If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Thought that this list of the top 20 forum directory sites might be useful!
http://www.bbswatch.com/index.shtml
Top 20 Forum Directories
March 11th, 2008 — Forums, Sales
Write better articles….
February 18th, 2008 — writing, Business Making Money Online, Articles
I’ve seen many articles that tell you how the writer thinks that you should create great articles, and, do you know something? I often disagree with what I read!
Not because I believe that I am smarter than the original writer, or that I know everything. It’s just that most of these articles seem to leave something out. And, more importantly, I often think that they get a lot of it the wrong way around too!
Not sure what I am talking about?
Then, please read on to discover my ‘way round’ of doing things.
1). Find your article’s Keywords
Use whatever keyword software works best for you to find a good keywords, that is, keywords that have high value and low competition.
2). Select your Point Of View
If you choose to write the article First Person, you can write about your own experiences using the Product, or at the least, your desire to solve the problem that the Product “promises” to solve.
This establishes you as an “expert” in your reader’s mind, because you have direct experience with the Product and you succeeded in solving the problem, yourself.
Or you can choose to write the article Second Person, for instance, telling your reader about a danger to avoid (with other, competing products).
This establishes Trust with your readers, because you’ve warned them away from something bad.
Or you can choose to write the article Third Person, for instance, giving valuable information about your reader’s problem and it’s solution (via the Product).
This also establishes a level of Trust, because you have provided assistance to your reader.
In all cases, you want to address the problem that caused your reader to search in the first place, then help them solve it.
3). Bullet-point your Value items
Pretend that you yourself, need to solve this problem. What kind of information would you be looking for?
Put yourself in your reader’s shoes and give them the information they want. Make a bullet-point list of the important items that your article should discuss, to provide your reader with the answers s/he wants.
If you’ve come up with your list of keywords for the article, by using the question-word method discussed above, then coming up with these value items is even easier. Simply answer the questions in the keyword phrases.
Either way, go back over your list and insert the single keywords and keyword phrases you’ve chosen.
Tip: Almost any information you need for an article, is right in front of you - on the Internet. Search Google for your keyword phrases, and you will find other sources of information from which you can obtain your list of important items.
4). Order & Expand your bullets
Re-order the important item bullets you’ve listed, into a sequence that flows naturally from one bullet to the next.
Then expand each bullet into one or more paragraphs, that fully discuss the important idea in that bullet. You will find this to be a simple way to produce a “draft” version of your article.
Try to use short sentences and paragraphs, as this will improve the “readability” of your article.
Next, verify your keywords. Make sure your primary and secondary keyword phrases are included (repeatedly, but no more than 5%); and try to sprinkle in additional repetitions of the common single keywords you chose earlier.
Finally, read over the entire article and edit for accuracy and clarity. (Also at this stage, watch out for too many repetitions of any particular combination of keywords.)
To increase clarity, you can add sub-headers for each major topic in the article. Also, if you have any lists, you can number them or simply use bullet points.
5). Get them to Take the Next Step
You need to end your article with a “call to action”, which tells your reader what they should do next.
For instance, in the case of feeder pages, you want them to click the link to your money page, where they can read your Pre-sell. So for example, you could end with:
“To learn more, including how to solve [their problem] quickly and easily, click here to read our Complete Product Review.”
6). Add the Title
Sometimes you know what the title is immediately, even before you start to write the article. Other times, the primary keyword phrase provides an excellent article title itself.
But often, you need to wait until after the article is written, so you can have a clearer idea of what the article is about.
In any case, your title has to capture the reader’s attention immediately, or else he won’t bother to read the article at all. Usually, this means that your title should state the central problem that brought your reader to you in the first place - and the promise of its solution.
Regardless, be sure to include your primary keyphrase, to help your article rank in the search engines.
For our example, a possible title could be:
[”Exciting baby nursery themes ideas - a checklist for a safe and enjoyable journey into parenthood.”]
New Years Giveaway - Take a look now!
January 6th, 2008 — webiste visitors, reports, getting started, Sales, Business Making Money Online
The number of seasonal “Giveaway” events was certainly up over the recent festive season, wasn’t it?
How many of them did you sign up for? Those that you did join, did you find much that you liked?
I must say that in the majority of cases, I was not overly impressed.
A lot of the products being given away were not particularly difficult to get hold of and I thought that a lot of the events themselves, especially the newer ones, were more ‘glitter and tinsel’ than substance.
One that I HAVE found worth looking at, however, is the excellent “New Years Giveaway” that is running from now until the end of January, and I would seriously recommend that you should take a look sooner rather than later.
There’s three hundred or so free gifts on offer and unlike most of the ‘festive season specials’ that I looked at, many of them are actually worth downloading. There are e-books, software programs, video and web authoring tools for everyone from the newest newbie to the most experienced, and (the thing that I most like),a lot of them are new to me too!
Now, you know and I know that the idea of these events is to allow the contributor to add your name to their mailing list, so I would recommend that you create a new gmail or yahoo email account for your sign-ups and that you only download that you can actually use. Downloading something that you ‘might’ use in the future is just cluttering up your disk space, trust me, because you will never use it!
Anyway, whatever your own experience of the recent glut of ‘givies’, you must take a peek at the New Years Giveaway now, if you have not already done so.
Read & Watch
January 1st, 2008 — marketing sense, Law of Attraction, multimedia, Business Making Money Online
January 1st, so HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Improve Your Guarantee, Make More Sales!
December 27th, 2007 — ebooks, reports, marketing sense, getting started, Business Making Money Online, Sales, Articles
One of the simplest ways that I know of increasing sales is increasing your guarantee! Many marketers seem worried that by having a generous guarantee, people will take advantage of them, but in my experience that just does not happen, and, anyway, thinking like this is really missing the point.
Here’s an example. Everyone is doing a 30 day money back guarantee, so why don’t you do a 6 month guarantee?
A 6 month guarantee will almost certainly increase your conversions and your refunds will probably not increase a whole lot either.
I know that the longer and stronger the guarantee is, the more likely I am to pull out my wallet and let my credit card see the light of day, and I am fairly sure that I am not alone in this.
And in any event, we all know that there are many people who are serial refunders but they generally ask for their refund within the first few days anyway, and I think that most folks have better things to do with their lives than wait around 6 months to try and rip you off for a refund.
So, don’t be mean with your refunds policy. Be generous, and I am willing to bet that it will increase conversions and you will make much more money off of the extra conversions than you will lose in those handful of extra refunds.
$800k In One Week From Facebook?
December 18th, 2007 — reports, webiste visitors, ebooks, PLR, Sales, getting started, Business Making Money Online
A couple of days ago I was listening to an interview with some guys who run a leading PLR website and it struck me that the market for PLR products is now becoming a mature, grown up one!.
That is, whereas even six months ago, if you bought a PLR product that was what you got - the product alone. Now, you are far more likely to buy a ‘package’ in which you get everything that you need to start selling straight away, like ready made sales pages, graphics, squeeze pages and so on.
But, I guess that it is only sense that you would expect such quality to come at a price, so seeing these sites selling monthly memberships for $50-100 is not uncommon. It is good value, no doubt, but it is not cheap by any means.
So, here’s a deal that you should definitely be taking a look at.
Take a look at IM PLR Club or read on, and then look!
Now, I am going to begin the spiel with that dreadful ‘my good friend’ thing, but, in this case, it is actually true!
Anyway, one of the straightest guys I know in internet marketing, Ben Shaffer, has just launched his own PLR private members site, limited to only 250 people and (this is the kicker) the trial is only $1.00 and, if you decide to stick with it, then it’s a measly $20.00 a month (or only $12.00 per month if you pay in advance for a year)!
That is for a fully packaged, ready to sell product, the first one being all about Facebook, graphics, sales pages and squeeze page included. And it is good – like quality writing, obviously by someone who has more than a passing acquaintance with the English language and great graphics.
How do I know? Well, Ben told me!
No, seriously, I have read the book cover to cover, and it is well worth reading, because Facebook is not something I had even thought about marketing on or through before (which pretty much guarantees that no-one else has either) and it is very definitely not the same as MySpace.
But, if I told you that there is a worked example of how it is possible to earn $800k in one week with Facebook, then you’d be interested, right? Interested enough to spend $1.00 to find out more?
Now, there is no affiliate program (unless it’s a secret one) so I have nothing to gain here, but Ben is a friend and this is a top quality product at a ridiculous price, so get over there now and take a look.
And, if you like IM PLR Club, you can say thanks by leaving a comment here
10 More Simple Traffic Tips
December 12th, 2007 — webiste visitors, marketing sense, getting started, Business Making Money Online
11. Add a link in your email signature to your website. It’s a free and easy way to get a little more traffic.
12. Make a custom 404 error page for your website redirecting people to your home page.
13. Use PPC search engine advertising.
14. Add a “bookmark this site” link to your webpages.
15. Have a tell-a-friend form on your site.
16. Send articles to ezine publishers that includes a link to your website.
17. Hold a crazy content and make it go viral.
18. Give away a freebie (ebook, report, e-course) to keep people coming back to your site.
19. Add an RSS feed to your blog.
20. Submit your site to any related niche directories on the net.
And, in case you are wondering about what happened to #1-10, you will find them HERE
Creating An e-Book Without Writing A Word!
December 3rd, 2007 — reports, ebooks, getting started, Sales, Articles
Many online marketers today make a living by selling their own products. Among the most popular digital products to sell are eBooks and special reports. These are files in written form where useful and desired information can be conveyed. Indeed, information is what fuels the internet. It’s not called the information superhighway for nothing, after all. People log online to search for information. If you have the information they need, then they will come to you. And if this information holds a lot of value, you could sell the same and make some wonderful profit. And since words are the primary tools of communication in the World Wide Web, information is often conveyed in written form, i.e. the aforementioned eBooks and special reports.
But preparing written works is not easy. For starters, not everyone could write. And those who could often don’t have the time to embark on such an undertaking.
Fortunately, there are some alternative routes you could take which would allow you to prepare your own eBook or special report without having to write down a single word. Let’s take a look at 5 of these options.
1. Gather some articles and compile them in a single volume. This would be the easiest way to prepare your own digital product. These articles can be PLR works which grant you the right to alter them and use their content anyway you please. Or they may be articles written by other people, which you have compiled from renowned websites like www.ezinearticles.com or www.goarticles.com . If you choose the latter set, just make sure that you respect the terms and conditions of their usage, primary of which is the inclusion of the original author’s resource box. You can’t just bundle up articles left and right, however. Make sure that one article would organically and logically flow to the next. You can ensure this by studying the articles you want to include.
2. Conduct an interview with an expert and record the same. Thereafter, hire someone from www.rentacoder.com , www.elance.com or www.guru.com to transcribe the conversation you had with the said expert. You’d be surprised how quickly you could jack up 50 to 200 pages worth of essential reading material using this method.
3. Buy an existing eBook or special report that comes with private label rights. This would enable you to alter the contents of the same, and even name yourself as the author of the work. You could add some materials as you feel are necessary, or better yet, you could combine two, three, or even ten of these PLR eBooks or special reports to come up with an encyclopedic tome of information worthy of some notice.
4. Hire a ghostwriter to prepare an eBook or a special report for you. There are many, many freelance writers looking for work at the websites we have mentioned in no. 2. It’s just a matter of selecting the best writer for the job at a price that will not be too daunting to your budget. Expect to pay $200 to $1,000 for a 50 page eBook, however.
5. Here’s a novel approach. Join an internet marketing forum, and ask a query. A good example would be “How Could You Profit From The Internet With A $0 Budget.” For certain, you’ll get some amazingly enlightening replies. Compile these replies until you’ll have enough materials to come up with an eBook or a special report. Ask the posters’ permission to avoid any copyright issues. Chances are, they’ll agree, provided that a link to their respective websites would be included in your work.
Lack of writing prowess, or the time to write at that, is never a bar for the production of your own digital products. All you need is a little imagination, and hopefully, the suggestions above have stirred up some concepts in your mind.
Seven Ways With Articles To Explode Your Business
November 26th, 2007 — writing, Business Making Money Online, Articles
In today’s highly competitive internet universe, the importance of attracting highly targeted traffic to your website cannot be overemphasized. Routing web traffic to your site can be your only means of survival, especially in the cutthroat world of e-commerce. Getting a high search engine ranking can be very difficult. Fortunately, there is plethora of website promotion strategies you can use to drive traffic to your website.
There is a wide variety of strategies you can adapt, from paid advertising to affiliate marketing. However, most of these techniques require payment. Nevertheless, there are ways to promote your website and increase your web traffic without spending anything. Writing articles is one of the best web site promotion strategies you can use, and they can be very effective. How, you may ask, can writing articles help improve your web traffic? Here are the top seven ways in which it can help explode your business.
1.Reach more people
When you write good articles, it would be a shame not to share them with other people. You can post your articles in your website or you can submit them to other sites such as e-zines and online publishers. By submitting your articles to these sites, you give exposure not only to your ideas but also to your website. Simply include a link back to your site or include your information in the resource box. With this, you get exposure and free advertising as well. Submit your articles to popular e-zines and take advantage of their popularity. Other sites who find your article relevant may also link back to you. Thus, you increase your link popularity, which is one of the most important strategies in the internet world. Remember that most people are looking for information online and by filling this need with your quality article; you may reap the benefit of more exposure and higher web traffic.
2.Free Advertising
Submitting your articles to other websites presents an opportunity to advertise your website without paying exorbitant fees. Although you should avoid marketing language in your articles and make it informative and useful to your readers, you can always include your site’s link in the resource box. In addition, by making your article relevant and helpful to your readers, you are making a good impression for your website, which could ultimately lead to a visit and hopefully a purchase. Good quality content in an article is far better and more effective than a few lines of ad space. You have a very special opportunity to presell your product or service to your prospective customer.
3.Gain High Search Engine Ranking
Create a new web page for your article in your website. Optimize your article to make it search-engine friendly. Use top-ranked keywords and Meta tags that can give your website a high search engine ranking. As soon as you upload your new webpage to your server, search engines will spider through it and you can gain an increase in search engine ranking. Remember that search engine optimized content is a very effective strategy to gain a high ranking in search results.
4.Increases Link Popularity
Instead of looking for other sites who would want to establish reciprocal links with your site, you can simply submit an article to other sites. Just do not forget to include a link to your site in your resource box. When these websites pick up and publishes your article, you automatically get a link partner. Try to get as many link partners as you can. Link popularity is one of the factors used by search engines in determining search engine rankings. Make your article especially useful and appealing, so that more websites will be encouraged to publish it.
5.Optimizes your site for improved search engine ranking
By making your site keyword rich, you can greatly improve the search engine ranking of your site. Remember that keyword density is one of the most important factors that search engines use when determining the search engine ranking of site. However, you should always provide relevant, useful and pertinent information. Avoid the temptation of overusing keywords just to gain a high ranking as this may turn off most web surfers. Relevance and quality is still the most important things to consider when writing articles and it will be doubly useful to your site if you make these articles search-engine optimized.
6.Establishes a Good Impression and Reputation
By writing excellent, original and relevant articles, you not only give your site exposure, you are also creating a good impression on your prospects. Encourage more people to visit your site and do business with you by establishing an impressive reputation through your articles. Be seen as an expert in the field and your will ultimately gain more customers eager to do business with you.
7.Enhances your credibility through references and testimonies
Certainly, your articles are going to receive feedbacks and testimonies when you publish them in e-zines and free article sites. Record these positive feedbacks and comments and use them as promotional material in your website or in any of your advertising efforts. Your credibility will be greatly enhanced by these feedbacks, as it will create a good impression on your prospects as well as your existing customers. In this highly competitive world, excellent credibility and trust may be the only things you need to attract new customers or make loyal patrons out of your existing customers. Original, relevant, useful and pertinent articles are important tools you should utilize to improve and explode your business
Writing Articles as an Affordable Internet Marketing Method
November 25th, 2007 — writing, ebooks, Business Making Money Online, Articles
From Overture, a keyword suggestion tool, you will see the millions of searches done to a certain keyword. When these keywords are typed on search boxes of search engines, indexed websites containing articles with those keywords will be displayed. And this is what leads traffic to websites with keyword-rich articles.
Yes, the magic word is articles.
Unique content is king.
You can say that again.
That is why writing articles is one of the most utilized Internet marketing media today. Internet surfers just can’t get enough of information on various fields. Providing information through these articles is a surefire way to drive hot traffic to your web site.
Why is this so? Here are the benefits that writing articles can give your Internet business.
1. It’s absolutely free.
Too good to be true? Not. Okay, you have to pay for your Internet Service Provider. That’s it. All you need is your thoughts, your computer, and your hands. If you have those, nothing will stop you from typing words that will make you complete that article for your website. On which aspect of that process did you really shell out any cent? Maybe later when your electric bills come.
2. Your website will be noticed in a short period of time.
Submit that article of yours to article directories that get the most web traffic and in no time your web site will be crawled. That is if you don’t forget including your resource box or byline.
3. Obtain back links automatically.
When you submit your articles to directories, surely, other websites will make use of your article too. With the copyright terms of your articles, the URL of your website will still be in tact and will subsequently direct more traffic to your website.
4. Improve your reputation.
As an Internet marketer, if you plainly display your products on your website, you will not gain much conversion rate. Conversion is when your traffic converts to sales. You have to show that you are knowledgeable on your field. And what better way to show that than by writing articles that will allow you some bragging rights, right?
Just make your creative juices flow and jot down or key in those ideas quickly to jumpstart your article writing momentum. With those benefits listed above, a writer’s block is the last problem you will ever be able to surmount.