, use friends and family when you can – then work as much as you can while they are napping (which is what I’m doing currently)…

Then start selling my skills. Services are the fastest way to get your bills paid and I’m not a millionaire yet, so I’m not going to be sitting on a cushion on savings that I can use to cover all the bills. So I’m going to offer my skills to get the bills paid for the first few months while I work on building an automatic income because an automatic income doesn’t just show up overnight.

Over the past 4 years working from home I’ve picked up quite a few skills and contacts, so I’m going to email all of my business contacts telling them I’m available for hire and offer my services. In that email I am going to showcase everything I’ve learned – copywriting, email marketing, customer support, membership site creation, fulfillment, and management, even graphic design.

While I’m waiting to hear back from them, I am putting together a portfolio of all the graphics I have ever created. This includes – ebooks, websites, banners, affiliate ads, Facebook fan gates, logo’s. Once I have the portfolio, I’d build profile on all of the freelance sites and start bidding on projects.

That’s round one of making my income on my own. Next up, I’m building my fanpage and Etsy store so that I can bring in a regular customer based of moms.

Finally, I’m gong to start building an automatic income. This involves me finding a niche that I can teach in. It will most likely be an information product for moms, new moms or parents. I’ll search for a group of people looking to learn a skill – this could be something along the lines of controlling uncontrollable kids, building backyard tree house, maybe how to make money as a mom from home.

One thing I know is that there are literally hundreds of ways you can use the internet to bring extra cash or to make a full-time income. It just takes your determination and drive to make it happen.

There will be a LOT of obstacles, but a true entrepreneur or someone that TRUELY wants to stay at home or work from anywhere in the world is going to find a solution and overcome the obstacle. That’s what it’s going to take – you just have to ask yourself are you willing to do what it takes?

WOOOHOOO you have officially reached the end! WOW I had a lot to say. I could have probably turned this into a product to sell online by itself. What I want you to do now though is hit the PRINT button or SAVE THIS (and a facebook share wouldn’t hurt either ). I covered a lot of information and gave you a lot of options. Now you need to print Chaunna’s Become A WAHM (or WAHD) CheatSheet (Right click and save file as) and get to work.

Don’t forget to friend me on Facebook – I’d love to keep chatting with you about the path you’re taking. OH, and leave a comment below to tell me which path you’re taking or thinking of taking. Ask me questions and I’ll give you feedback so you’ll get started on the right foot I want to see you succeed.

4 Questions Every Marketer Has On Their Mind

Justin — Sat, 07 May 2011 18:46:27 +0000

Meet Rae aka @SugarRae

If you are a professional affiliate or SEO then you most likely already know Rae, and probably know her better as SugarRae.

She has the kind of reputation that enters the building long before she does…

However, if you have only been dabbling in affiliate marketing, my poor soul, you might not have heard of this lady dynamite yet. This CEO/soon to be mother/SEO pioneer has spoken on stages all across the nation.

Anyone who is anyone in the SEO industry knows exactly who SugarRae is and they know better than to mess with a woman who can pull rank! Lucky for me, I happened to see an opportunity to interview her and jumped all over it.

The information she shared is worth a fortune in the right hands. I know you’ll enjoy it and I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity. Now on with the show… Ermmm… Article!

Sugarrae Shares 4 Internet Marketing Knowledge Nuggets

- BEGIN INTERVIEW -

1.) What is the #1 most underestimated website traffic system you are using that you don’t see enough business owners taking advantage of… How can someone get started with it?

I don’t know that I use anything I’d call a “website traffic system.” It really depends on the site in regards to some of the best ways to promote it – I have a very mental strong filing cabinet of link building strategies. But, I’m a big believer that guest blogging is effective in pretty much any niche, especially in a horizontal fashion.

By horizontal, I mean promoting myself in industries that aren’t directly in my vertical, but that I can figure out how to tie myself into. For instance, if I owned a site about baking, then I might write an article for a senior living site that talked about ideas for spending time with your grandchildren – and listing baking together, with a link or two to my site along with four or five other ideas that are completely unrelated (and therefore non competing) to my niche.

The better you are at developing links and exposure with horizontal sites, the bigger the advantage you’ll have on your competitors. Not only do folks tend to think very “vertically” when it comes to link development, but the ability to find untapped horizontal opportunities takes some creativity. If you can develop that creativity and hone your guest blog pitch over time, you’ll have some serious and defensible links.

2.) Sales pages seem to be going through an evolution right now, or trying to, with video sales pages, multi-step sales pages, and simple “say it like it is” pages like AppSumo uses. Do you have an opinion or data for which is winning or when you would use which format?

It almost always depends on the type of site and the type of product. For instance, recently I had a conversation with an SEO who tried everything to sell a product for a client, but no matter how much targeted traffic the site got, there were absolutely zero conversions.

Taking a cue from Don’t Make Me Think, he had some friends look at the site and asked their thoughts. The first thing all of us said was that the product looked stiff and uncomfortable. He created a – no lie – six second video of the product showing it was extremely flexible and put it on the homepage of the site. Sales began almost immediately. In that case, video absolutely had the best conversion.

However, I’ve seen other sites where video detracted from sales – to be honest, the video personality – if a person is the “star” can make or break the ability for a video sales page to convert as well if the spokesperson turns people off for whatever reason. I think all you can really do is test.

I’ve been playing a bit with Premise and have found it absolutely awesome for landing page optimization so far. I’ll also say that social proof goes a long way on almost ANY landing page. Almost.

AUTHOR EDIT: I’ve also been playing with Premise and think it’s one of the best paid WordPress plug-ins a marketer can buy. It practically writes your copy for you, helps you split-test, gives you tons of conversion increasing graphics, and lets you create custom landing pages off your WordPress site. I’ve only added my affiliate link because Brian was gracious enough to hook me up with a review copy and I promised I’d send him sales if I liked it (tracking). However, they can get it at GetPremise.com if they would like to not use my affiliate link.

3.) Some people are switching to paid email newsletters, what are your thoughts on charging your subscribers to keep receiving your emails (under $10/mo). Would you have both options? For example free email newsletter is supported by ads and promotions, paid is nothing but content.

LOL, I have a hard time putting out a newsletter at all LOL. For me, a newsletter is merely a tool to remind people you exist. I don’t think people should have to pay to get reminded about my site. I guess it would depend on what you were putting out as far as content.

If the newsletter is more an announcement list, you obviously wouldn’t have much success in charging (nor should you really even try.) If you were putting out exclusive content, it might work. Let’s see how the newspapers fare in becoming, essentially, paid online newsletters full of original content.

4.) How important do you feel branding and content marketing are today? Are the niche mini-sites with keyword loaded domains and perfectly optimized articles dead?

I think branding is very important. Especially for an affiliate. I wrote a post I called the Affiliate Evolution almost four years ago and I still stand behind everything it says today. I don’t think a perfectly optimized article is dead, especially in small niches.

But, I prefer to spend whatever time I plan to spend building something defensible that will be around for a long time. People like to claim affiliate marketing is dead, but it’s absolutely not. It’s simply evolving and becoming harder. Sucks, but you either need to meet the new bar or start making alternate career plans if you want to last in this industry for as long as possible.

5.) Anyone on Twitter knows you like your beer… What’s your favorite?

Haha. Ok, so, I love my beer. This is pretty well known. But I’m not a “beer aficionado” LOL. I drink Coors Light in the winter and Miller Chill in the summer. And I get teased about those choices regularly. But hey, at least I drink it in bottles. Gotta keep it classy.

AUTHOR EDIT: It’s ok Rae, my uncles make fun of me an my Blueberry beer all the time. Even my female cousin said “Do they make that for men too?” LMAO

- END INTERVIEW -

That’s some powerful stuff folks! Thank you Rae for your time and knowledge, and thank you readers for sharing this article and saying hello to Rae in the comments below.

P.S. ENCORE? Tell me what you would ask Rae if you had the chance to interview her? Maybe I can get her back here for round two! Leave your question in the comments below.

Inside The Awesome Mind of Lynn Terry

Justin — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 19:53:25 +0000

Meet Lynn Terry

She is a “big dog” in the Internet marketing world and she has BIG DOGS!

I’d like to welcome you to an experience…

An experience where you will get to sit inside the brain of Lynn Terry. Only for a few minutes, but what you will learn in those few minutes are priceless.

In case you have not had the pleasure of meeting Lynn or reading her blog yet, let me throw you the highlights. For starters she’s been doing this “make money online” thing since most of our beloved gurus were still in school.

Now I dare not imply that she is old, not at all, in fact she’s a looker!

But I mean to say that this gal has seen it all and she is a veteran worth the highest respect. She is a super affiliate, blogging legend, and co-host to one of the most popular Internet marketing podcasts on iTunes. When she speaks… THOUSANDS LISTEN!

I had the chance to interview Lynn recently and I didn’t ask her a million questions. I sure wanted to, and the main one was “how did you get so awesome.” However, I restrained myself and asked her the 4 questions I know everyone has on their minds…

What makes a good niche market good?
What is the best way to get website traffic?
Is branding or keyword domains better these days?
What is your secret for getting inside the mind of your market?

Lynn Terry’s 4 Most Guarded Affiliate Blogging Secrets

– BEGIN INTERVIEW –

1.) What are your research methods for getting inside the mind of the target market? How do you find out exactly what they want and why they want it?

I always start with keyword research, and I generally use WordTracker. Your market will tell you exactly what they want, need, and want to know by the keyword phrases they use in the major search engines.

You can get a lot of insight by paying attention not just to the numbers, but to all the related keyword phrases – or long tail versions of the main phrase you are researching.

For example, you might decide to research “peanut butter” as a product you want to sell online. If all you look at is the number of searches for the phrase “peanut butter”, you end up missing the big picture. By looking at the entire list of phrases that include yours you’ll learn that people are not searching for the product – they are searching for information about the product. In this case, mainly recipes.

Online communities are also a great way to get a better feel for the market. This includes discussion forums, topical groups, Facebook groups/pages, etc. Anywhere your market is having a conversation. In some cases it’s important to know the lingo for the niche. Bowling products for example – you’d want to get a feel for the “league talk” so you don’t sound like a dork to your target market.

2.) What ranking methods do you have for grading the profitability or potential of a niche market before starting your work in that niche?

People teach a variety of complex methods and formulas that can simply be overwhelming to someone who is just starting out. And most of these formulas take “competition” into consideration. Personally, I think that’s a skewed metric – for a number of reasons. Competition is good, if you set out to leverage it… instead of try to work against it.

The truth is, there are no magic numbers.

Given that it only costs around $10 to get started, and $10/month to maintain, there’s no real risk involved. I might work in a small niche where I know the max profit potential (as an affiliate) is going to be ~$500/month in commissions. If there is minimal time invested, and it runs smooth on it’s own – why wouldn’t I set that up??

I have single pages (on larger sites) that have been steadily earning around $100/month for more than five years now. The keyword phrases for those pages are “long tail keywords” with very low search volume. By most formulas, a marketer wouldn’t touch them. But if you do the math, it was well worth the half hour I invested to set it up years ago…

When it comes to niche research for a new website though, the one thing I look at is Market Depth. If you only have three good keyword phrases to work with, you’re in trouble. I don’t mind if it’s a small market, as long as they are a buying market. But market depth means you have a variety of angles and highly relevant keyword phrases to work with.

3.) How important do you feel branding and content are these days? Are the old school niche mini-sites with keyword loaded domains and perfect optimization a thing of the past?

Branding and content are everything right now, in my opinion. I recommend you set out in a niche you love and enjoy, and take it all the way to max profit potential. Don’t spread yourself thin working on multiple projects, none of which you’re truly invested in.

Most “regular people” (you know, your parents and neighborhood friends) consider faceless review sites to be a scam. They’re not sure how they’re a scam, but they’re skeptical of them regardless.

Even on the micro-level, such as a single web page or blog post, I make it a point to keep things personable. This puts the reader at ease (lowers their skepticism), particularly when there is social proof to go along with it.

To give you an example, I recently targeted the keyword phrase online jobs work from home in a blog post. I posed the content in a conversation-style, based on an actual email I received that week. You can do the same by creating a blog post around a question you find on a forum, or on MyLot or Yahoo Answers.

In addition to giving the answer the searcher was looking for, in a personable and conversational way, they can also browse around my site and discover that I’ve been successfully working online for well over a decade. This adds weight to my advice. Even if you are newer to your niche, work on adding credentials that increase your credibility to new visitors.

By using a blog post with open comments, you’ll see that a number of people replied and further gave the topic credibility. This type of social proof helps the reader feel like they are on a real site, where real people agree on the topic – and with the author.

There is a sharp contrast between this type of post that evokes trust, and a “faceless” review that evokes skepticism – with the evidence being in the conversion rate.

4.) What is the most underestimated traffic method you are using right now that you think more businesses should be using?

Without a doubt… Guest Blogging.

It is the easiest way to leverage your so-called competition. It is one of the best forms of content marketing – period. It provides you with exposure to an active readership AND gives you a permanent inbound link – which helps the page or site you’re promoting to rank better in the major search engines.

Not all inbound links are created equal. When it comes to SEO (Search Engine Optimization), you need links pointing to your content. And not just any link, but a high quality relevant link – preferably in the content area of a related web page. And guest blogging is the easiest way to achieve that.

For people who run a product based business and don’t have a blog of their own, guest blogging is a great way to “blog” and make good use of the hard work the bloggers in their niche have put into building an engaged readership.

The one main problem bloggers have is consistent high-quality content. So don’t be afraid to offer your posts to those bloggers – you’re actually doing *them* a favor!

5.) Do you have a favorite cocktail you like to order at the bar?

I’m very simple – I love a nice glass of White Zin

– END INTERVIEW –

There you have it folks, the beans have been spilled. There is a wealth of value before you in these answers, literally the keys to a six figure business. What will YOU do with them?

I know what I will do…

P.S. Lynn was very gracious with her time to lend us this Interview. Please show her your support and gratitude in the comments below. If we get enough people maybe we can butter her up for another interview! What would YOU ask her?

5 Reasons To Avoid Link Exchanges

Justin — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 12:05:02 +0000

This guest post was submitted by Katheryn Rivas, who regularly writes for online universities. Questions and comments can be sent to: katherynrivas87[at]gmail[dot]com.

On the surface, link exchanges seem easy and harmless. All it involves is two parties agreeing to exchange links on their respective blogs. In other words, it’s a verbal (or email) “contract” of, “Hey, I’ll link to you if you link to me!” This way, both parties will benefit from the little bit of extra exposure in the vast World Wide Web.

Yet, link exchanges are anything but harmless – in fact, they could lower your blog’s integrity and even cause your search engine page ranking to suffer, which is the last thing any sane blogger would want to happen. Here are the reasons why you shouldn’t commit to a link exchange.

1. It confuses the real reasons why you link to others in the first place.

Think about this – whenever you decide to share a link on your blog, chances are you’re sharing it because you think your visitors would find legitimate value in the site you linked to. This means that you would most likely share the link even if the other site did not link back to you in return simply because you find the site interesting and appropriate for your visitors.

For example, if you were posting about SEO tips and you found another blog that offered great tutorials in SEO topics, then you would link to it even if you didn’t get a link in return because it is still relevant for your readers.

2. It damages your blog’s message.

While sharing a link on your blog is not at all a bad thing, sharing a link solely because of a link exchange agreement can damage your blog’s message. If you only share a link on your blog because you agreed to a link exchange, is the link actually valuable to your visitors? Would you have posted that link if the other person did not promise to return the favor?

If you answered yes, then exchanging links is not actually a bad thing in this case because you’d really just be linking to a site you enjoy. But if you answered no, then the link is likely not valuable to your blog. After all, if it were, you wouldn’t be put off by the idea of linking to it even if the other blog did not link to you.

3. It creates visitor distrust.

By posting links purely for a link exchange, you risk damaging the integrity of your blog. Your visitors trust you to provide information and links that are meaningful to them, and if you begin posting tons of irrelevant link exchanges, your visitors may begin to distrust all of the links you post. I know that whenever I go to a blog and find that all of their links are to completely irrelevant sites, I tend to question the quality of the blog I visited.

I mean, why would someone post up so many links to useless websites?

4. Search engines could punish your site.

The one thing that bloggers don’t want is for their search engine rankings to drop, but a link exchange could cause just that effect. Most search engines, like Google, factor in a site’s link popularity when determining its page rank. This means that the more links a page has pointing to it, the higher it will rank. This makes sense because typically only the best sites will have a lot of other sites linking to it.

But beware! Google, in particular, views link exchanges as being unfair manipulations of link popularity because those who participate in it are only linking to one another in order to boost their own popularity and not because the links necessarily offer anything of value.

As punishment and to deter other link exchanges, Google has begun cracking down on sites that participate in link exchanges by knocking their page rankings down. This means that your blog could fall from being in the top five search results to being in the second page, which could have a huge negative impact on your traffic.

5. There’s just nothing to really gain from it!

You should avoid participating in link exchanges just because the bad effects far outweigh the benefits. Your blog could end up losing its integrity, page ranking position, and visitors through link exchanges, especially if you participate in too many. You could gain the same kind of “link boost” by writing quality articles that people will naturally want to link to, or offering your services to their blog in exchange for a link.

For example, I’m asking Justin to link back to my site in exchange for writing up this guest post on a topic I thought everyone here will find useful. This way, Justin’s blog will receive a well-researched post, and I’ll get a link in return. This is the way a “link exchange” should work!

So, the next time someone sends you a message with an offer of a “Hey, I’ll link to you if you link to me” link exchange, consider politely declining. You can still take a look at their site to see if it’s something you truly think your readers would enjoy – if so, you can offer to link to their site without any strings attached, as it ought to be.

Best Stuff in IM: Headline Writing Cheat Sheets

Justin — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:18:34 +0000

The buck stops at the headline… Literally!

Your email marketing, salesletters, tweets, status updates, blog posts, they all hinge on your ability to write a great headline.

If you can’t write a good headline, the game is over before it even began! The email doesn’t get opened, the blog post doesn’t get read, and the the tweet doesn’t get shared.

To help you out I’ve included some of the best resources I’ve ever found on writing great headlines. In the right hands these resources could be worth thousands…

7 Cheat Sheets To Writing The Best Headlines Ever

100 Greatest Headlines Ever Written
http://ypcommando.com/tips/17.html

Copyblogger.com Headline Templates

http://www.copyblogger.com/10-sure-fire-headline-formulas-that-work

http://www.copyblogger.com/headline-swipe-file-3

http://www.copyblogger.com/headline-swipe-file

Best Headlines Ever Written by Eugene Scwartz – The Picasso of Headlines

http://www.copywriting1.com/EugeneSchwartzHeadlineSwipeFile.pdf

Best Headline Brainstorming Session Ever Caught on Tape

http://www.briankeithvoiles.com/headlinel

My Own Personal Headline Swipe File

http://sitefling.com/files/headline_swipe_file.pdf

There you go, you should never have a problem writing headlines again. You’ve got a mountain of examples to work from, and most of them are the best headlines ever written.

Who Loves Yuh? ;-D

Doers Rule & Dreamers Drool
Justin Brooke of SITEFling.com
Support Hotline: 800-758-2651

Email Is Not Dying, You're Just Doing It Wrong

Justin — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 09:24:32 +0000

This is a guest blog post by, Marc Eglon, the creator of Rockstar Listbuilding and Editor at Silicon Shovel. When he’s not building websites or mountain biking in the woods, you can find him on twitter.

Building a passionate tribe of subscribers that buy from you, trust you, and follow your advice requires finesse.

You can’t just use it as your personal sales notification system…

You need to think precision.

Like a fine swiss watch.

Here are 21 ways to to make your email marketing more effective

Manifest More Mojo

MOJO is the social glue that binds us together. It encompasses all that nice fluffy stuff that you can’t touch. Like trust. Or the feeling of truly knowing and understanding somebody. Make MOJO in your business and you’ll truly crush it. It’s your social currency.

Anyway, enough of the social media juju. Time for action:

1. Being a Human Being

Stop thinking about your “list” and think of your followers as a community or tribe. Real individuals with real emotions, desires and needs, not just a database of email addresses. And what do you mean by “traffic”? It doesn’t exist. Just real people visiting your site looking for solutions to their problems.

It’s matter of semantics but changing your language allows you to truly form the real human connections at the core of your business.

2. Be There

I recently subscribed to the mailing list for my local Apple retailer. I’m a true loyal fan and I’ve bought a ton of stuff from them (1 iMac, 2 Macbooks, 3 iPods, 1 iPad) and I recommend them to my friends. But all they talk about is their latest deals. Thing is, I don’t want a new fancy printer-scanner thingy. I’m not in buying mode right now. But I wouldn’t mind some advice on stuff like backup software or maybe a 20% off voucher that I can spend when I am ready to buy.

Point is, their job is to be there and remind me of that occasionally. I’ll buy when I’m ready to buy from them. Just don’t push it.

I recommend you take the same approach.

3. Just Ask

There’s little more powerful for understanding your tribe, forging connections and creating MOJO than asking questions. Use Google docs or Jotform to create surveys to gather information about your customers and find out what they want from you. Then give it to them. Simple as that. If you’re smart, you can even create premium content for a price and start your own product empire.

Be very specific with your questions and you’ll be able to use your responses to make major decisions on pricing, content delivery and membership models. Involving your fans in your creative decisions is what separates a tribe from a bunch of subscribers.

Bring More People To The Party

If you’re starting from screatch, your ‘offer’ is all you have. And maybe a few seconds to convince your visitor that they’re in the right place. In that time, you gotta create enough friction to get your visitors to stick around and subscribe to your emails. Here are some tactical tweaks to increase your optin rates. I have managed to increase optin rates to over 80% for some landing pages. So don’t focus on the 10% standard the rest talk about. Testing these little changes can easily ramp up your conversions.

4. Just ask for an email address.

It’s all you need. The name, dog’s birthday and child’s favorite toy can wait until you know each other a little better. In fact, just forget it – doesn’t matter a jot (unless you sell birthday cakes for dogs).

5. Use the Perfect Offer

Your offer is simply your side of the bargain – the experience you’re prepared to trade for somebody’s email address. Targeting your offer to a specific group of people will give it much more traction that trying to appeal to everybody. A good offer provides a specific solution to a major problem.

6. Split test your Offer

Use tools like VWO or unbounce to create 2 similar versions of the offer and split test. One page inevitably prevails and you’ll almost always be rewarded with some pleasant surprises. Keep the test clear by changing just 1 element at a time. And don’t get bogged down with testing fonts or headline color. Think about ways to change the tone of the message.

7. Pre-fill forms

Reducing the work your visitor needs to do can makes it easier for them. And it can reduce errors. You can only do this with specific forms of traffic (email is perfect) and you just need to copy a little bit of code. Nothing fancy. And you can always get help from a programmer on Fiverr.com

8. Use single optin

Most email service providers like Aweber recommend that you use a “double optin” system so subscribers must confirm their email address before getting any of your goodies.

Fans of this method like the advantage of integrating some additional ads in the process. But this stuff just interupts your message and hinders the flow of your site. With single optin, your customer gets what they want right away and even if the email bounces or gets sent to junk, the message still gets through. The trade off is that you might end up with some junk email addresses in your database. But we can live with that.

9. Be specific

Having all your customers land on the same page is easy, but if you want to have the perfect offer (see #2) using a customized landing page for each group of visitors will make sure your message always speaks directly to that visitor. So if you’re attracting visitors using Facebook ads for example, you can get your programmer to set up facebook connect to collect email addresses. It’s totally congruent with your visitors mindset and definitely worth the extra effort.

Get Your Emails Opened

Once you have a mailing list, the next job is to make sure your messages get through to your customers. First You need to get past the spam filters. Then you need to stand out amongst the noise of thousands more messages in your readers’ inbox.

Here’s how.

10. Use Awesome subject lines that stand out

Just like writing headlines, there is a whole world of professional copywriting and it’s easy to fall down the rabbit hole. There’s no magic formula to this but there is an easy way to find subjects that work. It’s called Swiping. Just steal them from other people and modify them for your own message.

Here are 3 places to get inspiration -

Look in your own inbox and find the headlines that stand out for you.
Check out the front page of Digg, and look on the covers of magazines like Cosmopolitan.
find killer post titles on premium blogs like Copyblogger, The Onion and The Huffington Post.

11. Tag Your Messages

A much simpler way to stand out is to add a simple identifier at the beginning of each email subject. Use a different ‘tag’ for each list. For example, I use [MOJO] for my rockstar listbuilding members, Justin uses [SITEfling] for his emails. It make’s it easy for somebody to spot your message in their crowded inbox.

12. Tell stories

This is the real juice. Instead of just trying to stand out with fancy tricks and cute headlines, having your customers eagerly awaiting your message is the ultimate goal. So try to create anticipation and purpose in your emails.

Use your emails to tell stories and leave questions unanswered. Your tribe will be looking out for the next installment of the saga so you don’t really need to worry about the subject. And just like is tip #8, you can use stuff like (part 1 of 3) in your subject lines so when part 2 arrives, they’ll be unable to resist the juicy episode.

13. The lost art of autoresponders

Email autoresponders like Aweber and Mailchimp are powerful tools. But in recent years, there has been less focus on the AUTO part and most people just use these services to send out broadcasts to promote the “launch of the latest and greatest “silver bullet” from Clickbank.

Bad Idea

Broadcasts are great to test small campaigns but when they’re working, add them to your autoresponder. Using your autoresponder allows you to truly weave your story into all your emails that talk to your customers over and over. Hit and run email blasts are over. It’s 2011 people.

14. Use Newsletters

In 2009, I was in the gym at the Holiday Inn in Bristol. I’d just arrived for my first offline internet marketing meeting and I got talking to a chap in the sauna. When I asked what his business was, he humbly replied “I write a newsletter”. I’m sure I scoffed but I think I got away with it. I thought the newsletter was dead – but I had No Idea !

The next day when I found out who that guy was. It was Martin Avis – a true gentleman amongst marketers. One of the “good guys”. I later learned that Martin makes his living from working 2 hours a week writing his “lame newsletter” with an ugly ass signup page. I started to pay attention.

Thing is… the crux of a newsletter arrives every day / week / month and the recipient expects it. Over and over. Open rates are epic and the ability to weave stories that last for weeks or months at a time helps build lifelong Mojo.

Today Pinky, we’re gonna take over the world

Almost there – your customer has opted in to your list, opened your emails now they’ll follow your every command and make you rich. All you need to do now is keep selling stuff and they’ll keep buying, right?

Dead wrong.

First off – flip your thinking and ask how you can serve your customers. Give them what they want.

Again, there’s no magic script that I can give you. It’s up to you to tell your story, create real value by teaching and sharing. Build trust and subtly weave recommendations into your emails. Put your customer first.

But you want people to take action right? Here are a couple of ways to actively engage your customers.

15. Include specific instructions

Just like in the optin process, be specific and clear about what you want your readers to do.

Click a link
Visit a blog post
Reply directly to your email
Complete a survey
Buy your software
Download your wordpress plugin

Whatever it is, be transparent. Highlight the benefits of the end result to the reader. Btw. It’s ok to ask for favors too. Just be honest. People love to help each other. It’s how we’re wired.

16. Segment your list

Focus on the 10 or 20% of readers who care about what you have to say. The people who read your emails, buy your stuff, comment on your blog posts and share your links on Facebook. They’re the people who get front row tickets at your gigs – the ones who immerse themselves.

They’re your core tribe who ignite the touch paper and help your message spread like ebola.

But don’t disrespect the rest because someday, they might step up and join your core tribe too. Just acknowledge that there will always be people who like to hang out on the fringes. Just because they’re not up front moshing doesn’t mean they’re not buying your CDs and t-shirts.

17. Open squeeze pages

We’re used to the ‘hard squeeze’. Where you must enter an email address to get the good stuff. Then there’s blogging, where free content is the norm and opting in for priority content is just an add-on that very few bloggers take advantage of.

But there’s a middle ground where you can share some information for free and still collect an email address. It’s called an open squeeze page and it’s often split across 3 or 4 pages. As the reader gets deeper into the content, they become more engaged and those who make it through to the end are highly targeted and already engaged when they enter their email address.

It filters out the free-loaders and your tribe is immediately more focused. There’s already more MOJO.

Get more visitors

Once you have the lead and follow-up machine in place, you need to find your customers. They don’t even know you exist yet so there are some simple strategies to help them find you. You can buy traffic on Facebook for example, but for now, we’ll focus on some free evergreen methods.

18. Become contagious

Now that you have a powerful message and a tribe of fans who give a hoot, you just need to empower them to spread your virus. Seth Godin calls them “sneezers”. They’re you’re evangelists. They’re powerful because they’re independent and when somebody else tells your story, they OWN in. You get to leverage their reputation and the MOJO they hold among their community.

Use a free tool like CloudFlood to add a viral element to your download pages and reward your customers for spreading your message.

19. Find another audience

There are tribes all over the internet. On blogs, forums and in Facebook. You just need to find a way to reach them. The channel doesn’t really matter – but it’s important that you find the right tribe. Your message must be congruent and compliment what they already have there.

Solo emails or email ad-swaps with carefully chosen partners allow you to leverage the MOJO of other leaders in your space. And a little bit of that trust will flow into your community. Or find somebody with a relevant product and place a link to your site in their members area or download page (integration marketing). Reciprocate.

Then there’s guest blogging. You don’t think this article is entirely altruistic do you?

20. Reward your greatest Sneezers

It’s not difficult to create an affiliate program any more and sharing your profits with those who help you grow is awesome. Just don’t expect everybody to promote your stuff. The internet is saturated with new products and launches and its a busy marketplace. Only a handful of affiliates will be worth their salt, but that’s OK. It’s just the Pareto Principle at work.

21. Start Today & Keep Going

Fact is, once your marketing funnel is set up and you know how to bathe your website visitors in MOJO, you just need more visitors. The whole process is infinitely scalable so you don’t have to work any harder to lead a tribe of 10,000 or just 10.

The best time to start is right now. Make the same effort for those first 10 subscribers as you will for your next 10,000. It’s amazing practice and you’ll learn to make your mistakes early. By the time you have 10,000 subscribers, it’ll be effortless.

Using email to create real relationships and mutual respect manifests a pre-eminence that snowballs. It’s tempting to follow the herd and send out “carpet-bomb” affiliate promotions, but you’ll lose your expert status in a heartbeat and destroy your business.

Get it right and you’ll be unstoppable. You’ll have the power of the sledgehammer with the enduring precision of a fine Swiss watch.

Now Go Crush It,
Marc Eglon
SiliconShovel.com

Blog Carnivals: Where To Join Them & How They Work

Justin — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:43:02 +0000

WheeEEE!!

For quite awhile now bloggers have been rejoicing in this little known traffic method.

Their secret is up now though, the mainstream has caught on to their little gem.

If you play well with others and know how to share then you too can cash on this strategy.

How Blog Carnivals Work

I normally explain things better when talking in examples, so let’s pretend you and I plus two of our friends were all bloggers in the same niche.

Each of us have our own blog and let’s say they’re on the topic of Tomato Growing…

If we decided that on the 15th of every month all four of us would share our best advice about a specific part of tomato growing and link to each others articles… That would be a small blog carnival.

BlogCarnivals.com an authority on the subject says…

A Blog Carnival is a particular kind of blog community. There are many kinds of blogs, and they contain articles on many kinds of topics. Blog Carnivals typically collect together links pointing to blog articles on a particular topic. A Blog Carnival is like a magazine. It has a title, a topic, editors, contributors, and an audience. Editions of the carnival typically come out on a regular basis (e.g. every monday, or on the first of the month). Each edition is a special blog article that consists of links to all the contributions that have been submitted, often with the editors opinions or remarks.

Where To Join Blog Carnivals?

There’s several sites out there that list blog carnivals, but blogcarnivals.com is the best I’ve seen so far. Not all of them are listed in directories though.

You might need to get a little clever and do some searches in Google. For example searching – weight loss “blog carnival” provides quite a few blog carnivals that are both listed and unlisted.

Lastly, if you can’t find one to join then you’ll just have to create one. Just like you would ask to join into one, you can ask others if they’d like to join yours. It would probably help if you knew what they looked like so here’s an example of a blog carnival.

But What Do I Say To Them?

If you are trying to join into a blog carnival then it’s all about the value of the content and your expertise, that’s what you bring to the table. If it’s the other way around and you are trying to recruit people for your own blog carnival, then it’s all about the free traffic and exposure you can offer them.

At the end of the day it’s worth the little bit of awkwardness and setup time it takes to become involved in a blog carnival. The free traffic, backlinks, exposure, and relationships you build will be worth their weight in gold.

Don’t put it off, get one started today! Feel free to use the comment section below to advertise your blog carnival or advertise what you have to offer for anyone else that may be reading the comments. This post will eventually rank on the first page of Google for Blog Carnivals so it could provide quite a steady source of leads for you.

Go Bigger,
Justin Brooke
Internet Mad Scientist

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