My Take on Internet Marketing Success in 2010
Hey,
Carson here with a look into what I would do today if I had to start my Internet business from scratch. What would I do? How would I do it? and WHY?
So, here we are in April 2010, and in the past year the Internet marketing industry has seen the biggest changes that have affected marketers in the 8 years I’ve been earning a living online. I’ve seen the impact the changes Google and FTC rules can have on the most profitable and efficient campaigns that have been running for years.
I’m here to tell you that TODAY’S Internet marketers has to change the way they do things to stay current.
Here’s a story of ME, and what I focus on if I’m starting out as an Internet marketer TODAY!
First thing’s first, I’m going to learn what the heck Internet marketing is. This is the fundamental understanding that everyone that wants to succeed needs to know. That aside, I’m going to assume that I could explain what Internet marketing is to my mother, and have her understand it too.
Next.
I’m going to take what I know about the Internet and apply it to ONE major aspect of Internet marketing that will be the base of my Internet business. That is right, JUST ONE.
Google is the #1 place to get traffic in the world and whether you’re using free SEO techniques, or focus on placing ads using their Adwords Pay-per-click engine, the bottom line is that they are requiring that you offer value to people who visit your website.
Google uses a complicated algorithm that determines how “good” your websites are and gives each of your sites a SCORE. Google Quality Score is used to determine where your page is ranked in the search engines. It is also used to determine whether or not your ads should be displayed when advertising using Pay-per-click.
Knowing that Google is the worlds largest traffic source, and that the traffic is the highest quality, I’m going to focus on something that will allow me to build a business using Google as a traffic source.
What am I going to do?
I’m going to focus on something that might sound a bit scary at first, but it’s something I know I need to learn.
WEBSITES!
Maybe my goal is to earn $100 a month in profit. Maybe I want to earn $1000 a month in profit. Maybe my goal is to earn $10,000+ a month in profit from Internet marketing. Regardless… in order to do this I need to learn how to get traffic (people) to click on my affiliate links so I can start generating commissions…and in order to do this I need Google. In order to leverage Google, I need to offer value, and in order to do that I need a medium in which to do so. This is why I am going to focus on creating content for websites.
Whether I build a website from scratch, or use a blog, the one thing that I know is that I need to be able to deliver quality content that will help people. Then Google will give me a high quality score and then my opportunity is endless.
Since I’m new and don’t want to spend a bunch of money on website software or “offers” that flood my inbox daily, I’m going to grab myself a free blog (there are many of them out there). Then I’m going to start creating pages on my new blog that focus on what I’ve chosen to sell. I’m going to create myself a website out of my blog and spend an hour or so a day focusing on writing on my blog. I’ll put in my affiliate links, fine-tune the content for my Articles or PPC ads, and I’ll be well on my way.
My ONE focus is going to be on mastering websites and creating content that will provide value to my visitors.
When I’m ready, I’ll step-it-up a notch and grab myself my own domain ($10 or so a year) and get myself some hosting so I can run my website/blog from my own domain and start getting free listings due to my SEO efforts. I’ll scale my site so there are pages upon pages of content that are HIGHLY relevant to what I’m selling, keeping in mind that offering valuable information to my visitors is KEY to my success.
Once I get over the fear of building content for a website or blog, the only limit to the amount of money I want to make is TIME.
Ok.. that’s what I (Carson) would do if I had to start my Internet business today from scratch.
Everything else falls into place after I have the ability to deliver quality content online
(1) I can generate traffic using free techniques like Article marketing
(2) I can focus on advertising using Pay-per-click marketing
(3) I can start building an opt-in email list
(4) I can start offering Video and other media on my site
All the most cutting-edge techniques and strategies that Internet marketing has to offer can leverage this ONE aspect of Internet marketing…a website and/or blog. This is my focus for starting a business from scratch today.
Don’t get me wrong though…
There is still huge opportunity online to build a business without a websites, but I want to spend my time focusing on one thing that will allow me to scale my business going forward. I also want to be able to utilize the endless stream of traffic from Google and that requires me to be able to deliver quality content.
Here’s the issue most people have:
WEBSITES SCARE THE HECK OUT OF YOU!
Don’t let that stand in your way. If you can write an email, you can write content for a website and there is ample training available to get a website or blog up and running. If you are going to focus on an aspect of Internet marketing that will take you to the next level, create a website or blog.
Let’s take a look at what I just went over:
(1) Build a website or Blog
(2) Write Content
(3) Promote it within Google
(4) Scale it ANY WAY I want
Sound complex? It really isn’t that tough…but one thing that I do know in this day and age of the Internet Marketing world is that a website is becoming more and more of a necessity. Gone are the days of direct linking, MLM traffic schemes, and putting together low quality web pages.
This is how Carson builds a thriving Internet business in 2010.
Cheers,
Carson
wealthy affiliate
www.wealthyaffiliate.com
Click Here To Join wealthy affiliate University
Wordpress Express Review – Build a Website in 30 Seconds
In this post, I do a WordPress Express review which is the latest system to help your Internet marketing career
with a breath of fresh air…and gives you a powerful punch.
Search engine giant Google is slapping people left right and center due to poor quality content and
this makes it hard to get traffic to your affiliate links. If you want to buy traffic from pay-per-click networks
like Google, Yahoo, Bing, MSN Adcenter, you need to have a good website with quality content.
Getting free traffic can drive your Internet marketing campaigns for years all because you get ranked under high
traffic keywords. In order to tap into organic search engine traffic you need a website that is optimized (seo) to get you listed.
A really easy way to do this is to download wordpress express.
I have been helping individuals just like yourself how to leverage the Internet to earn money online since 2007.
I know the path to success because of the fact that I am actively doing affiliate marketing myself.
I started out as an affiliate, and have always been involved in the Affiliate marketing game.
Unlike most other self acclaimed “GURU” marketers, I don’t teach Internet marketing
becauseI’m unable to succeed myself! The bottom line is that I know what it takes
to earn a living online, and I have helped many people succeed over the years.
WordPress Express overcomes the hurdle that causes nearly all Internet marketers grief.
I use WordPress Express on a daily basis to create networks of highly optimized income generating machines.
With the click of a button you too can leverage this unique and highly powerful system to build your Internet business.
I will never go back to build sites “the old way” as I can easily get niche sites up in a matter of minutes.
Things that used to take me a month, now take me days. Things that used to take me days, now take me hours.
If you currently build web sites from scratch you are wasting your time.
With 1000’s of great looking templates to choose from, the WordPress Express
system provides flexibility, speed of development, and built in optimization.
Did you know that a WordPress express websites can get listed in the search engines
in a matter of hours? No joke, you can literally see your website being listed
for free in Google, Yahoo, and other major search engines in a matter of hours.
Why Hard Selling is so uncool these days
So here is my beef…
I become a customer…which I am very often within the online world, and I am looking to buy myself a new camera.
Pretty cliche, right?
Well, it is the truth. With the US dollar being close to par with the Canadian one right now, us Canadians can get excellent deals by buying US versus buying Canadian. In fact, things like clothes are close to 50% cheaper down there, with items like SLR digital cameras being close to 25% off.
For all of you crafty marketers out there, now is a great time to market ALL products to us Canadians, as we are going online by the fist-fulls, looking for great deals.
However, don’t fall into the trap that I saw many marketers falling into when I tried to buy a camera online.
I got turned off…pissed off…and frankly almost decided to go down to Costco to buy my camera as a result of the type of “hard sell” marketing that I saw taking place!
I understood the benefits by reading these sites, however I was not able to commit to buying any camera based on what was on all of these websites because their marketing styles frustrated me as a consumer.
What were they doing that was so bad?
First off, they were feature heavy. They loved to tell you all about the features. To me, and amateur photographer at best, I would need a professional beside me to translate terms outside the normal MP, Digital Zoom, etc to really understand what they were talking about.
Their marketing message went something like this:
……
……
…… and more features I didn’t understand.Oh ya, this is the best camera, see these testimonials
……
……
……and more rubbish.
Don’t forget to buy from my site, my name is BEST CAMERA DEALS.
……
……so let me get this straight, your first name is BEST, last name is DEALS, middle name CAMERA.
There are a few major problems with this page. First, I don’t understand what the heck many of the features were, and many beginner’s buying a starter SLR Camera would be in the same boat. Features mean nothing to a potential customer, benefits are everything.
Secondly, I don’t care about company produced testimonials…they mean nothing to me these days. I want first-hand reviews.
Lastly, hiding behind the website, or at least not offering me a pen name makes it difficult for me to relate to anything the website was saying. Notice how I said “website was saying”… that is because that is exactly how it felt. I would prefer someone to be speaking to me versus a website.
…and I know this is how must customers feel in this day in age.
It would have been nice if they said stuff like..
It takes the same quality as a $5,000 camera, the only difference being in some of the small lighting features that you wouldn’t use anyways, unless you have an assistant with you. It works excellent in all outdoor lightening situations and is excellent for high quality, detailed scenery photographs.
This is a usable piece of information. This allows me to quickly say, hey, good thing I read this, because I don’t need to spend money on a more expensive camera. I am just going to be using it for a trip to Europe and will probably only take pictures of scenery.
Now that makes me much closer to buying this camera than someone stating that it has XXX feature, XXX zoom, and XXX lightening options.
OK, I have gotten the benefits rant out of the way. However…
Outlining the Benefits is NOT ENOUGH THOUGH!
You know you here the old saying “sell the benefits, not the features”?
I have even said this to others in the past, but as I think about it, selling the benefits no longer the answer to the entire requirement of the consumer.
The person selling the product should be selling themselves as a person should they not?
Consumers are damn smart these days. Smarter than they have ever been. I fall victim to this every time I buy something. I can spend days researching online before I make a purchase, whereas prior to the last couple of years even, I was a much quicker (and I guess to a certain degree, irrational) consumer.
The main thing people look for is:
Advice from People.
Not companies. People are real. People have opinions. People say when things suck and say when things are awesome.
Marketers often times don’t.. If you sound like a marketer, you sound like a newspaper ad. If you sound like a person, you sound like a friend. People buy from friends advice.
I will take an online example here to explain my theory.
Selling an Acne Cream to Someone That Needs Acne Cream
Should be a pretty easy sell right?
I mean, this is someone that knows they have acne and need a solution to help them out, yet a lot of Internet marketers still have much difficulty walking this person from the “already informed” stage to the “buyer” stage.
Hellooo…they want to buy. Sell yourself as somebody that is credible, someone that is real, and someone that can help.
Not a robotic “Y-O-U M-U-S-T B-U-Y” sales pitch.
Before I get into this, let’s analyze one of the leading acne products out there, Proactiv. I am going to create a list of the features and the benefit translations:
Features:
- has acne fighting ingredients
- shipped within 5 days
- comes with 2 free gifts
- gets an overall rating of 4.9 out of 5 by consumers
- moisturizes your skin
- guarantee to work or your money back
- Comes in a 2oz bottle
Benefits:
- makes you face look flawless to the human eye
- start removing acne before next weekend
- has extra gifts that will make your skin oil free
- real people, with real acne issues love it
- makes your skin feel and look like porcelain after
- it works for most people, but if it doesn’t, there is no risk in trying
- comes in a travel size bottle so you can take it with you on vacation
Don’t sell the solution, sell the face!
You heard it straight from the horses mouth. People want the face, they don’t give a rats about the bottle it comes in, the ingredients, the gifts, etc…they ultimately buy the product to get the desired result, which in this case is “clear skin on their face”.
OK, let’s start off a good sales message here touching on some of the benefits:
I know how you feel. I have acne. I still get it, even tough I used Proactiv, but it is way more manageable. I don’t get funny looks any more, and I don’t get snide eye comments about me being a pimple-face.
If you want help, I suggest you try Proactive. It carries the most powerful stuff for fighting acne in the world, but it doesn’t burn your face off like some of the other products out there. It won’t end acne altogether, but it will make it manageable and allow you to sustain a clear, soft face when you are using it.
One thing I do think you should always consider when buying is whether or not the company guarantees the product. Proactiv does which really made the difference between me buying and not buying. They understand that it won’t work on some of the more severe cases and this is why they have this in place.
Is it worth a shot? I will leave this up to you as you are the one spending the money. However, my experience and research says that you will benefit from it. You will know right away if it starts working, and I believe the company will ship the product by next week, so if you do have an engagement or event coming up where you want to show off your new skin, this would be a good opportunity.
If you have any questions about Proactiv, you can feel free to contact me and I will be more than happy to give you a helping hand.
What do you think?
This is much better than some authority or website telling you that it rates 4.9 out of 5.0 and comes in a oval shaped bottle which is 2oz in size and it has a 60 day money back guarantee. Oh ya, it has this stuff in it called Benzoyl Peroxide.
People like a realistic, personal approach to being sold on anything. Saying something is the best in the world raises red flags. Hiding behind a website and writing as though you are an authority can raise red flags. And outlining just features is simply not effective.
Be real and make your selling strategy a soft sell, not a hard and abrasive sell.
Happy selling,
Kyle
**Side Note: If you can’t give a personal opinion because you haven’t tried the product, then you will have to take a different approach. Use a friend or someone you know of as an example.
“I know that someone near and dear to my heart had acne growing up and the impact it can have. They use to vent to me about the emotional pain they endured from the teasing and weird looks.” etc…
Click Here To Join wealthy affiliate University
The Future of Online Marketing – Team Building
The online struggle to build your downline is over. Success is easier in a group when you team build.
How to Earn 5-Figure Income Online As an Affiliate Marketer
Affiliate marketers have a fair advantage online than most other internet marketers. I have observed that achieving financial freedom online is easier as an affiliate especially when you are just beginning.
Make Money Online Promoting Products As a Affiliate
Since affiliate programs are very easy to join, you might be tempted to join multiples of affiliate programs and still not know what to do with them. True, that is a great way to have multiple sources of income. However The best way to get excellent result is by joining just one program that pays a 50% commission at least. Then give it your best effort by promoting your product enthusiastically.
I will move your couch – A relationship marketing strategy for 2010
<img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-111" style="margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" title="Carson wealthy affiliate” src=”http://www.wealthyaffiliate.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/carson_black.jpg” alt=”" width=”120″ height=”167″ />The other day I was enjoying my Saturday puttering around the house not doing much of anything really… until the phone rang.. It was one of my best buddies…
Conversation went something like this:
“Hey Carson, how’s it going man.. What are you up to today? Nothing… Well, I am wondering if I could ask you a favor? I just got a new Couch and I need to move my old one out of my place.. Can you help me…”
I know that you’ve had this this exact conversation with a friend of yours before! And chances are that you lent a hand and helped move that couch!
What the heck does this have to do with Internet Marketing? Well.. EVERYTHING…
When my buddy asked me to help him out I instantly thought to myself how inconvenient it was, but it didn’t take much for me to say “yes” because I am a friend, and that’s what friends do right? RIGHT.
In the Internet marketing world you have every opportunity to build relationships with people even though you are potentially 1,000’s of miles away. You can become a trusted source to people who visit your website, your articles, or your blog. You can take a complete stranger and turn them into a friend by offering them valuable content that will help them in some way.
A successful Internet marketer in 2010 focuses on has a relationship marketing strategy with their visitors. The key is not only to be nice, but to create a long lasting channel of trust.
Let’s go back to Saturday and replay the conversation but let’s pretend it wasn’t my buddy calling me to ask a favor, but a telemarketer who I don’t have any relationship with.
“Hi Sir, this is someone that you don’t know at all. I’m not only asking you to take the time to talk with me right now, but I’m asking you to take time out of your day to come and help me move an old couch out of my house. On top of that, I’m going to ask that you pay for the delivery truck to take the couch away to the dump”
What would you expect my answer to be (assuming I listened to their spiel)
ABSOLUTELY NOT.. NO WAY IN HELL BUDDY… (as I throw the phone at the wall.. lol)
Bringing it back to Internet marketing.. How is this so different from someone who attracts a visitor to their website (a complete stranger), and asks them to make a purchase? You’re asking people that you don’t know to trust you, and spend their hard earned money purchasing something that you recommend. It will happen, don’t get me wrong. The good ‘ol review site will still convert visitors in to buyers, but not at the rate you could a “friend”.
A relationship marketing strategy is becoming more evident and necessary within the online marketing world. People don’t know who to trust anymore and customers ability to research on the Internet has never been greater. The old “buy this because I say so” tactic no longer holds the same power.
So… how do you take a complete stranger and turn them into a friend? Well, it takes more than just offering valuable content and it’s something that we really push these days within our marketing training. Offering value is the FIRST thing that you must do to get someone to lower their guard slightly and allow you to offer them more value at a later date. But this is not good enough anymore.
Look… there are successful Internet marketers out there that do nothing but promote products to you left right and center. They may just offer you a review, or a comparison, or even just a page telling you about a single product they recommend. That’s fine, but making a recommendation to make a purchase to someone that you’ve built a relationship with will convert much higher than it would from a first time visitor.
You can also keep something else in mind. People tend to naturally reciprocate.
My buddy helped me move into my house a couple years back and although I would have helped him if he didn’t, I remembered that. As you build an online business people will remember you and the value that you gave to them. Maybe people don’t make a purchase from you the first time you make them an offer. Maybe not even the second, third or fourth time. But there will come a time that people will remember back to when you helped them and if they are in a position to make a purchase financially, that purchase will almost surely be yours.
Think about Internet marketing this year with a relationship marketing strategy in mind. It will lead to much greater success and a preparation for a much longer career within the fast evolving IM world.
If you take anything away from this blog post, take the knowledge that offering value to people who you connect with online will ultimately build you a stronger and more profitable business. Build relationships that last by focusing on “helping” versus “selling”. If you treat people like commodities, they won’t react to you in a way that will benefit you in the long run.
So.. Here’s a question for you.
Are you treating visitors to your websites, blogs, or articles as potential friends or another dollar in your pocket?
Let me know in a comment below!
Carson
2010 Relationship Marketer – and couch mover!
Click Here To Join wealthy affiliate University
Make Easy Money Online With an Autopilot System
Learn how you can use an autopilot system to make easy money online with affiliate marketing. If it can be automated then you can increase your revenue by scaling it up and earn more for doing less.
Your Affiliate Marketing Business is Destined to Fail UNLESS You Use This Key Affiliate Strategy
Wanna make sure your affiliate marketing business fails? Then do NOT use the single most important Affiliate Strategy designed by man (or woman) – and most probably the only “way” to generate affiliate profits CONSISTENTLY.
Beginners Guide to Making $1,000 Online in Just 30 Days
This informative article will show you how to make your first $1000 online in about 30 days starting today. As a beginner in internet business, one big problem you would face is information overload.