Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

While there are tons of Wordpress themes to be found online today. Creating your own Header has many benefits. It gives you a chance to brand your name or company. You can choose your design and logo with all the colors and features you would like.

There are many ways you can create a header for your website. You can play around with Photoshop and create one yourself if you have design talent. If you aren’t artistic, there are free online sites you can join and use their templates, images and software to put a header together. Or you can pay a graphic designer like McLaren Web Design to make one for you at an affordable rate. I have used Stan’s service for all of my ebooks, headers, banners and buttons.

Once you have decided on the method of your header, you will need to add it to your Wordpress site. If you are not a technical person, this can seem like a daunting task. Since not everyone can afford to call a webmaster to do all of their technical stuff, taking the time to learn the ropes of basic html, php, uploading files to your service, and writing simple coding can end up becoming invaluable.

I have written a simple 5 page tutorial on how to change your wordpress header. I am selling it for only $5.00 for a limited time and even throwing in PLR rights for the first 25 people who order it. I have written it with an easy to follow format and 12 screen shots for you to make sure you are doing the right thing.

For more information or to purchase the product you can go here now:
How to Change Your Wordpress Header

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According to The World’s Glossary of Internet Terms, “Affiliate Marketer is defined as: “A business relationship with a merchant or other service provider who allows you to link to that business. When a visitor clicks on the link at your site and subsequently makes a purchase from the merchant, you receive a commission based on the amount of the sale, a referral fee or a pay-for-click fee.”

This is a simple, straight-forward agreement between a merchant and an affiliate. Budding affiliate marketers run into a problem when they try to reverse the success process. Instead of starting at the beginning, they try to start at the end.

Making money is the end of the process. The beginning of the process is education and there are several steps in between. Too many people, who are just getting started in affiliate marketing, fail to take the steps necessary to get to the end of the process and actually make money.

If you would love to get out of the rat race and start working from home to have more control over your life, make as much money as you want, and spend more time with your family, then affiliate marketing can be the easiest way to start an online business. Follow the steps below and you will be on your way to success.

Step #1: Educate yourself. This is the key, opening the door of opportunity. It’s also the common thread connecting successful affiliate marketers. Education lays the foundation – the building blocks to success. Start by gathering the best information you can find about affiliate marketing and absorbing it.

Step #2: Turn that information into usable knowledge. Even the best information remains kind of worthless, however, until after you discover how to use it – how to make it serve your purpose.

Step #3: Start applying the knowledge … take action …start building your affiliate business. Will you make mistakes, even though you’ve invested all that time educating yourself? Yes, you most likely will make mistakes.

Step #4: Test and tweak, test and tweak. This one never ends. And it’s often the dividing line between succeeding and failing. Attention to small details often returns big rewards.

Join forums such as Self Starters Weekly Tips and the WAHM forum and you will be able to share with others what has worked for them, how long it took to make money, and any other tips they will share. These are truly the best places to get a solid education for free. The tips that are shared with you will be invaluable and more than likely not something you will even find in an ebook you were to buy on the subject.

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I realize I have written about autoresponders on one or two occasions before but I thought I would give you an update on my own personal experience and what I have learned that has made a difference to me.

First off, if you do not know, one of the best ways to build up a steady income is by building a list of loyal subscribers who are open to receiving emails from you. There are many autoresponder services you can use ranging from free to very expensive but I, and many other internet marketers have had much success using Aweber. It is affordable at $19 a month and you can have unlimited lists running(I have 7 now) and you also get a month free so you can give it a test drive, watch all the setup videos and tips they provide to help you get the best campaign running.

I used to just sign up fro affiliate programs and then copy and paste the emails from the programs blindly into my autoresponder. I would never talk to my subscribers on a personal level, never give them anything that I had personally written, created or had access to to offer them for free. Because of this, I found that even if half my list did not necessarily unsubscribe, they simply just deleted my emails never opening them at all.

For awhile I gave up on building a list. But then I read a good book by another successful internet marketer who talked about how you apply a certain procedure to your campaign.

1. You send a freebie out first
2. Then you send them a link to a blog post they may find useful that you just wrote up.
3. Then you could tell them about a new resource that you found that is free to use or download that will help them get organized or add value to their business.
4. Then you send them a recommendation to a PAID product that they may find useful. Make sure that you only endorse your own products or those you have personally used and benefited from. If you do want to use an email from the product/program itself, reword it or add an opening and closing to it of your own words so that your subscribers can still get to know the real you and trust what you are saying. Plus it is often more convincing if they can read just how the product helped you.

You then rinse and repeat that process. In this way, you are staying in touch with them but not always seeming like you want them for their money. Which after all this is not the bottom line. You hope that you will make some money, but you really need to build up a solid trusting relationship with your subscribers in order to get anything out of your time and efforts.

This is what I have learned and applied in the last 6 months. And although I still only have a list of a couple hundred people, I have more open rates happening, a few people have emailed me with questions and comments and I feel I am very close to making some sales in the near future if I keep this up. I feel better about myself and not feel like I am a failure or a greedy monger.

If you haven’t started your list yet, you need to get on over to Aweber and sign up. They have a ton of new opt in templates that are really cool looking, and even some new email templates for those that want to add that personal or professional touch to their emails(I have my logo and photo on one of mine). While it may take time to build up a solid list that will start to take your advice and buy the products you recommend, once you have established a good relationship with your subscribers, you could see your income doubling, tripling or even quadrupling in no time. If you are serious about building a profitable business online and finally stop working for someone else, you need to get on board with growing a list!

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There is much controversy about using safelists and other such types of services. Many swear that these services enabled them to build up large lists while not having one of their own yet. Others say that they are a waste of time.

I find that regardless of what marketing method you choose to use for your own business, they all may have the potential to work depending on the person who uses them as well as the type of business you are trying to market. Much like traffic exchanges. If you are trying to sell shoes and accessories, trying to get anything going for your business in traffic exchanges or safelists, would not be a wise way to spend your time. The only people/businesses who benefit from these types of services are those who are promoting list building tools/services, and those who are promoting traffic related items.

I find that some of the safe lists that are out there are pretty good. I have only maybe tried 5 or 6 out of the possible hundred or more around, but I was just testing the waters. I found some of them though just sent way to much email for you to read to be able to submit your email ads every 3 days or 5 days or even 7 and 10 days.

I am going to tell you about one such service though. It may not be one of the big ones other marketers are pushing, but you can mail to your choice of 4 different lists, all which have ranging from 4000-24000 members. Although with the free membership your email only gets sent to 500 people a day. But if you think about it, sending out to 500 every day with that much of a choice, can really add up.
It also has a pretty good affiliate program. You get paid $10 for everyone who joins and upgrades to a pro(which is worth it if you find you have gotten some response from your testing) And the best part for me is that although you do have to read 10 emails a day in order to send your own ad, you only do it from their site once you log into your account. No clogging up your email inbox(I already have enough coming in, don’t you?)

If you want to do a test run, you can find your favorite affiliate program that is offering residual income(you know the kind that you only have to make one sale and you get paid something every month), find the email ad that they offer(you may want to add a little to it to personalize it, or change it up a little for more success), create an account from the site with the link I leave below, and then read your 10 emails required, and blast your ad away.

If you do this day in and day out(takes like 20 mins if that, from your day) to test it with all 4 of the lists there, for say 3-6 months, you will be able to see what kind of results you get. If you like the results, you can try a different affiliate promotion to see if you get the same type of results.

Be sure to track your results from all campaigns you run for your business. Hits Connect is one of the best programs I find out there to do that. It is free to join, there are tons of tools to help you out, and you can even have access to other programs you can make money with. It is worth the look and is a must have tool for every business owner as far as I see it.

O.k. so, today you were given a reason to try out a safelist that does not clog up your inbox with other people’s ads, and you can send out an email to 500 people each and every day. I think this should work regardless of whatever niche you are in, it just may have better results for make money/traffic and listbuilding businesses. I am going to be trying it out with my weightloss site next so I will keep you posted to let you know which of my campaigns are doing better.

Now, the next step is up to you. Go and sign up at Trade-A-List and Hits Connect and get started setting up your campaigns. It may take you a little while today to get it all set up, but once it is running, it will only take you 15-20 mins a day to add this extra income stream possibility into your marketing strategies.

You never know if something will work for you unless you try it. And then give it a good enough go like the 3-6 months. If you still have not made a sale in that time, try another campaign or move on, it will be your choice.

Here’s to your success! Be sure to come back on here and comment if you are having success with these programs or even if they did not work for you. Others can benefit from hearing our experiences.

KXGRZUAZMEA6

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Traffic Annihilator is a new site that says it guarantees more CONVERTING web visitors and online advertising with very little effort or cost. So I decided to put it to the test…

My first impression was the site looks professional and clean, with an attractive look and feel. It is easy to read and understand. Joining the site was easy and painless–they do offer 2 upgrade options but they are not required to gain the benefits.

The Members Area is very well laid out and intuitive–I could figure out what to do after only a few minutes and was able to get up and running in less than 5 minutes. Inside the site, you create links and ads–the links you simply enter any URL links you use into the generator and it transforms them into “Traffic Annihilator” links. You create ads for anything you want to promote using the Traffic Annihilator Ad Generator, which is very easy to use. You can create as many links and as many ads as you like. And they are organized in a logical way–links are displayed in the order you create them but also your 5 most recent links appear on the main page for quick reference. Also, since the link generator is the tool you’ll use most, it is also right at the top of the main page when you login. Very smart!

After you’ve created at least 1 link and 1 ad you can start to generate traffic. Just use and promote the new Traffic Annihilator link instead of the original source link you had. Every time the Traffic Annihilator link is clicked, the page loads followed by a cool slide-up ad window at the bottom. It displays an ad PLUS an image with your affiliate link that goes back to Traffic Annihilator. So if anyone clicks the Traffic Annihilator image they see the site, and if they signup they become your referral. It’s a great viral feature because you can build referrals without even trying to just by using the site.

Now every time the ad window displays (your Traffic Annihilator links get clicked) you earn credits that get YOUR ad displayed in the ad windows when other members’ links get clicked. So the more clicks, the more times your ads get displayed.

And this works virally–meaning as you make referrals into Traffic Annihilator (either by promoting it or just using it and visitors click the Traffic Annihilator image on the ad window to join) you also earn ad credits on THEIR link clicks. And this works up to 5 levels deep. So you can create a massive amount of free ad views and web traffic by referring others to Traffic Annihilator also.

I didn’t get to test the full effect of a big downline yet (I just got the tool) but I can tell you the rest of the site works exactly as stated–my links got clicked, I earned credits, and my ads got displayed. Traffic Annihilator even tracked my results so I know how many clicks and how many ad displays. That was an impressive unadvertised extra feature.

There is one more benefit and feature which might be the best of them all–downline emailing. You can email your downline with offers, promotions, or whatever you like, and here is where Traffic Annihilator really shines. They took time to make the emailing often enough that it’s valuable as a user, but no so often that it’s a burden to your downline. But the best part about this feature (and actually the credit earning too) is that it tells you exactly how long until you can mail again. Now THAT’s cool.

Overall I have to say I am impressed with Traffic Annihilator. It is simple yet powerful, and delivers on its promises. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to increase traffic and advertising.

See it and join here:

Traffic Annihilator

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Let’s face it. The more blogs get started up every day, the more businesses begun online every week, the more competition we find ourselves in. For those who are just trying to get focused on one niche and get making some money, this can be a discouraging aspect when fighting to remain committed.

I have been working online now for about six years. It was not until my third year online when I turned to offering services that I even began to see a steady income every month. I have had over 10 blogs that I have trashed over the last few years, each time trying to save what useful information I had gathered over time to re-purpose into a report to sell or articles to publish in directories.

If you do find yourself wanting to go on to something new, ask yourself a few questions first.
1. Have you made any money with this niche/project?
2.If the answer to question one is no, then question why. Did you not explore all possibilities for marketing or just try one way and when it didn’t work convinced yourself that it was a dead horse? Did you put in the proper time for keyword search to see if the niche was something popular?

If you have answered yes to all of these questions and are still not making any money. Try to look into deeper reasons. Do you just slap up posts that are poorly written or thought out, with no real feeling or energy put into them? People will not stick around to read if you are boring or they can tell you do not really have an interest in your own subject. Do you care to get involved with your readers? Are you always just after money and not trying to build up a reputation, and solid foundation for a business?

If you need extra help, try going to forums and asking for opinions or suggestion from other internet marketers. You can join http://selfstartersweeklytips.com/forum or http://warriorforum.com or http://wahm.com/forum or just do a Google search for internet marketing forums. I have found a ton of useful information, received some great advice and met some awesome, caring people from these forums. I have also found that when I am feeling down and discouraged that these places have the power to help me turn my focus back to where it needs to be.

Running a business online and making money is not always an easy prospect in the beginning. It requires a lot of testing and tweaking with trial and error. If you are not willing to do this and take each experience as a lesson to build on, then maybe you should just go look for another offline job.

Once you have found the system that works for you, keep repeating the same steps over and over again and you should soon find that you will have money coming in on a steady basis. Also keep your goals realistic. If you have a dream of making $150k a year online but can barely make $5 a day then, maybe you should be setting smaller goals such as $3000 a month by the end of the year, $6000k by the end of 2011 and $10k every month by the end of 2012. This will help you from getting discouraged on your low income days and keep you plugging away knowing that success is only around the corner.

It can be done. There are successful marketers all over the net. But there are also marketers that drop off the internet because they couldn’t stay focused on their goals.

One thing I read from one of my favorite marketers Jimmy D. Brown the other day was something I struggle with still today. I am always wanting to be a jack of all trades. I want to get into info product creation, then do services, then flip websites, then do niche blogging, etc. But if you scatter yourself all over like that, you do not have enough energy or resources to become a true success at one main thing that could bring you in the money. Find either your passion, or your top skill and pursue that.

If you are a people person, then a service business would be good for you if you have graphic design skills or networking skills, office/administration/customer service skills, or writing. I have made the most money from my services business online but I have also created information products to sell since I am a writer by trade.

I only have a few steady clients I prefer to work with and this frees me up for writing for my own business pursuits. I have written reports that have had no response from the masses because I based it off of something I was interested in and not widely searched for. But you just put your head down, do some keyword research and make sure you choose a better choice next time. But by staying focused on one thing, you will still have multiple opportunities to expand your business.

AND one other IMPORTANT thing to remember is: DON’T FORGET TO MARKET! Build a brand, and market yourself always!

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The next step after choosing a topic and creating a Wordpress blog about it is to optimize it so that more people can see what you have to offer. This can be either done manually or with the help of software that automatically performs different SEO functions. If you have few blogs then it may be easy for you to do everything on your own, but if you are running a large number of blogs then automated software can be very useful thing to have. SEO Booster is one such software offered by CleverPlugins.com. It tracks, analyzes and utilizes the incoming searches from the search engines.

CleverPlugins develop WordPress plugins that can help you in your work or automate different function that you need to perform as a Blogger. Here are the different ways in which SEO Booster PRO can help you.

Your incoming visitors from Google are automatically tracked by SEO Booster PRO. It researches the current ranking of the keyword, and starts promoting the best suited keywords.

With the recently added v1.5 feature you can automatically boost your title-tags. It’s a very useful function for fine-tuning your WordPress Theme. The plug-in shows you the most popular incoming searches for even better onsite SEO. You can find keywords that can be targeted to further increase the number of visitors to your blog. You can save the data on a spreadsheet by exporting it.

With the SEO Booster PRO you can choose the settings that fit your requirements. The software upgrades are given to you for free. Whenever there is a new version available, you will receive it in your email. You are also given a personal license to use the software so you don’t have to buy it again for another blog.

You can ask any questions that you have about the plug-in through the website’s support page or you can send an email to admin@mywordpress.com .The price of the product is $29.95 and it comes with a 60 day money back guarantee.

Don’t waste anymore time. Don’t worry about traffic again! Go here now! SEO Booster Pro

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Throughout the Internet, autoresponders make for an excellent promotional tool. Although the technical name is an autoresponder, other known names include auto email, mailbot, and email responder. An autoresponder is a great way to save time, as it responds to any message with an automatic response.

Autoresponders can vary from messages that go through email to scripts that are programed to run on servers. All types of autoresponders work the same, as they will automatically send a message out when a message is received. Depending on the message they receive, they will send out the correct return message. This can be determined by the script or the email address.

Although they are great for promotional reasons, they are also widely abused all across the Internet. Autoresponders are great to use for your daily tasks, as they will basically do all of the work for you. On the other hand, they can also be quite disastrous on those who happen to come in contact with them.

When you submit your website to search engines, directories, or classifieds, you should never attempt to use an autoresponder address. Most of these website types use autoresponders themselves, when they send out their messages. If their autoresponder happens to send a message out to your autoresponder, they will continue responding – which can be very annoying.

When you decide to subscribe to an email or ezine you should always use your valid email address and never use the address for your autoresponder. If you use your autoresponder to subscribe, chances are you’ll have your subscription revoked. It can be very annoying if a group sends out emails, only to find that your autoresponder keeps sending return messages. For that very reason, you should never use your autoresponder address to subscribe to anything.

Autoresponders can be great to use, although they can also be a hazard as well. Often times, with subscription groups or ezines, it can be very hard to locate someone who is using an autoresponder. In most cases, those who use an autoresponder don’t have the same reply or from address as they did when they signed up. In cases such as this it can take quite a lot of time and effort to locate the address.

If you take care of your autoresponder and don’t use it to annoy others or sign up for email subscriptions, it should treat you well. An autoresponder can do a world of good for your business, saving you a lot of time and effort. Autoresponders are easy to set up and easy to use, which is great news for anyone who isn’t technical with the Internet. For the price they cost and how easy they are to operate – autoresponders can make your Internet business easier than ever before.

If you are looking for a free trial, Aweber has a 30 day trial. Aweber has been rated one of the best autoresponders to use. The customer support is outstanding. There are free videos and assorted articles for the new beginner to get going setting up their autoresponder series so they can start building a list in no time.

Why not check it out for yourself?

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I was doing some work for a client of mine today when I came across this cool new counter that a guy named Gary Haye’s developed. I thought it was the coolest thing. I had no idea that these were the stats happening on the social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. I just thought I would share it with you, not for any great educational reasoning, just because I thought you too would find it interesting.

We are only now beginning to understand the importance of using social media sites in our marketing efforts. Since no one likes to be outright sold to, chatting, and mentioning products that can help and have helped other people are quickly becoming the easiest and most enjoyable way to get visitors to our sites, or make affiliate commissions.

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I have been focusing my business on ghostwriting and paid blogging this last little while. For one of the new blog review sites I joined, I needed to submit my PR ranking so they could see if I get enough visitors to make it worth their while paying me to post.

I had no idea what my rank was or where to even find out. I did some research as I do for almost everything these days, and found a cool site that allows you to put an html widget on your site that will auto-populate that info for you so you can let your visitors know.

It is free and easy to install in a widget of your wp site. Here is the link for you to go and get your own.

http://popuri.us/widgets.aspx

Once you know what your ranking is, you can explore all of your options to building up those backlinks and raising your ranking. It may take time but it will come. I have not done as much as I could for this site, so I know I need to get working to raise my ranking.

Good luck to you! Hope you do well.

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