I didn’t have enough sidebar space. I wanted a third one, so I had it redesigned to include the extra space.

And my business partner, Becki, kept telling me that I needed to “Loofah my columns”.

I had no idea what she was talking about until yesterday when she finally came clean.

Andy Wibbels has put out a series of videos called Blogging Blunders and I highly recommend that you check them out.

But here’s the video about the loofah. Despite your laughter, think about what he says…

What are your thoughts about the “prime real estate” of your columns?

Until next time…

Heather

PS. I’m in no rush to grab my loofah…

By Alice Seba

It’s relatively simple to gain trust with your website copy and establish yourself as the expert in your area of business. This article will help you star doing that. Whether you sell candles or mining equipment, your online customers want to know that you are a reputable business person and that you “know your stuff”.

You need to speak directly to your target audience and give them the information they are looking for.

Writing for the Web Requires a Different Approach

Internet surfers are continuously looking for information and a solution to their problems. If they’re going to buy anything from you, you need to establish yourself as a credible and informative resource, who also happens to have a terrific product. Speak directly to the needs and desires of your visitor and you will have a captivated audience.

A Few Tips:

1. Talk to your customer - Avoid focusing on yourself. You are irrelevant. Tell your customer how she will benefit from using your product. Use the word “you” and you can be certain you are speaking directly to your customer.

2. Understand your target customer - Understand what motivates your customer and write from their perspective. Don’t try to appeal to everyone. You’ll get better results when you can speak directly the pains and problems your potential customer has than trying generic copy to sell to a wide variety of people.

3. Get attention - You can do this with a good headline and sub-headlines. That way, people will know instantly if you have what they are looking for. Forget cute and clever headlines…give your visitors the straight goods.

4. Keep it simple - Use short sentences and simple words. Your visitors eyes tire easily. Be kind to them! Break up your paragraphs and create plenty of white space.

5. Be casual - The web not the place for a formal essay. Write as you speak and be friendly with your visitor. Do double-check your spelling and follow most grammar rules, but keep the tone light, especially when your target is a more casual group.

6. Set yourself apart from the competition - What makes your product unique?

7. Prove it! - Add testimonials, sales statistics and anything else that proves your claims.

8. Create a sense of urgency - If people don’t sense urgency, they aren’t likely to click on your link. Limited time offers are perfect or showing your potential customer can no longer wait to solve her problem, can be effective. Make sure your potential customers feel the need to click on your link now.

Recommended for Further Study:

For more help with your copywriting and creating a website that people will stick around to read and buy from, check out Alice Seba’s Copywriting Sweetie. It comes complete with software and training to help you sell more of your product to customers who will buy from you over and over again.

Until next time…

Heather

If you own a website that sells a service, hand-made products, or an informational product that you’ve created, then an affiliate program can help you to get more traffic and make more money in the process.

What is an Affiliate Program?

Affiliate or referral programs reward people for bringing them customers.

There are three types of affiliate programs:

Pay Per Click, Pay Per Lead or Pay Per Sale. If you’re considering paying for traffic, then you’ll want to check out our article about benefiting from pay per click traffic.

In this article, we’d like to talk about Pay Per Sale. That means that you’ll only pay your affiliates for sending you customers, not just for sending you leads or traffic. So, you pay them money only if they make you money.

I like to compare the Pay Per Sale model to Realtors. They make a commission from each house they sell. If they don’t sell any houses for six months, they don’t make any money during that time. If they sell 100 houses, they make a lot of money.

What are the other benefits of starting an affiliate program?

The benefits are great with an affiliate program. You get exposure from having others spread the word about your product or services, and your work is less than if you tried to do it all alone. You and your loyal affiliates both benefit.

How do you start an affiliate program?

There are several programs available for starting an affiliate program. Before you start, really consider how much growth you plan to have in the coming year.

If you only plan to launch one info product (or electronic product) and want to get it out quickly, then we recommend Clickbank.

Pros: Simple and inexpensive to start. They handle all payments.

Cons: Difficult to track and train your affiliates. You pay per transaction so, if your product becomes very successful, your monthly expenses may become higher than if you had a shopping cart.

If you plan to grow and have multiple products (or you have products that aren’t electronic, like food or skin care), you may want to look into a shopping cart system that has an affiliate program built in like WAHMCart or QuickPayPro.

Pros: All-inclusive. No per-transaction fees. Includes a follow-up responder.

Cons: Monthly fee.

That gives you an idea of where to begin to set up your affiliate program. How do you keep your affiliates loyal and happy? That’s another article…

Until next time…

Heather

One of the things that I’ve done is work on my thank you page when someone signs up for the newsletter. When I began my newsletter, I needed a page to redirect my subscribers to once they signed up. Because I was in a rush to get it set up, I redirected them to the archives page of my newsletter.

Big Mistake #1.

When I had some free time I went back and made a thank you page that simply stated, “Thank you for subscribing. Your first issue will arrive shortly.” and listed the archives.

Big Mistake #2

What I failed to realize when I set up those two pages is that I had my visitor’s attention. They were already interested in what I had to say because I convinced them to sign up for my newsletter or eCourse and I let them get away. I missed an opportunity. I missed potential profits.

When I redesigned my thank you page I included the standard “thank you” and “make sure you look for your confirmation email”. I also instructed them to make sure they added me to their safe senders list to ensure they receive my emails. But this time I included “You may also be interested in these additional free offers:” and listed a free eBook, the opportunity to sign up for a free eCourse, and information about my favorite business author – all using my affiliate links.

Guess what happened? When I checked my affiliate stats, my click through rate increased 100% in just two days. 95% of those who subscribed to my newsletter also subscribed to the free eCourse I offered. My affiliate sales for the three products I promoted have doubled.

I’ve been publishing my newsletter for five months and it makes me sick to think about how much money I’ve lost because I didn’t take the time to talk to my visitors.

Do you know what’s mind blowing? Not only did it take me 30 minutes to set up the new thank you page, it didn’t cost me a dime. I already had all the information tucked away in my personal affiliate tool kit and was just too lazy to pull it out and put it to use.

Don’t make the same mistakes. Take a look at the page you’re redirecting your new subscribers to. Are you offering targeted product recommendations? Are you keeping them with you or just letting them close that window to possibly never return? Take thirty minutes of your time and the resources you already have available to you and update your redirect page.

Your bank account will thank you.

Want to use this article in your publication? You can as long as you include the following:

Heather Jacobson doesn’t spend a fortune on marketing if she doesn’t have to. To discover how she does it and claim your 10 inexpensive marketing tips visit http://www.inexpensive-marketing-ideas.com

Here’s something to get you thinking this week.

Remember…think outside the box with some of these!

http://www.risingstarkaraoke.com/monday_test.html

Then come back and let me know how you did…I’m of normal intelligence, so it says, as I got 5 out of 11 right…

Until next time…

Heather

There�s a buzz floating around the internet about a new web design software called XSitePro. Its target market? Affiliate marketers.

While I dabble in affiliate marketing, it is not my main focus, so at first glance I didn�t think this program would be for me. However, my nine-year-old son, Matthew, was working on developing his own site, and I didn�t have the time to create it for him, nor did I have time to sit there and teach him the basics of FrontPage. He�s nine. I never thought this idea he had would come to fruition, but here he came with not only research, but excitement.

I began to look for a way he could build a site on his own. I once used a really great site builder through InternetBasedFamily.com, but the monthly fee was on the pricey side � more than I wanted to invest in my nine-year-old�s venture. For all I know, this site idea could be like last year�s wrestling. He was all geared up about it, so I went out and invested all this money in a singlet, shoes, and head gear. He never finished the season. It just wasn�t his thing, and now we have all this wrestling gear that we�ll never use again.

I went back to look at XSitePro. I watched the “7 Reasons Why You Need XSitePro Now!” video, and the program looked easy enough to use. I liked the fact that you could use their templates or build your own. I liked that if you wanted to change the layout of the page, you can do it in one place and have it change all your pages for you.

I downloaded the free trial and told Matthew to check it out. I printed out the user�s manual that included easy, step-by-step instructions and screen shots and let him play. Sure he had questions, but in the end he had a nine page website built just by going through the tutorial. What�s even better? He had nine optimized pages. He doesn�t know about targeted keywords, but I can help him with that later on.

XSitePro is a very simple program to use. To add an article page, simply click on �Add Article� and a box pops up for you to add your title, description, resource box, and any other additional information you have. Click okay, copy and paste your article, and voila! You have an article page. XSitePro even indexes them on your main page and automatically creates a site map for you, as well.

The same is true for product pages � very simple forms to fill out and the page is created for you. No html or design skills required.

Matthew can even add Google AdSense to his pages with out copying and pasting code. He simply right clicks, selects �insert Google AdSense�, chooses the color scheme and size of his ads, and hits okay.

After I saw how easy it was to use, and knowing that I could still put this program to use if his online venture falls by the wayside, I invested in XSitePro. Matthew now works on his site every night. I tinkered with it and put up a 45-page, content-based site in 3 hours.

There are two types of people for whom I would recommend XSitePro: affiliate marketers and those who have little web design experience but would like to set up a site of their own. It is half the cost of Dreamweaver and ten times easier to use. The best feature of this program? It comes with a 365-day money-back guarantee. You have a whole year to decide if you�ve made a wise investment. I didn�t need a year, only a few hours, and now I�m XSite’d about the many things I can do with this program in the future.

And let�s be honest�if a nine-year-old can operate it, so can you!

Click here to view the “7 Reasons Why You Need XSitePro Now!” video

Click Here To See What My Friends Are Saying About XSitePro

Until next time�

Heather

� 2006 Heather Jacobson

Stretch your mind today.

Enjoy

Until next time…

Heather

When business owners decide to take business online, the question always comes up, “Do I need a web designer or can I build my own website?”

Both options are very viable, but you need to decide what�s best for you and your business. Here�s some things to

consider:

If you hire a web designer, you don�t have to worry about learning how to build a website, which is a relief to many people. This means you can concentrate on the more important tasks of your business. However, do realize that building a website is not as technical as it has been in the past.

There are plenty of web-building options that are basic point-and-click technology.

If you work with a designer, you will be subject to that designer�s schedule. Designers have other clients to manage and they need to prioritize any updates or changes you need to make to your website. This can be a drawback because the Internet is an amazing marketing medium where it�s easy to quick changes and test out new marketing ideas at minimal cost. When your business needs to wait for a designer to make changes, you may fall behind in your development.

Still, if you build your own website, there may be a time where you need to turn to a designer or a programmer if you need special features on your website. Of course, you can learn how to do all these things if you�re so inclined, but it can be a time-consuming and sometimes complicated task.

This means if you need a message board, shopping cart or other special function, you may need to turn to a designer or a programmer for that task.

Overall, if you want to save money and have more control over your web presence, you will want to have a hand in your own web development. You might choose to use a site builder that offers many of the features you are looking for (ex.shopping cart, mailing lists, etc.) and uses the point-and- click technology mentioned earlier. That way, it�s easy for you to create an online presence without a huge learning curve and you still have time to focus on the more important aspects of business.

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Looking for an even easier option to build your web pages? Take the comprehensive website builder at http://www.InternetBasedFamily.com for a 10-day test trial.

You can choose from over 1200 templates and your account includes all kinds of interactive features including: message board, shopping cart, mailing list, coupons and more.

Who knows when this special will expire, so head on over to Yahoo! now and get your domain!

Until next time…

Heather

The best web sites for professional services business are “Marketing Hubs” that enable you to leverage all your marketing efforts. It’s not really hard, but it does take a fair amount of work. Here’s the top 10 things you need to do.

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1. Design a web site that is clear, concise and complete. Make sure you communicate about exactly how you help your clients. You need more than a few bullet points and pretty graphics. First focus on solid, in-depth content and then create a site that’s easy to navigate. Get help with your site design, unless you’re willing to spend hundreds of hours in getting it right. Forget about all the fancy bells and whistles. Make it look nice but let your visitors get to the meat quickly and easily.

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2. Use headlines on your web pages that promise benefits. Don’t just put “Services” on your services page but “Strategies to Increase Profits” or whatever your key benefit is. Make the content on your site easy to read. Use the standard size font and use bold text at the beginning of paragraphs. Sub-heads in an alternate color also draw the eye and make your pages easier to read than solid black text. At the bottom of each page, lead your reader to the next logical page on the site. Don’t just leave them there hanging, wondering where to go next. Make it informative, easy and fun to visit your site.

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3. Design your site to lead the visitor to your “Most Wanted Response.” Make it very clear that you have services to offer and make it very easy for them to take the next step to learn about those services. Your most wanted response might be a qualified prospect calling you to do business with you, the next might be an inquiry about your services by email and the third may be a sign-up for your email newsletter. In other words, know what action you want people to take and design your site so that action happens more often.

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4. Promote your site through as many off-line mediums as you can afford. For professional service businesses, this starts with your web address on all your printed materials, in your yellow page ad, on handouts for talks and at the bottom of articles you write. Send people to your site for reports and articles. Talk about your site when you give a presentation. After a networking event, send those you met an email pointing to a valuable article on your site. Tell your clients to send those they refer to your site first. Put almost 100% of your marketing effort on getting people to your site. People that know more about you are much more likely to contact you and do business with you.

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5. Make sure you are listed in the top search engines. Even though your main business will come from you directing people to your site, in time, people will start to find you on the web if you list yourself on Alta Vista, Excite, Lycos, InfoSeek, Web Crawler, Northern Light, Lycos, Hot Bot, MSN Search, Direct Hit, Global Search and, of course Yahoo. Re-list yourself at least once a quarter. Also look around for industry specific directories. They may be free or cost very little but will send the right type of prospects to your site.

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6. Put key words on your site so you’re easier to find. The most important place to put keywords is in your “title tag,” next are in your “meta tags” and also in the body of your page. Put in words and groups of words that people are likely to use to find you. If your name is BizTech Solutions, that doesn’t do you much good as nobody will use that as a key word. However “Business Technical Solutions” will probably work better. Look up other similar sites and see what key words they’re using by checking View>Page Source in Netscape or View>Source in Explorer.

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7. Put your email address in your email signature. Make sure to “hot-link” your URL so that just by clicking, they will go right to your site. And add a reason for visiting your site: “Visit our web site for cutting edge management ideas.” If you belong to an industry specific mailing list, every time you send an email, everyone on the list sees your signature. When you send a comment or answer a question on this list you can also point to your site: “I have an article on my site that goes into this in detail.” and then provide a hot link.

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8. Establish an email newsletter. This will become the number one way of promoting your site and your services. First sign up everyone you know and launch your “Ezine” with as many people as possible. Grow your email list by having a simple sign-up form on your web site. Automate your sign-up and list maintenance by using a listserver such at DataBack (they have great service and are very affordable). Make it a priority to work at increasing the size of your Ezine list. The more people on your list, the more will vist your site.

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9. Use the Ezine to establish value and credibility and generate new business. Your Ezine should contain interesting, informative articles that prove you know your stuff. Don’t overcrowd it with a lot of superfluous fluff and dozens of links. At the end of the Ezine, simply point people to your site to learn about various services.

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10. Use your Ezine list to promote specific services. If you give people good solid content once a month, your subscribers usually won’t mind if you tell them about a service once in awhile. One way to do this is to send an email pointing to a new article on your site. Then that article points to a service that addresses the issues raised in the article. Think soft-sell and multi-step for marketing your services using your web site as a “one-stop marketing hub.”

“By Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing. Please visit Robert’s web site at http://www.actionplan.com for additional marketing articles and resources on marketing for professional service businesses.”