Always start by looking at your website from your potential user’s point of view. Really take a step back and see it from their perspective. Do they know where to go and what to look at when they get to your site? Is your email opt-in form in full view? Take a look at your site from a couple of different computers and browsers to be sure everything looks good.

You should also strive to find ways to feature your content. In other words, make sure the important parts are above the fold. Try installing a slider at the top of your site to showcase several of your blog posts at once.

It is important to have lots of white space in the design of your site. It has been proven that dark letters over a light (preferably white) background are easier to read. People will stay at your website longer if they can read it without eye strain. Internet readers are “scanners”, so add more white space to make it easier to scan over your information.

Don’t go nuts with funky new designs and “testing”. Use what has been proven to work and go the conventional route when it comes to page layout. Trust me, people have tested layouts ad nauseum, so there is no need to go into your marketing lab and test a dozen new layouts.

Always have an easy to find search bar on your site so that readers can search for old blog posts and topics they care about. Not having a search bar can prove to be frustrating for some readers who may leave your site too quickly.

Above all else, keep things simple. Don’t spend your time trying to reinvent the wheel. Instead, focus on quality content and over-delivery. That will work every time.

Having the perfect website design may not be possible, but optimizing it as much as possible doesn’t take that much work. Tweaking your site here and there will continue to improve it over time. You will see a rise in traffic and conversions when you have your site “just right”.

Design Your Website For Maximum Conversions is a post from: online marketing with smartzville

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First of all, many experts recommend using a platform like WordPress to build your blog or site. There are a couple of ways to do this, but suffice it to say that WordPress is generally well received by Google as it is a blogging platform at heart. You can easily update WordPress and build a large community right on your site using the features that come with it.

You might decide that you want to spend part of your marketing budget using PPC (pay per click) systems such as Google Adwords. You can also use Facebook Ads or even LinkedIn Ads. Keep in mind that PPC takes testing, so prepare to lose some money as you are learning. Or, you could just hire an expert to start with.

Be sure to add your website or blog URL to every signature you have. That means adding it to your email and forum signatures. This gives you constant promotions for your business and site without having to say a word.

Next, make sure you are using the awesome power of press releases. You can write (or have written) press releases about news happening within your business. Then, have those pieces distributed throughout cyberspace.

It is critical that you use social media to increase your site’s marketing power. If you are not using social media correctly, you are missing out on so much potential traffic! There are hundreds of millions of people on some of these social media platforms. Do you think at least some of your customers might be there too? Probably so!

Finally, use your new marketing avenues to sponsor contests and giveaways. People love vying for the chance to win something, so use that excitement to build more buzz about your business.

These six little things can help boost your business at least twofold. The more you do, the more you will see results. There is no question that these time tested methods work…. if you use them!

Six Ways To Boost Website Traffic is a post from: online marketing with smartzville

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First, you need a site map. This is a page on your site that allows people to skip around and find what they need. Think of it as a table of contents for your site. Have a link to it on every page so that people can find the parts of your site that they want to read without having to go through a lot of hassle to do so.

Second, use a lot of pictures on your site that are relevant to your niche. Make them interesting and informative so that people don’t get so bored reading long pieces of written content. While you are at it, use lots of white space, subheadings and bullet points in your copy as well.

Third, write compelling content that keeps people interested in what you have to say. Don’t be boring. Don’t write fluff. Don’t be repetitive. Don’t just say the same things that your competition says. Be unique and develop your site around your own voice, tone and personality.

Fourth, give away some useful information for free. The idea here is to give such quality information for free that readers wonder how much better your paid content must be. If you know this much that you tell them for free, they want to hire you for your other knowledge and services.

Finally, always make sure to ask for feedback from your readers. This feedback will help you to tailor your website and your content to the people who matter most – your paying clients!

Attracting new traffic to your site is important, but keeping your current traffic coming back over and over is critical. You want to make your site “sticky” to improve your bounce rate with Google and your conversion rates with your customers.

Five Ways To Keep People Coming Back To Your Blog is a post from: online marketing with smartzville

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First, you have to make sure to use anchor text links using certain keywords so that Google and the other search engines understand what your site is about. By interlinking to other posts on your own site, you show Google that you want to make your site a good experience for their users.

You should also consider linking from new articles to older, low-ranked articles. This can help to improve the link “juice” to those old, stagnant articles that you thought were long past their prime. If you work in WordPress, there are some great plugins that you can purchase to make this linking happen almost automatically.

Always put your links toward the top of your article instead of waiting until the end. You don’t need to put a ton of links in each article; just one or two will suffice. Interlinking your site properly will help readers find the content they need and want to read. Plus, having your primary keywords early in your content is important for SEO purposes all on its own.

It’s important to also make sure that the links are relevant. Don’t just link them for the sake of linking. For instance, if you have an article about “selling a home”, don’t link those words to an article about buying a home. That will only confuse and irritate your readers. Make your content relevant along with your links, and you will see things start to take hold in the search engines.

Interlinking on your website is crucial for SEO success. The better your SEO, the higher you will rank. Then, you will reap the benefits of having a highly ranked site – more traffic and more revenue!

Interlinking Blog Posts For An SEO Boost is a post from: online marketing with smartzville

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The first thing you must do is your research. This means looking at the free Google keyword tool so that you know what keyword terms people are putting in to find sites like yours. It does you no good to just guess at keywords that you want to rank for. Instead, you must know what buyers are searching for and then fill that need.

Next, you will want to create a list of keywords that will form the basis for your marketing campaign. You will be working down this list of keywords over time, or possibly outsourcing it to your own writers.

Make sure that you always include your primary keywords in the title of your article or blog post. It is also important to put them in the first sentence as well. This helps with search engine optimization and getting your articles or blog posts ranked in Google.

You want to use your secondary keyword terms in your subheadings and throughout the content. You might want to use one or two of these secondary keywords in your article, but don’t overdo it. That is called keyword stuffing and looks unnatural to Google.

You should also make sure to use your main keyword phrase in your alt tag and caption of any images being embedded in your article. Images are great and make the reader stick around, but make sure to tag them properly for better SEO.

Always use keyword loaded anchor text to give yourself a good backlink. In other words, if you are trying to rank for “red widgets”, then you should create an HTML text link using those works to a relevant page or post on your site.

You can use a related articles type plugin on WordPress that will pull in related content from your own site for your readers. This will show them other content you have written that might also help them.

Article marketing does not have to be a tough job. The main idea is to put out quality content that your readers need. Solve their problems and you will be in demand!

Choosing Keywords For Your Articles or Blog Posts is a post from: online marketing with smartzville

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Your brain seems to stall out and you really have no idea what you are going to write about. You may have a general idea but it is the details that are killing you and your drive to complete the article, book, or blog. And yes, blogging is no different than writing an article or a paper. Sometimes you just have no idea what to blog about.

If you are trying to blog for money then you can definitely run into some problems. What types of topics are interesting enough to engage readers and encourage them to mark your page and visit it often to read new blog posts? Well the topics vary according to you. Let’s say you are interested in promoting a book that you have written. Your blogs can contain snippets of the book to interest others. They read the snippets and then are curious about how the story turns out and they buy your book. Cha-Ching! Money in your pocket just from blogging, and you cannot forget that if they like the book they will recommend your blog to other people. That is great word of mouth advertising.

What you choose to write about is completely up to you but there are some things to keep in mind. You want your blog to be informal and easy to relate to. But beware of making it too informal. You want to stay informative yet add a personal touch. People really do not want to hear about what you ate for breakfast unless you are blogging about a new diet. In that case you can blog about your daily food intake to your heart’s content and it is relevant to what you are trying to get out.

A great way to build readers is too often build up a reputation of being an expert or at least have great knowledge in a field. Blogging can do that for you. You do not want to post an erroneous fact that is for certain but you can post tips, hints and suggestions for readers to follow. People begin to trust that you actually know what you are writing about because this is important if you are out to make money blogging.

One thing you should know is that blogging does take time and effort. You have to post comments on other blogs or other websites in general that also include the link to your blog or a specific blog post. Not many people want to devote that kind of time to maintaining their blog on a daily basis.

You know, you can cut down on your work load significantly by using the strategy and tools I use and it doesn’t cost anywhere near as much as you’d imagine for something that helps you with content, backlinking, rank and PR, automation, and website traffic. This is what I use.

Making Money with Blogs is a post from: online marketing with smartzville

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The first thing you must accept if you intend to blog for money is that you have to keep to relevant topics. Blogging about the neighbor’s dog is not going to garner you a lot of interest or back links to make money. However, if you were blogging about a dog walking service and mention dogs in your neighborhood you may very well be on to something. You could even blog about dog products and services. Put in some relevant ads and use the right blogging service and suddenly you are getting some high ranking pages. That is money in your pocket. So, the lesson number one is to make relevant blogs. Keep your personal life just that personal; unless it is very relevant to your blog.

The next step is writing good blog content. You do not have to make it a lengthy diatribe on the effects of Kangen water systems versus tap water. You do not have to write an essay. A five hundred word blog is pretty sufficient and you can get a lot of information out in that amount of space. You just have to utilize the space efficiently. Make it informative yet engaging. That is what draws in readers. They like information but presented in a very informal way. A blog accomplishes this quite effectively. You have the opportunity to engage readers, keep them entertained and give them the information that they may be seeking.

The Blog, the Link and the Snippet

Now that you have your blog up and running and you have carefully researched what you are going to be writing about and in general, what you are promoting or selling. You have taken the time to even modify your background pages to where they are most attractive and appealing. So how do you turn that everyday blog into cash in your pocket? You have heard the joke about the blog, the link and the snippet walking into a bar, haven’t you? No? Okay so it is not actually a joke but it does bring up an important aspect of blogging for profit.

That important aspect is that the three must work together in order for you to get the traffic that you need to make money. You can make money either through affiliate advertising or you can make money by promoting a product you are producing or even a service that you are offering. The choice in what you blog about is really up to you. And there are some general rules about blogging that you may have already heard about but it never hurts to cover your bases again.

You want to write informative content that is 100% unique. That means no copying and pasting from other websites. That is plagiarism and will get your blog or article banned from many websites and article directories. That is NOT what you want at all. The next tip is to make sure the links on your blog are working properly. No one likes a 404 error message that the page cannot be found. So make sure your blog is attractive, well written and has working links.

Next up is getting links out on the Internet that are ranked high enough for people to visit. When a person does a search for a particular product or service on Google, the links show up in the order of popularity or page rank. You want to make sure your links are at least in the top ten. If you can get them in the top five then it is even better. The more visitors you get through your links the more money you will make. But in order to get those links on there you may need to write what is known as snippets.

Snippets are brief, usually 100 word paragraphs that summarize what your blog and product is that you are promoting. There are blogging services you can use to get those snippets out there along with generating back links to your pages. This is incredibly helpful in getting you the page rankings that you need if you want to start making money by blogging.

One of the newest products to hit the market is actually debuting in October of 2010. It is called Blog Blueprint and it will help you boost your blog rankings (and traffic) immensely. Best of all, the entire Blog Blueprint tools and system is heavily based on ‘smart’ automation. What is ‘smart’ automation you ask? Get all the details right here.

How to Make Money Blogging is a post from: online marketing with smartzville

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• You’d write an ebook or create an info product but you aren’t confident in your writing skills.
• You’d create a website and run ads on it for revenue but you don’t know a thing about html or adding snippets of ad code.
• You’d review other people’s products and sell them for a portion of the sale but you don’t have the money to buy products, the time to review each one, or the skills to promote your reviews.

This is a review for Auto Content Cash – a training product of videos, manuals, and tools for all experience levels.

I could go on but I won’t. There are hundreds of ways to make money online – just as there are hundreds of excuses why you can’t do it. That’s probably a good thing because all your excuses may have saved you in the long run. Sure you haven’t made money with your excuses but you also haven’t had to put in the long months of training, studying, testing, learning, that so many of us old-time online marketers have. And, I’m sad to say, in some markets, even with all that knowledge and skill, we barely covered our costs. (Thankfully some markets are far more lucrative than others to keep us in the black.)

Making Money Online with Minimal Skills

Yah. I can’t believe I just wrote that title. I’ve been the one all these years saying you’ve got to acquire skills or at least have some idea of what it takes to sell a product and run a business before you’ll make any serious money online. However, in the last few years the tools created (and the shared secrets to go with them) are being sold and all you really have to do now is shell out a C-note ($100) to be well on your way.

Let me explain.

Six months ago I dropped a cool thousand on a website building package that had a very limited cap. It sold out in two days and I don’t believe it will ever be open again for new customers. It builds sites with thousands of posts, grabs affiliate datafeeds for related products, fills up each post with content from multiple sources, auto updates on your schedule, and so on and so on. I won’t let out all the secrets and the specialized training behind the scenes here but I will tell you that I made my investment back in the first two months – even while I was learning the ins and outs – by giving 4 days of solid work into set up of my ‘empire’. My ‘empire’ which isn’t really an empire as I haven’t worked the strategy and software to maximum capacity for personal reasons (health).

Software, Scripts, Datafeeds and Automated Income

I’ll be honest with you. If I knew this affiliate datafeed training and tools were coming down the tube I would have waited out the six months and bought this instead. After review it is so similar to my thousand dollar package (and it’s currently selling at $77) that I’m nearly ill. I could have put that $923 savings to good use six months ago!

There are a few differences that make this $77 datafeed tool and training superior.

It is footprint free – if you don’t know what that is you don’t need to worry about it as no alterations will need to be made. The automated posts will be fresher and have more value in the search engine’s eyes than posts created with the $1,000 script I use.

The tutorials have a broader range – they suit more levels of ability. Yes, you can be new and still learn how to do this by following along.

You are allowed to sell the sites you create for fast profit – Learn it all in 2 hours, make an earning website in 1 hour and flip it for a few hundred bucks the next day. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Want to see how it works, what kinds of sites it builds, where your income will be coming from? Click here for more info and live money-making websites provided as examples of the types of sites created.

Use Datafeeds for Auto Affiliate Income is a post from: online marketing with smartzville

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“We don’t have, or have any use for a website,” was his reply.

I nearly spat out my last sip of coffee when he said that! Granted that this conversation took place in 2007 but I know for a fact that many small business owners still feel this way today.

It’s ludicrous.

Every single business – small or large, whether service or product based, needs a website. The website doesn’t need to contain your price structure, doesn’t need to showcase every item you carry, but it should be enough of a website to provide contact information and a general overview of what your business does.

It also doesn’t need to cost a fortune. You know today you can register a domain name for $10/year, add hosting for $50/year, grab a decent template from the hosting company (free) and add your own text and graphics as easily as you post on Facebook and share your photos through Flickr.

1/2 a day’s work and $60 and you’re done.

If you’re still not convinced that your small business needs a website, I’m sharing with you (below) the note I wrote to the Auto Body shop in 2007. If you read it and consider your own business use and mandate, I think you’ll find the case for a website to win.

Letter to Bancroft Auto Body Regarding A Small Business Website

Larry, last month we spoke on the phone and I promised to put some information together for you on how Bancroft Auto Body could benefit through website ownership.

I’m no closer to concrete reasons or research today than I was a month ago.

This is not to say there is little argument for website ownership for Bancroft Auto Body – only that I haven’t found much targeted research to share with you. It also doesn’t help that I know very little of the auto body business – I’d never had an accident until the Grand Prix was hit.

What I Can Show and Share:

More people use the internet to search for local business and specialized service today than the phone book.

Google owns 64.4% of worldwide search interest. Run a search on Google. Results for the search term Bancroft auto body (lower case intended) is below.

google.com
#1 – A+ Collision
#2 – Bancroft Auto Body through ProfileCanada. Your listing looks and reads as such: Po Box 269 Bancroft ON, K0L 1C0 Phone: 613-332-3575 Fax: 613-000-0000

google.ca
same #1 and #2 as above
#3 is a Cambellford, Ontario site. Your listing reads as such: Bancroft Auto Body
9 Armstrong Lane, Campbellford, ON K0L 1L0, Tel: (613) 332 3575
#8 & #9 is cdnauto.org which also lists BAB as a Campbellford business.

It’s time to fix these errant listings and let people know who Bancroft Auto Body really is!

A Website Adds Credibility to Your Business

As an author and online business blogger for the last 6 years, I spend 10-15 hours per month in research. In mid-2007 comScore (one of the largest business research companies worldwide) surveyed and documented approximately 100,000 respondents regarding ‘perceived credibility’. Results were clear that a business without a website had less credibility than a business with a website – even if the second business’ website was outdated or poorly designed!

Unfortunately I cannot relocate that report and struggled over even including this section in this letter. I firmly believe however, a quick chat with a few friends and family will give you the same results – all things being equal, a business with a website has more credibility than a business without a website.

Consider as well, that in November 2007 over 150 million websites exist. If a company doesn’t have a website, potential customers can become apprehensive about the business’ credibility.

Capturing More Market Share

I make a liberal assumption to say that you have already captured most of the local market share through our town’s insurance companies and established clientelle (based on tenure, personal recommendations, and/or lack of any real local competition).

But what if your business could increase by 10-30% as a result of an internet presence? Could Bancroft Auto Body handle the extra work, the extra income?

A case scenario:

a) A tourist has an accident and would like to have the work done before his vacation ends. He jumps online to find an auto body shop in Bancroft. He finds (i) Bancroft Auto Body is in Campbellford, (ii) the top result (and therefore the perceived ‘best’) auto body for Bancroft is A+ Collision, (iii) neither has a website therefore neither is credible, so he’ll just drive his smashed car on his vacation until he returns home to find a legitimate auto body shop in his own town.

I do know one thing about your business Larry – your ‘word-of-mouth credibility’ is strong in this community. What if it was equally strong to a world wide audience? What if the tourist in the case scenario above found your website and had the work done at Bancroft Auto Body? Do you think he’d go home and tell people about it? Do you think he’d ask for a business card he could give to his buddy who needed some exceptional work done on his old ’57 Chevy?

I can actually envision pages on your website of client testimonials. I can further envision car fanatics from all over Ontario driving or shipping their cars to you once they found all those testimonials, your before and after pictures, your list of services, and the ‘story’ behind Bancroft Auto Body. (This is marketing on steriods.)

Strutting Your Stuff

Again I do not know your business or industry well, but if there is an area that you excel in there is no better place to market your specialized services than online.

Hypothetically let’s say you are the finest sprayer in Ontario for custom finishes.

• Who else knows this besides the locals?

• What if every luxury car dealership in Ontario knew?
• What would that do for your business?

I always like to ask people who do fine work and offer offer specialty services:

“How many people can you reach via a yellow page ad? A newspaper ad? A brochure or flyer?”

Consider that each of these media forms has a limited shelf life.

• Each is expensive.

• None are interactive nor allow relationship building with potential clients.

A website, on the other hand, is full-color, multi-page, ever changing, and allows customer-business interaction through feedback forms, email contact (far quicker, cheaper, and more efficient than phone calls), as well as lending more credibility to your business. Potential reach in all of North America? 237+ million. 70% of the population.
Potential reach in Canada? 22+ million. 67% of the population.

Why People Surf

I know many people who surf websites more than they watch television now. Of all ages. In all professions and income brackets. It’s a source of entertainment. It’s a learning experience. It even gives people something to talk about.

In fact, at a dinner party last night (Monday) one of the guests pulled their laptop out and onto the dining table to show us a cool site they’d found. This prompted another to show off their business site. And even another (me) to show a site I had just finished working on. And so on. Now, can you envision similar scenarios where your website, or car photos, before and after shots, etc. were shared – whether the person knew you personally or not? I can!

Your Website is Your Business

I hope, after reading this, you can envision the value of having your own website. Business websites are promotional or even just a showpiece. Your business deserves it and potential customers demand or expect it.

Below I’ve listed some point form reasons or potential ideas for your site. Your site is your business, whatever you choose to focus on (feedback, market share, showcase, or all of the above) will serve you well – I’m certain of it.

• Before and after pictures
• Advertise custom or salvage cars
• Feature, display and sell custom parts or specialty modifications
• Showcase types of paints and materials used
• Educate customers with tips on maintaining their paint and finishes, etc.
• Advertise special services like murals, pin striping, window tints, etc.
• List insurance companies you work with
• Inform customers about turn-around times, estimates, subcontractors, etc.
• Provide online forms and documents (for your insurance contracts, or other)
• Provide details and rates
• Your correct address and contact information
• Client Testimonials
• Feedback forms to automate client testimonials or building relationships
• Map to your business
• Photos of the shop
• The Bancroft Auto Body ‘story’ (history, credentials, future vision)
• Bancroft Auto Body mission statement
• Advertise in-shop specials
• Whatever else your heart desires…videos of work being performed, audio testimonials, slide shows, etc.

Why Small Business Needs A Website… is a post from: online marketing with smartzville

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Try to explain that over a cup of coffee!

Helping You to Make Money Online

I’ve always had an open-door policy by email. If you need help, have questions, can’t pick a niche, don’t know how to create a website, need online marketing explained (in English) because everything else online seems to contradict itself….you can email me and I will write back. I always do, even knowing that most people won’t do a darn thing with the knowledge, most people will start an online business and then drop it long before it earns a sizable income.

…knowing that making money online isn’t as easy to explain in 2009 and beyond…

Today’s market (especially in the United States and Canada) requires some serious training – not just 10 paragraphs in an email, a $97 software purchase, and a $5 domain name.

Serious Training – The Affiliate Code

Gaining all the knowledge and experience required to make serious money online in 2010 and beyond will take you months (and if you’re really new, years) of trial, error, training, $10 reports, reading, applying, studying, and assessment. I honestly don’t care what anyone else tells you – if you want to succeed at this online game, you need knowledge. Knowledge equals power. Power put to use equals earnings.

Once you’ve got the knowledge behind you, there will be no stopping you. You could, in essence, create website after website of income producing machines. But first – the knowledge! Without it you’re shooting in the dark…

Given that you might be new to marketing, new to promotions, new to online traffic generation, new to creating websites, new to creating a marketing plan and may never have heard of campaigns, auto-responders and submission software…how could anyone expect to learn and earn the necessary steps to running an online business in a 10 paragraph email or a $5 report or free blog posts strewn all over the net? (Unless you already have some marketing experience or knowledge under your belt?)

The Affiliate Code is that complete package. Created for newbies with more than enough meat to push seasoned marketers into the next income bracket if the knowledge gained is applied. And – pleasant surprise – it won’t break your bank as it is currently selling for $77 (price may change at a later date).

On a side note – remember in the 70s and 80s you could buy investing secrets or real estate secrets in-home training by mail order? Some of these were a 6 pack of videos at a cost of up to $5,000. Secrets that, if applied, could earn you a lot of money. Considering the millionaires this type of training created over the years, $77 for The Affiliate Code doesn’t sound like a lot to invest now does it?

You can see the results and testimonials – plus video proof of the creator’s income – here, but if you want to know more about this training, read on…

There are over 30 videos with PDF training (if you absorb knowledge best by reading use the PDFs). The training is progressive but once you have it under your belt (or if you are already a seasoned marketer) you’ll be able to refresh by skipping back and forth between the segments.

Module 1: Pick A Profitable Niche

Video 1 Introduction
Video 2 Choosing Your Niche
Video 3 Niches Importance
Video 4 Make Money From Home Niche
Video 5 The Real Money
Video 6 What Makes a Great Niche
Video 7 Tools You’ll Need
Video 8 Smart Market Test
Video 9 Live Setup a Campaign

Module 2: Pick the Right Product

Video 1 Picking Your Product
Video 2 Not a Guessing Game
Video 3 Rules For Success
Video 4 Commission Junction: A Live Presentation

Module 3: Tech Talk Site Setup

While other gurus leave you to hunt down a geek on Elance, this training will show you every detail into creating your site and links to become a serious affiliate marketer.

Video 1 Overview
Video 2 Why You Need A Website
Video 3 Tools
Video 4 How to Setup a Website

Module 4: Using a Auto-Responder

Video 1 The Power of Your List and Auto-Responders
Video 2 Why You Need an Auto-Responder Account
Video 3 Different Systems

Module 5: Copy Writing 101

Video 1 Overview
Video 2 Creating Urgency
Video 3 The “How To” Approach
Video 4 Write Sizzling Copy
Video 5 The Job of the Headline
Video 6 Top Headlines of All Time
Video 7 The “Power of Scarcity” Approach
Video 8 Cutting to the Chase
Video 9 The “Call For Action”

Module 6: Driving Free Traffic

Video 1 Free Traffic
Video 2 Free Traffic, Free Product
Video 3 Launch Your Assault

Module 7: Tracking Most mid-grade marketers don’t know this stuff!

Video 1 Introduction
Video 2 Overview the System
Video 3 Putting It All Together
Video 4 Implementation

Module 8: Scale! Take Your Business To the Next Level…

Video 1 Overview
Vdieo 2 Building Your Empire

Module 9: Killer Traffic System (aka Maximum Targeted Traffic)

Get this knowledge under your belt. Watch them again during re-assessment of your online business (you should be assessing, tracking, building every few months). It’s easy once you know how and The Affiliate Code will show you how. I am so excited about this training that I have added the graphic from their site to every page of my blog. Don’t sell yourself short and try to uncover the answers to The Affiliate Code of making money online through $5 reports and re-hashed, outdated systems…it is time to get serious about your online business!

Why You Need The Affiliate Code in 2010 is a post from: online marketing with smartzville

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Countless times a month I receive emails from people who want to start their own online business but don’t know what to do or how to do it, nor do they know what ‘type’ of business they want. All they do know is that they want to quit their jobs, quit their commutes and start working toward a better future – on their own terms.

New keyword and trend research tool tells you what's hot, which products are under-marketed, and how to promote them.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Online business is like an offline business – not exactly, but similar enough to say so. You can’t gain skills, get loans, invest time, rent space and buy product to sell until you know what kind of business you want to open or run. Determination of a mission, goal, and business model is primary.

If you take a step back for a second and examine your desire to start an online business you may find that your goal is not really about running an business, it is about making money online. And to do that, you’ve got to gain some skills to pay the bills!

This is why I love the concept of niche marketing for newbies. It’s a good ‘in’. Newbie marketers can test the waters with free web pages (such as those found on Squidoo, Ezine articles, Blogger, etc.), learn how to get and add affiliate links, and over time learn how to promote their pages. To think you can just walk into the online marketing arena and make a bundle of money overnight is ludicros – could you do this in the real world without knowing how to promote your business? Could you do this in the real world without knowing with market to target? Which product to sell? (I have more questions to drive the point home, but I think you get my drift.)

Now here’s the kicker. The reason so many newbie marketers fail in their first year online (while they’re acquiring the skills needed) is that they don’t know the group of people they’re targeting and they don’t know how to choose a winning product. It’s basic, but we all miss it. Know your target market, get in front of them, and show them something they want, and you’ll make sales. If you aren’t making sales then you either have the wrong market or you have the wrong product.

This is where the software I’ve been testing the last week comes in to save the day. Yes, even a seasoned marketer like myself…

A Brief Look At The Software

It’s called MicroNiche and in a nutshell here are the bare bone basics of what it does:

• Shows you # of searches on your choice of keywords, plus related keywords. AND supplies current price other marketers are paying on Adwords (this is a big hint on how lucrative the market is). AND shows how strong the competition is (a big time saver and the closest you’ll get to a guarantee that you can quickly corner the market and make some money, so choose wisely for easy targets).
• Shows you the hottest trends in online searches. Particularly exciting for pre-Christmas marketers looking to make some fast cash with new products.
• Shows you random hot product searches. Can’t decide what to promote, which niche to enter? The brainstorm feature gives you ideas.

I’m purposely trying not to talk too much about the software. There is a lot more to it than those three points above, but seriously if you have any knowledge in either marketing or business, online or off, you know this is a ‘no-brainer’ – the software is worth ten times what they’re asking for it just in the time it will save. And, honestly, I don’t care whether you want to get into affiliate marketing (as the training videos suggest), or in writing and selling ebooks, or setting up a virtual shop — you need to perform some research first. This does not limit you to tiny, micro niches only. It’s just a name.

Other features include a fast link to the support desk, automatic saving of your past searches (which you can also delete if the market isn’t a winner), quick links per keyword to GoogleTrends, affiliate program searches, ClickBank and Amazon product searches, current Adwords campaigns, Ezine articles targeted to that keyword, and domain tools. (I’m probably missing some features here…)

Honestly once you have been marketing for a while you’ll know that you have to have six Explorer or FireFox windows open to do any market or keyword research – not now. Here it is all in one place. Software built by a marketer, for marketers.

Getting Back to Making Money

If knowning about the software doesn’t get you excited then you’re new and there’s nothing wrong with that, I promise. However my goal is to make the newness of you slip away as quickly as possible. You need to get busy creating products or promoting products as soon as possible. The easist way to gain the skills mentioned in the first part of this article is to create some pages on Squidoo or write some articles for Ezine articles, and link to products that earn you a decent commission on sale. I’m suggesting those two properties because they are easy to contrbute to and carry a lot of authority with Google (i.e. free visitors to your offers).

Below you should find a video on how to create pages on Squidoo. If it won’t load – while I work out the bugs – the direct link to the video is here.

Stumped About Starting in Niche Marketing? is a post from: online marketing with smartzville

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What Types of Info Products Will People Buy?

Those of us new to marketing – on our first time out with an info product – create a product on something we are familiar with. In our eyes, it looks like a real winner, because we know we’d buy the ebook if we found it for sale online.

So we blindly head into the next step – paying for advertising, investing time into building a website, writing articles and press releases, etc. Spending all kinds of money and time trying to sell a product with little luck. If we don’t give up on the concept of niche marketing and making money online at that point, we likely decide to learn more about internet marketing as a whole, (and not just niche marketing specifically) where we eventually discover that our great idea doesn’t actually have a defined market. (Now stay with me, this starts to make sense in a moment…)

Still sometimes, the market does exist, but it has no money.

So before just jumping in any niche market, consider ALL of the factors.

Here are a few you need to look at:

1. The amount of competition you will have, and how big the competitors are.
2. Whether there is a market for your product.
3. That market has to have money for your product.
4. Is the market growing, or declining in interest?
5. Will you enjoy the chosen market’s customers and referring other products to them later on in your niche market business?

All factors are very important, especially the last one.

I, and many others have found that when you really have true passion for what you are doing, then you can always do it one better than someone who never had passion for the business or has lost their interest. Enjoying your niche market will make the difference in how successful your business will be. It won’t seem like work to you, it will be more like fun!

As trainers in the make money online marketplace, we are inundated daily with emails from people asking “What would you do if you needed $1000 – $2000 by TOMORROW, and you didn’t see it (coming)…?”

Click here to see one answer…

So don’t jump into this business blindfolded. Understand your market fully and enjoy it. Brian Tracy once said “Find something that you really love, and put your whole heart into it”.

Here’s why Niche Marketing is THE Place to Start Your Online Empire

I quote Ron Ruiz here when I say, “It is much better to be the big fish in a little pond, rather than a little fish in a big pond”.

This is where niche marketing holds the gold. Choose a market or niche where you could potentially dominate it within short order. In your first online business you don’t need to find yourself up against the big guns with the big money – well established in their industry and ready to knock you over with their latest marketing thrust. Quietly build up your business in a market with very little competition, keep learning about growing your business and applying what you learn and you’ll succeed.

How to Learn About Your Chosen Niche Market

The 5 factors above will be revealed when you survey your market.

What Do People Want to Buy?

Once you’ve chosen a niche topic, you have to find out what people want before you spend your time on creating something. It would be completely foolish of you to spend time or money creating a product, a website, sales letter, bonuses, etc.. and then find out that there is no interest in the market for what you’re offering.

If you are thinking of creating something similar to an already successful product, then you need to figure out how to do it better than that successful product. Never waste your time creating something that is exactly the same as a product already selling successfully. You’ve got to do it one better, or with a twist.

How to discover what will make a product better than what’s currently available? Ask a few questions…

Survey your target niche market to find out what they want…

You’ll want to ask people in your target market a few questions to see what it is they are willing to buy, what problems they have, or topics they can’t find information on relating to the niche.

Here is how it’s done:

Create a list of product ideas in your niche topic that you are willing to create – 5 to 10 ideas is all you need. Then find out where your market ‘hangs out’ online (forums, message boards, newsletters, blogs, etc.) and offer them something of value if they’ll take a few minutes to answer a survey for you. (It could be a free copy of your upcoming product should you choose to create it. It could be a prize draw. It could be a short report on a similar topic. You’ll think of something, just ask yourself, "What would it take to get me to answer a survey?")

This will save you hours or even days creating products that might not sell. And when you do find what people want and give it to them at a reasonable price, you’ll know that you are creating a product for a crowd hungry for your information.

Surveying your market, step by step is on this page, but if you’re looking for a faster way to learn more about your market, check out some niche marketing software.

Profitable Niche Markets for Info Products is a post from: online marketing with smartzville

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We’re enthusiastic, excited, passionate.

We’re exhausted, fed up, frustrated.

We’re waiting for our next check (because we either need it or because we just love to get them), we’re dreaming of the future, we’re wondering…

"How To Take This Home Business to the Next Level?"

Let’s first define the difference between home business and small business.

“…starting a home business or currently running one – after 13 years away from corporate life, I’m ready to start talking…” –Laura Childs Jun 10 2007

Home business is a business that you not only operate from your home but that you, (or you and your spouse or child) are operating. Often referred to as SOHO (singly operated home office).

Small business on the other hand is usually operated outside of the home (at least partially). Small business will have an employee or more, even if they are virtual assistants (people who work for you, connected only through online communication).

Virtual assistants – to answer your question – are freelancers. They often work for a number of entrepreneurs or small business owners. Most of them, in fact, are running their own home business.

The most common home businesses are contract employees, hobbyists and artists, and the new age, fresh-idea, entrepreneurs (non-traditional and most often internet related).

Started for a variety of reasons, these businesses are usually launched based on past work experience or as financial expressions of a hobby.

Home business – started, managed, and with a strong enough following often grows into a small business.

According to U.S. Census Bureau (year end 2004):

• nearly 20 million US citizens were running home businesses,
• nearly one million new businesses without payrolls were registered,
• home business made up over 70% of America’s business.

The Online Home Business

Although I don’t have current statistics on this, I am hunting some down for you, so stay tuned. However, due to my own personal work and social network online I am well aware of the huge interest, success, and desire to run a business, from home, online.

There are as many ways to accomplish this as there are ideas from home business.

Most common and least risky are offering your services on a freelance basis, much like a virtual assistant above. Work is obtained through a number of freelance opportunity websites, or through personal branding (your own website), and/or through the new social networking websites. Check freelance opportunities for writers, programmers, designers, etc. and you’ll find both a number of available assignments as well as the opportunity to start your own freelancing blog to showcase your talents on!

For hobbyists and artists: Product sales, and services as well, online are a low-risk way to start a home business. Products are sold through your own website, auction sites (such as ebay), or classified ad sites (such as Craig’s List).

The Next Level of Home Business

If you are already operating your home business online, the next level would be to:

a) start hiring and training employees to do the work for you (so you can have more personal time)

b) start hiring and training employees to do the work for you (and increase your brand, customers, and reach)

c) create more websites (essentially building a network of websites) that offer related products or services to increase your home business income.

Starting or Operating A Home Business is a post from: online marketing with smartzville

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Being paid for supplying news (your news and information to a hungry target market) can add a very steady income to your bank account. Steady because your paid subscribers will be consistently renewing their subscription – therefore a residual and/or recurring income is money you can bank on. And it gets better – today, many online credit card processors will handle the entire process for you – that part is all ‘hands off’ after the initial sale!

Don’t want to read all this? Listen to or download this free audio interview that walks you through membership website success!

Selling e-news is generally harder than selling subscriptions to a membership web site as you always need to be creating fresh content on a regular and disciplined schedule. Running a membership site on the other hand affords you the luxury of only adding content and resources on your schedule, not on a promised publishing date.

Sharing information via e-newsletter content for a fee (paid subscriptions) could add up to big dollars – even for the new online entrepreneur.

Selling A Newsletter Subscription

Paid newsletter subscriptions are often on a password protected website or directory of a website. When the author or website owner comes out with a new issue or even a mini-release, he or she will email all of subscribers to alert them to the new content. They, in turn, login to the website with their userid and password to read the content.

These types of newsletter subscriptions are very similar to a membership site, but there are other ways to deliver newsletter content for a fee, such as through email.

How Subscribers Pay for Your Newsletter

You’ll likely want to use a payment processor such as PayPal when you sign up your subscribers. PayPal handles the recurring billing for you with a nominal fee. And, when someone signs up they can cancel at any time through PayPal which aids your subscribers comfort and trust factor about signing up for a paid newsletter subscription.

Publishing Your Paid Newsletter

Paid newsletters can be distributed in any fashion and on any schedule you choose ahead of time. Most are once per month. But you can publish once per week, or day, or whatever suits your fancy and your market’s needs.

The prices for these newsletters vary and are dependent on the market you are targeting (i.e. how much they are willing to pay). You can set up your automated billing to collect from your subscribers monthly or with one lump sum yearly payment.

A friend of mine (years ago) thought it would be great to come out with a monthly newsletter in which you charge $1 per month. A few thousand paid up subscribers, would net you that dollar figure each month reliably – deposited directly into your PayPal account or sent via check every month from other payment processors. Not a bad idea, but building that list of subscribers and selling them on the idea is easier said than done.

The Real Icing on the Cake for Newsletter Subscription Strategies

Paid newsletter publishers can charge more for advertisements than free newsletter publishers. Why? The readership is higher – people are paying for the content which means they will take the time to read the newsletter and they are a better brand of clientelle than the freebie seekers, so the ads usually pull your newsletter advertisers a higher response.

That’s just two of the ways to make money from a paid newsletter…

Another method is to promote your own products or recommend affiliate programs in the newsletter issues.

How Selling e-Newsletter Subscriptions is Easy Income

One bonus to this type of automated income stream is that this marketing model gives you time to create content. There’s no ‘rush’ to the next big money making project as so many marketers are bound to do.

In essence, you are basically creating a “mini” product each month. You don’t even have to be an expert in your field. Just pick a topic that is popular, research it each month and put together a report based on your research.

You could also publish a daily tips newsletter. How hard would that be?

1. Pick a subject in a lucrative market.
2. Find 30 tips about it at the beginning of each month.
3. Set up an automatic mail program (an auto-responder) to mail the tips out on a daily basis.

That’s pretty easy. You spend 1 day researching to find 30 tips, and the other 29 days you could spend getting new subscribers. Hmmmm, use your imagination on this one, there are tons of different ways you can create a profitable newsletter!!

You see, you don’t have to actually know your topic as deeply and passionately as a top notch expert. Basically you just want to test your ideas using the “What they want” technique, then put together a newsletter (or tips, 2 page report, whatever) for a predetermined niche market that people are willing to buy information on.

Sell Newsletter Subscriptions on Your Website is a post from: online marketing with smartzville

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There are a pile of online marketers I trust and whose advice I followed to get to where I am today. On this page you’ll be able to subscribe to some excellent free courses on website promotion and marketing…

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The BEST Keyword related, Search Engine Course I’ve Ever Read

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This course is, in my books, so instrumental to website success that I practically force my RSS Feed customers to take it and apply it!

Now, you’ve got to pay attention here… When you click this link you’ll end up on a sales letter. In the left column of that page is a free course sign up. The real meat starts on day 2 — stay with it, there’s lots to learn!

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These are the same methods I have used to also gain top spots in the search engines on some of my other websites and not one of the suggestions are difficult to perform.

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The free webcast has passed, but you can still listen to the call!

Visit the site, (I know, it’s expensive, think of all the time you’d save fast-tracking to marketing success though – at any rate, follow the instructions below to get the free training).

When you click the window to leave you’ll be invited to sign up for the free e-course – go for it! You’ll get more solid info in that free e-course than you usually get had you paid for someone else’s!

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Imagine what you’d get if you actually bought one of his products…but save that for later…you want to make sure he’s a ‘fit’ for your learning style first.
Sign up here for free work at home training.

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Million Dollar Online Advertising Strategies

Interesting in learning more about writing copy that sells?

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This is one of my favorite all time ebooks.

It takes a new info-product marketer by the hand and prepares them to have a product to sell in 7 days. I think the book currently sells for $37 but you can sample the flavor of the ebook before you buy!

Sign up for the free marketing course at the bottom of this page. When you are duly impressed (and you can’t help but be duly impressed), return at any time and grab your copy. Then put the knowledge to use and get selling online!

Free Courses – Internet Marketing and Website Promotion is a post from: online marketing with smartzville

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