Internet Marketing Coaching

In days gone by we have relied on the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission or the Advertising Standards Board to ensure that advertisers and marketers were telling the truth. While this has worked ok for us thus far I can’t tell you how excited I am about the introduction of Social Media.

Social Media has given a voice to the everyday consumer, so if they are upset with the service they have received or the quality of product they can:

• Blog About It
• Micro Blog About It
• Twitter About It
• Facebook Post About It
• Plurk About It
• Myspace About It

Not only can you do this but this will also invite conversation from other happy or unhappy customers, thereby  creating an impromptu focus group aimed at heatedly discussing a brand, product or service.

For example, look at this “Fan Page” on facebook about Australia’s most loved communications company Telstra:

For me in my business if anyone asks me for a testimonial from a client or to talk to a client about what I do, I now suggest that they go to facebook look at one of the testimonials on my wall and talk to the person through facebook…

…Social Media Does Not Lie

I can’t tell you how frustrating it is as an internet marketer to see SO many adwords advertisers wasting their time and money on adwords campaigns that are guaranteed to fail. Not only are they are costing their business money, but they are pushing the price of adwords up so it costs more money for everyone.

Can anyone remember the good old days when adwords was used by savvy internet marketers to gain targeted cost effective leads into their business?

Can anyone remember the good old days when advertisers engaged professionals to build and manage their campaigns?

It seems with new age businesses that people are now building and managing their own adwords campaign without any guideance or knowledge.  You have to know that by doing this all you are doing is increasing the advertising cost for other businesses and for you.

Ok, so now that I have got that out, let’s look at ways that you can become educated and actually get some results from your campaign without paying too much for traffic. Before I teach anything specific to adwords you have to understand how adwords works.  Firstly, what is adwords?  Adwords is advertising on google to get visitors to your website, as seen below:

In my next blog post I am going to teach you about the adwords algorithm, but before I do you’ll need to know the following terms:

Click Through Rate (CTR) – This is the amount of times (as a percentage) that someone clicks on your ads.  So if your ad was shown 100 times and it was clicked on 1 times that would be a CTR of 1%.

Bid – This is the amount of money you are willing to pay if someone clicks on your ad

Budget – This is your daily allocated budget, how much you are willing to spend each day on sending traffic to your website.

Relevancy – This is how similar your website text is to the advertisement that you are using to deliver traffic to your website.

Watch out for another post on adwords soon.

The concept of Search Engine Optimisation is a simple concept. You simply follow a set of guidelines to rank your website high on search engines like google, yahoo and msn live. But why would you want to rank high on search engines?

Here are my top 3 reasons for having Search Engine Optimisation as a core asset in my internet businesses:

1.    Targeted Traffic – Search Engine Optimisation allows you to choose the keyword you are ranking for, which means you can ensure that the traffic is targeted. For example, if someone types “Buy Real Estate Sydney” into the search engines this shows that the person wants to buy real estate in Sydney. If your website is selling real estate in Sydney, the person typing in this keyword is a targeted customer. As an internet business owner I am more interested in targeted traffic then I am in high traffic volume.

2.    Asset Building – One of the key assets of an internet business is its consolidated rankings on the search engines. In fact, when buying and selling websites the sale price of a site can be directly affected by search engine rankings.

3.    Build Trust – Google is a trusted website and traditionally if someone sees your website ranking high on google for a key term, they believe that google is recommending your site to them. This recommendation can take what was already a targeted visitors and make them a qualified buyer. One of the key factors to online sales is trust, so a search engine ranking can help you build the required trust.

I have had a few questions lately about Time Management and how to deal with overwhelm. Overwhelm is something that can happen a lot online with:

• Millions of sites containing quality information
• Skype, MSN, facebook and gChat flashing all day
• Twitter, Facebook and Digg status updates

I can see how easily it can become overwhelming for someone who is in learning and implementing mode. Here are 3 quick and easy Time Management strategies I personally use to counteract overwhelm:

1.    Schedule Learning And Implementing Time – It’s very easy to log in to your twitter, facebook or digg account and see all the links and spend the next few hours reading and researching. While you will be learning (a good thing) you can get lost in learning and have no time to actually implement. I suggest you schedule time for you to learn and time for you to implement, so you can see some results.

2.    Unit Size Your Day – In the movie About A Boy, Hugh Grant talks about breaking his day down into 15minute units and allocating a set of units to an activity. With the time that you have available to spend on your internet business break it down into 15 minute units and allocate units to each activity.

3.    Set On Track Goals – This is a form of goal setting where you take your monthly or yearly goals and set on track goals weekly. These goals are activities you should achieve each week to indicate to you that you are on track to achieve your larger goals.

Remember, if feeling overwhelmed, step back, take a deep breath and implement these three Time Management strategies

I have been a twitter addict now for about 6 months (along with facebook and digg) and I can officially say that as of 2 months ago twitter has become my favourite social media platform.

It has nothing to do with the interaction (although I do love having @ reply and DM conversations with twitter users).

It has nothing to do with the 140 character updates (although I do love conversing in only 140 characters)

It has nothing to do with the fact that twitter can update your facebook status (although this does save lots of time)

It’s because 2 months ago I downloaded Tweetdeck and have been using it everyday since then. I do have to pass some kudos off to @problogger as he was the person that introduced me to Tweetdeck.

3 Reasons Why I Love Tweetdeck

1. Tweetdeck Finds @ Replies Via Twitter Search – This is a cool feature. I was finding that when using twitter on the web, some of my @replies and @ conversations were being lost. While this was not a major problem initially, as my followers grew it became a problem as more and more people were getting angry at me for not replying to @replies

2.    Tweetdeck Allows You To Not Get Caught Up In The Noise – I find that if I open a browser by default I log into my email, log onto facebook and activate my digg account. So by just opening a browser to view twitter I can get caught having conversations on two platforms and digging stories, which can waste many hours.

3.    Tweetdeck Makes DM’s Easy – I also found it difficult to manage my Direct Messages (DM’s) via twitter web but now I have a column in my Tweetdeck dedicated to my DM’s. Also to DM a person it’s easy as you just hover over their avatar and click on the DM button.

If you want to manage your twitter account I highly suggest you use Tweetdeck.

I have been doing a series of posts on how to use Facebook to build your profile and generate traffic to your websites. In doing so I have had a few questions from people on how to add friends and join groups. Click on the play button below to watch a 3 minute video on how to do this:

In a previous post about using facebook to generate traffic to your website and leads into your business I talked about cloaking your links. This has sparked a lot of inbound emails and comments about what sites to use to cloak links.

In today’s post I will cover what site I use for link cloaking and how to do it…

…Before I do though, you may be wondering what link cloaking is, instead or re-hashing information that is widely available here are a few resources for you:

Guide To Link Cloaking

Link Cloaking Explained

What Sites To Use for Link Cloaking?

I personally use a service called www.TinyURL.com and this is one of the most used services by Internet Marketers. It allows you to set up a url manually (you can suggest what the TinyURL will be) or you can have a url automatically generated by the service.

Here’s an example of an automated tinyURL:

Here’s an example of a manual tinyURL:

In my personal testing I have found that using a manual tinyURL will result in higher click through’s to my site or my offer.

There are many other services that you can use other than tinyURL and one that was launched only a few months ago is Joel Comm’s own service called TwitPWR.  This service is more advanced than tinyURL and has some really funky tracking abilities. It is constantly being developed and is one cloaking service that you should keep an eye on.

If you have missed the first 2 parts in this series click on the links below to read them now:

Setting Up Your Facebook Profile

Building Your Facebook Network

Once you have set up your profile and built your network it’s time to start leveraging that network to generate traffic to your website and convert the traffic into sales. There are a few keys to success here:

1. Status Updates – A Facebook status update shows up in all of your friends facebook home page like this:

Each of those blue links in the above image go out to a website the person owns or is promoting. As you can see, a simple status update with a “cloaked” link can generate traffic across to your site. In my case, any time I am sending out a newsletter, I’ve written a new blog post or launched a website I update my status with a few words and a link.

2. Facebook Groups – Facebook groups allow you to email all the members of the groups, so setting up a group about your chosen business or area of interest will allow you to build a list of people to email. Be careful here though as you don’t want to email to often. A Facebook group email can be good to launch a product, service or new website.

3. Status Syndication – This is very similar to status updates but instead of you just doing an update you can ask other people in your network to do a status update for you. This is a great way to leverage other people and their networks to promote you and your cause.

Keep watching this space for part 4 on Facebook in a few days time

If you missed the first part of this series about Setting Up Your Facebook Profile then you may want to read it before continuing.

Now that we have our profile set up properly it’s time to start leveraging our profile by building our Facebook network.  The size of your Facebook network on is measured by the amount of friends you have, fans you have and also groups that you control.

Building Your Facebook Friends

There are many different strategies for building your Facebook friend list, before we get into those though it’s important to know your outcome before you start. Are you just wanting to get to your 5000 friend cap as quickly as possible or are you trying to build a targeted group of friends who will visit your website and buy your products?

Size Does Not Matter, It’s Potency

You could end up having 5000 friends on Facebook very quickly but none of them may be interested in what you are talking about, none of them may visit your site and none may buy from you. I’ll say it again size does not matter, it’s about building a list of friends who react to your information.

What I would suggest to you is that while it may be an ego boost to have thousands of friends quickly it’s more important to have a group of friends who react.  Now that we have that clear, let’s look at some of the different friend building strategies:

• Friend Poaching: This is a widely used strategy, especially by people who are new to internet marketing and Facebook. Friend poaching is simply where you find a competitor in your industry and go through his/her friend list and add them as friends of your Facebook account.

• Friend Group Activity: One of the major ways to build targeted friends is by joining groups that are relevant to your topic/industry. As well as joining the group you must be active in the group, write on the wall, comment on topics and regularly visit the group. This way people joining the group will notice your activity, and then add you as a friend as they feel you have value to give.

• Friend Group Building: This strategy is where you start the group and invite your friends to join the group.  Then your friends invite their friends to join the group (hmm sounds a little bit like network marketing doesn’t it?).  As an administrator of the group you are able to promote to the members of that group via Facebook email and also have your profile in the news feed.  This can result in a quick growth in friends

Now these are just a few of the ways to build Facebook friends, watch this space for our next post in the series…

In the last 6 months facebook has been responsible for over 13% of traffic to my site and roughly 18% of our turnover.  With this said I thought it would be good to put together a series of posts on how to set up your profile on facebook and then how to leverage that profile for income and traffic.

Before we go into that though, anyone who saw me speak about 12 months ago would have heard me say that facebook was a great asset to your business, but should not be something you direct your attention to until you have focused on the foundational areas of your business and marketing. I still believe this and say this constantly to businesses that I consult with…

…here’s exactly what I mean.  If you are a business owner and you do not have a:

• Frequency Program
• Loyalty Program
• Quality Customer Service
• Internal and External Marketing

…then using facebook as a marketing tool in your business is something that you definitely should not do. It’s important to understand that you must do the fundamentals in your business BEFORE expanding into new marketing methods.

Key Elements Of A Facebook Profile

1. Profile Photo – Social networking sites are very much living breathing organisms that have unwritten “Social Rules”.  For example when you go out on a date it is customary for the male to open the door for a female. One of the “Social Rules” that most social networking sites have is:

If You Don’t Have A Profile Photo We Won’t Add You As A Friend

With the profile photo that you use it should be consistant across all social networks so you can build a consistant Social Brand. (I’ll talk more about why this is important in a later post)  The photo also should include you, preferably not a photo of a car or house, so they can see the person behind the profile.

2. Profile Information – Social networking sites have standard spaces for you to write about yourself. On facebook there is more space for telling people about you then other sites such as twitter. The more you put into your profile information the more likely someone is to interact with your profile. It will also attract more qualified and targeted people to your profile.

3. Photo Gallery – Social networking sites allow you to upload photos into a gallery.  Another one of the “Social Rules” with sites local facebook is:

The More Photos You Have, The More Likely I Am To Trust And Therefore Buy From You

So when setting up your profile ensure that you upload photos of yourself, your family, your friends and some of your social activities.

Now that you know these key elements it’s important that you go and audit your profile to see that it follows these guidelines. Watch out for my next post about facebook and building your network…

I am sitting here in the hotel room of the Crown Plaza Hotel in Sydney after what has been a highly successful first day of our debut event, Smart Online Profit Systems. I am extremely excited about this event series, because it is the first of it’s kind and we are teaching brand new content and techniques live in the room.

As part of this new event I challenged my co-host Sean Rasmussen to rank number 1 on google for the keyword “Sydney Internet Marketing Workshop” in under 24 hours. Amazingly Sean was able to rank number in under 55 minutes. Here’s a quick screen shot of his ranking:

As part of the bet with Sean, I had to buy drinks for everyone at the event, and after the stifling day in Sydney I was up for a fairly large Cocktail bill!  But this was not where the betting stopped, I decided that I would bet Sean $1,000 hard cold cash, that he could not rank number 1 for the keyword “Internet Marketing Workshop” in under 24hrs.  Here’s a quick screen shot of his current ranking at 11:36pm tonight:

It looks like that I will be owing Sean $1000 cold hard cash in the morning unless something happens overnight (I have my fingers crossed).  The Smart Online Profit Systems event has been great thus far with many people commenting on such a high quality event.

The challenges are continuing to come in thick and fast. Tonight Sean Rasmussen taught a simple step by step process for making money online and afterwards I challenged the room to go home tonight and start earning money online.  The person who enters the room tomorrow with the most sales will receive $1000 cold hard cash.  Here are a few of the entrants:

http://nalla.uwcblog.com
http://internetmarketingtips.uwcblog.com
http://onlinemarketer.uwcblog.com
http://peiren.uwcblog.com
http://charansaini.uwcblog.com
http://affiliatemarketingtips.uwcblog.com
http://smarttrackyoursuccess.uwcblog.com
http://smarttrackyourlife.uwcblog.com
http://brazilianbikinisworldwide.uwcblog.com
http://learninginternetmarketing.uwcblog.com
http://lifeiswhatyoumakeit.uwcblog.com
http://fisheye.uwcblog.com
http://pigsandfrogs.uwcblog.com
http://makemoneyyoung.uwcblog.com
http://shadow.uwcblog.com
http://arthurbugeja.uwcblog.com
http://winningaffiliates.uwcblog.com
http://workfromhome.uwcblog.com
http://kosmo88.uwcblog.com
http://icreatefreedom.uwcblog.com
http://gerdasmith.uwcblog.com
http://daisychee7.uwcblog.com
http://moneyessentials.uwcblog.com
http://internetaffiliatemarketing.uwcblog.com
http://rodn.uwcblog.com
http://ratsteve.uwcblog.com
http://howtomakemoney.uwcblog.com
http://chrisjs77.uwcblog.com
http://michellechung.uwcblog.com
http://internetmarketssaam.uwcblog.com
http://harbingerofvictory.uwcblog.com
http://workfromhomeruth.uwcblog.com
http://beanaffiliate.uwcblog.com
http://internetwealthbuilder.uwcblog.com
http://lorraine1954.uwcblog.com
http://affiliatemarketingonline.uwcblog.com
http://chrisbellesini.uwcblog.com
http://makemoneyonlinebusiness.uwcblog.com
http://lorrained1954.uwcblog.com
http://businessplansmadeeasy.uwcblog.com
http://matts.uwcblog.com/
http://arthurbugeja.uwcblog.com/

I wish everyone luck and hope that you have a great rest of your weekend.

The “rules” around the best practice for Email Marketing have always been a much debated topic in internet marketing circles with questions like these often being asked:

• What Is The Best Day Of The Week To Send Out An Email?
• How Many Times A Month Should You Send A Sales Email?
• How Many Different Products Should You Promote Per Month?

Each internet marketer has their own ideas about what you should and shouldn’t do with your Email Marketing, and in most cases this is based on their personal experience with their list. Today I want to tell you a little about my own personal experience with my list and what my answers to these questions are.

What Is The Best Day To Email:

We are creatures of habit. Think about it, I am sure that each morning you have a routine that you follow to get ready. I know I do, in fact last Tuesday I didn’t follow this routine and all day I felt off and not only that I didn’t function to my full potential.

With Email Marketing to your current or potential clients it’s important to create a habit with your customers. In psychology terms we want to create a synaptic pathway, where every time we send an email it’s expected and the normal response to the email is to read it and take action on the email.

So the best way to create this pathway is through Predictability and Permission, I’ll talk about Permission first.

When someone registers for your Email Marketing newsletter it’s important to, not only get permission to market to them, but also permission over:

• How often you will email them
• What day of the week you will email them
• Content of the emails you send

This permission will start the process of building this synaptic pathway and now they will be expecting the email when it comes because they have given you permission to send it. The second step to cementing this pathway is to consistently deliver your emails at the same time and day each week. This way your clients will begin to predict when the email will hit their inbox.

In our experience we like to send our emails on a Tuesday or Thursday and as such in our marketing will ensure that our customers expect this.

Stay tuned for part 2 of this post on Email Marketing where I talk about how many times to send a sales email per month…