Thursday 31 July 2008

What Online Business Help Do You Need?

Michael Rasmussen is offering free response to reader's questions on starting or progressing with an online business. He cannot answer all questions but he had 178 Qs when I looked and had written many useful replies. He earned $440,000 in his second year online so he knows what he is talking about. You can post Qs or read the replies here:
http://www.michaelrasmussen.com/free-coaching/

Don't forget that the Thirty Day Challenge starts on 1 August. This is aimed at people who have never earned money online so it will be fun and interesting. It is completely free and they even give stuff away. You can still join the Thirty Day Challenge.

Antonia Harrison at Earn Money From Your Computer - great advice for making money online - and Affiliate Marketing Success Online

Tuesday 29 July 2008

10 Blog Traffic Tips

In every blogger's life comes a special day - the day they first launch a new blog. Now unless you went out and purchased someone else's blog chances are your blog launched with only one very loyal reader - you. Maybe a few days later you received a few hits when you told your sister, father, girlfriend and best friend about your new blog but that's about as far you went when it comes to finding readers. Here are the top 10 techniques new bloggers can use to find readers.

These are tips specifically for new bloggers, those people who have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling.

It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called "traction", which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.

Top 10 Blog Traffic Tips
10. Write at least five major "pillar" articles. A pillar article is usually a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good "how-to" lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn''t news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.

9. Write one new blog post per day minimum. Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.

You don't have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead. The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.

8. Use a proper domain name. If you are serious about blogging be serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need an easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that''s the offline world, you remember that place right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you've done a good job!).

7. Start commenting on other blogs. Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people's blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.

Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commentor and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.

6. Trackback and link to other blogs in your blog posts. A trackback is sort of like a blog conversation. When you write a new article to your blog and it links or references another blogger's article you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated summary of your blog post on their blog entry - it's sort of like your blog telling someone else's blog that you wrote an article mentioning them. Trackbacks often appear like comments.

This is a good technique because like leaving comments a trackback leaves a link from another blog back to yours for readers to follow, but it also does something very important - it gets the attention of another blogger. The other blogger will come and read your post eager to see what you wrote about them. They may then become a loyal reader of yours or at least monitor you and if you are lucky some time down the road they may do a post linking to your blog bringing in more new readers.

5. Encourage comments on your own blog. One of the most powerful ways to convince someone to become a loyal reader is to show there are other loyal readers already following your work. If they see people commenting on your blog then they infer that your content must be good since you have readers so they should stick around and see what all the fuss is about. To encourage comments you can simply pose a question in a blog post. Be sure to always respond to comments as well so you can keep the conversation going.

4. Submit your latest pillar article to a blog carnival. A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival enjoy a spike in new readers.

To find the right blog carnival for your blog, do a search at http://blogcarnival.com/.

3. Submit your blog to blogtopsites.com. To be honest this tip is not going to bring in a flood of new readers but it's so easy to do and only takes five minutes so it's worth the effort. Go to Blog Top Sites, find the appropriate category for your blog and submit it. You have to copy and paste a couple of lines of code on to your blog so you can rank and then sit back and watch the traffic come in. You will probably only get 1-10 incoming readers per day with this technique but over time it can build up as you climb the rankings. It all helps!

2. Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com. This is another tip that doesn't bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it's worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have - your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to Ezine Articles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.

How you benefit is through what is called your "Resource Box". You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.

1. Write more pillar articles. Everything you do above will help you to find blog readers however all of the techniques I've listed only work when you have strong pillars in place. Without them if you do everything above you may bring in readers but they won''t stay or bother to come back. Aim for one solid pillar article per week and by the end of the year you will have a database of over 50 fantastic feature articles that will work hard for you to bring in more and more readers.

This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time. Click the link for more information about Blog Mastermind. You can also download the Blog Profits Blueprint 50 pages report for FREE.
Click here to get The Blog Profits Blueprint

Earn Money From Your Computer - great advice for making money online

Set up a Profitable Blog with Free Expert Advice

So you've decided to set up your own blog. Your mind is brimming with ideas but you're not sure how to set up your blog. You'd love to earn loads of money with your blog. If others are doing it, why not you?

Why not indeed?

How about taking some shortcuts, learning advice from an expert, picking his brain and doing it all for FREE?
Click here to get The Blog Profits Blueprint
Yaro Stark is an ordinary guy who set up one blog, then another and another and now makes a substantial full-time living just from his blogs. What's more, he does it in an automated way giving him the income without working non-stop.

If you would like to learn from Yaro how he does this, go here. You can download his "Blog Profits Blueprint" for FREE and watch his video tutorial.

It shows you everything this guy did to build a blog that makes him over $5000 USD per month!

"Blog Profits Blueprint" is a great read so I recommend you check it out.

Earn Money From Your Computer - great advice for making money online

Thursday 17 July 2008

Drive Massive Traffic to Your Blog and Earn Auto-Pilot Commissions

Would you like to earn auto-pilot commissions every time you post to your blog? And at the same time use the Power of Twitter to drive massive amounts of traffic to your blog? Of course you would.



I know it sounds like a fairy tale, but it just became reality, with the launch of John Merrick and Soren Jordansen's new "Tweet My Blog".

Just by using the powerful free plugin, you will be promoting your affiliate link on
auto-pilot. In other words, you can earn commissions just for posting to your blog.

But that's just one of the many benefits of using TweetMyBlog, visit the page to
learn more - and grab your free copy today.

And... Even though they are giving this plugin away for free, you should take a close look at the special offer they have in store for you when join. I instantly grabbed my own copy and I know it will skyrocket my marketing power when using Twitter and Wordpress.

P.S. I don't know if John and Soren are going to keep this free forever, I certainly feel they could start charging big bucks for it.

So, grab your copy of "Tweet My Blog" today, while it's still free - and start using it before you
competition does!

Antonia Stuart-James at Earn Money from Your Computer

Tuesday 1 July 2008

The 7 Figure Secrets for FREE

Back in February of 2007, Mike Filsaime held a secret Private Workshop at an
undisclosed location.

Over 100 people paid $5000 for the Workshop.

He then took those DVD's (Which now sell for $1297) and sold it out in record
fashion in under 7 days to 2500 people. Since then... over 3000 people have paid
for that information.

The success stories that followed have changed the face of Internet Marketing.

(Filsaime, along with his 37 Staff Members, will do $10,000,000 this year in sales and is credited with showing other marketers how to grow a 7 figure Business.)

BIG DEAL!

Recently, Mike hired a "TOP GUN" Internet Marketing Expert and Copywriter who also attended the event. Mike Paid this "TOP GUN" $25,000 to watch all 16 DVD's of "The 7 Figure Code" and condense it into a Masterpiece...THE RESULT...

An 85 Page report, no fluff, with all of the Gold nuggets, Pearls of Wisdom, and
action plans for you to get in a 1 hour's read.

That's right, what 100 people paid $5000 for, and had to sit through 3 days, you will get all of the information crammed into 1 report that you can read in 1
sitting.
=============================================

NOW HERE IS THE INSANE PART - IT's FREE

=============================================

That is right, Mike Filsaime was going to sell it for $297.00 and was planning on selling 3000 copies in 7 days. They are already printed, spiral bound, and sitting at the warehouse ready to ship.

But Mike has decided to ship it to you for...*** Free ***

(Only While supplies Last.)



All Mike Asks is that you pay the shipping ($7 US/Canada, $11 worldwide). That is it. You do NOT have to buy it. You simply tell him where to ship it and he will send it to you for...nothing, zip, nada!

But... IT GET'S EVEN BETTER...

>>> Mike was going to upsell the 18 Full Color Process Maps. ($197 Value)

Mike hired the best Internet Marketing experts on Process Mapping, Rich Schefrens' Strategic Profits, to produce these process maps based on each DVD... 18 in all.

Mike has decided to move the FREELINE even further and give you access to these for Free too (also VERY limited time)

And to prove that Mike has lost his mind (and has clearly landed on the North Pole of Mars,) he is also giving you his best selling "The Butterfly Marketing Manuscript 2.0" ($97 Value) for Free as well!

So here is a RECAP of what you get Free:

- The 7 Figure Secrets Printed and Shipped to your Door
- The 18 Full Color Process Maps
- The Butterfly Marketing Manuscript Version 2.0

It just went live for a Limited Time and ONLY while supplies last... So, if you want to be THE FIRST TO GET your hands on The 7 Figure Secrets, go NOW to:

Click Here


PS - The site just went live , so make sure to get your copy ASAP shipped to your door because when the pre printed copies are gone, you will not be able to get your hands on this.

Secure your copy here...
Click Here

As Is, Should Be, Barriers, & Payoff

You know where you are (as is) and you know where you want to be (should be). Next step is to identify the barriers and come up with a proper action plan (barriers, gap) that can be implemented to get you from where you are to where you want to be, and at all times keeping in mind how different your life will be when you arrive to that destination in your mind (payoff).

This is something learned from a Dale Carnegie sales training course years ago:

"As Is, Should Be, Barriers, & Payoff."

From assessing a potential client to assessing my own life or a project, use those 6 words to assist you in getting from idea to implementation.

Next, ask this key question: Who is your ideal target market?

I mean down to the nitty gritty! Where do they surf online? What business are they in? What car do they drive? What size house do they own? What magazines do they subscribe to? What online newsletters do they subscribe to? What memberships do they have (gym, golf club, online communities, etc)? Who are the key leverage people they listen to?

Then, how can you get your irresistible message and call to action in front of them?

Let's back up a step...

Knowing who your ideal target market is, what are their hot buttons, problems, worries, fears? Their aspirations, dreams, goals?

From answering that, what is your absolute best attempt at helping them overcome their fears and at the same time assist them in reaching their goals through your amazingly irresistible offer? (Which would grab their attention just as much as if Hulk Hogan reached across the table and grabbed their throat.)

Some people call that a USP. What is your USP (Unique Selling Proposition/Point)? What separates you from your competition?

Those are the basics of business. (Repetition is never a bad thing, and sometimes stuff you already know being restated brings an A-Ha moment.)

So, the next step is what to do in your marketing to get your message in front of your prospective client or as Jeffrey Gitomer and the creator of NCR (National Cash Register), John Patterson, calls them, "Probable Purchasers."