Guide to make money online!

Normally an entrepreneur shudders at the thought of what the Blogosphere can do to his business reputation and how much damage control will have to be done to turn things around. Yes, the blogging community has become increasingly powerful. People are totally in love with blog; they can say what is on their minds and they can express their likes and dislikes.

Yes, blogs are a great outlet for letting others know about unscrupulous business practices and substandard products and services. On the other hand, the bloggers can trash your business reputation and tear your services and products to shreds. Little wonder that many people shudder at the thought of a scathing blog post about their business.

See the bigger picture

Instead of shuddering and frantically thinking of ways to cover up this disaster, think clever. Remember, bloggers can vent about any aspect of your business. It might be that a blogger had an unfortunate dealing with someone in your business, but it can be any other reason. They may have heard through the grapevine that your business had done this or that or may be doing something in the future. Use this lambasting session and turn it around; turn it into a great chance that can be used to your own advantage. In reality what the blogger has done is focus attention on your business. Now think about this; if you went out of the blue to a blog and left postings about your business, what you offer and how it works you would be blasted. You would be crucified for arrogantly promoting your own business. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth about your underhanded spamming of that blog.

Foot in the door

So, in reality what did that particular blogger do by venting about your business? You were given carte blanch, the open sesame to have your own say on that particular blog. You can do your online reputation great damage if you post on a blog uninvited. If a blogger posts a negative post about your business, whether it is justified or through misinformation, you have the right to respond.

The readers will be greatly appreciative if you respond. If you are at fault; responding on the blog gives you the opportunity to thank the blogger for bringing the problem to your attention. You have the opportunity to build bridges and improve your services. If the blogger inaccurately accuse you, this is the absolute perfect opportunity.

From disaster into positive tool

You to tell the whole world who you are, what your services are and how absolutely brilliant it is doing business with you. You can offer to explain to the readers how your promotions work, what benefits you offer etcetera. Instead of seeing a negative blog post as a disaster, turn it into a powerful tool. You have the perfect opportunity to build or rebuilt your online reputation. All it takes is to be brutally honest, show the blogosphere respect and interact.

When you begin learning how to make money online you must first have goal. Without a clear goal in mind you will find it difficult to set targets, and without targets you will find it more difficult to make money. That is why all businesses have a gaol and set regular targets that are the subject of business plans.

It has often been said that a failure to plan is a plan to failure, and nothing could be truer. As a simple goal, decide how much money you want to make in your first year. You could be silly and decide on a million dollars, but you are unlikely to achieve that, so be realistic: say $75,000 in your first year.

You can then break that down into monthly amounts, starting small and increasing each month, which will give you the basis of your targets. You should then plan how to meet these monthly targets. That is a good sound basis of a strong business.

However, you now have the problem of how you are going to make that money. There is a large number of ways in which you can make money online, some of the most popular being|:

1. Creating your own product or service.

Perhaps you have a skill or specialized knowledge that others will pay for. You might be a children’s entertainer or a hypnotherapist. Perhaps you can write en eBook about breeding dogs, or make a video series on maintaining your own car.

I know of one person that made a fortune by making series of short videos of how to carry out simple household maintenance tasks, such as changing an electrical plug, changing a tap or faucet washer, and even putting in a new sink and laying a carpet. A simple idea, yet something that had a massive customer base. Think of all those women living alone, or even guys that don’t know why a screwdriver has a flat end.

Think of what you are good at, or what you have knowledge of, and work out a way of packaging that knowledge or these skills in a way that would sell. I am a good writer, and make money online writing articles to help others to promote their websites.

2. Sell somebody else’s product

If you are unable to produce a product of your own, then sell somebody else’s. Everybody trying to learn how to make money online has heard of affiliate marketing, even if they don’t recognise the word. Affiliate marketing is selling a product for somebody else in return for a commission.

If that product can be delivered electronically - by email or downloaded - then that commission could be 50% or higher, since there is no replacement cost. Unlike a tub of vitamins, an eBook or software application doesn’t have to be produced again once it has been sold, so the vast majority of the selling price is profit. You can therefore be paid more for selling it. 50% is about minimum for such items, and some go as high as 75% or even 80%.

3. Others

Among other ways of making money online are multi-level marketing (MLM), where you recruit others to sell products for you, you receiving a commission on their sales, buying on eBay, and selling the same items for more than you paid for them, buying items in bulk when they are in high supply, and selling at a high price when they are scarce (e.g. certain toys at Christmas time), and many others.

Each of these ways of making money online has one thing in common: you have to learn how to go about it and how to promote whatever it is that you are doing. Even your eBay business has to be promoted by means of your ‘product description’.

Most businesses need a web presence, either as a traditional website or some other presence on the web such as a Squidoo lens or participation in social networking. They might also need software, and knowledge of how to use it, and knowledge of how to attract traffic - potential customers. Without customers, your business will fail.

This is where most people begin to fail. In fact 99 people out of every 100 that try to earn a living online fail. They fail for one of 4 reasons:

1. Lack of Planning

They did not have a clear objective in mind and did not plan properly. The started their business on shaky ground and looked on it as a hobby. They fell into one of the main traps of working at home: worked part-time, and took time off whenever they felt like it rather than set out the daily tasks needed to meet their targets and work until they were completed.

2. Lack of focus: Information Overload

They did not focus, and jumped from one program to another. They had too much information, and were unable to give any one method of making money online the time to work for them. They tried too much at one time and so failed in everything.

3. Lack of Perseverance

They gave up to soon. It takes time to build up a successful online business. Except for a very fortunate few, there is no ‘get rich quick scheme’. Making money online is hard work, and those that persevere tend to succeed. Most don’t!

4. Lack of Knowledge

This is the least reason for failure. There is no need for lack of knowledge in the internet age - everything you need to know is out there, yet many people try to do it themselves without getting the information they need. Learn from the work of others: do not reinvent the wheel. Trite, I know, but true nevertheless.

Use whatever training courses are available out there. It could be expensive, I know, but there are ways to learn all you need to know without spending a lot of money.

It is important that you do not fail for any one of the above reasons because they are all avoidable. It is a shame that so many dreams are shattered for a lack of planning, focus, commitment and perseverance, and a lack of knowledge. All are avoidable.

If you’re not in control of your digital identity, the odds are pretty good that someone else is, or will be if you have any brand recognition at all.
Consider the recent example of Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, whose digital doppelganger created false identities spanning a range of social media sites and even claimed he had been diagnosed with skin cancer. ESPN advised in its NFL Rumor Central, “Not real, folks. In fact, if you see an athlete with a Twitter, you should assume — at least at first — that it’s fake. Assume it’s a Twitter twerp.”

What happens to celebrities happens to brands too. Identity hijacking is prevalent in social media largely because it’s easy to set up accounts and find an audience. The potential for the reach is enough of a lure. When I recently asked Facebook’s Chris Pan who Facebook’s audience is, he said something to the effect of, “Pretty soon it’ll be everyone.” He’s not that far off.

Major brands have increasing recourses in taking charge of their social identities online. If you’re in this elite group, you have a shot at pleading your case to sympathetic ears at various digital properties. MySpace has always restricted brand pages to paying marketers, Facebook is now aggressively cracking down on branded Pages not owned by someone affiliated with the brand, and Twitter will often turn over parked accounts to the rightful tweeter upon request.

Still, this strategy doesn’t solve two issues. One is that a reactive approach could occur after squatters have already damaged a marketer or brand. The other is that for the vast majority of businesses and brands, there’s no clear rightful owner. For instance, when I think of Sal’s Pizza, it’s the Sal’s Pizza on Mamaroneck Avenue in Mamaroneck, N.Y., with the best Sicilian slices I’ve ever eaten. But there are Sal’s Pizzas in Dallas, Boston, New Holland, Pa., and Little Neck, N.Y.; the last one even owns myspace.com/salspizza. On Twitter, @salspizza belongs to a restaurateur in Limerick, Ireland. I know the real Sal’s isn’t in Ireland - come on! - but it would be hard for Mamaroneck’s Sal to make a case, no matter how many of my old high school buddies sign a petition.

So, what’s a marketer to do? Here are ten steps to follow:

1. Run an audit of where your brands are. Note the usernames you use. If you have one flagship brand that’s also your company name, then it’s easy. If you have a stable of brands, this could be a long list.
2. Prioritize the usernames. In the Sal’s example, the business may be Sal’s Ristorante but it’s known as Sal’s Pizza, so salspizza (which is also easier to spell and type) would be the preferred name.
3. Use a site such as usernamecheck.com or knowem.com to enter see if your usernames are taken across scores of sites. Also check for other brand terms. Prioritize usernames that are both memorable and widely available — that’s the sweet spot.
4. For any sites that you know are priorities, register your key usernames. If you’re not sure which sites to prioritize, start with the ones you’ve heard of.
5. Eliminate any sites that are only for consumers and are off-limits for marketers or brands. For this and the next steps, call on the most social-media-savvy person you know, ideally someone you work with closely in your company, at an agency, or elsewhere.
6. Now you need to review all the other sites and prioritize further. If you’re at a total loss, use Compete or Quantcast’s free tools to see how much traffic the sites get, and pick a threshold. 7) For any of these sites, if you don’t plan on using them right away, fill in the minimal information required, post a link back to your homepage or the hub of your social marketing program, and adjust the privacy settings (where possible) so that’s they’re visible to the smallest audience. You don’t want to set false expectations for engaging consumers, and you don’t want to publicize a brand presence that falls short of your standards.
7. Check where competitors are. One easy way to do so is look for their most obvious usernames and visit those accounts to see if they’re really competitors or squatters. If you can’t find much, run some basic searches. Consider whether it’s worth joining competitors on those sites if you haven’t signed up already.
8. Share the list of registered usernames and passwords with a few trusted colleagues so you’re not the only one with the information.
9. Don’t be a jerk. You’ll find opportunities to undermine competitors throughout this process. Be one of the good guys. Try believing in karma.

Ideally, marketers will have clear-cut strategies for where they want to be and how they’ll develop their digital and social brand identities. But there are two problems with this approach. First, for many marketers, that’s just not the case. Second, if marketers think too hard about their strategy, they may never get around to covering some of the basic steps. If you don’t have a Twitter strategy, for instance, go ahead and register the most relevant usernames you can, make the profiles private, and then return to them when you know what you’re doing.

People will still impersonate celebrities and brands. It’s a price to pay for popularity, or notoriety if that’s the case. But if you’re in these arenas for real, it takes a lot of the fun off others trying to claim they’re you.

When you’re doing article submissions, you’ll notice a field on the submission page that asks for an article summary (aka, short description).

As an author, you may not realize all the places where your article summary is used, but the article summary is a prime opportunity for luring readers to your article.

How is the article summary used?

The short description of your article will appear on the summary page of an article directory and also in Google and the other search engines in search results pages.

There are a few different types of summary pages on an article directory–there’s a summary page for a particular category, for each individual author (usually a list of your articles with their summaries), and if your article appears on the main page of an article directory a reader will see your article title and your article summary.

Is the article summary important?

Yes!

Think of your short description as a billboard along the interstate miles away from your business. You can’t see the billboard from your business, but depending on what you write on the billboard, you can effectively lure someone from the interstate to your business.

Google is the interstate and your article summary is the content on your billboard. Don’t you want to take advantage of all that traffic and direct readers to your article?

A potential reader is doing a Google search and is scanning a list trying to decide what page to click through to, and your short description can be the deciding factor as to whether they click through to your article.

What makes a good short description?

Whether you know it or not, you probably already know the answer to this. Go to your favorite article directory and look at the list of titles and article summaries.

Some are better than others, right? Some of the short descriptions make you want to read more, while others make you say, “No thank you–next!”

When you’re doing your next article submission, here are a few tips for capturing a reader’s attention with your article summary:

1) Your short description should tell what your article is about. Give specific info–what is your article topic and what info will you be providing in your article?

2) Try to lead the reader into your article from your article summary. Here’s an example:

“With some creativity you can transform your articles into multiple pieces of marketing content which can save you time, extend your marketing reach, and create more doorways for potential customers to find you. If you’re in the mood to stretch your marketing content mileage, try one of these 3 creative uses for your articles.”

This summary tells the reader what the article is about, how the information can benefit them, and what awaits them when they click through to read the entire article.

3) Write in complete sentences.

Sometimes you will see an article summary that just says something like: “Article about windshield wipers”

That’s it–end of story. Not a very compelling enticement for a reader to click through and learn more, is it?

No matter what the topic of your article, you can phrase your article summary in such a way that readers interested in that topic will say, “Hmmm, I want to know more!”

4) A short cut may be to use your intro or closing paragraph or some other part of your article as your short description. You don’t necessarily have to write your short description from scratch. Lots of times I will look over my finished article and pick out phrases and sentences that I think represent the article and would be good at luring a reader in.

Bonus tips:

• Mind your word count–Usually a publisher will require a short description to be 450 words or less, including spaces.
• Do not mention your own business or website address in the article summary, as many publishers do not appreciate that. The article summary is not your resource box–the article summary is a description of your article, while your resource box is the place where you can talk about yourself, your business, and your website.

Writing an article summary is not hard, but you do need to put some thought into how your summary will appear to your readers.

Think of your article summary as being a little advertisement for your article. Put yourself in the shoes of a person who is looking at a long list of results in Google–what sort of summary would make you want to click through and read the entire article?

The proper term for the process is known as SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. SEO is a combination of two major components. First, you must learn how to tweak your web pages so that the search bots find your content to be search engine friendly. Once you have set up a search friendly site, the next component is to build back links. But before diving straight into SEO, you must first know which keywords to target.

Choosing Your Target Keyword Phrase.

Many new Internet Marketers make the mistake of choosing the wrong keywords to target. So what makes a keyword inappropriate?

Your ideal keyword phrase should be around three to four keywords. - If you are targeting a word like “music”, you may find that you may not be able to rank for anything. That is because the keyword itself is too general. Whether you are looking for someone to sign up as a member, download a song, or buy something from you, you want to be sure that you are matching the right offer to the right audience. In other words, you are looking for targeted traffic. So instead of choosing a keyword like “music”, a keyword phrase like “local music bands” would be a much better choice.

Use a keyword research tool to make sure that the keyword will bring you traffic. - If you are targeting an obscure keyword that nobody ever uses, you may just be wasting your time and resources. Google offers a free keyword tool that will give you a good idea on which keyword phrase to choose. The tool reveals estimated search traffic, as well as the level of competition.

But don’t be over-reliant on keyword tools to help you find keywords. As a business owner, you should be very familiar with the market. Know who your target customers are. That will help you find and locate valuable keywords that no one else would’ve thought of.

Choose keywords with a fair amount of competition. - Some marketers believe strongly that keywords with little competition are easier to rank. Therefore, it makes sense to target those keywords. But if you are setting up an online business, you want to be in an active market. In other words, the best keywords are those with a fair amount of competition, but are not overly saturated. A fair amount of competition is a good indicator of the value of a keyword phrase. You stand a much greater chance of success if you target those keywords.

Setting Up a Search Engine Friendly Website.

Fortunately, you don’t have to be a geek to learn how to tweak your sites. Most content management systems are SEO friendly, and the best part is, most of them are free. The popular ones include Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, and DotNetNuke. Your web pages will be search friendly when they are hosted on these systems. But if you really want to learn the basics, make sure that you implement the following.

If you are tweaking your site manually, there are two important things that you must implement. First, always make sure that your target keyword phrases are included in the title tags. Use them in your META keyword and description tags as well. Next, use a search engine friendly file name such as “your-keyword-phrase.html”. You can easily rename your html files using any text editor.

Manual tweaks can be implemented easily if you have a small site. But if you are thinking of growing the website into a huge site, you should consider using a content management system (CMS). If you are using a CMS, be careful not to overload the site by installing too many unnecessary plug-ins. Remember that your primary goal is to make it easy for the search bots to find your web pages, and to determine the overall theme of the content. By installing too many unnecessary bells and whistles, you are making it more difficult for the search bots to do their job. For that reason, you often find that hassle free templates tend to work better than fanciful ones. Don’t overcomplicate things. The golden principle here is to keep things simple.

When you are satisfied with the design and content, it’s now time to let the world know about your site.

Link Building with Articles.

There are many ways you can build back links to your site. You can post entries on blogs, submit links to Web 2.0 properties, submit URLs to a bunch of web directories, or write and distribute press releases and/or articles. You can use a combination of these methods if you have the time and resources, or you can keep your focus on just one - such as article marketing.

Article marketing is one of the easiest methods to get well established websites to link to you. These are authority sites that have been around for years, and you can get hundreds (maybe even thousands) of one way back links from these sites. One way back links means links that point to your sites, but you don’t need to reciprocate and link back to the external sites.

Every article you write allows you to include two to three simple text links at the bottom of the article. Here is when things get interesting.

In the “eyes” of the search engines, every link from an external site to your website is counted as a vote. In other words, the more back links you have pointing to your site, the better your site will rank. Of course, these can’t be any back links. They have to be links from authority sites and relevant web pages.

Now you already know that there are literally hundreds of article directories on the Internet that are recognized as authority sites by the search engines. All you have to do is to create relevant content, put your links at the end of the articles, and submit them to the article directories. When they are approved, your articles get published online, and you get a bunch of high quality links pointing to your site.

What you really need to know here is that you must be careful about what you include as the anchor texts for your links. Anchor texts are words that you place within the HTML link tags. For instance, instead of having your links as “Click here”, make sure that you create links that say, “Your Keyword Phrase”.

This is how the search engines determine the theme and relevancy of the content on your website. The assumption here is that if there are a thousand links from external sites “saying” that your site is about “green aliens”, then perhaps your site is really about “green aliens”.

Write on topic, and include your target keywords as anchor texts. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

What to Expect After Your Articles Have Been Published.

If you website is brand new, don’t expect to see miracles overnight. It can take anywhere from four to six weeks for a new website to pick up speed. If you have done everything right (choose the right keywords, optimize your site, and pick the right anchor texts), then your site will appear in the search index in about three weeks. Initially, it will appear in page 5 or 6 in the search results. That is a very good sign.

In another two week’s time, your website will move up to page 3 or 4. Don’t rest on your laurels and stop writing and distributing articles. Keep up with your link building campaigns. If you have chosen the right keywords, you should be able to rank in about 6 weeks. For highly competitive keywords, it may take longer.

Your goal is to at least get your site to rank on page 1 on the major search engines. Once it emerges on page 1 of the search results, you will be receiving a steady stream of highly targeted traffic from the search engines. Do your part by serving your visitors well by publishing valuable content or offering killer products. You will soon be enjoying the handsome rewards.

What do you know about social media? Before you answer that question, let me tell you that you know more than you may think. Social media is simply another way for us to communicate and connect with one another. If you are a smart communicator and understand the power of connections, you already know a lot about social media.

Ashton Kutcher said “One person’s voice can be as powerful as an entire media network,” once he surpassed 1 million followers on Twitter, beating CNN. He described this achievement as the “democratization” of the media. I have to wonder. Wasn’t the media democratized before? What makes it now a “democracy” because one man can reach 1 million people?

Perhaps democracy and democratization are the wrong words (even though it sounds catchy). What social media has done is unleash the power of communication and connection one person at a time. Communicating one-on-one always had a powerful effect on us because it enabled us to connect with one another. Everything you read and hear about social media requires connection and building relationships. Remember when communication consisted of three choices?

• Face-to-Face
• Telephone
• Handwritten letter

When given these three choices, we selected face-to-face interactions when we knew we had to make a special connection with someone. Telephone connections happened when we did not need as much intimacy or when distance prevented us from making face-to-face contact. We resorted to the letter as the least personal form of communication.

Today, we have many more choices. Nonetheless, our decision-making process remains the same. How much connection, how much intimacy do we need in order to communicate our message? CNN does not care about intimacy; they care about getting the news broadcasted to many people at once. Amazingly, social media also broadcasts news in much the same way CNN does. But, because the source comes from a “friend”, a “follower”, or a “connection” we are more likely to believe it. In the past we could eyeball the communicator during a face-to-face interaction to determine truth. Today, we must depend upon building relationships that create trust and that create believability.

Here is what we do know about social media:

• Our young people are connected. Today’s youth understands social media; they live and breathe it every day. They use the tools as ways to share with their friends. As kids, we used the telephone. Today’s kids use cell phones and MySpace. When you put the cell phone with MySpace, you get Twitter. To any young person, the power of Twitter is a no brainer.
• Social media brings on two-way communication. Where email was one-way communication that was often not instantaneous, Twitter is two-way and instant. Furthermore, with Twitter you can have instant two-way communication with virtually thousands of people at once.
• Social media enables people to deepen connections and relationships. I could correspond with you quickly through email. But, through Facebook I learn what you look like, what you like to do on Sunday afternoon, who your favorite actors are, and where you love to eat. Through Facebook, I find out that your dog has been sick or your child won a top honor at school. Through Facebook I learn who you are and what makes you tick.
• Social media is here to stay. The way we are communicating is in a revolutionary change and that change centers on social media. Traditional advertising and broadcast media must adapt to this new step-child. In fact, Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter, said, “Journalists who embrace the new media will thrive; those that don’t won’t.”
• Social media is forcing changes in marketing and sales. The way we discover, evaluate and purchase products and services is experiencing a major insurgency. Word of mouth purchases come not from the neighborhood pharmacist but from what our friends tell us on Facebook or what we hear on Twitter.
• Ashton Kutcher taught us that the way we hear about news and events is also changing through the social media. The fact that CNN wants 1 million followers tells that a major network recognizes the power of a social networking tool like Twitter. What are the things we do not know about social media?

Where is social media taking us? Where will we be in 5 years? No one has a clue.

Which media tools will survive? Is Twitter a passing fad? Will the little bird be eaten by the big cat, Google? MySpace is already on the decline. What about Facebook? My hunch is that each of these tools will find the right niche. MySpace will survive for the very young. Twitter in some form will survive for instant message type communication world-wide.

How will social media affect advertising, public relations, marketing, and sales? My guess is that broadcast, intrusive advertising as we know it today, will not survive. For some products (not many) it will continue in some form. Social media adds a new component to the “marketing” mix. By doing so, traditional marketing efforts must adapt. Time will show us how and who will survive.

What’s next? We now have Web 2.0 which means an interactive Web. It’s much more engaging to read a blog in which you can comment than to read a static website. For that reason blogs have soared in popularity. What will Web 3.0 or 2.5 or whatever look like? I’m sure there are some guru’s out there who can share what they see in their crystal balls. But, for most of us it remains a mystery. The challenge is to be ready. Two things we can count on: we are on the cusp and there’s more to come.

As a communications expert, all this excites me. Social media provides new opportunities to communicate and to connect. The fun part is joining the party. What are you waiting for? Now that you know that you do know something about the social media, and you also know that no one knows what’s next, come join us! See you on Twitter.

This month’s column was going to be about Facebook. I had about half of it written before I stumbled upon something unexpected that changed my mind, and the content below.

I’ll start from the beginning. I’m in the early stages of gut renovating my apartment. I’m very handy, and can do most of the work myself, including rough carpentry, drywall, and finishing work. I can even do moderate plumbing and electric. The former I am actually quite comfortable with, the greatest risk being flooding my downstairs neighbors (they are very nice people, and I’m sure they’d understand).

Electric work carries considerably greater risks, like fire, and death. The latter is a pretty big risk. My last electrician offered advice on this topic, and told me that if you grab a live wire with one hand you’ll be fine, as the electricity will complete the circuit through your hand. It’s when you grab it with both hands that you’re in trouble, as then the electricity completes the circuit through your chest. I found his theory intriguing but controversial. Regardless, I can’t do either plumbing or electric work in the city of New York, as building codes prohibit it. So I’m in need of a good plumber and electrician.

Though they must exist, I know implicitly that there is no way to find a good plumber or electrician in New York City. It simply can’t be done. I can find a plumber, any plumber, no problem. My Google query for “New York City Plumbers,” for example, returned 14,700,000 results. (How is that even possible)? But finding a good plumber, one who will show up on time and provide an estimate with fewer than five digits, can’t be done.

This is where I thought I would start writing about Facebook, and the opportunity Facebook has to corner the local search and services market. No one out there is doing this well — not the major engines, not the IYPs, not even the new(er) social search and recommendation engines like Yelp.

I was wrong about that last part, and I’ll return to this in a moment. The problem with local search is not in getting accurate listings, that’s easy. The challenge is in getting relevant reviews on those listings.

In order to do this, you need two key ingredients. The first is scale, as in a massive, active user base willing to inform objective business listing with subjective opinions. The second is relevance, as in some way to ensure the reviews you are reading are not written by shills, angry ex-lovers, or crazy people.

Facebook can address both of these challenges: It has a massive user base, and it’s networked, which provides all kinds of useful ways to vet the trustworthiness of a reviewer’s opinion. If Facebook jumped into the local search space I believe they could corner the market. But I think Yelp has actually beaten them to it.

I was going to put Yelp in my original column as an also-ran. My original thoughts were that Yelp did not have the scale to capture this opportunity. It was in digging around on Yelp looking for examples to prove my point that I realized I’d misjudged it. Yelp does have scale. Though not nearly that of Facebook, Yelp has almost 8 million monthly unique users (according to comScore), and has doubled its user base over the last year.

Yelp can scale content, too. I found a variety of listings for New York City plumbers and electricians (not 14.7 million, but enough) with ratings that looked plausible (i.e. not all five stars). And Yelp has a pool of users that seems, well, not crazy. That is, they seem to make rationale critiques and rate services appropriately (unlike some travel review sites that shall remain nameless). You can vet the reviewers’ quality by clicking on their profile, and their community is even self-policing, calling people out when they seem like phonies, and knocking them back in line when they stray from the site’s main purpose - real reviews about real services.

It was at this point that I realized I had to rework my column and develop a new conclusion. So I’ve revised my point of view. Facebook should not build its own socially powered local search engine; it should just buy Yelp. This combination makes both companies better. It would instantly propel Facebook into the local search space with the backing of an active reviewer base and a proven service model. And Facebook’s scale would rocket Yelp from niche to mainstream, making a good service even better by combining reviewer opinions with vetting via the social graph.

So Yelp, if Facebook calls you up on Tuesday and makes you an offer, you know who sent them. But I’m not greedy. In fact, in return for encouraging a nine-figure liquidity event in your favor, all I would ask is that you pay my plumbing and electric bills. You may think you’re getting off easy, but you haven’t seen these estimates.

One of the most often asked questions I get concerns whether an author should write articles for search engines or for actual human readers.

I recently received this question from a reader:

“What I really want to figure out is what type of content will bring the readers to my website and then convert them into buyers and also, do I really need to keep using different variations of saying the same thing over and over to please the search engine spiders?”

Good question–The answer is that ideally you would write content that is helpful to your target market, but that is also optimized to catch the attention of search engines.

Easier said than done, eh?

It can seem like a perpetual tightrope to walk–what do the search engines want to see -vs- what will appeal to my target market–, but I encourage you to relax and not over think things.

Article marketing is a work in progress, something we do continually over the lifetime of our websites and, as with any skill, we can improve our writing and naturally increase in our skill without the pressure to be the absolute best writer/article marketer on Day 1.

This is a process, and instead of getting bogged down in trying to do things perfectly (not really sure if there is a “perfect” way to do things anyway :-)), it’s helpful to focus on starting where you are and then improving over time.

I’d like to go over a few approaches you can take when you’re trying to meld the needs of your human readers with the desire to appeal to search engines.

Write an attention grabbing title.

Now, what is attention grabbing for a reader is not necessarily the most attention grabbing for a search engine, right?

Readers respond to imagery and emotion, and a search engine is looking for semantically related words to indicate what a particular webpage (or article) is about.

There are a few approaches you can take when trying to craft a great title:

*Be certain that your title reflects specifically what your article is about.

This means that you won’t just make your title be your keywords, but you’ll make your title be more engaging and more specific.

For example, if I were submitting an article, I would not simply make my title be “Article Marketing”. That may tell a search engine what my article is about (in a very general sense), but it isn’t very helpful or captivating for human readers.

Also, if your keywords include a geographic location, such as “New Jersey Personal Trainer”, you wouldn’t include anything about New Jersey in your title unless your article was specifically about personal trainers in New Jersey.

Does that make sense? Your article title must reflect what your article is about, and any promise you make in your title must be delivered upon in your article body.

A compromise…

Option #1:

Now, this won’t work for everyone, but depending on what your keywords are, you may have the option of having the best of both worlds by including your keywords in your article title and also having wording that appeals to people.

Let’s say my keywords are Article Marketing and my specific article is about how to write your first article–I can simply make a title like this:

Article Marketing: 7 Fast and Easy Steps to Writing Your First Article…Even If You’re Not A Writer!

You’ll notice that I included my keywords at the front of the title, and then used a colon (:) to lead into a more exciting headline.

Option #2:

Like I said–the above technique won’t work for everyone, as sometimes it just doesn’t make sense to include your keywords at the start of your article title. So, here’s another approach:

Write your article on the topic of your website (as usual).

Then try to create an article title (if and where possible) to match what people are searching for, using the Wordtracker tool to help.

For example, I might write an article about how using an outline can help you write an article faster.

Use long tail key phrases as article topics.

Long tail key phrases are the longer search terms that a search would type into Google to find information on a topic in your niche. Your main keyword phrases will usually be between 1-3 words long, but your long tail key phrases can be 4, 5, or 6 words long. Your main keywords target general topics, while the long tail keywords are very specific. Because the topic is so specific, it is easy to write an article about a long tail key phrase. Since the topic is so specific, it’s also easier to rank highly for that search term.

Manage your HTML resource box carefully.

With an HTML resource box, you are using a keyword or keyword phrase as anchor text for a link–this means that the keyword is hyperlinked and when a reader clicks the words that are linked, then they are taken to your site. Google and other search engines regard hyperlinked text as being more important, so using your keyword as the anchor text for a hyperlink is little SEO thing that you can do with your keywords to help Google associate those words with your article/website.

An important note–if you’re using keyword linking from the HTML resource box, do not focus on the same keyword phrase each time, but vary them a lot within your niche.

Why?

If you use one keyword over and over again in your HTML resource box, it can appear as if you’re trying to manipulate Google’s evaluations and Google doesn’t like that. By varying the keywords you use when you’re employing an HTML resource box, you can help Google get a good idea what your site is about by linking in semantically related key phrases in a non-manipulative way.

What does semantically related mean?

If your keyword phrase is ’sail boats’, semantically related phrases would be: ’sailing boats’, ‘how to sail a boat’, ’sail boat gear’, ‘learn about sail boats’–you get the idea.

This means writing naturally, and first and foremost keeping your human readers in mind. Your article should sound natural and not contrived (not say the same thing over and over), and

You can write for humans and search engines, but I think people run into trouble when they try to write only for search engines and forget about their human audience.

Remember, your articles are pieces of communication between you and your target readers–your goal is to create an article that effectively conveys useful information. If you follow the tips in this post, search engines will also pick up on the topic of your articles and they will be able to appropriately classify your article in their results listings.

If this sounds too overwhelming, start by focusing on your readers. Write for them and forget about Google for a bit. When you get more used to writing article, it will be easier for you to integrate some of these techniques.

After a while, building links on an ongoing basis is very tedious work and some times the feeling of incentive is lost when working on your own websites. My main purpose for writing this article is to show options that are available for improving your websites authority while obtaining high quality links that really make a positive impact for your website. Website marketing needs to be fun, and you need to think of new ideas to lower the amount of time spent to earn a dollar. Working smarter than harder should be on everyones mind.

First off, I recommend that people consider becoming an author for About.com. Did you guys know that many authors on About can make anywhere from $650 per month and up in to the thousands, simply by being an expert in your industry and providing valuable information that increases About’s website traffic and page views?

The big benefit to working on About’s website as an author is that you are also building up your main websites authority, because they are more than happy to link to your website from pages that you create. About is one of the leading web power houses when it comes to information pertaining to thousands of topics. About is more of a basic version of Wikipedia that is compiled by thousands of authors. Ultimately, to become an authority on their website you need to have some industry recognition and great writing abilities, but if you need an extra few links to monopolize your niche online - this would be a great place to start!

Next, we need to talk about Squidoo. Squidoo is a beautiful place to really make some money, and it can be relatively easy if you are a talented writer that creates compelling information about your specialty online. The biggest part to succeeding on Squidoo is creating compelling information, interacting in the community with other Squi Doers and more. You can promote your product within Squidoo, you can make money from Adsense and Amazon as well as a few other affiliates and best of all; Build your authority!

Another great option is to create a compelling Ebook to offer from your website, and if it is extremely high in quality and well researched - you will be able to make some money from selling your Ebook and also generate some link bait because of the valuable information that others will likely link to. In order to increase link bait or authority, consider giving away the Ebook for 2-3 months for free, and tell people to act fast since the price will increase soon. Many websites such as John Chow have really seen link building success with giving away free Ebooks, that is something to think about.

Fourth, why not create external blogs and link to them from your main website so that they gain some trust from the search engines. Then constantly create posts that offer value to website users, and then either promote your product or implement affiliates like Commission Junction, Adsense or pull from one of the many advertisement firms that will allow you to serve ads on your website for a profit.

Fifth, you can always allow guests to post on your own blog and websites that are high in authority to improve your website traffic. As long as the article provided by guest posts is unique in nature and high in quality, you will drum up extra traffic for your website and encourage inbound links to the new content on your website. Some people get very conservative when it comes to allowing others to utilize their own website because people often times don’t want to help others, but if you open up this opportunity you will succeed. How do you think that WebProNews succeeded? They allowed quality publishers to really provide value on their own website.

When building links to your website, don’t always think about this moment. Think about opportunities to create a website that invites inbound links easily, because that is where the true search engine optimization experts succeed in the long term. The sites that perform the best in the search engines are often times not the ones that actively link build, they are the ones that add value to their website visitors and create an environment that obtains a plethora of inbound links.

I am sure there are a lot of additional ways to monetize while building up your websites popularity, and these are just a few. I am excited to hear from others about more ideas to build up website popularity while making a little “ching ching” at the same time.

The single biggest, non-renewable asset you have is your time. There are only three things you can do with it: waste it, sell it, or invest it. As an entrepreneur or a service professional, what you do with your time acutely impacts how much money you can make.

If this year you want to make clients come to you, earn a six-figure or beyond income, become the expert in your chosen field, positively impact lives of many people, gain fame and earn respect of your peers — you have to invest your time into creating marketing assets!

Just like the wealthy invest in assets that continuously appreciate and generate more money — like real estate, the savvy entrepreneurs invest in creating marketing assets that grow your business with no additional expense. What are those assets? Here is just a short list:

• Content
• Info products
• Referral partners
• Ezine subscribers list
• Customers list
• Incoming links to your website
• Testimonials
• Education

So if you want to become the ‘top dog’ in your industry, you’ve got to start doing what the ‘big dogs’ do.

To begin investing your time into creating high leverage marketing assets, use this short checklist:

DON’T design expensive logos. While establishing your uniqueness is important, people will not do business with you because you spent money on a cute graphic!

DO survey your ideal clients. Learning and understanding their needs allow you to offer them solutions they want — and that makes you incredibly attractive to them.

DON’T place ads that feature little more but your logo, phone number and address. Stop kidding yourself thinking you are the next IBM or Coca-Cola and that merely mentioning your name will get people pounding on your door!

DO create content that addresses the most pressing needs your prospects and clients are desperately trying to solve! Write articles, create special reports, publish an e-zine or e-book (or regular book), and record audio/video products. If you advertise — advertise those products not your services.

DO take time to learn and leverage free publicity. Research media contacts, take time to understand what type of information appeals to them, and become good at presenting your information in the format they like best.

DON’T attend every networking meeting you can find. Your time is much too valuable to try to attract business in one-on-one fashion. Contrary to the popular belief — networking isn’t cheap!

If you sum up the cost of your time, the price you pay to eat all that rubber chicken, and the energy to follow-up with people who will likely never do business with you — it’s a very expensive (and ineffective) way to find only a handful of qualified prospects!

DO develop informative presentations. Find large gatherings of your ideal prospects and become good at getting yourself invited as a speaker.

DON’T fiddle around adjusting the shades of colors on your website!

DO look for online communities that already attract your ideal clients and find a way to make them link to you. Ask them to post your articles. Make your site content rich so they will want to list it as a resource. Or sell an info product and invite them to become an affiliate.

DON’T beg for referrals!

DO create ways your current clients can easily ‘give you away’ (like an article or an audio CD)

DO build relationships with referral partners. Create ways in which they can introduce you to hundreds or even thousands of prospects at once!

DON’T try to figure everything out on your own — that’s a very expensive way to learn marketing and build your business.

DO invest in knowledge products and access to experts. An hour or two with a knowledgeable advisor can save you thousands of dollars in time and money wasted on wrong strategies and improperly implemented tactics.

Providing people with easily accessible information about solutions will position you as a valuable resource and an expert. These tools will not only attract all the new business you want, but they will allow you to charge the money you deserve and create the lifestyle you desire.

So stop wasting time eating all that rubber chicken and chasing people who will likely never do business with you nor refer a single client. Instead, start creating high-leverage marketing tools that over time will generate an avalanche of new business!

Many times website owners who are new to link building simply don’t know what to expect when it comes to the timeframe for registering backlinks.

Here’s a common question I get:

“I’ve just started marketing my brand new website, and I know I have backlinks coming into my site, yet when I do a check for incoming links, nothing shows up. Am I doing something wrong?”

Probably not–A backlink check will tell you how many incoming links are registered with a particular search engine, but it will not tell you how many backlinks you actually have.

Why is that? Well, it usually takes search engines months to re-evaluate incoming links, so if you do a backlink check today, there are likely links that are going into your site that haven’t yet been calculated in.

It would be nice if we could build links and then immediately have them show up in a backlink check, but that’s just not the way the internet works.

As you’re building links to your site, here are some ways to keep track of your progress and build links effectively over time:

How To Do A Backlink Check

It’s incredibly easy to do a backlink check for your site. In Google, just type this into the search box (replacing the ‘yourwebsite.com’ part with your URL):

• link:http://www.yourwebsite.com/

The results of that search will bring up a list of sites that are linking to your website address. In the upper right hand corner of Google you’ll be able to see a total count of your registered backlinks.

An even better tool is Yahoo Site Explorer https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com which provides a list of your registered backlinks and much more detailed information. Both of these backlink checking tools are free, so you can try each one out (or do both).

Why Are Backlinks Not Showing Up For My Site?

Let’s suppose you know that you’ve build links to your site, but nothing is showing up when you do a backlink check (frustrating, I know!).

There are some logical reasons why backlinks may not be showing up:

1) Perhaps your website is brand new and has not yet been indexed by Google.

When you launch a new site it does not automatically appear in Google–it usually takes several months for Google to realize that the site is there and to index and categorize it.

Until your site is indexed, it will not show up in any search engine searches and no backlinks will be registered. You can even do a search for your exact site name or URL and nothing will show up–that is how you know that your site has not been indexed yet.

If this is your situation, don’t fret! This waiting period is something that all website owners go through, and Google (and the other search engines) will eventually index your site.

It can take anywhere from 3-5 months for a new website to be indexed.

I remember the last time I was launching a new site it took about 5 months for the site to be indexed in Google. On that 5th month, all of the backlinks that I had been building over the preceding months finally showed up–whew!

2) Not enough time has elapsed since building the links.

Even if your site is already indexed, it usually takes search engines several months (3-4) to recalculate the backlinks. So, if you have been doing article submissions for the past 2 months and you know for a fact that you have quite a few incoming links, those links will not show up in a backlink check for another month or two.

This doesn’t mean the links aren’t there–they are! The search engine just hasn’t registered them yet.

As you can see, one necessary component of any link building campaign is PATIENCE. There will be a time delay from when you build the link to when you see the fruit of your labor in Google.

Keep in mind, this time delay does not impact your marketing campaign–whether the links have started to show up or not, you should continue to market your website and submit articles. Immediate results are not the goal–you should be going for a long lasting impact on your search engine ranking for your keywords, rather than a brief shot of traffic that fades away after a day or so.

When you’re link building, you need to market your site consistently–develop an article submission schedule for yourself and stick to it, submitting articles each and every month.

You will be rewarded in the long run with an increased search engine ranking for your major keywords, which can of course build traffic dramatically for the long-term.

Buying text links for your website is a highly controversial subject online. Like it or not, approve of the practice or disapprove, it does exist and there are many website owners who are doing it. I’m not going to debate the issue one way or the other; just shed some light on what some consider a “gray subject.”

So why would you want or need to buy a text link on another website? It all goes back to “link popularity.” Search engines look at how many other sites are linking to yours when deciding on your ranking. Granted, this is just one criterion, but nevertheless an important one to pay attention to.

If you don’t know how many other sites are linking to yours, go to any search engine and type this in: link:http://www.yourdomain.com … you should get a pretty good idea of your “popularity.” Keep in mind that Google never shows all sites linking to yours, so what you see in the results will not be an accurate presentation of those linking to you. Why they do this is not clear (it’s one of those “Google Secrets”), but a possible explanation is that it’s one of the methods they use to keep their ranking algorithms private.

When considering a link purchase, only buy from sites that are related to your theme and use the Google Toolbar to check their page rank. You can download it here:
http://toolbar.google.com/

A page rank of 4 or above is pretty good but a 7 or 8 is excellent. Never buy a link based on page rank alone. If the site doesn’t relate to your site’s content, don’t do it.

Here are some things to keep in mind before making any purchases:

There are two types of links: one-way and reciprocal. A reciprocal link is when two sites agree to link to each other, a one-way link is just one site linking to another without linking back. Purchasing a text link is an example of a one-way link. One-way links are counted higher by most search engines and therefore are more valuable then reciprocal.

When supplying your text link to other sites, make sure to include your keywords in your anchor text. The anchor text is the part of the link that is clickable. Use a variety of key phrases so as not to raise any red flags with the search engines.

You also want to be consistent with your url. Use the “www.” part in all incoming links, as links to “yourdomain.com” and “www.yourdomain.com” could be treated as two different websites by the search engines.

Another tip when buying links is to do it slowly. Don’t buy too many at one time. You want it to look natural to the search engines. Hundreds of sites deciding to link to yours in a week is not “natural” and may catch unwanted attention from the powers that be.

Stay away from link farms when choosing link partners. Just associating with “bad sites” can be enough to get you banned by the search engines. You’ll also want to make sure you’re getting links from different IP addresses. Search engines will give the links more weight if they don’t all come from the same IP.

So now that you have the basics, where do you buy the text links? I thought you’d never ask.

1) LinkHaul: http://www.LinkHaul.com

Purchase static links to PR 4, 5,6, 7 or 8 websites. Pricing starts at 3.00 per month.

2) Text Link Brokers: http://TextLinkBrokers.com

Offering a variety of link building programs to increase your link popularity.

3) LinkAdage: http://www.LinkAdage.com

Buy or sell text links within an auction format or buy direct thru a broker.

4) Text-Link-Ads: http://www.Text-Link-Ads.com

Offering $100.00 in free text link ads when you spend $125.00. So you only have to spend an initial investment of $25.00

5) BackLinks: http://www.BackLinks.com

A service that allows webmasters to trade, sell or buy text links.

When you buy a link, it’s usually billed on a monthly basis and you’ll always pay more for a site with a higher page rank, and also for having them put your link on their main page compared to a page deeper down within the site. Once you purchase a link let it run for a few months at a time, search engines will need it in order to find and spider them.

Right or wrong, purchasing links is one way to improve your link popularity quickly and move your site up the ranks in the search engines. Remember, there are many ways to increase your website traffic, and buying text links is just another means to an end.

If you want to sell “info products” online and make a significant income, you need to give away free information. Don’t misunderstand “give away”. All human interactions are built on exchanges. “To give away information” means to exchange it for something other than money. You exchange the information for a relationship that allows you to keep in touch with your prospects and customers. It’s a common relationship marketing strategy.

The way it works is this: a large income comes from repeat sales. Repeat sales come from relationships. On the web, relationships come from email lists and positive interactions with the people on the lists. Email lists and positive interactions come from giving away information.

You need to have a relationship to somebody to sell to him or her. You have to establish a relationship of trust. Once you have enticed somebody to your web site, you can establish at least a brief relationship on your “pitch page” by telling your story, being honest about some shortcomings of your product, and including many endorsements from satisfied customers.

But consider: you gone through all the trouble to entice people to your page, and you gone through a lot of effort to make them feel confident in you. Suppose they don’t buy the product immediately, which is typically the case. You have expended all that effort for nothing. Remember, you need half a dozen or a dozen interactions with most people before they are willing to buy. And even suppose they buy your product. If they just go away, you have lost all the good work you put into establishing a relationship in the first place. You don’t have a chance to interest them in related products.

It’s always easiest to sell to people you’ve sold to before and who liked what they bought from you. It’s easy to sell to people who know you and are comfortable with you, even if they haven’t purchased anything yet.

Although you can make some money from selling single items to people, it is clearly advantageous to build relationships so people will keep coming back to buy more.

Since you must be in touch with your customers and prospective customers repeatedly, you need an email list.

You want to get prospective customers’ email addresses, but what possible reason do they have for giving them to you? To get prospective customers on your email list, you have to give them something that they want. You can entice them to your squeeze page — the page on which you ask for their email — by offering them information that would help them solve a problem or fulfill a desire. They give you their first name and email, and you email them the information that you promised.

You must keep emailing them to maintain the relationship, but you can’t email them hard core sales pitches. A sales pitch is not a relationship. Indeed, spam emails are sales pitches outside of relationships.

So if you must contact them repeatedly, what do you send them? The only way you’re going to sell any products is if those products solve problems or fulfill desires. The only reason they got on your mailing list in the first place is that you offered them something to help them with the problem or desire. That’s the only thing you know that they’re interested in. So obviously you should send them more suggestions on how to solve the problems and fulfill their desires. To be a commercial success, you must balance giving them useful information against not giving them all the benefits that they will gain from your products.

So both to get an email list and to maintain positive interactions with the people on the list, you must give away information. Giving away information leads to relationships, relationships lead to repeat sales, and repeat sales lead to significant income online.

When it comes to starting any endeavor, whether it be learning a new hobby or starting an online business, we all have to start at ground zero. We all have to start at the very beginning from the very same place. Granted, we each bring different skills and backgrounds into the mix, but for the most part we are all on equal footing at the starting line.

If this is the case, then we really have to ponder why is it only a choice few go on to succeed, while most people don’t. Just what are the reasons why most online marketers fail? This is the core question that has to be answered if you want to fully understand Internet marketing and how it works.

What are these basic reasons?

What are the causes or stumbling blocks that hold many marketers and webmasters from reaching their full online potential? If we know these factors, we can learn how to avoid them and even overcome them in our own online marketing. These reasons can be a solid reference point or even a source of inspiration for any online marketer just starting out.

Speaking from the viewpoint of someone who has started from the very beginning with little to no knowledge of computers or even marketing for that matter, I can honestly relate to the beginning marketer. I even had to learn HTML from scratch in order to construct my own webpages. Probably my only advantage, I did have a background in art but designing webpages was completely different from anything I had done previously to starting in online marketing.

But from my own experiences I have drawn some general conclusions about Internet marketing and why some people succeed while most people fail. So here in my honest opinion, are some of the main reasons why many online marketers fail:

1. Overwhelmed With Information

Perhaps, one of the biggest obstacles I faced when I first started my website - I was bombarded with so much information on how to proceed I didn’t have a clue which direction to take or who to believe. Thousands of different info products telling you to do this, not to do that… so much marketing information to absorb that you end up scratching your head and looking like someone auditioning for a zombie movie.

Completely overwhelmed with so much information, many marketers or webmasters enter a state of paralysis where nothing gets done. You go from one course to another or from one method to another, without any real understanding of how to proceed or how to get a detailed blueprint to follow.

Information overflow can effectively crush all that novice enthusiasm and literally kill even the most eager of entrepreneurs. Anyone starting out must be aware of this obvious but insidious pitfall you have to avoid at all costs. One of the best remedies, simply try concentrating on just one or two marketing plans/marketers for all your information. Try to eliminate the clutter by just working on one marketing system. Just have a few key marketing resources you go to for information, not a hundred! And do your homework, only pick marketers who can back up their claims with observable results on the web. One obvious checkmark - just see if those marketers have top rankings for their sites for popular profitable keywords associated with their sites or products.

2. Lack Of Key Marketing Basics

There are some key marketing basics or fundamentals you must learn about marketing online. Internet marketing has some key elements you must get right or you will have a difficult task in succeeding on the web. Just simple factors you must get right or it’s game over before you even get started.

Most marketers fail to realize the web is “information driven” and you must supply quality information or content in order to truly succeed. You must provide a valuable service or function to your visitors. You must help solve their problem. You must give them a solid reason to use your site or product. Quality content is and always will be King on the web.

You must also understand much of the web is “keyword driven” and you must construct your webpages to take full advantage of these keywords. You must have at least a rudimentary understanding of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and how you can use it to get top rankings for your keyword phrases.

3. Lack Of Time And Resources

Another major reason why many marketers fail is because they simply can’t afford the time to learn and build their online business. Most people just can’t stop everything and work full time online because they have bills to pay and families to support. It may take months, probably years, before you can build up a successful online business that gives you a comfortable living. The average person just doesn’t have the time or the resources to spend months learning how all this works.

Keep in mind, getting a business or website going is probably the most inexpensive way to start your own business. Domains are cheap. Web hosting is cheap. Web design is cheap if you can do it yourself… compared to starting a business in the “real” world, creating an online business will only cost a faction of the normal expenses connected with starting a business. But the main problem is having the resources to pay your living expenses until your online business is profitable. Many beginning online marketers don’t have these resources and the main complaint from these marketers: “I Simply can’t afford the time to work at this online stuff.”

One solution is to work at your online marketing in your spare time and gradually build up your business until you can afford to do it full time. It will obviously take longer but you can still get to the same end goal.

4. Lack Of Necessary Skills

Actually, you don’t need many skills to succeed online. However, one of the major skills you must have or you must learn is communication. You must learn how to communicate. The web is all about communicating your points to your visitors or viewers so you must acquire good communication skills.

It really helps your marketing if you are a good writer because you can easily get your points across with written text or copy on your site. Writing skills can be learned but many beginning marketers don’t fully understand how important their writing skills will be to their success. You must be able to communicate on your site, in your newsletters, with your customers… might sound a bit obvious but you would be surprised at how many marketers lack this simple, yet necessary skill.

But don’t fret, because once upon a time, the written word was king online - but not any more. Videos are rapidly taking the place of the printed word so anyone with a camera can now be a success online. Of course, you still need good communication skills even using videos, but many marketers have found this is a much easier way to communicate information about their site or product.

5. Lack Of Persistence

For me, one the most significant reasons most online marketers/webmasters fail, is because of a lack of persistence. They simply give up too soon. They try something for a few weeks, even for a few months and then they conclude this is not working and they give up.

Building a solid online business or viable website takes time, a lot of time. Just because your business is online, doesn’t mean everything will fall into place overnight, it takes time to establish a customer base. It takes time to build your business relationships with others in your field.

Sometimes, it may take years before you see some solid returns. It was three years before I saw any significant revenue coming from my online ventures, and another year before I could summon enough courage to do this online marketing full time. If I had given up and not persisted at this web stuff, I would not be writing this article right now.

Building top rankings for your keywords in the search engines (especially Google) can take months, even years before you see any results. The real key is to be persistent and keep at it, day after day, until you get those top rankings. You simply must be persistent or you will fail.

In conclusion, having said all that, you must also realize there are plenty of exceptions to all of the above. There have been countless success stories on the web where someone has come up with a novel idea or product and become successful overnight. The web can offer immediate success for some but for most of us, it will take some time and hard effort on our part to build a successful online business. Just try to avoid many of the pitfalls or reasons listed above and you will have a better chance of placing yourself in the success column.

Experience really counts! I’ve been blogging for a while on many different blogs. Before turning into a partial-pro blogger, I did some research on ways to get traffic my blog, and I would like to share my points of view with you. What is the good, what is the bad and what is the ugly way of generating traffic.

Natural Backlinks
Every blogger dreams about this. As the number of natural backlinks increase, your authority will also increase. But the point here is, are those natural backlinks really worth it? The answer is yes. It is a kind of virtuous circle. The higher the number of backlinks you have, the higher your authority, and the higher your authority, the more natural backlinks you will get.

In my blogging career, I’ve learned only two ways to get good backlinks: hard work and patience. By hard work I mean the content you write. Blogs like SixRevisions and Hongkiat are among the most popular design blogs. If you visit them, you will realize the reason: the publish a lot of high quality content on a very frequent basis.

Comments
I think I don’t need to tell you why you should be commenting on other blogs. For instance, I still remember the articles TechCrunch articles where I managed to leave the first comment. At that time, my blog used to get around 40 visitors a day. On that particular day (when I left the comment) my visitor count increased to around 110 visitors.

Some tips while commenting on other blogs:

1. Try to be the first one to leave a comment. Definitely it requires you to be pro active or to have some luck.

2. Try to ask a question on your comment. This is a 100% proven way of getting traffic. But of course I am not telling you to ask “How you doing buddy?” but something which will make readers think and incite them to visit your blog.

3. Try to keep it simple. Never write lengthy comments. Nobody has time to read a comment by someone they don’t even know.

Forums
Forums are always a good way of bringing in traffic to your blog. You can either ask your blog related question there, or you can put your signature as your link there.

Things to remember:

1. Never ask useless questions just for the sake of getting some extra traffic. There are always smart people who can ban you from the forum forever.

2. When you put your blog link as your signature, try to use some eye catching anchor text. For example, “How I earn few extra bucks working part time” sounds way better than “Click here to earn money”.

3. To take maximum advantage of forums, be regular. Devote 5 minutes every day to post there or start a new thread. This means 5*30 =150 minutes a month. It can get you at least 300 visitors a month and is very good in the long run.

Twitter
Twitter has always been a very good friend of mine for getting Traffic. Mostly the traffic depends on the kind of content you write. Twitter traffic is crazy about social media. If you are writing something like “10 tips that can make you Twitter rich” then I am sure your followers would love to retweet it for you.

One thing I really like about Twitter is that your articles which never get attention on social bookmarking sites can also drive you a lot of traffic.

TIP: Twitter will only pay you off if you are regular. Try starting from 10 minutes a day and keep ReTweeting stuff. Most of your followers will reciprocate you and will RT your links too.

Search Engines
This requires no clarification. But before starting your blog, you have to decide whether you really want organic traffic or not. If you do, you will inevitably need to play around with SEO. It is also worth remembering that some blogs will naturally perform better than others as far as organic traffic is concerned. This is usually the case with tech related blogs, for instance.

Buying links
If you are really passionate about blogging and following “natural standards” without any black hat tricks, then buying links is BAD. Period!

Social Bookmarking
There are multiple ways of looking at things. Some think it is good and some think it is bad. Let us know the reason why is it so.

Why social bookmarking traffic is bad for my blog?
Social bookmarking traffic is very smart. If you are trying to make money with contextual ads like Adsense, for example, you will notice that such traffic will covert very poorly, if at all..

And why is social bookmarking traffic is good for my blog?
This is no brainer. More traffic means people like your content. Just imagine even if 1% of those visitors link to your article from their blog. Also imagine if 1% of of those people visiting your blog for the first time become your subscribers.

TIP: If you want to have success with social bookmarking sites, work on the quality of your titles. They can literally make or break your social media success.

Family and Friends
If you are deliberately asking your mom to visit your blog and check out some geeky stuff over there, then I think you need to go back to Blogging School and try harder.

On the other hand, it also depends on your niche. If you are writing about cats and dogs and your content is making your family and friends at least grin, then you’ve done a very good job.

If you are looking to make money online to either supplement your current income or as a full time income, learning how to sell on eBay UK is by far the best place to start. This way, one of the hardest parts of running a successful online business has already been done for you. This is marketing. Driving potential customers to your products and making sales. Once you list your products ready to sell on eBay, you have the potential to attract millions of buyers from all over the world, not just from the UK. Worldwide, people spend more time on eBay than any other website!

Where else can you start an online business in just a few hours that allows you to attract immediate traffic to your products? Learn how to sell on eBay and you will find that this is a fantastic opportunity to make as much or as little money as you want. Whoever you are, you can learn how to sell on eBay and make money.

Here are 7 ‘How To Sell On eBay’ tips to help you:

How To Sell On eBay 1:

Your eBay listings must have a relevant title. This is extremely important when learning how to sell on eBay because if your title is not relevant and does not contain the right keywords relating to your product, then eBay buyers searching will not be able to find it. Include all the related keywords you can think of and don’t use up your limited title space with words that are not required.

How To Sell On eBay 2:

Write a detailed description. Make sure that your eBay listing includes all the important details about your product. This might include the size, colour, brand, model number, whether new or used, any special features etc. Highlight the good things about the product but don’t forget to mention if there are any flaws or faults with the item too, but make these less obvious. Learning how to sell on eBay includes being honest in your eBay listing description.

How To Sell On eBay 3:

Spell-check your listing. eBay buyers are put off by listings littered with spelling errors and it looks very unprofessional. When you are learning how to sell on eBay, thoroughly check before you submit your eBay listing and make sure that important points are bold.

How To Sell On eBay 4:

Use good quality photographs. People like to see before they buy. Use a good digital camera and take 2 or 3 photographs from different angles to use as your gallery picture and within your eBay listing. This will attract more bidders and buyers and will help you get more experience as you learn how to sell on eBay.

How To Sell On eBay 5:

Always answer questions from potential bidders. You will receive questions and queries from potential buyers. And you must remember that this is exactly what they are - POTENTIAL BUYERS. Always try and answer any questions that come through eBay messages, within 24 hours, sooner if you can, even if you feel that it’s a silly question. If you frequently receive the same question then post it to your eBay listing so that everyone can see it.

How To Sell On eBay 6:

Be polite and friendly. eBay buyers like friendliness and professionalism from eBay sellers. So, it’s best to be polite and enthusiastic when corresponding, but not too casual. Don’t use ‘text speak’ in your emails as this is very unprofessional, but show a good sense of humour, honesty and politeness.

How To Sell On eBay 7:

Dispatch goods promptly. eBay buyers do not like to be kept waiting! So, make it your business to dispatch all orders promptly, preferably within a couple of days maximum. This is good service and will ensure that you get positive feedback whilst you are still learning how to sell on eBay!

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the thought of getting an article written, it helps to pull back and get some perspective on the reason why you’re spending time writing and submitting articles.

Here’s the reason why you started article marketing:

You wanted to drive traffic to your website. You wanted to advance your business.

You wanted to become a player in this online arena using a marketing and search engine optimizing tool that you actually understand.

You can write articles, and even if you don’t think you’re that great at it you know that you can definitely get better.

You are working as a solopreneur or in a small business, and you need to capitalize on the online tools available to you to increase your reach and extend your company’s exposure on a budget.

Think about it–

Every time you submit an article, it’s like you’re sending a sales agent out into the community.

After you hit the “Submit” button, your articles go out into the world and go to work for you.

For example, an article I distributed about a month ago has so far had around 100 views on our own article directory. Not bad, some achieve more, some achieve less. But that’s the whole point of having a consistent article marketing campaign, where you distribute a few each and every month.

Multiply that by 12, allowing for the fact that the view rate will be higher when the article is first distributed, and over the course of a year, I’d expect this to be at around 1000 views on just the one article directory.

Multiply that by say just 10 other popular article directories, and that’s 10,000 views in a year - just for a single article.That’s 10,000 times this one “sales agent” (your article) has made contact with a targeted audience.

Now, if you multiply that by 8 articles a month - or even 2, 3 or 4 - over the course of the year, and the numbers get silly! Let me take a shot at this:

If you submit 8 articles a month that would total 96 articles a year. If each article gets about 10,000 views (on just 10 sites), then that comes to 960,000 views for your articles in a year.

I ask you–How could your business benefit if you had a team of sales agents making 960,000 contacts with members of your target market in a year?

The sky’s the limit, right?

This is where the click-throughs and traffic growth to your site come from, when you implement a consistent article marketing campaign.

This also illustrates why those who submit just one or two articles, and then give up and hold their hands up to complain article marketing ‘doesn’t work’ - usually because they “haven’t seen any traffic growth” - are not only in no position to make such a judgement, but I would also suspect they would go on to achieve very little until they place at least some value in consistency, persistence, and faith in tried and tested online marketing techniques.

As you’re implementing your article marketing campaign, I encourage you to keep this big picture in mind.

Yes, we have to write one article at a time, but article marketing is not about one article. The marketing picture may be more expansive than you ever dreamed.

Here are your instructions:

Take one step at a time (can we do anything but that?).

Write one article at a time, but keep ‘em coming.

Don’t write a few articles and then get sidetracked–get some momentum going. Think in terms of a year’s worth of articles (960,000 article views!) and keep working toward that goal.

Want your local business to thrive online? There is an abundance of information about how to target local search terms and become an online leader in your local area and niche but it’s easy to experience information overload with all the advice that’s available out there. Here are the 5 essential components of local search that will help you rank and dominate in your local market.

1. Add Geographical Information to Your Page Titles

Make sure to use both your target keyword term and location name in your page titles. This allows search engines to determine easily what your site is about and search engine users are more likely to click on your site if it contains relevant geographical information and keywords.

2. Get Your Business Listed on Prominent Websites Directories

Google Maps, Yahoo Local, and MSN Live Local are all websites where you can have your business listed in order to make it easier for potential customers to find you. By claiming ownership of your business listings on these prominent sites, you allow both search engines and potential customers to get correct information about your business. Sometimes unscrupulous competitors may claim your listing on these sites to undermine you. Make sure you’re the first one to claim your listings in order to build trust between you, the search engines, and potential customers. There are also several local search directories that get significant traffic where you can claim your listings. Click2connect.com and Citysquares.com are examples of local search directories with good traffic.

3. Provide Plenty of Information about Your Business in Your Listings

When search engine users stumble upon your website through clicking on your business listing, you want to be sure that you give them as much information as possible about your service. In addition to including the basics such as your address, contact information, and operation hours give potential customers plenty of reasons why they ought to choose you over your competitors. For example, mention exactly which towns and neighborhoods you service, what credit cards you accept, what your guarantees are, and anything else that is pertinent.

4. Use Your Target Keyword Phrases as Anchor Text in Your Hyperlinks

Link reputation is an integral component of search engine algorithms. When possible, make sure that the links pointing back to your site use your best target keyword phrase and variations of your location as anchor text. Your internal links also contribute to link reputation so be sure to link to pages within your site using good link text. This link text can be used in your site navigation, HTML sitemap, and links within your content.

5. Monitor Reviews about Your Business Online

Thanks to the internet, consumers can submit online reviews of businesses to customer-controlled review sites like Yelp and share their experiences, whether good or bad. This could be highly beneficial to your business if it gets great reviews but it could also hurt you if you get some bad reviews. Monitor the reviews your business receives on a regular basis so you can spot bad reviews when they arise and dispute them if necessary. Sometimes customers don’t always give fair reviews so make that if you do get bad reviews that are unjustified, the potential customers who see them can get both sides of the story at the very least. Using Google Alerts is a convenient way to keep track of what is being said about your business online.

Focus on these 5 strategies in local search to boost your business’ online presence. There are several tactics you can use to increase targeted traffic to your business’ website and improve its ranking but these are some of the most effective ways to give your business a solid footing in local search.

In practically every major marketing teaching, course, or seminar I’ve come across, I have found that almost all successful marketing on the Internet really boils down to two essential factors: traffic and conversion.

Visitors and sales.

In fact, I’ve been to two-day Internet marketing seminars and workshops, where the first day focused on generating traffic and the second on building sales.

That’s all well and good. However, I believe there’s one more key component. It’s one that’s growing not only in popularity, but also in need and importance. It’s the one factor on which the other two hinge. And it’s one that seems to be the least talked about.

Incorporate this third element in your business model and chances are significant you’re going to see substantial, continuous growth in your business - and with a lot less effort than you’ve originally thought possible.

What is it? What is this third, missing element?

First, let’s talk about traffic for a moment.

One of the most common sources of traffic is, without question, the search engines. It’s the largest source of traffic online for almost every website.

But when I hear marketers talk about search engine strategies, optimization techniques, submission software, etc, it befuddles me to see there are still some marketers out there who rely heavily and strictly on them.

Don’t get me wrong. Search engines are important and they are an essential part of a marketer’s strategy. Learning and applying SEO are undoubtedly crucial and necessary.

But search engines (or any other traffic-generation strategy) are not, and should never be, your sole source of traffic.

While marketers must never discount the search engines, a savvy marketer’s portfolio must go beyond them.

Since marketing requires an investment of time, money, and energy, and like all other investments, you should look at managing your marketing just as you would manage your investments in the financial arena.

A well-balanced marketing portfolio consists of a combination of diversified strategies that are executed synchronously, diligently, and intelligently.

Look at it this way: many reputable entrepreneurs state that the surest way to achieve wealth is through multiple streams of income. Online, the surest way to achieve success is through multiple streams of both visitors and sales.

Your traffic must originate from different sources. The adage “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” applies just as much with your traffic as it does with your income.

Whether you write articles, buy classified ads, advertise with banners, bid on keywords, publish fresh content, interact in social media, or submit to the search engines, your marketing efforts must never rely on a single source.

An individual traffic source may generate just a small stream of visitors. But when you invest in multiple traffic sources and add them together, the total equals a high and consistent stream of visitors.

Of course, a single source may be more rewarding and effective than others. But like prudent financial investing, the key is to diversify by investing your marketing efforts into multiple sources in order to reduce your risks.

Sales are no different. If your business consists of only one website, or if it sells only one product, diversify your sales and develop additional streams of income.

In addition to looking at multiple ways to increase individual streams of income (e.g., through split-testing, list-building, adding upsells, etc), you should also look at building various streams of income, too.

For example, join third-party affiliate programs to sell related, non-competing products. Sell back-end products to your current clients. Monetize your opt-in subscriber list with special offers. Sell ad space on your blogs. Develop joint-venture alliances to bundle products or traffic sources together. Create continuity programs and membership sites.

The list goes on.

In short, develop additional streams of income and traffic, as well as different streams of traffic for each stream of income, too. Just be careful not to overextend your core funnel, dilute your brand, or lose sight of your target niche.

In other words, don’t be a jack of all trades and a master of none.

Diversify, but stay focused.

Nevertheless, if you only have one stream of income and it slows down to a crawl, for whatever reason (e.g., the economy, the industry, the competition, etc), you’re dead. Similarly, if one source of traffic slows down, dries up, or depletes entirely, the loss is minimal when compared to the whole picture.

However, earlier I said there’s a third element that has become an essential process to building a successful online business. Why? Because visitors and sales are not enough.

While everyone on the Internet extols the virtues of driving traffic and increasing conversions, this one element seems to have slipped off of many people’s radars. It’s the one element that probably deserves more attention than the other two.

And that’s credibility.

With its vastness and lack of one-on-one, face-to-face interaction, the Internet adds this third dimension to the mix that’s often not as apparent. It’s the need to develop credibility, as well as to look at multiple ways to communicate it and boost it.

Don’t just be credible. Look for ways to increase credibility and maintain it, too. There are a great variety of ways for doing this, from adding seals of approval to your website and adding elements of proof to your sales copy, to interacting in social media.

However, one of the easiest ways to improve your credibility…

… Is to develop and nurture relationships.

You may have some traffic and it might bring in some sales. But if you don’t have credibility, you have nothing. Nothing will grow your traffic and your sales, let alone your business, more than the relationships you create and keep.

And relationships are built on trust.

So to that end, look at every relationship that’s tied to your business as a partnership - whether it’s with your subscribers, your referrals, your affiliates, your joint-venture partners, your suppliers, your service providers, and of course, your clients.

Every person connected with your business, regardless of how they are connected to it, is, and should be considered as, a partner in your business. And every relationship deserves the attention, care, and concern that a partnership typically requires.

When compared to traditional offline businesses, online people are more important than ever before. Why? Because the Internet is cold and impersonal, and takes away the human element from the sales process. So people are easier to forget online.

Too many marketers nowadays look at their clients not as partners or even as people, but as hits, clickthroughs, and conversion rates - or, as my wife Sylvie Fortin would say, as “nameless, faceless wallets.”

Therefore, it goes to reason that we can use the Internet to supplant what is often easier to do offline, such as meeting people and interacting with them.

It’s one of if not the key reason behind the rise of social media.

(It’s also the reason why I spend some time on social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, or any other social website. I don’t use social media marketing as a way to drum up traffic or sales, but to create trust and build relationships.)

Trust is also the area on which the other two highly depend. Why? Because it is never enough to simply attract visitors. And it is never enough to simply sell visitors, either - as strange as that may seem. If you don’t believe me, ask the following:

Are your visitors highly qualified or simply curious? Are they impulsive and trusting, or leery and skeptical? Are they only buying once, or buying again and again? Are they silent, or telling the world about you, good or bad?

All three (i.e., visitors, relationships, and sales) are essential in the development of a successful online business.

So regardless of the marketing tactic, a successful marketing portfolio consists of numerous strategies focused on three core elements, and on developing them equally:

1. Building Traffic
2. Building Trust
3. Building Sales

Solid, long-term, sustainable-growth businesses rely on those three key factors. It is no longer enough to simply build traffic and converting that traffic. Today, it is just as important to build and maintain credibility.

Therefore, keep in mind that every single marketing activity you perform, from search engines to social media, must revert to, result in, or improve upon all those three.

Look at the successful marketers out there. Many will tell you their success is not based on a single source but on many. They are focused on all of the above three areas in some way, shape, or form. You should do the same.

Unfortunately, the web is also replete with marketers who rely on one area alone, or on a mere handful of tactics that amount to meager results. If they do produce results of any significance, they’re short-lived at best.

In other words, if you work with only one traffic-building source, one income-building source, and one credibility-building source, your business will do poorly - or it will be built on a shaky foundation that could crumble at any time.

So, think like a savvy investor.

Expand, balance, and diversify your online marketing portfolio. Focus on multiple ways to build traffic, trust, and sales. If you do, you will multiply your chances of online success.