Affordable Online Business Strategies
Archive for March, 2009
Don't Buy Software You Don't Need
Mar 29th
A few weeks ago there was a high profile product launch that was targeted at new online marketers. It was a package of information that you could get for the cost of shipping, along with a trial issue of a newsletter. If you didn’t cancel, you were charged each month for the newsletter.
That’s nothing new, and a popular and effective marketing technique. The only reason I bring it up is because of what they were recommending in their info.
The manual that you got walked you through how to set up a business. It included setting up and using PPC, creating landing pages, and creating ebooks and converting them to PDFs.
Good stuff. The problem I had with what I came across was the software they recommended. They taught how to create landing pages, and offered a template you could use. They taught about creating a sales letter for a product that you created. They recommended an HTML editor to create those pages. It was Dreamweaver. It was their only recommendation. And of course the link was an affiliate link.
The affiliate link was just smart marketing. What wasn’t as well thought out was that you don’t NEED Dreamweaver to create landing pages or sales pages. When you’re just getting started, you can do everything you need to do with free software. Search for Nvu or Kompozer and you’ll be able to get software that will do what they recommend for free.
What was really stunning was that they also mentioned in the course that in the future they were going to recommend free software you could use. After you pay for an issue of two. Come On!
Then they taught about creating your own ebook, and how you should convert it to a PDF. They kindly included a link to Adobe Acrobat, which costs a few hundred dollars, as an affiliate link. You can do it for free all day long with Open Office! For Free!
For anyone just getting started online, money can be tight. It doesn’t make any sense to pay for software that you don’t have a need for. Once your business gets going, it may make sense to pay for software. But not when there are free alternatives that are able to do the same thing that the paid options do.
I feel like they were taking advantage of new marketers by not being up front and telling them about the free software.
You have a lot of options to spend your money. There’s no shortage of sales pages that try to convince you that if you buy their product, and a lot of the products are very good. Just don’t spend your money on something that you don’t need right now. Concentrate on getting traffic and building your business first. Then if you NEED to buy something, you’ll be able to pay for it without going into debt or running up the balance on your credit card.
Nvu: http://www.nvu.com
Kompozer: http://www.kompozer.net
Open Office: http://www.openoffice.org
Free New Video Software Makes Creating Video Quick And Easy For Everyone
Mar 28th
There are a couple of things that are certain in Internet Marketing. First you need a list of subscribers if you want to grow and profit from your business. Second, videos are extremely popular and if you’re not using it, you’re at a disadvantage.
When you combine the power of video with your list building and promotion efforts, the results can be even better.
If you’ve been considering using videos using a video camera or web cam to record yourself, but you’ve been concerned that it would be difficult to get it on the Internet or posted on your site or blog, relax.
There’s a new web site that is offering a way for you to upload your video to the Internet for free. It’s called Easy Video Producer, and if you have a web cam, you can go to the site right now, record a video, and have your video online in 3 minutes.
Easy Video Producer is perfect for anyone of any skill level. Here are some of the features of Easy Video Producer:
- Makes it easy to create and upload your videos to the Internet.
- You get to choose from 10 color templates.
- Edit the text on the templates.
- You can choose 5 different colors for your video player.
- Create your video on its own page, put the video on another web page, put it on your blog, or include a link in your emails.
There are a lot of videos that explain a lot more of the great stuff Easy Video Producer can do for you. It’s free to join, so get there before they start charging for it! Click Here Now…
The 2 New Power Tools From Nichebot X
Mar 26th
I’ve mentioned that I use Nichebot X as my keyword and market research tool of choice. I can access Google, Yahoo, and Wordtracker to do my keyword research all in one place. Nichebot X has just added 2 new tools to its already impressive arsenal that you should know about.
1. SEMRush Total Espionage
One of the hardest things to do is to find out a way to get a good organic search engine listing. You can do keyword research, and you should. It would be a lot easier if you could see what keywords your competitors are already using to get top search engine listings. It would also help if you could see what keywords they were using in their adwords advertising.
That’s where SEMRush Total Espionage comes in. This new tool from Nichebot X gives you “Xray Vision” into your competitors web site. By entering a competitors web site into the search interface, you’ll be able to see exactly what keywords they are ranking for on the google.com organic search results. You’ll also get a listing of other related sites that are in your market.
You’ll also see what keywords your competitor is using in their PPC campaigns. You’ll see the keyword, the price per click, and the position of the ad. This will give you a good idea of what you would have to pay per click to compete with that site. And you’ll get a list of the other sites that are advertising as well.
According to Jim Morris, founder of Nichebot X, hundreds of people are canceling their SpyFu, Compete, and Keycompete subscriptions because they can get the same results with SEMRush Total Espionage and Nichebot X, the most powerful keyword research suite available.
2. New York Times Article Search X
This search tool gives you access to the New York Times article database that includes over 2.8 million articles dating back to 1981.
One of the tips that I have read and heard over and over again when it comes to article marketing or creating content is to go to the top article directories and scan through several articles to get ideas. One of the drawbacks to this is that a lot of the articles are, to say it kindly, aren’t very well written. That’s not to say that there aren’t high quality authors out there.
With the New York Times Article Search X, you are accessing quality articles from professional writers. With this tool, you enter a keyword, select a date range, and you’ll get a list of articles from the database.
For example, I typed in the keyword “nintendo”, searched from January 2007 until January 2009, and was presented with a list of 297 articles. I decided to search for “nintendo wii” for the same date range, and found 188 articles.
With this tool, there’s no reason that you can’t come up with something to write about. You can easily access the articles from within Nichebot X instead of going to a search engine and clicking on a bunch of sites to get the same info.
This tool will save a lot of time and generate a lot of ideas for you. You obviously don’t want to copy any of the articles, but you could take excerpts from an article and include them in your own giving a link back to the entire article. You can copy and paste snippets from several articles and use them to write an original article.
These two tools are just a sample of what you can access when you join Nichebot X. There are more tools on the way, including a potential deal to get access to articles from The Guardian, a UK newspaper.
The best way for you to decide if the resources that are available in Nichebot X are really that good is to try it for yourself. You can get access to Nichebot X for $1. You’ll get unlimited use of the free keyword tools, unlimited use of the New York Times Article Search X, and you’ll get credits that you can use to try out SEMRush Total Espionage and the premium keyword tools.
You’ll have 14 days to use the site. Use the dozens of videos that are available to teach you how to use each tool. Read the articles that explain keyword research and market research. See for yourself how valuable Nichebot X can be for your business. Jim Morris has made as easy as possible to demonstrate what he has to offer. Now it’s up to you to see for yourself.
$1 for 14 days of access to Nichebot X. Click here now…
Why Market Research Should Come Before Keyword Research
Mar 21st
Here’s a question for you:
What comes first – finding keywords that have a lot of search volume?
Or finding markets with a lot of demand and a lot of buyers?
I used to think that plugging in a few keywords and targeting the ones with a lot of search volume was the number one way to get a lot of traffic and a whole lot of profit.
As I went through The 24 Hour Hot Product Formula, I discovered that the answer is that the FIRST step before getting a list of keywords, or deciding which product to promote, or coming up with an idea for a product of my own is to find the hot markets. Keywords come after that.
Yeah, it is good to find the keywords that have a lot of demand and volume. But the problem is that even though there may be a lot of searches, you may put a lot of effort into something where the people searching on your keywords aren’t spending much money.
Your first priority is to find the markets that are hot and have buyers. These are the ones that will make you money. So how do you do it?
The easiest way to get started is to take a look at the magazine rack at your local store. If you see more than one magazine on the same topic, you should make a note of it. You can also do a search online. Magazines cost money to produce, and if there are a few magazines on the same topic, you can be sure that there is interest in that topic.
You can go to amazon.com and browse through the categories to get ideas of the top selling products. Do the same thing at eBay. And if you’re interested in digital products, there are over 10.000 products in several categories at ClickBank.
The idea is to notice markets that you are interested in and taking notes. Once you get a few ideas, then you can move on to getting keywords. There’s a lot more to it than what I’ve just described, but that should get you started.
The 24 Hour Hot Product Formula shows you exactly how to do market research, keyword research, ideas on how to create a product, and exactly step by step how to promote your product so you can start taking orders in as little as 24 hours. Click here for more…
Create And Launch Your Hot New Product In 24 Hours
Mar 20th
We all know how difficult it can be to get traffic to our site. It takes time and can cost a lot of money. When you’re an affiliate marketer, that’s a task that you have to do all of the time. You’re sending traffic to the vendor’s site and hoping that you’ll make enough money to pay for your advertising costs and make it worth your time.
You’re working your tail off promoting products that probably didn’t take much time to create, some of them only took 24 hours. Isn’t it time to turn the tables, take the plunge, and become the one with a product that YOUR affiliates are promoting? A whole lot of traffic that YOUR affiliates send to you?
If you’re ready to create your own product, but don’t know where to start or how to do it, then I want to tell you about a new information product from Chris Rempel called The 24 Hour Hot Product Formula. He’s the same guy who brought you The Conduit Method and Confessions Of A Lazy Super Affiliate.
The 24 Hour Hot Product Formula is an ebook and video course – Over 2 hours of video that are accessible from inside the ebook.
This goes beyond creating a product and hoping for the best. This course will show you how to find out what markets are hot and profitable. It all starts with market research. Market research can seem boring and mind-numbing, especially if you aren’t good at it. But you’ll learn how to quickly determine if a market is profitable, and the video will show you how to do it. No more guessing.
Then you’ll have to decide what type of digital product you want to create. There are a lot of options, and you may find a few ideas you didn’t even think of.
Your hot product needs a hot sales letter. It’s not hard to do once you learn a few key points in the ebook. And the video shows you what makes a powerful sales page.
You have your product and sales letter. Now it’s time to promote it. Here’s where you’ll discover how to roll out your product even if you don’t have a list. Two simple ways to roll out your product if you do have a list.
The 24 Hour Hot Product Formula shows you that you can create a hot product and start taking orders in 24 hours or less. It doesn’t have to take weeks and months to get your product created, There are ways to get your product created for you as well.
If you’re tired of being an affiliate marketer, and you want to make the big money instead of sending the traffic you generate to a product owner, then take a serious look at The 24 Hot Product Formula. This information is simple to understand and really powerful. Click Here For All The Details…
Results From Setting Up Sites To Sell Amazon Products
Mar 19th
Last November, I decided to try out a new strategy by using the information in Info Product Killer. IPK shows how to sell physical products online – in this case, signing up for an affiliate account at Amazon.com and promoting their products.
The idea is to set up mini sites that target a category that is popular for the holiday season – toys, electronics, games, books, and so on.
I set up 7 mini sites and one main site that all of the mini sites linked to and the main site linked from. I got the sites up the last week of November, and my sites were indexed by the first week in December.
I didn’t use any paid traffic. I put a link from 2 of my existing sites to the new sites. The traffic was very low, but it did result in $100 in commissions for December.
What is really interesting is that my sites were all getting traffic within two weeks of being live. I’m not sure why that is, but it seems to go against what I’ve heard in the past about getting traffic from free search engine listings. And that was where all of my traffic came from.
It’s nice to know that I don’t have to wait months for the search engines to start sending traffic my way.
I haven’t updated the sites since the first of the year, and in January, my traffic doubled from December’s traffic on all of my sites – 8 of them in total. I didn’t have that much traffic in the first place, but it was encouraging.
In February, 4 of these sites received twice as much traffic as they received in January, with no promotion on my part. All I do is check the stats once a week. In March, these same 4 sites have already received as much traffic as they did in February, and the month isn’t over yet.
Since I got such a late start for last Christmas, I didn’t expect to make a lot of money, and I didn’t. But the good news is that by the time next December rolls around, I’ll be getting a lot more traffic. My strategy for now is to update the existing sites by adding new pages and a few articles every month.
I’m also going to set up a few more sites on popular products and see if I can get them indexed and generating traffic. I’ll keep you up to date on how this strategy is working out in the near future.
$1 lets you try out the best keyword research site for 14 days. Click here for more…
Insider Secrets 2009: The Best Defense Against A Bad Economy
Mar 14th
We all know the economy is bad, and money is tight. You’ve probably heard that starting an online business is inexpensive and easy to do. If you’ve lost your job, or are worried that you will, then an online business may be for you. I want to tell you about a course that is worth every penny, and will be the best investment you could ever make if you’re interested in starting an online business.
Probably the best course ever written in the history of Internet Marketing is “Insider Secrets To Marketing Your Business On The Internet” by Corey Rudl. I remember when the first edition came out several years ago. An A to Z guide on how to start every area of your online business.
I ordered the course, and it was really something special. It came in a box with two binders and a whole lot of pages. This course has been updated through the years, and I bought the 2005 edition. True to its promise, it was updated and expanded from the original.
Now for the first time, “Insider Secrets To Marketing Your Business On The Internet” is available entirely online. There are going to be over 1200 pages of content, videos, and much more. What makes this format so vital is that the information can be immediately updated so you can access it now.
This way you can access any time, in any order you want, and you can print out the sections that are most useful for you. Skip anything that you don’t need right now.
This course is the only one I have ever seen that does such a complete job of guiding you through every step it takes to set up and run a profitable online business. And with over 1200 pages, you get in-depth information so you fully understand the topic.
This course is for you if you are new to marketing, or have bought a few products and are as confused as ever. It lays a solid foundation about marketing online so you can understand how to build a list, test and track, drive traffic – both free and paid, optimize for the search engines, use email marketing to increase your sales, and much more.
If you want to learn how to start and profit from an online business, how to make your own money and not have to worry about finding a job or being laid off from your current job, check out this course.
“Insider Secrets To Marketing Your Business On The Internet” is unique in that it has been around for several years and continues to deliver great value. There has never been a course that has even come close to offering the information that you get here. It’s been updated for 2009, and it’s available right now. You can get started in just a few minutes from now. Click Here Now…
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Keyword LSI Spy: A Marketer's Best Friend
Mar 12th
Getting good search engine rankings is the goal of most of us. Higher rankings lead to more traffic – FREE traffic. The one fact that we have to face is that there are other marketers out there that have the same goal in mind. That means we have competition.
What if there was a way to get an idea of how the top sites got there in the first place? A way to get inside information on what they were doing that got them to the top of the search engines?
There is a tool that will do all of that and more called Keyword LSI Spy. You’ve probably heard of LSI, and if you haven’t do a search to learn more. What LSI means is that the page has keywords and key phrases that are related to the root keyword.
Keyword LSI Spy will take any keyword or key phrase you enter, and give you a list of the top 10 or 50 web sites (your choice) from Google, MSN, or Dogpile. That’s just the start.
You’ll get a list of how many words are on the pages on each site. You’ll be able to see if the top rated sites are using 400 words of content, or if they are using 1200. The point is that you’ll be able to use this information for your own site.
You’ll see how many internal and external links each site has. You’ll find out how many times the keyword was used on the page and the keyword density. See if the keyword is in the domain name or in the meta tags.
You can drill down deeper into each site and see what their Alexa ranking is, Google page rank, most frequently used words and how many times each word was used, title of the site, meta keyword and description details (if any), and what words they used in their headers.
One of the most powerful features of this software is the list of LSI keywords that you get. You get a listing of all of the LSI keywords and the number of times that keyword was used in the top site, in descending order. You get a listing of the 2 and 3 word combinations as well.
Then you get all of the keywords that are included in the meta tags of each site. You can save the keyword lists in either text or csv format.
Keyword LSI Spy discovers the important information that will show you what these top ranked sites are doing to get their listing, and gives you inside information on how you can structure your site so you can compete or beat their results.
I’ve never seen a tool that will do all of the things that Keyword LSI Spy will do, all in one place. Sure, you can go to Google and use their tool to get the LSI keywords for a site. But you won’t be able to get the top 50 results on one screen. And you won’t get all of the data that Keyword LSI Spy will get you.
Keyword LSI Spy is a script that you install on your hosting account. All you have to do is upload it and start using it. No setup required. You buy it once, and use it forever.
You don’t have to decide based on my experience with Keyword LSI Spy, and you don’t have to decide based on the sales page. You can try it out 3 times for free. Put in your keyword or key phrase, select the search engine you want, and hit submit. See for yourself all of the information that will be there for you to sift through.
You’ll get ideas for articles. Ideas for web pages and blog posts. Ideas for sub niches.
Try Keyword LSI Spy for free by clicking here now…
This Free Tool Makes Searching The Web Almost Effortless
Mar 7th
I’ve got something really cool to tell you about today, and best of all, it’s won’t cost you a penny, or put you on another email list.
Here’s what’s up – Any time you do research for yourself, whether it’s to gather info for an article or a web page, find videos or pictures, search the blogs, or search the news sites, it’s usually time consuming.
You have to go to each site, enter your keyword or phrase, and sift through the data. Then it’s off to the next site to do the same thing. If you have a few keywords you’re searching on, it can take a lot of time.
There’s a much better way. It’s called Search Automator Force, and it’s a searcher’s best friend. Force works with your web browser if it supports tabbed browsing. IE7, Firefox, and Google Chrome will all work.
When you open Search Automator Force, enter a keyword or phrase. You’ll notice that below the keyword entry is a list of related keywords that you may want to search on. To the right of the keyword box is a row of buttons that link to several search options.
You can access Google, Yahoo, Ask, YouTube, News, Blogs, Blog Sites, and much more. Every time you click on the button of a site you want to use, it opens a tab in your browser with that site opened with the results of your keyword. You can open as many pages as you want.
Now instead of having to go to Google, then to Yahoo, then to MSN, then to YouTube, and so on, you can get Search Automator Force to do it for you all at once.
All you need to do now is to open each tab, do your research, and move on to the next tab, without having to do anything.
At the bottom of the softwarel, there is a feature that shows thumbnails of YouTube videos that match your keyword. You can hover over the video to get more information, or you can click on the video and go directly to the page to watch the video.
Search Automator Force is my choice when it comes to research. It’s not a keyword tool, it’s a search tool that nothing else even comes close to. It saves a lot of time, and it gives access to so many search sites that you’ll never have a problem getting enough information.
Search Automator Force is the latest version of Search Automator. I paid $47 for Search Automator Pro when it came out, and I was really happy with it. Search Automator Force is even more useful, and it is entirely free.
This isn’t some lite version of a product where you’ll have to buy the full version to get all of the benefits. No. This is free, and you don’t have to enter your name and email address. All you have to do is download, install, and start using it.
Don’t take my word for it, go see for yourself. Go to www.searchautomator;com right now. There’s a really nice video that walks you through what Search Automator Force will do. There is a description of the software on that page. At the top right, you’ll see a download link. Click it and you’ll be able to instantly download the software.
All the keywords you’ll ever need to dominate your market. Search the top data sources – Wordtracker, Google, and Yahoo all in one place. $1 gets you 14 days to try it out. Click here for more…
