Are You Jeopardizing Your Future?
By · Comments
Did you realize that we’re already more than a quarter into 2013? It’s frightening isn’t it how quickly time goes by?
It only seems like yesterday that I was setting myself and my online business goals for the year as part of my ‘New Year Resolution’s package. 
And here we are on around day 100. So far this year life has thrown a heck of a lot at me in my personal life, consequently I’m nowhere near where I wanted to be at this point.
But that’s life isn’t it? It always seems to have a habit of knocking us off course when we’re striving to achieve? And once life’s knocked us off track it can be so hard to get back into the groove.
How are you doing? Are you on track with any of your goals or resolutions? For example, if one of your goals/resolutions for this year was to earn an extra £50,000 by starting an online business, you should have banked £12,500 by now.
Have you surpassed your expectations, or, like me are you not even close? If you’re not even close then stick with me, I’m going to give you a recipe to sort yourself out, get back on track and hopefully get you to the level of performance that will see you enjoy success before the year is half gone.
I’ve used this recipe before to get me back on track – like I said, life has a habit of getting in the way when you’re trying to achieve, so this certainly isn’t my first time. The recipe does involve you to be brutally honest with yourself, but you know what they say about ‘No Pain…No Gain, and ultimately it’s in your best interests.
You see at the moment your current line of behaviour is jeopardizing your future, you’ve had 100 days to work towards your goal, which in anyone’s book is more than enough time to show significant progress. Your results speak for themselves so your current strategy certainly isn’t working.
Now Is The Time To Change All That…
1/ Asses The Consequences Of Your Actions
You are the only person that can turn things around in your life, if you don’t work on changing it for the better, your life is going to stay exactly as it is. And while I have no doubt that you do like your life, we both know you want change, that’s why you set yourself goals and made resolutions.
The reality is that your current performance is nothing to write home about, and unless you make the effort to change your performance is never going to improve. Face the consequences of your under performing…what negatives does that involve for you and your life?
Now take a look at the positive consequences of you turning things around and changing. Move towards what you do want in your life, and move away from that which you don’t.
2/ Form Good Habits
Habits determine our lives, and your current habits are leading you to an undesirable, undisciplined and unprofitable future. We all know we have bad habits, which of yours do you need to break in order to become successful? And which do you need to develop to move you closer to the life that you want?
Experts say that it takes 21 days to form a new habit…when it’s put like that it sounds so easy…but then again it is so easy. Commit yourself to developing good habits over the next 21 days and after that you’ll do it automatically. And once your good habits come automatically how much better do you think you’re going to perform?
3/ Sort Your Attitude Out
At some point we all have to accept that our results in life are largely dependent on our attitude. Therefore if you want to improve your results you’re going to have to change you attitude.
What do you think would be the best mental attitude for you to adopt in order to make the second quarter of this year fabulous with regards to your goals/resolutions?
The one thing we have complete control over in our lives is our thoughts, and it is our thoughts that control our attitudes. Choose to have good, positive, joyful thoughts and watch your attitude fall into line accordingly.
4/ Focus On What Needs To Be Done
You want to see quality results for your actions, so focus on tasks that will help you reach your goal. It’s so easy to get sidetracked by life, social media and our own laze these days, so it’s necessary to develop a sense of urgency where your business is concerned.
Give yourself deadlines, and actually stick to them, in the grand scheme of things do you really think it matters if you miss a few hours sleep or the odd social engagement? Look at the bigger picture. Do you think anyone ever became successful at anything by having a ‘half-hearted’ attitude towards it?
With every task you do ask yourself ”How is this helping me to reach my goal?” and if the answer is “It isn’t” then have the self discipline to stop doing it, however much you may be enjoying yourself, and focus on something that needs doing, something that will actually help you get to where you want to be.
Each day gives us the opportunity to show commitment, perseverance and focus towards our goals. Don’t let yourself become one of the majority who’s goals and resolutions set at the beginning of the year bear little or no resemblance to the results they actually achieve.
In the words of Sheldon Adelson ($20 Billion net worth)
“Just do things in life the way that other people don’t do them, change the status quo and then you’ll succeed.”
Any thoughts? Let me know by posting a comment.
Mel
Kermit Was Right….”It’s Not Easy Being Green”
By · Comments
I Spent most of last Saturday in the attic at Mum & Dads house. Mum wanted a few bits putting up there and since my parents are in there 70′s I gladly volunteered.
What should have taken me 10 minutes ended up taking the entire afternoon.
You see I came across a lot of my stuff from when I was a kid, so spent ages reminiscing.
I found my old roller boots (and plaster cast from breaking my arm when I misjudged a curb!) and for the first time in my life realised that their yellow and blue colour combo wasn’t the epitome of cool that I thought it was as a youngster.
I found my old Rubik’s cube, complete with either “dog eared” or missing stickers from where I’d tried to cheat my way to solving the puzzle in a very amateurish 8 years old way!
I would just like to add that I was, at a later date taught the more professional way of cheating the puzzle by gently smashing it into pieces and putting it back together all solved! (Mum & Dad still think they bred a little genius) 
And then I found my Kermit The Frog, how I loved my Kermit, for a long time we were inseparable . The minute I saw him I took him in my arms and started singing “It’s not easy being green”.
Call me a geek but as a child I knew all the words. Actually you may call me a geek for at the ripe old age of 40 taking a stuffed toy into my arms and singing to him, it, I mean it!
These days the term “green” is probably most often used as a way to describe someone who is new to their profession, position or hobby, someone who needs to get a bit of experience under their belt so as to avoid “school boy” errors and mistakes.
That got me back to thinking about when I first started out in Internet Marketing. I was so “green” that Kermit looks beige in comparison!
If there was a mistake that could be made, I made it. If you could get hold of the wrong end of the stick, I grabbed it with both hands. If there was a dark alley to be led up I’d pack a suitcase to take with me, such was the length of time I’d spend in that alley!
Seriously, looking back it’s a miracle that I ever got anywhere. I was lost in a sea of information. Information, it’s one of the Internet’s greatest strengths, but because of it’s sheer volume it’s also become a weakness.
How’s the average Joe supposed to know whats right from whats wrong? Who to look to when they need guidance? Who’s full of bulls**t and who’s the real deal?
And lets face it, there’s thousands of bulsh**ters out there who just want to take your money and in return give you some outdated blueprint that never worked anyway or a secret Google loophole that has long since been plugged up.
It can all get so overwhelming that you could easily give up.Lots do. The whole thing seems futile, it’s as if all the people making money from the Internet know something you don’t know and wont let you in on the secret.
Thats how It felt to me anyway.
Until….
One day, and I’d love to say it was by some masterstroke on my part, but it wasn’t, I hit the wrong button on my laptop. But anyway, one day I ended up on the Internet Marketing Review website.
It’s a membership site, but when you land on it it tells you about all the benefits of joining. There’s access to online training in the form of ”How to…” articles, training video’s and MP3 audio’s covering many different aspects of running an online business.
It told me of downloadable tools and templates for many occasions…. but I think the thing that hooked me was the discussion forum where you can post questions, thoughts and comments.
It said that members are always willing to help each other. That sounded good to me cos the one thing I was definitely in need of was HELP.
I immediately joined up. ( I was scared if I didn’t I might not be able to find the site again!)
That was 4 years ago and since then I’ve never looked back. I’ve now got the thriving Internet business I always wanted. (Yey!)
If there’s something I need to know, something I need an opinion on or something I need help with The Internet Marketing Review is my first port of call.
But don’t take my word for how good it is, take a look for yourself and see how it can either help you start your own Internet business or improve the one you’ve already got.
The Internet Marketing Review Because “It’s not easy being green!”
And while you’re doing that I’m going for a quick cuddle with Kermmy.
Mel.
What Do You Want From Life?
One of the worst things that could happen to you is finding yourself stuck in a job that you hate, spending day after day miserable, counting the minutes until home time, and then dreading going back into work the next day.
Many people that make the decision to start their own online home business in their spare time dream of the day when they can sack their boss and work for themselves full-time.
However before you do go ahead and take the plunge into Internet marketing it’s vital that you spend some quality time with yourself deciding which online business is right for you.
You need to figure out who you are and what kind of business would most likely work for someone with your personality traits, which sounds easy enough in theory but in practice can be a right pain in your existence.
With that in mind I’ve put together 8 tips to help you find and build the online business that fits who you are today, and who you want to be in years to come.
1/ Self Knowledge…Who Are You & What Do You Want From Life?
What does ‘success’ mean for you? There’s far more to success than just making lots of money, ask yourself how you would really like to be spending your time and what you really want your life to look like.
* Maybe you’d like to be able to spend more time with your family, taking them away on 4 international holidays a year.
* Maybe you want the freedom to be your own boss and work from anywhere in the world. (with Internet access!)
* Maybe you want financial freedom, so you never have to worry about money again.
* Maybe you want a luxury house with a garage full of your favorite cars.
* Maybe you want the sense of achievement that comes with owning a profitable business.
2/ Be Realistic In Your Goals
Just because someone else can do something and enjoy it doesn’t necessarily mean that will too, so be realistic with your goals. It’s common for people to feel that it doesn’t matter if they enjoy their business so long as it makes them heaps of money, yet the reality is if you don’t enjoy your business it’s unlikely that you’ll build it up to be profitable.The minute things don’t go to plan you’ll jump ship, you just won’t have the motivation to fight your way forwards.
Set yourself a realistic goal like:
I want to be able to work from home doing something that I enjoy, and make enough money to cover all my living expenses and still have plenty left over.
3/ Play To Your Strengths
Look at your current skills, talents and aspirations to help figure out what you’d like to specialize in. Your should specialize in something that fits you as a person and fits the direction you want your life to move in.
By focusing on a speciality in time you can become a bit of an expert, the ‘go to’ person in your niche, which will help you to attract customers/clients.
4/ Know Your Limits
Every single one of us has our individual limitations. I know that there are skills I don’t have and tasks that I wouldn’t want to do for all the tea in China. (so I outsource them)
Being aware of your individual limitations helps you avoid setting up the wrong business for you. Build your business and your future by playing to your strengths, not your weaknesses.
5/ Are You Prepared To Acquire The Necessary Skills Or Tools To Succeed?
Are You Prepared To Learn The Necessary Skills?
To succeed in any business there are skills and tools you have to be willing to acquire. You may need to attend training courses,(there are plenty both online and off) buy business blueprints or computer software.
Though at first you may feel intimidated by the prospect of learning new skills, because you’re aware of your limitations you’ll never try to start a business where you don’t feel comfortable with what you’ll need to learn.
Throughout your entire career you will find that you are constantly learning new skills in order to stay ahead of the game, and I promise you, if you choose the right business for yourself you will enjoy this learning process no end.
6/ Create Your Business Infrastructure
A surprising number of people forget this aspect when they start their own online business from home. There’s something about working from the comfort of their own home that makes them forget that it’s still a real business!
Whatever business you decide is perfect for you is going to need a business name, a business card, a business bank account and credit card, a business website or blog with a business email amongst other things.
You’ll also need a comprehensive bookkeeping system to keep track of expenses and revenue…and a good accountant. (they can save you a fortune!)
7/ Define The Customer Base You Want To Work With
What type of people do you want to work with? A good understanding of who your best customer is will help you build your business to appeal to that exact customer. Nobody wants to work with ‘customers from hell’ so learn to recognise and avoid them at all costs. In most businesses it’s 1% of customers that create 99% of the problems. These ‘nightmarish’ customers will drain you and make your life far more stressful than it ever needs to be, steer well clear of them.
8/ Product Creator V’s Selling Other Peoples Products
To attract customers you need products to sell, but are you a creative type that would like to create your own products (a lot easier than you’d think when you know how) or would you rather just sell someone else’s products?(as an affiliate marketer)
This is a vital indicator as to what will be the perfect online business for you.
Bonus Tip…
Never lose sight of why you wanted to start your own online business, you wanted to live your life the way you wanted to, on your own terms. Find your comfort zone where the amount of time you spend working and the income it makes you balances nicely with the amount of free time you want. In other words…
Don’t let the business take over your life.
To learn about setting up your own online business check out my free report , it can be with you in seconds. I’d love to know what you think of it so please leave a comment.
Mel
Related Articles
Beginners Make Money With Affiliate Marketing
Creating Your Own Products Is Easy When You Know How
Kermit Was Right…”It’s Not Easy Being Green”
Welcome to Part Two of ’6 Things You Must Have Before You Start An Online Business’.
Hopefully by this point you’ve had a chance to work on your overall vision for your business, your mindset and your business plan.
Today we’re going to be looking at the importance of a strategy to execute that plan, setting yourself goals to keep yourself happy, motivated and productive, and what products/services you could sell.
4/ A Strategy To Execute Your Business Plan
People often have brilliant idea’s of what they want their business to look like and accomplish, but then fall short when it comes to exactly what they are going to do to get their business there.
A perfect example is when someone says they want to set up a blog to make money selling products related to the topic of their blog, yet they have no plan for how they will attract their prospective customers!
Don’t start off on the wrong foot, yes, you want to set up and make money from a blog but you also have to take the time to plan your strategy. It’s such a common mistake to assume that people are going to automatically flock to your site simply because you want them to.
Unfortunately online business just doesn’t work like that.You need to give consideration to how you are going to drive traffic to your blog…
Are you going to get your visitors by using a paid for ad campaign such as Googles AdWords?
Are you going to use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to hopefully rank highly within the SERP’s (Search Engine Results Pages) thus gaining plenty free organic traffic?
If yes, what SEO tactics are you going to implement?
Or are you going to use a combination of both paid advertising and good SEO?
How are you going to build your email list?
Will you use a squeeze page?
What incentive will you offer to get people to part with their email address and join your list?
Are you going to submit articles to the Article Directories?
How will you build your sites all important backlinks?
Will you be Guest Blogging?
Are you going to upload video’s to YouTube?
Will you be using Press Releases?
How are you going to engage with your visitors?
It’s vital to the success of your business that you take advantage of every promotional opportunity that you possibly can. I hope by now that you’re getting the idea that to have a successful online business you’re going to have to put in some work before you reap the rewards…BUT…the rewards are really worth it.
5/ Small Goals To Help You Reach Your Big Goal
Everyone knows that if you want to achieve anything in life you need to set yourself some goals. A lot of people though set themselves a big goal but never set little goals to help them reach the ‘biggie’. Break your big goal down into little goals, and when you reach each little goal celebrate and reward yourself.
A good example of what I mean is…
Let’s say your goal is to lose 50 lbs, 50 lbs is a heck of a lot of weight to lose and could seem like an in-conquerable goal because you’re so far away from it. 5 lbs however is a much smaller amount to lose, lose that 10 times and you’ve lost your 50 lbs!
If you give yourself a treat/reward and have a little celebration each time you hit one of your smaller 5lb goals how much more motivated do you think you would be for reaching the big goal?
I think you get the idea, and it is such an obvious thing to do, but the amount of people that don’t do it is unbelievable. They’ll set themselves the big goal of having their own successful online business but don’t break it down at all. A few weeks/ months down the line they get disheartened because they are still so far away from reaching their big goal.
Being disheartened leads to negativity, and negativity usually leads to quitting, and once you quit you’ve failed. People actually fail in this business because they forget to reward themselves and celebrate how far they’ve come when they achieve little things…and that’s just stupid…don’t let it happen to you.
6/ Products/Services To Offer
If you want to make money then you’re going to have to have products or services to sell. This leads to the age old question…create your own products or sell someone elses. Now in the long term the Internet marketers that make the most are those with their own products, however you can make a 4, 5 and 6 figure monthly income working as an affiliate marketer selling someone else’s stuff.
I’ve put links to a couple of articles that you may be interested in about creating your own products and affiliate marketing at the bottom of this post. In them you’ll discover how and where to find profitable affiliate products, and the low down on creating your own products for a hungry market eager to buy from you which I hope you’ll find helpful.
If you’re interested in starting your own online business at some point and want to make things as easy as possible for yourself then go and take a look at this video presentation by one of the U.K’s leading Internet marketers, Neil Stafford. In it Neil tells his story of how he went from corporate workhorse to earning as much as £60,000 in a single day with his own online business, and how he can help you do exactly the same.
Let me know how you get on, I love hearing from you.
Mel
Related Articles
Beginners Make Money With Affiliate Marketing
Creating Your Own Information Products Isn’t Difficult
Starting an online business is one of the most positive things that you could possibly do to change your life.
The barriers to entry have never been smaller, and due to technological advancements even the worst ‘technophobe’ can set up a website without too much heartache.
However, before you go rushing in it’s vital to have a few things organized and in place to give you the very best chance of long term success.
1/ An Overall Vision Of What You Want To Achieve
Fast forward in your mind to 12 months down the line, what do you see? What is it that you want to achieve during these 12 months?
Some people long to give up their day job and work from home as their own boss, Some want to be able to put money away for their kids college fund and others simply want to earn some extra cash for life’s little luxuries.
What’s your motivation? What do you want from your business?
You need to have a good idea of where you want your online business to take you in order to plan how to get there. For example, if you want to earn some extra cash for life’s little luxuries you may decide that an extra $10,000 p/a is all it would take to get you where you want to be.
If though, you want to quit the day job and become your own boss then obviously your online business is going to need to replace your old salary, therefore you are going to have to commit considerably more time and effort to your new venture.
Don’t fall into the trap of just ‘going with the flow & seeing what happens’. Whilst there are Internet marketers that have kind of fallen into their success, this isn’t the ‘norm’. Usually those who see the most success in this business are the ones that knew exactly what they wanted to achieve right from the start.
2/ The Right Mindset
One of the main differences between those who do make it with Internet marketing and those who don’t is their mindset. It’s about how the successful ones think about their business, how committed they really are, how they roll with the punches…they get knocked down – they bounce back up again.
Don’t allow negative patterns that have been created by previous experience pop up and take control, these patterns can ruin your thinking, and your chances of success.
It’s vital that you take control of your mindset and develop the ‘I can’ mentality. Starting an online business involves quite a steep learning curve for most. You’ve got to believe you can achieve what it is that you’ve set out to.
Take control of what goes on in your head, it is after all your head. The minute you feel yourself getting even the tiniest bit negative take control and restore positivity. You’re no different than the majority of people making a good living online, they started out exactly where you are, a ton of enthusiasm and a tiny bit of know-how! If they can succeed, there is no good reason why you can’t succeed too.
3/A Business Plan
I don’t mean a business plan in the traditional sense, that work of fiction that you produce to the bank when you’re trying to get a business loan. No I mean business plan as what you want your business to look like.
For example, lets say you want to set up and make money from a blog, you should be asking yourself questions along the lines of:
Why do you want to start your blog?
How much time each week will you allocate to building and running your blog?
Where will this time come from? (i.e. less T.V watching, less socialization with friends, less sleep)
Who is your blog aimed at?
What niche will your blog be in?
Have people in your niche got money to spend?
Are people in your niche accustomed to spending money online?
What need, or desire will your blog fill?
What problems will your blog solve?
Why should anyone read your blog over the millions of other blogs out there?
What will be unique to your blog?
What kind of competition is there already in the market?
What products/services will you offer?
What type of content will you produce, written posts, video, audio?
What type of content are you best at creating?
Will you produce all of your content, or will you outsource some of it?
How often will you publish new content?
How will you continuously create good quality content?
How will you convert visitors into customers?
How much money are you willing to put into your blog?
How much money do you think you’ll make in your first year?
How will you earn this money?
How will you promote your blog?
What are your long term goals for your blog?
These are just a few of the many questions you should be asking yourself in order to plan your business. When you are at the business plan stage I can’t stress enough how important it is that you be honest with yourself. It’s so easy to get carried away with enthusiasm, but your plan has got to be realistic if you are to stand a chance at succeeding.
In Part Two of this post we’ll be looking at coming up with a strategy to execute your business plan, putting goals in place to keep you moving forward, and what products or services you could sell.
Until then…
Mel
How To Promote Your Website
By · Comments
Promote Your Website
I’ve had several emails in following the previous post ’6 quick tips to increase website traffic’ asking for more ways to promote your website.
Every Internet marketer knows the best way to increase site visitors is to promote, promote, promote…. so in this post I’m going to share with you 8 more ways to promote your website.
Some of these methods are conventional so can act as a reminder/refresher whereas others are far less conventional and will help make you stand out from the crowd.
1. Publish your own Ezine/Newsletter
It goes without saying that if you publish your own ezine/newsletter that you should take the opportunity to plug your website, however, I subscribe to many, all of which are full of excellent content…but they never promote their own websites – talk about missing a trick!
Each ezine that you publish should include a call to action that sends people to your site. Or perhaps even a special offer code that can be used in conjunction with an offer on your site.
2. Email Campaigns
Make sub-lists of your main list so that you can send targeted messages to drive your customers/prospects to various new sales pages, offers etc.
3. Email Sig File
Usually the sig file gives a short description of you and your business, including your URL. It’s a few lines long and appears at the end of emails that you send.
Your sig file should include a powerful benefit to readers and a call to action to visit your website. However, don’t fall into the trap of turning your sig file into a mini sales letter – people just find it off putting.
4. Write an ebook
A well written ebook for your niche containing links back to your website can be an immensely powerful asset when done the right way.
Give your ebook to your existing list and encourage them to pass it around family, friends and colleagues who they feel may enjoy or benefit from reading it.
You can also use the ebook to entice new subscribers as a sign up offer to get them on your list.
Be sure to produce a relevant and informative ebook that people in your market will enjoy and even pass on, not a blatant sales pitch full of affiliate links – that will fail miserably.
5. Networking
Does your niche have trade shows that you could visit? How about shows or events you could attend that are closely related to your niche? If so go to as many as possible and always take business cards.
You can also print off copies of your ezine to hand out to interested parties. Talk to as many people as possible, get them interested in what you have to say – and always be sure to leave them with either a business card or a copy of your ezine.
6. Harness the power of the press
A well thought out press release at just the right time can give you a remarkable amount of marketing exposure, even on the radio and t.v.
I know of a woman who landed a spot on local t.v. thanks to her press release.
7. Use classified ads
It’s surprising how effective a classified ad in your niche markets magazines and publications can be. The idea in placing an ad isn’t to try and sell something to people, it’s merely to drive readers to your site, preferably a name capture page.
You will have to provide a good benefit to the reader in order to get them to go online and to your website…however if you can get them to do this you will have a really hot prospect.
It’s amazing how cost effective placing ads in niche related magazines can be, often the price will literally be a few pounds or dollars per ad and the traffic that they bring is highly qualified.
8. Take speaking engagements
Be honest – did you baulk at that suggestion? Public speaking isn’t for everyone, and I’m perfectly aware that a lot of people would rather die than stand up in front of an audience and talk. However, it is an excellent way to promote your website.
>You can include your URL on each slide you use during a PowerPoint presentation.
>You can mention your URL during your talk.
>You can include your URL on any handouts you may use.
>You can tell people you have put a resources page on your site where they can download a transcript of your talk for future reference.
If you take and implement just two or three of the given ways to promote your website within 4-6 weeks not only will you see an increase in website traffic, you’ll also see an increase in sales and profits.
How do you promote your website? If you use a method that hasn’t been mentioned here then please post a comment letting me know what you use and find effective. I love hearing from you.
Mel
6 Quick Tips To Increase Website Traffic
By · Comments
Increase Website Traffic
I was visiting an Internet marketing discussion forum earlier in the week where the topic of conversation was how to increase your website traffic.
Traffic is the life blood of online marketing, and without it the best website in the world wouldn’t make so much as a single penny.
The gentleman who was asking about how he could increase his website traffic wasn’t happy with the number of visitors his site was receiving.
His offer had a good conversion rate BUT he wanted to get more people to visit the site itself.
This man had worked hard on his site, but sometimes you can be too close to the work you’ve put in and all it needs is for you to take a step back and re-evaluate your current strategy.
In less than five minutes those of us on the forum came up with nine actions for him to take to increase his website traffic, and they weren’t all the ‘usual suspects.’
In this post I’ve outlined for you the six quick traffic building strategies we came up with. (In honesty there were probably more than six by the end of the brainstorming session, but I had to leave as we had a table booked for dinner )
How many of them do you implement in your business? All of them…none of them? These techniques are all proven ways to increase website traffic, so any that you’re not currently using try to implement over the next month or so to see a big difference in your sites visitor numbers.
1. Comment on five other blogs in your niche
Blog commenting on niche related blogs offers an excellent way to build quality backlinks to your website. It also has the advantage of allowing anyone who likes the tone of your comments to visit your website directly.
2. Post relevant content to your site daily
Google loves to see a site constantly updated with fresh new content and gives a rankings boost to those who oblige. Regular visitors to your site will visit more often if they think there will always be something new there for them to read.
3. Pay Per Click Advertising
Many people shy away from paid traffic as they’ve heard the horror stories. The truth is however that paid advertising is the best way to bring targeted traffic to your site.
PPC isn’t just Google Adwords, you can also use bing or MSN, and all three frequently offer free coupons for $25-$200 for you to give them a test drive. Your first paid campaign can be free.
It’s also worth mentioning that you should investigate some of the smaller PPC Search Engines as they can be unbelievably cheap compared to Googles Adwords.
4. Post videos on YouTube
Getting video links is a powerful way to build domain strength for SEO purposes.
5. Submit an article to the article directories every day
Post penguin and Panda backlinks to your site from the article directories don’t hold as much weight as they once did. However, they do still hold some weight, and by putting out plenty articles you are growing your expert status.
Many other blog owners reproduce articles from the directories on their own sites, along with a link to your website. Readers who enjoy your article will click through to your website to read more of your work.
6. Send affiliate partner requests every day
It’s important to send a lot of these requests as the majority of them will fall on deaf ears. However those who agree to your request will promote your product/s and your website for you. Some of these affiliate partners will have lists that run into the tens of thousands…and a percentage of these will visit your site.
There you have 6 tried and tested methods of increasing traffic to your website. How many of them do you already use? More importantly how many are you going to implement and how soon?
I can promise you that even if you only use a couple of these methods in your own business you will without doubt see an increase in your website traffic.
Let me know how you get on, and if there’s a method that you use and get good results from that isn’t mentioned above please feel free to share!
Mel
Add images to your blog!
As with any blog, an Internet marketing blog can be cheered up no end by the inclusion of a few pictures. Good quality professional images help your blog to make a much stronger impression with visitors.
Not only can they catch and help hold a readers interest, they are also good for helping you to drive your point home.
But where can you get these images for free?
Sometimes it may be possible for you to create images of your own, but on the whole it’s far more practical for you to find high quality existing images to use, and the good news is if you know where to look you can often find exactly what you need for free.
In this post I’m going to focus on where you can find these free images to upload to your Internet marketing blog.
Be sure to check the specific license of any image that you do plan to take and use as it’s important that you have the appropriate license.
1./ Morgue File
Morgue File is one of the best sources of free images online. The files on Morgue File can usually be used for just about anything without attribution. Images can be altered, reproduced, partially used and even redistributed.
Be sure to check each individual images license that you plan to use, as some do have more stringent licenses than others.
2/ Stock xchng
Stock xchng is another free stock image website similar to Morgue File, and it carries a massive selection of images. The license for these images is a little more stringent than that of Morgue File. You can take an image and use it in part or in whole, or even alter it.
You can create derivative works, however you can not give redistribution rights. Also, if you want to use the image in printed media you need to ask Stock.xchng for permission.
Little Tip – check both Stock xchng and Morgue File before you make your final image selection.
3/ Open Clipart
Open Clipart is one of the biggest free clipart websites online and on their homepage thay declare that the images are all in the public domain, meaning that there is no need for attribution however you decide to use the image.
Clipart differs from regular images that use photographed graphics in that the graphics used are generally made from created vector graphics.
On the whole clipart isn’t used as the main image, it’s generally used to supplement other images, e.g, the ‘lightbulb over the head’ type graphics. It’s also good for checkmarks, arrows and other formatting related images.
4/Google Advanced Image Search
Googles Advanced Image Search allows you to search for images based on image license.
To access the advanced search menu, click the ‘settings’ button on the right hand side of Google Image Search. To select the license type you want to search for scroll to the bottom. Input your keywords and any other specification you may have and hit ‘Advanced Search.’
Only images of the license type you requested will be returned. Be aware that Google isn’t always 100% accurate as far as licenses are concerned so always double-check before using the image.
So there you have four different sources of free images to upload to your Internet marketing blog. If you can’t find a suitable image for free try looking at either iStockphoto or Dreamstime.
Since iStock was taken over by Getty Images prices have been creeping up, but on the whole their images are of a slightly better quality than Dreamstime.
If you haven’t downloaded your free copy of “Making Money Online With Your Internet Business” go and do it now, it can be with you in seconds.
Mel
Video Review Of The Internet Marketing Review
By · Comments
If you’re a regular visitor to this site you’ll know that I credit the success of my online business to the Internet Marketing Review Membership Site.
Consequently people have been asking me for a while now what makes it so good, and if I could perhaps do a review of the Internet Marketing Review.
In this video post I give you my warts and all honest appraisal. If you’d prefer to read a text version of the IMR please click here.
Click here for more information on The Internet Marketing review
As always, I’d love to know what you think, so please post a comment to let me know. Thanks
Mel
Making your first sales feels great
Call me the Angel of Doom if you must, but the simple truth of the matter is that the majority of people working online from home fail in their business endeavours.
There can be many different reasons for this, the most common being that either:
a) No blueprint or a poor/out-dated blueprint was followed, or
b) They gave up too soon.
I know only too well how many poor/out-dated blueprints are available on line, over the years I think I bought most of them.
There is nothing worse than feeling scammed, duped into buying a pile of c**p only to be ignored when you request a refund. (That’s why I any product on this site has been thoroughly checked out and tried by me before any recommendation is made to save you going through that particular heart ache.)
However, there are a heck of a lot of excellent blueprints available that could make the dream of being your own boss working online from home a reality, yet still most fail because they give up too soon.
People have very little patience these days and expect to see instant results for their efforts. They have been ruined by the promise of over-night Internet riches, which, while it does happen, it ‘s far more the norm to have to work at building up your business before seeing much in the way of results.
The thing is how do these people that give up too soon know that their first sale wasn’t just around the corner? Maybe if they’d just stuck it out a little longer they would have had their first taste of success by now.
Ever since I first started making sales working online from home I’ve believed that if people only knew just how good it feels to wake up in the morning to find that their online business has made money while they were snoring sweetly in sleepy bow bows land they would keep plugging away for as long as it takes.
I’ll never forget the first sale I made…I checked my ClickBank account first thing in the morning every morning before I went off to the day job. This particular morning I found that two of my referrals had gone on to buy the affiliate product and that I’d made a whopping commission of $62.
I’d often thought of how I’d react, I knew I’d be pleased and feel great but the reality was I felt a million times better than that. It wasn’t so much the money (let’s face it $62 isn’t going to buy you the life of your dreams) it was the knowing that what I was doing worked. It really worked. If I could make two sales in a day I could make 22 if I implemented more traffic building strategies.
When I saw that I’d made my sales I whooped and screamed so loud that all three of my dogs shot out of the office! (the back bedroom) And we’re not talking about little toy dogs that you may expect to run off startled, we’re talking about 50kg of Rottweiler and two labradors!
I then proceeded to jump and dance my way round the house convinced I was the new Donald Trump… without the questionable hair of course! Next I ’pulled a sickie’ from work. I had to get a friend to call in for me, I sounded way too happy to get away with it.
I didn’t take the day off sick to celebrate though, I took the day off to work on my money making business. I just wanted to grow and grow my business, and obviously make more money. I felt as if I could conquer the world. It was genuinely one of the best days of my life.
It can be hard sometimes finding the motivation to work, especially when you’re working online from home with all the distractions that home can bring.
But not once you see the money start rolling in. Motivation levels go through the roof and then some!
It doesn’t matter if you want to quit your day job, supplement your income, have some spare cash lying around for those ‘special things’ or if you want to build a legitimate fortune for yourself - all this can come from working online from home with your Internet business.
As long as you follow a proven blueprint, stick at it, and don’t give up too soon.
Here’s to your success!
Mel
