How To Craft A Real Marketing Message

How To Craft A Real Marketing Message

by | Aug 15, 2020 | Guides

Crafting Your Marketing Messaging

If you look at your written marketing for what you do e.g. sell websites, promote affiliate offers, printing brochure etc does it communicate in the same language you would use in person?. For some reason when we write we seem to get all intellectual and forget we are talking to real people with real problems and desires. I always make a point to connect the audience I am speaking to with the message I am using, This is the basis for engagement.

Our written marketing message should be just the same as we would use selling in person. The clarity in messaging can help someone on the fence make that purchase decision at the moment.

Crafting the message can be one of the most important things you do to increase sales.

Mixed Messaging Causes Friction.

Friction in messaging kills sales.

Friction is when something happens to make life harder for someone to make a decision. Ideally, you want to make things as easy as possible. Simplifying the message and the steps involved in taking action from your message.

This ranges from:

  • Too many form fields
  • Too many product options
  • Too many steps between add to cart to payment gateway
  • Very clunky user actions

 

I often get reminder emails from retailers to do reviews on their product or service after I purchased products. A great example is Australian retailer Harvey Norman, during COVID I purchased a home gym and various bench press and rowers etc. 4 months later this week actually they emailed me to do a customer product review. This was so disjointed to me from the buying experience to the review request. I clicked the link they gave me and it took me to a sign-in/up page I don’t think I even have an account except for the purchase account. Then to get to the product to review I had to search for it to leave the review…..I did not leave a review.

This just felt so clunky and disjointed. It must be hard for people to leave reviews. The harder it is to do something the more likely people will not do that thing.

A solution I can see is to shorten the request window to 2-3 weeks. Make it super simple by providing two links that speak to the user.

Example:

  1. A link for someone who HAS an account and knows it
  2. A link for someone who DOES NOT have an account and may be unsure if they do

Takeaway: Try it yourself in your business and websites by doing a friction audit of your business today and fix anything that may be costing you sales. I guarantee there is at least one point of friction in any business.

Read the guide to using clear messaging to improve sales and conversions.

The Art of Storytelling

Marketing statistics, numbers and facts don’t persuade people to take action. Feelings, emotions and stories do envoke actions. Let’s look at a marketing 101 lesson that should form the foundation of any advertising campaign messaging.

Point 1

Identify your customer avatar or persona. What do they like or dislike and where do they hang out. That’s the basis for EVERY marketing campaign at least every SUCCESSFUL marketing campaign. You have identified as a minimum the people who will be interested in what you have and what you are saying.

Point 2

Now that you have the people you will be targeting you can start forming the message. The message should live within a story, a relatable bit of information that speaks volumes to that audience.

If you get these 2 points in place you will SIGNIFICANTLY increase the success you have with the marketing of your product or service.

Extra points if you introduce emotion into your story. People react to emotion and stories. We all buy into something relatable. Myself included if that message/story falls into my interest categories I’ll spend 30 minutes reading or following the directions of the brand who is engaging with.

So anytime you are trying to persuade lead with feelings, emotions and story but back them up with facts. People buy on emotion but justify their purchases with logic.

pulp_fiction_approved-removebg-preview

How Does Your Message Evoke Audience Feeling?

Feelings are what we are really buying when we give over money for a product or service. We want to feel a certain way, some people play on retail therapy. This retail therapy is a thing, I know a couple people who will do a task that’s not enjoyable in their business and when they complete its head straight out to the shop to spend money as a reward for doing something huge or that was not enjoyable.

This is a treat for completing something tactic, it works for some people. When you have a message that is working you should consider forecasting what it would take to scale the traffic pointing towards that message. 

Great examples of ecommerce business operations and tactics when the messaging is right can be found on this business operations for ecommerce guide.

A classic example is an Apple product. Based on features alone they are typically poor value for money. But no one buys them for the features. They buy them because they are iconic and they look cool using them. Think of the illuminated Apple logo on a Macbook. The stand out white earbuds. Your purchase makes a statement about you.

You feel good owning it. So today’s lesson is to remember you are really selling feelings not just features and benefits. This plays right into the SEO landscape for my example.

People don’t buy SEO services because the website will be in good health and they rank #1 they buy that feeling of being #1 ABOVE their competitors. That’s as simple as it is for selling SEO services, sell the feeling of beating the competitor. The associated benefits are ranking number 1, more traffic, more sales more everything from being #1 in the industry on Google.

That’s it without overcomplicating it. Sell the feeling your product or service gives people.

 

How To Start An Ecommerce Business

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Insights Into My Niche Store Top Selling Products

Insights Into My Niche Store Top Selling Products

by | Aug 9, 2020 | Guides

The thing that I love about what I do is that I can take an idea and within a day or two turns that idea into an actual thing. I’m talking about eCommerce dropshipping or other product promotion ideas. It is not uncommon for me to have an idea on Friday and by Saturday night have a website up promoting that idea.
My girlfriend finds this hilarious but I wonder for how long 🤷‍♂️…

haha slightly worried my obsessive thought to idea problem might be too much for some people. If you have this problem let me know.

Back to the point! I got started in this method by buying a business and running with it with no prior experience. That’s not the ideal start for everyone but I’ve helped a lot of people get started by sharing some of my Friday afternoon ideas. I don’t have time to do EVERYTHING! To share my ideas is not a problem at least someone committed can put them to good use.

I want to help you sell your first product! That’s it a simple goal for this article. This is not too ambitious and anyone can do this. What I’ll go over in this is a couple of product niches and the products that I have sold and still sell that make money. These work for the main niche but can be drilled down into sub-niches and highly targeted audiences.

Audiences

To keep this pretty basic and actionable I’ll suggest we use the marketplace AliExpress as our product source. AliExpress has millions of products at very low rates that you can use to populate the products on your website. The other bonus is because they sell products at such low prices you can dropship these products at a higher price.

I added the product links in this article so you can click through and see how much they cost on AliExpress. You can sell these often 3-7 times the purchase price. Also, I have used some affiliate links on the products so I may get a commission if anyone of you purchases the products through my links.

So we will be selecting products from AliExpress and then showcasing them on our website. This dropshipping method of promoting products you don’t hold works well, but I’ll also show you some alternative methods to sell products once you sell multiple products. This can be your phase II goal once you have momentum.

I share this because it has helped me build a lifestyle business where I don’t need my job. I can happily live off my online money and I want that for you. This type of hobby changed my life. Selling products online can be your life-changing hobby as well.

 

Enough fluff lets get into the good stuff.

Think of each of this divided section as a Niche category. The niche category can then be split into subcategories where you can segment products into really targeted product collections. These collections will be highly relevant to a section of people. This is one way to provide relevant products to people actually into those products. The rest is marketing 101.

What will help you accelerate your success:

Growing your websites traffic read about it here.

Building email lists and sending product info emails learn it here.

 

Military Survival Tactical Gear

This niche is highly successful and growing in strides as COVID, rioting and other catastrophes erupt. I do not support any epidemic or race hate crimes or recommend profiting from them but I do support business. Make your marketing focus on the product the problem and the solution and avoid piggybacking off the world events distastefully.

Miltary and outdoor survival type products sell well. This is competitive but not to the point where you can not sell products. I found bags, pouches, kits, helmets, gloves and accessory type tools sell well.

 

Tactical Backpack For Operators

military type backpacks

Click to see these backpack products.

I have a couple of survival, paintball, outdoors type niche sites that I promote these backpacks. What I’ve found is having a variety of the same backpack is a positive signal. I limit the backpack-type to around 4 types but have 7-9 variations of each backpack. People like the colour variations.

You want to use clean images and some action shots of the backpacks being used. The price of these backpacks can go from $40-$120. This is fully depending on your messaging, the backpack you select and what features it has against the others.

 

 

Heavy Duty Pocket Torch

HD

Click to see these torch types.

This style of the torch is very popular. Surprisingly the female audience responded best to this products Facebook ads. You will need to be creative with your marketing if you use this product type. There is a lot of competition and noise, so standing out needs one of your focuses.

Notice the image look and feel? it’s one way to make the product look a bit better than your competitors who just use the AliExpress product image. You need to take an out of the box approach to marketing torches and gadget type products.

 

Tactical Sling Pouch

tactical medi pouch

Click to see these tactical pouches.

I have a lot of these tactical pouches around my house they are functional and can be used for a lot of things. Most people feel the same way seeing as I’m always ordering these from my supplier haha. My tip is to look at the red cross on this pouch. Think about a couple of variations of this type of patch on the pouch, that’s how you create sub-niches.

What do I mean about creating a sub-niche? well, the cross-appeals to one type of customer now I want to sell the same pouch but to other customers. I would check for pouches or patches for snipers, grenades, skulls demons and so on and so on.

I hope you get the point about how to create a sub-niche now.

Heavy Duty Smart Phone Protector Case

HDca

Click to see the phone case on AliExpress.

This is a great example of multi-use products that suit a lot of sub-categories. Everyone has a smartphone, and everyone fears damaging their smartphone. A super-protective heavy duty phone case is a great solution to that fear. Now we are getting to the problem and solution type marketing process.

You could sell these to a lot of audiences. tradies, campers, drivers and more. Everyone wants to keep their smartphone safe and secure.

 

“The evergreen military tactical and survival product kit. This is an evergreen product that I believe will grow in popularity throughout the year. Thanks to COVID and Mad Max (movie was set in 2021) people have concerns about survival””.

Shenzu

Outdoor Power Solar Off Grid

Leading on from the tactical and military survival gear is this segway into an off-grid living, solar power chargers and outdoor power options. Very popular and growing in popularity. This served me a double positive, it would make me money but I could also buy these products for my old man for his birthday. A great way to get product test data and action shots of the products.

My pro tip: work smarter not harder!

 

 

Portable Solar Power Charging Pad

solar charger padcharge pad

Click to see Pad 1, Click to see Pad 2.

I’ll be honest with you I have bought so many of these I really should start white labelling them. They are great gifts for family members who work outdoors. Sturdy and functional they can even serve multiple audience types.

I have used cyclist targeting and crane operators before with success. A little tricky but they sold more than I paid in ad spend, that sweet sweet ROAS.

The problem is people use their phone a lot for music, talking, videos etc and they if are like me most would be terrified the moment their battery hits 10% remaining. How this product helps them is to provide a portable charging solution, that can charge from the sun and they can move around while charging their phone.

An example snippet from an advert I ran “The old way was to sit by a power outlet while your phone charges”.
This was some wording from a past advertisement I ran hitting on that mobility factor. You need to be creative in ad copy to sell products.

I found a positive audience for this product on Pinterest and Instagram.

 

BONUS Product Solar Charger Panels

Click to see this bonus product here.

These bonus tip bad boys sold WELL! I targeted so many sub-niches audiences. The product is amazing so selling it just requires using the right type of messaging. Fishing buffs and camping audiences were the biggest buyers of this product. I branched off into some out of the box subcategories and found success especially in cross-promoting other survival tactical type products.

 

Bonus tip: Sometimes getting the visitor to your website is just about being able to cookie them for any retargeting adverts that you might have running. This works well for discounts and coupon promotions of your product as well.

.

Multi Function Tactical Pens

tactical pen

Click to see what this pen can do.

These multi-function products like tactical pens work well in waves. I found it challenging to get consistent sales from promoting these pens. I would create an ad set after ad set to promote these products and win for a couple of days then routinely fail.

My tip for promoting these products is to select months of the year to run 6-week promo and ad campaigns and then at the end of the 6 weeks cut the campaign.

This was the only I could get traction promoting these. I do think they are over-saturated. But if they are saturated that doesn’t mean we can’t sell them we just need to be creative in how we sell them.

 

Security Lighting LED Bright Light Bars

 

LED bar

Click to see this light bar product.

One of the top-selling products in my outdoor camping niche store is a bright light LED bar. These are multi-purpose and not just for outdoors they also suit suburban security fittings. I like these type of products because you can play on the home alone, intruder alert type fears factor.

These make great perimeter lighting and are so helpful after dark when camping.

This is a marketing tactic and I do not suggest people go around scaring people into buying these with horror stories.

Steampunk Clothing & Accessories

Yet another segway into outlander type Mad Max scenario is the steampunk genre. People are getting into this trend and dressing as they walked straight off the set of Mad Max or Tank Girl. Steampunk mixes industrial factory with military-style dress code while looking very unique. I do not get why people dress like this outside of comic con but hey all the power to you if this is your dress style.

The Steampunk Trench Coat

steampunk trench coat

Click to see the product.

The trench coat is a starting point for most people starting to make a fashion statement. It also helps act as a security blanket for the first-timers stepping out as a steampunker. They practically sell themselves.

When you do sell these trench coats include women as well. A lot of the steampunk style is unisex where anyone can wear it and you don’t need to be a man to have it. Unisex clothing is a thing and it makes sense…..if we live in a future where the supplies are limited.

Steampunk Glasses / Goggles

glasses for steampunks

Click to see these glasses.

Could I wear a pair of these and look as cool as this guy? Nah probs, not my friends but some people are going nuts for these type of glasses and speed demon goggles. The style is unique a little vintage a little retro and something modern.

I would have a handful of style types and then 2 or 3 colour variations for each pair of glasses. You could use these as a bundle offer or as an upsell in the shopping cart.

Steampunk Patches & Badges

steampunk jacket patch

Click to see these patches.

The next product set that sells pretty quickly is the mix of badges and patches that can be added to any article of clothing. The patches can represent factions or groups. The growing popularity in games like Fortnight and league of legends is factions and groups.

The patches and badges help people express their allegiance just like people wear their fav NBA team jersey these patches are like wearing a Chicago Bulls patch for steampunks.

Chains & Chokers for Steampunks

steampunk chocker

To see this product click here.

There is a need for chains in any steampunk store. Why chains? there is always chains in Steampunk and these are cheap to drop ship or Whitelabel. They are not too heavy to ship and they are a staple of the dress code.

Think also about those rock punk wallet chains that attach to the belt. A nose ring and earring chains and this can expand on even more and start leading into the fetish niche. The sky is the limit.

Apocalypse Mechanical Watches

mechanical watch

To see this watch click here.

People like these watches. I don’t wear a watch but these sell pretty much like …wait for it…clockwork! 🤣

I would suggest having 10-20 watches and then 2 -3 colour variations per watch. You could make a website just themed on steampunk mechanical watches. Again do not leave out the female steampunks, think unisex for steampunk targeting.

 

Key Takeaway

The online retail space is exploding and it is not going to slow down. I highly recommend getting a start with some type of eCommerce method. I broke down the top 4 methods below where you can get started.

The tabs below will tell you what each method

  • What is each method
  • Who each method is for
  • What you need to get started
  • Earning potential

Check it out below!

What is it? This is a method where you promote a product without having it. When someone buys that product from you the money they pay you will be used to buy the product from the supplier. You use the money from your customer to buy the product. You never have any leftover stock because you don’t ever touch the product.

Who is this for? Everyone. This is easy to test the waters method. You can get started quickly and the overheads are quite low. You should be able to get this set up for $500 bucks. The return on this investment can be double triple or higher than the $500. You will need to understand how emails, shipping and ordering works.

What do you need to get started? the minimum is a website, an email address, a bank account, some form of product to promote usually found on AliExpress or eBay.

Earning potential? $-$$$

What is this? You take a product you like and design some changes to the product to make it better. This can be minor tweaks or some fundamental design or feature changes. The manufacturer makes you a product that matches your new design. You now own a product YOU created.

Who is this for? People who have sold products before. People who understand market needs. You MUST have done some market research. You MUST know the demand for what you have.

What do you need to start? You need an idea. You need to validate your idea that it will have demand for it. You need something to piggyback off and create your private label product. Then you need a website, email account, bank account and then starting capital to order, ship and store the products. You will need to physically stock these products.

Earning potential? $$-$$$$$

What? This is a method where you join up to programs to promote products on behalf of brands or networks. When people buy the product from a link you’re promoted you get paid.

Who is this for? Everyone. This is an easy way to test the waters. You don’t ever touch or hold products, you will just promote products you like.

What do you need to get started? As a minimum a bank account, an email and somewhere to promote the products. This could be a website, Instagram, Pinterest etc.

Earning potential? $-$$$$$

What is it? This is one of the toughest roads to take in eCommerce. Compared to the other methods this one requires the most physical involvement of creating, shipping, storing and housing the products. You will be building your product from scratch. You will need to ship the products to your warehouse and store the products until they need to be shipped to customers. BUT you own the product and you can take it where ever you want in sales revenue.

Who is this for? NOT for starters. You should have some sales experience and business experience under your belt first. I would suggest starting with either dropshipping or affiliate marketing first.

What do you need to start? You will need significant investment capital to start this method. You need to create prototypes, design specs, shipping and logistics, storage facilities ( I started doing this in my garage and dining room lol) then manual shipping and promoting the products to get them moving.

In short, this is not an easy method. Why should you do this? well in 12 months this will be a LOT easier and it will be making you a great income. The time to build momentum takes time but it can steamroll into something huge.

Earning potential? $$-$$$$

I got a start in eCommerce by buying a business from Gumtree, it was a really simple mobile phone case store. This was back when mobile phones could only play the game snake and people would clip the phone cases to the outside of their belts.

ANYONE can do this but like any business, it takes time and commitment. If you don’t put in the work early on, you won’t see any rewards. If it was push-button easy EVERYONE would be doing this.

I hope this has helped you see the opportunity and get some momentum towards selling your first product. If you liked this comment below or like it or share it with someone who might make use of the information. Peace!

 

Read more on the Clickbucks Blog!

How To Build Better Marketing Messaging

How To Build Better Marketing Messaging

by | Jul 18, 2020 | Business, Guides, Marketing, Paid Ads

Here’s a powerful way to make your marketing stronger.
Write out an offer that your dream clients would love and be hard for them to say no to. Then see how close you can get to creating it. Once you do launch and promote it everywhere.
This sounds simple but so many sales are lost due to weak offers. Note when I say offer I do not mean price discounting. I mean a real sales offer.
Do you know what the only asset that matters in your business is?
  • It isn’t your Facebook page.
  • It isn’t your Instagram followers.
  • It is not your people
  • It isn’t any of your physical machinery or facilities.
So what is it?
It’s your client database and the relationship you have with them.
When businesses are sold this is ‘really’ what the purchaser is buying.
Clients pay for everything and you must treat them as gold. If you don’t have your own client database set up and actively market to it the best time to fix that is right now!
“I’ve always been intrigued by the reality where some clients are happy to pay more for essentially the same thing. The reason is because of how the value is postioned in teh service. I always ask this question.
Have you taken time to look at all potential clients for what you sell?
Have you identified those who can:
  • Benefit the most
  • Benefit the fastest
  • Pay the most
One of the easiest ways to grow sales and reduce headaches is to sell to the best clients you can. If you will do the research now your future self will thank you for it.”
Shenzu

Help Your Clients Discover Their USP

A USP is short for Unique Selling Position. This is a great way to identify the why and how the business is better than its competitors. An example may be that store A& B can deliver in 14 days but store C can deliver in 7 days that is a USP for store C.
Do your clients know the answer to this question?
Why should I buy from you over anyone else AND instead of buying something else with my money?
It’s a profound question and your answer must contain one key thing.
That thing is something they can only get from your company. Now this requires some digging and work but the rewards are there for you if you do it.
Once you can say you are the only one with X you immediately separate yourself from the competition and become THE choice for the clients you want.
So take 15 minutes right now and come up with your list of what clients get only from you.
Then review it and see what would be most powerful from a client perspective. Most importantly start using it in your marketing NOW.

18 Techniques That Improve Advertising Efforts

 

The purpose of all advertising is to take people’s existing desires and direct them towards your product or service. The old problem and solution pairing is a great way to start running ads with copy that calls out pain and provides the segway to the solution.
If you want to make your ads better you need to understand psychology and copy writing. But I know not everyone has time so to save you time here are some of my favourite advertising approaches. All have been used effectively over many years. choose what you believe will work best with your clients.
Don’t be afraid to experiment and test different appeals.

 

Here are 18 Quick Fire Tips

1. News. If you have something genuinely new and different then use a news angle in your ads. Words like announcing, introducing or finally now you can XYZ.      
2. Arouse curiosity. Once a curiosity loop opens in someones mind most people feel the need to close it. I had a great example recently a Facebook ad asked me if I knew the one question to get more sales. I didn’t but was curious and clicked the ad to find out.
3. Tell a story. It seems widely known now that stories sell. So use them in your message. Especially if it’s a story of success for someone just like the person you are aiming the ad at.

4. Add scarcity but make it true. A risk something will end or run out triggers fear of missing out and makes us take action.

5. Sell it well and then take it away. If you can get people wanting what you have and then say who it’s not for this adds more motivation to purchase.
6.Create a common enemy. You can bring people across to your site by sharing a common enemy. A few examples that people use are ‘big business’, ‘the banks’, ‘big pharma’ etc. Notice how the labels predetermine you viewing them as bad.
7. Take a contrarian position. A simple example of this could be telling people not to use Facebook ads whilst everyone else seems to be telling them to use them. You can go really strong on this one if you’re comfortable with it. Be aware though you will get some flack so you need to be able to deal with that.
8. Create controversy. This is a strategy that has been used in Public Relations a lot. Brands like American Apparel have also used it to gain greater exposure. It’s not for everyone and again has risks of flack you need to be aware of.
9. It’s not your fault. If you can absolve potential clients of any responsibility for making mistakes in the past then they can embrace your solution. If they feel as though it was their fault it can be hard for them to move to something new.
10. Social proof. The more people who testify to the fantastic results they get with your business the better. It’s far more credible than anything you can ever say. Aim for video testimonials if you can with specific results they got from your business.
11. Risk reversal. In any purchase there is a perceived risk of making a mistake and this fear reduces sales. You can limit this ‘perceived risk’ with a powerful risk reversal guarantee.
12. Small yesses. If you can get someone to say yes to something in your ad and keep them agreeing along the way it makes it easier for get the main yes to your product or service.
12. Offer a magic pill. People want the magic pill. As much as I hate this it’s the reality of the market. You need to present your offer like a magic pill to get the most people saying yes.
13. Sell to their want not need. It’s amazing how there is always money for what people want. Even if you know what they need sell to their want first or you won’t get the chance to help solve their true need.
14. Offer a sense of community. We are all looking to belong in some way if you can add community to your ads and offers it can bring more people in.
Creating a community around  product, problem, or technique is the nest step. Most popular places are Facebook groups, Reddit threads, Substack style lists and so on.
15.Use the Zeigarnik Effect. In psychology, the Zeigarnik effect states that people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks. This can be really powerful when used at the right time and right place.
The easiest way to use is to give part of the information and then the rest can only be gained by clicking to another page or opting in for something. Don’t make it too hard though.
17. Enter the conversation. You must be entering the conversation already going on in their mind. If you can write your ad to what they are thinking about right now then they will click your ads in big numbers. But you need to dig in and really understand your market to do this.
18. Ask a compelling question. It’s really hard for us to ignore questions especially if they are on a topic we are interest in. So you could ask a question like ‘Do you know the one question all clients want answered?”. If they don’t they will very likely act to get the answer.
In summing up all of the above we are always communicating to the ad viewer self-interest.
If you keep even that in mind at all times you’re on the way to creating better ads and growing your business faster.

Bonus Tip For Clear Messaging

Are your words easy to understand?
The words you use to promote your business matter. If you use big words you lose people. If you use regular words then almost anyone can read your message.
The more people who read or hear your message the more clients you can get.
There is a simple set of tests you can use to make sure your message is well understood.
Yesterday I ran the profile a popular marketer in LinkedIn through these tests.
This person failed the tests.
In fact the writing requires a post-graduate education to understand it.
This is not an unusual case.
If you try and read it you know immediately it makes no sense.
So the solution is to get a Flesch Kincaid grade for all your writing.
You want a grade level of 7.5 or under and a reading ease of at least 60.
For the record this post has a grade level of 4.5 and reading ease of 84.9.

 

Read how to craft crystal clear marketing messages that cut through the noise.

Keeping Your Marketing Message Clear

Your marketing message will be ignored unless…
The very first line contains one of the big 3 elements that grab attention.
Here they are in reverse order of power (my ranking):
Coming in 3rd is curiosity. You see this with click bait headlines if you’re curious enough you click. But what you click to can often be disappointing.
If you use it make sure you genuinely reward the persons curiosity.
Coming in 2nd is news. Especially anything to do with threats to our survival and loved ones. We are hard wired to tune in to any potential threats.
Coming in 1st is self-interest.
That is something that is relevant to what I most want right now.
It’s been said that we need to enter the conversation going on in the minds of our potential clients.
I’ve never seen better advice than this.
All three work and you should test them all in your market.
But if you choose one might as well start with the most power self-interest.
If your marketing messages, websites and social media profiles aren’t already applying these then the time to fix it is right now.
How To Start An Ecommerce Business

How To Start An Ecommerce Business

I have been consulting this guy who on the surface has it all planned out, he wanted to get my help in expanding his offline store into an online store and then building more sub niche stores to create a self refferring eco system. Great plan when its working. My call...

read more
Blogging Guide: How To Make Money With a Blog

Blogging Guide: How To Make Money With a Blog

Blogging started as a simple hobby, but has transformed into a powerful way to capture search traffic and monetize an audience. While many successful bloggers started years ago, it’s still possible to start a successful blog today. You just need to update your...

read more
Best Email Marketing Services for Small Business (2020)

Best Email Marketing Services for Small Business (2020)

by | Jul 6, 2020 | Business, Email, Guides

The most underrated marketing channel is by far email marketing. Almost every business can benefit from running email campaigns, there is also the repeat customer factor involved in email campaigns. I am a huge believer in email marketing and this article focuses on the best ways a small business can use emails to increase revenue.

The best email marketing software can be measured by various factors but ultimately my key factors will be different to yours and the next person after you. I like email marketing service features that allow landing pages, email templates, forms, email automation and a drag and drop builder for ease of use. These are the key features I look for in an email marketing platform.

How I would approach this would be to pick 3 key things you want from your email software and stick to that as your must-haves. Do not get caught up in all the shiny things an email tool can do, these are nice to have not mission-critical. When you get started with email marketing you can get a free trial before buying paid plans on the email software to test drive the software.

Most email software will sting you based on your list size, how many emails you plan on sending, and based on your number of subscribers. The alternatives listed below do more for your buck. Each has it’s own free email marketing free trial period where you can test the waters and email out to your subscriber list for an example. Great way to see if that platform is right for you.

In this article, I will provide you with an overview of email software that I have used and would recommend for small businesses.

Why Choosing The Best Email Marketing Service is Important?

Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies for small businesses. I would argue that the biggest return on investment is from sending emails. It takes a little time setting them up working the sequences and trigger points but you can build a new revenue stream when you get it working.

This is because email marketing is easy to manage, gives you full control, and allows you to establish direct contact with your customers. There are a lot of ways to harness emails to attract and retain new business.

Read my article on the importance of building an email list.

 

I do not think that the success of your email campaigns is dependant on the email software you use. They all do very similar things. Do you sacrifice having a nice dashboard and analytics view because the delivery is really solid or do you sacrifice solid delivery to have a nice clean dashboard view with easy to see analytics? that’s a question only you can answer.

My top 3 Features

  1. The numbers what are limits (subscribers & send rates)
  2. Deliverability 
  3. Sequencing & tagging of the emails

 

There are more but if I narrow it down to the key 3 things I need it is the above. All the other fancy features are nice but you can get them elsewhere if you needed to.

Secondary advanced features wish list for email marketing software:

  1. Forms
  2. Landing pages
  3. Email templates
  4. Drag and drop email builder editor
  5. Send rates per month
  6. Subject A B testing
  7. Allow affiliate and transactional email

 

What to Look for in a Good Email Marketing Tool?

A good email marketing service should enable you to create highly engaging email newsletters with an easy user interface (ideally drag-and-drop editor).

You should be able to easily send bulk emails that are personalised and targeted without a lot of work. This is also known as marketing automation. Good automation features include auto tagging, link click triggers, event based actions and features like A/B testing.

You must have some feature that allows list segmentation to split groups up based on where they signed up or what actions they take like for example this group all clicked the link to the PDF download and so on.

email sequence

Most importantly, a good email service provider ensures that your email campaigns do not end up in the spam folder. Deliverability is key or you will see very diminished returns on email if you can’t get the email in front of the people.

Having said that, let’s take a look at some of the most popular email marketing service providers and how they stack up against each other.

 

I think that Campaign Monitor is absolute garbage and that their support team are not nearly as helpful as a lot of the smaller email marketing services out there. I have had a constant issue with a Shopify form and emails from Campaign Monitor. The support was almost robotic and I kept getting sent in circles. Enough on that , let’s talk about some of the great email marketing service providers available to you.

MailChimp

MailChimp is one of the most well-known email marketing service providers in the world thanks mainly to their heavy brand awareness campaigns and a forever free email marketing service plan.

MailChimp comes with an easy drag-and-drop email builder, autoresponders, segmenting contacts into groups, and simple tracking for analytics. It also allows you to set up delivery times based on user’s timezones, and you can setup segmenting based on geolocation.

The best thing MailChimps offer besides the FREE plan is the ease of the connection between your website and the MailChimp platform. This is made very easy through an on boarding checklist.

You can integrate MailChimp with:

  • WordPress
  • Shopify through Zapier
  • Magento
  • and many more

I do not rate MailChimp as a contender in the marketing automation category. I will acknowledge they have a reliable email automation sequence feature but it lacks the creativity and insights other platforms have in the basic plan like Automizy.

While there are some features included in MailChimps “Advanced” plans when you dig into the guts of them you can see that they are not as advanced as advertised. This is not a dig at MailChimp but more of a realisation that MailChimp is aimed at more beginner level and medium-skilled users. That is great for you being a busy business owner you won’t need to stuff around with all the intricate details and functions just to send an 8 email series.

The support offered by MailChimp in my experience has been top-notch. I never had to wait longer than a day to have a problem resolved. I love the knowledge base and how-to guides they make it even easier using the platform.

MailChimp offers a free plan which allows you to send 12,000 emails for up to 2,000 subscribers. As you would expect this is a very limited plan restricting you to the most basic of features. The emails you send will include MailChimp branding.

Using a scale as you grow subscription plan common in most email platforms MailChimp is very affordable starting their paid plans at $10 a month. This allows up to 500 subscribers and then as you grow that you can increase the subscriber count.

 

 

Read How To Grow Website Traffic Guide.

 

Wishpond Emails & Social Media

www.Wishpond.com

There is a real thought for the user in how Wishpond showcases the campaigns and allows you to build the lead forms and the process of IF this THEN that type of functions. Featuring a drag and drop editor and one of the best form builders for email marketing software as far as design and usability goes.

If you manage emails newsletters and social media contests and campaigns then Wishpond is a great choice for your business. I really enjoy using this email marketing tool because of the deliverability rates, its so easy to use, the campaign features and once again sheer ease of use.

Features

Wishpond’s marketing automation suite makes it easy and affordable to nurture your website visitors and leads to sales. This is a REALLY powerful set of tools and it will enable you to automatically score and segment leads into lists based on activity and personal details, send personalized emails based on behaviour, and much more.

You will find A LOT of features packed into Wishpond.

  • Email Automation
  • Online Forms
  • Website Popups
  • Landing Page Builder
  • Contests & Promotions
  • Referral Suite of tools
  • Leads Database
  • Marketing Automation

You won’t find personalised content or any dynamic content features in Wishpond but considering everything else this tool does I would be happy to miss out on those.

Who is Wishpond Best For?

Wishpond is focused on business owners of small and medium-sized businesses as well as marketing agencies who want to offer an afford marketing automation platform to their clients.

Most small businesses could make this work for their business I have no doubt.  I highly rate this email marketing software and put it so high on my list because it is easy to use for any one just starting or seasoned professionals.

Integrations

Wishpond can integrate at the time of writing with just over 300 of the most popular platforms and I imagine this will continue to expand over time.

 

Wishpond offers multiple tools to enhance your online marketing efforts. It lets you integrate different features on your website to make it spectacular and attractive for visitors. You can build and publish mobile-responsive pages in minutes and integrate different forms with them. These forms pop up when a visitor is on the landing page.

You can easily run contests and promotions on Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms with WishPond. Also, it helps you to send personalized emails to the leads. It offers an efficient lead management system which monitors a lead’s activity on the website. This activity is later used to create a list which online marketers use to track their leads’ behaviour.

Lead management is the main feature of Wishpond as it offers multiple ways not only to attract leads but to keep them busy with product-related feed. Just as the website visitor knows more about your product or shoots an inquiry to ask a question, an invisible relationship develops between you and the customer. With each minute spending on your website, the visitor is more and more convinced to buy from you. This willingness is monitored through navigational patterns of the lead which are recorded by Wishpond.

Pricing

I was very lucky to have picked up a great price on a lifetime deal but for those who missed the boat and do not have any wishes left haha bad joke.

The price points are split into the following:

  • Basic Plan $49 month.
  • Most Popular Plan $99 month
  • Growth Plan $199 month

There is a free plan but very limited.

I like this platform for small business. Wishpond is great for small businesses because it can do a lot of what you would need in everyday marketing campaigns.

>>> GET WISHPOND <<<

 

 

Automizy Real Automation & AI

I want to highlight that I LOVE Automizy and how easy they made the entire process of signing up to getting something live.

www.Automizy.com

features of automizy emails

Create engaging newsletters with the Drag & Drop Editor, making the procedure a lot of fun. There’s a bunch of proven templates to maximise the engagement of your emails. Build forms and email campaigns with either template designs or drag and drop email designs making the designer one of the best email marketing options for you to get started at any level of user skillset.

Subject Line Tester

The AI predicts the performance of your subject lines, even before you distribute you’re emails. Subject lines play an essential role in view rate (indeed). The advanced features in this email marketing software are amazing I am so impressed with the ease of use for such advanced features. The automation sequences are so easy to build with a very popular layout and upcoming AI so you can make more from your email campaigns.

 

Visual Automation Builder

The automation builder is a great way to map out your campaign visually. You can schedule & send emails, based on the list the subscriber is on; link clicks in your previous emails, webpage visits, plus much more.

There are also ready-to-use automation templates that you should get started. This is hands down the best email marketing feature on this list I love this part of it so much. I can get lost in the sequences when they get a bit more complex and conditional so a visual design showing you what is happening is a sweet addition to an already super powerful email marketing tool.

Automatic Resend

Resend the unopened emails to customers, with some other subject line & without having to redo the entire process.

Several clicks so you reach out to individuals in the event they missed from your previous emails!

A/B testing

You can article 4 subject lines for your emails & set them up for automation.

Automizy’s machine learning algorithm will optimize and send the variation that guarantees the highest open rates for your emails.

Website Behaviour Tracking

You could send automated emails predicated on the visitors’ engagement (visits, clicks) on your website.

Think about sending a contact to the subscriber who just visited your pricing page with a discount coupon? Charlie, now that’s the way you close a sale!

Advanced Filters

There is an endless amount of Filters to build your automated emails campaigns better.

You may filter your subscribers & customers based on the tags, lead score, email opens, clicks, the date they subscribed, UTM parameters, bounce rate, activities &, etc.

By merely applying these filters, you’re sending laser-targeted emails to the right person, at the right time.

Campaign Analytics

With the detailed analytics, you can get a bird’s eye view of how your campaigns are performing.

You can see the open rate, click rate, delivery rate, hard & soft bounces, no. of unsubscribes, best-performing links, plus much more.

If you’re running A/B tests, you can also check how each one of the variations is performing.

Integrations

Automizy integrates with most of the industry-standard tools like Slack, Zapier, Salesforce, Mailchimp, LeadPages, and even more. Plus, there are a lot of zap templates for you to plug & play.

To hook up with other tools, you’re using; there is an open API from Automizy and I am super pumped about that.

While you are going to give attention to your content & marketing efforts, Automizy will look after engaging and converting your subscribers/customers.

Get Automizy AI Email Platform.

 

SendFox 

This is my pick for a small business email platform that won’t break the bank and gives you enough features that you can grow your business. The best thing about SendFox is the simplicity of the platform. This platform was built with the end subscribers in mind, using a features called a smart page it showcases your best work and is the most easy to use software on the list.

I spoke to David Kelly at SendFox about some changes to their forms and he had some plans for making them more appealing. He acknowledged that the forms were basic at the time but he has been hard at work building this platform out. The UI on the dashboard is very smooth and I am finding the minimalistic design to be a productive environment to work in. Another email tool using simple drag and drop editor you cant go wrong with SendFox.

sendfox is awesome

I like the smart page feature as a way to manage your presence online. This is my smart page, SendFox Page.

Pricing is your friend with SendFox with a lifetime single price payment of $49 this is a no brainer. You can send up to 50k emails per month and most small businesses will not be sending 50k emails a month. 

To upgrade from this plan it’s $10 for every 1k additional you want to add on. Although you could pay $10 monthly for 70k email sends per month if you needed to. Build your plan as you increase and build your email list.

This is hands down the easiest platform to set up and send emails. You should not need a developer to help with any setup. 

This is my pick for the best email marketing platform for small businesses. I just want to thank David and his team at SendFox for making something so easy to use at an affordable price. They are still building out the knowledge base and customer support hub. With pricing based on your needs it really does fill the hole in the marketing as an affordable option for sending emails to your subscribers.

 

Improve Your Email Deliverability

All the email newsletter tools that I shared in this article have great email deliverability rates.

However, there are a few things you can do to make sure that your marketing emails always get delivered.

Use a Professional Email Address

Email platforms like Gmail, Outlook, and others have algorithms that look for spammy behaviour. One of them is the sender address.

You should as a business be using a professional email address like [email protected]. If you are not and possibly using [email protected] or other free email address it does look a tad tacky and makes the business feel very man in a van small.

This also hurts your email marketing BIG TIME! You need a domain verified email address to get better deliverability.

Send Targeted Emails Based on Interests

I think this is the number 1 thing local businesses fail at with email marketing. As someone who invests in local business heavily, I am amazed at some of the emails I get from local businesses.

If I signed up for updates about a vegetarian pizza range at my local pizza shop I want to know about all the veggie ranges of pizza that this store has. What I DO NOT want is constant updates about the exclusive meat range of pizzas.

There must be personalised targeting based on user behaviour as a minimum. Segmenting users into buckets based on behaviour and tagging users by the actions they take when you send emails is a must-have for your email software.

If you get this right your email marketing campaigns will see improved open rate and click-through rate which is a big factor in future email deliverability.

Email Marketing Software FAQs

Having helped thousands of users pick the best email marketing software, we have answered quite a lot of questions. Below are some of the answers to the most frequently asked questions about email marketing platforms.

Can I do bulk email marketing from my Gmail or Outlook?

You can but why would you want to do that? You should be using your primary domain associated email for better delivery and brand association.

The free options like Gmail and Hotmail etc are not designed for bulk email sending campaigns.

 

Which is the best free email marketing service?

If I was on a budget I would start with Mailchimp or Moosend for the free account services. These will be limited and feature the platform branding but as you grow you should be moving to a more pro version where you have more control.

This is not free but at a one-time price for lifetime access I highly recommend SendFox emailer at $49 one time. Get SendFox.

How much does email marketing cost?

Your email marketing cost will entirely depend on the number of subscribers you have, the number of total emails you send per month, and the email platform you use. On average, a small business email marketing costs is around $20 – $300 per month on email marketing given that they manage their campaign. If you use an email marketing agency, then your cost might be closer to $500 per month or higher.

Are there other email marketing platforms that are not listed here?

Yes, there are hundreds of email marketing services out there, but we have not listed them all here. We believe that creating a full email platforms list would create more confusion and cause choice paralysis for non-techy readers.

We have tried all the top major email marketing service including many that are not in our email platform lists above such as ActiveCampaign, HubSpot, Ontraport, Mailjet, Campaign Monitor, InfusionSoft Klaviyo, Marketo, Eloqua, Pardot by Salesforce, Sendloop, iContact, Moosend, Emma, TotalSend, SharpSpring, MailPoet, and so many more.

The top email marketing services that we have chosen to include in our list provide the best features for the best price and features.

 

Key Takeaway: The Best Email Marketing Service

In reality, email marketing platforms are a dime a dozen but there are some champions among the dirty dozen.

My Top Picks:

  1. SendFox
  2. Wishpond
  3. Automizy
  4. Mailchimp

My goals may not match your business goals so this is based on my needs and wants. I love how quick and easy to setup SendFox is and the functionality that Wishpond allows especially around contests and promotions. 

If you are a one-man in a van type business I suggest SendFox based on simplicity, time to set up and pricing.

For a local business, I suggest Mailchimp or Wishpond for the baseline features.

For eCommerce stores, I suggest either Wishpond or Automizy. This will help with store growth and engagement campaigns and product launches. With features like form embed, landing page, tagging and event based actions this is a must for ecommerce store email campaigns.

You should select an email marketing software that can scale as your business grows. I say this because I’ve been in that horrible position where my email software was great for small below 5k email lists but extremely expensive when scaling to 20k email lists. The migration from one to the other was a very stressful and draining experience. Some platforms now offer migration services between platforms and I think that’s been a long time coming.

 

I hope you have found this useful and now have an idea of what are the best email software options for your business. As always if you enjoyed this article and found it useful please give us a like share or comment below and thanks for reading.

 

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How To Make Money With CPA

How To Make Money With CPA

by | Jun 28, 2020 | Affiliate, Guides, Paid Ads

What Is CPA and How To Make Money With It

In uncertain economic times many people are looking for new ways to make some additional cash. Thus it is not surprising that many people have flocked to internet marketing. There are a wide variety of ways of profiting online, from selling your own products to selling ad space on a website you own. One way that may people make significant profits online is through affiliate cost per action (CPA) programs.

Affiliate marketing is a form of marketing whereby a contracted sales force of affiliates sell a particular product for a vendor, in return for a commission on the products. These are often called cost per action programs because affiliates are paid whenever an action is made. Usually this comes through the purchase of a product or the submission of a lead. This is in contrast to cost per click (CPC) advertising programs such as Adsense where a person just gets paid for driving traffic to an offer whether the offer converts or not.

Since the person displaying CPA offers is taking some risk in sending traffic, they stand to get paid more over the long term if they are promoting a well designed offer. It is not uncommon for CPA profits to represent a full 50%-75% of the purchase price for information products, with lower commissions for physical products. However, one only gets paid if an action is taken. Therefore one could send 100s or 1000s of clicks to an offer without being paid a dime.

For this reason, it is very important to chose the right CPA offer. Often affiliate managers can help you chose the right offer for your site on the basis of what offers are selling well at the moment. Many affiliate platforms will also allow one to sort various offers based on several metrics such as earnings per click or the number of sales made by affiliates over a span of time. The gravity statistic within the Clickbank information product marketplace is an example of the latter and is often used to scan for great offers to promote. View each sales page yourself and ask yourself if you would buy the product based on what is being said.

It can also be useful to presell on offer. For example you can offer a review of the product highlighting the positives and negatives of the product in an objective tone, concluding that the product is worth purchasing. This extra validation can help push people towards a product purchase as many people will assume that the actual sales page is biased. If you can find good customer testimonials to include, that can also help to increase the chances of a specific offer being bought.

“CPA is a real opportunity but for anyone beginning I think your time would be better spent learning the basics of affiliate marketing or PPC before you dive into CPA. It really is a different world and to have the fundamentals down first will benefit you much more when you do dive into CPA.”

Shenzu

The 3 Ways To Use Twitter For Maximum CPA Profits

I was slow to use Twitter because I just couldn’t see the value in people sharing 3 lines of random information at a time. It took Twitter’s popularity and the traffic that I was missing out on to draw me back into the Twitter universe. I’m on Twitter because tons of people are on Twitter. Where people go, is where the money goes.

Many Internet marketers struggle with making money on Twitter. These struggling affiliate marketers suffer because they think adding a ton of people and dropping an affiliate link is the way to the Twitter goldmine. What they fail to realize that good marketing is all about engaging your audience. They run very vanilla Twitter marketing campaigns and end up with spoiled milk. They are bad marketers! For the savvy Internet marketer, Twitter is a goldmine and it is a great way to build a brand, engage an audience, become a well known expert and an awesome tool to make a lot of money. In this article, will explain how to use the above examples to dominate Twitter and make a ton of money. This is an article for doers and not people who sit on information.

Build A Brand

The problem with affiliate marketing is that it automatically gets us into the frame of an affiliate and not as a business owner. As an affiliate, our mental frame is to take someone else’s product, market it and make some money. This is often done by making keyword businesses. What I mean by “keyword business” is that many marketers own dozens of micro sites that are geared just towards what they are selling. They run utilitarian campaigns where their audience has to sell themselves on the product and buy into the content of the website.

Engage You Audience

The best way to market is to become a brand, become an authority in the industry, relate to your audience on a human level, don’t just talk ‘buy this’ with them but show them that there’s a human behind the products that you market. I am of the frame work of sell yourself, then your product. Other Twitter marketers want to add as many people as they can and drop affiliate links. I think that they are going about it all wrong. Social media is all about connecting and people don’t come to social media sites like Twitter to buy products. Make them buy into you, believe in you and then they will buy from you. It is all about build rapport and a relationship with your audience.

Get A Name In The Game

You are not successful on Twitter due to obscurity. No one knows who you are! People don’t want to buy from a nobody. You need to ‘Get A Name In The Game.’ Building a name is quite easy on Twitter but you have to be willing to spend a little bit of money. Twitter has a very good Pay-Per-Follow Advertisement program where they will plaster your posts for people to see. You can use this opportunity to build a name. Let people get to know you through your ads and they will follow you. I find this much better than trying to add thousands of people then trying to market to them. The spam approach is what classless marketers do who really don’t understand that real marketing is all about specificity and engagement. You have to build a name for yourself and you have to build a brand presence. When you have done these things, you can sell from a place of power.

Is you might have noticed, this article isn’t a lockstep instruction guide but a way to teach the reader how to think about marketing on Twitter or on any social media platform. Many of you aren’t really marketers, at least you don’t have a true marketing background and are products of the internet. I don’t say this to put you down but to simply say that you don’t have any real marketing training so the flood people with links method and playing a numbers game seems perfect to you but you eventual realize that doesn’t work on social sites.

This is great information and I hope you put it to good use.

Key Takeaway

CPA marketing is a great way to monetize websites. While there is a lot more work that goes into selecting the right offer to promote versus a method of monetization such as Adsense, the long term profit potential if done correctly is much greater. Learn teh basics of pay per click FIRST, then take the plunge into CPA.

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9 Ways To Grow Website Traffic

9 Ways To Grow Website Traffic

by | Jun 21, 2020 | Affiliate, Guides, SEO

Every online business needs targeted traffic ñ whether it is selling a product, service, affiliate marketing site or Google Adsense site. An affiliate marketer may have all the things needed for him to be able to succeed in a business such as affiliate marketing.

He/ she may have the necessary drive, diligence, passion and perseverance to be able to understand how the system works. He/ she may have all the tools necessary in maintaining the business, including a really unique and interesting website which could earn him/her a fortune if only the whole world could see it.

However, all these would prove useless if he/she does not know how to drive traffic to his website.

Getting people who matter to see oneís website is a difficult undertaking if he tries to consider the fact that there are rivals everywhere waiting to pin him down.

The immensity of the internet as well as the internet business world has given birth to the fierce competition between online businesses, each of whom has his own great product to offer. With all the websites piling on top of each other, how would one be able to stand out?

Here are 9 ways to drive targeted traffic

1 Newsletter Signups & List Building

Newsletter subscription: Creating a list of subscribers that one can refer to every so often, because they are those which would prove to be valuable assets for the marketer concerned. The use of autoresponders and personalized newsletters is one way of keeping track of them all, and holding on to them by letting them know about new products and services is an essential task that should be done by the affiliate marketer concerned.

You should always be trying to build a list as it brings in a secondary money method with email marketing.

2 Participate in Question & Answer Forums

Discussion forums: Participate in discussion forums of your area of expertise and respond to someoneís question. A discussion forum may user of all levels ñ beginners to advanced users. There are many questions that newbies ask. Make sure you respond to it. After this invite them to visit your website. Make sure your signature file has your links with a very good caption.

Find things you know you can answer inside these Q&A forums. I would go in to these forums and answer questions on ecommerce, dropshipping and AliExpress and answer these questions.

3 Backlinks Exchange & Guest Posting

Link Exchange: Contact other webmasters for a possible link exchange partnership. Locating websites that are related to oneís own website is the primary task. Once there, he should be able to establish communication by personalizing everything as much as possible. It is then possible to make reciprocal link exchanges between webmasters whichever way the affiliate marketer prefers.

Join link exchange programs: This is the new way of linking. This can drive targeted traffic. There are many free link exchanges services. Paying for a link exchange program is also worth your money.

4 Search Engine Optimisation SEO

Search engines: What they can do for the affiliate marketer concerned. Because they are popular for driving free targeted traffic, they should not be ignored by all means. Having top search engine rankings is vital in building popularity links, and the use of the right keywords is important in attaining this goal. Once a website is on top of the list, it is easily accessible to anyone who wants to see it for himself.

5 Content Marketing

Write your own articles: This is an effective way in promoting a website, because good content that are appreciated by readers will lead them to visit the writerís very own website out of sheer interest.

You can expand this further by guest posting or publishing content on other websites like Medium, like LinkedIn and like sites like Buzzfeed yes you can start your own accounts on all of these sites. This is a great way to grow an audience through content marketing.

6 Joint Ventures 

Joint venture marketing: This is one of the most effective ways of promoting a product or a service. Having a partner through ad swap or link exchange is beneficial to both parties as it allows them to reach a wide customer base in a short amount of time.

You will find if you have done any of teh above points that this will become easier and easier for you and you may get people reaching out to you to JV together. This is a great way to grow your exposure and build a partnership.

7 Create PLR Lead Magnets

Give unrestricted rights to Ebooks and reports: Create Short ebooks and reports branded with your website link on the footer of every page. Give them away on their website or to your mailing list also give them rights to sell it on their websites and auction sites.

You can make a lot of money from PLR content but you will also get a lot of traffic especially if the people who buy your PLR content do not change the links and references in the content meaning you can create links inside that content that oints to your preferred web pages.

This is a great way to make money from yoru blog if you sell these from your website.

What can be better than this for driving traffic to your website? If you give resale rights, come of them will sell it to others and in turn you get more visitors!

8 Market Intelligence Reports

Knowing your market through and through. It is important for traffic to be targeted to those who might have a special interest in the theme or topic of oneís website. This way, a solid customer base is going to be created. Once a potential customer shows an interest in a particular website by paying it a visit, one must not waste time in trying to show him that his effort is worth it.

Keep contact info (atleast name and email address) of your customers is critical. Once someone is interested in your product, it is easier to promote other products including affiliate products.

If you create market intelligence reports this will explode your website traffic and backlinks 100% you will notice a change.

 

9 Do Affiliate Style Reviews

The power of reviews for your website is huge. You can really rack up those Google rankings with targeted content focusing on reviews.

You find products, softwares, Tools or services and create reviews around that thing helping people who may want to use this thing and give them more info on what they may be looking for. Great way to get traffic and rankings to your website.

 

BONUS Press Releases


Receiving backlinks from trusted news sources can greatly increase your TF.

Some things to consider when using PR:
a.) Not only link to your money site, also consider linking to other proerpties such as Twitter, Facebook, etc.
b.) Linking to your GMB or Google My Maps is greatly encouraged as well.
c.) Be sure to list your NAP from Phase I above in the PR as this can be looked at as a citation many times.

Don’t go directly to places like PR Web to get your PRs done because the price is too high in my opinion. The free PR services suck as well in my testing.

Traffic generating strategies are important in trying to make oneís affiliate marketing career inch forward. It is always advantageous to plan oneís moves in any business that he might undertake. This is particularly so in affiliate marketing. If one knows how to get people to see what he has to offer, then he is on the right track.

Last but not the least, have some scripts/ tools to perform these actions and bookmark this page. Thanks for reading if you liked it share it. Peace.

How To Start An Ecommerce Business

How To Start An Ecommerce Business

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How To Use AliBaba For Dropshipping

How To Use AliBaba For Dropshipping

by | Jun 15, 2020 | Ecommerce, Guides

If you’ve made up your mind about who your overseas source is for products you’re selling online, then it’s probably Alibaba that you’re doing business with. According to the numbers, Alibaba is the biggest eCommerce company worldwide. That means bigger than even Amazon and eBay put together.

So what is Alibaba? It’s a very comprehensive directory connecting buyers and suppliers (mainly Asian suppliers) all across the world. They have millions of products to choose from and tons of suppliers ready to fill your orders.

 

Start Your Search

Purchasing items on Alibaba using their directory is pretty well self-explanatory. It is not so much different from a marketplace like eBay. You can browse through the categories or perform a more ‘item-specific’ search to find what you want.

You have 2 options when performing a search on Alibaba. One is to utilize the product descriptions for your search, like with ‘dog collars’. That will bring up lots of results in the dog collar category.

The second option is to utilize their drop-down menu and search for suppliers rather than for products. That way you can find the manufacturers who specialize in whatever type of products you’re looking for.

How to Use the Product Pages

Before you begin searching around on Alibaba you should know a few things about those product pages. As our former example was ‘dog collar’ we’ll keep that as our example here as well.

Unit Price

This will be one of the first pieces of information you’ll want to have. Price is always a good place to start. We can see that this listing has a price of $2 – $3 FOB. The ‘FOB’ is the abbreviation of ‘Free on Board’, which means that the seller is also going to pay the costs associated with getting this product to the marine port (For Asian products this is the cheapest way to go) and you (as the buyer) will pay costs associated with the actual transporting of your goods across the ocean blue to its final destination.

MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity)

The next source of information you’ll need is the MOQ, or ‘minimum order quantity’. This is the smallest number of items this particular manufacturer is willing to sell on one order. The thing to remember about MOQs is they’re not chiselled in stone and are usually negotiable. The MOQ in our ‘dog collar’ example is 200 units. When we multiply that using the high-end side of the price, which was $3.00 we are looking at an overall figure of around $600 plus the shipping if we choose to go with this supplier. This is a good thing to know going in so you have a starting place for your negotiations.

Payment Options

Once you understand how the MOQ and pricing work, you’ll probably need to know how to make payment to a suppler. There are pros and cons to the methods of payment available, so you would decide to choose the one that works best for you.

 

Alibaba verse Amazon

Both platforms serve millions of customers and have a staggering amount of product listings. You can get lost on each platform. Amazon does not like drop shippers whereas Alibaba and AliExpress serve drop shippers very well.

Each platform has a very intelligent CEO overseeing the operations making sure that their platform is at the forefront of eCommerce. You can use whatever platform makes sense to you to sell on or buy from to resell.

I have a strong dislike for Amazon as a selling platform because of Amazon FBA and the sad affiliate percentages that Amazon pays its affiliates.

How To Use Alibaba To Dropship

One of the best ways to fill in gaps in your product line is the dropshipping business – learn the ropes and you won’t be disappointed.

Although I would never use drop shipping as the sole base for my online store, the top platform for locating quality drop shippers is a service known as Worldwide Brands.

Dropshippers get pre-vetted by Worldwide Brands so that you can rest assured that you won’t get scammed.

I suggest using a mix of Alibaba and AliExpress for dropshipping because you can get a better mix of products and suppliers/manufacturers.

How To Dropship on AliExpress

  1. Sign up to a product automation software like OBERLO
  2. Connect OBERLO to your website and connect your AliExpress account
  3. You search the AliExpress platform for your product
  4. Review the products that catch your eye
  5. Review the number of orders they have
  6. Review that sellers reviews 
  7. When happy go into OBERLO platform and find that product
  8. Setup your product details and then import this product into your store
  9. When you have products on your store you need traffic. Visit Learn page to learn how to do that.
  10. Once you make a sale you will have the money to now buy that product from the AliExpress vendor. Go ahead and do that.
  11. Use your new customer’s details as the shipping address and complete the AliExpress order.

And in a super summary that is dropshipping on Alibaba and AliExpress.

To learn more about how dropshipping works you can check out this mini course on ecommerce.

 

Purchasing Wholesale Goods Domestically

“Wholesale” is a word that I hear often. A lot of people reach out to me about wholesale prices and they want to know where they can buy products wholesale. “Wholesale” apparently means purchasing items at the lowest possible price.

Do you want to hear something surprising? This could not be further from the actual truth. When I shopped vendors for my online sales, every US wholesale dealer had incredibly high prices. They had high minimum quantity orders that didnt match my numbers.

Yet, these companies were less costly than MSRP, but their prices were still so high that I wouldn’t have been able to attain or maintain a high-profit margin on any of the items that I was interested in selling.

Given that very few things are currently being made in the US, wholesalers can handle all of the problems in importing and storing items from product manufacturers.

It won’t be necessary for you to go to a foreign location. There is no need to deal with customs or shipping. You simply submit orders and wait for your merchandise to arrive. I prefer to order some example items from the manufacturer in the research phase and run my assessment on them as a partner. I monitor shipping time, invoicing and then quality of products when delivered.

Another benefit gained by buying wholesale is the ability to sidestep time-consuming quality control measures given that your wholesaler will have made these checks on your behalf.

Buying Direct From Manufacturers Overseas

Purchasing from the manufacturer direct is by no means the holy grail of this industry, but it additionally requires the greatest amount of dedication, work and time. Currently, nearly all products are being made overseas due to cheaper labour costs.

My general rule for textiles and other goods is that if you’re working with a US vendor, you probably aren’t going to get the absolute lowest price. I will even say that if you’re working with someone who speaks excellent English, the prices aren’t likely to be good (All right, that may be pushing things a bit too far).

 

Tips When Opening Your Online Store

The #1 question I get regularly from readers interested in opening up their online stores, is what methods to use to locate suppliers and vendors. They want to know if they should buy wholesale or should they give Dropshipping a try as well?

In my early days of online commerce I had this exact question as well. To be honest the entire dropship model was confusing until I actually got my hands dorty and did it. I spent hours assessing vendors and products, but when I decided to push ahead I just followed the data of the top selling item.

I always order the product I plan to sell first. This lets me assess the vendor, the shipping times and quality of the product and its packaging.

Most of my experiences deal mainly with clothing, appliances and gadgets. I have diviersified a lot since then and have my hand in many categories of product. However, the principles should be the same regardless of what your topic or product may be.

Drop-Shipping Explained

Lots of people fall into the old trap of having everything dropshipped when they first start their online store. Well, it’s hard to blame them since it sounds so good when you first hear it. Not having to keep many items in stock yourself is a big load off. All you do is pay for the item and pocket the difference between your wholesale price and your customer’s price.

You have no inventory to keep track of and no obligations of fulfilment, it’s all done for you by the drop shipper. Sounds great huh? Until you have to start dealing with other types of customer problems that you do not fault in.

Many new store owners fail to realize that those profit margins are not so good and if they should screw up your order or ship something too late – it’s YOU who gets to deal with the customer. You also don’t want to be dealing with a drop shipper who makes a habit of shipping faulty items. These kinds of problems become YOURS once you put yourself in that position.

Add in the fact you have very little wiggle room in the profit margin and combine that will all the stress and headaches you have to go through, suddenly things regarding dropshipping just don’t look so good.

Even when you manage to locate a reliable drop shipper, your customer issues are still going to be popping up and when you have little control over regarding your products things can get difficult.

To sum it all up, you are putting your online store’s reputation into the hands of a 3rd party, who more than likely DOES NOT have your store’s best interests at heart.

 

Thanks for reading and as always if you like this and found it helpful drop a like a comment or give a bro a share. Peace!

Blogging Guide: How To Make Money With a Blog

Blogging Guide: How To Make Money With a Blog

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Ecommerce Targeting Guide Products and Ads

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One of the best ways to get sales fast on your ecommerce or dropship store is to run paid ads to the product pages. I love that free traffic with SEO but I also want some quick wins with sending targeted paid advert traffic to my sales pages to get data faster. This...

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Build A Huge Email List In 6 Easy Steps

Build A Huge Email List In 6 Easy Steps

by | Jun 3, 2020 | Affiliate, Email, Guides

6 Steps To Build A Bigger Email List

 

You will see this advice time and time again. People who make a lot of money on the Internet always say that the real money is in the list. Some of these successful online marketers say that whenever they need to generate more income, they simply have to turn to their huge email lists that contain the email addresses of thousands of subscribers.

Build Your Huge Email List in 6 Easy Steps

Consider these simple steps to take to have your own traffic and revenue generating email list with hundreds or even thousands of active and interested subscribers.

— Choose a mailing platform.
— Figure out a hook to gain lots of subscribers.
— Develop the content that will provide that hook.
— Integrate your email list with your website or social media sites.
— Test out different marketing messages.

–Add your email signup page to your profiles and email signature.

 

Read my 101 Email Marketing Guide.

 

Which mailing platform should you use?

There are several good email platforms you can use. Aweber, Mailchimp, and Constant Contact are some popular ones that you might have seen advertised. Many of these have free trail offers, so you can take the time to compare the features of each system.

Your other choice is to keep your subscribers on your own servers with your own mailing list software. This is also a common choice, but you will probably notice that most marketers do use a service. Large companies might lean more towards using their own software. The right choice depends upon your unique situation.

What can you use as a hook?

Figure out how to develop a hook to attract subscribers to your mailing list. Lots of popular sites offer a free newsletter, report, or even a series of informational videos. They offer this free information as a way to attract subscribers. Your own choice will depend upon your audience and the kind of product you eventually want to sell.

Have You Developed your hook’s content.

Now you have to develop some actual content, so you can retain your subscribers. This content could consist of informational articles that you develop out of your own experience. You can also make a video, and this is not that hard to do with today’s tools. If you do not want to develop your own content, you might be wise to outsource this task to professional content developers.

Make sure you give people value. You want your subscribers to want more, so they do not cancel their subscriptions.

Integrate your list with your website and social media sites.

I think as a minimum you should be adding your email signup pages into your social media profile bios or about sections.

Of course, you want to make it as easy as possible for your subscribers to sign up. That is the advantage of some email systems that provide tools to integrate your list forms with your existing website, blog, and social networking websites.

Make sure that you concentrate on letting your visitors know why they should sign up for your list. You should promote your free report, educational videos, or other bonus offers. Make these people know that they will get something that has a value for free if they just give you their email address.

You need to work hard to let your visitors know that your offer has value even though they can get it for free. In other words, the point of your list marketing efforts should be to sell the value of what they get for free! It might seem like you are losing money by giving too much away, but you should profit in the end with upsells and other offers that you can promote with your list.

Are You Testing Your List?

Successful email marketers are made, not born. Hopefully, you have good information to share with your list for free, so they will stay on your list. But even then, you really need to test the frequency of your emails. Many good marketers find that they keep more subscribers when they only send out emails every week, and they lose subscribers when they bombard them with emails every day.

You also need to test the quality of your paid upsells. This is true if you are selling your own product or promoting CPA offers from other advertisers. Once good way to find out more about your subscribers is to send them a survey. You could even offer a bonus to subscribers who take the survey, and this could be worth it because information is valuable.

Is Your Email List Huge Yet?

Hopefully, you will soon enjoy the luxury of owning a large list of interested subscribers. These are people who signed up because they like what you have to offer, and they want to hear from you. Once you have developed a large base, you can continue to fine-tune and test your email marketing program in order to improve your returns, grow your subscriber base, and make more profits.

To learn how to make use of emails in your business read this guide.

There are lots of ways to profit from a large list of email subscribers, and it is worth it to invest some time, money, and effort in its development.

“I  find adding my email signup page to my email signature as a great way to add people into my email list. This sounds backwards if I am already emailing someone but for business that person my not be on my list and we are just doing business. I also like to switch up the email signup page over the month to mix it up.”

Shenzu

How To Start An Ecommerce Business

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I have been consulting this guy who on the surface has it all planned out, he wanted to get my help in expanding his offline store into an online store and then building more sub niche stores to create a self refferring eco system. Great plan when its working. My call...

read more
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What I Consider When Building Websites

What I Consider When Building Websites

by | Jun 1, 2020 | Affiliate, Guides, SEO

Website Structure Is Critical For Online Success

I have built so many websites that now I can look at a website and in three clicks work out if this website is doomed or in a good position for success. Theres 2 reasons that we pay attention and put so much focus into how we build websites and those two reasons are:

  1. Building for humans to navigate the website
  2. Building for Google to crawl and index our web pages

The structure I want you to build should be one that allows both Humans and Google crawlers to clearly understand and navigate your website. This is a critical part of building websites especially if you plan on using that website to make money once you build it.

Lets go over the basics.

CMS solutions help businesses of all sizes maintain an online presence through blogs and websites, internally organize and optimize content, and process orders and payments online. A well-deployed content management system can extend the reach of a business online, increase search rankings, unify communications to customers in one place and manage employee contributions to content (through administrative and security settings, as well as accountability within the CMS).

Responsive templates, like those found in many of the CMS platforms we reviewed here, make it easy for SMBs to maintain professional-looking websites without employing a large team of web and graphic designers. It’s no wonder, then, that so many businesses use CMS services. WordPress alone is used by over 2.8 million websites to date, and as CMS programs become easier to implement and less expensive to use, it’s likely more SMBs will adopt them.  

What Is a CMS Used For?

At the most basic level, a CMS lets you upload and manage the content for your website. No matter the size or type of your business, a CMS has become almost indispensable. It operates on the backend of your website, allowing you to manage the content and other facets of your website, including the visual layout.

Another benefit of a CMS is that it makes it easy for users with varying levels of tech savviness. If your tech literacy is low, CMS systems have a variety of premade themes and plug-ins that have already been developed (think phone apps but for your website) and allow you to add tools, like search or appointment calendars, to your website.

If you know how to code, or employ software developers, most CMS software is open source and can be customized to your liking.

Businesses of all types can benefit from using a CMS for their website. Here are some examples of how a CMS can enhance the websites for a variety of different business types:

  • Restaurants: CMS software makes it easy for restaurants to add and update their menus, create coupons and offers, and allow customers to make reservations online. There are many premade plug-ins that specifically target restaurant websites.
  • eCommerce: A CMS can benefit your online store by allowing you to quickly add and remove products, track sales, and manage other aspects of your business. Plug-ins are available to add a shopping cart to your site. A brick-and-mortar store can easily add a shopping cart using a CMS.
  • Small Businesses: No matter what type of business you operate, a website is a necessity in today’s business world. A CMS allows you to manage the content yourself and update information quickly. Most CMS applications include SEO plug-ins to help you optimize your website’s content. You can also find templates and themes to quickly create an attractive website without having to hire a designer.
  • Nonprofits: A CMS allows nonprofits to easily manage their websites for not a lot of money, plus you can accept donations online by adding plug-ins. Many open-source CMS applications have robust communities of developers that can help nonprofits create the best websites. Add-ons and plug-ins are also available to help nonprofits manage their social media and marketing presence.

CMS vs Blogging Platforms

A CMS platform is different from a blogging platform in terms of scale. Some of the services profiled in our buying guide began as blogging platforms and offer that service, but a CMS is much more robust, offering greater control over the look and feel of your site as well as allowing for different administrative levels of control. A CMS also allows you to add plug-ins that expand the look and functionality of your site. You can brand your website, send emails, manage user access and even add a shopping cart.

Another main difference between a blog platform and a CMS is that the blog will be hosted by the platform itself. This means that your website will have the domain name of the blog host, such as Blogger.

If you use a CMS to manage and develop your website, you’ll need to pay for the domain and the web hosting. Many CMS platforms include web hosting services, though you’ll have to pay for the hosting. You can read our articles about web hosting to learn more.

Open Source vs. Closed Source

Content management systems fall into two major categories: open source and closed source. An open source CMS has lower costs and is created and maintained by a community of developers A closed source CMS is proprietary and is more expensive to use. Here are some other benefits and drawbacks with each type of CMS.

The biggest difference is in the price. Open source CMS software doesn’t require you to purchase a license in order to access and change its source code. All code is free to the public and often supported by a large community of users. This gives you solid support since so many others are using the program as well. It’s easy to find ideas for incorporating various functions and features on your website. You can also find the required code from these community support groups, so even if you aren’t as program savvy as others, you can find enough information to make it work.

However, because the source code is free with so many users, most CRM companies continually update the software. This means you can count on new versions, patches and updates on a fairly regular basis, which could require you to change your website and code in order to keep up.

Because the code of open source programs is license-free, there is a greater risk of a security breach. Everyone using the open source code understands how to get around various protections. However, you can invest in add-ons and other security programs that work hand-in-hand with content management systems to give you an extra layer of security. Closed source CMS software has heavily guarded source code that requires a license in order to access it, or several if you have a team of developers. Because the source is so protected, it costs a lot to get started. Several closed source content management systems require a monthly access fee, so it isn’t unheard of to have to pay between $200 and $1,000 to get started.

Since you put so much effort into creating a CMS program, these systems are built to last for a while between version releases. While the occasional update or patch may occur, for the most part, once you purchase a closed source CMS, you can find solace in knowing you won’t have to update the program and risk reworking your website code. This also helps keep the program more secure since there is a limited number of people who hold a license to the code.

If you discover you need help with your closed source CMS, you don’t have the large community support found with open source software. Instead, these systems tend to come with high-end, personal support including telephone support, which is rare among open source content management systems.

Benefits of Open Source CMS

  • Cost: An open source CMS doesn’t involve any fees to use the platform. All of the open source CMS applications in our lineup include a free option. You may have to pay for hosting or advanced features, but there are several themes that are free to start with.
  • Customization: Open source CMS applications are flexible and can fit the needs of many businesses. Because a broad community of developers works on these systems, there are a wide variety of options, so you can find certain tools or plug-ins to suit your business. For example, if you want to add a feature so your customers can schedule an appointment or make a reservation online, there are several plug-ins available that are easy to integrate with your CMS.

Drawbacks of Open Source CMS

  • Vulnerability: Open source CMS software can be vulnerable to security issues, especially if plug-ins and modules are not updated.
  • Support: Don’t count on personalized support for problems you run into with your particular website.

Benefits of a Closed Source CMS

  • Security: Because this type of CMS software is proprietary, these applications undergo a more rigorous testing process, which leaves them less vulnerable to Trojans and other security flaws.
  • Customized Support: You can receive ongoing, personalized support to help you troubleshoot any problems with your site. Often this support costs extra.

Disadvantages of Closed Source CMS

  • Cost: Costs range from a few thousand dollars to upwards of a hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on the scope and scale of the CMS.
  • Lack of Flexibility: A closed source solution isn’t always one size fits all, but there are fewer options for customization, and if you need something specific for your business, you may have to pay extra for it.

A content management system allows you to quickly and easily add and edit content on your website. You can control who has access to the various functions of the software and can schedule when content goes live on your website. We’ve assembled a lineup of the 10 best CMS applications in the industry so you can explore your options and find the one best suited for your business.

FAQ – Terminology

Throughout our reviews, we use a lot of internet and programming terms that might sound familiar but you don t quite know the meaning. Below are samples of some of the most commonly asked questions when it comes to terminology. 

What is access control?
This refers to a hierarchical system of privileges and permissions that secures content and identifies who can read, create, modify, and delete content on a web site.

What are web analytics?
This is the study of the impact of a website on its visitors. E-commerce companies often use web analytics software to measure statistics such as how many visitors, how many unique visitors, how they arrived at the site (i.e., if they followed a link to get to the site or came there directly), what keywords they searched using the site s search engine, how long they stayed on a given page or on the entire site, what links they clicked on and when they left the site. Web analytic software can also be used to monitor whether or not a site s pages are working properly. With this information, site administrators can determine which areas of the site are popular and which areas of the site do not get traffic and can then use this data to create a better/more profitable user experience.

What is asset management?
Asset management is the organization and publication of digital assets such as content and media and including but not limited to images, sounds, animations, movies, music and text.

What is the back end?
A database or program that is accessed by users indirectly through an external application. In a CMS, the admin panel is the back end.

What is CSS?
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheet   this is the preferred way to add styles (which include fonts, sizes, colors and spacing) to web documents and designs. It s preferred because of the capability to simply tweak a class or identification attribute on the style sheet that will automatically apply to the entire page. Compared with the manual way of editing thousands of individual font tags, CSS is an elegant and efficient design tool.

What is a database server?
In either a client-server model or a master-slave configuration, this is a computer program that stores and performs the database services to other programs or computers.

What is deployment?
In systems this term describes the transforming of a computer system from a packaged form to an operation state. In software, deployment is used to describe all activities that make a software system available for use.

What is document management?
Document management systems (DMS) are similar to content management systems and serve different though complementary roles within an organization. DMS focus is primarily on the storage and retrieval of self-contained electronic resources in their original (native) format.

What is the front end?
As opposed to the back end, the front end is an interface that collects input from a user in various forms and processes it to conform to a specification useable by the back end.

What is load balancing?
This is the practice of dispersing work between two or more computers, network links, CPUs, hard drives, or other resources.

What is a log?
In a database or CMS this is a record of sequential data. In content management system software this could be user logs, content logs, etc.

What does OS stand for?
OS stands for Operating System   this is the interface between the hardware and its user. For example, if your computer is a PC your OS is likely Windows-based. If your computer is a Mac, it s OSX, etc.

What is Page Rank?
Page rank is the Google system of ranking web pages determines the value of any individual web page.

What is RSS?
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication   it is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works such as news headlines, blogs, etc. These feeds benefit content publishers by enabling them to syndicate their content automatically.

What is a sandbox?
In content management system software, this is a secure area where developers can test a software tool or other code modification with full administration privileges, but safely walled off from affecting the stability of the site or CMS.

What is a static page (as opposed to dynamic)?
Static means that the web page always contains the same information in response to all download requests from all users. A dynamic page is regularly updated.

What is validation?
In content management system software, validation refers to security measures that ensure data inserted into an application meets pre-determined formats, complies with length requirements and any other defined input criteria you assign to it.

What is meant by workflow in a CMS?
Workflow is the system for routing documents or pages between users responsible for working on them   the management of who is making changes to or creating a content element or template.

Best CMS Overall: WordPress: WordPress

WordPress is one of the most ubiquitous CMS platforms on the internet, and it is open source, so you don’t have to buy a license to use it. Since the open-source community is continually growing, developing new plugins and creating new themes, the functionality of WordPress is always evolving. According to WordPress, nearly 24 percent of websites use its CMS to publish and/or manage content.

Even the free version of the CMS offers users the ability to produce blogs and websites with ease, tag content by category and keyword, manage content and change visual themes, embed media on different pages, and more. WordPress makes SEO hands-off by sending the titles of your posts and the content of your website to Google for ranking. In addition, WordPress offers feature-rich website management by giving users the ability to moderate discussions (something many free blog and website platforms don’t offer), ban commenters by their IP addresses, and even block specific terms or phrases.

Users who upgrade to premium business versions of WordPress gain access to CMS tools like advanced analytics, additional templates, more flexibility in menu configuration and access to back-end code for further customization. Companies like The New York Times, Forbes, eBay, Best Buy and IBM use WordPress, but small businesses and individual bloggers also take advantage of its accessible interface and wide variety of features.

The only real downside to WordPress is that the interface takes some time to get used to. Doing things like rearranging menu items and moving a page from one category to another is a bit unwieldly at first. Also, many of the best features are only available at premium subscription levels. 

Best Blog Hosting Service: A2 Hosting: A2 Hosting

Previously known as Iniquinet, A2 Hosting is our top choice for blog hosting services. It offers managed WordPress hosting and will transfer any existing WordPress site to its servers for free. This company is also a good fit for WordPress users, because it offers a proprietary plugin called A2 Optimized to not only boost the speed of the hosted site but also prevent hacks through a unique WordPress login URL. Plus, A2 Hosting’s security works with WordPress, through a unique admin login, to easily manage and load WordPress security updates and create an additional barrier against hacking.

All clients of A2 Hosting enjoy automatic data backup courtesy of the company’s Server Rewind Backups, which make it possible to restore a single file or an entire website in just a few clicks. A2 Hosting offers unlimited SSD storage, so you never need worry about running out of space. A2 Hosting has a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee, and businesses that use A2 Hosting for their web hosting needs receive reimbursements for downtime.

A2 Hosting ranked highest on our list of reviewed hosting services partially because of its compatibility with WordPress and overall blog speed, but also thanks to its excellent customer service. Clients of A2 Hosting enjoy around-the-clock customer service every day of the year, which is ideal for teams with people in different time zones and for businesses that need to keep things running regardless of holidays or weekends.

Additionally, the hosting platform offers users some choices in terms of server location, which not all hosting companies provide. A2 Hosting has three servers to choose from, one in Michigan, one in Amsterdam and one in Singapore. The ability to select a server closer to company headquarters (or large customer populations) makes faster response times possible. 

Best for Easy Blog Creation: Weebly : Weebly – Content Management Systems & Blogging Platforms

If learning new technology doesn’t come easily to you but you want to create a blog or website for your business, Weebly is our recommended choice. Weebly was built with regular users in mind; there is no coding required, and you don’t have to understand the ins and outs of advanced security settings or SEO to use it.

Users who opt for Weebly are guided through the blog design and creation process with helpful text bubbles that offer suggestions and point out basic dashboard navigation, but the interface is so user-friendly you might not even need the guidance. Weebly takes a drag-and-drop approach to website design; you can drag and drop content anywhere on a given page, and that content may include text, photos, videos, forms or audio files. Once assembled, each asset can be rearranged and resized with a few clicks, making it easy to get the look and feel you want.

The web CMS aspect of Weebly is excellent for basic website organization. Pages and subpages can easily be moved and updated, and passwords may be set to protect certain pages from being viewed by unauthorized users. There is a section for SEO analysis in the admin dashboard, but it’s not very robust. Weebly is best for companies that require a basic website with up-to-date information or blogs that play a supplementary role to a primary business.

That said, users who opt for the Starter ($8 a month), Pro ($12 a month) or Business ($25 a month) packages, rather than the free service, get a $100 credit toward Google Ads. So, it’s not that it’s impossible to have good SEO or promote a site built with Weebly; it’s just targeted to users who favor a clean, easy-to-use interface over a robust arsenal of features and options. The only downsides to Weebly are the inexplicable lack of a spell-check function and the lack of backup history.

Best CMS for ecommerce: Magento: Magento

While many of the CMS platforms we reviewed have plugins available for ecommerce websites, Magento was built top to bottom specifically for ecommerce users. In addition to all the features an ecommerce business owner might want, Magento has an extensive blog with relevant posts about online trends and SEO practices, as well as evergreen information on best ecommerce practices and general user guides. If this is your first foray into ecommerce and you want guidance alongside easy website creation, Magento may serve you well.

One major benefit to using Magento for your ecommerce site is the easy product catalog setup process. Magento makes it simple to showcase configurable products for sale (so your customers can select colors, sizes and styles with ease while you keep track of SKUs), made-to-order products with lots of customization options (like engraving or monogramming), product sets and multi-piece products. Magento also allows users to disable items, so seasonal items don’t have to be re-created every year – they can simply be disabled when they’re not relevant and then added back to the online store.

Another key ecommerce feature of Magento is the ability to set up multiple stores through one dashboard. This is key for stores that need to operate in different languages as well as ecommerce sites that tailor their offerings based on customer location. Invoicing, billing and shipping are also easy to set up, and Magento’s security system is built to meet current laws and payment card industry requirements. Plus, this open-source CMS has dozens of paid and free add-ons available, offers users the ability to program custom widgets, and provides lots of customizable reports on sales, customers, products and performance.

Like other CMS products, Magento offers well-designed templates for simple web design, as well as the ability to custom create a website from the bottom up, but it’s the ecommerce-specific features that earned it a spot on our best picks list.

Key Takeaway

Ive built A LOT of websites and Ive wasted A LOT of time with dud platforms. I really love WordPress, Shopify & Magento for building long term assets. But for quick easy you cant go past a Wix Weebly type throw up and see what happens type web lead gen site.

When I build sites I need functionality, customisation and support because hey even I break stuff sometimes. The best platform isnt even my choice it should be your choice for what best suits your business.

 

I hope this helped and you get something from it. Enjoy and share it if you liked it. Peace!

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Take The Opportunity When It Presents Itself

Take The Opportunity When It Presents Itself

by | May 31, 2020 | Business, Guides, Lifestyle

One of the biggest mistakes I made starting out in business was chasing money. The focus, the driver and the motivator was money and thats wasnt the best thing to do it alienated a lot of opportunity. The opportunity to grow and expand this one because the numbers werent solid.

Because the direction my business partner and I were considering taking didnt have a proven track record and didnt make financial sense we missed the opportunity to pounce on the emerging gap in the market.
Money as a key metric in business isnt a good stat to be building a business around. Revenue and monthly reoccurring revenue and annual reoccurring revenue are great metrics to use to make data driven decisions for your business. Having the numbers visible is a great motivator when you track the right things.

“I don’t ever recommend just chasing the growth of the bank balance.”
When you make money as your primary metric you may develop tunnel vision on a number a very specific number. If you hit that number or dont come close you become fixated on that number and dont take in other variables that might be more profitable than pursing the magic number.
build a money generating portfolio
I am not a bean counter of the finance guy in any of my businesses. Ive been in more finance and accounting meetings than I have wanted in my time. While extremely boring and hard to focus during these meeting they were really beneficial for me to upskill my finance intelligence.

My experience with money is that outside of the business we dont talk about it with competitors, partners, affiliates and keep our cards to our chest. This helped me keep focus on our goals and not worry about competitor ABC who was chasing $500K MRR or what ever dick measuring number that they had fixed as their success metric.

I honestly can not stand loud mouth marketers or business owners who boast and brag about who much their business makes in revenue. This places a big fat red target on your chest. I also just as a human with good manners be bragging about myself. Be humble and know you are doing well without shouting it across the room.
If you do attend conferences you can look around and see these same people in deep financial substance abuse and trying every which way to find happiness outside their business. They focus on money because they dont have anything else to contribute.

Your business should be your dream hobby that you can not wait to get started on each day. The people you do it with should be your favourite people. Ive built many businesses with this in mind, who do I want to work with and does this fulfil me.
My success indicator is knowing we have a steady flow of money coming in, the number monthly and yearly is increasing gradually. Then when we are stable or growing I dont have money as a motivator because our system to grow that is working. This is where I have time to look for an emerging business or brand and speak with them about how they can do more and pass on some of our tips and strategies that helped push our business into the green.

Thats my success metric, being free enough to share my knowledge with others who are just starting out.
I did’nt come from money and Ive never had big capital injections to buy and start businesses. I would grind and hustle my skills to build momentum and steadily grow a seed money allocation for new ideas or acquisitions. It takes a bit longer but I dont owe anyone anything and I am free to make what ever decisions I need to to grow that business without reporting into a board or a JV partner. This is not the method for everyone it takes commitment and dedication to the goal.
Ever since I built my first company Ive wanted to take an opportunity where I would have a job that provided fulfilment and made me feel satisfied. Ive got this thing where I need to be doing something all the time. I move fast and I am easily bored if theres no movement or anything for me to do. I often found myself after the growth period of a business and things had started to plateau a bit, I would start buying crap that I didn’t need or hiring people I didn’t really need just to keep busy.

I wasnt looking for new opportunities, I got a little com-placement. In one of my physical service businesses I was extremely passionate about building it and we actually grew it to 5,000 employees and one day I just lost all attachment to that business. I felt it had done its dash and I couldn’t give it anything else. I was bored and I was not enjoying the business that last week I was so excited to get to work.

My recap is we were so busy building relationships that we had taken our eye off the ball of business growth and just the day to day operations had worn me down. It was so sad losing all that organic energy where I could do everything everyday sucked down to the bare minimums and I struggled even filling the weekly roster.
The good news was I found a new opportunity and I pounced on it like a leopard catching its prey. I got to help businesses with a specific problem they had online.
Moving from a that physical services business and into online marketing was such a huge shift of ways of working It did take me a good 6 months to adjust. The sale of the services business was relatively smooth and I was out within a month. The opportunity of the next move wasnt on a countdown timer so I had time to manuvere and get my ducks in a  row.
In month 8 I grew that new marketing business 600%+ from $10k monthly reoccurring revenue to over 600% and all it took was focus. I needed a good 6 months to get familiar with how online marketing agencies worked and freelancing and tools metrics, the money verse expenses was so different from physical businesses.

But know this, the more I focused on the business opportunities the more my new business grew. I built a business that I wanted to work in and I hired people I wanted to work with. That was simple backend systems, and for revenue I targeted people I wanted to work with and that was automotive clients and ecommerce stores.
It was that simple!
I targeted people who were doing things I had an interest in and I could talk their language and know their industry. The immediate shift in business from taking that opportunity changed the business. It literally changed the way we worked fulfiling those services for these new clients. Such a breathe of fresh air for me to get that energy back and have that drive and focus to really sink my teeth into business.
The marketing agency was much easier to grow when I was the one calling the shots, making the plays at new opportunities and ultimately the one who was responsible for growth and failure. The business was not new to me but online  was, I had a great finance and accounting system in place and then for me it was learning online marketing.
Now to this day I love this stuff. There is no day Ive not wanted to get up and get online to help my team and my clients or assets grow.
IF you are an entrepreneur you are going to get your fulfillment and satisfaction from these. You will also slowly die inside without them.
  • Build a team of talented marketers
  • Build a service or product that you are proud of
  • Build a solution to other peoples problems
  • Solve the problem for your ideal customer
I know a lot of marketing techniques, tactics and ways of working but I often consult with my sopecialists on super advanced tactics for specific things I want to deliver or we require as a deliverable in business. I hire inelligent superstars at the one thing that they do, this gives me a great database of very targeted specialists.
One thing we do regulary is to look at our competitors and any competitors in emerging spaces and see how they treat their customers and audiences. Do they truly love their audience or are they just applying tricks and hacks to get by. The intelligence we get back from this allows us to exloit these opportunities because we have a system for customer journey and experience. Building for customers and not for money.

“I always build for the customer and towards the problem and solution. This is just how I learned marketing. Sell the solution to people who have a problem and do this with the ciustomer in mind and not the money they give you for that solution.”

Shenzu

I find it really interesting the number of marketers who are still trying to use tricks and indirect methods at trying to hide information around the policies on chargebacks and refunds. Focus more on making amazing things and move away from making crap products and you wont have to worry about your reputation or the payment processors and chargebacks.
This was an early morning post just after a workout so if its a bit shaky to follow along I am sorry for your eyes struggling to keep on track haha. I had a lot on my mind and wanted to press the point of taking opportunity. If I didnt take the opportunity to change careers from physical services to online marketing I think that during cornova virus I would of bene wiped out. I am also so thankful I can do what I do on computers to help people. I never work for cash or chase a pay rise, I am my own boss and I make my own hours.
If you are stuck I want you to start looking around at the next step or a new avenue for you to apply your passion powers to and forge a business around. This is the best time ever to do this. Look at the opportunity in everything that you do and you will never need money.
Thats my thoughts for today. As always if you enjoyed this share it and enjoy yourself. Peace!
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How To Be Safe Buying From Ali Express

How To Be Safe Buying From Ali Express

by | May 28, 2020 | Affiliate, Ecommerce, Guides

6 Ways to Safeguard Yourself When Buying on Alibaba

When doing business overseas you want to learn to protect yourself against loss. You want to be able to avoid scams and middle-men as well as getting substandard products. While there is no one solution that is totally infallible, using a few simple guidelines can prove to be very effective.

I use AliExpress and Ali Baba A LOT! I even bought my girlfreinds birthday present from Ali Express

Here are her birthday socks haha

ali express printed socks

 

At first she was sad because she had sloth feet but she warmed up to these printed socks and now she has a collection of monster feet printed socks.  That my friends is the power of Ali Express, people buy random stuff online to pass time, have a laugh and to spend their hard earned money. This si where we come in with our ecommerce stores and product promotions. 

Here are a few things you can do to help yourself when dealing with overseas suppliers –

1. Verifiy Your New Supply Partner

Believe it or not Alibaba has put a verification program of their own into place. It gives you several different levels of verification. They have 3 levels of verification all total and the chart down below goes into it a little deeper. The verification badges appearing on the product list as well as supplier profiles help give you an idea of what kind of vendor you’re dealing with. Having a look at these badges is a good was to start your search.

 

2. Ask Questions Around The Product Nothing is as it Appears

As your search begins to narrow down and you have weeded out most of the competition, it’s time to get down to some more serious types of questions. Request a copy of a business license to verify who they are, or maybe even a phone number and then call it right away.

Contact them on Skype or their main contact channel and request some sample products. You can get variations like red or blue etc. This helps you see what type of communication you will have with the person who will be handling the product and shipping process of your business.

You should feel totally free to ask any questions that pop into your head. It’s not too far fetched to have somebody at the factory snap a selfie and send it to you while on the factory floor. You could have them include a copy of today’s newspaper as well as a product of theirs. Of course, you don’t want to push them away either. Too much distrust will only breed and foster more distrust. It’s wise to be cautious but not overly distrustful.

If you plan to scale you need a solid partner and someone who has clear communication with you. What if you had the biggest front end sales month ever for your store and corona virus 2 hits and you need answers on shipping and delivery dates as well as inventory levels. You need clear communication.

 

3. Get Some Product Samples First

It’s just good common sense to check out some samples prior to committing to any large amount of inventory and money. You should get the samples in order to verify the ‘quality’ of the products for yourself. You can even contact them using a fake name and email address.

You 100% need to get the products before you sell them. This helps you see what the delivery time is like, what the boxing or packaging lookslike and most impoirtanly what the actual product looks and feels like.

I wont promote any products that I havent at least had a play with to test its quality.

Bonus tip – use this to film unboxing videos and product demos 🙂

4. Things That Seem Too Good to be True

Everyone has heard that when this happens things usually are too good to be that true and usually aren’t. Be wary of promises and prices that run up your skeptic meter.

You can read reviews of past buyers to get a quick pulse check on that product and the vendor.

Never be afraid to walk away from any deal that doesn’t ‘smell’ right. You are the buyer and Ali Express is a buyers market.

5. Get It In Your Hands & Try To Break It

Your dropshipping products are going to fail if you dont know the quality of what you are selling. My advice and its saved my butt more times than not is to get that product in your hands.

Now you have it you should try being a little rough with the product to stress test the product. You may need to buy 2 or 3 of the same products. You do this because you can really nail your product descriptions and features benefits descriptors by knowing the limits.

If it breaks and you only just picked it up then change the product or find a better manufacturer.

6. Use A Pen Name Account To Buy & Review

I would never be buying items from Ali Express with my real account. I say this because as you build success you will naturally attract trolls and copycats. This can not be avoided.

Use a throw away email account where the name is random and not your name or your business name. These manufacturers on Ali Express need reviews to help their businesses and you should be leaving reviews out of courtesy.

But you also need to be safe with your behaviour online. Use a random profile to leave reviews. Keep safe and this allows you to shop and review unkown to any copycats.

I love dropshipping and ecommerce, but you need to be smart when using these latforms. Esopecially for the long term play. I hope this helps you get more from Ali Express. Enjoy.

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10 Ways To Monetize A Blog

10 Ways To Monetize A Blog

by | May 17, 2020 | Affiliate, Guides, Paid Ads, Reviews

What is the trend with people building websites and then making a living from them? You may have asked this question before. Its a real things.

Is it to share some knowledge that we have or is it to make money? People build websites for many reasons. I like to provide my visitors with good quality content so that they will come back to my website.I also love to train and educate people about how they can change their lifestyle by working online.

We all would like to make more money, and you can learn how to monetise your website to do that.

 

Here are 10 ways that bloggers can monetise their websites:

1. Google AdSense

 

This is a form of banner advertising where you allow websites to place their advertising banners on your website through the use of the Google display network.

You are paid per impression or per click on each banner. Google AdSense is one way you can monetise your website. Once you have your website up and running, go to Google AdSense and sign up for an account. You will have the chance to make some good money. Let’s say that your website is getting traffic every day; you could easily make a dollar a day.

You can then expand that to 20 pages and easily turn into $20 a day. That would come to $600 a month of extra income into your pocket. What if you did this two, three, five or ten times? Meaning, you have ten websites with targeted traffic every day.

Can you see the potential? That’s $6000 a month. This is not going to be easy and will take you some work to get it set up. I do need to let you know that this is going to take time. It might take you a year to get this all going, but once it is done with all your blood, sweat and tears, you’ll be able to kick back and enjoy the fruits of your hard work and labour.

Learn how to monetise your website, and you could make some good money. Lots of people are doing it, why not you?

 

2. Display Advertising

Very similar to Google Adsense but different in the sense that you dont involve Google. If your website deals with a unique topic, you might find it hard to attract contextual advertisements. In such cases, you could try display ads. These ads pay per view, and not per click. While using multiple ads and service providers could help you make a respectable amount of money, you should make sure that you don’t use a lot of display ads.

Too many, and it could affect the load time and overall look of your website, lowering some visitors it attracts. Display advertising now offers advertisers more opportunities to more clearly define who will see an ad. With behavioural targeting options, you can have your ads served up to consumers who have visited certain other websites or performed certain actions online.

With psychographic and demographic targeting, you can serve ads only to people who fit specific consumer profiles regarding age, household income, gender, and many other variables.

3. Contextual Advertising

 

This form of promotion and hype is known to the web market as contextual advertising. More than a simple publicity strategy, contextual advertising is aimed to relate directly to the gist of the page on which it is posted. Being a targeted marketing sub-form, promotions and ads are placed to reach the most number of site viewers and customers.

In contextual advertising, advertisements themselves are sorted and served by programmed software and systems based on the displayed content of a particular web page. If you happen to view a site about health and you come across ads for weight-loss programs and food supplement products, it is more likely that the page is utilising contextual advertising.

For this modern form of advertising strategy to complete, a contextual advertising system performs thorough automated scans of website texts, highlights keywords and then returns ads to the web page based on perceived content.

These advertisements can either be automatically linked to an on-page layout, or it could also take the form of pop-up ads. To prove the success of such platform, even search engines also make use of contextual advertising to put on-view promotions and ads on search results pages.

Based on the user’s query, the system automatically delivers the information along with the ads promptly, the reason why this marketing form is dubbed as a cost-effective and efficient technique.

This is in a way a combination fo teh first 2 points. This is an effective method for advertisers to get more focus targeting for their offers.

4. Affiliate Marketing

 

Using affiliate links is one of the oldest ways of website monetisation. No matter what your site or blog is about, there will be companies which sell complimenting products. Internet marketing is one of the best ways to reach a very diverse audience.

Years ago, you were limited as to who you could reach with your product advertisements. With so many people from all over the world online, you can now market your products, literally, to the ends of the earth.

Stay focused on the content offered on your site. Do not compromise your content to better cater to the affiliate programs you are using because it will cause you to lose your readers.

If you lose the readers, you lose the opportunity to make any money off of the ads that you have on your site.

Read more:

5. Product Reviews

 

Integral with any high-performance product review is how well it can presell the reader, and that is completely different from selling the reader. The biggest advantage of effective preselling is that you won’t face the typical objections that are usually faced with prospects as you’re not doing any direct selling.

It is not difficult at all to create killer reviews, and you just have to be willing to learn them and do some work. We have put together a few essential facts about creating product reviews using solid preselling methods. Understand that a product review is not a sales pitch; you can’t fill in all the hype and drama into your product review and expect it to work.

You can review these product types:

  • Digital products
  • eBooks
  • Online courses
  • Physical products
  • Services
  • Locations & destinations
  • Entertainment
  • All the things 😉

Your review’s job is to convince your target audience that the product is right for them without actually selling to them. You can make a better impression with the reader when you add your honest feelings including anything you found that is less than positive.

Every good product review that focuses on the needs of the reader will perform better in the long run. We recommend that you discuss the negative aspects of the product in addition to the obvious positive ones. Don’t just sugarcoat things to make the review highly positive as that may look misleading to your readers.

So many people and marketers are afraid that if they talk about the wrong things, then that will hurt sales. We think you will be surprised to find that folks love it when they find someone who is willing to be open.

 

6. Whitelabel Products and Sell Your Own

 

You could sell your products to make money out of your website. Selling items such as eBooks, DVDs, etc. is a great way to make money since you get a full income from them. At the same time, such merchandise also helps promote you as an expert in the field.

However, it takes time and effort to create quality products and effectively market them.

You can speed up the process by working with a whitelabel vendor who already has mass volume of teh product but needs some help selling their stock. They will work with you on some minor customisations of their product so it feels more like a new “version” of their main product. This is a fantasic way to get sales without having to spend months in R&D.

I love whitelabel it saves a lot of time and with some imagination you can take a winning product customise it and sell it as your own.

7. Using in Text Advertisements

 

You’ve likely seen these on different websites while browsing. Rather than putting up ads on your site, these ads are randomly placed within the text of your site’s posts and pages.

There are a few different high quality in text advertising networks out there which make it simple to start making money from in-text ads as all you have to do is add a line of code to your site and tell them where you want your checks sent. The most profitable way to monetise your web page or blog is to know your customers and create products that help them.

Learn how to monetise your websites and use all the tools available so that way, you will have a better chance at success. You would be missing out by not taking advantage of these paid advertisers.

8. Banner Advertisements

Banner ads have existed for almost as long as the Internet has. Banner ads give a great return on their investment as long as you don’t make the mistakes that many marketers are making.

If you read on, you will discover some ways to optimise your results and build an excellent banner ad campaign. As someone who works with websites and blogs, you should always remember to make sure your advertising banners represent your blog or site, matching up perfectly with it in every way.

Your banner ad must be persuasive as your site should be; it’s not a minor point. Having the design of your ad be compatible with your site means you won’t have to change the look of it every time you put another new banner ad up on the web.

All you should need to do is create new text, and you should have a fresh new banner ad. It also will assure the fact there’s a flow to your ad. When you choose to work with banner advertising you don’t want to allow them to be outdated, so to continue to have a great traffic flow you must keep your banners fresh. A perfect example of the negative effect on customers of an outdated banner would be the promotion of a sale which already is over.

Quite simply, they will stop coming to your site to purchase anything. It’s pretty basic thinking; if you don’t care enough to keep your ads current, nobody’s going to trust your products or service either. Regularly updated banners allow you to drive more traffic to your site, promote new products and get better overall results from your efforts. An easy way to keep your banner ads fresh looking is to switch colours or designs once in a while.

There are those who choose to change their ads monthly, and those who do it less frequently. The point is the more frequent changes are made to your ads, the more you’ll be receiving conversions. Usually a change each month will be adequate to freshen up your banners.

Don’t forget that you can use your banner ads,in social posts, forums, emails and many more places. All it takes is a little imagination.

9. Targeted Content Ads

This method aims to take conventional advertising a step further wherein an ad is triggered by the consumer’s search. A typical keyword has a title (of about 25 characters) and a text (that has about 35 characters). Within the short space that’s provided, the advertiser explains the benefits of his products over his competitor.

Using content-targeted advertising has the advantage of generating more revenues for the advertisers. This is due to the fact that targeted ads increase its relevancy. So even if the number of ads is decreased or limited in frequency, it can still influence more people.

Another advantageous benefit of this form of advertising is the immediate showing of data and content that is otherwise limited by time and geography in traditional advertising. The ads can also be easily customised so it can quickly adapt to a changing audience demand or preference.

Content targeted advertising matches the context of the ad or the interests of the users to that of the advertisement. This allows more interest to be generated for an advertised product or service which in turn generates more sales conversion.

The utility of targeted advertising can further be enhanced by dynamically linking the most applicable contents which are taken from various sources such as YouTube video clips, RSS feeds and Wikipedia articles. At present, many businesses have profited from this form of advertising that it has made this Google creation very popular throughout the internet.

No other platform enables small businesses to compete with multinationals and Fortune 500 companies.

10. GoFund Me Type Donations

If you have a large, dedicated fan base, you could consider asking for donations. However, it is important to ensure that you don’t come across as greedy. I really like how Patreon, Indigogo and some Go Fund Me campaigns are setup where its super clear for funders to see the roadmap or the plan for the donation.

Place your donate button out of the way and avoid it altogether if you already have a lot of ads on your website. You have to get people to visit your site first, or that donate button is useless.

And before you do even that, your site’s donate button and donation form has to be designed in such a way that, once inspired, people will follow through with the donation. Great stories, emotional writing, and amazing media are not enough to get people to complete the donation process if your donate button is hidden, or your donation page a confusing mess.

I know Ive spent a bit on Patreon and Indigogo helping businesses take the next step with crowd funding. I do want to stress that having a worthy cause is a must. I might make a off the shoulder comment that it seems more and more people are putting up donations pages with no clear purpoise why. This worries me that people are just cashing in on the opportunity.

If you see a Go Fund Me on this blog it will be to buy a small tropical island away from all the noise of big cities.

 

Key Takeaway

Use your imagination to think a little diufferently and try new things on your blog. These 10 tips are tried and tested they work and they allow you to get paid while you build a bigger asset.

 

Well thats the end of the 10 tips but thats not the end of the opportunities available to you. I hope you have enjoyed this list of website money making tactics. As always if you have enjoyed this content like it share it and help me spread the word.

 

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