Saturday, March 29, 2008

Success - The Power of YOU

There are various ways to stand out in a crowd of people. You can either do something different, sound different or look different than anyone else. But how do you stand out on the internet? How do you become known from amongst the millions that have an online presence? You do it by branding yourself online? Start this process by being honest. Tell them the truth about yourself and your product or service. Google Me Now is one way of accomplishing that great first e-impression.

Too much hype and outright dishonesty is not in your best interest. Make good use of online services and social networks. They can be invaluable in creating a positive image of you. Social networks such as YouTube and MySpace allow you to display pictures of yourself, as well as videos of yourself and your product or service. People like to put a face on the person they are interested in....it helps to develop that element of trust.

While large companies spend millions of dollars to brand themselves online, you do not have to do that to make yourself known. You do require some good knowledge and the presentation of your techniques has to be unique in order to command the attention that is being demanded by so many. Be very well informed...keep the learning process constantly going. Once you have established that great online presence, your knowledge will continue to generate interest for you for a long time.

When using your name with other key words you are building a brand and guiding traffic to you. Almost everything now is on the internet. People now go to the internet to look things up, before they will go to the phone book.

Most all of your online branding can be done for free. Free methods of advertising can go as far as paid and are sometimes even better, as it reflects the effort you put into it. Free can be effective! When you are presenting your service or product on your website, don't tell them you have the best product! People are already being spammed to death by the BEST product emails! Tell them what you can do for them. Do some press releases and testimonials, but include your product, service or store name. Put a video on YouTube, working your business or a tutorial about how to work with your product. Under the description of your video, you will want to include your email address and your website link. Post ads on Craigslist and other ad sites. Expose the world to who you are....people need to buy into who you are.

With a little work on your part, you can achieve great results with your branding. Very little money needs to be spent on branding....possibly only on a domain name and website. Some domain companies will have templates available to you to build a website or landing page, so there is no need to have someone build it for you. You basically just fill in the information and voila'....you have your website. There is even a good quality autoresponder site that you can access for free. A good autoresponder will respond to people immediately when they inquire about your service. After that, you can get in touch with them personally to find our how you can help them specifically.

With a little research and work, you can brand yourself online. Once you start attracting people, more will come. You need to keep your "face" in front of them. Build relationships. Create an establishment of friendship. Relationships build trust....thus adding to your credibility.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Checklist for your success

Once you have your name on page one of the search engines, as per previous post on GoogleMeNow, you can continue to promote yourself and your interests via your website(s). While setting up an online business can be real easy, not everyone actually makes money at it. To be successful in the online business marketing, you have to find what works for you the best. Every online business is different. They all use the same tools for the same reasons but which ones that work will depend on you and your business needs. Here are ten things that help you to be successful when beginning your online business.

1. Set goals for yourself.

You cannot have a business by chance, that just does not work. You must have a goal, something to strive for. The long-term goal is to be able to live off the income it generates. This can take some time, so make smaller goals as you go. If you set your sights too high in the beginning, it can be discouraging. Set a standard for each site you build. The goal could be to make approximately $500 a month per site. This is a realistic figure to be able to do in the first few months if you work hard. Build more than one site. This will help broaden your spectrum and generate more interest. The more sites you build and affiliate with the others, the higher you pay check becomes.

2. Make a plan and stick to it.

Having a plan of action will help to keep you organized and get things done appropriately. Setting up a plan that has a site up and running with in a few months is very possible. In the first month, spend time researching keywords; affiliate programs available, and the resources to refer back to for writing content pages. During the second month, write at least one article a day to add to your content page. This will give you several keyword documents that can generate hits.

3. Set a budget that is reasonable.

It is possible to start an online business without investing, but it is a good idea to invest. If you want to make money, you have to spend it first. The investment should go to domain name and web hosting. You can expect to invest to register a domain name, contracting with a host company and other such related things.

4. Check your lifeblood- have great keywords, programs, and content articles.

You want to be sure that you are constantly updating and increasing your keywords and content. You want to have a good program and use the keywords and content articles to generate traffic. You want to be able to convert that information to the program link.

5. Prepare what to say before you write content page.

You want to write articles or ads that will eventually generate business. They should be informative and make people want to have the product. People like to read things that peak their interest and keep them wanting more. Use prime keywords that describe what you are selling, use of the item or the history of the item. Once you know what the merchant you are affiliated with wants sold, pick out your keywords and start writing.

6. Don't forget pre-selling.



One thing you should never do is write a contact article with the obvious intent to sell something. You want to get the customer to buy, but not by slamming it in their face. That is a big turn off for a reader. You want to get the potential customer to fall in love with what you are writing about. Make them desire it on their own and then provide a link to where they can get it. You want to give great information and subtly guide them. Provide suggestions and recommendations to the product. Don’t just tell them to buy this or that... it won’t work.

7. Build targeted traffic to your site.

When you first hit the Internet highway no one is going to know where you are. You must get out there now and promote your site. You can either do this the free way, by paying, or a little of both. The best thing to do is to see what free things you can try first to gain targeted traffic. Then if those don’t work move to a paid service while still trying the others.

8. Be determined to succeed.

Well if it takes about two months just to get the site up it is also going to take a few more months to generate any significant traffic. You have to work at this. Don’t get discouraged and just quit when you only get 10 visitors that first day. Be patient and check your site for improvements all the time. Write more content articles and improve your keywords, to keep people coming back.

9. Time management is a rule of thumb.

Now you have become a web master, writer, manager, and editor. You will have multiple sites and will need to be able to budget your time for each accordingly, writing articles as well as checking the sites with you to see how much traffic is being generated. Make sure you have good time management skills. Set up time to do articles each day, and editing, etc. Work on all sites in a specified area for a period of time and then move to the next area.

10. Stay up to date with the changing markets.

Every day there are new programs emerging and policies changing on search engines. Keep up with what is going on. You can keep yourself in the loop by subscribing to newsletters and SEO news. Join an affiliate forum to hear the latest from those in the business with you. Make sure you know what is going on to stay on top.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008