stumbleupon.com or digg.com etc can bring you a LOT of traffic. How about getting 20,000 and more visitors a day when your listing hits the front page?
Getting to the front page of these sites is not as difficult as it seems. I have been successful with digg and del.icio.us (and not so much with Reddit though the same steps should apply to it as well) multiple times and have thus compiled a list of steps that have helped me succeed:
Pay attention to your Headlines
Many great articles go unnoticed on social bookmarking sites because their headline is not catchy enough. Your headline is the first (and very often the only) thing users will see from your article, so if you don't make the effort to provide a catchy headline, your chances of getting to the front page are small.
Here are some examples to start with :-
Original headline : The Two Types of Cognition
Modified Headline : Learn to Understand Your Own Intelligence
Original headline: Neat way to organize and find anything in your purse instantly!
Modified Headline : How to Instantly Find Anything in Your Purse
Here is a good blog post that should help you with your headlines.
2Write a meaningful & short description
The headline is very important to draw attention but if you want to keep that attention, a meaningful description is vital. The description must be slightly provocative because this draws more attention but still, never use lies and false facts to provoke interest. For instance, if your write “This article will reveal to you the 10 sure ways to deal with stress once and forever and live like a king from now on.” visitors will hardly think that your story is true and facts-based.
You also might be tempted to use a long tell-it-all paragraph to describe your great masterpiece but have in mind that many users will not bother to read anything over 100-150 characters. Additionally, some of the social bookmarking sites limit descriptions, so you'd better think in advance how to describe your article as briefly as possible.
3Have a great first paragraph
This is a rule that is always true but for successful social bookmarking it is even more important. If you have successfully passed Level 1 (headlines) and Level 2 (description) in the Catch the User's Attraction game, don't let a bad first paragraph make them leave your site.
4Content is king
However, the first paragraph is not everything. Going further along the chain of drawing (and retaining) users' attention, we reach the Content is King Level. If your articles are just trash, bookmarking them is useless. You might cheat users once but don't count on repetitive visits. What is more, you can get your site banned from social bookmarking sites, when you persistently post junk.
5Make it easy for others to vote / bookmark your site
It is best when other people, not you, bookmark your site. Therefore, you must make your best to make it easier for them to do it. You can put a bookmarking button at the end of the article, so if users like your content, they can easily post it. If you are using a CMS, check if there is an extension that allows to add Digg, Del.icio.us, and other buttons but if you are using static HTML, you can always go to the social bookmarking site and copy the code that will add their button to your pages.
Here is a link that should help you add Links for Del.icio.us, Digg, and More to your pages.
6Know when to submit
The time when you submit can be crucial for your attempts to get to the front page. On most social bookmarking sites you have only 24 hours to get to the front page and stay there. So, if you post when most users (and especially your supporters) are still sleeping, you are wasting valuable time. By the time they get up, you might have gone to the tenth page. You'd better try it for yourself and see if it works for you but generally posting earlier than 10 a.m. US Central Time is not good. Many people say that they get more traffic around 3 p.m. US Central Time. Also, workdays are generally better in terms of traffic but the downside is that you have more competitors for the front page than on weekends.
7Submit to the right category
Sometimes a site might not work for you because there is no right category for you. Or because you don't submit to the right category – technology, health, whatever – but to categories like General, Miscellaneous, etc. where all unclassified stuff goes. And since these categories fill very fast, your chance to get noticed decreases.
8Build a top-profile
Not all users are equal on social bookmarking sites. If you are an old and respected user who has posted tons of interesting stuff, this increases the probability that what you submit will get noticed. Posting links to interesting articles on other sites is vital for building a top-profile. Additionally, it is suspicious, when your profile has links to only one site. Many social bookmarking sites frown when users submit their own content because this feels like self-promotion.
9Cooperate with other social bookmarkers
The Lonely Wolf is a suicidal strategy on sites like StubleUpon, Digg, Netscape. Many stories make it to the front page not only because they are great but because they are backed up by your network of friends. If in the first hours after your submittal you get at least 15 votes from your friends and supporters, it is more likely that other users will vote for you. 50 votes can get you to the top page of Digg.
10Submit in English
Linguistic diversity is great but the majority of users are from English-speaking countries and they don't understand exotic languages. So, for most of the social bookmarking sites submitting anything in a language different from English is not recommendable. The languages that are at an especial disadvantage are Chinese, Arabic, Slavic languages and all the other that use non-latin alphabet. German, Spanish, French are more understandable but still they are not English. If you really must submit your story (i.e. because you need the backlink), include an English translation at least of the title. But the best way to proceed with non-English stories is to post them on where they belong. Check this link for a list of non-English sites.
11Never submit old news
Submitting old news will not help you in becoming a respected user. Yesterday's news is history. But if you still need to submit old stuff, consider feature articles, howtos and similar pieces that are up-to-date for a long time.
12Check your facts
You must be flattered that users read your postings but you will hardly be flattered when users prove that you haven't got the facts right. In addition to sarcastic comments, you might also receive negative votes for your story, so if you want to avoid this, check you facts - or your readers will do it.
13Check you spelling
Some sites do not allow to edit your posts later, so if you misspell the title, the URL, or a keyword, it will stay this way forever.
14Not all topics do well
But sometimes even great content and submitting to the right category do not push you to the top. One possible reason could be that your stories are about unpopular topics. Many sites have topics that their users love and topics that don't sell that well. For instance, Apple sells well on Digg and The War in Iraq on Netscape. Negative stories - about George Bush, Microsoft, evil multinational companies, corruption and crime also have a chance to make it to the front page. You can't know these things in advance but some research on how many stories tagged with keywords like yours have made the front page in the last year or so can give you a clue.
15Have Related Articles / Popular Articles
Traffic gurus joke that traffic from social bookmarking sites is like an invasion – the crowds pour in and in a day or two they are gone. Unfortunately this is true – after your listing rolls from the front page (provided that you reached the front page), the drop in traffic is considerable. Besides, many users come just following the link to your article, have a look at it and then they are gone. One of the ways to keep them longer on your site is to have links to Related Articles / Popular Articles or something similar that can draw their attention to other stuff on the site and make them read more than one article.
16RSS feeds, newsletter subscriptions, affiliate marketing
RSS feeds, newsletter subscriptions, affiliate marketing are all areas in which the traffic from social bookmarking sites can help you a lot. Many people who come to your site and like it, will subscribe to RSS feeds and/or your newsletter. So, you need to put these in visible places and then you will be astonished at the number of new subscriptions you got on the day when you were on the front page of a major social bookmarking site.
17Do not use automated submitters
After some time of active social bookmarking, you will discover that you are spending hours on end posting links. Yes, this is a lot of time and using automated submitters might look like the solution but it isn't. Automated submitters often have malware in them or are used for stealing passwords, so unless you don't care about the fate of your profile and don't mind being banned, automated submitters are not the way to go.
18Respond to comments on your stories
Social bookmarking sites are not a newsgroup but interesting articles can trigger a pretty heated discussion with hundreds of comments. If your article gets comments, you must be proud. Always respond to commends on your stories and even better – post comments on other stories you find interesting. This is a way to make friends and to create a top-profile.
19Prepare your server for the expected traffic
This is hardly a point of minor importance but we take for granted that you are hosting your site on a reliable server that does not crash twice a day. But have in mind that your presence on the front page of a major social bookmarking site can drive you a lot traffic, which can cause your server to crash – literally!
I remember one of the times I was on the front page on Digg, I kept restarting Apache on my dedicated server because it was unable to cope with the massive traffic. I have many tools on my site and when the visitors tried them, this loaded the server additionally.
Well, for an articles site getting so much traffic is not so devastating but if you are hosting on a so-so server, you'd better migrate your site to a machine that can handle a lot of simultaneous hits. Also, check if your monthly traffic allowance is enough to handle 200-500,000 or even more visitors. It is very amateurish to attract a lot of visitors and not be able to serve them because your server crashed or you have exceeded your bandwidth!
20The snowball effect
But despite the differences in the likes of the different social bookmarking communities, there are striking similarities. You will soon discover that if a post is popular on one of the major sites, this usually drives it up on the other big and smaller sites. Usually it is Digg posts that become popular on StumbleUpon and Reddit but there are many other examples. To use this fact to your best advantage, you may want to concentrate your efforts on getting to the front page of the major players only and bet on the snowball effect to drive you to the top on other sites.
An additional benefit of the snowball effect is that if your posting is interesting and people start blogging about it, you can get tons of backlinks from their blogs. This happened to me and the result was that my PR jumped to 6 on the next update.
If you like this articles give me a back link...http://smallonlinebusinessmoney.blogspot.com
4/29/09
Adsense Do's and Dont's for Dummies
So you’re new to the whole Adsense Experience, that’s okay, everyone was a newbie once. You’ve got to start somewhere. I was, and I still consider myself a newbie with almost 2 years experience with Adsense. I’m always open to suggestions, and I’m like a sponge with a thirst for knowledge. Here are a few tips and suggestions for people who are either about to embark on their Adsense adventure or who have just set sail.
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Don’t’s…
Don’t make a site about Adsense. You know very little. And in the process of trying to learn you are of course going to websites trying to find out more. In the search for your adsense knowledge how would you feel if you stumbled on a site like the one that YOU have made? By a rank amateur. Who is just regurgitating what everyone else has said. In the process of reguritating it it is also being watered down. Also the Adsense Newbie who makes a site about Adsense is probably gathering information from other sites made by Adsense Newbies. They have haven’t digested it properly and you are unable to discern what is worth reading and what is not.
Don’t strive to be an Adsense Expert for the sake of being an Adsense Expert. When you’re making enough money to live on comfortably to give you the lifestyle you believe you deserve, then you can be an expert who writes e-books, talks at seminaros or publishes their methods. Until then we’re all learning. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from each other.
Some people don’t see how funny it is that people ask “how do I get the code to work? How do I get the ads I want? How do I get traffic?” and their site is about… MAKING MONEY ON THE INTERNET!
Best case scenario it’s pure comedy. Worst case scenario it’s hypocrisy.
Don’t think that you can make a site, upload it, and then the traffic will magically arrive.
It’s not a case of “Build it and they will come”, it’s more like the old saying “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” Realise this: you haven’t even yet lead the horse to water. You know what? You don’t even know where that horse is!
You want to make Adsense work for you? Then you’re going to do some more homework… SEO (Search Engine Optimization), learn some design skills (expose yourself to good examples of design, both online and offline, ie: magazine layouts, even the ads), get out of your comfort zone and learn HTML (you can still use a HTML editor (my preference is Dreamweaver), but look at what you’ve done and then look at the code, slowly but surely you will learn without really trying). Read books on marketing. Look at the way businesses (not just online ones) promote themselves.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don’t spam. Never ever. Whether it be email spam to a list of addresses of people you don’t know or a “drive by spamming” at a forum you’ve just signed up at.
Don’t cheat. Don’t try and cheat Google, they’ll catch you. If you think you can, then go ahead. The result will be one less Adsense Publisher for me to compete with to get hold of advertisers dollars.
Cheating is not a means towards passive income. It has no residual effect. Cheating only makes money (which you can end up losing) when you are actively cheating. Instead of wasting your time doing that use your creative if somewhat devious brain to come up with legitimate plans of increasing your revenue. As previously mentioned, educate yourself: SEO, marketing, promotion, etc, etc. Instead of using the local town library computer to fraudulently click on a couple of ads use that trip to pin a flyer for one of your websites on the community noticeboard.
Don’t make a site about a topic simply because it is a high paying keyword. Again, you will just be vomiting up someone elses words. I had a discussion ten years ago with a friend who had concerns with the state of the quality of the information that people were exposing themselves to. It’s even more apt in todays society which sees more of the worlds population multiplied by a thousandfold get online since then. He saw information as peanuts. We process this information, and pass it on in text books and it’s crunchy peanut butter. Then people use this information to write articles (he was thinking magazines) and it’s now smooth peanut butter, and where was it going from there? What was it being used for? And what was it ending up as?
Peanut JUICE!
Watered down and with very little of the crunchy goodness it originally had.
I’m still unaware if peanut juice is on the market, but the thought of it doesn’t make me want to go drink a glass of it. And that’s what people are doing nowadays, dispensing peanut juice from their made for adsense websites.
Unique content isn’t rearranging words in a paragraph. Unique is original. If you’re going to fill your site up with articles from an article site, then so be it. But write a half a dozen articles to do with the topic that you yourself have researched. It might feel like you’re going back to school to do an assignment. And it is. But you know now more than you knew then so it should be easier for you now than it ever was. If you’re not sure how to go about it there are books at the library on writing and researching. Your librarian will know exactly where they are! Despite the rumours circulating the internet, the library is not dead. Use it. If a publisher took a gamble on an author to write a book then it’s bound to contain better information than what you’re getting through a search from a quick lookup online.
Don’t tell your family about your Adsense websites. They may feel compelled to click on the ads to help you out. Which may lead to your account shutdown by Google because one of your family members were a little too generous with the clicks.
Don’t tell your friends about your Adsense websites. They may do what a family member does, or if you have a habit of having friends who for whatever reason would hate to see one of their friends get ahead in life they may try and cripple your residual earnings by clicking too much.
Don’t register your name as a dot com and fill it with Adsense ads. Avoid doing this unless you’re an artist, photographer, musician, author or have some other reason why your name would evoke some kind of recognition and response from an internet audience. By all means do register it, but for purposes other than making money from Adsense.
Don’t label your Ads with anything other than “sponsored links” or “advertisements”.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do’s…
Do make a website on a subject that you LOVE and enjoy. Because depending on your experience, net savvy and other determining factors it may take a while before 1) you get traffic, 2) people actually click on your links, 3) you’re making enough money to get a monthly check.
Adsense is a long term proposition. If you are new you will not making it big overnight.
Do look around and find a forum where they discuss Adsense. There’s a lot around, but be mindful that the information that the members are sharing islegit and not likely to get you banned. It’s good to have more than one opinion. I recommend AdsenseChat which was started by Adsense Expert and published author Joel Comm.
Do ask questions, even stupid ones. At the forum I frequent the only time I will mock someone is AFTER someone has been rude to me because I have pointed out that either 1) they’re a cheater or 2) the world doesn’t need a site about adsense and/or making money on the internet from someone who has little or no experience with both.
Do speculate. Wonder out loud (in forums) about why you think you’ve had a drop or a rise in your adsense earnings. Or even about your site traffic. Feel free to imagine how Google does things. Of course highlight the fact that it is mere speculation. Avoid it coming across as fact or gospel. Also be aware that sometimes things happen and you’ll never find out the reason for them. As frustrating as that is it does happen.
Do ask others to critique your site. And while someone may not directly respond about the ad block layout that you specifically asked for and they talk about some other feature or facet of your website then just go with the flow.
Do keep your site/s confidential if you so wish.
Do buy Joel’s book The Adsense Code. It’s only fifteen bucks! It’s an excellent start point and will bring you up to speed quickly.
Do read Google’s Programme Policies and their Terms and Conditions, aka ToS (Terms of Service). As a matter of fact bookmark them and read them every so often.
Do be patient. If you are a Complete Adsense Newb, and by that I mean you have absolutely no idea how to crop an image, upload a page, copy and paste html, etc, etc, then don’t jump in feet first to the first sales pitch for hosted sites or templates that comes your way. You will need to educate yourself first. Otherwise you will be approaching these offers from a position of ignorance.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don’t’s…
Don’t make a site about Adsense. You know very little. And in the process of trying to learn you are of course going to websites trying to find out more. In the search for your adsense knowledge how would you feel if you stumbled on a site like the one that YOU have made? By a rank amateur. Who is just regurgitating what everyone else has said. In the process of reguritating it it is also being watered down. Also the Adsense Newbie who makes a site about Adsense is probably gathering information from other sites made by Adsense Newbies. They have haven’t digested it properly and you are unable to discern what is worth reading and what is not.
Don’t strive to be an Adsense Expert for the sake of being an Adsense Expert. When you’re making enough money to live on comfortably to give you the lifestyle you believe you deserve, then you can be an expert who writes e-books, talks at seminaros or publishes their methods. Until then we’re all learning. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from each other.
Some people don’t see how funny it is that people ask “how do I get the code to work? How do I get the ads I want? How do I get traffic?” and their site is about… MAKING MONEY ON THE INTERNET!
Best case scenario it’s pure comedy. Worst case scenario it’s hypocrisy.
Don’t think that you can make a site, upload it, and then the traffic will magically arrive.
It’s not a case of “Build it and they will come”, it’s more like the old saying “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” Realise this: you haven’t even yet lead the horse to water. You know what? You don’t even know where that horse is!
You want to make Adsense work for you? Then you’re going to do some more homework… SEO (Search Engine Optimization), learn some design skills (expose yourself to good examples of design, both online and offline, ie: magazine layouts, even the ads), get out of your comfort zone and learn HTML (you can still use a HTML editor (my preference is Dreamweaver), but look at what you’ve done and then look at the code, slowly but surely you will learn without really trying). Read books on marketing. Look at the way businesses (not just online ones) promote themselves.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don’t spam. Never ever. Whether it be email spam to a list of addresses of people you don’t know or a “drive by spamming” at a forum you’ve just signed up at.
Don’t cheat. Don’t try and cheat Google, they’ll catch you. If you think you can, then go ahead. The result will be one less Adsense Publisher for me to compete with to get hold of advertisers dollars.
Cheating is not a means towards passive income. It has no residual effect. Cheating only makes money (which you can end up losing) when you are actively cheating. Instead of wasting your time doing that use your creative if somewhat devious brain to come up with legitimate plans of increasing your revenue. As previously mentioned, educate yourself: SEO, marketing, promotion, etc, etc. Instead of using the local town library computer to fraudulently click on a couple of ads use that trip to pin a flyer for one of your websites on the community noticeboard.
Don’t make a site about a topic simply because it is a high paying keyword. Again, you will just be vomiting up someone elses words. I had a discussion ten years ago with a friend who had concerns with the state of the quality of the information that people were exposing themselves to. It’s even more apt in todays society which sees more of the worlds population multiplied by a thousandfold get online since then. He saw information as peanuts. We process this information, and pass it on in text books and it’s crunchy peanut butter. Then people use this information to write articles (he was thinking magazines) and it’s now smooth peanut butter, and where was it going from there? What was it being used for? And what was it ending up as?
Peanut JUICE!
Watered down and with very little of the crunchy goodness it originally had.
I’m still unaware if peanut juice is on the market, but the thought of it doesn’t make me want to go drink a glass of it. And that’s what people are doing nowadays, dispensing peanut juice from their made for adsense websites.
Unique content isn’t rearranging words in a paragraph. Unique is original. If you’re going to fill your site up with articles from an article site, then so be it. But write a half a dozen articles to do with the topic that you yourself have researched. It might feel like you’re going back to school to do an assignment. And it is. But you know now more than you knew then so it should be easier for you now than it ever was. If you’re not sure how to go about it there are books at the library on writing and researching. Your librarian will know exactly where they are! Despite the rumours circulating the internet, the library is not dead. Use it. If a publisher took a gamble on an author to write a book then it’s bound to contain better information than what you’re getting through a search from a quick lookup online.
Don’t tell your family about your Adsense websites. They may feel compelled to click on the ads to help you out. Which may lead to your account shutdown by Google because one of your family members were a little too generous with the clicks.
Don’t tell your friends about your Adsense websites. They may do what a family member does, or if you have a habit of having friends who for whatever reason would hate to see one of their friends get ahead in life they may try and cripple your residual earnings by clicking too much.
Don’t register your name as a dot com and fill it with Adsense ads. Avoid doing this unless you’re an artist, photographer, musician, author or have some other reason why your name would evoke some kind of recognition and response from an internet audience. By all means do register it, but for purposes other than making money from Adsense.
Don’t label your Ads with anything other than “sponsored links” or “advertisements”.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do’s…
Do make a website on a subject that you LOVE and enjoy. Because depending on your experience, net savvy and other determining factors it may take a while before 1) you get traffic, 2) people actually click on your links, 3) you’re making enough money to get a monthly check.
Adsense is a long term proposition. If you are new you will not making it big overnight.
Do look around and find a forum where they discuss Adsense. There’s a lot around, but be mindful that the information that the members are sharing islegit and not likely to get you banned. It’s good to have more than one opinion. I recommend AdsenseChat which was started by Adsense Expert and published author Joel Comm.
Do ask questions, even stupid ones. At the forum I frequent the only time I will mock someone is AFTER someone has been rude to me because I have pointed out that either 1) they’re a cheater or 2) the world doesn’t need a site about adsense and/or making money on the internet from someone who has little or no experience with both.
Do speculate. Wonder out loud (in forums) about why you think you’ve had a drop or a rise in your adsense earnings. Or even about your site traffic. Feel free to imagine how Google does things. Of course highlight the fact that it is mere speculation. Avoid it coming across as fact or gospel. Also be aware that sometimes things happen and you’ll never find out the reason for them. As frustrating as that is it does happen.
Do ask others to critique your site. And while someone may not directly respond about the ad block layout that you specifically asked for and they talk about some other feature or facet of your website then just go with the flow.
Do keep your site/s confidential if you so wish.
Do buy Joel’s book The Adsense Code. It’s only fifteen bucks! It’s an excellent start point and will bring you up to speed quickly.
Do read Google’s Programme Policies and their Terms and Conditions, aka ToS (Terms of Service). As a matter of fact bookmark them and read them every so often.
Do be patient. If you are a Complete Adsense Newb, and by that I mean you have absolutely no idea how to crop an image, upload a page, copy and paste html, etc, etc, then don’t jump in feet first to the first sales pitch for hosted sites or templates that comes your way. You will need to educate yourself first. Otherwise you will be approaching these offers from a position of ignorance.
Start your Online Business from Scratch Make money from Zero
One advantage of doing business online is that you can start from scratch without investing much money. Here is the Action Plan to help you get started...
Please bookmark this blog and check other related posts for better understanding.
1. List 5 hobbies, interests or areas of expertise. If you want to start a new business, you'd better choose a subject that you like and a subject where you can show expertise. You will have more fun and you will be more competitive.
2. Brainstorm a list of keywords and phrases related to those hobbies and interests. For example, if you are going to sell small airplane collectibles, some possible keywords could be: airplanes, aeronautics, war airplanes, etc.
3. Research those keywords in Wordtracker.com to locate problem statements that have high search results and low competition. Wordtracker.com is a web page that helps you find out how many times your keywords are searched online, how popular your keywords on search engines are. Those keywords may represent problem statements. Wordtracker shows you how many people are buying traffic on those keywords and how much are they paying. You need to find popular statements with low competition.
4. Research those problem statements further to determine if you can develop a product to solve the problem stated. You may use search engines to see how many people are offering products that can help to solve those problems. If you find a popular problem and there are not many people offering solutions online, you've got it!
5. Find or create a product based on previous research for you to sell. Once you found a hungry market, you just need to find the food that your customers want and they will eat from your hands. You may find companies online that can manufacture the products for you or you may find a different way to create the product yourself. If the product is an e-book, you may write it yourself or you may hire someone else to do it.
6. Write a long copy sales letter for that product. The experience of the most important internet marketing gurus reveals that long copies sell much more than short copies. It is also recommendable that you try to sell only one product on your web site. Focus on one product unless the solution you are providing is the offer of a wide catalogue.
7. Register a domain and set up a hosting account. There are many places online where you can register a domain and set up a hosting account in minutes.
8. Register for a merchant account (to set up quickly use PayPal.com). If you don't want to register a merchant account that will allow you to take credit card payments online, go to PayPal.com and sign in. It can be a little bit more expensive, but it is a simple way to take credit card payments online very quickly.
9. Set up a simple web site using an automatic site builder or pay to have someone set it up for you. Do not try to design your own web site unless you are educated on html. Do not waste your time. Hire someone else to do it or buy automatic web site builder software. There are many of these you can buy online.
10. Set up an opt-in form on your web site to collect e-mail addresses. You need to start collecting e-mail addresses for your newsletter. The major part of your business will come from the emails that you will send to your customer list.
11. Build an extensive keyword list based on the initial list of keywords you developed. Use Overture.com. For each keyword on the initial list, Overture can help you find different combinations with other words that you may find interesting. Check the popularity of each term and write down on a spread sheet your final keyword list.
12. Submit those keywords to Overture.com to start driving traffic right away. You need to start driving some traffic immediately in order to test your web site. The best way to do that is to buy this traffic at overture.com
13. Optimize and submit your web site to organic search engines (Google, Altavista, etc...). Once you have proved that your web site works and sells, you will be ready to make the business bigger. It is then time to start working on building free traffic to your site.
14. Continue to test and tweak your web site until target conversion rate is met. Your conversion ratio should be that 1-2% of your visitors should buy from your web site, and 11% should subscribe to your newsletter. Continue testing until you get those stats.
15. Set up an affiliate program on your web site. Affiliate programs can double your business with no additional effort. Others will make the job for you. But you cannot set up an affiliate program before you are sure that your web site can produce results. If your site does not work, you will loose your affiliates and they will never come back to you again.
16. Approach complimentary web sites to sign up as affiliates to promote your product. Get in contact with people that can promote your product and ask them to be your affiliates. Just try to find your first 100 affiliates, and your affiliate list will boom alone.
17. Start publishing a monthly newsletter. You have started collecting e-mail addresses much earlier, but it is not the time to start working the newsletter until you can prove that everything else works.
18. Submit articles to related newsletters and e-zines on a regular basis. In the articles you should always have a link to your site, so that you can get more traffic and you can get more people joining to your newsletter.
19. Continue the development of a content rich web site to further increase search engine rankings. Search engines love content. You must have many web sites which are rich on your keywords and which have links to your main page. A good way to do this is to add as many articles as you can related to your business and link them to your home page.
20. Once keywords have been tested in Overture, roll out in Google Adwords. It works similar to Overture, you bid for traffic. But do not go to Google Adwords first. You must first prove your success with Overture and then go to Google Adwords.
21. Roll out tested keyword list in other major PPCs. When you are sure about your stats, and you know how much money you collect per visitor, you must buy as much traffic as you can get as far as your income per visitor is higher than your bids.
22. Create a viral e-book to generate more leads. Create a free e-book that you can promote and which sells your product or service. Give it for free, and this will bring more traffic to your web site.
23. Have an expert review and critique your web site. Even if your site works, you can always improve. Listen to others and learn from their experiences.
24. Survey your existing customers to find out what other products or services they are looking for. Once you have a big list of customers, use it to find out what other problems do they have. Try to find or create a solution for them and you will boost your sales instantaneously.
25. Create and find back-end products and market them through your e-mail list. Continue finding more products that meet your customer demands and promote them via e-mail.
26. Continue to test and tweak your web site and offers. Nothing is perfect the first time and can always be improved. It is very important that you take action, even if you make mistakes. Learn from your errors and improve your skills.
27. Repeat process to create "Multiple Streams of Income". Once your business is working on automation, then you can start the process again with a new business. Build as many businesses as you can, and reduce your risks. If one business fails, but you have another 5 working businesses, who cares about it?
If you have read up to this point, you are probably asking yourself how much it will cost to get started? The answer is very simple; it depends on how much time and money you have available to invest! If you have a lot of time, you can do everything yourself. On the other hand, if you don't have time, you will have to pay other people for building your website and/or for optimizing your site on search engines.
If you can do nothing else...just launch a web site and start promoting online...
1. List 5 hobbies, interests or areas of expertise. If you want to start a new business, you'd better choose a subject that you like and a subject where you can show expertise. You will have more fun and you will be more competitive.
2. Brainstorm a list of keywords and phrases related to those hobbies and interests. For example, if you are going to sell small airplane collectibles, some possible keywords could be: airplanes, aeronautics, war airplanes, etc.
3. Research those keywords in Wordtracker.com to locate problem statements that have high search results and low competition. Wordtracker.com is a web page that helps you find out how many times your keywords are searched online, how popular your keywords on search engines are. Those keywords may represent problem statements. Wordtracker shows you how many people are buying traffic on those keywords and how much are they paying. You need to find popular statements with low competition.
4. Research those problem statements further to determine if you can develop a product to solve the problem stated. You may use search engines to see how many people are offering products that can help to solve those problems. If you find a popular problem and there are not many people offering solutions online, you've got it!
5. Find or create a product based on previous research for you to sell. Once you found a hungry market, you just need to find the food that your customers want and they will eat from your hands. You may find companies online that can manufacture the products for you or you may find a different way to create the product yourself. If the product is an e-book, you may write it yourself or you may hire someone else to do it.
6. Write a long copy sales letter for that product. The experience of the most important internet marketing gurus reveals that long copies sell much more than short copies. It is also recommendable that you try to sell only one product on your web site. Focus on one product unless the solution you are providing is the offer of a wide catalogue.
7. Register a domain and set up a hosting account. There are many places online where you can register a domain and set up a hosting account in minutes.
8. Register for a merchant account (to set up quickly use PayPal.com). If you don't want to register a merchant account that will allow you to take credit card payments online, go to PayPal.com and sign in. It can be a little bit more expensive, but it is a simple way to take credit card payments online very quickly.
9. Set up a simple web site using an automatic site builder or pay to have someone set it up for you. Do not try to design your own web site unless you are educated on html. Do not waste your time. Hire someone else to do it or buy automatic web site builder software. There are many of these you can buy online.
10. Set up an opt-in form on your web site to collect e-mail addresses. You need to start collecting e-mail addresses for your newsletter. The major part of your business will come from the emails that you will send to your customer list.
11. Build an extensive keyword list based on the initial list of keywords you developed. Use Overture.com. For each keyword on the initial list, Overture can help you find different combinations with other words that you may find interesting. Check the popularity of each term and write down on a spread sheet your final keyword list.
12. Submit those keywords to Overture.com to start driving traffic right away. You need to start driving some traffic immediately in order to test your web site. The best way to do that is to buy this traffic at overture.com
13. Optimize and submit your web site to organic search engines (Google, Altavista, etc...). Once you have proved that your web site works and sells, you will be ready to make the business bigger. It is then time to start working on building free traffic to your site.
14. Continue to test and tweak your web site until target conversion rate is met. Your conversion ratio should be that 1-2% of your visitors should buy from your web site, and 11% should subscribe to your newsletter. Continue testing until you get those stats.
15. Set up an affiliate program on your web site. Affiliate programs can double your business with no additional effort. Others will make the job for you. But you cannot set up an affiliate program before you are sure that your web site can produce results. If your site does not work, you will loose your affiliates and they will never come back to you again.
16. Approach complimentary web sites to sign up as affiliates to promote your product. Get in contact with people that can promote your product and ask them to be your affiliates. Just try to find your first 100 affiliates, and your affiliate list will boom alone.
17. Start publishing a monthly newsletter. You have started collecting e-mail addresses much earlier, but it is not the time to start working the newsletter until you can prove that everything else works.
18. Submit articles to related newsletters and e-zines on a regular basis. In the articles you should always have a link to your site, so that you can get more traffic and you can get more people joining to your newsletter.
19. Continue the development of a content rich web site to further increase search engine rankings. Search engines love content. You must have many web sites which are rich on your keywords and which have links to your main page. A good way to do this is to add as many articles as you can related to your business and link them to your home page.
20. Once keywords have been tested in Overture, roll out in Google Adwords. It works similar to Overture, you bid for traffic. But do not go to Google Adwords first. You must first prove your success with Overture and then go to Google Adwords.
21. Roll out tested keyword list in other major PPCs. When you are sure about your stats, and you know how much money you collect per visitor, you must buy as much traffic as you can get as far as your income per visitor is higher than your bids.
22. Create a viral e-book to generate more leads. Create a free e-book that you can promote and which sells your product or service. Give it for free, and this will bring more traffic to your web site.
23. Have an expert review and critique your web site. Even if your site works, you can always improve. Listen to others and learn from their experiences.
24. Survey your existing customers to find out what other products or services they are looking for. Once you have a big list of customers, use it to find out what other problems do they have. Try to find or create a solution for them and you will boost your sales instantaneously.
25. Create and find back-end products and market them through your e-mail list. Continue finding more products that meet your customer demands and promote them via e-mail.
26. Continue to test and tweak your web site and offers. Nothing is perfect the first time and can always be improved. It is very important that you take action, even if you make mistakes. Learn from your errors and improve your skills.
27. Repeat process to create "Multiple Streams of Income". Once your business is working on automation, then you can start the process again with a new business. Build as many businesses as you can, and reduce your risks. If one business fails, but you have another 5 working businesses, who cares about it?
If you have read up to this point, you are probably asking yourself how much it will cost to get started? The answer is very simple; it depends on how much time and money you have available to invest! If you have a lot of time, you can do everything yourself. On the other hand, if you don't have time, you will have to pay other people for building your website and/or for optimizing your site on search engines.
If you can do nothing else...just launch a web site and start promoting online...
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