Archive | March, 2024

When you’re struggling to write your latest blogpost, you probably don’t want to have to worry about SEO, too.

There is one theory that says you shouldn’t. After all, if you start focusing on SEO, then you won’t be writing the best content possible for your audience.

But is it really an either/or type of situation? It would be nice to get free Google traffic from your articles and blog posts without going crazy about how to structure your writing, what to add and what to leave out.

With that in mind, here are a few tips from the pros on how to do exactly that:

1: Your Writing Needs to Be Excellent

The content should be unique, high quality and written to professional standards.

Do this, and Google will likely reward you.

If any part of you is interested in buying those spun articles that were prevalent years ago – don’t even think about it. Don’t even consider using them simply to pad out your website – Google will look for them, Google will find them, and Google will penalize you for them.

(This sounds like a Liam Neeson movie…)

2: Longer is Not Necessarily Better

One popular strategy is to write a longer, more in-depth piece than anyone else. But it’s never that simple.

If you look at the webpages that have you beat in the SERPs right now, you can see for yourself how good they are and how long they are. But are they well-written? Do they answer the questions that customers are having? And do they understand what searchers are looking for?

You might be able to beat them by being more succinct and to the point. If you can convey the information in fewer words without losing anything, then do it. Any searcher will tell you they’re after the info, not a super long article because they have nothing better to do with their day.

That said, don’t write short just for the sake of fitting onto a mobile screen. Shortchanging your reader isn’t going to cut it, so remember to tell the whole story.

3: Write for People, Not Bots

True, your grammar and style should be the best. If it’s not, get yourself an editor who knows what s/he’s doing – it will pay dividends in the long run.

When you’re writing, ask yourself who your audience is and what their pain is. If you can put yourself in their shoes, you can write a better piece that your audience loves.

4: Use Good Copywriting Principles

For example, write an attention-grabbing headline that is based on your best keyword phrase.

Use subheads to keep your reader involved.

Write in short paragraphs and short sentences.

Do your editing days after you do your writing – you’ll be surprised how much better you can make your writing if you wait awhile.

And get someone else to read your work – they’ll spot mistakes you missed.

5: Key Phrases 2018

Yes, these are still alive and well, thank you. But their use in digital marketing today has changed somewhat.

When you’re doing your keyword research, focus on your audience. How big is your audience, where are they, what do you know about their demographics and what should your content be about?

Get the answers right and you’ll know how to write your copy.

Don’t write according to something Yoast SEO tells you. Millions of people are already doing this.

Instead, write according to the rules and advice here. And write for PEOPLE, not SEO plugins. You should start seeing better results.

6: User Experience Still Counts

An enjoyable read is a much better experience for your audience than some dry as dirt academic paper.

Likewise, having a page that’s easy to read and understand is crucial, too.

Make your headline big, your sub-headlines clear and easy to understand, and make sure your content is easy to navigate.

Bottom Line: Write with your READER in mind, not the search bots, and you’ll likely do fine (actually, much better).

This may or may not work for your list, but…

It can be effective for most marketers.

If you’re not getting the open rates you seek, try using a negative headline.

For example, instead of…

You’re going to love this product

This works amazing and even does the dishes

Having an awesome day, here’s why

Try something more like these:

You’re going to hate this product, here why…

This SEO product sucks (it won’t even do the dishes)

She was having a REALLY bad day (and then it got worse)

Of course, they’re going to ‘hate the product’ because it does a lot of the work for them, and now they have nothing to do

The SEO product sucks because ‘it said it does EVERYTHING,’ but all it does is get your site to Page 1.

And she’s having a really bad day, and it’s not even her fault, because… (You fill in the blank.)

Try using a negative headline of your choosing in 10% of your emails, and then compare open rates and click through rates.

You might get some very positive results.

Almost nothing is better than having your own product because you not only keep 100% of the sale price when you sell it – you can also get affiliates to sell it for you, thus simultaneously building your list and bank account through the efforts of others.

So how do you crank out products quickly and easily that people are hungry to buy? I’ve compiled a list of proven methods – and none of these should take you longer than 7 days, with most taking only a few hours.

Interview an Expert. This is a super fast and easy way to create a product, and you don’t need to have any expertise of your own. Instead you’re “borrowing” the subject’s knowledge and packaging it into a product.

So where do you find these experts?

• Search Amazon for authors in your niche – authors are often eager for the chance to share their knowledge and plug their latest book, and so they’re open to being interviewed. And on Amazon you can find an author on just about any niche topic you want to pursue.

• Look for authors on ClickBank. ClickBank is divided into niches so it’s easy to search. Choose your niche and look at the gravity of each product within that niche to find something with a high gravity (100+). This means that the product is selling well, and this might be a good person to interview.

• Do case studies. This is a bit different because instead of interviewing your subject on his expertise, you’re asking specifically how s/he did one particular thing.

Use What You Know by Recording Your Own Tips and Tricks. You may not think you have skills that others want to learn, but odds are you do. Maybe you know how to write a great blog post in 10 minutes, or how to lose 50 pounds in 3 months, or how to swap out the engine on a ’57 Chevy.

You can either turn this knowledge into a report or ebook, or record it as videos or audios. Once you start breaking down what you do step-by-step, you might be surprised at how much you know. And if there’s a market for what you know, you’ve got yourself a viable product.

Don’t ever discount your own knowledge. If you’re in the internet marketing niche, for example, and you’ve only been working in it for six months, you still know things that people who are just starting out don’t know, and those things can be turned into your own unique product. You don’t have to be the foremost expert in a niche – you can simply have more knowledge than the customers you’ll be targeting.

Turn Your Existing Content into New Products. Have you written a bunch of articles and blog posts? Maybe you’ve got enough there to create your own book. Do you have videos that you’ve made, audios, etc? Can you package this content into a product? Repurposing your own content is a great way to make a completely self-created product very quickly.

Co-Create a Product with Someone Else. Team up with someone who has the skills you don’t and vice versa. Perhaps you’re a good writer and they have the knowledge, or you have the personality to make the videos and they have the background in the niche. Decide in the beginning what needs to be done and who will do what, and the deadline for completion.

The benefits here are two-fold: First, two heads and two sets of experience are better than one. And second, by working as a team you are accountable to each other, and the product is likely to get created quite quickly with no procrastination or stalling getting in the way.

So that’s 4 ways to create products super fast. Get inspired, take action and you can have your own product created and selling online within the next 7 days, or less. Go for it!

Here’s an interesting case study from a guy in the US. It seems he’s something of a big name in his day job, so he wanted a way to make extra money online without ever revealing his real name.

He’s found a twist on the marketing method we all know and love – list building – that gives him multiple streams of income in several different markets without ever creating a product of his own, blogging, dealing with affiliates or creating a big name in any of his niches.

Here’s how it works: ‘Mark’ targets all of the usual niches – make money online, dating and romance, embarrassing problems, losing weight, golfing, stop smoking and so forth.

If there is a niche with good money, he goes after it.

His goal is to build lists in each of these niches, but he doesn’t do it in the usual manner.

He finds his prospects in both the offline and online world, with the goal of collecting as much data on each one as possible.

As you know, when you offer a free download in exchange for an email address, that’s about all you’re going to get – the email address.

But instead of ebooks or reports as his lead magnets, he offers printed ‘books’ in exchange for the prospect’s information. He mails these books to his new subscribers, so of course he has to collect their mailing address and full name.

And being the clever guy he is, he often collects a lot more info than just that.

He also collects things like the phone number, income bracket, gender, interests and so forth by using quizzes and surveys. It’s amazing what people will answer in a quiz, survey or test if they want to find out something about themselves, such as what they should be doing for a living, what kind of personality they have and so forth.

Of course, he makes each survey or quiz up himself, so it’s much more for fun than being scientific. The goal is always to collect the info.

And because he physically mails out the books, he only targets people in the US so that it remains financially viable for him to run this.

Once someone answers the survey or quiz or fills out the form to get the free book, he then tries to upsell them on related affiliate products, so that’s one income stream.

Then he continues to email these prospects offers in their niches. He has an autoresponder series set up for each niche, and in each series he promotes a lot of different products.

All of his emails and books are basically PLR info, or info he’s gleaned from the sales pages of the products he’s promoting. He doesn’t write much of anything himself. As mentioned, he also has a full time job he enjoys and he doesn’t want to quit; so time is at a premium for him.

Now then, when he mails out the books, he also encloses offers. Some of these offers are his, and he makes a commission on them if they buy. Other offers are from partners who pay him to send these out, so there’s another income stream.

Then, and this is perhaps where he makes about 50% of his money – he rents out the information he’s collected to other businesses. Every business is in search of new customers, and many like to find those customers through the mail.

For example, someone who is trying to lose weight will try a lot of different ways to do it.

One of the ways will be the free book he sends, and perhaps the upsell after the book, and perhaps an affiliate product or two through email.

Then other companies send the same person weight loss offers through the mail – often diet type supplements or an entire diet program – and the customer might try that as well.

This is how one customer can wind up making a dozen or more purchases in one niche within a fairly short amount of time.

And as you can see, Mark likes to get a piece of as many of these sales as possible.

If this sounds like a lot of work, it isn’t really. Initially he comes up with a book that’s really a report made from quality PLR materials.

Then he creates an email series promoting evergreen products in that niche – products that will be around for a while, usually from ClickBank but also from JVZoo and other places.

And then he’s got his contacts as to who wants to buy what type of lead.

He was a little cagey when I asked him about this part, but he did say that he simply contacts a few likely businesses and let’s them know what he’s doing – sort of a copy and paste email he sends out.

Some don’t reply and some do, and once he’s got a new client he’ll even ask specifically what they’re looking for in a lead. Then he’ll tailor a survey or quiz to find those answers.

He buys traffic, uses some basic SEO, places ads on blogs and uses other techniques to get people to his pages. Basically, he drives traffic any way he can, as long as it’s not time intensive.

His favorite method is buying traffic from Facebook, since he can do some heavy duty targeting there.

He also sells solo ads and even sells individual leads to lawyers. These might be people about to get divorced or who had an accident, and he rents these leads out for several dollars apiece to multiple lawyers at the same time. He gets these leads online and also buys advertising in small local papers – yes, it’s a very old school method, but it still works.

He also employs a virtual assistant to do much of the work for him, so basically he spends maybe 5 hours a week actually working the business now.

Initially, of course, he invested a lot more time, but now that he has his assistant trained, she does most of it for him.

Remember, he doesn’t blog, create actual products of his own or try to build up a reputation in any one niche.

When he does need to use a name, it’s always a pen name – he has a different one for each niche.

And his coworkers have no idea he does this on the side, nor will they ever know unless he tells them.

This shows you just how important data is, and why companies like Facebook and Google are all about tracking what we do.

The more info and intel you can gather on prospects, the more they are worth.

This is a good business model for someone who wants to make a mint with their mailing lists, while entering any niche you choose and remaining completely anonymous.

I’ve got a friend who has used this business model for years as a ‘side’ business.

Funny thing is, his side business earns more than many full time businesses – about $10,000 per piece of software per year.

And yes, he doesn’t own any of this software himself, which means he never has to deal with programmers or customer complaints that the software isn’t doing whatever it should be doing.

Here’s how it works:

Find free software that people use – for example, cloud storage, help desk software, popular WordPress plugins, membership software and so forth. You might want to concentrate just on software that is used in the online marketing world, or you could branch out into other niches.

You’re looking for software that is somewhat popular, but ideally it’s not all that simple to use.

Anything come to mind? Forums are a good place to search. Look for a number of posts from people all looking for help with the same software, and you’ve found a winner.

Now then, you can either do the next step yourself, or outsource it to someone who knows a lot about the software. If you’re doing it yourself, you’ll need to get really good at using the software before you proceed.

You’re going to put together a tutorial that shows people how to use the software. Your tutorial is going to assume they know next to nothing about it, so that anyone and everyone can benefit from it.

Take them through all the steps of installing and using the software, along with all the features they might not even know about. The point is to make it super simple for almost anyone to use the software, once they have your tutorial.

Charge a modest amount for your tutorial – nothing over the top.

You might want to add a “done for you” option or upsell in which the software is installed and set up for the customer. You can do this work yourself, or outsource it to someone else.

And inside your tutorial, place links to the paid version of the software, along with anything else that will help the reader to make the best use of the software.

All of these income streams add up.

And buyers are easy to come by, because many times people are desperate for answers. They’ve already wasted time trying to get the software to work, and they’ve wasted more time on forums and help desks trying to get the help they need.

By the time they find your tutorial, they are more than happy to hand over several dollars to get the job done, or even more money to have the job done for them.

As you can see, we’re targeting people already familiar with the software who need help.

But that’s only half of your customer base.

The other half is people looking for a particular solution.

For example, they want to know how to set up a membership site without paying a monthly fee for software. You can recommend the solution they need, and the software only has a one-time payment.

Better still, you’ll show them exactly how to install and use it.

Of course, you won’t name the software on that sales page.

And yes, you will need two different sales pages. The first one targets the group who is having trouble with the software, and the second one targets the group looking for the solution the software provides.

Want to make even more money?

You can sell private label rights or resell rights to your tutorials.

And you can also get affiliates on board as well.

This can be a great product to sell via paid advertising – both in the ‘fix a problem’ format and the ‘here’s the solution you need’ format.

The work involved in doing this is small versus the money that can be made. It won’t make you rich, but if you put out just one of these a month, you might hit six figures.

And the shelf life of each tutorial will vary according to how popular the software is. You’ll be able to sell some for only a few months, while others might be good for a year or two before you need to update them.

It’s a perfect little side business that doesn’t require much startup cash – just the ability to find software that’s confusing people or solving a real problem, and creating the tutorials for your customers.

And don’t forget – you can also sell more solutions to your new customers after they purchase the tutorial. In fact, this alone can double your profits.

Get busy, and go make some more money by helping other people solve their problems!

When you first get started online, you might be worried. Frankly, you probably should be worried. Yes, you made sales this month. But will you make sales NEXT month? And how will you pay the bills if you don’t make sales?

It can be scary going from a job where you know exactly how much you’ll get paid and when you’ll get paid to working your own business online.

In your business you might have a banner month and then two months of starving followed by a mediocre month followed by (hopefully) another banner month.

Thus, the question becomes, “How do you get stability in your business – and your income -as quickly as possible?”

Or… how do you KNOW for a FACT that next month you can make the mortgage and eat, too?

Simple – continuity programs. Call it what you want – memberships, recurring payments, monthlies, etc.

It all boils down to getting people signed up into a continuity program so you can continue to get paid month after month.

Now you have a choice here: You can either promote other people’s continuity programs, or create and promote your own.

If you’re acting as an affiliate, then you don’t have to worry about sales funnels, membership content, customer service and all of that. You just need to focus on making the sales.

Drive the traffic, offer your own bonuses and do what you’ve got to do to get people signed up.

The problem, of course, is that in exchange for less responsibility, you also have less control and more competition.

The membership site owner has control over content. If s/he takes a “churn and burn” mentality and doesn’t care about keeping members happy, then people won’t stay long. You’ll have to continually make new sales, which isn’t what you’re looking for.

You want stability. That’s why you only want to promote truly great memberships and continuity programs that deliver a ton of value.

As to competition, you are competing with every other affiliate who is promoting the same program.

If you have your own list, then this isn’t that big of a problem. After all, people on your list know and love you, right? And so they’ll follow your recommendation.

Unless they’re on someone else’s list (they are) who has already promoted the program. In which case, you’re not going to make many sales.

Promoting affiliate memberships is a give and take. Less responsibility, no control and lots of competition.

And this is why you might want to start your own membership. Look around and see what people in your niche desperately want and need, and then fill that want with your site.

Outsource the content creation if you can, so you can focus on the important part – filling it with people.

Once you’ve got your membership site up and running, it’s time to get busy promoting it. Use every technique you can think of and track everything.

Find out what your best sources of traffic are, and then put all of your effort into just those methods.

For example, maybe you buy traffic from Facebook, Adwords and solo ads. You also get free traffic from guest posting, forums and social media.

9 out of 10 new members are coming from Facebook, so what are you going to do?

Drop all of your other methods and focus exclusively on Facebook advertising.

Get your conversions up and your costs down and now you have a viable way of getting a continuous influx of new members into your site.

Want even more members? Show affiliates how well your offer is converting, and you can get them to promote your membership site, too.

There are plenty of affiliates out there who want that continuous, month to month income that a good membership site provides. All you have to do is show them that your funnel is converting and members are sticking.

Naturally, there are a lot more details than this to starting a membership site. But hopefully this gets you thinking in that direction.

Because if you want true financial freedom as quickly as possible and with as little stress as possible, then almost nothing can beat having your own successful membership site.

One more thing – the first site is the hardest. Once you have a membership site that’s clearing at least a couple of thousand dollars each month like clockwork, continue to build on that one while building your second membership site, and so forth.

Create a membership empire to secure your finances, and then you can experiment with anything you like.

Security first, right?

So many products are simply a rehash of other products, and the same goes for books.

Someone wants to write a book on persuasion, so they buy five books on persuasion, read them and then take all the best ideas from the books and write a new course or book or whatever.

But what if you want truly unique, stand-alone info that no one else has?

Then you’ve got to go to the sources.

Let’s say your niche is cat care, and you’re in a forum where people are discussing how they helped their cat get over a certain illness. In that forum you meet Jessie, who found a way to cure her cat in half the normal time at one-tenth the normal expense.

You contact Jessie and ask for an interview, which you then turn into a product. No one else has this information because it’s something Jessie came up with in her veterinary practice, or wherever.

You now have a product no one else has. Split the profits with Jessie, and do it again and again with people who know stuff that no one else knows.

For example, you can dig through various niches and find people doing new, unique, unusual things, or people who have just achieved some sort of milestone, or anything special that solves a problem or gives a benefit that people want.

Do an interview over email, Skype or any method you choose. Let your subject know you’re thinking of using this in a product, and that you’ll share the profits. Almost no one will turn you down on this, especially if you’re working outside of the make money niche.

And now you have an endless source of truly new, helpful info that you can turn into posts, products and books.

This is a great way to make a big name yourself in any niche. Pretty soon people will be approaching you, asking if they can share their discoveries in exchange for a slice of the profits.

Simply write up the info they give you, pad it out as needed, write some sales copy and get busy selling it.

This is a perfect business model for almost any niche outside of IM where money is being spent.

And it works especially well if you’re solving people’s urgent problems – like getting kitty over her illness twice as fast at one-tenth the expense.

In Chip and Dan Heath’s book ‘Decisive,’ they lay out three ways to make truly excellent decisions that can have a very positive impact on your business and your life.

1: The Vanishing Options Test

In 1994, Quaker Oats made the decision to buy the drink company Snapple for a whopping 1.8 BILLION dollars – perhaps one of the worst business decisions of all time.

They didn’t consider any other options. Believe it or not, no one in the company even argued not to buy it or suggested an alternative.

If they had simply expanded their choices by asking, “What other options do we have?” they would have been far more likely to make a better decision.

Do you decide to do things without giving yourself multiple options first? Do you limit your choices before you even start?

For example, instead of asking, “Should I promote this product to my list?” Ask yourself what other products you might promote instead that would be a better fit for your list.

Instead of asking, “Should I buy this piece of software or hire this person for my business?” Ask yourself what your other options are to get the task done.

Here’s why it works: Anytime you give your brain a ‘this or that’ option, it’s hemmed in by just those two possibilities and won’t think any further.

Instead, ask yourself, “What options would I consider if my current options disappeared?”

By giving yourself multiple choices instead of just one or two, you greatly increase your odds of making a good decision and even the best decision for you and your business.

The key is to expand your choices before you narrow them down.

2: The ‘Tell My Friend’ Solution

In 1985, Andy Grove, President of Intel, faced a problem – should he end the company’s line of memory chips, or not?

Management was torn on the question and Andy didn’t know what to do.

So he asked himself, “If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what do you think he or she would do?”

Now the answer was obvious – get out of memories.

The right question made a tough problem easy.

This question helped him to overcome the biggest enemy to making the correct decision: Emotions.

You’re angry at your husband so you don’t talk to him. You’re excited about getting the exact make, model and color car you want, so you overpay. And so forth.

These decisions are clouded by emotion, and if it weren’t for that emotion, you would make different decisions.
Here’s why it works: Your emotions cloud your logic. So instead of asking what you should do, ask, “What would I tell my best friend to do?”

This helps you to look past your emotions and makes even the toughest decisions easy.

3: The ‘Test it Now’ Solution

In the late 1990’s, Bill Gross wanted to sell cars on the internet. He was sure the idea could work, but at the time it was risky.

Would people spend $20,000 on a car they’d never seen, much less test-driven?

Bill didn’t try to guess. Instead, he engineered a test run by hiring a CEO for 90 days to do one thing: SELL ONE CAR over the internet.

Usually we do the opposite. We go all in on a decision without having a clue if it’s the right one or not.

We spend all of our time and resources on this risk, when we could have gotten our answer with one small test.

For example, why hire someone as a full time employee when you can hire them for one project and see what they do?

Why spend six months creating a huge information product when you can create a small one in a day and see if there is a market for it?

Here’s why it works: We often get so fired up about a new idea, that we don’t even take time to find out if it will work or not. But by running a small test, we can see if we should proceed or go in a different direction.

Whenever possible, create a small test to find out if you’re on the right track.

“Why am I guessing when I can run a small test and know for certain?”

That’s it – three techniques that can save you a load of headaches and money in your online business and in life.

You’re just starting out and your list only has 500 or 1,000 people.

While it’s true you would gladly trade your small list for one that’s 100 times bigger, it’s also true that if you treat your little list right, you can still make really good money.

How does that work?

By getting personal.

First, answer emails that you get from your list. When someone reads your latest email and takes the time to write to you – answer them. You’ve only got 1,000 people on your list, so odds are only 5 to 10 will ever write to you at a time. Yes, you can do this. Keep it personal.

Second, let your list members know that they are part of a very small, intimate, private community by telling them. Otherwise they’ll assume you’ve got a gazillion people on your list and don’t give a flying flip about any of them.

Third, email them daily. Yes, DAILY. Keep in constant contact with them. Update them on the latest news and give a tidbit here and there about yourself.

Fourth, care about their success. If you really, truly care, then it will show in your emails to them. Communicate how important they are and that you want to help them succeed in a big way.

Fifth, hold open Q and A sessions over webinars, Skype or your favorite platform. Don’t charge anything, and let your subscribers know it is only for your list. You’re creating the feeling that they belong to a small, exclusive, private group.

Sixth, send out emails that start with something personal, such as, “Hi (name) – I wanted to contact you personally because I think you might be a good fit for my coaching program.”

Seventh, ask for their help or opinion on something and then answer every response.

Doing these little things will keep your list engaged and interacting with you.

And when you send out an offer for just 10 people to get personalized coaching at $500 a month, what do you think will happen?

Odds are you’ll fill those slots in less than a day with no additional effort at all. You might even have a waiting list of people who didn’t make the first ten slots.

What happens when someone emails their list of 100,000 with the exact same offer? Surprisingly, there’s a good chance they’ll have trouble selling those ten slots, even though their list is 100 times bigger.

You can make great money with a small list when you take the time to get personal with your subscribers.

There are only so many hours in your day, which is to say, you can only do so much.

In the beginning of your business, you’re probably doing everything yourself.

But as things start working and making money, you’ve got to scale it up if you want to keep growing the business.

If you don’t scale, then you can’t grow beyond the point of what you can do alone.

That’s why you want to begin outsourcing as much as you can. And the easiest way to do it is to record yourself performing each step of your business, so you can hand the recordings over to an outsourcer to do these things for you.

Either write it up, take screenshots or use video recording.

And no, it doesn’t have to be perfect. You’re simply going to hand it to an outsourcer and let them take over the task for you.

Remember, your goal is to work ON your business, not IN your business.

Otherwise you will have trouble hitting six figures and you will never come close to that magical seven figure income.