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How to Effectively Work From Home

By admin in Featured

The number one reason I chose to pursue Internet marketing as an online entrepreneur was the freedom it provides. Having an online business allows you to take your business with you wherever you go and work on it at whatever time suits your schedule. Now, that’s the kind of freedom I am after!

But, in order to make your work at home, online business a success, you must possess a certain amount of self discipline so that you can properly use your energy and time productively.

Here’s a few of the most important elements that I learned that will keep your confidence, focus and productivity strong as you pursue your own dream of working at home…and succeeding.

The most important thing I learned was what things produced money for me and what things didn’t. For me it was no question…article marketing and list-building were the two most important elements to pursue for my business.

In other words, they were the best use of turning my time into money as they provided the best results.

Hanging out in forums and chat rooms…although very entertaining, was simply not cutting it. Forums can be productive for you if you monitor the way you use them and don’t just hang out killing what could otherwise be productive time.

Another important step to take is to cut yourself off from the noise…cut off the world that takes you away from your focus.

For example:

1) unsubscribe from your thousands of mailings. That is a chore in itself, but if you don’t do this, you will continue to be bombarded with offers that will only distract you from your goals. Choose to follow 1, 2 or possibly 3 mentors at a time…and no more. Trust me, the others aren’t going anywhere and will still be around when you’re finished with your present ones!

If this idea scares you, then create a separate email account and resubscribe for those hundreds of promos you will be getting and check it occasionally.

2) Do those things that make money for you first such as sending an email to your list, writing articles for the directories, checking your support desk for any help needed etc.

3) Shut your computer down and accomplish any offline tasks that are nagging at you to complete. I have found that if there are things that I am not tending to in my offline life, they will continue to nag me and unconsciously I am not getting the most out of my mind energy because of this subtle disturbance to my peace.

Value your time: Learn to say “no.” Sounds easy enough doesn’t it and yet there are those that have trouble saying “no” to anyone or any offer that comes their way. You need to choose what and whom gets your valuable time…you only have so much of it. Use your time to enjoy your family or to benefit your business in some way.

Learn to say “no” to time wasters. Learn to say “yes” to your life (family and business)

Set up your work hours and stick to it. For me, this was early in the morning. I would get busy on my business…coffee in hand while most everyone else was sleeping.

If you’re busy writing an article or blog post, time yourself! That’s right, buy a typical timer and set the alarm for the amount of time it should take you to complete this task. This will keep you honest with yourself but more importantly it will keep you accountable for your time!

Don’t spend 3-4 hours on a short report or blog post that should be written within 20-30 minutes. After timing yourself for awhile you might be surprised at what you find. Use this information to improve your time management skills.

Create a daily action list. I create mine the night before so that it is ready and waiting for me when I sit down at my desk in the morning and I never have to guess at what needs accomplishing. It is simply a compilation of tasks that I want to accomplish that day. Better to keep it simple…especially at first until you get comfortable with your own time frames. Don’t make the list so long that you are defeated before you begin.

I move from one task to the other until I’ve completed them all. If I have miscalculated my timing and everything does not get done that day, whatever is left undone goes to the top of my “to do” list for the next day.

Don’t forget the breaks! We need to take 15 minute breaks to stretch our body and give our minds a rest. Ideally you should never work more than three hours straight without some sort of break. But, come right back after your break!

And, last but not least, take ACTION. This is the most important step of all. If you don’t take action, your dreams an ideas remain just that…dreams and ideas. Combine your dreams with action steps…persistently and consistently…and watch your dreams manifest before your eyes!

Becoming an online entrepreneur is one of the most exciting opportunities that has ever come along. Becoming a success at it, is all about your self discipline.

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Kathy Dobson is a free spirited business owner and entrepreneur dedicated to helping others achieve financial and personal freedom through Internet marketing with an emphasis on membership sites.
Learn more about membership sites please visit: http://www.crazycashmembershipsites.com For further tips and resources visit: http://www.kathydobson.com

The ‘Secret Sauce’ for Effective Marketing

By Judy Murdoch in Featured

A couple years ago, I was talking with someone who was, for me, a very challenging client. I’m all about cultivating relationships that result in opportunities to sell.

This particular client seemed allergic to cultivating relationships for reasons I never really understood.

I remember one such meeting, I was trying to explain to my client the wisdom of first creating trust and credibility before trying to get a sale. And my client was blocking me at every turn with reasons why relationship development would not work for their business.

It was maddening.

Organic SEO or PPC advertising?

By Andrew Plimmer in Featured

Sadly enough, there are still many online business entrepreneurs who take it for granted that they can still use the old marketing techniques in order to overtake their competitors. Little do they realize that those old basic techniques such as including a simple “click here” link, simply doesn’t cut it anymore. If for example you own an online business which is currently in dire need of some changes, then you may need to consider taking advantage of online marketing techniques which include the likes of search engine optimisation and pay-per-click advertising.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve already heard about these techniques from some of the world’s best internet marketers, but the truth is, you might be reluctant to begin integrating them into your existing business. However, there’s nothing to be gained by simply keeping these strategies on hold, so here are a few tips on how to go about using search engine optimisation (SEO) and PPC advertising.

Search Engine Optimisation

Organic search engine optimisation is essentially an online marketing strategy which is dependent on having momentum and some long term commitment. By utilising SEO, you’ll be taking a step in the right direction in terms of accumulating information regarding link building campaigns, relationship building with other webmasters, and even some respectable and desirable publications. Of course, in order to be in full control, you need to set certain milestones so that you’ll be able to monitor your progress as you proceed.

For example, you need to ask yourself what it is exactly that you wish to accomplish. You also need to pay attention to your current image and to the level of optimisation regarding your website.

An experienced SEO specialist will be able to help you determine which the best keywords to use are, and of course they’ll be able to help you integrate those keywords into your meta tags so that you’re able to restructure your marketing strategies in order to overcome any negative fallout resulting from your previous attempts. Over and above SEO, you could of course also take advantage of other techniques, such as paid one way links and link exchanges for example, providing you do so with other reputable websites. But don’t forget – once you start organic SEO, you need to continue with it in order to maintain the momentum or else your diligently attained rankings will go down.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

PPC advertising places much emphasis on keyword usage and the placement of adverts which are relevant to a specific website. In fact, it’s often said that this form of advertising has revolutionised the world of online advertising, in that it can provide small businesses with the same amount of leverage as what the big businesses have. Providing it’s done correctly, PPC advertising can certainly help you stand out from the crowd. If you’re currently considering a PPC campaign then you should also pay attention to the following three questions:

1. What do I have to offer?
2. Why will customers want to click on my advert?
3. How can I hook them with just ten words?

At this point, the most important thing for you to do is to integrate an ideal title and ten words which tell potential customers what your business is all about. The most difficult aspect of PPC advertising is that you will be in close proximity to your competitors, both in search engine results and in sponsored positions. Remember, if someone types in a search relevant to the type of website you own, your advert will appear at the top of the page or on the right hand side, and it’s vital that your advertisement must be powerful enough in order to trigger an immediate response.

Essentially, in order to get the best results you should ideally consider using SEO and PPC advertising simultaneously, rather than just opting for one of them.

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Andrew Plimmer is CEO of Suncoast Internet, SEO Sunshine Coast, web design and web development specialists. For more information on Internet Marketing go to => http://www.suncoastinternet.com.au/

Marketing 101 – Getting The Basics Right

By Neil Stafford in Featured

Before becoming an Internet Marketer, I was in the financial services business. When I gave it up to go online full time people were doubtful I wouild succeed, but today with people’s jobs being less and less secure, it is becoming an attractive option for many more people.

One thing you must master to be successful is the marketing side of the business, so let’s have a look at some of the basics. These are the things that are so obvious we can take them for granted so make sure you pay these 6 key elements real attention.

#1 You should always make an offer. Never fail to make a specific offer or multiple offers and it is essential that you also make it crystal clear what the call to action is. I see so much poor advertising, and the number 1 reason why it’s poor is that it doesn’t instruct the viewer/reader/listener clearly and explicitly on what they should do and how to do it. Simply having your hours of business and a phone number is not enough.

You’ve got to tell your customers what to do and the call to action has got to very clear, not vague. For example: “Pick up the phone now, dial 0800 023 1234 and ask for Karen to reserve your updated & enhanced Membership Sites & Continuity Programmes system. SYSTEMS ARE LIMITED so act now and get guaranteed delivery. Systems will be shipped on a first come, first served basis on October 16th. Phone now 0800 023 1234 -. don’t miss out!”

#2 Build an appealing offer. Great advertising guru David Ogilvy once said that you cannot bore someone into buying. Sadly, most offers are very unexciting and in many instances just plain dull.

You’ve got to excite your prospect about everything they’re going to receive so they then inspired to rush, RUSH to respond.

#3 Restate what’s included in the offer. When you present the offer make sure you continually restate what’s included because by repeating your offer 3 times it will get embedded into their conscious mind.

For instance: “So when you reserve your system now, you’ll receive…” You really cannot overstate this because it’s only by continually telling them (including the benefits that they’ll experience) will they get what the offer is.

In your sales copy… remember this three phase technique. ‘Tell them, tell them and then tell them again.’

#4 Make sure there is a deadline that makes your prospects act now. Direct response marketing is all geared towards getting an immediate response. This is ab out taking action NOW, not some time in the future. The task is to get maximise sales, not build your brand. Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is PR, it’s not it’s about selling so make sure you have a real deadline in your copy.

#5 Including a scarcity element in your offer will almost guarantee action. People don’t want to miss out, whether it’s the last sausage on the barbeque or a final offer on a produce. As long as the scarcity element and your deadline are believable people will be impelled to act. You must communicate your deadline and scarcity clearly and get the prospect to believe it. One way is to have countdown clocks or a date stamp saying order by 12pm today and get (whatever your offer is) so they can clearly see what the deadline is and respond to it.

# 6 Use incentives, gifts and bonuses. Relevant or irrelevant, one gift, multiple gifts, specific or choice based you will find that any of these are good to bump up your response rates.

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The Internet Marketing Review is the UK’s longest running PRINTED Internet Marketing Newsletter. ‘Test drive’ it for FREE – Visit this special web page for more information: Internet Marketing Review Newsletter

Google’s Liquid Lunar Doodle

By Kalena Jordan in Featured

Scientists and space enthusiasts the world over were entralled on Friday when NASA announced that they had discovered water on the moon following their deliberate rocket blasts into the surface last month.

We’re not talking just puddles here. According to NASA, about 25 gallons of water in the form of vapor and ice were discovered, giving legitmacy to the idea that man could one day establish a lunar colony. Until this week, such theories of lunar living have been considered far-fetched.

The possibilities opened up by the discovery have captured the imagination of Google staff too. To pay special significance to the event, Google.com displayed a new Google Doodle (logo pictured) on Friday 13 celebrating the discovery. Clicking on the logo brought up search and news results featuring NASA’s announcement.

It’s not the first time Google’s gotten excited about the moon. In 2007 they announced a competition to the tune of USD 20 million for the first team to design a private robot that could land on the moon, roam for at least 500 metres and beam images back to earth. The competition is called the Google Lunar X Prize and runs until 2014.

10-plus SEO Questions – Google Rules

By Jill Whalen in Featured

This morning I woke up to someone having submitted a pile of SEO questions using our newsletter question form. At first I thought, “Yikes, that’s kind of pushy to think I have time to answer all those questions!” But then I remembered that this was a newsletter week and I still had no idea what I was going to write about. A second look at the questions made me think that you guys would probably be interested in the answers to many of them, so it worked out perfectly.

Most of these questions have been answered in greater detail in various articles that I’ve written, so if you’d like more info on any of them, I’ve linked to the relevant ones for your convenience.

Thanks to Umair R., who submitted these questions.

Twitter’s New Retweet: Why You Shouldn’t Hate It

By Kalena Jordan in Featured

Twitter began rolling out their controversial new Retweet functionality this week to quite a large number of beta testers, me included.

Old Skool Retweeting

In the past, when Twitter users wanted to repeat the tweet of somebody they followed, they would simply use the *RT* or *via* syntax in front of the twitter handle of the person whose tweet they were repeating, to signify attribution.

For example:

@kalena: wondering why monosyllabic isn’t.

@bob: RT @kalena wondering why monosyllabic isn’t.

@jane: wondering why monosyllabic isn’t. (via @kalena)

Some Twitter clients have built-in functionality to enable people to retweet other’s tweets automatically this way and add the RT syntax with one click.

Now, Twitter has introduced functionality that streamlines the process of retweeting and makes it more intuitive for the user.

New School Retweeting

If you’ve been granted access to Retweet beta, when you login to Twitter.com, you’ll see the following message about it at the top of your timeline:

“Hi there, you’re part of a beta group receiving this feature, which means you may start seeing retweets in a new way. People who don’t have this yet will see your retweets prefaced by *RT*”

Once Retweet is active in your account, you’ll see a new Retweets section in the side bar where you can see “Retweets by others”, “Retweets by you”, and “Your tweets, retweeted”:

Users that you follow will have a new retweet icon appear under their profile picture when you view their timelines. Hover your mouse over the icon and it says “Retweets from this user will appear in your timeline”.

Next to each tweet in your home timeline, you’ll now see the “Retweet” option as well as the “Reply” and “Favorite” options.

When you see a tweet you’d like to tell your followers about, click on the “Retweet” link and a popup will ask “Retweet to your followers?” and provide you with a Yes button to proceed or a X to cancel. Once you click Yes, the tweet will be sent out and appear ONLY to your followers. You also have the ability to permanently *undo* your retweet at any point.

Retweets sent this way by those you follow will be identifiable by a special Retweet icon next to them in your timeline. (Except, it seems, any retweets of YOUR tweets. A tweet that already exists in your timeline won’t reappear at the top if someone you follow retweets it, but it will be added to your RT list).

Retweets will also have extra attribution underneath them stating “Retweeted by [user] and [#] others” where “user” indicates the person who retweeted it and “#” represents the number of others who have retweeted the same tweet.

Retweets sent via the new system will only display the RT icon when you’re logged in to Twitter. When you’re viewing a timeline with new Retweets in it while logged out of Twitter, those tweets will just have “RT” in front of them and no attribution underneath.

You can see a visual breakdown of new retweeting in action here.

The Tweeps Are Revolting

Although I’d read about the new feature, I’ve been finding it hard to get my head around. Now that I’ve got beta access, I’m even more confused.

Judging by some of the Twitter commentary taking place between beta users, it seems I’m not the only one who is initially unimpressed.

A major sticking point for some users is the loss of the ability to edit or append comments to the tweet you are retweeting. This is a big change from old skool retweeting and has some users in knots.

Another major irritant for some beta testers is that Retweets by persons you follow will appear in your timeline in pure context – so even if you don’t follow the person who made the original tweet, you’ll see their Twitter avatar and tweet in your timeline with the “retweeted by” attribution underneath. Complaints about this have started already.

A poll launched by a Retweet beta user tells the story quite well. Asked “How do you feel about twitter’s new integrated retweet feature?”, 6% of poll takers claim to “love it”, while 43% “prefer the original method” of retweeting and the remaining respondents (51%) feel “It has potential but still needs work”.

Why Change?

So if the organic RT functionality was working so well, why did Twitter executives decide they needed to legitimize it? For a lot of reasons, as it turns out.

Organic retweeting had the following issues:

• attribution confusion
• too many identical retweets
• lost context due to editing original tweets
• faked RTs caused by persons falsely retweeting another user
• 140 character limitation making RT attribution challenging
• no trackability

But even though the new Retweet overcomes the disadvantages of the old skool retweet, users are clearly threatened by the changes.

I think it’s stirring people up mainly because the whole concept of retweeting was developed ad hoc by Twitter users. They began sharing tweets by people they followed with their own followers, adding “retweet” or “RT” in front of the tweet to indicate such.

The developers of Twitter apps caught on to the RT popularity and many of them added retweet functionality to their Twitter clients. Not surprisingly, Twitter users are protective of the function and have certain expectations when it comes to official integration of the functionality.

Rather than simply imitate 3rd party Twitter client developers and add a RT button on Twitter.com, Twitter executives wanted to build something with more scope.

According to his blog post this week, Twitter Co-Founder Evan Williams (@Ev) fully expected the Retweet feature to be controversial. But, he says, the new feature resolves many of the technical issues that organic retweets were causing:

“The design is simple: There’s a retweet link by each tweet and, with two clicks, it will be sent on to your followers. This takes care of the mangled and messy problem because no one gets an opportunity to edit the tweet.”

“ The meta data (about who tweeted and who retweeted) is not in the tweet text itself, so they never have to be edited for length. Because they’re built natively into the system, they’re trackable. And because they’re trackable, we can take care of the redundancy problem: You will only get the first copy of something retweeted multiple times by people you follow.”

Evan also has a response for people complaining about seeing the avatars of people they don’t follow in their timeline:

“The drawback is that it may be a little surprising (unpleasant even, for some) to discover avatars of people they don’t follow in their timeline. I ask those people to keep in mind the following: You’re already reading the content from these people via organic retweets. This is just giving you more context.”

Evan also says that retweet annotation, (where you can add a comment or hashtag to a retweet), may be added as a feature in a later version depending on demand.

A major factor that likely had a large influence on Retweet development but hasn’t really been touched upon is the impact of RTs on search.

Extensive retweeting can skew search queries both on Twitter Search and major search engines and the new Retweet functionality will filter out much of that redundancy. The new RT also adds meta data to each tweet you retweet, sending a clearer signal to search engines about what content users are finding popular and making it easier for users to search for specific tweets in full context.

Don’t Like It? Don’t Worry

If you’re not impressed by the new Retweet feature, don’t stress about it. From your Twitter dashboard, you can:

• Turn on and off retweets on a per-user basis. If you only want to see someone’s personally authored tweets, you can shut off their retweets altogether but still follow them.
• Permanently delete retweets from both your timeline and the timelines of persons who have retweeted you.
• Continue to use organic retweet and ignore the new functionality altogether. As Twitter staff keep stressing, the old skool method of retweeting will remain available to users.

Happy retweeting!

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Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running a daily Search Engine Advice Column, Kalena manages Search Engine College – an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and other Search Engine Marketing subjects.

Dropjack.com Added to AddThis

By Mel Strocen in Featured

Yesterday, Dropjack, a social bookmarking site launched by Jayde Online over a year ago, was added to the AddThis sharing platform and menu. The AddThis sharing button is used on over 500,000 Web sites. Dropjack now also appears in AddThis’s recently announced Service Directory which lists around 200 social bookmarking sites.

Dropjack has become increasingly popular over the past year and currently has over 110,000 active members. With Dropjack’s addition to AddThis, we anticipate greater traffic and exposure. If you would like to simplify sharing for your site or blog just go to AddThis.com and sign up right on the home page. AddThis now supports over 50 languages.

How You Use Social Media Can Kill Your Business

By admin in Featured

The social media movement has expanded the number of people we can reach and connect with on a personal level. The new relationships and connections we create with people all over the world can have a profound effect on our personal and business growth. We learn about cultures and nations that we were, perhaps, previously ignorant of. None of this is a new concept, but what may be is how quickly you can destroy your business by using social media incorrectly.

Twitter and LinkedIn Do the Happy Dance

By Kalena Jordan in Featured

Social media darlings Twitter and LinkedIn announced a partnership this week that enables LinkedIn users to synch their status with Twitter updates.

Similar to the Twitter / Facebook integration, now when you set your status on LinkedIn you can now tweet it as well, to alert your followers on both LinkedIn AND Twitter, as well as real-time search services like Twitter Search and Bing. Simply edit your settings on LinkedIn to include a Twitter account to synch with and you’re good to go. LinkedIn have integrated a checkbox under the status field so your updates are automatically tweeted if you check the box.

Twitter users can also update their LinkedIn status from Twitter and Twitter clients, via the addition of the #in hashtag in a tweet.

Twitter founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone have likened the partnership to the “perfect combination” of peanut butter and chocolate. So I guess those of you who like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups should be thrilled.

© Copyright 2012 All rights reserved. Jayde Online, Inc.

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