Both of my podcasts were selected as those worthy of being called the ‘Best Free Podcatsts’ available on iTunes. Have you subscribed to these on the list?

Dropbox is a service that allows you to store your content in the Cloud. I started out with the free version, which you may access here, and when I realized how simple it made my business I upgraded to the paid version. In a recent post at their blog, the good people at Dropbox explained how they have added a new feature in case your computer falls into the wrong hands. Here is an excerpt from that post:

“Remote wipe lets you delete your Dropbox files from a lost or stolen device while keeping them safely backed up in Dropbox. For example, if you’ve ever left your laptop on a plane, you’re not just worried about the laptop — you’re worried about the stuff that’s on it.”

You can also share folders with others through your Dropbox account, giving them their own unique password. This is an excellent feature if you work virtually and have several people assisting you on a variety of projects as I do. In addition, I have pictures, videos, audios, and all of my written documents backed up and saved with Dropbox. There are so many more features I’m not going into detail with here, and once you give it a try you will not know how you ever lived without it!

Marketing Your Book Online

If you’re looking for ways to market your book online, look no further than your blog. By this I mean your hosted WordPress blog, one that you own and control. A recent post from author and book coach Judy Cullins reinforces this idea. Here is an excerpt from what she shared with her readers after being asked if blog posts should be related to our business website:

Yes! Your blog posts serve an important purpose in your book and business marketing. They should serve and bring only your target audience to your site where you offer your books, products, and services. Why would you want lookie loos, who have no interest in your topic to come to your site? They won’t stay awhile and they won’t buy for sure.

She goes on to say that we should stay on topic and keep each blog post focused in a specific niche. I agree completely with this strategy, which continues to work for me and my clients. Your blog can help you to reach people from around the world who may directly or indirectly lead you to achieve even greater results.

I was reading Marlon Sanders recent post on getting traffic to your blog and wanted to share that with you. The image on the left is his infographic on this that he so kindly gave me permission to share. In it he explains the three primary sources of driving targeted traffic to your website or blog. These include:

• Organic traffic from the search engines – Marlon says that Google Webmasters is your best friend, and also have steady and consistent content (such as I am doing here with blog curation).
• Paid traffic – This includes pay-per-click from Google Adwords or Bing, Facebook and other services, as well as something known as Retargeting.
• Traffic from your affiliate program – start with a simple product and build it up over time.

I love to see increasing numbers of people visiting my sites each month because I’ve made the effort to share my content and ideas, as well as sharing excellent information from others.

Marlon has a 5 Day Fast Start Course that I am finding extremely helpful. If I’d had access to this type of training when I was just getting started online, my journey would have been a much different and more lucrative one. Let me know when you pick it up and I’ll schedule a thirty minute laser focused call with you within a week to ten days.

SEO Tips for Beginners

When I first came online in 2006 I started learning about something called SEO, which stands for ‘search engine optimization’. It was a fascinating topic to me at that time, and I began setting up simple websites and blogs and then optimizing them for specific keywords and phrases.

Then Google changed everything and I went from fascination to frustration over night. My sites tanked in the search engine rankings and I began my pursuit of knowledge in this area. There was not much available in the ‘SEO tips for beginners’ category initially, and then it seemed like every day a new WSO was offered that promised to get you ranked on page one of Google once again.

My recommendation is to find people who are knowledgeable on this topic and learn from them over time. One person is Art Remmet. I was just reading his post on website dual identities and wanted to share it with you. He shares information on what is referred to as the ‘Canonical issue’. Here is an excerpt from his post:

A bit of history behind this whole canonical issue is that when the Internet was just getting started, websites were placed in the “www” folder on the webserver. This created the www. Subdomain. As the Internet has evolved, webmasters were not consistent with this practice and at times placed the website files in the root directory.

I believe you will find his site easy to navigate and understand. Please leave a comment to let me know if you have further questions.

Having an email marketing strategy certainly makes sense in an ever-changing online marketing world. I like to believe my email marketing is working well for my business goals, but after reading a post on email marketing strategy from Lynette Chandler I realize I still have a lot to learn.

In this article Lynette shares her insights into this topic, including a site she uses call Customer.io. It’s like the go-between with your website and your email system. They call it behavioral emails. If you want to take your business to the next level, consider making some small changes that could bring huge results.

What do you think about changing your own email marketing strategy?

Listen to my podcast interview with Lynette Chandler here.

Looking for some great ‘About Page’ examples?

Your ‘About Page’  is the most crucial page on your blog or website. It seems like everyone has an opinion about what should be included, and I was asked by Nicole Dean to give my opinion in one of her recent posts. You’ll enjoy reading what she and the others think about this as well.

I said in that post:

This week one of my marketing tips podcasts was named by Small Business Trends as one of the Top 100 Small Business Podcasts. I was surprised by this honor because it was the first time and I have only been podcasting for about two and a half years. Most of the other honorees have been around for five years or more. It just goes to show that consistency pays off.

Being able to share your message with the world is a powerful and effective way to grow your business. Set up an account in iTunes at no charge and then connect it with your audio recordings to have your own podcast. Your target audience will be able to find you from anywhere in the world, thereby increasing your visibility and credibility.

Subscribe to my Online Marketing Tips Podcast here.

Writing your eBook as an affiliate marketer works extremely well for niche topics and Amazon products. It seems like people have forgotten just how powerful an eBook can be, and that you can sell them for much more than similar content would sell for as a book on Kindle. As far as using this type of content to drive affiliate sales, it is one of the most effective and underutilized techniques available to us for our online businesses.

I wrote a guest post for Jim Edwards where I discussed a step by step affiliate domination system for niche topics. If you go through this article you will see that I have developed some specific methods that are not being taught anywhere else. With the exception of Squidoo, which is currently in the process of merging with HubPages you will find that everything I teach is up to date and continues to work well in today’s world.

You may also want to listen to the podcast interview I did with Jim Edwards by clicking here.