It sure does seem like every year at this time I have grandiose plans for next year. The problem is that it happens every year. Shouldn’t my plans for next year be so big and promising that I would be able to retire by year’s end?
Well, I’ve figured out wherein lies my error. My plans are consistently generic, great hopes. They’re not usually step by step, line by line, playbook plans. Like this year I wanted to get a blog up and going. Well, mission accomplished. Really?
Get Ready for Fun!
What I should have said and am now saying is that I want to have a blog up by x date. I will have generated x traffic by x date. I will have generated x money from x traffic by x date. And finally, I want to have perfected the system to duplicate that by year’s end. Now that’s a little more concrete. Isn’t it?
Well, my first goal is to have my product up for sale, and a membership site up and running by the time NAMS comes around in January. I also plan to have written an action plan for NAMS before Christmas (now that the schedule is on paper) and be distributing that to my NAMS friends by January 1st.
NAMS is where you can get your head on straight. Experts with answers to questions. People good at setting goals all around you. A place to figure out what you don’t know, and learn it. AND the end of January is the perfect time to attend the NAMS event in Atlanta.
Recover from the holidays. Figure out what you want to do in 2010. Put together my yet-to-be-written action plan before NAMS. And then learn as much as a person can learn in 72 hours. Awesome!
Sign up for NAMS (the best internet marketing conference) today. (NAMS SIGN UP PAGE HERE) Prepare for 2010, tomorrow.
Are you just getting started in internet marketing? I put this together as a follow-up e-mail I sent to a business group I met with. Ultimately, I decided I should immortalize it by turning it into a blog post. Before I did, I rewrote the list from a “chronological” standpoint.
If you don’t have your own website and you’re just getting started in internet marketing, then the first thing you need to do is get one. There’s no way you can market anything on the internet without a place for people to go. Sure you can send affiliate links out for the next 20 years. But if you spend your time doing that, then you’ll know that everyday you’re not working – the internet is not working for you.
So with that in mind the first step would be “get a site up”:
STEP ONE
Building Blocks
I believe there are three basic avenues:
1. Build your own site with a package like SiteBuildIt.
I would make this its own step because SiteBuildit is a complete package – everything you would possibly need in one – and they put it in the correct order for you. This is a great option if you know nothing about website design because it is specifically designed for people who don’t.
If you don’t want to use SiteBuildit but also don’t know enough code to do it on your own, you can always hire a web designer or use E-lance and bid out what you want accomplished.
What if you want a blog instead of a typical website? Both require some code skills. Here’s a good discussion for you to help make that decision: BLOG OR TRADITIONAL WEBSITE
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(Pssst. . . If you decide to go the avenue of the blog, this is the free blog upload tool. Using this will ensure that you have a secure blog. This is a much better tool than fantastico.)
The problem you’ll have going the route of designing your own site or blog is good design doesn’t necessarily mean people will find your site on the web. You’ve really got to have a designer that understands your marketing plan before they even comes up with the first draft. If you plan to market heavily using advertising- then search engine design becomes less critical. But if you plan on building a site people can find with the search engines, SEO is more important than anything.
That’s one of the training benefits you get with a package like SiteBuildIt.
I’m sure you can find a web designer, but would be happy to collaborate with you on the SEO portion if you’d like – otherwise, they may have what you need.
The Tools
With this and the option of having someone build you a site, you’re going to need both a domain name (like www.IamGreat.com) and a hosting account. You don’t need either with SiteBuildit, they come part of the package. (here’s the services they offer )
Here’s my affiliate link to Hostgator, as well. I highly recommend them. I haven’t used any other hosting company, so I can’t say if they’re better or not. But I can say I’m quite happy with them.
You’ll also need an autoresponder to send regular, scheduled e-mails to people who “subscribe” at your sites. I’ve used aWeber quite a bit and do enjoy using them. Here’s a link to them: AWEBER If you get to the point you need them, please ask me why I like them over the others. (SitebuildIt has it’s own internal autoresponder – so you don’t need that either).
3.The third avenue is THE FREE ROUTE.
You can get a free blog at wordpress.com – if you want as well, but it won’t have the tools you really need to have a successful blog. Nevertheless, they are easy, can be up in five minutes and are used by many, many people. You can also get a free “webpage” at Squidoo. They call their webpages “lenses”.
There are a few other FREE places to get a webpage, just remember you get what you pay for. I think you should definitely utilize the free website services like Squidoo, Facebook, Flickr and WordPress.com – but I think you should use them as ways to drive traffic to your main website.
STEP TWO
This could be the first step if you’re just getting started in internet marketing but already have your own website (and I don’t mean a company provided MLM website.)) This step is called “Understand the Buying Process.” You need to figure out what your goal is. If you are selling something, what? (You don’t have to sell anything to make money, sometimes all you need is traffic).
What stage of the buying process does someone need to be in to pull out their credit card? Specifically, if you’re selling computers, does the ordinary consumer do research first? Do they compare prices and stores? Do they just buy on an impulse? What do you need to accomplish in order to make the sale?Here’s a link to the discussion I put on this blog about it. Don’t start marketing until you understand this concept.
This might help, too. Here’s a great article on Direct Marketing you might like to read: http://sn.im/9f7n9
STEP THREE
Keyword research
I put this after the buying process part because it’s important to know the goal of your site before doing keyword research. It helps to know whether you’re building a site called “Benefits of Linux Based Computers” which you’ll drive people to a place to buy Linux Based Computers or if you’re building a site called “Cheapest Linux Based Computers” at which time you’re expecting your audience to have done their research and you just need to provide them the best deal.
(If you’re using Sitebuildit, then you won’t need the following tools, they’re included). If you aren’t using it, there are some good keyword tools like, Google’s Keyword Tool and their Google Wonderwheel.
The SEO Quake Plug-in for Firefox is good too, but we’ll need to discuss how to use that in person.
STEP FOUR
Take what you learned above and apply that to your website, meaning either add content or revise what you have.
STEP FIVE
Marketing Information Collection
Here are the things you want to start before you’re done building your site:
Sign up at Clicknewz and start getting that information
Set up a gmail account and get Google Alerts for your keywords. Don’t go to googlealert.com, that’s a different company. Get a Google Account and then click on “My Account” and find Google Alerts. Start an e-mail address for Google Alerts to track your keywords. This will help you with content creation and will alert you to people talking about your niche.
Keep track of all your sites with Delicious.com This is a great place to save all the websites you use. If you save them as “private” you can save your passwords and stuff too. I use them for social networking. Make a list of your favorite sites and send it out.
In fact, check out usernamecheck.com in this “delicious” list here to see what explore some user names you’ll be using at places like Twitter and Facebook. If you’re name is already taken, use your middle name or something. Try to find one name you can use everywhere.
Get this free list and pareuse the sites and how they’ll help you
STEP SIX
The Work. The Marketing.
$$. Google First Page Formula is the talk Joe Marsh at NAMS uses when teaching how to get onto the first page of Google. This one’s not free, but definitely worth having in your arsenal
FREE – Ezine Articles is the best. It gets 15 million hits per month. Read about how to do article marketing at Jeff Herring’s Site (he’s the main guy in this field).
$$ – Alertrank is the service that manages Google Alerts. I recommend it if you don’t have a lot of time to dedicate.
FREE – Another good tool is to start a Facebook Group. Here’s the one I started to help build a list of people interested in family travel: My Favorite Place To Take Kids On Vacation Is If you’ve got kids, there is a lot of content on here of great places to take kids on vacation. Join us! If you’re going to do this, let’s chat. You need a strategy before you just start swinging your arms.
$$. If you’re serious about making your business work online, I’d really, really recommend going to NAMS in January. If you’re not sure, get the recordings of the last one here: NAMS Recordings This includes one hour where we actually recorded a “how to” webinar and then proceeded to post it online and started selling it (actually making sales) within an hour. The entire how to is here.
$$. Angela’s Backlinks $5/month you get 30 high page rank sites from which you can create backlinks.
$$. Instant Capture Page: I haven’t used this, but it’s fascinating. Watch their little video.
FREE. Video Marketing -Jing is the free computer screen video capture software. You can see a screen capture video in action at Mike Stewart’s site, or can download it here and watch their tutorial: Jing Project This one is awesome!
FREE. Start establishing yourself in SOCIAL MEDIA –
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, Brightkite, SPNBabble and many more.
STEP SEVEN
GET ORGANIZED
Ron Mueller is a tax guy that specializes in HomeBusiness Tax. I don’t know of anyone local who really specializes in it. Most people know how to do taxes for a home office, but few know home business. I used this book last year and got $15,000 back on my taxes. In the book he includes all the IRS references to where in the tax code he pulls certain things. You can use it to do your taxes on Turbo Tax or you can use it to “help” guide your tax guy.
Mozy is a great place to back up all your home computer files and websites. You never know when your computer will crash
Finally, seriously consider coming to the Niche Affiliate Marketing Workshop in Atlanta in January. On this page: http://sn.im/namsx3 there are a lot of details including the list of topics we’re discussing. If you’re interested in making your site sell well- this is a great workshop to learn stuff at. It’s called a workshop because we do learn and do work. It’s not a pitch fest with a bunch of people selling their products. You’ll actually learn. http://sn.im/namsx3 – SIGN UP, IT’S FULLY REFUNDABLE AND IS THE BEST INTERNET WORKSHOP AROUND.
Barcamp Nasville 2009 was my first barcamp nashville event. Having spent some time (well more time than I shall indulge) at internet / web events, I’ll say it’s the best run FREE event I’ve attended. Everything from the session mix and the location to the volunteers and sponsors – it was a first class operation.
The Good
I sit here looking at a blank unmoving cursor as I wonder where to start. Of the good what’s actually important and how many “good” things do you talk about before your blathering just dulls. . . So I’ll start with my takeaways.
“Don’t spew link vomit. . .” was my favorite session. I had no real idea what this session was going to be about, but I just finished a social media link-study for “P90X” and was curious. The session was run mostly by the social media folks at The Tennessean and Alison Groves, who brought a real, concrete & new concept to discuss (i.e. the use of a branded url shortener). While I did a “time of day” and “action word” study using what I’d considered a branded link (http://sn.im/gop90x) – they actually created a new bit.ly, a new kl.am, a new snurl for themselves. And their data proved pretty convincingly that the concept works well.
I also enjoyed the 11:30 SEO session with Justin Briggs. I’ll say that if you were new to SEO – this was likely chock full of useful information. From somewhat of a veteran’s standpoint – Justin included enough “advanced” SEO information that I kept busy making notes. The “canonical” tag topic was not only new to me – but very useful information. He also included some links to SEO tools I hadn’t tried yet and posted his slides on Twitter in case you missed them. Excellent 30 minutes.
To round out my top 3 sessions (which I’ve apparently decided to write about), I’d give Kudos to John Morgan’s “How to Create Buzz” workshop. I didn’t leave John’s talk with copious notes on what I need to add, change or delete in my business – but did leave with a new sense of “buzz-worthy”. I believe he said if you’re trying to create massive buzz for your site, you first must ask yourself – is your site even buzz-worthy? A bit more philosophical than some of the others – but I’m still thinking about it 30 hours later.
The Bad
Ooohh. . . How can you write about the bad stuff when some of your friends helped organize it? I’d say the worst part was seeing the “untaken” name tags left at the registration table. I don’t know if there were 18 or 800, I just remember walking by the table at 3:00 thinking “I’m glad I’m not one of them.”
The only bad part about an event like this is the session length, but it’s kind of a catch-22, I’d say. At 30 minutes, I felt like the speakers had enough time to fully present their material – but that sometimes left no time for Q&A or more in-depth talks. To quickly counter that, I will add that all the presenters were immediately available for Q&A and had their biz cards ready for follow-up after the event. So I’m not sure I’d change it. I just remember sitting there a couple times thinking it went too fast.
My favorite internet/web event for session length is the NAMS event in Atlanta which happens 2x per year (next one being January). That’s the only other “no-pitch” event that I regularly attend. As a 3 day event, it’s an entirely different animal. What I really love is each session is 1 hour of learning followed by hands-on 1 hour workshop. In my opinion – it’s the best environment around to really learn something, have the chance to try it out and have experts on hand to help.
Otherwise, I’m not sure there was really a bad I could harp on.
The Ugly
Hmm. . . There’s ugly in everything. In fact they say in any group of 5 friends, 2 are ugly. So I’m trying to come up with the ugly and have come to the sad realization that I may be it. You should have seen my face once they started talking in the Symfony vs Rails discussion. That’s a topic that was way over my head. It was a good thing that session was only 30 minutes. I’m not sure I wanted to feel that “out of the loop” for much longer.
I look forward to the next Barcamp Nashville event. Thanks to all who put it on.
I lived in Romania in 1994 which was 5 years after the fall of the wall but still very early in the post Communist process. I was 20 at the time and got the wake-up call every American needs. I now think everyone needs to live abroad. Only then can you appreciate what you have, and what you don’t.
One of the curious aspects of Romania at the time was their attitude toward customer service. Coming from the U.S. where customer service has been the buzz word for 30 years, I was shocked by that particular difference.
My host family once told me that Romanians didn’t like the term customer service. Not because they didn’t want to treat customers fairly but because of the history they had with the word service, servitude and serving their government. She said if that concept was to one day become a business buzz word there – the word service would likely not be part of the term.
I didn’t fully grasp that comment, at least not personally, until Twitter. For me it’s the word “followers”. I really don’t like that word at all. I think of David Koresh and the Waco, TX incident. I think of kool-aid drinkers of South America. I just can’t come up with a positive idea regarding the word “followers”.
Like the Romanians if I could rename that part of Twitter, it certainly wouldn’t include that concept. Maybe that’s because I don’t “follow” anyone. I certainly don’t log-in to Ashton Kutcher’s page to see what he did for lunch and where he is now.
Facebook calls them “friends”, LinkedIn – “Connections”. I sure do wish Twitter had called them Party Go-ers, or Tweeps or Interacters. Actually I can’t come up with a good term myself.
But if it were my business, I’d really take a good, long look at the terms I use on my site. Not only does language play a hand in the terms you choose, but so does culture. What is the culture you want to create? Does that culture mesh well with the culture of your market?
Have you seen what Google Wave is all about yet? It honestly will change the face of the internet forever. There’s no going back. Even if Google Wave fails, if no one uses it – there’s no way to put back the ideas they’ve presented.
As I’m sure you know, I suffered a small Twitter set-back yesterday when my Twitter account was deleted and all my connections with it. Well, I panicked at first (that last 3.37 minutes) and started to regroup. I sent e-mails to support@twitter.com with no return feedback. I did internet research and then struck gold.
I found http://www.twitter.com/about and got myself to the HelpDesk where I put in a support ticket. At first I held out hope that my inquiry would be solved in minutes, then hours – then I gave up. Well, less than 12 hours later I got a simple reply. Inquiry Solved.
The Great Twitter Gods and their processes solved my problem. I did not for a second forget that Twitter is free, as is their support, their problem solving, their connection making, their utility.
Thanks be to Twitter. Let this lesson be a lesson . . . to me.
And if you want to read about all the lessons go to TwitterGlitch.com
Today, I was jolted from my comfort zone and thrust into something new. I accidentally deleted my Twitter account today, and with it the connections to all my friends in the Twitter-verse. I was in the midst of deciding whether or not to sign up for Ironman Wisconsin. The entry fee for the race is now $576 – up from $350 in 2001. To give myself a few minutes to digest that enormous price tag, I typed www.twitter.com/danrmorris into my browser. Continue reading “9/14/09 – The Day of My Twitter Glitch”
Are you going to the Niche Affiliate Marketing System Workshop in January? If not, then register right now and get the early bird special before the price shoots up. (Here, Right here. . .)
Now that you’re going, let’s talk about how you’re going to get the most of the weekend. How do you get the most of anything? You have a plan in hand, that’s how. So let’s create that plan.
1st of all. . you’re going to meet a bunch of people so let’s put on the plan:
How Should I Leverage the People I Meet?
Niche Affiliate Marketing System
This is important because you’re going to be shoulder to shoulder with people who can help you AND people you can help. Maybe you could interview some of them for your site, maybe you could create a mastermind group with some of them. Some have regular BlogTalkRadio shows. Do you want to be a guest? What about a guest blogger? Is there something you’d like to feature on your site, but you’re not knowledgable enough? Write that down. Don’t just write down “get an interview with a presenter” – that’s not a plan. Figure out why you want to interview a presenter and make sure that’s what you talk about. If you have a garden site, maybe it would be nice to have a short video on landscaping techniques. Write that down and seek out “landscaping niche” people when you get there.
To give you a headstart, find out what the instructors specialize in before coming in January. Sure, keep tabs on the Twitter #NAMS hash tag search for other people attending but here’s a list to get you started:
(These are the people I believe are slated to be presenters, but there may be more, may be less, may be some different one as well. To see a list of the people who’ve attended NAMS events in the past go to http://sn.im/namsfolks)
Next, you’re going to attend a bunch of educational sessions so let’s add:
Determine What I Need To Learn From Each Session
There will be a schedule. Read the schedule. If traffic building is a topic, write down what you’re doing now and what specific problems are occurring. If “how to create a product” is a topic and you have never even considered that, start thinking about what kind of product would be nice to focus on while you’re at the workshop. Going back to the gardening example, would your customers like “7 tips on planting roses?” If so, make a note of that so come workshop time you don’t spend time trying to figure out what you’re going to do. And so what if you don’t get it done. Once you learn how, you can do it anytime.
Next, there are traditionally two kinds of people that go to the NAMS events. The first kind are the people who have a website (or websites) and want to market them better. The second kind are the people who just want to learn more about internet marketing but don’t have anything yet. Either way the next bullet point is the same:
When I Return from NAMS, what knowledge will have made it all worth it?
That one is important because even if you learn 1,000 things while you’re there, it will bug you if you get back and still don’t know how to do “X”. So unless you write down what you’d like to learn, there’s a possibility you just won’t remember to ask. Seriously think this one through. “It’d be nice to know how to create pages on my blog. . .”It’d be nice to know how to submit an e-book to Amazon”. It doesn’t matter if it has anything to do with Niche Marketing. You’re going to be in the presence of people who’ve probably done what you’re wondering about. Don’t let that thought slip by.
And finally . . .
What physical products do I need?
This is an important one too because you can come home from the Niche Affiliate Marketing System Workshop with actual things. Videos, articles, interviews, business cards, appointments (and even movie making software if you go crazy trying to win it). What would be good to have? A completed e-book? Someone saying “check out mywebsite.com” on video? Someone interviewing you for your site? An article written and published, a picture of you with Willie Crawford wearing a shirt that says “I love thisguyswebsite.com”..
Why do people search for “free website domain name”? I can only assume they have an idea for a perfect website concept but don’t want to pay to reserve it. Well there is a way to get a free website domain name, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have to pay.
What is Domain Name Service
Some people ask me about the definition of domain name and other ask what is domain name service. These are basically the same question. GoDaddy is a service that, among other things, sells website names. Examples of a website name are Amazon.com, www.thinkgeek.com, or www.benefits-of-resveratrol.com. You think of them as the names of the websites, but in reality they’re called domain names.
Definition of Domain Name
I don’t have any idea what the definition of domain name is. But I can tell you it is a code word that represents a number. See, websites are really just numbered pages and the name is the clever way to represent that number. For example: www.google.com is just a human friendly version of the website’s address 72.14.253.99. If you just typed 72.14.253.99 in the address bar, it would take you to www.google.com.
(Don’t want to get technical, but that number is called an IP Address).
How to Choose Domain Name
This is super easy. Go to GoDaddy.com, type in the super great name you came up with and if GoDaddy says it is available, then buy it. Done.
My favorite website for securing free domain names is SiteSell.com. This is a website building service that features everything you could possibly need. Keyword/Domain Name Search Tools, SEO analyzing tools, link building tools, Search Engine Monitoring and Traffic monitoring tools, e-mail list builder, newsletter creator, blog creator, etc. . . etc. . . etc. AND when you use their service you get a free domain name AND website hosting.
Having just spent a weekend at the (NAMS) Niche Affiliate Marketing Workshop with you this weekend, I came home with a new appreciation for your 13 years of internet experience. I’m not sure if your open, kind-hearted nature is a result of your 13 years or just who you are, but I am appreciative.
The business world, whether on-line or off-line, is full of successful people who are more than happy to tell you what made them successful. However, what they really tell you are the self-serving things that not only foster their continued success but endear their listeners to become followers, buyers of their books and clients of their services. Most successful people are more than willing to reinforce your opinion of their success.
I have found you to be quite the opposite. I firmly subscribe to your belief that your competition is often your friend, your competition can be your ally and when you reinforce that people who work together will find more pathways to success. You spent an entire weekend of your life (and not the first I might add) helping what many would consider to be your future competition (in some niches). And you spent a weekend helping people who may never be able to help you. That’s true sincerity.
Not only were your experiences real and open and your lessons explained easily, but your actions and efforts continually proved that our success was at the heart of your deeds. You remind me of the Bridge Builder in Will Dromgoole’s poem, and for that I am grateful. While I single you out in this letter, you and the other experts at NAMS, lead by an example that I hope characterizes the world of Internet Marketing going forward.
I am proud to be a NAMS student and look forward to more NAMS events, and every passing encounter.
Best regards,
Dan Morris
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