COVID-19 has been affecting everyone in the world. We are all experiencing significant changes in almost all aspects of our lives. And, it is this pandemic that impacts most companies, if not all of them.

Reality hits every part of the economy. Global markets are likely to slow down, and it would be impossible to sustain cash flows. It all looks pretty grim at the moment, but if you want your company to come out of it in good working condition, it’s time to start playing a strategic game.

In this article, we’ll discuss different ways on how to improve your business through your website by providing the following:

• What you need to change on your website
• What you need to improve on your website
• How this applies to any business who has a website

1. Add an Informational Banner/Pop-up

Adding an informational banner or pop-up is a great way to inform your audience of how your company is operating during this time. Inform them of your operating hours during this pandemic and if your company is applying a work-from-home scheme. Remember not just to position the information on your homepage, because not everyone will arrive on your homepage. That’s why it’s better if it’s a banner or a pop-up so that your website visitors will be able to see it.

Adding a banner/pop-up is not only useful during this pandemic. You can also apply this, in any event, i.e., if you have an on-going sale. Or, if you have an upcoming webinar or event, you can also let your website visitors know by using banners or pop-ups.

UX & SEO Warning on Pop-ups

Be careful when adding a pop-up (especially an interstitial) to your website. Pop-ups or interstitials can affect your website’s SEO and User Experience.

In terms of UX, pop-ups are just annoying. It’s as simple as that. So, make sure that your pop-up is relevant or necessary. Does it provide important information? Does it give anything to the visitor? If yes, then put it on your website.

For SEO, Google penalizes websites with “intrusive” pop-ups or interstitials. First of all, it affects SEO because it affects UX to begin with. Google favors websites that have excellent content and excellent user experience. They always want to show the best websites to its users.

So, how can you not get penalized for putting pop-ups in your website? Here are a few ways to not get penalized by Google:

• Don’t show the pop-up immediately when a visitor comes to your site. Let them browse for a few seconds before showing the pop-up.
• Show the pop-up once or twice only.
• Make it easy to close the pop-up.
• Avoid interstitial pop-ups. Use a mild pop-up that doesn’t cover the whole page.
• Make the pop-up simple and relevant.

2. Integrate a Chatbot

As more people are spending time online, expect a rise in your website traffic. Integrate a chatbot on the site to make communication efficient to these visitors. The popularity of chatbots is steadily increasing because of its effectiveness. It provides 24/7 online assistance, boosts online sales, and can quickly answer customer inquiries.

With a chatbot, your customers don’t have to wait for a representative to get back to them if a chatbot can answer their questions. Because of this, your potential customers who have doubts about the product or service will be able to go straight to signing up or purchasing with the help of the chatbot.

Chatbot integration is not only helpful during this time, but it can also help at any time of the year. Check out this list of chatbot builders to help you get started!

3. Introduce Cheaper Products or Services

As we all know, it is tough to spend money during this time. Many individuals have lost their source of income mainly due to prevention initiatives introduced in various countries. It is not wise to splurge on things that aren’t essential right now. So, it is best if you can add cheaper products or services for your customers. This is also a good time to utilize a downsell.

For example, if you are a retailer of coffee beans who usually only sells half-kilo or kilo packs, you could introduce a new variant of the beans on a smaller packaging like 200-250 grams per package. With this, people wouldn’t have a hard time deciding whether or not to buy your coffee beans because of its lower price.

Apple Introduces Cheaper Phones

Another real-life example is what Apple did this month; they announced that they are going to release a new model of iPhone, which is 40% cheaper than the cheapest iPhone 11 released these past few months. This is good news for Apple fans who want to get a new phone but want to spend much less than usual.

How About Luxury Brands?

Be careful when introducing cheaper products if you are a luxury brand. The example about Apple shows that they introduced a cheaper phone, although it is still much more expensive than the average smartphones like Oppo or Lenovo.

If you are a luxury brand, you might lose your class and exclusivity when too many persons can get a hold of your product. Think about how introducing cheaper products or services can affect your brand.

With this, you can continue selling your products and services during this pandemic. Don’t worry, if your product or service is worth it, customers will still come back for more!

4. Create a Landing Page for All COVID-Related Info or Posts

You can create a single page for all your COVID-related information. This is great for both your visitors and yourself! Why?

This helps your guests, as it would be quicker for them to find details relating to COVID-19 on your website. Talk about how your company is operating during this time. Let your website visitors know what your operating hours are, if you are operating at all. You could also add a short paragraph on how your company is reacting to this pandemic and assure everyone that your employees and yourself are all safe and sound.

This is also a great page to talk about why you are open to giving a discount to your products or services. Let people know that you are tackling the obstacle head on as a company and that you are with your customers to get through this.

5. Review All Automated Marketing Activities

Every person should always be sensitive to our current situation. Review all your automated marketing activities, such as emails, posts, or ads. Don’t get me wrong; automated marketing activities are useful for your company. BUT, you have to make sure that your emails, posts, or ads, are related and sensitive to our current pandemic. So, to be safe, check ALL your automated marketing activities!

For example, your company sends out automated emails to nurture leads. Now might not be the best time to do some hard-selling. It will turn-off a lot of potential customers. Most, if not all of us, are still thinking about the uncertainty our situation presents. Let’s be sensitive enough to the situation.

6. Focus on Discounts & Promos

If you can’t introduce cheaper products or services, you may want to consider giving out substantial discounts to your current products or services. Remember that almost all persons do not want to risk putting out money for things that might not be too valuable for them at the moment.

As a business, take in whatever you can get. It will help your business stay afloat during this pandemic. If you are sure that you have a valuable product or service, customers will always come back to you. So, just take the small hit today for a better tomorrow!

Although, just like introducing cheaper products or services, giving too much discounts for a luxury brand might have more cons than pros. Just remember that if you are going to give a lower price, it should still cater to your company’s buyer personas or target market. If you only target rich people, stick with it.

7. Increase Social Media Activity

As more people are staying at home, there is an increase in their time spent on social media platforms. Social media platforms play an essential role in giving out information to people (and keeping us sane during these trying times!). Now is the best time to reach out to your customers online. Know their wants and needs during this time. Just keep in touch with them; let them know that you are still there to help them out. Anticipate the wants or needs of your customers and use those things to create posts that can answer their problems.

You can also create posts that have an uplifting or inspiring message. This will be great for your brand awareness because people will be able to relate that uplifting feeling with your brand. This is a critical time to produce content that is “shareable” to reach more people, which will benefit you in the long run.

8. Start Creating High-Quality Content

Although other companies in your industry are reducing or totally stopping the creation of content, keep producing content at this period. But, make sure to go for quality over quantity!

Go all out on your content marketing. Create blog posts, videos, or other social media posts, that talk about your services/products or other vital questions that would answer your customers’ questions.

And if they may not be willing to avail of your services or goods right away, at best you’re more likely to be on people’s minds than other companies. Keeping constant communication with your customers is key to increasing your chances of getting more sales in the future!

9. Adjust Your Messaging to Saving Money Instead of Making Money

I can’t stress enough how important it is to be sensitive during this time. Right now, a lot of people are going through all kinds of struggles. It is off-putting if your messaging focuses on making money. It is better that instead of making money, adjust your messaging to saving money.

For example, you are selling software that helps people create videos easily. Instead of advertising it as something that could help them make money faster because users can create more videos daily, show them how using the software can save you money by doing more work in less time. On top of saving money, they will also save time, which can’t be replaced by anything!

Just remember always to double-check any email, post, ad, or any other content that you are about to send out. Make sure that your messaging takes into consideration the on-going pandemic, which is causing a lot of problems worldwide.

10. Focus on Improving Your Search Rankings

Search Engine Optimization never yields results immediately. This is something that takes a lot of time and effort to see excellent results. This is why you should focus on improving your search rankings right now! While your competitors are not doing anything, you are starting to improve your rankings slowly but steadily. By the time they decide to resume their marketing activities, you will be far ahead from all of them.

So why is it important to get high rankings? It’s because online searches have always been rising every year! SEO is always an excellent investment (if you are doing it right! If you need help, we offer SEO Services). It’s as simple as “higher search rankings = more traffic = more leads = more sales.”

11. Evaluate All Texts and Images

In relation to being sensitive and adhering to the current situation, evaluate all texts and images that your company shows to the public. Check your website first if you have any texts that might be inappropriate during this time, such as asking people to sign up for an event or to go out and go jogging. (If you are a sports website, maybe?)

For example, if you have upcoming events, instead of giving a seminar physically, you could just make it a webinar. With this, people do not have to gather but will still be able to get the information that you’ll share in the seminar. Another thing to evaluate is the imagery that you use for your content. It is not advisable to use fear as a hook during this time. People are already thinking about a lot of things; let’s not add to their worries.

12. Update Your Website Info

During these times, people are uncertain of what is going to happen. So, at least let them be sure of the status of your company. Let them know if you are operating, changing schedules, or if you are closing. Even if they know you are closed, it will give them the impression that they could check back again soon.

Why is it important to update your website info? Well, because doing so would avoid wasting the time of your website visitors. For example, your business is not operating. But, you didn’t put it on your website. What if someone orders your product then doesn’t receive anything after ordering? It will be a bad impression. That person would certainly not come back to you.

13. Update Your Social Media Accounts

Other than your website, it is also important to update your social media accounts. More people are spending their time online; it is a great way to keep in touch with your customers. Let them know your operating hours or at least tell them what your company is up to during this time.

Use the high-quality content that you’ll create (like we talked about earlier) to post on your social media accounts. Give your customers great content that they could consume to keep them company while we are all stuck at home.

Just remember to keep your language and imagery appropriate. You do not want to cause irreparable damage to your company’s reputation. So think before posting!

14. Reach Out to Your Current Customers

Remember that your current customers are the reason why your company is where it is right now. Take time to message or email them to update them of your company’s situation and how it may or may not affect them. Bear in mind that they’re probably worried about a lot of things right now, and it’s better if the message is more reassuring than offering more things to fear.

Talk about how the pandemic affects your products or services. If you can’t deliver products, let them know so they won’t wait for nothing. Or, If your services are affected, inform them how it is affected. Provide answers to all possible questions that are in your customers’ minds.

Just keep in touch and let them know that you are still here. They will appreciate it as long as you make the emails personalized. Don’t send out generic messages that will only fill up their inboxes with useless information and irritate them.

15. Continue Your PPC and Social Media Ads

Are you utilizing PPC and social media ads? If not, you should! Even during this pandemic. More people are spending time online, and there is also a surge in search engine searches. Invest in your PPC and social media ads to reach your target audience now.

Even before the pandemic, marketing efforts have been switching to digital! So, creating effective PPC or social media campaigns will always yield good results for your business.

Another reason why it is a good idea to continue your PPC and social media ads during this time is that most of your competitors are cutting or reallocating their ads budgets. Because of this, cost per clicks is lower, while impressions are higher!

Conclusion

These are just some of the things that you should focus on during these trying times to keep your business relevant. What we marketers need to do is adapt to a new, post-pandemic environment with revised tactics and buyer personas. Make moves always to keep improving! Now is the time to learn more things while we have some downtime. And lastly, stay at home and stay safe always!

If you need help doing any of these things, fill out our contact form to get a call from our business growth specialist.

The post 15 Essential Things to Do in Your Website During This Pandemic appeared first on Carl Ocab.

Content marketing is a marketing strategy technique directed to the creation and distribution of highly valuable and relevant content that can attract a targeted audience and retain that audience. Basically, the purpose of content marketing is to provide information that can persuade customers to buy your products or avail your services. But how exactly does it work? What are the things you must keep in mind to be successful?

Here are 5 points to bear in mind for content marketing success.

1. Use These Popular Types of Content

The first point to consider is to learn the types of content, actually, there are numerous types, you don’t necessarily need to try them all since different content types suit different brands in different ways. But for your learning and understanding here are some of the most commonly used types of content.

• Infographics – Its name sums it all up. You present certain information or data in a visual manner. Infographics are used to quickly communicate messages, to simplify large amounts of data, to draw out patterns and relationships, and to monitor changes over time. Check out CreativeBloq’s infographics compilation for ideas.
• Meme – A meme is a growing internet trend that pairs an image with a catch phrase to create humor. It may also include GIFs and videos. Marketers attach brand messages to memes making it easier for audiences to remember and relate to the brand.

• Videos – videos are a great way of giving information and the same time it’s great with social media. Uploading a video in youtube or facebook can gather many audiences. You can upload different kinds of videos such as vlogs, explainer videos, presentations, and interviews.
  
• Product/Service review – Product reviews can help you build authority in your industry. Every industry has numerous kinds of products and making a review will enable you to engage with key developers and service providers.
• Link pages – A link page is a post that provides links to great resources around the web. It’s great in providing your own site with authoritative SEO signals, and asserting your thoughts within your industry.

There are still many different types of content I suggest you learn them all so you can utilize it based on your needs.

2. Learn How to Target Your Audience

The second point is to know your targeted audience, before even starting to create a content make sure that you know your audience as much as you know your brand. You will base a portion of your content on the needs and the wants of the audience, that is what sells products.

A key in sales is knowing what your customer needs more than what he believes he needs. Learn your audience’s interests and preferences, remember that your targeted audiences are your prospect buyers. So how will you determine your targeted audience? Simple, create an audience persona, this is an imaginary profile for your buyers. Aside from the interests and preferences, age, gender, language, income bracket, and social values would also matter.

3. Be Meticulous on the Content You Put

The third point is to analyze exactly what you put in the content. Your content should be able to answer any question that a customer might think of. Information is good, but a story would be better, so don’t just include details about your products, self-reference would be counterproductive, rather impress them through compelling stories that illustrate the benefits your business has to offer, people will be more attracted to view your content if it’s creative and exciting. You should also include visual aids in your content. Pictures and videos are some of the most effective types of content. Not only will this help you attract audiences it will also increase your SEO authority.

Now you know the types, the audience, and the content, would that be enough? Of course not. A great content is nothing without a great marketing strategy. So the 4th and 5th point is all about the marketing strategy and the relationship you need to build with your audience.

4. The Marketing Strategy

The fourth point is the basic internet marketing strategy. Here you have to consider the schedule, the team, and the allotted budget. You have to create a marketing plan. Follow marketing schedule, this will enable you to be consistent with your marketing plan. You should also have a management team that can create, monitor, and distribute content. A team that can handle the SEO, manage social media and email marketing, advertise, and target an audience. These will help you distribute your content and will allow you to expand the reach of your brand. More audience, more authority, more sales.

5. Consistency Is Key

The fifth point would be maintenance. One great content and that is marketed very well is never enough. If you really want to sell your product you must consistently make great content and market it in a strategic manner. Go beyond the basics and don’t rely too much on direct promotion. Build relationships and be authentic in online interactions this will allow you to maintain your customers. Having loyal customers means making money without even selling, so make sure that you retain your old customers and constantly seek for new ones.

The post 5 Points to Keep in Mind for Content Marketing Success appeared first on Carl Ocab.

Listen now, because this is gonna be important and life changing.

Last August 26, 2009, Carl wrote an article about how he’s got a secret: and that is “Content Is Not King” – it’s marketing.

It’s been about 6 years when he said that, but given that I believe what he said is true ‘till this day, this got me asking:

“How do you simplify marketing to someone who’s just starting out?”

Now, if you’re like me, I don’t want to get overwhelmed by lots of information.

Imagine a little kid who wants to learn about marketing – I bet he won’t appreciate the confusion of information overload also.

So, in this case… here’s what I’d say.

There are only three walls that prevent people from making that decision to buy from you. And those walls are:

1. Not listen
2. Not believe
3. Not act

People will not listen to your message, will not believe your message, and will not act upon your message. Break these walls and you’ll be making more money online and offline with your marketing efforts easier.

This “3 walls to break principle” is the cornerstone of what I call Auto-Smash Strategy.

Literally saved my life, but that’s a story for another day.

For now, let’s look at how to break these walls:

1. Smashing the “Not Listen” wall

In order to make people listen to your message, you have to use a good “headline”.

A headline could exist in different forms depending on the advertising medium, but this is the general idea – your headline is what your audience reads or hears first in an Ad.

For example, in radio and television, your headline would be the first few spoken words in that Ad. In print, it would be the first words (usually written in bigger and bolder fonts) that your audience reads.

A simple structure of a headline would be to start with a question directed towards a problem – something like:

Still Struggling to Make Money Online?

(Followed by a benefit driven promise like:)

Discover 3 Simple Methods
to Cash-in on the Internet Craze
Within the Next 24hours

Pretty simple and straightforward, but that just works.

2. Smashing the “Not Believe” wall

People are sceptical, and that is good. If you know how to make them “believe”, then you get advantage in the market place.

Use stories. Tell specific numbers. Show pictures that paint the scenario as believable. Use testimonials. Use phrases like “believe me”. And so many more.

Just ask yourself – “what would make me believe if I was to hear this pitch?”

3. Smashing the “Not Act” wall

This is, in a sense, the “closing the sale” part. A lot of people drop the ball here – being afraid, shy, or whatever about “asking for the sale”. If your product would help people out, then do it. Simply say…

Here’s what you do next…

(then tell them what to do: buy, like, share, open, click, etc)

Easy… right?

If a long-haired work-at-home dad like me can do it, so can you:)

Forget about AIDA – because it doesn’t tell you to make people “believe”. Forget about the 4Ps… well, because literally my small brain just can’t remember what those 4Ps are.

This is pretty much what Auto-Smash Strategy is all about. This is what I’d share to someone who’s just starting out with marketing or someone suffering from information overload.

Believe me, I used Auto-Smash Strategy myself while I was just starting out as a copywriter – and it worked great as we we’re bringing in hundreds up to thousands of people in our seminars while I was working for the Philippines’ #1 Success Coach.

I hope you find value to this sharing. If you like what you’ve read…

Here’s what you do next…

Study this sales page I wrote (as of this writing, you can’t buy anything from that sales page because I haven’t launched the product yet). You’ll notice that this “piece” follows the same principle I shared to you just now – break the three walls not listen, not believe, and not act.

Check the sample page here:
http://headlineswissknifemethod.com

(or check out Carl’s Headline Swiss-Knife Method Review)

Sincerely,
Dexter Paglinawan

www.dexterpaglinawan.com
UDEMY INSTRUCTOR
From way up high Philippines’ City of Pines

The post Move Over AIDA, 4P’s – Break These Three Walls To Sell More Instead appeared first on Carl Ocab.

“Make your marketing so useful people would pay for it.” – Jay Baer, author of New York times bestseller, Youtility

Marketing is very important to every company. In fact, I think marketing is king. Marketing could make or break your company. Even if you have a great product, without the right marketing, people would not know how great your product is.

There are two types of marketing, inbound and outbound:

Outbound Marketing

Outbound marketing is also known as the traditional marketing. We see this in televisions, newspapers, and radio. The company is the one who initiates the interaction with the audience. Digital versions of outbound marketing are PPC, banner ads, and email blasts.

Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is the new age of marketing. Usually, it uses social media, blogs, search engine optimization, and subscription-based email marketing. Instead of the company initiating the interaction, the audience is the one who finds the company through its quality content that aligns to the audiences’ interests.

Here are their key differences:

1. Interference vs. Consent

The first difference between inbound and outbound marketing is how they try to engage with their customers. In outbound, it is always interfering with anything that we are doing. When we watch television, we watch our favorite shows. But, every ten minutes or so, the show is momentarily paused in order to give way to advertisements.

On the other hand, inbound marketing focuses on waiting for the customer to give his consent before giving out further information regarding your product. This is usually done through sharing in social media. A person shares and reads a post because he wants to, not because it is forced upon him.

2. Extra vs. Lead Role

The second difference between inbound and outbound marketing is how they are seen by people. In a movie, usually, you do not remember the actors who were just walking in the background because they were not important. But, you always remember the star of the show. Outbound marketing always only has the extra role. They buy advertisement space, only to be shown at the bottom-right parts of newspapers where no one bothers to read.

Inbound marketing focuses on being the star of the show. They are always the most talked about in facebook or twitter. The more they are talked about, the easier it is for information to spread like wildfire.

3. Indefinite vs. Exact

The last difference of inbound and outbound marketing is how the companies know that their strategy is effective. In outbound marketing, it is indefinite or cannot be quantified. They heavily rely on the responses of their consumers on “how did you hear about us?” forms. Customers can just check anything in that form.

On the other hand, inbound marketing can be quantified. It is exact. Our technology is already advanced which is why we should take advantage of it. Companies who use the inbound marketing strategy can easily know whether or not their campaign is effective through online analytics. Every time a person looks at their article, they could automatically know who is reading it and where that person lives in.

The post Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing: What’s The Difference? appeared first on Carl Ocab.

Two of the most popular internet marketing questions of all time are ‘how do I build a list’ and ‘how do I generate traffic’. These are the same questions I asked when I first started and I would pay with an arm and leg to anyone who would show me how to do it.

Well there’s no need to send me your arms and legs. In this article, I’m going to teach you how to build a list with thousands of subscribers, generate consistent traffic to grow this list and make money from it.

Hold on tight…this is going to make your head spin.

Before you start thinking about attracting subscribers, you need to make sure that you have a list building machine in place.

This means an online system that consists of:

• You send visitors to a squeeze page
• Visitors will sign up to your list
• You develop a close relationship with your subscribers
• Promote to your subscribers and move them on to your customer list
• Educate your customers to visit and comment on your blog, and buy from you.

Once you’ve setup this list building machine that will generate income for you on auto-pilot, only then should you start thinking about driving traffic.

Here’s how you can create your list building machine.

1. Create a squeeze page

Offer an excellent, relevant bonus to your subscribers for signing up to your list. Create a superb headline, list out the benefits in bullet points and have arrows pointing to the sign up form.

Make a video with you talking or show a presentation to make the squeeze page more attractive.

2. Improving your squeeze page

Use the Google tool Website Optimizer (www.google.com/websiteoptimizer) to continuously split-test two versions of your squeeze page. Choose the best converting web page and try to beat it with another revised version.

This is essential as you don’t want to waste the traffic that is sent to your squeeze page.

3. How to treat your subscribers

As soon as your subscribers sign up for your list, divert them to a webpage to deliver the free bonus which you promised on the squeeze page.

On this page, mention one of your current products or services and ask them to check it out. Don’t push hard for the sale though and scare the folks away. Just treat them like a friend and let them know more about your business.

Your main objective with your subscribers is to:

• deliver valuable content to them
• educate them and show that you’re an expert
• entertain them
• remind them who you are and your services
• recommend your products or other people’s products that can help them solve problems

Look at this list every now and then and remind yourself how you should treat your list.

Writing your autoresponder messages

Your next step is to write around 14 email messages to be delivered to your subscribers from your autoresponder.

Deliver each email 2 days apart from each other so that you’ll have a month of follow-up messages. With your emails, always ask your subscriber to take one action.

This could be to view and comment on your blog post, watch a video, check out a product you recommend etc…

If you’ve done your job properly, your subscribers should love and trust you after a month.

After you’ve completed these steps, you’ll have a list building machine that’s fine-tuned to build your list and help your profit. All you have to do is send traffic to the squeeze pages and your online system will do the rest.

Don’t forget to regularly email your list. If you neglect them they’ll forget about you in no time.

Now here comes the interesting part  >>> Generating Traffic.

To start building your list, you need to throw traffic at it.

There are lots of methods on how you can generate traffic but a lot of people still struggle with it.

Do you know the reason why?

It’s because they don’t spend the time to learn and MASTER a traffic method. They’ll make a half-assed effort and then move on to some other technique.

To generate an avalanche of traffic consistently, you need to be an expert with one method, outsource it and then move on to the next strategy. This is how experts do it.

With that said, let’s talk about the traffic generating methods which have worked well for me personally.

Traffic Generator #1 – Solo Ads

These are ads you pay for a list owner to send an email to their list. There are no other advertisements in the email…just your content.

When paying for a solo-ad, make sure that:

• The list related to your market.
• You know the average number of clicks on a link if possible. Many people buy solo-ads based on the number of subscribers, which is wrong.
• You can find some reviews or comments from past customers on how effective the solo-ads were. Better safe than sorry.

The aim of the solo-ad is to make the reader click on the link and land on your squeeze page. From there they will enter your online system which you’ve set up.

Spend time in creating a kick-ass subject headline for your solo-ad and then focus on making the content short and entertaining. The reader needs to see what the benefit is of clicking on the link in your ad. They need to be curious of the amazing offer you’re presenting.

The more solo-ads you send out, the more you’ll know what subject titles work best and how well your squeeze pages are converting.

Traffic Generator #2 – JV Mailings

This technique is one of the most effective ways to build your list at lightning speed. It’s called Joint Venture (JV) mailings.

Here’s what you do:

1. Create your own product by writing an ebook and/or creating videos. You can even re-write several PLR ebooks on the same subject and call it your own. If you’re not very good at this type of work then get it outsourced.
2. For the sales letter, have a pop-up for an opt-in form or show a squeeze page before they can see the sales letter. Make sure that every visitor has a chance of signing up to your list.
3. Offer to sell this awesome product of yours for around $40. Have an affiliate program for it but offer 100% commissions. You can use the software Rapid Action Profits to do this.
4. PM as many people as you can on forums about your affiliate program, tell your list and submit your affiliate program in directories.

That’s it. You’ll have a herd of affiliates promoting for you since it’s like selling their own product. You’ll be seen as an expert in your niche and you’ll have a huge list of subscribers and customers in no time.

The real money is when you sell your 2^nd product to this list J

Traffic Generator #3 – Article Marketing

Writing good articles can get you targeted traffic and do wonders for ranking your website high on the search engines.

The key to writing articles is to make the resource box relevant to your content. Make it as though the resource box is the second part of the article.

Now in the resource box, promote your squeeze page. Explain what the reader can get for free by clicking on the link. If you write a lot of articles regularly, your list will grow exponentially.

The best thing about article marketing is, you can outsource it and have it work for you on auto-pilot. Just hire someone to write one or two articles for you daily and have him submit them to article directories.

Final Thoughts

By creating and continuously improving your list building machine and by using the methods above to generate traffic, can you honestly tell me you that cannot build a good sized list and make money online?

I can guarantee that by sticking to this blueprint, you don’t need to study anything more and get distracted in the process. Take action with this blueprint and do it well. You’ll get paid handsomely for doing so.

John S. Rhodes will help you build an email list and enjoys writing about email marketing, list building and other internet marketing topics.

The post List Building Blueprint For Online Profits appeared first on Carl Ocab.

Today I’d like to share 5 simple-yet-effective ways for getting blog traffic and believe it or not, once it’s done correctly, you can get tons of traffic almost immediately. Okay, let’s start with the first one:

1. Launch Something

Many bloggers take launch to mean something product related, but I’m a big believer that your blog IS your product, and should be launched at least once. If your blog is new, launch it with a bit of a build-up. If it’s not new, maybe you launch a new series of content, a new blog design, or yes – a product.

The trick is just to build hype that something new is about to happen. People love to get excited about new things, even if it’s as simple as a new header or logo. Be creative!

2. Give Something Away

Yes, contests are passé, which is why I say skip the annoying parts of the contest and just give stuff away. It doesn’t matter what it is – it could be a book you no longer want, a consulting session, or a product of your own. Don’t ask for RT’s and Facebook Likes – just list a basic requirement and ask people to sign up.

Many bloggers use blog comments to take entries, which is a smart idea, but it’s also a pain in the butt to go through them all and try to pick a winner. I prefer the idea of asking people to sign up for my email list, and then pick a random person to give the prize away to…it’s simple, and it builds your list.

3. Email Signature

Many people forget the basics, like placing a call to action and URL in your email signature. Sure, your real estate agent might not care about your blog, but you never know who’s looking for what you’re offering.

Your email signature is like a business card, but gets around much more often. Take advantage of it!

4. Communities

Designers use sites like Forrst.com and Dribbble.com to get traffic to their projects. Dog bloggers use forums to do the same.

Any place that allows for discussion is a place that you can use to build traffic. Blog comments, communities, Facebook groups, etc – they all work to build reputation and refer traffic.

5. Guest Posts

This one is a big one. Writing guest posts for other bloggers will leave a permanent link back to your blog, which will continue to get traffic for years to come. Of course, you’ll want to take time to craft a nice looking bio/signature line, but that’s easy.

Try to write at least one guest post per month and see how it works for you. If you notice that one site does better than another, then keep writing for them!

Remember, getting blog traffic is not a one-time deal; you need consistent effort to build traffic, gain trust, and earn a reputation. Spend a bit of time every day using techniques like these, and I guarantee you’ll notice a difference.

Wong Chendong also known as “The Bad Blogger” is a blogger who blogs about Internet Marketing, Copywriting and Blogging related topics. If you are looking for more effective blogging tips that will separate you from the rest of the pack, making you a “Go-to-Blogger” in your blogging niche, than his blog www.TheBadBlogger.com will be the most rewarding blog you will ever read. Period.

The post 5 Simple-Yet-Effective Ways To Get More Traffic To Your Blog! appeared first on Carl Ocab.

They aren’t. You just have to know how to create a great domain name that is available. If you want to get a great domain name for your new website or e-business, you’ve got to get creative. Here are a few methods I recommend you try to find the perfect domain name for a new website.

For the purpose of this article, we will assume you are starting a new e-commerce site selling widgets.

The Basics: Keyword-Based Domains

These are the easy, desirable names that are typically taken – names like buywidgets.com, widget.com, greenwidgets, com, etc. You can try different variations, but in most niches you’ll need to get a little more creative to find an available name.

1. Communicate The Concept, Not The Keyword

Brainstorm and create a list of concepts that might be relevant to your website. Get away from keywords, product names, and other obvious words. Two great examples of this are DeskAway and BaseCamp, both project management platforms. Both names convey the concept of project management software, without using the common keywords.

2. Keyword + Description Word

Start with your main keyword, plus a word that describes your website. Since your website is an online store, start with the words “widget” + “store”. Use a thesaurus to find synonyms for both words, then combine them to find possible domain names. Examples: widgetshop.com, widgetmarket.com, widgetemporium.com, thingyshop.com, etc.

3. Keyword + Generic Word

Start with your keyword, plus a generic word that could be relevant to your website. For example, start with the words “widget” + “planet”. Use a thesaurus to find synonyms for both words, then combine them to find possible domain names. Examples: widgetworld.com, widgetcapital.com, widgetwizard.com, etc.

4. Cropped Words

Some words that you find in your searches may be suitable to use in a shortened format. For example, emporium could be shortened, creating widgetporium.com

5. Modified Words

Other words may be suitable to be modified. For example, you could create variations on the word “widget” to create domain names such as widgety.com, widgee.com, widjet.com, etc.

6. Combined Words

Try combining, slicing, dicing, and rearranging words to create entirely new words. For example, “red” = “widget” could create “redget.com”. Be careful what words you create and what they may mean to website visitors from other countries or cultures.

7. Dead Words

Latin, Gaelic and other seldom-used languages can be a great resource for creative names. Find relevant words in these languages, and see if they might be suitable to use in creating a new word or phrase. Look for words that are easily pronounced and sound neat.

8. New Words

You can also impersonate Noah Webster and just create new words. Who ever heard of a google before Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google? Create a new word and the brand is yours to own and build!

Lin Edwards the chief content and technical writer for SmallBusiness-Domain, a website offering articles and reviews related to domain names and web hosting. They also offer a directory of coupons and discounts, including GoDaddy Promo Codes.

The post 8 Creative Ways To Find The Perfect Domain Name For Your Business appeared first on Carl Ocab.

• Web Design & Development
• Search Engine Optimization
• PPC Ad Management
• Social Media Marketing

Start review:

Let me tell you a quick story…

Several years ago, when I was a little kid, I used to play with marbles.

The game is simple. First we make a circle on the road using a chalk or a rock (but most likely we play on the dirt since it’s WAY fun) then we “bet” 5 marbles each and put them all inside the circle.

We then take turns shooting the marbles out of the circle using our “shooter marbles” and we keep the marbles that we are able to shoot out of the circle.

I was good but I was not the best.

Fortunately, the “best” player was my close friend and he told me his secret. His secret was simple (it’s simple now, it was an “AHA moment” back then)

The secret was – use heavier marbles as your shooter marbles.

Of course it didn’t make sense at first but I just threw away my hesitation and used the heavier marbles my friend picked for me.

And what do you know, I was KILLING it. I took home 3/4 of the marbles in the circle on my best day.

Then I realized how much marbles I lost by not doing this earlier. I mean, how could I have missed that! Of course what’s done is done, I lost a lot of marbles but at least I’m rocking now.

That Weird Story Reminded Me Of How This *Simple* Tool Works

I installed it on this blog 2 months ago and check out what happened to my opt-in rate:

I expected results from it but seriously NOT THAT MUCH.

We all know that email subscribers = money. That means I’ve been losing *triple* the money since start! Of course that’s hypothetical but let’s say I was just losing double – that’s still A LOT.

What Is This Simple Tool?

It’s called PopUp Domination.

You may have noticed it appear from time to time – and I have to admit, it’s an old tactic (i.e. using popups). But keep in mind that not all popups work.

Most Popups Annoy Visitors But This Is Different

To start things off, PopUp Domination has a very sleek, very very gorgeous design.

They have 7 templates to choose from there you could personalize it by choosing buttons, adding text and all those stuff without tinkering any code – unlike other popup scripts out there.

Aside from that, you’ll be able to decide on when and how you are going to show the popup.

More about the features below, in the mean time…

Here Are Some Top Bloggers Who Are Using Popup Domination

Here Are The Cool Features I Found In Popup Domination

• Choose from 7 gorgeous preset popup templates with 14 color schemes for each template
• Works with ALL major autoresponders (Aweber, Getresponse, iContact, Mailchimp, etc.)
• Edit ALL the text inside the popup without tinkering with any code
• Seamlessly add bullet points with the spiffy “list point” editor
• Decide when (by number of days) and how (entry popup, exit popup, mouse leaves the site) you are going to show the popup
• Choose the pages where you want to show the popup

And my favorite…

5-minute Set-up

I like stuff that just work (That’s also why I’m more inclined in getting Apple stuff recently)

And that is what PopUp Domnation did. When I first got it, I was able to get it up and running in just 5 minutes – and that is already saying a lot LOL. I get easily confused with buttons, forms and all those stuff.

I’ll Be Upfront, GET POPUP DOMINATION

Call me a salesman or whatever but I am absolutely vouching for this 100% and I’m ready to push it to you.

I mean let’s say you’re selling this cure for a weird disease. Your neighbors’ daughter is sick with that disease but he doesn’t want to get your cure.

Of course you won’t let his daughter die. You’re going to convince him that your cure is the thing even if it takes you all day.

The cure is Popup Domination. This will literally help you with your business and I vouch for it 100%.

The post Popup Domination Review: How it Tripled our Opt-in Rate appeared first on Carl Ocab.

• Web Design & Development
• Search Engine Optimization
• PPC Ad Management
• Social Media Marketing

Many marketers swear that real profits are not in the first sale, but rather in the up-sell, cross-sell, and down-sell. In fact, these techniques are as old as marketing itself, and most mainstream businesses employ them one way or another. But do you know what each of these terms mean? No? Well, don’t worry. I’ll explain everything below.

1. What is Upsell?

This technique involves persuading the customer to upgrade or buy a more expensive product instead of the one they originally want to purchase, increasing the overall profit of the sale.

Examples:

• A warranty upgrade like Apple Care.
• A salesperson suggesting a higher variant of a car.
• McDonald’s employee asking to upgrade your drink.

2. What is Cross-sell?

This technique is similar to up-selling. Cross-selling involves selling additional products or services to the customer that may or may not be related to the first one the purchased from one. Usually, this technique is employed to increase profits, but it can also be used to solidify the relationship with the client.

Examples:

• We sell web design services. We offer SEO services as a complementary service.
• Car insurance companies offering life insurance.
• A salesperson selling a laptop offering you other peripherals.

3. What is Downsell?

This technique is used when the customer, for some reason, decides to back down from the purchase. In this case, you can offer him a cheaper product, which has a higher chance of being accepted. The goal here is to acquire a customer, even if you will not profit as much as possible right away.

Example: Car dealers down-sell all the time. If you enter a dealership looking for a BMW and get scared with the price, the salesman will certainly bring up many other options that cost a lot less. That is down-selling.

The post Upsell, Downsell, & Cross-sell: Do You Know What They Mean? appeared first on Carl Ocab.

Today I’ll revive it – and this time, it’s on.

The last couple of months I got the most severe case of… guess what?

MULTI TASKING.

Seriously, I’ve been juggling 5 projects. Add to that the holidays plus school work (I’m at senior year, high school)

All this time I’ve been blind. Multi tasking…

• Made me work more
• And work more…

BUT with all those work, believe it or not, my earnings decreased.

The TRUE Secret

With that experience, I realized how important the tip “focus” is. I knew it before and I’ve heard of it a lot of times but I never really paid that much attention to it.

But before that, let me show some examples (cause i find it funny that even before, focus really IS the true secret)

300 – 300 Spartans fought thousands of Persian soldiers by focusing on one little narrow pass called Thermopylae. They funneled all the Persian soldiers in one pass and concentrated on only one side.

Blitzkrieg – The infamous blitzkrieg, focus on one single area and flood em’ with tanks, soldiers and air power. Served the German pretty well.

NBA – Ok that’s a weird jump but I think that also proves that FOCUS can be, should be applied anywhere.

Most players on the NBA before (way back! The time when they didn’t have a 3 point line) were all rounded. To play you have to be good at dribbling, shooting, rebounding and all skills. But look how players play today, each player focuses on 1 skill. One is good at dribbling, one at shooting, one at rebounding then they put it all together. They play better.

How did that happen? Because each player were able to train and master a specific skill instead of practicing all of it to get well rounded.

Here’s The Game Plan…

Now let’s put that into a business perspective. Let’s say you’ve got 3 projects. Each project consists of 3 weeks of work, on the 3rd week you make money.

The multitasker, let’s call him Thomas just for the sake of sounding cool, would do:

Week 1 – Project 1
Week 2 – Project 2
Week 3 – Project 3
Week 4 – Project 1
Week 5 – Project 2
Week 6 – Project 3
Week 7 – Complete Project 1 and Make Money!
Week 8 – Complete Project 2 and Make Money!
Week 9 – Complete Project 3 and Make Money!

That means it took Thomas 7 weeks before he started making money.

Now here’s Hocus Focus Max would do:

Week 1 – Project 1
Week 2 – Project 1
Week 3 – Complete Project 1 and Make Money!
Week 4 – Project 2
Week 5 – Project 2
Week 6 – Complete Project 2 and Make Money!
Week 7 – Project 3
Week 8 – Project 3
Week 9 – Complete Project 3 and Make Money!

The Blind Side

(Coincidental title, heh. Saw the movie btw – very touching and inspirational)

To me this is very crucial because I’ve missed this for a long time.

As you can see, Thomas makes money on weeks 7, 8 and 9 but Hocus Focus Max makes money on weeks 3, 6 and 9. That means Max makes money earlier and if Max is even smarter, he’ll use that money to finish the other projects faster.

Thomas however, makes money on the last 3 weeks – but that doesn’t include the time between switching projects to work on.

The post What Makes Some People So Successful At Internet Marketing? appeared first on Carl Ocab.