N S J Free Issue

Glen Hopkins’

business and marketing success newsletter

Inside...
The Keys To Setting Up A
Site-Targeted Campaign

How to Set up a
SIX-FIGURE
Online
Business

How to
Gain Instant
Credibility and
Authority

Traffic
Tips
Plus...
Conversion
Secrets

netsuccesssystems.com

Glen Hopkins NetSuccessSystems.com

business and marketing success newsletter

Publisher:
Glen Hopkins

Editor: "We specialize
Bonnie Jean Schaefer
in teaching
Format & Design: entrepreneurs,
Maria Kuz independent
Photos: professionals,
©iStockphoto.com/ and small
Contact: business
owners how to
WEBSITE: www.NetSuccessSystems.com build thriving
ADDRESS: Suite 433 800-15355-24th Ave online
Surrey, British Columbia businesses
Canada V4A 2H9
based on their
CHANGE OF ADDRESS OR BILLING: individual
www.Customer-Service-Desk.com passions
Editorial Questions and Comments:
giving them
editor@netsuccesssystems.com more time,
money and
freedom."

This publication is another quality product from Glen Hopkins
Copyright 2009 ListOpt Publications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved. i2

2


f you are in the information marketing business, you
have to become an expert in your specific niche.
Otherwise you will lose the battle for your prospect’s
attention.

People are bombarded with too much information every day,
especially on the Internet. You’re fighting with hundreds and
thousands of other people for the attention of the same cus-
tomers. But they only have a limited amount of attention to
give you due to the abundance of information available to
them.

Your job is to grab their attention and help them to trust you.
The best way to do that is to position yourself as an expert.
The more specific and focused you are, the greater your
chance of success in business.

As a way to gain this vital credibility and authority, you can
utilize the power of the written word by packaging it in four
different ways. Before you start writing though, you need to
see yourself as an expert.

Being an expert begins with your
own internal psychology. If you
don’t believe you’re an expert,
no one else will, either. You've got
to be the first one to stand up,
believe in yourself and declare out
loud that you are indeed an expert.
To help cement this belief, you should create an “expert” title
for yourself. When you habitually refer to yourself as, say,
“The Email Marketing Authority,” eventually you become the
email marketing authority. You tend to experience what you
focus on the most in life.

So decide what it is you want to become an expert in. I rec-
ommend you follow your passion. Because let's face it -
whatever you do in business as an entrepreneur there's a
long road ahead of you, and there's a lot of work to be done.
And "passion makes persistence a whole lot easier."

Once you find something you're passionate about, declare
yourself as the expert and start writing. Begin with easy-to-
produce formats like articles and newsletters, then package
that information into bigger formats like books and informa-
By Glen Hopkins tion products.

3


Authority Booster #1: Articles are also a great way to pre-sell your cus-
tomer. If you give the reader some valuable infor-
Write Articles mation in an article, they read it and they love it.
Then they click the link in your resource blog and
Writing articles is a great, great way to position arrive at your site ready for more of what you have
yourself as an expert, and it's relatively easy to do. to offer.
When I say writing articles, I'm talking about 400 to
700 words on a topic within your expertise. So articles give you expertise and traffic. But the
traffic aspect is a bit like 'grass growing.' When you
The best tactic is to write in a conversational tone. submit articles, it takes a little bit of time to get the
You don't have to worry about making it overly pol- traffic to your site. Once it starts, though, it won't
ished. People actually prefer to read something stop.
that's like a letter from a friend.

You could choose to write in a university, ‘thesis
type’ tone to make yourself appear more sophisti-
Authority Booster #2:
cated. But that is going to lose more readers than it Write Newsletters
will impress. Plus it’s boring!
Next, you can position yourself as an expert by writ-
I'll be the first to raise my hand and admit that. I ing an email newsletter, a print newsletter or both.
bored myself when I wrote papers for my college Having a newsletter is an incredible way to build
professors, so when I write now, I like to imagine trust and likeability.
I’m talking to you, my friend, in a one-to-one con-
versation. Your newsletters can be either free or paid, but by
communicating with your readers on a regular ba-
Another key thing to note is that people enjoy read- sis, you’re going to accomplish several things.
ing a story. It captures their attention and they want
to read it through to the end. If you can teach them One, you can provide the expert information to
a lesson within that story, that's something they're them that they’re craving. Two, you’re going to
going to remember. build relationships with your readers. And three,
you’re going to remain in the forefront of your read-
So think of something in your field, relate it to a ers’ minds.
story in your life and share that story in an article.
Then all you need to do is distribute those articles When you have that powerful top-of-mind position-
online to the various article directories. ing, you have the power to succeed that only an
expert has.
I use a company called ArticleMarketer.com. You
simply upload the articles to your account, and they
blast the article to hundreds of other article directo- Authority Booster #3:
ries. Your articles thus get published all over the
Internet. Write Books
When your prospects search for information on The third way to boost your authority is by writing
your topic and find your article in the process, they eBooks and books. As I stated earlier, when you
read it. And you are instantly positioned in their write something on paper, people perceive you to
minds as an expert. be an authority. This perception is multiplied ten-
fold when you are the author of your own books.
It's a strange phenomena, but when you put words
to paper, people perceive you to be an authority. I As a matter of fact, the words "Author" and
don't know why that is, but it's the truth. So, if you "Authority" go hand-in-hand: by becoming an au-
write something on paper, you'll become an instant thor, you become an authority figure on that sub-
authority. ject.

Pick any industry, and I bet that most of the gurus

4


in that industry have written a book. Consider the You should also create a strategic product funnel
gurus in the business industry. Can you think of that takes your customers through different price
any business guru who does not have his or her points. The idea is to bring people into your funnel
own book? by offering something free or inexpensive, then
gradually increase the price and value of the prod-
Look at Donald Trump. This guy is a billionaire. ucts you have available for them to buy.
And he’s writing books. Why? He doesn’t need the
money. The reason is this. Having a book positions So four ways to gain instant credibility involve writ-
him as an expert. So if you have a book and other ing articles, newsletters, ebooks, books and infor-
experts in your niche do not, you will rise above mation products. Basically, the more you write, the
them very quickly. If you don't have a book yet, it’s more authoritative you become.
time to seriously consider writing your own book.
But that authority begins with your own mindset.
It's worth its weight in gold because automatically Don’t wait for anyone to tell you you’re an expert.
attaches “authority” to your name, especially if it Look in the mirror and tell yourself you are already
becomes a best-seller. My first book, Lucrative List an expert. Once you start believing it, others will as
Building, went to number one on Amazon. After- well.
wards, I had people banging on my doors, calling,
emailing, and asking to work with me, asking for
coaching and consulting. And all because they
viewed me as an expert.

If that seem a little overwhelming to you, simply
start by publishing your own ebook. That in itself is
impressive and boosts your perceived level of ex-
pertise instantaneously.
Extreme
Authority Booster #4: Persuasion
Write Your Own Information
Products Strategy
Finally, you should write your own information prod-
ucts. Look at anyone you perceive is an expert and Create a free e-book
ask yourself, "Are they selling something of their with the advertisement
own or are they selling other people's products?" and link of your affiliate
Well, they're always something of their own.
web site. The subject of
Don’t misunderstand. Affiliate products are great; the free e-book should
I'm not telling you to stop selling them if that is part draw your target
of your online business model. I am saying that if audience to download
you ever want to become a known expert in your
industry, you must have your own products and it. Also submit it to
services to sell. some e-book directo-
ries. The more expo-
As an expert, you have to make yourself the focal sure your free e-book
point for finding information on the subject you spe-
cialize in. People learn in a variety of ways, so you gets, the more your ad
should provide a variety of information products to will be seen.
enhance your reputation as an expert. Some ideas
include books, audio, video, teleseminars and
seminars.

5


Traffic Tips for Increasing
Site Visitors & Sales
through Article Marketing
Article marketing is one of the best ways to
generate traffic to your website.
Here's how it works.

1. You write an article.
2. You submit it to article directories.
3. Web publishers (website owners & bloggers) grab your article from the article databases and use
your article on their sites free of charge.
4. Inside your article, at the end, you include a resource box that contains a link to your website.
When the article is published, that portion must tag along and be published, too.

By including your link tags along with your article and you get FREE advertising.

Want an example?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Glen Hopkins is Best Selling Author, Information Marketer, Speaker, And Consultant. Glen spe-
cializes in teaching struggling entrepreneurs how to turn their small Online businesses into
thriving money machines using specific systems that will allow you to work less and earn more.
Get his List Building Report and Web Traffic CD (valued at $97) for FREE
at: http://GlenHopkins.name

So, everyone who re-publishes those article will include the author blurb and both authors will get lots of
free traffic.

There are three main ways article marketing can generate traffic for you:

• People click your link from the article directory and end up on your website.

• Webmasters publish your article (with your link intact) on their own site)

• Your search engine position increases because you'll gain more backlinks.

That makes article marketing an excellent strategy.

6


Tip #1 - Do your keyword research
One of the most important things you can do to make sure your articles do well is keyword research.
Since people use keywords to search for information in the search engines like Google, you'll want to
target appropriate keywords if you wish to show up at the top of the results pages.

You can find relevant keywords in many different ways, but the easiest way is to use Google’s research
tool.

You can find it at: http://adwords.google.com/select/keywordtoolexternal

Simply type in a keyword for your website and Google will give you many keyword ideas.

Example: If you've got a website about pet recipes, you would enter terms like “cooking pet
food, “homemade pet food”, “natural pet food', “cook dog food”, etc.

Google also gives you the numbers that tell you how often people search for each term. That way you
know the keywords you’re targeting are worth your efforts.

Another important piece of the puzzle is figuring out how much competition there is for each keyword. If
you are targeting words that have too much competition it's going to be harder for you to reach the top of
the search engine results pages. Don't worry about that happening, because it’s easy to figure out how
much competition there is.

Simply go to Google and type in your keyword surrounded by quote marks. The results that pop up are
the other sites that are specifically targeting that term.

Example: When I search for “Pet recipes” I see there are 66,600 WebPages that are already
listed for that term.

Now that you have these keywords you can use them to give you a basis for your articles. It’s easiest to
choose one keyword per article and focus the topic around that keyword. Remember to put the same
term in your title as well.

7


Tip #2 - Write your articles for the reader - and search engines
There are many people who think that in order to rank highly in search engines, they need to stuff their
keyword in their article an excessive amount of times. This is definitely not the best way to attract read-
ers or get traffic to your website.

The search engines are also getting smarter and they know when you’re trying to game them.

It is much better to weave your keywords in more naturally. This will serve both the search engines and
your readers. There is no set keyword density that works well, but many experts suggest you stick to
around 2 to 5%. That means for every hundred words you would include the keyword about 2 to 5 times.

Remember -- the search engines can tell if you’re trying to stuff your keyword in your article. Their main
goal is to provide a good user experience for people who use their search engine, and your main goal is
to get people to your website.

It makes sense, then, that you would strive to provide good content that the search engines will like and
that people find useful when they visit your website.

Tip #3 - Submit to the right article directories
There are many article directories, but not
all of them are worth your time. Since
you're trying to get traffic to your website,
you want to find the very best ones. It can
be hard to choose since the search en-
gine’s “love” for these directories seems to
change all the time. Still, there are a few
that you can always count on.

These include:

• EzineArticles.com
• GoArticles.com
• ArticleDashboard.com
• Buzzle.com

If you open an account at these different directories and start a regular submission schedule, you’ll find
that you start getting visitors to your website.

Since these are people who are looking for exactly what you’re offering, your conversions should be
great as well.

©iStockphoto.com/MiquelMunill 8


Tip #4 - Focus on your author’s resource box
One of the most important article marketing tips you can follow is to focus on your author’s resource
box. This is your "take" for your site, whereas the actual article body is your "give" to the directory.

Your author's resource box should contain a compelling reason for people to continue on to your web-
site. You may talk a little about yourself, but it really has to be more about the reader and what he/she
wants.

For example, if your website is offering a solution for people suffering from acne, you want
to give them a reason to visit. Clearly, you need to let them know that you have the answer
they are looking for in order to get them to visit your website.

A huge part of crafting a great resource box is including one or more links to your website. Different di-
rectories have different rules about this, but the standard is to allow you to include two links. You want to
surround these links in what is called "anchor text." This is simply a way for you to name the link to let
the search engines know exactly what your site is about.

Here is an example of anchor text::

If you want the search engines to know your site is about acne treatments you would type:

<a href=http://acnesite.com>best acne treatments</a>

This would help boost your rankings for the keyword "best acne treatments."

Tip #5 - Submit many articles
There are webmasters who think that they can boost their search engine rankings and get tons of article
directory visitors to their site just by submitting an article or two. If only this were true. Unfortunately, this
isn’t the case at all. You need to sustain an active level of submission to stay at the top of the search
engines.

That doesn’t mean you need to spend your life writing articles. As long
as you’re consistent in your efforts and don’t stop at just a few articles
you’ll likely see great results. Still, those who submit many articles over a
long amount of time usually see higher levels of traffic.
Stay tuned
You’ll find that the number of articles you need to submit really depends
for
on the niche you‘re in. There are some niches out there where just one
or two articles a month will do. There are other niches where it’s ultra-
More traffic
competitive, so you’ll need to submit more articles, more often. tips on
I’d recommend you try to submit one article per week, every week. If
that's too much, then shoot for 2 articles per month, every month. The
Article
key is to be consistent. marketing in
next months
issue

9


having said that, if you don’t have your own prod-
ucts or you need more, there is nothing wrong with
using other marketers’ products for bonuses.

the
Often when you partner with other marketers they
will have a few products that they are willing to give
you to use as a bonus because it will benefit them
too. Here’s why...

Expert A good way to get a lot of targeted traffic to your
website is to offer your e-book to other marketers in
your industry as a bonus for their launch. It’s a
great way to get targeted subscribers to your site
and onto your list so that you can start marketing to
them as well.

You can also offer testimonials. They will show up
on their sales page with a link back to your site
which in turn will send traffic back to you.

Q: How about unadvertised bonuses in
the e-book itself? Is this recommended
as a good idea?
Q: I want to create a new product but A: Yes, it’s an excellent idea! The sole purpose of
I’m afraid of spending my time creating your book is not to be a money maker. The chance
something people won’t want. Any sug- of getting rich off a book is slim -- the price point is
gestions? simply not high enough. Therefore, use the book as
a lead generator and have some sort of an offer at
the end of the book.
A: Yes! A great way to prevent this is to first ASK
what people want. Survey your readers and your
What your book is doing is ultimately giving people
customer base and ask them specifically what they
the opportunity to learn about you and what you
want, what their biggest challenges are and what
have to offer. Plus, you’re positioning yourself as an
their top questions are.
expert through that book. Ultimately that book is a
pre-sell for you, your product and your services.
If you get a list of top challenges that your custom-
ers are facing and you address those challenges in
I would suggest that your offer is a free offer. Offer
a report or e-book it will be a guaranteed seller be-
something that’s going to entice them to go to your
cause your audience has told you that that is what
website and exchange their name and email ad-
they are looking for.
dress for a bonus. By doing that you’re going to be
able to build your email list and market to those
people.
Q: When adding bonuses to my offer
should they be something that I have
created myself or should they be some- Q: What are your thoughts on payment
thing that somebody else has done? options? Should I split payments to
make it easier for a customer to buy?
A: If you have your own bonuses, yes by all
means, use your own. You always want to build A: Payment options are usually a good thing de-
your own business rather than someone else’s, pending on the demographics of your customers,

10


what kind of money they are used to spending, and the size of your ticket.

It depends on what you are giving them in exchange. Generally for a small ticket item like an e-book its
best not to do a split payment.

With larger items, you will make more sales with split pays. Many people are on a budget but want to
take you up on your offer and are able to do so as it makes more sense for them financially.

Q: Where do you get graphics made?

A: There are a number of places you can search such as:
http://www.minisite911.com/
http://blingcovers.com/
http://minisitefrog.com/

Each of these websites have graphic artists that you can use to create covers for your e-books etc.

Be sure to keep in mind when hiring a graphic artist that you are specific as to whether you want the
graphics for physical or digital product as they are created differently and not all graphic artists can do
both.

Also, give them as many details as possible regarding how you want your graphics to look and feel. This
will speed up the process and result in fewer edits.

Q: How many bonuses are appropriate for a $27 product?

A: Well, some might say the more the merrier but be careful — if your bonuses are not related to your
product people will not be interested. Often they will just hit the back button if they see a bunch of unre-
lated bonuses. So it’s really key, that whatever your bonuses are, they are related to your product or ser-
vice you’re actually selling.

Also, if you have too many bonuses often times it will de-value your product in the eyes of the customer.

Here is your chance to ask the expert your internet marketing questions.

Just send us an email at:
editor@netsuccesssystems.com

It may be answered in an upcoming issue of The Net Success Journal.

11


by offering a cheap, downloadable product such as
an ebook ($7-$17) that is targeted to a specific au-
dience within a specific niche.

Set up a You don’t even have to write the ebook. You can
hire a ghostwriter to write it for you or you can buy
private label rights ebooks. The main idea is to sell
a cheap front-end product, then market to that
buyer over and over again.

Offer Upsells Immediately After
Purchase
As you’ll see in just a moment, you’ll basically
break even on initial ebook sales. So to make the
id you know it’s possible to turn a $17 effort of creating products and marketing them
ebook into a six-figure online business online worthwhile, you have to offer additional prod-
even though you don’t actually make ucts to your customers.
money on the initial ebook sales?
The best time to make another offer is right after a
If that sounds a bit too good to be true, then you customer has bought from you. That means you
need to keep reading. In this article, you’ll learn need to send buyers of your ebook to a confirma-
how to acquire customers using only one traffic tion/thank you page to make your first upsell offer.
source, the right way to use upsells to increase
your income and how to create recurring revenue A word of warning, though: don’t try to upsell them
for your business. before they make the initial purchase. That mistake
could cost you the original sale; let them complete
And you’ll see exactly how the numbers work so the sale, then show them what else they can buy.
that you understand how possible it is to make seri-
ous money fast. And here’s another tip: let them buy your upsell
offer by simply clicking an ‘add this to my cart’ but-
ton. If they have to fill out another order form to
Use AdWords to Acquire Customers buy the upsell offer, chances are not many people
will take you up on your offer.
Acquiring new customers is the most difficult step
of the entire business-building process. Fortu- This one-click upsell does require some html knowl-
nately, however, Google makes it easy to get your edge to set up as well as some manual labor to
marketing message in front of hundreds of thou- process, but the alternative is to miss out on an
sands of eyeballs every day courtesy of their Ad- abundance of sales.
Words advertising program.
Here’s what I mean. When your customers click
With AdWords, you can run keyword-targeted cam- the ‘add to cart’ button, you could have programmer
paigns as well as site-targeted campaigns and only develop a script that emails you their order informa-
pay for ads that prospects click on. And when your tion from their original form. Depending on the up-
ads relate to the keywords you target, and your sell offered, that email lets you know who wants to
landing page relates to your ad, Google rewards add what to their order.
you with low costs per click.
Then you or an assistant can take that order infor-
Since Google’s advertising system takes care of mation and process it manually. That way the cus-
finding new customers, all you have to do is provide tomer doesn’t have to fill out another order form,
valuable products for these customers to buy. And and you don’t risk losing the upsell.
the quickest way to entice them to buy something is

12


Although you can offer a variety of upsells at this point, two that work well are the ‘printed version’ upsell
and the ‘bundle package’ upsell.

For example, let’s say you are selling an ebook about dog breeding for poodles. The first
upsell option is to sell the print format by saying something like, “Most people who bought
this ebook also ordered the print version.”

Then instruct them to click the ‘add this to my cart’ button. Under the button, however, be sure to include
a ‘no thanks’ link that will take them to another offer or the page where they can download the book they
bought.

The second upsell option is offer a bundle of all your other ebooks for all other breeds. Or you can offer
the “poodle package” that includes an assortment of ebooks about housetraining poodles, grooming poo-
dles, naming poodles, etc. for one low price.

Now that you know how the front end and upsell offers work, let’s add up the numbers using the dog
breeding for poodles ebook example.

In this example, you sell an ebook for $17, an upsell to the printed version for $27 and an
upsell to the bundle version for $27. You also have a membership program that is $17 a
month and gives members access to a monthly interview with top dog breeders all over
the world.

As far as your advertising costs, let’s say you are paying $.27 per click in AdWords and you purchase
1,000 clicks. Assuming a standard conversion rate of 2%, you should sell 20 ebooks.

• $.27 x 1,000 clicks = $270 advertising costs
• 20 ebook sales x $17 per ebook = $340 revenue
• $340 revenue - $270 in advertising costs = $70 profit

You’re okay with that $70 in profit because the purpose of that front-end offer is just to pay for the mar-
keting costs. The goal is to at least break even, so anything above break-even is like extra money.

Now that you have acquired your customer, you send these 20 buyers to your ‘print version’ upsell page.
The standard conversion rate for this type of upsell is 30%, which means 6 people will buy the print ver-
sion. But you’ll need to factor in about $7 for printing and shipping costs, so you net $20 on each upsell.

• 6 sales x $20 net on print version = $120 pure profit

©iStockphoto.com/Imagedepotpro 13


For those who didn’t purchase the print upsell, you from your membership program.
send them to the bundle upsell with the ‘no thanks’
link. Plus you send those who bought your first On average, 40% will cancel before the first billing,
upsell to the bundle upsell page. Out of the original 30% will cancel after the first billing and 30% will
20 stay a member forever. So the average lifetime of
a member is roughly three months. At $17 a month
sales at a 20% conversion rate for the bundle for three months, you can assume to generate an
upsell, you make 4 more sales. additional $51 per front-end sale per customer.

• 4 sales x $27 electronic bundle pkg. = $108 profit • $51 fee for three months x 20 members = $1,020

And when we add all those numbers together, here That brings your total net profit per 1,000 clicks to
are your totals: $1,318. So if you are able to generate just 500
clicks per day, you will average $659 in profit per
• Advertising, Printing and Shipping Exp.: $312 day, $19,770 in profit per month and $237,240 in
• Gross Sales: $610 profit per year!
• Total Net Profit Per 1,000 clicks: $298

By targeting high-trafficked terms and high-
trafficked sites within the content network in Quick Tip
AdWords, you have the potential to generate any-
where from 10,000-30,000 clicks per day. And you Marketing Strategy
can afford to pay for that traffic because your front-
end offers pays for itself. The "Every Day"
But we’re not done yet. You still have the continuity Strategy
cash to figure out!

The "you likely hear
Generate Recurring Revenue from a
about this every day..."
Membership Program
strategy tells your
This doesn’t result in immediate cash, but it is seri- prospects some
ous cash on a consistent basis.
information they see
All you have to do is give away a free 30-day trial of or hear every day that
your membership program as a bonus to anyone supports your product.
who purchases your front-end offer. Then if they
like the program and want to remain a member, It could be something
they will be automatically billed every 30 days. that's currently a hot
Just make sure your customers realize the forced topic in the world or
continuity aspect of the bonus. Don’t put it in tiny in your niche. You
white print on a white background. Let them know could give them facts
what the offer is and what they can do to cancel
before the first payment if they don’t want to get to show that it's true
billed at all. and remind them they
You need to do two things to retain the most mem- will be missing out if
bers: keep your membership price the same as the they don’t own your
initial purchase price and provide valuable content.
As long as you follow those two rules, you should
product.
be able to project how much money you can make

14


Your Internet Home Based Business –
Choosing The Right Model
n Internet home based things. Sometimes physical prod- unreasonable to think your Inter-
business could be your ucts like books and CDs are part net home based business could
ticket to financial free- of these coaching and instruction end up being a homerun success
dom, but only if you choose the services. with a little creative thinking.
right business model. Millions of
people each year fail to launch a A good Internet home based You should also understand that
profitable home business, and business can be built around al- you don’t necessarily have to
among the top reasons for failure most any concept. The Web has build your entire business from
is not choosing a strong model. grown substantially in recent scratch. In fact there are several
years, and with it the potential legitimate business opportunities
There are literally dozens of opportunity has expanded expo- available online, from franchise
Internet home based business nentially. deals and licensing agreements
models you can choose from to network marketing programs
when starting your new ven- With just a little research you’ll and the option of just buying an
ture. And you are more likely to likely find a number of unique established business site from
succeed when you select a business models. And you’ll the current owner.
business model that reflects probably find dozens upon doz-
your personal strengths and ens of spin-off or copycat opera- The critical point when decid-
interests. tions that also appear to be doing ing on the model for your Inter-
very well. net home based business is
So the first thing you should do is that you choose something
spend a little time looking into When starting your Internet home you will enjoy. This may sound
what kind of Internet home based based business you don’t neces- trivial but trust me it’s not!
business you might wish to start. sarily need an idea that is 100%
And you can do this easily by unique. If you have a break- Statistics prove that most suc-
surfing the Web for a few hours through idea that’s great, but you cessful entrepreneurs are en-
and looking over the numerous can often do just as well by gaged in a business they love.
commercial sites you find. tweaking or expanding an exist- This makes complete sense
ing business model. when you think about it. Building
You’ll see many people are sell- a business that’s fun is a lot eas-
ing physical products online. On this note, one thing you might ier than building a venture you
Shopping cart sites and online do as you review existing busi- have to work really hard at due to
auctions are just two examples of ness sites is ask yourself what a lack of interest.
how this can be done. could be changed or done differ-
ently to create an entirely new So whatever model you
In addition to physical goods, model. Especially in the member- go with, be absolutely
many businesses are offering ship site and software industry,
digital products, like software and it’s not difficult to spot one or two sure it’s something you
information. In many cases this is potential innovations that could can have fun with. Oth-
done through a very simple, di- literally take the marketplace by erwise you may as well
rect sales mini-site. storm. stick with that J-O-B
you’re trying to get
You’ll also find a number of intan- Many million-dollar ideas
gible services such as member- (literally!) have been the result of away from.
ship sites, coaching, consultation, very minor changes to existing
and instruction on a wide range of business models. So it’s not at all

15


Banner Ad Marketing Strategies

Banner ads are the online equivalent of space ads in offline newspapers and magazines. In other words,
it’s a great direct response marketing method that can drive tons of traffic to your site.

But to maximize this flow of traffic, you need to be aware of three secret banner ad marketing strategies:
where to place it on the site, how to get two ads for the price of one and how to find profitable sites to
advertise on.

Secret #1: Always Make Sure Your Banner Appears Above the Fold
If you were paying on a cost-per-click basis for your banner, staying above the fold wouldn’t be as criti-
cal. Actually, having your banner at the bottom of the page might even be a good thing because only the
most qualified prospects would see it and click on it.

Unfortunately, the standard practice for website owners is to charge banner advertisers on a cost-per-
impression (CPM) basis. So as an advertiser, you pay every time the page is loaded, not every time
someone clicks on your ad.

With this in mind, you must always make sure your banner appears above the fold. That way a visitor to
the site immediately sees your ad without having to scroll down. If prospects have to scroll to see your
ad, the chances of getting your ad noticed are drastically reduced.

And you end up paying for an ad few people will ever see.

But if you only pay for ad space near the top of the page, you guarantee that your banner will be seen by
every visitor to the site.

Secret #2: Stretch Your Ad Space By Dividing One Banner Into Two
Ads
Here’s a sneaky yet completely ethical way to get two ads for the price of one: divide your banner space
into two separate ads.

Common banner ad sizes (160 x 600 or 120 x 600 pixels) are excessive. You simply don’t need that
much space to persuade a prospect to click your ad.

So instead of creating one huge banner that wastes space, divide that same space into two parts. Then
you can make one part an image-heavy ad to appeal to those who are more attracted to images and one

©iStockphoto.com/Dan Roundhill 16


part a text-heavy ad to appeal to those who are advertising.
more attracted to text.
•Request advertising information. Look for a
This is a time-tested and proven offline strategy link at the bottom of the page that says
that few Internet marketers use in the world of ban- “Advertising” or “Advertise with us.” If such a link
ner advertising. doesn’t exist, just find the general contact informa-
tion and send an email requesting a rate card or
For instance, marketers that use full-page adverto- media kit. This rate card should list their prices as
rials in print magazines often include a “normal” well as the banner ad positions available. NOTE:
space ad on that same page to promote the same the prices on the rate card may seem ridiculously
high, but those numbers are not set in stone; they

Keep in mind that your banner ad space is really
only one image, so you can only link to one
site. In other words, you can’t divide your
banner space in order to promote two different offers.
product or service the advertorial promotes. expect you to negotiate down to 40-60% of what
They’re using the same space to advertise the ex- they are actually asking.
act same offer, but they’re appealing to different
types of people in the process. As a result, they • Test your offer. You’ll need to speak with an ad
reach more people without spending extra money. representative to design a test campaign. He will
do his best to convince you be aggressive with
Your task, then, is to design two completely differ- your marketing, but at this stage, you need to be
ent-looking ads that promote the exact same offer. conservative. Test small to determine your ROI.
You want anyone glancing at your ad space to Remind the ad rep that if your test shows a strong
think two completely different products are being ROI, you’ll be more than happy to ramp up your
promoted. marketing and spend lots of money with him.

Keep in mind that your banner ad space is really • Evaluate the test results and renegotiate. If
only one image, so you can only link to one site. your test flopped, move on to another site. If your
In other words, you can’t divide your banner space test proved successful, renegotiate your terms and
in order to promote two different offers. expand your campaign. Just don’t let the ad rep
know how successful your test campaign was. If
Secret #3: Find Profitable Sites you’re too excited about expanding your banner
to Advertise on and Negotiate a advertising with them, the rep will sense your ea-
gerness and inflate the ad costs.
Great Deal
• Find another site and repeat the process.
Designing “two-for-one” ads and making sure they Once you have a successful banner campaign up
are placed above the fold will only be useful if you and running with a profitable site, reach out to
place those ads on high-trafficked, targeted sites. similar sites and roll out a new test campaign.

But how do you go about finding these sites? Now that you know the three secrets of successful
Once you do, how do you protect your advertising banner advertising, start designing ads and locat-
investment? The following tips will answer these ing sites to place them on. Then prepare for lots of
questions: targeted traffic.

• Start with a Google search. Type in keywords
related to your niche and see what websites ap-
pear in the results. Visit these sites. If you see
banner ads on their pages, you know they accept

17


The Keys To Setting Up A
Site-Targeted Campaign
Setting up a site-targeted campaign in Google is similar to setting up a keyword-targeted campaign. But
there are a few extra steps you need to be aware of in order to set up an effective campaign.

In AdWords, you can begin any campaign with keywords or placements. When you choose keywords,
you get to pick which words and phrases will trigger your ad to show on search results pages or within
the content network.

When you choose placements, you get to pick which sites in the content network that you want your ad
to appear on. This allows you to target specific consumer groups rather than just specific topics.

The Similarities Between Placement Targeting and Keyword Targeting
To begin setting up a site-targeted campaign, log in to your AdWords account, click “new online cam-
paign” and click “start with placements.” Then you go through the same process as you would with a
regular AdWords campaign:

• Choose a campaign name and name your Ad Group. It’s best to name your campaign some-
thing specific so you can easily tell what products the ads are included in the campaign. For in-
stance, instead of ‘Campaign #12,’ use the name of your product. At this point, you don’t need to
worry about being too specific with the Ad Group names. Just name the first group test and
branch out once you have some results to work with.

• Choose the language ad location where you want to advertise. More than likely, you’ll choose
English and countries that speak English. If, however, you have products and advertising that is
relevant to other languages, pick them here.

• Create your ad. This is the same as a regular PPC ad. You have 25 characters for the headline,
35 characters for lines one and two and 35 characters for your display URL. As you create your
ad, remember that you’re selling the click, not your offer. Also, you’re targeting a consumer group,
not necessarily someone searching for your specific keywords. Some of the best ways to grab the
attention of consumer-targeted ads is by asking a question in the headline or by making a bold
statement that will shock your prospect. Since you should have at least two (no more than three)
ads anyway, try one ‘question’ ad and one ‘shocking’ ad.

In a keyword-targeted campaign, you would normally choose your keywords at this point. But in a site-
targeted campaign, this is where you choose the sites you want to place your ads on.

The Differences
Honestly, it’s easier and faster to pick keywords than it is to choose websites, but if you follow this proc-
ess, you will experience better marketing results. And once you take the time to set it up once, it’s done!

Just like you can target keywords in one of four ways (broad match, phrase match, exact match or nega-
tive), you can target sites in one of four ways:

18


1. Browse Categories. You have 28 main As you set how much you’re willing to pay for ad-
categories to choose from, and each of these cate- vertising each day, be aware of Google’s 10% rule.
gories are broken down into 3-10 sub-categories. This rule is included in their terms of service and
If you’ve never done any kind of site-targeting be- simply states that they allow themselves to go over
fore or if your market is fairly broad, this is the your budget by up to 10%. So if you set your
easiest way to get started. Just be aware that it’s budget for $100 a day, you have the potential to
hard to target a specific group of people with this actually be charged up to $110.
method.
Also, you are more likely to hit your daily budget
with placement-targeted campaigns than with key-
2. Describe Topics. Once again, this is sim-
Topics word-targeted campaigns because your ads will be
ple, but it allows you to be much more specific seen more often. So be sure to set only a budget
than finding sites by category. But to keep from you can afford.
falling into the keyword mentally, do several
searches. Include keywords directly related to The final step is to choose whether you want to bid
your product and some that relate to your niche on a cost-per-click basis or on a cost-per-thousand
but not necessarily your product. You’re looking impressions basis. Whichever bid strategy you
for sites that attract your target audience. Just choose, just start with the lowest price that will give
keep the keywords that relate to similar products your ad a fair chance of appearing.
together, then do a separate search for keywords
that relate to another similar product. For in- Now you know exactly how to set up a site-
stance, if you’re selling a business marketing prod- targeted campaign. So write your ads and start
uct, you’d want to find sites that relate to that prod- placing them on sites in your niche today.
uct. Then you might want to search for sites that
relate to finances or self-improvement; many en-
trepreneurs are interested in managing their
money to make more money and in improving
themselves.

3. List URLs. This is helpful if you know of a
URLs
website where you want your ad to appear but
aren’t sure if that site is part of the content net-
work. And if it is part of the network, you need to
know if they allow advertisers to choose to place
ads or would rather just let Google decide which
ads should appear. All you have to do is type in
the web address of your prospective site. If it’s
available, it will tell you where on that site you
have the chance to advertise as well as similar
sites you may want to try.

4. Select Demographics. This is by far the
Demographics
best of the four. This is where you can choose
who your audience is rather than what they are
interested in. Right now, though, this only col-
lects data from US-based sites.

Once you select 20-30 websites, the next step is
to set your daily budget.

©iStockphoto.com/Slavoljub Pantelic 19


How to Optimize Your Meta Tags and ALT Tags
to Increase Your Search Engine Rankings
little over a decade ago, search engines
were born to catalogue the growing amount
of web pages on the Internet. As a site
owner who wanted to be included, all you would
have to do is register your URL with the search en-
gines.

The engine would then send a “spider” to “crawl”
the page and download it for storage in the search
engine’s server. Then an indexer would use a spe-
cific set of guidelines, rules or algorithms to analyze
the information on the page.

The early algorithms relied heavily on keyword
Meta tags. These tags were seen only by the spi-
ders as part of the code to provide a guide for the
content of each page; they don’t show up as actual
text on the page for readers. You can increase that competitive edge by optimiz-
ing the other type of tags most people ignore: the
That’s why webmasters soon began to abuse these ALT tags.
tags. They would include irrelevant keywords to
get their site listed in more searches. This in-
creased their page impressions and allowed them How to Optimize Your Meta Tags
to charge more for advertising space.
It’s possible to get your site ranked high in the
For instance, if their site was about fitness, they search engines on the strength of the meta tags
would include a keyword like “finances” in their alone. By the way, meta tags are basically informa-
Meta tags. Then their page would show up in the tion tags within the HTML head of the document.
search results for both “fitness” and “finances” even You optimize them by including your keywords in
though their site had zero relevance for a person these tags.
searching for finances.
You can do this in one of two ways. One, you can
Because the factors relied on the webmaster’s con- simply list your main keywords in the HTML coding,
trol, early search engines were easily manipulated. separated by a comma. Or two, you can treat your
Searchers weren’t finding what they were looking meta tags like a classified ad by writing several
for, so the search engines had to adapt in order to keyword-rich sentences that describe your site.
provide people with relevant searches.
Although a visitor to your site is never going to see
Now Google considers over 200 factors when rank- your meta description, your meta description does
ing a page, and there's a lot of debate as to show up in the search results. Here’s what I mean.
whether or not Google even reads the meta tags
anymore. Which is why many sites don’t pay atten- Anytime you do a Google search, Google highlights
tion to the meta tags when optimizing their site. the relevant keywords within the results. If the key-
words in your meta tags are bolded, you know your
And that’s good news for you. Because if you know page is being ranked because of the keywords in
how to optimize your meta tags, you can give your your meta tags.
site the edge in the search engine ranking game.
When the listings come up, the link to the site is

©iStockphoto.com/Kronick 20


usually the page title. Underneath the clickable link for your website is an actual description of your web
page. That description is either the meta tag or the top text on the page.

If your meta tag is just a list of keywords, it looks like gibberish to the prospect searching for the term. It
simply doesn't make any sense when you see it in a listing. But if you have two or three keyword-rich
sentences as your meta description, the searcher can tell exactly what your site is about.

So when someone sees a bunch of garbage underneath the listing versus something that's well-written
and a good description of what's on that page, they will be more apt to click on the good description.

Your job is to make it good because that's what people will be reading. Always make your site as
friendly to human eyes as possible.

How to Optimize Your ALT Tags
While the meta tags describe your site, the ALT tags describe your images.

Every time you add an image to your web page, a tag automatically appears within the HTML code. This
ALT tag gives you the option of putting in a brief description of the image.

To optimize this tag, name your image with your keywords. So rather than name your images with ge-
neric, irrelevant names like 1.jpeg, name it keyword.jpeg. Because the search engine spiders read
these tags, this simple little trick can help your rank jump as much as five to seven spots!

Another way optimizing your ALT tags helps is that it fills the “blank” space as your images load. So if
your prospect has a slow Internet connection, she has some idea of what your image is about as she
waits for the site to load. Once again, this enhances the user experience.

ALT tags are also used as screen reading software for blind people or partially sighted Internet users.
That means a good keyword phrase is going to be informative to somebody that's using a sight-reader.

So the two tags you need to optimize that will help increase your search engine ranking are the meta
tags and the ALT tags.

On the meta description tag, make sure you have a good description of your website; write it the way you
would write a classified ad to describe your website because that's what's going to show up on the
Google search results.

ALT tags are important as well, so use descriptive keywords when naming your images. The search en-
gines will pick up on this, and your visitors will appreciate it even more.

Blockbuster Cash Secret
Add an article section to your web site. People will visit your web site to
read and learn new information related to their interests. You want to have
original content so people can't go anywhere else to get it. You also want to
update it regularly so they will want to revisit your web site over and over.

21


A critical step to building huge mailing lists is to
convert that traffic into opt ins so it is not wasted
traffic.

This is where finding out what the market really
want starts to kick into full force.
Once I did that, I started converting over 70% of
visitors to opt ins. So now, for every 100 visitors
Communication more than 70 were opting in for the free ebook.
What a difference!
Let me tell you a little secret. My first attempt to
By understanding what exactly triggered the emo-
build a mailing list was a grand failure because I
tions of the market and what problems they were
missed this vital ingredient. Without revealing the
having, I changed my conversion rate from 1.8% to
niche, let's assume it was about stamp collecting.
over 70%. The way in which I communicated with
my visitors was vital.
I found stamp collecting to pass my initial tests of
longevity and spending power so I built a squeeze
So, the first point and the most important point,
page and used the above tactics to drive free traffic
is to build a squeeze page that will hit home
to my squeeze pages only to find that I was con-
with the problems facing your market.
verting at a measly 1.8%. So for every 100 visitors
only 1.8 of them opted in. The % who took the on
Secondly, in the first section I talked about the im-
time offer was also abysmal.( More on OTO's in the
portance of “talking like the market talks.” On your
next section.)
squeeze page, you should strive to communicate
with your visitors in a way that makes them feel like
Scratching my head for a few days, wondering why
they are actually talking to a fellow enthusiast and
no one was opting in, I decided that something was
more importantly a friend.
wrong. It wasn't my initial thought that no one would
give their email addresses up easily anymore ei-
By finding out the language people in the market
ther.
use you will increase opt ins immensely. For the
record, I am not talking about country specific lan-
By visiting one forum I found my problem. I found
guage here but instead about the way in which the
these people wanted specific questions answered
people speak – the terms they use and how they
whilst I had been trying to give them an ebook
use them.
about general stamp collecting. I read the forum
FAQ's and jotted down the ten most FAQ's and
For example, if I conveyed a message of satire on
wrote a report on them. I changed my squeeze
my squeeze page that had a purpose of getting
page and made bullet points highlighting the fact
stamp collectors onto my mailing list and used
that this ebook was answering these specific ques-
terms like “drunken stamp collecting for boring
tions.

©iStockphoto.com 22


farts” then the chances are people would not be interested!

The most important note to make here is that you simply must find out the main problems of the
market and tell your market how you will help them solve their problems in a language that they
can relate to.

The “Squeeze Page”
For those that do not know, a squeeze page is simply a page
that has one purpose – to squeeze the email address out of the
visitor. Design a good squeeze page and you will see great re-
sults.

Don't worry if your web design skills are not up to scratch as
you really only need to create a simple page with an opt in box.

However, it is vital to follow some points in order for your
squeeze page to convert at a high level and I have tested and
found the following to be the most important;

1) Powerful headline. A headline that hits the most important “hot button” of the market is always
best. Couple this with a “scare tactic” to get them to read on. For example, if stamp collectors were
frustrated at where to buy stamps I would write a headline like this..

“Free report reveals how you can find any stamp you want at rock
bottom prices. 12 Copies left then it will be pulled forever!”

So, I have told them that I will answer their most important question and coupled that with the scare tac-
tic of only 12 copies being left. Would you read on if you were a stamp collector with this frustration??

2) Bullet Points. Regardless of what anyone tells you, conveying your message in bullet point for
mat is the best way to give your visitors the information they want. I always dive right into the bullet
points and simply list the questions I answer in the report and tell them that I have solved that
question. Underneath my headline, it would look something like this

• The Frustration Of Finding Any Stamp You Want Solved Instantly.
• How To Ensure You Pay Rock Bottom Prices Every Time!

And so on depending on the number of frustrations and questions the market need solved.

This creates a sense of urgency and also a sense of relief that they have eventually found the answers
to all their questions! Simply put, it is the best way to perk up the interest of the visitor.

3) The Summary And Opt In. Underneath the bullet point section of your squeeze page should
be a brief summary of what it is exactly you are offering them to sign up for. Tell them exactly what
it is so there are no nasty surprises once they sign up.

The summary should once again create a sense of urgency and scarcity to make the visitor sign up
straight away without thinking twice.

The less the better in this section of your squeeze page although what you do say has significant bear-
ings on your conversion rate so choose what you say very carefully.

23


Directly beneath the summary should be an opt in form that visitors enter their details into in order to
get their report or sign up for your newsletter – or even both!

It is also best to have a mini headline above the opt in form such as the one below

“Yes, I Want My Free Report That Will Solve All My Stamp Collecting Frustrations Instantly!”

And then simply place the opt in form below it.

An important point to consider here is to reiterate to the visitor that you will not SPAM them with junk
messages and offers. After testing with and without a disclaimer I can safely say that having a dis-
claimer is better for conversions. Something along the lines of “Your email address will never be
sold, rented or shared and is safe with us. You may unsubscribe at any time.”

4) The Layout of the Squeeze page. There is a debate surfacing at the moment regarding the
best layout for a squeeze page. Some people feel a straight down the middle page like the one
explained above is the best way to go.

Many people, however, believe that everything should be “above the fold” so the visitor does not have
to scroll down at all. Others feel having an opt in box on the right hand side of the page is more effec-
tive.

You then have people who are big on the new Web 2.0 phenomenon and think that by adding video or
voice clips to the page will increase conversions. There are also people who believe that pictures and
fancy colors help with conversions.

In my experience, I find the standard squeeze page I outlined above is the best. I have tested different
layouts and found the “old school” page to be the best.

I cannot say which will work best for you as
every market is different. It would be wise to
carry out simple testing to find out if different
New This Month:
layouts increase or decrease conversions. Members Only Instant Audio Training

If you are marketing to men, then obviously it
wouldn't be wise to have a pink background
with purple writing. Likewise, if you were mar-
keting to pregnant women, black backgrounds
would be inappropriate!

So, at the risk of sounding somewhat vague, it
is best to find out what works best for your
market before deciding on a firm layout for
your squeeze page.

There are certain variables that will increase
conversions no matter what the layout of your
squeeze page is. Communication and lan-
“How To Get Thousands Of
guage are the most important aspects of con- Affiliates Selling Your Products”
verting visitors to subscribers. The layout is
effectively used to tweak and try and “squeeze”
as many subscribers as possible from your Download It To Your MP3 Player Now:
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24

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