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!!

The global financial downturn is driving millions of people to try to earn extra income from the Internet, without losing what little they have.

Many thousands of internet entrepreneurs have succeeded and attained financial security. So what is their secret? How do they get a steady stream of visitors to their website and how do they persuade them to click the “Buy Now” button? By far the majority of marketers use a combination of Google Adwords and Search Engine Optimization.

Google Adwords carry millions of small ads every day, for every conceivable product or subject imaginable. So it must be the way to go, right? Sure, many people are making a good living from Adwords and a few can make a fortune at it. But, if you’ve tried it, then you’ll know it the true difficulties involved.

Being potentially very profitable, this market is very difficult to break into. First, you have to learn how this thing works, then you have to constantly improve your ads and you will need to spend money before you find the best performing keywords and the most profitable ads. You can set a daily limit to your spending but just twenty dollars a day will mop up 600 bucks in the first month.

Most popular keywords cost anywhere from 50 cents to 2/3 dollars per click, so twenty dollars won’t buy many clicks and, at a click-through rate of two or three percent, you will not get many visitors per day.

There are only about eight slots for ads on each page of Google, so the competition for these slots, particularly on the first page of results, is very fierce and often very sneaky. Each of the eight “tenants” of those valuable places on Page 1 are striving to get to position one, which, on average, gets over 70% of the traffic on that page and the only way to do that is to push the others down. All the Adwords users on the second and third pages are also fighting to climb up the greasy pole.

It is now possible to buy software that will allow you to spy on details of competitors’ campaigns and to see what keywords they are using and even what they are paying for each keyword, so you can potentially bid slightly higher and gain a higher position. If you do get your ad on Page One or Two, someone will be sniping at you with this type of software. Even if you have gained a comfortable position on Page 1 of Google, it is a constant struggle to maintain that position.

There is an alternative approach to running a successful Google Adwords campaign. You can employ a specialist team of experts, with the experience and the time to do the whole thing for you. The problem is, they won’t be interested unless you’re going to be a big spender on Adwords. That’s why I say that Google Adwords may be one of the most difficult ways to make money on line, certainly for a newcomer with little money to risk.

So how about Option Two? Search Engine Optimization. Surely this is the ultimate solution!

You learn how to design and build a web page which meets all Google’s guidelines (and I’ll tell you what they are) and then you get on Page One, with a page which costs nothing to be there and wait for the money to roll in. How cool is that?

This is all you need to do. Find a suitable keyword phrase (preferably 4 or 5 phrases) which gets at least 100 searches a day and which does not have many heavy hitters in the competition. 1,000 searches a day is obviously much better but is likely to have strong, well-established competition.

Then you need to get a domain name which incorporates the main keyword or phrase and build your web page so that it includes the keywords in the Title of the page; in the Description of the page; in the URL of the page; in the Headline of the page and in the Anchor Text of all links to other websites. That’s not too difficult, is it?

Then, to convince Google that yours is an “Authority” site, you need to get multiple links to your page, from other related sites, dealing with the same subject, whether it is Health, or Family, or whatever. The more important these other sites are, the more weight Google gives to these links. I can tell you, getting these links is hard work.

Here’s a real example. My website is on Page One of Google, for the phrase “Stop Arthritis Pain”, out of 2.1 million results. Last time I looked, it was at position 6, on Page One, and has been there for months. The same search phrase is on Page One of Yahoo (at position 2), out of 21.7 million results. Impressive eh?

I’ll bet you’re thinking “that page must be pulling in a ton of money”. Well, it isn’t. The reason is, that keyword phrase is not a popular search term and only gets about 20 visitors a day, so it makes a few dollars a day but nothing significant. Think about those other twenty million pages, who are getting even less traffic than those on page one.

So, if you can get onto Page One of the big search engines, you may make a lot of money but 99.9% of the pages up there are having no impact at all, in terms of making money for their owners. In many cases, it’s a lot of time and effort for no reward.

A well established method, used by High Street businesses for many years, is gaining credibility in online marketing. Make money by giving stuff away for FREE! We’ve all heard of BOGOF – “Buy One, Get One Free!” How about, “Get this valuable stuff, without buying anything”? Many internet marketers, smarter than I, claim to be making excellent earnings with this method and without the aid of Google Adwords or the Search Engines.

This is a quote from an expert, who has many profitable websites from using these methods -

“There is no more powerful way to sell your product than by ‘preselling’ it with free and useful information, typically with a free ebook.”

Next, Learn Here More About Google Adwords … And Then Watch This FREE 26 Step-By-Step VIDEO Course

An opt-in list can be quite crucial to any site or internet based company. Even for a small venture such as a niche profit site an opt-in list can make a world of difference and also generate some extra income for your pocket. Rarely would you see an e-commerce site, big or small, that is without an opt-in list.

An opt-in list allows for a company to market their wares and site via e-mail. With an opt-in list, a site and a subscriber consent to sending and receiving a newsletter from your company. Through this, you can keep your subscribers abreast of what is currently available on your site as well as whatever is coming out.

And because there is mutual consent between the two parties, any mail sent to the list is not considered as spam. There is a great number of successfully read promotional materials such as catalogs, newsletters and such that are sent because the subscribers themselves have signed up for them, meaning, they do want to be sent those items.

Building a list is crucial, only a small percentage actually subscribes for an opt-in list. Many people find promotional mails annoying but if you provide a good newsletter or promotional material, you will see your list build up and grow. You can also achieve this by having good content on your site. If people like what they see and read on your site, then they surely would want more. Newsletters would be a way to attract them back to your site – a little teaser or appetizer if you will.

But other than marketing your wares and your services, an opt-in list can also be used to earn extra profit. Not all lists can be used though. It would be good to first build a successful list with a huge number of subscribers. The more subscribers you have, the more money you stand to make. Here are seven ways to make money using nothing more than your list.

1) Place advertisements. There are many corporations who will be willing to pay to put their banners and ads on a list with many subscribers. Selling or renting out lists is not a good idea so rather than doing that, many companies would just rather place ads with lists that have a huge subscriber base. Your newsletter could be placed with many ads and each one spells money. A well designed ad, done by an experienced web design firm, will actually add to the visual appeal of your newsletter and may even attract even more subscribers.

2) Have affiliations with other companies that have at least a semblance or relation to what your site is about. Here other companies will provide links and brief descriptions of what products and services they offer. With every click made on the link that directs or leads a subscriber from your list to their site, the company will pay you. This is called P4P or pay for performance.

3) Make deals with other companies by asking for a small percentage of sales done through your list. With every sale done by customers that have come from your list and have gone there because of your newsletter, the other company will pay you a small percentage of your sales. The more people who buy from them, the more money you will make.

4) You may also get products from other sites on a consignment basis and sell them to your list via your newsletter. Place descriptions, articles and photos of the product in your newsletter. There will be those who will buy from you and when that happens, you can order the product from the other site and sell it to your buyer.

5) Sell e-books or a compilation of your articles on your list. Manuals and how-to articles are in great demand. Many people will be willing to shell out money to gain knowledge about a certain topic and subject. With your existing list trusting your expertise in that area, an e-book could be offered and sold or used as an incentive.

6) Create a network out of your list. Get people to invite more people to view your site and subscribe to your list. The larger your list, the more people will be able to click on your links and affiliate links as well as make your advertisement rates higher.

7) Subscribers are willing to pay for information if they know that it can be trusted and relied upon. Use your list to get more and more people to subscribe to you as well as browse your site. Lastly, you can use your list to earn money by making them your partners. Your list will be the bloodline of your growth and increase.

Some of these techniques may seem difficult to implement but there is lots of list building software and bulk email companies out there that could assist you. Of course you can always employ a reputable web design company to design your newsletter template for you and to create your opt in list for you, with all the bells and whistles attached.

Some internet marketers make huge profits with their opt-in lists, so don’t ignore your list, it is literally the life blood of your organization.

For some people blogs are just a way to express personal thoughts and opinions, while for others they serve as the right platform to make money at home. From the many independent ways to generate income, blogs have become a very well-spoken means to get some extra cash without too much fuss. Here are some strategies to use in case you want to turn a blog into a make money at home alternative.

A number one revenue source is online advertising. You can lease or sell some blog space to users who advertise products that have similarities with the content of your site. The rules for such a business are those of Google Adsense most of the time when the site owner gets paid for every click a visitor makes on an ad or link. Learn a few things about Google Adsense before trying to make money with it.

Affiliate programs are another great means to make money at home. In accordance with the same click-through system used by Adsense, affiliates imply the promotion of one or more products belonging to another company. Thus, a good idea for instance is to use names of books reviewed and sold on Amazon.com. The link on the blog will redirect the site visitor to Amazon for details and purchase.

Although not always morally justified, there are people who make money at home by running worthy cause blogs and asking visitors for small contributions. Relying on the kindness of good strangers sounds like fraud and is punishable by law. From this point of view such bloggers are another form of scammers, and should be avoided as such.

When used in smart ways, a blog can give a serious advantage to the marketer. For example if you run a flower business and provide all sorts of arrangements for a variety of occasions, part of the blog content can be devoted to interesting facts about unique flower species or it can include how-to tips for plenty of occasions that require flower decorations. Such ways to make money at home may turn out more complex and profitable than you’d have expected!

For people who already have solid experience in the electronic market transactions, a blog could become not so much a way to make money at home but rather the instrument to deepen the relationship with customers. Through the blog, the users will better understand the scope of your products and services.