Wanna hear my two cents? Below you’ll find a 20-minute audio where I was interviewed by Pam Zimmer. Feel free to download, SHARE, or listen straight from this post.

What questions did I answer?

• Why would someone want to sign up as an affiliate and what are the benefits?
• What is a “mask URL” and when/why would you want to use one?
• How can you leverage being an affiliate to market and grow your business?
• If someone is new to social media and wanted to create the most opportunity for a book release, what are the top things they should do?
• What other tips can I offer to have more success with affiliate marketing and social media?

Click to Download

I’d love to hear your comments and takeaways. Please ask a question or send a comment through Facebook comments below, and/or share this article with others to spread awareness and help educate.

Thank you!

The best way to reach a large number of people and get your message across on the internet today is through video but not just any video. It must be a video that captures and keeps your audienceʼs attention.

Video is considered by Google as a higher form of engagement than a simple blog or article and ranks higher in the ratings. Therefore you have a better shot at reaching more people if you do a video rather than a simple article. And the more people that watch your video, the higher you will rank on Google and the more likelihood people who are searching in your niche market will see a link to your video and watch it.

'Evolution of Dance' Example Viral Video

6 Key Elements of a Viral Video

So how do you make your video go viral so you rank as high as possible on Google?

1. Keep your video short and to the point.
2. Keep it simple and entertaining.
3. State the problem in your niche market you are going to help them solve right up front in the beginning of the video.
4. Give them useful information so that you move them from a place of no or little knowledge to a place of educated knowledge that puts them ahead in their industry.
5. Choose a title with key words – ones that captures your niche marketʼs attention and offers a solution to their problem.
6. Create a coordinated attack with link bait so that you rank on the first page of Google within 24 hours of posting your video.

Youʼre probably wondering what a coordinated attack is. Itʼs when you post your video on as many social networking sites as possible and get large numbers of people to link back to your video and share it all on the same day. The way to do that is to create link bait, something that causes people to click on your link to watch and share your video.

7 Steps to Create a Coordinated Attack

1. Post your Video on YouTube and other social networking videos sites such as Vimeo.
2. Post it on Blog sites, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networking sites.
3. Put a Call to Action in it asking people if they liked the video or found it useful to please share it with others.
4. Email it to your mailing list and ask them to share it with others.
5. Do online press releases with a link to your video.
6. Contact as many people as possible, especially people who have large email mailing lists and social networking audiences to post, email and blog about your video as well.
7. Offer link bait, such as an ethical bribe offering more knowledge, a free gift, or a chance to win a contest in order to get them to link back to your website and share your video.

When Google sees a large number of people linking to a video within a 24 hour period, it views that as a high form of engagement and moves the video quickly up in rankings.

Did you find this post helpful? Lend us a hand in getting the
word out by sharing this on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
Let’s show Beth some love.

Beth Rosen is a film producer, #1 best selling author and business entrepreneur who offers various products, services, courses and private coaching designed to accelerate your path to success and happiness. She is currently offering a unique online movie-making course called The Back Door to Hollywood which teaches you how to make a professional movie/video, how to stand out from the crowd and how to create your own lucky break. For more information, please visit www.BethRosen.com.

There is a TON of valuable information in this post. All of the links open in a new window and the content will laser in on that topic. I invite you to spend some time here and really take advantage of this FREE platform I’ve developed just for you.

For those of you who are just getting started online, this post would be excellent for you to print out and keep by your computer as you
build your online platform (your website, social networks, leads – it is all-encompassing of your touch-points online). For those of you who think they are on a great track online, this may be a good post to see what has slipped between the cracks or what area you could build up for better results.

So let’s get started. Consider your online platform and online presence. Really think about the blood, sweat and tears you’ve put into building a website (whether you invested $10,000+ or started a free WordPress site), into starting a social networking account and trying to figure it out, into listening to webinars and teleseminars and reading blog posts on “how” to do it all. Next, I invite you read each question *slowly* and really analyze where you’re at with each of these items:

• Do you have a professionally designed logo that can make for good branding?
• Are you staying ‘up to date’ on what’s happening in your industry so you become the go-to authority for news?
• Do you post to your blog regularly (not once a month, but one a week or more?)
• Is your business brand consistent between all touch points online – from your LinkedIn profile to your Facebook cover to your email newsletter look and feel?
• Have you looked at your content in the past three months to see what, if anything was outdated material?
• Do you do what you say you are going to do online (release new products on time, follow through with your ideas, etc.)?
• When is the last time you did keyword research or competitor research?
• Have you reached out to anyone lately to discuss the concept of collaboration, so you can grow your business more quickly in new markets?
• Do you have a growth plan or goals to help grow your business (such as how many email subscribers you’ll get, how many Facebook friends, how many blog posts, how many emails will you send out to your list each month, etc.)?
• Have you stepped back to evaluate if your web team really IS good, or just the inexpensive solution who isn’t really getting you where you need to be?
• Does your website design help you or hurt you, and when is the last time you’ve evaluated areas for improvement?
• Do you have a solid free introductory product you can give away as incentive for people to sign up to your mailing list?
• And is that free introductory product branded and professionally designed and formatted?
• Do you have obvious social networking icons and feeds on your website so web visitors can connect with you?
• Does your tagline make sense and help you stand out from the noise? Is it easy to remember and does it make an impact?
• Do you have a list of keywords you are targeting with every piece of content you write, so you can start dominating search engines?
• Are you regularly adding products to your website that are for sale so people can get ‘the next best thing’ from you?
• How often are you adding a ‘call to action’ in everything you do (at the end of blog posts, in your email newsletters, in every contact point)?
• Are you organized with your business and do you treat it like a real business with scheduling and planning meetings?
• Do you thank your web visitors, email subscribers, social networking friends and clients for sticking with you?
• How often do you implement new ways to drive traffic to your website and blog?

Your impact on the web IS what you make of it. Those are just a few questions you can ask yourself from time to time to make sure you are BUILDING. Starting an online business is not the easiest task in the world. You are competing with billions of web pages out there. But, there is more than enough room in the sea for us all to profit.

The trick is knowing what to do next to continue building your online platform. Stay focused. Don’t lose the momentum. If you need help with your direction or with implementing tasks, feel free to contact me and let’s have a loose conversation about it. The key is to get help from people who know what they are talking about – and that becomes obvious when someone writes about those topics and gives away the farm just to help others. I’m not tooting my own horn here so much as just teaching how to identify the right kind of person to help you with your business.

If you thought this post was of value, please SHARE this post with others on your social networks. My goal is simple: Helping Others. As many as I can get my hands on.

Thank you for spreading the light!

What is the best way to drive traffic to my site? What’s the fastest way to generate traffic to my site? What’s…?

We all want to know the best way to drive the greatest amount of traffic to our sites. However, the truth is that there is no best or fastest way to drive traffic! What works for me might not work for you, and vice versa. Just because I manage to get 500 visitors a day from an article I submitted to article directories doesn’t mean you can get that much traffic doing the same thing.

Of course, there are some traffic generation methods that produce better results than others. But again, it all depends on you and your situation. Let’s take article marketing as an example. Article marketing is one of the oldest and best ways to generate traffic. But the success of your article marketing campaign depends on many different things, like the number of articles you write, the number of article directories you submit to, the quality of your articles, how many articles a day you submit, and more.

My advice would be to pick a few methods from the 65 I’ve listed below, and start implementing them. Test them for yourself. Depending on your skills, you might find a method that would work wonders for you.

Don’t just follow what everybody else says. I’m not saying, “Don’t listen to experienced people who are successful in generating traffic to their site.” By all means, listen to them and do take their advice—but experiment to find out for yourself which traffic generation methods work best for you and your situation.

With that said, here are 65 simple and (mostly) free ways to generate traffic to your site.

1. Turn your articles and blog posts into PDFs using free PDF converters like OpenOffice. Then submit your PDFs to document sharing sites like Scribd and DocStoc.
2. Write truly informative and useful articles related to your niche, and publish them on WikiPedia.
3. Hold a contest and give prizes to your readers. Use social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to let people know about the contest. A good contest with good prizes will attract a lot of people.
4. Build a wiki page for your blog. To ensure your page doesn’t get deleted, create an article that is educational, informational, and not self-promoting.
5. Write list posts like the one you are reading. Readers love posts like “10 ways to make money” or “6 ways to drive traffic to your blog”. List posts are amongst the most popular kinds of posts, and people tend to share list posts with others more often than other posts.
6. Make flyers with a catchy title and a description of your blog, and post them on bulletin boards in the entrance to supermarkets and other community buildings.
7. Post frequently, but don’t sacrifice quantity for quality. Both search engines and visitors like to see fresh, quality content. The more content you have, the more chances you have for ranking for variety of keywords, which will mean more organic traffic for your blog.
8. Make a lens (or more) using Squidoo and in it, place a few links back to your blog.
9. Submit your blog to directories relevant to your niche, like InsLink.com (an SEO/webmaster directory).
10. Make it easy for non-technical readers to link to your blog or share your links with other people by making a “How to link to us” page. Here, give readers easy instructions on how to link to your blog with your keywords as anchor text.
11. Submit your blog to search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Or simply use AdMe.com to submit your site to over 25 search engines for free.
12. Use sites like Odiogo to turn your blog into a podcast, then submit your podcast to podcast websites.
13. Answer questions related to your niche on YahooAnswers and other Q & A sites. Include a link to your blog in the resource box.
14. Submit your blog to social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon.
15. Write and submit articles to article directories like EzineArticles and ArticleDashboard.
16. Turn your articles to videos using free video creation services like Animoto, and submit them to video directories such as YouTube and DailyMotion.
17. Build a Facebook fan page for your blog.
18. Make use of plugins like Tell-a-Friend to let your readers quickly share your posts with their friends and family vie email.
19. Use Hi5 to build a page for your blog and create a community around it.
20. Don’t clutter your blog with too many pictures, ads, and so on. Keep it clean and easy to navigate. This will help both search engines and visitors to navigate around your blog easily and quickly.
21. Join BlogEngage to submit your blog and create a community around it.
22. Ping your blog posts using free ping services such as Pingler and Pingoat.
23. Create a hub about your blog on HubPages.
24. Register with few good niche-related forums and use your signature to place links pointing to your blog. Participate in discussions and contribute as much as you can.
25. Make it easy for your readers to share your posts by installing social bookmarking plugins like SocialMarker and Digg Buttons.
26. Readers like to read other people’s comments, especially those who responded to their comments. So, take advantage of that by using a plug-in like Comment Notifier to automatically let your readers know of new comments posted on your blog.
27. Make your blog more search engine friendly by using SEO plug-ins such as Platinum SEO Pack.
28. Target long-tail keywords with low competition and try to rank for them. Such keywords are easier to rank for in search engines and give you much more targeted traffic.
29. Make a MySpace page for your blog.
30. Make business cards with your blog info on them, hand them to friends and family, and ask them to pass them on. Mall parking lots are good place to pass your cards around. In some states you can even put your business card on windshields. You can get up to 250 free business cards using sites like VistaPrint (although you do have to pay $5 shipping).
31. Submit your blog to the free directories like DMOZ (hard to get into, but well worth the effort!).
32. Write a good press release, or hire a professional to do it for you (you can get a pretty decent press release written for you for $5 on Fiverr.com), and submit them to free press release distribution sites like PR.com.
33. Write creative and attention-grabbing ads about your blog, and publish them on free classified ads sites such as CraigsList and UsFreeAds.
34. Controversial posts attract visitors. Write a controversial post. Be creative and bold, but be careful not to cross the boundaries.
35. Ask an expert or a trusted, well-known person in your niche for an interview. Then post the entire interview on your blog, either as a text post or as a video.
36. Leave quality comments on blogs that are related to your niche. Make sure your comments add value to the blog. Don’t just spam-comment and hope for the best. It never works, and your links will get deleted. Worst of all, you might get blacklisted from the site. If you leave a useful comment, people will be more likely to visit your blog.
37. Use free banner-making tools like BannerFans to make an interesting banner for your blog. Then find other bloggers in your niche and exchange banners with them.
38. Exchange links with other blogs in your niche. Don’t go overboard with this technique, or exchange links with each and every blog you find—be selective and make sure the context for your link is appropriate. Most people use their main keyword as the anchor text for their link, that’s good for SEO. But, if you want to get more traffic from those links, instead use attention-grabbing text as your anchor text. Don’t use “Make Money Online” for your link text—people are used to seeing those links all over the web. Instead use something like “10 ways to make $10 in 10 minutes.”
39. If you find interesting posts on other blogs, write a post about them and link to them. The other bloggers will notice and might do the same for you.
40. Find good blogs in your niche that accept guest posts. You can either search manually or make it easy for yourself by registering for free with MyBlogGuest, which matches guest bloggers with blogs that accept guest posts. Write and submit your best articles to get the maximum exposure. Don’t just submit the article and leave. Make sure you follow up and respond to comments and questions that readers of those blogs ask.
41. Submit your site to review sites that write reviews on other websites and blogs, like CoolSiteOfTheDay.
42. Submit your blog to BlogCatalog.
43. People love free stuff, so give out freebies that are related to your niche. If you are in “online money making” niche, a free ebook that teaches people who to make money on Twitter might make an appropriate freebie.
44. Write a page on 43things.com about your blog and what you want to do with it.
45. Use your keywords in the title of your posts. Having your keyword in the title makes it easier for you to rank for that keyword, thus bringing you more organic traffic.
46. Use your blog’s name as your username on forums, social networking sites, and other places like YahooAnswers. People are curious by nature, so they may check out your blog out of curiosity and if you have good compelling content, they may become your loyal readers.
47. Make a bumper sticker with your blog address on it, and place it on your car’s bumper. You can even ask your friends and family to do the same for you!
48. Make a Twitter profile for your blog and tweet each and every post you publish on your blog.
49. Register with EntreCard and start dropping your card on other blogs. You will be amazed how much traffic you can get from EntreCard.
50. Register with ComLUV.com and download their plugin.Then use the Global CommentLuv Search to find blogs related to your niche and comment on them. It will return up to ten (recent) posts that will be sent back when you comment on a CommentLuv enabled site. Most are dofollow blogs, and you will get dofollow links back to your most recent posts. This is good for link building and getting some traffic.
51. Make a free ebook with a link back to your site in it, and submit it to free ebook sites like GetFreeEbooks.com.
52. Buy .info domains with long-tail keywords in them and use a redirect to send the traffic they receive to your main site.
53. Rent a mailing list and send high-quality content with a link back to your site to all the subscribers. Take care with this technique so that you’re not blacklisted as a spammer, though. Find a reputable list broker—or, if in doubt, why not start your own?
54. Post a classified ad on eBayClassified with a link to your site.
55. When you eat out, leave a good tip along with a business card with your site info on it.
56. Create a short report with resell rights and and include your links in the report. Give it to people for free: those people can sell the report to others as their own, so long as they don’t remove your links. The results of this technique will surprise you.
57. Come up with a really crazy but buzz-worthy post and submit it to NowPublic.com (Previously known as Truemors). If it’s good enough, it might just go viral!
58. Go to YouTube, find popular videos related to your niche and start commenting on those videos with a link back to your blog. Youtube videos get thousands of views, and since most people are sociable creatures, they will read the comments no matter how far down the list your comment is.
59. Create a page (personal or business) at LookUpPage.com. You can add as many links to your blog as you like. Write a short “about” post about yourself or your blog, and make sure to link to your Twitter and other social networking sites as well. After creating the page, bookmark it using SocialMarker and ping it with Pingler (or any other tools you like).
60. Register with Visible.me for free, and add links and information about your blog. Its a great way to build your brand and get a few backlinks from a high-PR (6) dofollow site.
61. Submit your RSS feed to RSS aggregators. Here, I don’t mean just your blog’s RSS feed: grab the RSS url of every site you have a link on (example: if you submit articles to ezine.com, you will have your own “author RSS” URL), and go to RssMix.com. It will let you make a custom RSS feed. Take that and submit it to RSS directories and aggregators. This will put your RSS feed on steroids—and will give you many more backlinks.
62. Make a few (yard) signs with your blog’s URL and a good title related to your niche, and place them on highway exit ramps, at busy intersections, and so on. Make sure you abide by the laws in your own state or country if you try this approach.
63. Put an ad in your local newspaper. If you live in a small town, it may not be very expensive to have an ad on your local newspaper—or on TV or radio, for that matter.
64. Order some T-shirts with your blog URL and title printed on them and give them away. People will check out your URL!
65. This is just for fun, so enjoy it! Make a big and I mean big sandal (or flip flop) with your blog’s URL engraved on the bottom, go to a busy beach, and start walking all over the sand! Leave your mark for others to see.

These methods will keep you busy for a while. But perhaps the most important tip I can give you is to be patient. Getting traffic to a blog takes time and a lot of work. You cannot expect to have hundreds of visitors after a few weeks, or months of starting your blog. But, if you are a dedicated person who’s willing to put enough time and effort into it, you can’t help but attract more visitors to your blog over time.

~
This guest post is by Satrap of BlogStash.com. Material from ProBlogger.net

You’ve probably heard the phrase, “Two heads are better than one.” Collaboration is hot, hot, hot in today’s online world. Entrepreneurs everywhere have a message and realize they must get to where the people are if they ever want to be successful. Well, each business owner online today has a community of followers in their back pockets. Some have more followers, some have less. It is my suggestion to develop the mindset that there are tons of people out there, with big communities, who are just waiting to meet you and promote you. If you have something of VALUE to offer their audience, they will promote you!

Let’s give an example. In any industry there will be leaders who have an active blog with lots of readers, or leaders who run teleseminars and webinars, leaders who a have big social networking following, etc. All you need to do is a little research to go find them! Go to that leaders website and study what they are doing, what they talk about, what they promote. Then get creative on how you can expand upon something they are already doing, or by offering something new.

You could connect with that leader and say, “This is who I am and this is the value I add to my clients. I came across your company and it is really in alignment with what I do. Would you be open to pairing up and running a joint teleseminar call?” Then, together you create the outline for the event, and you each go promote it to your following. This is a WIN WIN. You have less work to do since someone else is sharing the work load. That person is promoting you all over their social networks, blog, etc. The leader gets the same in return. Don’t worry if you have a smaller following – make up for it by providing bigger value!

You can use this same concept and instead of offering to co-run a teleseminar, you provide that person a HUGE value-packed blog post to add to their site (and let them know you’ll post one of their blogs on your site).

The steps to initiate a collaboration are:

• Find 5-10 people in your industry that seem to have a bigger following than you (a simple Google search will do)
• Pick 3 people to start with
• Read through their posts, look at their upcoming events, review their social networks (spend about 15-20 minutes on each person — that time is worth the huge potential for projects and clients you’ll get out of it, so don’t rush this part)
• Determine the best way you can offer service to that person (a blog post, a collaborative eBook, a teleseminar, etc)
• Next, just reach out to that person (“This is who I am and this is the value I add to my clients. I came across your company and it is really in alignment with what I do. Would you be open to pairing up and ___________”)
• All you ever need to do is add value for free up front. Just out of the goodness of your heart. The business and partners WILL follow.

My CHALLENGE for you today is:
Just start by doing a Google search and find those 5-10 leaders to target. Now, you can’t just Google, “dog training leader”. You may need to get creative and search on phrases such as “dog training webinar” (people who do webinars are more advanced in marketing and generally have a bigger following), “dog training private coaching” etc. Get creative and search by service and you may get more answers, faster.

If you need help or have questions about collaboration, I would like to invite you to make a Facebook post below. If you want advice or direction, I’m always more than happy to share what I know. Thank you in advance for your interaction:

So many people have this dilemma. The next step is to rush, rush through logo and website design, rush to add content to the site, rush to turn that sign over to read “Open for business!”

My suggestion? Ask your web developer (how do you know if your web person is any good? click here) to put up a blog with a decent free theme. Someplace you can go to and start blogging now. You don’t have to have your logo done, web design done – nada. Just get “something” up and start the race. The key is to write content while you build the site – then add the design and branding in within the next month or two when you’re all set. This way you generate traffic NOW instead of waiting another two months (that would be super frustrating for you).

The #1 way to get a LOT more traffic and a LOT more results is to blog your heart out. Get to 100 blog posts as fast as possible. This will be key in starting to build your online platform! Adding content alone will give you a big increase in traffic. The faster you want results, the faster you should write blog posts with good valuable content.

Then people come to your site and love your blog post content. At that time, they will want to know what else they can get from you. So, what you want to work on creating is a KILLER good “free introductory offer” to give away in exchange for people signing up to your email list. It has to be something everyone wants NOW. (Such as the “7 things you are doing every day to kiss your financial future good-bye”) Something that everyone wants, today.

Let’s say you make a 7-15 page, beautifully designed and formatted eBook. I can help with the design and formatting (which needed to be done AFTER your branding and logo design so you have congruency). Once your eBook is ready (let’s say you have a goal to knock out the content in 7-10 days – design takes 2-3 days usually), now you have a high value product free on your site. Now you are leaps better at capturing leads.

Then you go to your calendar and make a note that once or twice a month, you send a high-value email to that email list so they are staying connected to you and interested in you.

Next, you start working on creating a $97 product. Maybe it is a 2 DVD or CD set (that is beautifully packaged – now that you have a brand and logo) and a small workbook. So you now funnel people from your free eBook to your $97 product that people can’t live without.

Then, you create the outline for a really great 4-8 week teleseminar. One a month maybe where you deliver a process or method, and then give the listeners a challenge to go execute on. Then end with a Q&A. Charge $300 per person.

Now you have a TON of free content from your blog and eBook (and other things you’ll naturally be a part of such as guest blogging, radio interviews, podcasting maybe), you have your rockin $97 product and teleseminar recordings. Now it’s time to start building your membership site (which could take 6-12 months to create). You give a high value call once a month, plus access to all of your content and interviews, etc. You charge $50-100 a month.

etc etc. By this point, you may not have even realized it, but you have an online platform now!

Now backing up, by the time your website design is done, set a goal for the number of blog posts you want to publish and have your eBook content done (or maybe the whole final eBook done).

Once that is done and design is complete, package it all together and then you work to create that next product to generate good starting income. You don’t need to wait for the perfect website – I can’t stress that enough.

Design is your brand, it is what people will see to connect with you, trust you and remember you. Let the content be so great that they don’t even care if you have a design.

Anything worthwhile doing takes time.

My CHALLENGE for you today is:

• Sit down and write out 30 ideas for topics you could write about that is related to your message or topic. Just brainstorm – free write. There’s no need to make this perfect. When you are just getting started, I say “JUST WRITE” than focus so hard on what topic you need to write about to be perfect, perfect. Don’t put so much pressure on yourself to be perfect – just add value to people’s lives!
• Next, go to your calendar and write a reasonable and realistic schedule for how often you want to publish a blog post. Remember the goal is 100 posts as fast a possible. That could take you a year or 6 months – that is up to you. A good goal to start is twice a week. Then get used to that and up the ante again to 3 posts a week.
• Then, just start. It’s that easy, just “go”.

If you need help or have questions about building out your online platform, I would like to invite you to make a Facebook post below. If you want advice or direction, I’m always more than happy to share what I know. Thank you in advance for your interaction:

“I just started reading your ebook – Online Evolutions – and I wanted to let you know that it is truly inspirational! You talk about many of the same principles that I applied to my sales regime and daily routine early in my career. I must say that I needed a “refresher course”. Keep writing and offering up principles to live by!”  — Joyce K

“Thanks Amber! I got the hard copy of the (Online Evolutions) book in the mail yesterday. Thanks for your note. You are so great! I am excited! Thanks again! You rock!!!! “  — Sarah

I’ve been asked throughout this year, “When’s the next volume coming??” Thank you all for your patience as I could get this formatted and prepped for you. Today I can announce, “IT’S HERE!”

I had a ton of fun putting together Online Evolutions, Volume 2. I got so inspired I even started Volume 3 already!

So What is Online Evolutions 2 Anyway?

If You – Or Someone You Know – Wants to…

• How to create an eBook or product that sells or can go viral
• 21 tips to improve online efforts for better results
• Learn about eCommerce and selling products online, effectively
• Get over anxiety of not knowing what to do next or how to do it
• Learn key design and social media strategies every website owner should know

…Then Online Evolutions 2 has become one of the most important purchases you can make today.

Online Evolutions 2 is a 67-page collection of my top training articles and includes an impressive lineup of do-it-myself strategies that can give you the progress you’re wanting to boost your online status!

What if I need more convincing?

Online Evolutions, Volume 2 is really only for those of you who already know my work, the value I provide and don’t need convincing. However, you can download Online Evolutions 1 for FREE in the right sidebar to get a taste of the value. Then I am confident you will come back to look at Volume 2 as it holds 67 PAGES of more, more, more value.

Oh ya, almost forgot, I have a SPECIAL surprise for you…

I don’t know what got into me as I was finalizing this eBook, haha, but I got a wild itch to throw in a special surprise to those of you who have purchased the downloadable eBook OR the hard copy version. The catch is, you have to READ the book in order to get the surprise! Somewhere in one of the 67 pages I have a section blocked off a small section that has a link. This link will lead you to a special surprise that will absolutely make an impact on the way you look at your website and the way it performs for you. That’s all I can say!

So, what are the options to get  your hands on Online Evolutions 2?

Option 1.  You can get the Instant-Download eBook version for only $29.97

Option 2. You can get a printed, signed, hard copy version for $39.97 and get the eBook free while you wait a couple days for me to ship the book to you.

Once you get your copy, please let me know your thoughts. All I want to do is provide value to you and make your life easier. I know we are in an Information Age where you are bombarded with hundreds of “To-dos” and “Must-dos”. My goal is to tell you what is actually important and how to execute easily and without spending gobs of money. We must all pool together and help support each other toward success. From me to you – enjoy what I have prepared for you! 

When you publish a new page or post, Google “spiders” (automated software) scan the page for “keywords”. These spiders are analyzing everything about that page to determine where to index that page within the billions of pages in the Google search engine. Once you’re in the habit of optimizing your blog posts (and pages), you will see major benefits and a dramatic increase in website traffic.

If you go to www.Google.com and search under the keyword phrase “personal development”, you will notice 100,000,000+ pages are indexed in Google. Google will rank a page based on over 200 sets of criteria which can include design elements, programming style, etc.

Since Google is scanning your content, you can see the value of trying to give Google as much “help” as possible. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is all about suggesting to Google where to index your content in their search engine. If you try to get indexed on the 1st page of search results for the phrase “personal development”, consider that you are competing with entire websites that have dozens (or hundreds) of pages which collectively try and rank (get indexed highly) for that phrase. It would be nearly impossible for one article to compete with those websites.

It will be much easier to rank well for a “long-tailed keyword phrase”. Instead of personal development (a broad  phrase), a long-tailed version would be “personal development techniques for young children”. The more specific your keyword phrase, the more likely you will rank highly on Google’s search engine for that phrase. The higher you rank (the best spot is page 1 in the top 5 results), the more people will click on your page/post. The more people that click on your article, the more exposure you get, etc. This will be really fun for you once you’ve optimized a few articles and have seen results!

Every time you write a blog post (4-8+ per month – the more you do it the more traffic and sales you’ll get), I’d like to suggest you implement this SEO Optimization Checklist I’ve developed: (print this off and keep by computer)

• Pick 1 primary keyword phrase and base your article around it (use your findings from Google’s Keyword Tool which I will discuss on my next post)
• Pick a few secondary keyword phrases to support your primary keyword phrase. Write your blog post naturally around these keywords.
• Add your primary keyword within the title of your post
• Add your primary keyword within the first 150 words AND last 150 words (ideally once or twice in the middle if it flows)
• Bold your primary keyword and secondary keywords at least once
• Create a link once in your content, using the text of your primary keyword (to other pages or posts within your website ideally)
• Add 3-5 Tags in the right sidebar (these are your main keywords in the post)
• Fill in the “All In One SEO” plugin title, description and keyword fields at the bottom of the post

With the “All In One SEO” section, you’re suggesting to Google what your title and description should be, which will show up in their search engine results – plus keywords (which don’t show up anywhere – just tells Google which keywords your article should be indexed under). Look at this example:

• The title to enter into the All In One SEO section, tells Google the title of your article (It CAN be the same as your article title, or it can be altered and packed with more keywords – this is up to you).
• The description is for you to summarize your article in one sentence (ideally under 160 characters).
• The keywords field is where you can add up to 20 keywords that must be included in your article. This will have your primary keyword phrase, secondary phrases and some variations of each that you’ve used. Your tags can be entered into this section. You will separate keywords with a comma. Again, no one will see this except for Google.

You have now learned one of the most important pieces to optimizing a page or post (even outside of WordPress!). Programmers and developers all over know about this technique. The “meta” title, “meta” description and keywords should be filled out on every page and post of your website if you want a chance of showing up in search engine results.

Using this technique will give your posts (and pages) much more power than it ever had before. You are welcome to go back into your previous pages/posts to optimize them. I would suggest you write your blog post or page content first as you normally would, then go back and implement some of these tactics. It is not required to do all every time, but each additional step you take does make a difference.

 Resources:

• Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide:  http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en/us/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

So be honest, was this post helpful? or painfully technical? 

But don’t leave the post yet – this very well could be the reminder you need. Look, word of mouth IS the most POWERFUL form of advertising. It’s free. It’s can spread like wild fire. AND the leads you get are easy to close!

Why? People TRUST what their friends and family tell them. If my best friend says I have to go see x movie… I most likely will. If my sister says I should not go to x restaurant, I won’t. It’s that simple.

If you offer a great product or service, your customers will advertise FOR YOU. I truly believe you can build a sustainable business just by being great at the service you provide. No need to spend thousands on Google AdWords, no need to print tons of business cards or print ads – nada. Sure, you can do some supporting advertising if you like. But this age – this Information Age – makes it easier than ever before to save money on all advertising costs just by being great!

Just today, I was dealing with a big issue my client was faced with – she was not receiving order notifications from her shopping cart. Loooong story short, I contacted HostGator (her website hosting company) via Live Chat (which I love!).

A tech support agent responded to my chat request immediately. He was fast, so polite, helpful and instantly put me at ease. I knew he was looking into it. Within a couple of minutes he said to me “I think I can fix this”. Relief! And he did just that – quickly, without hassel, without trying to upsell me, without pestering me. Oh my goodness!

So, I’m feeling overjoyed and relaxed, and what do I decide to do? Go to Facebook and tell the world how GREAT HostGator is! And the kicker (!) is a great friend and business contact of mine, Mark Crowley, writes a comment saying he absolutely agrees about HostGator, then says, ” Plus, when Amber Ludwig recommends it – just go do it!” Ha!

My point is, people can’t help but spread news about their experiences – good AND bad. I write this post today to strongly encourage you to evaluate your client interactions. It is so important to treat your clients like GOLD. Not only because they’ve just invested in you and put their trust in you, but also because people talk. What do you want people to say about you and how you handle yourself?

Plus, if you haven’t looked at it from this angle, you have a responsibility to the person who referred you! It is their reputation on the line. When a client says, “You’ve gotta talk to Amber,” then I better deliver! (I would anyway, but you get the point). Please share this article with others – you never know who’s business you could help turn around! 

I talk to clients left and right, all who are panicked with this knowing they are losing potential clients. It’s as if they are dying for hydration in their business, the water spigot is gushing water (the potential of doing well online) and they are stammering to get a drop of leads here and a drop there. Sound familiar?

I have GREAT NEWS for you today. You don’t have to get overwhelmed then make a quick decision and hire the first company that says “I can get you to the top of Google!” You can hire a hundred of those companies and they can dump a ton of leads in your lap – but if your legs (your foundation) are not strong enough to hold the weight, you’ll collapse and all of your efforts will be wasted.

You must make your website strong, sturdy and ready for success BEFORE you invest in high-powered marketing!

This is exactly why Marty and I sat down, took our combined 17 years of Internet Marketing and Website experience, and created a website evaluation checklist – training web owners like you to learn the aspects of your website that could be costing you leads!

Today I wanted to share a few more of these goodies as a free take-away. I’ve compiled an 11 PAGE demo of our eGuide as a gift to get you on your way. If you like what you see, I’d like to invite you to please send me an email and share your thoughts. I truly love to help support people in getting success in their business, so I’d be curious which tips you implemented and how it helped your business!

Enjoy and make it a productive day!