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Technorati Tags: back link, building back links, link building, SEO

Her Story:

No matter where you are in your internet marketing
endeavors you probably are in need of online mentoring.
Mentoring basically means giving assistance and guidance to
someone less experienced.

Think back on any job you have an. Did you receive some
training for that job? Did you have a supervisor or
manager? Even if you became the president of a company
there was probably somebody you could call upon at least
for feedback.

I know. Some of those managers were probably not very good
at training or mentoring. That’s definitely a problem with
many people placed in positions of leadership.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there who are
ready and able to provide mentorship. Online coaching is no
different.

There are many membership programs vying for your business.
Some of them offer the moon and some can deliver. Many
can’t though because they’re no different than the lame
supervisors you’ve had.

Once you come aboard it’s up to you to sink or swim. It’s
amazing that that’s the attitude. They don’t realize that
you are essentially a customer and that you have a mouth.
And with that mouth you can either promote them negatively
or positively to others.

So what you’re looking for in online mentoring is a program
that has live experienced people pretty much at your
disposal. It makes no sense to have questions you need
answers to and then waiting several days. Find a program
with many qualified people to talk to.

If you don’t currently know much about internet marketing
you need to be able to get started in the right direction
without wasting a lot of time and money. Information
overload can be intimidating at times.

But experienced people can help you succeed in affiliate
marketing. More than likely they didn’t have qualified
online mentoring to help them through.

Some of the best programs will have Internet Marketing
Learning Centers that have training covering many different
“How To” subjects. Included may be things like article
marketing and pay per click advertising; search engine
optimization and Webmaster basics to name a few.

Through your online chats and suggestions they may add new
content and videos to their training materials. That’s the
beauty of finding a program that is truly there to aid you.

I’ve also seen programs give the members opportunities to
utilize articles, reports and niche ebooks. You may also
have the resell rights to some products increasing your
odds of making more sales.

Keep in mind that the mentoring will more than likely be
strictly online in the form of chat forums. This makes
sense because you’re in the online business.

About the Author:

Suzanne Morrison is a mentor with Affiliate Power Group
where they help people learn affiliate marketing. Check out
their internet marketing coaching if you need help making
money as an affiliate marketer.
http://www.affiliatepowergroup.com/public/10.cfm

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Technorati Tags: business mentor, marketing mentor

If you are a small business owner in the USA or Europe and you have not looked at marketing your products to Canadians you are missing a vast opportunity to grow your bottom line. According to Matt Hartley of the National Post, “Canada has one of the highest broadband penetration rates in the world. More than half the adult population is on Facebook. Nearly 70% of Canadians watch videos online, while the average Internet user in Canada spends about 60 hours a month online.

In fact, English-speaking Canadians aged 18 to 34 spend more than a third of their time online, more than they spend listening to radio, watching television or reading newspapers, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada (IAB).

Across all age groups, Canadians are spending an increasing amount of time online. But the advertising dollars aren’t following them.”

In comparison, USA broadband penetration in 2008 was only 25% which is only the 15th highest in the world. The smart marketer would be targeting Canadians with their ads. Canadian businesses have not caught up to the consumers demand in offering a proportionate amount of internet marketing. What does this mean to businesses online? It means that if you are one of the few who are actively advertising to Canadians you are much more likely to succeed.

Canadians are also mobile savvy. They send over 45 million text messages every day – a stat that has cell phone companies “LOL-ing” all the way to the bank. Even when times are tight, Canadians still feel the need to be connected and just aren’t willing to do without their “Crackberries”. (CBC)

Canadians love the Internet. So why don’t advertisers get it? Many USA small businesses are timid when it comes to selling across the border. This could be the answer to your lower sales because of the economic downturn. Get over your fear and you will find a market of 33,212,696 Canadians searching for your products! Cross-border sales are so easy it is not much more work than selling to the next state. Try it, You’ll like it!

Technorati Tags: canadian broadband penetration, canadian internet users, canadian sales, marketing for small business

Twitter is growing in popularity because it is a way for small businesses to cut back on marketing costs, reach  national or international audiences and keep their existing customers up-to-date on what is happening within their business.

Twitter Small Business Case Study #1

In Albany, there is a Toyota car dealership where  this rather large, boisterous small business owner who is known for the tagline of ‘it’s huuuuuuuuge’ (as in the savings). He was smart enough to have his commercials direct people to the company Twitter account ( http://twitter.com/iamhuge). When you browse through his tweets you can’t help but chuckle. He is as cheesy on Twitter as he is in his commercials and that is the secret to his success online. He keeps it real and keeps it true to form. For him Twitter is a non-stop commercial and it works for him.

Twitter Small Business Case Study #2

Curtis Kimball owns a crème brûlée cart in San Francisco that moves from location to location on a daily basis. He was amazed one day to find out from a customer in line that they had read about his cart on Twitter. He immediately signed up for an account (http://twitter.com/cremebruleecart) and now has over 7,000 followers who wait everyday to hear where his cart will be located and what the flavors of the day will be. His business went from a part-time hobby business to a full-time business thanks to Twitter popularity.

In these economic times when advertizing budgets are tighter and sales may be declining, finding low cost sources for bringing in new customers is essential to staying afloat. These Twitter case studies demonstrate that the small business owner can compete if they are creative and learn to Twitter correctly.

Internet Marketing for Small Business | Niche Marketing Course | How to Find Profitable Niches

Technorati Tags: internet marketing for small business, social media marketing for small business, twitter case studies, Twitter for small business

When the dotcom era arrived it was difficult to replicate that same customer satisfaction and referral process. You either had to satisfy the search engines for higher placement or you had to purchase expensive advertizing for your website. People stopped using the traditional ways of finding local products and services and turned to the internet as their source for shopping information.

There was no real way to let anyone who found you online  that you had a great product or the friendliest service in town. You could put testimonials on your website, but people soon became wise to the fact that 90% of those testimonials were fake. Then came sites like Twitter and FaceBook and MySpace.

These social sites are a gold mine for the creative small business owner. A creme brulee cart operator in San Fransisco grew by word-of-mouth via Twitter and within a few months the owner had to quit his day job to keep up with the growing demand of his little cart. (“Mom and Pop Operators Turn to Social Media”, Claire Cain Miller, NY Times, July 23,2009)

This goes to show you that the word-of-mouth era has returned but with a technological twist. It is now possible for your happy customers to bring you more business to your brick and mortar small business as well as your online business. A wise business owner will recognize this and grasp the golden ring. Encourage your customers to “Tweet you right”.

Be creative in asking your customers to give you that valuable referral. It may be something as simple as printing up a little sticker with “If you love me Tweet me” on it to put on your products or sales receipts in your store. Make sure if you are an online business you include your URL and a Tweet request on every product you ship out.

You will be surprised at how well this works. Most times your customers would not Tweet you because they never thought of it. Simply asking them to do it may be all you need to do. If you don’t ask you will not receive.

You could even turn it into an in-store contest. Offer a free product or service to a random customer you find Tweeting about you. There are many ways you can cultivate link love from your customers. Just be creative!

Be visible on Twitter yourself. This is a great platform for your small business to let your potential customers get to know you. Just be sure you know how to use social media effectively. Learn internet marketing for small business and you can reach a whole new level of success.

Internet Marketing for Small Business | Niche Marketing Course | How to Find Profitable Niches

Technorati Tags: internet marketing for small business, social media marketing for small business, Twitter for small business

A good article will answer a question, provide information or deliver news within your niche. If you are stuck for a topic for your article you can go to places like Yahoo Answers to find out what information people are looking for. This is a great place of not only inspiration but also a great place to find information yourself on any given topic.

If I am researching an article, I often will post a question on Yahoo Answers and then use the answers people have provided as a means of gathering information to include in the article. In essence, other people pretty much write the article for me. I just put it all together into a nicely flowing story.

Another source for inspiration are article publishing websites themselves. What are other authors writing about? Spend a little time in the article sites and you will quickly get a sense of what makes a good article. Was it an entertaining or informative read? This will give you an idea of what your articles should look like.

Do not ever, under any circumstances, directly copy another article and claim it as your own.You might take the basic principles of an article and rewrite it in your own style with your own opinions added.

It is certainly okay to re-publish an article. Most authors hope you do; but be sure to also publish the author’s full credit as supplied by the article website. These articles are great for niche blog content and newsletters.

That is precisely the reason you are writing the article in the first place. You want people to read it and share it because it will have your website link in the author’s credits. This is a way for you to get the most back links to your website or blog without having to go out and search for them yourself. You do the work of writing the article and submitting it to the article publishing site and then it becomes a set-it-and-forget-it way of generating traffic and back links for you. Every article you publish about your profitable niche will become mini traffic generators for you. The growing back links will help you boost your page rank in the search engines.

Another benefit of article marketing is that the article publishing sites rank very highly in the search engines. You may be struggling at first to gain page ranking and search engine placement. Your published articles may out-perform your website when it comes to search engine positioning so while your niche website might be sitting on page 5 of the search engine results, your article may be on page one for your keyword.

In the next lesson of the niche marketing course I will cover the basics of writing effective articles for your profitable niche.

Today’s action: Visit Yahoo Answers and several article publishing sites and gather ideas for articles within your niche market. Get at least 5 ideas for articles and read articles to determine what makes them good or bad.

Lesson 14

Technorati Tags: article marketing, article publishing, internet marketing for small business, traffic generation

Most of us already have the knowledge and information we need to succeed. What we lack is a clear course of actions needed to transform that information into dollars and the motivation to stick with it.  The best way to develop a plan of action is to sort through the information you have and set a daily routine that will map out the route you need to take to arrive at your goal.

For online marketing, there are 4 main goals.

1. Develop or find a product.
2. Generate traffic.
3. Gather leads.
4. Make sales.
5. Analyzing results.

Sounds simple right? It really is if you set your daily routines with these goals as the main focus. Lets break down each goal into a workable routine.

1. Developing or finding products. Whether you are selling information or tangible products, you need to spend a certain amount of time either creating them or sourcing them out. The easiest way is through affiliate programs where you sell someone else’s product for a commission. There are many different sources such as Clickbank, Commission Junction, Amazon and Paydotcom where you can find products that will pay you anywhere from 5%-75% of the sale price. Creating your own e-books and videos or membership sites is another way of generating a sellable product.

Whichever you choose, you should focus one day per week with this sole purpose in mind.

2. Generating traffic. There are a whole string of ways to do this. You can purchase traffic through advertising on other websites and pay per click ads. If you want to do it organically, you can spend time doing SEO on your website, posting in forums, answering questions in Yahoo Answers, writing articles to submit to article submission websites and commenting on blogs.

Social media and social bookmarking sites also is another way to generate traffic to your website. Posting your pages on Stumbleupon, Twitter, Facebook and other social sites is very effective. Doing up simple videos and posting them to video sharing sites like YouTube will also send lots of traffic to your site.

3. Gathering Leads. Building an email list is very important to your business. Making sure you have an opt-in box on your website and giving your visitors incentives to sign up can mean a huge difference in your bottom line at the end of each month.

If you are not skilled in this area you need to focus on learning more about it and sourcing out ways of growing your list.

4. Making sales. If you do everything else correctly the sales will automatically follow. Learning how to do effective sales copy writing and making a point of following up with your leads can add many dollars to your revenue every month. A weekly email to your list can bring you tons of sales that you would not have gotten without this little bit of effort on your part.

5. Analyzing results. You can’t get a sense of what is working and what is not unless you take the time to analyze the numbers. Tweaking is often needed to get the best results. When you take the time to go over your numbers, it will become very obvious to you where you need to focus more attention. Are you wasting your time in one area but getting great results in another? If you know this, you can focus the majority of your attention on what is working for you and therefore increase your sales and save yourself time.

You will notice that there are 5 goals and 5 work days in a week. The best way to tackle it is to devote one day per week on each specific goal and set all of the tasks that day accordingly.

If you can focus yourself in such a way you cannot help but reach your goals. Put it in writing and keep it visible at all times. This will help keep you on task.

Here is an example of the daily success routine.

Day 2- Traffic Generation

Today I will:

• Write and submit at least one article to an article submission site
• Answer 10 questions on Yahoo Answers
• Comment on 10 niche related blogs.
• Post a reply in 5 niche related forums.
• Submit my latest blog posts in all of the popular social bookmark sites.

If you break each of the goals down into doable actions it becomes easy to get into the success habit. It becomes routine for you and you will start to see the results. It is the results that will, in turn, keep you motivated to stick with it. The results will be dollars in the bank.

Technorati Tags: marketing for small business, setting goals, time management

For this method of market research I use the Amazon.com website. Since it is a top site for buyers in a wide variety of markets, it will give us a pretty good idea of what is hot and what is not. Here is the trick.

Search for Everything

The first thing you need to do is a very broad search. To do this just type an Astrix (*) into the search box. This will allow you to search everything. Yep…everything in every category.

Broadest search possible

From this search you will see how many products are offered in every category they offer. Now you will want to start narrowing your niche.

To do this you will begin digging deeper within a category that interests you. If you already have a niche you can go into a corresponding category. If you are searching out a brand new niche you can start wherever your heart desires.

Go deeper into the category

To narrow the niche you just keep clicking deeper into the category until you find a reasonably specific niche. For this example I have chosen the Toys & Games category and have navigated deeper into the 5-7 year old niche where there are approx. 32,000 products within this category.

Top Selling Products

Now by going to the sort box on the right and selecting  “Bestselling”, Amazon will show me the #1 selling products within that niche. I can now source out those products, build an Amazon store or create an information product and be confident that I am promoting a hot product.  This greatly increases my chances of finding a profitable niche.

Internet Marketing for Small Business | Niche Marketing Course | Finding Profitable Niches | Social Media Marketing

Technorati Tags: best selling niche products, finding products to sell, finding profitable niches

I found this site that helps to save you some time. Domize is a service I use to quickly search for available domain names.

With this service you get:

• Real-time results as you type
• Immediately see what domain extensions are available
• Have the ability to do advanced searches to generate larger lists
• Do multiple searches within the same session

When you find an available domain name you can even click through to go directly to GoDaddy to register it. How cool is that?

Technorati Tags: domain name search, finding available domain names

Why should your small business have a blog?

• The first reason is to build trust with your potential buyers. When they read your blog they can get a feel for your personality, ethics and workmanship. You become a real person to them and therefore more trustworthy.
• The second advantage is the ability to interact with your present or future customers. Ask for feedback or get their opinions. A blog invites people to leave comments. This is particularly useful if you are testing a new product or trying to improve the buyer experience on your website.
• The biggest advantage is the value it adds to your website. From a search engine’s perspective, their product is information. They want to deliver the most up-to-date information to their customers (ie: searchers). Each post you add to your blog counts as fresh content or another page added to your website. Google and other search engines thrive on fresh new content and will give your site more value than any site that is not blogging.
• Effective use of keywords and SEO for each blog post can skyrocket your website to the top of Google and other search engine rankings.

But how do you blog effectively? There are many free or paid internet marketing courses online that will show you the art of blogging for small businesses. There is a science to it but thankfully it is not rocket science. Anyone can do it once they know how. Find an internet marketer who has experience and is willing to teach and mentor you to the top. The best ones will teach the basics of internet marketing your small business for free so you will be making sales online before paying for more advanced lessons.

Internet Marketing for Small Business | Niche Marketing Course | Finding Profitable Niches | Social Media Marketing

Technorati Tags: blogging for small business, how to blog, internet marketing for small business, small business blogs