3 Secrets to a Site that Sells

So, you've got your site up. Now what? You need to drive traffic, grow your opt-in list, make sales and work on your SEO. The list seems endless.

Step back for a minute and realize it's not possible to do everything at once. Once you've built your website, the first thing you should do is make your sales process watertight.

There's no point spending a ton of cash on pay-per-click ads to drive targeted traffic to your site if none of those visitors buys anything.

Follow this three-point sales action plan before you spend a bundle on attracting visitors.

1. Get your sales copy in top shape
You've got less than five seconds to persuade people to stay on your website, so your headline has to grab them and compel them to read on. The best headlines tell visitors they've found exactly what they're searching for and make them curious enough to keep reading.

But don't let your readers slip through your fingers once you've grabbed their attention with a hot headline.

Sales copy is what turns visitors into customers. So make sure it guides people through a streamlined process that:

• Identifies with their problem and builds your credibility
• Engages them--and explains why you can help
• Tells them how they'll benefit from your product
• Overcomes any objections they may have
• Compels them to take action--and tells them exactly what to do

Good sales copy funnels your readers through a tight sales process and doesn't give them a reason to click away. Take a look at your own and see if all the elements are in place, and if not, give it more of the attention it deserves. (Here's a more detailed article on sales copy.)

2. Collect testimonials
What's more trustworthy than a personal recommendation? A good testimonial can persuade even the most skeptical potential customer to buy from you.

Testimonials prove that your product really works--that it does exactly what you promise. And if you run a small business and haven't built your reputation, testimonials are indispensable.

Here's how to gather quality testimonials and benefit from them immediately:

• If you don't have any customers yet, give your product away to a group of people in your target market in exchange for their feedback.
• If you have some positive feedback from customers, contact them and ask permission to use their comments on your site.
• Don't be afraid to ask for testimonials. Invite customers to give you their vote of confidence with an e-mail link that says, "Click here to tell us what you think!"
• E-mail your buyers after they've purchased your product to ask them how they're enjoying it.

Try to get testimonials that are full of concrete benefits. How much money did someone save? How much time would they have spent without your product? How much better did they perform than before?

Let your visitors know these are real people. A first name, last name and location will prove it. A photo's great. And don't forget video.

You'll find dozens of opportunities to use testimonials throughout your site: on your homepage, within your sales copy, on a special testimonial page, on relevant product pages or in relevant product listings, so don't hesitate to use them where you can.

3. Make it easy to buy
I'm always amazed how many sites make it difficult for you to buy from them. According to market research from the Gartner Group, more than 50 percent of web sales are lost because visitors can't find what they're looking for. Don't make that mistake.

• Name your navigation buttons clearly so it's obvious what people will find when they click on them.
• Keep your navigation simple and consistent throughout your site, so people don't have to click any more than necessary. Ideally, someone should be able to buy from you in two clicks at most.
• Use "Buy Now" buttons that link to your shopping cart or order page every time a product is shown--especially if you have a catalog site.
  And when people click to your sales page, make things easy for them.
• Provide a range of payment options. Accepting credit cards is an absolute must, but PayPal, Google Checkout or even a downloadable mail-in form make it possible for anyone to complete a transaction.
• On your order form, ask only for the information you need. For example, if you sell an e-book, it's unlikely you'll need a home address. The less information people have to give you, the better they like it.
• Don't underestimate the power of including a phone number people can call if they have any questions.

Sales copy, testimonials, shopping cart. Once you've got these three crucial elements of your sales process shipshape you can confidently drive targeted traffic to your site--and know it'll convert!

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7 Unconventional (and Sneaky) Ways To Generate More Traffic For Your Website

I remember when I first got started in online marketing I read a stat that blew my mind. 

At the time, your average American internet user was visiting 50 different websites every day. To me, this stat meant that there are 50 ways to get your message in front of the right people every single day.

Now, we all know that marketing is about more than finding the right market, it is about bridging the right message with the right media at the right time.

How many different ways do you currently drive traffic to your website?

Or, for that matter, how many different ways do you market yourself to find new customers? If you are using more than 3 unique strategies, than you are in the minority. Most businesses depend on 1-3 sources of traffic and customers.

The truth is though, there are probably close to 15 unique ways you can be finding customers, and easily as many if not more ways to generate targeted traffic for your website.

Previously I shared with you somegreat strategies in this post about Insurance Library.  Where I discussed using Q&A sites to find prospects.

You no doubt read my big list of ways to generate traffic for your website, but in  this post I want to focus on some unconventional strategies.

There is a clever traffic generation click that sneaks up on prospects in a friendly, yet unassuming way.

Basically, you need to come up with an excuse to engage someone in conversation, and than leave breadcrumbs for them to follow to reach and click on the site you want them to.

A classic example is to engage with someone in a blog comment, or on a social post they made. Odds are, they will likely notice you and click through to see who you are. I know I do this all the time.

But, you can take this a step further with some clever sneak attack strategies.

1. User Testing - Sometimes user testing can cost $30+ each, but there are much cheaper options, some even free, like asking in a forum or on reddit for a site review and critique. More importantly though, asking people for feedback is the perfect way to get noticed. A couple years ago, I was consulting for a new user testing company and my recommendation to them was to run user tests to acquire customers. Basically, they would pay a user testing service to have their users test the website, and since the website was targeted to user testers, he was able to reach very targeted traffic. Nowadays, with user testing you can set all sorts of requirements and criteria, which help you reach the right people at the right time. This strategy actually works for many other industries as well. After all, someone running user tests to make a few bucks online is probably also interested in making money online opportunities, ,many might even be willing to be affiliate marketers or social ambassadors, etc…

2. Design contests - Sites like 99Designs let you create a design content where hundreds if not thousands of designers will notice your ad and many will compete to win the contest you post. If you were launching a freelancer website, this would be a great way to get noticed by your target market. If you are launching a marketplace for designs like CreativeMarket, this would be a great strategy to reach your audience. This also works for other freelancer networks.

3.  Linking to sites you want exposure from. I notice any new links that point to my blog. In fact, the moment I see referral traffic from a new source, I will spend 5-10 minutes researching exactly who is linking to me and not only do I discover new products and services, I also discover people worth building a relationship with. Even without a link, I have Google Alerts set up for my name, and my different company names, clients names, etc… In fact many people have social media listening/monitoring tools setup as well looking for brand or name mentions. These are great strategies for reaching influencers. Trust me, most of them will notice.

4. Job Websites - If you are trying to reach prospects, one of the best ways to get noticed is to post a job online. Thousands will see it, and the posting cost will easily be covered.

5. Classifieds websites - Post a gig or a job, or even an item for sale. Just think about which sections will reach your audience and post something related. For example, if you do landscaping, maybe sell a used lawnmower on craigslist and nextdoor.com and you will reach local prospects who will now know you exist. Don’t forget that there are literally hundreds of niche websites that offer classifieds for specific industries and verticals. I sometimes browse the job board on problogger looking for writing opportunities, but I’ll often discover other marketing blogs or websites that are relevant to me.

I think its important to note that you still need to be authentic with your engagement. Most people can sniff out a sales pitch from a mile away.

As Dan Kennedy says, never underestimate the skepticism of your market. You can assume whatever you want about them and their intelligence level, but…NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THEIR SKEPTICISM! This is the reason you should be forthcoming about any flaws in your business and possible objections your prospects may have.

What are some other websites you can think of to sneak up on your audience without screaming for attention?

However, my personal favorite sneak attack traffic strategy is “Consumer Surveys.”

For about 10 cents an answer, I can ask anyone a question through Google Consumer Surveys

You can do something simple like which of two logos do you prefer. This will not only give great insights, but will help you reach your audience in an indirect way.

In fact, for fifty cents an answer, you can ask a qualifying question first. For example, you can first ask, do you own a website, and than ask your survey question. Just make sure to include details about your business in the question, so they are exposed to your brand in an authentically engaging way.

Think about all the websites your targeted persona’s visit and think about all the different ways you get in front of them inconspicuously. I bet you can come up with a dozen ways, many of them free, that you can sneak up on your audience and engaged them authentically.

Now, for the best strategy of them all… Numero Seven…

7. Integration partners with other websites.

The most valuable traffic I have ever found online is getting traffic from an industry peer who gives out your content to their audience. Guest posting is a simple version of this, a much more effective version is giving away free bonuses of your content with the purchase of a related product from an industry peer. Not only do you reach your audience for just the cost of content, and not only do you get instant credibility by having them share your content, but you reach people who are actively demonstrating a willingness and ability to buy a related product. There is no other way I know to actually reach prospects who demonstrated and ability to pay and a willingness to buy.

With that in mind, you should know that I discover new companies all the time by browsing zapier, ifttt and other sites that connect API’s to see who they integrate with. Same goes for Marketo. They list all sorts of marketing apps that integrate with their system. It’s called Launchpoint, and it is full of excellent marketing tools. So, if you have some sort of software, integrate with Zapier, Integrate with other platforms, especially universal ones, and you will see it drive all sorts of targeted traffic your way.

I have easily spent over $10,000 over the years with companies I discovered by browsing the directory of services that integrate with the services and apps I currently use and many that I don’t even use, but may want to in the future. Integrate and you will not only add a new access point to your system, but you will get lots of free marketing and exposure to extremely qualified prospects.

Good Luck!

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22 Social Marketing Tips Your “Social Media Expert” Won’t Tell You

“Social media experts” are great at tweeting and joining the conversation. But they’re terrible at marketing.

You know, the kind of marketing that actually matters. Like generating leads, increasing sales, improving customer retention, and growing your business.

Social media isn’t an isolated “thing”. It should help you accomplish all of these goals. But if you follow their advice, then you’ll have an “active” Twitter account and little else to show for it.

Here are 22 social marketing tips you can use to help grow your business.

Start Right

1. Start with a Goal: Why are you blogging? What are you doing on Twitter? There are only three acceptable answers: (a) increase brand awareness by growing your reach, (b) build customer loyalty by providing more support, or (c) increase sales by getting more people to purchase, more frequently. Don’t even start unless you can answer this question.
2. Ignore Your Competition: Trying to benchmark other people’s Fans and Followers is a fools game. You’ll start making bad decisions because you’re trying to “keep up”. And when you make bad short-term choices, your long-term success will suffer. The best tactical ideas and campaigns haven’t happened in your industry yet. So use arbitrage marketing to figure out what new, untapped opportunities you can seize and gain an early lead. Look at what people are doing in other industries and try to experiment with similar tactics.
3. Don’t Be on Every Social Network: Community management will deplete all of your resources. Each social network you manage will cost you exponentially more time, money and energy. And contrary to popular belief, social media isn’t free. It takes tremendous resources to do it properly, and has an enormous opportunity cost. Soprioritize one or two networks to see the biggest growth.
   

   Don’t Make Excuses

4. You Do Have Enough Time and Money: People always claim that they don’t have time or money to invest in social media. But the truth of the matter is that you can’t afford not to. If you’re short on time, then hire a virtual assistance and outsource your lowest level tasks. Or invest in resources that will speed up your learning curve. If you’re short on money, then you should have more time to spend on content creation or networking. Set an easy, actionable goal like 2 extra posts each week, or reach out to one blogger a day. And do an informal audit of how you currently spend your time. You’ll be amazed at the time wasted and the opportunity cost your time could be worth.
5. Being Efficient Doesn’t Mean You’re Being Effective: Social media is wonderful, but people confuse busyness with effectiveness. Start with a goal, reverse engineer how you’re going to reach that goal, identify your highest ROI activities, prioritize and set boundaries, be disciplined and accountable to others.
6. Have Relentless Focus: When you’ve identified one main business goal, every online strategy and tactic will need to support it to get the highest ROI. And sooner or later, you’ll have to make a tough decision. You’ll need to divide your limited resources and choose what you’re going to do (and what you’re going to ignore). But you’ll see that this decision is easy when you have a goal. Your social media use will now have a purpose. And you’ll find that you do have enough time for it’s strategic use.
   

   Set Yourself Up for Success

7. Be a Publisher First: Online marketing can’t exist without content. No SEO. No email marketing. No social media. That means you’re in the media business. So you better start learning how to create valuable content. Check out Red Bull, American Express andLowe’s for good examples.
8. Understand What Motivates Your Audience: “Industries” or “businesses” aren’t boring – the people who say that are. Nobody cares about your business (or mine!). People only care about themselves (including you and me!). The way you come up withblog content ideas is to understand your audience, and the benefit your products or services give them.
9. Don’t Overemphasize Tactics: Oprah isn’t good at social media because she’s a Twitter guru or Pinterest expert. She understands (a) what her audience wants, and (b) uses these new tools to create a repoire to get them to trust her more and stick around longer. Once you’ve identified the goal you’re trying to reach, then you need to create marketing objectives and a strategy that will deliver on these promises. Tactics help you accomplish a strategy. But they can’t increase revenue or decrease costs on their own.
10. Crown a Dictator in your Organization: Bureaucracies and politics kill action. Even getting someone to make a decision can take weeks. But be careful of HIPPOs – where the highest paid person’s opinion reigns supreme. Instead, companies need to findchampions with a history of success, and who prefer data-driven decisions over political ones.
    

    Be Unconventional

11. Be Lazy: Connecting one-to-one is great. But it doesn’t scale. Instead, you should be lazy and make people come to you. Create content, provide expertise, or use money to put yourself in front of communities of people – and give them the chance to find you.
12. Do Less: Spreading yourself too thin will give you average results. If you want to grow, then get good at creating content (or hire someone to do it). Then contribute articles to top media properties in your industry, or speak in front of organizations (for free!). You’ll get real business leads (first), and build a social media following (second). All with one investment of your time and money. Exactly the way it should be.
13. Ignore Trends: Trends are like waves in the ocean, they come and they go. Pinterestmight work for some businesses. But for others, it’s a waste of time. It has the (a) wrong kind of traffic, (b) not enough users, and a (c) demographic mismatch. Instead, focus and invest in the fundamentals – like your blog and email marketing.
    

    Be Original

14. Have a Voice: People don’t want to connect with faceless corporations. They want to connect with real humans. But a lot of companies still don’t understand this. No one will like, trust or respect your company in the long run if they can’t get straight, honest feedback in a timely manner.
15. Take a Stand: In his TED talk, Simon Sinek said, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”. Think about the special companies that you like and admire. They start with “Why”. They tap into a bigger cause than themselves, and that emotionally connects with people. If you only sell “What” you do, then you’re going to be stuck selling commodities and you’ll always compete on price.
16. Declare an Enemy: If you’re going to have a voice and take a stand for something, then by default there has to be examples of people, trends, business philosophies or companies you don’t agree with. Again, you’re not marketing to everyone. You want to attract those who share your worldview. And one of the best ways to get people to commit and emotionally engaged is through sharing a common bond, or defending yourselves against the same threat.
    

    Measure the Right Things

17. Twitter Followers -> Email Subscribers: Twitter is a great communication channel. It helps you contact and stay in touch with anyone you want. But it doesn’t directly make you real money. Email marketing is still the most profitable online marketing channel.
18. Facebook Fans -> People Talking About This: Facebook’s EdgeRank was designed to keep companies from spamming their “fans”. So it only allows you to reach the fans that actively engage with your brand. “People Talking About This” is the closest metric you have to increase your “viral reach”. The higher that number goes, the better chance you have of reaching more people. And the bigger your page will grow because you’ll start reaching more “friends of fans”.
19. Forget about Blog Comments: The 1% rule of the internet is a general rule of thumb that says most people (90%) will consume content, while very few will interact (9%) or create it (1%). This is even more lopsided when you look across different industries. People in these warm and fuzzy industries are extremely active in creating content, and will leave more comments than the rest of the world. So the type of person each industry caters to says more than the actual, real engagement.
20. Klout -> Net Promoter Score: Klout is like the stereotypical pretty girl in high school, she looks good on the outside but lacks substance on the inside. Do you really want to know how satisfied customers and fans are? Then ask them to take the Net Promoter Score. It’s one simple question that will only take a few seconds, and it’s vastly more accurate than Klout.
    

    “How likely are you to recommend to a colleague or friend?”
    Your Net Promoter Score equals the percentage of Promoters (9s and 10s) minus the percentage of Detractors (0 through 6) (7s and 8s are “Passives”, and are left out).

    
    

    Have Perspective

21. Have Realistic Expectations: People are too impatient. You can’t throw a Hail Mary pass in the last minute of the game and expect to win every time. Marketing and sales only work if people trust you. And that process takes time. In the simplest terms possible, there are two ways to market online: (a) use advertising to “rent” attention, or (b) use inbound marketing to “earn” attention. But both are going to cost you something. If you don’t have the time or energy, then you need to spend money on advertising. If you don’t have money to invest, then you need to spend time and energy in creating content, building relationships, and learning how to get people to find you.
22. Go Beyond Facebook and Twitter: Social media (and internet marketing) at larger companies is easy. Extremely easy. It’s easy to build Twitter Followers and get people to engage with you when your company has been around for decades. But it’s extremely difficult to transcend those networks and get the whole organization aligned with how your consumers shop today. Social media success transcends your Facebook page or latest Twitter promotion. It’s a new way of doing business and it starts with your DNA, your product or service, and your people. So if you want to improve your social media presence, then start on the inside of your organization first.

Conclusion

Social media is much more than “engaging in the conversation”.

It’s a new way of doing things, and a new set of tools to help you do it. But the same marketing fundamentals apply.

You need to gain attention, build trust, and keep people engaged longer.

Because in addition to growing your “social media presence”, you’ll also be able to get more traffic, bring in more leads and create more happy customers.

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How To Drive More Traffic To Your Blog

If you want to attract a strong readership for your blog, it’s obvious that you need to create great content. But that’s not sufficient: amazing content that doesn’t get read might as well not exist. To build a thriving blog, you also need to learn to drive traffic to it.

So what methods do the experts use? We’ve compiled a list of 13 tried and true ways to build your audience.

1. Incorporate social influencers into your blog posts (where relevant). Writing about, say, social media? If you cite a prominent example like Gary Vaynerchuk, it’s a win-win: your post has more credibility because you’ve cited a specific example, and the thought leader in question may be inclined to promote the blog among his or her communities, since it mentions them favorably. Same goes for any niche community, whether you’re citing socially-savvy surfers or sushi chefs.
2. Add a link to your latest article in your Twitter bio and ask for retweets. Use your Twitter “real estate” by linking to your latest article in your Twitter bio. You can also drive social sharing by specifically asking others to retweet it. (If you create huge amounts of content, you can’t do this all the time, but it’s powerful when used sparingly.) Indeed, astudy by Social Bakers of thousands of brands on Twitter found that users who asked their followers to “RT” their tweet received 73.48 average retweets per tweet. Compare that with just 2.09 retweets for those without a call-to-action.
3. Send your article out in a blast email or newsletter to your contacts. If you have an e-newsletter (and it’s still one of the most powerful marketing tools today), include links to your blog posts. Your subscribers already like what you do; this nudge can remind them to check out your blog.
4. Add a link into your email signature inviting people to read your latest blog post. Think about how many people you email on a daily basis, new and old. This simple practice reminds them you have a blog, and may intrigue them enough to click the link.
5. Send your blog post to relevant people/organizations/blogs that would be interested in reading it and sharing it with their networks. You can simply send a message such as, “I recently published an article on the top apps for entrepreneurs and thought your readers might find it interesting.” Offer to reciprocate by sharing or linking to a relevant post of theirs. Daniel’s writer friend Brian Honigman occasionally emails him with a specific ask: will Daniel share an article Brian has written on social media? If Brian were to merely tweet out his article, many people (including Daniel) might miss it, but an email request cuts through the clutter.
6. Send your blog post out to any person or entity mentioned. It’s not just social influencers – if you mention a local bakery or car dealership or a software company in your post, send them a link and alert them. It’s likely they’ll be interested in reading and promoting it, as well.
7. Share your article on other social networks. Pinterest, Vine, Storify, Digg, Quora, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Care2 are just some of the many options for sharing your work.
8. Share your article on social bookmarking sites. Plenty to choose from here, as well: Newsana is a new, good site, and you should also consider Paper.li, Delicious, Ebaumsworld, Newsvine, Scoop.it, Technorati, and more.
9. Tweet your post multiple times, with different teaser quotes. The first time you tweet about your new post, merely make it the title of your article (“13 Innovative Ways to Drive More Traffic to Your Blog”). The second time, you can quote from the article or summarize key points (“Tip to increase blog readership – send a link to anyone you mention in your post”). For your third, you can pose a question (“Do you want to dramatically increase your blog readership?”). This prevents you from looking like a spammer, and different headlines may capture different readers.
10. Leverage Google Authorship. As SEO expert Jayson DeMers has discussed, signing up for Google Authorship allows your author profile to appear by your posts and connects it with your Google+ profile.
11. Utilize LinkedIn groups. Post the blog via relevant LinkedIn groups. You can join up to 50 groups and many have thousands upon thousands of members—dramatically increasing your potential reach. For instance, if you’re a woman in social media who lives in New York, you might consider joining the “Social Media Marketing” group, with over half a million members.
12. Include visual content and videos. Study after study has found people engage more with images, infographics, videos, and the like. It’s a powerful way to get readers connected.
13. Make your blog SEO friendly. Include a headline that users might search for in Google, such as a “how to.” Repeat keywords from your headline in your post (but not too frequently, or you’ll look like a spammer). And make sure to link to credible outside sources and think about how you can truly add value to the reader. What Google and other search engines seek to prioritize is quality information.

As you can see, it takes actual work to promote your article. But the good news is that there are more resources today than ever before.

Have you effectively used these methods to drive traffic to your blog? Do you recommend other strategies? Let us know in the comments section below.

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FREE - 11 Step-by step Traffic Generation Books

Secrets to Achieving Amazing Internet Marketing Success

So, you have a website. You're now ready to get into online marketing of it, correct? Well, now is a great time. You probably have a lot of questions on how to start and what to do, but don't fret, this article can help. Listed below are some tips that will help you get started with your online marketing.

If you run multiple business websites do not neglect the value of cross-promotion to your online marketing efforts. It is likely that your different websites share some common values, so visitors to one site will be interested in another. Make it as easy as can be for potential customers to jump from site to site to examine your full range of offerings.

To build relationships with your potential customers, it's important to get involved with social media. Sites like Twitter and Facebook, along with community forums, offer you unique ways to engage directly with your consumers. Social media may not lead to immediate sales, but it certainly will help you build brand awareness and long-term growth potential.

Add special features unique to members that keep them constantly aware of new updates on the site. Provide them with valuable emails and newsletters which will make them appreciate the website. They will be happy to return to the site and use the affiliate marketing when they know that they are continuously being treated to great content.

Always check your site for broken links before doing a website marketing campaign. How humiliating would it be if you run a successful marketing campaign and then customers have the worst experience ever on your website due to broken links? Make sure you check for grammar and spelling errors as well.

An easy way to remind your current customers about your store and also, to tell potential customers about your store, is to send a press release. You can announce sales, new products or just remind your customers to come back and shop. Anything that brings your company to the front of your customer's mind, can really help your profits.

Every successful Web marketing business needs a plan that includes a way of tracking what works and what doesn't. If you don't know where your traffic is coming from, you can't do more of the same. Once you find out what specific content or promotion is bringing in the most money, you can do more of that.

When doing any form of online marketing, don't forget to include a call to action, wherever in your content that you want people to take an action. Novice marketers often neglect this and that's part of why they don't succeed. Your whole marketing strategy should not be calls to action, because then people feel like you're treating them like walking wallets. However, it's also not much good to you if you focus on creating quality content without any calls to action. Use any call to action, strategically.

Make sure that anything that you claim on your blog or any other place online is purely factual information and not inference. Posting things that you are not sure about can backfire if your readers find out what you are saying is not the truth. Do some research if you are not exactly clear on the topic.

Use social bookmarking sites to your advantage. Unlike regular bookmarking, which saves to the browser, social bookmarking saves to their personal page. Many have an option to bookmark a page publicly, allowing their peers to see who they have bookmarked. This is a great way to increase your visibility among your target audience.

Blogging is an important component of any web marketing strategy. By creating a blog, you are able to have conversations with your customers. Your thoughts and opinions can help visitors to your website identify with you, and you can also use your blog entries as an opportunity to help optimize your site for search terms.

Look at your website, you may love it just because it is yours, but there is always room for improvement. If you are not open to the idea that your website can be improved, you will not have the website you desire and others want to visit. Not one website is perfect, and all websites can improve.

Now you are much more prepared when it comes to affiliate marketing. You thought that you were ready before, well look at you, now! Hopefully, the tips that were provided gave you some pointers that will help you get started with your online marketing plans, so that you can begin marketing your website like a pro.

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SECRETS OF INTERNET MARKETING MILLIONAIRES! ~WHAT 97% OF MARKETERS DON'T DO

Everyone wants to know the secrets of Internet marketing millionaires to be successful. Some of the secrets of Internet marketing millionaires you may already know, but are just not taking action on or have not realized how important it really is. Not long ago when I was a struggling Internet marketer, I ignored some of the things I thought was small and I didn't start getting results until I realized how important those things I though were small, really were. So the first secret of Internet marketing millionaires is your mindset and controlling your thoughts. Your mindset and thoughts are important because it controls what you believe, what you believe controls your work ethic and what you produce, and what your produce controls your results. That is why you must work on yourself everyday. This is the first secret you must understand and take action on. 

Internet marketing millionaires also surround themselves with other successful people. This was so important and a big key to my success online. You must surround yourself with other successful people because this will keep you creative and keep you continuously stretching to reach higher goals. The people you surround yourself with also affects your behavior and the way your think which has an enormous influence on your success. If you have no other like minded people to surround yourself with, then reading books written by successful people is what you should do. Doing this is like sitting down with these great minds in person. This is something that Internet marketing millionaires do and something you must do if you want to be successful online. 

I want to keep this article about secrets of Internet marketing millionaires short. I just wanted share some of the most important, but most ignored secrets that may be the reason you may not be getting results in your business. Both of the steps explained in this article is exactly what you must do everyday to be successful online. I sincerely hope you received value from this article. Take care and take action. 

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The 3 Secrets to Massive Online Marketing Success

If you’re trying to sell products and services online, you’re probably looking for that one magic key to make your business work.

You buy CDs and DVDs that will tell you the secret.

You subscribe to sites like Copyblogger to study the secret.

You look at mega-successful sites in your market and try to reverse engineer the secret.

After all of this searching, you may be tempted to believe there is no secret. But the secret is real.

Actually, there are three secrets that work together. To be blunt, these three magic success secrets separate the winners from the losers. Master them and you’ll start to move forward. Slowly at first, then you’ll pick up momentum and things will start to move amazingly quickly. No baloney, no tricks. These three secrets are . . .

Success secret #1: Take action

Every year, hopeful entrepreneurs buy millions of dollars’ worth of “how to succeed” or “how to start a business” products. The market isn’t limited to doing business online, but the idea of working at a computer making “six-figure incomes in our pajamas” is especially irresistible.

95% of the customers for these products will spend thousands of dollars, then turn around looking for the next magic pill before their credit card gets a chance to cool off. So are online marketing products all garbage? Are they just hype and spin?

There are some junky products out there, but the truth is that many of them are excellent. The “gurus,” as they’re (not always affectionately) called, have a lot of sound advice to give. Their advice can make you lots of money, if you know the success secret:

You actually have to do something with the advice.

Most customers for “business opportunity” products value the dream more than they do the result. They want to get out of the cubicle, out of their crummy apartment, out of credit card debt. They might even want it desperately. But they don’t take action.

I’m not saying this to be flippant or harsh. It’s not actually all that easy to go from advice to action. If you don’t have a good track record for that, if you’ve spent a lot of time or money on how-to products but never really done anything with it, you may believe you’ll never master it.

That’s BS.

Your new productivity methodology

Get a little notebook. This is your to-do list for your project.

If you’re a content marketer, most of your actions will revolve around creating content, creating products, or delivering services. Be sure and maintain a long list of content ideas, so you’re never at a loss when it’s time to knock out a post or a podcast.

Write down all the actions you must take to get you to the next step. Add more actions as you think of them. Cross them off when you’re done. When the list is a mess, rewrite it.

You don’t need an elaborate system that wastes more time than it frees up. Your system only needs to help you know what to do next.

Work every day (7 days a week, no exceptions), even if some days you only have 15 minutes. Working every day will increase your productivity by spurring your unconscious mind to come up with more ideas. This is helpful for entrepreneurs, and critical for content marketers.

Make a daily habit of one hour of action on your biggest goal. You’ll be astonished at how quickly you start to make progress. Ready, Fire, Aim author Michael Masterson recommends an hour of work on your dream goal every morning, as a way to start your day with a terrific rush of productivity. I’ve been doing just that for the past few months, and I’m starting to get used to the “whooshing” sound as the pieces fall into place. Not only does it work, it feels great too.

You can spend that hour all at once, or divide it into two or three pieces. Make it work for you. And once you develop the hour-a-day habit, you’ll actually find yourself making excuses to do more work on your project.

Success is built on lots of small steps. Start taking them. You’ve built this up in your head to be 1,000 times harder than it is. The fact that you have historically been terrible at getting stuff done is not relevant at all.

Just start taking action. It honestly is that simple.

Success secret #2: Have a plan

The down side of “just taking action” is that if you do a lot of random tasks, you tend to get a lot of random results.

You need to put together a simple, reasonably logical plan. If you want notoriety and attention for its own sake, put together a Paris Hilton sort of plan. If you want credibility and trust from your customers, make it more of a Copyblogger kind of plan.

There’s an old saying that when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem tends to look like a nail. Fight that kind of thinking as much as you can. Your plan may call for expertise you don’t have, or actions you aren’t very good at. So make some room in your plan to partner with someone else. If you’re great at connecting with customers but lousy at technology, find a partner whose strengths and weaknesses perfectly complement yours. Believe me, that person is out there and wants desperately to work with you.

Making too many plans can be the enemy of success secret #1. Be sure your plan has plenty of room for “actions I will take.”

For most of us, grandiose plans don’t get implemented. It’s great to have spectacular goals, if that inspires you. But put together plans for relatively simple, manageable projects. A dumb, simple little project that gets done is infinitely more valuable than an impressive one that gets 99% done.

The reason “back-of-the-napkin” project planning is a cliché is because simple, compact plans tend to get put into action, while 1,000-page strategies to create business empires tend to gather dust.

Keep your project plan in your little notebook. If your plan doesn’t fit into a small notebook, make a smaller plan.

If you want to make a million dollars online, start with a project to make $10. Figure that out, then scale it. It sounds simplistic and even silly, but it works.

Success secret #3: Your secret sauce is you

This is the one that’s going to take #1 and #2 to a completely new level. Success secrets #1 and #2 can make you a decent living. Add #3 to those and you’ll start to create an extraordinary business that supports a meaningful life.

As a content marketer, you’re going to need to create interesting, useful and compelling content pretty much every day you’re in this business. Your blog posts, free reports and email newsletters all contribute to one goal: to establish you as a trusted authority on your topic.

If you’re just going to regurgitate the usual stuff in a lame me-too blog, you’re not going to find too many customers. You’re betting off spending your time surfing or skateboarding — at least with those, you’ll get some exercise and you might meet somebody cute.

You have a unique view of your market’s problems. You have a unique set of techniques and approaches to solve those problems. You have a unique set of experiences to put the problems in a fresh light. Share those unique perspectives in your content.

If you need more expertise to establish yourself as a credible authority, get out and start asking questions. Be a reporter. Look for case studies. Look for real-life examples, even if they’re tiny. Look for lessons in your own life. Make connections no one’s made yet. Bring someone else’s expertise to light in a new way.

If you’re a Franciscan monk, write about the Franciscan monk’s guide to brewing better beer. If you’re a doting parent, write about the toddler’s guide to success. If you’re an indentured servant for a big corporation, write about how to avoid doing all the really dumb stuff your company does.

There will always be people — often thousands of people — who know more than you do. Acknowledge that so you stay humble and open. Then put it to one side and speak up anyway.

Keep whittling down your topic until you’re speaking with an authentic voice about something you genuinely know and care about. Stay curious and you’ll find the path that works for you and only for you.

The real secret

Nearly everyone will read this, feel inspired for about 45 seconds, then go off to hit Starbucks and check out what the hottie on the 2nd floor is wearing today.

But you’re going out at lunch today to pick up your small notebook. As soon as you get back, you’re going to scribble a simple plan and a good handful of actions that will make the plan happen. You’re going to put some thought into how you can execute this plan in your own inimitable way.

You’ll make 10 minutes and take an action today, even if it’s small. Tomorrow morning, you’ll start working for an hour every day, 7 days a week, toward your biggest goal. And just like that, you’ll be on your way to true, meaningful success, however you define it.

Send me a postcard when you’ve reached your dream. I’ll be very jazzed to hear from you.

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