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Many of you may have heard of solo ads and wonder not only what they actually are, but how they might fit into your promotional campaigns. Let’s take a moment to answer some of these questions and offer some tips on how you might get the most out of solo ads.

Solo ads are standalone advertorials that are published in established ezines that have a substantial following. Your ad is the only advertising on the page so you are guaranteed to be viewed. Some are better than others, obviously, and some of the factors that weigh in on this include number of subscribers, frequency of publication, and general readership interests. For instance, you wouldn’t want to publish in an auto enthusiasts ezine if you have a solo ad for your new pet product!

This is a relatively inexpensive way to be seen, as the costs for solo ads run from free (dicey results here) to about $3 per thousand impressions. Targeted placement is an added benefit here, as you can target your solo ad for the particular niche you’re marketing to. Remember, these people have opted in to this ezine and are expecting to see offers like this, so there is little chance you are viewed as spammy. Rather, it’s a terrific way to reach millions of eyeballs for relatively little money!

Make sure you have a precise plan for your solo ad, as simply putting out hypey and scant offerings is sure to doom your efforts from the start! Aim to deliver quality, value, and the promise of a LOT more if they would like to know more! Then, of course, you need to follow up with that. Be sure to employ a tracking system so you can see not only which ads are working, but which ezines!

Solo ads are by far one of the best ways to drive targeted visitors to your offers today, whether you’re trying to build a list or make sales. Get started with your solo ads today!

If you were to be forced to say exactly what your Internet marketing strategy was, could you do so in three sentences or less? Do you even know the answer yourself? This may well be a wake-up call to many, especially those who have bought into the lie that there are untold riches simply waiting for you to point and click. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and if you haven’t discovered this already, you soon will.

What is needed for success in Internet marketing, just like any other business, is a clear plan for success. The more detailed, the better. While technologies change and new opportunities arise, the core strategy usually remains fairly close to your initial plan. Let’s examine some principles connected with developing a sound Internet marketing strategy.

Focus – If there was one item that is more important than all the rest, that would most certainly be the ability to focus on the strategy and tasks at hand. More people fail at this business than many others because they are forever chasing the next “shiny new toy.” This has become almost epidemic in IM circles. You’ve barely scratched the surface on one strategy when another comes along to steal your time, attention, and resources. Do this time after time, and you’ve discovered a marvelous way to fail. If you’re going to make changes, you’d better have a great reason for doing so. Otherwise, stay the course until you make it work!

Skill Sets - Make sure what you’re attempting to do has some relation to your present skill set. If you wake up one morning with a desire to become a highly paid copywriter, you’d better be sure you can string a few words together in an efficient and compelling fashion!

DIY or Outsource? – Will you attempt to perform all the work yourself or will you employ outsourcers or staff to help? You need to have a clear vision here. Many people in search of the 4 hour work week find what they created instead is an 80 hour a week monster called a job!

Working Capital - Do you have enough working capital to get yourself started and a plan for plowing some of the profits you make back into the company to help it grow? Things to consider…

Time Frame and Goals – Have you set yourself a reasonable time frame along with some clearly defined goals to act as milestones and motivators? People who have concrete, written goals are far more likely to find success!

Take some time to ponder these points now and avoid a lot of heartache later!

One of the longest running and widely used models of getting the word out on the Web has been the use of classified ad sites. Many have come and gone over the years, and their effectiveness has peaked and waned. There are some still kicking, to be sure, and these can be worth your time, so the answer to the question posed in the title has to be; it depends.

You need to have not only a clear purpose and goal when using these sites, but you also need to be able to figure out whether it works for you on a ROI (return on investment) model. There is no automation readily available for this kind of posting and the sites actively wage war against that tactic anyway. So, you’re left with doing it manually or having your outsourcer or staff perform the tasks associated with getting ads placed.

So, why would you want to mess with these sites in the first place? First of all, they can be a source of traffic. These sites, especially the large ones, DO see a lot of traffic, and if you are adept at crafting  headlines and ads, you can do well here. The things you need to be on the lookout for is all the add-ons that the sites try to sell you. This can add up fast, and in reality, if  you’ve done your homework and made a great ad, you will need little else to see results.

These sites have varying rules about what you can and can’t post, and you can push the envelope here a bit, but if you work within the rules, you’ll do better.

So which sites still do well? Obviously, Craigslist is the big dog in the space. At this writing, it is ranked as the 10th most trafficked site in the US and 38th in the world. Nuff said. Moreover, their systems generally make it easy to get your ads up and in the right category in order to be seen by the biggest audience.

Others worthy of mention include Backpage.com, Adlandpro.com, USFreeAds.com and Recycler.com. There are hundreds more, but getting noticed on these is a good start. Don’t totally discount classified ad sites; they might surprise you!

One of the most enduring and profitable business models in Internet marketing has to be the membership site. These can be created in nearly every market, and are usually good for quite some time, unless they’re built about technology that becomes obsolete, and even then they may still keep on truckin’! In general, it’s a good idea to make your membership sites about something you either have a great interest or expertise in, so that you don’t lose interest. This is not a commitment you can just bail on easily, so understand you’re in for the long haul!

Also, think about  your market when considering how you’ll make money from the site in ways other than the membership fees. Is it a good topic for Adsense or other contextual ad platforms? Can you sell independent ads there? Affiliate products? Your own products?

You can set up membership sites with relative ease, even using WordPress plugins and PayPal for the ultimate in simplicity. There are many other options as well that you can purchase that can create great a looking and fully functional membership site sometimes in less than an hour! You’ll also need to decide how you want members to pay. Is this a one-time fee or a monthly model? Most membership site packages help facilitate this.

Once you’ve got the necessaries out of the way, you’re left with the hardest part: the content. It’s not that your subject is all that demanding (though it may be!), but rather that you’re expected to deliver new and fresh content on a regular basis. Don’t deliver, and you’ll find people leaving in droves. Take the time to plan out your content strategy and then either do it yourself, or outsource this task. If you do the latter, make sure you give your outsourcer as much information as possible to come up with great content for your members. Also, be  sure to give them enough lead time as well, in case anything needs to be reworked.

Finally, when you’re all set, be sure to allow some time to promote the launch of your site. Send out a press release (or several!), announce it to any lists you may have, any forums you frequent, and perhaps buy some paid ads. Consider a JV partner if you are comfortable with the payout or you don’t have a list to market to.

A membership site can be a great vehicle to not only make some really good, semi-passive monthly income, but also a terrific tool for branding yourself as an authority in your niche market. Sounds like a plan to me!

There comes a time, usually long before you’ve ever created a blog or site, that you want to monetize it and make some cash for all your efforts. This is only natural, and you would be remiss if you didn’t look into some of the ways you can accomplish this. Here are some things to consider when trying to set up a strategy for this, and what you need to think about.

One note of caution before we get into how to monetize your blog or site: With a new site, it’s sometimes best to make sure you have something there before you start asking people for money. Nothing sells like good content, and the more often you deliver that, the more return visitors and search engine popularity you’ll have in the first place, which is what it’s all about, right? So, word to the wise….

There are about 3 or 4 main ways to monetize your site. In no particular order, here they are:

• Contextual Ads- This means programs like Google Adsense, Bing, and any other ad engine that can deliver contextual ads to your site. This is usually in the form of an ad box containing several links to offers. When your visitors click on these, you get a percentage. It may not be much, but it can add up over time, particularly if you have a popular site.
• Affiliate Offers – A more lucrative way to go would be to promote affiliate offers on your site. This would hopefully be in tune with what your site is about, so there would be some sort of relevance. For example, if you have a spiritual site peppered with ads for Adult FriendFinder, you will likely find your readership dwindling fast. Try not to let the ads overwhelm your page; they should blend in as much as possible.
• Sell Your Own Ad Space – When you start to get a lot of traffic, the ad space on your blog becomes exponentially more valuable, and you can make a lot more selling ad space than you might with anything else. A topic for another day…
• Opt-ins – By far the best long term way to monetize for  the long term, a targeted email list can bring you returns far greater than any of the above, and for a longer period. You need to START with building your list.

There you have it, a few ways to make some coinage with your blog or site. When you make your first million, don’t forget to come back here and outsource something!

There is a relatively new wrinkle in the online business world, and that is the practice of building websites and “flipping” them to buyers, much like what’s done in the real estate industry. The primary difference here, though,  is while flipping a house can take some time, you can accomplish the same thing with a website in a day (best case scenario).  There is a large market for ready-made websites, with many marketers looking for fast and easy solutions to getting multiple sites online. Virtual real estate is a hot market these days, even if the land based one is not. Let’s look at some of the aspects of flipping websites.

There is a market for nearly any kind of site. Some sell better than others, and the process can be done quickly or over time. There are even specific marketplaces to sell your sites, with the most well-known of these being Flippa.com. There, and at other sites like it, you’ll find a large number of web properties for sale, ranging from brand new affiliate product sites, blogs and made-for Adsense sites, to established money makers that get a great deal of traffic and income. Prices vary wildly as well; a new site with no traffic or income can still sell, but it will likely draw less than $75, while sites that can show proof of traffic and income can sell for several thousands of dollars.

The most common practice these days is for marketers to find keyword rich domain names, build a site around it, and then spend a couple of months developing it to the point where there is more value. This often hikes the price from around $100 to many hundreds if not a few thousand, depending on the numbers. While this is not as immediate as some would like, the business model is to have a number of these in the pipeline, all maturing at different times.

Site flipping is not overly difficult and requires few skills most online marketers already possess. If you have an eye for style and can drive traffic to your sites, you may well find that site flipping could be an online business model you can profit from!

There is always a debate going on amongst webmasters as to whether or not the various types of links we acquire have any impact on our rankings. How much is this type weighted, does this one carry the day, and so on. What’s hot now is always a matter of part speculation and part testing, but there are some patterns that emerge that we can take as pretty good indicators that a certain type of backlink is worth pursuing or not. Let’s look at the current state of affairs, as best as we can divine it!

First off, there are MANY sources of backlinks you can get for your sites. You can get them from articles, blog posts, directories, RSS feeds, Web 2.0 sites, videos, podcasts, software, themes or templates, news sites, blog networks, blog comments, video responses, social bookmarking, social networks, affiliates, forum signatures, forum profiles, guest books, trackbacks, and many more I’m just not thinking of at the moment! Yes, some of them are more valuable than others. You’ll also hear terms like follow and nofollow, .edu and .org links, comment spam, and more. These also have a place in our world.

Bottom line: a link is a link. Get as many as you can, avoid bad neighborhoods, such as porn sites or gambling, big pharma, and a couple of others Google dislikes. Don’t obsess about follow and nofollow; a balanced link profile will have some of each —  it’s only natural. Do try and get follow links from sites with high page rank if possible. Contextual links are weighted heavier than blogroll, sidebar and footer links, and especially link pages. Don’t buy links from text link sellers: this is not only expensive, but it’s also not permanent. You stop paying, it goes away, not to mention that if Google finds out, you’re penalized.

If you are commenting on blogs, leave quality, valuable comments that contribute to the discussion. For example, .edu links are a good thing, while .org links maybe not so much anymore. Make sure, if at all possible, to make sure you are promoting your promoters. This means throwing bookmarks or other links at the pages that are linking to you. This helps them get found, and thus count for you as well.

Remember that things change. What’s working today may not work tomorrow, and link building is something you will always be engaged in, so get used to it! Outsourcing it can alleviate some of the pain! (Hint, hint!)

You never call, you never write… is that about the state of affairs in your business? We work so hard to attract an audience who wants to follow us, and then find it hard to make the time to communicate with them. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, eh? Let’s take a look at what you may want to do, and some of the ways you can accomplish keeping in touch with your peeps on a more consistent basis a reality in your business!

So how much do you want to be an authority in your market? The authority blogs out there are blogging on a daily basis, sometimes many times a day. This type of frequency is really dependent on the type of business and market you’re in, and can vary wildly. It’s fairly tough to blog about solid tires for commercial tractors several times a day. However, other niches are begging for it. You need to gauge your audience based on need along with what you hope to accomplish with this. How do you find out this information? Communicate with your audience and ask!

Your communication can come in several forms — it doesn’t have to be only blogging. You can contact via email, videos, audios, webinars, web conferences, and live events, making yourself available and establishing yourself as someone who is not only worth listening to, but is readily there for them. This means a lot. These days when it’s essential to have mentors and advisors to help us with aspects of this sometimes complicated world of marketing and technology, being Johnny On The Spot counts for something!

Also, be sure it’s you who is setting the agenda and the terms of this communication. It’s very easy to be drawn into time-sucking rounds of emails, Skypes, and God-forbid phone calls with people who, to put it kindly, are willing to take up all your time and offer nothing in return.  You need to draw a line in the sand kindly, but firmly. In all likelihood you have a price for your time, especially if you do consulting of any kind and you don’t want to be in the business of giving away the buisiness!

Communicate regularly with your readers and followers. Just be sure to do it on your terms!

Are you utilizing the power of free offers in your business? There is a lot to be said for it. Who doesn’t like getting something for nothing (or a perceived nothing)? I know I do. Of course, there are tradeoffs to all this wonderful free material that usually come in the form of email addresses and other contact information. There are times when, in the course of delivering up a large amount of value, you offer something for absolutely nothing, not even an opt-in, simply for the sake of building up your reputation and brand for future dealings.  There are some definite best practices involved in this, and we’ll take a look at those now.

• Offer Genuine Value – How many times have you downloaded something free that was totally unmitigated junk? Many? Yep, me too. Usually what follows is an immediate unsubscribe, along with a mental note never to bother with that person again! The poor sap has lost you, probably forever, by simply trading on your good will by giving him something of value, which he reciprocates with his lousy free material. The insanity of this is that delivering (and over-delivering!) is not all that much more difficult than finding and serving up junk. And, it will serve you infinitely better in the long run. Moreover, the more valuable the material, the more authority and trust you gain in the eyes of the beholder.
• Have A Plan – You should have an overall plan that leads to a desired outcome. Whether it is a campaign leading to a launch of a product or creating an email list for affiliate marketing, make sure you have a step-by-step plan that details for yourself how this goes. Very often, timing is critical in this sort of thing, and you want to be sure of your next steps.
• Outsource It – If you either aren’t qualified or simply don’t want to take the time necessary to create your free reports, whitepapers, videos, or other media, look into outsourcing these tasks. It is not as expensive as you might think, and will almost certainly be done a lot faster! This counts for something when you’re trying to get things done; there are only so many hours in the day, and you need to put them to their best use!

Free is good! Make sure you use it in a good manner, and it will be a win for you!

If you want to be working toward becoming an authority in your chosen market or niche, few things are more important than being keenly aware of what’s going on within it! There is always something to learn, keep up with, and chime in on with the news you need to be aware of. Not only is this a great way to stay abreast of your competition, you can also learn about new products, ads, trends, and more. Let’s look at some of the ways you can effectively do this.

Probably the simplest way to keep track of what’s going on is to create Google Alerts for any forums, groups, blogs, news items, or keywords you want followed. While this is easy to do on Google, and you do get an email alert when something you’ve tagged is mentioned or comes up,  it does get quite onerous to keep up with, particularly if you have several niches to keep an eye on.

Boardtracker is the best service for tracking at the moment. It has more than 37,000 forums programmed into it and can be customized to your needs. There is a free version (basically useless as you can only set up one alert), but they have a 30-day free trial for their premium version which bills out at $39 a month.

Another option is SocialMention, which tracks some 80 social media sites, sending you an email alert daily. This one is free; however, it does not cover individual blogs,only social media.

Your best bet may be a combination of SocialMention and Google, if you’re looking to not spend any money. Otherwise, BoardTracker is pretty comprehensive.

Whichever way you choose to go, make sure you are keeping an eye peeled for what is happening in your space. Not only will this keep you constantly learning, but it also allows you to pass this on to your visitors in the form of added value, which is something we all need to be doing more of!

Today, more and more people are becoming very interested in making money with affiliate products, and rightly so. Affiliate marketing can be a terrific way to not only bring in a little spare change, it can actually mushroom into a thriving, fairly passive sort of income. This business model is especially attractive for those who are talented writers or marketers, as you can pretty much be a one man band. (that is until you want to REALLY start making some money!) But where do you find products to sell? Let’s take a quick look at several good sources for affiliate products, and ways to find others.

Commission Junction – One of the more venerable affiliate networks, CJ has been around a long time and has a load of good products to promote in a number of markets and niches, each with a lot of affiliate resources such as banners and other creatives, as well as instructions on keywords that you can and can’t use in your campaigns. The focus here is almost exclusively on physical products, and as such, the commissions are generally in the 4-10% range. This may not seem like a lot, but it can add up, and you may find less competition for your efforts.

Amazon - You can sell nearly anything from Amazon as an affiliate — that’s the good news. The  bad news is that payouts are extremely low. You need to rack up a lot of sales to create anything meaningful. This one is generally used as a filler offer; they have great tools to make ad boxes and product offers.

ClickBank - The premiere digital download affiliate network. They have thousands of digital products you can promote, and they make it very easy to get links and promo material. Commissions are higher in digitally downloadable products, usually in the 40-75% range. You can make a lot of money here, if you can generate traffic to your offers.

OfferVault - A blend of physical an digital offers, this one also has a vast selection of CPA offers. This is good as it eliminates the need to get approved by the various CPA networks, which can be problematical at times. There are more than 20,000 products here!

There are many other good affiliate networks out there, including PayDotCom, LinksShare, MaxBounty, Hydra, Google, and others. All are free to join, and most  pay promptly.  Take some time to browse the offerings and see which products you would feel comfortable promoting, and then get to it!

We all know that Google is the 900 lb gorilla when it comes to web search, but there is a lot more to this behemoth than may be readily apparent. There is a wealth of applications, tools, and services that can not only enhance your business, but increase your personal productivity many times over. Webmasters have a sort of love/hate relationship with Google, but there is no denying it’s usefulness and utility. It’s true you may be able to find comparable and even better services and apps elsewhere (except web search) but you’ll not find them all in one place like Google. Let’s take a look at just some of the things that are cool there.

Alerts -Google Alerts are email notices of anything Google comes across that is of interest to you. You set keywords and they deliver topical info. A great way to keep up on the news of your market or your competitors.

Chrome -Google’s browser. Very fast.

Toolbar -Google’s toolbar is a useful tool for webmasters. Some balk at installing this on their computer as it does mine your computer for data, especially on your habits, preferences, etc. Up to you to determine if it’s a privacy intrusion or not.

Trends – Keep up with the latest trends in your market or niche. You can see hot searches and topics, as well as historical data.

Labs – See what’s next in the Google pipeline before it makes it into the mainstream. Many of these are available to use while in labs.

Blogger – Google’s self-serve blogging platform. Very easy to use, you can set up your own blog and be online in minutes. Don’t make the mistake of putting your business blog here: if Google doesn’t like it, they’ll take it down and you’re out of business just like that, no recourse, no appeal!

Calendar – A very useful app for scheduling your day, week month and year. Easy to use and integrate with other apps.

Google Docs - A suite of productivity tools similar to Word that can not only help you you do simple tasks, but also to work in collaboration with anyone you choose. Very useful, but again, decide for yourself how much of this you want in Google’s purview.

Gmail – A very popular and effective email program, Gmail is becoming ubiquitous on the Web. Nearly everyone has one these days, and they have a business application as well. Lots of storage and features.

Google Reader – This is one of my favorites, as you can find and compile all your favorite feeds here in one place and read them conveniently. Very simple to use.

This is just the tip of the iceberg! There is much more, but there are of particular interest to marketers. See what works for you and put Google to work!

Many web content writers frequently obsess about whether or not they should be concerned with keyword density. For those who haven’t yet heard the term, or are unsure what it’s all about, keyword density refers to the number of times a particular keyword or keyword phrase appears in a piece of web content. Way back at the beginnning of web publishing, some 10-15 years ago, it was not uncommon for marketers who wanted to rank their content highly to “keyword stuff” their articles and web pages. This meant that they would use  their primary keyword a large number of times, almost to the point of making it unreadable. This didn’t matter to them though, as they were after rankings, and the search engines’ algorithms hadn’t yet evolved to the point where they could see this for what it was.

Fast forward to today and the landscape is far different. With so much competition out there and the SE algorithms so much more advanced, getting away with anything like this is unheard of now. The search engines prize readable, valuable content and those that are best able to provide that are going to be placed ahead of those that are still trying to game the system. The name of the game now is great content, and toward that end a new reality has come to the area of keyword density.

Today, it’s all about readability. While the search engines aren’t about to tell us exactly what factors they use to rank one sight over another, (such as the appropriate number of times a keyword should appear!) we are left to use empirical evidence to decipher what works. At this writing, it seems to be the best practice to include your primary keyword in the title, the first sentence, and a 2-4 more times in the article, blog post post, or web page. As a general rule, aim for no more than1.5 occurrences for every 100 words.

Doing things in this fashion, along with sprinkling in a lot of expert verbiage concerning the niche or market being discussed, will keep you on the right side of the search engine Gods…for now!

Many people entering the Internet marketing field are wildly unfocused in their initial efforts to create some measure of success. This is hardly a surprise or an anomaly. There is a lot to learn, a great deal to get proficient at, and the technology changes rapidly. While you may not often think of this comparison, it’s really, in essence, no different than if you were a bartender making the transition to a career as a software developer; it’s a whole new language, and you can’t be expected to take it all in in a week. (And it may drive you to drink!) Let’s look at some of the best ways you can laser focus your efforts and make your success curve as short as possible!

Pick One Thing -This is by far the most committed sin of new Internet marketers. They can’t pick one thing and stick with it until they get good at it, or it succeeds for them. They are always hopping from one thing to the next, whether it be programs, products, or markets. Find something you want to do, and do it till it works! Then add something else to the mix, but not before.

Delegate and Outsource -Don’t try and do it all yourself. You can’t. It’s not possible. If you have staff you can delegate to, do so. If not, outsource the tasks that can be done just as well and faster by others who specialize in it, and use your time for other aspects of your business.

Keep Educating Yourself -Don’t ever stop learning. There is always more to discover about your market or niche, and Internet marketing in general. The more you know, the better you can do your job. The best of the best in this business, (or any business for that matter) know that if you’re not constantly learning, you’re falling behind those who are.

Surround Yourself – With a great mentor, colleagues, friends in forums, and anyone else who can not only help you in the learning curve, but also potentially become far more than that. You never know where people are going to end up. Today’s newbie is tomorrow’s guru! Make friends, not enemies!

Make 2011 the year you wipe the fog from your eyes and laser focus in on your online business!

Sometimes when we are having tepid conversion rates for our products or opt-ins, we begin an all-out search for what in the world could be wrong? Is it the content, did we miss something? Is the color all wrong? Font size? Font type? Any number of minute details? While any of these and much more can indeed have an effect on the conversions that you experience (or don’t), oftentimes there is one crucial element that is missing that if not present, will sink your battleship everytime. Are you asking for the sale?

You may have the best products, programs, or services available this side of Venus, but the truth is that if you don’t ask for the sale, you likely won’t get it, especially in these recessionary times. People are looking for ways NOT to spend money. If you give them a fluffy sales proposition and don’t come out and make a forthright request for their business, you will have given them all the excuse they need not to buy from you.

Instead, what you want to do is lay out your best case for them to take the action you’re seeking, whether that be a sale, email opt-in, free report for more information (also an email opt-in), or any pitch. You give them your best content, explaining all the reasons why they need to do this now and how it is in their best interests, and then you are well within your rights to ask for the sale. In fact, it’s expected! Sales pages that DON’T ask for the sale not only don’t get it, but normally get left by frustrated prospects who are presumably reading your material because they are interested in what you’re offering. Even they expect the sales pitch! Don’t disappoint them!

You need to ask confidently for the sale. You’re in business to make money, so deal with it. It may feel uncomfortable because most humans don’t like to ask anyone for anything, but get over it. In fact, if you’re reading this blog post, the likelihood is that you are selling things online and never have to do this face to face! Which is all the more reason to put on your bold face and get to it. You can only profit from this!