If you want to master the net and succeed with your Internet business start-up then you will benefit from these three key search engine ranking tips. You don't have to be an SEO expert, but it is essential to realize that search engines can make or break a home business start-up.

A search engines is simply a tool for delivering targeted traffic to websites. The Internet without search engines would be like a city without signposts or maps.

Not so long ago, search engines ranked websites according to the keywords they used, plain and simple. It did not take website owners long to realize that they could improve their ranking by manipulating keywords. The result was that top-ranking websites offered nothing useful for searchers using those keywords. The search engines responded by introducing a combination of factors to rank websites rather than keywords alone.

Here are the three top factors that are used by search engines to rank websites. None of these things is difficult to master - you certainly don't need a technical background to apply them to your website. They are basic to Internet marketing success: Keywords, Content, Links.

Keywords: Although keywords are no longer the only factor, they are still very important for website ranking. Keywords will always be important because searches cannot be done without them. However, they are not given the overwhelming emphasis that they once were; they are now one part of the mix that determines how a website is ranked.

Content: Unique content has become the biggest factor in search engine ranking. The content you place on your site must be useful, relevant and unique. Copying and pasting content from other sites, even where it is legal to do so, as with copyright-free (plr) content is NOT the way to go. Search engines are able to tell the difference between duplicate content and unique content. That is why content carries most weight when it comes to search engine ranking. (If you want to use plr content, that is fine, but just make sure you REWRITE it to make it your own.)

Links: Linking to a website that is highly ranked high on a search engine, and getting a link FROM that site will help to get your website a higher ranking as well. Search engines give weight to links because links indicate how popular your site is. Your links show the search engines who you associate with. It is therefore a good idea to seek out links from high ranking, high quality sites in a related field to your own.

Bonus Search Engine Ranking Tip 1! One way to get links back to your site is to leave relevant and helpful comments on high ranking blogs which allow you to link back to your own site. I emphasize that the comments you leave should contribute to the discussion.

Bonus Search Engine Ranking Tip 2! This one is MUCH more powerful! Automatically submit your articles to thousands of publishers.

By using a combination of Keyword, Content and Link analysis search engines have become more efficient and effective in ranking websites. Internet marketing start-ups can therefore be quickly promoted up the rankings when their owners focus on unique content, keywords, and link building.

David Hurley

http://grasp-the-nettle.com

Labels: keywords, link building, unique content

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Clickbank products are ideal for online marketers to sell to their opt-in list because they offer such a wide choice of titles and are instantly downloadable. They come with a sales page and as often as not they pay out a very generous affiliate commission. In some cases they even pay you residual income on monthly memberships.

But despite all those benefits, a lot of marketers find sales are still difficult to generate. At the outset many suppose that all they have to do is to insert their affiliate code in a few Clickbank links, place them on their websites and sit back and wait for the sales to come rolling in. While some people with high ranking websites will certainly be making sales directly off their pages, that is not really the best way to go about selling Clickbank products, or anything else, especially if the links are not supported by useful, relevant, well written and original product information.

The main aim of the front page should be to get visitors to sign up to your newsletter via your opt-in form. That will put you in a position to FOLLOW UP on visitors to your website - remember, most sales are made in the follow up.

Now, back to Clickbank and the three-pronged strategy!

First Prong: Know Your Product

Choose a product that matches your niche, offers a good commission and is also well written and presented. Yes, that means you will have to BUY it yourself! Don't forget that you can use your affiliate code to purchase it and award yourself the commission on the product!
Thoroughly familiarize yourself with the product to the point where you feel able to write a thorough, honest and convincing review of it.

Second Prong: Write A Product Review In Three Parts

This is important. Don't just write a single review, post it and forget it. Write your review in THREE parts and send each part as a separate message to your list over the course of 6-9 days.
The aim of the headline of the first message is to create maximum curiosity to encourage a high opening rate. The main copy should create rapport with the customer, induce a sense of familiarity, emphasize the BIG BENEFIT and neutralize scepticism.

Of course, your link through to the product site should be included, but since most of the sales come in the FOLLOW UP you will need to prepare your second and third reviews, each in a different style.

The second message should be in the form of questions and answers about the product, further neutralizing lingering scepticism and encouraging purchase via the link you supply in the body of the letter.

The third message should make use of bullet points to emphasize the benefits to the reader of purchasing and again provide a link for immediately doing so.

If you are not confident at writing your own sales letters yet, you can get five sets (three letters per set) free here.

Third Prong: Whack Your List With A Too-Good-To-Turn-Down Offer

As well as the MAJOR BENEFIT of the product itself, make your readers a BIG OFFER and add a TIME LIMIT to give it an edge of urgency...

Here's what you do. In each of your letters you emphasize how good the product is and how much you want your readers to benefit from it. So much so that you are going to make them a generous offer.

Offer them either a rebate on the retail price. Make it between 75%-100% of your commission. For example, if the product costs $50 and you earn a 50% commission, or $25 per purchase, offer to give them a rebate of between $15 and $25!

What? Am I crazy?

Well, maybe. But notice, I did not say offer your list an instant discount (for which, you'd probably need to use Paypal). I said "offer them a rebate."

...What's the difference?

Well, a discount is given up front. A rebate is awarded post purchase, when the payment comes in from Clickbank.

What you do is provide your purchasers with a link to a rebate form that they print out and post to you with their name, address and the product they purchased and the purchasing code. Explain to your customers that Clickbank takes 45 days to process payments. Ask them to send the form in 45 days after they purchased the product to claim their rebate. You undertake to send them their rebate as soon as you receive your Clickbank cheque.
Simple!

Several things accrue from this.

Firstly, it is unlikely that every customer will follow up on the rebate, so you won't lose all your profit, even if you offered to rebate 100% of your commission.

Secondly, you have converted a number of people on your list into customers. Once people have had a good experience of purchasing through you they will be less resistant to doing so again. You can now sell to them again and again.

Thirdly, when you send them their cheque, you can include some direct mail materials. Of course they will open the letter from you since they know there is a cheque inside, and so they will be much more likely and well disposed to read your printed sales material.

So make them a nice follow-up offer and you stand to recoup your profit all over again!!

David Hurley
http://grasp-the-nettle.com/clickfree.html

Labels: Clickbank sales strategy, follow-up marketing, opt-in list marketing

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If you wish to master the net, then blogging is going to be part of your daily routine. If you have launched your Internet marketing startup but haven't got around to setting up a blog yet, do it now!

Labels: commercial blogging, internet marketing startup, master the net

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You've probably heard the popular saying among Internet and direct marketing experts that "the money is in the list." The problem many an Internet marketing startup faces is how to build a list big enough to begin to profit from it.

Today's guest writer, Patrick Coffey, lifts the lid on how to do exactly that. His article includes some very neat tips and tricks to help you "master the net" by successfully building your own list of qualified prospects, or opt-in subscribers.

So, without further ado, over to you Patrick!

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If you're interested in making money on the Internet, there's one simple skill you absolutely, positively must excel in -

Collecting lists of e-mail addresses for qualified prospects.

Once you can do that (and today I'm going to show you how), you immediately have an incredibly valuable asset: a database of potential customers you can market to, as often as you like, for almost zero cost.

Having an in-house e-mail subscriber list gives you access to an ongoing conversation with people who like and trust you. They have asked you (opted in) to send them specific information that will enhance their life or business in some way.

When someone asks you to send him information on a regular basis, he's much more receptive to your sales pitch or marketing promotion.

Here Are the Top 10 Ways to Build an E-Mail Subscriber List:

1. Purchase advertising in e-mail newsletters, e-zines, discussion lists, and blogs that have a similar audience.

This is typically the last place entrepreneurs will go because of the expense. But you can reach tens of thousands, and even hundreds of thousands, of targeted subscribers instantly for only a few hundred dollars. Publishers are often eager to work with people who pay in advance for advertising.

2. Write articles.

Writing articles that are published to a large targeted audience is a great way to obtain new subscribers. Simply include the URL to your sign-up page at the end of your articles. You can submit your articles to article directories, article announcement lists, and the GoogleBase. Publishers are always looking for articles to run in their e-zines, websites, and newsletters.

3. Submit your e-zine, discussion list, newsletter, or blog into the top search engines and directories.

If you don't have a Web page devoted to your publication and the opt-in process, it won't get crawled by the top engines.

4. Use e-zine announcement lists to promote your e-zine.

E-zine announcement lists give you an easy way to promote your e-zine on an ongoing basis. Most of them are free, but the best ones charge a small fee and reach a much larger, targeted audience. A couple of the better announcement lists are Ezine-Universe, SparkList, and List-A-Day (which is a review site). You can find hundreds of others by searching Google.

5. Swap ads with other e-zine and newsletter publishers.

This usually only works if you have something of value to share. If you have less than 1,000 subscribers on your list, ad swapping won't appeal to most publishers. But you could provide articles, content, research, or some other needed service in exchange for promoting your publication and sign-up page to their audience.

6. Create an e-book and use it as a bonus for subscribing to your publication.

This is one of the most overlooked areas for building an e-mail list. An e-book can be a few pages or up to a couple of hundred pages (or more). But an e-book has a high perceived value - especially if it's written "on demand" or addresses a hot current topic or idea. You can distribute your e-book free of charge across the Internet or on sites like ClickBank, with a view to increasing the size of your subscriber list. Be sure to include your opt-in page URL throughout the e-book.

7. Swap recommendations with other e-zine publishers.

Advertorials are hot! You could recommend another publisher's e-zine in your own words to your subscriber base in exchange for them doing the same for you. This becomes an even greater tool when your subscriber lists are in the tens or hundreds of thousands.

8. Post a sample issue of your e-zine, newsletter, or discussion list on your site or with an autoresponder.

Sample issues are a great way to build subscriber lists. If people like what they see, they'll usually subscribe. You can submit issues of your newsletter to the GoogleBase and other content libraries.

9. Use your signature file to promote your e-zine.

I don't know how effective signature files really are, but almost every publisher uses them. A signature file simply promotes your e-zine on all of your outgoing e-mails. You can also add these files to your posts to discussion lists or online forums.

10. Place free ads in other e-zines.

Many e-zine publishers allow their subscribers to place free promotions in their publications that they feel are of value to other subscribers. Powerful ad copy is a must. Don't waste words. A powerful promise and benefit with a link to your sign-up page usually works fine.

An Insider Secret for Building E-Mail Subscriber Lists Quickly and Easily

Launching a search engine or directory is one of the fastest, easiest, and simplest ways of building an e-mail subscriber list. It's also one of the most closely guarded secrets.
Think about it.

People submit their websites, articles, images, videos, and other information into Internet search engines and directories without hesitation. What's more, people are usually very receptive during the submission process to receive additional information if they think it will help their business or increase traffic to their website.

So it makes perfect sense to offer a newsletter, e-mail bulletin, update, or e-zine that meets this demand.

For example, MS developed a general-interest Internet search engine that excluded adult-oriented websites. He figured that when people submitted their URLs into a search engine, they might be responsive to other methods and tactics to promote their sites. So he launched an e-mail newsletter that’s built around search engine optimization, marketing, tactics, and promotion.

In order to submit your website URL into MS's search engine, you have to agree to a strict privacy policy (which clearly states you will not send spam). Submitters also agree to receive a weekly e-mail newsletter on Internet marketing tactics. At last count, MS had more than 655,000 opt-in subscribers on his list!

Launching a search engine or directory is NOT as hard as it seems. A search engine is simply a website with a database, coupled with some type of searching technology (like Verity). If you research the topic on the Internet, you’ll be amazed at what you’ll find - and how easy it is.
The bottom line is that people are much more receptive to "opt in" to your newsletter or e-zine if you give them something of value - like enabling them to submit their URL or website information in a search engine or directory.

Another insider method for building an e-mail subscriber list is to launch an Internet search engine or directory and provide an opt-in subscription box during the submission process.
Finally, you can purchase opt-in subscriber lists from reputable, established publishers and Internet entrepreneurs. The keywords are "reputable and established." If a publisher has been mailing an e-mail newsletter or e-zine to an opt-in subscriber list on a regular basis for more than two years - in the industry, that would be considered "established."

But a word of warning with regards to buying opt-in subscriber lists: You might want to include an addendum that stipulates mailing to the list for three months before any agreement is final. This will protect you should the majority of the addresses be undeliverable and/or everyone decides to opt out.

There you have it - the best ways to build an e-mail subscriber list quickly and easily.

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[Ed. Note: Join Patrick, Michael Masterson, and an elite team of the nation's leading online marketing experts this October at ETR’s Info Marketing Bootcamp: Making a Fast Fortune on the Information Revolution. Come with an idea for your start-up business or existing business … and leave with a rock-solid marketing plan for transforming that idea into a lasting stream of income.]

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet's most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.

===

David Hurley
http://grasp-the-nettle.com

Labels: email subscriber list, internet marketing startup, master the net

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The focus of many an Internet business startup is on the question of "how" to succeed, how to master the net, how to attract customers and sell to them. Unfortunately, "How" we do something is often emphasized to the exclusion of all else and sometimes the "Why" is completely forgotten, as if the "Why" were less important. That is a huge mistake to make because "why" you want something is the essential prerequisite of any project. "Why" should be primary, "how" secondary. Why is about goals and motivation, how is about strategy and tactics.

Labels: 48 laws of power, definiteness of purpose, inspect what you expect, internet marketing startup, master the net, Robert Greene, think and grow rich, write the vision and make it plain

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For an Internet marketing startup, joining affiliate programs is one of the most common methods of making money online. However, if you are going to master the net through affiliate programs there are some important steps that you'll need to learn.

Labels: affiliate marketing plan, internet marketing startup, master the net

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Anybody who is struggling to "master the net" with an Internet marketing start-up business will do well to learn how to earn from Adsense. By placing Adsense ads on your site you will begin to generate income for your business.
David Hurley
http://grasp-the-nettle.com

Labels: Adsense ads, internet marketing start-up, master the net

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As more and more people come to view the Internet as a medium that offers great business potential for relatively little outlay, and decide to try and master the net, established Internet marketers will have to raise their game if they are to reap the rewards of this growing industry.

How so? Because behind every Internet marketing start-up there is a newcomer to the online game who has access to more training than ever before. It's now possible for someone with no prior knowledge to start up an Internet business and become very savvy very swiftly. This, in turn, means that people quickly recognize what offers true value and what does not. They see so many sales letters that they become, to a certain degree, immune to the typical second-rate hype. They're willing to spend - but they want value for money. They want to be treated like intelligent and discerning adults.

So here's a three-point checklist for all you "wannabe gurus" who are keen master the net sufficiently to divert some of the growing flood of cyber-dollars into your coffers...

1. Why would anybody want to buy into the concept of "you" rather than some other internet marketer?
2. What makes people unsubscribe from your list?
3. And what pushes them into asking for a refund?

What Causes People To Want to Buy?

Well, apart from the usual suspects, fear, envy, lust and greed, it would seem that people seeking to start an online business buy for some other reasons too:

• They buy if they can see that a product will give them new knowledge and understanding.
• They buy if the purchase will speed up business growth.
• They buy if a product will automate a task that eats into their time. (People quickly learn to spend their time on marketing and product creation, rather than repetitive tasks.)

Tip: Once newbies have been exposed to a few sales pages, it's not long before they learn to look beyond the sales hype. They learn to study a sales letter carefully to work out what the product will "really" offer them before clicking the Buy Now button.

They also learn to look for value for money. Some higher-priced products are worth every cent. Some cheaper products add very little to what they already know.

Note: the most effective Internet marketers already realize that if they put together online interviews offering truly valuable information, they are far more likely to attract and keep new customers.

Example: Let us imagine the case of Joe Bloggs, who downloads a free audio interview by on search engine optimization and traffic and is astounded to discover that it contains some
really useful information that had hitherto escaped his notice. He also enjoyed the friendly,
informal style of the guy who presented it, so Joe Bloggs does not object to shelling out a couple of hundred dollars for a complete 30-hour video course...

What Makes People Want to Unsubscribe from a List? Things like:

• Getting four identical emails trying to sell them the same product, just because the incompetent sender hasn't worked out how to shift his subscribers from his prospect list to his customer list after they buy.
• Getting a 'canned' email sounding full of false excitement about a new product or service - which turns out to be a duplicate of the email they get from six other marketers who are affiliates for the same product and exuding the same false sentiments.
• Getting email from a product creator about anything under the sun because you bought XXX product from them. If your customers sign up for a newsletter, they expect mailings full of genuinely useful content.

What Makes People Want to Ask for a Refund?

In the past, buyers tended to shrug and write off a bad purchase. But nowadays people are increasingly less prepared to be bilked out of a their cash. If they feel they have not received value for money, they are increasingly likely to demand a refund, especially in these cases:

• They buy software that doesn't work as it is supposed to.
• They receive CDs and DVDs that don't work on their systems.
• They purchase an e-book that is full of content easily found in an hour's net-surfing, or that is identical to a free version on someone else's site.
• The writer of the e-book they bought has skimped on content or wrote it poorly.
• They download an e-book that not only skimps on content but is full of links to up-sells to get the 'really valuable' information, or is full of affiliate links.

The last case, an e-book full of affiliate links or links to an up-sell...is something you should be giving away free as part of your viral marketing campaign. Except in some special cases, charging for an ebook that is really just an affiliate links directory is to out your reputation for being a source of quality information in jeopardy.

Other things that waste your customer's valuable time include:

• MP3's that are streamed from a website rather than being downloadable.
• e-books that are in ".exe" format only, so the customer can't print them out in one 'hit' (and can't access them on a Macintosh).

So when you give your clients something that they can listen to or read, make sure it is in a format that allows them to take it away from the computer. Most people who work online spend enough hours a day at the keyboard already. They'd rather load an audio interview into their MP3 players and listen while they go for a walk or relax in the sun. They'd prefer to print out an e-book and read it or mark it up while sitting in an easy chair.

And finally, about those "name squeeze" pages. People are very quickly getting tired of having to give up their email addresses just to get to a sales page. Do you want them to buy or not?
These days, unless there's a huge buzz around the Net and they want to see what it's all about, prospective customers are just as likely to click the 'back' button on their browser, or close
the window and leave.

After all, there's always another internet marketer waiting to sell them a product. Probably one very similar to yours.

Marketers who respect their client's time and intelligence, and offer them well presented unique and good quality content are the ones who will win the loyalty of Internet marketing start-ups - and if you are one of those marketers, the newbies behind each start-up will be happy to pay you to help them master the web.

Labels: Internet business start-up, internet marketing start-up, master the net, master the web

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