Monthly Archives: August 2016

Blogging Tips: Beginners Can Jump Start Their Progress

Blogging Tips…Beginners Can Jump Start Their Businesses

Give Stuff Away

Freebies, lead magnets, tripwires, ethical bribes, opt-ins, and so forth can be lucrative ways to collect email addresses from your audience so that you can market to them via email. When you give away small things to help them accomplish their goals, you’ll endear yourself to them in a new way. Here are some valuable blogging tips – beginners can jump start their progress by following and implementing these tips.

To give away stuff without giving away the farm, follow these tips:

Use PLR – To create your freebies consider using private label rights information that will appeal to your audience and help further your relationship.

One Problem – Help them solve one small problem, not the entire kit and caboodle. You want them to come back for more, so in your freebie give them enough to show them your work quality and skills but don’t give them the farm.

One Customer – Don’t try to please everyone, make each of your offerings focus on one persona / customer at a time. Create a profile for the ideal customer and direct your product only to the people that fit the profile. This works better than trying to appeal to everyone.

Make it Short – A checklist, a spreadsheet, a simple app – these things won’t take much time and money for you to create but will make a huge impact on your audience member if you are careful to ensure it fits your audience.

Remember that you can also choose to “give it away” for just a buck. Optionally, if you use a system like Gumroad.com, you can let them pay whatever they want, as long as it’s at least a dollar. When a freebie isn’t actually “free” but is very inexpensive it can make more to the user and make them value you more. When they value you more, they’ll be more likely to come back. Remember inside your opt-in provide a link back to your blog, and to other products, services and offerings you have.

Get Visual

People get bored without pretty and interesting things to look at. In the case of your blog, you also want the images to be relevant. You want them to expand on your point and help your audience not only understand but to remember the information you provide. Images can brand you in such a way as to ensure that your audience really remembers you.

Images – You can get stock photos from a variety of sources including StockFresh.com, StockUnlimited.com, and others. Be sure to read the licensing agreement and try to learn about copyright laws and fair use.

Video – Today, video is one of the best ways to create a loyal audience as well as engage with them. They love seeing your face and feeling as if they know you. You can create video the easy way or the hard way. Easy – use your phone and decent lighting. Hard – buy professional equipment. Either way, video will get great results.

Graphics – Infographics, memes and charts are a great way to explain hard concepts to any audience. There are awesome programs. A great infographic software to try is Piktochart.com. You can also hire a graphic designer to help you. If you have the data, they can create the graphic.

You can use programs like Canva.com to create amazing graphics, and use your phone to make video. Today, it’s not impossible for an amateur to create wonderful images, video and graphics but if your skills aren’t up to par, don’t think it’s too expensive to get help from a professional.

Build Authority

Another way to get more loyal blog followers is to become the go-to person in your niche. You can be viewed as the authority by being a guest on a podcast, TV show, blog, and so forth. You can also build authority by demonstrating your skills by creating amazing products and services that your audience wants to use.

Write Long Form Posts – Long posts, more than 1500 words in length, are a great way to show what you know. Well-organized, long content pieces show that you know your stuff. When you know your stuff, people will gravitate to your content.

Publish a Book – When you can put your knowledge down in book form people automatically view you as smarter, more successful, and intelligent. Don’t let a book scare you, if you can write a blog post, you can write a book, one page at a time.

Speak – You can speak in public events, or by creating a YouTube channel, or even by recording talks and publishing on your blog. When people are able to speak clearly, tell a story and explain concepts in this manner it automatically makes them seem more authoritative.

Another way to build authority is simply by finding your authentic voice and using it on your blog and across all social media networks that you and your audience use. When you are simply yourself, it’s a lot easier than being false because no one can be false forever.

Engage With Others

As a blogger, there is almost nothing more important than truly engaging and interacting with your audience. You want your audience to comment, like, share and sign up to your lists or buy your products and services and you can accomplish that is by being engaging and encouraging. To encourage engagement it’s important that you know how to get them to respond.

It all starts with truly knowing your audience. Understand that even if you did a lot of audience research five years ago when you began your blog that even when demographics stay the same often audiences grow and change. For example, imagine what it would be like if Dawn dishwashing soap still marketed to you using the same techniques and issues from the 1950’s? The message probably wouldn’t even reach you and if it did, it would not go over well. Stay up to date and interact with them in a way that makes them happy. After all, it’s really about them, not you.

The Money’s In the List

The final thing you need to know about blogging and keeping a loyal fan base is that you should focus on bringing them back to your blog, every chance you get. There are many ways to do this.

Blog Broadcast – If you have an autoresponder, for every post you create, also create an email to talk about a similar topic and then link back to the blog post so that they can learn more.

Social Media – Announce blog posts on social media with a unique blurb. You can post about the new post more than once on each platform, more on Twitter, but don’t make each post a duplicate of the other. Instead, add a unique blurb to each one, even if it’s the same link.

You want to find ways to bring readers and customers back to your blog to read your new blog posts, as well as learn about your products, services, and programs. When you have a way to interact with your audience on a regular basis through blog comments, social media, email, books, public speaking and more will help people become even more loyal to you as a blogger and an expert.

You don’t have to do everything at once, but you can start by adding sing up boxes to your blog posts, and sharing more on social media. As you build up your blog, do more. Track everything so that you know what works and what doesn’t work. Do more of what is working and less of what is not working.

Do You Have a Strong Work Ethic?

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Work Ethic Years ago I met a man on a flight between Los Angeles and Chicago. He asked me if I knew what people from most of the United States thought about people who were from California. I shook my head, but then attempted to guess. Perhaps they thought we had it too easy because the weather was so favorable, or that we were a little crazy or liberal, or that we all wanted to become movie stars. No, none of these was what he was about to share with me.

This man told me that the perception of people from the Golden State was that we didn’t follow through and do what we said we would do, and that we lacked a strong work ethic. This surprised me until I gave it further thought.

While I was in law school in New York during the late 1970s my fellow law students regularly teased me for being too “laid back”, meaning that I was more casual in my attitude, the way I dressed, and how I approached life in general. It was true; my jeans and long shirts were comfortable and I didn’t feel like I needed to impress anyone while I was a student. Also, I was more easygoing than the people I met in New York and took most things in stride. The ability to be unflappable and non-confrontational seemed to be desirable traits in my way of thinking. But I believed I was just as serious and studious as my peers.

But the part this man mentioned about Californians not possessing a strong work ethic? I would have to take issue with that comment. Although I had never thought of myself as a hard worker, I was always willing to do what it took to accomplish the task at hand. Could it be that I did not fully understand what he meant by the term “work ethic”?

It was only a few months ago that the phrase popped up in my life once again. It when I watched a video with actor and motivational speaker Wil Smith, where he brought up how his “ridiculous work ethic” ensured that he could always win a challenge or a contest, and achieve his life goals and dreams. This video is below. What do think about what Wil Smith says?

Blogging Tips for Beginners

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Blogging Tips for Beginners

Blogging is an effective way to expand your business, attract more clients, and maintain relationships with your current clients. But, how do you make your blog visitors into loyal followers? Here are some blogging tips for beginners, but first, think about these four steps as you begin…

Identify both your current audience and your desired target audience.
Create original content that caters to the interests of your readers.
Use SEO (search engine optimized) keywords to attract new readers to your work.
Establish yourself as an authority on your topic(s).

It really boils down to posting relevant content and finding ways to remind them about you via email, social media and even ads. Let’s look at the ways you can get more loyal blog followers and keep them coming back for more.

Post More Content

You’ve most likely heard that before. But, it’s not that simple. You can’t post anything and end up with fans following you and begging for more. You have to know who your audience is, and what they need to know and post that. Content needs to be relevant and of a high quality to be effective.

Relevant – The only way you can ensure that your content is relevant is if you do the work necessary to get to know your audience so that you can deliver the type of content they want and need.

High Quality – While you do not have to be perfect, don’t just slap up anything. If you buy PLR (private label rights), ensure that you rewrite it and make it your own. If you outsource any writing, edit the writing and put your voice into it, and always add a watermarked image so that when it’s shared it comes back to you.

Consistent – Finally, post consistently. You don’t have to blog every single day. You want to blog multiple times a week and provide meaningful content to your audience. Otherwise, they might get bored and stop visiting.

When you post relevant, high-quality content on a consistent basis in a variety of forms such as images, video, text and so forth your audience will be more likely to stay interested in what you have to say which will make them keep coming back, sharing and engaging with you. Plus, potentially buying something you created or promote.

Promote Your Content

Just posting content is not enough. There are more than 100 million blogs in existence. That’s worse than a needle in a haystack. In order for anyone, including your customers, to find you, you’re going to have to promote each piece of content that you post.

Social – Whatever social media your audience uses, you need to be using. While you can’t use them all 100 percent alone, you can at least choose the top three that is most popular with your audience. If you can outsource some of your social media marketing then you can do more, but at least start with the top three. Share and engage about your blog posts to bring more traffic and create more interest in your content.

Make it Simple to Share – Don’t make it hard on your readers to share. Get a social plugin that enables you to add share buttons at the top and bottom of your posts. Make it a point to ask your audience to “click the like and share buttons.” Make it part of your call to action.

Get Them on Your List – In addition, put a box at the bottom of every single page to encourage your readers to sign up for your newsletter. Leadpages.net offers a really great and attractive option for “lead boxes” that you can put on your blog to help people get what they need.

You can do this easily with a few plugins, but – do not forget to engage with your audience when they comment on your shares. You don’t want communication to be only one way. You want to build relationships so that they don’t just want to read your blog due to the great information; they want to read it because they care about you.

Provide a CTA (Call to ACTION!)

A call to action (CTA) is so important if you really want to make a difference. There are different ways to create a call to action. Your CTA can include asking your audience to share, like, follow, join, sign up, buy or whatever it is that you want them to do. If you really want them to take action, clearly state what you want them to do.

Ask for a Comment – A great way to get your audience to act and come back for more is to generate more comments to your posts. You can get people to comment more if you ask them to.

Be the Devil’s Advocate – If you really want to get comments rocking, try being controversial. This can be risky so be mindful of the potential repercussions. Try calling out a situation that makes you mad, sad, and upset. But, try to end it on a positive note if possible.

But a Subscribe Button after the Post – A great way to get people to subscribe for blog updates is to put a Lead Box on the bottom. You can use Leadpages.net for this. It works well and it was developed by marketers.

Offer a Free Discovery Call – A great way to get your reader’s attention is to offer a short 15-minute discovery call. Put a sign up box below the post along with words that attract their attention and get them to want to give their email address to sign up for the call.

Ask Them if They Want to Learn More – A really effective CTA asks your readers if they want to learn more, then using an attractive “learn more” button will entice the reader to click. On the learn more page it can either be more information or you can make it an easy one step opt-in box so that you can send them more information via email.

Give Them a Special – If you’ve talked about specific products or pain points in the blog post and you know about a product or have created a product that will help them, make them a special offer at the bottom of the blog post.

Offer a Freebie – Match your freebies with the topic of your blog post, and offer a download button for the freebie that relates to the blog post. Collect their email address so that you can add them to your list. If you use software like Leadpages.net, you can avoid sending to duplicate email addresses on your list, while still offering the freebie to your readers.

Ask Them to Join Your Mailing List – Get right to the point and ask them if they want to learn more, get reminds of new posts, and so forth and ask them to sign up for your mailing list. Let them know the benefits of doing so, and you’ll get more sign ups if the sign up box is after your posts.

There are many more ways to get your audience to act on your content but you’ll need to tell them what to do. People are relatively lazy, so make it easy for them. You’ll get a better response.

Podcast: Multiple Streams of Online Income

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Multiple Streams of Online Income

My most recent podcast is a discussion of multiple streams of online income as an entrepreneur. Here are some of the points I explain in great detail during the training call:

The BIG question is…

Are you taking advantage of multiple streams of online income? Let’s talk about:

The “putting your eggs in several baskets” strategy
Deciding which business model(s) to start with first
Scheduling time to “learn” and time to “do”
What to set up first in your business
Productivity tips for multiple streams entrepreneurs

Think about each of these points, listen to the podcast, and then comment below. I would love to hear your thoughts on these ideas and concepts in regards to how adding multiple streams of online income will enable you to be a more successful entrepreneur.

I also discuss some concepts about online entrepreneurship:

Someone somewhere must purchase something for you to earn money
Your blog is your “home on the internet“
Stay focused and take action every single day
Share your best writing, information, and resources
Choose a niche and one or two income streams today

Finally, I share my thoughts and ideas on…What Do You Need For Successful Entrepreneurship?

WordPress Blog/Site
Business PayPal Account
Content Creation/Publication/Syndication Strategy
Something to sell!

This podcast training is based on my recently created Focus Guide on the topic of multiple streams of online income. Download it here and take massive action quickly for best results.

Are you ready to be surprised? Recently, I have introduced a new feature during these podcast training calls. I will always have the latest course or program, either one of my own or one offered by someone I highly recommend, at my Surprise! link. Check it out today and see what I am recommending this week. If it’s not my own program, product, course, or live event then it’s always from someone I know, trust, and highly recommend as a great value to you as an online entrepreneur.

My most recent book is now available. It’s entitled Doing What It Takes: The Online Entrepreneur’s Playbook and I’d love to hear your thoughts on it by way of a review on Amazon after you read it and implement my suggesstions.

Are you already a part my list community and receiving my daily email updates and training? If not, please give me your first name and primary email address in the form on the right-hand side of this site. If you are brand new to my podcasts, you will be interested to know that this specific training call, as well as all of the calls in my podcast series is intended to teach you and other new online entrepreneurs how to take your business to the next level quickly and effectively, and as a way for me to share my exact methods, techniques, Case Studies, secrets, and advice on creating a profitable and lucrative online business using the ‘multiple income streams’ approach. People on six continents have now discovered that starting an Internet business is the very fastest way to achieve both time and financial freedom, as well as to great success in all areas of your life, and you need help to get there quickly. That’s why I started this online marketing tips podcast for my community.

You will see that each podcast session is first recorded live as a teleseminar, and then repurposed into a podcast to extend my reach to the world. Please join my list (opt in on the right) to be included on these calls, and be sure to introduce yourself and share your site for optimal exposure for years to come! Also, check out my Podcast Show Notes site to see how you can subscribe at no cost to both of my podcasts, and please leave me a review on one or both of them if you are so inclined.

If you would like to get started earning income online right away then I recommend affiliate marketing as the stream of income that will allow you to “earn while you learn” You may now pick up my popular training on winning affiliate contests and other online marketing tips for only seven dollars at Affiliate Contest Secrets. This training regularly sells for $27. Use the discount code CONTEST to bring the price down to $7. This training has been completely updated for 2016 with the latest information, strategies, and Case Studies for you to use in your own business.

Please be sure to leave your comments below so that I may get to know you better and to serve you as you continue your journey as an online entrepreneur. Getting started with an online business will change your life forever and my reward is your massive success!

Subscribe To My Online Marketing Tips Podcast Today!

Off Page SEO Tips for Your Website

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Off Page SEO Tips

An important type of SEO that you should concern yourself with is off-page search engine optimization. This is everything you do off your website to bring people to your website. That is also SEO. Let’s look at the four different types of off page SEO:

Trust

There is almost nothing more important to your success than trust. If you lose the trust of your audience, you lose sales and any authority standing. But, if you do what you say you will do and don’t disappear for long periods, you can build trust.

Are Shares/links showing authority? – When you share anything, ensure that it comes from a reliable source if it’s not from you. If it’s from you, double-check your data to be sure that you are correct.

Are you engaging with audience? – When you post anything anywhere, do you answer questions, share other things from your audience, and get involved? Don’t forget that engagement helps build trust.

Site Age — One thing that search engines like Google use to rank a website is the age of the domain. They assume if it’s around for a long time it must be something important, real, trustworthy, and relevant. You can buy older domains but check them out. You wouldn’t want to accidentally buy an old domain that disappointed someone or broken the law.

Reconsider Advertisements – Depending on the type of site you have, pay attention to how your audience views ads. Many people won’t revisit sites that have lots of ads because they tend to make computers crash. What does your audience want?

You can build trust by sharing authoritative and accurate content that you have created and that others have created. Just ensure that you double check any facts, are ready to answer questions, and you can back up what you say before you do it. Always come back to these off page SEO tips as a reference.

Links

One way to build up traffic to your website is through link building. That means that there are links going into your website from another website. For example, your LinkedIn.com profile has a link to your website. There are some important factors to consider before getting started with link building.

Who is linking to you? – First, look at who is linking to you. You want to ensure that every one that is linking to you is a legitimate site, with legitimate reasons for existing.

Are they high quality? – If the links are high quality, that’s great. The best links come from truly legitimate websites especially educational or news related sites. But, websites that have been around a long time and have a big audience work too.

Are links and anchor text thoughtful keywords? – Ensure that when someone is linking to you, such as via a guest post, or via other means, that it’s a good keyword to ensure that you get more clicks.

How many people are linking to your site? – Another factor about linking is that the more links you get the better. However, they still need to be high quality and built in a natural way. That’s why article-marketing sites don’t exist anymore.

How to get more – To get more links, find authoritative websites or blogs to guest post on. Send a letter to them with a post idea that you can write. Let them know when you’ll send it from the time they agree and then stick to that.

It’s very important that you never pay for a link. Avoid link farms and spam. Getting links back to your website should be a natural result of the work you do on social media, guest posting, conducting webinars, interviews and more.

Geography

Another factor that is important when it comes to SEO is geography. In some cases, you won’t want the search engine to index you geographically. This could keep some of your audience from ever finding you. But, don’t overlook the importance of geography.

You can use both your country and your individual locality by using those terms within your website. Put your address at the bottom of every page, mention things about your area within your blog posts, and make it a priority to mention your local area or your country if you want to be indexed accordingly.

Social

This is by far one of the most important off page SEO tactics. Using social media effectively can do wonders for your website traffic. But, you have to come up with a good plan of action and see it through rather than just getting on social media and posting willy-nilly.

Look at your social shares and find out who is sharing your content. You want to ensure that they’re reputable and if they are, you can surely get more people to share it. But the biggest key to getting others to share is to ask them.

Grow Your Followers – Run a contest, a give a way, or other event to build your followers on the social media platform you’re trying to promote and build.

Ask People to Share – When you share anything on social media, ensure that no matter how far it’s shared that it will lead back to you and ask people to share. If you don’t ask, they won’t do it.

Keep Your Content Optimized – People will click on your content, often by chance. Make sure you’ve optimized it as much as you can. Check page titles, meta descriptions, alt tags, and so forth. Make it the best you can.

Follow Influencers – You may need to follow influencers before they’ll follow you. Mention their name in posts, and call them out so that they notice you. Don’t be a pest, but identify the influencers you most want to mention you and find a way to stand out.

Keep Your Brand Solid – Try not to go off brand and lose your voice on social media. It’s easy to get mixed up with your personal accounts and your business accounts, but don’t cross them. Instead, practice your brand voice, and keep true to your brand.

Social media is an amazing opportunity for big and small business. There are people who have become millionaires by using Instagram creatively and strategically. Use social media to push people toward your website and you can’t go wrong.

Search engine optimization can mean the difference between success and failure. If you really want to get a lot of targeted traffic to your website then take a look at your on and off page search engine optimization. It’s not hard, just go through the list, improve one thing at a time and soon you’ll see a huge difference in your traffic.

What are some questions you have on this topic of off page SEO? What is your biggest takeaway from these off page SEO tips?

Simple SEO Tips for Online Entrepreneurs

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Some Simple SEO Tips

Search engine optimization (SEO) is something you’ve likely heard about before. It can help you attract organic (unpaid) traffic to your website. There is a lot more to SEO than keywords to learn about. This post is not comprehensive; but it will give you the meat of what SEO is, the different types of SEO, what it does, and how to do it. Now to the simple SEO tips you need as an online entrepreneur…

On Page SEO

Essentially on-page SEO is any SEO that you do directly on each page of your website and it all starts with content. But, it also includes architecture, and the actual code within your website.

Content

Anything you put on your website that disseminates information to your audience is content. Posts, articles, memes, images, and graphics – all of it is content. You want to have a variety of different types of content for maximum SEO value.

Quality vs. Quantity – While it’s true that you want to put up a lot of content for your audience it’s more important for the content to be of high quality. You do want to put up content more often than monthly but you don’t need to put up several things each day if it will compromise the quality of the information you put up for your audience.

Keyword Research – many people choose not to do keyword research but if you do it, you’ll waste less time creating content that doesn’t get results and end up with more time to create awesome content that does get results.

Use Words Strategically – Try to figure out what type of power words make your audience feel something and want to do something. There are general power words that you can use such as “devastating blow” or “majestic views” or something that gets their attention and makes them feel.

Hot Topics, Updated, and Fresh – A great way to make use of the time you have to create content is to focus on hot topics and trends of the day. Keep the content updated and fresh by using headlines of the day to evoke curiosity. Warning: Don’t try to trick your readers with clickbait. It only works a few times then it stops working and you’ve lost something important: Trust.

Horizontal & Vertical –You want a combination of both types of content. Think of it this way, horizontal content overs everything on your website is full of content on all pages like your about us page, or home page and that it’s consistent throughout. Vertical content concerns itself with a specific topic and goes across all channels and how they work to improve your website.

Provide Solutions – Your content also should seek to provide solutions for your audience. They want you to help them solve their problems. They should be able to solve some of their problems without buying anything and your content can fulfill that need.

Authoritative – Longer more in-depth content such as long blog posts, white papers, and articles as well as guides can help people and search engines know that your site is serious and that you are there to help your audience. I recently created a Focus Guide that is almost seven thousand words in length, and this can most definitely be considered as authoritative content.

When it comes to content and SEO you have a lot of ways that you can improve your content by using good SEO practices such as using keywords within the first paragraph, the title, subheadings and headings as well as anchor text. It is my hope that these simple SEO tips will be helpful in your business. What are your thoughts on this topic?

On Page SEO Checklist for Your Business Sites

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Your On Page SEO Checklist

Another on page SEO factor is the architecture of your website. If your page doesn’t load fast, then even if people do click through to read due to your headlines and content, they’ll lose patients and quit. Ensure that all of the following is optimized. Here is an on page SEO checklist:

On Page SEO Checklist: Architecture

Site Maps – Search engines need to crawl or ‘see’ your pages in order to index them. If the search engines can’t do that, your info won’t be listed on search pages. The best thing to do is create a site map so that the search engines can easily crawl and index your website.

Avoid Duplicate Content – You’ve heard it before and it’s true. To be sure, check any content you put on your website with Copyscape.com or Grammarly.com or another plagiarism checker. Even if you didn’t purposely plagiarize, you want everything to be unique on your site.

Responsive – Your site must be mobile right now. There is no time to wait until later. If your site is not mobile, Google is not going to keep listing it. Plus most people use mobile devices to interact with the net these days.
Load Speeds – Having a website that loads slow is bad for you and bad for users and due to that, it’s bad for SEO. You can test your website speed here. You want it to be less than 10 seconds, if not about 3 seconds.

Meaningful Page URLs – This goes back to using keywords in titles. You want the URL to say what’s on that page. Rather than saying page 1 or page 2, make sure it says “about your business” or “take a course” so that people and search engines know what will be on the page.

Security – If you sell anything on your website, having secure HTTPS with an SSL certificate is important not just to people using the site but Google ranks secure sites higher than the others do. Ask your webhost for information about this.

How your site is arranged and whether or not your audience can find what they want on your page is imperative for good SEO.

On Page SEO Checklist: HTML

The other aspect of your on page SEO that you need to concern yourself with is all the HTML code. If you use a good builder like self-hosted WordPress this will be take care of for you for the most part, or it’ll be easy to do it.

Titles with Keywords – All your titles for every page and blog post should include a keyword, say what’s on that page, and what’s in that blog post. This will help that page rank higher due to it being clear what’s on it.

Meta Descriptions – Within the website, behind the scenes are meta codes. These bits of code tell search engines what’s inside. You’ll be given an opportunity to fill out the meta descriptions if you use a good plugin like Yoast SEO to help you. Don’t skip this as you create your website, it’s important.

Is Your Navigation Well Structured? – Also, you want to be sure that your audience can take one look at your home page or landing page and know exactly what to do and how to get around your site. A great thing to do is create a “start here” guide to help them know what to do first and how to get around if your site is large.

Using Headers – Headlines, subheads, and proper H1/H2 tags are super important to use not only for your audience, because it’s easier to read chunky content online, but for the search engines because these clues to the content on your site help them send the right audience.

If you hire a web designer, ensure that they’ll help you with these things because they’re super important for your success. If you are doing it yourself, learn all you can, and use a great website builder like self-hosted WordPress. What other questions or comments do you have regarding on page SEO?

Visibility Tips and Increasing Your Credibility

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Visibility Tips and Increasing Your Credibility

The competition may seem fierce when you’re starting out in the world of business, so spending the time to increase and build your visibility and credibility is crucial to your success. Here are some methods, techniques, and strategies on how to do this in a way that will serve you as you work to achieve your goals as an online entrepreneur. The visibility tips will particularly serve you well.

Blog regularly, and by this I mean twice a week during your first year online. This allows your site to become what we refer to as an “authority site”, where people will be able to find it more easily and refer to what you share when they are searching for more information.
Use social media strategically – like I say regularly, you’ll want to “get in, get out, and get back to work!” when it comes to social media. I regularly see people involved in discussions on Facebook that would be some much better as blog posts and comments. Have a presence on the main social media sites (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, and YouTube) but commit to spending no more than fifteen minutes on any day in total on these sites.
Host a podcast – I’ve hosted two podcasts for almost five years now. The results have been nothing short of miraculous and I continue to connect with even more people who resonate with my message in this way.
Start a YouTube channel – my channel is one I refer to as a “lifestyle” channel in that I mainly post and share videos of my travels around the world and the lifestyle I am able to enjoy because of my online business.
Write a book on your topic – I know this may sound like a huge undertaking, but the truth is that becoming a writer will serve you well as an online entrepreneur. My first book came about in 2010 when I repurposed fifty blog posts and then added additional content. Now I write every single day and have published fourteen books on various aspects of entrepreneurship.
Think about your offline connections and reach out to them regularly – Please do not be shy when it comes to building relationships for your business. We are isolated much of the time because of the very nature of how we do business on the Internet, so connecting with others is valuable for so many reasons.

When people tell me they see me “everywhere” on the Internet a huge grin comes across my face. That is exactly the goal I have in mind, so a validation that what I am doing and teaching is working pleases me to no end. These credibility and visibility tips work.

Go through the bullet points I’ve included above and make a list of the ones you will commit to implementing now and which ones you will work on over time. I promise you that this is all much easier and simpler than it may seem, and once you get started you will be amazed at how quickly your results come about. The people who rise to success most quickly have mastered the art of gaining credibility and increasing visibility on a daily business and you can learn to do that as well.

My YouTube channel is a joy for me to maintain. I record short videos in locations all over the world, as well as in Santa Barbara. You can see what I’m doing (and please subscribe to my channel!) at https://www.youtube.com/c/connieragengreen and watch some of my videos to get ideas for your own channel. In the image above you can see that I had recently been spending time with my family in Finland.

What other visibility tips and credibility techniques are working well for you?

Internet Marketing First Steps

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Internet Marketing First Steps

The first steps to internet marketing success may seem like a challenge, but it will all go smoothly if you take it one step at a time. Remember that every step and every breath you take will either move you closer to or further away from your dreams and goals.

Here are the internet marketing first steps I recommend for you to take over the next seven to ten days.

Think about the lifestyle you would like to create for yourself and your family. Now think about the business that would enable you to live that lifestyle. Make some notes in a journal or online document to express exactly what your life will look like when you set up a business on the Internet.
Choose a niche topic to focus on, at least for the next six months. Start out with a broad topic and then niche it down over time. It might be something as general as business, health, personal development, or lifestyle. The idea here is to get you used to the process of building a business online, and then giving you the time to find your sweet spot of the more specific area and audience you wish to serve.
Purchase a domain name to use for your website. This can be your name, or anything else that is suitable for your topic. If won’t ever seem like the perfect choice, so simply choose a domain and know that this can always be changed later on.
Set up a hosting account so your domain will have a place to live on the Internet. My recommendation is Blue Host Solutions because of their commitment to working closely alongside new online entrepreneurs.
Use the one-click installation of WordPress to create your site. The hosting company is happy to do this with you, or you may contact me to have it set up.
Begin adding content to your site, using original, PLR (private label rights), or curated content. The ideal scenario is if you add content twice a week, but if your schedule does not allow time for that right now, post once a week for at least the next six months.
Start thinking about your ideal prospect and what he or she needs most when it comes to your topic. Remember that first and foremost the purpose for any business you can think of is to serve the needs of a specific group of individuals. Online business is no different, and once you understand this concept your business will flourish. For example, the people I serve wish to have a business they can run from home, or from anywhere in the world they happen to be, with just a laptop computer and an internet connection. Many of them have health issues, are caring for an aged family member, or raising children or grandchildren. This requires them to be home or on the road, yet they still want and need a substantial income to meet their financial obligations. Other have lost their jobs or simply no longer wish to be at a job that no longer serves them but still need a six figure or greater income. I help them to get started and to build a business that enable them to live the lifestyle they have chosen while still being there for the people in their lives who need them.
Add an optin form to your site so that you can start building a subscriber list from the very beginning. People who do not do this cite it as the reason they did not build their business as quickly as they could have if they had done so. I recommend Aweber for this part of your online business. Send a relevant and interesting email message to the people on your list at least twice a week, sharing more about yourself and what you have to offer them. Be of service to these people, as they are the backbone of what you are working to achieve as an online entrepreneur.
Create a short report to use as your free giveaway to encourage visitors to your site to opt in to your list. Put your best foot forward by providing valuable information here.
Choose one or two of the business models I have outlined in this post on multiple streams of income and learn as much as possible about them. Resist the temptation to get involved with more than two of these during the first six months you are working online. I have written more than a dozen books that can help you with the specific details of most of these income streams.
Get involved with social media, but remember my motto to “Get in, get out, and get back to work!” I recommend Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Plus, and YouTube to get started with.
Start your own Channel on YouTube to share videos related to your business. My YouTube Channel has proved to be extremely valuable to my business.
Attend at least two live marketing events each year. This was the single most important factor in helping me to move forward quickly in my business.
Know that starting an online business requires the least capital of any type of business you can start. Your time and dedication will pay off handsomely if you jump in and get started.
Take action daily!

I certainly hope these internet marketing first steps have been helpful to you. Please connect with me personally to let me know where you are now, what you are working on, and how I may be a part of your success story.