Kiesha

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

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

Phil

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

photo credit: SierraTierra

——————–>

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

FREE 20/7 Report

FREE WordPress Training Videos

Matthew

This post was inspired by Steve Scott over at Stevescottsite.com who sent me a message the other night on Facebook asking me what the ‘secret was to my own articles posted on to StumbleUpon getting a lot more traffic than average.’

Steve was intrigued to see that submissions of my content to StumbleUpon typically get 100′s of stumbles compared to other articles I submit which typically  get a handful of stumbles.

Well, as Steve asked the question I thought other people might also be interested in my response.

So today, I share with you my how my single biggest source of traffic has generated over 55,000 ‘stumbles’ in the last few months of my content.

What is StumbleUpon?

But before I tell you how I did it, let me take a moment or two to explain what StumbleUpon actually is. StumbleUpon is described by Wikipedia as an ‘Internet community that allows its users to discover and rate random Web pages, photos, and videos. It is a personalized recommendation engine which uses peer and social-networking principles.’ Essentially using a toolbar on your browser it allows you to ‘vote’ on random web pages based whether you ‘like’ or not the content. It’s a little bit like web page channel surfing.

You can refine the pages that are presented to you by registering your interests on around 500 topics, so then you’re getting relevant pages presented to suit your preferences. The StumbleUpon Community is large, although tiny by comparison to Facebook, with around 11m members.

Obviously the more likes your content obtains the more likely it is to be presented to community members with an interest in your niche. Essentially for community members it allows them to discover content that they wouldn’t normally find using a search engine. Put another way, if you searched for information on a topic using a search engine you’d be presented with all the sites on the subject. With Stumbling you’re being presented with quality sites as voted for by the community members.

With access to 11m members, hopefully you can see the potential for visitors to your website.

Now most people submit their own content to StumbleUpon by using the ‘I Like It’ button on the toolbar or maybe through a bookmarking tool like Sexy Bookmarks.

I however, don’t do this.

Introducing Su.pr

What I do is log into Su.pr a little known sister site by StumbleUpon, developed I understand, in conjunction with Tim Ferriss. Su.pr allows you to syndicate your content directly to Facebook, Twitter and Stumble Upon.

But that’s not the real power of Su.pr it’s the ability to schedule your discoveries. Yes, I know that’s not that exciting on it’s own, but if you knew when the Stumble Upon Community was most active then wouldn’t that be useful to you?

Very helpfully, when you log on to Su.pr you’re presented with a dashboard with a box to enter your message and the site URL you’re looking to promote. In addition, the dashboard has a handy little chart which shows the average traffic on StumbleUpon at different times of the day on different days of the week.

So I make use of this information and I schedule my posts exactly when the traffic is at it’s highest – both to StumbleUpon and to Twitter – thus ensuring that each post typically gets 100-200 stumbles, shares and further clicks. Not only this is a time saver (reducing the need to Tweet, Share and Post) it maximises the exposure to my article at exactly the same time. I can even add a review and categorise the content!

Although this a little bit more complicated than just hitting the ‘I like it Button’ the results in traffic more than make up for it.

But the best bit of all of this is that once your content is in the ‘system’ it can be stumbled at any time, with sometimes surprising results. For example,  a month ago this happened to me when a post that had been written in May 2010 suddenly became very hot property and over 1500 Stumblers came knocking.

So, how do you get traffic to your site?

Matthew Needham is the principal consultant and director of The Big Red Tomato Company as well as the author of his blog. Matthew is a graduate in Accounting and Finance and a qualified accountant. Having worked for prestigious companies like Rolls Royce, Matthew is more than qualified to talk about quality and business. You can follow him on Twitter.

FREE 20/7 Report

FREE WordPress Training Videos

Joshua Black

If you are looking to do something different next time you launch a product, then this post is for you. Maybe you have tried to launch something in the past, or maybe you had high-hopes for huge launch success, but you only managed to sell a couple copies (or even worse, none).

One of the issues may be your market. If you are trying to go after an over-saturated niche of customers, then you are facing a group of people that are practically immune to the standard product launch. They have seen it, done it, and bought the t-shirt.

So, the first trick is to get a product that is in a niche where there are no wolves at the door. This is a niche that has a bunch of rabid fans, but there is little competition. Using this kind of niche will make your launch hundreds of times more successful from the start.

If you are not fortunate enough to have a toll-booth position in your niche, then you need to have a killer strategy that is going to cut through the clutter, beyond all of the stuff that everyone else is your circle is pushing.

Here are 5 ways that you can KILL IT with your next product launch:

1. The power of anticipation- Some launches can take as long as a year’s worth of promotion before the launch day. You can just start to warm up your list 5 days before your product comes out and then expect to make $200,000 in one day. Follow in the footsteps of the big guys. Get the word out about your product FAR in advance. Tell your customers that it’s coming and how they will benefit from it.

2. Get your circle engaged- Instead of just barraging the people on your list with boring launch emails, get them engaged in the process. Ask their opinions about each step of the way. Allow your customers to vote on the look of your book cover. Allow your customers to name your product. If they can have ownership from the beginning, they will be much more likely to stick with you all the way to launch day and buy.

3. Have a contest- On the way up, and on launch day, create contests that will also help promote your product. Give your product away to the top 3 people that create a promotional video on YouTube. Give away cash to your top-selling affiliate promoter. Create free gifts for people that sign up on your notification list.

4. Use an affiliate army- Another way to make a massive boom on launch day is to have more people that just you, talk about it. Offer huge bonuses to your affiliates, especially if they have a bigger list than you do. When you have 5, 10, or 100 more people promoting the sale of your product, and your launch day, you are almost guaranteed to kill it on launch day.

5. Piles of subscriber’s-only discount on launch day- If you choose to create a pre-launch notification list of customers, then you are going to need to reward those people that were willing to anticipate your product. Give them a huge discount or a whole bunch of bonuses for sticking with you.

If you don’t reward these people with bonuses for buying on launch day, your launch will fall flat like a pancake.

What do you think? What’s tip number 6? What do you think that you can do to help a launch become even more successful?

Joshua Black is the creator of the Underdog Millionaire Blog. Having started over a dozen small businesses of his own in the last 15 years, he is small business consultant, copywriter, information marketer and permanent student of small business.  He is also the creator of the Ultimate Information Product Report.  You can also sign up for the daily Underdog Millionaire small business Tip Sheet and not only will you get a wealth of small business, marketing, and sales information, but you will also receive 5 FREE success books (including Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich). Click here to sign up.

FREE 20/7 Report

FREE WordPress Training Videos

Karen

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed with everything that’s on my Todo list these days. And, the list keeps getting longer and longer as I am ready to launch my first paid product.

It seems like there’s no enough hours in the day to get everything done. I wish I could clone myself so that there would be two of me working on everything that I want to get done. But, until the day that cloning becomes viable (and cloning Dolly the sheep doesn’t help me) I have to find other ways to beat feeling overwhelmed.

Here are Four Ways To Beat Feeling Overwhelmed

1. Collaboration / Joint Ventures

“A problem shared is a problem halved”.

If I’m feeling overwhelmed by everything associated with blogging then I’m sure that a lot of other people are, too. It may make sense to reach out to other bloggers and infopreneurs to see if it makes sense to pool resources. We all have strengths and weaknesses and it can really help to team up with someone else who actually enjoys the things that we don’t like to do. There is so much to learn associated with blogging, that no one is an expert in everything. Don’t re-invent the wheel if you can partner with someone who has already figured out where the pitfalls are and is ready to collaborate with you on your ideas.

If you are a big-picture and highly creative person but you hate working with details or finances, look around you to see who you can team up with that can take on those tasks. You don’t have to work with each other forever (we’ve seen some pretty major partnerships crumbling lately) but if it helps you get your business to the next level, why wouldn’t you reach out to partner with someone? All is takes it one communication to the right person. Sure, you may get some No’s at first, but you may partner with someone who complements your strengths and weaknesses. Check out the usual forums for joint ventures and people who want to collaborate. They are already primed to work with others and are just waiting for you to reach out to them.

You never know where the next big, million dollar idea may come from.

2. Just Say No

When I’m feeling really overwhelmed, I tend to shut down and just say No to anything else being added to my plate. I can only do so much. If you or someone else is constantly adding to your Todo list, you do have the right to say No. There is a tendency in the blogosphere to keep up with the next blogger, but you can decide not to do everything that the next blogger is doing.

If the next blogger is doing video, does that mean that you have to? No, you can choose not to add that to your blogging activities.

There’s an artificial sense of competition in blogging. Sure, we all want to make the six figure income and be experts in SEO, marketing, video, audio, writing, copywriting, creating info products, networking, and all the rest. But, it’s not going to happen. Accept the things that you can do and let the rest go. You only really have to create great content for your site in order to attract traffic and to build your list. Concentrate on your writing and your message.

You can Just Say No to all the other tangents that are making your feeling overwhelmed. It’s important to say No to time wasters, particularly. We each only have 24 hours in a day and we can’t do everything.

3. Use the 4D Solution

The 4D Solution refers to taking each task on your Todo list and deciding what to do with it.

Can you Do It? If you have a task that will take minutes of your time and you’ve been putting it off, why not just Do it and get it over with? There’s no use in staring at the same task day after day, particularly if it wouldn’t take a lot of your time and energy to do. What task have you been putting off that you can do in the next ten minutes? In the next 30 minutes? Do those items and then cross them off your Todo list so that you are feeling a sense of accomplishment and are feeling less overwhelmed. By tackling the easy to do items, you will be building momentum to take on the harder tasks.

What can you Do so that you are getting things done and are feeling less overwhelmed?

Can you Defer It? If you are feeling so overwhelmed by everything that you have to do, then really examine the necessity of everything that you are doing. I have “Create a Twitter background” on my Todo list for the last six months. It’s on my list, but it’s not urgent (for me, anyways) and I have other priorities, so I am deferring it until later. I know that  I should have a custom Twitter background, but I just don’t have time right now to figure out how to do it or what to say.

What can you Defer until later so that you can get a handle on what’s left on your plate?

Can you Dump It? Let’s face facts. There are a lot of tasks that will never get done. I’m not really interested in creating videos for my site, so I’m going to dump that task. It may be the latest and greatest way to attract traffic (or so I’m told) but I’m not interested in being in front of a camera and putting myself out there. I like to keep some of my privacy intact.

What can you Dump from your list that you know that you are never going to do? Just get dump it and the accompanying guilt so that you can concentrate on what’s really important.

Can you Delegate It? Go through your Todo list and see where you can delegate tasks to other people. Sure, things should get done, but that doesn’t mean that you have to do them. Can you outsource and pay someone else to do the tedious and repetitive items that are making you feel overwhelmed? Can you put a price on your time and energy? Delegation doesn’t have to cost money, though.  Maybe you can barter services with someone else (see #1 collaboration above).  If you’ve helped someone out in the past, then it might be time to call in those favours and ask for help when you are feeling really overwhelmed.

What can you Delegate to someone else?

4. Prioritize

All tasks are not created equal.

There are items that you do that are not of high priority, are not urgent, and do not have to be done by you. But, why do we do them? Because usually they are either something fun that we want to do, or they are easy (they don’t take much time or energy). Checking Twitter and Facebook are easy, fun tasks. Writing a quality 1000+ article is not easy (well, not for me anyways). But, which one of these tasks is going to benefit me in the long run? Knowing my priorities helps me focus on what’s important.

There is a correlation between prioritizing your tasks so that you are not feeling so overwhelmed and the other 3 ways that I described.

In order to figure out what task or project that you should collaborate or partner with someone, you first need to know your priorities. The same goes with using the 4D Solution technique of Doing, Deferring, Dumping or Delegating tasks. And, knowing your priorities is especially relevant to Just Saying No to those tasks or activities that are not of the highest priority to you.

We should be working on the higher priority tasks or activities, rather than the lower ones. Being clear on what those higher priority items (the 4-5 very highest priorities) is a key step in feeling less overwhelmed.

There definitely will be times when we are feeling overwhelmed by everything in our lives. That’s just a fact of the 21st century and our fast-paced lives. But, you can use the four ways described here to help you beat that feeling (at least for a while).

Karen writes at A Meaningful Existence, a blog devoted to helping others put meaning into their existence through practical personal development strategies. You can subscribe to her RSS Feed and also find her on Twitter at @kruby.

FREE 20/7 Report

FREE WordPress Training Videos

Alex Whalley

When you are starting your keyword research you usually already have a keyword in mind. This is known as the seed keyword and it’s here that the whole process of researching and optimizing begins – because how creative and original you can be with your seed keyword will define how successful you are with whatever longtail keyword is generated. Most people will find the first keyphrase associated with the product or service they wish to sell and then do some research off of this. If you really want to stand out in the niche marketing and Search Engine Optimization crowd then you need to start thinking outside of the box AND applying some creative thinking to the process in which you find your seed keyword. Here are 5 super cool ways to help you think outside of the box with your seed keyword selection.

1. Forums

No, I am not talking about forum marketing to increase your backlinks or your online presence, although this is good too. There are tens of thousands of forums out there, covering every niche from how to ‘make money blogging’ to ‘guinea pig exercises’ and the idea here is to get ideas for your seed keyword.

• What other phrases and expressions are they using within that niche?
• What other terms are used to describe the product or service?
• Is there a term known to the lovers of this niche that only they would use (because THAT is the golden keyword right there – targeted and longtail)
• What questions are they asking about the product or service? (because before you can answer their question and make that sale, you have to know the keyphrases they used in the first place)

2. Television and Mass Media

It’s amazing what you can learn from watching the news, at least in the context of keyword hunting. (not sure if you learn anything anymore watching the depressing and monotonous drivvle that passes as ‘news’ nowadays)
Some of the most popular keywords online come from Television, I mean just look at Google Trends any day of the week and at least 30% of the list are celebrities and characters from popular culture. I don’t need to tell you what a product or service being mentioned on Oprah will do its online counterpart, but needless to say it has a *slight* effect on the market. THe point here is that popular culture has a lot of influence on what goes on online, so staying with current trends and listening out for new personalities and product models can help give you the headstart on that elusive new seed keyword.

3. Junk Mail

This is the best way of finding great seed keywords, and even finding ideas for a new niche for that matter, but let’s not go off track here. In order to sell something to consumers (us), advertisers have to know and use the words that people are familiar with and actually use in context to their services, so the junk mail that gets put in your letterbox is a brilliant source of keywords. I am constantly getting flyers for tree lopping services ( I live in a very leafy suburb –TOO leafy one could argue) and I always dismissed them because I don’t need their services, but  these flyers are full of keyword ideas, even the back of the flyer has a bullet list of the services they provide in relation to tree lopping. Every one of them is a potential seed keyword.

4. Steal, cheat, copy, mame, kill, destroy.

I am referring to taking ideas from other sites by looking at their sitemaps or simply using the tool I spoke about in this post to find out what keywords they are competing for.
Basically I am talking about stealing from, I mean copying other keyphrases. Sorry about the subtitle, I got a bit carried away, I think the tourets in me came out to say hi briefly, it’s OK he’s gone now.
Most sites will have a sitemap, well ALL those sites doing very well will have a sitemap, that’s for sure, and all you need to do is take a look at it to see the names of all their pages, each of which will be built around various keyphrases. Look and learn, copy and paste.

5. Stop thinking like an internet marketer!

I left this one until last because it’s my own special mix of herbs and spices and it’s not really a tip at all, more a dose of common sense, because believe me – it’s something we could all do with from time to time. Stop thinking like an internet marketer and start thinking like a consumer for once! Seems really obvious but when you have spent hours, maybe even days analysing, interpreting, and researching keyphrases within a niche you tend to forget about the reasoning and the logic behind shopping. There are processes we follow when we buy things, and there is a sequence in the purchasing cycle too, and I’m not talking seasonally. (these are just off the cuff ideas/examples and more for entertainment value so don’t start judging my notion of shopping J )

• If you’re selling ladies designer shoes then chances are your buyers are going to be looking for blister cream soon, so either target that niche too or incorporate similar keywords into your existing campaign.
• If you’re selling maternity wear then your target market is pregnant or about to be. If I think like a consumer then I realise pregnant women are going to be online searching for everything from new cots to strollers, highchairs and more. Target them before they even think about their own comfort and watch them follow your link with great interest.
• If you’re about to buy a new phone, the first thing you are going to do is buy a new cover, charger, handsfree thingy, and that other brand new awesome just released only available today thing you just had to buy. Not just phones either, consumers have this obsession with matching things up and buying 50 extra things they don’t need just to compliment the original item they didn’t technically need either.

You get the point, get your head away from the monitor for a while (after this post of course) and go and BE a consumer for a while. Remember the logical processes you followed when making purchases? Even before Google it was confusing I know, but it made sense as a buyer and the more you can stay in touch with that the better your online campaign will be.

Get more Keyword Inspiration by downloading my latest ebook, The Ultimate Keyword Research Resource. and have an awesome day!

_____________

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

Kiesha

When I first started blogging, I was really drawn to affiliate marketing. It seemed like an awesome way to earn some extra cash while doing what I already love to do: writing.

I quickly started researching as much information as I could to learn how to maximize my earnings. I soon discovered that the niche was littered with tons of get rich quick schemes and scams using methods that I just wasn’t comfortable with.

I began to associate affiliate marketing with shameless money hungry villains – it seemed that you’d only earn a lot of money if you were willing to send spam emails with titles like, “Your Check is Waiting,” or “You’ve just earned a commission!” – when in fact there was no check or commission, it was just a ploy to get you to open the email and click the intended link.

I couldn’t reduce myself to tactics like that. I don’t know how those people sleep at night – oh, that’s right…they probably sleep on mounds of cash And while that may sound appealing – you can call me a weirdo, but I don’t want any money that is made as the result of a scam. I prefer honesty and transparency. PERIOD.

Thankfully, however, I learned that by blogging you can still participate in affiliate marketing in a trustworthy way. There are some qualities that are indicative of ethical affiliate marketing that separate the good from the bad.

Transparency -

It should be obvious to people that you’re suggesting an affiliate link. People aren’t turned off by affiliate links, they are turned off by tricks to get them to click those affiliate links. I don’t have a problem with an affiliate link when I’m allowed to decide whether or not I want to click the link to find out more – I have a problem with sneaky tactics.

Affiliate disclosure is important, any blogger who could potentially earn a commission from an affiliate sale, should let their visitors know ahead of time.

Credibility-

If you don’t own a product yourself, how could you possibly know if it works? People want to buy products that you use personally and that you actually know about. Why? Because, if you’re successful and it’s one of the tools you used to help you succeed, they’ll want to buy it because they want to get the same results. They are looking to you for the details, advantages and disadvantages before they buy.

Honesty-

They want to know the truth about the product. If they wanted some puffed up version, they could just read the sales copy on the orginal site – why bother with a middle man?  It’s because they want to hear from a real person whether or not the product is worth their money.

Identity-

People want to know who they are dealing with.  If you don’t have a thorough “About Me” page with a photo and enough details so that others can get a feel for who you are – you are running the risk of looking like an affiliate scammer. I know there are people who want to remain anonymous, but really it just makes it seem like you have something to hide.  Anonymity has it’s advantages, of course… no one can beat you up for taking their money if they see you on the street because they won’t be able to recognize you.

Unafraid of Pros and Cons -

There are no perfect products, so don’t be afraid to discuss the cons – it lets others know that you view them as intelligent decision makers and enables them to make an informed choice.  Let them weigh their options.

These are just a few of the basic qualities of an ethical affiliate marketer, what other qualities could we add to this list?

photo credit: dno1967

Kiesha is the author of  A Step by Step Guide to a Better Blog. She’s blogs at We Blog Better and is a blog consultant for small business owners. If you’d like to know more, read her extended bio. Connect with her on Twitter, Google and subscribe to her newsletter for blogging tips & tricks.

FREE 20/7 Report

FREE WordPress Training Videos

Phil

This week I want to go back to basics. I’ve been chatting to a number of people (clients and visitors of this very site) and what has become very apparent is that all the people I have spoken to are considering setting up online to try and bring a few extra pennies in each month.

The problem is that they are finding plenty of articles telling you how to go about making a success of your online business, but most of the people I spoke with had no idea how to even get started.

So, today I am going to give you a super quick guide to getting yourself setup on the web.

1. Connect to the web!

First things first, you could really do with an Internet connection, which you more than likely already have, but if you are relying on public places such as libraries or Internet Cafés then you may find yourself struggling with the mammoth task that is setting up your online business.

There are loads of cheap Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) out there. Most companies that provide your phone lines will now also provide super quick broadband as well, and you will only pay one monthly fee. Usually around £15 a month will get you everything you need.

2. What is your Niche?

In order to take one step closer to making money online the best thing you can do is start a Blog. It’s quick, easy and rather enjoyable when you choose to write about something you love.

You will need to decide what that Niche is going to be. In order to capture the full attention of the market make sure you choose a specific niche, and not a wider subject. If you are specific you draw the attention of the specific market, and that attention is a very powerful tool.

3. Create your Identity

Your identity is what will set you apart from the rest. It should be short, snappy, memorable, say exactly what your site is going to be about, but shouldn’t copy others.

4. Get yourself a reliable Web Host and Domain Name

In order to have a website you will need a domain name, which is a little like a digital version of your postal address. It’s a way of people finding you amongst the sea of millions of other blogs and sites that are out there.

You will also need a web host, which is the physical land on which your blog will lie. A good web host will make it easy to use, easy to understand, will provide you with all the tools you will need to get going, and will provide good support.

If you are not sure about how successful you are going to be then don’t worry, as you can find solid and reliable web hosting from as little as 95p a month, and a domain name for around £3.69 a year, so it shouldn’t break the bank.

5. Set up WordPress

There are other blogging tools out there, but WordPress is by far the best. Its easy to setup, very user friendly, and has a simple way of installing and setting custom themes, of which you can search from a database of hundreds. If you choose, there are also companies offering custom designed themes for a low cost.

Ideally, when choosing your web host you should find one that offers simple one-click-installs, as then all you need to do to set WordPress up on your domain name is click a button, and voila… as if by magic the site is ready to customise.

6. Add Content

The key to making money online is traffic, and lots of content (unique, to the point, specific about the niche, updated regularly) helps to drive traffic.

Some people post twice a day, once a day, every other day, and some just once a week. The key is to ensure that whatever you choose to do, you do it consistently. Post on the same day each week, at the same time. It’ll help you to build a strong following, and they will know what to expect and when.

7. Monetize your site

Making money can happen from the word go, although many focus on growing the blog before making money.

There are simple ways to monetize your site, such as by adding Sponsored Ads, such as Google AdSense, or through Affiliate Schemes etc. You could also consider selling info products such as EBooks and ECourses.

8. Promote Promote Promote

Use social media to your advantage. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Digg, Stumble, LinkedIn and other popular sites can be a great source of traffic, and is an easy way to find and segregate your target audience.

9. Build a list

Building a mailing list is essential. It gives you a way of contacting people that are interested in what you have to say, do and offer. And it’s a great way of selling to them.

Do not underestimate the importance and power of list building.

Using a service such as MailChimp is an easy way to set a list up, manage it and send emails.

10. Don’t give up

Success isn’t going to happen over night. You need to be in it for the long haul, the hard fight. Don’t think in term of weeks, think of it in terms of years. You want to be around for YEARS!

The longer you are around, the more credibility you build, the greater the traffic you build, the stronger you’re following becomes, and eventually… the monetary return starts to take shape.

Don’t give up… keep yourself focused, keep passionate, and keep moving forwards all the time.

——————–>

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

FREE 20/7 Report

FREE WordPress Training Videos

Joshua Black

If you own a small business (especially an info-preneurial business), then you are probably like most people and you are constantly hunting for new ways to get more clients.

However, more clients also mean MORE work, more complaints, and more things to take care of. In fact, going after more clients can be the hardest thing that you do to grow your business.

…there is an easier way.

When you go after hidden marketing assets in your small business, they don’t cost you a dime. All you have to do is get out your sweet Sherlock Holmes hat, crooked pipe, and your big ‘ol magnifying glass.

Hidden marketing assets are places already inside your business that contain tons of cash, just waiting to be found.

…all you have to do is look.

Here are 5 ways that you can squeeze more money out of your business:

1. Contact the customers that have left you- Many businesses only try to sell to a customer one time and then let them go. Worse yet, when they stop doing business with you, you let them go.

By sending out a simple email or follow-up address to your ex-customer list, you will see an estimated 40% of your customers turn into new business. All you have to do is tell them that you noticed that they haven’t been around in awhile and you wanted to check in and see how things were going. No hard sale, just a note to say that you are not mad at them… 40%!

2. Increase the dollar amount of each sale- Let’s say that normally your average sale is $20. A customer makes the purchase that they are looking for and then moves on. Well, what if you could solve their problem even more specifically. Just look at Amazon. Every time you buy something, they also show you other suggestions that compliment your order…and this works like crazy. If you can add just one more dollar to each sale, think of how much that can increase over the course of a year.

3. Increase the frequency of each sale- Another way to sneak a little more moolah out of your business is to increase the frequency that a customer does business with you. Using the power of coupons, frequent-buyers programs and email newsletters, you can get those pesky customers to buy more often.

4. Increase your closing rate- Look at the closing rate in your business. By just improving your copywriting, your sales pitch, or even your offer, if you increase your closing rate just half a percent, you can add BIG BUCKS to to your annual revenue numbers.

5. Keep giving them what they want- When you have a list of buying customers and they have purchased everything that you can offer, you are missing out on a huge opportunity. These are people that really like what you offer and they like doing business with you. Increase your product offerings and keep giving your customers what they are looking for in order to hold on to them longer.

What do you think? Where are some hidden assets that you have found (or a consultant has found for you) in your business?

Until next week,

-Joshua Black

Joshua Black is the creator of the Underdog Millionaire Blog. Having started over a dozen small businesses of his own in the last 15 years, he is small business consultant, copywriter, information marketer and permanent student of small business.  He is also the creator of the Ultimate Information Product Report.  You can also sign up for the daily Underdog Millionaire small business Tip Sheet and not only will you get a wealth of small business, marketing, and sales information, but you will also receive 5 FREE success books (including Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich). Click here to sign up.

FREE 20/7 Report

FREE WordPress Training Videos