It will be very hard to succeed online without any plan. A bad plan almost certainly will lead to failure with your online business.

Only a solid plan will lead to success.
So, let’s discuss how to set up a winning internet business marketing plan.

While developing such a winning internet business marketing plan, first thing you’ll need to do is set your goals. They make up the frame work of your marketing plan.

Therefore, you should start with setting your long term goal. That’s what you plan to achieve in a year or even in a couple of years from now.

By the way…

If you need help setting up your goals, use your email address to sign up for my updates and you’ll get a copy of “A Simple System to Achieve Your Online Business Goals“, a powerful, yet simple system taken from an expensive business course.

Personally, I think a great long term goal is to sell your online venture in the long run. That means that you will always see it as a business instead of a possible marriage. It’s just a thing, an asset. Nothing else.

If that’s your ultimate long term goal, then achieving the best results with your online venture will lead to the best price. So, the next long term goals, derived from the main one, are about achieving a great turnover in the set period.

Suppose you want to sell your online business in three years from now. And suppose you want to make one hundred thousand dollars from it. To achieve that, you have to make at least $10.000 a month by that time.

The question then is, how do you reach that point? Therefore you need to think about smaller goals you’ll need to reach in order to reach your ultimate goal.

You may want to create some products to sell. What kind of products? How to research your markets? How to price your products. Low or high ticket items? How much do you want each product to make?

And you may want to to run a membership site. Let’s say you want 500 members to pay you $20 a month. You will then need to set the smaller goal to have 175 members by the end of year 1 and then 350 members by the end of year 2. Another smaller goal you have to set is getting your website up and running within a month.

Mind you, these figures are just an example. Reality can be quite different!

With all these smaller goals at hand, you can now write your internet business marketing plan. You want to make it as detailed as possible, ending up with a weekly schedule of tasks at hand and a daily to-do list. This will give you very helpful direction.

Once your plan is established, be prepared to change it as you go. If you feel parts don’t work all right or find better methods to achieve your small goals, tweak your plan or even completely overhaul it.

When writing their internet business marketing plan, one of the biggest mistakes marketers make is not to include enough detals. You therefore must make sure that your plans are very detailed.
Include all the steps you will need to take to end up with an exact list of steps you need to do each and every day.

Like setting up some social networking sites in support of your membership site discussed above. For instance, your plan may include setting up a Facebook and a Squidoo account. More specifically, you plan setting up one for one morning and the other for the afternoon.

Then continue to include the specifics for how many lenses you will create on Squidoo and what each page will contain. Similar to that, describe what you will add to your Facebook fan page.

That’s how you create a winning internet business marketing plan.
Remember, to be successful with Internet Marketing, you absolutely need a plan.
A detailed one that will straightaway lead you to online success. Therefore, make sure you follow the advice outlined above.

If need need extra help developing your internet marketing action plan, then check out the “One Week Marketing Action Plan”. That’s an affiliate link, so if you order, I’ll get a commission.

So, what are your thoughts about creating an internet business marketing plan?
Post your ideas below.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

A Winning Internet Business Marketing Plan

So, who’s better qualified to tell about this topic than Welly.
That’s why I accepted his guest post of today.

You can read it below.
Have fun reading and then take action. It’s valuable!

Building A Serious Internet Business Is NOT Easy

Beginners who are trying to learn about building a serious Internet business generally think that it’s very easy to do so.

They can’t really be blamed can they?

With all the Internet marketing products out there claiming how EASY it is to earn money online, it’s natural that they’d think this way.

Photo Credit: yohanes budiyanto

However, this thought that “it’s easy” quickly turns to “it’s so HARD” once they start implementing what’s being taught in the Internet marketing ebooks, reports, and videos.

The reality is that building a profitable and serious Internet business is definitely NOT easy, but it’s SIMPLE.

Simple and easy is different.

Easy subconsciously implies that anyone can do it without much work and effort, and that they will succeed at first try since it’s easy.

SIMPLE, on the other hand, means that the overall concept of building a serious Internet business is simple and straightforward.

Once these beginners who initially thought that it’s easy start to feel that it’s HARD to succeed online, they will start to OVER-COMPLICATE things and regard Internet marketing as something only those SUPER talented and smart people can succeed at.

Which is totally NOT true.

They will groan and bemoan: “Oh no Internet marketing is so HARD. You have to learn HTML, you need to learn how to set up a squeeze page, create an info product, drive traffic, SEO, install scripts, tracking and testing, recruit affiliates, set up shopping cart, do customer service, follow up using autoresponder, etc.”

The TRUTH is building a serious Internet business does NOT have to be hard and complicated.

The Internet business model is actually quite SIMPLE. Yes you may have to learn all the skills mentioned above, but think of it as a learning process.

Hey you’re here now reading this article on affordable-internet-marketing.com right? This means you NOW know how to operate a computer, open up your browser, and type in affordable-internet-marketing.com.

You didn’t know how to do it twenty years ago, but you know how to do it now.

When you were a baby, you don’t know how to open your mouth and speak. You don’t know how to walk. But today those skills and abilities are second nature to you.

How many years did you go to school? Some 12 years I believe.

What about college?

The good news is that you don’t have to spend THAT long learning about building a serious Internet business. It’s MUCH faster than that.

The problem is when all those products say that Internet marketing is EASY, our human’s greed tend to take over and our minds make us think that it’s really easy when in fact it’s not. At the slightest failure, or when things don’t go EXACTLY as what we wanted or hoped for, we whine and conclude that Internet marketing is HARD and that we’ll never be successful.

It’s because of this EXPECTATION that it’s easy that’s what making beginners to give up easily when they’ve encountered the slightest bit of road blocks.

Building an Internet business is SIMPLE. It consists of building ONE (1) sales funnel, and then driving traffic to that funnel.

There are a few steps involved:

Step 1:
Find an EXISTING market with a PROBLEM that WANTS to be solved

Step 2:
Create a “PERCEIVED” (at least in the eyes of your target audience) BETTER product (in the form of a CONTINUITY program) than your competitors, and then position it DIFFERENTLY so that your product stands out in your marketplace

Step 3:
Now create a Freebie that is CLOSELY RELATED to the product you’re selling

Step 4:
Create a squeeze page to give away your Freebie for Free

Step 5:
Drive traffic to your squeeze page

Step 6:
Refine and tweak your sales funnel to increase your profits

Of course, in each of the above steps, you need to learn more skills. But that is what building a profitable Internet business is all about.

You might argue that you don’t need to create your own product and can simply promote affiliate products to earn money.

That is true.

But if you want to build a BIG business and learn SERIOUS money, then creating and selling your own products is your BEST way of achieving that.

——–
To let you succeed, Welly has something special for you. Check out:
FREE Cheat Sheet “This Is How You REPLACE YOUR JOB On The Internet…” Is Finally Available For The Average Beginner.
Click Here Now: http://www.getprofitsfast.com/aim.html To INSTANTLY Claim Your FREE Cheat Sheet And Learn How To Make Money On The Internet.
——–

Case again.
I think Welly gave us some valuable information. Actually, he’s a remarkable guy. Just read Welly’s amazing personal story. He’s a guy you can trust!

So, what do you think? Is building a serious Internet business easy or not?
Post your comments below.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Building A Serious Internet Business Is NOT Easy

Lots of words have been written already on this topic. That’s because of the urgent demand from million of business people who -desperately- want to know what these secrets exactly are.

They want to become successful too. Like their favorite idols, whoever they may be.

Many of them talk about money when discussing the topic. They want to become rich.

But that has nothing to do with the definition for success. After all…
the richest man is not the one who has the most money; the richest man is he who needs the least!

So, success is not typically related to money. You can’t say you aren’t successful if you don’t earn a six-figure income. And those that do may not be as successful as those that don’t!

No, money isn’t one of the secrets to success for business people.

I can list a few success factors, like:

- Success for business is about making things happen. People who take action will become successful in the end.

- As part of making things happen, success for business also means to fail as fast as possible, because failure is part of the learning process. It doesn’t brand you, it’s just a setback to the beginning point.

- Also, success for business starts with setting achievable goals that can be adjusted along the way. Making a plan an stick to it is always a good idea. Asking yourself tough question too. And both will definitely help you to become successful in your business.
Photo Credit:aloshbennett

- Your attitude will be part of your business success too. Being optimistic and uplifting, living a balanced life, both financially as well as spiritually, trying to be healthy and being a loyal community member, whatever these communities are, will also help.

- Learn how to think “success” so that you will become successful at whatever it is you do.

These are all great success factors, but we still aren’t at the core of the question.

How can ordinary people create extraordinary
success for business and compelling futures?

You know, I think I have the answer.
I have it for years, because I read them back in 2003.

Not from Napoleon Hill or Dale Carnegy or any other hero, but from an ordinary Internet marketer named Bryan Kumar.

Because he wrote Success For Business Secrets back then.
And it’s awesome.

Back then I was already on my way to become successful online, but after reading this superb report, I knew why!

Guess what?

I’m giving you this report!

No, no need to take your wallet out. It’s on me. I got the rights from Bryan and today I’m giving this report to you.

Mind you, PERSONAL USE ONLY!

Find out if you have what it takes to be successful and wealthy.

Discover the success for business secrets.

After reading, let me know what you think.
Post your comments below.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Success For Business Secrets

My Gmail accounts are full of videos I HAVE to watch, otherwise …(fill in the blanks).

It often looks like a matter of ‘Life or Death’. “Here’s a Killer video”, “You MUST see this video or else…”

The main reason to use video selling or video marketing in my opinion is to quickly get to the heart of the promotion.

Like the main benefit users will experience if they buy!
Video selling enables you to ‘paint the picture’ in your prospect’s head.

Video is par excellence THE resource to SHOW that.

Don’t you agree? Way much faster than text, where you have to explain everything in detail.

Then why is it that I have to wade through 30 to 70
minutes of video where nothing of any importance is said?

And not only that, but they’re full of “ah’s”, “emmm’s”, sidetracks, “anyway’s” or, IF we get to see something interesting, “‘it takes a while to load” or “I’ll stop the video here until it loads” and so on.

Most of the time we only get to see some background picture. All there’s happening is a guy or a girl talking. That’s NOT what video is for, that’s audio!

That’s not so worse if they get to the point right away, but mostly they don’t.
They often are too long-winded, get sidetracked and sometimes forget what they’re doing. A great alternative would be to watch TV, something these same marketers always advise against.

Oh, and let’s not forget the announcement in the email: “Here’s a short video….”.
That’s just plain deceptive. And it will kill your sales.
Cause marketing success is in the details!

In general, most video selling creators think like business owners, INSTEAD of a prospect.

Anyone doing video selling should recognize that your prospects are NOT going to watch your videos for longer than just a couple of minutes.
After all, they’re not instructional videos, they’re just there to bring your offer to their attention. Period!

Whenever I click an email link to a video selling me something, I first watch how long this is going to take. Everything longer than 5 minutes is deleted on the spot.

I asked around at the TIMIC forum and most members feel the same. So, if you’re going to use video selling in future, keep it short and to the point.

Here are some valuable resources on video selling:
Website Video Mistakes
7 Most Common Mistakes People Make with Online Marketing Videos

I think a selling video length of 5 minutes max is a good standard. Let’s ignore all that take longer than 5 minutes. And when we create one, let’s stay under 4!

Deal?

So, what’s your take on video selling?
Getting bored to?
Post your comments below.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Video Selling Gets Boring

You’ll enjoy your work much more if you can concentrate on what you’re best at and will be far less stressed at the end of the day.

As a result, you’ll be far more productive than if you try to do everything yourself! And that’s one of the biggest outsourcing benefits!

Another huge benefit is that outsourcing builds up your business much faster. And you develop quality relationships with the right, high standard quality people.

If you can grasp these two main outsourcing benefits, then what kind of work should you outsource?

Well, whatever you’re not good at or can’t quickly or efficiently do yourself or what others can do better and/or faster.

The outsourcing decision boils down to a comparison between your hourly rates and the outsourcing rates.

What’s your time worth? What’s your hourly rate?
If you can’t put a figure on one hour of your own work, then figure out how much you (want to) make in a year. Divide that by the number of hours you (want to) work (be realistic here) and there’s your hourly rate.
Can someone else do that cheaper or faster? If the answer is yes, then by all means outsource!

Some disciplines you can outsource are:

• software developments and scripts/plugins
• website development
• writing
• graphics
• multimedia projects
• seo services
• back link services
• social network representation
• virtual assistance
• affiliate management
• product development
• etc.

To summarize, typical outsourcing benefits are:

• increase of productivity,
• decreasing operation costs by hiring cheap labor,
• any specific discipline, skill or technology is fully available, so you can extend your desires for your online business,
• outsourcing can give your business a competitive advantage,
• focus on core business, which, in the end, means…
• save time and make more money!

Bottom line for outsourcing benefits is, that you can use outsourcing to scale up your business.

Of course outsourcing has some disadvantages too.

• You don’t know about the quality of the freelancer. The only way to find out is try it. The famous trial-and-error method. Although you can minimize risks by getting a copy of a book as described below.
• Of course the outsourcing has to be managed, which takes some time, attention and discipline.
• And there may be language barriers, if you’re looking to outsource your work in foreign countries.

Of course you’re already familiar with outsourcing websites like guru.com, elance.com and rentacoder.com, but there are more specialized services available.

So which one is best for the service you’re looking for?

Brandon Tanner has a comparison of these very popular outsourcing websites.

And, on top of that, he has typical prices and turn-around times for various projects like article writing, ebook creation, website development, copywriting, software and graphics development, voice over and transcriptions.

The guide also covers:
- Planning your website projects
- Planning your writing projects
- Planning your software projects
- The Hiring Process
- Testing outsources projects
- Dispute resolutions and
- other interesting chapters.

Take a look at this “Internet Marketer’s Guide To Outsourcing” if you’re convinced about the outsourcing benefits.
I read this guide in one sitting and liked it very much, which is why I added my affiliate link to it.
Wholeheartedly recommended!

How about you, do you outsource and if yes, what and what are your main benefits?
Post your comments below.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Outsourcing Benefits

You do that, because you have this great product or service that you want to sell and you’re looking for a great domain name for a new website to promote it from.

That’s when you do a domain check. You want to see what’s available and what’s taken already.

If it’s taken, you can do a whois to find out who the owner is and make him/her an offer. If it’s available, you can register the name.

Photo Credit: H Dickins

What are you looking for when searching for a premium domain name?
- a domain name containing your main keywords,
- a catchy name that will be easily remembered and
- a name that covers what you’re promoting.

How hard is it to find that catchy, short and easy to remember premium domain name?

Well, for one thing it’s becoming more difficult each and every day.
One of the reasons for that is that there are millions of website owners and quite a few of them get more savvy each day. They investigate well and do a thorough domain check, resulting in registering great domain names.

Another reason is that on the other hand, many of these website owners fail, after which their domain name is bought by someone else who deals in expired domain names.
Most of the time the reason behind these deals is the traffic that the domain name still generates and if you buy a domain name from them, it often comes with (a bit of) traffic.

So it’s very hard to come up with premium domain names these days.
Registrars, like Nameboy.com, often have a special script available that generates domain names for you based on the keywords you enter and they’ll do a domain check to see if they are available.

Heck, there’s even free software available to come up with premium domain names, like Domain Name Analyzer. You can put your main keyword or even key phrase in the middle and have tons of various suffixes and prefixes to come up with the most amazing names. It also let’s you do a domain check too.

This often results in a domain name that does not quite fit the product or service or profession that is promoted on the site.

Talking about that topic, let’s do a little quiz called domain check: which domain belongs to which profession, product or service?

What do you think?
Great names huh?

Guess what. They’re for sale!
And they don’t even cost thousands and thousands of dollars, as you would expect.
No, they’re far below the market prices. There are hundreds of them and you can make an offer for each and every one of them.

You don’t even have to do a domain check. If you’re offer is accepted, the domain name is yours. For as long as you want.
Are you starting to see some business here?
If so, check them out at this Domain Name Availability Search.

What do you think. Are these great names?
Post your comments below.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Domain Check – Domain Names Quiz

That’s why I didn’t hesitate when Michelle Strassburg offered to write a guest post about the issue.
I’ll let her do the talking.
Enjoy!

—

Website conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who will take a desired action which will somehow profit your business.

Although the term ‘website conversion rate’ is normally used in relation to e-commerce sites, it also applies to sites making a living from advertising revenue and those living on lead generation.
In fact, most sites I know of have some sort of website conversion matrix.

Here are 7 factors which will influence your website conversion rate and how you can improve each one.

1. Poor navigation
   Making your site easy to navigate includes having navigation elements in commonly accepted locations on the site.

   For example, visitors will look for a search box on the top part of the site, a log in / register option above the fold and contact us in the footer or header.
   Although you might think it’s oke because your design is unique, it might be so unique visitors will struggle finding their way around.
   Use common navigation elements and if you have any doubts, look how the big players the likes of Amazon and eBay address that problem.

2. Limited browser support
   A few years back, most web users used IE, but nowadays visitors use many types of browsers from Firefox to Google Chrome.
   If your site supports only IE for example (I’ve recently came across one – I know, shocking), you’ll be missing out as your website conversion rates will be low.
   To check how well your site is working with various browsers, you can either install a virtual machine or try the free BrowserShots utility.
3. No call to action
   You really don’t want to leave visitors second guessing what’s the site about. Make sure to use a call to action across your entire site, for example ‘add to basket’ or ‘view more’.

   If you are have the resources, try different call to action messages across the store using A/B testing. To further increase your website conversion rate, I’d recommend giving Google Site Optimizer a try as it’s free and altogether easy to set up.

4. Typos and spelling errors
   The two have a profound effect on the site’s credibility.
   While we all make mistakes and typos from time to time, it’s important to iron-out those and run a spell check before committing any content to the live site.
   A useful tip is to encourage visitors to report typos and spelling mistake.
5. Page loading times
   It is crucial to work on the user experience, particularly how quickly the content is fetched. If your site loads too slow, the visitors might go else where.
   To check how quickly your pages are loading, how to fix it and to read up on best practices try the free Page Analyzer utility or if you’re using Firefox, Google has a neat speed test plug in.
6. No trust signals
   Visitors need to feel they can trust the site because they’re going to hand over their confidential information, be it credit card details or even an email address.
   Check that you’ve display information such as your address, phone number, company registration number, about us, privacy policy, terms and conditions, 3rd party accreditation and so on.
7. Few offers
   The idea behind introducing offers as such is to make your offers more appealing to more visitors.
   Customers come in many shapes and forms, some find free delivery offers appealing, some find sale offers appealing and some are looking for added value offers (for example product bundles).

   Put together a yearly offer road map which can include offers such as free delivery, buy 1 get 1 free, cash back, upgraded delivery method, price reduction, end of line, limited stock, discount over certain amount etc and rotate between them so you always have offers.

I hope you found these website conversion rate tips useful.
If you think of any other factors, list them in the comments section.

- – -
Article by Michelle Strassburg, Head of Sales and Marketing at Wood and Beyond, sellers of hardwood flooring and worktops.
Michelle has over 10 years experience managing online marketing and is an active blogger.
—

Case here again.
Well, strong website conversion factors I guess.
Any comments or additions? Post them below

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

7 Crucial Website Conversion Rate Factors

how do you express the need for speed for something?

For instance, a cargo company wants to emphasize their speedy deliveries.
There is NO good way to express speed in text, so they visualize.

And use humor! Lots of it.

Watch the video below to discover how they do that.

Have fun.
Have a great weekend,

Case

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Marketing Humor On Saturday Night

It’s the DeepBlue theme from Daniel Scocco.

I selected this theme, because…

- it was easy to integrate 125×125 ad blocks on the right sidebar, so I can make money selling ads,

-and that sidebar can be used as a single one and/or split up in 2, which enhances flexibility,

-it has a very clean lay-out with lots of (white) space for easy reading,

-it’s search engine friendly, so you get indexed easily.

Nevertheless it was a close call between DeepBlue and CopBlogger, and the final selection could easily have been the other way around.

I did change the color scheme a bit though. I didn’t like the original green colors that came with the theme.

Also, I decreased the height of the header section to get more real estate for content and sidebar ads. On top of that, I’m using an image on all posts and only a text header on my home page. I did so to have the title of the post on top of the content that search engines read.

I kept the sidebar info to a bare minimum and placed the rest of the information in an extra footer section.
I kept my categories (Topics) in the sidebar, but I may delete them all together later on because they may distract readers and dilute search engine keywords (which is why their links are nofollow).
For that same reason I dumped the archives.

The theme was specifically designed to include a 336×280 Adsense unit on top of the sidebar, but I prefer to display my subscription form there. Besides that, I think that showing the ad in the content will result in more clicks, but I didn’t test that.

I wonder what my frequent visitors think of this Wordpress theme.
So please, post your thoughts below.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

New Wordpress Theme: Deep Blue

Google Adwords is the most famous PPC advertising network. Yet many people fail to use it the right way. So let’s have a look at some outstanding and free PPC tips and see if we can get to the essence of this method.

Because today, Allan Gardyne, launches PPC Loophole, a new product to maximize your PPC efforts.

I realize how many products have already been released about PPC advertising and how many people have tried it and failed. But there really IS a way to succeed, as PPC Loophole will prove.

The product consists of two parts. Part 2 is SpeedPPC V4, the next evolution of his already famous, patent pending Pay Per Click system. This software has a loyal following of thousands of customers in over 90 countries around the world.

But it’s part 1 that I want to bring to your attention. It’s called PPC Pivot Theory Training.
Despite the fact that I’ve not seen or used this product yet, I’m using an affiliate link below and have no excuse for it, except…

• that it comes from Allan Gardyne, one of the most trusted online marketers that I know,
• that the Pivot Points come from Jay Stockwell (Allan Gardyne’s business partner) who is an outstanding expert in PPC marketing,
• that the launch comes with a huge amount of FREE content showing you how you can take a business making only $30 a day in profit into making $167k a year, all from doing 3 small tweaks to your business in the right places.
• it does NOT require any opt-in!

The free content shows you three relatively small improvements that can transform your business from being so-so to significant success. Even if you’re not interested in this product, you absolutely should check this awesome content.

If you’re really serious about your marketing efforts, this new product is for you. Even when you’re new to pay per click advertising, I strongly suggest you check it out, because the short videos show you the bare essence of creating a strong online business with a great income.

Taking your $30 dollar a day business to making $167k a year may sound a bit hype-y. Actually, they take it to a stunning $467,000 a year, as you will see when you watch that short video.

But I assure you it’s not hype. I know Allan for years now and that’s definitely not the way he works.
The PPC Loophole is a solid offer from trusted performers with real experience. It’s realistic, although, as always, you still have to do something.

So, if you have a product that is not completely unsalable, making you no more than just $30 a day online, these simple strategies can turn this into a six figure annual income. And it will be a lot easier than you think.

Take a look at Jay’s Pivot Strategies and discover what can happen when you apply them.

Let me know what you think of it.
Post your comments below.

This is a post from Affordable Internet Marketing, http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com by Case Stevens.

Free PPC Tips From A Pay Per Click Expert