At the very top of my to-do list is just that…the list. I am amazed at the number of bloggers who don’t make any attempt to build a list from their blog. All it takes is a link to give away a free report through an opt in form. Aweber, which is probably the best Autoresponder in existence, is all of 20 bucks a month. If you can’t afford 20 bucks a month for your business then you have no business being in business. This is a basic essential that no blogger should be without.

Next, I want to move on to other marketers’ blogs. Why? Because there is an opportunity there that many marketers ignore because they think that ALL their blogging efforts should be on their own blogs. While you should build up your own blogs, posting comments and articles on other marketers’ blogs can greatly increase the amount of traffic that you get, especially if you post comments on blogs with a high PR. So don’t ignore your fellow marketers. If you ask, you may even get a gig as a guest author like I’ve done here.

Finally, there is how you actually go and promote your blog. Many bloggers only do the minimum in this area. They update their blogs and then ping the blog directories…and that’s it. And then they wonder why they’re not getting as much traffic as they’d like. You have to do more than just blog and ping. A good start would be to write some articles and submit them to article directories. In your resource box, have a link to your blog. This will get more traffic to your blog.

These are just a few simple things that you can do to increase the effectiveness of your blogging efforts. And they won’t cost you one penny.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim
Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business…FREE? Pick up my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!

There are so many reasons why people fail when they start a home business and I don’t have the time (or the space) to name them all. I’ll get to that in time. I promise.

One significant reason is the absence of a good mentor(s). I can’t emphasize enough how important this is to get anyone going on the right track in the beginning (and throughout frankly).

Starting a home business can be daunting for anyone but especially so when a newbie invests there money and has dreams and a plan to make this all happen. Unfortunately, the plan probably has nothing to do with the real way to find success with your business.

Here comes the mentor to save the day. A good mentor which could mean a sponsor in a program, another affiliate in the same program, or a group of people in a forum can point the newbie with the dream in the right direction. They will teach the newbie about some of the truly important aspects of marketing such as creating backlinks, blogging, writing articles, optimizing your website and all those things that the newbie did not imagine. Remember the newbie had a dream and it probably looked more like someone on a beach with a drink somewhere near as well as their laptop.

Seriously though, it is truly important to find a good mentor and one can do that pretty easily if you know a program you would like to more about. Check out most business forums and they will have threads on that program where you can read who posts, what they say and the general attitude of the individuals. Read everything you can and start to ask questions. Look at the kind of responses you get and who gives a thoughtful response and who does not respond at all.

If you do see one or two individuals who seem to be the type of person you would like to be your mentor, you can send them a private message (PM) and ask them a few questions. See how responsive they are and if they are willing to help. Technically, you are really interviewing them and you can choose the kind of person you want for the job. Hey, the shoe is on the other foot now!

Make sure when dropping that money down and prepping for your dream, you take all this into account. Your success might not be guaranteed, but your chances of success will be much, much greater.

Until the next time,

Laura Licata

See more of Laura’s posts and rants at www.moneymakingmathteacher.com and www.moneymakingmathteacher.com/blog

Do more stuff.

Yeah, it’s kind of a duh statement, but it’s true. And guess what? You can never do enough stuff. There is always something more that you can do. In this article, what I’m going to do is share with you just a few things that I do to increase my income. Some of these work on the spot and some work through time. The key is to take action and always think about what more you can do.

First thing I do is look at whatever I’m promoting at the time and see if I can do some extra promotion. For example. I currently have a special offer running at a forum that was on page 3 of the ads. Sales were slowing down considerably. So what I did was pay an additional posting fee to get the ad back to page 1. After I did this, sales started picking up again, thus increasing my income considerably. Considering the posting fee was only $20, this was more than worth doing.

I might also look at my current products, see what I’m not promoting as much in certain places, such as at message boards, and post a few ads for the product there. Usually, I’ll find that this post will result in a few sales that I normally wouldn’t have gotten. This works very well when you offer people free reports. People love free reports. If you give these away in exchange for building your list, you can make lots of money down the road.

Another thing I’ll do is think about what new products I can create. Every product that you put out there is another product that you can sell and make a profit on. Product creation is not hard. All you need is a program to type into and something to turn that report into a PDF. Open Office, which is free, can do this instantly. I’ve churned out products that have made me $2,000 in just one day.

If you want to pick up a great book on product creation that I wrote with my good friend Justin Michie, check out the URL below:

http://www.stevewagenheim.com/productcreation.php

Another great way to make some extra income is through freelancing. You’ll be surprised how many people are looking for others to do things for them like article writing, copywriting, programming and so on. If you have any of these skills, you can make thousands of dollars a month as a freelancer.

If you put your mind to it, you can bank an extra $2,000 to $3,000 every month, just by going the extra mile.

If you’re having trouble putting it all together and figuring out how to put together a profitable campaign, check out the link in my signature. It should give you plenty of ideas for starting a successful business.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim
4 Steps To Creating A Successful Business
http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html

I bank over $6,700 a month using nothing but article marketing to do it. Now, I could just leave it at that and then this would be the shortest article in existence…my point would have been made. But there is more to it than just that simple statement. See, article marketing is an art as much as it’s a science. Not everybody is good at it. The reason? Well, it’s pretty simple. Not everybody can write. Not an earth shattering revelation, I know. But when all is said and done, not everybody DOES know how to write.

But it goes beyond just not knowing how to write. Some people know how to write but don’t know how to write articles. And then there are those who know how to write articles but don’t know how to write them for the purposes of marketing. And therein lies the rub of article marketing. See, it’s not just the ability to be a good writer. Lots of people can do that. It’s the ability to write well enough to lead the person reading to take an action that YOU want them to take…kind of like the action YOU’RE going to take after you are done reading this.

But before you take that action, you have to decide if you can put in 15 minutes a day minimum and if you can do this day after day without moaning and groaning about it. If you can do that, see that $6,700 a month that I make? That can be yours too IF you’re ready to follow my instructions. What instructions?

In my signature is a guide, probably the best one ever written on the subject of article writing and marketing, that you absolutely can’t do without. I have taken folks who have never made a dime on the Internet and turned them into successful business owners using these methods. They’re not hard, but you have to commit to them. If you’re willing to do that…well, you know the rest.

Is article marketing worth the hassle?

Did I mention that I earn $6,700 a month JUST from writing articles?

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim
Want to write articles that get people’s attention and can earn you up to $200 per article written? Then check out my Complete Article Writing And Marketing Guide that you can find at http://www.honestincomeprogram.com/tcawamg.html - This is my own book that I wrote from over 30 years of writing experience.

I realized I had more control of myself than I thought and I’m not a computer addict. Not than being a computer addict is bad or anything. I also realized a lot more after I came home from my holidays.

What did I learn?

I learned if you set the groundwork of your business from the very beginning it really pays off in the end. You have to work hard, put in the hours, be consistent, persistent, patient, perservere and promote, promote, promote. Eventually you get to the point where you can work part-time hours and still get the same or better results when you worked 40+ hours.

Have you ever spent a full day working your business and not seen any results and then the one time you didn’t work you found you made sales or gotten leads? Been there and done that. During those times, I think to myself I should go out more often. Do you ever wonder why the water never boils if you keep staring at it?

Not only can I spend less time on the computer and still receive the same or better results, I can better balance my work, family and business in a much more effective and productive way. I can take a vacation knowing my business can run on its own steam because I built it with integrity and hard work.

You can too!

To your success,
Sophia
Work At Home Space

First thing you gotta do is get yourself a blog if you don’t already have one. Why a blog? Google loves blogs. Don’t ask me why. They just do. Just having a blog that you update often will be enough to get you soaring up the search engines. And the great thing is, you don’t have to spend any money to do this. You can get a Blogger or Wordpress blog for absolutely no money at all. I suggest Blogger because they’re actually owned by Google, and you can’t beat that.

Next thing you gotta do is go to an affiliate marketplace and find yourself a product. I suggest Clickbank because they have the largest selection. Now, you can’t just select any product. The selection process is very important. At the end of this article, I’ll show you where you can find out just how to pick the best products. This is critical. If you pick the wrong product, you won’t make many sales, if any at all.

Next, you want to write a review of the product. It will probably help to get a free copy from the product creator. Just tell him you want to promote it and 9 times out of 10, he’ll be glad to send you a review copy. After you get it and read it, write an honest review of the product. Trust me, prospects will smell a snow job right out of the gate, so keep it real. At the end of the review, include your affiliate link to the sales page so that the prospect can check it out.

Those are the basics, but there is more to it than that. There’s promotion of the blog, which can also be done dirt cheap or even free. That’s where the link in my signature comes in. I have a great book called “Affiliate Assassin” that will make this process almost fool proof. I’ve been doing it for a long time and it’s very effective. The best part is, it doesn’t cost me an arm and a leg.

There you have it…3 simple steps for easy money.

Try it…You’ll be pleasantly surprised at the results.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim
Get my book Affiliate Assassin and make this process as easy as pie. I guarantee it!

Ad Surf Daily (ASD) is an auto surf program. The concept is simple. You pay a fee to have your site advertised to the other members. In return, every 90 days, you received a return on that fee called a rebate. So let’s say you put in $100 in advertising fees. In 90 days, according to the current interest rate, you would get back $125, or a $25 profit. In theory, this all seems perfectly innocent and sound. The problem is, the model isn’t sustainable and will eventually collapse. I will explain why.

Let’s for argument sake say that there are 60,000 members, which as of this point in time is what they have. If each member were to put in $100 say on January 1, on April 1, each member would have to be paid $125 or a total of 7.5 million. Now, the members have the option of leaving the money in and compounding it even more. I won’t go into further number crunching because you can see where this starts to add up very fast.

This extra money that has to be paid out, has to come from somewhere. It comes from the newer members. Now, here is where we run into the problems. When the members involved, the ones looking for really big payouts, leave their money in for so long and in huge amounts ($5,000 invested or more) when the time comes to cash out, the money needed to pay them is so astronomical that it actually exceeds the quarterly income of some of the biggest companies on the Internet. If you do the crunching, you will see that this is just not sustainable.

All programs of this kind that have come before it have all either collapsed or have been shut down by the FTC. Therefore, you are literally taking a HUGE risk by getting involved with ASD or any program like it. Look up some old programs like 12 Daily Pro or YMMSS and you will see the ugly histories of these programs. Financial analysts and mathematicians have proven that these models aren’t sustainable because of the high compounding factors and none of these programs are big enough to take in the required income from outside sources to keep them afloat for more than a short period of time. The end result…complete collapse.

So please do yourself a favor…find something else to invest your money in. In my signature is a free report that can help you to actually start your own business online with almost no cost and virtually no risk.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business…FREE? Pick up my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!

ASD Scam - Ad Surf Daily Scam - ASD Review

Targeted marketing is the wave of the future for Internet advertisers. The key to advertising is knowing what consumers want. Once an advertiser understands the potential consumer’s needs, he has a much better chance of making a sale. This is the theory behind online targeted marketing.

And while in the Internet’s infancy the best way to advertise via the Internet may have been to simply rapid fire your advertising message to as many places and users as possible, today’s Internet marketer can make use of targeted approaches to online advertising to create a more efficient advertising model. One interesting example of this is indeed behavioral targeting.

What is Behavioral Targeting?

Behavioral targeting is marketing ads to individuals based in prior buying or surfing habits. When an Internet consumer comes to a website enabled with behavioral targeting code, the site analyzes prior habits and places relevant ads on the site based on those patterns.

To do this a special program is used that, like we mentioned, gains access to where the visitor has been before. The program then uses this information to generate ads on the site.

Why Is Behavioral Targeting Useful?

Psychologists know that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. People who like to buy state of the art stereo equipment over the Internet are unlikely to restrict their online purchases to floral bouquets anytime soon. If advertisers can find out what someone has bought or taken an interest in before, they know the right things to try to sell to them in the future.

Putting the same ads on the same pages for every viewer to a certain webpage is simply a missed opportunity. Just as car manufacturers advertise in car magazines and makeup vendors advertise in beauty magazines, Internet advertisers want to advertise to people who are interested in their products, which is just what behavioral targeting allows them to do.

What Are the Concerns About Behavioral Targeting?

There is an ethical question of whether recording and storing people’s buying and viewing practices and habits is an invasion of privacy. However, since only the practices and not the personal information of the individual are analyzed by the program, this is not as much of an issue as some people may believe.

Hence these programs generally function “blind,” that is to say, they take the pattern data and spit out ads as a result. Not only does this benefit the advertiser but in the end also the consumer. Rather than being bombarded with irrelevant banners and ad-messages website advertisements is tailored to fit our needs and desires. It’s a win-win!

For starters, get out of your mind that the summer is dead. It is not dead. There are plenty of people out there who are potential customers for your products and services. Just because it’s hot and humid where you live doesn’t mean that it’s like that in all parts of the world. Some people do their best work during the months of July and August. So there is no reason for you to give up on your marketing efforts during this time.

Once you’ve decided to get your butt into gear, the one thing I would do is work on some new ads for your products. You’ve probably been using the same tired ads for months now. Don’t you think it’s time for a change? Sometimes, just putting out a new ad will ignite a failing campaign. When a new ad hits the Internet, everybody has to check it out…including your competitors. They want to see what you’re up to as well. So put on your ad writing hat and get cranking.

Finally, you want to search out some new promotional methods that you might have not tried yet. There are plenty online to choose from including article marketing, safelists, message boards, classifieds, pay per click, solo ezine ads, FFA sites, forums and a slew of other things. You’d be surprised how much success you can have promoting to a safelist if you know JUST how to use them. Every advertising medium has its place and can be profitable IF you know how to tackle it.

Just by putting the few tips above into practice, you’d be surprised at how successful the summer months can be. Some of my best months in the 5 plus years that I’ve been marketing have been during the summer. The reason is simple. I don’t believe people when they tell me that the summer is a waste of time.

Nothing is a waste of time if you put your mind to it.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim
Want to earn a 6 figure income like I do but get there in half the time? Please visit my blog at http://work-at-home-based-business.com/2007/12/06/review-of-nitro-marketing/ and read my review of the greatest info product ever to come out online in the 4 years I’ve been doing this.

At the top of my list is doing just that…making a list. What kind of list? Let’s say that you’ve decided that you want to learn pay per click advertising, list building, article writing and copywriting. Now, obviously, you can’t learn all of those all at one time. Your head will explode. So what I do is make a list of each item I want to learn and order them according to importance. In other words, which one do I need the most right away? I then concentrate on that one and ONLY that one until I have mastered it. I then cross if off my list and move on to the next thing. Trust me, this is a very effective method to dealing with information overload.

Another great method for dealing with information overload is developing what I call tunnel vision. This is a little harder to do, but if you can pull this off, you’ll be way ahead of the game. Let me try to explain how this works. Let’s say that I am working on a project that requires me to do certain things and have certain skills. I will look at my list of things I want to learn and see if any of those skills for that certain project are on it. If so, I will tackle ONLY that skill and master it. I will pretend that the other skills don’t even exist, no matter how tempting it might be to include them in the project. If they’re not needed, pretend they don’t exist.

Basically, what this all comes down to is discipline. And quite honestly, I don’t know how to teach that. Yes, it’s very easy to see the new shiny ebook on whatever and convince yourself that you have to have it. But if you really look at it rationally, you’ll discover that there are very few things that you really need.

And THAT is how you handle information overload.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Affordable Mentoring Services From A Marketer In The Trenches. I’ll keep you on track.

http://www.stevewagenheim.com/mentoring/mentoring.html