Internet Marketer? Learn How To Leverage Social Media To Your Advantage #business #marketing

Imagine logging into your Social Media accounts in the morning to find out how much money they made you last night....how much better would that make your Social Media "experience"?

I'm guessing that it would make it much more enjoyable!

So stop wasting your time on Facebook seeing how much better everyone else's life is than yours!
It's time to start earning money using the same tools as everyone else, but with a much more satisfying outcome!

Take the time to CLICK HERE to find out the simple strategies you can put in place today to make a difference to your tomorrows.

Very soon, people will be reading your Social Media posts, and discovering how much better your life is!

How To Use Videos For Marketing #business #marketing #video

The reality is, videos for marketing are very effective. The first thing that probably pops into your head when you think about videos for marketing is demonstration videos or 'explainer' videos. That's because video is the easiest technology to use when you want to explain something to your target audience. It's the next best thing to being there in person.

But, you do need to understand how it all works together, who your audience is, what they want, what they need and how your information fixes their problems much better than your competitors.There are several ways you can use videos for marketing.

Video Testimonials

The reason you may want to use a video testimonial is that you can put each testimonial into different marketing videos to help build trust with your audience. You can use a short video testimonial on a sales page, in paid ads, and on social media as a post and share.

Videos In Sales Letters

A video sales letter is a great way to show your audience what the benefits are about a new product or service. In this instance, you don't even need to show your face if you don't want to, particularly if you're showing a demonstration in the sales letter. A video sales letter generally converts higher than a plain text sales page when you want to give something away, or when you want to sell something.

Product Demo Videos

This is a great way to use video. You've probably seen product demos in TV adverts for many years. But, you want yours to be short and sweet without the hard sell TV ads. Instead, do a stylish demo of your product but keep it brief. You don't have to show everything, just the idea. You can create more in-depth videos for buyers.

How-To Videos

Develop a how-to video that is no longer than five minutes long, as shorter videos tend to work best. You can always include an extended video for your customers. You want to give them just enough information. Use this type of video whenever you want to have an easier way to explain things to your audience.

When you're trying to determine what type of video to create, consider your audience first and what your objectives are second. When you do that, you're going to be much more likely to choose the right type of video for the job.

You simply have to have some online video presence to succeed in business these days.









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How To Add Value To Your Business With A Challenge #entrepreneurship #business

Online challenges are a great way to engage with your audience, and add readership to your blog. And people love them!

Why do challenges work so well on a blog?

They make it possible for you not only to create something useful and beneficial for your audience on a particular topic, but it creates more engagement, usually every day throughout the challenge.

What Does A Challenge Do?

Most challenges provide a solution over the course of the challenge to a problem. And this is the very heart for having a blog. Helping people solve a problem or helping them to make their life easier. So, you're not doing a one-post solution, but a very in-depth one that can extend anywhere from a week to a month.

And most bloggers running a challenge are seeking a solution to the same problem they have, so it's encouraging for your challenge audience to know you are going through the same things at the same time as they, so you're not only providing them a solution, but for you too.

Build Your Authority

Basically, it becomes a personal testimonial from you and in the process creates the sense that you're an authority in that niche or at least have a solution to that problem as you have personally experienced it yourself.

Running something that long and on a daily basis creates, as you could imagine, a flood of comments and questions - all useful information for you to further engage with those taking the challenge. In the process, you also find out a lot more about your audience.

4 Steps To Creating A Challenge

Step 1: The Call-to-Action

You must have a clear goal in mind as far as what you want the participants in your challenge to do. Maybe you want to grow your email list, or it could be to buy a product or service you are promoting.

Step 2: Creating Change

The whole point of a challenge is by the end of it to have changed something. Keep in mind that it takes on average 21 days to instill a new habit, which could be the end result of the change.

Step 3: Mapping Out The Route

Think of your challenge as a road trip. You have your starting point and ending point. Now all you have to do is map out the daily "route" participants will take to get to the end. The easiest way to do this is to create a mini-map for each day of the challenge.

Step 4: Implementing The Challenge

On your blog, post each day's topic. In your Facebook group, talk on a more personal level about specifics of the challenge you are experiencing as you go through it with them.

Online challenges are a great way to engage with your audience and add readership to your website. When people are engaged and interacting with your business it helps drive sales and profits.










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How Can I Generate More Traffic To My Website #marketing #startup

It's the question asked by every new online entrepreneur and every seasoned online entrepreneur, "How can I generate more traffic to my website?". But you don't just want traffic. You want to get more web traffic that is targeted and wants more than your free stuff. You want to catch the attention of people who really want what you're offering and will buy what you're offering.

Plan the Right Content

Check to see what content is most popular on your website. The create more of that type of content. If you don't have much content so far, study the content material that your audience looks at from your competition and create similar content. Don't copy, but do deliver to your audience the type of content that they want.

Learn Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is important to learn when it comes to getting more traffic to your website. It enables potential customers to find your website by using the search engines. For instance, using keywords in headings, anchor text, titles, subject lines, meta descriptions and alt text for images that are related to your content, you'll move further up the search engine results.

Advertise Your Content

Just like you would advertise one of your most valuable products or services, you need to promote your content. The good news is, using paid traffic to your website does not have to be costly. As an example, Facebook Ads make it possible to directly target your audience in a very cost-effective way.

Create Targeted Freebies

Create freebies that are targeted toward a need that your audience has. If you can solve one problem for them, create that freebie. Then offer that freebie in exchange for a prospect's email address. When you have their email address you can message them with links to your website whenever you want.

Use Different Types Of Content

Don't just use written text for on your website. Search engines like a mixture of content. Mix it up and use text, illustrations or photos, online video and audio to make the ways you provide information to your audience complete.

Facebook Groups

A Facebook group is essentially a community where people with similar interests can interact with you and each other. Facebook groups bring in more website traffic because once you gain trust, make friends, and gain followers, you can promote your business effectively in these groups.

Study Your Analytics

The analytics you can gather from your website are very important because it can tell you what content is getting traffic to your website so that you know what to create more of.

Everybody likes 'free'. If you're a website owner, you probably want more free, targeted traffic from Google and other search engines, rather than having to pay for it.








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Does Facebook Stop Or Start Your Business? #entrepreneur #success

Facebook is wonderful for staying in touch with family members, good friends and your favorite hobbies and interests. It's one of the main ways Facebook is used. But, when it comes to business, is Facebook a disruption?

It's not unusual to hear business owners say that they get "sucked in" to their Facebook newsfeed and end up scrolling through Facebook rather than working.

However, instead of viewing Facebook as a diversion to your business, you can make it work for you so that it becomes a valuable resource instead of a place to lose time and get sidetracked.

Your Business Page

The general agreement is that your business page on Facebook needs to be split from your personal one. If you find Facebook a disruption when you're using it for business, stop non-business communications on your business page, like online games or surveys that have nothing to do with your business.

Don't Go Over The Top

Like any building of business and getting clients, Facebook takes time. Facebook may take a shorter period than some of the older methods but it still needs to be done gradually and carefully. You won't attract clients if you only use Facebook to saturate them with special offers for your products and services.

Make It Interesting

Facebook is the sort of place where reputations can be made or destroyed. Think through what you post before you post it and be sure you deliver on your promises. You want people to want to click the "Like" button and return to your page, so make it interesting. You can have freebies, engaging content, links to interesting websites, and so on. Make sure you keep your page updated so fans and visitors don't lose interest.

Facebook Groups

Joining groups that are related to your business interests is a good way to use Facebook's connected online community to promote your business. You can encourage others to join, too, and create your own group. Facebook groups are free to set up and provide an excellent place to connect with people in your industry and potential customers.

Advertising

You can make use of Facebook's numerous applications (apps) to promote your business. Facebook has apps that make it possible for you to send messages to clients and prospects, like an email account (the "Inbox" app). Facebook also provides Platform, which allows you to modify your own apps which you can use yourself and even sell to others.

The majority of business owners who use social media to advertise their business claim Facebook is the best, most productive advertising service on all social media networks. The good news is that you can run a Facebook ad campaign for as little as $5.







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How To Create Engaging Video Content #entrepreneurship

Marketing methods appear and disappear over the years, and so do their levels of effectiveness. One strategy to building your business that doesn't appear to be going away anytime soon is video. By next year it's estimated that video will account for at least 80% of worldwide internet traffic.

But there's more to video content than watching funny cat videos. To create engaging video content that your audience genuinely want to watch requires a number of key elements if you're going to get the best out of this powerful marketing technique.

Know Your Target Audience

Before you start thinking about your video content, you need to really understand who your target audience is. You can't say "all married men" or "all moms" or "all dads" or "all" anything. You need to narrow down your target market so that you have an audience that is genuinely receptive to what you share with them.

Know Your Objectives

As well as knowing your audience, you need to know your objectives. What is the point of the video content that you're creating Even if your main reason might be to sell your product and make money, you need to look at the reason from the audience's point of view. So, you may be doing it to make money, but you're also doing it to educate, talk about, interact with, and stimulate your audience on your subject matter.

Record in Batches

It's important to get good video content onto your YouTube channel on a regular basis. YouTube is a great video platform to develop an audience and share information. It has more than 1 billion users, nearly 1/3 of all people on the internet.

But it can sound really challenging to develop a video every week, edit it, and post it. But, you don't have to do it that way. As an alternative, record your videos in batches, rather than one bu one. You can put them together for an entire segment of content more easily that way.

Keep It Short and Sweet

Keeping your video to two minutes or less is important because they're more likely to be watched all the way to the end. More than 3 or 4 minutes may be too much, but certainly not longer than 10 minutes on more complicated information. Keep each video focused on one point. This will make it even easier to publish consistently and frequently, because you don't have to spend that much time on each video.

You simply have to have some online video presence to succeed in business these days.







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7 Key Emotions That Make Customers Buy From You #business

The buying behaviour of customers is connected their emotions. People buy with their emotions and then justify that decision with logic. Your website and online sales pages need to use the right words to stir up emotion in your readers.

There are 7 key types of emotional factors that make customers buy products and services. Once you understand these emotions, and then relate to your products and services in a way that makes your prospects feel those emotions, it will get them to take action.

Anger

It might seem odd to want your potential customers to be angry. But, you can stimulate anger in your sales duplicate by making them angry about what is happening to them with regards to their problem. You can then focus the anger they feel toward the situation to drive them to buy your solutions.

Fear

Evoking fear gets results. There are a number of ways to stimulate feelings of fear. One of them is fear of missing out. Place emphasis on the risk of not buying your offer. For instance, the price is going to increase, or you're only making it possible for 10 customers to buy the product or service.

Disgust

You want your audience to feel disgusted about the problem and not the solution. You can guide them toward your solution and the information you provide to lift the disgust and make a big difference in their lives.

Contempt

Generally, this is reserved for political ads. Using contempt in your descriptions and marketing can cause some controversy. But, sometimes controversy can be a popular element that gets people talking.

Joy

When you sell joy, you'll want to focus on the benefits of your products as much as you can. Focus on not only the product's benefits now but also on the joy your buyer will feel later.

Sadness

You can use sadness in several ways. For example, this is used with fundraising for pets. They show you pictures of a lot of sad pets and then, of course, you have to get out your credit card to help those animals.You can use sadness by showing the sadness of people before they bought your product or used your service.

Surprise

It's challenging to use surprise in copy-writing but surprise can get the attention of your audience, which will help keep them engaged. One way to surprise people is to deliver more on what you promised. By doing this, they'll recommend you to others because it was something that they were not expecting.

Using the right words makes all the difference in how your readers feel as they read your content.








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Is Your Website Content Sending Your Visitors To Sleep? #entrepreneur

One of the most important aspects on your website, apart from of your product or service, is the content that you use on your website. All things considered, you can have the best product ever created but if your website content material is boring and nobody can understand how your products will benefit them, nobody will buy anything from you.

When you have the good copy-writing skills you can set yourself apart from the competition and make a genuine difference to your profits. Here's how your copy can keep your audience interested, alert and ready to buy!

Create Audience Personas

Creating audience personas helps you to provide the right information on who you're writing for. You can create more than one audience persona too. In fact, you should plan the audience personas you create to their buying journey, as well as by targeting the various audiences who need your product.

Know Your Products

Analyze the benefits your product or service delivers to your audience. If you're unsure, ask the people who have bought or tried them. It may help you to write a list of features, then alongside each feature write down the benefit of it for your audience so that your content only stresses the benefits.

Use AIDA

This popular marketing principle (an acronym of Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action) can easily be used to develop an amazing content marketing strategy that gets results for any type of product or service.

Awareness
This is the where your audience is learning about the product, service, or problem. Your task at this stage is to supply content articles, adverts, webinars, podcasts, landing pages, and other informative content freely on your website, and via download of a white paper or other freebie in exchange for their email address.
Interest
Now your audience has an interest in the product. Ideally, they have signed up for your email list or visited to your website. You'll now need to provide web content, email marketing content, newsletters, social media content, and more targeted content so that you can turn their interest into desire.
Desire
You can build desire by being more specific regarding the benefits of your offerings. Fully explain how your product or service solves the problems of your audience with informative checklists, reports, e-books to help you persuade your audience to make a purchase.
Action
Regardless of how good the rest of your copy is, without a clear call to action your audience may not act. Cause your audience to react by making a purchase. Case studies, testimonials, factual data, and even courses can work to persuade your audience to finally make a purchasing decision.
When you write and manage your content correctly, it will make your life easier and your business grow.






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How Do I Grow My Email List? #success

The main concern for every business, regardless of whether they are online or offline, is to continually build a list of emails addresses. Email marketing is still one of the most effective marketing strategies that has ever been created. The people on your email list are your past, present and future customers.

But those people need a reason to become one of your subscribers. Here are some proven tactics to help you grow your email list.

Content Upgrades

A content upgrade is offering additional information, for free, that goes with the content your audience is currently reading on your website. It could be a checklist, eBook, report, video or anything that requires an email address to obtain access.

Put Up A Content 'Gate'

If you already provide a great amount of free content and have a high number of repeat visitors who aren't on your list yet, add a pop-up form that gates your content. Again, the access to more content can only be gained by the submission of an email address.

Giveaways and Discounts

You can grow your email list by offering rewards to your current list members. Offer a free gift or discount on their next purchase in relation to the number of referrals they provide. This type of offer can also be passed down to any new member signing up for email updates.

Make Your Email Opt-In Form Obvious

Put your sign-up forms on every page of your website and make the buttons large and attractive.Don't be scared about asking people to sign up for your email list. Keep in mind that you are offering your audience an incredible amount of content for free to help them with their problems.

Use Action Words on Your Opt-In Forms

If your email opt-in form reads "sign up" or "submit," you need to modify them right now. Create with some better action words to get your audience to act. Tell them what to do, why they need to do it, and how it will solve their problem.

Don't Ask For Too Much Info

If you ask for too much information from your audience to sign up for your email list, that may turn them off. It obviously depends on your specific audience more than the standard practice but, in general, all you really need is a name and an email address. You can gather more information from then once they have joined your list.

Email marketing can achieve awesome results for the smart marketer. On average, a prospect needs to see your messages 7 to 8 times before they trust you enough to buy something.





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Don't Do The Tasks You Hate #life

One way to get stop putting off the tasks you know have to be done in your online business, but can't face doing them, is to simply outsource them. It will also make your business more productive.

Most digital marketing and online business tasks can be outsourced today. So, the first clue you have that you should outsource something is when you hate doing it yourself.

But there is more to outsourcing than that.

Does It Make Sense On A Financial Basis?

Often the tasks you dislike doing are regarded (at least by you) to be basic tasks. This may include publishing blog posts, data entry, publishing to social media, and so on. These are tasks that are perfect for outsourcing because they're uninteresting to you and most probably you can earn more revenue by outsourcing it and concentrating on your main money maker.

Are You Qualified To Do It?

Some of the tasks you hate doing are probably because you're not very good at doing them. And, as a business owner you don't have to be good at doing everything. This doesn't mean you're lacking in business skills. It just means that you can't do a very good job doing something you weren't properly trained to do.

A good example is creating graphics or website building. If this isn't the primary purpose of your business, then it probably takes you ten times as long to do it and the final result will not be as good if it is completed by someone skilled in that area.

You Would Rather Be Playing Golf (or Fishing, etc... )

Sometimes you hate doing a task because it's taking away from the things you really want to do. When your business gets to a particular level, it is practical to start outsourcing various jobs so that you can do other things you consider fun to do.

Is Outsourcing Right For Your Business?

The general guideline is that if a piece of work is not your main line of work, then outsourcing it is completely fine. The other thing is, if you can outsource it for less than you can earn from the task then you're ahead of the game too. Of course, you want the person you use outsourcing for to do as well, so pick your outsourcers carefully and pay them a fair wage.

In fact, if you're not outsourcing some tasks, you're doing yourself and your business a disservice.

Outsourcing is one of the most cost-efficient ways to grow your business. It's how the biggest and most profitable businesses in the world generate the wealth and freedom their owners enjoy.







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How To Get Customers To Buy From Your Website #success

Irrespective of your target market, every customer goes through a process when making a decision to buy from your website. Understanding your customer's buying process will help you know what information to give them and when.

You need to guide your audience with the acknowledgment of a problem that they need to solve and how you are the one that can help them solve it.

Basically, there are 3 stages a customer goes through before they buy from your website.

Stage 1: Awareness

This is when a potential customer has identified that they have a need. To find answers, they go online and use a search engine like Google to find what they're looking for.

This is why it's important to focus your website content that provides your target audience with information about the problems that they have. The type of content that is most successful at this stage is educational pieces directly about the problem. This gives you the opportunity to offer more value (like a report, eBook, checklist), free of charge, in return for their email address. Once you have their email address, you can stay in contact with them rather than just hoping that they will return to your website at a later date.

Stage 2: Consideration

At this stage, the customer wants to consider the different options available to them to solve their problem. The content you provide now can consist of comparison charts, webinars, eBooks, podcasts, demo videos, freebies, and even trial options if doable to help reduce risks.

This stage can take some time. A lot of people research their options for several weeks or even months before deciding.

Stage 3: Decision

At this stage, your customer just needs to decide. More often than not your customer will be on your email list at this point, although there are cases where they simply discovered your website and all the information there.

The type of content that you'll want to deliver to them, and where, plays an important part in leading them to choose your solution.

The trick is to ensure that you focus on results and your product at this stage. Give them a reason to choose you. Take away their risk and make them want more by going over the pros and cons. For example,

What makes your option unique?
What other products or alternatives are similar?
What's your return policy and is better than your competitors?
How much does it cost?
How do they deal with issues and problems with your product?
Understanding the 3 stages a customer goes through before they buy from your website helps significantly because it keeps you focused on providing just what they need when they need it.
Internet marketing is a step-by-step process to put the right elements in place so that you get the desired result. An effective sales funnel puts your business on autopilot and consistently converts leads into customers if you structure it the right way.






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How Do You Monetize Your Blog? #blogging

When you have a good amount of blog posts and readers it's time to monetize your blog. Do keep in mind that, first and foremost, your blog should be about sharing your ideas and providing value to your audience, not just about making you some extra money.

Here are 5 ways to start monetizing your blog.

1. Sell Your Own Products or Services

One of the quickest ways to monetize your blog is to sell your own products or services. If your readers know that you deliver useful advice in your blog, they'll be ready to buy more information from you because you're offering a solution to their problem or desires.

You can produce information products like eBooks, reports, tutorial videos, etc. Your readers can download these instantly after purchase. The great thing about information products is that you produce them once, and they can be sold again and again.

2. Sell Affiliate Products

As an affiliate, you sell products or services that have been created by other people. These can be digital information products or physical products that are delivered to the customer's door.

An affiliate earns a percentage of sales off each product that someone buys through their special affiliate link. It's one of the easiest ways to monetize your blog because you don't have to worry about payment systems, product delivery or customer queries as the product owner takes care of all of that.

3. Google AdSense

There are a variety of advertising networks that you can become a member of to monetizing your blog. Google AdSense is one of the most popular networks. By placing the ads on your blog, you can tempt visitors to click on them. Then each click earns you a share of the profits Google makes. Although a couple of clicks won't earn you much, a high flow of traffic and clicks can really add up to a substantial amount.

4. Sell Advertising Space

Some popular blogs sell advertisement space on their blogs. Advertisers want to place one of their banners on popular blogs that reach their target audience. You get paid based on the traffic numbers you bring in to your blog and the prime space available on your blog.

5. Product Reviews

You can do both paid product reviews as well as unpaid reviews of affiliate products. It's important to be very honest in all reviews, paid or not. Ask your readers for testimonials and aim to get positive reviews on sites like FourSquare and Yelp. This will help to develop your reputation as an expert in your niche and will encourage more people to ask you for reviews.






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What Type Of Content Ranks Best In Today's Search Engines? #business

Every website owner wants their website to rank well on the likes Google, Yahoo and Bing. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is basically the things you can do to your website to push it up the search engine rankings.

If you want your website to appear at the top or near the top of the search results, you need to do certain things that keep the search engines happy. When you tell the internet what your business is about, the search engines will then point visitors to your website that they think will benefit from what you offer.

What Type Of Content Ranks Best?

Ask any SEO expert what type of content ranks best in today's search engines and the answer is always the same. Google wants one thing, and that is quality content.

Google wants to deliver its users with the best possible results.There are two main things that it looks at to identify if the content is good quality.

1. Engagement

How interesting is your content? Are people really reading the whole article or are they pushing the back button the moment they see it? This is the way that Google measures engagement. They want to know how long people are staying around to read your content. If they stay around for several minutes, they know you are providing value.

This is what's called your Bounce Rate. A lower bounce rate can help rankings. If users generally click back, and your website has persistently high bounce rates, this can affect your website rankings in Google.

2. Backlinks

The second thing that Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc, look at is linking behaviour. The search engines know that people link to content material they consider valuable. Content that is regarded useful or interesting more often than not is shared by users. Content that is considered worthless doesn't get shared.

Write Content For Users Not Search Engines

If you produce your website content just so that it can get high rankings, you can get caught up stuffing your content with too many keywords. This then becomes unreadable to the human eye. These type of underhand SEO tactics rarely work and even if they do, the result is only short-term. The search engines will spot this an ignore your website.

Useful content leads to happy users and a low bounce rate, happy users link back and share the content, which leads to more traffic, which leads to better rankings in Google.

Without SEO (Search Engine Optimization), you're just hoping that Google, Yahoo, Bing etc, will somehow stumble across your website, figure out what topics you're writing about, and then hopefully send you lots of traffic that is relevant and targeted.







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How Can I Start A Blog Of My Own? #blog

It's no surprise that you want to start a blog. Blogging remains a marketing method that costs very little to set up and people from all walks of life have created making money blogs.

The issue about writing blog posts is that it's actually not that difficult to do. If you can talk about something with knowledge, you can write a blog post.

Let looks at how you can start a blog of your own.

Pick A Blogging Platform

There are free blogging platforms like Blogger, which is a publishing application from Google. Having said that, this choice doesn't give your own blog domain name and hosting, which is important if you want to be seen as genuine and professional online blogger.

The choice of platform for professional bloggers is WordPress. Although you have to buy your own domain name and hosting, the WordPress blogging software is free and there are plenty of designs and features that you can use to fit your style and niche.

Pick A Niche

You want to choose a well-defined niche. If your niche is very concentrated on a target audience you'll be more focused on the type of content you create as well as being able to monetize it easier.

Know Your Audience

You need to be clear on precisely who your audience are. Who are they, what type of job do they have, how much money do they earn, what do they like to do in their free time? You should be able to really understand what gets their interest.

Persistence Wins

You need to update your blog regularly with fresh content to get the most traffic. Writing is a talent that gets a lot easier and much better the more you do it. If you do it every day, you'll develop a process that automatically gets your creative juices flowing and signals to the brain that it's time to write.

Generate Income From Your Blog

Once you get a reasonable amount of quality content on your blog it's time to think about how do you can generate an income. Start to introduce a few products to sell and don't engulf your readers with too many adverts. A good blend of affiliate products and your own products generally works well.

Don't Give Up

Generating an income by way of a blog is a long-term strategy. You need to be willing to be in it for the long-term. You won't start a blog and make money right away. But you can earn money blogging, or earn more money at your business through blogging. Keep in mind that when to comes to writing blog posts, where there's a will, there's a way. Just don't give up.







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5 Ways To Kick-Start Some Life Into Your Online Business #success

Is your online business sagging a little? If you haven't updated your website or offered your audience anything new for a while, they may have become uninterested in your business, products or services.

But don't worry! Here are 5 internet business tools that are easy to set up, cost little or no money and will add life to your online marketing if your business needs a kick-start.

1. Videos

A video is one of the best online tools that you can use. It's estimated that by 2020, over 80% of all internet traffic will be video-related. By developing a video channel on YouTube or Vimeo you can reach a new audience and put some life to your business. You don't even need to appear on camera if you don't want to as you can upload presentations.

2. Facebook Groups

Merely by creating a Facebook group, you will be seen as a specialist in your industry. Setting up a group on Facebook is free of charge and can be done in a few minutes. Facebook groups allow you full control of the flow of information and free access to your members which will help you to build relationships with them and understand exactly what it is they want from you.

3. Podcasts

Podcasts provide a fantastic opportunity to add new life to your business and drive it forward. A podcast is like having your own radio show that your audience can download and listen to whenever they want. It's free for your audience and allows you to connect with them much better than text-based media. At a basic level, you can record and upload a podcast just by using a smartphone.

4. Memberships

Adding a membership area to your website can help you build a community. Membership can be free and provide a number of different features and benefits. You can also use it as a means to offer more value to those who take the time and energy to join your email list. There are a number of plug-ins that you can use to quickly add a membership area to your website.

5. Webinars

A webinar is a live web-based video conference that connects you to your audience. A webinar presents you as a real person, not just a website or a text-based marketing message.With this connection, you can create loyal, lifetime customers. Webinars cost little to no money to produce and host, and can turn into active sales funnels that make you money with little input from you.

It might sound an obvious statement but sometimes businesses forget the fact that the only way to make money is to get customers to buy. You need a proven sales funnel system that guides your audience into becoming leads and then into becoming customers.







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How To Manage Website Content When You're Always Busy #entrepeneur

Content is essential for online marketing success. Your website content drives traffic and provides your audience with the value and information they're looking for. It also helps you market your business, products or services.

But do you often feel that you have virtually no time to generate new content? Here are a number of ways you can save time on your content creation to give you more time to concentrate on other business tasks.

Plan In Advance

Content planning is simply the practice of taking a look at your work schedule and figuring out what to write and where to publish it.Planning your content for the whole year may take a day or two to achieve. But it'll save you loads of time later on. Rather than asking yourself what you're going to write this week, you'll have the answers all worked out.

Hire Somebody To Write It For You

Lots of entrepreneurs forget the advantages of outsourcing. Outsourcing enables you to free yourself up to do the jobs that matter most and bring in the most profit for your business. If you can't write very quickly, it can be more cost-effective to hire somebody else to write for you. There are lots of online freelancers who are willing to write at a price which is good for both of you.

If your personal writing style is critical to your website content, then you can still seek the services of someone to help with other tasks. You could hire someone to edit your content before you publish it. Or a virtual assistant who uploads your content to your website or blog, formats it correctly and creates visuals to go with it.

Develop Content Away From Your Website

There are going to be times when you're not sitting in front of your computer but it doesn't mean that you can't create content for your website. For instance, when traveling on public transport, if you have an idea, write it down on a notepad or on your phone. You can then type it up later. Many smartphones have personal voice recorders which you can use to record your ideas. The greatest ideas often come out of the blue.

Support Your Content With Visuals

Content is not all about text. The truth is, people, find it much easier to read content that has illustrations or photos included. Instead of spending a half-hour writing a few hundred extra words, put a photograph or two amongst your paragraphs. This will make your website content more interesting to visitors and you'll save hours and hours over the months.

No matter how much you enjoy being an online entrepreneur, some days you stare at a blank screen and struggle for content creation ideas. To discover the best practices used by the most successful bloggers and online entrepreneurs,






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Do It Yourself Internet Marketing (5 Tools To Get Started)

Internet marketing for newbies can seem a little challenging. But once you understand the basic principles you can develop that knowledge as your needs grow and change.

Internet marketing is the process of promoting your business online. The tools are different to other types of marketing, but you still need to know your target audience is, the benefits of your product or service and why people should buy from you rather than from somebody else.

Let's take a look a the 5 tools to get you started with internet marketing.

1. Your Website

The cornerstone of your online business is your website. To get started you'll need a name for your website. This is known as a domain name. You'll also need some website hosting so that you can 'rent' space on the internet. There are a number of website platforms that can help you to get your website online easily and quickly.

2. Your Content

Your next step is to generate some content to put on your website. Content drives traffic and provides your audience with the value and information they're looking for. In addition to text, content includes video clips, online surveys, infographics, pictures and mp3 files, etc.

3. Your Traffic

You need people to visit your website. There are two major ways you can do this. You can bring in free website traffic or you can pay for website traffic. Free website traffic needs time to gather traction, but when it starts, it can deliver a constant flow of site visitors. Paid website traffic delivers immediate results, but the moment you stop paying, the traffic stops.

4. Your Emails

To connect with your prospects and encourage them to visit your website again, or buy from you, you need to get their email address. You might offer a free report or eBook in return for a website visitor's email address. You could ask them to become a free member of your membership website or to sign up to receive your newsletter.

5. Your Social Media

Social media makes it possible for you to connect with your target audience on social sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Provide value in the form of help, advice and tips in relations to your niche and marketplace. As you build your followers, you'll develop a relationship of trust and recognition which in turn motivates them to visit your website or buy from you.

Internet marketing is a step-by-step process to putting the right elements in place so that you get the desired result. An effective sales funnel puts your business on autopilot and consistently converts leads into customers if you structure it the right way.






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How To Deal With Too Much Work

An online entrepreneur will always be busy but more work doesn't necessarily mean better results.

Sometimes, when trying to do everything yourself, nothing gets done very well. Aside from bad work productivity, the consequences of working too much can lead to anxiety, stress, being alone, and general bad health and fitness.

But your business won't operate by itself and you can't afford to hire somebody full-time. Maybe it's time to outsource some jobs to a virtual assistant.

Can A Virtual Assistant Help You?

A virtual assistant (VA) is similar to a private assistant that you connect with online and outsource work to them to do for you. Some VAs work on their own and some work via various websites as a way to more easily find clients.

They can charge on an hourly basis, by each task, or you can pay a monthly fee for services. Many VAs are happy to work out a fee framework with you that suits you both.

Only Pay For What You Need

You don't need to provide a VA with any resources to complete the tasks you need to be done. They should have everything that they need.

Using a VA actually can save you money, as well as time. You only pay for and seek the services of people to do work specifically when you need it. This means you can spend more time completing the tasks for your business that actually make money and take on extra work when it becomes available, as your VA can assist with the parts they can do.

How Can They Help You?

A VA can do a wide range tasks to help you in your online business. This includes administrative jobs, the creation of content material, website construction and troubleshooting or even social networking.

Some administrative duties are financial such as book-keeping, managing affiliate payouts, and keeping track of income sources. They can handle inbound and outbound email, sending certain kinds of email to you when your attention is required. They can also plan meetings, online seminars, or phone calls for you or help you plan your work week. This is particularly useful if you have difficulty with time management.

Your Success Is Their Success

Virtual assistants realize how vital it is to provide good work to you due to the fact your success is dependent upon the work they provide. The more successful you become the more work that you will need them to complete for you.

They teach themselves to do jobs that are in demand. You simply use the skills you need for your projects, whether it's a long-term or on a project by project basis.

If you are spending too much time working, a virtual assistant can save you time and money. They free you up to do the most important tasks for your business. It's how the profitable online businesses generate the wealth and freedom their owners enjoy.





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What To Do With Email Subscribers So They Don't Ignore You

You've probably gone to a lot of hard work to get somebody to join your email subscriber list. But are they then ignoring your emails or even unsubscribing almost as soon as they've signed up? Email marketing is still the most effective form of online marketing. So you don't want to give up on building your email list.

You have to take care with your email list. Treat everyone on it as a potential customer, because that's what they are.

Pay Attention To Your List

If your emails are not getting responded to, reassess your offers and check for errors in your autoresponder delivery process. Having said that, don't get embroiled in the "They'll unsubscribe if I send too many emails." There will be unsubscribers regardless of what you do. The loyal customers will always remain, so let the non-buyers filter themselves out.

Don't Continuously Send Sales Messages

People signed up to your list because they believed that you provided value. They will ignore you or unsubscribe if all you do is send them sales messages. Yes, you will have to send some sales messages but also send them special rewards, giveaways, bonus deals and discounts. Make them feel they are valued for opening and reading your emails.

Your Subject Line Is Dull

The subject line of your email is vital to get your email subscribers to open the email. Make sure your subject lines are appealing and not commonly used ones. Don't trick people into opening your email with a subject line that doesn't deliver what it promises. That's a sure way to lose the trust of your subscribers.

Remember Your Target Audience

It's much better to have fewer subscribers that are really targeted than to have thousands of untargeted subscribers who will hardly ever buy from you. If you have various offers for different niche markets, segment your email lists to make sure you send the most targeted offers to the appropriate audience.

Have A Proven Sales Funnel

People become your email subscribers because they want to know more about you and your products and services. If you just aimlessly send out emails, occasionally with information with a sales offer thrown in from time to time, your messages may seem to be unorganized and ambiguous. A solid email marketing sales funnel guides your email subscribers through a pre-planned series so that they get all the information they need, in the correct order and leads them to want to buy from you.





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6 Tips For Getting People To Share Your Content

Content marketing has become very effective and is a major element of a successful marketing strategy. But just posting content alone isn't enough to take advantage of this powerful marketing technique. You need people to share it so that as many people as possible can see it.

This is where social media sites like Facebook, Google+ and Twitter come into play. So that you can get new followers, likes, comments and shares your content must stand out from all the other the noise that surrounds your socially savvy online audience.

Here are 6 simple ways to get people to share your online content.

1. Make It Easy To Share

One of the easiest ways to get your content shared is to use social media sharing tools on your website. These 'one-click' buttons make it quick and simple for your visitors to share your content with their friends and followers.

2. Publish Interesting Content

Understand what content your audience is interested in and customize your material so that they will want to share it. Create content that's compelling, interesting and engaging. A great way to achieve this is to make your content posts interactive by asking for comments.

3. Use Different Media

Written text, illustrations or photos, and online video are all possibilities for sharing content on social media. Images get noticed and capture audience attention. This is proven by the tremendous success of Pinterest for business. There are over 150 million users are on Pinterest and more than 65% of pinned content is from business websites.

4. Don't Forget Video

Video is essential in any marketing plan. In social media, it can be used to really attract and make an impression on your target audience generating you those likes and shares that you need to boost your marketing campaign.

5. Know When To Post

Be aware of any trends or patterns for when your audience is most receptive and active on your page. Then plan your upcoming content to go live at a time that people will be most likely to see it, take it in, and take action to share your content.

6. Ask Questions

Asking a question with your content will generate much more reaction. You can use it to get a better understanding of what people think about what you're publishing and adjust future content if necessary. Think about the pain points your audience has, and ask a question that will bring in a lot of comments.





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How To Develop A Website Content Strategy

A website content strategy is a plan of how you are going to use the content material to develop and market your online business. Content isn't just limited to written text. It can involve videos, polls, graphics, images and many other things which make your website more interesting for your readers.

There are two fundamental components of a website content strategy:

The content material you actually publish on your website. This includes, how frequently you publish, what you write about, how far in advance you plan and produce the content, etc.
The content you use to promote and market your website, such as social media posts and emails to your subscriber list.

Why Is A Content Strategy Important?

Having a strategy means you can plan ahead. Instead of simply publishing a new post on any random subject, you can plan subjects strategically based on special offers, the time of the year etc. Planning ahead also helps you post on a regular, steady schedule. This is important for keeping readers interested and the search engines happy, as they like new content.

Creating An Online Content Strategy

Regardless of how valuable your content is, if you publish a huge chunk of text that looks boring, you won't get many readers. The eye isn't drawn to large sections of text. This is why it's so important to have different types of content on your website when promoting your online business.

Video

Videos are one of the top ways to bring in more traffic and keep people on your website for longer. There are numerous ways to make videos and it doesn't mean you have to stand in front of a camera. You can create videos using just text, images and a voice-over.

Interactive Content

Polls and surveys are a great form of interactive content. People enjoy interacting online. It makes it more interesting for them and encourages them to stay on your website for longer. This drives up your income and boosts the reputation of your business, thus causing it to rank higher in the search engines.

Social Media

Having a live feed of opinions people are making about your content can encourage people to visit your website. Posting testimonials that people have given about your business will also make good quality content that people will want to read. You could even invite some of your regular readers to be interviewed for your next blog post.





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How Often Should You Post Content To Your Blog?

Updating your blog with new content is an essential part of making sure that your audience remains interested in your business. If you haven't posted anything for some time, people might lose interest or even stop following your blog.

On the other hand, posting too frequently can also present a problem, so it's important to get the balance right.

Not Updating Your Blog Enough?

There are a number of problems if you rarely post content to your blog. The first is that your followers don't find any value in subscribing to your blog because you don't often post new content and as a result, they've already read everything they're interested in.

Next, they don't know if you're on holiday, taking a break or if you've given up the blog completely. They may even forget who you are when you start posting again! Going quiet for weeks or months could mean it's much more difficult to maintain your readers and then pick-up where you left off.

Another issue with not posing new content regularly on your blog is that it's challenging to rank higher in the search engines.

Can You Update Your Blog Too Often?

Although you might believe it's great to keep publishing lots of content to your blog, people may find it too much to handle. This is especially true if there is the choice to subscribe to email alerts, which means they will receive an email every time you post something new.

Also, if you're writing short posts several times per day which aren't appropriate to many people or which don't hold much value, people will unsubscribe to stop getting all the notifications. Posting too much is also exhausting for you, and you may find that your quality suffers.

How Often Should You Update Your Blog?

The frequency at which you update your blog content does, to a large extent, depend on your niche. For instance, if it's news-based then it seems sensible to publish at least once per day. Having said that, for most online entrepreneurs, the ideal blog post frequency is around 1-2 times per week.

The posts should consist of information that provides some form of value for your readers and helps them in some form or another. And keep in mind, this doesn't continually mean that you have to post text. It could also mean video, or image-based posts if that works best for your niche.

Do you sometimes stare at a blank screen and struggle for content creation ideas? Those days don't happen when you have a system in place that takes the guesswork out of every step of the content research, creation and delivery processes.







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5 Steps To An Effective Email Marketing Campaign

Email marketing has still has a greater ROI (return on investment) than any other marketing strategy. Analysis shows that email marketing provides a ROI of $40.56 for each dollar that's invested.

Setting up an effective email marketing campaign can be a little baffling initially, but with some practice and with the right tools and techniques it gets to be very easy. And very effective.

1. Email Marketing Campaign Software

You need special software to manage your email marketing campaigns. Known as an autoresponder, it provides an efficient way to gather, deliver, monitor and review your emails.This would be impossible to do yourself with a regular email program like Outlook, Gmail, Webmail,etc.

2. Plan Your Marketing Emails

Have a plan of action before sending out an email marketing campaign. Think about your niche, your offers and most importantly, the action that you want your readers to take. Test every email by sending it to yourself to check links, grammar and spelling carefully. Don't let your subscribers get errors, find them first. Each email should focus on one or two topics at most. Don't complicate your message by overwhelming readers with a bunch of different offers and topics in the same email.

3. Quality

Credibility is your most important resource in email marketing. If you're an affiliate marketer, only promote only those products you believe in. Your subscribers will blame you if you recommend a product for them to buy and the product turns out to be rubbish. Don't just send continuous offers to your list. Send useful free information and other freebies too. The more value you provide to your subscribers, the more they will want to open your emails when they land in their inbox.

4. Subject Line

Almost one third of email users open emails because of the subject line. Exciting subject lines boost open rates, but can be risky if they don't mirror what's presented inside. Words like, "Alert," "News," "Limited Time Offer" and "Last Chance" in subject lines significantly increase open and click through rates.

5. The Sales Funnel

On average it takes approximately 7 communications with a prospect before they make a buying decision. Email is the perfect way to send these communications. Your autoresponder software can send out a series of emails on auto-pilot when a prospect joins your list. This is your sales funnel. It's simply a set of steps where you move a prospect through a sequence of communications that ultimately results in them buying from you.

An effective email sales funnel can put your business on autopilot and consistently convert leads into customers if you structure it the right way.






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