Using A Blog To Improve Your Business

Using Blog’s To Improve Your Business

Greetings everyone and welcome to this weeks newsletter. This week I am going to take a look at “Blog’s” and how they can help you in more ways than you can possibly imagine!

Blog’s were originally created as “Web Logs” – a place where anyone could post an online journal of their day-to-day life. People could then read the blog and leave a comment for the author to see and respond to.

Whilst Blog’s are still used for keeping online journals, they have also opened up a lot of possibilities for the online marketing community. More and more you will see online marketers using Blog`s, here are a few examples of what blog`s could be used for:

– Build up anticipation for a new product
– Get customer feedback on ideas before they go live
– Interact with customers using the comments section
– Use it as a central hub that links to the rest of their sites

I personally use this blog for all of the above and then some! You will probably have realized by now that I post a brand new newsletter to this blog every single week. I am often asked “Why do you direct me to your blog, why not just send us the newsletter via email?”

Well there are a number of reasons for this and I am going to tell you about some of them in this article!

1. Every time I direct you to this blog I generate some earnings from Google adsense and other affiliate links. You will be able to see the adsense ads on the right of the page. I could also include some adsense blocks in each post that I make to increase my earnings even more, but that could be seen as adsense overkill 😉

2. Comments! This is the most important part of any blog; a blog can live or die by its comments sections. When reading any article, you get the chance to leave a comment for the author, and other readers to view. If a reader see’s someone else leave a comment that they agree or disagree with then they can respond to that comment with their own opinion. This then creates your own little “Mini community” within that blog; it’s like having a forum but without all of the Spam! The comments are also great for me (why do you think blog owners always ask you to leave a comment) as it brings self-updating content to the site. Every time a search engine visits your page and see’s a new comment, it is classed as brand new content and helps boost the chances of my site getting seen in search engine searches.

3. It’s easy! Running a blog is dead simple, it’s a lot easier for me to post my newsletters on a blog, rather than setting up a new site and publishing to it every week. Blog’s allow anyone to create their own pages, categories, links etc in minutes using the built in WYSIWYG editors. Adding a new post is as simple as pasting your text into a box and hitting the publish button.

Those are three of the main advantages of blog`s for me, there are many more but unfortunately I don’t have a lot of time to go over them in more detail. So here’s a quick brainstorm that will show you some of the benefits of your own blog:

– Easy to use
– Create own little community
– Display adverts with ease
– Great for search engines if updated regularly
– Use RSS feeds to add unique content to your other sites
– Central hub to link off to your other sites
– Central point of contact for your customers
– Get feedback from customers
– FREE!!
– A central source of valuable information (if using to publish newsletters)
– Visitors get a chance to plug their site in the comments section – triggers the “WIIFM” (what’s in it for me) factor
– No web design knowledge needed, blog`s use WYSIWYG editors
– Social proof, use comments to show readers what other people are thinking – confirm or question own beliefs
– Set up in minutes
– Post as little or as often as you like, when you like
– Fully customisable

As you can see that’s a very big list already and I’m sure there are other points that I have missed!

That’s about it for this week’s newsletter; I’ll put a few resources at the bottom of the page that will help you create your own blog. As always do feel free to leave me a comment, it will help me and it’s the easiest way I know of to get a free back link to your website!

Thanks,
Dan

Blog Resources:

WordPress
The engine behind my blog. WordPress is a free open source script that allows you to create and manage your own blog. WordPress can be installed in just a few seconds, or you may be able to install WordPress in your hosting control panel. (This depends on your host – contact them for more info)

Blogger
Very similar to wordpress but allows you to run your blog on their servers rather than your own. There is also an option to run your own-hosted version of Blogger but if you are looking to get a blog set up quickly the hosted version is free and could be good for you.

Email isn’t all it’s cracked up to be!

Email isn’t all it’s cracked up to be!

Ahhh, email, email, email. The communication method that has revolutionised the way we communicate with one another. No longer does modern man need to spend a fortune on long distant phone calls or faxes, we can now use email – the best thing since sliced bread…right?

NO! In this weeks article I am going to be going on a mini rant but hopefully there will be some useful nuggets of information in there as well 😉

It all started earlier this week when someone filed a paypal claim against me saying they hadn’t received their digital item, I sent the download link manually a couple of times but still they claimed non-receipt. So far no great worries, paypal will rule in my favour because their protection policy doesn’t cover digital items.

The next day another of my email accounts starts to play up, this was a 1&1 hosted email account. The account was very important because it receives all of the new website orders that I have to do, I won’t bore you with all of the details but for the past 3 days emails have been coming in either:

– In the wrong order
– Around 4 hours after the time they were sent
– Not getting here at all

All of this has caused me a massive backlog on orders, so instead of doing the sites when received I’ve had to wait for the emails to catch up until all of the information has come through. Causing everything to take twice as long as normal hence the reason I am going on a mini-rant instead of writing a “real” newsletter.

Like all of my daft stories there is a moral behind it – DON’T ALWAYS TRUST EMAIL!!

Despite what people may tell you, don’t be fooled by the “Email is 100% reliable” rubbish that some people will tell you, they couldn’t be further from the truth. Have a quick think to yourself about how many times an important email of yours has been delivered to your trash can or Spam folder; I bet you can think of at least one occasion. This is becoming more and more common and there is nothing we can do about it, we can bitch and moan about Spam filters but at the end of the day they are here to stay.

We all know that Spam filters work really well don’t we, I mean I can’t remember the last time I was offered Viagra or pills that will boost my manhood **sarcasm**

You need to take into account these arising problems with your online business, don’t relay on just email communication. Give your customers multiple ways to contact you, relaying solely on email could mean you missing out on potential sales.

Maybe offer phone support, skype details or even Instant Messenger options, give your customers more than one point of contact.

The same goes for selling digital items, don’t relay on a delivery script that only sends out your download links via email, the vast majority will go to your customers Spam folder. Use a script or method that allows you to use download pages in conjunction with email links, cover yourself on all fronts – DON’T RELAY SOLEY ON EMAIL!!!

Rant mode off, if you made it this far thank you!

Hopefully the email problems will sort themselves out before it comes to writing my next newsletter, then maybe I will have time to write you a more “on topic” article.

Thanks for reading my rant, as always if you have any comments on what I have to say do leave a comment and I will do my best to reply – email permitting 😉

Thanks for reading,
Dan

Use Multimedia To Increase Sales

The Power Of Audio And Video

Hello everyone, as I promised last week I have a real juicy newsletter for you this week. I am going to be looking at the power of using multimedia (audio and video) to increase your sales!

As you may (or may not!) know, I have been producing video and audio in different forms for almost a year now. You can use audio and video for just about anything; let’s do a quick brainstorm:

– Audio Books
– Video Reviews
– Video Tutorials
– Audio Reviews
– Interviews
– Ebay Store Welcome Message

As you can see from the list above there are a lot of potential uses for audio and video.

In the past audio and video was frowned upon due to the large file sizes and long download time. Now, in the broadband age web users no longer face that problem and more and more are choosing to download audio and video. So why not get a piece of the action!

I’ll show you an example of how I have used video in the past. You have no doubt already seen people promoting products using a review and a link to the product at the bottom of the page, well why not use video instead – a picture is worth a thousand words!

Click the link below to see my video review. (it opens in a new window)

http://imguides.com/membership_riches/membership_riches/membership_riches.html

Now that’s just a simple video that took me twenty minutes to put together, you don’t have to be a pro (as you can probably tell going by my video!) anyone can do it.

You don’t even need a big fancy sales page, just send people to your video and I can assure you they are much more likely to watch a video review than read a long page of text.

All you need is a Microphone/Headset, I got a cheap £29.99 (about $55) Mic and it works without any problems. I then use Camtasia to record the screen and produce the video in flash.

That’s only one example of using video and audio instead of the usual methods. Everywhere you look you will be able to see audio and video appearing. If you watched my video to the end you will have been redirected to the sales page, even Jason James has recorded a personal audio message for you.

Personalising your sales pages with audio is a great touch; it turns you into a “real person” rather than just another web page!

The above methods are both great methods for increasing sales, but how about increasing the value of a product you already sell?

Turn your E-Books into Audio Books and add an extra $20 to the price!

Audio books are great; people can transfer them to a CD, I-Pod, MP3 player and listen to them at their leisure. I know a lot of people that actually listen to audio books in the car whilst driving to work. If you have written an E-Book then you would be crazy not to offer it in Audio format.

Simply read the book out loud and record yourself at the same time. Audio books are slightly different than videos; you do need a certain type of voice to narrate audio books. With video the voice isn’t as important as you can look at the pictures but with audio books all you have is the audio.

That’s why I get a professional actress to narrate my own audio books for me, it sounds much better than me rambling along sounding like a Yorkshire farmer trying to read a novel 😉

Incidentally, in 2007 I will be launching a number of audio and video services. These will include custom video work as well as offering professional voice over services. So if you have an E-Book that you would like turning into an audio book by a professional actress then do get in touch with me. The site won’t be launching for a few weeks yet but I will be happy to help you, leave a comment or use the contact me link at the top of the page.

That’s just about it for this week’s newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it and I look forward to hearing your thoughts and seeing your videos!

Thanks again,
Dan

How To Utilize Your Auto-responder

How To Utilize Your Auto-responder

Greetings everyone, I hope your November is going well. This week’s newsletter focuses on making the most from your auto-responder (or mailing list) by using follow up emails.

As usual something happened to make me think about this subject in detail. As you may know I run an affiliate program for my Auction SOS software product. An affiliate of mine kindly added an Auction SOS promotion to their follow up sequence earlier this month. Yesterday the affiliate made two sales earning them a respectable $47 – for doing nothing!

This wasn’t a one off promotion, the affiliate added the promotion to their auto-responder series to send out after x number of days. All it takes is a quick email with the affiliate link included and that affiliate is on a nice little earner every month via my program, just for typing out a single email.

Let me quickly take you through how this works from an affiliates point of view, step-by-step:

1. Affiliate set’s up a message sequence using the auto-responder to send out an email promoting product x
2. Affiliate set’s up the auto-responder to send out the email 10 (or whatever you choose) days after the user signs up for the newsletter
3. Affiliate sits back and counts the money every month!

That will take you at most 30 minutes, after 30 minutes work you can be earning a nice income on auto-pilot via your auto-responder! If you already have an auto-responder then why not try and put it to the test, you don’t have to use the Auction SOS affiliate program, find a product that will suit your list and promote it to them via your auto-responder sequence.

Imagine if you get 10 new subscribers every day (which is very manageable), after 10 days each of those subscribers receives the email promoting “product X”. That’s 10 people each day clicking on your affiliate link, all on autopilot.

10 people a day may not sound like a lot but it’s 70 clicks a week, over 300 clicks a month. If your product has an average 2% conversion rate that’s not a bad return for doing no work is it?

Why do you have to stop at promoting one product though? You could send out another offer after another 20 days, then another and another and so on. Each offer making you a nice little income each and every month on autopilot.

Thanks for reading and as always I hope you put the information to good use, let me hear some of your success stories! Remember that you can always leave any comments that you may have about this weeks article, I enjoy reading them – good or bad! (Just try and keep them clean ;-))

Regards,
Dan

How YOU can become an expert in any field

How YOU can become an expert in any field

Hello everyone, welcome to another article. This article has been inspired by something that happened to me earlier on this week. It also has something to do with that sexy little banner that you can see to the right of your screen 😉

This week I will show you exactly how easy it is to become an expert in your field!

There are experts in all walks of life, you will see experts every day on the TV, Radio or in your daily newspaper, experts are like tourists on a sunny Yorkshire day – they are EVERYWHERE!

But how did they become experts and what benefits are there in becoming an expert?

The experts you will see on the TV will have no doubt studied for years and years on their chosen subject to become an expert in the field. Over the years they become respected experts that everyone wants to know, their word is gospel, when they speak people listen!

Imagine if Sir David Attenborough walked into the room now and told you that a new species of Rhino had just been discovered, I can guarantee that you would listen to his every word and that’s the most important part of this article. I think I will make it bold just to emphasize it a bit more 🙂

When experts speak, people listen!

That’s great but what does this have to do with us? More than you would think actually, on a lesser scale all of you reading this now have the power to become an authority figure in any field you have chosen.

Any of you reading now have the knowledge available to become an expert in your field. Everyone, and I do mean every one of you has something in your head that others would love to know. We all have hobbies and interests, all you need to do is document these and get people to read them, and before you know it people will be looking to you for guidance and advice.

I will use my own experiences as an example. A couple of months ago I began posting these articles from my blog onto a popular article website. After my articles were reviewed and posted on the website I was able to display the “Expert Author” image on my websites. (As you can see at the top of the page)

Displaying this image automatically gives confidence to you the readers, and more importantly potential customers. It proves that you are not some cowboy that doesn’t have a clue about the subject and it instantly gives confidence to your subscribers.

So what are you waiting for, start writing your reports and guides then you can become an expert in your field and start to reap the rewards!

****End Article****

Just a quick sidenote this week. A lot of you will have downloaded Internet Explorer 7 this week via the windows update. My initial impressions are quite good as a user, but as a Webmaster they are not so good, infact they are downright terrible.

A lot of my sites are starting to display incorrectly in IE7, I emailed Microsoft about this and their reply was:

“Dear Mr Thompson,
Thankyou for contacting Microsoft with your concerns.

We have reviewed the websites listed and can confirm that your problem lies with your code. Your HTML code is no longer valid as Internet explorer 7 now only follows code that has been written to W3 standards.

This standard has been used for over 5 years now and all webmasters should be now following the W3 guidelines.

Thankyou for contacting Microsoft
Regards,”

So by the looks of things a lot of us are going to be very busy changing our websites to comply with the W3 coding standards, which I’m sure you will agree is a massive pain in the a*** 🙁

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OK, I made all of that up but I bet for a split second there that you believed me. You believed me because you perceive me as an expert in the field and you would believe what I told you, even if in this case it is a load of rubbish! Have a read through the “email” again and you will realize how crazy it sounds, but you still believed it for a split second because it was me spinning you the tale!

That really is the end of this weeks newsletter, I hope you enjoyed reading it and I promise I won’t make up any fake emails next week but I hope I managed to get my point across.

As always please leave any comments you may have!

Thanks,
Dan

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