5 Reasons Why Beginner Internet Marketers Sometimes Fail
Reason 1: Beginner Internet marketers sometimes set unrealistic goals for themselves. Set goals for yourself that you can easily attain. By setting and achieving reasonable goals, you build confidence in yourself and your abilities. This allows you to confidently set ever-increasing goals that you can regularly meet. People who set unrealistic goals often fail in Internet marketing because they get discouraged when they do not achieve their goals. After getting discouraged month after month, they often believe they cannot succeed and they stop trying. Don’t let this happen to you.
Reason 2: Beginner Internet marketers often lack a unique product. If you want to be really successful in Internet marketing you need a unique product that you can call your own. Having a unique product allows you to harness the power of affiliate marketing. Having hundreds of marketers actively promoting your product allows you to multiply your efforts on a huge scale.
Reason 3: Beginner Internet marketers often lack commitment to success. If you want to be successful in Internet marketing you have to make a commitment to becoming successful. This means setting time aside each day for your Internet marketing activities and, more importantly, performing those activities each day without fail. You cannot expect to achieve any level of success in Internet marketing if you can’t commit yourself to doing the very things that you need to do to be successful each and every day without exceptions. It’s that important.
Reason 4: Beginner Internet marketers sometimes get caught up in the details. It is important that you know what kind of tasks you are good at. Don’t make the same mistake that countless other Internet marketers make of trying to do everything yourself. There are places online where you can hire inexpensive help, on a per project basis, to perform the tasks that you are not an expert in. For instance, if you are good with graphics programs, then go ahead and do your own graphics. Otherwise, contract the graphics out and spend your valuable time doing something you are good at. The same can be said for web design or copywriting. The point here is that you do what you do best, and you can inexpensively hire others to do the rest. You won’t believe how inexpensive it can be and how fast you can put it all together.
Reason 5: Beginner Internet marketers sometimes plan themselves to death (paralysis by analysis). If you want to be a successful Internet marketer, at some point you will have to put a plan into action. Once you have formulated your plan you must be able to take the next step and put that plan into operation. There are so many Internet marketers who come up with a good idea, formulate a plan and never put that plan into action because they constantly analyze and refine that plan – without end. This is called paralysis by analysis. This is not to say that your marketing plan doesn’t need careful consideration and analysis. It does. At some point the analysis must stop and the action must begin. Don’t be afraid to take that first action. You will be amazed at how much easier each successive action becomes.
In conclusion, you might be asking yourself why you should follow these recommendations. That’s a fair question. Many marketers have made each of the mistakes described above and have learned a great deal from those mistakes. This was written so that you could also learn from these mistakes. The choice is yours.
Our services at leaders excel include any where from a personal website to an elite Premium business package website. Our premium package features include creating a personal header with your company’s logo that communicates your product and/or services. Check out Leaders Excel Solutions at www.leaderexcelsolutions today for all of your website needs.
5 Simple and Easy Ways to Advertise Online
Some people say that advertising is everything! Regardless if you have a product, a service, a hobby website or just want to share pictures of your wedding, you have to advertise somehow to get the traffic to your site or blog. But not all traffic is equal. There are services that can help you drive tons and tons of traffic to your site and it won’t do you any good at all because it’s not targeted traffic.
Take for example all of the many different ‘surf for traffic’ or ‘traffic clicking’ programs that are out there. If you have a website that is about your hobby, say model airplanes, then what good is this traffic really going to do you? Who’s using these services?
Webmasters and marketers that want traffic on their own site. So they most likely won’t spend any more time on your page than is required by the little timer these services use and then they are gone again. Even if your site is about these traffic services (this is about the only time you will see very much benefit from using such a tool) you will still have to spend a ton of time just surfing and clicking around to get a real benefit from these programs. Once marketers realized this they switched gears. They started promoting all the different programs to a lot of other marketers to get them in their downlines, so they could get some traffic as a bonus. This became their new focus. The problem is that everyone else did exactly the same thing, so not a lot of people were surfing the internet anymore. Bottom-line is this. You need targeted traffic. So here are some tips on how you can generate exactly the traffic you need and bring the visitors you want to your website without having to chase after them.
1. Content What is your website about? Do you just have a page with a lot of links and not much else? If this is the case, think about adding some content to your website that will be of value to any potential visitors. You could write articles or find articles at one of the many directories that you can reprint on your site.
2. Talk about your experiences in your subject matter. You don’t have to put up some kind of resume (although that can work too), but rather try writing about what you are doing, as it relates to your topic of choice. Let’s look at the model airplanes again briefly, you could talk or write about the latest plane type you built, how the last time flying your plane went, what challenges you run into or perhaps even post some pictures of your plane or of you flying it.
3. Forums and bulletin boards. You could add a forum or bulletin board to your website where your visitors can interact with each other. There are a lot of free services available out there that you can use to either remotely host a forum for you, or even software you can install on your website’s server. To find some of these, just head over to your favorite search engine and you will definitely find plenty to choose from. And while you are visiting the search engine, why not run a search for any bulletin boards and forums that are already out there for your chosen topic? You could visit those and interact with the visitors there and since many allow you to post a signature or a profile, you could add a little line about your own site with a link (just check the rules of the forum first so you don’t violate any of them).
4. Start a blog. Blogs are very popular and search engines love them because they provide constantly new and fresh content. Your blog would be a great place to talk about what you are up to that day. So if you spent some time today buying new parts for your plane you could write about where you found them, how much they cost you, why you chose those parts, anything really goes. The really great part about this is that you can point links from your blog back to your website, so when the search engine stops by to grab and index your latest content, it will also stop by your website and you will start seeing very targeted traffic heading your way.
5. Write articles. Writing articles isn’t hard and can be a great source of fresh, new traffic to your website. There are a lot of ezines on any topic out there and there are also a lot of directories where you can share your article. Basically, what you do is write an article and then add a small resource box that links back to your website (just like a signature) and then let other ezine publishers know that you are allowing them to print your article in their ezine. And many publishers go to the article directories to find new content for their newsletter and even their websites. And since there are websites and ezine newsletters on any imaginable topic out there, you can’t lose. Write an article every couple of days and post it in the directories (even one a week or every two weeks will start getting you traffic). Very soon you will find new traffic coming from search engines, newsletters and websites.
Best of all, these 5 simple tips will bring targeted traffic, meaning the visitors are coming to you because they are interested in what you wrote. So there you have it, 5 easy and simple ways to advertise and drive traffic to your website at absolutely no cost.
Our services at leaders excel include any where from a personal website to an elite Premium business package website. Our premium package features include creating a personal header with your company’s logo that communicates your product and/or services. Check out Leaders Excel Solutions at www.leaderexcelsolutions today for all of your website needs.
What is a Domain Name or a Website Name?
Your website communicates with other computers and the internet by using its network adapter or NIC (Network Interface Card) that is within the server. This card and thereby the server uses a unique address known as an IP address. An IPv4 ip address is a address annotated as four numbers segmented by dots. Each segment or octet can have a value between zero and 255, so your dedicated server or business computer address format would look similar to this: 172.16.65.17 On a Windows Server you can determine what the server ip address is by selecting the start button then selecting run. Type in ipconfig and click “OK”, a black command prompt should appear in which you can type ipconfig. On a Linux Server you can open a terminal window and type ifconfig. You can use the same command on your home Windows or Linux system to determine your static dedicated ip address.
Technology has simplified browsing for websites through the use of something called a host file. A host file translates a website name into the assigned IP address. So when you use your internet web browser to browse a website, it communicates to the web server using the ip address. The host file is stored in the c:windowssystem32driversetc directory on a windows computer and in the /etc directory on linux and unix systems.
Have you ever been to 1313 S Harbor Blvd in Anaheim California? Do you know what is at that address? If I had said “Have you ever been to Disney Land?” chances are that you would have immediately known what I was talking about. 131 S Harbor Blvd, Anaheim, California 92802 is the equivalent of an IP address, and Disney Land is the equivalent of a hostname. Website hosting is the equivalent of the land where Disney Land sits. So if you register a website address and get the name, you must also rent or purchase internet real estate or server space for your website to reside on. Likewise if you obtain website hosting but don’t register a website address, no one will know how to get to your website.
If you wanted your computer to look for www.npsis.com using the ip address 192.168.20.34, you would make an entry in your hostfile. The hostfile contains entries that look like this: 192.168.20.34 www.npsis.com. When you access the website www.npsis.com using your web browser, your computer would look for the ip address 192.168.65.14.
DNS (Domain Name System) is commonly used by Internet Service Providers to translate hostnames to IP addresses. When you type www.npsis.com or any other web address URL, your computer contacts a DNS server to find out what IP address is assigned to that domain name. All websites and servers have domain names if they are accessed over the internet.
It is important when selecting your website address that you pick a name that is easy to remember. The domain name should also reflect what your business does. For example the website address tomsgarage.com gives you a pretty good idea of what tom does for a living and its very easy to remember. You can also reserve multiple related domain names and point them at your website address as well. Have your website design store help you to incorporate several relevant key words into your website design and point all of your relevant website addressees at your website (i.e. wefixtires.com, bestlocaltireshop.com, toms-tires.com).
Domain names are typically done on a first come, first serve basis so if you have an idea for a good name you should register it before it is taken by someone else. There are many people and businesses who register and buy the most desirable domain names and resell them; this is usually for a higher cost than the original purchase price.
If you are dealing with a website design store or a web designer you will want to absolutely make sure that you own the domain name and not them. When you purchase a domain name yourself you better protect yourself from predators looking to take advantage of you.
The Key to Better Websites [A] Navigation
Introduction
Importance of the latter :
One of the primary implications of a well-organized / good website, is to keep your visitors in the website. A website is definitely created for a purpose, unless intended for personal use, which is the minority. For example, a portfolio website would want to be visited and it’s content viewed. For companies and internet businesses, your website certainly aims to provide product information, to make sales, or somewhat similar. However, most individuals undoubtedly prefer visually captivating designs, so on and so forth. It is undeniable that this causes no harm, but one must put himself/herself in other people’s shoes, as to understand how a visitor to the website might think, do and react
1 ) Navigation
As I said, a web designer has to learn how to think the way your visitors think.
Situation A : Website with good navigation ( 2-3 hyperlinks to target page ), well planned in terms of placement, and design.
Situation B : Website with poor navigation ( takes forever for the visitor to reach his/her target page ), hard-to-read navigation fonts and poor placement of the navigation buttons/bar.
In Situation A, a visitor will always want to be able to access his/her target page. For example, the individual comes across your website, and is interested in the product sold, but wants to find more information. He/she finds the navigation with no trouble, and enters the particular product information page.
As for Situation B, a visitor stumbles into the website, and would also like to find out more information about the product. Unfortunately, due to bad placement and fanciful font-types, the visitor takes forever, or even fails to find the navigation bar. Even when he/she does so, links to the product information are nowhere to be found, (example : home > about > products > product image > etc[a few more clicks] > product information ).
Analysis : In both situations, wouldn’t a website with characteristics similar to the Situation A be more rewarding ergo better?
The Key to Better Websites [ Part B ] Design
Introduction
Importance of the latter :
Design, design, design. To put the wonders of a good design into perspective, imagine when we are purchasing a T-Shirt. First of all, what do we look at? The design of the T-Shirt, of course. Well most people do, other than the material factor. But let’s assume the all other factors are constant, wouldn’t the design or looks, become the key aspect then?
2 ) Design
Putting oneself in another individual’s shoes, as usual. Here are another two situations.
Situation A : A website with good design and breathtaking graphics. (Good color schemes with matching theme), pictures. (Optimum resolutions and relevant) and proper fonts and word sizes.
Situation B : A website inversely equipped with hideous graphics and pictures in terms of resolution, quality and relevancy. (Red pictures with a bright green background) Fonts used were not matching albeit too fanciful. (Too small, artsy font-types)
Situation A, visitors that enter the website are immediately awestruck by the design and artwork. The well placed pictures and designs will somewhat symbolizes the positive nature of the company/website. As we know, most people DO judge by impression.
As for Situation B, the shabby environment due to severe lack of creativity and badly taken pictures wouldn’t exactly help in attracting visitors. Fonts that were hard to be read, let alone comprehended, and mismatching themes in terms of color, isn’t exactly welcoming, is it?
Analysis: Now, the main idea here is to always plan your websites, try to get other individuals for feedback and perspectives. Each mindset might differ, but at least you will get room for improvement. Don’t get me wrong, even a plain website with proper design would generate plenty of positive implications, but the key idea here is to at least maintain an impressionable website.
3 Ways to Start Building Your Opt-In List
The light bulb has finally started flashing in your head and you realize that you need an opt-in list to make money on the Internet. You’ve read hundreds of articles on the subject and sought expert advice. You’ve head all the stories of people creating a profitable business with opt-in lists.
With that light bulb still flashing away you finally decide to do something about it – start a list of your own. But how do you get started? And better yet, how do you build a list big enough to generate an income from?
It can be pretty scary when you’re first starting out. Do you need a web site? An opt-in form? Should you use an autoresponder service or a script on your own site? How should you format the messages? How many should you send a week? The list goes on and on.
The answers to a lot of these questions will greatly depend on how experienced you are on the Internet. If you have no knowledge of CGI or PHP, then hosting your own script may not be an option. If you don’t know HTML or don’t have direct access to your on-line files, then editing your pages to insert the code for an opt-in form will not be possible.
These, unfortunately, are just some of the obstacles that you will need to overcome if you want to give this ‘Internet Thing’ a go. Having your own web site is almost a necessity. Without one, you would only be able to promote other people’s products (as they would have their own web sites for you to send traffic to through your affiliate links).
Below are three easy ways that you can use to start building your opt-in list:
Offer a free report that contains links back to your web site or even includes an opt-in form on one of the main pages. You can also make it necessary for your visitors to fill out your opt-in form before they can access the report.
Join some of the Fire Sales and Giveaways that other marketers are running (sometimes called Joint Ventures). Add your gift to the site and when visitors want to download your gift make them fill out your opt-in form first.
Exchange ads with other opt-in list owners. You run an ad for them and they run an ad for you. Granted you probably won’t be able to join up with someone who has a huge list (as they won’t be getting much exposure in return) but if you can find other lists that are of a similar size to yours, you should be in with a chance.
Building a profitable opt-in list won’t happen overnight, but it will happen. Keep at it and be creative. Try things outside of the box; put a twist on an old idea. And most of all – be persistent.
Our services at leaders excel include any where from a personal website to an elite Premium business package website. Our premium package features include creating a personal header with your company’s logo that communicates your product and/or services.
Check out Leaders Excel Solutions at www.leadersexcelsolutions today for all of your website needs.
Good Design Practices
Your website is where your business resides — it’s like the headquarter of an offline company. Hence, it is important to practice good design principles to make sure your site reaches out to the maximum number of visitors and sells to as many people as possible.
Make sure you have clear directions on the navigation of your website. The navigation menu should be uncluttered and concise so that visitors know how to navigate around your website without confusion.
Reduce the number of images on your website. They make your site load very slowly and more often than not they are very unnecessary. If you think any image is essential on your site, make sure you optimize them using image editing programs so that they have a minimum file size.
Keep your text paragraphs at a reasonable length. If a paragraph is too long, you should split it into seperate paragraphs so that the text blocks will not be too big. This is important because a block of text that is too large will deter visitors from reading your content.
Make sure your website complies to web standards at www.w3.org and make sure they are cross-browser compatible. If your website looks great in Internet Explorer but breaks horribly in Firefox and Opera, you will lose out on a lot of prospective visitors.
Avoid using scripting languages on your site unless it is absolutely necessary. Use scripting languages to handle or manipulate data, not to create visual effects on your website. Heavy scripts will slow down the loading time of your site and even crash some browsers. Also, scripts are not supported across all browsers, so some visitors might miss important information because of that.
Use CSS to style your page content because they save alot of work by styling all elements on your website in one go.
Yahoo Web Hosting offers 5 Amazing Features
Yahoo web hosting comes with 5 great features and you can get all the features that Yahoo offers and more for a great introductory price. Yahoo Small Business Web Hosting offers a free domain name, free setup and great beginning rates at a reduced monthly cost. Considering Yahoo Web Hosting as your web hosting provider is a smart move.
Plentiful features that Yahoo Web Hosting has to offer include excellent site management and a domain name that comes for free. If you are looking for a great place for a web hosting provider with many other features, then Yahoo Web Hosting has much to offer you. The following are 5 great features of yahoo web hosting…
1. Yahoo Site Solutions – The new Yahoo Site Solutions Web Site Building Tool offer an easy and improved way to design your web site. You can use it to create and easily design a great website that will help you enhance your business. The Site Solutions tool offers simplicity in web site design.
2. Pricing – $11.95 per month and a three-month contract.
3. Free Yahoo Domain Name – Obtain a free domain for $1.99 for the first year and get free setup for any Yahoo Web Hosting Plan. Registering a Yahoo domain name is $1.99 for the first year and then $9.95 for subsequent years.
4. Unlimited Web Hosting – Yahoo’s new and improved web hosting plan whcih combines all 3 plans into 1 and comes with Unlimited Disk Space, Data Transfer and Email Storage. No other web hosting provider offers so much!
5. Customer Support – 24 Hours a Day – No matter what time of the day or night it may be, Yahoo will be there to help you with your questions. Yahoo Web Hosting provides the benefit of 24/7 free customer support with a They toll free telephone number. Email support is also available around the clock as well.
Create a yahoo web site for yourself and see the excellent benefits and features that you can have for a great price. The Site solutions tool alone will amaze you with how easy it is to build a web site. These 5 features are a great beginning on why anyone should choose a Yahoo Web Hosting Plan.
5 Quick Newsletter Tips
You know you need to stay in touch with the people on your list, but you’re in two minds about starting a newsletter. Will it take up too much of your time? What if you run out of things to say? Can you maintain quality over a period of time? How long should your newsletter be?
Your first aim should be to offer useful or interesting information. (If you don’t do that, you won’t have subscribers for long!) Your second aim should be to keep your newsletter short. Remember that people are inundated with email these days – they actually prefer something they can skim quickly and then put to use.
Spend some time thinking about the best format. You need a model that will be easy to reproduce week after week, month after month. Any one of the following five ideas will make your job easier. Choose one and keep it as a regular format, or combine several of them (for example, you could use the “Tip of the Week” format for weeks 1-3 each month, and offer a checklist every fourth newsletter).
—————– 1. Tip of the Week —————– This one speaks for itself. You can easily brainstorm enough content for six months of weekly newsletters (you need to come up with 24 tips, which you will present weekly). Anyone with a degree of expertise on a given topic should be able to do this without any trouble. A handy way to organize this is to (a) explain the problem then (b) offer the tip which will solve it. Length? Anything from 150 – 500 words.
———– 2. Top Ten ———– This is a tried and true format, and easy to create. Example: if you are an expert on finance, you could offer advice on the Top Ten Ideas for Getting Out of Debt, or the Top Ten Ways to Save Money on Car Expenses, or the Top Ten Tips to Pay Off Your Mortgage in Ten Years. Make sure you keep a tight rein on word length – just offer a couple of sentences for each tip, not half a page.
—————– 3. Three Ways to… —————– Sometimes it can be a bit of a challenge to come up with ten ways to do things, whereas just three ideas is a cinch. You can also explore three ideas in more detail. Alternatively, you can alternate the “Top Ten” format with “Three Ways to…” the two of them will work together nicely.
—————– 4. Before and After —————– Who doesn’t like makeovers? This works in a similar way to ‘Tip of the Week’ in that you show the problem and then provide a solution, but the ‘before and after’ approach lends itself better to case studies. This is a good way to interact with your clients – invite them to send in details of whatever needs a makeover: an article, a website page, their wardrobe etc, then present your solutions. Alternatively, you can ask for ‘before and after’ examples from readers who have managed to do this themselves, then showcase it for the rest of your customers. (If you don’t use HTML for your newsletters, you can add a link to a website page for the accompanying photos.) This works particularly well if you have a health and fitness related newsletter – your readers will be motivated by seeing the changes others have made through diet, exercise and weight training.
———— 5. Checklists ———— When you’re learning to do something new, there’s nothing like a checklist to make sure you don’t leave out a crucial step. Checklists can save a lot of time, and your readers will be delighted to get one. Write a brief introductory paragraph, present the checklist, and then follow it with a few final tips. You can either base your entire newsletter on the checklist format, or present one at regular intervals as a change from the standard article format.
Final tip: set up an address at yahoo or gmail just for newsletters. Spend a few hours checking out sites related to your own interests, and sign up for any free newsletters. Every so often, check your new email account and browse, looking specifically to see what approach other editors use for layout and articles. When you see a format you like, print it out and put it in an ‘ideas’ folder. Unsubscribe from any that are constantly filled with junk or endless sales pitches.
Our services at leaders excel include any where from a personal website to an elite Premium business package website. Our premium package features include creating a personal header with your company’s logo that communicates your product and/or services. Check out Leaders Excel Solutions at www.leadersexcelsolutions today for all of your website needs.
5 Easy Steps for Writing an Article that Gets Top Results
You may not know it, but you have an easy way to bring targeted traffic to your site. You can write articles for publication in ezines that will continue to bring you traffic to your site long after they appear online. Just think of this as an unstoppable traffic generator for your online business.
You do not have to be a Hemingway to be a great article writer. There are some basic rules to follow though. Here are 5 steps to writing a good article that will attract attention and result in more traffic and sales for your business.
ACTION STEP 1 – Create A Hot Title
You must grab the attention of the reader first. People scan everything before they commit to reading it. Let them know what the article is about in a way that makes them want to dig into it for more information. Two classic ways to make a good title are to use a “How to” format, such as, “How To Get A Base Hit 7 Times Out Of Ten”, and the “Tips” format, which might go something like this: “5 Super Easy Tips To Relieve Stress”.
ACTION STEP 2 – Get Your Reader’s Attention With An Interesting Opening Sentence
The next most important part of writing your article is to grab the reader with a powerful first sentence. This will keep them interested and wanting more information. Two of the best ways to hook your reader is to ask a question or to state a fact.
A question should make the reader curious to find out the answer by finishing the article. If you state a fact, you must make it the basis for the rest of your article.
ACTION STEP 3 – Discuss The Main Points In The Body Of The Article
Here is where you provide the content of your article, and the solutions to the problem that you are solving for the reader. Your purpose here is to educate and inform. Address each problem and follow it with the solution. Or if you are giving tips to your reader, you can list each tip in the order that best solves their problem.
ACTION STEP 4 – Summary and Ask Your Reader To Take Action
Always include a brief summary for maximum results. Then tell your reader why it is important for them to take action now. Give a benefit or two as an incentive for them to respond now. This can be a link to your website or newsletter. After all, this was the primary purpose of your article.
ACTION STEP 5 – Include A Powerful Resource Box After Your Article
You absolutely need to make a resource box promoting your website, eBook, eCourse or affiliate program. The resource box gives the reader another way to get more information. This will spur the traffic to your promotion as more people read your article. Create a resource box that tells who you are and what you are offering to the reader. This should take no more than 3-6 lines of text.
These 5 steps will ensure that you have an article that people will want to read and then visit your website. Just use this easy 5-step format and simply fill in the details with your own information. Then distribute your articles to ezine and newsletter publishers in your business niche. The result will be more targeted traffic and increased visibility for your business.
Our services at leaders excel include any where from a personal website to an elite Premium business package website. Our premium package features include creating a personal header with your company’s logo that communicates your product and/or services. Check out Leaders Excel Solutions at www.leadersexcelsolutions today for all of your website needs.