23 Jun 09 Tips on building links back to your web site

Here are some tips on improving your web site’s popularity.

There are several good ways to encourage web sites to link to your site; the first tip is the basic “Make sure your site is worth a link from somewhere else.” In other words, your site should be useful, have great content and be useable.
You can run PPC ads for your web site – eg use Google adwords to drive traffic. This can cost a lot of money and it is a very technical exercise to get appropriate keywords to match your web site content for a low cost per click.
You can market your web site yourself in free ad sites. For instance, using USFreeAds is one good way to get targeted visitors to see your products.
Writing articles and publishing them on article directories (you get to leave your web link in the resource box which describes you) is a very popular way of getting your web link distributed around the net. When you publish the articles, you give permission for other web sites to use this article as long as they provide an active hyperlink to your site.
Creating blogs on blogger.com, wordpress.com and other free blogging platforms can also provide great opportunities for marketing your store. I just came across a new place to host a free blog – and, having tested it, I am quite impressed with the capabilities.
Buy links on web directories. I use this quite often (ok, I would say that because I run my own web directory at Storexplore) but I do believe that this is a really useful way of attracting the attention of the search engines which compete with Google – I keep saying that Google’s not the only search engine in town!

People often ignore the old-fashioned ways of promoting their web sites. For instance, offline promotion of a web site can be especially effective if you are targeting local customers.

You have to work on improving your web business with the same determination and effort as you would a traditional bricks and mortar store. There is no easy way to do this and no time like the present to start marketing your business.

Tags: link building, market your web site, web links

Filed in Free Advertising, Internet Marketing, Web Design, Work from Home, affiliate marketing, niche marketing with 1 Comment

28 Apr 09 Top 5 “Must Have” Affiliate Marketing Attributes

The ability to be in control of our own lives is one of the main reasons making money online is so attractive. Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make good money for people new to the idea of using the internet to earn a living.

It’s easy to identify what makes affiliate marketing so attractive: no boss, working the hours you want, no inventory, and no need to create a product of your own. It’s also quite easy to get started, and the start up cost is minimal (especially when compared to more traditional business models).

Just like any other business, affiliate marketing does require a certain set of skills if you want to be successful doing it. What follows are the five personal traits you need to make the most of your efforts.

1. Self-motivation. The downside to not having a boss, if there is one, is that you don’t have anyone else telling what to do, how to do it, or when. The ability to motivate yourself is crucial to affiliate marketing. Without it, you can still succeed, but it will take longer, and be a lot harder.

2. Optimism. Having a positive outlook will get you through the low points. When things don’t go right, learn what you can from them, focus on the future rewards, then move on. There will be affiliate marketing campaigns that don’t go the way you expect, and being optimistic will help.

3. Desire to learn. You can learn enough to get started in affiliate marketing in less than an hour, but the more you learn and put into action, the better. Be willing to learn from those who are doing well, and be willing to learn from what you are doing too. People often say, “learn from your mistakes”, and you should, but be sure to learn from what you’re doing right, too.

4. Willingness to invest time, effort, and money. When you first get started you may not have as much time or money as you like. In this case you will have to compensate by increasing the investment of what you do have; for example, if you don’t have a lot of money, you can spend more time on your business. Remember, it can take time to see results, but what you put into your affiliate marketing business needs to be consistent.

5. Discipline. If the first trait needed is self-motivation, then the final one is discipline. You can still have a flexible schedule, but any time you do have scheduled for affiliate marketing should be used for that purpose. Sometimes it’s easier to do “fun” things, but those aren’t the things that always put money in your pocket. Have fun, but temper it with the discipline you need to succeed.

These five traits will take you far in affiliate marketing, in fact, they can take you all the way to the top. To be fair, not everyone has these personal attributes, but the good news is that they can be developed over time.

Affiliate marketing is a wonderful business; one that doesn’t require much of anything to get started. Sometimes that fools people into thinking they can be lazy, but as you can see, that’s not the case. On the other hand, all you personally need to do well are the five things listed above.

Tags: affiliate marketing, how to be successful internet marketer., Work from Home

Filed in Clickbank, Home Business, Internet Marketing, Internet Marketing Forum, affiliate marketing, eMail Marketing with 1 Comment

26 Apr 09 Cold calls from advertising agencies

Since my poor experience recently (see posts about coolessential, I decided that it would be a good idea to make myself (and anyone else who might be interested) a check list of ways to avoid being scammed.

First of all – remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. That was what I forgot.

My second experience with an advertising agency calling me was much better than the first – it was a company who are authorised by google.co.uk to manage sponsored advertising links on the google search engine. When they called at first, they mentioned their own web site and then proved to me that they had the correct authorisation from google to carry out the work on my behalf. They provided phone numbers and email addresses – but, most of all, they sent paper contracts and had physical return addresses for that.

So, here’s a quick list of things to look out for when someone phones you:-

Ask for contact details.
Do not agree to anything straight away.
Ask for proof that the company is authorised to carry out the work.
Do not pay for the work on first contact.
Ask for a proper invoice to be sent to you, even if you subsequently pay by credit card over the phone.
If the company is in the UK, check that the invoice has a VAT number if they have added a VAT amount on to your bill.
Check on the search engines – search for “the company name + problems” (obviously replace the company name with the real company name) That should reveal any disgruntled clients.
Ask for references – ask for a phone number from two existing clients.

That way, you will be doing much more than I did – and, while it might not save your bacon (… er, hard earned cash) – it might save you from some of the grief I have experienced over the coolessential issue.

Filed in Home Business, Internet Marketing, Work from Home, affiliate marketing, coolessential.com, niche marketing with 0 Comments

21 Apr 09 Do you get Twitter?

My head’s swimming from information overload – apparently the next hot thing is twitter; actually, it seems to me that it’s currently really hot because Oprah’s just joined the Twitter crowd.

I have been a twitter user for some time and built up a small band of followers – and I’m following some cool people too. I tweet occasionally – and also add my aweber mailing list to my twitter account so that when I update my mailing list or make a broadcast, then it’s on twitter too.

Today I decided to try an experiment with a new bit of software from Peter Drew – which supposedly increases your twitter follower count dramatically. I’ve done the download and installed the software – it’s working away in the background as I write this.

There’s a five day trial of the software before it becomes a recurring billing situation – so I’m hoping to see some benefits of this before the full membership features kick in.

I’ll make a full report here of how I get on. I have to say that there is a bit of me that is scared of losing what I have already achieved, so I might end up baling out before it gets going properly. We’ll see!

Anyway, in case you want to see the full offer from Pete – you can find it at Brute Force Social Media

I’m looking forward to seeing your comments too!

Tags: social media, twitter, twitter friends

Filed in Home Business, Internet Marketing, Internet Marketing Forum, Work from Home, niche marketing, twitter with 0 Comments

20 Apr 09 Overstocked? How do you deal with the excess?

When I got home from our shop this evening, I switched on my pc and checked my email. So far so good!

Among my emails was a mail shot from Rick Segel entitled “What Could Your Best Vendor Do?”

Rick proceeded to outline a dilemma being faced by one of the members of The Retailers Advantage. The store owners had built up a good business with one particular supplier over the years. Then customers started to approach the store owners about the same product line being deeply discounted at a bargain outlets. It turned out that the prices for the goods were well below trade price. The store owner had not been offered any of the discounted merchandise prior to the manufacturer dumping their product.

I recently had a conversation with one of our own suppliers more or less on the same vein; they said that there was an overstock of some of their goods and were wondering how best to dispose of the overstock items. Having read Rick’s email tonight, I decided to forward the message to them because a supplier’s reputation is very fragile and, in these testing economic times, it is important to maintain a good relationship with your bread and butter income.

There is a survey at The Retailers Advantage – and I’m going to add my thoughts to the conversation there in just a minute or two. I’ll let you know how I voted after I’ve seen the survey questions.

Tags: Rick Segel, Shopping, The Retailers Advantage

Filed in Business News, Home Business, Internet Marketing, Rick Segel, Work from Home, niche marketing with 0 Comments

09 Apr 09 Bank overdraft – our renewal case study

Over the past 20 years in business, we have been fortunate to have very few problems with our bank. Sure, the business has run a small overdraft (and continues to do so) but the value of our shop currently covers the overdraft by a considerable margin. Our credit rating is good – last time I checked with experian, they showed no issues with our account.

Our overdraft was due for renewal by the end of February. Our bank requested a copy of our accounts to arrive at least a full working week prior to that to enable them to check details and put the overdraft in place. We did this – we sent the letter by recorded delivery. As we had heard nothing, before the end of February I phoned and was assured that our overdraft was in place.

March continued uneventfully – although at one point my husband mentioned that we hadn’t been informed about the terms of the overdraft. As we were busy that day, I filed that comment in the back of my “I must remember to…..” brain cell, and we carried on.

Then I had a couple of issues I which I needed to discuss with the bank. I phoned their business banking service and discussed matters satisfactorily. I was about to ring off when the lady said “We haven’t received your signed copy of the overdraft offer. We need it asap.” So I replied that we hadn’t received their offer letter and would she please send another.

This further letter didn’t arrive. However, a form I had requested for another transaction did arrive safely. Hmmm. We then started being charged £25 per cheque transaction because of an unauthorised overdraft. My husband became extremely upset and I phoned again, explaining that their offer letter still had not been received.

The third time of asking, the overdraft offer arrived. I signed it – and enclosed a letter in reply, stating that we were extremely dissatisfied with the service – all other correspondence from the bank arrives correctly at our business address and there are now two copies of an overdraft offer letter floating around our area – I certainly have not received them. I requested that the over-charges be refunded as I did not feel I was responsible for this mess. If the bank did send out the letters which have not been received by me – then the Post Office has some issues of non-delivery.

I phoned the bank again yesterday and was told in no uncertain terms that they were upset at the tone of my letter to them. They said the overdraft had been reinstated and, without further discussion of the issue, proceeded to charge £150 for the new overdraft. That makes £300 plus at least £125 in overdue transaction charges.

I am a member of the Federation of Small Businesses – I have never used their business services, but this is one I shall be pursuing with them. I feel it’s an outrageous way to treat a client.

Tags: bank overdraft, banking problems, British banks, Business overdraft, problems with business account, renew overdraft