How to Know If You Need An Internet Business Strategy

Having an online presence is one thing,  Having an active online marketing tool is another.  What is the difference?

Online Presence:
An online presence can be something as simple as a website.  Many websites are online brochures that aren’t set up of for active marketing.  These kind of websites can be used for branding your business, but the only way your target market is going to see it is if you happen to send people there personally.

An online presence is the starting point for a business if their target market is found online.  Unfortunately most businesses stop here and don’t go any further.  They know they need to be online, so the put up a website and they think they’re done.

An Active Online Marketing Tool:
When you web presence is an active marketing tool for your business, this is another ball-game altogether.  An active online marketing web presence is something that is generating continuous leads and business from your website.  Your target market finds your website and calls you up, or purchases your product or service without you having to send anyone there on your own.

So how do you, as a business owner, know if you need to have an Internet Business Strategist on your team before you move forward?

You should serious look into investing in an online business strategist if you:

  1. Are looking to add additional services to your online business, or are looking to change services.
  2. Need to get more traffic to your website and aren’t sure how to go about it
  3. Want to get more business from the traffic you are currently getting
  4. Want to incorporate Social media marketing and you want to keep using your traditional marketing methods.
  5. Want to rank better in the search engines
  6. Want to generate […]
By |April 22nd, 2012|Internet Business|0 Comments
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Internet Strategy Tips for More Traffic

Getting more traffic to your website is not about a tactic, or an activity… it is about an overall Internet strategy.  There are many ways to get traffic to your website and many

different kinds of traffic as well to send to your website as well.  Before you begin your journey of getting more traffic to your website, you will need to be clear about who you are marketing to and how you intend to get your web presence out there in the Internet.

1) Keywords for SEO traffic:

When you understand your target market, you will know the keywords that they are using to try to find you and your products or services.  This is one of the most important yet basic pieces of your online strategy.  Knowing your target market to this degree will give you the ability to not only know things like the keywords, but also knowledge like how much your target market will be willing to pay for your products and services, and what kinds of value propositions that would get them to buy… but I digress.

2) Know which social networking mediums your target market hangs out on:

You need to get your website in front of your target market.  The popularity of social media means that there is a good chance that your target market is on one or more of the social media platforms.  You will also need to understand how your target market would tend to use this social media platform so you can know which marketing tactics, if any, will be effective on this social media platform. […]

By |April 16th, 2012|Internet Business|3 Comments
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Top 5 Ways to Repurpose Your Web Content for Profits

Content is still king on the Internet and quality content is the emperor.  With so much spam content out there, it isn’t too hard to come up with quality content.  So what is quality content?  It is content that your readers deem important, or valuable.  Some types of popular content considered to be of quality amongst website visitors and blog readers, is content that can solve a problem, share a solution, or take the reader away from reality for a while.

So once you write that piece of content, (it could be something as simple as a 500 word article), you will want to get as much traction as you can, because that will draw in the visitors that you want because they will be more likely to purchase your products and services.

Here are the top 5 ways to repurpose your content:

1) Create a blog entry with your content
If you have a blog, placing the article on your blog will do a few things.  1) it will help you get more established in your field an more established as an expert.
2) It will help send more traffic to your website.  Each new blog posts has a chance to be picked up by the search engines as well as other blogs.  I have links back to specific blog posts on my blog all the time from other blogs sharing the content topic with their readers.

2) Create a Video Version of your content.
This can be done in a few different ways, probably the easiest way would be to make a mini power point of your article and then do a voice narration of the article as you go through the slides.   Software such as Camtasia […]

By |April 1st, 2012|Internet Business|1 Comment
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How to Calculate Your Web Conversion Rate

Your web conversion rate is an important statistic to know because it will allow you to know the health and effectiveness of your website.  Most business owners don’t really focus on the web conversion of their website because they are more focused on getting traffic to their website.  This is only 1/2 of the 1-2 punch that you need to have a successful online presence.

To determine your web conversion rate is theoretically simple.  It is the number of people who take your desired action on your website divided by the number of people coming to your website.  So for an example if you have 100 people that come to your website and 2 of them purchase your product or service, and that is the action you want them to take, then you would have a 2% conversion rate.

So while it is technically easy to determine your rate, the more difficult part is to determine the correct number of visitors to your website.  Some of the less expensive statistical programs don’t filter out spam traffic.  There is a lot of automated traffic out there that is used for spamming websites, and writing automated comments to blogs.  This traffic isn’t real and therefore shouldn’t be counted as it can give you an incorrect conversion rate.

The traffic that you want to count is the number of visitors to your site.  Page views, and hits don’t give you an accurate result either.  Make sure you look at the visitor statistic as most programs will give you page views and hits as well.

Google analytics gives a more accurate visitor rate and it seems to filter out some of the spam traffic.  Some other things you can do that require […]

By |March 25th, 2012|Internet Business|2 Comments
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3 Tips on Converting Web Traffic Into Sales

It is one thing to get a lot of traffic to your web site, but if you aren’t receiving any benefit from your traffic, then you have to ask yourself what needs to be changed in your online strategy.  If you want to generate sales from your web site then there are a number of things you must have in place in order to convert the traffic that comes to your website into sales.  In this posting, I will discuss 3 things that can make a significant difference in the response rate of your web site.

1 – Narrow your target market

The more focused your target market is, the easier it is to connect to your target market because it becomes easier to communicate directly to them in their language and emotionally connect to their needs.  For example if your business focuses on serving women’s needs, you would need to narrow that market down because women in general are so diverse.  They are in different stages in their lives, different cultural groups, different socio economic groups, different hobbies, interests, and different goals.

A better target group would be newly married working women with children on the way and a combined household income of over $100,000.  This target market has specific needs that can be directly addressed in your marketing material and on your website.  Addressing this market with content, images, videos and other forms of medium can really build a powerful enough message that will encourage your website visitors to connect with you.

2 – Concentrate on what you offer your target market

After you have thoroughly researched your target market, you will know their issues, problems and desires.  The thing that will get your target market interested […]

By |March 19th, 2012|Internet Business|1 Comment
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Is Your Web Presence Road Kill on the Information Superhighway?

Let’s face it…. Long gone are the days when you could launch a website, do some occasional blogging or random marketing and expect to see a decent amount of traffic from your inconsistent efforts.  It worked in the early days however now when it comes to the Internet and getting your web presence to effectively bring in clients and customers, you need to have a strategy in place that will allow your efforts to continually build upon each other to create an effective marketing tool for your business.

So what is Internet road kill?  For the most part, it’s a revenue generating website doesn’t fulfill it’s intended purpose.  If you have a website intending to create more business and it isn’t doing so, then it’s Internet road kill.  Your website traipsed upon the information superhighway and got run over by the machinations of the Internet.  The good news is that unlike real road kill, you can bring your website back from the dead.

So what are some of the things you can do to resurrect your website to something more than a post-apocalyptic reanimated mindless flesh-eating zombie drone?  (How marginally clever!  I put website and zombie in the same sentence without it referring to a website about zombies).  Implementing the following 3 tips will put you on the right track and can raise your website up from the remnants of a 7 day old squashed animal carcass baking on the asphalt of a hot summer day.

1)   Strengthen your website’s connection to your target market

Are you still connecting strongly to your target market?  As your business grows and changes/expands/contracts, your target market can change as well.  What […]

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By |March 4th, 2012|Marketing|0 Comments
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Integrating Your Social Media Sites with Your Business Website

Even though social media has grown in significance, and it has now become a necessary part of a businesses’ online strategy, it should not completely replace the traditional methods of online marketing.  Social media has an important role in creating relationships, building brand and customer confidence in your business, product, or service.  For most businesses, your website is still the main place where you would convert your prospects and network friends into customers.

You also want to keep in mind that you still want to spend your marketing dollars building up your own online asset (your website) instead of another’s online asset (your social networking sites).  If you spend your efforts and energy promoting your Facebook page, Twitter account, or Youtube channel, in lieu of your own website, then you are putting your online presence at risk.  If one of your social network sites closes down, or your account gets deleted, then you lose your main means of marketing your business online.   Keeping the marketing focus on your own website allows you to maintain control of your online marketing.

That being said, how does the ever busy entrepreneur keep the appropriate level of focus on their own website while taking advantage of their social media networks to increase product or service awareness and create more clients and customers from this integration?

Well the first step is to be clear on what the focus is for each one.  Use your social media accounts to generate awareness for your business and services and then use your website to convert them into sales and new clients.

Your social media traffic is different than the majority of your other traffic sources because it is what is considered warm traffic.  These visitors already […]

By |February 20th, 2012|Marketing|0 Comments
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Top 5 Things to Demand in Your Email Marketing Service… Does Yours Do These?

Even with the rise of social media, email marketing is still an effective way to stay connected with prospects, generate sales and market affiliate products for additional revenue streams.  However, with the rise of social media and other forms of communication, such as text messaging, the way email marketing is done needs to be updated.  What should you be looking for in your email marketing service that will keep you updated with the latest developments on the Internet?

1) Consistent product improvement.
The email service provider should look very different today than it did 5 years ago.  If it looks the same, or has most of the same features, then you should look for another email service.  The email provider should keep their service up to date with the newest developments on the Internet and integrate their service to take advantage of these new online changes.

2)  Close integration with your blog
Your blog and your email provider should be closely integrated.  Your service provider should have the option to automatically email your blog postings out to your mailing list whenever you update your blog.  A good service provider will allow you to pick how often you want to automatically email your blog postings out so you don’t overwhelm your list.  This feature saves you time in keeping connected with your mailing list while you are posting great content to your blog.  Clever applications of this feature can practically automate a significant portion of your online business strategy.

3) Ability to connect to your social networks.
Your email list should allow you to send broadcast emails out to your social network accounts as well when you send an email out to your mailing list.  The networks that your provider should […]

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By |February 13th, 2012|Marketing|0 Comments
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  • Webinar Preparation
    Top 3 Tips to Increasing Your Webinar Sales Results Top 3 Tips to Increasing Your Webinar Sales Results

    Top 3 Tips to Increasing Your Webinar Sales Results

Top 3 Tips to Increasing Your Webinar Sales Results

Webinars serve a lot of purposes for a business, including product/service education, presales, lead generation, and income generating.  When using the last purpose, you will need to make sure you have certain things in place that will increase the number of attendees who are willing to pay to attend your webinar.  So what are the top 3 things you will need to do to increase the amount of attendees?

1) Add your publishing credentials to your sales page

This may be one of the more difficult ones to accomplish, but it is well worth it in many areas in addition to webinar sales. When teaching information, one of the things that will go through your visitor’s minds who don’t know you is whether or not you know what you are talking about.  Being a published author adds a great deal of credibility about your knowledge for the visitor, even if they haven’t read your book, and a visitor will be more likely to purchase a seat in your webinar.  If you aren’t a published author, you should consider publishing your knowledge in at least an ebook/kindle book format.  Physical books published through a publishing company will give you even more credibility.

Make sure the title of your book is on the webinar sales page with an image of the cover, who published it and where it can be purchased so your visitors can do some research on you if they want to.

2) Know what kind of content to include in your webinar.

If you are charging for your webinars, you will need to deliver the content.  This is not the time to promote your product or service.  People don’t want to have to pay to be sold to.  […]

By |January 30th, 2012|Internet Business|0 Comments
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5 Steps to a More Effective Website

Sign up for our free web conversion webinar on how to get more business from your website!

Having a website is certainly a necessity in today’s business environment.  However, if you want to have your website become more than an online brochure and be an active marketing partner for your business, you as a business owner need to make your website an effective lead generating tool.  So what are the differences between a standard online marketing brochure and a website that generates revenue?  Here are 5 steps to a more effective website.

1) Get a more narrowly focused section of your target market.

The more focused your target market is, the better you can connect with then.  People make decisions emotionally and justify it intellectually.  The more similarities your target market has, the easier it is to emotionally connect with your market through words, niche phrases, images, colors, offers, etc.  An example is if you are selling insurance, and focus on Gen Y’s vs. 2 income family Gen Y’s with small children who live in single family homes in urban areas.  As you can see, Gen Y’s are a very diverse group that have very different needs and interests, so by more narrowly focusing on the group, you will be able to more easily connect with the needs of your target market and communicate how you can serve their needs.   If you serve a more diverse market, separate your market into more narrowly focused groups and change your website to add landing pages that address each of these markets.  This step alone should increase the response rate of your website.

2) Include the most pressing problems your products/services solve/alleviate

It should be prominently displayed/communicated on your website about […]

By |January 22nd, 2012|Website Development|0 Comments
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