Archive for August, 2009
Keeping Track of your Internet Marketing
Whenever you are starting up a business, you are not going to have a lot of money to just throw around, which means that you are going to need to know what kind of advertising is getting you the best results. There are a few ways that you can go about checking this. Keeping up with your Internet marketing stats is a must in this day and age. Sure you are going to want a hit counter on your web page, but that is just the tip of what you will need. You are going to want things that track how long people are staying on your site, what links are bringing them there, and of course, if they are buying anything. By knowing this kind of stuff, you are going to be able to tell what ads are getting you the most business and which ones are not. That way you can take down the ads that are not doing so well, and put up more of the good ones. This is a prime idea for first time marketers.
There are many different ways to track your Internet marketing. First of all, sometimes when you sign up with a program like Google AdWords, they are going to have link tracking. This way you are going to know how many people are clicking on your links, and when they click on them, how long are they staying on your site. This is all very important information. Not only is the fact that they are clicking on it good, but how long the people are staying there is even better. If someone clicks on your link and they stay there for just a few seconds, chances are they did not mean to go to that site. In other words, it was not a good click. However, if they get on there and they are on there for a few minuets or even an hour, you know that they were looking around your shop, and that is what you want. Even if they did not buy something, it’s good that they know what you are selling. That is because they may come back to buy more lately.
Although the stats that they give you on places like Google AdWords are helpful, that is not all you need. You are going to want your own program on your site that you can check whenever you want to. This kind of program needs to be looking at how many people come to your site and buy something, and how many things they are buying. Not only that, these programs will also keep up with things like how long they are staying and what link brought them to your site. It’s very important that you keep up with this kind of information. This is the kind of stuff that you are going to want to know to turn your little shop from a mom and pop store to a worldwide business. Working from home is not something that is easy, however, if you have the right stats, then you can tell where your advertising is having the most effect, and you can turn your small business into a big one.
Just Network, and Watch Your Business Grow!
When it comes right down to the topic of how best to grow your online business, there is plenty of conflicting information on the internet. Why? Because everybody wants to make a dollar! Everybody has a program to sell, but few really offer a genuine program that helps YOU sell. What they offer is THEIR formula, not YOUR solution. “It worked for me”, they’ll say. Then, when it doesn’t work for you, they expect you to shoulder the blame. “Well, you didn’t do this right”, or “You didn’t follow the formula”. I don’t have time for those people. Here’s a fact: You already have the resources you need. You do not need to buy into anybody else’s program. For that matter, you don’t even need to buy into mine. All you really need to do is remember one simple word, “network”. Just network. Here are a few ideas to help bring it into focus.
Make Friends, Not Business Partners
This may seem contradictory to what you’ve learned or what you believe, but I’ve found the best people to do business with are the people who have earned my trust, my friends. I do not do business with those who assume I should just trust them. I’m sorry, but they’ve not earned my trust, and my trust can not be bought. Make friends, and do business with your friends. This is one reason why I refuse to throw my website on auto-pilot. I want people to know that there is actually another living, breathing person on the other end, and I want to be accessible to those people who choose to do business with me.
Wish Others Success
When you truly wish others success, you are attracting success. I make it my mantra. “I wish you success. I wish you success. I wish you success.” I truly do wish success to those I choose to do business with, because I choose to do business with those who would wish me the same success. I do business with friends.
Then, help your friends succeed. Trade banners, trade links, and really get into the business of promoting each other. Contribute to each other’s newsletter. Do what right and good for both, and don’t be afraid to take chances. Try something new.
Search For New Opportunities
Look for additional streams of revenue. Find opportunities that do not take you away from your business, but enhance your business. Affiliate programs, drop ship programs, joint ventures, and even MLMs can provide that stream of revenue. But, at the same time, be aware. Be careful. But be willing to follow your instinct. Just remember to make friends, not business partners.
By all means, don’t hesitate to contact me. I’d love to build a friendship and network with you!
Is Your Website “Sticky”?
While it’s great to get a multiple visitors one time on your site, it’s even better to get returning visitors mulitple times. This means that your site really has an interest to them enough that they’ve bookmarked it. Bookmarkers over time will lead to sales, and once you’ve sold to someone it’s always easier to get them to buy from you a second time than getting them to buy the first!
So is your site “sticky” enough to keep them coming back?
Here are a few good ways to make your website “sticky” so that you get repeat visitors that are interested in your site:
1. Have frequently updated, fresh content. People aren’t going to come back if your site stays the same all the time. If they’ve already got all the information they need from your site, why should they return? Make sure that the information is always new, fresh, and changing so that they have an incentive to return. Perhaps even give away prizes or rewards to make them return. Free gifts are a great motivator!
2. Your content must be valuable. Don’t talk “small talk” and fill your site up with gimmicks, bells and whistles, and other page fillers. Make the content on your site actually useful to someone. Use relevant articles to your topic, maybe have free tools or calculators or something that are relevant to your product, or even just keep the people up to date about what’s happening with your product. Refrain from using flashy animated objects, java applets, and midi files. These are only annoying to the surfer and it will discourage them from coming back.
3. Make your site easy to navigate. Especially if your site has got lots of competition on your product or service, maybe they’ll choose your site over your competitor’s site just by the sheer fact alone that they can get around your site easier! People want to get the information they need quickly and easily. Don’t make it a challenge for them or they’ll only become frustrated and click off of your site.
Using these easy and common sensical tips you can make your website “sticky” and watch the traffic increase!
It’s Evolution Baby
There are those people who come to the web with a solid business plan, a large amount of investment capitol, and a precise strategy for how they are going to leverage the internet and exploit the incredible revenue potential of the cyber-age. Then there are the rest of us.
Millions of people have arrived on the www. with the notion of making their fortunes, and millions more will arrive in the next two years. These hopeful masses hail from the full spectrum of financial status, from six figure earners to minimum wage employees. Likewise, the newbie-networker can be an individual with an extensive background in traditional business, or a high school graduate with no clue about the dynamics of commerce and marketing.
I’ve observed an interesting progression among those net-marketers who came onto the scene without a road map, and with little idea of how the micro cosmos of internet marketing worked. Or maybe I’ve just watched my own journey, and it makes me feel better to assume others have shared my experience.
Either way. Indulge me a few more paragraphs, if you will, as I lay out what I like to think of as the evolution of a net-marketer.
Stage One: Easy Money… Not!
Right out of the gate, most people seem to think the internet “levels the playing field”, or allows anyone with fingers and a keyboard to generate staggering riches with just a few hours of busy work each week. It usually takes a couple of months for this bubble to pop, but when it finally does, the majority of newbies don’t survive the event.
However, when that dark day of realization comes, and it looms evident that one must actually work this business if he/she hopes to see any results, the strong of the networking gene pool sprout their working legs and move beyond the fog of delusion. Supremely confident in the knowledge they have surpassed those lazy sluggards who squeeled and fled at the suggestion of buckling down and putting some hard work in, the survivors of Stage One move onward and upward, where surely they will be rewarded for their tenacity.
Stage Two: Hard Work Doesn’t Pay the Server Fees
In Stage Two, our post primordial networkers are laboring tirelessly through the deep thickets of website-construction, traffic-generation, email-list-building, and all manner of grueling and structured tedium. Their behinds sore from being glued to a worn out office chair, and their eyes bloodshot and bleary from the all night clicking sessions, they push on day after day, certain of their forthcoming vindication.
But they still aren’t making any freakin’ money. And what’s more, they are starting to see past the free web hosts, free classified ads, and free trial memberships. All the good stuff seems to cost money, but our Stage Twoers had hoped to put off any kind of monetary investment until they could create at least some kind of income to offset such expenditures.
And so another enormous batch of inferior networkers dies out. The thought of putting some cash into their web-business was more than their fragile little hearts could bear.
But, as always, those more suited to the challenge live on. With a deep breath, and a good look at their monthly budgets, the survivors of Stage Two determine they will invest as much money as needed to keep their operations afloat until they are able to become self-funding marketers.
Stage Three: Throwing Money at it Doesn’t Work Either
Enter the golden age of upgrades and paid memberships. Five bucks a month for this. Ten bucks a month for that. Anything with a Paypal button is fair game.
No longer clueless newbies who think this can be done for free, our marketers are in full stride. Buying every ebook that comes down the pipe, upgrading in programs they login to once a month, and hitting every buy now button they can find, they cruise through cyberspace on a mission to buy their way right to the top. “I’m not afraid to spend money on *my* business.” they tout.
Lots and lots of money goes out. Considerably less revenue comes back in.
Inevitably, the moment arrives when those who have made it to Stage Three see the folly of their current direction. Maybe it’s when the credit card bill comes, or perhaps it happens when they are balancing the checkbook.
Once again, the brutal process of selection strikes down those without the heart for further trials. Uncountable numbers of washed-up, would-be internet marketers sink beneath the sludge of this stage.
And once again, that fraction of the whole with the guts and gumption to keep going grow stronger than ever before. More than a regimen of hard work and the willingness to invest money is needed here, they resolve. On the verge of a real breakthrough (they can feel it in their bones now), those who have thus far refused to fall decide a well devised plan for all future endeavors is in order.
Stage Four: Plan to Fail, Fail to Plan, and All that Other Crap
Plans are drawn up to cover every possible aspect of the game from here on out. A strict but healthy budget is imposed. Daily tasking is fine tuned for maximum effectiveness. Projections are made prior to each ad campaign, and results are measured afterwards. Tracking, testing, brain-storming, and constant attention to the hows and what-ifs become paramount.
This carries on for some time. Until another moment of clarity is reached.
A question is posed…
“Is all of this work really worth the small amount of money I am generating?”
Or, more often…
“How is it that I’m still not making any @#$%! money?!”
This stage progresses rapidly into the next. Many specimens are lost in the transition, but due to the great speed with which Stage Four becomes Stage Five, a surprising number of marketers actually make the jump.
Stage Five: “What the Hell am I Doing Here?”
Here’s where it gets ugly. Stage Five is more of a bitter quagmire than part of the evolutionary journey.
Typical phenomenon exhibited by specimens at this stage include verbal outbursts like:
“Lousy bunch of @#$%! stinkin’ #$@%!!! I can’t believe I’ve wasted three @#$#*& years of my @#$%$# life with this bunch of @!!#$% silly @#$%#@!!!, and still don’t have @#$%## to show for it!”
As you might readily imagine, droves and droves of networkers die out over the course of this stage.
But those who are able to survive this particularly crucial stretch of development will find the arduous journey has paid off. For in the breathless, weary aftermath of their well earned tantrums, an epiphany is born.
Stage Six: The Cold Hard Facts
For the love of cheese fries, this is a business like any other. Hard work, monetary investment,and sound planning are required, but all of these combined are not enough to put you into profit.
You have to know what works, and you have to understand to some extent why it works. Real Knowledge of the market, the methods, and the meaning behind the apparent madness is what makes the difference between a person who works their butt off for nothing, and a person who makes a big, sweaty fortune with the same or less effort.
Nobody cares how much money we invest, or how many hours we spend each day in front of our computer. Competition is fierce, expectations are high, and the only thing that matters is whether or not we can penetrate, deliver, and get the sale.
This is a pretty far cry from what most of us want to hear. But lessons that are worth learning usually have a bitter taste.
Seek out people who are successful in this field, and find out what they are doing. Watch them. Ask them questions. Take notes. Absorb as much knowledge as you can, then put that knowledge into practice.
It takes guts to be an Internet marketer
Copyright 2006 llbglobal
That’s right I said it! You people think it’s easy being an Internet Marketer? Do you know how many people fail in this business? You want to know why so many people fail at online businesses? They fail because they underestimate the sheer difficulty in creating and marketing a good product. They misunderstand the entire concept of the Internet to begin with.
How many people have you known that thought they would create a great website and then once they did it, nobody came to the site and bought the product? People in general believe that if you simply build a website then the customers will just start showing up. Believe me, I’ve owned domain names for years with no traffic to speak of.
Internet marketing has become more of a science and in some cases an art. We are constantly trying to recreate and rebrand the same old ideas so we can sell them over and over again. If you don’t understand the technical aspects of Internet Marketing then you will surely not pass the test. This is a job that takes a manor of skill only learned through large amounts of reading and research.
There is one thing I always tell people when they come to me with their moneymaking ideas. I would say; “just because you build a website doesn’t mean that anyone will ever come to it. It’s like building an ice cream stand at the top of Mt. Everest and waiting for customers to show up, not likely”!
So yes it does take guts to be an Internet marketer! It’s not all fun and games. Any of use that makes a real living online works hard at it. Probably harder than most people working a 9 – 5 job. I have personally spent countless hours in front of a computer screen day after day.
You see one of the keys to any success is that you must form habits. Good habits of work and life. Good habits that dictate your every move. When you plan out your business ahead of time you will see the good and bad before throwing money at it. If you are new to Internet marketing you should keep your chin up. The longer you stick with it the more you will learn. You should really think about it as going to college at YOU University because you are the one who has to be the driving force in your life. Stop looking for quick ways of getting rich on the Internet and start focusing on building a business.
Real Estate Investing Basics For Today’s Market
real estate investing probably makes you think of a number of things. You might immediately leap to real estate investing being real estate portfolios and real estate retirement plans or you may think instead of short sales, bulk reo investing and virtual real estate investing. You may also consider what roles these things play in your life as a real estate investor in different economies.
You will need to know a lot about real estate investing. The best way to get the most out of your real estate investing education is to be familiar with some basic information ahead of time. Whether your target is short sales, bulk reo sales, virtual real estate or improving real estate investor abilities, you need to know some real estate investing basics. Review these three real estate investing basics that even some experts don’t yet know:
1. Real estate investing education always yields positive. Each real estate deal can represent thousands of dollars in potential wealth. Getting the wealth is the key to your success. Learning about real estate increases your odds of success when you do a real estate deal. Small investments in education yield big results upon implementation.
2. You can succeed in real estate investing in any economy. Often people think that you can only be a success in real estate when the economy is good. In reality, a bad economic situation is not bad for real estate investors. You can often find properties to buy at deep discounts. Also, you might find deals that simply could not exist in a booming economy. Real estate investing may also turn the tide for a poor economy. When the economy is not so good, short sales, bulk reo sales and virtual real estate are great. You will be able to save yourself and others from serious financial difficulties if you know how to do these deals.
3. A lot of money is not vital to your success as a real estate investor. You can make real estate investing a success regardless of how much money you have. There are a lot of deals that you can do with other people’s money. Private lenders will let you use their money if they know that you are a good investment. The best way to be a good investment is to know as much as possible about real estate investing. This will help you show private lenders that you are a good investment if they do not know about real estate investing themselves.
Real estate investing is a good way to generate a great deal of wealth. You can create an income in any economy. You can create your own success using your knowledge of short sales, real estate investing, bulk reo sales and virtual real estate. Knowing real estate investing basics will help you succeed as a real estate investor.
Keeping Up with Your Internal Health and Beauty Tips for Keeping Beauty In Tact
Vitamins, cosmetics, natural skincare, organic foods and other health practices come to mind when you think of health and beauty tips. Dietary routine, careful watch over exercise and regular mental health are important to overall well being. However, how you act and feel about yourself are clearly partly determined by physical appearance. It can even impact your physical health over time. Insure that you remain as healthy and beautiful as possible by always understanding all your options.
The science of health and beauty encompasses a lot of areas. Meet some of the major players:
* Health and Beauty Defense - Heath and beauty conservation includes anything that helps your body resist problems. This can be taking a vitamin each day to keep your body in healthy condition. It can involve natural skincare and cosmetic implementation to protect from the environment. It may also incorporate items to protect you from free radicals, which may cause skin cancer. Your mental state plays a big role in health and beauty protection. Controlling stress through an organic foods diet and meditation is a great way to protect inner and outer beauty.
* Natural skincare factors - In recent years the popularity of natural skincare has made a major rise. This is due to the realization that some cosmetics could harm your skin rather than help your appearance. They found that a better option was to use natural skincare cosmetics that worked with their bodies. You will likely find that many of these items are made from organic foods. They frequently include vitamins that can be a benefit topically and internally. You need to understand the science behind natural skincare in order to use it successfully.
* The anti-aging keys - Anti-aging includes a wide variety of health and beauty routines Your anti-aging goal in the end will be to make your body act in a manner that is more youthful. This often indicates that you will need to use cosmetics and natural skincare to keep skin healthy. It can mean implementing a vitamin regimen to fool your body into acting younger. In the end this will mean fewer aches! It also can involve improved memory and physical stamina. Anti-aging often involves eating a diet of organic foods as well.
Your personal health and beauty depend on your perseverance. Failing to pay attention to your body and physical appearance will result in their deterioration. Knowing how and why your body reacts to certain health and beauty products will get you the best results. Organic foods, natural skincare, good cosmetics and vitamins will enable you to create the perfect blend of well being.
Is Your Tracking Url Costing You Sales?
Did you know that your tracking url could be costing you sales?
It’s true! Repeatedly experienced marketers have learned that using a tracking link lowers the click through rate of any ad. If you think about it this does make sense. How often do you click through on a link that reads like a line of gibberish?
First and foremost, the internet is about trust. If you do not offer a link that at least appears “trustworthy” then many people aren’t going to click. And ask yourself the hard question? Does a link filled with an odd sequence of letters and numbers appear trustworthy to you?
Another drawback to using a tracking url is that ezine ads often have a very long life — often much longer than that of any tracking url or program. You don’t want to lose out on the potential of a long-term link or future visitors because of your tracking url.
If you are able to use your main web site address or a subpage then it just appears so much more trustworthy. Plus you are more likely to catch people in the future who lost your original ad but NOW want to visit your site. They will never remember a complicated tracking url but may remember BoatsRus.com etc.
No matter how much you want to be able to promote your web site directly there is still that tricky question of being able to track click throughs. Well there is actually a simple (and free) way to do both.
You create a redirect page.
This way you can promote your main url and have a unique page to track clicks. In fact, you can even name your page something to make it even more clickworthy, such as boatsrus.com/classicboats.php .
You can create unique landing pages for any number of advertisements but this might be time consuming. It is far simpler to code that page with a redirect script that loads whatever sales landing page you choose.
Now you can track your clicks without worrying about losing customers due to unfriendly tracking urls. You will always have full control over the url so you can change the redirect destination at any time and if you ever choose to take it down the visitor will still land on your site. It is the perfect tracking system! It also works great for affiliate links.
Is Your Website “Sticky”?
While it’s great to get a multiple visitors one time on your site, it’s even better to get returning visitors mulitple times. This means that your site really has an interest to them enough that they’ve bookmarked it. Bookmarkers over time will lead to sales, and once you’ve sold to someone it’s always easier to get them to buy from you a second time than getting them to buy the first!
So is your site “sticky” enough to keep them coming back?
Here are a few good ways to make your website “sticky” so that you get repeat visitors that are interested in your site:
1. Have frequently updated, fresh content. People aren’t going to come back if your site stays the same all the time. If they’ve already got all the information they need from your site, why should they return? Make sure that the information is always new, fresh, and changing so that they have an incentive to return. Perhaps even give away prizes or rewards to make them return. Free gifts are a great motivator!
2. Your content must be valuable. Don’t talk “small talk” and fill your site up with gimmicks, bells and whistles, and other page fillers. Make the content on your site actually useful to someone. Use relevant articles to your topic, maybe have free tools or calculators or something that are relevant to your product, or even just keep the people up to date about what’s happening with your product. Refrain from using flashy animated objects, java applets, and midi files. These are only annoying to the surfer and it will discourage them from coming back.
3. Make your site easy to navigate. Especially if your site has got lots of competition on your product or service, maybe they’ll choose your site over your competitor’s site just by the sheer fact alone that they can get around your site easier! People want to get the information they need quickly and easily. Don’t make it a challenge for them or they’ll only become frustrated and click off of your site.
Using these easy and common sensical tips you can make your website “sticky” and watch the traffic increase!
Is Your Online Store Barely Making Money?
Copyright 2006 Brad Beiermann Ph.D.
How many of you online store owners love selling items with higher profit margins? Higher margins, means more money in your pocket, right? If you are the smart business owner, you have answered yes to both questions. One more question for you. Why did your customer buy these higher margin, and often higher priced, items from you? Okay, now the answers start to vary. In truth, customers buy for their own reasons, not ours. We might think we know why they bought it with a certain degree of accuracy, but do we ever really know their innermost reason for why they made the purchase? In fact, most experts will be quick to point out the fact, we never really know 100%. The reason they buy, is often different than reason we thought. No matter what you are selling on your online store, your customer will only buy two things: 1) Solutions to problems, and 2) Good feelings. The rest of this article will focus on the “good feelings” part.
When your customer buys from you, they generally feel good about it in some form or another. Proof…Would you spend your money on something (or someone) you did not feel good about? Of course not, we want to feel good about the things we buy. Your customers are no different. So, what is making these folks feel good about buying from you? In short, it is trust. Good feelings come from trust and the secure feelings that come with it. Trust is something earned without a fixed time period. In other words, trust can be built quickly, or it can take a long time to be built. With a product, trust is often built in the form of value. They ask themselves, “Is this a good deal?” If the answer is “Yes” the odds of a transaction occurring goes up greatly. If the answer is “No”, you have not won any good feelings or trust from them. Let’s take a look at this thing called “value” and how it is perceived by your customer.
What exactly is perceived value? By dictionary definition — It is the state of worth recognized by interpretation of sensory stimuli based chiefly on memory insight, intuition, or knowledge gained by the senses. Whew! That’s a bunch to grasp in one reading of that sentence. For the rest of us non-Mensa members, let’s simplify. Perceived value is someone’s gut feel about the worth of a product. It’s our own appraisal based on what we know. The original definition mentions words like sensory, senses, and memory. This suggests we, and our customers, get perceived value from our surrounding environment, or the things we have been directly exposed to in the past. Customers have this inherent feeling before they come to your online store. If you are able to recognize this fact, you are in a much better position to understand your market. If perceived value is ignored during your pricing strategies, that could spell trouble.
Last year I helped a friend with a trade show he was having with one of his new products. He had the product, a very unique household lamp, patented and had it being made in the USA for just a few dollars labor. Not bad. The parts used in the lamp brought it’s wholesale price close to eighty dollars. Still, not bad considering this was a unique custom made piece retailing at three hundred dollars. The product was being offered on his website, the number of inquiries and emails he was receiving about the product was mind boggling, literally hundreds a week. This was just for one lamp! It sounded like he had a hit on his hands. During the four day trade show, thousands of people stopped by the booth and marveled at this product. There were people stopping by the booth just to see what all the attention was about. Several TV news stations stopped by the booth to film the product and interview it’s inventor. Customers wanted this product real bad. As the trade show came to a close on its last day, how many units were sold? Zero…None…Nada. Ouch! What happened? The number one comment from customers, “That is awesome!” or “Brilliant!” or “I gotta get one!” The number two comment from customers “Why is this thing so darn high in price?” or “That price seems really high.” Clearly, perceived value was coming into play. So how much did these customers expect this product to retail? One show attendee gave the best clue about the perceived value — “It seems like this would go for about $50 at a store like Wal-Mart.”
What is the point of all of this? As you look for potential wholesale suppliers for your online store, it will be important to know about perceived value. Consider the following questions when evaluating a supplier who has made their own product:
1. How has the response been to the price points of the product(s) you are offering?
2. Has the product been market tested at a trade show? How was the response?
3. Does the product sell itself at this price point?
4. Has anyone done a market appraisal of the product?
Getting a barometer on the perceived value will be an important ingredient to your online product portfolio. Armed with just a few of these questions, you will have done yourself justice.
