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I Was Googled

It was just yesterday that an old friend of mine got in touch with me by Googling my first and last name. He found all sorts of articles, which mentioned my name, including my own website as #1.

Googling Your Name is Money in Your Pocket

This reminded me of a client I had who was nowhere to be seen when you Googled their name. This was a huge problem since they were 100% referral and many people searched for their company name on the Internet to find their website. It took two months for them to start showing up, but when they did, it was a HUGE money maker for them. Potential customers who had been referred were finally able to find them.

With the pursuit of optimizing a site for certain keywords, so many companies forget to optimize for their own company name.

The Proof is in the Puddin’

A recent study by Nielsen//Netratings suggest that when web users know the name of a website, they prefer to type in a domain name in the “search box” of Google or Yahoo, rather than typing a domain name into the browser bar.

What does this tell you? Well, it says that if someone has heard of your company, they’re either going to type in your website name or your domain name into the search box and your website better be ready and waiting at the top of the search engines.

Do YOU show up when your name or company name is Googled?

Here’s How You Do It

To search engine optimize (SEO) your company name on your website, here are some tips. (This isn’t an exhaustive list of all that you can do, but it’s enough to get you started.)

** Choose one page on your website to optimize for your company name. It might be your Home page, Contact Us page or About Us page. I recommend your About Us page – it seems that it’s easier and better to talk about you on that page than any other page. Conversely, the Home page should be all about them (What’s In It For Me?) – not about you.

** Add your company name to the ALT tags where possible. ALT tags are the tags that are connected to the images of your website. Search engines don’t index images, so any text on your site that is in the form of an image won’t get indexed. The search engines read the text and the keywords in the ALT tags instead.

** Add your company name to your Meta Tags: namely, Meta titles, Meta description and Meta keywords. A recent study showed that only 34% of Web site owners knew enough to include a simple keyword Meta tag on their website. Therefore, if you add a keyword and properly optimize the rest of your page, you’ll be doing more than 66% of website owners. Of the 34% of owners who DO add Meta data, so many forget to add their company name to the titles, description and keywords! They only remember to add keywords related to their products/services. If YOU remember to do this, think how much further ahead you’ll be…

** Add your company name as a keyword to your chosen page’s body and work it into the content at least 3-4 times. Try to place it one time nearer to the top of the page body. Repeat your company name at the start and end of your paragraphs and near the end of the body. That way, search engines won’t make any mistake about the content since your company name is used repetitively and throughout the content.

** Where possible, include your company name within your hyperlinks. For example on the Home page, you could include the words “Contact XYZ Company” within the hyperlink copy instead of just “Contact Us”.

** Finally be patient. With these steps and ONLY these steps, I helped one company go from not showing up on Google at all, to #1 in Google for their company name.

"Find Profitable Niches with Niche Navigator"

No matter what business you are in it always helps to be seen as an expert. If you were calling someone to fix a drain or sell your house you would approach the person you saw as most credible and reputable in that area of expertise.

To become an expert takes hard work and experience. It can involve study or the honing of practical skills. It demands high standards of work. But after all this effort will you be perceived as an expert? If you feel you’ve earned the mantle of expert but are not recognized as one, here are nine ways to start establishing your reputation.

Publish a book or series of reports

The internet has made this much easier. You can now create an ebook that can be downloaded without having to involve a publisher. A well-written book or series of reports will establish your reputation as an expert in your field.

Publish a newsletter

Set one up on the internet and distribute it to your customers. This is an excellent way to regularly keep your name in front of your prospects as an authority on your subject.

Write press releases

Used correctly these can gain you a lot of positive publicity. Make sure the press release looks like newsworthy information and not like an advertisement.

Write Articles

By publishing information packed articles, you’ll soon enjoy the status of being seen as an authority on your topic. This can lead to joint ventures and many other exciting opportunities that you would have never enjoyed otherwise.

Create a website

Set up a user-friendly website that will appeal to customers and you have expanded the reach of your reputation. Keep it timely and informative, and people will continue to return to your site. If you don’t know how to set up a website there are plenty of web designers who do. Alternatively enquire at a college teaching web design. Some students might want to build a portfolio.

Join associations

If you are a member of an association it will enhance your credibility. But don’t just be a member. Be an active member. This will build your reputation among your peers and lead to useful introductions. Membership can have many benefits, and it will certainly keep you up to date in your field.

Networking

You can boost your reputation and influence by speaking to the right people. Keep your name in front of your prospects. Organize mutually beneficial ventures. You cannot predict what may come from a contact so make as many as you can.

Public Speaking

Even speaking to a local group of people can establish you as an expert and get you referrals that may lead to a wider audience. If you are not sure you can speak in public, preparation and rehearsal are the keys to success. Make sure your presentation is aimed at the right level, follows a sensible sequence and will not sound like a dry textbook-style monologue. Write your main points on small cards so you are not relying solely on your memory and start in front of a small audience.

Teach workshops or seminars

If you have knowledge that people would like to tap into, you can pass on your expertise. If your presentation is well planned you will be seen as an authority in your chosen subject. You will also meet people who are likely to recommend you to others. If you are teaching a hot topic you will also be gaining a useful income stream.

Any of these methods will start building your reputation as an expert. Use them all correctly and you will gain the sort of reputation that will have potential clients approaching you without having to seek them out.

"Find Profitable Niches with Niche Navigator"

The newest online branding site is free. Build your IM faceplate, enter your profile and personal data. Link to your social network profiles. Build the page up with suitable articles and watch the system work for you.

While the traffic experts talk about this way and that way to get to tons of laser beamed traffic to your site, they always seem to forget to mention how they get traffic by being a traffic grabbing parasite.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise to you when you consider the simple fact that dominating search engines like Google will flood your site with prospects who will whip out their credit cards at the drop of a hat.

In fact, being a traffic parasite was so profitable that the big parasite hosts started banning IM and business opportunity related affiliates from using their services. Traffic parasites would use other people’s website to advertise lists of favourite exchanges, safelists and home based business opportunities.

That’s why even long time owners of traffic exchanges can’t use Ezine Articles or Squidoo to promote their sites.

And if you are anything like me – then you know deep within your heart – that it is wrong to stifle the message of creating life changing income, right? But that was yesterday…Today your voice can be heard.

Logiscape just launched IM faceplate where you can use their reputation and their hosting to drive traffic to your sites without having to worry about being censored by people who really don’t have a clue about affiliate marketing.

And I am sure you will agree if the folks at Logiscape know one thing about internet marketing – it’s getting traffic! I know that getting traffic by being a traffic parasite may seem a bit incredible to you, that’s totally understandable. Being a traffic parasite reaps visitors like there is no tomorrow, all I ask is that you start getting IMfaceplate traffic from this page and watch the amazing results.

It is free to sign up. What more can you ask for? As always, I am never going to recommend any product or service that will not help you with your online marketing. This service will help – and it is free.

"Find Profitable Niches with Niche Navigator"

Affiliate websites are notorious for having crappy branding, while a solid branding strategy can add thousands to the average affiliate’s bottom line. Because of this, I’m leading the charge on bringing branding back to affiliate marketing. Branding an affiliate site is not hard to do and the reward is HUGE.

A brand, in short, delivers your users/readers a cohesive set of experiences that they can expect from your business. Basically, your brand image acts as a symbol of the positive, unique and trustworthy experience they have with you.

A cohesive branding campaign can build immense value into your business and gives your customers the confidence that when they deal with you, they’ll get something special.

There are numerous underlying psychological aspects of the importance of branding.  But, for our methods here, we’ll stick to the one that is important to affiliate marketing:- TRUST

Your main job with your branding is to earn the trust of your readers.  When they trust you, they buy from you.

So, your affiliate sites, freebies, emails and anything else they come into contact with must have continuity in their message. Your name, logos, brand image, attitude and ethos must be ubiquitous in everything you do.  When it is, your readers will know exactly what to expect when they see your site, emails and any promotions from you.  This means better open rates, more trust and more sales both through your site and to products you upsell in emails.

Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest businesses to get into, largely, because of the low upfront cost. But, this doesn’t mean you should spend NO money on it.

Expect that at some point, you’ll be spending money on domains, hosting, freelancers, bonuses, advertising and more. Of course, to every rule there is an exception, but most affiliate marketers end up spending money on at least some of the above.

In addition to initial expenses are the tools that will help you make money.  Research and site building tools are the ones I’ve found give the most return for their outlay.  There are a number of tools out there that aggregate data in a way you could NEVER do manually, and these help you make better, more informed, more-likely-to-make-you-money decisions.

Likewise, site builders (software that helps you build your blogs/sites faster), can help you address markets faster and often, more professionally and with better sales results.

The affiliate strategy can be broken down into the following components…

• Research and find market
• Build effective sites and create content
• Traffic acquisition

We have already covered researching and finding a product and we also covered some aspects of building a website. Let’s have a closer look at that now.

You have three options when it comes to starting an affiliate site ‐ build a regular website, build a blog or buy an existing site or blog that’s already marketed to your niche.

I’ve used my fair share of both websites and blogs. But, in my experience and conversations with other successful affiliates, blogs seem to have a more successful track record, both for traffic and revenue.

In the past, blogs were used predominantly as their namesake suggests, daily web logs.  Users would write their daily thoughts, use them as personal journals and companies would use them to keep their customers up to date on news.

However, in the past couple years (and with the exploding popularity of WordPress), blogs have become much more than simple journals and have turned into money-making powerhouses.  Here are a few reasons blogs work so well for affiliate marketing…

1. They’re newbie friendly. Blogs are especially suited to those that are new to the web, with a very friendly user-interface, they’re easily updated and easily managed.
2. They’re also great for SEO. Easy and frequent updates, crawlable urls, blog directories for linking, pinging, RSS and well structured content all contribute to blog superiority in the search engines.
3. Blogs attract regular readers. Because of their frequent updates, blogs give readers a reason to come back day after day. Static websites, unless they’re updated with a script, don’t have the same ‘pull’.
4. Blogs generally link more freely to each other.  We’ll call it a more community feel, but blogs are MUCH easier to get links to, than regular websites. This is great for SEO (mentioned above) and for non‐search related traffic.  Which, depending on where the traffic is coming from, can be as good or better quality.

This, of course, is not to say there are no benefits to regular websites.  We’ll discuss more traditional sites a little later, along with a fast and easy way to monetize them.

There are a number of ways you can fill your affiliate blog with content. Some are easier than others. You have three major goals with your blogs’ content.

1. Inform
2. Sell
3. Get your readers to come back

In the next section, I’ll explain the ways you should be monetizing your traffic.   But, if nothing else, you should take away this idea ‐ you need to be using EVERY method you can, to monetize the traffic you have.  I’ve seen plenty of websites that, if they were to employ just 1 or 2 more monetization strategies, they’d double or triple their earnings. From the traffic they already have!

The following are NOT simply suggestions. Each technique MUST be used on your blog for the most traffic, repeat traffic and sales possible. I’ve broken them down by topic…

a) Update, update, update.
Repeat traffic, beyond anything else, will grow your traffic faster than anything else.  So, updating your site or blog with new products and new articles keeps your readers coming back, looking for what’s new.

b) Feature a single or a select number of products.
When running an affiliate site, it’s important to direct your site’s visitors to the products YOU want them to buy. It’s a fine line you need to walk. Offer them a massive selection, but guide them through the buying process. People love choices, but they also love to be told what the best choice is.

c) Give information.
This includes articles, videos and audio. The more information you give, the more your readers will think of your site (remember your brand) as a hub of information. They’ll trust your site more, trust its recommendations, spend more time on it, click more ads, be more likely to come back and subsequently, will be more likely to make purchases.

d) Professional appearance and logo.
This is somewhat an extension of our prior branding discussion, so not much discussion needed here – the more professional, the more trust, the more sales.  Brand yourself as such.

e) Collect opt-ins.
This will be talked about later in the section called “The Optin Option”. It’s crucial you give your readers
a reason to sign up to your site.  Give away free information, ebooks, video series’, etc, but just get them on your list. Your list will be worth its weight in gold.  (Which isn’t much, since everything’s virtual, but you know what I mean).

f) Give bonuses to purchasers.
Your mission as an affiliate is to give your traffic a compelling reason to purchase through your site.  One very powerful way to give your readers incentive to take the next step, is to give bonuses to purchasers. The idea is very simple. You tell your readers something to the effect of – “Make any purchase through this site and you’ll receive immediate access to our catalog of select bonuses. These bonuses  are not available anywhere else. To get access, simply purchase the product of your choice and email us with your receipt. We’ll give you instant access…”

Of course, you should use different (more thought out) vernacular, but you get the point.  It’s this extra incentive that will give surfers the impetus to come back to your site and make purchases through you, as opposed to someone else.

After all, the products you and your competitors are promoting are all the same price, they might as well order through you and get your bonuses.

Once you’ve done it the first time, the system is stupidly easy to manage.

• Find or create a couple simple bonuses.
• Offer them on your site.
• Set up an autoresponder with Aweber that, when they email you, sends them back an email that has them subscribe to your list for the bonuses.
• Put their bonuses in your first followup message.

In the end, you’ve done two things:-
a) Given your traffic a compelling reason to order through you and
b) Built up your opt-in list with buyers (who’ll be likely to buy later also).

You will undoubtedly get freebie seekers that haven’t made purchases through your site.  Who cares! They’re just more people on your list that may buy from you in the future.  After all, at least they are interested in the niche.

In addition to marketing affiliate products on your blog or site, there are a number of potential (and lucrative) income streams you should consider.  Ideally, you want to employ as many monetization strategies as possible, to get the very most from your traffic.

If you’re making $1000/month from your blog with direct affiliate sales and could add another $1000/month from marketing to your list and another $1000/month from text and ad sales, why wouldn’t you?

Some monetization strategies pay more than others.  Collecting optins and email marketing should be done no matter what – as this almost always pays well.  Adsense may be one of your smallest earners.

I’ve given you the strategy along with a description of each below. Your task is to choose the strategies that you want to use on your blog.  The amount each earns will be determined in large part by the amount of traffic your blog receives. The only strategy I’ve found to be an absolute requirement is collecting opt-ins for your list. No matter what market you’re in, your list will be worth its weight in gold.

If you’ve spent any time in the affiliate world, you’ve run across the idea of building a list.  This, with no exceptions, is a must. There are various ways to build a list, but the easiest is to offer something of value to those that sign up. Long story short, it looks like this:-

• Give something of value.
• Collect sign-ups.
• Email list with freebies and affiliate offers you’ll make commissions on.

As with article marketing, the more you give the more you get. The same idea applies with freebies on your site. Plus, it’s logical. The more valuable the freebie, likely the more valuable the actual product is to be.

It’s important to keep in mind that it’s not the initial email collection that’s the most significant part of building a list.  It’s the follow-ups.  Like your freebie, your follow‐ups should be valuable.  Get your list used to value in your emails, and when you up‐sell products, they’ll expect the products are also valuable and be more likely to make the purchases you suggest.

A FEW MORE THOUGHTS ON EMAILS TO YOUR LIST:-

• Carry your brand experience through in your emails, remember the importance of trust.
• Be personable and friendly.
• I know I just mentioned it but it’s easy to forget ‐ Offer value and email them with something they will find of interest.  If you can’t do this, don’t send an email.

Both text links ad sales and banner ads are a fantastically easy way to earn money from your blog.  Most banner/text links ad sales go like this:

* Advertiser finds you (either directly through the site or through a service), requests an ad placement.
* You put their text link or banner on your site.
* They pay on a monthly basis.

What you charge is determined by your market (some markets pay better than others) and the amount of traffic your blog gets.  The more traffic, the more you can charge.

The first thing you should do is create a page called ‘Advertise’ on your blog.  You can then use this page to tell potential advertisers what their options and pricing are.  (I’ve personally purchased many an ad from blogs that did exactly this.)  This is a solid example of what a good advertise page looks like:- http://www.tylercruz.com/advertise/

Standard options include text links, reviews, 125×125 and 468×60 banner ads.  But, what you offer is completely up to you.

There are a number of services that enable you to advertise through your blog post content.  One such is Kontera.

This service selects relevant keywords from your blog’s posts and links them to advertisers through their system.  Like Adsense, the advertiser pays you when your readers click
the links.  Please note:- I have no experience using Kontera or other in‐text advertising.

So, do your research before committing.

Adsense offers an incredibly easy way (albeit, one of the lowest paying) to make additional money from simple clicks. In short, you put an Adsense block on your site, a percentage your traffic clicks on the ads and you get paid per click.
A far better alternative is CBProAds. They offer a variety of ads including picture ads – see to the right of this post – targeted to your needs with higher commissions than Adsense, paid into your Clickbank account.

You also should be using Articles, Forums, Classifieds, etc to promote your website. More on this in future posts.