New Energy Articles Blog

Copyright 2006 John Navata

#1: Depend on the tried and tested essentials of Internet marketing

These key strategies for marketing your business online have always been effective, but are now much easier to apply. Things like…

Designing a web site that sells: As in the early days of the ‘Net, your web site needs to have clear navigation and a good sales process to be effective; however, it’s now much more important for your site to look professional. Today’s web surfers have clear expectations of how a commercial web site should look and perform. Luckily, new tools and resources, such as the free web-building software Nvu, make it a breeze for you to create a good-looking, fully functioning business web site.

Discovering a profitable niche market: Providing a solution to a problem for a narrowly-defined niche market is still extremely important — maybe even more so with the increased competition. But now, advanced tools such as Yahoo! Search Marketing’s Keyword Selector Tool and Wordtracker can help you pinpoint exactly who your market is and what they’re hungry for.

Multiplying your profits with additional income streams: If you want to pile profit on top of profit, combine several revenue streams. The host of e-commerce opportunities that are now available mean that you have an almost limitless selection of these profit-boosters: from moving merchandise on eBay to creating free web pages with Google pages that will be quickly indexed by the search engines, to selling on-demand merchandise on sites such as CafePress.com.

Expanding your reach — and profits! — with an affiliate program: An affiliate program can still ramp up your income while exposing your site to a wider audience. But instead of recruiting an “army” of affiliates, these days it’s more important to attract “super affiliates” to your program — a few affiliates who will be responsible for generating the bulk of your sales. These superstars can be attracted by a generous commission structure and payouts for sales generated long after an affiliate’s referral. Of course, some areas of Internet marketing have changed more than others since our first course made its debut in 1998. Let’s take a look at some of them… and the tremendous opportunities they offer.

#2: Make sure your e-mail gets delivered… the critical changes you need to be aware of E-mail marketing is still highly profitable. In fact, we made $2.4 million last year from e-mail marketing alone!

Not only is it a great — and inexpensive — way to establish relationships with your customers, but your promotions and follow-up offers can be completely automated.

However, while you used to be able to send e-mail to absolutely everyone, these days you have to be very careful. Spam — a growing problem on the ‘Net — cost US businesses an estimated $17 billion in 2005 (Ferris Research) and now accounts for 57% of all e-mail (Ipswitch 2006)!

The consequences of spamming have grown far beyond a slap on the wrist from your Internet Service Provider or a few nasty e-mails from angry recipients. For example…

Internet Service Providers now filter all incoming e-mail for spam by blocking messages that contain particular combinations of words or phrases and shutting out ALL e-mail from the domains and IP addresses of known spammers. So if you get mistakenly labeled as a spammer, as much as 50% of your e-mail may be “filtered” and never reach your subscribers. And it can take weeks or months to resolve the issue!

The CAN-SPAM Act (January 2004) introduced laws that allowed spammers to be prosecuted if specific guidelines aren’t being met. Under this Act you can be fined, and even jailed, if your e-mails don’t meet certain requirements, such as an “unsubscribe” link in the body of each e-mail you send out. The bottom line is that if you want to take advantage of the profit-boosting power of e-mail marketing, you MUST make sure that your e-mails comply with the CAN-SPAM Act. You can read the full text of the CAN-SPAM regulations at www.spamlaws.com/federal/can-spam.shtml.

Once you’ve made sure your e-mails will be delivered, you need to think about their content. In the face of overflowing inboxes, your e-mails and newsletters need to be particularly appealing and valuable if you want them to be opened.

#3: Keep up with the search engines and take advantage of FREE sources of traffic The search engine landscape has changed dramatically since we published the first edition of our course. We used to recommend getting listed on eight major search engines: Altavista, Excite, HotBot, InfoSeek, Lycos, Northern Light, WebCrawler, and Yahoo.

Today, clear leaders have emerged, narrowing our recommendations to the top three contenders:

Google: The most important of the three, Google has a 49% share of the search market.

Yahoo: A distant second, Yahoo has a 22% market share.

MSN: With 11% of the market, MSN is still worth focusing on. With fewer search engines, keeping on top of their ever-shifting algorithms has become critical. If you can get a top listing on Google, for example, you can double your potential customers!

A new way to drive free traffic to your site is to write short articles related to your industry and post them on e-zine article directories such as Ezinearticles.com. Include your tagline at the bottom of each article you write and watch your traffic increase exponentially — as well as your inbound links (which the search engines consider when ranking your site!).

Take advantage of as many FREE sources of traffic as you can to drive tons of targeted traffic to your site!

#4: Instantly boost your traffic with pay-per-click advertising

Paid search has exploded, becoming a widely accepted way to drive qualified traffic to your site — fast. And with each passing year, it becomes more sophisticated, allowing you to zero in on your target market with greater precision.

Today, the major players are…

Yahoo! Search Marketing (http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/): Yahoo’s sponsored search lets you advertise your site in the search results of the following search engines: MSN, Yahoo, AltaVista, InfoSpace, AlltheWeb, and NetZero.

Google AdWords (https://adwords.google.com/): With Google AdWords, you can have your ads show up in sponsored search listings for certain keywords — and you can also advertise on other sites that match your audience.

MSN AdCenter (https://adcenter.msn.com/): MSN has recently entered the arena of paid search with MSN AdCenter. So far, it’s the only PPC engine to offer keyword-based demographic targeting. Paid search is one of the fastest ways to drive qualified traffic to your site… and if done properly, won’t break the bank. To learn how to profit from pay-per-click advertising in three simple steps, check out my blog post.

#5: Promote your business with the technologies that have changed the face of Internet marketing Technology has been furiously advancing since the first edition of our Insider Secrets course — paving the way for new and highly effective ways to promote your Internet business. Let’s look at some that have had the biggest impact: Audio and Video: The Internet has come a long way since its text-only roots! Programming languages such as JavaScript and programs like Macromedia’s Flash have allowed for web video and audio, slide presentations, and other interactive elements.

Our testing has proven that using audio and video as part of your sales process can now have a dramatic impact on your bottom line — if done right. Use short audio and video clips of you and your customers to personalize your site and reassure visitors that you are a credible business.

Blogging: Blogs are informal web forums that invite feedback and discussion. They’re free to set up and use, and so simple that they can be created in minutes using sites such as Blogger.com. As a result blogging has exploded in popularity over the last few years.

With a business blog you can reach a wider audience, generate better search engine rankings, boost your revenue, and develop a rapport with your customers — to name just a few benefits. And because blogs are updated frequently, search engines LOVE them.

Podcasting: Podcasting, the delivery of audio files — typically MP3 files — via the Internet, is one of the hottest new technologies to hit the market. It allows you to publish audio content that interested listeners can subscribe to via RSS “feeds” — so they can automatically receive your audio broadcasts without having to go to your web site.

Direct-to-desktop technology: Direct-to-desktop technology is a way to deliver information straight to your subscribers’ desktops — without having to wrestle with e-mail filters, bouncebacks, or your competition!

Once your customers sign up, they don’t have to check their e-mail or visit your web site to get your latest news or updates. A flashing desktop icon alerts them as soon as they receive your message — and all they have to do is click to read it.

Tags: best internet marketing strategies, business internet marketing opportunity, internet marketing, internet marketing affiliate program, internet marketing online advertising, internet marketing service, internet marketing strategies, strategic interne
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Can you picture yourself as the owner of large quantities of land?  And on your land you own a variety of commercial buildings.   You have leased out each building with what is called a “triple net lease”, which means that you receive all the rental income while your tenants take care of taxes, insurance and maintenance.  In addition, every 3 to 4 months you create another building, for very little cost, which quickly becomes leased and adds to your income.  You are able to do this for as long as you want to, creating whatever income level satisfies you!

Sounds pretty desirable doesn’t it?
But what about the “real world”?
Learn Online Marketing and Create “Assets” That Increase in Value As Your Income Grows!

Virtual Estate

Instead of costly real estate, did you know that you can learn to create what some have called ”Virtual Estate”?  Virtual Estate is comprised of:
     Web pages
     Web sites
    Intellectual property
    Information products

These are venues for the most valuable property in the world: INFORMATION.

You can learn to provide an unlimited amount of quality product to an almost unlimited  number of interested customers.  “Product” can be created or obtained for a very low cost and made available to your customers as:

    E-Books - growing in popularity with instant delivery
    Audio Products -  presented with the intimacy of the human voice, instant delivery of a portable format
    Video Products - deliver a “live” experience for those who prefer the visual learning mode

You Can Learn to:

    Create quality content
    Present in a unique manner
    Promote effectively

When you have done this, you will have created “Information Assets”.  As you continue improving your methods of creating, presenting and promoting your products, your income will increase.  When your products are producing an income stream, each product becomes a saleable business asset.  As your income stream grows, so does the value of the assets producing your income stream: namely your products!

The greater the number of products you learn to produce, the more income streams you will enjoy!

Unless you have the unlimited land and buildings I first mentioned, you may want to find out more about creating your own “Virtual Estate“!.

Tags: best internet marketing strategies, business internet marketing opportunity, internet marketing, internet marketing affiliate program, internet marketing online advertising, internet marketing service, internet marketing strategies, strategic interne
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Copyright 2006 John Navata

The fact is, even if your web site is full of fabulous sales copy and photos that illustrate all the great features and benefits of your product or service, your potential customers still need to know:

What do people who have actually purchased and used your product or service think about it? It’s simple: your readers know that YOU believe in your product, or you wouldn’t be selling it! But what do people with the same problem or need that they have say about your product?

Answering that question is one of the most fundamental tasks your web site needs to accomplish — and it’s as simple to do as it is important.

By using testimonials — reviews and comments from your satisfied customers, in text, audio, or video format — on your web site, you not only answer the question, you also transform your sales pitch into a credible, unbiased recommendation for your product.

1) Overcome buyer skepticism with a glowing testimonial

As I said before, adding testimonials is probably one of the easiest ways to improve your web site — but a good one can generate more selling power than some of the best salescopy out there!

So why are testimonials so effective?

Testimonials build trust: Whether your customers are raving about what your product has done for them or about the great service you gave, they are telling your visitors first and foremost that they had a positive experience with your products and company. Testimonials aren’t “salesy”: Because testimonials aren’t written in your “voice,” they stand out in your copy as candid and unbiased accounts of how well your product works. Testimonials overcome skepticism: A good testimonial has the power to convince even your “tough sell” visitors that your product or service really made a difference in your customer’s life — and can help them, too. For example, let’s say that you’re selling a special lotion designed for dry skin. A visitor finds your web site — a person with dry skin who needs some relief — and reads all about the amazing moisturizing ingredients in your product and how wonderful it smells.

Those are two good selling points — things that people would want to know before they decided to buy.

But lots of products can make those promises — and many of them don’t work! So why should they purchase your product ahead of all the rest?

Then, as they look over the page, a testimonial catches their eye from one of your customers, explaining that your lotion quickly healed a lifelong, agonizing skin condition — something no other product had ever managed to do!

That’s the power of an effective testimonial: it can convince your reader that your product DOES work — and that you can be trusted to deliver on your promises.

2) How to choose the right kind of testimonial to turn your visitors into customers

When you’re choosing testimonials, there are a few key ingredients to look for that make the difference between an ineffective testimonial — and one that sells.

Here’s an example of a glowing, but ultimately ineffective testimonial:

“I love this product! I can’t get enough! I’m so glad I bought your stuff and I’ll be back to get more, for sure!”

What could be wrong with that? It sounds like you have a happy customer on your hands!

But what does this testimonial really tell your visitors? Does it prove that the product works, or explain exactly how your customer benefited from using it? While the feedback is definitely positive, the testimonial does not provide enough detail to have any real impact on your visitors.

Here’s an example of the kind of effective, benefits-driven testimonials that we include on our own web sites:

“I used the methods you told me to use and for three days my phone’s been ringing! I sold over $3500 in goods and services in three days! It’s the first time in 5 months that anyone had really purchased anything…”

Now that’s a great testimonial! But what makes it so powerful?

Let’s break down the elements of an effective testimonial in more detail…

A good testimonial is filled with benefits: A comment like, “This product is great!” is nice for you to hear, but it doesn’t tell visitors what your product can actually do for them. You want the benefits of what you offer to be front and center in every testimonial: “This product doubled our profits in a month!” or “This product made the pain in my back disappear completely — and did it fast!” or “We’ve never seen any product that could get the rust off our car without damaging the paint — until now.”

A good testimonial substantiates your claims: If you say your product can do something, your testimonials should back up your promises — complete with actual facts and figures. How much money did your customers save by using your product? How much time did they save by using your service? How did it solve their problems or improve their lives?

A good testimonial is from someone your audience can relate to: You want your visitors to see that your product helped someone just like them, seeking the solution to the same problem your visitors have. Make sure your testimonials come from someone with whom your target market can identify. If you sell primarily to seniors, for example, ask your customers if you can include their age along with the testimonial. If you are selling to moms with children, ask if you can mention how many kids they have — or include a photo of their family!

A good testimonial is credible: Accompany each testimonial with the first name, last name, and hometown of each testimonial-giver to show that your endorsements come from real people. Always try to include a photo as well. And if you can, take it to the next level by including audio or video testimonials for maximum effect! Do anything you can to help your visitors connect with your testimonial-givers on a personal level.

A good testimonial endorses the key benefits of your product: Your testimonials should emphasize the key benefits of your product. It’s fun to hear that your super-duper floor cleaner smells nice or that the bottle doesn’t drip — both things that matter to people who would consider using your product in their homes — but have you established that it cleans their floors well?

A good testimonial is comparative: Did your customers try another product that didn’t work before they found yours? You want your visitors to know what your product can do that other products can’t. Choose testimonials that set your product apart from your competition!

Now that you know what you’re looking for in a testimonial, how do you actually gather the reviews you need from your customers?

3) The secrets to getting great testimonials — even if you haven’t sold a thing yet!

If your customers have given you positive feedback on your product already, then you may already have some great testimonials to add to your site.

However, if your customer response is a little scarce — or if you’re just starting out — getting testimonials from your buyers might take a little more effort.

So how do you collect the testimonials you need — and keep them coming as you grow your business?

One easy way to collect testimonials is to include a link on your site with a form that allows your customers to give you their vote of confidence: “Tell us how this product changed your life!” or “Click here to let us know what you think!” Put this link next to some testimonials that you’ve already gathered to give customers an example of the kind of feedback you’re looking for.

A more effective method is to create an autoresponder that contacts your buyers after they’ve purchased your product — even a month later — to ask how they’re enjoying the product, as well as giving them a chance to offer feedback on their experience with your business.

And, of course, any time you receive a great letter or e-mail from a customer, ask them if you can use their comments on your web site to recommend your product to others. If they were happy enough to let you know, they’re bound to want to spread the word.

If you haven’t yet begun selling your product and have no feedback yet, offer your product or service for free to a select group of customers in exchange for their thoughts on the product or some details on their experience with your site.

The impact that testimonial will have on your bottom line will be well worth the initial expense! As soon as your online business is up and running, make a point of giving every one of your customers a chance to share their experiences with your product or service. Ask for feedback — good and bad — in your autoresponders, your newsletters, and other spots on your web site.

4) Strategies for using your testimonials as effectively as possible

Once you’ve got some testimonials to share with your visitors, you need to make sure that you’re putting them to the best possible use on your site.

Always make sure that you…

Include your best testimonials front and center on your homepage, like in your sidebars, or even above your headline. Place some testimonials right in the middle of your homepage salescopy to keep your readers focused on your credibility as you outline the features and benefits of your product. Set up a whole page dedicated to your glowing testimonials, as well as including snippets of their comments throughout your site. Be sure to put a link to your testimonial page next to each of those snippets! Include testimonials on each and every page of your web site. No matter where your visitors click, you want them to find a positive customer review of your product or service.

Now let’s look at a few mistakes to avoid when using testimonials on your web site…

Don’t edit your testimonials to exclude a comment or add information you want to hear! If you can’t post a comment “as is” and feel comfortable with it, it shouldn’t go up. If your testimonials are in your voice and all sound the same, no one is going to trust that they are legitimate.Never use a customer testimonial without permission. Never, ever invent testimonials! This is fraud, plain and simple, and lying never results in a positive impact on your business.

Tags: best internet marketing strategies, business internet marketing opportunity, internet marketing, internet marketing affiliate program, internet marketing online advertising, internet marketing service, internet marketing strategies, strategic interne
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Copyright 2006 John Navata

IIf you want your online business to be successful, it’s a good idea to optimize your site on a regular basis to make sure it’s got a good position in the Web’s top search engines.

However, in order to maintain your ranking, you have to keep on top of what’s happening in the rapidly changing search engine industry. The rules that affected your ranking yesterday may be meaningless tomorrow!

1. The “Dos” and “Don’ts” are constantly changing!

The search engine industry is continually evolving. You need to know which of the major “players” is powering the smaller search engines if you want to know where you should focus your optimization efforts.

a. The battle of the titans
For the past couple of years, the major search engines have been preparing to square off against each other and battle it out for the industry’s top spot. Google has been #1 for a while now, but Yahoo! and MSN have been making moves to steal the crown.

Google is still extremely powerful, with about a 55% market share. Yahoo! is the closest runner-up, with about 20% of users choosing it as their main search engine. And MSN is still a distant but threatening third, with about 10% of the global usage share.

Keep in mind, however, that Google and Yahoo! power many of the smaller search engines. For example, Google powers the free listings featured on AOL and Netscape, plus the paid listings featured on AOL, Netscape, Ask Jeeves, HotBot, Teoma, and Lycos.

Yahoo! powers free listings featured on MSN, AltaVista, AllTheWeb, and HotBot, plus the paid listings on MSN, AltaVista, and AllTheWeb.

However, MSN won’t be powered by Yahoo! for much longer! MSN came out with a preview of their own long-anticipated search engine technology earlier this month. They’re still working out the bugs, and the official MSN Search engine is still being powered by Yahoo!. But you can expect MSN to go solo sometime over the next few months.

You need to be aware of these changes if you want to gear your optimization efforts toward the engines that will send you as much traffic as possible.

b. The changing rules of search
Of course, you also need to keep tabs on changes to the search engines themselves!

Search engines frequently change the algorithms they use to rank sites. They don’t want unscrupulous site owners manipulating their indexing methods in order to get high rankings. By doing so, they damage the integrity of free search!

As soon as the search engines become aware of a trick being used by “search engine spammers” to boost their site ranking, they figure out a way to catch them.

So be careful! You don’t want to catch yourself employing a “great strategy” promoted by a marketing “expert,” only to find out it’s a tactic the search engines hate! That could get you booted off their listings in no time flat.

In fact, that’s exactly what happened at the end of last year, during what has come to be called the “Florida Google Dance.”

Google made some major changes to their algorithms in November 2003 and started imposing an “over-optimization penalty” on any sites that appeared to be artificially boosting their site’s relevancy for targeted keywords.

Many members of the business community were surprised to find their sites dropped from their high ranking in Google’s listings. These people had to put a lot of work into revamping and resubmitting their sites in order to get listed again.

And many of the people who were penalized weren’t “unscrupulous” site owners! They weren’t trying to pull a “fast one” on search engines using frowned-upon techniques such as “keyword stuffing.” They were simply trying to be smart marketers — and some feel they were unfairly punished for it.

You don’t want the same thing to happen to you!

So let’s have a look at a list of what exactly the search engines are currently looking for when indexing sites — and what they’ll punish you for!

2. The “Dos”: Legitimate tricks the SEO masters use to optimize their sites and maintain their high ranking

The search engines don’t want to be manipulated by marketers. They want to provide the best unbiased results possible for any given search — or they’ll lose users!

That’s why they need to change their algorithms so frequently — to stay ahead of the tricks people use to get top rankings.

That being said, there are still a lot of legitimate ways you can optimize your site without angering the search engines and causing them to drop you from their list.

Here are some of the best things you can to do ensure your site has a high ranking:

a. Ask relevant sites to link to your site
In the past, scoring a high ranking with a search engine was all about positioning your keywords in “prime real estate” positions in your text and site coding. All that has changed, however. These days, links are king!

Search engines place a huge amount of importance on the number of sites that link to yours. But it’s not just the quantity of links that matter, it’s also the quality. Search engines look at how relevant the links are — i.e., how much the content of the linking site has in common with the content on your site. The more relevant, the better!

Search engines also look at how “important” the linking site is. What kind of “online presence” does it have? How much traffic does it get?

For example, your site will get a higher ranking if it’s linked to by sites such as BBC.com or nationalgeographic.com instead of, say, the personal homepage of your friend’s neighbour’s kid.

b. Pay attention to keyword inclusion and placement
Keywords may no longer be the sole determining factor of a site’s ranking, but they’re still pretty important. The most useful places to include them are:

In your domain name — only make sure your keywords are in the root of your URL, not the stem! For example, if your main keyword phrase is “cell phones,” try to get a domain name such as “www.cell-phones.com” instead of “www.mobileusa.com/cell-phones.com.” Some search engines will actually penalize sites for including key words in the stem of a URL.

In the title tags in your source code

In the meta description of your site — this is much less important than it used to be, but it can’t hurt.

In your meta keyword tags HOWEVER: Be sure you only include relevant keywords! Search engines will penalize you if you try to sneak in keywords that have nothing to do with the content of your site.

c. Create content-rich “information pages” to direct traffic to your site
An easy way to boost the number of pages that link to your site is to create some pages yourself!

However, you have to make sure these pages contain valuable contents that provide people with useful information. Search engines hate “pointer pages” that have no content and exist only to add to the number of links pointing to a site.

Be sure the information relates to the content on your site and has your keywords placed in advantageous positions. This will boost the ranking of your pages with the search engines and ensure they get lots of traffic — which they can then redirect to your site.

d. Submit your site to online directories
Be sure to submit your site to important directories such as Yahoo!, the Open Directory Project, and About.com, as well as smaller directories. Your listing on these directories will help your ranking with the major search engines.

e. Multiply and conquer!
Create a “community” of related sites that link to each other. Why stop at only one information page? The more content-rich sites that point to your site, the better!

You can also boost the number of links that point to your site by dividing it into several separate sites that all link to each other.This works especially well if you sell a number of different products or services.

If you build a different site to focus on each of your products and services, then you can also concentrate the use of specific keyword phrases on each site. That’s another great way to boost your search engine ranking.

3. The “Don’ts”: Tricks the search engines hate and why you should never use them, even if your competition does

Now that we’ve covered the “dos,” here come the “don’ts.” Although these questionable tactics have worked well in the past, the search engines absolutely hate them. If they catch you using any of these tricks, they may go so far as to drop you from their listings like a hot potato!

a. Beware irrelevant links! Yes, it’s a good idea to get a lot of different links pointing to your site, but the search engines only like RELEVANT links. If they find sites that have nothing in common with the content on your site linked to your web site, they’ll lower your relevancy rating.

b. Beware irrelevant keywords! Search engines hate finding irrelevant keywords on your site — especially in your meta tags. If they catch you using keywords that have nothing to do with the actual content of your site, they’ll penalize you for it.

c. Don’t “keyword stuff” your meta tags! In the past, people used to repeat their keywords in their meta tags over and over again. This used to get them a high ranking with the search engines — but not any more! Search engines are on to this trick and will punish you for it by dropping your ranking.

d. Don’t create “link farms”! “Link farms” are the evil cousins of the “information pages” we discussed above.

In the past, some spammers used to build multiple “doorway” sites that existed only to multiply the number of links pointing to their sites.

Unlike content-rich information pages,these doorway pages would usually only include a string of keyword terms that would earn them a high ranking with the search engines.

The search engines have caught on to this tactic, however, and will drop you from their listings if they find you using it.

e. Avoid “free for all” link pages! Don’t bother placing links to your site on pages where everyone and their dog is invited to put up a link. Such sites have extremely low relevancy ratings and will cost you points with the search engines.

4. Essential tools and resources to optimize your site and stay in top of the search engine game

There are a lot of great tools out there that can help you optimize your web site while ensuring that you stay on the good side of all the search engines.

Tags: best internet marketing strategies, business internet marketing opportunity, internet marketing, internet marketing affiliate program, internet marketing online advertising, internet marketing service, internet marketing strategies, strategic interne
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