Are The Online Marketing Gurus Ripping Us Off?

There has been a lot of talk around the forums and social media lately about guru bashing and how they just rip us poor innocent dumb suckers off. Well, I thought it was about time that I put all of this nonsense in perspective. I’m not saying that there aren’t bad people in the world, because there are. But just because somebody is a guru doesn’t make them a bad person or a con artist. They obviously did something worthwhile to get to the level where other people are even using the word “guru” to talk about them!

I understand that there are all kinds of people out there, as far as intelligence level goes. Some people are really bright and can spot a snake oil salesman a mile away. And then there are those of us who will believe anything that we’re told. So it’s not fair to put all the blame on the consumer. The merchant has to take some responsibility. However, and I’m going to use college as an example, there has to come a point where even if we’re as dumb as pet rocks, we have to take some responsibility as well.

Why do I bring up college? Well, when I was 17 years old, I graduated high school and was all prepared to go to college. I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do. The only thing left to do was pay my tuition — which was a hell of a lot more than a guru seminar — take my classes, graduate, and (hopefully) get a job afterwards.

I spent a whole year after college looking for work. I couldn’t get one person to hire me. Now, did I go back to my college and tell them that they ripped me off because I couldn’t get a job? Of course not. I wouldn’t have thought of it. Nobody would have. Truth is, when you went to college, no promises were made. You were going in the hopes that you’d have a better chance TO find a job once you got out. But ultimately, there were no guarantees.

And yet, when we buy a $97 ebook or a $997 seminar, we expect to come out of it with enough ammunition to make 6 figures within a month. I don’t know where this entitlement mentality comes from, but it’s certainly isn’t the guru’s fault. Do they put up sales pages that make us think that all we have to do is buy their product and we’ll be rich? Maybe, but no more so than the college recruiter who comes to your high school and tells you how 75% of their students start out at $30,000+ a year. What they don’t tell you is that the other 25% don’t get any jobs at all and most of the others are still living in huge debt without a wage high enough to keep up with their bills.

Before we start pointing fingers at the gurus, maybe it’s time we took a look at ourselves. Are we putting in the effort we should be putting in? Are we spending the money we need to on advertising? Do we have the skills necessary to write compelling ads? If not, are we willing to learn?

Until we can answer those questions honestly, we might want to hold off on blaming the gurus for our failures.

Copywriting Tips For The Internet Marketer

If you’re an internet marketer (you are, right?) you know that if you’re creating your own product or sales funnel, outsourcing the sales copy is very expensive. Copywriting costs are astronomical for anyone worth their salt. You can typically spend anywhere from $2,500 to $15,000 (often much more) on a single sales letter, depending on who you get to write it for you. And the waiting list for the big guys is months or even years long. Well, I am going to give you some good basic tips on writing your own copy that just might save you a few hundred/thousand bucks.

Let’s start with your headline. If you get this part right, you’ve got a huge chance of making the sale. Why? Because your headline will account for about 80% of your sales. Okay, but what’s a great headline? Essentially, a great headline is one that points out the main benefit of getting the product and solves a pain point for the potential customer. For example, if you’re selling a natural acne cure, a headline like “Cure Your Acne In 3 Days Naturally… Guaranteed!” will work wonders. This will get the prospect to read the rest of the sales page.

As for the content of your sales page, the best way to keep the prospect interested is to tell stories. Don’t bore them with a lot of facts. Facts tell, stories sell. You want to engage your reader. So tell him something about your personal experience with the product. Tell him how the product has changed YOUR life. Let your personality shine throughout the sales letter.

As far as the offer itself, you have to make it an offer that is almost impossible to refuse. Only you can do this. It’s your product. So check out what other competing products are going for and see if you can beat their offer. First off, make your product better than all of your competitors. Secondly, if it is feasible, beat their prices. If most products like yours are going for $97, then selling yours for $77 may make it an offer that people won’t be able to turn down.

The most important part next to the headline is the closing statement. You don’t want to close with something wimpy like, “Click below to order.” That is a terrible call to action. You need to put the words in the prospect’s mouth. “Yes Joe, I Must Have This Incredible System For Earning Money NOW!” That is how you close a sale. Make it as if they are talking to themselves and are forced to buy from somewhere within.

Naturally, there is really more to this than I can include in an article. That’s why I’ve found for you what I believe is probably the best book ever written on the subject of copywriting for internet marketers — and NOT for somebody who wants to be a copywriter. It will give you all the tools you need to write copy that converts for your own products or affiliate products.

There is no reason to spend thousands of dollars on sales letters if you don’t have to! Plus, you learn a skill that you can continue to use forever, and keep making money from it!

How to Find Home Business Data Entry Clerk Jobs

Are you looking for a home business data entry clerk job? Or maybe you have heard of these data entry clerk jobs and thought it sounded like something you might want to do but aren’t completely sure what it means? You are in luck because I am going to shed some light on the subject in this post.

First of all, I want to point out that a “home business” and a “home job” are two completely different things. Many people use the terms interchangeably but they are actually not the same thing – though they do have some similarities and overlap.

When you have your own home business you are in control of everything. You are not working for anyone else. This can be done as an affiliate marketer, by creating your own products, as a blogger, a network marketer (sort of), an SEO, or many other ways. But you are the one who controls your own destiny and you are dependent on yourself to make money.

When you have a work at home job, you will be working for someone else out of your home. They will pay you, they will decide what work needs done, and they will be in control of you in many ways. This is typically what a data entry job consists of.

Both of them have pros and cons. With a home business you have virtually unlimited income potential and there are an almost endless amount of opportunities available to you for making money. But it usually takes longer to start bringing in a good income from a home business and you can often do a lot of work without getting anything in return. With a home job you are not in control of your income potential and won’t make nearly as much money in the long run. However, you do have the peace of mind of knowing that you are going to do a certain amount of work and get paid for that work.

I personally think that you can either have a home business of your own or a data entry job. However, since many people don’t differentiate between the two, I will discuss them as combined term called, “home business data entry clerk jobs” and tell you a little more about what you will be doing and where to find them.

There are a lot of companies that will pay pretty good money for data entry so if you can land one of these jobs it can be a pretty good gig to do from home. If you want to make money from home part time, without running a full blown home business, then a data entry clerk job might be a good opportunity for you.

Most data entry jobs don’t require any special skills or experience. All you really need is computer access, the internet, and the ability to accurately enter data. The only real skills that data entry clerks need is the ability to type quickly, accurately, and be good with small details.

One of the top places to find data entry clerk jobs is at a place called, Data Entry Made Easy. They offer a great opportunity for to start your home business as a data entry clerk.

For a small one-time fee you can join Data Entry Made Easy, and you will instantly have access to the step-by-step tutorials in the exclusive members area. This access is good forever, so you’ll have an incredibly simple and never ending way to make money online! It’s constantly updated, so you’ll be sure to always have all the latest information.

You will be given access to a huge database of companies that need you to fill out forms for them, and you can start your data entry home business and be making money in as little as a few minutes! There are literally thousands of companies to choose from. You can browse through the list and pick the companies you want to work with. Keep in mind, that there is no approval process and it’s completely free to do data entry work for these companies! Every one of these companies will accept you. They need people like you to be data entry clerks for them.

Here are some more places to find home business data entry clerk jobs:

1. If you search for “work at home” on Google or get more specific and search for “Data Entry Job” or other similar searches, there are plenty of work at home and home business websites that can help you to find the right data entry clerk job. Remember not to ever actually pay for a data entry clerk job (or any other home job). You might have to pay for information or access to a database of jobs but don’t ever pay to actually get the job.

2. WhyDoWork employers – Click on the “employers” tab and you will find a page with lots of trusted employers who hire people to do work from home. There is a section for data entry and typing from home.

3. Flex jobs has a specific category for data entry jobs and transcription.

There you have it, some more information about home business data entry clerk jobs and where you can find them! Now get out there and start making money in your own data entry home business.

Is There An Ultimate Online Marketing Strategy?

I get asked a lot of questions, almost on a daily basis. It’s great being popular, but sometimes even I don’t have all the answers. And sometimes the answers are not what people want to hear. The question, “Is there an ultimate marketing strategy” is one of those questions where people don’t want to hear the truth. They want to believe that there is that one thing that they can do that will have them rolling in the bucks at the push of a button. If only it was that easy. Well, it’s not. And in this article, I’m going to give you some truths on marketing strategies and a few tips to boot.

First, some truths. There is no one marketing method that is hands down the best. Each method has its good and bad. Either the method is very expensive, takes a lot of time to work, doesn’t reach as many people as you would like it to, isn’t targeted enough, or something else — there are countless reasons why one strategy is almost never enough.

Let’s take Google Adwords as an example… Yes, it’s a very effective form of promotion as it is very targeted. However, it does have its problems. For one thing, as big as Google is, it only reaches a certain of the internet population and only so many people click on the adwords listings. So relying only on Google alone is leaving a lot of money on the table. In addition to that, it can be very expensive, especially in some niches.

Or think about search engine optimization (SEO) as another example. It is highly targeted and brings in amazing traffic to the point that is has literally created countless online millionaires in thousands of different industries. To this day, there is no better way to bring in the right visitors to a website. However, you can spend a TON of time and effort on search engine optimization without getting anywhere. In fact, you can even destroy your entire online presence / business overnight by overdoing SEO to the point of getting penalized. It can be the greatest thing you’ve ever done or the worst. This strategy is probably the best overall for most businesses but it is definitely one that’s better left to the professionals that live & breathe SEO, and keep up with the ever-changing industry. I wouldn’t venture into this on your own unless you REALLY know what you are doing.

Let’s look at article marketing, which I do a lot of. While this will reach a significant amount people, because you’re not limited to just one search engine to pick up your articles, it is also very time consuming. For one thing, you have to write a lot of articles to get any significant amount of traffic. Some people think that they can write one article, put it out there, and the traffic will come pouring in. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. I’ve been writing articles for years and it took quite some time before I started to get a significant amount of traffic from them.

Then, there is social media, which comes with a whole truck full of its own pros and cons. Plus multiple other forms of internet marketing strategies.

Anyway, I could keep going but I think you get the idea. The point is, if you’re relying on just one form of promotion to advertise your products and services, you’re not going to get the traffic that you’re looking for. So what’s the answer? You need to focus on many things in order to get the most exposure to your site. I use Adwords, SEO, article marketing, social media, guest blogging, forums, email marketing, videos, forums, and several other things in order to get my sales message out there. The result? I rake in over 6 figures a year purely online.

Find what works for you and go for it!

Are You Making The Most Of Your Blog?

I remember when the blog was first created. I thought it was a fad that would go away real quick. I certainly didn’t think it would have any real impact on internet marketing and the lives of millions (maybe even billions) of people all around the world. Boy, was I wrong. Blogs are such a vital part of the online marketers’ arsenal, and individual of all kinds, that I don’t know how anybody lives without one. And yet, so many marketers either don’t have one or don’t make the most of their blogs. Well, in this post, I’m going to give you a few tips that will increase the effectiveness of your blogging efforts.

If you do these few things, you will find that your bottom line will also increase…

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 today and has been for a long time, is something like 20-ish bucks a month. If you can’t afford that each month for your business then you have no business being in business (I would bet you spend a heck of a lot more than that on crap you really don’t need every month). This is a basic essential that no blogger or digital marketer 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 guest posts on other blogs in your niche can greatly increase the amount of traffic that you get, especially if you post them on blogs with a high authority that are related to yours. So don’t ignore your fellow marketers/bloggers. If you ask, you may even get a gig as a guest author, which can work wonders for your traffic and bank account.

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 are not getting as much traffic as they would 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 and/or website. Also, share your content on social media accounts. Learn how to do SEO and get your posts & pages ranked highly in search engine such as Google and Bing. These things will get more traffic to your web properties and make you more money.

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 if you learn how to do them yourself.