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Archive for the ‘Blog Marketing’ Category

5 Proven Steps to Earn Money Blogging

Thursday, November 20th, 2008 |
by Patrick G. Moore

The blogging trend has only just begun, millions of bloggers express them self daily using this medium. However, not many people know how to properly setup a blog in order to make money from it.

Those unfortunate people that have tried blogging for money and failed know that it’s not just a matter of quickly putting up a blog and wait for the money to come rolling. You have to have patience and do daily efforts in order not to drown in the millions of other blogs out there. Focusing on daily traffic generating strategies and working for long term will almost always be rewarding.

While you can use free blogging platforms, a blog on your own blog is highly recommended since it will give you a lot more flexibility and you are not dependent on a service that could shut you down any second.

In order to make your blog successful you need to have several aspects in place like research, setup, optimization, monetization and traffic driving. Here are my 5 top secrets to build a money making blog:

1. Research - Find a niche that people are willing to spend money in and you are comfortable to work with. To come up with ideas go through popular Magazines in Amazon, Popular products in Ebay and most published/viewed articles in Ezinearticles. Choose a subniche that has at least 10-500 searches a day in Wordtracker and under 10.000 competing pages when searching for the main keyword in Google. Also check Clickbank and Commission junction to see if there are good products that match the keywords.

3. Setting up your Blog - A keyword rich domain name does wonders with Google so choose wisely. For the niche golf swings you could choose a domain name like improvemygolfswings.com. The recommended blogging platform to install is Wordpress. Optimize the blog with at least the following plugins: All-in-One SEO Pack, Google XML Sitemaps, Akismet, Feedburner, Google Analytics and Auto Social.

3. Choose 2-3 Main keyword phrases to start optimizing your blog for. They should be from the subniche phrases that you found from the research phase. Search for Content using your main keyword in Google Alert, Ezine Articles, Technorati, PRweb, Forums, magazines & books. Write posts with your own angle of the content found or add comments to it below, don?t just copy and paste. Include keywords in the title, body and header tags but don?t overdo it. Strive to make a new post every single day.

4. Monitize your blog with products from Clickbank and Commission Junction. Sprinkle affiliate links in posts and banners in the sidebar. Use common sense and don?t make it look like a big advertisement blog. 1-2 Products to start with are enough but you could also do a review page with 3 top products in the niche.

5. Start driving Traffic to Your blog. Submit Articles to Ezinearticles, Goarticles, Isnare and other article directories. You can also use an article submission service to automate this. Submit your RSS feed to RSS services such as Feedage, Feedagg, Feedfury and Feedsubmitter. Bookmark each post you make in sites like Digg, Stumble Upon, Del.icio.us and Propeller. Socialmarker is a good service for this. Comment on other People?s blogs and make use of free services like Squidoo, Hubpages, Weebly and Blogger to create article pages that link back to your blog.

To reap the rewards you need to work with the above traffic generating tactics daily, at least for the first months. Be consistent and strive to post helpful quality content that the readers find interesting.

However, even if you followed the instructions and daily worked hard on the traffic tactics, your blog might for some reason not get much response. If you know about the 80/20 rule, the same principles can be applied here. 20% of your blogs will make 80% of you income. So for a blog that isn’t performing well after a month or two of consistent traffic optimization put some Adsense on it and fire up another blog with the same process. Do not delete the old blog since sometimes a blog can suddenly bloom up and attract people. Make some random posts to it now and then. By having a couple of posts, you are spreading your chance of hitting a really good performing blog.

You can learn more about blogging strategies in Rob Benwells latest e-book: Blogging to the Bank 3 and most of the techniques mentioned in this article can be automated or simplified by using the most powerful blogging tool in market called Firepow. If you are at least a little serious about blogging, it would be a sin not to take a look at what you can do with Andrew Hansen’s Firepow.

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Tracking Cold Calling

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 |
by Valerie Schlitt, President of VSA, Inc.

Unlike virtually any other marketing tool, cold calling lets companies change courses at almost any time.

In today’s ever-changing business environment, this flexibility is critical.

Companies new to cold calling must watch early results closely.

Testing, assessing, and refining the program from the onset are critical first steps. These actions can result in a long term program that produces a predictable stream of sales opportunities.

Veteran cold callers also must work. Constant attention is needed to keep the program sharp. Here’s a recommendation: continue with the program that works, but apply a portion of your tele-prospecting investment towards testing new approaches that may surpass your existing model. When you find one that is more effective, replace your existing program, but continue to test new approaches.

It’s easy to test and change cold calling campaigns. Unlike print ads, radio spots, billboards, or most other marketing vehicles, cold calling programs make testing and applying those results to the program easy.

Here are some of the items that every program should assess:

1) The offer. Do you want to set a sales appointment? Do you want to invite people to a webinar? Do you simply want to collect email addresses for a campaign? Are you offering a free assessment, or a free trial? Do you need an incentive to enhance your “call to action?”

2) The list. Are the decision makers and the companies on your list the best prospects?

3) Talking points. Do your callers have the conversation points to highlight the key aspects of your program? Is there something compelling that needs to be added? Are the talking points too complicated or long?

4) Your calling team. How well do they represent you? How effective are they in talking to decision makers? Can they ask for the appointment?

5) Your ability to close the leads. This is the part that comes after a cold calling lead is identified. Can you cost effectively convert that lead into a sale? Do you have the people and processes in place? Are you getting qualified leads?

Case Studies

Here are short examples of savvy VSA clients who tested, assessed and refined their programs.

1) A software company implemented a program which successfully produced leads. However, the company was unprepared to convert the leads to sales. Now, this company plans a product-specific website, marketing materials and the right expertise to make sales calls. A second cold calling initiative is scheduled.

2) An online marketing company completed a program that produced poor results. The company has changed its offer to simplify steps prospective companies must take to enroll. A second campaign has been launched.

3) A commercial roofing company implemented a program and generated desired results. Later, the company realized the prospective clients were not a good fit. The company has implemented a second campaign targeting a different prospect list.

If you are planning a cold calling program, please call us to talk about the factors that can make or break your campaign. We’d like to know what marketing tools have worked for you in the past and show you how we can add to that success. We are happy to help.

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For Better Results Use a Quality Lead Generation Service

Saturday, November 15th, 2008 |
by Terry Stanfield

Sales lead generation is a very important aspect of your business, because the leads themselves will help keep your business on the road to success. Without quality leads a business will eventually close their doors. It is only fitting to want a quality lead generation service to provide you with the leads your business needs to succeed.

Finding a quality lead generation service may not be as simple as it sounds. They are hundreds of services out on the market all claiming to provide quality sales leads, but how do you know for sure. If you belong to a business association, you might find out who they recommend. Ask other business acquaintances of the service they have used for a reference.

Get a list of previous clients of the lead generation service and talk to them. Ask about the results from the leads the service provided. Find out how long the service has been in business. Find out how many other businesses are using their service. What kind of reputation does the service have?

Make sure they stand behind the quality of their leads. What kind of guarantee do they offer? This is important because you only want to pay for leads, which have been qualified. Price is important when it comes to paying for quality leads. You will want to save as much money as you can. Just keep in mind cost is not everything. If you are receiving good quality leads, it won’t matter how much you pay for them.

Sales lead generation is an important factor to any business. There are several methods you can use on your own, but the best method is to have quality leads. Sometimes it is necessary to pay for these leads to be generated on your behalf. There is nothing wrong with that. Many businesses need the services of a lead generation company.

When you find yourself in need of a lead generation service, just make sure you find a quality service to entrust your business with. They should have a solid sales lead generation program in place. With some minor changes, they should be ready to set up and have quality leads for your business to use in no time.

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Creating New Customers With Lead Generation

Saturday, November 15th, 2008 |
by Terry Stanfield

Every working business owner should have a sales lead generation program in place. Some of them can be as simple as getting referrals from existing and new customers. Some can be as elaborate as a lead generation service. Whatever method the business uses lead generation is an important aspect of business life.

Lead generation is a method used by businesses to create new customers. An existing business may have customers, but with only a few customers businesses cannot survive, so then it becomes essential for the business to find new customers.

Finding new customers is a constant process. Every business may have more than one method in place to produce new customers, but they all will have at least one. Depending on the financial situation of your business, you can find low cost lead generation programs to use or you can hire a lead generation service to provide you with a list of qualified leads.

If you are going to use a lead generation service, make sure to choose a reputable company who will stand behind the qualified leads you receive. If you are going to pay for leads, make sure you are getting qualified leads. You want the prospective clients to able to use your product or service.

If you are not getting qualified leads, you might as well get the names out of your local phone directory.

If you are going to use a low cost lead generation, make sure the method you choose will narrow down the list of prospects to those prospective clients who will most likely use your product or service. It is possible to make sales from cold calls however the percentage is much smaller than with qualified sales.

Every business needs a good sales lead generation program working for them. If it is not working well at increasing your sales, then you might look closely at the method you are using in order to find any changes, which might need to be made to improve its performance. If it still doesn’t work, try implementing a different method.

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Turn Prospecting Disaster To Success In Four Steps

Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 |
by Valerie Schlitt, President of VSA, Inc.

But four specific steps can turn disastrous campaigns into successes. Despite frustrations, B2B cold calling is alive and well and continues to fill companies’ sales pipelines. Professionals at the highest levels of their careers employ this prospecting activity to augment sales made through warm referrals and introductions. But for many salespeople, telephone canvassing has posed challenges that have driven them to stop cold calling altogether. Here’s why: a. Only 5% to 30% of prospects are at their desks and answer their phones. b. Most calling lists do not contain the decision-makers’ correct names. c. Voicemail is universal and blocks most calls. d. Roughly 30% of a cold caller’s time is spent navigating phone systems and company directories.

How, then, do successful cold callers make sales this way? Here are four critical activities to make cold calling worth the time, aggravation and investment: a. Make absolutely sure you have the very best list you can obtain. Your calling list accounts for 70% of the success of your campaign. Today, successful calling campaigns require a targeted, accurate list. There is an entire cottage industry of Internet researchers who create custom lists - at rates of $60 to $150 per hour - using proprietary databases and other techniques. The rates are well worth the investment if your campaign relies on reaching prospects with specific criteria that cannot be found on generic mailing lists. For instance, a global technology firm wanted to target prospects who owned specific hardware. It paid an outside company to identify these prospects and create a qualified list. As a result, the technology firm implemented a focused and effective calling campaign.

b. Develop a compelling voice message and call multiple times. Most sales training imbues people with the practice of never leaving voice messages because they are a waste of time and money. It is absolutely false that no one will return a cold call. Recipients in greatest need of your product or service will return persuasive voice messages. More importantly, every voice message serves as a “touch.” Advertising experts say it takes six to 30 “touches” such as print ads, TV ads, phone calls, or letters for a prospect to take action. If an individual is not ready to respond now, he or she may respond to another “touch” in a month or two. Each voice message is a new touch. Three companies - a major national marketing firm, a 60-year-old national fund management company, and an up-start regional advertising firm targeting Fortune 100 companies - can attest to the benefits of repeat calling. Each reported gaining some of their most valuable prospects after the third or fourth phone message.

c. Create a B2B cold calling department or hire an outsourced calling team. A top-tier sales person could be on the phone for five hours before getting a single qualified lead. This is a waste talent ant time. You don’t need a top tier salesperson to make calls. Callers need to know two things and only two things: what problems your products or service solve for prospects, and what makes your firm unique. You can hire an entire team of callers with no experience in your industry to canvass prospects via the phone and hunt down hot leads. Your team of cold callers must be conversational, work without a script and sound alert for every call. Leave the technical and pricing details to the high priced salesperson.

d. Create campaigns that intersperse mailings and calls. Mail prospects before and during your cold calling campaign, especially if your product or service is: 1, Visual, such as advertising or promotional products. 2. Complex, such as a technology or pharmaceuticals. 3. A mature product in a saturated market such as printing or collections.

If the mailing piece is memorable, it will create a warmer reception for the cold caller and enhance opportunities for success.

In today’s environment, planning and creative thinking result in cold calling success - and help sales professionals fill pipelines during times when referrals fall short.

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You will Run out of money before you run out of Life

Saturday, November 8th, 2008 |
by john krol Boomers Bank

Okay, so it finally hits you that investing in real estate is the best possible move you can make with your money. With your heart is set on buying an apartment building, your search for reading material on the topic has brought you to this article. So what do you need to consider when making this investment?

For your investment to be a success, you need to think of the building?s use for you as well as for your tenants. Hence, you need to also put yourself in the shoes of your customers, i.e. your tenants. To kick start things, first attain information on the demographics of the area in which you want to invest in. This should give you a basic idea of who your target audience is and will also allow you to build a general profile of your typical tenant.

With that profile in mind, think then of what the average tenant would need if he/she lives in your building. For starters, regardless of who you rent out to, people will always need basic amenities near by. Thus, you have to ensure that the apartment building you buy is located near a grocery store, entertainment facilities, medical facilities and the like. You should note that although people might have cars, they won?t like driving for more than 10 minutes to get the basic necessities. For example, in an emergency situation, no person would like to drive more than 10 minutes to get to a hospital.

Following the universal needs, you need to look a little more closely into the profile you have outlined. The more you breakdown this profile, the greater will be chances for success. For instance, if currently you feel that your building will primarily be occupied by families, then you should study the demographic data carefully to figure out what kind of families are we talking about. Will the families be newly married couples or families with school-going children? If it?s the former of the two cases, then your building should ideally be located near a good quality daycare center. Meanwhile, if it’s the latter of the two cases, then you will be best positioned if the building is a near a good quality school.

Use is possibly the most important factor when one is to make a purchase. Combine that with customer profiling, and you have the recipe for success. However, always remember that you shouldn’t venture outside your comfort zone unless you absolutely have to. Comfort zone here refers to areas with which you are familiar and have possibly had experience in previously. This point is important always but even more when you are initially starting out as a real estate investor. When starting out, stick to what you know and try out new things only when you feel you have a handle on the situation. And always, always, keep your eyes and ears open to absorb whatever information you can about your location so that you are never left in the dark.

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Home Business which Pays Money Direct to Your Paypal Account

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 |
by Todd Schuyler

Imagine Having Your own Instant Home Business. That Pays Money Directly To Your PayPal Account 24/7, 365 Days A Year? Go to http://instantdownload4u.com to get more information.

Do not worry. Its not M.LM or Gifting Program! Its a Real Business Concept which has never been tested BEFORE. How would you feel? If 100 top selling websites would go to work for you Everyday!

These 100 Top selling sites are loaded with Your Name & Paypal Id! You get Payments Directly to your Paypal Account No Waiting to get Paid! You don’t even need to Provide Customer Support!

You Get Free Downloads of Quality Info Products! New Quality info Products Added Every Month! Includes Free Web Hosting! Isn’t it amazing? Go ahead & kick-start your Instant Home Business TODAY!

This is because they are not satisfied with their present income & are constantly looking for some thing online which can generate an additional income on the internet.

When we created instantdownload4u.com we kept this thought in our Minds. We wanted to create some thing that can allow an average person to own a High Paying Home Business without creating a Big Hole in their Pocket. Go to http://instantdownload4u.com for more information.

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About Me

Here I'll share my knowledge, discovery and experience related to my hobby and work. Most articles on this site are related to blog design, short reviews, tips and make money online. More

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