Issue #2556
- WEALTHY: Even good companies are suffering (Christian Hill)
- HEALTHY: Don’t make this beginner workout mistake (Craig Ballantyne)
- WISE: Ben Franklin on making progress
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- 5 effective strategies for getting more traffic (Brian Edmondson)
- Why precision in the use of words pays off (Don Hauptman)
- It’s Fun to Know… about clocks and watches
- Add “salmagundi” to your vocabulary
== Highly Recommended ==
Fed Up With Failed New Year’s Resolutions?
Tired of making New Year’s resolutions and giving up on them?
Resolutions themselves aren’t the problem.
Your method of attaining them is.
Perhaps you want to lose weight. Simply saying you want to lose weight in 2009 isn’t going to help.
You need a specific plan along with a specific number of pounds in mind that you want to lose.
Or what about making more money in 2009? Just wishing for them isn’t going to bring those riches your way.
Exactly how much money do you want to make in 2009? What are you going to do every day in 2009 to make more money?
If you seriously want to succeed in your New Year’s resolutions, then you must change the way you tackle them.
Success in every area of your life is possible if you follow a few easy steps.
Click here to learn how you can successfully complete your 2009 New Year’s resolutions.
Don’t Let Short-Term Troubles Rule Out Long-Term Investments
With the markets getting clobbered over the last year, traditional methods for measuring the value of a stock have been thrown out of whack. That doesn’t mean you can’t rely on those indicators, but it does mean you need to keep certain things in mind.
Let’s take dividends as an example. Many companies have slashed or completely eliminated dividends to keep more cash on hand to weather the downturn. Does this mean their current dividends should be used to measure their future income streams? Of course not.
It’s better to isolate this period from your analysis and look, instead, at a company’s historical dividend payments. Take a look at what the company has paid out over the last five years or so. If it has a steady and/or increasing dividend – with the only blemish being the most-recent quarters – then it is probably safe to assume that once the economy gets turned around, its dividend stream will return to normal.
Don’t forget that we are in the midst of the worst market in decades. Strange things are happening, but it will eventually return to normal. Don’t miss out on long-term investment opportunities by focusing too much on current conditions.
[Ed. Note: Finding fundamentally strong companies is a good way to prosper despite the market's condition. But you can also make money on companies that are ready to crumble. Learn how to spot the "red flag" signals that could predict (with as much as 92 percent certainty) when a company's stock is going to tank.]
Your Special Holiday Gift from Early to Rise
Brian Edmondson (www.InternetMoneyClub.net) shares how you can double, triple, or even quadruple the profitability of your business in 2009 just by focusing on two strategies.
[ETRVideos]b278ZKwTEvA[/ETRVideos]
“Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.”
Benjamin Franklin
Make 2009 Your Best Year Ever – Resolution #12: Build Your List Using Free, Paid, and Leveraged Traffic
“How do I get more traffic to my website?” “How do I build a list?” “How can I make more money online?” These are three of the most common questions I get from aspiring Internet entrepreneurs, as well as seasoned online professionals.
Marketing guru Jay Abraham teaches that there are really only three ways to grow any business: Increase the number of customers, increase the number of purchases they make, and increase the average amount they spend on each purchase.
In the world of online marketing, this translates into getting more traffic to your website, increasing your sales conversion rate, and following up with your prospects and customers to make additional sales.
The easiest and most cost effective way to follow up with your prospects and customers is through e-mail marketing. This is why your primary objective with first-time visitors to your website should be to collect their contact information so you can build your own in-house e-mail list. You’ll also find that you’ll make more sales to repeat traffic that comes from your own e-mail list.
That’s why one of your resolutions for 2009 should be to get more traffic to your website. Today, I’m going to show you how to do it.
There are literally hundreds (possibly thousands) of ways to get traffic to your website. The way I see it, all of them can be broken down into three primary categories: free traffic, paid traffic, and what I call leveraged traffic. Let’s take a closer look at each one…
1. Free Traffic
As its name implies, free traffic is traffic that you don’t have to pay for. The main benefit of this type of traffic is pretty obvious: It’s free – and because of that, your potential return on investment (ROI) is almost unlimited.
The downside (relative to the other two types of traffic) is that it usually takes time to get a consistent, steady flow of visitors to your website, and it does take some work. The good news is that once you get it going, it builds on itself and the effect is long-term.
Here are my two favorite methods of generating free traffic …
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing the amount of traffic you get to your website from the search engines’ natural or “organic” search results. In human language, that means getting your site listed by Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other search engines when people search for information related to your topic.
To get the most bang for your buck, you should identify the specific keywords that your prospects and potential customers are actually typing into the search engines, and create content on your website based on those keywords. Tools like SEO Book and Word Tracker will help you do this.
The idea, here, is that if you consistently add valuable content to your website, the rankings will follow.
For more SEO techniques, read Alexis Siemon’s article “Build a Rock-Solid SEO Foundation” and Edwin Huertas’s article “Targeting the RIGHT Keywords for Your SEO Campaign.”
• Article Marketing – submitting your articles to other websites and article directories (like EzineArticles.com) – is another good way to get free traffic to your website.
As with the content you create on your website, write useful articles based on the keywords that your prospects and potential customers are searching for. Also, to get even greater visibility for your key terms, use “anchor text” with your keywords.
When submitting articles, I like to find websites related to my niche that already have high rankings in the search engines and already get a lot of traffic. Let’s say you run a business that sells stationery. To find likely websites to submit articles to, you might go to Google, type in “wedding stationery,” and make a list of the search results for that keyword. Then you’d do another search, this time for “bridal shower note cards.” You’d repeat the process for 10 or 20 related keywords. Once you have a list of top-ranked websites, contact them and offer to submit articles in exchange for a link back to your site.
2. Paid Traffic
The advantage of paid traffic is that it is immediate. Also, as compared to most free traffic, it is very quantifiable and easy to tell whether a paid traffic campaign is profitable or will be profitable in the future. The disadvantage is that it costs money, and you’ll probably experience some losses up front when you begin testing.
Here are two of my favorite methods of generating paid website traffic…
• Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising works in a way that is similar to SEO. When a user types a phrase into the search engine, they get a list of organic results. On the same page, they see a list of paid results – ads placed by advertisers based on the keywords that had been typed in.
Getting started with PPC is fairly simple. Set up an account with one of the major PPC networks (Google, MSN, or Yahoo). Select the keywords you want to bid on and get listed for, and write a short ad that will entice qualified prospects to click on your ad and visit your site. You can begin driving traffic to your website within minutes.
There are many factors that will determine your success with PPC, including how much you bid for the keywords, your ad copy, and your landing page copy. To make this method work, you have to constantly test, test, and then test some more. It may take some trial and error, but once you find a winning combination, you can roll it out and be more aggressive.
For more advice on how to get started with PPC, read Alexis’s articles “How a Google AdWords Campaign Can Help You Rev Up Your Sales” and “Seven Ways to Improve Your PPC Campaign.”
• E-zine Advertising can help you reach a large group of highly targeted prospects. You can find e-zines and online newsletters that are related to your niche simply by doing a search on Google. Let’s say you are in the credit repair niche. You might search Google for: “credit repair newsletter,” “credit repair e-zine,” and “credit repair e-newsletter.” Then check with the e-zines/websites that come up to see if they run paid advertising. In most cases, there will be several options, including short, inexpensive classified ads and more-expensive dedicated e-mail blasts.
Before testing an ad with an e-zine, I would first subscribe to it to see what it’s like to be one of their subscribers. Do they send out good, useful content? Do they publish regularly? And do they have ads for products/services that are similar to those you plan to advertise? If the answers to those questions is yes, then that publication is a good candidate for you.
Another tip is to look at the top ranked websites for your niche and see if they are acquiring names with any type of lead capture or subscription box. If they are, contact them to see if they would be open to running your ad to their list.
3. Leveraged Traffic
What is unique about leveraged traffic is that it has all the positives of free and paid traffic without the negatives. It is both free and immediate – and highly responsive, to boot. There are several ways to get leveraged traffic, including viral marketing and affiliate marketing. But I want to talk about my favorite form of leveraged traffic: joint ventures.
Joint ventures (JVs) give you a quick and powerful way to get traffic to your website, build your list, and make sales. It’s one of the methods I used to start and grow my online business – and it’s a key strategy for big, growing companies like Early to Rise.
While there is no one way to do joint ventures, the most common JVs in the online world involve cross promotions, also known as e-mail swaps: Your JV partner sends an e-mail to their list promoting your product, service, or squeeze page – and in exchange, you send an e-mail to your list promoting their product, service, or squeeze page.
What you will find with the kind of traffic generated this way is that not only will you get a lot of it fast, but it will be much more responsive to your offer because it comes as the result of an endorsement from your partner (assuming you selected a good JV partner). As you do more joint ventures, you’ll build your in-house e-mail list and will be able to leverage off of that to do more joint ventures with the owners of larger lists.
So how do you find a joint venture partner? It’s as simple as sending an e-mail, picking up the phone, or meeting someone at a conference or event. Introduce yourself, develop a relationship, and see if it makes sense for you to do business together. Once you experience the power of a joint venture, you’ll never look back.
For more on how to set up a profitable joint venture, read “Nine Strategies for Successful Joint Ventures” by Michael Masterson and MaryEllen Tribby.
In this article, I described five specific ways you can start driving traffic to your website and build your in-house e-list – five of the most effective methods used here at Early to Rise. As you can see, we use a multi-channel approach to online marketing, and so should you.
I hope one of your resolutions for 2009 will be to focus on building your e-list by using multi-channel marketing. Improve on what you are already doing, and continue to learn new ways to generate more traffic, more subscribers, and, ultimately, more sales.
[Ed. Note: You can help speed your business to profitability with the five traffic-building strategies Internet Money Club Director Brian Edmondson revealed today. And you can discover more powerful, profit-accelerating marketing channels that can take your business to new levels of success. All you have to do is pick up the Amazon.com best-selling book by Michael Masterson and MaryEllen Tribby, Changing the Channel, to get a crash course in 12 money-making secrets... and how they can turn you into a cash producer for any company you work for. Learn more right here.]
Why It Doesn’t Matter If the Markets Tumble
If you’re one of the millions of people concerned by the latest turbulence in the markets, I’ve got some good news for you.
It doesn’t matter if the markets tumble.
One investor delights when the stock market lurches up and down. His name is Frederick James and you won’t see him on Larry King or in the Wall Street Journal.
That’s because he’s always preferred to remain part of an elite group of investors who extract their profits in the background while the masses of regular investors see their nest eggs vaporize.
But, now Frederick has decided it’s time to share the wealth. He has agreed to reveal his secrets to ETR readers. Get your special report right here.
Say Goodbye to Exercise-Induced Muscle Soreness
So you just started – or restarted – an exercise program, and your muscles are stiff and sore. While there’s not much you can do about that now, you can prevent it from happening in the future.
Here’s the plan you should follow.
The next time you do a workout, do only one set per exercise (rather than the three sets most workouts call for) – and don’t worry, you’ll still get most of the fat-burning, muscle-building, strength-boosting benefits of a regular full workout. The week after that, add another set and do two sets per exercise. Finally, in the third week, you’ll be ready to do a full three sets of each exercise.
I also recommend increasing your vitamin C intake to 2-3 grams per day. Research shows that vitamin C reduces exercise-induced muscle damage. I personally have been experiencing less soreness after my workouts since supplementing with vitamin C (which I started doing to avoid colds).
And if you are really hurting right now? One of the best things you can do is simply keep moving and do some low-intensity exercise. Research suggests that light exercise can contribute to enhanced healing … and might even reduce your soreness.
[Ed. Note: Building muscle and burning fat doesn't have to take hours of work. Fitness expert Craig Ballantyne has put together a Turbulence Training program that can help you get fit with three 45-minute workouts a week.
For simple ideas that can help you find more energy, better health, less pain, and a dramatic boost in overall vitality, sign up for ETR's free natural health newsletter.]
The Language Perfectionist: A Salmagundi of Errors
By Don Hauptman
As I create these columns, I often encounter interesting errata that don’t fit into a specific category. So here’s a potpourri of miscellaneous misuses:
• Recently, I read the obituary of a prominent Japanese mathematician. The subhead announced that he was “a curious man whose models are used in finance and biology.” I assumed that the deceased scholar was odd or eccentric. Then I read the text, which revealed that he “had an intense curiosity, whether focused on math theory or world affairs or shoeing horses.” The word “curious” has a double meaning, and my initial interpretation proved to be mistaken.
• From a review of a nonfiction espionage book: “Mr. Chapman was feckless and erratic but, in his own way, dependable. ‘Slowly at first, and with great care, Chapman began to build up a stock of secrets that would be of supreme interest to British intelligence’… .” The primary meaning of “feckless” is ineffective – a characterization that seems inapplicable in this case.
• In a letter to the editor: “Authors subjected to a critical review face a Hobson’s choice: [If] they complain they sound thin-skinned, but if they remain silent the reviewer’s judgments stand unchallenged.” The writer is describing a dilemma, not a “Hobson’s choice.” This useful expression means no choice or, more precisely, only one choice. As the story goes, a livery stable owner named Thomas Hobson (1544-1630) had a policy that the customer must take the horse in the stall closest to the stable door – or none at all.
The above examples illustrate several important principles of effective communication: Be clear. Avoid ambiguity. Check a dictionary. Be sure it’s right. Or to paraphrase Dr. Seuss’s Horton the Elephant: Say what you mean, and mean what you say.
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
It’s Fun to Know: It’s Always 10 Minutes Past 10 Somewhere
You probably never noticed – but in ads for watches and clocks, the hands are usually set at 10 and 2. This “smiling” position has the advantage of framing the brand logo. And it’s visibly appealing because of the symmetry.The Hamilton Watch Company started displaying their wristwatches that way in the 1920s, and big names like Rolex, TAG Heuer, and Timex (actually set at 10:09:36) followed suit.Before then, some watchmakers preferred 8:20 (which is also symmetrical) to 10:10 – but because of the “frown” it formed, it came to be considered a bit depressing. Of course, the 10:10 rule doesn’t make sense for digital devices used to tell time. And, in fact, when the iPhone appears in ads, it’s almost always set to 9:42 a.m. – which is when Steve Jobs introduced it to the world at an Apple conference.
(Source: The New York Times)
== Highly Recommended ==
The Three Magic Words to Building Wealth Online
What are the three most important words for rapidly building enormous wealth online?
Quick, cheap, & easy! Our new Internet program has them all.
You see, the problem with most Internet advice out there is it’s designed for people with big (multi-million dollar) advertising budgets, lots of administrative, legal, and accounting support and an existing marketing base.
But if your company is smaller than $1 million and/or if you don’t have an Internet business yet, then you need something different… something that lets you start off small.
One man I know turned $10 into over $500,000. How’s that for starting small!
Let me show you how you could get a similar Internet income stream running for almost nothing.
- Charlie Byrne
ETR Associate Publisher
Word to the Wise: Salmagundi
A “salmagundi” (sal-muh-GUN-dee) – from the name of a salad made with cubed poultry or fish, chopped meat, anchovies, eggs, and onions – is a mixture or assortment.
Example (as used by Don Hauptman today in the title of his Language Perfectionist brief): “A Salmagundi of Errors”
[Ed. Note: Become a more persuasive writer and speaker ... build your self-confidence and intellect ... increase your attractiveness to others ... just by spending 10 VERY enjoyable minutes a day with ETR's new Words to the Wise CD Library.]
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2009
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