InfoPreneurs,

If you are an internet marketer and you’re looking for free, targeted traffic, look no further than Twitter. The following is how to get the most from your Twitter marketing efforts.

One of the simple Twitter marketing rules that you need to keep in mind is: asking. You read that correctly. When you build an army of followers that are interested in your content, you should learn to leverage them to get the most out of your marketing efforts. Let’s assume that you have five thousand followers from the gardening niche and you are regularly tweeting high quality information to them. The followers on your list love the tweets that you send to them and are sending back lots of positive feedback. Your next goal is to get your own followers to retweet your texts to their own followers to build your list. The question you are probably asking yourself is “why would they do that?” The fact is that, if you are honest when you tweet and you actually help people, they don’t mind helping you. Unfortunately, if you don’t ask for the retweets you probably won’t get them. So, you need to be direct with your followers in every way that you can and ask that your tweets get re-sent; trust us, this will double the response you see.

Another way you can maximize your success with Twitter marketing is to use Twitter’s search feature to locate customers who are interested in what you’re selling. When you encounter people like this, use that opportunity to ask them if you can help them. Your goal is to find people who tweet about issues that you can solve, like if they tweet about needing a certain product, or wishing they could do something. When you start searching around for such people, you’ll stumble upon many who are frustrated with a certain problem and are looking out for a solution. People like this on Twitter are easy to talk to. Follow them first, and wait for them to become your follower.

The next thing you should do is send a message to the person telling them why you’re talking to them. When sending this initial communication, whatever you do don’t mention the solution but instead talk about the problem they’re having. Then wait until you’ve had a small back and forth with the person, and then bring up what you can do to solve their problem. It’s at that point that they won’t be able to wait to see it. You will not only sell more but you’ll get more converts, too.

If you’ve been Twittering already, and you haven’t built up a target follower base, you’re not doing things correctly. A great way to go about this is to find others in your niche so that you can become their followers, as that’s better than sitting around waiting for people to follow you. Try this technique and you’ll see why it’s used by so many Twitter marketers, as it really can double or even triple your target follower base. Just find authority figures in your given niche and become one of their many followers to increase your chances of people finding you. This would notify them and if you have an interesting profile with quality tweets, you’ll see them following you back. But focus on only adding targeted followers who belong to your niche or are related in some way, because getting random followers is of no long term use. The above techniques are perfect for beginning on this long road to Twitter marketing, and there’s a lot of money to be made as long as you work hard and have patience.

Talk to you soon,

Brandon

Flexsqueeze Theme Review

Recently, we upgraded the theme on TheInfoPreneur.net to utilize, what in my opinion, is the easiest and best wordpress theme for beginners and experts, alike.  The Theme of my choice is Flexsqueeze.

Now, I have used, and use, Thesis, Ithemes, etc. and I can tell you so far, the most user friendly, versatile, and simple to use has been flexsqueeze.

I am going to provide a thorough review of the theme.  A video will also be used to demonstrate many of the graphics choices.

Being a Christian, it has always been difficult for me to support Thesis from the get-go.  When their default save button is named “The Big A** Save Button”, it is just a big turnoff for me.  Then, when it takes me 15 minutes to learn how to change the text on it, that shouldn’t be.  So, I’ve ditched them.

I have been using Flexibility free versions and paid Flexsqueeze versions for 2 years.  The premium Flexsqueeze theme is something I put off for 1 year in the name of being too cheap to spring for the paid version.  Hindsight is always 20/20, and my only regret was that I didn’t purchase Flexsqueeze sooner.  I hope you enjoy the review.  The Video below shows a lot of the graphics choices that comes with Flexsqueeze…for FREE.

Easy to Use Theme Control Panel

As you can see, there are easy to navigate tabs which allow YOU to easily change many things.  I want to highlight a few of my favorites.

Top Feature

You can easily add a Top Feature area and promote your own information products, or others.  Youtube videos are able to be embedded in about 15 seconds for a very nice, overall appearance.

Blog Layout Quickchange

You can easily change the overall appearance of the blog widths/heights, the header height, post/and page layouts, etc.  This feature is easy to find, and easy to modify.

Easy Header Modifications

If you would like to create your own custom header, congratulations!  It just does not get any easier.  I have a custom made header on this site.  I used Xheader to create an image the side of the header that I designated.  I then imported 1 picture, changed some colors, added some text, and uploaded the file.  I then enter the URL of the new header into the Header Tab and it is finished.

CLICK HERE TO REVIEW FLEXSQUEEZE

Import/Export Settings

This is an absolute time saver, especially if you are into building niche websites, and build many of them.  I have a certain style that I have setup that I really like.  I exported the settings (an Excel CVS file), and then can simply import it to my new theme.  It retains the footer information, menu and navigation styles, header choices, etc.  It is an awesome time saver for niche site marketing!

Default Blog and Text Colors and Fonts

It can be a huge pain changing colors, default font sizes, and text colors on many theme platforms.  Not so with Flexsqueeze.  It is very simple, and I can review my changes FAST.

*** The Best Reason – Quick Squeeze Pages ***

I’m not very HTML affluent.  You do not need to be in order to make some great looking sales pages, and squeeze pages utilizing the Flexsqueeze theme.  It is done for you.  This includes a wide assortment of graphic choices, and colors, along with a TON of extra graphics, buttons, markers, testimonial cutouts, etc.  I will demonstrate these in more in the video below.

Analytics/Adsense

In just a few clicks, you can have your site running Google adsense, and also tracking your tracking your visitors using Google Analytics.

Watch this Video:
[See post to watch Flash video]

I hope you enjoyed the review.  If you are interested in learning more…CLICK HERE.

Take care,

Brandon

For some of my recent ventures I’ve been undertaking, I’ve been working with a different autoresponder. 

Yes…again.

I almost feel like I am Christopher Columbus, circling the globe of autoresponder email marketing.  But I truly feel like I have found a dock to park my Pinta.  That dock, at least for the time being, is GetResponse.

Aweber is Great!  (why did I leave in the first place)

Aweber has 2 glaring deficiencies in my eyes.  Their confirmed opt-in policies, and their refusal to allow remote API single-optin access.

I love their webforms, and their ease of use.  However, the API thing is big.  What does that mean?  If you sell a product while using certain merchant providers, you can have your autoresponders automatically notified.  If they allow single optin API’s, then the customers buy a product, and are automatically placed on an email list.  Perhaps you can use this to provide updates, email marketing, address glitches, etc.  It just isn’t possible with Aweber.

Rounding 2nd….Icontact

So, based on some recommendations I received, I have been rolling with Icontact for awhile.  For any membership type sites I have, I contact has worked great.  Reason being, I can use the sign up forms provided by Nanacast.  The lack of “webforms” from Icontact is huge.  They have like….NONE.

The good part…they allowed single optins.  So, if I have a list of people, and want to add them, or move them…it can be done easily.

The lack of webforms though was a kicker.  There also were not a lot of bells and whistles.

Rounding 3rd…GetResponse

Hopefully this is the baby that will get me home.     It has the best of both worlds from what I can tell.  It also has surveys, for free, to boot.

It provides some good, basic webforms, and popups for your use.  I allows for the choice between single and double optin for manual additions, email subscribe, or webform subscribe.  You can set each to your own liking.  Best part, they have the capabilities to allow single opt in for API calls.  That is HUGE.  Huge. HuGE.  Aweber doesn’t.  You just have to contact Getresponse, tell them which campaign you need set to single, and they will do it for you.  Aweber….nope, not happening.

A couple other differences if you are in the autoresponder shopping business right now:

- Getresponse is FREE up to 100 clients.

- Icontact limited how many broadcasts you could sent per month.  Getresponse and Aweber do not.

- Icontact does not allow for “automation rules”, or moving from one list to another, auto removal from lists, etc.  Getresponse and Aweber do.

So, if you have never tried Getresponse….sign up for a free account.  What is the worst that can happen?

PS…I understand the metrics of having double optin.  I believe most experts stats show that people who double optin, are more likely to open your emails, etc.  That’s cool.  However, I want the abilities to have single optin for 2 reasons:

1) If I have a list of people I know are on a mailing list (perhaps a personal email list, or a list I know that have previously opted in, etc) and I want to place them manually onto the list.  Or how about this…suppose I hold a seminar and 20 people are there.  I can have them sign a paper stating they agree to be added to my list, and when I get home, I can add them manually to my email list.

2) The automatic API issue.  How would you like to sell a product, and think you can add the person automatically to an email list. Yes, you can use 1SC, and it will do the job fine, but then you have to deal with their horrible Affiliate program.  I’m telling you..the only solution to that is something other than mailchimp and aweber.  At least at the time of this writing.

Again, I’m trying my best to represent this issues as true as possible.  If any of you have any insights, I’m all ears.

We can even start a single versus double optin “dialogue” here too. 

And, I know some soul is going to come along and tell me..it’s not double optin, it’s “confirmed optin”…whatever.

What are your thoughts?

Brandon

-

PS…why have I not tried the highly touted mailchimp?  The double optin issue…they are in the same boat as Aweber, so that marks them OUT of my books.

Hey InfoPreneurs,

I hope your week is starting off awesome!

For those of you who missed out on the recent Blogging Giveaway held by Stephanie Mulac, you missed a good one.  I added a ton of new subscribers from it alone.  It was definitely well worth the efforts.

I’ve recently been doing some cool SEO stuff.  I’ve been starting to dominate some niches and search terms with great results.  I will plan on doing a webinar for all of you within the next 2 weeks to show you exactly what you may be missing in your business.

Talk soon,

Brandon

When you are trying to become a successful Internet marketer you need to have long term goals. The mistake that people new to IM make is that they go after instant money and short term goals that are difficult to realize. You want to always be raising your own bar but not with hard to achieve small goals that keep you from building your business. The vast majority of Internet marketing courses out there talk about helping you earn money super fast while not having to do a lot of work. In spite of living in a rapidly changing world, the basic tenets of business building never change at all. It is better to have large goals that can be broken down into smaller pieces if you want to succeed in Internet marketing. For example: you try to sell a product directly to people instead of building an e-mail list and only end up making a few sales. On the other hand, if you are actively building your mailing e-mail list, you are actually working toward a larger goal. You should always look at the big picture instead of thinking small.

Do you know what the single most important sales killer is? Make sure your blog is well designed and has a professional appearance. Your customers needs should be in the forefront of your mind when designing a blog. If you don’t focus on your site’s quality, then slowly you will realize that all the traffic that you’re getting to your site isn’t converting. A less than desirable site design makes navigating your site hard to understand and brings down your value. If you desire higher income potential you should make a better site. Making a good first impression with a professionally developed website will bring repeat customers.

Hiring someone to enhance even your simplest blog is a good idea. Spending a bit of money enhancing your site with graphics and sound can help convince customers to buy from you.

Limiting yourself to one niche is also a big mistake. An intelligent internet marketer will specialize in several items although they may market several hundred items. This will allow you to expand into other markets while branching out in your business. This is not the only method of growing your profits.

If you have a desire to earn cash and the will to work hard you can create your own financial freedom.

Talk soon InfoPreneurs!

Brandon

Alex Whalley

Effective time management is probably the biggest killer of progress, and all the motivational tapes* and SMART goals in the world will only get you so far when you take 45 minutes to figure out which is your left and right sock (*if you don’t know what a tape is – ask Mum and Dad)

Managing your time is something that is easily overlooked in the online world, because there is no set shift allocated to the time you are putting in, and more often than not there is no Sun in the sky to act as a reference either! The Bricks and Mortar world includes a 9 to 5, and part of this 8 hour ritual is a process of working, breaking, working, lunching, looking busy, snack time, watching the clock, going home. That’s how I remember it anyway. This process demands time management, and whether or not it is effective is irrelevant because you are bound by those hours, but when you are building a business online this process disappears, and what you are left with is a gaping hole called time.

Working out how best to fill that time is the easy part, it’s working out how YOU work and then actually being honest with yourself about it that’s the tricky bit.  So today I wanted to talk about effective ways to manage your time and how best to overcome distractions when you are working, because until you can learn to focus on the task at hand AND be honest with how long it will actually take you to complete it then you’re really setting yourself up for failure from the get go.

When I am working I am all over the place, and even though I try to implement the strategies I will be talking about here I still find times when I am not where I am supposed to be, so believe me – it’s an ongoing battle, with yourself mainly.

5 killer methods to help you manage your time effectively

• Set a timer.
  This seems like a no brainer in relation to time management, but it’s not just about keeping to the clock. If you have given yourself 4 hours to blog, then break this up into 30 minute sections so that the timer alerts you. Trust me, when you are in the moment time can fly by, so having that timer there is a great way to remind yourself exactly how long you have spent on any given task, whilst also making sure you work efficiently in the time you have got. Trust me, when you know that timer is going off soon, you start working a LOT more efficiently.
• Only open one window
  And tabs don’t count! I like a good analogy and this is mine. The internet is a chaotic and windy place, with information and what not flying everywhere, and you’re at your desk which is calm and organised. If you open one window, then that’s fine, you get a nice breeze, and whatever comes in is not too overwhelming. But what happens when you open another window? All of a sudden you get a cross breeze and stuff starts flying everywhere. Your wonderfully organised study is now in shambles. Ok so that was not the best analogy but it works! Open too many browser windows and you are going to lose focus on the task at hand – clear and simple.
• Disconnect completely
  Sometimes you don’t even need the internet to do your work. Writing articles for instance rarely requires the need to go online, so why be connected at all. I know that in the modern age we are all connected by default, but it’s not that hard to disable your web connection momentarily. I personally do this because too often I found myself writing a post, going to a site to reference a link or an article and then getting carried away with something that caught my eye.
• Give yourself a break
  This hardly seems like the best thing to do considering the purpose of managing our time effectively is to ‘get shit done’ but giving yourself a rest does more for your overall effectiveness than you would think. But don’t feel guilty about it! I still give myself breaks, sometimes I will take a whole night off because the kids are particularly bad and I am tired or something, but then I will feel guilty for it, thus defeating any good the rest could have done. Don’t do this!  Alternatively, if you have been working for an hour and tracking well then tell yourself that you can have a coffee and a walk around after 30 more minutes. Somehow this increases efficiency? Don’t ask me why though, I’m not Dr. Phil.
• Be Honest with yourself!
  This is the one that will kill you if you get it wrong. Here’s some personal examples.
  I am still learning to accept that it does indeed take me well over 30 minutes to actually create an entire blog post in wordpress, images and all. (I Know this is because it SHOULD take me 10 minutes so therefore I tell myself it will)
  I am still ignoring the fact that I know my children wake up all through the evening, constantly interrupting my work time (yet I still set goals based on the optimistic hope that just this once they will both sleep through)
  I am still trying to do too much and add more things to that pile everyday even though I know I still need to master what I have already learnt if I really want to get anywhere.
  Until you can be honest with how you work, what makes you tick, and acknowledge the realistic nature of the environment you work in you are never going to be able to manage your time effectively or work efficiently for that matter.

Alex Whalley, also known as The Keyword Research Blogger is the author and founder of The Keyword Research and Niche site marketing blog.  Alex recently quit his fulltime job to concentrate on niche site and search engine marketing. Subscribe to his Keyword Newsletter to get the Ultimate Keyword Research Resource and learn how to generate waves of organic traffic to your blog today. You can also Follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his Blogs RSS Feed.

Hey InfoPreneurs,

In this article…I want to talk with you about EFFECTIVE Backlink Building. I have a couple of tips to share with all of you.

First: You cannot have a successful website unless it’s visited by people within your target audience. While it’s true that there are other ways to get your target audience to come to you, search engine optimization is still most people’s choice. But what’s essential to any search engine optimization campaign? You need to focus on getting backlinks to your site that come from authority sites. You are about to learn about some techniques that will help you build links that will help you succeed.

You should concentrate on building high quality backlinks, but this doesn’t have to be hard and inconvenient. Yes, you should consider making backlink comments on other blogs that are related to your niche. You probably think that making these comments will take too much time. But all things considered, this is where you have to make a smart decision. You are allowed to put your link and name in your blog comments. However, it is important how you make your comments and on which blog you put them. First, the blog’s topic should be related to yours so that the visitors will also be interested in your site.

Second, you should be certain that the blog has a high page rank because making comments on this type of blog will provide great backlinks that will be beneficial in more ways than one. Third, stay away from blogs that have a “no follow” tag. In other words, you want the search engines to view your backlink as a good one. There are online tools that you can use that can tell you if a blog is “no follow.” or not Finally, when you’re putting up your link there, don’t leave your name in the anchor text, but try to use your product’s name. Once you start playing around with this technique, you’ll realize that there is more to it. So jump right in and start using it.

Another linking building tip that you can use is to submit your website to a few internet directories. There many available online directories where you can add your website for free. Since many of these directories have a strong page rank in the eyes of the search engines, your backlink will be considered credible.

It will be time consuming to submit your links to all of these directories, but the time will be well spent because you can gain hundreds of backlinks in the end. However, if you don’t want to do this boring work yourself, you can always hire someone else to do it for you. In order to use directories to your advantage, find the ones that are related to your niche. When you finally get a hang of what you’re doing, you will then recognize the real value of directory listings. Later on in the future, you can commit to putting the links to your site on huge directories such as Yahoo and DMOZ. Obtaining a backlink from them might be hard, but can give you a huge boost in the search engine listings.

Not many people know of the methods of leaving links on various blogs, besides the common commenting thing. You probably haven’t even considered guest posting on someone else’s blog to get that link. There exist blogs that allow other people to post on them, and you only have to use the search engines to find them. Any marketing expert will tell you that this is where you want to go if you want lots of links pointing back to your site and you want the exposure as well.

Get Link Building Folks,

Brandon

All in all, you can gain plenty of quality backlinks if you just follow these tips.  What do you think?

Kiesha

Since I’ve moved, I’ve been faced with the challenge of finding new like-minded people to network with. Social networking is so important because it’s the most effective way for me to find new clients.

Word-of-mouth recommendations from people you know make the biggest impact when it comes to business referrals and takes the least amount of money and effort.

What if you could meet 10 new people to network with within the span of a few days? Ten people might not seem like a lot, especially if they don’t convert to clients or sales. But what if each of them sent you 2-3 new clients? Would you see the value in that? That’s 20-30 new clients/sales!

I haven’t met my 10 new people quota yet, but the progress I have made is very promising. I found meetup groups in my area just by conducting a search on MeetUp.com.

I was immediately exposed to meetups at local restaurants and hotels and even some online. I’ve already made contact with a few people and even found a blogging convention that’s being held in my area in March of 2011 – I would’ve otherwise missed out on this awesome event if I hadn’t just happened to make contact with the person who’s organizing it.

I’ve joined several groups in my area and intend to discover more. Who knows what opportunities are in store when I attend the next meetup event and deliver a compelling elevator speech. The possibilities are endless.

So go ahead and checkout the site and find some new people to meetup and network with.

Do you know of any other great meetup group sites? What suggestions do you have for finding networking events for people who have moved to a new city?

Image Credit

Kiesha is the author of We Blog Better and Christian Blog: Highly Favored. She’s a technical Writer, former writing instructor, and blogging consultant for small business owners. If you’d like to know more, read her extended bio. Connect with her on Twitter, Google and subscribe to her newsletter for blogging tips & tricks.

Phil

If you are anything like me you work extremely hard to get visitors to your site. You may spend money promoting your site through things like pay-per-click search, banner advertising or other form of online advertising, or you may spend endless hours utilizing social media to drive traffic. But what happens when visitors finally arrive at your site?

Are your visitors buying your product or service? Are they opting to receive your newsletter? Are they subscribing to your members-only content?

Finding ways to get qualified prospects to arrive at your site is one thing, but making them do exactly what you want them to do is another kettle of fish altogether. Achieving massive traffic is totally meaningless and pointless if you are not able to keep your visitors and turn them into buyers.

An effective web based business is all about converting browsers into paying customers. This is measured by what is known as a “conversion rate”, which is a measure of how many visitors it takes to make just one sale or capture just one lead – to work out your conversion rate as a % you simple take the number of orders/the number of visitors.

So why is conversion rate important? Well, conversion is the key to running a successful business online. Improving your conversion rate is a very cost effective way of growing your business dramatically without actually attracting more visitors. In most cases, it will be cheaper to make some changes to your website to improve the conversion rates than it would be to pump more money into advertising and promotions to attract more visitors.

Regardless of whether you are operating an e-commerce website or an info-based site, below are 10 simple ways to improve your conversion rate and turn your visitors into paying customers:

1. Provide quality products or content: Its all about quality. You have to give your visitors a real reason for been there! Show what great value your product or service is, and tell your visitors HOW your product or service will make their lives better.

2. Grab their attention immediately: Put your most important statement at the top… the first thing they see! Never put anything important below the scroll of the web page (the bit that you don’t see until you scroll down). Make all your top-selling and important products or services accessible from your homepage directly. And, ensure your website has a fast load-time as visitors get bored waiting for pages to load and will simply move on to the next site.

3. Its all about the customer… all of the time: People really don’t care how good you are. Visitors will respond to your offer ONLY if you can successfully make the case that your website exists purely for them, to provide them what they need and offer a solution to their problem.

4. Design your site specifically for your target audience: There is no real solid rule that every visitor should come into your site directly through your homepage. They could go straight to your sites main product or service pages. Or, they could go to a specially created landing page that is designed with that specific type of visitor in mind. Visitors from Google’s Adwords program may land at a different welcome page to that of visitors clicking through from a recent press release, etc. Provide the right visitors with the right content to make them WANT to spend their money with you.

5. Make it easy: Everything has to be quick and easy. Make the site design simple and easy to navigate. Make the purchase process easy and problem free, and make the delivery of their purchase seamless.

6. Improve site copy: Take a look at the wording of your site currently, and think about how you could re-word and explain what you have to say in a better, simpler and more shinning light. Remember, talk about the benefits and why your products and services will solve their problems, rather than what your competition has to offer.

7. Think active: Try using active voice to keep your customers motivated and fully engaged in the sales process. Active voice is more dynamic, making the visitor feel that you are speaking directly to them. They become more engaged, and you are closer to a sale or a loyal customer.

8. Increase trust: Trust is a massive and key element of success on the web. Visitors will only return to websites they trust. They purchase from websites they know will safeguard their information, provide them with quality service and offer products that are of real value for money. Assure your customers that you will maintain their privacy through a privacy policy, add it to your site and make it easily accessible to all at any time and in every location of your site.

9. Build loyalty: Loyalty marketing is a proven technique to increase conversion rates and improve bottom line. One possible way is to institute a rewards program in order to entice customers to invest more time on your site and give you more data about themselves.

10. Study your metrics carefully: Set yourself a series of KPI’s – Key Performance Indicators – that you can look at every day to understand the pulse of your business. I.e. An e-commerce website should have info on the source of orders, list of most popular products, daily unique visitors, cards started/updated, checkouts started, order, revenue, cart creation rate, checkout rate, average order size, revenue per customer, etc.

Those who can analyse their site traffic in such great depth, and then draw conclusions based on the numbers, will not only allow their site to survive as a viable online business, but will also reap huge profits along the way, creating a more sustainable web venture.

photo credit: SierraTierra

——————–>

Phil has had many other businesses including Coaching, Marketing and PR, Graphic and Website Design, and Online Learning. His current venture is Phil Johnson Business Services, providing low-cost essential services to the newly self-employed and small and medium enterprises. Aside from this Phil runs Major-Business.net, a free source of quality help, advice, tips and tricks on many business and personal development subjects, catch Phil on Twitter

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