Introduction

Video is the way of the future- period. Even though written content isn’t going away, people LOVE the being able to watch a video.

Just look at the mega-giant YouTube. Every day thousands and thousands of videos get uploaded.

Or look at Netflix- millions of people stream movies and television shows from them every single day.

Video is huge, it keeps growing, and it’s here to stay. That’s why you need to jump on it NOW.

How do you do that? First let’s talk about finding a niche.

Finding Your Niche

Let’s face it- this is covered in just about every internet marketing course out there, so I won’t go too far in depth here.

Basically, you have 3 options to choose from:

1)    A niche that you personally know and love

2)    A huge evergreen market (health, wealth, relationships)

3)    A small niche that you can dominate

Each has its advantages and disadvantages. For example, you’ll have a lot more fun promoting products within a niche that you love. If you love World of Warcraft (like I do…), you can probably make great videos about it all day long and not get bored.

On the other hand, WoW will eventually die off. Meanwhile, a huge market like weight loss will NEVER go away. In fact, it gets bigger every day!

A small niche that you can dominate might be something like helping college girls lose water weight within 2 weeks for spring break or something.

Just make sure that whatever market or niche you get into that people are spending lots of money!

Here are just a few examples to consider-

• Investing
• Weight loss
• Embarrassing illnesses (gout, Chlamydia, etc.)
• How to pick up women/guys
• How to repair a marriage
• Build muscle
• Massive Multiplayer Online Games (World of Warcraft, Rift, Star Wars The Old Republic)
• Computer repair
• Make money online

Again, all of these can even get broken down. For example the make money online market can be broken into affiliate marketing, video marketing, product creation, list building- all kinds of stuff!

**HINT** I personally think that the best niche for video is computer games. Millions of gamers log onto YouTube every day for tips, tricks, strategies, and walkthroughs for popular games.

And since the computer game industry is worth billions of dollars, it’s a HUGE market that isn’t going away anytime soon.

Once you’ve chosen a niche, it’s time to do research into people’s problems within that niche.

Niche Research

How do you find out the problems that your potential clients have? Hang out where they hang out. Read what they read. Watch what they watch.

For example, you can go to related forums. This is where they not only hang out for fun, but also help each other out.

Go to related YouTube channels. See what your competition is doing.

Look for related Facebook groups.

Check out blogs that are devoted to the subject. You’d be surprised at how many niche blogs are out there!

For an example, let’s say that you’ve chosen the Rift niche. This is a huge computer game that has over a million players.

First, check out the game’s main website. Do this by going to Google and search for “Rift game”. Look around, figure out the main idea of the game, and just learn.

Now, go to YouTube. Use the search function to look for something like “Rift game strategies”, or “Rift game tips”. These will bring up videos to watch and help you understand the game even better.

To find forums, go into Google and search for “Rift forums”. You’ll find a few that you can check out to learn more about the game. People will be asking each other questions and providing answers based on their own experiences.

Look on Facebook for a Rift group (or several). Join any of the ones that you find- chances are they’ll have regular updates, screenshots, and more about the game.

Do you see what you’re doing?

You want to think how your potential clients think! You should be asking yourself the same kinds of questions, and then finding the answers on YouTube and forums.

Without knowing the problems that people have, how can you expect to help solve those problems for them?

Once you’ve learned a lot about your market- including the problems they have and how to solve them (aka the product you’re promoting), it’s time to find some good keywords.

Keyword Research

The good news about keyword research is that if you’ve already done niche research, you’re almost done!

What you’ll find is that a lot of the keywords people are typing into Google and YouTube are about helping them with their problems.

For example, let’s talk more about the Rift computer game. In that game, one of the character classes is called a Mage. You would have learned about this (as well as other game terminology) when you started your niche research.

If you go into the Google Keyword tool and enter “Rift mage”, a lot of relevant results will come up:

As you can see, a lot of them pertain to tips, PVP tips, and builds. These are going to be good keywords to target, so they will ultimately be the titles of your videos.

They also give you a good idea on what to make your videos about. You can make one video on Mage PVP builds, another on Mage PVE builds, etc.

These keywords that people search for will also be the tags you use for your video. Tags help YouTube identify what the video is about, so you want lots of relevant tags in there.

Besides just video titles, these keywords will also be used to help you determine article titles. When you start submitting articles to sites like ArticlesBase, Scribd and Squidoo, the better your keywords, the more targeted traffic you’ll get.

Once you’ve got your keywords, let’s go set up your website.

Setting Up Your Website

How you set up your website depends on what you’re trying to do.

Are you promoting a product as an affiliate? If so, buy your own domain, put it on your own hosting account, and then build a squeeze page to build a list.

Are you trying to promote your own product? If so then your video is going to ultimately point to either your sales page or a squeeze page.

Are you just trying to brand yourself? Maybe you’ll just set up a blog, and have your videos point readers to your blog.

Whatever you’re trying to do, I HIGHLY recommend not using free websites like Weebly.com or Blogger.com. Instead, purchase a domain and put it on a hosting account like HostGator or BlueHost.

Then, install WordPress, the blogging platform. WordPress is EXTREMELY flexible and easy to use, and you can do just about anything with it! Squeeze pages, sales pages, blogs- and everything in between.

The reason I recommend doing this over using free websites is simple- you have control. If you build up your business on a free service like Blogger, they can shut down your entire business anytime they feel like it!

Make sense?

Okay- so let’s get into the video side of the report- creating, uploading, and marketing your videos.

Creating Your Video

There are 3 basic ways to put together a good video. Which one you choose is up to you, and you may find that one method works better for your niche than the others.

The 3 main methods are

1)    Screen capture videos (with someone narrating)

2)    Slideshow videos (with music- no narration)

3)    Webcam videos

Let’s start with screen capture videos.

Screen Capture Videos

This type of video is probably the most common among internet marketers. You basically just record what is being shown on your computer monitors and narrate what you are looking at.

For example, most marketers will create a PowerPoint presentation and go through it on camera. Each slide will have some text and photos, and the narrator explains in depth what is being discussed.

Here is an old- but still applicable- video showing you how this works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kiug3H3c4gk

One great way to make these videos is to basically just copy-paste an article into a slideshow presentation. Try to keep it to less than 50 words per slide.  Then you basically read the slide to the viewer.

If you really know the content, you can also just make short bullet statements in the slides. You then explain each bullet statement in detail so the viewer understands what the slide is talking about.

To record these videos, you’ll need 2 things: a microphone and a screen recording program.

For the program, I HIGHLY recommend Camtasia. It’s by far the best product I’ve used- which is why it’s a bit expensive.

If you don’t have the funds to invest right now, consider CamStudio. It’s absolutely free, but I don’t think the quality is as good as Camtasia.

For your microphone, you basically just need any mic that can plug into your computer. One marketer I know uses a Turtle Beach headset used for gaming. Personally I have a $30 headset and microphone combo that works just fine.

If you don’t mind narrating the video, this is the method I personally recommend.

Now let’s look at a slideshow video.

Slideshow Videos

With this method, you aren’t going to be narrating anything. This is basically just a few related images or PowerPoint slides related to your niche.

There’s a great sample for what this can look like on Animoto.com

There are a few ways to do these, but I’ve always used Animoto.com. They have a free service, so that’s a good way to start.

Here’s how this process works:

1)    Create the PowerPoint slides or download photos you’re using

2)    Turn the PowerPoint slides into images

3)    Upload them to Animoto.com

4)    Move them around into the order you want

5)    Add music from Animoto’s selection

That’s it! Realize that it will take a few minutes for Animoto to create the video, but your part doesn’t take much time at all.

Another good website to use is Video Hive. Here you can purchase video templates, and all you have to do is edit the template to say what you want. Personally I think that this is a better way to go than Animoto, but it does require an investment for each video template.

Either way- when you make slideshow videos, make sure your last slide has your domain name on there. Have that last slide play for a few seconds before the video cuts off, to make sure that they see and remember it.

Also- try not to just throw up a bunch of poor, unrelated images. Animoto lets you throw in “Text” slides, where you can describe the last photograph, introduce the next photo, crack a joke, share a tip, etc.

Change it up- don’t let your viewer get bored!

Now let’s look at the last type of video- webcam vids.

Webcam Videos

The idea here is pretty simple. You turn on your webcam, talk to it for a few minutes about your topic, then turn it off.

Here’s one example made by a girl that does a lot of webcam videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJTNCSdTFRc

This is a good way to go for some reasons, but generally I think the other 2 methods are better. The main reason you want to use a webcam is to help people get to know who you are. If you are trying to brand yourself as an expert, webcams are the perfect way to do that…

As long as you do it right.

Most people, however, have no idea what they’re doing. Getting good at talking to a webcam takes practice. You have to know exactly what you’re saying, keep looking straight at the camera, have good lighting, etc.

If you’re going to do this, consider making a few practice videos first. Record, watch, see what you did wrong, fix it, and repeat.

Keep recording new videos until you get it right! It won’t be perfect, but you want something that’s pretty good.

This is actually good advice for every kind of video, but it’s especially important for this “talking head” method.

Uploading Your Video

Yup- making your video is only step one! Now you have to start uploading your video and creating your channels.

The best place to start is simple- YouTube.com. As long as your video isn’t scammy or spammy looking or linking directly to an affiliate link, YouTube is likely to approve it.

**Be aware that make-money-online type of videos aren’t always liked by YouTube**

Here’s the basic steps that you’re going to take

1)    Sign up for YouTube.com

2)    Create a YouTube channel

3)    Upload your videos

1. Use niche-related keywords as the title of your video
2. Enter keywords related to the video as tags
3. Write a description that explains what the video is about

That’s it!

Now remember that you’re using this to drive traffic to your domain, right? To do that, you want to have your URL in the video itself AND in the description. Note that if you put the link at the beginning of your description, YouTube automatically turns it into a hyperlink.

All done with YouTube? Great!

Now it’s time to upload your video to other websites. Even though YouTube is king, there are a number of other sites that also get TONS of traffic every day. By uploading your video to all of them, you’re increasing your exposure. This means more eyeballs on your videos, giving you more traffic to your website, and hopefully more sales!

Here are a few of the best sites to upload your video to:

• Vimeo
• Viddler
• Daily Motion
• Blip.tv
• Yahoo Video

There are tons more, but this just helps you get started.

Note that uploading your videos manually will get old REALLY fast. Instead, I highly recommend that you do one of 2 things:

1)    Hire someone on Fiverr to do it for you, or

2)    Use Traffic Geyser or SENuke (automated software) and upload to lots of sites at once

I know that both of these methods cost money, but the alternative is spending a TON of your own time doing it!

Personally, I think Traffic Geyser is the very best option, but outsourcing via Fiverr is a cheaper alternative until you start making more money.

Marketing Your Video

So far you’ve got your video created and uploaded to YouTube. You also created your own channel that visitors can subscribe to- not too shabby!

The next step is to start marketing your video. Even though some people will find your video through YouTube’s search function, you want to get it in front of eyeballs 10 times faster.

The faster you get people viewing your video, the higher it will show up in YouTube’s search engine.

So how do you do that? Basically some of the same ways you would market any website.

You have 2 main options- free or paid advertising. I recommend free at first, because you aren’t sure if people will click from your video to your domain name yet. If people are coming to your domain, maybe then you can think about paid advertising.

For free methods, here are a few basic ones to consider.

Forums

Niche forums have been a great way to drive traffic for years. Even though many of them don’t allow signature links, there are still plenty out there that do.

The first step here is to find a forum within your niche. A good way to do that is to simply type in Google “(your niche) + forums”, or you can check out Big-Boards.com and search there.

The key with forums is to really be a part of the community. Help people out, make some jokes, and have a good time. Meet new friends and build some trust, so that people start to know you.

As that starts picking up, put a link in your signature to your video. Have a good call to action, saying something like “My favorite 5 tips on how to [solve your niche’s problem]”.

So if you’re in the weight loss niche and your video was on 5 fat burning foods, your signature might say “Check out my top 5 fat burning foods”.

The key is to make sure people want to click your sig. If they don’t click, you don’t get traffic!

Document Sharing Sites

These are VERY powerful sites where you turn an article into a PDF and upload it to this site. Each PDF uploaded here can drive a ton of traffic to your video.

How do you get those articles? You can either write them yourself or pay someone else to write them for you. If you want to hire someone to hire them for you, here are a few places to look for good writers:

• Warriors for Hire section of the Warrior Forum
• Elance.com
• Guru.com
• Craigslist.com
• Odesk.com

The key is to provide quality, short articles with a call to action at the end.

Also, make sure that when you turn your article into a PDF, you create a link to your video within the PDF. Unlike the article directories, you don’t get a resource box to put your video’s link.

Here’s a list of a few of the biggest ones:

• Scribd.com
• Docstoc.com
• SlideShare.net
• CrocoDoc.com
• Issuu.com
• Docshare.com
• MyPlick.com

Believe it or not, even 6 and 7 figure marketers still use these sites!

Web 2.0 Sites

There is one more type of site where you can submit your articles to drive traffic- Web 2.0 sites. This includes sites like HubPages and Squidoo.

Technically, sites like YouTube and Blogger are often called Web 2.0 sites. But I’m talking about a different kind- Web 2.0 sites that let you post articles.

Even though these sites have cracked down on marketers over the years, you can still do very well with them. The key is to provide quality content and not do anything against their Terms of Service.

Here’s how it works with these sites:

1)    Sign up

2)    Create your profile (making you an expert in the niche)

3)    Create new hubs (HubPages), lenses (Squidoo), or others

1. Use niche keywords as the title
2. Use your article as the content
3. Add modules to make it more interesting
4. Embed your video so they don’t have to directly go to YouTube
5. Include links to your own website

Again, the key here is to provide quality, helpful content. A lot of people have spammed these sites, which then gets their accounts banned.

In addition to HubPages and Squidoo, a few other sites to use are

• WordPress.com
• Tumblr.com
• TypePad.com
• Weebly.com

The more you sign up for an use, the more traffic you’re going to get to your video and website.

Social Media

Websites like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Pinterest, and Stumbleupon are GREAT for marketers.

Not only can they help you get direct traffic to your website, but also to your video.

In fact- if you want your video to get a ton of views, social media is going to be your bet.

The trick here is to get your video in front of people on Facebook who’d be interested. For example if your video is in the World of Warcraft niche, become friends with WoW players and share the video with them.

Then get onto Stumbleupon and “Stumble” a few other WoW sites. As people notice that you love WoW, they’ll start to follow whatever you stumble. Then when you stumble your own video, they’ll check it out for themselves.

Remember with social media that NOBODY is going on Facebook or Reddit to be marketed to! They’re trying to have a good time, maybe watch some funny videos and hang out with friends.

Don’t be salesy, just act cool and share with them your sweet video.

Blog Comments

Even though blog comments are often abused, they still work REALLY well. If you are contributing to the conversation and leaving a good comment, people will click through to your video.

So if your video is on weight loss, comment on weight loss and fitness blogs. Again, leave good and thoughtful comments on each post.

If your video is on World of Warcraft, hang out on gamers’ blogs. Technology blogs can work okay here too, as a lot of people who love technology also play video/computer games.

What is a thoughtful blog comment? First off, it should be on-topic. Talk about specifics found within the post that you’re commenting on. Don’t just put “Great post”, or even something like “That is very thought-provoking. Thank you for that great post.” Even though that second one sounds good, it’s not contributing ANYTHING to the discussion.

Now let’s talk about another great way to market your video- your YouTube channel.

Creating and Marketing Your YouTube Channel

If you’ve hung out on video sharing sites like YouTube, you’ve probably seen people comment on videos about their own channels.

For example, they will comment on someone else’s video and say “This is great! I actually just posted a very similar video on my channel- go check it out.”

Even though this seems silly, IT WORKS.

Because you are participating in a discussion with people already watching that kind of video, you can get a TON of traffic to your channel this way.

And since you have a channel (and not sure a bunch of unrelated videos unattached to each other), they may end up watching all of your videos in a very short period of time.

The more videos you have, the longer you’ll keep people on your channel. The longer they stay, the more they’ll like and trust you. The more they like and trust you, the greater the chances that they’ll come to your website!

Just like email marketing, the key to video marketing is to build relationships. Having a quality channel with quality videos is the best way to do that.

Also, make sure that you interact with your visitors. When they leave comments, reply to them! You don’t have to reply to every single one, but be a part of the discussion.

Remember there that you’re trying to build a brand. Don’t just put together a few low quality videos. Instead, put together good, helpful stuff and really try to help the people in your niche. Only then will you start to see the money flow into your bank account like clockwork.

Conclusion

Video marketing is extremely, extremely powerful. Even though it has been around for a few years now, most marketers are not utilizing it nearly as much as they should be!

Driving traffic with video marketing isn’t complicated, either. When it boils down to it, here’s all you have to do:

1)    Find a niche

2)    Do your research

3)    Find an offer

4)    Set up your site

5)    Create your videos

6)    Upload your videos

7)    Market your videos

That’s it! And chances are, the first 3-4 steps are steps that you have already done, right?

The key from here is to actually follow through with the steps. Maybe you can do one step for day. That way within one week you could be making money.

Good luck, take action, and make some money!

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Andre W. Klein’s
High Performance Academy REVIEW
& High Performance Academy BONUS

Latest news! What will you get with Brendon Burchards High Performance Academy?

The main offer is the “High Performance Academy 5-Week Online Master’s Course and Coaching Program.” This is all-new, never-been-released advanced training is arguably the world’s most comprehensive personal achievement and social influence program. It includes 5 modules of video training, released one module per week in our online member’s area, with a LIVE group coaching call with me at the end of each week.

The modules are focused on training advanced concepts in psychology, physiology, productivity, and persuasion that will help people reach their highest levels of personal achievement and social influence.

1. BONUS #1: HIGH PERFORMANCE ACADEMY’S DVD CORE COURSE ($997 Value). Never-been-released core training on the how multi-millionaires and the most accomplished people in the world think, act, and influence.
2. BONUS #2: FREE 12 MONTHS OF HIGH PERFORMANCE MONTHLY TRAINING ($804 Value). Monthly training following the 5-week Master’s course.
3. BONUS #3: TWO FREE TICKET TO HIGH PERFORMANCE ACADEMY LIVE SEMINAR! ($997 Value)
   LAST MINUTE NOTE!… In case you are late or ONLY would like to go the the 3-days HPA LIVE event, I am reselling my TWO entries  for $400 each. Outside this launch they go for $997 each!  Simply email your request to akleines2 [AT] gmail.com. First come first served You can see below that I DID purchase my own copy, but I live in Spain and won’t go to the US.
4. BONUS #4: $5,000 value – Business Accelerator Crash Course
5. BONUS #5: $5,000 value – INFLUENCE course on advanced sales, negotiation and leadership
6. BONUS #6: Invaluable - 12-month Ask Brendon Anything Forum (message Brendon anytime in the online member’s area)

ONLY $997! or 3 x $399

30-DAY MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE.

I got my copy already! and here comes the proof…

The following is taken from the High Performance Academy OFFICIAL SITE.

The pre-launch begins on May first, and as always, he will be giving away top notch training videos closely related to his High Performance Academy coaching program. These videos, are unlike others, 90% pure content, at least the first three, and the last is the detailed presentation of the High Performance Academy program itself .  So even if you don’t watch the last video, you should take the chance to discover the content-rich first FREE three videos. Why does Brendon give this away for free?? Very simple,  to prove the quality of his training. Well, he has to do so, because his products are usually on the high-end price range.

 If you don’t know Brendon Burchard, you may have heard of his very successful “Experts Academy Elite Coaching Program“, which is already in its third edition. I am an Experts Academy customer, you can read more about it my Experts Academy Review page. I can’t write a  High Performance Academy review yet, but if this program is like his other “stuff”, then it will be outstanding and worth the investment.

Brendon is also the author of the New York Times bestselling Book “The Millionaire Messenger” and his first book was titled “Life’s Golden Ticket”, and guess what; I’ve read them both. They are completely different and I like them each in its own way, although, as “The Millionaire Messenger” is really a small subset of the Experts Academy Elite Coaching program, there was nothing new for me learn, but it outlines some of the most important aspects of the Expert Academy, reason why it’s handy to have it on my shelf, just left of me.

“Life’s Golden Ticket” has nothing to do with learning to writing a book, speak on stage, coach others or sell online courses based on knowledge. I’ts a nice written and entertaining novel that makes you think rethink some important aspects of your life, like why you live, who should you care about and how you can make a difference in yours and other peoples live’s.

Experts Academy Reviews  & Testimonials

Who can give us a better about the Expert Academy that REAL users. Let’s listen to their testimonials, and specifically to what Frank Kern has to say…

. _ .

 Now lets get back to the High Performance Academy program. Brendon will also be launching his new Book. He hasn’t revealed the title yet, but it is all about high performance and the 10 human drives that make us feel alive, and it ties perfectly into the High Performance Academy brand and back-end.

As you may have already realized, I must admit that I admire Brendon, and would call myself a one of his Fans. He is a very bright and real nice guy. In any case, I’m known to only say what I think and vouch only for people and products that I know or even use myself, so I will do my very best to be unbiased. And what is the best way to do it, let Brendon Burchard speak to you.

Sustaining High Performance – A High Performance Academy Sneak Preview

Click here to view the embedded video.

 For the ones that have problems following the video (this guy speaks like a machine gun) or simply want to read again what Brendon says bout the High Performance Academy, following the transcript, I made for you

I hope you enjoyed “Sustaining High Performance” Video. As soon as I get to see some more I will post a few of them too. I had a sneak preview of some of the pre-sales videos when Brendon “beta tested” the High Performance Academy (monthly) program with a limited number of people. I was not among the users, though, but I will let you know as soon as I get some more information. If this was a video that was part of the sales process, imagine how the REAL training must be like!  In the meantime, see this…

The Charge – Brendon Burchard’s High Performance Seminars – Testimonials

Click here to view the embedded video.

Transcripts of the High Performance Academy Life Seminar testimonials

. _ .

For now, let me summarize what Brendon wrote himself about his High Performance Academy. He sent this to all his affiliates, and believe me, that must be hundreds, if not thousands, and some of them are among the “cream of the cream” in Self-development, Coaching and Internet Marketing arena.

Although I’m on his list as affiliate, just because I am a Experts Academy Elite Coaching Program member, I have never made a dime promoting it; mainly due to the fact that don’t have a big contact list, and can’t spend too much time on it. O.K., let’s get started and see what Brendon wrote to his affiliates…

_._

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Select Your Topic

1. Keyword research and competition analysis
2. Select your keyword
3. What’s your hook?

Write Your Post

4. Research your topic
5. Create an outline
6. Write your post
7. Add a P.S. and call-to-action
8. Edit your post

Before you publish

9. Check for keyword placement and density
10. Spell check and review for grammar
11. Add an image with keyword in alt tag
12. Check all links to make sure they work
13. Write SEO title (title tag with keyword)
14. Write SEO description (description tag with keyword)
15. Set featured image if theme allows
16. Select appropriate category
17. Assign post tags
18. Schedule post or publish immediately

After you publish

19. Share on Twitter
20. Share on Facebook (page and/or profile)
21. Share on Google+
22. Share on LinkedIn (if relevant)
23. Publish excerpt to Tumblr, Posterous or other Web 2.0 platforms
24. Tell your email list about the post and ask them to share it
25. Bookmark on main social bookmarking sites (Stumbleupon, Delicious, Digg, etc.)
26. Comment on blogs with related topics (preferably Commentluv blogs where post will appear below your comment)
27. Comment in forums with related topics
28. Answers related comments in Q&A sites with link to post
29. Distribute to key article directories (rewrite it a bit first)

Repurpose your post

• Record yourself speaking the post and distribute on podcasting distribution sites
• Create slides with key points and share on Slideshare
• Record yourself talking about each point on your slides, using the article as script. Convert to video and distribute on video distribution sites (e.g., YouTube and Vimeo)
• Convert the article to a pdf and distribute on pdf distribution sites (e.g., Scribd)
• Keep it in a file for inclusion in a future report or ebook. Once you have several articles on different parts of the same topic, put it together into a report and use it to build your list, distribute to your affiliates, make rebrandable and share, etc.

Have you ever searched for a specific local business online, only to find listings on other people’s sites? It’s hard to believe, but there are still quite a few brick and mortar businesses that haven’t created their own website yet. Without a website, businesses have no presence online. But it’s not just about keeping up with all the other local businesses. There are huge profit and customer relationship benefits as well.

Consistent visibility

Even though local businesses are offline, their customers are online. By only being visible when customers walk down the street or drive by, these businesses are invisible the rest of the time. However, people spend a huge amount of time online, whether it is on their computer, smart phone, laptop or tablet. They search for information online, not by driving down the street.

Communicating with Customers Regularly

A website gives the business owner a venue for collecting email addresses, which in turn is a vehicle for communication. Most people still check their email regularly. Instead of spending money on print advertising, it’s much cheaper to send customers special offers and discounts via email. At the same time, email can be used to build a relationship with customers by offering other tips and advice.

Build Your Online Brand Awareness

Your website is completely under your control, so businesses can use it to create and promote their brand image. Everything from the design of the site to the content and interaction that occurs there builds the image that you want the world to see. You can use it as a kind of dynamic billboard which the whole world can see and interact with.

Demonstrate Social Proof

People make purchasing decisions based on recommendations more than any other factor. By including testimonials from customers, businesses can offer the proof that prospective buyers need. Ratings and reviews are another way to help people make purchasing decisions, though they are more difficult to control.

Go Global

As a local business, you have a very limited prospect and customer base. However, once a business goes online, the potential for more sales is only limited by the logistics of shipping. And international delivery rates are cheaper than ever, so that’s not an excuse! In fact, some websites, like Etsy, have made it feasible for even the smallest individual business owner to give the whole world access to their products.

While it’s certainly possible to survive purely as a local business, the potential to grow and prosper is far greater when you have a website also. It’s just a matter of being visible to customers and prospects in the place they spend much of their time, while opening up your business to a whole new market.

Many businesses are not taking full benefit of Facebook’s cover page and timeline features. However, there is more opportunity there to drive more traffic to your website than ever before. Instead of just doing your regular status updates, try using some of these tips to give your page a boost in both traffic and image.

1. Change your cover photo often

Each time you change your cover, an update appears in your timeline. Your followers see that in their newsfeed and are more likely to click it to see what has changed. If you keep your images interesting they’ll be eager to see what’s new. Some ideas include sharing images from customers, collages of products, a funny photo, or a dramatic representation. Think about it. Some people go daily to the Google search page just to see how they’ve redesigned the Google image for that day. Also, the more you show up in their newsfeed, the more likely they are to visit your page.

2. Use the “pin-to-top” feature regularly

You can pin your most important posts to the top of your timeline every day. Whenever you have a special offer or event you want to promote, make sure you have it pinned at the top where visitors can see it.

3. Share images as much as possible

Statistics show that people share images more than text. Try using a mix of your own images and those from other interesting sites. Ask customers to upload or share their own as well. You could even have a contest where followers upload their favorite product images and see who gets the most likes.

4. Add items to your historical timeline periodically

Every time you add an event to your historical timeline those updates will also show up in followerss news feeds. Just don’t update your history all at once and flood their feeds. They won’t thank you for it and may just “unlike” you.

5. Avoid using third-party publishing platforms for your posting

With some of these outside posting services, the share button will not show up on your post. That defeats the whole point of using a social network! It’s okay to post a few things automatically, but do the bulk of it directly on Facebook

If you’re not making the most of Facebook’s Timeline at the moment, consider using some of these tips to drive more traffic to your page and ultimately to your site. At the very least, make sure you update your cover image!

Using social media to promote your business is rarely effective without some type of organized, deliberate strategy. Short term, haphazard approaches just use up valuable time. You need to make it a specific part of your marketing plans by designing long-term campaigns with concrete goals.

Here are a few tips for running a social media campaign that will be effective at impacting the success of your business.

Tip #1: Set short and long range goals

What do you want to accomplish with your social media marketing? Each social network can help you achieve different goals, so it’s important to identify these before you go a step further. You should have separate goals for the short term and long term. 

When you set your goals, make sure they are measurable in terms of the return on your investment (ROI). A social media campaign isn’t about gaining a certain number of followers on Facebook. It should involve metrics around building your business, such as the number of people who visit your site from your Facebook page and then go on to buy something.

Tip #2: Choose the right network for your needs

Just because everyone else is focusing on building a Facebook page doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best venue for achieving your business goals. Look at the strengths and weaknesses of each one and decide which to concentrate on. Your customers may not even be hanging out on Facebook!

Use dedicated social media management tools for tracking the results you get from each network. Then you’ll be able to make an informed decision on which is giving you the best bang for your buck. Be sure to measure the time you are spending on each one as part of your tracking efforts.

Tip #3: Assign responsibility for social media management

Make it clear who is responsible for each network and campaign. If you are part of a large company, you may have multiple people responsible for your social media. Each person needs to know what the other is doing as part of your overall strategy. At the same time, you should always be keeping abreast of new developments in the field of social media and on each network.

Tip #4: Create a blueprint of your strategy

An effective social media campaign requires a clear map that details every step. Lay out your goals and strategy first. Determine the key measures you will use along with the different phases of the campaign. What are the exact steps that need to be implemented? What content will you need? Set up your timeline and share the entire blueprint with everyone involved.

Social media may have started out as a fun way to share with friends, but it is now a powerful marketing tool that should be treated as such. While it can still be confusing for businesses that have relied on traditional marketing in the past, using social media to successfully promote your business doesn’t have to be any more complicated. Just use the same structured approach you would use for any marketing campaign.

Whether you are an internet marketer or an offline business going online, you are going to hear about search engine optimization (SEO) very early on. SEO is the term online marketers use to refer to the process of getting as much traffic as possible from search engines like Google. It can be confusing to try to understand this new foreign language that everyone online seems to feel so comfortable with. So rather than struggling to translate everything, learn a few of the basic terms to give yourself a head start.

Here are some of the most common SEO terms that you’ll hear.

SERPS: This stands for “search engine results pages”. These are the pages you see after you type in a search phrase into Google or other search engines. They’re the results of your search. For anyone with a business online, your goal is to be as high up in the SERPS as possible for any search phrases associated with your business.

Meta tags: Meta tags are words that appear in the html code for a page, but do not appear on the page itself. They tell search engines specific information about that page. The most common meta tags are for description (of the page), keywords, and author.

Title tags: These are the words that appear in the tab or bar at the very top of your web browser. They are the “title” of the page that a user will see when they look at the top of their browser.

Alt image tags: The alt image tag provides the “alternative text” for an image. Since search engines can’t read an image, you should always provide some text that describes the image as well. It will show up if the image can’t be displayed and will also show if someone mouses over it.

Hyperlinks: A hyperlink is simply a link you can click on that connects one place to another either on the web or even within a document, such as a slide show. Hyperlinks can be attached to text or images.

Anchor text: This is the clickable text in a hyperlink. Marketers typically use keywords that describe the linked page as their anchor text, which can help in ranking higher in the SERPS.

Internal links: These are links from one page on a site or domain to another. The opposite is an “external link” which involves linking to a page on another website. Both types of links are important for SEO.

Longtail keywords: A longtail keyword is a search phrase that consists of 2 or more words. Usually, the longer the keyword phrase the more specific the information is that the searcher is looking for. In general, it is easier to rank for a longtail keyword since it will have less competition.

Keyword density: Keyword density is a measure of how many times a specific keyword appears on a page in relation to the number of words on the page. If the keyword density is a high percentage, it can be a warning sign to Google that the page is low quality or spam.

Organic traffic: The free traffic you get naturally from search engines and other directory listings is referred to as organic traffic. The opposite is paid traffic, such as the people who arrive at your site by clicking on one of your ads on another site.

Spider: Also referred to as a “crawler” or “robot”, spiders are software programs that the search engines use for locating and indexing all the pages and websites on the internet. Spiders follow links from one page to another and will revisit sites, indexing new pages as it goes.

There are many more SEO terms that you’ll hear as you learn more about getting traffic from search engines. Don’t be afraid to ask for definitions and explanations of a term you don’t understand. Even the most seasoned internet marketer comes across terms they are unfamiliar with. It’s all part of the learning process for getting more traffic.

Is it too late to tap all the profit potential of consulting to offline businesses? It seems that all your local businesses have started putting up their own websites. But if you scroll through your local business listings and see a lot of the entries have websites, that doesn’t mean they don’t need you. Offline marketers are in demand more than ever as local brick and mortar stores and small services businesses try to increase their online marketing.

Here are a few of the services that you can offer, even if the offline business has their own website already.

Website redesign

Some businesses have either created their websites themselves or had a friend do it, with less than professional results. Review the look and feel of local websites and see where you can help improve it. That might be through a more beautiful design, better navigation, better sales copy, or many other ways that could impact their customers’ experience.

On-page SEO and traffic

Chances are, if they did not have an experienced professional do their site, the local businesses on-page SEO may not be up to your high standards. They may not have analyzed their traffic and rankings at all, so the owners may not realize this. In fact, most local business owners have no idea what the term SEO stands for. You can help educate them on how to optimize their site and offer your services in doing keyword research and on-page optimization for those keywords.

Off-page SEO

There are a multitude of SEO services out there inundating business websites’ email inboxes every day. A large portion of these solicitations sound like spam or shady characters that a local business owner wouldn’t trust. As an offline marketer, you have a huge opportunity to help businesses increase their search engine rankings. By forming a more personal, face-to-face relationship you’ll have an edge over those impersonal emails from faceless marketers.

Social media management

Helping an offline business build their reputation and presence online through social media is a specialty all on its own. The world of social media is getting more overwhelming to navigate every day. And that’s just from an internet marketer’s point of view! Imagine how the local business owner feels trying to figure out how to benefit from all that social networking. They need someone who can chart the waters for them, advise them on where to be active, and manage the metrics to see how they’re benefiting.

Fresh website content

An offline business owner needs to focus their time on managing and marketing their business. Adding content to their website or blog is an extra bit of pressure that they rarely have time for. You can help relieve that stress and boost their online presence at the same time by providing content-writing and publishing services. And it’s even something you can outsource yourself so you can spend time helping other local businesses at the same time!

It’s unlikely that any business website has maximized their potential to the point that they can’t use the services of an expert internet marketer. You can capitalize on the ever-present need by identifying your own strengths. Then look at the local business websites in your area to see who you can help.

Getting traffic to your website isn’t just about building links and ranking in the search engines. That’s just one source of potential customers. Social media is the next source that most people consider and that’s definitely a way to increase your reach. The truth is that the more visible you are online, the more traffic you will get. That’s why guest posting on other people’s blogs can increase the traffic to your own site exponentially.

How does guest posting work?

When you write an article for another website, all the people who visit that site will see what you’ve written. If it’s well written and engaging they will read the entire article and see the author box which gets included at the end of every guest post. If they enjoyed your article, they may then click on one of the links you’ve included in your bio. That’s where your traffic comes from. And this is traffic that wouldn’t necessarily have found you in any other way.

In addition, if you can create a conversation by encouraging people to comment on your guest post, you can increase traffic even more. Readers start to make a connection with you through the comments and want to learn more by clicking on your avatar that links to your site.

4 Keys to getting traffic from guest posts

1. Write quality posts on relevant topics. You should always be presenting your best quality writing anywhere you post. However, when you write for another person’s blog you also need to choose topics that are highly relevant to their readers (as well to your own market). They won’t read your article if it’s not relevant to them and the guest blog owner may not want to publish it otherwise.
2. Select sites whose readers are your target market. Choose the places you guest post carefully to make the most of your efforts. Find ones that get a decent amount of traffic from people that you are trying to attract as customers. Gaining highly targeted traffic is one of the biggest benefits of guest posting.
3. Always keep track of comments. As soon as you know the post has been published, subscribe to the comments so that you’ll be able to respond. Whenever someone makes a comment, be sure to leave your own response right away. They will appreciate it and often click through on your link.
4. Write a tempting bio box. There’s no point writing an amazing guest post just to have a boring author bio at the end that leads to nowhere. Write a few words about yourself and then invite readers to click on a specific link for something, such as a special offer, report, free giveaway, etc.

What to write in your guest post

Here are just a few ideas for topics you can write a guest post on:

• Create an FAQ about a topic related to your industry
• Describe the most common mistakes people make in your market
• Share your own experience with a relevant tool or tactic
• Do a Top Ten list of best practices for success in your market
• Write a “how to” tutorial on a topic that typically challenges people

If your guest posts are valuable and well-written, they will increase your visibility as an expert in your field. If the sites you choose to guest blog on have readers in your target market, you will start drawing more and more traffic to your site. And, as targeted traffic, these are the readers who are most likely to become long term readers and customers of your own.

Pinterest may have started out as a place for women to share product images, but its meteoric rise as a social network makes it a great place for businesses too. Think of it as a place to share ideas in a visual way and be creative about how you can profit from that. Users on Pinterest love to share and repin images from a whole range of categories. As with any social network you just need to find a balance between self-promotion, social networking, and making money.

Here are just a few ways you can use Pinterest both for profit and promotion.

Promote Your Blog

If you have an image on your blog, it’s pinnable. For that reason alone, you should always add an image on each of your blog posts along with a “Pin it” button under each. Aside from that, readers are drawn to images and an interesting one encourages them to go on and read your article.

When you or a reader pins your image to Pinterest, it creates a direct link back to your blog. This not only adds to your link-building efforts, it can bring a whole new type of traffic to your site. Create themed boards on Pinterest that are based on the categories on your website, and make sure that you always pin your own blog post images to those boards.

Involve Your Customers

Having Pinterest boards is a new way to engage your customers online. Not only can they pin their favorite images to your boards, but they can comment on them and share them with their friends and followers. When people enjoy interacting with your website, they’ll come back more often. This not only builds your relationship with website visitors, but it gives you far greater opportunities to showcase your products and services.

Inspire Your Customers

Often people only see your products in one way and for one purpose. Pinterest boards give you the chance to inspire different ways to use your products through visuals. For example, if you sell wedding favors, you can show pictures of them at the table settings of customers’ weddings. That’s far more inspiring than a simple product image in your store.

Show That You’re a Real Person

It’s always difficult to make a personal connection with people online vs. face-to-face. By including both business boards and personal boards in your Pinterest account, prospects and customers get to see some of your own interests. They start to see the real person behind the business persona. Even if you are representing a large company, remember that customers are eager to know the real people behind the corporate face. If you’re a small business or entrepreneur, this is even more critical.

Add Affiliate Links

You may not realize it, but you can also insert your own affiliate links on your pins. It’s a whole new way of doing affiliate marketing. You can create boards that are just product oriented and earn cash when people click those links and buy something. Just go into the “edit” button for a specific pin and replace the direct link to the product with your affiliate link.

Pinterest isn’t going anywhere any time soon and it is incredibly active. Make the most of it as a place to engage your customers and prospects. At the same time, it presents a new opportunity to earn income online from a completely different source.