Ash Summerville – Internet Marketing

Building Successful Businesses Online

Archive for November, 2009

Five Tips To Using Your Business Plan.

November 27th, 2009

It takes guts to defy chaos and predict the future of your business, and yet that’s precisely what an entrepreneur does when writing a business plan. Considering it’s a written roadmap that can be used at any point in the future to measure whether the business succeeded or failed, most people will put it off as long as they can. Of course, most people don’t own businesses either. But those who develop business plans quickly come to realize an abundance of benefits.

The most important reason to do a business plan is to gain understanding about, and create a blueprint for starting or growing a business. Once the plan is done it can easily be adapted to communicate with different audiences.
Here are 5 different ways to reconfigure your business plan, from longest to shortest.

1. The Complete Business Plan. Your full business plan will include an executive summary, the narrative and financial components, and a number of supporting documents. By adding well-crafted, personalized cover letters for each contact, you will be able to use your business plan to communicate with potential partners, grant fund managers, bankers and other debt financing agencies.
2. The Investors Business Plan. Right up front, investors will want to know your pitch; what problem your business solves, what value you place on your business, how much money you need, and what are you are offering in return. They will also need to know whether you are seeking debt or equity financing, the expected return on the investment, how you plan to deal with the risks, and what your exit strategy is. Most importantly, investors will want to know all about you, the owner.
3. The Employees Business Plan. The scope of the business plan you present for employees will be guided by your philosophy on how much employees should know about the inner workings of your business. For example, you might use the narrative portion of the business plan plus the sales forecast, but exclude the historical and current financials and supporting documentation. The main benefit of sharing relevant parts of your business plan with employees is to have all members of your team on the same page.
4. The Business Plan Brief. Also known as an executive summary, this 1 to 2 page version can be used to introduce your business to various audiences. It can be added to presentations and proposals, or hung on the office wall to serve as visible reminder of the corporate direction. The brief can include things like the business vision, the mission statement, the strategic and marketing goals, sales, and profit targets. It provides most of the content needed to build a business website or to design flyers, brochures, prospectuses and other marketing materials.
5. The Elevator Pitch. An elevator pitch is a brief introduction to your business. The term is often used in the context of an entrepreneur pitching a business idea to someone during the time it takes for an average elevator ride. It might be as long as thirty seconds or 100 words.

Those who do step up and develop a business plan will usually discover that it’s not quite as formidable as it seems at first. Business planning can be a lot of fun, and whatever else can be said, it’s a remarkable confidence builder and an amazing learning experience for those who go for it.

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Posted in Business

Tags: Beginners

Don’t Forget To Ping Your Blog To Get Fast Traffic

November 27th, 2009

Blogs are essential to running any online business. The key benefit is that it allows you to stay up-to-date with your audience. It also allows your audience to check in on your website for new updates so it’s a win-win for everyone. If you do have a blog, it’s important to write daily posts so that the search engines can increase your site ranking. Updated content is heaven for the search engines. It also helps improve your websites traffic quicker. But is adding content the only way to improve your traffic! Not at all! The best rule of thumb when you have a blog is to ping. Pinging is very easy!

Basically, when you set up your blog, you’re going to get a thing called an RSS feed. It’s a really simple syndication feed. This feed is going to be kind of like the channel. Think about it this way… Your blog is a radio station and in order for somebody to get everything on that radio station, they’ve got to turn to a channel. So those channel represents your RSS feed. So, basically for anybody that’s logged-in or tuned in to that channel or shall I say that feed they’re going to be getting that information. If they subscribe to your feed then they are automatically updated with a feed notification of your newest blog entry. That’s what an RSS feed is.

Then next step after you’ve added a new blog entry is to send out a ping. You basically want to ping your blog to let the search engines know that you’ve updated it by adding new content. Basically it’s like you’re saying: “Hey, listen, I have new updated content on my page. Come check me out.” Pinging gives you a head start instead of you having to wait for the search engines to come around and realize you’ve added new content. You’re basically giving them a heads up beforehand by saying: “Hey, come check me out” with your ping.

So, how do you ping your blog? Well, you ping your blog by going to a blog pinging website. I use them and swear by them. All you have to do is get your RSS feed from your site. And then just take your link and then submit it and you’re good to go.

This is how it’s set up: It’s going to say, “What’s your website’s name or title?” You’re going to take the name of the website or the title and put it on there. You’re going to put your URL. You’re also going to select the category of niche that you’re in and then just push the button to send your ping. Just push “Ping my site” and then it’ll start pinging out to Yahoo, Google, blog people and every site that needs to be notified.

It’s going to go ping about 1,000 or so different locations to let them know that you’ve updated your content. (If you’re using WordPress, I think there’s also a built-in pinger where it actually does that for you so you don’t even have to do it). But use Pingler for best results and then you’re done. That’s all you’ve got to do.

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Posted in Business

Tags: Beginners Blogging Website Traffic

10 Easy Steps For Free Traffic From Yahoo Answers

November 25th, 2009

There are a number of ways that you can get traffic from Yahoo! Answers. Here, you will be introduced to 10 simple steps that are related to increasing the traffic that you may desire for your website, blog, or other online location.

Free Traffic From Yahoo! Answers

Those of us that are interested in increasing the amount of traffic that we get to certain areas online are all familiar with the concepts of social networking, social bookmarking, and even URL submission and link exchange. It is not very often, however, that we hear about Yahoo Answers being an effective place to generate traffic. This online community focuses on asking and answering questions from people all over the world! It would be ridiculous not to take advantage of this! The following lists the 10 simple steps to get free traffic from Yahoo Answers.

1) The first thing that you should consider when attempting to use Yahoo Answers for increasing the amount of traffic for your website is the topic for which those things surround. Let’s say that you are selling products that assist individuals in building an email list. Well, when seeking out questions to answer, you will want to focus on categories that house “email list”, “opt-in list”, “list building”, “SEO”, “marketing”, and similar terms. In order to drive traffic to your website, or other online endeavor, it is essential to keep everything on topic. Eventually, people will notice you and what you have to offer.

2) It is important to understand that when you answer a question on Yahoo Answers, you must have a fairly decent knowledge of the topic that you are responding to. Here, we go back to tip number one – that is answering only those questions that are related to the area online where you want to drive traffic. Now, for tip number two, you will want to have some valuable knowledge to share with the individual that is asking the question. It is important to display your overall expertise, and professionalism when responding. You will want to bring something “unique” to the topic. This will help to brand you as an “expert” in your field.

3) Now, when trying to drive traffic to your website, it is absolutely essential that you are “seen”. The best spot that you can be in when it comes to responding on Yahoo Answers is the very FIRST spot! That’s right – you need to be the very first person to respond! This ensures that everyone that looks at the question and responds, has to see your answer. As a result, you may draw the interest of these individuals.

4) When answering on Yahoo, always use a relevant website link in the source box. While you can put more than one link in the source box, you should only aim to put one in each source box. In order to increase your search engine ranking, as well as the amount of traffic that swarms your website, you will want to make certain that the link that you include in the source box is somehow related to the website and other online area where you want to drive traffic.

5) The next way that you can drive traffic to your online destination is to ensure that you invite all of your friends to join your network on Yahoo Answers. For each close friend that joins, politely ask them to provide you with addresses of their friends, or ask them to refer other individuals to your Yahoo Answers network. When they do this, offer some sort of incentive – a free report, a free article, or even a free eBook – the choice is yours!

6) There is a point system that Yahoo Answers operates on. Your goal in all of this is to acquire as many points as possible. Yahoo gives you 2 points for answering and 10 points if voted as the “Best Answer.” If you are sitting at a high average as far as points, you will soon discover that more and more internet users find you to be quite reliable. They may even mark you as the “Best Answer” if they see that you have a high point set and a good reputation on the Yahoo Answers website. Remember, perception is reality. If they perceive you as an expert, then in the virtual world, you ARE an expert.

7) Now, another important thing that you can do to drive intense traffic to your website is to ask questions. It currently costs 5 points to do this, but if you are stumped on the next article or blog that you are planning to do, this is a great way to drive traffic.

8) When you ask questions on Yahoo Answers, you may find that you benefit by requesting assistance from a certain number of individuals in regards to your website. You will want to do it in a non-promotional manner, though. Let’s say that you have a website that focuses on providing pet products. Take the link to your online store, and then find a similar store online. Ask a question like “Which store do you find more appealing?” If your store wins, you may just win some traffic that may make a purchase! This little trick can drive massive traffic to your website!

9) Do you run an article marketing campaign? How about a blog? Yahoo Answers can be extremely beneficial when it comes to developing ideas to write about. You have to remember that these are legitimate questions, and if they are asking them on Yahoo, then they are probably asking them within the search field of search engines as well. Create an article, or blog, and post it. Come back to the question, answer it, and then link to the blog that you just wrote for further information. This is a really tactful way of promoting your page without seeming as if you are spamming the system.

10) If you want to save time, you can create a Yahoo swipe file of previously answered questions so that you can cut and paste it into your response. Make sure to modify the your answers whenever necessary so that the person posting the question believes you have answered it exclusively for them. Be careful not to simply copy and paste the same answer repeatedly. Every question is unique and you need to ensure that you modify your answer to tailor the question.

As you can see here, there are many different ways that you can increase your traffic with Yahoo Answers. If you follow the steps contained here, you are likely to see a large boost in your ranking in search engines, as well as total unique visits per day!

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Posted in Business

Tags: Content Keywords Web Traffic Website Traffic

5 Simple Steps In Market Research

November 21st, 2009

Are yoy ready to conquer a new niche, but want to make sure you’re on the right track? You can’t just build a site on underwater basket weaving – you’ve got to make sure that:

People are looking for information on the topic
That there are genuine buyers and not just freebie seekers
That there are actual products that you can sell or be an affiliate for.

1. KEYWORD RESEARCH

Initially, you’ll do your keyword research. That is, identifying a possible niche and running it through Market Samurai to see if it’s got potential. You want a keyword that has a decent number of people searching for it (so your new site gets traffic) but also doesn’t have too much competition.

2. MONETIZATION

Next, we ensure that the niche can be properly monetized. Are there products you can create and sell, or simply affiliate with, within the niche? If not, the niche is dead and we should move on to another.

To check that a niche can be monetized, we can use the “Monetization” Module inside Market Samurai.

We can also do a Google search and see if any of the top results or Adwords ads displayed on the right have affiliate programs.

Checking sources like Clickbank, Datafeedr, Ebay, Amazon, Commission Junction and ShareASale can identify further affiliate opportunities.

You want to have a laundry list of products you can sell on your site, so when it’s time to build, you know you have an offer for site visitors.

Also, make sure the products you’re identifying are a tight match for the keyword you identified with Market Samurai. If you identify people as searching for “How to make your own soap,” you don’t want attempt to sell them a candle making kit. Yes, people interested in making their own soap might well be interested in making their own candles too, but it’s not a perfect message-to-market match. You need a perfect match from what your users are searching for and what you’re selling to encourage sales.

3. SOCIAL MEDIA BUZZ

Checking the social media buzz for a niche serves two purposes:

Ensuring that people are talking about your niche. If they’re not, it’s dead. People must be interested enough in it to talk about it, otherwise they’re probably not buying.
Give you a point of entry to use social media marketing in your campaign. Checking the buzz allows you to identify the social media sites, forums, blogs etc. that are most active within your niche. When it’s time to promote and build links, you’ll already know the hotspots for your niche.

You can go to each social media site individually and use the search function to check if there’ buzz, but that’s tedious. Plus, it leaves out blogs and forums, which can be a huge source of conversation and potential traffic.

Instead, use the service WhosTalkin. You simply search for your keyword and you’ll get a look across all kinds of social media platforms where people are sharing images, articles, thoughts, videos and chatter. Plus, it gives you an RSS feed for your search so you can subscribe to it in Google Reader and catch everything people are saying within the niche and respond to it once your site is up.

Another place to check is SocialMention. While this service isn’t as comprehensive as WhosTalkin, it gives you a look, in the sidebar, of the reach, passion, positive & negative percentages and top users talking about your topic.

4. TOPIC TRENDING

You don’t want to climb on a niche bandwagon when it’s just about to die. So check with Google Trends and Google Insights to identify any patterns in your niche. Does it peak at certain times? Is it generally climbing upwards or downwards? Where is it right now in relation to where it’s been in the past?

Don’t beat a dead horse (or niche). If it’s time in the spotlight has ended, take a pass on it and find another niche with a longer lifespan.

5. VERTICALS & RELATED MARKETS

You may have identified other related markets (that may be more profitable, or could provide you with other categories, topics or subtopics for your site). We’ll investigate those further to ensure we’ve covered all our bases in our keyword research. Simply follow the tips above for any related markets, keywords, niches or sub-niches you’ve found.

To identify additional related markets, check with the following sites:

With each of the above resources, you’ll be able to get an idea of the advertising spend in the market, as well as other, related keywords you can look into further.

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Posted in Business, Software

Tags: Marketing Tools Niche Market Niche Marketing Software

Assessing a Business Opportunity

November 21st, 2009

Scam artists, unfortunately, are very opportunistic people. When they see a chance to take advantage of someone, no matter how small or insensitive, they usually do. The tough economic conditions we’re currently experiencing have left many people searching for opportunities, additional income streams or just to replace the job from which they were retrenched, which leaves them open to becoming potential victims of scammers in manyways.

Knowing that many people lost their jobs in the past year, scammers are sending out mailings, making phone calls and sending e-mails to sell phony business opportunities. Usually, they make an offer that sounds far too good to be true. And they usually are.

So, what can you do to protect yourself?

Well, the first thing is to be wary of anything you get that tells you how easy it is to make all kinds of money from the comfort of your home. Generally, scams will say you don’t need any skills, you won’t have to do much work and you’ll make all kinds of money. They’ll say you should take immediate action and that you’ll be taking on virtually no risk. Basically, if it sounds too good and perfect to be true, it probably is.

You probably should also ask yourself, “how did they get my contact details”. I, for one, hate telemarketerers. Not only because of thime they usually ring, which is between 5.00pm and 8.00pm here in Australia. For me, this is when we are getting the kid fed and ready for bed, & I have jus come home. (Our solution is to let our 2 1/2 year old daughter answer the phone. I can tell you they don’t stay on th eline very long).

If you’ve read the offer and think the business may be a safe bet, do some research on the company. Go online and look for any negative reviews, or contact the FTC or Better Business Bureau to learn if the business has any complaints against it, or it if it’s been flagged as a scam.

Learn exactly what you’ll have to pay, what your job will be, who will be paying you, when you can expect to get paid and all the details that are central to any business or job. Be sure not only to ask these questions, but also to get it all verified in writing. When you have this information backed up on paper, you’re giving yourself some insurance. Clearly, if the company can’t answer these questions to your liking or refuses to send you a contract, stay away.

Remember that there are always scammers out there looking to take your money. Although you may be desperate, it’s important to look closely at any business opportunities you may receive. Failing to do the proper due diligence could leave you in deep trouble.

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