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By John Thornhill in Featured

businessLet’s imagine you’ve just spent 3 months working on a digital downloadable information product such as an eBook and you’re about to release to the public it but one thing is bothering you.

How will I protect my thank you page/product?

This is actually something I get asked quite a lot and let me tell you far too many people are hung up on protecting their products and download pages. Yes, protect your product with a members area or hard to guess thank you page but please don’t get hung up on this, the reason is because no matter how hard you try to protect your product if someone wants it they will get it.

Also, most people are genuine and will pay for your product, never forget that. It’s a very small minority that will try to get your product for free.

Secondly, if someone were to ‘steal’ my eBook there are enough links inside the eBook containing my affiliate links that I will make more money if it gets passed around. In fact I sometimes wish someone would steal some of my eBooks and pass them around the internet so I was getting an extra 10,000 views per day from people who haven’t paid because if I were how much more money would I be making?

Do you know when I first started on eBay I used to go mad if I saw someone copying my work, I would spend hour after hour trawling eBay for listings that were using my templates, sales copy, eBooks etc. It got to the stage where I used to spend more time trying to stop people copying my work than getting any real work done. In the end I gave up and decided to stay one step ahead of the copy cats by producing new material faster than they could copy it. Since then I’ve never looked back and it’s now something that doesn’t worry me.

This article is not about not protecting your work, by all means put things in place but remember that if you set things up correctly and have enough back-links in place having people ‘steal’ your work can actually work in your favor.

I am going to leave you with a thought, someone who I was consulting with was going to pay over $5000 for some software to protect his PDF files and asked me if it was something he should do. My reply was “if major multi-million Dollar companies can’t protect their products from theft what chance do we have?”

Remember, you’ll never 100% protect your work so put things in place to make you money if it is stolen, and the best way to stay ahead of the copy cats is to produce new work on a regular basis so they can’t keep up.

There’s a chance this article could be copied without using my resource box, but I’ll never know as I’ve got better things to do than look for people who break the rules and I know that most people are honest and will use my resource box if they do use this article.

John Thornhill is a full time Internet Marketer and has sold thousands of Dollars worth of products online. Find out more about John and his no nonsense marketing approach at his blog: www.planetsmsblog.com.

By Enzo F. Cesario in Featured

Branding 2A big aid to the success of any online business is those customers paying attention to the site and its messages, including e-mail and newsletters. People who are following your progress on a regular basis are receiving more exposure to your product, and are more likely in the end to purchase the services or item you’re selling than someone who just chances across your site. Thus, one of the many metrics set by businesses is a high number of followers they can reach via such contact methods.

As is often the case however, the numbers alone don’t tell the whole story. Simply buying a list of e-mail contacts and sending them a message every three days does not count as having a large audience. That’s just spam, and the opinion of spam on the web is rather well known.

Thus there is an increasing focus on the opt-in method of list building. By means of enticements, the distributor gets interested parties to voluntarily sign up for the service. Once this has been accomplished, it can be reasonably assumed that the party is interested in continuing the service over the long term.

This means the message is more likely to be put in front of people that want to see it and are most likely to respond to it.

Of course, different strategies produce different results, and not everyone responds to the same methods. Here is a handful of opt-in methods that can be employed to begin building that list.

Method #1 – The Pop Up

This is one of the more controversial options, because it’s one of the catch phrases of the anti-advertising mentality that grows on the web. People hate pop ups, the perception says. However, research suggests that pop ups still are some of the most profitable ways to generate clicks on sites.

There are several ways to approach the pop up option that will minimize the intrusion. Some mimic a toolbar that slides in from one side of the page, for example. Others will appear for a brief period, then recede if not used. The trick is to make it interesting enough to catch the eye, but not so obtrusive as to appear irritating or forced. Do avoid bright, flashing primary colors and strings of exclamation points.

Method #2 – User-activated Pop Up

This is a different take on the pop up methodology. The idea behind a pop up is that when it appears, it catches the eye and is hard to ignore. On the other hand, they’re irritating when they interrupt something a user is reading or watching. However, if a video or article has an embedded link that asks if the visitor would like to know more, that link can be tied to a pop up. This script can then show up and since it’s tied to one of their actions, it’s less likely to get an irritated or rejecting response.

Method #3 – The Free Gift

People feel better about giving out their information for a mailing list if they feel they’ve been rewarded for it. Therefore, entice them into opting in by offering them a gift related to your service. If, for example, your brand is a publisher of ebooks, offer them one of your older titles as an incentive. If your brand specializes in small, casual web games, consider offering one such game for free, or at least a free trial. The visitor perceives an immediate benefit, and is likely to sign up as a result.

As a side note, some free gifts can take the form of contests for prizes. If you are going to go this route, make sure that the prize genuinely is winnable, is worth the winning and that you announce the winner, provided, of course, that you have their consent. Contests are increasingly seen as false options by many viewers, and the only way to circumvent this perception is to make it a genuine item that people can win, rather than a crass deception.

Method #4 – The Squeeze Page

This is a page, based on text or video, that stops the process of giving information and lets the visitor know that they should sign up in order to get the full degree of information. This makes the preceding pages they have viewed a sort of ‘teaser’ that gets them interested in the material you have to offer, followed by an invitation to continue reading in exchange for some brief contact information.

Video is an increasingly popular option for squeeze pages, because it’s so easy to engage with. You can create a short video presentation explaining the value of the e-mail list, and it will stick in the mind much more than a highlighted checklist made of text.

Method #5 – The Basic Form

The simplest methods often become classics, and why? Because they work. Many sites still use the old standby of an unobtrusive simple web form at the end of an article, with spaces for a person’s contact info provided. This has the advantage of being very simple to produce, very easy for the user to fill out, and presents a minimum of interruption compared to pop ups or squeeze pages.

Enzo F. Cesario is an online branding specialist and co-founder of Brandsplat, a digital content agency. Brandsplat creates blogs, articles, videos and social media in the “voice” of our client’s brand. It makes sites more findable and brands more recognizable. For the free Brandcasting Report go to www.BrandSplat.com or visit our blog at wwwiBrandCasting.com.

By Forrest Yingling in Featured

social networksSocial networking sites are undoubtedly the most popular websites nowadays and are growing extremely rapidly.  With this growth come new and exciting opportunities for the marketing and promotion of your online business.

For those not familiar with social networking, some of the top sites are Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.  Now is it ringing a bell?  There are so many ways that you can get creative in order to take advantage of social networking as a marketing strategy.  You can use these services to connect on  a personal level with your clients and customers in order to help you figure out your promotional campaigns.

Regardless of what kind of business you operate and what products or services you sell, there is most likely a way you can use social networking sites to promote your business.

With the advent of new websites and services come new marketing and business strategies and brand new ways of looking at things entirely.

Sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter create online communities of users that come together in order to discuss, comment on, share stories/articles/videos/pictures/etc.  Sites like Facebook have become ways for people to not only connect to their friends, family and colleagues but ways for businesses to create pages in which users can “Like” your business.  They can write on your wall, comment on your pictures and start discussions regarding your products.  You can gain insights into the psyches and personal lives of your customers in ways you never could before.

Twitter is a fast growing micro-blogging site that has recently been taking the social media world by storm.  With Twitter there are even a multitude of separate applications that will help manage promotions and work as online business directories.

Groups are common to mostly all social networking sites.  If you join groups that are related to your business then you can easily reach your target demographic.

Social networking and social media marketing are two huge arenas to help market your online business.  These types of services let you achieve a one-on-one relationship with your customer base in ways that were never possible with selling online before.

Forrest Yingling is the Marketing Director for Baltimore, MD based Easy WebContent, the premier online-based website editing system.  Our new HTML editor allows users to fully edit their web pages and blogs with no HTML knowledge, as well as add advanced features like photo galleries, music players, content tickers, flash videos and more to their sites.

By Nancy McCord in Featured

facebook1Facebook is so popular that business owners can simply no longer consider it a site only appropriate for socializing and game playing. In fact, in September 2010, Facebook surpassed Google in regards to the amount of time users spent on their site. Facebook states that users spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook!

With 500 million active users, Facebook is the new behemoth on the Web. With its popularity across diverse age groups, integrated email application, and new Bing search integration, a Facebook user may simply no longer need to visit Google for Web searches or log off to use an email application. They may be able to experience the Web fully all from inside Facebook. With more than 50% of the active users logging into Facebook every day, according to Facebook, Facebook is now so important to your potential customers’ lives that it makes sense for you as a business owner to have a presence where your prospects are hanging out on a daily basis.

Let’s clear up a few things that have confused business owners about Facebook. First, a Business Page is not to be confused with a personal profile. They are two separate entities and offer different options and ways to interact with friends and colleagues.

Are Business Pages Also Called Fan Pages?

Many of you who have been using Facebook for a while will remember that Facebook used to call Business Pages – Fan Pages. Additionally, it used to be that someone “fanned you.” Now they “like you.” Don’t get confused in thinking that a Fan Page is a different product than a Business Page – they are one and the same.

By Elmar Sandyck in Featured

facebook_vs_googleIf you do, then the world is yours for the taking. At least, that’s what internet marketing guru Jonathan Budd says in his video Get Traffic 3.O. Jonathan tells us the importance of predicting the future – know the trends and how to be in front of them!

Now here’s a trend that all of us internet marketers and home-based business owners should be paying attention to: the rise of a new online superpower – Facebook!

In his video, Jonathan talks Facebook vs. Google. He says that the days of Google PPC is over and that it is dead for MLM and home based marketers! He says Google was the source of traffic and leads for almost all marketers on the internet and while it’s still pretty much in its number one spot, the next big thing (which could potentially turn out to be bigger than Google!) is happening right now.

With all his great and amazing statistics shown in graphs and tables, Jonathan tells us that the social networking giant CAN be bigger than Google. In fact, it’s growing to be the most important advertising medium to the home business industry today! If you want hot leads and active, engaged buyers, you should be paying attention to the Facebook vs. Google issue.

And I agree with Jonathan. I mean, the very same people you’re targeting on Google are hanging out on Facebook!

In my understanding the reason why a social site such as Facebook can provide better targeting with keywords and demographic-specific ads is this: social media knows you better. Facebook knows what are important to you — which videos you like to share and how often you make recommendations to your friends, games you like, people and companies you’re a fan of.

What does this mean for us?

Facebook is where our prospects are going. It’s dominating up market space, so bring yourself in front of the next 500 million users or more and generate profit from this website! Social media advertising opportunities in this social networking giant are yielding better-qualified, higher-ROI results!

Indeed, it has got to be the most innovative, brilliant, rapidly emerging internet company today, and it’s showing us that it’ll ultimately be the world’s no. 1 source of traffic for home-based business owners.

Jonathan predicts that Facebook is going to be bigger than Google. In fact, it’s exploding now. Yes, it’s going to get better in the next 12 months, so wake up and master the next internet superpower!

Many sites and blogs have talked about the Facebook vs. Google. I watch in anticipation at what both companies will have to think about provide us with a lot of genuine utility. All I know is, when the brains behind these sites get creative, we get better web experiences.

Are you for Team Google or Team Facebook? Which site do you think will ultimately triumph and why?

Have You Thought About The Facebook vs Google Issue Lately? Elmar Sandyck Is An Expert Internet Marketer And He Shares Some Great Tips And Techniques To Build A Very Profitable Online Business. Find Out What It Is By Visiting www.InternetMastermindStrategy.com

By Chris Holgate in Featured

keyboardFor years I have been perplexed by the people that use their mouse for absolutely everything when are a number of perfectly good keyboard short-cuts that will do the job in a fraction of the time. Why people don’t take advantage of these shortcuts is arguable however I personally believe the primary reason is that most just don’t realize there is another way, otherwise why else would you hunt around for an item on a menu bar if you can quickly hit a key and achieve the same effect?

Funnily enough, now that Microsoft has hidden or moved all my commonly used menus in Windows Vista I find myself relying on these short cuts a great deal more than I used to. I’m sure that trying to convey these to you in a list format probably isn’t going to make this one of the most exciting Click articles that I’ve ever written but I do know that it’s one of the most useful.

To point out the obvious, these short cuts usually require you to press two keys at once and the ALT, CTRL, Windows and Shift keys are all located down the bottom left hand side of the keyboard. I have split the shortcuts into several sections depending on where they are going to be applied and don’t worry about which version of Windows you own as most share the same shortcut keys.

General

Alt+Enter View properties for the selected item

Alt+Esc Cycle through windows in the order they were opened

Alt+F4 Close the active window

Alt+Spacebar Open the shortcut menu for the active window

Alt+Tab Switch between open windows

Shift+Insert Hold this down whilst inserting a CD and it WON’T autoboot

End Display the bottom of the active window

Home Display the top of the active window or move to the begining of the line if you are typing

Windows key Displays the start menu

Windows key+D Minimizes all windows

Windows key + E Opens a new Explorer window

Windows key + F Displays the find all files box

Windows key + L Locks your computer

Windows key + R Displays the Run command box

Explorer

Shift+Delete Delete the selected item permanently without placing the item in the recycle bin

Left arrow Collapse the current selection if it is expanded, or select the parent folder

Right arrow Expand the current selection if it is collapsed, or select the first sub folder

Clipboard

Ctrl+C Copy an item to the clipboard

Ctrl+X Cut an item to the clipboard

Ctrl+V Paste an item from the clipboard

Internet Browsing

F11 Full screen mode

Ctrl+Mouse wheel forward Zoom in

Ctrl+Mouse backward Zoom out

Ctrl+0 Reset zoom level

Alt+Home Go to homepage

Ctrl+T Open a new tab

Ctrl+Tab Switch between tabs

Ctrl+W Close tab

Alt+D Go straight to the address bar

Alt+Left Go back to the previously viewed page

Alt+Right Navigate forward through viewed pages

Navigating to menu options within programs is also easy when using keyboard short-cuts. To select the edit menu press ‘Alt+E’ together, for the file menu press ‘Alt+F’ and so on then once the menu option has been opened you can navigate around them using the cursor keys then select an option with the enter key.

I did say that this wouldn’t be Shakespeare, but cut out the list above, have a play around, and I promise you’ll find at least some of these key combinations useful. Once you’ve used them a couple of times it will then become second nature to hit the keyboard shortcut rather than relying solely on your mouse.

Chris Holgate writes a weekly article of all things tech related. He is a director and copywriter of the online computer consumables business Refresh Cartridges An archive of the articles can be found at www.computerarticles.co.uk,/a>.

By Steven Washer in Featured

onlinevideoToday we’re taking on one of those pesky myths that can hold you back from doing video marketing the way you’d like to. It’s a pretty intimidating one as well. So many marketers today believe that video is a lousy medium for delivering complex ideas. For that they say you need good copywriting, and lots of it.

And you know what? Like Mark Twain said, what most people know to be true is wrong. After all, we once thought the sun revolved around the earth, or that cigarettes were good for you. In fact, there is hardly a better medium for delivering complex thoughts than video. But that doesn’t make sense, does it? That’s why you can’t figure it out.

The Paradox of Video

It’s the very way video technology is structured. It fakes you out. You underestimate its ability to communicate and overestimate the difficulty factor in using it. And you really must get this if you are ever to harness the power of this medium in your marketing.

The Secret Power of Video

Here’s the amazing secret: video is twice as effective at delivering complex thoughts to an audience as text. I know that’s quite a bold claim. So I don’t mind you asking, “how in the world do you make that happen?” Actually you don’t!

It happens quite naturally when you step aside and let the structure of video take over. So, what is the structure of video that you let take over?

It’s simply recognizing how sounds and images work together over time. Here’s what really hangs you up. You see, most people, when they write their video, see only the text part of the message. Then they might add themselves talking, add a couple of photos and boom, they say they have a video.

Um, no they don’t. They have a talking Powerpoint presentation.

What they’re missing is the genius of video technology itself. The real power of video is in the blending and layering of image and sound. Oh, but it’s more than that.

Way more. It’s how and when those images move in time to the voice and the music. That’s why you can take a 50 word sentence, cut out 42 words and have 100% more impact than the original sentence. Yep, that’s right; 84% fewer words, 100% more effective. Sound crazy?

How to Say More With Less

Let me give an example, though you’ll have to use your imagination to see it in action. Look at this sentence:

“The problem with most marriage counselors is that they have a bias toward breaking up marriages. Don’t go to such a counselor if you want to save your relationship. I’ve seen too many relationships break up after only one session with the wrong counselor. Don’t let that happen to you.”

OK. 50 words, right? That takes about 16 seconds to say out loud.

Now imagine the following:

Soft piano music in the background.
Photo of couple standing back to back with expressions of sadness. Floating words over the photo read:
Find a relationship-saving counselor
Not a relationship-ending counselor

That takes 2 seconds to see and understand. And what does it say? As in the 50-word paragraph above, it says that the wrong counselor will do you in. It also adds, which was not in the original text, the right counselor will help save your relationship. A little bonus that would have taken at least another 10 or 20 words to say in great copywriting alone.

Remember Why You Make Marketing Videos

The secret of making your video content work is not in stuffing more and more text into your video. It’s letting the words and pictures work together over time to reveal your message with power and authority. And remember, you make marketing video to establish your authority in your area of expertise. That’s what your potential clients are hungry for. And that’s exactly what your videos can give them.

I know this article was a little complex. It really needs video to make it come alive, doesn’t it? And that’s the point!

Steven Washer develops strategies and systems to help you succeed at video marketing. If you want to learn how to design, craft and distribute powerful videos to help you play on a bigger stage, simply claim your free video marketing gifts at: =>www.brainyvideo.com/newsletter.html

By Diana Samalot in Featured

SEO2Anyone with an Internet presence really wants to achieve maximum visibility within the search engine result pages, or SERPS. As the Internet has rapidly expanded over the past few years, so the major search engines have attracted the brightest brainpower to their labs, in order to come up with algorithms that work. Today, these complex pieces of computer code are indeed sophisticated. Anyone who searches for the most obscure phrase can see a mountain of results appear before them in the blink of an eye. We would all like to know exactly what goes into the programming of those algorithms and indeed, much of it is a closely guarded secret.

An industry has grown up to support the concept of search engine optimization. We have a pretty shrewd idea now what we need to do to elevate our pages within those SERPS.

Optimization falls into two separate categories: online and off-line. It appears that the off-line element is of more importance, specifically the building of appropriate backlinks, votes of confidence if you will, from other sites to yours. However, you must pay attention to on-site optimization as well.

Years ago, on page optimization for SEO purposes meant “stuffing” your appropriate keywords into the body of the content on your webpage but with little regard to rich content. In those early days, it may have been possible to influence your position within search results by overwhelming use of your chosen keyword. At that time, quantity may have been better than quality, but not anymore.

Today, as the search engine robots are so sophisticated, we need to compose our webpages thoughtfully and carefully. Above all else, we must do keyword research to ensure that we are targeting the right words for our chosen niche. It’s important to come up with supporting keywords, sometimes known as secondary keywords, to back up our credibility. The engines look for the presence of these other keywords, as a means of validating your principal contents.

There is a wide body of opinion, much of which is very conflicting, about the ideal keyword density for SEO purposes. Some experts reckon that you can get away with a density of as much as 8%, meaning that your keyword or keyword phrase appears eight times out of every hundred words on your page. You have to remember that your content needs to be readable and if it is obvious to you, when reading it, that the keyword is overused, then you’re likely to have scoring points deducted. 1 to 2% seems a far more reasonable and likely goal.

There are many different tools that you can use to come up with search engine keywords to help find the best keywords to help your purpose. Perhaps the most well known is Google’s own, free tool. When you are starting a process of discovery and optimization, one of the main keyword research tips to bear in mind is that you should almost always aim for a “long tail” word, or a more descriptive version, specifically highlighting your niche. You might find it very difficult to rank for the word “dog,” for example and might be much better off optimizing for something like “golden retriever training,” instead!

Diana Samalot is a successful internet marketer who knows how to leverage the Internet with a proven system, world class support and the best Internet marketing training. Discover how you too can utilize the Internet to reach your goals by becoming a member of our community. Act now and go to >>> http://thebestmillionarecreator.com

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