Lead, Don’t Follow on the Internet

Everyone wants to make more money through their website. It is a fallacy that it is “easy” to make a million dollar business on the Internet. It is not easy, but simple if you have a plan.

You need a map to know where you are every step of the way. The problem is that most Internet entrepreneurs don’t have a map or they have a faulty map. You need a map that takes you to where you want to go. Plus, the map should be updated! Don’t rely on a map that is old because it is obsolete.

You need a specific step-by-step plan to make millions on the Internet. It is not easy and takes work. However, the work can be outsourced automatically. This allows you to work less and still earn more money.

A business “system” is the key to your success. Think of McDonald’s. They have a system in place that earns a high profit.

There is a system for making money on the Internet. It will work if you complete all the steps correctly. You have to do all steps. You can’t leave out any steps. If you complete all the steps you will succeed.

Most businesses on the Internet follow each other. They are dependent on actions of each other. Many Internet entrepreneurs end up traveling all over the place to find more money. For example, new business opportunities or fads catch their eye. The Internet entrepreneur tries all of these fads and is basically roaming all over the place. This is neither the most efficient nor profitable way to conduct your Internet business.

Most Internet businesses follow, but don’t lead. For example, a typical website on the Internet has distracting items on it such as a background of the domain name. This is a fad and many websites do this. This is not a good strategy because it is distracting. However, more websites continue to use this design because they see other websites doing this and assume it is the way to go.

Teleseminar Tips Every Internet Entrepreneur Should Know

Are you contemplating running a teleseminar in your Internet business? Are you ready to connect with clients through a valuable teleseminar meeting? Congratulations are in order because a teleseminar is an impressive and valuable way to strengthen your Internet business. Planning and running a teleseminar may seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. Following are common questions regarding teleseminars.

Teleseminar Question #1: Do you need to create a web page for a teleseminar and capture the names on an Autoresponder? Or can you just send out a promotional email about the teleseminar to your list?
First, you need to create a sub list of people from your general list. The sub list contains people that are going to attend your specific teleseminar. You can create this sub list by capturing the personal information of people that sign up for your teleseminar. This means that you will have to set a squeeze page for each seminar.

Setting up a squeeze page is quick and easy. The purpose of setting up a squeeze page for each teleseminar is that you can obtain a high quality sub list of people that you can directly market to after the teleseminar. If you just send an email to your general list then the quality of responses and number of responses tends to be lower.

You should also collect different subscriber lists for each product as well as each teleseminar. In essence, you will have a general squeeze page that you drive most of your traffic to. You will have different sub lists for sales letters, teleseminars, etc. Each sub list will be obtained from a specific squeeze page. This helps you target customers and follow up on a personalized basis. Remember, the fortune is in the follow up.

Teleseminar Question #2: What schedule should you follow to send out emails before a teleseminar?
Thursday night has proven to be an optimal night to have a teleseminar. Send emails out on Tuesday and Thursday for a Thursday night teleseminar. Also send an email to your teleseminar sub list about 15-20 minutes before the call to remind them of the teleseminar.

Another tip regarding promotion of your teleseminar is to not promote the teleseminar too soon in advance. For example, announcing or promoting a teleseminar two weeks in advance is too early. Many people will forget to sign up or will make excuses as to why they can’t attend the teleseminar. Therefore, you should wait to the last minute to announce and promote the teleseminar. For example, send out a teleseminar invitation on a Monday or Tuesday for a Thursday teleseminar.

3 Hot Tips on the Fastest Way to Make Money on the Internet

Are you new to the Internet business world? Are you inundated with conflicting information regarding Internet marketing? Do you want to learn the secrets of making money quickly online? If so, then you are not alone. Many have been in your shoes before and have waded through the information.

Following are answers to various questions that plague both new and old Internet entrepreneurs alike.

Question #1: What are the fastest ways a newbie can make money on the Internet? Especially for a newbie that needs to get out of debt?
You need to have either a subscriber list or product or both before you can start making on the Internet.

If you have a list, but no product then you can promote and sell other people’s products. For example, you can go to http://www.clickbank.com and became an affiliate of their various digital products. Clickbank.com has a well established affiliate program in place. Sign up as an affiliate and send an email to your list. Sending emails to your list is quick and virtually free. It is a great way to bring in quick money.

If you have a product to sell, but no list then you should set up a joint venture with someone that has a list. The list should contain subscribers that would be interested in your product. Your joint venture partner will promote and sell your product by sending an email(s) to their list.

Question #2: I receive a great deal of information about Internet marketing. This conflicting information has me confused. Who should I listen to?
There are several legitimate and successful Internet marketers out there that you should listen to. However, there exist Internet marketers that are out to take your money. You should always look for proof of success from the Internet marketer in question. Are they really making the money they claim? Find references that can back up their claims.

It is important to note that the big marketers usually hang out together. You will often see the successful big names in the same circles. However, there are thriving Internet marketers that work discretely underground. These Internet marketers may be running their business for fun and want to educate other people about it.

Also make sure to learn from somebody that makes a lot more money than you!

Question #3: I have an eBook and list. How often should I market this eBook to my list?
It is up to you, but once a month at a bare minimum. Make sure that when you offer the eBook that you also offer other items for purchase. This helps to get your list used to you offering them something and can lead to increased sales. The key is to promote more than one product at a time.

5 Steps to a money-spinning Seminar

Are you an Internet entrepreneur ready to put on your first seminar? If so, congratulations! A seminar is a giant leap into Internet business success. Whether this is your first or hundredth seminar, you always want it to sell out. What strategies can you use to promote the seminar that sells it out in no time?

The first step is to make sure that you have signed a contract with the hotel for the date of the seminar. Why? You are now legally obligated to pay for the hotel. This signed contract is a powerful motivation when it comes to selling out the seminar. Signing a contract holds you accountable.

The second step is to write an order form for the seminar. Your order form should include information about the offer, bonuses, and everything a person will receive when they attend the seminar. Give specific monetary values for the bonuses. For example, one bonus could be the option to bring a friend for free to the seminar. State the monetary value of the seminar. Another example is to offer a free audio recording of the seminar. Make sure to add up the value of the bonuses to make the seminar more attractive to potential attendees.

The third step is to write a sales letter that sells the seminar. Gear the entire sales letter towards the seminar including costs and benefits. Your sales letter should have people clamoring to obtain a spot at the seminar.

The fourth step is to decide on promotional strategies. A highly effective promotional strategy is to have a teleseminar before the seminar. Invite your subscriber list to the teleseminar. The purpose of the teleseminar is to sell your seminar. Educate the listeners and then promote your seminar event. Start off with a teleseminar for your list as this is a great testing ground. Then conduct an improved version of the teleseminar for other people’s lists.

The fifth step includes following up after the teleseminar. When the teleseminar is finished, email an audio of the teleseminar to your list. This enables listeners to hear your seminar event offer again. They are more likely to sign up for the seminar at this time if they didn’t during the original teleseminar.

Don’t just send a direct link to the audio in your email. Instead, send an email in your Autoresponder that sends your list to a squeeze page. On the squeeze page they will have to provide personal information in order to receive the audio of the teleseminar. This method creates a specific list of people that listened to the audio.

Make sure to capture all their information including street address. The purpose of obtaining their address is to have the ability to snail mail the list an offer to come to the seminar. What offer should you snail mail your client list? You can print the sales letter you created for the Internet and send it.

Essentially, you want to promote your seminar event in several ways. You can promote to your list until they all unsubscribe. The odds of your entire list unsubscribing are pretty slim, so promote to them constantly. This will ensure the best chance of selling out your seminar.

How to Format and Optimize your Branding Website

While it is true that your squeeze page is critical to generating leads, it is also important to correctly set up and optimize your branding website. What exactly should you put on your branding website? What format should you use? Following are tips from an Internet marketing guru.

Branding Website Format:
The general format and layout of your branding website should resemble the format and layout of your sales letter. This means that the header, footer, and side lines in your sales letter should be used on your branding website as well. The header, footer, and side lines are a great way to enclose text. This layout gives a clean look that is easy on the eyes and loads quickly.

The most important feature on your branding website is the Opt-In box. This is so critical that is bears repeating. The most important feature on your branding website is the Opt-In box. The Opt-In box enables website visitors to sign up for your subscriber list. The Opt-In box should be placed on the far left hand side of the branding website. This is the area where eyes tend to go first when people come across your branding website. Having a visible Opt-In box provides an easy opportunity to subscribe to your list.

Your branding website should also include information about the products and services that you offer. For example, coaching, speaking, promoting, and product information should be presented. This allows the website visitor to become familiar with you and your products/services.

Make sure to also provide two free resources. Free resources demonstrate to visitors that you are not solely out for their money, but will offer them something free in the beginning of the relationship. Free resources can be anything you choose. Common examples include free articles, e-zines, and audios.

Don’t forget to have an “About You” section on your branding website. Provide your background, credentials, and even a photo. You may want to brand your face along with your products. Displaying a photo helps visitors to feel more comfortable with your products and services. They see the “face” behind the Internet business.

Also include testimonials and press releases on your branding website. Potential clients want to see your track record through testimonials. They also want to find out what your Internet business has been up to through the press releases.

Make sure that you provide contact information. Encourage website visitors to contact you if they questions or concerns. This way you are promoting an open, comfortable business relationship.

Branding Website Optimization:
Many Internet business entrepreneurs want to know how to optimize their branding site. Simple, you optimize it the same way you optimize your squeeze page. Remember, the goal is to have your squeeze page rank #1 in the search engines, while your branding website ranks #2. The key is to have search engine visitors see your name in the first few spots in the search engine results. This will help promote your image as the authority on that specific topic.

Article Tips Every Internet Entrepreneur Should Know

Articles are a potent tool that every Internet entrepreneur should incorporate into their Internet business. Articles help create an Internet presence, drive traffic to your website, and improve sales. You can submit articles to numerous Internet article directories. This enables your article, and name, to spread like wild fire on the Internet. You should constantly write and submit articles.

Following are common questions regarding articles that every Internet entrepreneur should know:

Article Question #1: Should you post articles on your branding site after the articles have been submitted to Internet article directories through Article Submitter Pro?
Yes, you should strive to always post the articles to your branding site after you submit them to Internet article directories. You can also post articles to your Blog or My space account. The key is to have articles accessible to everyone. Thus as you want to create as many outlets as possible for your articles.

Article Question #2: Let’s say that you have submitted an article to an Internet article directory. Would it be a good idea to then turn the article in to a press release?
Yes, definitely. You can repurpose the content of your article into many forms including a press release. You can tweak the press release content so that is applies to current news.

Article Question #3: Each article has an article resource box with contact information. Should the article resource box contain a link to your sales letter, content page, or squeeze page?
You should provide a link to your squeeze page in the article resource box. This way you can determine what type of traffic is coming to your squeeze page. It will also help you determine where the traffic is coming from. You will obtain this information when you capture their personal information when they subscribe to your list.

Articles are as important to your Internet business as the air we breathe so write and submit as many articles as you can. If you don’t like to write the articles then enlist the services of a freelance writer. Once you submit an article to an Internet article directory then it can be posted on other websites. You would be amazed at how quickly your article can be spread across the Internet. This improves your Internet presence and leads to new subscribers and increased sales.

Website Tips Every Internet Entrepreneur Should Know

If you have an Internet business then your website or websites are the foundation of your business. The look, feel, and perception of your website can make or break your success. Therefore, you want to maximize the effectiveness of your website to bring in subscribers and boost sales. Following are common questions regarding Internet business websites that every Internet entrepreneur should know.

Website Question #1: How do you set up a squeeze page?
The basic steps for setting up a squeeze page include:
Make sure you have a domain and hosting account.
Verify that your domain is on your hosting account.
Go into Microsoft FrontPage and build a website. Microsoft FrontPage is simple to use and will walk you through the steps to build a website.
Make sure that your Autoresponder form matches the form on your squeeze page so that your Autoresponder will correctly capture personal information from the squeeze page.

Other tips include writing a catchy headline that will grab visitors’ attention. Entice people to subscribe to your list by giving them free items such as a free newsletter, bonus report, or eBook.

Website Question #2: Should you have a photo of yourself on your squeeze page?
Be careful of having photos on your squeeze page because photos have large file sizes. If you do use a photo you need to make sure that you shrink the size of the photo file otherwise it will take too long to boot up your squeeze page. This will frustrate visitors and they may skip going to your page because they have to wait too long.

Also, when visitors view your squeeze page their eyes will first be attracted to a photo before they read anything else. Sometimes they may miss important information on your website if they are distracted by a photo. Therefore, it is recommended that you avoid using photos on your squeeze page and stick to text. Text is easier and your squeeze page will load much faster.

Follow these website tips and visitors will be subscribing at a rapid pace!

6 Proven Website Strategies for Internet Entrepreneurs

Your Internet business website is the engine of your Internet business. You can’t move forward if you don’t have a website up and running. Following are website tips that Internet entrepreneurs of any level should follow. It doesn’t matter if you are new to the Internet business world or if you have logged in successful sales. You can always tweak your website to make it more effective.

Website Strategy #1: Forget what your Web Designer said! A Web Designer may make beautiful websites, but normally these types of websites are not effective in Internet business. Instead, you should follow the example of successful Internet entrepreneurs. You will see that their websites are much more toned down, which has proven to increase sales.

Website Strategy #2: Avoid using Java and Flash on your Internet business website.
Java and Flash are unnecessary and can cause viewing problems for some website visitors. The last thing you want is for an Internet visitor to come across broken links because their Internet browser has trouble with Java and Flash.

Use straight HTML. Hyperlinks are easy to create. HTML is viewable in nearly all web browsers and loads quickly. You want to make your website easy to navigate through for the website visitor.

Website Strategy #3: Avoid using audio and video files on your Internet business website. Also avoid using several graphics. All of these have large file sizes and take a significant amount of time to load. Website visitors will become impatient and click off your page.

Note: If you do use graphic files then make sure to compress their file size. You can compress the file size of the graphics because you don’t need to have photo quality.

Website Strategy #4: Create a powerful, eye-catching header. Seek out a graphic designer that can create an effective header.

Website Strategy #5: Use headlines and direct response copy writing on all your websites. A great headline will catch the attention of a website visitor. If you decide to place a picture with your headline or on your website, make sure that the picture prompts the visitor to then read the headline or accompanying text.

Website Strategy #6: The purpose of your squeeze page is to generate leads.
Your squeeze page must contain copy that prompts the visitor to subscriber to your list. Make sure that you also focus on driving traffic to your squeeze page.

Follow these strategies and you are well on your way to a thriving Internet business website.

Problem with Google Adwords? Try these tips.

Google Adwords is an advertising program used by Internet entrepreneurs all over the world. Google Adwords can be an effective way to reach potential subscribers and sell products. However, Google Adwords can sometimes pose obstacles.

For example, let’s say that you are running a Google Adwords campaign. The Google Adwords campaign works well when you set up a pay-per-click campaign using 250 keywords for your website. Initially, the minimum cost-per-click was $0.06 and the maximum cost-per-click was $0.10. You run the campaign for two days and your Google Adwords advertisements place high as #1.

Then a few days later you are stunned by Google’s response. Google says that you now have to pay a cost-per-click of $0.50. It leaves you to wonder how the cost-per-click suddenly sky rocketed. Are other advertisers paying for the same keyword phrase? Why is Google increasing the cost when you have very specific keywords?

Google has various rationales as to why they suddenly up the cost-per-click price. First of all, you may not pay $0.50 per click even though Google raised it to this new level. It depends on who else is bidding for the keyword. Therefore, you may actually end up paying much less per click. So don’t take the number at face value. You can accept the $0.50 per click value and watch it closely. Test it out.

What if you are uncomfortable with the high pay-per-click cost and don’t even want to risk trying it out? There are a few things you can do in this case. You can try switching from a “keyword targeted” strategy to a “site targeted” strategy.

Open up your Google Adwords campaign and “pause” the keyword targeted option. Activate the site targeted option. You can target specific sites regarding your topic. You can pick and choose what sites your advertisements will be on. The site targeted option is a little different from the keyword targeted option in that it does not run on a cost-per-click model. Instead, it is based on a cost-per-impression model. Running a site targeted strategy may be your best bet at combating high cost-per-click levels.

Another suggestion to alleviate Google Adwords problems is to try running a different advertising program called Adbrite at http://www.adbrite.com. Another option is to run a keyword advertising program on http://www.msn.com.

Remember, Google Adwords is a beneficial option, but not the only choice. Don’t give up. Test and tweak. Keep trying.