Month: December 2022

How My Vet Helped Me Find Hot New Products to Sell on eBay

Today my vet mentioned the ‘F’ word ….. he’s foreign, Polish I think, and I’m not sure if the ‘F’ word is acceptable in his country ….. but it certainly is not acceptable in mine!

“Fat”, he said, “Your dog is too FAT. He needs to lose weight or he’ll DIE before his time.”

‘D’ along with the ‘F’ word made me sit up and take notice. “Lose the weight”, he said, “and he’ll be with you much longer.”

Enough said, immediately I got home I searched eBay, and ClickBank, for a report about helping your dog lose weight fast. I searched for ‘dog weight’ and ‘dog fat’ and I found ….. tons of huge bags of low calorie dog food and biscuits which I never give my dogs anyway, and absolutely ZILCH in the way of information to help me downsize my dog.

So I ended up searching Google for information about helping my mutt look more macho when the idea suddenly struck me – why don’t I turn all of this information from Google into a low cost information product to sell on eBay and ClickBank? Why not also promote my new infoproduct through eBay Classified Ads and grow a mailing list for products I can recommend later?

Oops, I forgot to say, I wasn’t the only person in the surgery to get a rollicking today, there were three of us with overweight mutts lined up for the exact same treatment …. which set me thinking ….. if three out of three people sitting in the surgery today need help of the kind proposed for my new product, just how many other people might also need it?

So I reckon I’ve found a fabulous new market, one that will help my dog, help other people’s dogs, and could possibly make a fortune for me!

The idea is to write a report and offer it for just a few dollars, and in the back of the report I’ll include affiliate links for other items to interest dog lovers, such as medicines, food and biscuits, holiday kennels, and so on. Think about it, if I sell just one eBook every day at $2 pure profit, that’s $600 plus per year, and that’s before we even start thinking about affiliate commissions.

What does this have to do with you? Well I just wanted to prove how easy it is to find a niche market with countless eager buyers and not one person providing for their needs, no one that I could find anyway!

The moral is to keep your eyes and ears open no matter where you are because ideas are all around you and just one idea is all it really takes to start a profitable business.

Apart from waiting for my vet to throw ideas at me, these are other methods I often use to locate some new niche market for my eBay business and other online ventures:

* Visit forums related to your chosen marketplace, such as dogs, but also including child care, marital problems, expatriate living, debt, and millions more. Find forums by searching Google for “xxx + forum” where xxx represents your chosen market or subject. So for forums frequented by chess players you might search for “chess + forum”.

Google usually returns the biggest and most active forums first on their listings, so note down the address of the first ten or so. Visit them in Google order and study postings by members and definitely, I don’t say maybe, I said definitely, you will encounter problems shared by many members. Study these problems and then look for free or low cost information products to help solve those problems. Look on eBay, look on ClickBank, other places too but those are enough to start with. If you find few or no suitable information products then you should consider writing your own or cobble one together from PLR and public domain text. If along with no suitable information products, you find physical products aplenty, these are the kind of products to promote as an affiliate inside your low-cost, no-cost reports.

* Study niche market publications on newsagents’ shelves, such as baby magazines and investment newspapers. Study various same subject publications that normally sit side by side on the newsagents’ shelves making studying them very easy indeed. Look at the headlines, notice if two or more publications feature one problem or theme which might be construed as applying to the entire niche marketplace. This indicates a problem or theme that you can profit from. So if, for example, you see two or more collectibles magazines focussing on one specific collectible, this could be the perfect product for you to sell on eBay. If two or more publications aimed at guitar players feature a new and revolutionary kind of guitar accessory, then this could be another perfect product for you.

* Watch the telly, listen to the radio, keep your eyes and ears open for problems and trends you might capitalise upon. Think about obesity and the belief that soon the majority of children will be morbidly FAT (that word again), then look for products to help parents reverse the trend.

Think about pension funds going belly up in line with firms going out of business and leaving lifelong employees facing a miserable old age. Now go to eBay, go to ClickBank, is there anything suitable for them to read to help grow their pension pot without outside help? No! Then that’s a perfect infoproduct for you to create, one with mountains of affiliate opportunities to promote on the back end. You could write a short report about alternative investments, for instance, or running a small business on eBay, suggesting both as a means of growing retirement income free from banks and employers. Just be sure to pack the product with links to Amazon books about making money on eBay and growing an affiliate investment portfolio and …..

….. oh I could go on for hours dreaming up new products to sell which would leave me with no time at all to actually promote those products. So I’ll leave you now to do your own research and to find products no one else is providing, all it takes is a few minutes but the rewards can last a lifetime!

Cease and Desist – What To Do (Besides Panic) Upon Receipt of This Letter

When clients need to create marketing tools for their businesses which include trademarks, advertising, brochures, direct mailers, websites, signage and other highly visible digital and printed communications, they are often oblivious and sometimes dismissive about the stringent laws protecting copyrights and trademarks against infringement. However, if a rights or mark violation is detected by the owner of record, he may commission his lawyer to draft a “cease and desist” letter which usually shocks the recipient into an immediate state of panic with only days in which to respond.

Such letters serve to notify the alleged offender that a lawsuit may follow should the offending activity continue and that “damages” may be determined by how much revenue/profit was generated as a result of such activity.

Since I am in the thick of it as the creator of the marketing items mentioned above, my clients share such notices with me in the hopes that I can somehow help them out of trouble. Equally shocked by such news since I never intentionally engage in any kind of infringement activity, I first inform my clients that I am not an attorney and therefore cannot legitimately advise them of their legal rights or ramifications of such a letter. And, since work with my clients is very much a team effort, involving instructions, guidance and ultimately approval from my clients before proceeding with printing or publishing any final marketing efforts for them, my surprise at the receipt of such a letter cannot be masked. I do share with them previous experiences and my suggestions about how best to proceed.

On a recent such occasion, my client decided after much anguish and disbelief, that the best course of action would be to consult a trademark attorney for expert representation. While I have often written letters for clients to successfully support their legal stance, I could not argue the virtues of this decision because of one undeniably important fact. Although my client and I are both individual business owners, the client behind the cease and desist letter was a multinational corporate behemoth with very deep pockets using a nationally based law firm with offices in Manhattan.

This did not surprise me since the work I do for my clients has powerful marketing strength, with highly attractive graphics and equally compelling messages, vaulting them to the top of Google rankings which result in stellar sales and incredible notoriety. It is no wonder that such a large corporation would fear the threat of competition from my client, both of whom are selling to the same market. What was puzzling about this situation was that my client’s marketing is extremely supportive of the corporation in question since my client’s items are meant to enhance this corporation’s products. Without the corporate products, there would be no market for my client to serve.

After more than a decade of working together, my client would be the first to admit that my marketing efforts are largely responsible for his rise to fame which ironically includes sales to divisional units of this same corporation. Many of these corporate units have recognized the value of my client’s products to adorn their brand as a way to improve their own sales, not deter them. But it seems the members of the corporate elite at the helm of this company’s Asian headquarters worry that my client is attempting to take business away from them, clearly a misunderstanding on their part.

What was the nature of the cease and desist letter? The corporate lawyer itemized a number of alleged infringements:

1. Use of a typestyle to identify their products which was not their logo but was close enough to possibly cause market confusion.

2. Failure to obviously differentiate our products from theirs, the difference being aftermarket vs. original equipment manufacturing, respectively.

3. A number of stipulations about size of text used on the name of this corporation (too large!), size of text used in our disclaimer information (too small!) and use of their corporate name within photos of their own products on which our products can be used. (Do we detect envy here?)

4. Use of the corporate name on our products, an erroneous assumption made by the corporation based on the use of their name on their own products within some of our photos. Note that the corporate lawyer clarified that we were not infringing on any rights by using their name or showing their products to sell our goods which are designed and manufactured to complement and accessorize their products. This is quite legal. What they were protesting were our alleged “unfair business practices” which possibly were taking business away from them.

At my client’s request, I provided his lawyer with extensive research I had done in support of my client showing similar instances of the alleged offending citations; examples of disclaimer text size used on countless other websites, including the corporation’s own website (which is much smaller than that used on my client’s website!); and proof that none of our products display the corporation’s logo or any facsimile of it whatsoever. These examples were forwarded to the corporate lawyer with a sentence or two from my client’s attorney.

In the meantime, allowing the lawyers to speak to each other in their own language on their own schedule had bought us extra time in which to implement any necessary changes. Since my client had given me free rein to address all complaints as I determined necessary, I decided that compliance would be the best route to curtailing any further action which could involve more than a decade’s worth of my client’s annual revenues. Despite knowledge that my client felt 100% justified in the use of the corporate name in the tasteful manner in which we had done to date and was peeved by having to make so many changes for no apparent gain, I decided that a total marketing re-design could satisfy the corporation while elevating my client’s brand to a new level of excellence. In essence, why not capitalize on a seemingly grave situation to transform it into a positive opportunity for growth and profit?

Luckily, my client did not have a problem with emphasizing that his products are truly aftermarket in nature (meaning not OEM or original equipment manufacturing) because OEM products are frequently perceived as overly expensive and sometimes of inferior quality in comparison and my client’s aftermarket products are often sought as a better alternative to OEM at a better price! Furthermore, replacing the corporate name with my client’s company name was a giant step forward to stronger branding for my client’s business, something he had been timid about doing for the majority of his years in business for fear of overshadowing the corporate name on the products for which his items are made.

So, I began the arduous task of redesigning every page of his website, his printed materials and signage; rewriting text to comply with the corporate requests (verbatim!); removing their name from every photo of their products showing use of our products; and lengthening our already very comprehensive disclaimers to include every detail of their verbiage including statements that we “do not sell original equipment manufacturing” and that “we are in no way affiliated with, authorized by or connected with” the corporation in question. I made sure that these changes were made on every one of our more than 90 web pages and countless other marketing items!

Once this work was complete, our lawyer informed us that our new presentations had passed muster with the corporate lawyer and his clients, satisfying all alleged transgressions and terminating any further action at this time.

Since we had never previously mentioned the term OEM or original equipment manufacturing anywhere within our material, I informed my client that the use of such terms repeatedly on every page of our website would increase the likelihood that Google searches would now list our pages in response to those search terms, in addition to our excellent ranking for aftermarket searches, opening up a new market for awareness and possible sales. It seems that the corporation’s complaints were in fact helping my client while simultaneously shooting themselves in the foot, so to speak!

With this knowledge, my client celebrated not only the relief of legal rectitude but triumph in defeat! Granted, he may have paid his trademark lawyer handsomely for delivering my messages to the corporate lawyer, and paid me for all my work to correct his supposed infractions, in the end he benefited greatly with better branding, legal fortitude and the prospects of bigger profits to come, not just from his worldwide consumer market but also from the now ingratiated corporation who probably feel the victory was theirs alone. Who knew cease and desist could translate as win-win?

Personal Branding – So What Is The Big Deal?

The Top 100 brands have a total value of $2.04 trillion. Does that sound like a big deal to you? Yeah it sounds that way to me too. Let’s take a look at the top 4 brands in the world as ranked by total value.

1. Google
2. IBM
3. Apple
4. Microsoft

I don’t know anyone in the developed world that has not heard of every one of these Brands. Name recognition is just one aspect of Branding, but it is a very powerful one. Take just a few seconds and think about each of these Brands separately. I am willing to bet that you can tell me what their logo looks like, what the company colors are, what many of their products are, what the public perception of them is, etc.

Let me give you an example of successful branding:

Jim sneezes so he reaches for a Kleenex. The sneeze causes his ears to pop and he grabs a Q-tip to clean his ear. Wondering what makes your ears pop when you sneeze, Jim decides to grab his Mac and Google it.

That paragraph is what you call the ultimate in Branding. Let’s break it down shall we? What Jim really used was a tissue, but the branding has been so successful for Kleenex that the words are synonymous. The same is true with the cotton swab. Another marker in ultimate success when it comes to Branding is when your company name becomes a word of its own. Google was turned into a verb to describe the act of looking up information online.

Google has built such a powerful brand that they surpassed all other search engines, to become synonymous with internet search. For those of you that are not as big of a tech nerd as I am let me give you a little history. The first search engine ever is one that most people have never heard of. It was called Archie and was created in 1990 at a University in Montreal and was short for “archives”. This search engine was on a page that presented itself as “Archie Query Form.” Archie was actually created before the World Wide Web existed and lived on Gopher. Six years and several search engines later and we have Google. Did you know that the original name for Google was BackRub due to the backlink indexing it was based on? Did you know that the name Google is actually the miss-spelled word googol? Did you know that the simplistic design of the Google website is due to the fact that the creators were not technically versed in HTML code? What is my point of all of this history of Google and what does that have to do with you?

It is to prove that you do not have to be the first at something to be successful. You don’t have to have an original idea. You don’t have to be technically proficient in software, computers or technology. You don’t even have to be a good speller to be successful. You do however have to be good at Branding and selling yourself.

So how do you become good at Branding and selling yourself? That will be the subject of my next article; at least I will start in on it. Explaining how to successfully Brand yourself will take several articles and I hope to get them out soon.

How to Buy a Good Domain Name

If you looking to buy a good domain name for you website you will want to take a few things into consideration.

1. Is your website domain going to be for SEO or Branding Purposes?

2. What are the best domain extension(s) for your website URL?

3. Finding a good domain register with excellent support.

4. What is the cost of the domain name?

5. Are there any bonuses with the domain purchase?

1. Is your website domain going to be for SEO or Branding Purposes?

Now that you are ready to start you website you will need a great domain name that you will use to promote and brand your website. If you are building your website for the search engines primarily you will want to put your primary keyword phrase in the domain so Google and other search engines will more easily be able to identify and index your website for your keyword. If your primary keyword phrase has more than one word in it, separate each word in the URL with a dash. (Ex. www.keyword-phrase.com)

When branding your website you will want to choose a URL that is easily remembered by people and isn’t very long so it’s simple to type into the browser and spell correctly or tell their friends and others interested in your website with ease.

2. What are the best domain extension(s) to choose for your website URL?

When searching for your new domain you want to take into consideration the extension you wish to choose for your website URL. The best extensions are .com, .net, .org, and if they are not available look for your country level domain, like .ca for Canada, .us for USA, .it for Italy, .in for India etc.. If you are building a video website try .tv or if you are creating a mobile website specifically for cell phones and smart phones you will want to get a .mobi domain extension.

IMPORTANT NOTE: It’s a smart idea to grab all the domain extensions available so your competition doesn’t grab them instead and try to sell them back to your for much higher cost or setup a site on them that can hurt your brand name.

3. Finding a good domain register with excellent support!

When looking for a domain register to purchase your domain from, choose one that provides FAQ’s, a help centre and 24/7 email and phone support so you can get your questions or concerns answered at anytime night or day.

4. What is the cost of the domain name?

Depending on the domain register and URL extension you choose will determine the cost of the domain. Typically a .com domain can average about $9.99 and up but some domain registration sites give special prices for .com with a non-domain purchase which is good to look for too. A .mobi can be about $14.99, .asia is about $19.99, but the cheapest domains to buy are normally .info and run about $1.99 for the first year, which is good, but .info are not the best extensions to choose from especially if you are want to brand your website.

5. Are there any bonuses with the domain purchase?

Make sure to look for any bonuses you will receive with your purchase of your domain, some domain registration site are quite generous and will give a lot of valuable bonuses such as a free Photo Album, Quick Blogcast, Hosting with Site Builder, Personalized Email, Forwarding / Masking, 100-Pack Email Forwarding, Starter Web Page, “For Sale” Parked Page, Parked Page w/ Domain, Total DNS Control, Change of Registration, Status Alerts, Domain Name Locking. With all the mentioned bonuses it’s over $141 USD with a purchase of a domain which is great! So keep an eye out for those.

So to recap, remember to choose a good branded or SEO domain, with the type of URL extension that suits your website and find a registration site with great 24/7 support, a competitive price and valuable bonuses with your purchase. Good luck with buying your perfect domain name and having great success with your new website venture.

Importance of Free Domain Names

Internet marketing is approximately 25 years old. Since 1989, different marketing techniques have been used to maximize the business revenue through the internet. In this article, I am going to discuss some link-building techniques for your website. The Google algorithm was based on the calculation of links pointed to a website. Considering this, I have listed the 5 most important components of any digital business:

1. A good domain name

2. Exceptional copywriting

3. Attractive designs

4. SEO oriented sitemap

5. Quality outbound & inbound links

There are other elements as well, but, I have tried to keep the list short. Quality links are an important tool to enhance your online presence. Well, there are many link-building tools available, a free domain name is the oldest & most reliable way to attract quality links. Here are some reasons:

Free domain names have thousands of links pointing to the root domain.

You can easily create a free domain with minimum designing effort.

Free domain names have a high page rank and Alexa rank i.e. WordPress.com has an Alexa rank of 18.

It is an old marketing technique to use free domain names for link-building purposes. Lets suppose you have a website named as “http://www.lifestyle.com” and you want to create quality backlinks for this website. You can easily create a free WordPress blog for this website. It should be “lifestyle.WordPress.com. This website will give you a quick access to thousands of backlinks. You can also get a few hundred visitors from this free website. Also, this website is very niche specific and provides a very relevant backlink to your site.

So, you can create 50 free domain names to create 50 relevant backlinks to your website. Internet marketers have used this idea and still now, It is a very good trend to do so. You will need to have an exceptional fast copy writing service to write all the content. I know it is hard to create 50 websites but, it is a good idea if you are creating a celebrity brand. Building blogs on the root domain is also a good idea to get good links. Some website allow their visitors to create blogs on their website without paying a penny. It helps in attracting fresh content, generating sales, and attaining good page rank.

Please do not try the same platform to create all of those 50 websites. You can create different websites on different blogging platforms. Here are few websites that I recommend:

Blogger

WordPress

Weebly

Tumblr

Livejournal

Thanks.

How Do I Market My Small Business – Article Marketing Is What I Advise All My Clients To Do

I work in the business of helping small businesses get noticed on the internet. Daily I am asked questions by small business owners about how I do so well in getting my clients ranked highly by the search engines. I have lots of tools in my bag of tricks, but if I had to say what is the main thing I use every single day it would be article marketing.

What is article marketing? Article marketing is a form of advertising in which businesses write short articles on topics relevant to their industry. These articles have what is called a resource box at the bottom of the article in which the author can link to their website or a website they are promoting. These articles are submitted to directories for publication. Many times if the content is well written the article will be syndicated to other sites all across the internet.

Article marketing is obviously good because of the traffic that it can bring you. If a person reads your article and thinks it was informative they are likely to click the link and read more on your website. They might join your list or buy a product from your site at this point. If your site is well done they may subscribe to your RSS feed or join your newsletter. If they do then you will have a consistent way to market to them provided that you continue to give them relevant, quality content.

One key that is often overlooked in article marketing is the fact that your articles provide your main website with lots of backlinks. Backlinks are when another site links to your site. When this happens you are seen by the search engines as more relevant and this you are ranked higher in the searches. The more popular the page is that has linked to you, the more weight the search engine gives it.

Another key that most businesses miss is that the article directories are often ranked very highly by Google and other search engines. When your articles are published you are seen as the industry expert because every time someone searches for information on your topic they see your articles. Wouldn’t you like it if every time a person did a search on Google they were inundated with articles written by you about that topic? If they saw all that and then found out they could have you to do the work for them they would not only let you do it, they would be excited to have you do it. That is where you want to be as a business owner.

How to Create a Profitable Home Based Business Online – Home Business Opportunity

I am going to give you the steps I used to begin my online, home based business and it will take you less than an hour (being realistic). It’s so easy!

1. Find a niche market you are interested in which you know has hungry buyers. Use Google AdWords Keyword Tool to find top keywords that you can base your site content on.

2. Buy a domain name and hosting for less than $20 – I find the best value for a domain name is GoDaddy (coupons are available if you Google them) and Hostgator as a hosting provider (I recommend their ‘Baby’ package) for new home based businesses.

3. The hosting provider will email you nameservers which you will need to change in your domain account settings. This means your blog will appear when you type in your domain to the browser.

4. Create a WordPress blog which will be uploaded to your server. The reason I use WordPress is that it is incredibly flexible for getting top ranks in search engines and easy to update. They are also a great trust builder, so make sure you add some affiliate products for you to gain healthy commissions from buyers.

5. Change the nameservers in your domain account for your home based business domain.

6. For the topic which your blog relates to, you want to write articles or have them written. This really isn’t as hard as you may think as there is so much material out there already (just don’t duplicate other peoples content).

7. Submit these first to EzineArticles (EZA) as they always rank best. Once approved, you can then create variations of the articles and submit to other article directories but in the resource box, always create an anchor text link pointing back (backlinks) to your main site. As you create more articles and backlinks, your site will rank higher and traffic should flood in.

8. By now you should be making nice commissions from your home based business and people should be loving your blog, as you are feeding them with valuable information. Take advantage of this and offer a free report in exchange for their email address. You can do this by signing up to Aweber for an autoresponder. If people want your report they will opt in, submitting their name and email address. Once you build a list, you can promote other affiliate products and make even MORE money.

9. Promotion is the key to any business success but the great thing about home based businesses is that you should only need to work at most 3 hours per day! It sure does beat 9 – 5! At your own will just keep submitting articles, bookmark your content at social media sites and promote in related niche blogs and forums.

10. It really is that easy to start a home based business. Create a blog that sells affiliate products, promote the main blog page using articles and social bookmarking, then once the traffic starts to flood in, the blog will rank higher and higher, meaning more money!

The most commissions come from being extremely targeted in the market you want to approach. So if you enter the body building niche, stick with that and do not sell products on how to spice up a relationship. People search online for specific things, so keep your blog specific to what you are trying to promote.

Networking for Piano Teachers: Why Not Put Yourself Out There?

Networking, in our profession, is often overlooked as a great way to grow your student base. In a nutshell, networking is building business relationships. When you first hear this word, you may cringe at the thought of meeting new people or just think that it’s too much work. Yes, to effectively network, you do need a plan, be able to follow-through, and follow-up. Building that network takes some patience at the beginning but the results are more than worth it.

About a month ago, I responded to a music teacher’s Facebook status update asking about marketing ideas for expanding your teaching studio. I initially responded because I have been successful in my first full year of teaching as a studio owner and wanted to offer up my advice to others. After responding, she asked if I would contribute to a series of articles on marketing/networking she was putting together for her popular music teaching blog. Why am I mentioning this? Well, this is a perfect example of how to network…putting yourself out there is the first big step. The fact that I was asked to participate and share my success story is a direct result of me putting myself out there, meeting people, sharing ideas, etc. Perhaps a local teacher will read this article and remember my name down the road. Maybe a parent will type in a certain Google key word and land on this article. Networking does not always directly lead to new students but it does provide more exposure, visibility, and create opportunities. The possibilities are endless for what visibility can do for you as a business owner. Just like in Sales 101, a lot of ‘maybes’ usually end up in a lot of good results…filling up that pipeline with quality leads.

My music teaching business has been open full-time since the beginning of this year, January 2011. I taught full-time as a piano instructor at a local music school for about 5 years before my transition into a studio owner. Since January, I have had steady growth in students, along with a steady growth in inquiries. I am to the point now where I am thinking about expanding my business (which has always been the plan) but I never imagined it could happen so quickly. I whole-heartedly believe that Networking & Google Visibility are the two most important factors for the studio growth.

Networking should be an extension of everything that we do to promote our studios. The key is having those relationships create & generate new relationships. How much does it cost to Network? Absolutely Nothing!! That’s the beauty! I’ve spent about $1000 in advertising (3 different ad campaigns) since last November. How many current students saw my ads? 0. Now, that’s not to say that it’s ineffective. Over the course of time, I’m sure that Google AdWords will end up being an important marketing tool. The problem is that my marketing budget is not where I need it to be for AdWords to work for me.

I try to implement a little bit of networking in my everyday life, even if it is subtle. Here’s an example of subtle networking that actually generated several positive leads. I wear my polo, that shows my studio logo, not just in my lessons but when I go to business/networking functions, run errands, or just to get my haircut. Branding your studio is another topic within itself but it leads to building relationships as well. When I get my hair cut, more often than not, I am asked what I do because of my logo and have given out 3 or 4 business cards to different hair stylists this year (yeah, I don’t have a preference!). Just from those encounters that didn’t add any time to my day or require effort (outside of throwing on a shirt!), I had several inquiries about music lessons. Having business cards on you at all times is a must! I constantly have to refill my business card holder and occasionally forget (when I need it the most!).

Okay, now to the nuts & bolts of Networking. Here are some tips on how to get started building your network:

School Music Teachers:

Contact and setup an appointment to meet with your local school band directors, piano lab teachers, and any other type of music teachers. If you don’t feel comfortable with ‘cold-calling’, then have one of your students’ parents introduce you. Most school directors will give you their time because they are always looking to build relationships with quality private instructors & piano accompanists. You can also send a friendly email to teachers introducing yourself and followup with a phone call, if you prefer. Volunteer to stay around and listen to the Concert or Jazz band – show your interest. If you’re lucky enough, they’ll ask you to stay and possibly give some pointers to the jazz pianist, if they have a jazz band. Last year, just by chance, I played a gig with a saxophonist who was an assistant band director at a local high school. After telling him about me starting a new studio, he asked me to come to his school and tell him what I had to offer to their program. I was then able to meet the main director and in turn, all of the other directors and piano lab teacher. The following week I made a point to followup. I was then asked to sit in with the Jazz Band and spent the entire class talking about jazz theory & improvisation. In the mind of the director, the importance of learning theory & how to apply it to your instrument would be a more powerful message coming from a guest. The next month, I was asked to conduct a workshop on ‘Teaching Improvisation & Pop Styles’ to group piano classes. The immediate impact of meeting with the band director resulted in 3 high school students signing up for piano lessons. Long-term impact? Since then I’ve had multiple inquiries & 2 other students sign up for lessons. Hopefully, I have gained the trust of the faculty to the point that I become the top recommendation for piano lessons.

Music Teachers Association:

If you haven’t already, join a local music association! Don’t just pay the fee and think that you will automatically get students. Become an important asset to your association. Show up to meetings & share your ideas. Participate in the volunteer activities. Why go through all this trouble? Well, you establish a solid reputation among your peers which is beneficial on so many levels. Less than a year of being part of my association, I was asked to become Vice-President. This is a group that has been established for close to 50 years. Yes, it’s more responsibility. However, with a little organization, you should be able to fit these tasks into your schedule. When I tell prospective students, parents, or teachers/directors that I am the V.P. of my association, their ears perk up just a little. You must be doing something right if you bear more responsibility. You can also join multiple associations and connect with teachers in other areas. Where I live, there are probably 5 associations within 10-15 miles. That means there are probably 50-75 teachers in the area that are part of an association. You can probably at least double that number to get an estimate of how many actual teachers there are. Another reason to join is a more obvious one: you get listed in the handbooks, website, etc as a piano teacher in so-and-so area. Getting referrals from teachers in your association (or one that you are not a part of) is a sign of mutual respect. If they have a full schedule, it’s a great feeling knowing that others trust you to do a great job.

Business Association/Networking Events:

Yes, we run a business. We wear many hats and one of those is being a business owner. If you don’t think this way, then you will continue to fight an uphill battle in your hopes of achieving financial success. In Google, type in your ‘city’ and the word ‘business association’ and you’ll find a lot of resources. I have my studio listed in the local business directory & and am registered on various websites linked with my communities businesses. This will increase your web presence as well. Find out when your city or community has Networking events. Check your local businesses to see if they have any network events posted. When you attend, make sure to bring a smile, firm handshake, and your confidence. This may be the first time that the local business owners network with a music teacher so make it a good first impression. Don’t forget your business cards! Also, make sure to have flyers (attractive) just in case you exchange offers with other owners.

Attending conferences & conventions:

With Summer on the horizon, this is also the time for music conventions & conferences. As teachers, we attend these events for lots of different reasons. We all love to be inspired and have that renewed sense of motivation. Whether it be from amazing performances, mind-blowing seminars, or finding the next best technological gadget to use for teaching. This is also the best opportunity for you to meet others in our field & start building relationships. If you really want to build your resume and get noticed, look into conducting your own class. I am currently brainstorming ideas and hope to be up on the stage presenting to others within the next couple of years. Make it a point to converse with experienced members, whether it be to get advice, pick their brain, or exchange contact information.

Social Networking:

By now, I’m sure most of you realize the importance of keeping up with the times in this tech age. The question is: How to use these sites effectively? Start with the basics. Connect with your students & parents. Keep them informed of the studio events. You don’t have to blog or post daily tidbits…doesn’t hurt though. Connect with other teachers, studios, music-related sites. You can learn how to be effective just by observing other studio & teachers posts. I like to post daily if I can to establish a consistent presence on the internet. You can link all of your social networking sites together so that you only have to post once. Once you get the hang of it, then start communicating & share advice with other teachers & colleagues. This is when you start to build those relationships and become more visible in the online community.

Pay It Forward:

Even though the initial act of performing is not networking, the result of volunteering your musical services will give you networking opportunities down the road. You want to create as many ‘give & take’ relationships as possible. Connect with your local downtown associations. Contact them to see if you can setup your keyboard at various events and provide free music in exchange for setting up a table with your business cards & flyers. Even if you don’t get any inquiries (which you probably will), you will be appreciated and called on again for more opportunities.

In summation: Connecting with people and developing relationships, either in person or online, is an effective & invaluable way of generating business. If done properly, business can generate itself as long as you keep yourself & your studio visible. Make sure to always follow-up with people that you connect with. Make a list of everyone or group that you have contacted and/or started to establish relationships with. People lead busy lives and sometimes we have to make it a point to ‘remind’ them that we are here.

Traffic Getting Strategies

Today, with advancement in the technology every business has evolved online and obviously web presence matters a lot for the promotion of every business and enterprise. Since half of the business has turned online, it is important to use effective strategies to woo your clients.

No matter how you look at traffic genuinely, quality traffic simply means the rush of people who are actually interested in getting certain information online. Hence, there have been many arguments that traffic is traffic, but to literally get the crowd on your website you need to treat them as real people. It is important as it will help you catch more traffic once you will know who you are targeting.

SEO

Undoubtedly, search engine optimization plays a great role in bringing traffic to the website. Installing a related content plugin, utilizing keyword research tools, using keywords in post sites, relevant keywords in image file names, linking to the authorized sites, etc. are the major tasks an SEO executive performs to bring the website to a higher rank.

On Page

• Urllist.txt – It’s a kind of sitemap in text file format which aims to help in identifying the path and number of the available urls on the server.

• Sitemap.xml – A Sitemap is an XML file listing the URLs for a website. The webmasters use it to view the graphical representation of a site. The protocols of sitemap inform the search engines about the particular URLs available for crawling.

• Meta Viewport Tag- Meta View Tags also popularly known as Viewport tags are used to check the responding nature of the website. It helps to check out if the website is responsive on mobile phones, tablets, I-phones, etc. In particular, the web developers use this viewport tag to set the width of the layout viewport related to CSS declarations.

• Favicon- A favicon is simply a file having one or more small icons that are associated with a specific website or a web page. This icon is popular with many other names like shortcut icon, URL icon, bookmark icon, tab icon, etc.

• Apple Touch Icon – Just like Favicon, The Apple Touch Icon is a file used as a web page icon on the Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod, etc. This icon is basically used when someone bookmarks your web page or adds it to one’s home screen.

• Meta Tags – Meta elements are the tags that are used in XHTML or HTML to provide a planned metadata about the web page. They work as an important part of the head section of the webpage. Since these tags are useful for search engine optimization and are not visible to the users.

• Customized 404 error page – The Customized 404 error displays the message “Page Not Found” when the page searched by the user is simply not available. There can be the links that are not available or have been currently removed from the website. Consequently, when there is no page to display, the web server displays a message saying “404 page not found”.

Off Page:

• Local citations for Branding – Local Citation refers to the task of mentioning your companies’ local information on other websites or the places available on the internet. Local citation assists in branding your website and also help you rank higher in local search results.

• Info Graphics Submission – As the name suggests, infographics are literally the graphical representations loaded with the information or integrated data. This infographic submission on the feature websites actually help in search engine optimization and are effective in bringing traffic to the platform.

• PPT Submission – PPT is a file extension used for depicting a presentation file used by Microsoft PowerPoint. This popular software is generally used to display the information in the form of slide show. It is again an important and efficient method of getting traffic to your website.

• Google Business Places -is one of the important submission methods that can be used to let Google crawl your business and bring traffic to it at the same time. Google My business enables you to create a profile of your business and then verifies your local business which ultimately helps Google map to crawl it.

• Image Submission – As the name clarifies, image submission means posting images on different websites to increase the links. These images can be submitted directly or by using URLs to promote your website and bring traffic to it. These submissions literally increase your site visibility and the popularity of your website.

Create Amazing content:

There is no denial of the fact that content is the king of any website. If you really think that more traffic shall come to your site, you definitely need to use keyword rich content. Following are a few tips to write down the content and fetch traffic on your portal:

• Use catchy headlines.

• Know the requirement of the website and then write down the things accordingly.

• Give your blog a relevant name, so that the viewer can get to know what he is going to read about.

• It’s not important to load your website with content rather keep the things precise and crispy. People do not have time to go through the epic content.

• Keep on posting the content on your website more often. The more you will post, the better.

• Write down the current stories.

• Write down what people want to read and not what you are interested in writing.

• Keep on blogging at regular intervals, so that the readers must know when to expect something new.

Socialize your website:

Socialization is again one of the best ways to get traffic on your website. You can simply make use of social networking sites to make people know your website, the services you are providing and a lot more about it. Socialization will include:

• Creating a Facebook page for your blog. Simply use it to interact with your readers and post notifications, the moment you publish something new on your website.

• Short and crispy tweets work wonder to catch people’s attention on Twitter.

• Pinterest serves as a wonderful platform to tap into the audiences of the other bloggers.

• Creating a Tumblr blog can also fetch more crowds to the site.

• Making an Instagram account can help you tell people about the new posts.

• Create LinkedIn profiles.

• Link your Google+ page with the related website.

• Incorporate social sharing buttons on every post.

• Try to involve people in your discussion by ending your posts with a question.

• Adding the users advised by the Twitter on a daily basis can help you increase the follow-up percentage.

• Ask your friends to involve you in their blog rolls and join yours as well.

Focus on Email marketing:

Most of the businesses are involved in fetching the traffic through content. Meanwhile, it is not wise to forget the power of regular communication through every mean. Email marketing is one of the traditional methods of getting traffic to your website. It is a powerful tool as a single logical e-mail disclosure can lead to a significant change in the traffic rate on a particular website.

Now, E-marketing does not mean that you keep on bombarding people with persistent emails. It can be irritating for sure. So, you can simply send a friendly e-mail revealing about a new service or the product you are launching. In addition, to this, you are also expected to be consistent in replying to the queries.

Web Responsiveness:

Web responsiveness is an essential part of web designing. It actually decides the optimal view and interacting experience of the website. It plays a great role in fetching the traffic to a site and maintaining it as well.

Check out the speed of your Site:

It is very important to ensure that your site works with a great pace. Let’s not go far and put ourselves in other’s shoes. Have you ever waited for any page to load down for thirty seconds or more? The answer is obviously “NO”. Consequently, it is important to be sure that every page of your website is technically optimized. Make sure that your pages are as technically optimized as possible, comprising page structure, file sizes, image files, the functionality of the third party plugins, etc. The faster it will be the better.

Use Multimedia to get amazing traffic:

Multimedia holds a great power to bring traffic to your site if you have made its proper use.

• Use of Photos and Graphics: Photos and graphics are the best tools to express what one actually wants at a single glance without taking much time. Use of fascinating and unique photographs and graphics can help o bring traffic on the website.

• Creating an infographic and sharing it with everyone can help bring traffic on the portal.

• Use of Pinterest-friendly graphics displaying text on the top of the images will encourage people to pin your posts.

• Presenting your content in the form of a presentation and sharing it on SlideShare is one of the effective ways of catching the attention of the people towards your website.

• For extra content, it is advised to write down your videos and other webinars.

• Producing podcasts related to your websites is a wise idea. You can share out these podcasts from different sources.

• Uploading videos on the YouTube and other video networking videos along with your website’s link in the reference box can bring people to your site.

Guest Posting

Guest posting is a successful way of rapidly increasing the visitor’s number on your website. It involves a few steps that any user actually needs to be acquainted with before practically doing it.

• Guest posting enhances the visibility of your blog which increases the demand for your work.

• Commenting and blogging on other’s sites give you an opportunity to talk to different people which ultimately build your relationships with the experienced bloggers.

• Guest posting will definitely bring the visitor’s on your site and if they find much good quality on your website, you can have a good traffic on your site.

• Taking part in the blog carnivals can add to the visitor’s rush on site.

• Post your articles on reputed article sites like EzineArticles or Hubpages. This will create extra links for you.

• Write and associate a press release related to your site.

• Do not forget to use your links in your posts.

Case Study:

It is a great idea to write on something that can be taken as a case study further. People can have a discussion over that and it can also be considered as an action from people’s side.

Free MLM Traffic – How To Get Free Advertising on Google 24-7!

One of the goals of those who are in a network marketing home based business opportunity is to generate free mlm traffic. I’m sure this is one of your goals as well. Did you know that there is a way you can get free advertising using the web’s top search engine Google? If you are in desperate need to know the secret, finally revealed are the steps you need to take to get free advertising on Google’s first page 24-7!

1. Set goals. You must figure out where you want to be in two to five years from now. You must think about ways people find an find you. You don’t want to be a slamming and hammering sales person since over 90% of the population dislikes that approach. You don’t want to chase after people , but have THEM chasing after you. How will you do this? If you don’t have a plan in place, you are not focused. So, the first step is to set some goals.

2. Name recognition. People need to know who you are. This does not happen immediately, but over time. Unfortunately, most people will quit before they ever reach this point, but for those who are committed, the will amply be rewarded for their efforts. Therefore, you must plan right.

3. Systems. As you think about your strategy, you must have a system. You must be able to see who is on your list in a glance; have a contact manager, and be able to keep records. I personally use a system for 19.95 a month that enables me to build my list by giving away a free resource, has email features, comes with an autoresponder, has 8 splash pages, includes training on how to market as well as places to market, and much more.

4. Don’t believe the hype the heavy hitters or guru’s promote. We all have seen headlines about how people make thousands of dollars almost overnight. Many of them almost sound like these people got rich quick.

With any network marketing internet home based-business opportunity especially, it takes time to build a frontline with strong leaders; leaders who will retail and bring in other leaders for their teams. This does NOT happen overnight. It takes work. If you see promotions from others where they seemed to have skipped this step, there are three possible reasons:

a. The person sold audio tapes, some sort of report or system, where they claimed they did something.

b. They previously had a large downline and just transferred it into a new company.

c. The person has good name recognition. So, a MLM company asked them to promote their company, and gave them a huge downline. The heavy hitter than began to advertise for them.

Now that you have a foundation on what you need to do first, here is the secret to getting listed on page one of the web’s top search engine, Google. The “secret”-articles. Writing articles is the best way to get listed on the #1 page in Google. Article marketing really must be part of your plan. Writing articles brands you, gives you name recognition, and repeat traffic if you are able to connect with your readers. In addition, years from now links can keep coming back to your site.

So, how do you go about doing this?

*Figure out what is popular in your niche. For example, what are people looking for and talking about related to network marketing? What are the most viewed articles in places such as EzineArticles.com? Just browsing through related categories and the most viewed and popular articles can give you a good idea. What you see will let you know what to write about. You can also use material from any ebooks and other resource that you have. You also can hire people through places such as Elance.com if the thought of writing an article sounds overwhelming.

*After you figure out what people want, do a keyword research related to your topic. This will help you discover how to get free mlm traffic. Focus on long tail keyword phrases which are 3 words or more. Phrases such as internet marketing, mlm, networking marketing will never get you on the first page of Google since there is way to much competition or those keywords. A phrase such as free mlm resources” likely will get you better results.

*Use a keyword tool to help you and to save time. Wordtracker is excellent as well as Google’s free tool, Good Keywords, etc.

*Once you figure out your keyword, put it in quotes and then go to Google to see how many searches there are for it. As mentioned before, huge results such as 40,000-50,000 will get you nowhere. Go for results 5,000 or under.

*Once you have found the long tail keyword phrase you want to use, use the exact phrase in the title, and first and last paragraph of your article.

*Submit your article to EzineArticles.com . Of course, there are other directories you can as well such as article marketer.com which is a free distribution service. Once you have submitted your article, in a week do a Google search to see where you landed. If you don’t like the page you are on, you can go back and make changes to get better results.

* In your resource book, add a link to your blog or unique splash page where you are branded. It is best if it is unique and different especially if you are in MLM where everybody uses a generic splash page.

No matter what network marketing home based business opportunity you are involved with, article writing is a great way to bring in free mlm traffic and and prospects over a long period of time. If you are not using this marketing strategy now, take action and get going today as the payoff can be huge!

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