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3 Main Ways To Get Online Traffic

by on March 27, 2011 in Internet Marketing

In Internet marketing, traffic is half of the battle (the other half is conversion). When you are able to drive traffic, many other things almost take care of themselves.

Internet Marketing: TrafficThere are only 3 main ways to get the traffic to your website:

1. You can buy it (with pay-per-click, per-per-view, banners, solo ads, etc)

2. You can create it (with SEO, social media, blogging and content sharing)

3. And finally, you can borrow it (with various forms of joint ventures)

Which one is the best? Well, it depends on who you ask. Those who manage to build solid online businesses utilize all three.

If you are new to Internet marketing, don’t try to figure all of these methods at the same time. Pick one and master it. Once it’s working, automate and outsource it and add another method. Then rinse and repeat.

That’s pretty much all there is to it.

Well, let me kick one more thought in: Don’t be afraid to try a new traffic method. Set your budget, both in terms of time and money you invest, and give it your best shot. If at the end of your “budget” time you made money or broke even, tweak it until it’s consistently profitable. And when it is, just keep “miking” it.

See, you don’t have to be a super-human to build an internet marketing empire. You eat that elephant one small piece at a time.

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How to create a special report without writing a single word

by on November 22, 2010 in Email Marketing, Internet Marketing, List Building, Product Creation, Productivity Tips

Many people aspiring to become an Internet marketer are stuck at the step where they are supposed to create a special report. More often than not, it’s a confidence issue. They may say, “oh, I’m not that good a writer” or “I just don’t have the time.”  But usually it’s their fear of taking a piece of their work and putting it out there for everyone to judge, that is causing them to procrastinate.

Well, today I offer a simple solution that will allow you to have a special report out in less than 20 minutes. And the best part is, you don’t have to write a single word of it!

(Hint: You can be the aggregator / publisher of other people’s work and have your name on the cover.)

How to create a special report (video)

How Create a Special Report Without Writing a Single Word

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Product Launch: Keep Your Hands Away From That Last Cookie!

by on June 23, 2010 in Affiliate Marketing, Email Marketing, Internet Marketing, Product Launch

All the big product launches we get to hear about are done via a network of joint venture partners with large lists.

It is not uncommon for the same subscriber to be on several lists and hence receive emails about the same promotion from several joint venture partners or affiliates at the same time. When a sale happens, the big question becomes, which affiliate is entitled to receive the commission on it: The first one to deliver this offer to the prospect or the last one who sealed the deal and convinced the prospect to take action?

Either approach has positive and negative aspects.

The “first cookie wins” approach allows you to give your major partners an incentive to mail early and to create the momentum for your launch. However, smaller partners who find out about the launch or start promoting it late, will have little if any incentive to participate because a lot of their own subscribers would have been cookied but the larger affiliates. This also invites “black hat” tactics like “cookie stuffing” that some of the less scrupulous affiliates may turn to in order to gain advantage over other partners.

The “last cookie wins” approach seems the most fair. After all, it’s the affiliate that gets the sale who should get paid on it, right? So it is no surprise most affiliate tracking packages work according to this scenario. Obviously, it may be a little harder for you to recruit some of the big list owners as your partners as now they’d have to work harder to make their commission from your launch.

It is also possible to use a combination of the two approaches by using the “last cookie wins” for tracking but recording the affiliate ID along with the contact details for the prospect in your autoresponder. When you send out follow up emails, you can drop in the affiliate code of the original affiliate in the purchase link. In this case it’s the affiliate who generated the lead is the one that ultimately gets paid the commission.

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Internet Marketing Lesson: A Sheep, A Duck, And A Rooster

by on June 16, 2010 in A/B Split Testing, Copywriting, Email Marketing, Internet Marketing

A little story for you, which may not seem related to Internet marketing right away. I promise to bring it all home for you in the end.

If I were to say “Montgolfier”, most people would answer that that name belonged to the two brothers who flew the first ever hot air balloon…  and they would be close but not quite correct.

See, Montgolfier did invent the balloon and were the first to build one. However, they weren’t the first passengers on board their invention.

Since up to that point, human beings had never had a chance to become airborne, the effect of the air flight on a living organism was unknown. The Montgolfier were offered criminals as their guinea pigs. They declined. Instead, they picked a sheep, a duck, and a rooster.

Obviously, that story has a happy end. Nowadays, thousands of people get up in the air in airplanes, helicopters, gliders and, of course, hot air balloons. They don’t think twice about it and obviously don’t remember the three little creatures that paved the way to human flight.

What’s the moral of the story, you may ask? And what does it have to do with Internet marketing?

Well, imagine you are creating a new product. You’re excited. You’re so sure it’s going to be a smashing success. The website it up, the shopping cart is ready to take orders. You go ahead and spend a small fortune on the traffic and, to top it off, line up a bunch of JV partners.

The big day arrives. The traffic comes in fast and furious and…

… nothing! Your squeeze page didn’t squeeze and your sales copy didn’t sell. At least not to the extent that would be considered “reasonable”.

The money spent on advertising is gone forever. And so are the partners who vouch to never participate in your lame launches again.

That’s one possible scenario.

Now imagine doing things a bit differently.

You create a product and put together two different versions of the same squeeze page. You set up an A/B Split test and send the traffic to these squeeze pages through a link rotator, which you then promote to a relatively small in-house list (the online equivalent of the Montgolfier’s sheep, duck, and rooster.)

You generate a bunch of clicks, just enough to tell which squeeze page works better (and if it works at all). You pick the better version (“control”) and send it out to all the lists you can get your hands on.

Your affiliate partners come in and start promoting your product too. This time, the conversions are high. Everybody is making money on the upsells and everyone’s happy.

What was the difference?

It’s easy to see: Instead of trying to predict how your squeeze page would weather out in the marketplace, you did a limited test before opening the floodgates to major traffic. A small extra step in planning and testing your campaign can mean the difference between making it and not making it in Internet marketing.

In a few days, one of my JV partners will be sending out my offer to his super-big list. So guess what I’m working on now? Exactly: I’m setting up an A/B Split test for my pages that I will promote to one of my own list. And when the big traffic hits my squeeze page, I will put my best foot forward because I will know which one is, in fact, the best.

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The Easiest, Fastest, Most Overlooked Way To Double Your Pay As an Internet Marketer

by on June 14, 2010 in A/B Split Testing, Copywriting, Internet Marketing

This short article may read like a math lesson. However, its purpose is to simply show you the revenue mechanics of your Internet marketing business and help you get that “pay raise” you’ve been working so hard on for so long.

Every successful Internet marketing business has a way of collecting people’s contact details and adding them to a database. That is usually accomplished with a squeeze page.

I think it is safe to say that having a good squeeze page is critical to “making it” in Internet marketing.

Yet a lot of people don’t test their squeeze pages. They don’t tweak them to squeeze more juice out of the traffic they are getting. They don’t look at their conversion rates.

If you happen to be in that number, I hope to give you enough evidence to make testing your squeeze page a priority.

So let’s begin.

Let’s imagine that your squeeze page is converting at a very respectable 35%. You decide to conduct an experiment and test several headlines. After a series of A/B Split tests you end up with a headline that improves the conversion rate for your squeeze page by 2%.

Next, you change the graphics and the location of your opt in box that results in another improvement of 5%.

You don’t stop there and continue testing. Adding the privacy statement results in another 3% bump.

Excited, you add a testimonial. The one from a male client doesn’t seem to help that much. However, the female version results in another 3% improvement.

These numbers may seem small and insignificant. But let’s add them up.

2% + 5% + 3% + 3% = 13%

(Actually, adding the percentages here is not mathematically correct. I will spare you the calculations but if you were to do the math right you’d end up with 13.62% improvement. Think “compound interest”.)

A 13% improvement may not seem like much. However, let’s look at what’s going on. You page is now converting at (35% + 13%) = 48%. So basically if in the past your squeeze was  converting approximately one out of three clicks into a subscriber, now it converts one out of two.

This additional 13% is in reality a (13 / 35) = 37.14% improvement to your conversions.

Let’s see how this improvement may help your bank account.

With the new squeeze page, every dollar you invest in the advertising of your business goes a whole 37 cents further. You also get 37% more leads from every joint venture. Now the campaigns that were dogs are starting to make you money, while the rest have gone from mildly profitable to wildly lucrative.

Bear with me for a little bit. We are not quite done yet.

Every business operates at a certain profit margin. Traditional “brick-and-mortar” companies may have a profit margin of 3-15%. An Internet business can, in fact, enjoy a much higher one.

Let’s say your profit margin was at 30% before all the testing and the tweaking you’ve done. Now you have just expanded the number of leads, and hence the amount of sales, by 37%.

And the best part, it didn’t cost you anything at all, other that some time, to do that! It is all pure profit.

There is a moral to this story. Here it is:

Every time you don’t find the time to properly test your squeeze page, remember that by taking the shortcut you are accepting a cut in your pay check. And while there is always something to pin your lackluster sales to — bad economy, changing search engine algorithms, too many product launches going on at the same time, or your customers “not spending” — deep down inside, you know that it only takes a quick glance in the mirror to know the real reason.

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A 100-Year Old Trick That Makes You More Money Online

by on June 13, 2010 in A/B Split Testing, Copywriting, Internet Marketing

Even though Internet marketing has only been around for a very short time (at least on the historical scale), the principles that online money-making is based on have been formulated, tested, and perfected over 100 years ago by the direct response marketing industry.

One of the simplest, most powerful, and yet probably one of the most overlooked “tricks” that comes from that time is A/B Split testing. (And it is overlooked, of course, mainly by the rookies. Every successful Internet marketer I know uses it with an almost religious rigor.)

Let’s take a look at what A/B Split testing is all about.

Back in the day, an advertiser would run the same ad in two cities at the same time. The ad in New York would use Headline A and the ad in Boston would use Headline B. The sales numbers would come in and the results would be tracked.

A week later, they would run the same ad again. However this time, the headlines would be reversed: Headline A for Boston and Headline B for New York.

When this experiment is over, the advertiser would know with scientific precision, whiccdh headline generated higher sales numbers. The winning ad would be declared a “control” and  would be subsequently used to attack the national market and build another business empire.

As Internet marketers, we are blessed to have a great variety of tools available to us to help us measure pretty much anything and everything our heart desires. Computers make it easy and inexpensive to do.

Yet so many online business owners still neglect to test much of anything, either due to ignorance, arrogance, or just the lack of proper time management.

Let’s see what can — and should –  be tested in your online business.

First is your “ad”, something that gets you a click. That can be a PPC ad, a banner, or the email copy that your JV partners use to send you referrals.

The next thing would usually be your squeeze page. (Shame on you if you don’t have one.) Just a few tweaks here and there can significantly improve your conversions and result in an almost instant pay raise for you.

As we continue, we need to test the sales page, the offer, all the upsells, and downsells, and, of course, the email follow up sequence.

Here are some of the less obvious ideas to test: How about adding a physical product option (CDs, DVDs, product binders shipped to your customer’s door) and adding direct mail (postcard, greeting cards, and “3d” mail items that grab attention) to your follow up? Many online marketers never think about moving their business partially into the offline, so if you manage to create a campaign that works, you have a potential of create an enormous competitive advantage.

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Internet Marketing Productivity: Taming The Information Overload

by on June 12, 2010 in Internet Marketing, Productivity Tips, Time Management

If you’ve been in the Internet Marketing field (even as a student) for some time, you probably wake up every morning to find several hundred new emails in your Inbox.

One doesn’t need to be a psychic to guess that most of these emails promise instant traffic, loads of subscribers, and untold profits that will be bestowed upon you the moment you click on the link. And on that link you click to watch another video and read another special report. Another hour goes by and you are not any closer to achieving your business goals.

Now, for the record, I’m not knocking email marketing or the products that are being promoted via email. In fact, I sincerely hope you are one of my subscribers and some of the emails in your Inbox have come from me.

The real issue is the “kid at the candy store” syndrome that we all (including yours truly) succumb to so easily. And when we do, not much gets accomplished.

While there are a number of things you can do to eliminate distractions and organize your day, there is one critical step that a lot of people skip.

And that step is making a conscious decision about your Internet Marketing specialty, i.e. the one marketing tactic you are going to master.

As they say, you can do anything but you cannot do everything. You can’t be equally good at SEO, PPC, AdSense, Affiliate Marketing, PLR, eBay, Twitter, Facebook, Safe Lists, Traffic Exchanges, Article Marketing, Video Marketing, Podcasts, CPA, Media Buying, etc, etc, etc.

The moment you get clear about who you are and what you do, you can continue to voraciously consume all the information related to that one topic… and absolutely ignore everything else.

The following questions should help you find your Internet Marketing persona (turn off you cell phone, shut down your instant messenger, close your email and spend the next 20 minutes writing down your answers):

  • Would you rather sell information, software or physical products?
  • Do you think you’d be good at creating concepts and “pontificating” or do you think you’d excel at promoting others?
  • Are you an analytical number-cruncher or an inspired artist?
  • Which traffic method(s) have you had more experience with or would like to get really good at?
  • If someone were to put a gun to your head and make you pick just one traffic method, one money-making approach, and one type of product to sell, which three would would you end up with?

Write down your answers. Read what you’ve written down out loud. Note what it feels like when you hear your voice say it.

If it doesn’t feel all that great, re-do the exercise.

And if it does, congratulations! You have just found the key to personal focus, productivity, and, ultimately, Internet business success.

As from now on, you are going to ignore anything that is not directly related to that “one thing” you have discovered within yourself and defined for yourself. And through this simple action, you will eradicate the information overload, slay the dragon, and sail the ship of your fledgling business out of the swamp and into clear waters.

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Which Social Media Tool Has The Most Online “Citizens”?

by on March 28, 2010 in Internet Marketing, Social Media

It has become a popular practice to compare the number of the users registered with a particular social media website to the population of some country or several countries together. Hence I think it’s only appropriate to use the word “citizens” when we talk about social media sites.

Now, let’s see how good of an idea you have about the Social Media “geography”. Here’s a little poll that I put together as a quick test. Cast your vote. I’ll post the results and the correct answer in about a week.

Which Social Media Site Has The Most "Citizens"?

View Results

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Internet Marketing Business Is Simple

by on March 25, 2010 in Internet Marketing

I am going to make it super-simple for you …

Today’s lesson may seem too simple.

Maybe it is but lest you think it’s not important: This lesson is very possibly the most critical one to your online marketing success.

Undoubtedly, you have heard that in order to start making money online you need a whole bunch of things:

  • SEO
  • social media
  • squeeze pages
  • autoresponders
  • sales pages
  • blogs
  • products
  • pay-per-click ads
  • banners
  • RSS feeds
  • a kick-ass list
  • hosting account

… and other yada-yada (endless list to follow).

Well, it’s just not so.

No wonder many people look at this long list and are paralyzed by not being able to decide on their next step or by not understanding how it can be possible to fit all this into a normal “human” day.

Here’s the solution.

You really need only three things:

  1. Value (a product or a service that can help someone solve a problem they have)
  2. Traffic (a way to put people in front of you to present them the “value”
  3. Conversion (a way of showing the “value” to your “traffic” that results in more money in your bank account.)

That’s it. There is really nothing more to it. You don’t need the entire long list of “yada-yada”. You just need one of each:

  • one product
  • one way of getting traffic
  • and one way of converting it into sales.

If you have all three things in place, congrats, you’re now in business.

And once you complete one product,  master one traffic method, and fine tune one conversion approach, only then should you start looking into adding more products, more traffic sources and more selling models.

Next time, we are going to cover “value”, i.e. where and how to get a product.

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Review Of Email Marketing Solutions

by on August 31, 2009 in Email Marketing, Internet Marketing, List Building

Came across a question posted on LinkedIn about email marketing.

Omar is asking:

I see opt-in email landing pages everywhere and opt-in email boxes on blogs…I would like to put together an opt in landing page and add a opt-in email box to my word press blog, can anyone recommend a turnkey solution?

Here are some packages I use or have used for myself or my clients and comments re pros and cons:

http://www.infusionsoft.com – The have come down in price somewhat but it’s still the most expensive package on this list. And so it should be. It goes far beyond just giving you and opt-in box. It manages your entire business: contacts, sequential campaigns, direct mail, etc. I’m not using it but some of my clients do. And some who don’t wish they started using it earlier because switching is always a pain. If your business can afford to foot that bill, go with this solution.

http://invite.aweber.com – This one is the “gold standard” of deliverability (is that a word?). Arguably the best autoresponder package on the market as long as you only do online marketing and generate all your contacts via an opt-in. If you need to import a list from another system or need to punch in a bunch of business cards that you’ve collected at a trade show, each contact will receive an email from Aweber saying, “Hey, so-and-so is trying to add you to the list, please confirm you want to be on it!” Obviously, this is not very good for a “normal” brick & mortar business.

http://www.icontactsoft.com – good delivery, broadcasts, surveys, list segmentation, and very user-friendly. One huge advantage over Aweber: They actually allow you to punch in / import contacts. The company has just made the Inc 500 list so they must know what they are doing. I have switched most of my websites to iContact.

http://www.contactcontact.com – popular with many folks mostly due to great branding. A solid newsletter distribution service. Several months ago they (finally!) added autoreponders (otherwise I would not have recommended them at all) and revamped their pricing to bring it inline with Aweber and iContact.

http://www.1shoppingcart.com – an all-in-one autoresponder, shopping cart, affiliate manager and ad tracker. I heard from a number of people 1SC delivery is not as good as some others. Well, dunno. Maybe they have had issues in the past. They seem to be pretty good now. The major benefit is that you get an integrated solution capable of running your entire online business. There are some major online empires running entirely on 1SC so you can’t really go wrong there.

http://www.quickpaypro.com – similar to 1SC but offers a few extra features. Integrates well with WishListMember, a membership site plugin for WordPress. Offers one-click upsell, which 1SC doesn’t, at least not yet. QPP is being re-branded into or merged with Cydec and looks like there is still some dust in the air. I used their 30 day trial and decided to pull out and wait a while. The software looks a bit “undercooked”.  Nothing major, just a few small yet annoying issues here and there. Unless 1SC come out with one-click upsell soon, I’ll be looking at QPP again.

http://www.getreponse.com – A solid autoresponder product, worth consideration. They have improved a lot recently, both in terms of their user interface and deliverability.

http://www.responsemagic.com – This one gives you the ability to create “replicated” autoresponder accounts. That makes it a favorite among the business opportunity folks who need have their salespeople / team / downline send out newsletters and autoresponder sequences to their leads that were pre-written and then automatically personalized and transferred into their accounts. I don’t think that’s your situation but I thought I’d throw this one in because this is a pretty unique solution.

There is also always an option to host the script on your own server (which some people do and which I tried for one site and eventually had to do away with because if was beginning to turn into a full-time job). I don’t recommend this. However, if that’s the route you decide to take, start your research here:
http://www.arpros.com
http://www.sellwide.com
http://www.phplist.com (this one is actually free but no autoresponders)

Hope this helps.

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