The Internet Marketing Reporter

Have you ever had the desire to create your own website? That’s actually a great idea! Niche websites are a fantastic way to build a steady, reliable online income, and they’re also one of the easiest for a beginner to make profitable.

Also known as a content-rich site, a niche website is a site that focuses on information for just one specialty area. It can be about anything–antique cars, a sports team, cooking, pets–you get the idea!

I like to think of a niche website as being similar to the long-term investment portion of a financial portfolio. In fact, I believe the perfect time to start a niche website is about 5 to 10 years before retirement. This allows the website ample time to benefit from natural growth to become a significant source of income just when it’s needed most. Also, by that age, most people know a lot of stuff about something, and they’re more than eager to share it!

It’s also a lot of fun to build a niche website. In contrast to other forms of internet business that can become very tedious, boring and repetitive, a specialty website that focuses on a topic that excites you will never grow old. Rather than forcing yourself to write yet another sales article for internet marketing, you’ll have so many ideas for articles you want to write that there won’t be enough time for them all!

And, through your website, you’ll meet other people who share the same interest. Believe me, it’s a great feeling when someone thanks you for sharing information about a topic you love!

With a niche website, you spend the vast majority of your work on the content–which is the fun part! Just by creating more and more content, you will gain natural, steady, long-term traffic growth from search engines, rather than spending your time racing around the internet trying to build links and get traffic from anywhere you can. You still have to initiate some traffic-building strategies in the beginning, but concerning traffic, a niche website is about as close as you can get to “If you build it, they will come.”

A very important factor in the success of your website is choosing the initial theme, or niche–too wide, and you’ll have a lot of competition to outrun; too narrow, and there may not be enough visitors to produce significant income. Just like Goldilocks, you need to get it “just right!” as you create your own website.

Yes, you will still need to learn the basics of search engine optimization, traffic and link building and marketing strategies, but these will soon become second nature as you create your own website page by exciting page.

The best news is that even if you don’t have a clue how to build a website, you can easily create your own website using website building software.

If you’re totally new to the online business world, I strongly suggest starting with a niche website. It’s the best and easiest way to learn the basics of internet business, and you’ll be building an income-producing site that will last for many years. You probably won’t be rich in six months or a year, but the great thing is that the older your site becomes, the less work it requires, and the more traffic and income you’ll see!

What better retirement plan could you ask for?

If you’d like to learn more about creating a niche website, try the free resources at http://www.complete-online-money-making.com/blog/free-videos. You can access free videos, ebooks, and my Niche Tips Newsletter, written especially for those planning to start a niche website.

Maria Garza is an online entrepreneur whose goal is to help others navigate the waters of online money making without time-consuming and costly mistakes that are common to the business. She has a Ph.D. in computer science, and has written over 80 professional research publications. Her dreams of a work-at-home business led her to explore the world of online businesses in 2005. After several false starts and years of learning this new business model, she turned to teaching it to others to help them achieve their goals.

Over the last year there has been a rise in advertisers hitting the the pavement to round up any Local Business they could to sell them online services and you may have noticed the rise in companies doing SEO.

I started doing web design in 1998, I have been making my living solely online since 2009. It was in 2007 I started a journey into the Internet world that would change my life. So, you can guess I watch trends very closely and I still devote 1 day a week to learning something new and keeping up with changes in the industry.

We can all agree the Internet has exploded but the rush to sign up Local Businesses has really just boomed in the last 6 months or so. Every media or Yellowbook salesman soon found that sales were decreasing and it was harder to sell the big yellow book and started jumping on programs to sell SEO or any online service.

Most of the coaching programs teach people how to be an “expert” missing the fact that to become an expert in any field of study takes hundreds and most would say thousands of hours of study, practice, and implementation. While most companies are re-sellers. Selling one size fits all SEO programs and having off-shore companies do the work.

So when searching for SEO how do you choose the right company?

So here we are going to get to the meat and potatoes and how to weed through the companies offering SEO services. Some of these may or may not be important to you but it should provide a good guide to help you make an informed decision for your business.

Step #1 Results

A: Is there company ranking for their own market or service?

When you Google the service your looking for (Sacramento SEO company, Dallas SEO Company, etc) does that company appear in the top 10 or even better top 5.

B: Are their clients on Page 1?

Where are their clients ranking and ask to see proof.

Step #2 Customer Service and Communication

How big is there company and are they going to manage your marketing or do you have an account manager. This may or may not be a deal breaker but it effects responsiveness. A very common story I hear is that there SEO or Web Designer disappeared for 2 weeks after they got paid. So how responsive is that company?

When you requested a consultation how long did it take for them to respond? You want to make sure that the communication is very high and fast.

Step #3 Are they Interested in YOU

What questions are they asking you? Are they really interested in your business or your pocket book. Are they just trying to sell you more back-links than the next guy? A professional consultant will take time to interview you to get in-depth details about your business, services, and target customers. They are going to be interested in increasing your revenue and not just selling you links.

Step #4 Location

Is the company even located in the US?

This may or may not be important to you but I think it is important to most Local Businesses. I have spoken to many business owners who are giving me time JUST because I am in their same city.

It is also very nice to meet someone your going to be working with, shake their hand, and speak face to face… I know I enjoy it and it gives me a chance to peel my eyes of the monitor.

Step #5 References

Do they have a few clients past or present that you can speak to?

You dont need a 100 names but a few people to confirm their a good guy/girl and people are happy with them is always nice.

This may be difficult for a new company or service provider, so if you are new to working with Local Business owners just tell them, and be honest, that your new and don’t have any references yet but you do a great job and if they give you a shot you will make them very happy.

Step #6 Cost

Are there services really cheap? Are they too expensive? Are they priced right?

SEO companies that offer really cheap pricing you should proceed with caution.

To deliver a very exceptional winning service and give the best results it cost money and there is no way around that. You can’t drive a Ferrari on a Volkswagen budget.

Step #7 Delivery

Are they going to be doing the work or will they be re-selling your account to an off-shore company?

This is important because many companies are re-sellers and have off-shore companies doing the work for very cheap pricing and the results are typically not very good so be sure to ask.

I hope you found these tips useful. Put them into use and I think you will find the right company to work with your business.

Craig De Borba is a Local SEO expert to learn more go to Sacramento SEO and read the full article at SEO Blog.

1.) Trying to make a single web page accomplish too many objectives.

You don’t want to try and do too many things on your webpage at once. Michel Fortin (the first online copywriter to break the Million Dollar mark in a single day) says…..

“One Market……One Message….One Outcome!”

One market means your message is directed at a targeted audience.

One message means your goal is to lead your prospect through a logical process that provides a solution to a problem.

One outcome means… you make the sale!

That’s one of the reasons direct response style pages are so much more effective than traditional catalog style sites with multiple attractions all over the page that confuse your visitors. When your prospect has too many choices, they tend not to make a choice at all.

When you create pages that are solely dedicated to a single objective, you can usually boost your overall sales results spectacularly.

2.) Failure to Test

This applies to all things in life. It’s the scientific process that proves what works… and what doesn’t.

Most marketers simply don’t want to bother. That’s a shame, because it’s the fastest way to improve your sales process. All you need is simple A/B split testing software and you can systematically test one element at a time.

· Headline

· Offer

· Awareness Stage

· Lead

· Subheads

3.) Ineffective Order Page Copy

It’s a special moment when someone clicks on the order link. You’ve got to reinforce your strongest benefits and reasons why they’re going ahead, and it works best if you write that copy like it’s coming from their own voice.

4.) Lame Landing Page Copy

If you bore your prospect stiff or confuse them, or fail to prove your claims properly you’ll lose the sale.

Keep your message:

· Interesting

· Focused on them

· Logical

· Benefit oriented

· Believable

5.) No Spokesperson, or Spokesperson Short on Credibility.

It’s proven that prospects respond far more favorable. And buy far more frequently when they fill as though they’re having an intimate conversation with a real person – even though they know they’re not.

That’s why it is so important to use the power of persona in your advertisements.

Chances are, you’re the spokesperson for your webpage. Dramatize your story and instill confidence in your expertise. That builds the trust necessary for the consummation of a sale.

6.) Feeble Message to Market Match.

This is a function of lack of research on your target market. Each market has its own language, and the copy doesn’t read like the ideal buyer talks. It doesn’t resonate strongly. There is no rapport between the writer and the reader.

A great ad speaks directly to the target audience like you’re an insider… you are just like them. If they get a hint you’re not… they won’t believe a word you write.

7.) Difficult to Read.

Lengthy paragraphs, wide lines, tiny font, lack of strong sub-heads that reengage skimmers, and illogical use of white space. Often I see websites that are just too much work to read, and of course if the prospects don’t read, they don’t buy.

Reading from a computer screen is more difficult than reading from the printed page. Its critical you do everything you can to minimize eye fatigue for your reader.

Your message should be constructed with short sentences, simple language and short paragraphs. Nothing is more intimidating than huge blocks of text because your prospect feels intimidated and will click away faster than a New York minute.

8.) Order Links Appear too early in the Copy before enough Selling has taken Place.

Before you present a link or button to buy now, make sure you’ve at least gotten the main portion of your sales argument out of the way; otherwise you’ll have your audience clicking on your order links just to check the price and never reconnecting to your sales message because once they move to another page they’ll never be back.

If your offer is a high ticket, or complex sale, it should be further down the page.

9.) Order Links Appear too Late in the Copy

Sometimes it’s just the opposite. The copy sells past the sale. Too much selling is common with newbies. There is a fine line between not selling enough and selling too much.

It’s important to think carefully about when people might be ready to buy. And if you’ve got good solid positive order page copy you can usually increase the conversion rate by moving your order buttons up higher on the page.

Order link placement is also a function of price and ease of acceptance. The lower the barrier to entry, the earlier you can start presenting order links. If your offer is free, put a call to action right at the top of the page.

Tip: Always use multiple order links or buttons sprinkled through your copy. Don’t make your prospect work too hard to buy.

Rickie McWilliams is an Internet Entrepreneur and a Business Development Coach who can lead you in the direction towards having a successful Online Business and creating the time and freedom that you truly desire. He works with Entrepreneurs and Business Owners, and shows them different marketing strategies that will increase their income, traffic, and overall growth in their business by using Online Marketing.

Your Premiere Online Business Education

If you cannot pass the credibility test, you can never succeed in whatever you do. This is the absolute truth. I would therefore appeal to whoever reads this article to know that learning to build credibility is a prerequisite to success in your internet business. How do you then build your online credibility?

I always visit many web sites and blogs with very good content and products. But on many occasions, I find it hard to believe in the real existence of the businesses behind those web sites. This uncertainty about their existence also leads to the fear of losing my hard-earned money. The same thing happens with many other internet users. And as you may already have known, there are a lot of scams on the internet. Surprisingly, some of the owners of those feared web site and blogs are genuinely conducting good businesses and are very credible. How do you then win your customers’ trust?

To build credibility and to remove from your potential customers the fear of losing their money and having a bad deal, I would like to share with you the following methods I have found to be effective.

1. Make yourself real, existent, perceivable and reachable by providing on your web site or blog your full contacts (physical, phone and email contacts), your personal profile, your company profile and your photograph. This information on many web sites is found on the “About Page”.

2. Show expertise in what you sell or promote. Scanty knowledge about your business will leave many potential customers doubtful and reluctant to deal with you.

3. Make sure you have your own domain name for your web site hosted on a payable professional web host. Avoid free servers in order to be considered a serious business person.

4. Create a feedback page on your website where your potential customers can post their questions. It’s equally important for you to ensure that you give responses to the questions wisely.

5. Give free information like articles in which you provide your visitors with useful content related to your business. This will not only help you to present yourself as an expert, but it will also raise your acceptability, credibility and popularity.

6. Create a page for testimonials on what your existing customers say about your products and services with their contacts included. It will help you to make your potential customers to believe in you and your products as well.

7. As you collect your potential customers’ information through order forms or something, you need to assure them that you are concerned about their privacy, or else they become reluctant to fill your forms. You can do this by creating a privacy page on which you state clearly how you are going to use their information.

8. Remove your potential customers’ doubt and risk by providing them with a money back guarantee. Once they are sure that you can refund their money, they will believe in you and have confidence in dealing with you.

9. Make your potential customers understand that the information you collect from them through order forms is processed using a secure server. This is important for them to feel that their information is protected.

10. Last but not least, design your web site with a good professional appearance. Professionalism is very important as there will always be no room for mediocrity in a competitive market.

As I wind up, I would like to remind you that for you to build credibility, you need to consider applying the above proven methods. The same points can also be used by all internet users to identify genuine online businesses

Charles Kiyimba owns http://www.CashWithGoleza.com and http://www.golezadesigners.com where popular home business ideas and opportunities are tested rigorously to find out what works and what doesn’t. Visit today to discover the secrets behind building a successful home business.

Learning about your competitors is a great way to enhance your business and give it a competitive edge. These 5 simple steps will enhance your Online Marketing strategies:

Step 1: Familiarize yourself with the competition.

Do you know who your online competitors are? To run a successful business, familiarize yourself with all the ins-and-outs of your business as well as your competitors. Compare your performances with theirs in order to help you achieve a competitive advantage and design an effective marketing strategy. Your new competitive intelligence solutions will allow you to gain more business awareness, make logical business decisions, and maximize ROI.

Step 2: Brand your company to be become more visible.

Are your potential clients aware of your company offerings? Do they know who you are? The visibility of your company website in search engines is becoming increasingly important, and the smartest way to approach this is to go to the major search engines (such as Google, YouTube, Facebook) and see who is ranking on the first positions. If you are not appearing on the first page of any of the mentioned above search engines, your website needs to be optimized and the next step for your company is SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for the keyword phrases that represent your niche products/services.

Step 3: Mimic your competitors’ online marketing success.

Online activity continues to grow and change everyday, therefore online marketing continues to grow and change as well. In order to maintain effective Internet marketing, identify which of your competitors are online. Do they have multiple websites? Are they appearing in online directories? How are their rankings compared to yours?

If you discover that competitors are receiving mass traffic from specific sites, reach out to those sites and brand yourself within those online spaces.

Step 4: Provide excellent customer service.

The most effective way to retarget clients is to provide them with excellent customer service so that they come back to your business. It is important to clearly explain your product offerings at the time of purchase to set the right expectations. There is nothing worse than negative publicity, especially when you are online.

Step 5: Stay on top of your competition.

After you’ve followed these steps, staying on top of your competition is the next challenge. The best way to keep growing and be effective is to keep building your competitive intelligence. Set milestones, and continue to monitor your marketing strategies and the impact your enhancements are having on your competitors. Develop a marketing strategy that ties your new competitive edge with your marketing goals.

Good luck, and continue to incorporate competitive advantage into your marketing mix. This will allow you to gain more insights in the industry and remain ahead of your competitors. All your information will enhance your online marketing efforts and make your business more successful.

More business tips for entrepreneurs at http://www.method-marketing.com

There’s no denying it. This is a VERY hot topic right now. You want proof, just mosey on over to the Warrior Forum and look at all the posts, WSO’s, etc.

But you know what? There’s a good reason this is a hot topic right now…

Many off line businesses have been hit by “slow” times and are actively looking for ways to increase business. So opportunity knocks.

My partner Jim and I have been in this arena now for more than a year and we have been seeing first hand how much we have been able to help our own clients. And with our system, we launched Easy Local SEO to help OTHER people market similar services to businesses all over the U.S. and Canada.

I have discovered though, that many people who want to market in this arena have one fatal short coming. They really don’t have any idea how to approach potential clients and get them to listen to what they have to say. My partner and I had this same issue when starting out. Jim used to drive around visiting local businesses for a few hours every day – saying hello, dropping off fliers and business cards, etc. And the people he spoke to were always nice.

However, we made exactly ZERO sales doing this. I learned the hard way that they simply saw us as nothing more than another salesman hawking some product or service. Not what they wanted to deal with, and who can blame them? They have a business to run.

There are a lot of ways to properly approach prospects, get them to listen and perhaps hire your services, but I am going to talk about just 2 things here…there’s a lot more to this, but I don’t want this post to be too incredibly long:)

• “You’re an internet guy?”

The first thing you need to do is very simple. Don’t bill yourself as an “internet marketer”. For one thing you don’t do yourself any favors. If you talk to business owners in a casual environment and ask what they think about internet marketing, many won’t really even understand exactly what that is… and many others think “just some other fly-by-night company selling me a bill of goods about SEO or something.”

Bottom line is, you are looking to help a business increase their revenue. And you are educating them about the power of advertising on the internet. And giving them new ideas on how to get more people to look at their products and services.

In other words, you are a Business Consultant.

Say that to yourself until it is second nature. Because (if you are doing this right) that’s exactly what you are. You just happen to specialize in the many ways the internet can help.

• Show them how they can do it themselves!

Business owners like nothing better than to find other ways to increase their revenue while saving money at the same time. Well, who doesn’t?

So, why not show them how they can use the internet themselves? Show them the power of capturing emails, proper S.E.M., a well-optimized website, the power of social media…you get the idea.

What I am talking about are workshops. Very simple.

Hold a workshop in the area you market to. It’s easy to get the word out (how about the Chamber of Commerce, or local paper – even Craig’s List). And you can actually make money holding them. But there’s an even bigger benefit…

Structure a workshop environment, schedule it for 6 – 8 hours on a Saturday. Charge for attending (anywhere from $97 to $997 – or more if the market will bear it). You need to at LEAST cover the cost of the workshop – most likely for a room at a local hotel to hold the workshop in, perhaps coffee and doughnuts…that kind of thing.

Understand the power here…you will now have business owners coming to you. You are now NOT a sale person, but a potential solution to a problem. They will be MUCH more willing to listen.

The workshop itself MUST be good stuff. Real usable, actionable things these people can do. Focus on just a few things they can do. You want them to have their “light bulb moment”, seeing the potential of what you’re teaching them. But at the same time, you want them to understand just how much time and effort it will take if they take it on themselves.

That’s where the “selling without selling” takes place. They will start asking YOU if you can do this for them. Which of course, you can.

Once you break it down for them in terms they can understand (cost benefits, etc.) the will see that it is simply another advertising avenue. Something they already spend money on – and something they can also write off at the end of the year.

All of this can lead to new clients. Many of them. Hiring you to do everything from website design (or redesign) to SEO to reputation management to social media marketing, to customer database management – and much more.

So now I hear you saying – “A workshop? I never held one of those. I have no content, etc. for this. What do I do?”

Man I hear that. I said the same thing over a year ago when this idea was first presented to me. The answer can only be one of two things: 1) Create the content or 2) BUY the content.

I did number two. And I can tell you it’s the best thing I could have done. Who has the time to write up all this content for the business owners to learn from and keep after the workshop is over?

• The answer to my prayers…

I met Rachel Rofe a couple of years ago at a small marketing lunch. Very nice person and also very talented and a keen marketing mind. While doing some research on line for this niche, I came across a package she and her partner, Jaime Mintun, put out that is the answer to my prayers…

Their package is everything you need to hold a workshop for off line businesses. Everything from the marketing and sales materials to get the business owners to attend, to a slide presentation, a workbook for the attendees – and so much more.

It’s called “Make 10k In A Weekend” and you really need to grab it if you want to hold workshops of your own. You can literally brand all of the material with YOUR business name and logo and be holding workshops next week. What a time saver!

As I said earlier – there are other ways to sell your services. But none will have the conversion rate that this one does. Think about it – all you need to market is a workshop teaching them how to help themselves. By the end, once they see the power of what you teach, many will seek YOU out asking how much you charge to do all this work for them.

To me, that beats cold-calling any day!

Who wants to make money online? Who wants an “internet lifestyle” that comes with successful internet marketing? Who wants to give up there day job and work a few hours each week from anywhere in the world? Of course, we all do! But, why is it that some people can and some people can’t? What is it that separates beginners and strivers and wannabees from those earning 5, 6 and 7 figure incomes online?

Well, believe it or not, it all comes down to basics. There are 2 steps you need to follow. That’s why I’ve called this the marketing 2 step.

First, let’s look at some of the reasons why so many people fail before they even start to earn money online. The biggest one of all is information overload! The second is our own unconscious belief systems themselves that actually interfere with our conscious desire to succeed.

Let’s take a look at information overload. By now, if you are reading this, you have no doubt looked at an endless amount of sales letters telling you how this or that particular piece of software will optimise your web page for a high search engine ranking; or this software will write your sales letters for you; not forgetting this other widget that will drive endless streams of traffic to your site… then there are the courses telling you how to use AdWords, how to use a variety of tools online. There is probably more information out there about internet marketing than you can read in a lifetime, and it’s increasing by a million new pages a day – including this one!!

Information… yes, we all need a degree of information, but where or when do we stop? We just get through mastering one strategy, technique or piece of software, and then another comes along that we simply must have… before long, we are chasing information and all the things related to the processes of internet marketing. Webinars, seminars… it goes on and on. Before too long, you have racked up as much credit as your card can stand and still trying to make your first sale. All the time, focusing on the process and not the basics that have long been forgotten.

Why do we do this?

Belief systems… from childhood, we experience many things in our lives that condition us to react the way that we react to any given stimulus from outside of ourselves. Our beliefs come from the conditioning we had at school, from friends, parents, mentors, people we look up to. We take those beliefs on board and use them to create our own reality. Getting on the internet and looking to make money from the internet for the first time is where we start learning all over again. So, we listen to and follow someone who has done it already, in the hope of learning from their mistake and copying their system, right?

They tell us all about niche markets, affiliate marketing, traffic generation… information… that we continue to soak up and think to ourselves that we need better and better systems to market our product (or someone else’s of course). Why? Because we are on mailing lists of the “experts”, the “gurus” who tell us that we can’t do without this system, that system, or whatever other shiny metal object that passes by. We have been conditioned to follow, to learn from those who “know”. But when is it time to stop, take time out and actually act for ourselves? Often, we start branching out on our own, only for an irresistible shiny metal object to flash before us, and sidetrack our efforts once more.

Of course, we are busy, we are part of the crowd being busy getting the processes in place, signing up for this and that, that we begin to lose sight of where we were going in the first place.

At this point, 90% take the first steps to giving up, thinking that it doesn’t work, it’s all a scam… and only half-heartedly continue, or stop altogether, becoming disillusioned about it all. About 10% persevere and continue to seek the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. About 5% stop and take stock of all that they have been doing. They reason, they rationalise and say “hey, this stuff works for them – they are making a ton of money from the internet – how can I do the same?”

They go back to basics, and put into effect all that they have learned. They stop personalising every sales letter they read and, instead, look at how carefully that sales letter has been crafted. They observe their own emotions. They begin to understand why it is that they have bought a particular ebook or software. When they bought it, they didn’t actually NEED it. When they bought it, they WANTED it! Why? Because the sales letter made them want it! Simple really.

OK, where does the marketing 2 step come in? Well, first, let’s take a look at what the 2 steps really are.

Step 1 – find a hungry market Step 2 – give them what they want

Where’s the rocket science in that? What special software do you need to do these 2 steps? Basically, all you need is your computer, with an operating system and browser and an internet connection – nothing more.

Step 1: You can look at Alexa, eBay, Google Keyword Search, Overture Keyword search, ClickBank and other affiliate portals. Look at all of these and before long you will know how many people are searching for something in particular. Drill down and you get your hungry niche market. Simple.

Step 2: Create a product; use someone else’s product (as an affiliate); rebrand a private label rights product (PLR products); or legally steal from the public domain. There are so many products out there that you can take 5 or 6, get licences for them, or get someone to create them for you, then rebrand and package as your own product. It will be unique – no-one else has put this package of products together – they belong to you!

2 steps – simple.

Now all you have to do is market them – drive traffic to your sales page.

Wait a minute – the sales page… are you simply copying and pasting someone else’s sales letter? Guess what? It won’t work! Get someone to re-write a sales letter for you – they’ll compete with each other to write it for you at elance dot com and other sites. Check it through – does it make YOU want to buy it? Is your offer irresistible? What about your headline? Does it grab the reader’s attention?

This is still part of step 2! You have to give them what they want – the second step starts with product creation – it doesn’t finish there. Headlines and copy – these are the things that make people WANT to buy your product. You know they are looking for it – now make them WANT it. Get the headline and sales copy right, and you can sell anything anywhere anytime to anyone. It really is that simple. Get your killer copy and product package right, then see who else may want to sell it – put it on ClickBank – let other affiliates sell it for you. Check out the “gurus” – ask them if they want to do a joint venture with you. Use your imagination & work smart:)

With cutback in employment and increases in technology the world of online network marketing is growing extremely rapidly. Statistics show one out of every eight households has a home-based business of some sort and many of those businesses are of the network marketing type. And why not? You can find a network marketing company for everything under the sun from jewelry, skin care, make-up, sheets and bedding, cookware, candles, spices, and even bar-b-que sauce. You can get paid to sell something you love and you can do it from home. It’s no wonder so many are jumping on the band wagon.

However, statistics also show 97% of network marketers fail. That’s right, FAIL – they QUIT! After weeks and months of investing cash (that they really don’t have) and time (which they feel they have now wasted), they decide network marketing isn’t for them and they get out.

The issue wasn’t their commitment or determination, no, and it wasn’t the company they joined. The bottom line is that they were not properly trained and/or if they were trained on WHAT to do, they weren’t trained on HOW to do it. And after weeks of struggling, they give up. Sound familiar? How many people do you know that were at one point or another in a network marketing company, or are still in one and struggling?

And now with the internet, it is even more challenging because not only are you supposed to market offline and use the “language” and call people and constantly hunt for leads, but in addition you are supposed to market online. And if you have dabbled in this area at all you know this is a whole new world. New skills, new language, new activities and more money to spend. In fact, while there are not statistics out there to prove it right now, my guess is people attempting to do online network marketing are dropping like flies – probably at a much higher rate than those attempting to network market the “old fashion way”.

Why? Why might online marketers (which is supposed to be THE answer) struggle even more than offline marketers? Simple – it’s a much BIGGER learning curve. If you plan to be successful in online marketing you need to master the language and implement the skills. You need to know, understand, and use effectively: Blogs, Lead Capture Pages, Pay Per Click (PPC), Web Copy Writing, Social Media, and on and on. Each one of these concepts can take days, weeks even months to learn and even longer to implement effectively. Not to mention there is all the affiliate stuff that goes with it. In the online world this is called building a Lead Sales Funnel, or an online Marketing Sales Funnel. So you can see why someone might quit before they are successful. Success in the online world takes work! A lot of time, a lot of energy, and even some financial resources. And it’s scary, it means breaking out of one’s comfort zone and not just learning but DOING and putting one’s self out there to make mistakes and that is not comfortable to most.

One of the best things someone can do who is new(er) to network marketing and who really wants to learn the ropes and be successful is get a mentor or a coach. A mentor or coach doesn’t have to belong to the same network marketing company, they just have to be someone experienced in online marketing. Someone who knows what they are doing and can guide others. Now the big names out there – the gurus – charge an arm and a leg for just one hour of their time, but there are many other very experienced coaches who can help beginning online network marketers at a reasonable fee.

In addition there is training available online. A lot of training, for example, there are 50-60 online trainings available for PPC alone. Doing a little research you can find an online training in every aspect of building an online sales marketing funnel – shop around.

However, one of the BEST trainings is actually a live event for online network marketing called the Basic Training Intensive. It is intense and only for the most serious network marketers who want to succeed in the online arena. It is an rigorous 4 day – 3 night program where a new(er) network marketer can get their entire Lead Sales Funnel up and running. You may wonder, if it takes people weeks or even months to learn one aspect of marketing online and even longer to implement it, then how can it be learned and implemented in one weekend?

Great question – but that is Exactly what the Basic Training Intensive does. Every minute of the day is packed with experts taking you by the hand step-by-step to set up your entire lead sales funnel. It’s not easy and not for someone not willing to give 110-percent. There is “home work” to do each night,and there are mandatory pre-training seminars. But if someone is determined to move forward in the online network marketing world and they don’t want to do it at a snails pace over months and months, then the Basic Training Intensive is definitely a MUST!

But it is also EXCLUSIVE! The training is held only a couple of times each year, but class size is Maxed out at 30 participant, as each person receives one-on-one attention and step-by-step instruction. It is absolutely THE best way to learn and implement quickly.

It is also reasonably priced, especially if you compare the value to what you get. Each course someone might take for each aspect of building a sales funnel typically costs between $200 and $1000, if multiply that by all the courses one would need; Blogging, Lead Capture Pages, PPC, Web Copy Writing, Branding, Social Media, Twitter, Facebook, Auto-responders and more, it would easily cost at a minimum $2000 but in reality it would cost closer to $8000, not to mention all the time it would take to learn the information and then implement it, how much is your time worth? But the BASIC TRAINING INTENSIVE doesn’t cost anywhere near $8000, it doesn’t even cost what a few hours of coaching from a GURU would cost. And yet it INCLUDES accommodations and meals – what training do you know of these days that includes your hotel and meals? None I have ever heard of before. But it is all part of the internet Basic Training Intensive.

Not to mention the fast-action bonuses offered. The hosts of the program appreciate people willing to act fast and make a commitment to their business success. So they have a VIP list (that you can get on today), and ONLY those on the VIP list get a chance at fast-action bonuses, such as laptops, flipcams, online banners and ipods. Tools that successful online marketers need.

Start correctly from the beginning

One of the ways to start in affiliate marketing is to have a clear picture as to what you want to accomplish and don’t go thrashing round aimlessly. A lot of us make this mistake, get frustrated and ultimately give up. Hopefully this guide will go someway to help you get off on the right footing.

What Sells

If you want to sell anything at the moment online the biggest sellers (I think) are pills, sex and making money. I think a lot of people are probably looking at this for the moment in our constant struggle to find what we can do. Don’t let this fool you though as there is a lot more to to it than meets the eye.

If you follow the process that I set out below I hope that it will help you some way to the success that you deserve making money online.

Decide what you want out of this

Before you do a single thing you have to ask yourself a question. That is what do I want out of this. Do I want to change my life, gain financial freedom or earn just a few quid extra every month. These are all very important questions and you must ask yourself these before you even consider going down the route of working from home with affiliate marketing. If you are looking for a get rich quick scheme then you are on to a loser. This takes a lot of time and effort but financial freedom is achievable in the end.

Plan of action in affiliate marketing

you’ve decided haven’t you? that’s great. Now you have to start putting the pieces together. As I said in this article already there are no shortcuts and you have to be prepared to put the work in. There are a couple of things you have to watch out for. and they are:

Internet Gurus

These are people online who to be honest are very clever at marketing their own skills and abilities. One of the best ways to make money online is to set yourself up as an “expert” and make it look as if they know what they are talking about. Once this is the case they can up sell you just about anything because they have gained your trust. With the odd exception a lot of them are probably no different than you and I.

A good way to spot them is looking for phrases such as this is free or this can earn you $$$$$$ in 24 hours. These are all cleverly worded campaigns to try and give you false hope and relieve you of what money you have. If you pay for anything these guys offer you will more than likely be furnished with an ebook that you could probably download for free if you looked hard enough online anyway.

When you visit their websites you will usually find pages and pages of dialogue along with conveniently placed screen shots of there earnings and right down the bottom there is a button which says “by this” or pay now”. Be warned more often than not you are paying for worthless or outdated information that no longer works.

Another thing to watch out for these guys is the so called squeeze pages. Ill explain more about them and what they do in another article but for now you just need to know they are a crafty way of getting your email details so you can be up sold anything they choose to send your way.

Template Websites

One of the sad facts with people that get into this are they all have one thought in common. I want money and I want it NOW!!!. To that end they will look for any shortcut they can to get them selves to where they need t be. I know this because I used to be one.

Probably the most time consuming thing is building a website around your chosen subject and that can lead to some frustration. You have to ask yourself is there away I can save time on this?? There are self confessed gurus out there which tap into this need and try and sell you a solution which will generate you a website within minutes. While these claims are true they are not very efficient for a simple reason.

THE SEARCH ENGINES HATE THEM!

One of your most important assets as an internet marketer is the need for traffic or visitors to your website in high numbers. While I admit you wont master the methods of getting this straight off its also of the utmost importance to do nothing to penalise this either.

Choice of subject

There are several schools of thought out there on a choice of subject to promote. What ever it is you have to make sure you know what you are talking about. To that end it is always wise to pick a subject that interests you and you are somewhat of an authority on. In my case it would be IT and affiliate Marketing.

The next thing to do is find an affiliate market place to choose a product you would like to promote. Affiliate market places exist so people can resell there products through them and use people like us to aid in that process for a percentage of the sale price which is the basis of affiliate marketing.

One of the more well know affiliate marketplace companies is probably click bank. They specialise in digital products such as instruction manuals and that sort of thing. The name click bank shows up a lot in online help documentation and documentation on affiliate marketing.

Your Website

As I said earlier the best thing to do is create your own customised website and build your efforts around that. How you do this greatly depends on budget.

If you are on a shoestring you can use one of the free blogging websites. You can usually register for these at no cost and can start posting to your hearts content. A good example of this is probably hubpages or EzineArticles. If you are reading this then you are in EzineArticles. You would be well advised to have a look at the links in the top about creating an account.

If you have a little bit of cash to spare a good option would be to setup a website on your chosen subject and build your content around that. This is by far your best option.

Putting a website together can be quite easy and you don’t need an awful lot of experience to accomplish this with invention of wysiwyg web creation software.

Organic Versus PPC

One of the things you have to be careful of is your advertising budget the same with any business.

The best and most economical search engine result you could wish for is an organic result. These are the ones that appear in the middle of google when you search for a particular keyword or phrase. These are the ones that have ranked steadily on there own.

Pay per click are the results that are listed up the sides. While these give a company good exposure they are somewhat artificial as companies are bidding for a preferential position based on keywords that are searched for. PPC is also what I consider a fine art and very tricky to master the balance between cost per click and return on the investment. Personally I avoid it as it costs to much in the long run.

While im writing this portion of the article I am running a little test in the back ground to see how often my name is searched for. After a couple of hours Ive reached 18,232 impressions. These are times that my site has appeared but not been clicked on. Can you imagine what would happen if I went down the pub and didn’t monitor this properly!!.

The point is organic search engines while a little more time consuming are the best and most cost effective way of doing this. Ill cover SEO in more detail in other articles over time so watch this space.

Monetise your website.

Once you have a website or blog in place and it is getting a decent amount of traffic you need to consider ways of converting that traffic to revenue which can pretty much run on autopilot.

I echo an earlier warning I made and that is to be careful of the opportunities you look at as some of them are a big con. Make sure you research anything fully before using it. Some of the ones I use are as follows.

ClickBank

This is an affiliate market place which people use to market there products. As an affiliate we can pick products from here and market / sell them in return for a commission.

AdSense

This is a little offering from Google. This allows us to display text or image based adds on our sites or blogs and we get a percentage of the revenue every time someone clicks on an add through are sites. Some blogging sites including hub pages integrate AdSense into there setup to allow you to make money from your blogs.

Bidvertiser

Not a lot to say about this one. Works pretty much the same as AdSense.

eBay

One of the more famous ones out there, they have several affiliate offerings which allow you to generate revenue from your website, one example is to display an eBay store on your site and collect a percentage of the revenue for anything sold.

There are many many more out there but this just gives you a very small cross section of what you can do.

Remember watch out for the conman, don’t ever give up it can be a pain in the butt and you will feel despondent at times but its worth persisting with. Finally look forward to cashing all those affiliate cheques that start flooding your mail box.

Happy surfing guys and look out for more articles soon:)

In terms of a successful online marketing strategies, what is required? Well there are many things that other online marketers will tell you are required, yes you could have everything enabled but what is the actual end-to-end process for a successful internet marketing or affiliate business.

From studying the subject and indeed marketing products on the internet here is what I believe is the actual process in the order it can be used:

Initial keyword Research, identify niche product areas

Once you have decided to build your online internet marketing business and you have carried out the initial business planning and creating cohesive plan. The next step is to identify which niche area you will start to do business in; this for me comes even before a product has been identified. Many people think that a niche product is one where the demand for that product is extremely high, whilst I understand why this measurement is important.

What if the product is extremely sought after but the competition to provide the item or service is also very high. For me the niche is a subject or service that is highly sought after but where the market is NOT satisfying the demand, this is the best sort of niche area. So how would you go about identifying the product/service niche initially, well its okay to have an idea of a product/service that you would like to deliver, you can then go on and look at the possible keywords that are being searched on for that article. This will give you the first signs of the likely demand.

The next step is then to find out how many sites are delivering services within that niche area, you can use Google initially to find out how many sites are operating in that area.

Again you can also ask Google to highlight how many sites in that list are actually using the keyword within the domain-name for their sites; this is usually a strong indication of just how serious they are about the product. It also must be said that at times a subject might be too wide to be niche but in highlighting a particular attribute of that subject might well offer a better niche opportunity. An example of this might be ‘Hypnosis’ may be too large to be niche but ‘Learn Hypnosis’ could be an effective niche subject.

Product Selection, what is the niche for the product?

Now you have identified some niche areas you can move on and start to look towards some products that fit into these niche areas, again there are several places you can look at for products. So look for something that would allow you a good initial opportunity and would also give you an incremental revenue stream over time, if possible the product should be some sort of repeatable service or item.

Product Creation / Development

The product selection and choice is such a large subject we may have to cover it later in a article just dedicated to the various product sources. However one of the common choices is to produce your own product, this could be an e-book, a CD suite or even to re brand something from the public domain that is out of copyright. What ever you do it must be a quality item, online marketing clients have now come to expect high quality and also free products that compliment the primary product. It is common to give away a free newsletter or report based on the subject matter this can be a great way to capture the clients email address and contact details.

Detailed Keyword Research

So now the product is underway, what is next?. You now need to carry out keyword research again only this time you need to start producing a list of keywords that you will use later for online marketing Ad campaigns.

Here yet again you have to be careful that you don’t always pick the keywords with the highest level of traffic, these sorts of keywords will most probably come with high competition. So look for keywords that have a decent level of traffic but that have some degree of slack in terms of the competitive level within that keyword.

Website development

This is fairly self explanatory, you will need some sort of tool if you plan to build your own websites, although this can be an extremely difficult task if you are not used to writing code with HTML, PHP, CSS, Apache, etc. There are some very good simple tools available on the market that do offer very intuitive ways of building sites from just a drag and drop kind of functionality. However the website will need professional sales copy to present the product or services, Opt in functionality to allow you to capture the users email address with their full consent, double opt in.

It would also be good if the site encompassed auto-responder functionality to automate some of the responses to the client, that way if you are not there the business still continues to run. You can also purchase at extra cost, customer relationship management systems that offer full auto-responder and opt-in/double opt-in functionality as well as a management layer for client email addresses.

Creating Demand for the site

Now the site is up and live we must start to be concerned with the techniques of driving traffic and this is where we start to uncover the various techniques. Blogging is where you create an online Marketing blog on one of the popular platforms like Blogger or Word press. Once you have created the blog you post regular posts to the blog and start to build a community that drives traffic to your site. Article submission is typically where you write an article on your niche subject and then post this article on submission sites, including links back to your blog and/or website. This can be used as a very effective back-link strategy for your site, but there are guidelines that you should adhere to for instance all content should be unique and remember not to put too many links in to the article. SEO again is a very large subject and in this article we can only really touch on the basics, Search Engine Optimization techniques are always changing anyway so if this is something you are interested in you need to keep abreast of those changes. In general though once you know your hot keywords, these should be included in key places in the website or blog.

If possible the domain name should also contain the hot keywords. Once the site has been modified to reflect keywords in the right places, the site needs to be indexed for Google, MSN, Yahoo. We will go even deeper on this subject in a later article.

Customer Relationship management

The last piece is the management of the database of clients that you have built up through your opt-in lists, if you are going to run email campaigns it is a good idea to consider purchasing a good customer relationship management system that allows you to keep very regular contact with your customers.

In general terms these for me are the areas that cover the end-to-end process and you can go into some of them and not others, you may choose to put a website in place and use free methods of driving traffic. These could be blogging and article submission and some SEO to drive traffic to an affiliate product specifically chosen to align you to a particular niche market area.

Have you ever looked back at certain times in your life and said to yourself if I only knew then what I know now I would have taken advantage of some particular knowledge, business opportunity, or other situation that may have made your life better today. You are not alone, hind site is known by many of us not only in our daily lives but also in our quest for internet marketing success.

For example, have you ever looked back at maybe a online business opportunity that you read in a email that you for some reason or other didn’t take advantage of and the next thing you knew it was a great big success for all those who participated but you could no longer get in?

What about that online membership that you did not join when you had the chance and now you find that the same membership is not only highly profitable, the cost of membership is now out of your range or they are not accepting new members at all?

Or you may ask something like if I had only known that niche marketing was going to be the next big thing I may be on easy street right now.

At this point I have come to realize that I shouldn’t cry over spilled milk, but more importantly that the only thing that you can actually count on about internat marketing is that it is always changing. Every day there is something new to consider, weather that be a new product, service, membership site, or online business opportunity, you can rely on the fact that there will always be another one coming to your email inbox.

This being the case what can you do to help keep on top of your internet marketing business endeavors:

First - Always Keep Yourself Well-Informed.

Realize that individuals who climb to the highest of any specific arena – no matter if it will be internet marketing as well as a different field – the way they become proficient at what they do, is that they continue to learn new and improved methods, information and techniques in relation to their chosen field. They are also willing to take advice from others that are on the leading edge of that business.

Many internet marketers will learn about this field from either the experts or gurus in their specific niche, from other marketers who are taking advantage of the same online business opportunities that we have chosen, or by going it on their own and figuring things out the harder way, by what really works and what dose not.

You will discover the fact that the more that you become involved in the field of online marketing, the better it will be possible for you to understand what products, services as well as business opportunities are worth your while considering.

Second - Concentrate. Choose A single Technique And Make A Honest Effort.

Numerous individuals who begin using the net having elevated hope, go through a identical routine. They will become anxious about some fresh product or program. They start out by putting all they have into trying to get their project up and running successfully. They may invest long hours and even money to see this online business venture started. This may be any kind of product or service from selling ebooks to trying out affiliate marketing for the first time. Then almost before they get started some other internet marketing guru will pop up with some other newer product or service that catches their attention because of some slick sales pitch. Because the new internet marketer has not yet seen any results or income from his current internet promotion, he or she makes the decision to put his current product or service on the shelf in favor of the newer one. There it starts, that vicious cycle of investing in something new and shiny, get no results, get discouraged, put it on the shelf, then go to the next new thing.

Now as time passes by weeks to months, maybe even months to years, the bills for all of the new products, services, or business opportunities begin to take its toll, because these investments have returned very little or no money to help out. This internet marketer may now begin to wish that they only knew about internet marketing then what they know about internet marketing today!

Maybe you can see yourself in the example above, if so, that should pose no problem for you now, you have since learned not to cry over spilled milk, you can now accept the fact that you don’t know what that next hot product or service will be. However the most important thing you have learned is, you will be sure to know what new product or service is for you and how to make it pay off by sticking with it.

Third – Take Inventory.

It is a very good idea to begin to get your digital house in order. Set aside the time needed to take inventory of all the products you have acquired over time on you computer hard drive. This may take some time and effort depending on the amount of products you have accumulated, don’t let this hold you back. Make a list of what you have found. Now determine which of these products (because of what you know now)are worth you holding on to. The products that you do decide have some merit and income producing possibilities examine the methods that you have learned over time to best promote these products of value. You will want to choose internet marketing techniques that you are not only familiar with but that you are comfortable as well as efficient in using.

Now you are ready to concentrate on only that one method of choice to promote that particular product or service, stick with your plan, give your plan a realistic amount of time to take hold and become productive, Whatever you do this time don’t rush your system, allow time enough for it to begin to turn in a profit. This is one of the biggest motivators you can give yourself to continue on the right track.

Now that you are making progress with this product, you can decide that it’s time to put all the other products that you located away for another time and a different promotion. You can always come back to these when you are ready, but you may also decide that the product and system you are currently working with is working so well it will be enough for now.

Fourth – Don’t Let New Product Offers Knock You Off Track!

Make up your mind to only invest in internet marketing tools that will enable you to make this promotion or product that you are currently using more efficient, save time or to increase your income capabilities. Under no circumstances invest in everything on the spur of the moment. A good idea is to examine any sales letter thoroughly then wait until preferably the next day and check it out again, do some checking around to see what others are saying about this product. Is the product an exceptional buy? Dose it stand up to the hype and deliver as promised?

Also take the time to ask yourself,: “is this going to help make my internet business more efficient?” “Can I afford this product at this time?” “Will it serve a specific use in my business growth now?” But most important, “is this really something that my business needs or just another product to knock me off track?”

You can finally make up your mind that you will take the bull by the horns and make your internet marketing efforts actually pay off. You will no longer be concerned with “If I Only Knew About Internet Marketing Then What I Know About Internet marketing Today” the main point is to use what you do know right now!