10 Ways To Increase Your Affiliate Commissions

1. Participate in chat rooms related to the product you're reselling. Start a conversation with a person without trying to sell to them. Later on, while you are chatting, mention the product you're reselling.

2. Create a free ebook with the advertisement and link of your affiliate web site. The subject of the free ebook should draw your target audience to down-load it. Also submit it to some ebook directories.

3. Start your own affiliate program directory. Join a large number of affiliate programs and list them all in a directory format on your web site. Then just advertise your free affiliate program directory.

4. Write your own affiliate program ads. If all the other affiliates use the same ads you do, that does not give you an edge over your competition. Use a different ad to give yourself an advantage over all the other affiliates.

5. Use a personal endorsement ad. Only use one if you've actually bought the product or service for the affiliate program. Tell people what kind of benefits and results you've received using the product.

6. Advertise the product you're reselling in your signature file. Use an attention getting headline and a good reason for them to visit your affiliate site. Make sure your sig file doesn't go over 5 lines.

7. Join a web ring. It should attract the same type of people that would be interested in buying the product you're reselling. You could also trade links on your own with other related web sites.

8. Participate on web discussion boards. Post your comments, answer other people's questions, and ask your own questions. Include your affiliate text link under each message you post.

9. Create a free ezine. Use your ezine to advertise the affiliate programs you've joined. Submit your ezine to online ezine directories and promote it on your web site.

10. Start a private web site. Use it as a free bonus if people buy the product you resell. You could also allow people to join for free and you could advertise the affiliate program you've joined.

How to Create Information Products

So you have a fantastic idea for your very own info product. Problem is you don't consider yourself a writer and you really have no idea of how to actually create a product. This article will provide you with information that will allow you to put your ideas onto paper and create that info product!

If you don't want to sit down and write out the content for your info product then you have a couple of options. First you could try and find someone that you could partner up with. Do you have a colleague that likes to write? Or another option would be to hire a ghostwriter for the job.

Hiring a writer can be more costly but this route also frees up your time. If you really can't bear the idea of writing then this is something you should really consider.

If you partner with someone you will be splitting the profits once your info product is up for sale. Again, something to think about in advance. Hiring a writer involves paying up front, but once you have covered your costs, you keep 100% of all profits.

Another way to create your own info product is to find a package or bundle of information that already contains some of the information. These bundles are usually sold as PLR. PLR stand for private label rights, and provides you with a license to reuse the content in certain ways.

If you think of PLR as a launch pad or outline for your info product, all you have to do is add your own point of view and expertise on the topic. This is a method that numerous online marketers use to create their own info products regularly.

Now, you may just be stuck with knowing what format to deliver your product in. Would your product be best showcased in a video format or as a book? If you need to instruct your buyers on how to use a software or certain item, video may be your best choice.

Put yourself in the shoes of a potential buyer. Which method would you find it easier to learn with? Then simply create your product in this format. If you create an ebook or PDF file there is no reason why you can't add in a audio recording of it as well. Your customers would appreciate it, and you can include it as an unannounced bonus. This would add more value to your product as well.

So now you have several options for getting your info product out of your head and onto paper. Ready to get started?

Top 10 SEO Copywriting Tips

What would happen if…?  I'm a person to always ask that question.  I love testing and tracking to see what factors can improve or worsen a situation.  So, it was only natural for me to track the moves of a little experiment I did involving SEO copywriting recently.  I'll gladly share my findings with you.

Before I do, however, I want to make a couple of things very clear.  The outcome of this experiment will not be the same for every keyphrase on every page of every site.  There are too many unknown factors at play in the overall SEO equation.  Not to mention, all keyphrases are not the same, and all sites are not the same.  In addition, this experiment takes no account of link popularity, which is a huge factor in achieving high rankings.  With that said, let me show you how I took the home page of one of my sites - that didn't even rank in the top 50 - and caused it to rank in the top 10.

First of all, I'm not a big fan of checking rankings on a regular basis.  I don't run ranking reports for all my sites to be sure they are all in the positions I want them in for every given keyphrase.  I'll do it from time to time just to satisfy my own occasional curiosity.  This experiment began when I noticed the home page of one of my sites was ranking highly for a keyphrase that didn't seem to appear anywhere in the text.  Upon further investigation, I saw that the keyphrase was included in the ALT tags (a.k.a. image attribute tags) and that it was also included in the title tag.

I knew ALT tags previously carried a lot of weight with the engines, but had been downgraded in importance because site owners had badly abused the tag.  Had ALT tags been reinstated in their level of importance?  I decided to find out.

Keyword #1 was currently in the ALT tags and the title tag, so I decided to eliminate the keyword in the title tag.  This would let me see if the ALT tags alone could hold the position in the search engine results pages (SERPs).  To make things more interesting, I also decided to research and find a keyword that was a little more competitive and insert it into the title tag.  On the same day I removed Keyword #1 from the title tag, I inserted Keyword #2.  My home page was not ranked in the top 50 at that time for Keyword #2.

A few days later, the Googlebot came by and boosted my home page to position #18 for Keyword #2.  Not bad!  The page fell one spot (from #17 to #18) for Keyword #1 since the removal of the phrase from the title tag.

Keep in mind, these are not the most competitive keywords ever known.  They each got between 100 to 200 searches a day.  Also, the home page of this particular site had been (and still is) well ranked for years for other keyphrases and had a positive legacy with Google.

Five days later, Keyword #2 was moved up three notches to a ranking of #14 while Keyword #1 stayed the same.  Things remained in their status quo for roughly 10 days and then began to shift again.  Keyword #1, the original that was previously in both the ALT tags and the title tag, vanished completely.  It was not found in the top 50.  Keyword #2, that was only found in the title tag and nowhere else, dropped to position #25.

Four days later, Keyword #2 was back up in the rankings and was now at #16. To see if I could improve rankings further, I began to make small tweaks to the page attributes.  I added Keyword #2 to the ALT tags (taking the places where Keyword #1 had once been), and I also added Keyword #2 to the body copy.   The keyphrase was added to one, bold sub-headline and at three places within the body copy: none of which were above the fold.  It was not added to any primary headlines that used <H> tags, and no keyword density formula was followed for the body copy.  No other pages on my site used this term as anchor text in links pointing to the home page.  That gave the page keyword placement in the:

· Title tag

· ALT tags

· Body copy

Seven days later, the home page hit the top 10 for Keyword #2!

So, what does all this mean?  Simple.  There is no single primary factor in search engine rankings.  It takes balance, testing and tracking to find out what works for your particular pages.  Your best bet is to do exactly what I did… begin one step at a time and track your progress.  Did something cause a positive movement?  Keep it.  If something causes a negative shift, take it out.

I'm not finished with this page yet.  I'll keep trying different things from time to time just to see what happens.  Maybe I'll add anchor text links from the internal pages to the home page.  I might try writing articles with keyword-rich anchor text links to help boost the rankings more.  There are many acceptable practices I can implement for this page (or any page) that will allow me to observe the shifts in ranking.  As the old saying goes, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket."  A diversified approach to SEO copywriting that includes tags, copy and links is always a wise start down the road to top 10 rankings.

The Benefits Of Selling E-books

The internet has brought us many great things including streaming music, online shopping, electronic bill pay and many more beneficial applications. One thing that I feel is often overlooked but very valuable is ebooks. Especially ebooks in the non fiction/self improvement subject areas.

Just as there are many great musicians that will never get signed - there are thousands of great authors who will never get the big book deal. Thanks to the internet and ebooks – we can tap into the minds of these great authors. One common misconception is that if the book was any good it would get signed by a major publisher. This is simply not true. The publisher may feel that the information is not marketable when indeed it really is. There can be numerous other reasons the e-book author does not get a big book deal but don’t let that stop you from missing out on some great information at a great price.

An e-book author is free to write what they truly want and will not be influenced by a publisher, publicist, or any one else. Ebooks usually contain much more than a printed book. They sometimes have printable worksheets, menus, lists, affirmations or any number of other beneficial items that relate to the particular topic of the ebook. Unlike mainstream authors, ebook authors are often times reachable and happy to answer questions you may have about their ebook.

An e-book is purchased directly from a website and then downloaded immediately to your computer. You can read it right there on your computer screen or print it out and take it with you. You can enlarge the font if you are having trouble seeing the print, you can transfer it to a memory stick or other media so that it is portable, or you can simply read it as you have time. Most ebooks come with a money back guarantee and special bonus items.

I urge you to give e-books a try. Find a subject you are interested in and then shop around. You will discover new authors, new skills, new behaviors and perhaps a whole new you.

4 Insanely Profitable Formats For Your Information Products

If you are looking to create your own info products then you know that they can be delivered in several different formats. This article will take a closer look at these formats.

PDF's

A PDF file is a text document that was created in a word processing software and then saved into this format. Any Word or Open Office document can be saved as a PDF file.

The reason why you want to save your work to a PDF file is so that the content cannot be edited or changed in any way. If you gave your customer's the Word file, they could go in and make changes. This would be a copyright violation and it would devalue your product.

You would only include the Word - or source files- when you want your buyers to have the ability to make changes. PLR sellers do this, as the license they provide allows customers to edit and change the documents.

Audio Files

Audio files can be as simple as a file that you have recorded on your computer and saved into an MP3. Or they can be more complex and be a recording of a webinar or of a teleseminar that you have given.

The nice thing about providing your customers with audio files is that they can be listened to at any time and in any place. Many people love to listen to educational MP3's on their IPods' while driving to work.

Video Files

Files that are in this format really help a person 'see' how to do something. It is often much easier to follow along when somebody is actually showing you how to perform a task. Plus the video can be paused and restarted at any time.

When creating your product see if actually 'showing' your potential customer's a process would increase their learning ability. For example showing someone how to use a software product is often easier when done with video.

Your final info product may easily have a combination of the above files. You may have a main ebook that you provide as a PDF document. Then you give worksheets in Word or Open Office formats, so your customer's/students can print them off and use them.

Licenses

You may also want to create a license that you include with your product. This informs your buyers of what they can and cannot do with your product. You may allow them to give a copy of the product to their friends, or you may give them the rights to resell the product.

Your license can be stated on a separate document or it can be included in the front of your ebook. 

Four Questions to Ask Before you Look for Affiliate Programs

I’ve been receiving emails from people asking for my advice on which affiliate programs are the best, who pays the most and most often, and many other basic questions. I’d like to answer those questions on this forum, but I can only type so fast.

I went out this weekend looking for content that I could publish here temporarily while I got down to writing. I had a hard time finding unbiased content. Most of the so-called reviews out there are infomercials, and that’s not what I was looking for with this blog. So you’re going to have to bear with me. I’ve been looking and learning and reading and talking, and I’ve got a lot to say. I just need the time to write it down, and I will, starting tomorrow. No, really I will.

In the meantime, you need to ask yourself this — are you ready for an affiliate program, or Internet Advertising in general? I put together four questions you should ask before you embark on your affiliate program or any Internet advertising.

Before I get to the four questions you should ask before you enbark on your affiliate program, I am going to review two concepts that I use often here on Affiliateblog. The first is what I call the macro view of your Internet presence:

Incoming visitors -> Internet Presence < - Sales or Actions

You are really running two campaigns with your Internet presence -- the first campaign is concerned with getting visitors to the site, and the campaign is ongoing. The second campaign is to get those visitors to do something. That something may be just to spend more time at your site, or it may be to sign up for something or buy something.

The other represents the process of Internet advertising:

Impression -> Click -> Action

Most affiliate programs pay publishers in the last part of the process, the Action. I’ll be using both of these concepts in my questions. So here we go…

1. Do you know enough about your visitors?

There are literally thousands of affiliate programs out there. While some affiliate marketing hubs are experimenting with context-sensitive serving of affiliate banners and banner rotation on affiliate sites, YOU will be the one to decide what kind of products and services you want to offer your visitors. This seems like a minor detail, but it is a major factor in your success.

If you haven’t already, take a look at the stats for your web site over the past month or so. Where do your visitors come from? Have you paid for Google, Yahoo or other search engine traffic? What are the keywords that people used to get to you? More complex and specific search terms tend to result in more immediate conversions, while broader search terms may result in sales later. If people get to your site using what you believe to be broad search terms, you need to be sure that the cookie life (the amount of time that passes between someone from your site visiting the affiliate merchant’s site and the sale) is long.

Do you have textlinks or other advertising on other sites? Do you know the demographics of the visitors from those sites? Have you spoken to the webmaster, owner or manager of the sites on which you advertise and asked him or her about their visitors? Do you know the websites? Have you visited the sites that advertise on the same sites as you? When you investigate all of these things a profile of the visitors to your site should begin to emerge.

Which search engine brings you the most traffic? If it’s Google, the user is slightly more apt to be male, and in the middle (of MSN, Yahoo and Google) as far as propensity toward buying something (42% more likely than the average user). There’s a terrific article on marketingvox.com if you want to see more details. You can also find some interesting demographic info on the major search engines from AQABA.

You should pay particular attention to the domains of your visitors. If you have a lot of AOL traffic for example, you should consider that the profile of the average AOL user is 35 or older (77%) and married (62%).

If you have trouble with textual representation vs. graphical representation (as I do), there is a terrific product called VisitorVille that takes your web logs and animates them. The text is represented as pictures (buildings, people, buses for the search engines, etc). You can see it here. Disclaimer: I am a VisitorVille affiliate.

After all this you should be able to sit down and come up with the profile of a typical visitor. This profile should hopefully include estimates of age, country of origin, education and income.

Try to think like your visitors. Try to anticipate their interests and the products and services they might want to purchase. Affiliate programs raise the bar from PPC — your payment comes at the end of the Internet marketing process (the Action) rather than at the beginning (Impression or Click) like Google Adsense or Doubleclick. You need to apply more brainpower to the process, and you’ll make more money if you do it right.

2. Is your site perfect?

You’re asking someone to buy something from your site. If the pages have sloppy html code, broken links or instability from a bad Cascading Stylesheet, it makes you look cheesy. We’ve all been uncomfortable buying something off a cheesy website. You don’t want to be that website.

Let’s start with the html code. Are you sure there are no errors in it? Have you used an html checker like the one at W3C? I find mistakes in my code all the time. Unless you check your code on several browsers in several resolutions you might not catch an error. The validator will. If you use Cascading Stylesheets you should also visit the CSS Checker.

Speaking of validators, you should check your links often. W3.org also has a link validator.

The site should also be optimized for search engines, be easy to understand and navigate, and should have a sitemap for people (and spiders) to find their way around. You should have had ten of your closest friends take a look at the site and give you their feedback, and you should always listen to unsolicited comments from users with an open mind and place value on them. If someone takes the time from their busy day to send you an email about your site, they feel strongly about it and you should take a close look at what they’re talking about.

Understand that if your Incoming Visitors campaign is not working right, you’re wasting your time with your Sales or Action program.

3. Do you know what kind of ads you’re going to use, and where the ads are going to go?

People have been ignoring banners for ten years. That’s why they shake and make sounds (someday I’ll tell you about the screaming match I had with a creative director the day we put out the first talking banner ad) to try to get your attention. Where you put it on the page is going to make a huge difference. Briefly — banners need to go somewhere the eye naturally rests (next to the masthead, near the navigation, at the bottom of the page).

Placement of any ads is a huge part of getting them noticed or clicked.

A lot of people (including me) believe that text ads should be placed at natural breaks and be close to the same in text size and color as the text. You need to surf around and look at where people place their ads, and you need to figure out where you think they would work on your site.

If you plan to create pages for some of the products you endorse (a great idea), you need to figure out how prominently you want to place the advertising. Most people won’t buy something if they believe you’re shilling for a particular company. They will buy from someone they believe honestly endorses the product or service. You need to figure out how to keep the distinction.

4. What’s your hunch on the right kind of offers for your site?

I ask this question a lot. Now that you have a better idea of the demographics of your visitors, try to decide on which action you think they would be more apt to take — pay-per-lead, pay-per-sale or even pay-per-click (hard to come by) on your site.

If you have a general interest website that gives away free stuff it’s probably going to be difficult to sell people products from that website. It might be smarter to try to get them to sign up for a free products newsletter from one of the affiliate programs, or you may want to look for offers that target the age group of your site rather than offers that target a specific interest. You might be looking for smaller-ticket sales or only leads. Leads get the user to the end of the advertising process chain, but require less of a commitment.

Try to come up with the four, five, six or fifty ways to slice this all up, by type of action, by type of sale or lead, or any other way you can come up with. Then you can go out and find the different offers that might appeal to your visitors. When it comes time to place the ads, try to put different ads in similar spaces on the same pages, and see how they do.

Get your questions answered and you’re ready to take the plunge into affiliate marketing.

How to Market Your Info Product

Now that you have your info product created the next is knowing how to market it. After all, your goal is to sell it as many times as possible, right? Use the tips in this article to help you do just that.

Your first goal is to attract potential buyers to your product. This means that you need to put some thought into how you are going to present, not just your product, but yourself as well.

Allow your personality to shine through in your marketing efforts. People love to learn from a friendly and approachable person. They also love to get value for their money along, with something for free!

Use this concept to market and promote your information products. Get potential buyers into your sales funnel by offering them something for free. All that you are asking for is their email address at this point.

As soon as someone gives you their email they are placed onto your mailing list. This allows you to send them more relevant information and tips along with the link to your product.

Now, your free offer needs to be good and offer real value. This way you are setting them up to naturally want to know and learn more. With the end result of them purchasing your main info product.

Using free offers is a great way to build a relationship with your subscribers. They will get to know, like and trust you and this sets the stage for them to become a customer.

Your free offer could be the first chapter of your actual product, or it could be a sample video. Make it tempting so they will opt-in and download it.

Then continue to send them more free information. You can send them links to blog posts, other newsletters, videos or newsworthy items. Get into the habit of asking for questions. This often brings some wonderful responses from people. Plus you can take these questions and base a new product around them.

After you have send out your first few messages you can start mentioning your info product and linking to it. Over time people will begin to purchase it.

Other ways to market your info product include using social media sites, writing blog posts about it and more. You can also create your own videos where you talk about the benefits and features of the product. Take any questions you are asked and make a video response.

By doing all of the above things regularly you will find that you make more and more sales. The next time you release a new product you already have a list of eager buyers waiting to snap it up.

Increase Your Profits with Info Products

Are you attempting to make money online, and are just not happy with your results? 
Then you should consider a business model that includes creating your own info products.

Info products are products which help to teach or educate a person on a specific topic. For example you could create an info product on any of the following:

• ·         How to Create Your Own Videos
• ·         How to Master the Art of Baking
• ·         How to Write Your Resume
• ·         How to Ace an Interview

The stream of ideas that you can come up with are limitless. The internet is full of eager buyers waiting to snap up solutions for their problems. Creating an info product that deals with one problem and offers a solution is a fantastic way to increase your business profits.

The idea behind selling info products is that you can have multiple products, and you should. Each product becomes its own income stream. So it really just makes plain sense that the more products you have, the higher return you will see.

You may want to create info products based on a certain theme or topic. This way when potential buyers visit your site they see related products. This also provides them with incentive to come back and purchase additional products from you. Repeat buyers are a great way to boost your profits.

In order to sell multiple info products you need a website that is easy to navigate. Plus you will want to have your products displayed in a professional manner. The best way to do this is by incorporating some form of shopping cart software into your site.

A good shopping cart will allow buyers to add products to their basket and then continue shopping. Once they have paid they should be taken to an download page where all their items can be found.

Now, there are lots of options for shopping carts. You can use a free option such as Woo Commerce or you can use a paid shopping cart. These include ones like Nanacast, Shopify, MemberMouse, E Junkie and more.

Your goal is to provide your customer with a great shopping experience. It is important to have your products displayed professionally with all the information available for the customer in one place.

You may want to add categories to your shopping cart too. This really helps your visitor find what they are looking for.

As you can see creating info products is a great base for your own business and is the perfect solution for growing your profits!

How to Write Emails Marketing Messages That Capture Your Audience

The contents of the email marketing messages can keep your readers focused if they are written and presented well. Since readers like to scan through emails instead of reading them entirely, they understand more when less is explained. So the content should be convincing and well written without any grammatical or spelling mistakes to gain the trust of the potential shoppers.

Be consistent throughout your email message. In other words, mention only a couple key issues surrounding the site page you are leading people to click on. Don’t cloud the email body with other sites, products and services. Keep the flow steady and tight, well focused.

Use good navigation on the website and test it BEFORE you send your email. Make sure you can click on the link. And make sure whatever you ask people to do there – be it sign up for an eZine, a report or purchase a new eBook or package – that this process can be done as directed.

6 Tips For Writing Emails For Your audience

1. Subjects given to the emails should impress & invite

2. Focus on keywords to get the attention of your readers.

3. Bulleted or numbered lists make the subject easier to understand.

4, Use plain layman language to present your ideas. Use less words, smaller words and words which that are simple to comprehend.

5. Avoid using puns or metaphors. They tend to leave the reader confused.

6. Try to grab your readers with the conclusion, then sum up at the end.

By giving your readers a well prepared targeted Email message you are writing for them see how they will reward you in return.

3 Ways To Build A Quick Profitable Opt In List

The following paragraphs summarize the work of opt-in list experts who are completely familiar with all the aspects of opt-in lists. Heed their advice to avoid any opt-in list surprises.

You finally realize that you need a good opt-in list. After reading countless articles and sought expert advices and have read many success stories of people creating a small fortune with opt-in lists you finally decide to have one of your own. Then it happens, you think you have known everything there is to know about opt-in lists and have followed their advices to the T and you still weren’t able to make a profit.

In fact, you may be losing money. You maybe hiring writers to help you out, or there are some expenses incurred, even if you have a big list, but only a very small percentage actually buys from you, your still losing profit. You’ll realize that after a few months when you see your statistics and sales figures.

So what could have gone wrong? Why have others succeeded where you have failed? The most common mistake is that you dived straight right in. You chose a topic where you think could be quite popular and would earn you money. This just not the case. Just because you wrote people from the list doesn’t mean they are going to buy instantly.

Here I will offer more advice, for those who have started an opt-in list and have failed, you can rejuvenate your failed venture. For those who are starting, here are three quick and easy ways to build a profitable opt-in list.

1) Get your customers to trust you and your products first. Just launching your opt-in list would not make you an expert and a believable seller. Put many articles first before you start an opt-in list. Write about the topic you know and have started and used for your site. Try to put forums first to gain knowledge about your customers about their wants and needs and target those wants and needs.

Join forums from other sites as well. Provide expert advices and recommendations. When you feel that people trust you already, you will be able to start your own opt-in list. You can build a base as well with other forum users. You can ask them to join your list. Friends are always good customers. Put up a link to your site so that they may be able to see what you're business is all about.

If you find yourself confused by what you've read to this point, don't despair. Everything should be crystal clear by the time you finish.

The certain truth is, the money will only come in when the consumers and subscribers believe and trust in you. They want a product or service that could be a good exchange for their money. People are not going to buy something out of your recommendation if they don’t know you.

2) Find a product or service that people want and need. Although it may not be your forte, if you provide a service and product that you have researched and learned about well, you can carry it on forward. Invest your time, effort and money that you could sell as well as the buyers or subscribers of your opt-in list can use.

While it is true that it is best to sell something that you have interest in, there are not many people who have the same interest as you if you decide to sell something that is not entirely popular or profitable. Do your research well and you would see the profits come in. Also provide your subscribers with promotional material that they could actually use and spread around.

3) Make friends with other opt-in list users. This is basically beneficial especially if it is someone who has already launched a successful opt-in list. These are people that have the experience in this venture and experience is still the best teacher. While there are many articles available for you in the internet to use, there is nothing like getting a first hand account from someone you trust.

Experienced opt-in list users will be able to tell you what to do and what not to do because they have gone through it. While different situations occur for different people, the general concept can still be very helpful. There are many things to avoid and these people will be able to tell you which ones.

Building a profitable opt-in list don’t just happen overnight. There are many preparations and effort to do. Opt-in lists are built from scratch, as your list grows, you should also maintain the quality of your list. Keep it organized and manageable. Get or hire help if need be, just make sure that your subscribers are happy and satisfied and they will be willing to buy from you.

Now you can understand why there's a growing interest in opt-in list. When people start looking for more information about opt-in lists, you'll be in a position to meet their needs.

How Be Proactive When It Comes to Marketing Your Kindle Book

Writing and getting your book published to the Kindle Store is the only the first half of being a successful author. Getting sales and gaining a reputation is the other half. This can only be achieved by you taking a proactive approach to marketing your book.

If you want to see success in life then you need to go out and get it! This applies to your book as well. If you want people to read it then you have to let people know about your book and why it can help them.

Gaining a reputation as an author means that you need to brand yourself as such. This takes hard work and dedication, but it is possible and can bring you lots of success both personally and financially.

Being proactive with your book means that you want to always look for opportunities where you can market or talk about your book. It can be helpful to have business cards made with your author website and social sites on them. 

This way you have something to give to people that show an interest in your book. You never know where you may run into a potential new reader so always be prepared.

People today love being social and most people have access to the internet. Take advantage of this by using social sites to promote your book as well as yourself. This can be done by highlighting your day as an author, talking about your life and why you wrote the book.

Sharing images is an excellent way of attracting attention to your book. Share related images and even add quotes from your book to them. Send out Tweets and use Pinterest for your photos. You can easily create a story board of your book and highlight new aspects of a certain chapter each week.

You don’t have to spend every moment of each day promoting your book. But you do want to focus on promoting it in some fashion each week. If you want to see lots of sales each month you will need to work on driving more visitors to your sales page.

Automated tools are great for scheduling your posts to places like Twitter and Facebook. It doesn’t take long to schedule out posting for a week or more at one time. Once you get into the habit of using these tools and seeing great results you will enjoy using them.

Planning Your Info Product

So you want to create your first info product but are stuck on where to start. It will be much easier if you can create a product on a topic that you are familiar with first. Take a look at your skills and knowledge. Is there an area where people always ask for your help or advice? If so this would be a great starting point.

Once you have narrowed down your topic your next step is to perform research, and lots of it. You want to take the time to learn everything you can about this topic. Make a list of what areas you know and then see if you can expand on this.

When researching you are looking for the main problems that people are experiencing in this area. To do this visit forums, social media groups and pages and discussion boards. Make a note of what questions are being asked all the time.

As well as questions you want to see 'who' is doing the asking. This information will provide you with an insight on who your 'target market or audiences' is. You want to know their ages, what they do for a living, how much money they spend on this topic and more. Try to form a picture of this person and write down all of their traits.

Once you have all of this information you can create your info product to suit your 'target market'. This way it will be a perfect fit for them, and it will bring you in more sales.

For example instead of just creating an info product on How to Lose Weight. You can create one directed at one specific problem: How to Lose Belly Fat.

Your next step is to think about how to deliver your information. You have several options here including:

1.   Creating your own coaching program.
      Creating a set of Beginners, Novice or Advanced Guides or Reports.

3.   Setting up a membership site where the content is drip fed over a period of time.

4.   Creating how to videos.

5.   Creating ecourses that are delivered via email.

Still stuck for an idea for an info product? Try one of these:

1.   Provide in-depth reviews of a certain line of products. For example you can set up a site that reviews all the latest Smartphone's.

2.   Step by step videos on a specific topic such as exercises to flatten the stomach.

3.   Interview an expert and then turn this into an info product.

4.   Information resources are always in demand. You would simply research a topic and then provide customers with a detailed report that includes things like forums, top blogs, social media pages, affiliate programs and more. All would be based on one narrow topic.

If you take the time to plan out your info product you will find it much easier to create. As you research you assemble all of your notes into a chronological order and then just fill in the gaps.

Why You Should Personalize Your Autoresponders

This interesting article addresses some of the key issues regarding Personalizing Autoresponders. A careful reading of this material could make a big difference in how you think about Personalized Autoresponders.

Have you ever walked into a store in your town, and been addressed by name? This has probably happened to you at stores that you frequent often. The shop owner knows your name, and uses it. He remembers you, and he wants you to know that he cared enough about you and your business to remember you. In the offline world, this is just one aspect of customer support.

Customer service like this is almost impossible to achieve on the Internet, but some semblance of it can exist when you personalize your autoresponder messages. Autoresponder messages can be set up to address people by their first or last name or both. In fact, there is quite a bit of personalized information that can be added, depending on the autoresponder that you are using.

The information is included in the autoresponder messages by using codes. Each autoresponder will use different codes to insert the information in your messages. You simply write your message, and put the codes where you want the personalized information to appear. For instance, your message may start out with ‘Hello (code for first name)! In this case, the person’s first name will be inserted where that code is.

Think about what you've read so far. Does it reinforce what you already know about Personalize Autoresponders? Or was there something completely new? What about the remaining paragraphs?

Personalizing your autoresponder messages will most likely improve your response rate. Research has shown that emails that are personalized with the person’s first name are opened more often, and those people are generally more receptive to the contents of the email message.  It is usually very easy to do. You write one message, using the codes where you want the personalization, then, no matter who that one email is sent out to, their personal information will appear where the codes are.

Of course, the autoresponder must collect the information first. This is done with the use of forms that activate the autoresponder. For instance, if you are giving away a free ebook, and you have your visitor fill out a form with their email address to receive the download instructions for the ebook by email, that form should collect any type of information that you want for personalization such as a first name, as well as the email address. If that information is not collected, the autoresponder won’t have anything to insert where that code appears in your messages!

Take a look around the control panel of your autoresponder, and find out what type of
personalization you can add to your autoresponder messages. You may be very surprised at the
improved results!

Don't limit yourself by refusing to learn the details about Personalized Autoresponders. The more you know, the easier it will be to focus on what's important.

Going From Service Provider to Info Product Creator

One of the best ways to get started making money online is by offering services. However, there are drawbacks to this, and this article will take a look at those. Plus we will provide you with information as to why becoming a info product creator could be more profitable.

Working with clients is a great way to make money. You get paid on a regular basis and there are minimal costs other than your time. While this sounds wonderful the issue is centered around your time. You have no more time in the day for your business, but you are still not earning as much money as you had hoped.

While you can raise your prices, this will only diffuse the situation for a while. You may quickly find yourself in the same situation again. Another, huge, drawback to offering services is that if your clients suddenly leave or don't order your income is gone. Wouldn't you prefer to be in control of your own income stream?

No matter what service you currently provide, there is no reason why you can't create a product based on it. For example if you ghostwrite, format books or do graphic design, you can create some type of tutorial for it.

Once created this tutorial becomes your own info product. Yes, it takes time and effort to create it - one time. The bonus is that you can sell it over and over again.  I don't know about you but I just love this concept!

You can now use your new product to showcase your authority and expertise. If you continue to offer services, you can easily charge more because of this. Your product is demonstrating that you really do know what you are talking about.

You don't have to stop at creating just one info product either. You could create a series or create an ecourse on the topic. Plus there is nothing stopping you from creating products on a variety of topics. If you don't mind researching you can easily find all the information you need to practically create any info product.

If you have to deal with difficult clients creating your own info products can help you get out of this situation. Why not start creating your first info product now. Just schedule yourself in as one of your clients and get the product creation done. Once you start seeing profits come in you can slowly ease off or even fire your clients if you wish!

10 Steps to Make the Most of Autoresponders

So you've worked hard in creating your website, regularly adding content to it, and building links and increasing search engine placements. The next step, that many overlook, is to capture your visitors by using an autoresponder.

Here's a scenario for you to consider. A visitor finds your site through one of the many ways that you have been carrying out to generate traffic, and finds just what they are looking for and is about to make a purchase. They are distracted while at their computer and leave the site.

Although the example above is hypothetical, the reality is that visitors may leave your site for a number of reasons without you making the most of your opportunity. That is unless you are using an autoresponder.

Capturing the email address of this visitor would have allowed you to contact them at a later date to potentially make the sale that you originally missed out on. Autoresponders are remarkable, flexible programs that do much more than just automatically answer your emails. I'll outline below a number of ideas that you can use to creatively and productively use your autoresponder to transform the casual visitor into a profitable customer.

1) Publish a newsletter.

High quality autoresponders will manage subscriptions and follow-up with those interested prospects that have signed up. This allows you to keep your autoresponder list updated about your products or services, and also build your reputation as an expert in your chosen business area.

2) Contact affiliates.

If you have an affiliate program you can easily contact your affiliates to inform them of any offers you may be running, or to provide them with promotional material that they can use to increase their commissions and your sales. You could provide any tips and advice that you feel would benefit your affiliates.

3) Promote advertising opportunities.

You may provide, or plan on providing advertising on your website, ezine or newsletter. You could setup your autoresponder to send out information about the cost of advertising, and how to find out more information. Of course you could also notify your list of any advertising discounts or offers that you may have.

4) Write reviews.

Write reviews on products and services that you found to be useful. Send this review out with your autoresponder along with your affiliate link to the product.

5) Provide email courses.

Provide valuable information in the form of email courses. These can be setup to send out each lesson at certain intervals. It is important not to solely provide a sales pitch but to provide quality content. You can then provide a paragraph at the end of the email course to entice the prospect to make a purchase of your product.

6) Distribute free reports.

Give your visitors a taste of the information that you provide, and the quality of your product and service. Again, do not make these out to be sales letters, or you stand to lose customers instead of gain.

7) Product tasters.

Provide your prospects samples of your product, whether it be an ebook, software, course, membership, etc. You can capture email addresses from your website this way, and follow-up to make the complete sale.

8) Provide hidden links to pages.

In exchange for a visitors email address, you could provide a link to an affiliate page containing promotional material. You can then gather a list of visitors that are interested in becoming your affiliates.

9) Order page autoresponder.

Provide a form on your order pages that allows visitors to be kept notified of special offers or discounts. This offers a great opportunity to create a mailing list that contains the names of people who are already your customers, and who are interested in any future products.

10) Distribute articles.

Allow visitors to sign up to your autoresponder in order to receive articles. There are many ezine publishers and webmasters looking for content, and this allows you to provide this content whilst including your bio and description of your service or product in a resource box.

Here I've provided ten examples of how autoresponders can be used creatively, but there are many more. Autoresponders are valuable to all internet marketers, and you should seriously consider using one if you do not already.

What SEO Copywriting Is… and Isn't

I've been frustrated lately.  It seems people just don't get it.  There's lots of talk about SEO copywriting these days, but hardly any of it is on target.  The majority of the conversations, posts and articles I've seen deal with topics like keyword density, allowable limits, over optimization and such.  These people are making search engine copywriting all about the search engines.  They are forgetting the fact that SEO copywriting is still copywriting.

What that means - generally speaking - is you are still writing promotional copy designed to cause a *person* to take a specific action.  Your target audience (your site visitors) should come first.  The elements designed to help the copy rank well absolutely come last. 

What good is all the traffic in the world if your site copy doesn't convert visitors into buyers?  Not much.  That's why - when writing SEO copy - the human visitor comes first.

Unfortunately, SEO copywriting is getting a bad name because so much of what is being cranked out is repetitious babble. Most of these pages would never have made it on to a site, except for the fact that the site owner wanted to rank highly for certain key terms.

So, in the interest of salvaging the good name of search engine copywriting, before it's too late, let me offer some guidelines.

SEO Copy Is:

· first and foremost - written for the visitor.

· unique and purposeful.

· natural-sounding - it flows.

SEO Copy Is Not:

· written exclusively with the engines in mind.

· mirrored, adjusted or altered to create new pages by simply changing keyphrases.

· stiff, forced or overly repetitive. 

The Dos of SEO Copywriting

When writing SEO copy, you'll want to:

· understand who you are writing to.

· choose what the focus of the page will be.

· create a plan outlining the message you want to convey.

· decide how best to communicate that message to your particular target customers.

· choose which keyphrases will be incorporated into the copy.

· make sure those keyphrases work well with the page and the planned copy.

· incorporate keyphrases as you write (not after you write), so they flow naturally with the planned message.

The Don'ts of SEO Copywriting

When writing SEO copy, you should never:

· create a plan based solely on how to rank high.

· replace *every* instance of a generic term (car) with a keyphrase (red, convertible car).

· add pages of copy simply to appease the search engines.

· rely on useless keyword density ratios and formulas.

· shove keyphrases in everywhere possible. (No, it won't get you banned, but it will sound completely ridiculous!)

SEO copywriting is not the process of writing exclusively for the search engines.  It is the process of writing copy to appeal to your visitors, while including elements to help the search engines and your visitors understand what the page is all about. 

If you remember who truly makes or breaks your site's success (your customers!) and focus on them, you're sure to create SEO copy that rings true.

Writing SEO But Effective Web Copy – 8 Steps to Success

We all know that the lion’s share of web traffic comes through the search engines. We also know that keywords and links to your site are the two things that affect your ranking in the search engines. Your keywords tell the search engines what you do, and the inbound links tell them how important you are. This combination is what determines your relevance. And relevance is what the search engines are after.

There’s a lot of information around about how to incorporate keyword phrases into your HTML meta tags. But that’s only half the battle. You need to think of these tags as street-signs. That’s how the search engines view them. They look at your tags and then at your copy. If the keywords you use in your tags aren’t used in your copy, your site won’t be indexed for those keywords.

But the search engines don’t stop there. They also consider how often the keyword phrase is used on the page.

To put it simply, if you don’t pepper your site with your primary keywords, you won’t appear in the search results when a potential customer searches for those keywords.

But how do you write keyword-rich copy without compromising readability?

Readability is all-important to visitors. And after all, it’s the visitors that buy your product or service, not search engines.

By following these 8 simple guidelines, you’ll be able to overhaul the copy on your website ensuring it’s agreeable to both search engines and visitors.

1) Categorise your pages
Before writing, think about the structure of your site. If you haven’t built your site yet, try to create your pages around key offerings or benefits. For example, divide your Second Hand Computers site into separate pages for Macs, and PCs, and then segment again into Notebooks, Desktops, etc. This way, you’ll be able to incorporate very specific keyword phrases into your copy, thereby capturing a very targeted market. If you’re working on an existing site, print out each page and label it with its key point, offering, or benefit.

2) Find out what keywords your customers are searching for
Go to www.wordtracker.com and subscribe for a day (this will only cost you about AUD$10). Type in the key points, offerings, and benefits you identified for each page, and spend some time analysing what words customers use when they’re searching for these things. These are the words you’ll want to use to describe your product or service. (Make sure you read WordTracker’s explanation of their results.)

3) Use phrases, not single words
Although this advice isn’t specific to the web copy, it’s so important that it’s worth repeating here. Why? Well firstly, there’s too much competition for single keywords. If you’re in computer sales, don’t choose “computers” as your primary keyword. Go to Google and search for “computers” and you’ll see why… Secondly, research shows that customers are becoming more search-savvy – they’re searching for more and more specific strings. They’re learning that by being more specific, they find what they’re looking for much faster. Ask yourself what’s unique about your business? Perhaps you sell cheap second hand computers? Then why not use “cheap second hand computers” as your primary keyword phrase. This way, you’ll not only stand a chance in the rankings, you’ll also display in much more targeted searches. In other words, a higher percentage of your site’s visitors will be people after cheap second hand computers. (WordTracker’s results will help you choose the most appropriate phrases.)

4) Pick the important keyword phrases
Don’t include every keyword phrase on every page. Focus on one or two keyword phrases on each page. For your Macs page, focus on “cheap second hand macs”. For the PCs page, focus on “cheap second hand pcs”, etc.

5) Be specific
Don’t just say “our computers”. Wherever you would normally say “our computers”, ask yourself if you can get away with saying “our cheap second hand Macs” or “our cheap second hand PCs”. If this doesn’t affect your readability too badly, it’s worth doing. It’s a fine balance though. Remember, your site reflects the quality of your service. If your site is hard to read, people will infer a lot about your service…

6) Use keyword phrases in links
Although you shouldn’t focus on every keyword phrase on every page, it’s a good idea to link your pages together with text links. This way, when the search engines look at your site, they’ll see that the pages are related. Once again, the more text links the better, especially if the link text is a keyword phrase. So on your “Cheap Second Hand Macs” page, include a text link at the bottom to “Cheap Second Hand PCs”. If you can manage it without affecting readability, also include one within the copy of the page. For example, “As well as providing cheap second hand Macs, we sell high quality cheap second hand PCs”. TIP: If you don’t want your links to be underlined and blue, include the following in your CSS file:

<style type="text/css">
<!--
a {text-decoration: none;}
-->
</style>

Then format the HTML of each link as follows:

As well as providing cheap second hand Macs, we sell high quality <a href="pcs.htm" style="text-decoration:none"><font color="#000000">cheap second hand pcs</font></a>.

7) Use keyword phrases in headings
Just as customers rely on headings to scan your site, so to do search engines. This means headings play a big part in how the search engines will categorise your site. Try to include your primary keyword phrases in your headings. In fact, think about inserting extra headings just for this purpose. Generally this will also help the readability of the site because it will help customers scan read.

8) Test keyword phrase density
Once you’ve made a first pass at the copy, run it through a density checker to get some metrics. Visit http://www.gorank.com/analyze.php and type in the domain and keyword phrase you want to analyse. It’ll give you a percentage for all the important parts of your page, including copy, title, meta keywords, meta description, etc. The higher the density the better. Generally speaking, a density measurement of at least 3-5% is what you’re looking for. Any less, and you’ll probably need to take another pass.

Follow these guidelines, and you’ll be well on your way to effective SEO copy.

Just remember, don’t overdo it. It’s not easy to find the balance between copy written for search engines and copy written for customers. In many cases, this balance will be too difficult to achieve without professional help. Don’t worry, though. If you’ve already performed your keyword analysis, a professional website copywriter should be able to work your primary keyword phrases into your copy at no extra charge.

8 Steps To Irresistible Email Copy Every Time

=> Step #1 - WHO DO YOU THINK YOU`RE TALKING TO?

Before you sit down to write your email sales letter, you`ve got to determine exactly who your audience is. This is a master key to getting results from email marketing.

Ask yourself these questions:

- What do your prospects/customers want?
- What frustrates your prospects/customers most?
- Who else is selling something similar to you?
- Why should your prospects/customers believe you?
- Why should prospects/customers respond to you instead of someone else?
- What kind of appeals will your target market respond to?


=> Step #2 - A GREAT SUBJECT IS YOUR OBJECT

Before an email can generate results, recipients need to open it. But what can you do to spark their interest and get their interest "motor" revved up?

Your SUBJECT LINE is the key.

There are four types of email formulas you can use as a guide in crafting your email. Each has a different PSYCHOLOGICAL APPEAL that works like magic on consumers. Here are some examples:

- State a powerful benefit - "Empowerism Satisfies Your Need for Leads"

- Pique curiosity - "Empowerism Has Uncovered the Secrets of Success"

- Write your subject line with a news angle - "Empowerism Launches RSVP For Those Who Want to Double Their Money Fast!"

- Offer Immediate Gratification - "With Empowerism RSVP, you can start the money wheels turning before the sun goes down tonight"

Here`s an important "homework assignment": Write at least 25 SUBJECT LINES before you decide on which one to use. Take the best two and test them against each other in your marketing campaign. (Save the "losers" to use for other purposes or spruce up later.)


=> Step #3 - WHAT`S IN IT FOR THEM?

Sit down and write every conceivable benefit your product has. Don`t know the difference between features and benefits? Features describe the product; benefits describe the results of using the product. Features appeal to logic...logic justifies emotion...emotion drives sales (see below).

Here`s a rule of thumb for benefits: ask yourself "What can my product or service do for my customer?" Then begin to write your letter telling your reader WHAT`S IN IT FOR THEM. Tell them how much better life will be for them after they buy from you. Tell them how much better they`ll feel. Tell them how their peers will respect them more.


=> Step #4 - AN EMOTIONAL APPEAL

When promoting anything to anybody, you must remember that buying decisions are based upon emotion and later backed up by logic. Before you write a single word, determine what emotional hot buttons you need to push to "jumpstart" your prospect.

Selling health supplements? Go for the "fear of illness" button with "A Natural Way to Save Your Eyesight." Selling political bumper stickers? Hit the "anger" button with: "Let the President Know What You Think of His Policies." Other buttons include: curiosity, greed, ego, vanity, hope, and/or fear of scarcity or security.


=> Step #5 - A NAME YOU CAN TRUST

To convince people to buy your product or service, you must make them believe that your offer is credible and that you (or your product) will deliver as promised.

How do you do that? Here are three ways you can build credibility with the readers of your sales letter:

- Provide testimonials.
- Include endorsement letters from authority figures in your industry
- Make your offer and promises sincere and believable.


=> Step #6 - A GUARANTEE

Nowadays, trying to sell without some type of guarantee is a losing proposition. You`ve got to have one. And the stronger your guarantee, the better your response will be. And, believe it or not, although most people will NOT ask for a refund, they`ll trust your offer knowing that you stand behind it.

You can offer a 24-hour, 30-day, 60-day, 90-day, or even a full-year. And here`s an interesting fact: The longer the time period, the fewer returns you`ll have! It`s human nature to procrastinate, so the more time someone thinks they have to get a refund, the more they`ll put it off or forget about the refund altogether.


=> Step #7 - DON`T FORGET TO ASK

It happens all the time. Someone makes a fantastic sales presentation, and then doesn`t close the deal because he/she didn`t clearly ask for the order or made the process confusing rather than simple.

- From the Research Department: Statistics show that you need to ask for the order at least three times to close substantial sales. (Some studies put the number at 7!)

If you can, offer several ways for your prospects to order -- consumers love choice. It tells them, "You`re talking directly to me and meeting my unique needs." If you only offer one way to order, make it crystal clear how AND how easy it is. Describe it in detail and ask for the order. Then ask again.


=> Step #8 - THE EYES HAVE IT

It`s a well-known fact: Large blocks of copy are intimidating and will often send people running for the hills or at least the Delete button.

The solution? Break up paragraphs into two to four sentences. Use several subheadings throughout the email letter. And use asterisks, dashes, and ellipses (...) to give your copy more rhythm. Bullet points are excellent eye-catchers - use them whenever appropriate.