Here is your chance to hear from my mentor, Dean Holland who I have aligned myself to.
Dean is providing free content regarding setting up your own online business and giving back to all those that have visited his blog that he started up from scratch in October 2008. The video below is an introductory video about what is coming up. Just watched myself and I would be excited if I were in your shoes, so why not click play to find out more.
In the next video, Dean explains getting your domain name and hosting account and setting up your own blog just like I have done along with the other Starting with Marketing students. All this is explained in the Blog Setup 2.8 guide which is available by filling in the very short form on the right of my blog. If you have not yet got your a guide yet, I would grab one now while it is still available. Once your blog is set up you can add your first post and a bit about yourself and your niche.
Are you ready for your first $ online? If so check out the video below!
Further videos will be available shortly so watch this space!
Best regards,
Tags: Free gifts
List building is the next module in the Starting with Marketing Academy.
If you have been involved in Internet marketing for some time, you will have been told that the money is in the list. This holds some truth but is not the full story. The full story is that:
The money is with the relationship that you have with your list.
So how do you go about building the list from your blog? You need offer something of value for free related to your niche, such as an ebook in exchange for a name and email address. From this information, you can build up a list of people to market to as you have provided something of value in which they have expressed an interest in.
To capture the name and email of your prospects, an auto-responder is required. The auto-responder allows you to email people that have opted in to your list automatically and you can choose the intervals of each email sent. Aweber is the auto-responder that I have been recommended as it offers excellent support and live training sessions. I have added a link in the recommendations section of my blog so you can start building your list. Other auto-responders include Getresponse.
You may wonder what to put in the email sequence and how often to sent each.
Firstly you need to provide a download link to the product that they opted into and to thank them for opt in into your list. This is sent immediately after they opt in from your blog or website.
The next email asks if they received the download OK and the chance to iron out any problems with the download, inviting them to reply to your email or to leave a comment on your blog. You can ask how they are getting on with the ebook or what ever you offered.
In your next email, sent 24-48 hours after the previous you can ask if they were happy with the product that they received and if they achieve their objectives such as setting up a blog. At this stage you can invite your prospect over to check out your blog and offer any help that they require by asking them to reply to your email or leave a comment.
These three emails have enabled you to build a good relationship with you list. You have given them something of value for free, and a way for them to interact with you.
Now that you have built up a relationship with your list, you are now in a position to market to your list any product that will help then achieve their goals. This could your own or an affiliate product. A good source to promote affiliate products are clickbank or commission junction.
Best regards,
Tags: Module 4: List Lingo
To help you all in getting started in making money online, I have included a free and brand new never seen before blog setup guide with demonstrative videos for WordPress 2.8 (currently the latest version).
It does not take any money or technical skills to start up a blog. Blogging is a very effective way to draw in targeted visitors and generate free traffic and are highly ranked by the major search engines such as google.
Blogs are like a social platform or a personal journal where people with similar interests or concerns can visit for relevant information. Google loves good content and blogs, especially wordpress blogs which are an excellent way of giving good content.
This setup guide is presented by my mentor, Dean Holland with a link to both his and my own blogs. Dean Holland got himself a blog and currently averages upwards of 350 visitors a day gave. This gave him the choice of leaving work to enjoy the freedom and lifestyle that an Internet business provides.
The guide will take you step by step through the process of the setup with videos showing you the actual screenshots. It will cover with choosing a domain name and hosting, and offering resources of where you can get these. After getting your domain name and hosting, the guide will show you the easy way to setup your blog on the domain name you chosen again with videos to guide you, as well as how to chose your blog theme to make it unique to you and the plug-ins that you will need and how to install them. You can setup your own email account through your Cpanel and will show you how. Also you need an auto-responder in order to build your email list and recommend Aweber.
You do not need to be a technical wizard to setup a blog or be a graphic or web designer.
Setting up a blog is easy and free, so why not grab your free copy now! Just click on the image to the right or above.
Let me know either by email or by a comment on my blog if you have any problems downloading the guide.
Best regards,
Tags: Free gifts
We have already discussed the fact that targeted traffic is essential for the existence of an online business. Now I am going to focus on the sources of traffic available.
There are two types of traffic: Paid and Free (organic).
The red areas show the paid traffic.
The most common sources of paid traffic are from Pay Per Click (PPC) ads, the most widely used is Google Adwords. Other include 7search. The advantage of using Google Adwords is that it is a virtually instant form of traffic. However you could end up losing money if you are unsure how to use PPC. Also the traffic is less targeted.
The larger green area is the free (organic) traffic.
The advantage is that as well as been free traffic, it is more targeted. The draw back is that that it takes longer, but is more worthwhile in the long run. Dean Holland, my mentor teaches the free methods of gaining traffic. Sources of free traffic include Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), article marketing, blogging and social media (Web 2.0). As already discussed, I am been taught to use my own blog and twitter to generate traffic as well as ‘blog hopping’ which is leaving a good comment on relevant blogs. In my case I have been leaving comments on other members of Starting with Marketing, in which some of the students have left me comments.
In the next module which involves list building, I will be taught other methods of free traffic generation such as ‘push button’ traffic, where I use an auto-responder so that I can keep in touch with subscribers via. email. The auto-responder recommended is AWeber . Also I will be shown recommended forums to join on top of our Starting with Marketing forum, which is a valuable source of traffic where I communicate with people in the same type of niche. Also I will learn how to take advantage of the main search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN.
The diagram below shows the free traffic generation methods that are taught by Dean Holland, who is earning upwards of $20,000+ per month using these methods.
Best regards,
Tags: Module 3: Traffic Tanks
Targeted Traffic * Value (your blog or website) = $$$$
No Traffic * Pretty website (but no value) = Zero
Traffic * Pretty website (again no value) = Very little, if not zero
Best regards,
Tags: Module 3: Traffic Tanks
Ever seen the movie Field of Dreams? Remember the clip that says something on the lines of ‘build it and they will come’? In Internet marketing this could hardly be any further from the truth. One may have the flashiest website with the best graphics around probably paying $1000s on a web designer and offering the best product or service. The crunch line is that if no one can view your website, no one can buy from it.
The key is not necessarily how great your website is but in the ability to drive traffic to it. You don’t just want any old traffic, but you want highly targeted traffic i.e. traffic relevant to your chosen niche. Lets say for example that your niche was in landscape gardening. What good would traffic related to say rally driving be? Probably not a great deal. Another point to remember is that ’ugly’ websites sell if they are getting enough of the right traffic.
Best regards,
Tags: Module 3: Traffic Tanks
Everyone likes the personal touch. Did you know that it is possible to add your own handwritten signature absolutely free to blogs, websites etc with MyLiveSignature.
I have added a link to this software in the recommendations section of my blog.
Best regards,
Tags: Free gifts
As you may have noticed on my blog. I have recently added a free 5-part training worth $67 on how to generate targeted traffic to your website, harnessing the power of web 2.0.
This product was developed by Chris Freville, which he offered in his coaching program (6figureswithchris) in which I was part of in Spring 2009 before joining Starting with Marketing, to assist his students in the area of list building and offered as a list building tool. For more details, fell free to fill in the form on the right.
List building is the next installment of the Starting with Marketing Academy and will have more information soon.
Best regards,
Tags: Free gifts
There are effective and ineffective ways to use social media. Using correctly can earn you a fortune and a tsunami of targeted traffic.
However there is one thing that you should avoid doing with social media and that is selling. People hate being pitched or sold too. Think of when you bought a car for example.
Only when people know you, like you and trust you will they ever buy from you.
Social media is therefore a marketing tool, so the key motto is marketing not selling.
Best regards,
The two main sources of social media used in the Starting with Marketing Academy are twitter and my own blog.
Twitter is a micro-blogging site that lets other people know what I am doing and to interact with people by joining in their conversations by creating tweets as well as make friends. This is known in twitter as a tweet, and have 140 characters per tweet. The idea is that you follow people who have a similar interest to you and in turn some of these people choose to follow you back. These people are known as followers and it is these people that form a powerful source of free traffic.
I chose to follow my mentor Dean Holland and his Mentor Alex Jeffreys, and other students in the academy., in which some are following me back. I used buzzom.com to create followers by entering relevant keywords.
I admit that the thought of using social media was quite a challenge as I am shy and never really been that good at creating relationships. Knowing the power of social media, I am learning how to use twitter to create vital relationships and overcoming my fear of social media.
Recently learnt more about twitter and discovered some free tools such as twuffer which is a platform for automating tweets. It is recommended that you tweet three times a day to your followers if possible. One of which is something personal like a quote or joke or video, perhaps something funny or a challenge that you have faced. This is best at 12pm. Another at 6pm and this is the best time to mention something about your business and the last tweet at 9pm mentioning something personal about your business.
Other useful tools include twitbacks which provides a professional looking background for your twitter account. Bit.ly is used for shortening long URL links as a tweet is limited to 140 characters. Buzzom or twollow can be used to generate targeted followers. Twollow is however not free.
Again, do not try to sell with twitter. Also avoid getting into arguments and repeating posts to the same link. You can however ask for opinions of products that you have used or considering to use.
Do post links to your blog when you create a post and post links to useful information.
Going back to the blog, I commented on other students blog and they left comments. This helps to create repeat visitors.
Best regards,
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