Posted on 26th August, 2010 | No Comment

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What is Facebook?

Facebook is the largest social network out there right now, it even surpasses Google’s traffic. It currently has 500 million users. If  it was a country, it would be the 3rd largest county  in the world.

It started out as a  small site for Harvard college students in 1994, so they could get to know each other and has grown into this world-wide  huge phenomenon. Founder of the site Mark Zuckerberg had in mind a place were people got together and kept in touch online.

A Viral Maketing Tool
Facebook is focused on their communities, this makes it a very powerful marketing tool. You want to encourage people to recommend your profile info, service and content to others on Facebook. They in turn tell their friends and their friends tell their freinds and so on.

What makes Facebook a standout from other social media sites online today  is the fact that Facebook can  be used for building businesses online by constructing communities. Facebook advertizers can choose from  demographics  that target just who and  what they are looking for. Example  the coveted 18 to 35 age group. This is the largest buying group online.

How to Write an Attractive Profile.
After signing up and confirming the email  that Facebook sends, you need to set up your profile. This does require a little thought. You likely are going to be using facebook for business.  To connect with potential customers it is essential to use good business sense when setting up your facebook profile. You want to be added as a friend but you should be seen as a professional .

For your screenname, do use your own name.People generally don’t want to see the business name, they want you, and your face and  your name. Also make sure that you add your website or blog url so people can get more info about you. Information that makes you an expert in your niche.

Adding Friends
Look for people that you know from other social networking sites, social bookmarking sites, Twitter , forums and other blogs that you read. Other marketers in the same niche. Heres a good idea for inviting people. Use that little link where is says message. This gets you noticed, because most people dont send any message at all when asking people to be friends. You want your network to grow as large as possible, and as quickly as possible to get the biggest benefit from Facebook. Each time you join a Group on Facebook, send  out a friend request to all members of that group. ( Use a saved  hello message on notepad)

Do you understand what Social Networking is?
Defined as a specific group of people who get together for a special purpose. This could be on or off line. To add sites to your favorites, is  known as bookmarking. I didn’t really understand this  until much later online as it didn’t really sink in I guess.  Putting sites like Stumbleupon and Digg in my favorites  to share the info with others now makes sense to me.

There are three main presences on facebook that help with promoting your “make money online” marketing. Everything you create, plus the  “newsfeed” and “the wall”.  The page you log into first on facebook, is your newsfeed page. At the top of that page is the box with “whats on your mind.” This box is know as your wall. What you type into this box appears on your friends newsfeed pages. It took me a while before I understood this fact.

Groups or Pages?
A Group is a collection of people, interested in the same thing. It looks just like your newsfeed page with some differences.
 
You can start a group of your own if you wish. Not only can anyone join, they do do not have to be a friend of yours. You are able to email these groups directly, so you have a targeted list of these members. All they have to do  is click a button to join the group. Be careful what you name your group. Use descriptive key words in the description.  An example “Who would like to use herbal products to cure migraines?” as a title.

Send out a message to all your friends about your group. I have created two fan pages on Facebook. One for my Wedding Niche and the other for Local Advertising.  You are welcome to visit and join by clicking the join button.

On and Offline Marketing            Wedding Blogs            My Facebook page

Posted on 21st August, 2010 | 3 Comments

Answer this question:

What is the number one reason people get online everyday?

Simple. - To get information. This is such a ubiquitous a quest,  Google handles 400 million queries a day! So what does this mean to you? Well, this is an opportunity for your to provide what people want – information. And to earn some cash for doing it!

Info marketing 101

First of all, an info business is the least complex business possible. You take information and turn it into a digital product – like an ebook. People pay you for the information inside it.. Pretty simple, I would  say.

But how does it all work?

The concept is simple. In order to be successful there has to be value in the info you’re selling. So step  #1  is to discover what kind of info people  really want. How can you find out what people want?  Ask them.

One easy way to figure it out is with a simple search. Just go to Yahoo Answers or ask.com and see what kinds of questions people are asking. The easilest  questionaire I have  found to use is Survey Monkey. Your goal is to find a common problem. That people are having trouble solving. Then just give them the answer to their problem  in your ebook.

Think about this:

If you’re concerned about information product development think about this: An info product is just a bunch of articles strung together. So instead of sitting down to write the whole thing. Just write some articles for your blog.When you have a collection, flesh them out, add more content to them and combine them into a single ebook.

So, what’s so great about ebooks? Interestingly enough, we’re back to the name of this article… about “Why you must have your own info product” 7 reasons why:

1. Ease

As soon as you have the pieces in place, it’s virtually maintenance free. And your customers need very little support. So you can just set it up and let it run. You’re building a completely automated business.

There  is no inventory. You don’t have to ship anything. It’s digital.

2. Repackaging

After you’ve created a few ebooks. You can combine them together to create new high ticket products. It’s  simply a matter of merging a few ebooks into one. And your new product will be able to carry a much higher sticker price. There’s greater perceived value in a single big course. Versus multiple smaller ebooks.

3. Resellers

When you own the product, you can sell resell rights to it. Resell rights are very hot right now, because people just don’t want to invest the time and money into making their own. And the best part is you get to charge two to three time as much for these  resell rights.

4. Leverage

Leverage your ebook by using the content in different ways. Use part of it to make an autoresponder series.  Then you can use this to build a list by capturing their email and  their name so you can build a relationship with them, and  you can market to them  again and again.

5. More leverage

Utilize your content in as many ways as you can – like creating a few reports from parts of the ebook. Then use these to generate leads for the main product. You can make these low cost or even free. Either way, you win because you’re feeding your funnel. You can even make these viral by allowing your affiliates to give them away. Wait, did I say “affiliates”?

6.An army of affiliates

This one is huge. Once you have your own product. You’re able to let other people market it for you. Imagine having 100′s or 1000′s of other people promoting your products! You’ve got to have your own products to have affiliates.

7. Joint Ventures

Last, but definitely not least… Setting up joint ventures is the fastest way to gain success. Period. So, I’d say this is the most important reason to have you own products. Without your own products, you can’t do JVs.

In closing

If you’re not convinced to start selling information products, then you’ve probably been sleeping. You’ll be the master of your destiny. Because you’re the boss! So,  just decide to just start:

• Go to answers.yahoo.com
• See what people are asking about
• Start providing information

Information product development really is that simple.

Before you know it, you’ll have your own info product. Contact me and I just might be interested in promoting  your product for you.

Posted on 20th August, 2010 | 2 Comments

It’s undeniable that if you add audio to websites it will increase your results. If you’re not using audio on your sites, you’re making a mistake. Audio increases opt-ins.  Opt-ins  increase  your sales.

Example of old way to add audio Click > watermark

What makes it so effective?

It’s not hard to figure out. The web is mostly silent. It makes your site more “human”. And makes people feel they’re dealing with a real live person. Basically, audio brings your site to life. Which fascinates greater interaction from your visitors.

Here are the benefits

Adding audio increases your profits in two ways.

1. You’ll convert more visitors into buyers.
2.  And second you’ll save money on the sales letter.

Instead of having to pay a professional to write you a great sales letter. Simply record an audio message yourself. Your honest message about your product will sell better than a professional copywriter.

You’ll also get better conversions on your list opt-ins. The reason this works so well is because people need to be told what to do. So you make an audio recording that says: Put your email and name into the form and submit. A simple message like this will increase your opt-in conversions by 305% or more!

Some ways to use audio

A welcome message on your homepage. Most people abandon a website within just a few seconds. Your welcome message could make them stay when they would normally leave.

Step-by-step instructions. The same principle the we used to boost opt-ins applies. Use an audio message to lead your visitors through a process. Use this to lead them through the ordering process, as well.

Testimonials for your product or service. It’s good to get written testimonials. But audio testimonials are great! You can just make up written one and people know that. Using audio makes it much more believable. And that increases your results.

Sneaky trick

Something you may not have thought of is using audio for the product itself. You’ll be able to produce audio products faster than any other kind. And it still has a high perceived value. The great thing about audio products is people can take them with them on the go. Plus you can get them transcribed cheap. Then you’ve got an eBook, too – but it was easy to create!

Is adding audio hard?

It’s not hard at all. There are quite a few audio streaming software programs out there. You don’t actually have to do anything yourself. The software creates the audio button code for you. Just paste the code you copy from the software. There’s nothing else to worry about.

Summing it up

Let’s take another look at the benefits. Putting streaming audio on your site will boost all your results. You’ll get more sales. And your opt-in rate will increase. And you can use it to create products and sales letters quickly. No many people are doing this. But you’ll save a lot of time and money. Get started right now and realize instant results.

Posted on 19th August, 2010 | No Comment

Yes affiliate marketing rocks, but it’s really hard to get started. The reason is because there is a lot of competition. What you need to do is come up with methods no one else is using. It’s also hard to figure out what to do because there’s a lot of information out there. Here’s one trick that almost no one else is using.

Video marketing

No one would deny the power and popularity of video. The reason it’s so pervasive is because everyone loves it. Keeping people’s attention is so much easier using videos. So you can put this to great advantage in your affiliate marketing.

Here’s how to use videos for affiliate promotions:

• Record your testimonial
• Record a walk-through
• Do an ordering video
• Do a preview video

Testimonials

This one is super simple. Simply turn on your recorder and talk. It does not need to be polished or pro. Listening to your honest endorsement makes your viewers feel comfortable buying. And the mess-ups or mistakes just make the video more real. You can literally just press record and talk. And if you don’t want to show your face, use one of the next ideas.

Do a video walk-through

This one is a little more subtle. You’re taking the role of teacher and showing how to use the product. And while they watch you use it, they think, “I should buy that.” If the product is useful, watching the tutorial makes them want to buy it. So just make sure you’re demoing a good product.

Ordering

This could be the most powerful method of all. Record a video of yourself actually buying the product. Nothing inspires your viewers to buy like watching you do it. In the first place it acts as social proof. People will feel more comfortable buying after seeing you do it. This also makes your viewers trust you. People believe you’re giving them good advice if you take that advice yourself. And finally, it creates envy. It’s simple – you have it. Now they want it. To really cap this one off, end your video with: You’re gonna have to place your own order if you want to see the members area.

Do a preview video

This one is perfect for building up the value of what you’re promoting. In this case you record a screen share of the inside of the product. They get to see everything they’ll receive when they order. It also reduces the reservations of skeptics. It’s much easier to trust they’re getting something if they actually seen it.

You can do this!

You don’t need any special training for this. There are simple software programs that make it easy to create videos. Really, the software does all the work. So there’s no need to even think about the technical side. Just focus on the benefits:

• Increase sales You’ll earn more affiliate commissions when you add video. Start using videos because people love them.
• Reduce refunds Less of your commissions will be clawed back, too. Your customers will know what they’re getting into ahead of time. So less of them will ask for refunds.
• Outdo your competitors! This is a really easy thing to do. And almost no one is doing it. So, you’ll be way ahead of the crowd.

Get started right now and take your affiliate marketing to the next level.  Affiliate marketing 2.0. Relationship ROI. Be personal. The bottom line is that if you’re not using video, you’re losing money.

Posted on 18th August, 2010 | No Comment

Honestly, everyone making money online today has an email list.

This is the most important factor in your long-term success. Because you can market to your list whenever you want. It’s a resource you can tap at any time and generate income.

OK, but how?

There are 3 factors in list building you need to consider:

• The Squeeze Page
• Your Bribe
• Your Confirmation Page

Your Opt-in Page – Your opt-in page is the page you send visitors to to build your list. This page is the one that asks them for their email. That’s why it needs to look like a professionally designed page. And have an easy to understand opt-in form. You’ve also got to make a strong “close”.

If you fail to make a strong close, you’re wasting your efforts. This “close” tells your visitors what you want them to do. Without this your opt-in rate will plummet. The funny thing is that people just don’t know what to do unless you tell them.

One way to really spice up your squeeze page is to add a video to it. This will grab your visitors attention and keep it. And you can repeat the call to action several times int he video. And you can have the video just tell them to fill in your form after it’s done playing.

Now, don’t worry if you have no idea how to make videos. It’s very easy to hire people for a couple hundred bucks to make one for you. Or you can get email list tools that have everything pre-built for you.

The Incentive – The second component is the reason they are opting into your list. People won’t give you their email for nothing. Email privacy is very important to most people. This means your bribe needs to be very attractive.

The key to a good bribe is that is has value. Then it becomes something people want to get from you. And can benefit from. A few ideas:

• A report
• A piece of software
• Training videos
• A multi-part email series

Basically, you just need some content. It’s got to be something helpful for your new subscribers. And nothing sells like “free”. If you make it good enough, they will give you their email in exchange.

Now, if you don’t know how to create the bribe don’t worry. Here again, you can hire freelancers to create this for you. Just give them a topic and they will write the content. One easy and effective bribe is a 5-part email training series. You can have ghost writers create emails for under $25 an email. So, you’ll get the whole series written for under $150.

There are also list building products that include the follow up email series. Two things to keep in mind when writing (or buying) and email training series. First of all it has to give the subscriber what you promised – valuable information. And second, it needs to make you money. The easiest way to do this is to market affiliate products in the emails. This allows you to get started with no products of your own. And make money right away from your list.

The Opt-in Success Page – The last bit is the thank you page. This is the page your subscriber sees after they opt in. A great thing to do here is provide some immediate value. This helps them feel they’ve made the right decision giving you their email. It also sets the foundation for your relationship with them. So when they get your email, they’re happy to hear from you.

This is another case where you can get a complete marketing package. Or you can do it yourself. You can either write the content pages on your own. Or hire ghost writers to write them for you.

Final thoughts

It doesn’t matter if you do all of this yourself. Or pay a freelancer to write produce it all for you. Or go with a complete package. The important thing is that you build your own list starting now. Because as soon as you’ve got your own list . . . You’re able to make money at the push of a button.

Posted on 17th August, 2010 | 2 Comments

The importance of preselling

The most important thing you can do to increase your affiliate commissions is to presell properly.

Before we begin, we need to first define what preselling is. Preselling is both an art and a science. The goal is to get your reader prepped to make a purchase. Then you send them to the site that sells what you’ve prepared them for. If you do it well, it’s completely invisible.

In a nutshell, you provide value. Then send them to the sales page. In a second we’ll talk about how to do actually it. First, it’s important to understand why we do it. Just a few of the reasons you want to presell.

• It helps your reader trust you – And gaining the trust of your readers helps them want to click your links. Which obviously means you’ll make more sales.
• It takes your reader out of defense mode – When you’re not hyping or pitching a product, your reader lets their guard down. And in turn they read to understand what you’re saying. And your intention is conveyed more easily.
• It puts them in a buying mood – Your readers are now receiving your message. Being open means, they are open to everything you give them. Like the info on product sales page you’ve linked to. Sending them to the sales page in this state makes them more receptive to the actual pitch.
• Your commissions go up – They arrive at the product website prepped to buy. Open to the sales message and feeling safe. This dramatically boosts your sales rate!
• It boosts customer loyalty – People like to make their own buying decisions. Instead of being manipulated into buying. So they are happier with their purchase.
• Your profits go up – Happy customers ask for refunds much less often. And that translates to more commission staying in your affiliate business.

Clearly preselling makes sense. You increase your profits. And produce happier customers. That’s a clear win-win.

OK, so how do you do it?

You’ve learned the importance of preselling. So, hopefully you’ve decided to start preselling. So, it’s time to break down how it works. Like we talked about before, it’s an art. And it’s a science.

Mastering the art

First, you have to gain the trust of your reader, so they let their guard down. And the only method of doing this is to give exceptional value to your readers. The art of this is to provide enough information to be of value, but not enough to satiate the hunger. The idea is that they want more and the sales page you send them to gives them more. Plus they’re not guarded, so they’re more open and likely to purchase the product.

Part 2 – the Science

You also have to include some very specific things.

The first is how you present the information. You need to know where you’re going before you begin. Your end goal is to make a sale of the product you’re preselling. You use the information to do this in one of two ways. First, you can provide useful but incomplete information. The second way is to provide all the information and let your reader discover how hard it is to actually implement it. In either case, the product you’re referring them to solves the problem for them.

Next, you have to use “convert linking” methods. Instead, you use a direct link to the product website. When you do this, you’re click-throughs go way up. But how will you earn affiliate commissions if you don’t use your affiliate link? Well, that’s part of the science of this whole process. You “pre-cookie” your reader before sending them to the sales page.

You also want to link to the sales page from inside your article’s content. It’s habitual to click on words and phrases that are hyperlinked. And if the words you hyperlink relate, your reader will naturally click them for more information.

Putting all of this together creates a powerful affiliate marketing formula for success.

Unfortunately…

This process is not easy – at all! Think about everything that goes into crafting an effective preselling article: Great content. First of all, you actually have to write great articles and give value to your readers. To do that you have to have enough information to be valuable and be able to present it in a useful way. Writing to presell. First, you have to give good information. But, you also need to know how to present the information in a way that give value to the reader. While at the same time making them want more. The other approach is to reveal a self-evident problem through the information.

Choosing your products. Next, you’ve got to pick the right product to presell. Even if you get the article written. Your efforts are completely wasted if you don’t pick a winning product.

The technical know-how And finally, you need the technical know-how to embed your image tag and make sure you get credit for the sale. This is fairly simple – you use a 1 X 1 image and set the “source” to your affiliate link. (But if you do it wrong, you won’t get paid for the traffic you send.)

Wrapping it up:

Now you know what it takes to be a Presell Pro. And doing this increases your affiliate commissions by over 500%! So, start now and develop preselling content for all your affiliate promotions. Don’t wait another minute. Make the extra effort required to propel your affiliate business to the next level.

Whats on the Inside of PreSell Pro?

Training - How To Increase Your  Traffic – Free

Several things you can do like pinging your articles.

Another service that I have just joined from Presel Pro called SocialAdr
gives links to other peope in the network and they bookmark in their profiles. It tells the search engines what other people are interested in what your doing not just yourself.

You can sign up for free and upgrade. I’m glad I did!
http://bit.ly/a0DBhkSocAdr

Posted on 16th August, 2010 | No Comment

If you’ve got traffic coming to your site, you’re 99% there. The other 1% is what you do with that traffic, but if you have to traffic – you can figure out the rest. After getting the traffic you just need to convert it into subscribers and customers . . . but that’s the easy part. The most crucial aspect of this process is getting the visitors to your site.

Let’s talk about how to generate traffic…

Here are a few of the most popular way to get traffic to your site – for free:

• Web 2.0
• Articles Directories
• Video

OK, so how do they work?

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 simply means the new family of websites that have user-generated content. These are great sites to work with because they allow you to participate in this content creation. And because of the highly interactive and popular nature of these sites, Google and other search engines “index” their content regularly. And that’s important to you because it means that Google and the other search engines treat links from these sites as more meaningful than links from other sites. So, if you place links to your own site inside your content, you get a search engine ranking benefit from those links. That’s the real benefit of adding content to this sites – search engine ranking means ongoing free traffic. How to generate web 2.0 traffic is something we’ve only scratched the surface on. I don’t want to be exhaustive – I want to give you an overview of all the methods…

Article Websites

The next thing we want to talk about is article marketing. Article directories fall under the category of web 2.0 sites. Just like web 2.0 sites, article websites allow you to upload your own content – as articles. And just like other web 2.0 sites, you get all the SEO benefits from having your content on them. But you also get the extra benefit of other users taking your article and putting it on their site. And along with your article, they have to include your author information and a link back to you – so you get more free traffic and SEO benefits. If you want to generate traffic from articles follow these steps:

• Do your keyword research
• Write your article for the keywords you’ve chosen
• Hyperlink these keywords to your website – both in the content of the article and in your author’s info section.

Video Sites

The last of this group is video marketing. Just like article directories, video sharing sites also rely on user-generated content. And it carries all the same benefits of article marketing. The extra top secret benefit of video marketing is that it’s much easier to rank for competitive keywords than in any other medium.

Here’s how to get free traffic using video…

• Sign up for YouTube
• Turn off all the modules in your account profile
• Use the tags in your profile to enter the keywords you want to rank for
• Add a link to your website
• Upload at least 1 video
• In the title, the description and the tags for each video, include your main keywords

Putting it all together.

This is a great overview to get your started generating massive traffic to your site.

Posted on 15th August, 2010 | 12 Comments

Let’s talk about niche selection. This is very important to ensuring the profitability of your membership website.

Number 1 – Discover Niches with Fanatics

If you want your membership business to be profitable, you have to find a marketing with fanatics in it. What’s a fanatic? It’s someone who is so excited about a certain topic that they will spend their time and money on information about it. OK, so we know what a fanatic is, but how do we find them?

• One simple idea that’s easily forgotten is to scan the magazine racks when you’re out and about. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to run a print magazine. So if you see one on the shelves you know they are making money, which means that there are enough people interested in what they’re saying to make it profitable. This is a very good indication that it’s a good niche for you to go into.
• You’ve got lots of opportunities every day to see what people are interested in. Just pay attention to what people talk about on the radio, at social gatherings, at the store or restaurants and anywhere in public. If people are talking about something, they probably want to know more about it. Which means you can start a membership business providing information on it.
• Don’t forget about clubs and organizations. If there are enough people to to build a club, there are certainly enough people to start a membership site on the same topic. Conventions are expensive to hold and attend, so if one if going on that’s another strong indication of a good niche to go into with your membership website.
• And of course there are all the things you have an interest in, too! There’s a good chance that others are interested in these things, as well. The icing on the cake here is that you get to build a business doing something you love.
• Google Trends. This is a great way to figure out what people are interested in. Google Trends tells you the most popular current search terms. The reason people are searching Google for info on these topics is because they are interested. And the fact that it’s made it into Google Trends tells you LOTS of people are interested. Building a membership business around things people are actively searching for is a great way to ensure your success.

Next – Figure out if there’s money in it

Once you found a potential niche or topic to center your membership site around, you need to figure out if you can actually make any money in it. An easy way to determine this is to figure out if anyone else is making money in this niche.

Here’s how to determine if you can make money in your chosen niche

• First go to Google and type in the name of your niche followed by “blog” and “forum”. If there are blogs and forums related to it, that’s a good sign. This means there is a large group of people already assembled for you to market to.
• Search Amazon, Google shopping and eBay to see if people are creating and selling products in the niche. What you’re trying to figure out is if anyone is making money in this niche, and if people are selling products it means they are making money.
• Monitor Google Adwords to determine if people are running the same ads for weeks in a row. If they are, this means they’re making money on these ads – otherwise, they’d stop running them. Which means there is money to be made in your niche.

Step 3 – Determine ease of entry

Once you’ve found a niche and figured out that there is money to be made in, you need to determine if you can break into this niche. Here are some things to look at to figure this out:

• Look at the product types in this niche. You want to find a niche where information products are being sold as the norm. That’s because it’s much easier to build a membership business around information vs. any other kind of product.
• The next thing to look at is the competition. You don’t want to try to break into a saturated marketing, so figure out how many people are already selling in this niche.
• Size vs. Competition. Some competition is good. It means that this is a profitable market. And as long as the size of the market is large enough to support the competition, you’re fine.
• Market readiness. Are people ready to buy? Are the receptive to marketing messages? Every market is different. Sometimes people are looking for information and are ready to pay for it right now. And sometimes it takes weeks, months or even years for them to make the decision to purchase.

In Summary

So far, we’ve talked about exactly what it takes to pick a great niche: One with a hungry crowd of fanatics, who are ready to spend money on information about their topic. And you’ve determined your barrier to entry is small enough to give it a go. Now that you’ve prepared properly, you’re success is 99% guaranteed. How to actually run your membership website is the only thing left to talk about…

Posted on 14th August, 2010 | No Comment

Visitors to your site are critical – getting them there automatically is even better. Here’s how…

But, first…

Keyword research is really the first step in getting traffic to your website. Why? Because you have to target these keywords if you are to have any hope of actually generating traffic for them. This means it’s critical to select your keywords properly.

Here are the important considerations for your research:

• Are the keywords you’re interested in attainable? Take a look at the “strength” of others websites (and how many) are already targeting these keywords.
• Are these “buying” keywords? Some keywords will bring lots of traffic, but none of them will buy. What you want is buyers!
• Another thing to think about is affiliates. If you want to build a huge business, you’re going to need affiliates to help you. This means that some of your traffic focus should be on getting affiliates to your site.

This is critical to your business, but it takes a lot of time and effort. Hiring someone else to do it costs a lot of money. The upside is that these two factors keep most everyone from even doing their keyword research. If you’re smart you will use website traffic software to help you with this process. This way you get this critical step done fast and done well.

OK, now we can talk about traffic…

Once you’ve done your properly keyword research, you’re now ready to start targeting these keywords to draw in visitors.

Powerful Traffic Tactics:

• Most people overlook the power of Surveys!
• “Help” Websites
• Video Sharing Sites

Surveys

People love filling in surveys. And if you make it interesting, other people will post your survey on their website. It’s a win-win. They get a great perk on their site and you get a link back to yours. This allows you to get free website traffic from other people’s sites! This is a sneaky little idea that most people never even think of. Just make the question interesting enough that people will want to share it with their own visitors.

“Help” Websites

These sites, like answers.yahoo.com are filled with people asking and answering questions for each other. But, like the surveys, that’s not why you’re going to pay attention to these sites. You are going to generate traffic, leads and sales from them. Of course, the process of digging through these sites and pulling out the content info of leads for your business is very time consuming. But a much smarter method is to use website traffic software to do it for you. These tools put the whole thing on auto-pilot and just deliver the leads to you each day.

Video Websites

Video is huge and sites like YouTube and Vimeo are extremely popular. In fact, YouTube has over 2 billion videos watched per day! If you’re not taking advantage of this rich source of website traffic, then you are really missing out.

And don’t worry if you don’t have any idea of how to make a video. One super easy thing to do is take an article or website you’ve written. Then just do a screen capture of yourself going through it. And like anything else, there is software available that will turn articles into videos for you automatically.

Summary

Figuring out how to get some visitors to your site is not hard at all. It just takes a little time and some ingenuity. Plus, there’s lots of great software out there to help you.

So, start right now and:

• Keyword research first is key
• Set up some viral surveys
• Build your traffic traps
• And don’t forget about video

Posted on 13th August, 2010 | No Comment

Winning Affiliate Marketing Strategies

One of the easiest and fastest way to make money online is through affiliate marketing. What “affiliate marketing” means is that you just send traffic to someone else’s website, they handle the sales, support and billing, and you get a percentage of the sale price as your commission, which for digital products can be 50% of more.

These are a some of the benefits

1. You’re able to start instantly without having to develop a product, write the sales page, design the website, create marketing materials, or get a merchant account and CRM.
2. It runs on auto-pilotfor you because they handle the billing, support, maintenance, etc.
3. Your efforts are risk-free, because the product owner has already done all the research , development and testing. So you know that your traffic will result in sales.

Looking at these benefits, it’s clear that affiliate marketing is the way to go!

OK, but it’s not all rosy…

After all your hard work of generating traffic to the sales page, you will never see any of those visitors again. Unfortunately, the majority of those visitors (at least 90%) will not buy on their first visit. The 10% or less that make a purchase now belong to the product owner. She can sell them additional products, but you can never sell to them again.

What’s the solution?

What you need to do is capture the contact info of your visitors before sending them to the product website. This way you can follow up with them and keep sending them back to the sales page to increase your chances of making the sale. And if you want to do it like a pro, you’ll give them some great content before sending them to the sales page.

Here’s what these affiliate marketing strategies will do for you:

1. Owning a list of potential buyers gives you the ability to market additional products at the push of a button.
2. By providing great content without a sales pitch, you put them in a buying mood. So when you do send them to the product website, they’re much more likely to buy.

In order to set a system like this up, you will need the following affiliate marketing tools:

1. A squeeze page, and even better a Video squeeze page.
2. At least a few pages of great content
3. At least a 5-Part Email Followup Series

Instead of sending visitors directly to the product sales page, you’ll send them to your lead capture page first. This page is where you collect your visitors’ contact info and add them to your autoresponder, which in turn starts sending them the multi-part email series. Once your visitors have been subscribed to your email series, they are sent to your content pages.

These high-quality content pages provide value and build good will. This way your visitor is more likely to buy when they get to the product owner’s website. While they’re reading the content you’ve provided, your email system is already following up with them to send them back to the product website again and again.

There’s no doubt that it’s worth the effort to put a system like this in place, because doing so will increase your profits by 500% or more. And once it’s set up, it runs automatically – you just send visitors to the squeeze page, instead of the product website.

Setting it all up yourself requires some skill, and if you’re not up to it, you can use a service like Affiliate Silver Bullet. Services like this design the enter system (the video, the video squeeze page, the email series, the content pages, etc). The benefit is that it’s much less expensive then you could do it yourself, and it’s instantly set up. The downside is that other people will be using the same affiliate tools as you. But the internet is pretty big, so this isn’t much of a concern.

Alternatively, you can use a service like Elance to “outsource” each of these compnents. Whichever way you decided to go, it’s critical to get an affiliate marketing system like this in place, if you’re at all serious about your business.