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  • Three Little Strategies in Millionaire Marketing

    What is money? A child might say that it’s something rich people have and poor people don’t. An engineer might go into a detailed and lengthy explanation, but we all know that money is what really “makes the world go around.”

    In the business world, money is the definition of success or failure. That’s why it’s vitally important that every entrepreneur has a good understanding of money – even if their business is still struggling to get off the ground.

    Have you ever noticed that people who have a lot of money are magnets for more money? I’ve listened to the gripes and accusations of onlookers who accuse them of being born with a silver spoon in their mouth among other things, but it’s more than that. The secret is that they UNDERSTAND money.

    Financially successful people can spot opportunities to create more money in a heartbeat. They understand the money system and how it works. They know the magic of creating money. They have experience under their belt.

    Understanding money is a key ingredient to becoming someone who has money, and fortunately it’s getting easier instead of harder to do just that. Think about it. A checking and savings account used to be the only options within realistic reach of the “average Joe”. If you’ve been paying attention, you know that there’s an amazing menu of options available at any bank or savings and loan company you walk into.

    What does that mean? It’s time to get busy and become students of money. If we’re going to have a lot of it, we need to understand how to invest and manage it. I can already hear it… So what if you don’t have much to manage and invest at the moment! Prepare for the future

    Here are 3 easy steps to get started…

    1. Think like a millionaire

    I know that’s tough to do, when you’re struggling just to pay for your overhead, but attitude is half of the battle. If you think like successful business owner, you’ll soon find out that money really is attracted to the “rich.”

    2. Become Financially Literate

    There are a million-and-one self help books on the market for people looking for information on money investments. Learn from the best. Find a few reputable authors and read, read, read. Subscribe to money magazines and “The Wall Street Journal.” Read what the rich read.

    3. Make Informed Decisions

    Once you know the ins and outs of the money world and have studied the successes and failures of others, it’s time to put your knowledge to work. When the opportunity knocks, you’ll be ready to open the door and greet it with a confident smile.

    Your new knowledge and attitude will make you a marketer to be reckoned with. No more slouching around and pointing fingers at the rich marketer down the block. You’ll be one of them. You’ll have the tools to use every opportunity to create more success.

  • Essentials of Finding and Joining Facebook Groups

    Video: Finding and Joining Facebook Groups

  • The Benefits of Online Printing

    Customers love to help themselves. They can get what they want when they want them not when someone else is ready to serve them. This is where e-business can really make a difference, by extending your existing customer service systems over the Web. Web-based or online service allows your customers to find out what they need at the touch of a button, anytime of the day or night. Whether its actual transactions or account details, they will appreciate a better level of service, making it easier for them to do business with you. All within a secure web environment.

    But as a customer you are probably wondering why it is better to opt for online printing than the traditional printing service. Well for one, online printing service allows you to produce and order documents with just a few clicks of the mouse. The web-based printing company will receive your order, print them and ship them right at the comfort of your home. The efficiency, convenience and ease that are offered by online printing can present a lot of benefits to you. When you are looking for the lowest price for your print job, all you have to do is do some comparison shopping until you see the lowest bid. You need not write bid letters to find the vendor that best cater to your printing needs.

    Say for example you have a poster that needs to be printed as soon as possible and in huge quantity. After surfing through the net you find this site that offered you an incredibly low price. Great! Not only will you save money but you will also be able to track the progress of your print job without the hassle of missing phone calls from the sales person. And you also have the advantage of having several choices in layout, ink, paper and typefaces when you are having trouble with your design.

    But as they say there are always two sides in a coin, if there is a yin there’s always a yang. So even if online printing has its benefits, of course it has its downsides. First off, going online for your printing needs necessitates you to do it ahead if time. If you need your poster printed by next month you have to start that online search as early as today. Remember that delivery and printing may take a few days so do it ahead of time. Additionally, there is lack of personal interaction with the vendor and lack of control over the job when you go for online printing. The Internet is your only way to track the progress of your print job. So you need to have lots and lots of faith to your printer. When you are able to trust your printer, you will have less worry of not getting your print job the way you want them to be.

    Nevertheless, modern technology has brought a lot of options when it comes to print jobs. Online printing has offered customers and printers alike a brand new way of doing business. That is why; sometimes the best service is no service.

  • Tips in Writing Blogs

    While blogs may have got the most news a few years ago, they are still as popular as ever. When they first started, they were mostly used as a kind of online diary. However, it didn’t take long for people to start blogging for profit. And, once more and more people realized there was money to be made with blogs, they took off to a whole new level. Today, it’s a safe assumption that most blogs are started in the hopes that they will make money. With that in mind, here some tips to help you make more money with your blog.

    1. Treat it like a business. The purpose of every business is to make money. Therefore, if you want your blog to be profitable, then you have to run it like a business. That doesn’t mean you have to hire employees, or anything like that, but rather that you need to take it seriously, and be willing to invest some time, money and resources to make it successful.

    2. Have a plan. You may as well start off on the right foot. The vast majority of successful businesses began with a written business plan. Try to be as specific as you can. How will you generate income? Who are your visitors? What percentage are likely to click on ads or buy something? How will you get traffic to your blog? What is your marketing plan? These are only a few of the questions you should answer.

    3. Free isn’t always best. Blogger.com and WordPress.com have made it easy for anybody to start a blog for free. There is nothing wrong with using free blog services to learn about blogging. However, you will have less control over your blog if you host it on those sites. Yes, it’s free, but they can also remove your blog without any warning, and that’s not good for blogging for profit.

    4. Invest a little. Okay, so going the free routine isn’t good for business, but what’s the other option? The good news is that you don’t have to pay anything to Blogger or WordPress to use their blogging platforms. However, you should set them up on your own domain name and hosting. You should be able to get a new domain name for under $10 per year, and decent hosting can be found for as little as $10 per month. That’s almost nothing when compared to starting a traditional business.

    5. Monetize it. There are two main ways people use to generate income from their blogs. The first is by selling affiliate products. This is where you get a percentage of each sale for selling someone else’s product. You will get a special link that identifies you as the seller, so they know you made the sale. The second way of monetization is Google AdSense. You sign up for their program, then add a snippet of code to your blog. They will then add targeted ads, and you get money every time one of your visitors clicks on an ad.

  • How To Stop WordPress Spam Dead On It Tracks

    I can not guarantee success for your WordPress website. I can not guarantee traffic. I can not guarantee you will make any money with your WordPress site. However, I can guarantee you will get spam comments. Not long after you start adding content, and even before you add content sometimes, you will begin to receive spam comments.

    There is software out there that does nothing but search out blogs to comment on. Once you have been discovered the spam will begin rolling in. How can you spot a spam comment?

    1. Brand names and Medications – Anytime you get a comment that mentions popular medications (think Viagra) or brand names in either the Name field or the actual post – most times it is spam. If there is a link that is titled by a med or brand name then you can be assured it is Spam.

    2. Foreign Language – Foreign language doesn’t always mean Spam but it is a warning sign. Again this is especially true if you notice a foreign word (not name) in the name field. If you are writing a completely English blog but you are getting Polish comments it doesn’t add up. A real life example is I was getting badly written comments with what I thoguht was a Polish name. When I checked out the “name” in Google Translate it was roughly the Polish term for Search Engine Optimization. A popular keyword no doubt, when i realized that I knew I was being duped.

    3. Lousy Comments – Again this isn’t a definite sign, but it can be a good warning. If you are getting comments that are irrelevant and poorly written..check the URL that the commenter added. If it is something to do with ecommerce, medication etc.. then it is probably a spam comment. Lousy comments includes ones like “Great article” “Good post” etc… Sometimes the comment won’t make sense at all – like it was meant for another post. This is definite SPAM.

    Even if you can spot SPAM though how do you fight back? Well I suggest 2 ways:

    One, you better activate Askimet. It comes with the WordPress installation and does a great job blocking spam comments. It has a huge database and it will run checks against your comments to figure out if it is SPAM or not. It isn’t 100% effective but it does help a ton. It is also kind of intelligent. It will learn when you correct it (ie. it marks a message SPAM that isn’t.)

    Secondly you can look at some of the other comment plugins available. DISQUS is a popular one and it will add a lot of flexibility to your comment moderation. It won’t put an end to spam but it will cut it down a significant amount.

    The more you use WordPress the better you will be at spotting SPAM comments. Plugins can help you in the battle, but most important will be your savy-ness is spotting SPAM comments. Good luck and I hope all your comments are positive!

  • When And How To Start Writing a Blog?

    So, you have been thinking about creating a blog, but aren’t sure where to start. That’s okay, this article will fill you in on what you need to know before you get started. The good news is that blogs are very easy to set up, and you can put up a basic blog in a fairly short amount of time. Here some basic tips to get you on the path to blogging success.

    1. Decide what type of blog you want to have. Will it be a personal blog that is meant to be read by your family and friends? Will it be blog about one of your favorite hobbies? Or will the purpose of it be to make money? Know the kind of blog you’ll have will determine a lot of the other things you need to do.

    2. Pick a topic. Once you know what type of blog you’ll have, you need to narrow it down to a more specific topic. Now, if this is just for family and friends, then it doesn’t matter all that much as you won’t be as concerned with how much traffic you get to your blog. If it’s a blog about a hobby, then you can keep it more general, or you can blog about a specific aspect of the hobby. However, if you will be creating a blog to make money, then you need to be more careful about the topic you choose.

    3. Research. Assuming you are interested in making money with your blog, you need to start with research. First, you need to research who your target audience is; how many people are part of your target audience, what their problems are, what solutions they’re looking for, and how much they are willing to pay to solve their problems. Second, you need to research the best keywords for your blog. There are a few free keyword tools that should give you enough information to get started. However, it may be a good idea to find some paid keyword tools if you want to see even better results.

    4. Keep your visitors in mind. This can be hard to do when you’re the one who’s creating a blog, but you have to do your best. Picture what your visitor sees when they first come to your blog. Are the colors to strong? Too dull? How are the graphics? Is everything laid out in a logical and intuitive manner? Are the posts easy to read? All of these things, and more, will make a big difference to your visitors. Needless to say, if they don’t like what they see, they will go to someone else’s blog. Therefore, it makes more sense to try to look at your blog through the eyes of your visitors.

    5. Be yourself. What really keeps people coming back to a blog? In a word: personality. So, go ahead and let yourself come through in your posts. Some people may not like, but the ones that do could become some of your biggest fans, and will start recommending your blog to other people.

  • Sense Of Urgency So They Buy Now

    One of the goals you have for your sales copy is to compel the reader to make a decision now. All too often, copy builds an excellent case for considering the product, but does not follow through with that little added extra that pushes the prospect off the fence and into making a decision to buy. Here are a three basic ways to make sure your prospect does not get away, and becomes a devoted customer.

    First, don’t assume that your prospect remembers all those great advantages you so painstakingly mentioned earlier in your copy. Instead, do a quick recap. The recap does not have to be an exhaustive replay of all those benefits. In fact, something as simple as a quick bulleted list will often do the trick. This simple device makes it possible for the reader to see the benefits one more time without having to scroll backward to review them.

    Next, don’t forget those ancillary values that your product provides. It can be anything from easily installation and storage to working well in another common but less likely setting. The idea is to convey the fact that the product is versatile and there is a good chance it will take the place of more than one product the prospect is currently using. That usually sets very well with consumers who want to get the most for their money.

    Last, offer something that must be taken advantage of right now, such as a limited time offer of a discount on first purchase, or free support for a month. Everybody likes to get something a little extra when buying a product.

    How many times have you noticed toothpaste manufacturers enticing people to try a new brand with by including a free travel size tube along with the main product? You can do the same thing as part of your copy presentation.

    Getting consumers to buy now rather than later is to your advantage. The sooner someone buys and actually uses the product, the sooner you can look forward to having one more satisfied customer who will provide good word of mouth. Try out these approaches and see how much good they do for you.

  • Ten Uncomplicated Marketing Tips You Can Do At Once!

    1. Listen to (and write down!) the questions your clients ask. They’re clues to the problems you can help them solve. They’re also topics for your next article, talk and e-newsletter. Don’t invent this stuff – just listen!

    2. Plan and write out your next sales conversation. Got a meeting next week with a hot prospect? Write down the words you will use to find out who the decision makers are, what the budget is, the scope of their problem, and how you’ll ask them to take next steps. If you have no idea how to do this, send me an email and I’ll help you think through it.

    3. Read a marketing article. Most non-marketers don’t go out of their way to read about marketing. A painless way to stay motivated, though, is to read one new article every week. Start here: YOUR BLOG HERE 🙂

    4. Pay attention to the marketing messages all around you. See if you can pick out the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?) and call-to-action (what they want you to do). Practice thinking like a marketer.

    5. If you manage others who perform your client work, visit a client with your employee to show interest. This keeps you fresh and demonstrates your commitment to the client. It also shows the client that there’s more to your organization than their sole point of contact.

    6. Give a copy of this article to your staff and ask them to come to the next staff meeting prepared to talk about the ideas that this generates. Ask people to commit to one new task. Have them give a progress report at the next meeting. Rinse, repeat.

    7. Draft a 3 or 4-question survey to do short, conversational telephone interviews with your target audience to find out what they struggle with…what’s on their wish list…what they want from you.

    Do NOT ask them if they want to buy anything from you. This is a relationship-building task, NOT a sales call. That comes much later. Ask others you work with to pick two clients or prospects and call them. Compare notes and discuss your findings.

    8. Think of small solutions that you can offer to important problems. Or small solutions to little problems. The key is to think small. It’s less intimidating for your customer to “sample” you and makes it easy for them to take a first step.

    9. Practice saying your Positioning Statement out loud. To the mirror. In the car. In the elevator. If you don’t know what your Positioning Statement is, that’s a problem. Email me and I’ll give you a hand.

    10. Visualize doing any one of these things successfully. Really – it’s what professional athletes, speakers, performers, and successful people do all the time. Visualize it, and it will be so.

    The next time a scientist tells me they can’t market, I’ll know better. These ideas clearly prove that theory wrong!

  • The Benefits of Search Engine Placement Marketing

    With billions of websites on the internet, and that number being added to daily, anyone who uses their website to make money recognizes the importance of getting their website to stand out and get visitors. That is where search engine placement marketing comes into play.

    If your website is only a way to show vacation pictures to friends and family than getting a lot of traffic won’t be a concern of yours, but for everyone else this is a crucial issue. It can be the difference between success and failure.

    This type of marketing revolves around the concept of doing anything possible so that the website ranks high in all the search engines: Bing, Yahoo and Google. When someone does a search using a certain word or phrase the search engine will bring up a list of returns. These returns are referred to as Search Engine Results Page, or SERPS, for short.

    The higher on the list your site is ranked, the more free traffic you will get. People will usually click on the first 5 or so listings on the first page of results. When they do they will be taken to that website. If that is your website you have a lot of traffic coming to your site for free.

    Another benefit is that you know that the visitors to your website are very targeted, they are interested in your product or service or they wouldn’t have done a search using that term.

    To decide which of the billions of websites for a certain search term rate the highest, the search engines utilize a sophisticated algorithm to help it determine which sites are the most relevant to the search term. So if your site is about golf balls, the sites that are the most relevant to that term will be rated the highest and receive that coveted first page listing.

    There are various tactics that a webmaster can use to ensure that the search engines recognize their website as being very relevant to certain search terms. So, to use the above example, if you are selling golf balls you would optimize your site for the term golf balls (along with other terms related to golf balls).

    This may all sound complicated, and it can be, but some simple tweaks to your webpage might be all it takes. To a large degree how much time and effort you will have to put in will be in relation to how competitive your niche is.

    No one really knows what the algorithms look for, it is a closely guarded secret, and they are changed and perfected all the time. For this reason, you should either incorporate some simple techniques or enlist the aid of a professional to follow all the changes and optimize your site as soon as possible after the criteria has been changed.

    Search engine placement marketing is one of the best ways to ensure that your site gets a steady stream of highly qualified visitors.

  • Essentials of protecting your blog from comment spam in WordPress

    Video: How to protect your blog from comment spam in WordPress