Archive for Internet Marketing
An enjoyable evening with Michael Owen and the pop group Steps.
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I went to the horse races at the weekend with the family for the first time in about 20 years and was amazed how busy it was considering the present economic climate although there was an added bonus if you can call it that.
The reformed pop group Steps were performing after the race meeting at around 9.00pm, hence the whole family going, as both my daughters are/were fans.
If there was a prize for coming in the last three we would have won hands down. Not once did we have a horse finish outside of the last three. Some of them I think are still running somewhere, so that`s one way of making a living I am not going to persue.
Everyone was dressed up to the nines quaffing champagne and strawberries at around $70 a pop and the footballer Michael Owen was swanning around as he had a couple of winning horses that night, and I think there is a lesson to learn here.
No matter how bad the economy there are always some people who continue to do well, and it`s the same in internet marketing. Don`t think that because of the recession it will be hard to sell online, quite the contrary.
The more squeezed financially people become the more out of necessity they will try to find ways of making extra cash, and that is where you and I come in to satisfy their needs.
Getting A Hosting Account
Posted by: | CommentsHello again and welcome back. Today I want to talk to you about getting a hosting account, and what one is and why you need one.
In case you don’t already know a hosting company such as Dreamhost or Godaddy or Hostgator will let you rent domain names, as you can`t actually buy one out right, and rent you space to put them on the internet by way of your site or blog.
You can’t have a website or a proper blog without hosting unless you use a site or blog hosted by someone else which I wouldn`t recommend as if they were to shut you down for any reason you will have no control and will have lost all your sites content that may have taken you years to build up.
It`s no use having a domain name without hosting as you can’t do anything with the domain name other than just park it as they call it until you are ready to use it. What you are actually doing is renting a small piece of cyber space for your site or blog to occupy. Hosting is not very expensive typically costing less than $10 per month.
Yes it is possible to make money without a domain and hosting but I wouldn`t recommend it as you would seriously be at a disadvantage. To succeed online you really need your own blog or web site and ideally your own product, but one step at a time.
There are many hosting companies out there but I have only used two myself so I can’t personally comment on the rest of them but if you stick to one of the big names such as Dreamhost.com, Godaddy.com or Hostgator.com you should be ok.
I personally use Dreamhost.com and Godaddy.com but I prefer Dreamhost as their customer service is second to none. They will help you with any problems via email very quickly, often within minutes and I can’t recommend them enough. If you sign up to Dreamhost through my affiliate link above and enter this code 4RT58USP you will get your first domain registration for free saving you around $10.
If you click on the links above you will be signing up through my affiliate links, It won`t cost you anymore money but I do get a small commission. But this is not why I am recommending them, it is because you won`t go far wrong with any of them and by all means check them out yourself .
Just before you spend any money on hosting make sure you are ready. By that I mean you must have decided on what type of product you will be selling affiliate from the likes of Clickbank.com or your own.
You need the product finished and ready to go or you will be spending money on hosting each month for nothing. I will teach you how to make your own product in a future lesson and look at Clickbank in another free training video soon. Until then take care and I will go off and create the video, speak soon.
To your continued success
Mike
A must have free tool to help you when making your own videos
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Have you tried making your own marketing videos yet? If not its something you should consider many of the big marketers are doing it and it’s much easier than you think. You have two choices make a PowerPoint presentation of slides and just read out what it says on the slides, or appear in the video yourself and read off a pre prepared script.
Now before you panic and say I could never appear in a video just give it a try. Here’s how I do it, first you don’t need a state of the art camera, you can do this with virtually any video camera, at a push even your mobile phone. But ideally you want a video camera that can take an external microphone to minimize back ground noise and make sure you can be heard properly.
Another useful but not essential feature is the ability to turn around the screen so it’s facing you, so you can see yourself while you are filming to make sure you are in the centre of the screen. You then set your camera up on a tripod so it sits in front of your pc screen. You then make sure your script is written in Microsoft word or on a note pad then you copy and paste it into a free program called Cue Prompter.
At www.cueprompter.com you can access for free, an autocue program like they use on tv. You simply open up the program and paste in your text where it says, write or cut and paste your script here. You can then start the text running on your pc monitor, you can control the speed the text is shown.
Then you simply read out your text and while you are reading you are looking directly into the camera as it’s in front of the screen you are reading from. If you make a mistake which I usually make quite a few, no problem only you know about it, you just press stop and try again, you can edit out any mistakes later.
I use a paid product called Camtasia which is the Rolls Royce of video making, but it is expensive at over $200. But there is a free one on your windows pc called widows movie maker or imovie for a mac, or one called jing which is a free version of camtasia. I have put together a training video to show you cue prompter in action and I will be making another video covering the editing of your videos.
So what are you waiting for, just give it a try. Only you will see the results until you are completely happy with it and don’t worry about your voice, everyone hates the sound of there own voice on video but it sounds fine to everyone else. So don’t forget click the blue link below to watch the video and who knows you could be the next Stephen Spielberg.
Please be patient while it downloads.
To your continued success
Mike
3 useful tips to manage your time better
Posted by: | CommentsTime Management
If you are serious about your business and you ought to be, you need to manage your time better. If you have a full time job I know it`s hard to get motivated after a hard day at work, you just want to crash down on the sofa and watch tv and relax not spend time on your computer working.
Well this is what separates the men from the boys so to speak. Unless you make a commitment to change your life and stick to it nothing will ever change, think of it this way, the work you do today is to make sure you don`t have to work tomorrow.
You can still live your life and build your business as well, here are a few tips to help you manage your time better.
1) Try to find a spare room if you have one or at least a quiet corner that is free from distraction to work in.
2) Set yourself specific hours to work in. If you only work when you think you have the time you will always find some reason why you are too busy, but by setting say one or two hours per evening and sticking to it you will get far more work done.
3) Focus on one task at a time and follow it through to completion. Jumping from one task to another without finishing any is very counter- productive as you keep having to catch up with where you were up to on each task before you can get started again.
Without following these methods you will find it almost impossible to succeed online. Put them into action today and see the difference they make.
To your continued success
Mike
Does Article Marketing Still Work?
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I’m sure you have heard about Google Panda. Actually a lot of
online marketers have been affected by this change in Google’s
algorithm and you may have been worried about the ranking of your
website too.
If you have been using quality SEO strategies on your
site, then you don’t have to worry that much.
In relation to Google’s algorithm change, my question is, does
article marketing still work?
In my opinion, yes but on a different level.
It’s called web 2.0 marketing. The concept is still the same but you’ll
be taking article marketing to the next level.
You’ll still need articles, as they say content is king, so you need
more articles to get your website ranked higher on search engines.
With article marketing, you can submit just one article to different
directories, but with web 2.0 marketing, you must have unique content
for each site.
In web 2.0 marketing, you’ll be taking advantage of the authority
sites; the web page you will be creating is called the web 2.0
properties which Google deem as valuable sites as compared to
article directories.
High quality traffic is what a website needs
to get better positioning on SERPs. That’s exactly why us online
marketers are always on search for ways on how they can drive high
quality traffic to their sites.
As of now, Google’s Panda update is
aimed at low quality sites like content farms. This is one of the
reasons why most online marketers shifted to web 2.0 marketing to
boost their online marketing campaigns.
Speak to you soon, take care.
To your continued success
Mike
What Is The Biggest Time Waster That Stops You Working On Your Business
Posted by: | CommentsSome useful ways to get the best use from your time.
Stop wasting time when working on your pc
What is the biggest time waster that stops you working on your pc
Well you won`t be surprised to learn its checking and dealing with emails. You need to learn to control your urge to constantly be checking them and to create a more efficient system for managing them.
One way of doing this is to create a new email address specifically for any emails you get from marketers when you sign up for free reports etc.
Then separate all the marketers individually by name, setting up a separate folder for each, now if you want to find anything you only need to check by looking in that marketers folder.
Then click on the link at the bottom of each marketers emails and change your email address over to the new one or unsubscribe to any you no longer think are of any benefit to you.
You can also send any to your spam folder that keep on sending them to your old email address. You now have your personal emails from your family friends etc separate where it will only take a few minutes to check them each time you feel the need.
The marketers emails just check every few days or better still weekly and that should probably save you a good hour a day if you are on several marketers email lists.
Hope this helps you become more productive.
To your continued success
Mike
7 More great ways of getting traffic to your site
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Hello again, this is a follow on from 7 Ways To Drive Traffic To Your Site That Actually Work! Today I have 7 more ways of getting traffic to your site some free and some paid for it all depends on your priorities.
With the free methods it can be time consuming and take quite a while before you see results, where as the paid methods, as you would expect are generally much quicker. With pay per click for example you could be getting traffic within the hour, but you will have to pay for it and unless you know what you are doing it`s easy to loose your shirt.
So with that said I have not included pay per click in this post as it needs a great deal of understanding to avoid burning up your cash, but if you know what you are doing it can be an very effective way of getting fast traffic to your site, so don`t discount it.
Read through these great methods:
1. Forum Marketing
Forums are FULL of traffic! Almost all popular niches have active forums. Go there, start posting and be as helpful as you can. You can link to your squeeze page in the bottom of every post (this is called your signature) but also forums are a great way to meet other key players in your area. Then again, escalate your relationship with these people to drive more traffic.
2. Email Signatures
This is easy! Just add a link to your squeeze page as the signature of every email you send. Emails get passed around so there is a viral effect here and if you are emailing someone where you don’t feel comfortable with this (e.g., a family member), simply delete the signature.
3. Solo Ads
Very fast and powerful. You contact other people in your niche and pay them to mail to their lists promoting your squeeze page. On your Thank You page (the webpage that appears after people enter their name and email address) display a low priced (e.g., $5-$20), high value product. This can be an affiliate product if you don’t have your own. Some people will purchase and you’ll offset the cost of purchasing the solo ad.
4. Giveaways
This is some related to the internet marketing and health niches but it is still worth mentioning. Grab some PLR products, find upcoming giveaways (here) and sign up for them. When the event is promoted visitors will arrive and download your gifts in return for subscribing to you list.
5. Adswaps
Adswaps are simply “you promote my squeeze page and I’ll promote yours”. To find partners to swap with you can use a service like safe-swaps.com. It’s a great way to grow your list but don’t do more than 2-3 per month as you’ll end up “diluting” your subscribers base – in other words your subscribers will end up of multiple lists of all your adswap partners.
6. Thank You Pages
Very powerful! The aim here is to get your product displayed on other marketers Thank You pages. So when people sign up for other people’s lists they are faced with your offer. Some will purchase and you get brand new proven buyers onto your list. To entice other marketers to agree to this you need to give away commission so they make money out of it. I suggest you give away 100% which you can do my using a system such as Rapid Action Profits.
7. Unmonetized Blog Posts
Search Google for popular keywords related to your niche. When you find blog posts that are ranked at the top of Google, click through to them. Most of the time at the bottom of the blog post you’ll find, well, nothing! Question: What if you approached the blog owner and suggested they make a recommendation to promote your product (eBook, video course, audio interview etc) in their blog post?
As I suggested with Thank You pages, offer 100% to entice them. They make money from the constant stream of Google traffic and you gain qualified buyers onto your list!
Conclusion:
An entire blog post could easily be written on each of these methods to explain the various resources, strategies and techniques to maximise the traffic and over time I will be writing them for you so keep checking back.
Also there are other traffic strategies that we haven’t mentioned (e.g., affiliates, joint ventures etc).See what I mean by traffic being overwhelming? So the trick is to focus on one of these methods and work with it for some time before moving on to others. It`s all so easy to try something for a few days or weeks and not see results and think it`s not working and move on to the next strategy, this will get you nowhere.
All these strategies do work so stick with them one at a time until you get results. After a while you can use some of your profits to outsource some of the work to the likes of Elance.com or the cheaper option Fiverr.com. Well that`s it for now good luck and stick with it, speak to you soon.
To your continued success
Mike
An Amazing Weekend
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Hello again, I went to Oxford this weekend with the family and some friends. We stayed over in a hotel for two nights to give us a good chance to look around as we have never been before. We discovered Oxford has a castle as well as all the universities.
On looking round the castle we discovered it was used as a prison from 1071, only being closed 1996 when it was deemed to old and a new prison built some miles away. It was then used as a film set for several British TV series such as Inspector Morse, Bad Girls and The Bill to name but a few.
It was also used in the Brad Pitt film Spy Game as a Chinese prison and in 102 Dalmatians, well worth a visit if you are ever in that part of the world. But the reason we went there apart from wanting a break was to visit the universities.
On arrival I asked at an information centre where do I find the university, which one they asked, why how many are there I asked, 38 I was told, I should have done my homework first.
So I asked for the most famous which apparently is Christ Church University. Built in the 1500s it is steeped in history and largely unchanged and very, very grand in every respect.
From it’s huge buildings and grounds it really is a must for anyone visiting Oxford. The dining hall was used as an inspiration for the Harry Potter films and is truly magnificent.
As you look down the long rows of tables there are portraits lining the walls with famous past scholars dating back to the 16th century. Everyone from Sir Christopher Wren the architect, to Lewis Carroll the author.
It has also been home to various princes and kings and members of government throughout the world over the centuries.
Click here to view the short video to get some of the atmosphere.
I have to admit finding it a little humbling, standing there thinking about the great men of the world who had sat in this very dining room and their fantastic achievements in their lives, and it got me thinking what if anything will I be remembered for.
It`s given me a huge boost to do more with my business and who knows one day through teaching and training or even charity work I want to be in a position to be remembered as someone who helped people better themselves and that will be my legacy.
This business really is unique, what other business can start up for virtually no money, build up in your spare time so it doesn`t interfere with your job and be making you a good living for just a few hours work a week and you get to help people as a bonus.
That will be my legacy what will yours be? Will you just stick with the 9 to 5 and be a wage slave all your life into your seventies or are you willing to make a commitment today to change your life and start your own business.
To learn more and get a free step by step business plan to change your life just leave your first name and email address in the box provided on the right of the site, and keep an eye out for my emails.
To your continued success
Mike
7 Ways To Drive Traffic To Your Site That Actually Work!
Posted by: | CommentsGetting traffic to your website can be one of the hardest parts of your online business. When I started online I listened to all the gurus telling me that getting on the top 3 on the first page of google was the only way of generating free traffic.
SEO can be very tempting to newcomers because it feels like an easy free traffic strategy. However, the truth is that SEO is getting harder and harder and a lot more competitive.
It is very easy to get carried away buying all the seo tools the gurus recommend and spend hundreds of dollars with little results unless you know what you are doing. You can hire an expert to do it for you but that can be expensive as well.
So what are the alternatives?
Here are my 7 awesome methods to get traffic to your site. Some are free and some are paid, you can use these to great effect if you actually take action and use them.
1. Viral Videos
Grab a video with several million views from YouTube and embed it in your blog. There’s a great chance that people will email the link to your page around to their friends and contacts after they’ve viewed it.
Here’s another example:
2. Guest Posting
A terrific strategy that costs nothing and only involves you writing an article. Find a high traffic blog in your niche and get your article posted on it. You can find blogs to post on by searching for the name of your niche and the words, “write for us” in Google. I’ve had some good results with Guest Posting and I highly recommend it to you.
3. Keyword Targeting
This is SEO based. Choose a keyword in the Google Keyword Tool that has a decent amount of searches (at least 1,000 per month), write a blog post on it and build some links to that post. You can build the links yourself or alternatively hire someone on fiverr.com or oDesk to do the job for you.
4. Blog Comments
This is underrated. It is true that a single blog comment will only drive a handful of visitors to your squeeze page or blog. But blog comments are a GREAT way of getting on the radar of high profile influencers in your niche who often get their emails filtered by a virtual assistant.
Once you’re on the radar and have demonstrated that you can add value (by posting your comment) then you can contact them directly and start building a relationship.
Propose an interview on Skype, a guest post, offer them some free content, etc. This approach is what I like to call “The Traffic Escalator” principle.
You start with quick and simple traffic strategies and escalate them into more powerful ones! For me blog comments have been the “seed” of some great relationships with other marketers. They can really lead to a great deal more traffic down the road.
5. Banner Ads
Search Google for the name of your niche and “advertise with us” to find websites that accept banner ads. Then approach the site owner and propose a test display of your banner for a month.
Test the opt-in conversions and work out how much each subscriber is costing you (e.g., if you get 100 subscribers and the banner cost $30 then the cost per subscriber is $0.30).
Then develop longer term deals with the sites that are working best. You can get a banner designed that will link to your squeeze page on fiverr.com. Tip: Ugly banners tend to work best!
6. Offering Free Content
Contact product creators in your niche and ask them if you can provide a bonus for their product. To access the bonus their customers must first sign up to your list.
So this is a great way of adding new subscribers who are paying customers (worth at least 10x the value of free information seekers!) You could create a video, audio interview with an expert, cheat sheet or eBook.
7. Interviews
Conducting interviews are a great way to get started if you feel that you are not an expert in your niche. It also allows you to learn for free and make contact with key players in your marketplace.
You also gain a huge power of association by aligning yourself with these experts. After your interview, again use The Traffic Escalator principle to build the relationship with that expert further. Can you guest post for them? How about offering them free content?
That`s it for now, keep checking back for more useful information to help you with your business, all you need to do know is take action.
To your continued success
Mike
How To Choose The Right Domain Name
Posted by: | CommentsHello and welcome back, Today as promised I want to talk to you about choosing a domain name the right way.
Before we get started I want to explain to anyone who doesn’t know what a domain name is and why it’s important to choose the right one.
A domain name is for example google.com, or youtube.com. The main reason it’s important to choose the right one is to help get you ranked with google, hopefully on the first page so you can get free traffic to your site or offer.
Let’s say for example you are selling a product on keeping chickens. You need to think about what people will be typing into to the search engines to find the information they want.
You can use free tools to find this out and this is my favourite one, google adwords . You can sign up for a free account which I recommend, as you get up to 800 search results if you sign up, as opposed to 100 if you don’t.
As you can see below these are the keyword phrases people are typing into the search engines to find information about keeping chickens.
The first one shows us there are 18,100 global monthly searches for the phrase keeping chickens, which shows us there is a need for information in this niche and better still if you look in the competition column there is low competition for the keyword phrase.
Now armed with this information you want a domain name that ideally, matches the keyword phrase exactly, as google will position you near the top of their search engine because they like to show sites giving exactly the information that was typed in for the search.
Ideally if it were available, which I very much doubt you want the domain www.keepingchickens.com to help you rank highly in the search engines. Of course you can use either .net or .org if you can’t get .com but ideally you want .com.
You can of course try any other of the keyword phrases for the google adwords list above. Just make sure there are at least 3,000 global searches a month because it’s no use picking a domain name that nobody is searching for.
You would then go to a hosting site such as Dreamhost.com or Hostgator.com and check to see if the domain name is available and if it is register it for one year for roughly $10.
Well there you have it, how to find and register an exact match domain name.
I have created a short video covering what we have just discussed as I know sometimes it’s easier to watch something than read it.
To watch the video just click on the blue link below.
