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  • Affiliate Marketing Niche Selection

    Over the past years, web hosting has grown bigger than it used to be. With more companies getting into this business and finding the many benefits it can give them, the demand for web hosting has never been higher. These seem to be the trend of today.

    38 million people have put up their very first websites online this year 2005 alone. It is estimated that by 2008, the Internet sales industry will top the dollar bank. And to think, majority of those sites will be offering different affiliate programs for people to choose and participate into.

    This only means one thing. It is easier now to find the right web host for your application. The possibility of quality web hosting companies separating themselves from the rest of the industry is anticipated. If this is done, the unprofessional and incompetent ones will suffer.

    Support will be the number one consideration for people when choosing a web host. It will be obvious that traditional advertising will become less and less effective. Most people would rather opt for the web host based on things that they see and hear. Also based on the recommendations by those who have tried them and have proved to be a successful.

    This is a great opportunity for web hosting affiliates and resellers alike. There would hundreds of web hosting and programs to choose from that the difficulty in finding the right one for them is not a problem anymore.

    How does one become a successful affiliate in the niche markets using web hosting?

    If you think about it, everyone who needs a website needs a web hosting company to host it for them. As of now, there is really no leading hosting industry so most people choose hosts based from recommendations. Usually, they get it from the ones that have already availed of a web hosting services.

    With the many hosts offering affiliate programs, there is the tendency to find the one which you think will work best for you. Think of the product you will be promoting. Pattern them to the site and see if they are catering to the same things as you are.

    When you have been with one host for quite some time and seem not to be making much despite all your effort, leave that one and look for another. There is no use in trying to stick to one when you would be before off in another one. Things will only have to get better from there because you already have been in worst situations.

    Try this out. If you are quite happy and satisfied with your web host, try to see if they are offering an affiliate program you can participate on. Instead of you paying them, why not make it the other way around; them paying you. The process can be as easy as putting a small “powered by” or “hosted by” link at the bottom of your page and you are already in an affiliate business.

    Why choose paying for your for your web hosting when you do not have to? Try to get paid by letting people know you like your web host.

    Always remember that when choosing a web host, choose the one that is known for its fantastic customer support. There are also many hosting affiliate programs. Residual affiliate program is also being hosted. This is the program wherein you get paid a percentage every month for a client that you refer. This can allow you to have a steady source of income. With perseverance, you can even be quite successful in this field.

    There are a lot of niche markets out there just waiting for the right affiliate to penetrate to them and make that dollars dream come true. Knowing which one to get into is being confident enough of your potentials and the good results you will be getting.

    Web hosting is just one affiliate market you could try out and make some good and continuous income. Just remember that to be successful on your endeavor also means that time, effort and patience is needed.

    Nobody has invented the perfect affiliate market yet. But some people do know how to make it big in this kind of market. It is just knowing your kind of market and making the earnings there.

  • How PLR Made Me $1200

    I wanted to share a casual case study on generating money with PLR.   I found myself needing a lump sum of money last month.  It was a surprise cost that kind of caught me flat footed.  I had just finished paying for some software updates AND ALL of my outsourcers.

    I needed to make some money quick – and figured since I had all of these PLR products created I might as well use a couple.

    I knew the key to making money quick would be offline.  AKA I hit the streets.  I know some online earners hate to hit the streets but sometimes it is a quick and easy way to not only make money, but build your network.

    The best part is this really cost me nothing to start.  If you were to do it you would have to pay for the PLR but that is it….well, plus the cost of printing two pages.

    The first thing I did was choose some PLR products – I chose 4 social media and web based PLR products.

    I stuck with these four to begin with.   They are all geared towards local small businesses so they are perfect for my demographic.

    Using Mac Pages – I created a one page “menu” or brochure that had an image of each of the products and some sales copy.  I included a price of $9 per guide.  I then created another page that was full of eye popping stats about online marketing.  I got these stats from other PLR products we had created.  I got both of these printed and laminated for less than $10.

    I then hit the streets, the internet and the phones.  Obviously not all at once but my main goal was to get in front of decision makers.  I phoned some friends and got referrals.  I posted on the town’s Facebook wall asking if any local businesses needed online marketing help – and I got requests for meetings this way.

    Lastly, I hit the streets and did a walk up and down downtown – not selling with anything – just getting meetings.  I was totally honest and transparent.  I asked biz owners if they were happy with their online presence, and if not would they mind considering some ways they could increase their online exposure.  I dealt with some rude and gruff responses, but on the whole most people were interested and a number of them committed to some meetings.

    After ONE day of hitting the streets, and another day of hitting up my own network via email, Facebook and the phone — I had scheduled 17 meetings over the next week.

    Here was my general plan of attack in the meetings.  I simply asked about their current online presence and listened.  I gave them some hints if I noticed anything glaring missing from their presence.  After some discussion – I showed them my “menu’ of PLR products and explained how each could help them. I also showed them the stats sheet.  I went into my pitch and tried to sell them on the cheap guides.  If people wanted to negotiate I would – as long as I kept above the cost for printing the guides.  A number of people I sold instantly. Some people paid right away and others didn’t feel comfortable until I had the guide for them.  Either way I don’t really care because even if I get stiffed for a guide or two – that isn’t the real money maker

    I took the orders, and told them I would bring them their guide on whatever date (this is also an added excuse to get in front of potential customers, and when you come back you will be welcomed because you are bringing in a product for them – totally different dynamic on this visit – use it!).  Only once I had gotten all of my orders did I print the guides.  This way no waste whatsoever, unless someone backed out of course but that really isn’t a big deal and actually never happened to me.  Anyways, all orders (paid or awaiting guide) equaled out to 29 (this included some biz owners getting all 4).  Now, since some of these deals were bundles — the gross revenue from selling the guides was about $225.  I ended up paying about $100 to print the guides out.

    So after a couple of days I had netted $125.  Not good enough.  The key is though, the guides weren’t my main objective.  Essentially the guides were advertising for big ticket offers.  So in essence, I just got paid $125 to advertise to local businesses.  Not bad!

    Now here is the key – fill your guides with up-sells!  Offer social media training, web design, web hosting affiliate links, etc…  Since I have access to all of the PLR at Best Quality PLR, I even offered bundles of eBooks as digital downloads.   I didn’t get too obnoxious with the ads in the guides but I wasn’t shy with them either.  I even had a couple mini fliers made and inserted them.  These fliers were for web design deals.

    Now I have the skill to build websites for local businesses, but if you don’t don’t worry about it.  Outsource it!  Just make sure you charge enough to make a profit.

    Anyways, TWO days after I had dropped off the guides around town I got an email form a local business looking for a simple website.  I was able to use my Hostgator affiliate  link for their hosting and domain – so another $50 right there.  On top of that, we worked out a deal for a basic website – one grand!   The customer was more than happy to pay half in advance since at this point we had an established relationship.

    So after that process I had earned:

    $125 from guide (ad!) sales

    $50 Hostgator affiliate

    $1000 web deal

    $1175

    Not bad for essentially a weeks work.  It won’t let me retire early, but I was in a pinch and needed money.  I was able to get it with PLR.  The crazy thing is I have been in constant contact with 4 other business owners so I am probably going to make even more money.

    If there is one thing I would change it was not including some sort of online coaching offer.  So many of the business owners have just wanted to “chat”.  I like creating goodwill, but there is also value in letting people know your time is valuable.  It is also yet another monetization method on something I have already did all the legwork on.  I think if I do this again I will include a mini flyer for a discount on “online coaching”.

    Not everyone feels comfortable hitting the streets, but if you have a plan, an offer and some great PLR products you WILL make some money.

  • Simple Steps for adding youtube videos to WordPress automatically

    Video: How to automatically add youtube videos to WordPress

  • Simple Steps for Getting to the Top of Google

    Video: Brad dispels the myth that there is some secret to getting to the top of the Google.

  • Advertising Cost Explained

    There is a big myth about online marketing, and that is internet advertising costs nothing. The fact of the matter is that all advertising costs something. However, one of the biggest advantages of advertising on the web is that you don’t necessarily have to pay with money; at least not to get started. Instead, you can pay with your time. This is great news because it means that virtually anybody can start a business if they can spare some extra time.

    You need to consider several factors before deciding what’s best for you and your business. It will take you longer to build an income if you only use free advertising methods, so it’s a good idea to start reinvesting a portion of your initial earnings into paid options as soon as you can.

    There are a lot of free ways to market your business online. Some of the better known ones include traffic exchanges, safelists, article marketing, social networking sites, forums and online classified ads. Here is a brief overview of each of these methods.

    Traffic exchanges are where you visits a certain number of sites in exchange for people visiting your site. A typical ratio is where you need to visit three sites to get one visit back to yours. You will need to visit each site for about 20 seconds before it counts, but that means others have to visit your site for that amount of time as well. Safelists work in a similar manner, but you have to read email messages as opposed to viewing websites. So, the more sites you visit or emails you read, the more people you will have viewing yours.

    Article marketing can be done with little or no internet advertising costs, depending on your ability as a writer. Here you simply write articles that are related to your business. You then submit these to various article directories, and include a link at the end of the article for readers to visit your site.

    Social networking sites and forums put the power of communities to work for you. This takes time because you have to focus on building relationships with the people of each community. You have to be careful that you don’t use a “hard sell”, or you will just make people mad.

    Online classified ads work just like putting an ad in the newspaper. You will be limited to how many words you can use, but that should help you in choosing your words more carefully. One of the downsides is that the free ads tend to move down the page quite quickly, so you will have to submit ads as often as each site allows. The other problem is that the only people who will be viewing your ad are people using the site themselves to advertise. For the most part, the average internet user will never visit a classified ad site.

    Yes, internet advertising costs one way or the other. But if you’re just getting started, and don’t have any money to spend, then it’s good to know that there are plenty of options that only require an investment of your time.

  • Choosing The Right Niche For An Offline Consultant

    The world of offline consulting is massive. There are so many opportunities and such a wide variety of ways to help an offline business find success online.

    In this section of the guide, you will find a list of services that many offline consultants are performing today in their own consulting companies. It is impossible to list every possible service opportunity but let this list serve as a starting point and you can create your own unique ideas from there.

    Web Design – Creating websites, company blogs, mobile sites or specialized sites to meet a businesses particular industry needs.

    Website/Blog Maintenance – Once a site goes live, it needs to stay current. Many companies do not have the time or expertise to do this themselves so it presents a fantastic consulting opportunity.

    Search Engine Optimization – Once a company has a website live on the internet, they need to make sure the site is found by potential buyers. SEO services can be an easy sell if the client sees the potential payoff of being ranked high on search engines. Google Places is a “must learn” for local SEO.

    Media Buy Campaigns – Most companies have advertising budgets and they understand that their audience is surfing websites like Facebook. Helping companies run effective Pay Per Click campaigns on these kind of networks can be very profitable for both the consultant and the offline company.

    Lead Management – Generating and managing leads found through online methods can also be a profitable service. If you can help a company capture warm/hot leads online and turn them into buyers, you will have repeat business for a long time.

    Domain Registration and Hosting – While these are both very inexpensive things to setup, most offline companies don’t even know where to begin. This is a very easy way to help a company and make a nice profit as a consultant.

    Social Media Management – Ask any local business if they think Twitter and Facebook are important and they will agree. They will also be willing to pay credible consultants a management fee if they can take care of the company’s social media profiles.

    Mobile Marketing – Mobile media is exploding and offline companies are noticing that most of their customers are carrying around hand held devices. Turning those devices into marketing messages for a local business is something that many of these companies would be very interested in learning about.

    Video Marketing – Once a business has a website and/or company blog running, they are going to attract an online audience. A great way to extend more value to that online audience is showing them videos of the company in action. A restaurant owner can show “behind the scenes” footage of the kitchen, a dry cleaner can show the detailed process they follow to make their client’s clothes come out clean and perfect every time.

    There are many other opportunities available to a consultant when it comes to working with offline companies. In the end it all boils down to your interests, your skill set and what the customer sees as the highest value in terms of return on investment.

  • Focusing On Your Strengths For Bigger Gains

    One of the best things that you can do for your business whether it’s online or offline is to make yourself be seen as an expert in the field. Having that sort of weight behind you draws potential customers because they can sense that you know what you’re talking about when it comes to your line of work. It keeps current customers coming back because they can be confident in your products and services. This is why having a reliable blog on your site can be such a huge gain in drawing in new customers. Another great way to build this kind of credibility is through joining forums that are related to your area of trade. If you join and start dispensing helpful advice and recommendations, you’d be surprised how much credibility this can get you and how it turns directly into gains for your business.

    The issue, though, is to become narrowed in focus without becoming too narrow. You need to be able to appeal to a broad swath of people in order to get maximum interest in your business. If you own a car parts dealership and your area of expertise is in auto body repair, you’ll do much better if you can also help the person who wants to know how to do an oil change. Keeping your focus narrow enough to be able to give off an aura of expertise about the subject at hand without becoming too esoteric or getting pegged as “the brakes guy” is the key. If you get too specific, you’ll lose a great deal of potential clients.

    Joining several different forum groups is a great way to spread your expertise across many lines. If you focus in German cars, be sure to work with the Volkswagen fan group as well as the BMWs. If you like to do paint jobs on cars, you’ll better your business if you can also speak about changing the rims on tires. There are many ways to vary your expertise.

    Also, be sure that all of your blog entries aren’t about the same sort of thing. Being able to write well about many different aspects of your business makes you seem more knowledgeable and you will get many more people coming to your website and asking you for advice. Ultimately, this level of trust will get you business.

    Essentially, you want to go for the “jack of all trades, master of all trades” persona. This can be rather difficult to pull off, no doubt about it. But the fact of the matter is that when you get down to the business of spreading your expertise across many areas, the business will come back to you. Guaranteed.

  • Starting Your Own Online Business From Scratch

    Starting an online business has become a very popular venture in recent years as more and more people become acclimated to using the Internet in their everyday lives. As little as twenty years ago, the Internet was new to the average consumer and not much more than a novelty; today, it’s rare to encounter a home in the Western world that’s not stocked with at least one computer. Most middle class houses in America have multiple computers at this point.

    What this means is that starting an online business can be profitable if done correctly, given the predominance of the Internet in the average household. People who are naturally entrepreneurial or those who have already started a non-internet based business will definitely have a leg up on the rest of the game, but for the right person who’s willing to take appropriate steps to ensure success, starting an online business can be easy, fun, and even profitable.

    In general, the differences between online business and traditional businesses are slight but distinct. Here are a few things that potential online business owners should take into consideration before jumping on the Information Superhighway:

    Lower start up costs/high effort. One of the greatest things about online businesses is that they typically don’t cost much to get started. There’s no need to rent out a space or pay utilities, and there are lots of free avenues to advertise with over the digital waves. However, don’t be fooled into thinking that “less money invested means less work,” because nothing could be further from the truth. Online business owners often feel like their computers are grafted onto their hands!

    Be a jack of all trades. It’s not good enough just to have a stellar idea or a fantastic service. In order to be successful, you need to be able to do graphic design, understand web server technology, programming, and knowledge of the Internet as a marketing medium. For those that can’t do all of this single handedly, outsourcing is an option, but this raises overall cost.

    Think globally. This isn’t opening up a small Mom and Pop store in your neighborhood. The business will be able to reach all corners of the globe, thanks to the Internet. The good part is that this potentially means more business – the bad part is that owners will have to make provisions for costs such as international shipping, and maybe even pay for translated versions of their websites.

    Marketers make the market. There are thousands of ways to market on the Internet, including pay-per-click, viral, drip, social networking, AdWords, and many others. Don’t know what these things mean? Owners of successful online businesses take the time to learn!

    Some of these attributes make working online easier, some may prove to be more of a challenge – but they all make online businesses unique!

  • Know Where To Look For Answers To The Most Common WordPress Errors

    Using WordPress is a smart choice for anyone who is looking to build a web presence. One of it’s best “selling” points is that it is free. Their .com site will even provide hosting for you. There is one downside to this though – there is no one to call when something goes wrong. For the most part you are on your own. It is usually up to you to fix your own problem, but luckily there is some help out there:

    1. WordPress.com/WordPress.org Forums: Whether you host your own site or use the .com service, both instances have an online forum. This is probably the first place you should look for any issues you are having. If something is wrong with your WordPress site there is a good chance that someone else has dealt with it.

    Before you make a post asking your question, do a search on the forums and you might find a thread with your answer. If you can’t find an answer that addresses your issue, then you can make your own thread dealing with it. Titling and tagging your post properly will be a huge help in getting the answer you need. Make sure you describe your issue in detail, including your website URL never hurts.

    2. Paid Theme Support: This is only helpful if you have paid for a WordPress theme. Most of these premium WordPress themes will have their own support. If you come across an issue, this should be the first place you look. Either email your theme provider or use their support forum (they should have one). The reason this should be your first stop is that there will be people there that know specific issues with your theme. The WordPress.org forums won’t have access to certain details about your theme.

    It will also be hard to find support elsewhere, because paid theme providers make sure that theme specific support info is only shared by them. This ensures people aren’t just stealing their theme.

    3. Google: Google is your friend. Just today a friend of mine upgraded to WP 3.0 and had an issue. His admin panel was all of a sudden full of error messages. We had no idea what to do, and no idea what the error meant. I simply took as much of the error code that wasn’t specific to his site and Googled it. I got a couple different results but the fixes didn’t work. I then Googled the error code with the name of his theme, and instantly got the fix from a blog. It was as simple as changing a tiny piece of code. Google is the world’s leading search provider for a reason – it works.

    By using the above methods you can probably address just about any problem you come across. The toughest part of fixing your problems is properly explaining them and only with practice will you get better. The more times you use a support forum means the better you will be at using it. The same goes for Google, once you have spent some time hunting down answers you will get a knack for stringing together the right search terms. Good luck, and I hope you find the answer to all your probelms quickly and painlessly.

  • Don’t Leave Your Prospects Doubting You

    Up to this point, you have done a great job. Your presentation of the problem was ideal. Your followup with the benefits and proof of how efficient and valuable your product was great. You even thought the close statement was right on the mark.

    So why is the prospect still hesitating?

    Consumers always have objections. It is a fact of life. It is also a fact that you overcame some of them in your copy already. What remains is to address the remainder of them and thus remove all obstacles to the final sale. Here’s what you need to do.

    ? Give bonuses – In other words, provide added value to the benefits already listed. These may be more specific, whereas the earlier content was broad.

    ? Give long period of money back guarantee – This will often hook in many consumers who are sitting on the fence. If you are willing to provide a six month money back guarantee where the competition offers thirty days only, you build a lot of confidence and credibility with the prospect.

    ? Give FAQ to answer common questions – This is your chance to get specific. You may even use questions that have come up in the past through discussions with established customers or general queries that came in to your website. Reading through the Frequently Asked Questions page can make a huge difference for your prospect.

    ? Offer trial for monthly memberships – this may be a short trial membership that is free for the first month, or one that is deeply discounted. This will depend a lot on your target niche markets, but keep in mind that people usually are suspicious of something that is given away for nothing. A discounted introductory rate might be just the ticket.

    ? Show testimonials from experts – People like to know that some type of expert thinks the product is a good choice. Your experts may be professionals who use the product, or even researchers who can point out some of the more attractive characteristics of the product.

    ? If it’s software, give a demo – A quick and partial test run can alleviate fears that the product may be too complicated for the prospect to figure out. Calm those fear with a test drive that shows just how user friendly the product really is.