5 Website Fixes You NEED To Make

5 Website Fixes You NEED To Make

Design/Development, SEO

A great deal of small business owners has created a website just because others have recommended it. They do not even promote it thinking that customers will find them amidst the millions of others out there.  This can be due to the fact that many small business owners like the necessary knowledge when it comes to internet marketing. In this article I will be providing 5 interesting fix that most small business should make to their website in order to improve their traffic.

SEO

It is important that small business owners work on the SEO aspect of their website if they want to be successful. For instance they might want to ensure that their pages are optimized for their keywords and that they carry out some constant link building campaign. This will ensure that your site climb us the search engine ranking page and as such drive traffic to your site.

Update

Many small businesses make the mistake of just putting a website online and then forget about it. This is a big mistake and completely unproductive. You should make sure that your site is updated regularly with fresh content about your products and services to keep your customers informed. Additionally this should improve your site ranking as search engines bots crave for new content.

Navigation

The navigation aspect of your blog should also be clear and user-friendly. People hate to hunt for information on a site and will be tempted to leave in case they do not find what they are looking for easily. Make sure that the most popular pages on your site are easily accessible from your secondary navigation.

Site Speed

This is an aspect of websites that have become important following the Google Panda update. Indeed this is a factor that big G now uses in order to rank websites. At the same time this can also improve user experience on your site. A lot of people will just click the back button on their browser instead of waiting for the site to load completely.

Contact details

Do not forget to list your contact details on your blog. Indeed the purpose of a website is to inform your customers about the existence of your company and it will be stupid to miss this information. To make things easier for your visitors you might want to add a contact form where they will be able to contact you from your website rather than opening their email client.

By making these small changes to your website you should be able to improve the overall user experience and thus help make your website more helpful for your visitors.

 

Six New Year’s Resolutions for an Affiliate Marketer

Promoting affiliate products can prove to be an excellent way of earning some extra money online. To become a successful affiliate marketer, you definitely need to learn the basics of internet marketing and equip yourself with some of the most useful affiliate marketing tools and skills. As we enter the new year, it’s time again to make some resolutions (that we’re committed to keep).

Given below are 5 new year resolutions that an affiliate marketer can make to achieve success and make more money.

#1. Grow the Email List
A long email list is something that you’ll always need to make the most of your affiliate marketing efforts. A key new year resolution that you can, therefore, make is to focus on growing your email list. Remember, the money is hidden in the list that you build. The more emails you capture, the more money you can make by promoting affiliate products via emails.

#2. Know More About the Audience
In order to become a successful affiliate marketer, the first tip that you should follow is to collect more data on where your audience is located, where they spend most of their time, what their behaviors, what they like and what they don’t. Unless you have good knowledge of your audience, you can never deliver products that bring them real value.

#3. Create Relevant Content
When you are aware of your audience’s likes, dislikes and aspirations, you know what they are actually looking for. Don’t create content just for sake of making dollars, as this practice won’t build a loyal subscriber base. Keep your content crispy, unique and updated.

#4. Build Genuine Relationships
As an affiliate marketer that wants to make money online, you also need to direct your efforts towards relationship building. To achieve success with this marketing technique, you need to establish real relationship with your audience. By building genuine relationships, you can quickly gain the trust of your audience. And ‘trust’ is all you need to make your audience by products you promote.

#5. Write Unique Product Reviews (Don’t Copy)
One of the biggest mistakes that many affiliate marketers make is that they indulge in the copy-paste technique to publish reviews on their blog or website. Make a resolution now not to copy reviews from other sources. Use the product yourself, before you write a review for the same. It’s only through writing unique product reviews that you can set yourself apart.

#6. Don’t Promote Hyped-up Products
As you step into the world of affiliate marketing, you’ll come across a wide range of very popular products. Don’t make the mistake of choosing only hyped up products, as blatant promotion won’t bring your success. If you start promoting products only because they are popular (and don’t actually deliver), you can easily ruin the reputation of your site. Even if you promote a single bad affiliate product, you’ll leave a bad impression on your subscribers.

 

Want More Subscribers? Facebook Optin App Lets You Create Invisible Squeeze Pages

What is one of the biggest challenges with trying to build a list?

… trying to get them to enter their personal contact info.  Most people are very guarded when it comes to giving their name and email address away, mainly out of fear of being spammed.  So how can you brake that fear?  How about getting someone to subscribe to your list, WITHOUT having to enter their contact information.

FB Opt-In App is your answer.

Massive List Building and Conversion Rates!

How about taking a user to a squeeze page that gives them the option to ‘Connect with Facebook’.  Its been proven that this subscriber method has produced extremely high conversions and acquires verified email addresses!

Here’s exactly how it works: when someone clicks on your Optin App link, they’re taken to the “Request for Permission” page at Facebook. If they Allow the App, they are added to your list and sent to the “Landing Page” set in your autoresponder code or back office.

NEW! You can now customize your “Request for Permission” page with YOUR name and photo!

Instant Squeeze Page Generator

You can make squeeze pages like the one below in minutes! Just create a new page in WordPress, select a template, enter a headline, and select a few options…Your squeeze page is instantly created and ready to get subscribers!

The 411

Guys, with about 1/2 a BILLION (yes with a B) active users on Facebook, this is becoming a mainstream method of providing contact information, without feeling like you are invading their privacy.  This is a fair nice additional to your list building toolkit…and an affordable cost to ALL.

 

How to Make Money Blogging with Affiliate Programs

A high-traffic blog can be monetized in a number of ways. Though many people will just be happy not advertising online, there are others who think blogs offer a great opportunity to make some extra money and they must be utilized for the very purpose. And one of the best ideas to earn an additional income from a blog is by running affiliate programs on it.

Since there are so many affiliate programs (featuring thousands of products) to choose from, making the right decision can prove to be a difficult one. If you take a look around, affiliate advertising programs are fetching a good amount of money to bloggers. Well, you too can earn by participating at such programs.

The point is you need to choose affiliate programs which best suit your blog requirements. If you are confused about what kind of affiliate ads you should run on your blog, given below are some key tips that you can use.

Step into Your Readers’ Shoes
You might be receiving plenty of traffic to your blog. They visit the pages on your blog on a regular basis. While browsing, they may also be interested in finding some specific products, according to their requirements. It is, therefore, important to identify what type of products they will want to purchase. In addition, you need to use some key ‘triggers’ that could compel them to purchase products they are looking for. So, always choose to advertise those products which fulfill the requirements of your audience.

Advertise Only Reputed Products
In an effort to make money quickly, it’s quite easy to get desperate with advertising products which you may not like yourself. On the other hand, advertising products which are cheap can also do a lot of harm to your blog’s reputation. It’s important to choose only those products which you really believe in. If you want to make money through affiliate programs, you need to help people with their problems. Advertise only the best products or companies that have a good reputation in the market.

Don’t Ignore the Price Range of Products
Apart from the quality of products that you advertise on your blog, the price range also matters a lot. In order to monetize your blog, you should always choose a price range which matches the type of audience you attract. If you choose a product with a high price, people may not buy. On the other hand, low-priced products will not fetch you a decent income.

Location of Ads Plays a Vital Role
While using affiliate advertising to earn some extra cash from your blog, you need to pay careful attention to the positioning of ads. Bloggers should place links or ads in places where they have the maximum chances of being clicked. The top section of the sidebar (preferably left) is always the best place to put your ads on. Positioning links right where a blog post ends is yet another good idea to grab the attention of readers quickly.

Measure Your Progress
Though affiliate programs offer an excellent opportunity to make money from your blog, you may not always be successful in your first attempts. Unless you go knee-deep into it, you won’t find what actually works and what doesn’t. Therefore, always use those affiliate programs that offer a sophisticated measurement system to track growth. If you keep a regular watch on the results, you can fine-tune the strategy according to your specific requirements.

 

3 Ways to Enhance Your Blog’s Success

Blogging success isn’t going to come overnight, and it most likely won’t happen in a couple of months either. Successful blogs are backed by several months, if not a couple of years, of hard work and dedication. Profitable blogs with strong readerships and excellent advertising were created through everyday posting and careful calculations. Their owners ran them like a business, and because they did so, succeeded.

If you want to become a professional blogger, or at least own a blog that brings in some supplemental income each month, you need to carefully monitor your blog. Without this careful consideration, you will likely miss out on great opportunities to gain the attention of readers and advertisers which are both needed to turn a blog profitable. Three easy ways to spur your blog’s success include:

Finding Similar, Yet Already Successful, Blogs

Have you ever heard the phrase, “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours?” Well, this definitely applies to blogging. You need to start associating yourself with other successful blogs which feature a similar type of content and have a readership similar to the one you wish to attain. In essence, you want to consort with blogs that will complement your own. By associating with like-minded blogs, you will be able to mimic their strategies for success, and you will be able to offer guest posting.

Guest posting, like what I am doing now, is a great way to get your name out there, and it is a great way to attract attention to your blog when you have writers from other successful blogs posting on your site.

Incorporating Social Media

If you want to reach a larger audience with your blog, forget the traditional marketing campaign. It is 2011, you need to be promoting your blog on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and you need to be adding these sites into your posts. If you find a great video on YouTube that fits your site, post it and then write a short post about it. Not only will promoting your blog on these sites allow you to reach greater audiences, but it gives you a higher chance of going viral and will help increase your overall page rank. And the higher you rank in the search engines, the more likely you will attract well-paying advertisers.

Poll Your Readership

The best way to determine whether or not your blog is successful is by turning to your readers. Is your readership eager to respond to your questions or comments? Do they constantly provide positive feedback or praise? If you have an audience that is eager to engage with you, then you are definitely on the right track to a successful blog. However, if you want to take polling your readers to the next level, you can always utilize survey software. Survey software will let you get more specifics on what your readers love and what they would like to see more of allowing you to better cater to them and attract new readers as well.

Content is what makes or breaks a blog, but if you don’t plan for your blog’s success, your content alone won’t bring you into the forefront of that success you so desire. Don’t let your great ideas, time, and energy go to waste. Strategically create a business plan for your blog, and map out where you want to take your blog and how you want to get there.

 

5 Tactics to Market a Small Business Website, at No Cost

Are you, as a small business owner, struggling to market your website? Well, there are many others like you. If you don’t know, there are plenty of ways to market your business website, free of cost. In order to keep your small business growing, you should continue to attract customers to your website. With adequate time investment, you can really make a difference and take your business website to the next level. But you need to know about the best tactics.

Given below are five tactics that you can use to market your small business website without the use of a credit card.

#1. Go Beyond Facebook and Twitter
No doubt, Facebook and Twitter are oldies but goldies. But social media is a lot more. New platforms like Google+ and Pinterest are proving to be exciting options for marketing a small business. No matter what niche you cater to, you should not make any more delay in joining these new social media platforms. In any case, don’t forget to conduct some research to find out how other small size companies are using these social media sites. Learn from them.

2. Keep Content Fresh
Whether you want to attract visitors to your business website on a regular basis or create a social buzz around your brand, you’ll always need fresh content. Search engines like Google keep looking for fresh or current content on a website. You can do it by starting a blog (attached to your company website) as quickly as possible. With a blog, you can quickly update your readers or audience about anything that’s important for their needs.

#3. Publish Press Releases
Though publishing press releases is an old tactic, it’s powerful even today. Apart from those that charge you a fee for each press release published, there are many other sites that do it for free.

Once your press release has been published, you can send them to niche media outlets that might be interested in what your business is about.

#4. Leverage the Power of Videos
If you sell a product or service, and plan to beat out the competition quickly, one of the best ideas is to create videos. Create a how-to guide or a tutorial that tell your target audience how to use the products you sell. Once recorded, you can upload these videos to sites like YouTube. You can also embed these videos on your website or blog for more coverage.

#5. Don’t Forget the Basics
When it comes to marketing a small business website, you should never forget about the basics. An organized structure, accessibility, appearance and the use of top quality images are essential components of a business website. Make sure you have all these things in order.

You can never say you can’t afford these tactics, because you can use them free of cost. All you need is adequate investment of time. Plan your time in an effective way and gear up to take your website to the next level.

 

Using HubPages to Make Money Online and Build Backlinks to Your Blog

Is it possible to make money on another site while promoting your blog? Of course it is! One easy way is through article marketing on HubPages.

Why HubPages out of all of the other article directories and income sharing content generation sites? HubPages gives you dofollow backlinks to your blog on a PR 6 root domain, once your profile reaches a certain score. They also allow you to directly connect your affiliate accounts directly into their site so you can see the revenue you are making through each on your hubs. While Squidoo is another great site to make income off of, it does not allow you the in-depth anlaysis into your income generation like HubPages does. You’ll see what I mean in a moment.

Setting Up Your HubPages Account

First, if you haven’t already, you will want to setup. The signup process is pretty standard, so there is nothing to really get excited about. What you do want to do, though, is get your profile and affiliate settings setup. Simply go to your profile and edit, and in the bio box, enter as much text as you like about yourself and your blog with keyword anchor text links to the homepage, favorite posts, etc.

Then, under Affiliate Settings, add in your Adsense, Amazon, Ebay, and Kontera account numbers and identifiers.

This is also where you will want to add your Google Analytics tracking code so you can monitor more in-depth statistics about your hubs.

Last, but not least, be sure to create a custom URL / referrer tracker so you can make money off of anyone you refer to HubPages as well.

Boosting Your Profile Score

Now, to get dofollow links back to your blog through your hubs, you will need to get a profile score of 75 or higher. With a semi-passive approach, it took two weeks, two hubs, and about 13 comments on other hubs, forum posts, and questions to get the score needed. I’m sure that can be done faster with a little more time spent on the network, but as you can see, it doesn’t take too much to get there, activity wise.

Building Great Hubs

To build great hubs that make money, you will want to do some keyword research based on your topic. Use tools such as Google Adwords Keyword Tool and be sure to enable the Estimated Avg. CPC column so you can see the keyword phrases that get the highest dollar amount to ensure better Adsense earnings.

Great hubs consist of multiple elements – text, photos, video, Ebay, and Amazon modules will give your hub an overall higher score as well as more revenue options.

Monitoring Your Adsense Earnings

One way to see how your hubs are coming along in the monetization department is to always remember to create an individual URL channel for each of your hubs individually. To do this, go into your Google Adsense account and click on the Adsense Setup tab, then Channels. Switch to URL channels, and Add a New URL Channel which will be a direct link to your hubs.

This way, you will see which ones specifically get clicks and how much they make.

Promoting Your Hubs

Part of your hub’s score and profile score comes from the popularity of your hubs. Therefore, it is important to do things such as build a few links to them via blog commenting and social bookmarking, especially on sites that drive a lot of traffic such as StumbleUpon. Also, if you have a Twitter account, be sure to tweet it out to your followers, share it on Facebook, etc.

Your Take on HubPages

Do you use HubPages for link building and making money online? Share your experience in the comments!

4 Reasons to Continue Blogging (Other than Making Money)

Most of us begin blogging because we have a specific knowledge or passion to share with others. Perhaps you love to write, or love you to discuss topics and issues with others whom you may not know. After a few years, however, I’ve found that many bloggers have continued blogging because they want to “make it”—that is to say, they want fame, fortune, or a combination of both. Chasing money on the blogosphere, while not wholly a waste of time, can end up becoming a Moby Dick of sorts. You become so obsessed with money that you lose sight of all else. And when you fail to live up to your expectations, you become dejected, and you may even throw in the towel all together. If you need some motivation, here are a few reasons to continue blogging that you may have forgotten because you’ve been at it for awhile.

1.      You truly enjoy blogging and you want to improve but your writing and technical skills.

This is probably why you began blogging in the first place. You knew that you had a specific set of knowledge on one or more topics, and you wanted to try your hand at the art of blogging. And the art of blogging is so much more than just writing. It’s about learning to write in a very specific way, one that is melds concision with clarity. There’s also the design and development aspect of blogging that requires practiced skill as well. As such, one of the most important reasons to continue blogging is to get better at it.

2.      You enjoy meeting new people who share your same thoughts and interests.

One of my favorite things about blogging is how social it is. Although, of course, you are the one who writes most of the content on your blog, comments enable you to discuss interests with others who feel just as strongly about the issues you care about as you do. This virtual communing with “kindred spirits” is one of the most personally rewarding aspects of blogging.

3.      You enjoy the performance aspect of blogging.

While there is certainly a discussion-focused aspect to blogging, there is also something almost theatrical about blogging, which separates it from writing in other situations. Usually, bloggers use the first person, and if you think of a blog as a platform, then you can easily see how the writing environment becomes a soapbox in which you deliver a monologue of sorts. If you’ve got a performer in you, then embrace the theater inherent in blogging.

4.      You enjoy learning about new blogs and other sources of information.

Although it is wonderful to meet people who are just like you, it can be just as wonderful learning new things from people who are very different from you. My favorite part about blogging is that once you’ve done it for awhile you’ll learn about all the top blogs and bloggers out there. And learning from those who are better than you is one of the foundations of a rewarding life in general.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with pursuing blogging for its lucrative benefits. At the same time, however, you’d be surprised that once you stop making all about the money, you’ll end up with more success, both personally and monetarily.

Writing a Great Review Post to Generate Sales

One of the best ways to make money through affiliate product marketing is by writing reviews. But there are a few keys to make your review be the one that people want to buy from.

1. Try and Love the Product

I know, there are people who can review a product based on the sample blog posts and emails that are sent to them by the product’s creator. But the best reviews come from people who not only have read the sales page for the product, but have also purchased it and, of course, actually used the product and find value in it. These things will shine through in your review.

2. Make Your Review Unique

People can smell a sales pitch from a mile away, and if your readers are the type that hate pushy sales people, they will also hate the canned reviews, especially if they have already read three the morning a product has launched on other blogs or from other newsletters and they all sound somewhat identical. If you are writing a review, be sure to take a look at the product page as well as review by other notable experts in the industry. Then set your goal to make your review as different from those as possible.

3. Tell People How They Can Use the Product Today

There is nothing worse than investing in something, then having no clue what to do with it. Whether it is an ebook, course, video, or application, if you get your hands on it, see what you can do with it within just the first hour of owning it. Then answer these questions in your review:

• What lessons did you learn right away, and how can you apply them?
• What tricks did you try that resulted in something immediately beneficial?
• What ways can you use the product when you’re in a hurry but still gain some value out of it?
• What part of the product can you apply to things you have done in the past to improve upon them?

Basically, if you can get your readers to get excited about using the product as they are reading your review, they are much more likely to purchase it on the fly with your affiliate link.

4. Optimize Your Review for Readers and Search

Finally, you will want to optimize your review post in two ways. First, think of some titles that will specifically apply to your reader. For example, if you are writing a review for the Copywriting Scorecard for Bloggers, and your blog is focused on SEO readers, you could use “How to Improve Your SEO and Writing for Better Content Development” as the title of your post that will be displayed on your blog and to RSS feed and email subscribers.

For your SEO title, you can modify it to “Copywriting Scorecard for Bloggers Review for Better Content” because, eventually, people will be searching for product reviews before buying, and you would want yours to be best optimized as the first one in search so you get more purchases.

Then be sure to tweet the post with the different title variations so that your readers are attracted to the one best suited for their interests, and those searching Twitter for the latest chatter about the product can find it as well.

Best Practices for Product Reviews

When you write product reviews, what are your best practices and keys to making your reviews convert into product sales? Please share your tips in the comments.

AzonSpy: Make $500 – $2,500/month as a Amazon Super Affiliate (WSO of the Week!)

Hey guys, I know I have been somewhat non-existent from the blog the last month or two.  Mainly because of the recent launches of two awesome products I have been working on with my business partner Tim Atkinson.

If you have been following the blog you may have seen or even purchased Local Cash Empire, a local marketing course + software that we launched on the Warrior Forum a few ago.  We received a ton of amazing feedback on the product and have had over 1,600+ students who are using the methods we teach inside the course to make regular monthly income through Local Marketing.

AzonSpy Sells 3,000+ in 3 Days!

So Tim and I released AzonSpy, yet another awesome software + training course that teaches you all of the ins and outs for becoming a Amazon Super Affiliate and creating niche websites that can pay you $500 – $2,500 like clockwork.

Course Overview

Module 1: Product Selection

This module is all about finding PROFITABLE Amazon products to build a niche website around and promote. We walk you through step-by-step how you can ensure that you pick a winning product each time!

• Amazon Product Criteria & Guidelines: Learn the exact criteria we use to find products with high search volume, low competition, and amazing commissions and conversion.
• Finding HOT Products to Promote: We give you TONS of different ways that you can find products that trending and have huge spikes of search volume…and how to capitalize on them.
• Brand vs Product Name vs Product Type: Explains the different options when promoting Amazon products, along with the pros and cons for each.
• Keyword Research (Expanding Your Keyword List): Follow the EXACT Step-by-step keyword research formula we use to find winning products every time.
• Competition (Should I Go After It?): Deciding on if you should enter the niche and invest your time and money is HUGE. We will show you how you can analyze a niche/industries and pick ones with MASSIVE opportunity.

Module 2: Building a Niche Site

This module is dedicated to teaching you how to build your niche Amazon site. We will walk you through all of the aspects of setting up a site that will be highly optimized and convert for your 6 figure commission checks!

• Choosing a Domain: We show you how to choose the BEST domain for your niche site so you can get rankings ASAP!
• Setting Up Your Website Part 1: This video will show you how to setup the technical aspects of building your Amazon niche site.
• Setting Up Your Website Part 2: This extended video will show you exactly how you want you layout your niche site.
• Publishing Your Content: Through experienced we have learned the ideal way to publish your content to your site. We walk you through how you want to structure your content, when to publish it and how to get people to click your affiliate link!
• Using Amazon Widgets: We will show you the Amazon widgets that we use on our affiliate sites for improved CTR.
• Improving Conversions: Want to learn all of the conversion tricks that will boost your conversion rates by 20%? Then you will want to watch the video!
• When to Move On or Keep Going: The hardest decision is to figure out when its time to stop working on the site or keep going. We will show you when you should continue to improve the site and when to quit.

Module 3: Advanced Strategies

We teach you a ton of outside-the-box methods for building niche sites around unique Amazon products. These methods are being used by the Super Affiliates, but we are revealing them to you in AzonSpy!

• High Ticket Method: A method for earning $3,000 commissions checks for selling just ONE product on Amazon.
• Build for the Future: A unique method for building niche products around products that haven’t even been released yet!
• Domain Snatcher: Learn the tricks of snatching up high authority domains, which can BOOST your organic rankings.
• Sex Niche Method: We teach you all about how to build niches around the very popular, high demand Adult niche!

Module 4: Traffic Framework

• Traffic Framework Overview: This is where I break down the videos to come as there are some guest I’ll be introducing
• Ebook Syndication On Steroids: How to bring 1,000 of visitors a month to your Amazon Niche sites every single month virally
• 10 X Method: This is Kim Roach’s method and as we know she is the traffic Queen. I promoted her Traffic Dashboard a while back and covered her tactics in this video. Please go check out Kim Roach’s Traffic Dashboard and blog at http://buzzblogger.com – Kim Rocks!
• RSS Pipe Dream: Awww this is one method that is my favorite to teach. This one method will get you 10’s of thousands of backlinks and push your Amazon sites straight to #1
• Link Hijack: This is a special premiere webinar with myself and Brian Horn- The SEO Master- We teach a way for you to easily hijack Wiki’s for the highest quality link juice. This is a hour long nothing but the most ninja back linking tactic ever taught on the Warrior Forum

Bonuses:

• Amazon Niche Packets: We have researched and hand-picked over 50 niches and products that you can use and start building Amazon niche sites around. All of the research has been done for you! Just build your site and start making $$$.
• Bonuses From Warriors: We are going to pack the bonuses with some of the top Warrior Amazon Affiliates information so you can learn from all of the best Warriors today on the topic of Affiliate marketing with Amazon.
• NEW BONUS JUST ADDED: Live Coaching Webinar with Tim Atkinson, Mark Thompson and Special guest. Here is your chance to ask us anything you want and we will teach you are best Amazon Affiliate methods to earning 5 figures a month.

• A Look at the AzonSpy Software

  Hurry, Get AzonSpy at a Discount!

  If you haven’t heard of a dime sale, that is when the price increases after each purchase.  The faster you purchase the more you will save.  After the WSO, we plan on selling this product for at least $97 (maybe more), so if you ACT NOW you can get it for a fraction of the cost.

  Click here to learn more and purchase AzonSpy!