There are a few secrets that I’d like to share with you.  You may have been privy to a few of them before.  Actually you may have heard of all 4, but I can promise that you will finish each article with a fresh perspective.  I will show you how 4 simple secrets can create a powerhouse web business.  This is the first part of the 4 article series.

Before I divulge the vault of successful web business secrets I must warn you of one thing.  All the information in the world will not take the place of determination and persistence.  A web business is just like an offline business.  It takes hard work and resolve to succeed.  However working smart is heads and tails better than plain old working.  These 4 secrets will turn any smart working, dedicated average Joe or Jane into a successful web business owner.

Web Success Secret #1) Content is king.

Heard that before?  I know I have.  The thing I never knew was how to use content to my advantage.  Content is useless unless it is optimized for the search engines.  It must also be optimized for your reader.  You have two customers- readers and search engines.  You must satisfy both with the same exact content.

Content is king only if you have exact and highly specific keywords placed in correct locations.  Unfortunately the hard part is determining what keywords to use.  A keyword can be a single word or a phrase.  It is the term that web surfers use to search for information.  Place yourself in their shoes and try to discover what search terms they use.  You must then evaluate the search term.  How many people search using that term?  How many sites already deliver information on that search term?  Simple demand and supply rules.  The more demand with the less supply equals more profitability.

You have several options for determining keywords and their profit potential.  Search yourself, pay a company to search for you or have your hosting company do a complete keyword search for your niche or web business topic.  If your hosting company does not offer this service I recommend you switch to a plan that does.  This feature alone can make or break your business’ future.  If you would like my recommended hosting plan, please contact me.

Without a proper keyword search and analysis you may as well forget about becoming successful with an Internet business.  Investing in this one secret is literally the start of planning your website.

Your next action step is to plan your site layout based on the 50-175 high-demand and low-supply keywords. Your site should be structured in three tiers.  Tier one is your home page.  Tier two is made of all of your main topics and also constitutes your navigation bar buttons.  Tier three keywords are sub-topics of tier two pages.  Organize your 50-175 keywords into three tiers.  Doing this makes it easier for visitors to navigate through your site and it makes it easier for search engine spiders to find all of your pages.

Search engine spiders do not like to fish around for all of your pages and links.  This is why many sites offer a “site map””.  A site map is one page that contains links to all of the content pages.  This is a fine route to take; however most people agree that pages with a lot of links on it are valued less than content pages that casually link to other content pages.

Using three tiers allows you to go from topic to sub-topic to sub-sub-topic all by natural in-content links.  For example, tier 1 is the homepage on a fitness site.  Tier 2 is a page all about cardio activity and its benefits.  A tier three page off of that tier 2 page is about different treadmill routines.  Do you see how the site visitor would like this structure?  They click on “Cardio” and are given links to more specific pages about cardio topics.  Search engine spiders like the three tier structure too.  It means they do not have to dig through layers and levels of useless links.

There is even more to content than finding profitable keywords and structuring your site into easy-to-navigate tiers.  You must optimize each and every page on your website to perform well and rank high at search engines.  Many people devote their working life to optimization secrets.  A full length article just on optimizing is possible.  Heck, a full length book is possible.  My recommendation is to use a hosting company that automatically teaches you how to optimize web pages for the engines.  Doing that will cause less headache and frustration and it will keep you focused on building content.

A quick education in optimization: place your specific keyword in the file name, title, description and keyword section of your page.  Then sprinkle the keyword throughout the content.  Also provide a link using your specific keyword in the link text.  If all of this has you spinning your head, I recommend going the hosting company I use.  They literally teach you to build a website using blocks.  It’s all simple and easier than you think.

There is one last piece to content.  It must effectively pre-sell your product or service and position you as the expert in your field.  When your website has 50-175 optimized pages for your visitors to read through it will start to position you as the expert.  Your site will become known as the place for information about (insert your niche).

When visitors find your site through search engines they are seeking information about a problem or question they have.  If they land on your site and you try to sell them something right away one thing is sure- they click the back button and find another site that will give them information.  This is why pre-selling your product or service is paramount.  Give your visitors what they want.  Answer their question and in the process let them know about your services and products.

All of the information develops rapport and trust with your site visitor.  It positions you as an expert.  It keeps your visitor on your site longer since they are actually reading content.  Search engines notice this and rank you better.  How well your site can keep visitors is known as “stickiness.”  Your site must attract and keep visitors for as long as possible.

Provide content that pre-sells your products, positions you as the expert and focuses on highly profitable keywords.  You cannot go wrong with your web business if you do those things.  The secret to content is to satisfy both your visitor and search engines.  Lose one or both and you are doomed.  As I mentioned earlier, it is best to work smarter and not harder.  Your hosting company should be providing most of these services to you free of charge.  There are a small few that do this, but it is well worth the investigation.  Having a successful web business starts with effective content.

Download Here The FREE eBook “Make Your Content PreSell” (139 pages!)… and learn all about how to optimize the content of your web site…

Getting started on social media can often be deceptively simple – What’s the big deal? You sign up. – or intimidating – Why am I being asked for my date of birth? – or overwhelming – How do I find people to friend or follow?

In actuality there are official and unofficial rules. It is easier if you start out knowing what’s what, and this is probably especially important if you’re more of an introvert.

Let’s imagine you already use email, search for information on Google, and read blog posts. But you’ve never joined any social media sites. How do you start?

1. Decide how comfortable you are sharing information about yourself. And the corollary to this – how wide a sharing of this information are you willing to do.

If you’re a book author and want people to buy your book, it’s a good idea to decide that you will share personal (although not private) information to as wide an audience as possible. If you only want to connect online with former high school friends, your target audience is much smaller.

If sharing information makes you somewhat nervous, think about what it means to be personal as opposed to private. Personal is a good marketing book you just read that you can recommend to help others; private is a fight you had with your business partner over implementing the marketing steps recommended in the book.

2. Ask online savvy friends that, based on your goal, which popular site they would recommend you first join. (And do start with just one while getting your feet wet in this brave new world.)

• If your goal, for example, is to have a wide audience, then Twitter may be the best choice because of its “open to everyone” format. – If you only want to search for high school friends, then Facebook may be the best choice as you can confine your information to a very small circle and can search by name for those long-lost friends.
• If you want to make connections to help with a future job search, then LinkedIn, whose format is set up for such a process, may be the best choice for you.

3. Once you have chosen the site you’ll start on, do a Google search for information on effectively using that site. That’s right, before you ever sign up, read some blog posts that provide guidance on effectively using the site.

Now this isn’t a research project that serves as an excuse for postponing actually joining the site. Just learn a few of the basic “rules.” And if you do this step, you’ll be way ahead of most other people who start on social media without first doing any research.

And why not learn this on the site itself? Because most of these sites have inadequate information for newcomers or an abundance of information that overwhelms newcomers.

Plus, to encourage you to sign up, the site’s home page says something like: To join now just do this. And it’s only after you’ve provided your name, email, password, etc. that you’re left wondering “What do I do next?”

4. If you’re starting on a site that doesn’t require your real name, choose a username carefully. You want to think about seeing this name used all across cyberspace as lots of social media sites pull information from other social media sites (with your permission, of course).

You may initially think, for example, of choosing the name of your first book. But what happens when you write a second book? Or perhaps using the name of the book won’t work well for a site that is focused on a non-book arena.

Keep in mind that whatever you do on the Internet can live forever. So this choice of a username should be considered carefully and for continued use in the long-run. (Once you’ve established a good online reputation with one username you don’t want to start at square one again with a new username.)

5. Immediately post a photo of yourself – a headshot in which sunglasses and a baseball cap are not blocking people from totally seeing your eyes. (This does not have to be professional-photographer quality but should not be blurry.)

This photo should be one that will also work on social media sites you will join in the future because you want consistency across these sites. You want consistency to help people recognize and connect with you on more than one site. (The same for your username).

Keep in mind that the photos for Twitter are quite small. And even if you’re starting on Facebook, only include a headshot of yourself. Do not include other people and preferably not animals and other props.

By posting a good headshot of yourself you’re signaling that you’re interested in connecting with people – real people such as yourself – and you’ll be off to a good start on your first social media site.

Now that you’ve read these five tips for starting on your first social media site, what are you waiting for? Join the cyberspace social media community today.

Give a comment to this post and receive 5 Free eBooks about Twitter instantly to your mail box! You can get them also here.

Here’s part two of “The Five Stages Of The Buying Cycle” series. In the previous part we gave an introduction to what this is all about. Today we go deeper in the “Get Attention” section.

There will always be visitors to your site (or readers of your blog, zine, etc.) who do not know about your product. Even affiliates who have been promoting your product since its inception “talk to” brand new prospective customers every day who have never heard of your product.

Create articles that get attention. If you are a web site owner, tell your story. If you have a site that reviews web hosting, announce your product as the perfect, success-focused solution.

If you reach newbies, emphasize the concept of online marketing and earning income by building a real business from home. Tell them your product really does change lives.

It’s important to connect emotionally with your visitors at this stage. Talk about how an online business, through your product, can give them financial freedom, satisfaction, enjoyment, and the opportunity to quit their day jobs. This connects and creates the motivation to investigate your product more deeply (the next stages).

The key to getting attention is to employ unusually strong and/or emotion-provoking landing pages…

Create your landing pages with especially effective attention-getters. “Where else have you seen videos (or a family bulletin board) like these?” And speaking of videos…

Use video to embed the perfect-fit video into your attention-getting web page, article, or post. The Video Ads and “I Love my product” Videos fit well at this stage.

This discussion focuses on the buying cycle and landing pages, not on the actual creation of content. Suffice it to say here that your content (ex., a review, personal experience, announcements, etc.) may focus on one specific stage, or it may cover some or even all of them. For example, tell your personal success story using a few well- selected text links, one to each stage.

Previous parts:
1. Introduction

The seven eBooks below follow up with this post. You can get them free just by replying or giving a comment to this post. Strong RECOMMENDED!!

For the next five days we go through the five stages of the buying cycle. Today we start with an introduction. I strongly recommend to grab the seven free eBooks that go along with this series. You can get them at the bottom of this post! Okay, here we go…

Your visitors arrive on your site (or read your zine, blog, etc.) at various stages of readiness to buy your product!…

1) Get attention!

Use landing pages designed to create awareness and get attention for customers who are…

* completely unfamiliar with online marketing
* slightly interested in online marketing or building an online business
* considering if/how to make money online
* failing at current efforts and looking for a better way (a huge category)
* seriously looking for ways to make money online (but don’t know your product yet).

2) Grow interest!

Once customers know about your product, they are ready for the next set of specialized landing pages! These people may be…

* interested, but want to know exactly what the heck your product is or does
* seeking more information about the process and tools
* ready for benefit-focused copy that is specifically relevant to them.

3) Build credibility!

At a certain point, your pre-customers move from info-gathering to credibility-seeking! These prospective new lifetime customers are…

* currently evaluating various online marketing products, including your product
* considering your product, but are unsure or otherwise have questions
* seeking reassurance about your product (history and position)
* comparing your product to others (ex., “Get Rich Quick” and old-fashioned Web hosting).

4) Involve!

Some customers are extremely careful, diligent info-seekers. Repeat exposure to high-value, free information and tools is perfect here. These folks are…

* getting closer, but need more exposure or “comfort” about your product
* procrastinating, so stay in front of them with free tools and info
* thinking seriously about your product and just need reassurance.

5) Close the sale!

The entire process funnels down to the final two landing pages. These pages shift from PREselling to SELLING. “Get the sale” from customers who are…

* ready to buy your product but have not made the final commitment
* 99% of the way there and are merely looking for the final reason to buy
* all the way there and are merely looking for the Order Page!

The above stages are meant to help you think about your customers’ mindset stages within the buying cycle. Keep in mind that they are not discrete stages…

* Each customer is at a slightly different place in the buying cycle.
* One customer buys within 24 hours of “attention-getting,” another may take months.
* And of course, you don’t deal with just one customer at a time. Of 1,000 visitors, each will be at a slightly different spot along the “Attention-to-Order” process.

So… your job is to move them all ever-closer to the final two “closer pages.” How do you address all of their needs?

* By understanding who your customers are and what they need (some only need 1 exposure to your product by you, but it needs to be the right one!).
* By choosing the appropriate landing pages to blend into your editorial content.
* Through repeat exposure, reaching them in different ways with different messages.

Your “time to sale” and Conversion Rate are directly related to how well and how many times you reach your target audience through different landing pages.

The seven eBooks below go along with this post. You can get them free just by replying or giving a comment to this post.  RECOMMENDED!!