Building a List- Give a Little to Get a Lot

New Internet marketers soon hear that building a list is a vital first step in their plan of making money online. Many gurus say that an email list is your starting point.

If you've done your homework, you already know the many ways that building an email list will help you reach your business and financial goals. You can promote your affiliate products or your own products and services to your list. You can promote up-sales, back end sales and design new product launches. You can see that building a list is crucial to your long term success.

The benefits of building a list don't stop with direct sales. Once you have a list, you can survey your members for market research information. You can invite testimonials for the goods and services you are offering. You can find beta testers for your new product. You can acquire joint venture partners for product launches.

"That's all well and good, you say, "but I don't know how to go about building a list."

There are plenty of approaches to building a list. Participating in a joint venture giveaway is one way.

Joint venture giveaways are events in which several joint venture partners donate gifts. Each partner invites other people to join as a joint venture member and collect an array of gifts.

The gifts are usually accessible over the Internet – downloadable reports, ebooks, graphics, software, scripts, audio or video files or subscriptions for a membership web site.

Nothing to donate? Surf to an auction site like eBay and search for "ebooks." Look for ebooks or articles that are being sold with Private Label Rights (PLR). Be sure to check the rights that the seller is offering. Typically, you can give away a PLR product as it is, re-write it, or put your own name as the author. Quite often you can get PLR products on eBay for two or three dollars a bundle.

Auctions aren't your only source. Consider using items in the public domain. Since these items are not copyrighted you can give them away freely. Run a Google search for "public domain ebooks".

Now then, let's go back to the joint venture giveaway and how you use it for building a list. The event host invites joint venture partners to participate. Participating joint venture partners are expected to attract members to collect the gifts. If you do not have an email list to contact, you can invite family and friends and Facebook contacts. You can put the invitation in your email signature and post to appropriate forums and email lists, if the rules permit you to do so.

Next, you need to create a "squeeze page " since building a list is the purpose of this event. When members click through your link on the giveaway site to collect your gift, they arrive at a page that asks for their email address before you deliver the gift Once they provide their email address, your system takes them to a second page where they receive information about collecting their gift.

If you are wondering how to set this up, it is simple to do if you have a good autoresponder service. An autoresponder will generate the form that collects the email, save the email to a database where you can use it later, and direct your gift-seeker to the page with the download information. Once set up, the entire process is automated. It makes building a list easy.

No autoresponder? Do a Google search but avoid the free autoresponders. They usually don't offer all the features you need and worse, will distract your visitors with other people's advertising. Building a list without a good autoresponder just won't work.

And that's it. You are building a list that you can use as you wish. However, do not fall into the trap of abusing your subscribers with spammy emails and trashy product recommendations. Be good to them and they will repay you many times over.

Search Engine Optimization - Let's Get Ethical

Ok, there's a lot of companies out there offering you an easy ride to the top ten! But, and it's a big BUT some search engine optimization companies use unethical and often devious tricks to artificially boost the search engine rankings of a web site.

You might get short term results with these techniques but it's very likely that your site will be banned from search engines if you use one of these techniques. You'll put your web business at severe risk if you use one of these methods.

You don't need to know the full ins and outs of these dodgy dealings, but look out for any of the following

* Automatically generated doorway pages

(Doorway pages are often easy to identify in that they have been designed primarily for search engines, not for human beings. Sometimes a doorway page is copied from another high ranking page, but this is likely to cause the search engine to detect the page as a duplicate and exclude it from the search engine listings.)

* Cloaking and false redirects

(a technique in which the content presented to the search engine spider is different from that presented to the users' browser)

* Keyword stuffing

(that's a page filled with way too many references to key words or phrases)

* Hidden text or hidden links

(search engines quickly sift out invisible text using the background colour)

* Pages loaded with irrelevant words

(What's the point! I'm sure you're not going to go down this route because you want a successful website!)

* Duplicated content on multiple pages

(search engines want information, not duplication. They're not daft, and this isn't going to fool them!)

* Misspelling of well-known web sites

(We all make spelling mistakes, but this is an old trick that really does little to help)

* Unrelated and centralized link farms

(Websites that offer thousands of links are EVIL and you should avoid them like the plague - they're more hassle than they are worth and search engine spiders can spot them a mile off!)

* Other methods that try to trick search engines

(Why try tricking search engines when you can play the game fairly and win?)

If you play the game fairly then it has benefits for you, the search engine and your customer!

* Search engines win as they get pages that are easy to understand and that contain the quality information.

* Web searchers win as they get what they ask for. They search for "widgets" and get a page about widgets.

* Web site owners win as they are getting visitors who are actually interested in what their web site has to offer.

No company can guarantee to get you a particular position, unless of course they specify which key words they are going to quote on (and often these will be low volume search terms)

The only way to get high search engine rankings and staying there is good web page content and playing by the rules.

Beyond this, there are extra techniques that can be employed, which involve detailed research on your competitors' websites, and an analysis of their content. This can really reap benefits/

Persuasive and Professional Power Copywriting Tips for the Web and SEO

Motivational Triggers that Make People Buy

Within this article on business copywriting procedures, we will look at how to structure your copywriting when working for a client. There has been a great deal of copywriting done through the years and it is not necessary to reinvent the wheel every time you want to write copy. We will specifically be focused upon the sales letter because this could have the greatest impact for you, especially if you decide to do SEO copywriting.

One particular school of thought speaks to making your website one large online sales letter. Continuing in this train of thought, this could present a great opportunity for you. You could write for both off-line businesses as well as for online business using the format of a sales letter.

Within a sales letter, there are three main components that will make a difference whether or not your product will sell.

The first component is the headline.

If you do not grab your prospects' attention right away, you will have wasted your time in developing the rest of the copy.

The second component of a sales letter is the offer.

This part is important as you must be explicit with the offer to give the prospect what he or she now wants. It must be something that will entice the prospect to take action upon the completion of reading the letter.

The final component of a sales letter is the postscript.

This is the second most read portion of a sales letter after the headline. When you are writing this, this is the extra incentive that you will be using to motivate your prospects to take advantage of the offer that you presented right away. When you are focusing upon writing a sales letter, you should take each particular step of the sales letter in order. You do not sit down and just writes a sales letter completely through but rather take it step by step. This entails writing the headline followed by writing the offer and then followed by writing the postscript.

Following these copywriting procedures will ensure that you will have set yourself up for great success.

If you do not have a great deal of experience within copywriting, make sure to follow the examples of copywriting procedures set up by some of the foremost experts. One of the key authors who you should look into is Dan Kennedy. He has written some great books over the years and is a great resource for you to use.

Hopefully this article on copywriting procedures will help you in becoming a better copywriter. The key behind successful copywriting is to use the formulas that have been developed while putting your own spin on what you're writing. Copywriting procedures are important because people have developed these in a certain method to be successful for a reason. There is no need to reinvent the wheel because this will only be frustrating for you in the long run as you'll find that you have less sales while putting in more effort. By taking the time to follow operating procedures, you'll set yourself up to maximize potential sales when developing a sales letter.

Copywriters have a very interesting niche in that you can use your own writing to help you develop leads. If you find that you had many inconsistent advertising methods, think about developing a sales letter to help bring in qualified leads. If you develop a successful sales letter, you can send this out in quantities which you pre-determine. The beauty of this is that you can quantify the amount of work that you want to do in a given month and mail out that many sales letters. After having used a consistent sales letter for a certain period of time, you will know what the response rate is and this will allow you to know how much business you should potentially get from mailing a certain number of letters. This can make sure that you always have clients coming into the door when you want them to. It can also help you better pattern the business after your life and lifestyle so that you can pick up the pace when you have extra time and slow things down when other parts of your life become busier.

If you have quite a few clients who are telemarketers or you would like to start developing telemarketers as potential clients, you may want to look into developing a sales letter for one of these companies. Telemarketing has become much more expensive and more inconsistent these days due to new laws and it is an industry with very high turnover. Developing a sales letter to send to qualified prospects in the beginning can make telemarketing more effective for these companies and potentially reduce turnover. If you are able to quantify the savings in training employees as well as in better sales, you will find yourself called upon by many telemarketing companies because you will have put yourself in their shoes and can understand the business struggles that they go through.

The final way that we will use a sales letter and one way in which you could increase your business is to focus upon dentists and doctors office. Often these professionals are consistently looking for new clients and this could be a way to help them out. You could use a sales letter to help stimulate referrals.

Some Power copywriting tips

Here's five of the Motivational Triggers that Make People Buy

1. People want to make more money. They may want to start their own business, get a higher paying job or invest in the stock market. This will make them feel successful.

2. People want to save money. They may want to invest for the future or save for a big purchase. This will make them feel more secure.

3. People want to save time. They may want to work less and spend time enjoying life's pleasures. This will make them feel more relaxed.

4. People want to look better. They may want to lose weight, tone their body, or improve their facial features. This will make them feel more attractive.

5. People want to learn something new. They may want to learn how to change their car oil or build a deck. This will make them feel more intelligent.

Earn Extra Money Online With Email Marketing

A big focus with internet marketing is to drive traffic to your website and to find unique visitors and new customers. Of course this is vital to the long term survival of the business. But what is often neglected, is making the most of the visitors and customers that you already have. You can earn extra money online by following up with your current customers and subscribers, and maximising the profit potential from them.

It's always cheaper to sell to existing customers than it is to go out and find new ones. Probably the best and easiest way to achieve this is through email marketing. It's well known that most people need to be exposed to your message or product 7 times before they take action and purchase. And once your subscribers make a purchase and become your customer, they are then much more likely to make follow-up purchases. It's all about building trust and credibility.

Okay, to be able to follow up with your list of subscribers and customers, you will need an autoresponder account. Here you can set up the content, follow up messages, and the schedule of which days the emails are to go out. Once set-up, your list will continue to get your messages automatically, which allows you to keep feeding them the benefits of your product or service. You can also add new messages at any time to the autoresponder series, or make one-off broadcast messages to your entire list if you have any special announcements.

Most good autoresponder services will allow you to easily separate your lists so that you can have different lists for subscribers and customers. This allows you to tailor certain products and offers to the right audience.

Once you have things set-up in your autoresponder account, you can then copy some HTML code for your opt-in box, and insert in your web pages, blogs and lead-capture pages. If you have reasonable amounts of traffic flowing to your sites, and if you give your visitors a good reason to join your list (offer free bonuses), over time you'll end up with a huge number of loyal subscribers and customers that you can follow-up with for as long as they stay subscribed. The alternative, if you don't have an opt-in box, is that people land on your site, leave, forget all about your site, and never return again. Not good.

When you have a good list of subscribers and customers, make sure that you keep them on your list by continually offering them good content and great value. Giving them more content than sales pitches is very important to maintain their loyalty. When you sell them affiliate products, make sure that you have some experience with the product and you know that your list would benefit greatly from purchasing it.

Most of the profit comes after the first sale to your customer. The profit comes from the multiple sales to each individual customer. The only way to facilitate this is to offer excellent value and content, and to continue following-up with them. Initially, there is a bit of work in setting-up your email campaign, but once this is done, it really is a lazy way to earn extra money online.

Do You Need A Tax ID First (In Order To Do Dropshipping)? Is A Social Security # Alright To Use?

This is a great question. Probably one of the best that I have received all week. One thing I want to make clear is that I am not a lawyer and I am not giving any kind of legal advice, so don't take this as such. When you are setting up a business and deciding what kind of business entity you are going to be, that is more of a legal business choice that you have to make on your own.

I can give you some examples, and personal experience that may help you better understand my answer to this question. Again, this is one of those questions that is not "cut and dry", and does require some explaining. I think it will benefit everyone if I am as clear as possible though.

In order for a real dropshipper to work with you, you do need a Tax ID first. There is no way around that. There are some suppliers that are ok with you using your social security number as well, but keep in mind that some may not (and you will have to wait for the corporation to be set up). If they are a legitimate dropshipping business, then they will require you to have the number (Tax ID) because they are trying to keep in compliance with the laws as well. They want to be protected, just like you should want it. If you ever come across a "so called" dropshipping company that tries to tell you that they are making it "easy" on you by not requiring a Tax ID, then be warned right now. You are not working with a true dropshipper, just a middle man, and your prices will not be as good. I have even talked personally with some of these kind of "so called" dropshipping business "sales executives", and have got them to admit that you can only profit on like 15% of their goods. What is that? In most cases working with a company like that will not even give you as good of prices on products as you could get if going down to the local Wal Mart and just buying them.

My thoughts about using your social security number is that it is risky business, but could be ok at first. You are not really even in business yet, and you do not have to worry about getting sued with a brand new site that you are not even selling products yet. However; You want to be able to protect yourself down the road (by incorporating), and using your social security number as a Tax ID means that you have set up the kind of business that is not protected (from being sued and losing your house, as an example).

If you are wondering if there are services online (or off) that can help you, there are. There are some companies that can help you incorporate using free corporation set up software (yes, its legit), as well as companies out there like The Tax Club that will take care of everything from forming the corporation to doing your taxes (even quarterly). So, you have a lot of resources available to you.

The only reason I ever recommend to people to use a social security number to get access to products, is when they know forming a corporation is going to take months (like in California or New York) and they want to start building the site right away, and adding products sooner then later. Just using your social security number will give you access to the products much faster and you will be able to start building your shopping cart up so much faster then waiting on the corporation to be set up. I do (highly) recommend that you work on forming the corporation as soon as possible, so you set yourself (and business) up for better tax breaks and protection.

I hope this has helped you (even if just a little) better understand the confusing topics of Tax ID's, business entities and Social Security Numbers when starting to work with dropshippers.

Local 'Business Online Listings' Can Increase Your Traffic

Sales on the Internet are projected to reach $116 billion in 2007. If you have a business and a Web site, you need to grab a piece of that pie, or a bigger share than you're getting.

One of the best ways to do this is by using free Web listings. With thousands of new users coming to the Web each day, and millions more making it a bigger part of their lives, it's a must do item for your business.

The best part is, search engines and directories are making it easier than ever to increase your visibility on the Web. All major search engines and directories have made searching for "local information" a high priority.

At this writing, most of the largest search engines and Web directories will allow you to list your business for free, although they do offer upgrades that provide you the benefit of posting your logo, photos and other goodies. Let's take a look at some of these resources.

Verizon SuperPages


If you don't have a SuperPages listing then you should. It's free.

SuperPages allows members to have their free listing appear in multiple categories. Many consumers use the Super Pages when searching for local services and products so it's a good idea to have your listing in as many relevant categories as possible. SuperPages has search functions that allow users to search by keyword, business name, city, state or zip.

To get started paste this link in your browser.


http://yellowpages.superpages.com/profiler/register_import.jsp?

Google Local Listings


I searched for 'car repair in Virginia Beach.' See the results below.
Google local listings is tied to Google Maps, so if you have one store location or 100 store locations, Google will allow you to list them all as long as you have a physical address for each listing.

It won't cost you a penny. You can create and display a business listing for free. All you need to do is sign up for a free account.
Click here or click the Google graphic to get started.

Yahoo Local Listings


Want to get listed in Yahoo local? (Choose the basic listing)
Click here to get started.

MSN Local Listings (Managed by Local Eze)
Want to get listed in Yahoo local?
Click here to upload your local listing information.

Ask.com Local Listings (Click on 'Add a Business Record')
Ask.com pulls most of their local results through Info-USA.
Want to get listed in Ask.com local results?
Click here to add your information to InfoUSA.

When you have the potential to greatly increase your business through some effort and no money, that's a winner.

How Not to Waste Your Time Looking for Useless Research of the Needed Information!

What does a usual Internet-user do looking for the necessary information? The answer is very simple. He clicks google.com or yahoo.com and searches there everything needed.

But can he find what he really needs?

For his search he gets great many links to resources of the topic he is interested in. Then he has to study it very carefully. And having found nothing he clicks links further.

As a result, the user comes to the conclusion that the Internet is a large storage for files and information but, as a rule, it is not always useful and interesting.

That's why only the fourth part of the Internet-users uses it regularly as an encyclopedia or directory. The reason is that we don't come to the idea to learn what the searching machines are, how to ask them correctly and how to process the results of the search.

You can look for the information in catalogues and ratings.

Their advantages, especially those of the ratings, are obvious at first sight. Everyone looks through the most popular pages, so will I. But when you learn what the catalogue is and the structure of ratings, you'll have more constrained relation to them. To my mind, the search in the catalogues is worth only if you know nothing about the object of the search or you are interested to get information about all the sections of the catalogue.

In the case you need some very specific information, you should look for it at the forums or conferences. They are made especially as the way of exchanging of the information for the people connected with the common interests.

To begin with study the information in the archives and if it doesn't give the result, address to people. If you are a specialist in this sphere, make a correct question. If you are a layman, say about it honestly, explain what you need this information for and ask to tell you everything in details.

Once, twice, three times. You will definitely find a person who can answer all your questions. But it's not always convenient to ask the questions answers for which you can find yourself.

That's why let's learn to ask questions to the searching machines correctly, using their language and to process the results. For those who have read the article to the end I've got a surprise. There is one more unique way to find the necessary, qualitative, useful and unique information. The principle of the search is absolutely simple. Enter the key-word in the search-form and enjoy perfect informational products.