Chris Brogan has just released a free ebook on personal branding

September 8, 2008 by John Dilbeck · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Blogging, Books, Business Networking, Promote Yourself, Social Networking 

I like to read what Chris Brogan has to say about lots of topics including personal branding and social networking. I’ve learned a lot from him and he’s reminded me of things I already know, but haven’t been thinking about lately.

Today, he released a free ebook on personal branding called Personal Branding for the Business Professional and it is available as a free download. You don’t even have to give your email address to get a copy.

I just finished reading the book – it’s only 15 pages – and it has some good tips about building your personal brand and expressing it on your blog, website, and the social networking sites you prefer.

This book is definitely worth your time to download and read, if you are interested in building your reputation and promoting your personal brand.

Act on your dream!

JD

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This is a good time to think about promotional products and marketing your business

September 8, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 6 Comments
Filed under: Advertising and Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Promote Yourself, Promotional Products, Squidoo Lenses 

If you own or manage a company, now is a good time to think about using advertising specialty products to promote your business.

Always remember, if you don’t use promotional products to market your business and the products and services you offer, you’re giving your competitors a free pass. Some of them are definitely promoting their companies with products featuring their name, address, phone number, website, special offers, and possibly their company logo.

My mechanic doesn’t have business cards, but he does have ball-point pens with all his contact information. The car towing business a couple of miles away gives out small calendars that are just the right size for keeping in your car.

What are you doing to thank your customers for their business and to remind them on an on-going basis that you are still in business and would be happy to serve them in the future?

Seasonal marketing opportunities

In the USA, Thanksgiving is a good time to show your customers that you are thankful for them and their business.

Most companies send out corporate gifts, cards, calendars, and other advertising specialty items in December, just before Christmas. If you thank your customers in November, just before Thanksgiving, then you may get more of their attention because you’ll be competing with fewer other businesses.

Some of us think Thanksgiving is a better time to thank your customers than Christmas and it avoids all the other issues and stressful days that many people experience in December.

Christmas gifts are a traditional time to show your appreciation, too. Gifts of food, candy, cookies, cheese, etc., are popular.

Giving gift baskets to your best clients and customers is a tradition that seems to be growing in some markets. They are appreciated when those clients have holiday parties of their own, and everyone loves a snack during the holidays.

This is also the time that many companies give products with their logos to individual customers to thank them for past business.

New Years Day is also the start of a new business year. Calendars are great for reminding your customers about you.

Most companies don’t wait until January to give out calendars, however. Most start distributing them in November. September is a good time to place your order for calendars, because many companies offer discounts on calendar purchases in early September.

Put your company logo and contact information right into the hands of people who have already purchased from you or who fit the same profile as your best customers.

While promotional products are popular year-round, they are especially popular in the last four months of the year.

Now is the time to think about your marketing plan and how you want to thank current customers and how you will prospect for future customers in the coming year.

There are many places where you can purchase promotional products and some have affiliate programs that pay well.

I have a Squidoo lens, Promotional Products, with links to VistaPrint and Branders. You can purchase by clicking on the links on that lens.

VistaPrint

VistaPrint started out by offering inexpensive full-color business cards, but they have expanded their services considerably over the last couple of years.

Summer Clearance - Save up to 90%

Today, as I write this, VistaPrint is running their end of summer clearance special and you can save substantially on items you can use to promote your business.

If you do nothing else, you should take advantage of their free offers.

Branders

Branders is more of a traditional promotional products company and you can get your company logo and/or other contact information on thousands of popular products.

Branders.com

If you have an affiliate marketing business, you can apply as an affiliate at their websites. VistaPrint uses Commission Junction to manage their affiliate program. Branders manages their own affiliate program.

Promote Yourself

Every company needs to promote itself. There’s no doubt about that.

At the very least, you need to hand out business cards to all your prospects and customers. I’ve bought thousands of business cards from VistaPrint and I hand them out like they’re free. Actually, they can be free. Click the VistaPrint graphic link, above, to find out how you can get free advertising products from them.

What are you doing to promote your business?

Act on your dream!

JD

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Twitter Updates for 2008-09-05

September 5, 2008 by John Dilbeck · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Twitter 
  • @patinkc Good morning, Pat. I’m happy you liked the article. Act on your dream! JD #

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What do you think about tip jars on websites?

September 5, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 13 Comments
Filed under: Opinions 

Last month, one of my friends who is a very active Squidoo lensmaster asked me if I had a tip jar on any of my sites. She wanted to thank me for the help I’ve been providing and wanted to send some business my way.

The problem was, she wasn’t ready to be a customer for the products I promote as an affiliate marketer and wanted a more direct way to show her appreciation.

I told her that wasn’t necessary and that I enjoyed offering whatever help and ideas that I can.

About two weeks ago, more or less, someone else I’ve known for awhile asked me the same question.

I’m still surprised and really didn’t know how to respond.

I like a few extra dollars as much as anyone, but I’m unsure about tip jars on websites.

What do you think?

Is this an easy and valid way to show appreciation, or does it look like begging?

As a test, I’ve added two ways to tip me if you find what I have to say of any value.

If you look in the right column, you’ll see a PayPal Donate button. If you click that link, you can leave me a tip using your credit card or money in your PayPal account. I want to ask, if you do leave a tip, that you keep it under $10,000. (grin)

Of course, you’re under no obligation or even expectation to leave a tip. It’s entirely up to you.

Below the PayPal Donate button, you’ll see something that says, “Are you in my TOPSPOTS?”

This is another way to leave a tip, and it also uses PayPal to process the transfers.

But, this time, you get something more in exchange, a link to the URL of your choice.

Now, before you reach for your mouse, I will not accept links to sites that promote violence, gambling, porn, hatred, bigotry, or anything similar. So, save your time and mine. Each link will be moderated before it goes live, and I’m telling you now that I won’t approve those links.

On the other hand, if you link to a G or PG rated site that is acceptable, I’d be happy to accept your donation and add a link to your site. Each link costs $5 and a new link goes to the top of the list.

Whenever someone else leaves a tip and a link, it will go to the top of the list and push the other links down one spot. There is room for 10 links, so if there is ever an 11th link submitted, the site that was in the #10 spot will fall off the list.

This is a relatively new blog, so the chances are pretty good that your link will be presented for some time before it drops off the bottom. In fact, if nobody buys link #11, your URL will remain indefinitely.

I think that’s a pretty good deal.

However, unlike other links on this site, since this is essentially a paid link, it will have a nofollow tag that tells Google and other search engines not to follow the link and index the site it finds. This is Google’s rule, not mine, and the folks at ScratchBack.com, who created the widget, follow Google’s rules.

On the other hand, you can get live links that are followed by the search engine spiders if you leave quality comments on any of the posts here, and that’s free.

Your comment must add value to the discussion to be approved. If you just say, “I agree,” or “good post,” or anything similar, I’m just going to delete it.

While I have little tolerance for such self-serving comments, I welcome your experiences, opinions, and ideas. Whether you agree or disagree, or maybe even if you don’t have a considered opinion, I’m looking forward to discussing it with you.

But, if you want a link to your site in a visible part of every page on this blog, you’re welcome to leave a tip and a link. I’ve done it, myself, on a couple of other sites I like.

Still, however, I’m not sure about all of this.

What do you think about tip jars and TopSpots lists? As a reader, do you really want to buy a webmaster, blogger, or lensmaster a beer, coffee, or lunch?

Is this an easy and valid way to show your appreciation, or does it look a little crass?

While we’re on the topic, what’s your opinion of tip jars, in general. Have you seen them proliferating both online and offline? I don’t get out much, but I’ve read some complaints on other sites and it seems that more and more people and businesses have their hand out now, waiting for you to drop your hard-earned cash.

Have you experienced this?

I’m looking forward to hearing your opinion on this.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Site Build It! Hi-Ho Back to Work special – final day

September 5, 2008 by John Dilbeck · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Sitesell and Site Build It 

The Site Build It! Hi-Ho Back to Work Special was set to expire before today, but, due to popular demand, it has been extended one final time.

This special $100 offer will expire tomorrow, September 6, 2008, at midnight (Eastern Time).

This is the last day you can take advantage of this special offer. As always, you can purchase an annual subscription to Site Build It! for $299. For one more day, you can purchase two sites for only $100 more.

This is your chance to buy two sites and give one to a friend, family member, colleague, or fellow student. Go in together and each of you can save $100 and then you can work together to challenge each other to build the best site.

Give a site to your parent, child, or sibling. It makes a great gift for someone who wants to learn how to attract more income by building an online business.

Every time this special is offered, there is a rush of people who take advantage of the cost-savings discount to increase their presence on the world wide web.

If you’re interested in this, don’t delay. Tomorrow at midnight – this special ends.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Choosing the right keywords – what is your strategy?

September 4, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 4 Comments
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Attracting Visitors, Sitesell and Site Build It, WordTracker 

What are keywords?

I suspect that you probably know something about choosing the right keywords for your site, but, just in case this is your first introduction to this subject, let me give you a brief overview now and offer a couple of links to where you can learn more later on this page.

Keywords can be loosely thought of as the words or phrases that succinctly describe the topic of a page on a website, a Squidoo lens, a post on your blog, or anywhere else on the Internet.

Another way to think of keywords: they are words or phrases that people type into search engines to try to find websites that offer matching and relevant information.

You’ve probably done it yourself. Some of us search for information dozens or hundreds of times every day. The better you get at entering appropriate keywords into the search engines, the more likely you are to find what you are looking for quickly.

Now, let’s think about this from the other side of the screen.

How do we build our sites so that they will be found when people search for related topics and specific information we cover?

I’m sure there are more than two ways to approach this, but let’s think about the difference between trying to write about the most searched keywords versus choosing the right keywords.

One reason you should learn all you can about choosing keywords: it can bring more visitors to your blog or site and, if you do your job, this can result in more income.

How to find good keywords

What is one of the things professional webmasters, lensmasters, and bloggers do that sets them apart from their less-successful competitors?

They research topics within their subject areas that are being searched for many times each month in the search engines and then write quality content and put it on their sites to compete for some of those searchers’ attention.

If you’ve studied this topic at all, you probably know several free sites that you can go to that will show you adsense keyword lists, some of the highest paying keywords, or the most searched keywords.

These sites and lists can be worth knowing about, but they may not help you attract more visitors to read what you’ve poured your heart into writing.

Why not?

Many thousands, possibly millions, of people who are writing on the Internet know about those sites and lists, too. They’re busily writing content in the hopes of getting some of those searchers to come to their sites.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t try too hard to get a page one listing on Google when someone searches for topics like affiliate marketing. That’s too broad a term and there are too many competitors. I want to find a term that perhaps fewer people are looking for, but which also has many less competitors. The better I do this research, the more likely I am to get a higher listing on Google and other search engines and that means the probability of more visitors who are interested in a particular subset of affiliate marketing.

I’d much rather have someone who is sincerely interested in learning how to make money with an affiliate program and who is willing to put forth the time, effort, and money it takes to learn affiliate marketing in order to build a successful home based affiliate business.

So, I’m doing my best to attract someone, possibly you, who is looking for a high-quality affiliate marketing opportunity rather than just anyone who has a passing interest in affiliate marketing and learning how to make more money online.

This is more of an art than a science, but the tools to help us identify better niches are available and they’re getting more sophisticated all the time.

Rather than writing about the most searched keywords and fighting for recognition among a crowd of thousands or millions of sites, I concentrate on finding good keywords that fewer people are searching for, but which have only dozens or hundreds of competing pages on the web.

Just imagine for a moment…

What if all those people who are searching for affiliate marketing are standing in a long line in the real world where you can see them.

That looks pretty attractive, doesn’t it?

You see all those people there – potential customers – and just can’t wait to show them what you have to offer.

…but, then you notice something else…

Almost all of those people are lined up in front of one store. A little farther down the road is another store with lots of people lined up.

As you look down the road, you notice that each store has a shorter line waiting in front of it, and after the tenth store, there just aren’t that many people wanting to browse any of the other thousands of stores that are waiting there with their doors unlocked, the lights on, and darn few customers.

That’s essentially what happens when you compete for the most popular keywords that people search for on Google and the other major search engines. They enter those keywords in the text box at Google and Google shows them only the first ten stores on that long road with thousands of stores. If Google has done a good job of matching those popular keywords with the most relevant store, then the great majority of people will click on the very top link and off they go into the most popular store.

A few don’t like the looks of that store, so they’ll click on the second or third link. Almost all the searchers will pick one of the ten stores on the first page of the search results and then they’re gone.

Only the most dedicated – or possibly hardest to please – searchers go on to page two or three or further. Hardly anyone goes past page ten.

If your store isn’t one of the top 20 or 30, don’t expect Google to send many people your way.

Are you doomed?

Of course not!

But, you have to “think different” and try to make your “store” more attractive to someone who is looking specifically for what you are offering.

You have to specialize and let people know it. Yes, you’ll get far less people coming to your site than those thousands or millions who are searching, but you’ll get people who are looking for precisely what you are offering.

You have to understand your customers and what they are looking for. You have to understand the merchants and companies you represent. You have to find a way to get in between the people who are looking for exactly what you can offer, and then give them a convenient link to a merchant who can provide what they need.

When you learn how to master this art, you’ll achieve more success with your affiliate marketing business.

So, how do you learn how to do all of this?

I know of two excellent ebooks that will teach you how to segment your target market, find quality merchants who will offer products and services your market is looking for, and how to write your site in such a way that they’ll find you when they search for specific keywords in the search engines.

Interestingly enough, Ken Evoy wrote both of these ebooks. For years, one was sold to thousands of people at around $20 each. The other has always been free.

You can download his Make Your Site Sell! and you don’t even have to jump through any hoops or even give your email address. I was happy to pay about $20 for it when I originally bought it. You can get it free. It’s just as valuable now as it was then.

His other book started out as a free tutorial course delivered by email, but later was converted to a downloadable ebook. His Affiliate Marketing Course was updated in August 2008 and you can download it for free right here on my blog.

In addition to teaching you how to evaluate and identify the best keywords you can use to attract your target market, they’re going to tell you why Site Build It! is the best way to build an online business that attracts highly-targeted visitors. But, of course, you don’t have to subscribe to Site Build It. You can take what you learn and use it on any of your sites in any way you want. You just won’t be getting the full set of integrated tools that SBI offers.

Brainstorming keywords

Part of what you’ll learn from Ken is how to brainstorm and build a large list of keywords that are related to your site, and then to prune that list to select only the ones that will most likely attract the visitors you want most.

Site Build It has a module called Brainstorm It! that helps you in this process. It works quickly and stores what you find in a database on Sitesell’s servers. It makes extensive use of two popular sites that know a lot about keywords: Google and WordTracker.

So, if you are a Site Build It! subscriber, as I am, you have a tool that was designed from scratch to provide the best keyword optimization tools.

If you’re not a subscriber to SBI, you can still learn the art of choosing the right keywords to attract the people you want to visit your site. It will just take more work and you won’t have a database that you can refer to easily in the future, unless you build it yourself.

You can use WordTracker for your keyword research and they offer a free trial, free videos, and a free guide to help you.

If you are serious about using the best keyword selection tool, you’ll understand the value of Site Build It! or subscribing to WordTracker’s keywords analyzer.

You may insist on using only free tools, but I believe you will be limiting your earning potential when you do that.

I am happy to pay for the best tools I can find to research topics, brainstorm keywords, and build sites that attract lots of free, targeted visitors from the search engines for weeks or months after I write a page.

I’ve invested the time to learn this art, although I still have not mastered it, and I show many thousands of pages to interested visitors every month on my blogs, websites, lenses, and other sites.

You can learn these skills, too. It just takes time and effort. The ebooks are free and they explain what you need to know. You’ll have to pay for the best tools to help you, but they’re optional.

If you’ll take the time to study what many of your strongest competitors already know, a year from now you should become a better affiliate marketer than you are now.

So, what’s your strategy for choosing the right keywords for each page on your site?

If you want to win the competition and get more visitors from the search engines, it’s not enough to target your whole site for a particular niche, you have to target each page of your site to a particular sub-group of that niche. Yes, it’s more work and takes more knowledge, but it makes a big difference in the results you’ll realize.

Do you prefer to try to get people who have entered the most searched keywords, or do you present them with quality content based on the best keywords for your niche and each page you write?

Before you leave, take a few minutes and download either Make Your Site Sell! or the Affiliate Marketing Course. They’re free and will teach you quite a lot about affiliate marketing. You don’t have to choose one or the other, get both if you want.

They won’t do you a bit of good, however, if you just download them and let them sit on your computer. You have to read them, study them, and put into action what you learn. If you’re not willing to do that, don’t bother downloading them.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Do you use checklists in your marketing business?

September 3, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 2 Comments
Filed under: Checklists, Marketing 

Stoney deGeyter has published a list of over 400 items you should think about when marketing online.

This checklist, The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist, Period!, is heavy on what, but light on how.

He says he’ll be addressing some of that over the next couple of weeks:

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll provide some additional explanation and insights to the lists below. And since this list is always a work in progress, any additional thoughts and insights are welcome. I’m always adding and removing things as I see fit. Which brings me to one more note: many items are included here based purely on my own preferences and by no means constitute an absolute truth or necessity.

So, of course, I printed a copy of his list and I’m studying it in some detail.

For a long time, I’ve had a task on my to-do list that I just haven’t gotten around to doing: Create checklists for building a website, lens, marketing funnel, autoresponder series, etc.

Now, it’s a lot easier to put that phrase on a to-do list than it is to actually take the time to do it, so I applaud Stoney for actually doing it.

His checklist will not be directly applicable to what I want to do, but it is a great resource to help me identify what I think is important and what should be done.

That brings up the question…

Do you use checklists in your marketing business?

If you have checklists, or know of any online, I’d love to hear more about them.

When I get my checklists completed (one of these days), I’m going to make them into PDF reports you can download.

Over time, maybe we can develop some useful resources so we can do more planning and less flying by the-seat-of-our-pants.

I’m looking forward to your comments and any resources you want to share.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Twitter Updates for 2008-09-02

September 2, 2008 by John Dilbeck · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Twitter 
  • @KimDushinski Thanks for the link to The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist, Period! I’ll be studying it and adapting it for my use. JD #
  • @ronpass Ron, that was a very good article about Squidoo or Blogging. I left a comment, but it may be a while before it passes moderation. #
  • @KEvoy That’s great news about the new Socialize It module for SBI. Just activated it and waiting for rebuilding. JD #

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Are you looking for a list of great social networking sites?

September 1, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 3 Comments
Filed under: Attracting Visitors, Blogging, Business Networking, Promote Yourself, Social Networking 

I have found that participating on social networking sites has helped my business grow and I’ve met some great people in the process. Some have become real friends.

It takes time and effort to network effectively, so don’t think it can be done in a few days or weeks, and don’t try to do it more quickly by using software to speed up the process.

If you sincerely want to network with other like-minded people and you’re willing to take your time and socialize with them – not just spam your ads towards them – then you’ll find a great list of social networking sites on Kelly Stone’s blog:

Want A List Of Social Networking Sites?

I just found Kelly’s blog and I’m finding lots of topics that interest me there.

Yes, I found her through social networking.

I saw her on a Recent Visitors widget on my Squidoo Marketing community and followed the link back to her MyBlogLog profile where I found her blog’s community and then visited her blog.

It sounds like a lot of effort, but it took only a few minutes.

Along the way, I joined her blog’s community and added her as a contact at MyBlogLog.com. Then, I subscribed to her blog via email so I won’t forget to keep in touch.

Have you been using social networking to help build your business and make new friends? It takes time, but it works.

I noticed that she didn’t have a link to www.apsense.com, which has a Google PR of 4, and an Alexa rank of 45,857.

I like Apsense, but haven’t had the time to play in their sandbox lately. It’s one of the things I intend to do more of in the near future.

If you’re not already a member, I’d like to extend an invitation to join Apsense and network with me there.

For an example of what you can do on Apsense, I would like to invite you to visit my profile and business center on the site.

If you would like to network with me on some of the other major social networking sites, please see the links to my profiles on the About page of this blog. I look forward to meeting you. We can probably connect most quickly on Twitter and MyBlogLog, because I’m more active on them than the others.

If you are active on any of the major social networking sites and would like to network with the readers of this blog, please leave a comment with links to a couple of your profile pages. While you’re doing that, I would enjoy reading about your experiences in social networking and your major areas of interest.

So, on which of the social networking sites have you pitched your tent?

Act on your dream!

JD

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