How To Start An Online Business | Get Started Online | Use WordPress | Learn WordPress | WAHM | The Happypreneur | Celene Harrelson

Best WordPress Plugin for Affiliate Marketing

Celene Harrelson — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:07:00 +0000

No More Struggling! I Found The Best Plugin for Niche and Affiliate Marketing and Wanted To Share it With You.

I have a confession to make. Life got in my way for a few months. That’s the blessing and the curse of working for yourself from home. I feel extremely blessed that God has enabled me to be able to work from my computer anywhere I am. It’s a dream come true for me. This allows me to help my single daughter raise her son. I didn’t have that luxury when I was a single mom and she paid for it. Now my lil’ guy Caleb doesn’t have to because I am able to work my schedule around his needs. I also feel very blessed to be able to care for my aging mom at this time in her life. I wouldn’t be able to do much of either if I worked outside the home for someone else.

The curse is that life wouldn’t get in the way of my job if I worked outside the home. My job would win out over family most of the time. That’s just the way it is when you work for

someone else. The blessing way out weighs the curse here. I never again want my work to get in the way of life. Never!

Last year I started working on niche sites promoting affiliate products. This is a fantastic way of creating ongoing income with very minimal effort. Unfortunately I dropped the ball and never picked it back up until recently. It’s a pretty simple concept. Set up a WordPress blog with good SEO, add blog posts with PLR, put Adwords on the site, add affiliate products from ClickBank and add new content occasionally to keep it fresh and to keep Google’s interest. Once it’s live, it takes very little effort.

Check it out, I found the best WordPress plugin to help me with affiliate products for these sites. I’m seeing lots of benefits, including profits from this WordPress plug in. I can add the whole ClickBank Marketplace or select just a few products.

There’s a big bonus with this plug in too. It’s a free lifetime membership to CB Engine – the site that has been helping me with my affiliate marketing for over a year now. I don’t know how I did affiliate or niche marketing without it!

Leave a comment and let me know if you are also doing niche or affiliate marketing or using this plug in. I’d love to answer your questions and hear your success stories!

Pinterest Schminterest – Just Another Social Networking Site?

Celene Harrelson — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:15:55 +0000

What the heck is Pinterest anyway?

Several weeks ago, my daughter called me all excited about some new site she had been invited to called Pinterest. She wanted to know if I was using it and if not, did I want an invitation?

I said no to both. Who he heck needs another social networking site, anyway? I’ve got my hands full with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Also this sounded like the kind of

social network that’s only good for trading recipes, showing off your wedding plans and

your crafty creations. A few years ago I would have been so excited to find this site, but I’m way to busy to have time to play with that nonsense. At least that’s what I thought.

Sara sent me an invitation anyway. And kept gushing on and on about how much fun it was. Curiosity killed the cat, so I joined just to see what was so great about this site.

Well, I have to tell you that it’s very addictive. Pinterest is a photo sharing social network,

a sort of scrap booking format where you create picture boards of your interests and share

them with others of similar interests.

Initially I thought this was just for fun and that my business would not benefit from this type of format. Boy, was I wrong! Because Pinterest is a beautiful visually attractive site where you can brand your business, share your best blog posts and showcase your products with photos. It’s a place to get to know your prospects, what they like and what they want. It also gives you the opportunity to let them get to know you, as well.

Clicking the photos on Pinterest takes you to the website where the photo was originally shared from, meaning it’s an incredible opportunity for increased web traffic.This means that you will need to use beautiful or interesting photos on your blog. You will also need to create gorgeous eye catching eCovers for your giveaways, special reports, ebooks and products as well. The software I use to create my own eCovers is http://celeneloves.me/ecover. There’s a fr.ee and paid version. You can start out with the free one and if you decide you need the paid version, you can always upgrade.

Pinterest is taking the social networking world by storm. If you are not using Pinterest,
I encourage you to do so. You’ll need an invitation to join.

Let me know if you need one in the comments and I’ll send you one. If you are on Pinterest, please follow me http://pinterest.com/celeneharrelson/ Let me know that you did and I’ll follow you back and share something from your boards on mine.

Writing An Easy Ebook – The 5 Step Formula

Celene Harrelson — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 10:43:34 +0000

E-books are always a great list and business-building tool. They can be the foundation of an information marketing business, or they can help you grow your business and create income. If you think putting together an eBook is too hard, read on. Writing an easy e-book can be a quick and simple process. It doesn’t have to be a harrowing, gut wrenching project. Here are five easy steps to create a quality e-book.

Step #1 Plan it out

To plan your e-book first think about what your audience is asking about. What answers are they looking for? Want to know what they want to know? Ask them. Do a survey, take a poll, and ask on social media, what are they commenting about on your blog and other popular blogs in your niche? Do plenty of keyword research as well.

Once you have a topic the next step is to create an outline. Here’s a way to outline an easy e-book that’ll take you less than a day to create.

Here’s how it works. Write ten basic questions that you’re going to answer in your e-book. You will then turn each question will be a chapter. Next make a list of questions that relate to or support your chapter topic. Each supporting question will become a page in your eBook.

For example, chapter titles for a photography e-book might be:

Chapter One: What type of camera do I need?

What is a DSLR camera?

What is a point and shoot camera?

What type of camera is best for outdoor use?

What type of camera is best for action shots?

Chapter Two: How do I choose the right lens?

What is a wide angle lens?

What is a telephoto lens?

Chapter Three: How do I photograph people?

You get the idea. By formatting your book as a series of questions, all you have to do is answer them. Now isn’t that easier than sitting down and writing a book the old fashioned way?

Step #2 Write

Once you have your basic plan in place, the next step is to start answering your questions. Set a time frame to accomplish this. Example: Answer five or six questions a day. Each answer will be approximately a page. That’s five or six pages a day. At the end of ten days you have a 50-60 page eBook!

Here’s the key to writing an e-book quickly. Don’t stop to edit, format or research. Make notes where you want to add more information. Then go back later and fill them in. That way you’re not wasting time researching a broad topic. You’re able to research for specific information

Step #3 Edit and polish

The next step will be to go back and edit your book for grammar and spelling. If you aren’t confident in your editing skills, hire a proofreader to do it for you or better yet, ask a colleague or even get a couple of your students involved in the process.

Step #4 Formats for easy reading

Before you’re ready to launch your book, format it for reading online. This means plenty of white space. Use lots of headings and subheadings to break up the content visually. Use formatting like bullet points when it makes sense. Add pictures and graphics.

Step #5 Preparing for publication

Now it’s time to add any graphics like a book cover. This is one of the most important steps in the process. If your book cover isn’t interesting and eye catching, you could lose many of your potential buyers. You’ll also want to add your copyright, disclaimer, introduction and other elements that make it a complete package. You can hire a graphic designer or eBook cover designer to add the cover graphic for you if you are not confident in doing it yourself.

Your book is ready to go. It took just five quick and easy steps to get you from inspiration to completion. You now have an e-book you can be proud to use as a giveaway or to sell and build your business. Here’s to a successful book launch!

Please leave a comment below and let me know what you think of this easy ebook formula.

p.s. If you would like to get tips and how to’s every day, join me on Facebook and hit the “Like” button to get your questions answered right away!.

Build Your List, Grow Your Business And Increase Your Income With This One Strategy

Celene Harrelson — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:51:22 +0000

How are you going to pay your business expenses and household bills while your business is getting started? That’s a toughie.

So many new internet entrepreneurs think “If you build it, they will come”. I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but that happens to Kevin Costner, not you and me. Our online “field of dreams” takes time, persistence and a lot more sweat equity than that. Unfortunately, most people strike out before they ever make a dime. – OK, I’m done with the cheeky metaphors for now anyway, but I can’t make any promises…

Seriously, how do YOU survive until the money starts rolling in? The fact is you will need several streams of income to make the kind of money you probably dream of making. The best way I know to create income before your business takes off is to add Affiliate Marketing to your business mix.

Affiliate Marketing is a business model where you promote other people’s products. When a sale is made through your efforts, you get paid commission. Physical products pay lower commissions; sometimes just 3-4% of the sale price. This is due to the costs of manufacturing, warehousing, shipping, etc. That’s not to say that you can’t make a good chunk of change with Amazon.com or Commission Junction.

Digital downloadable products pay very well, usually 50% or more. A good place to start is to find products to promote created by others you have purchased from, respect and look up to in your niche. I’ve actually earned 100% commissions on some of my digital affiliate products. Some vendors do that on lower priced products in order to get new buyers into their sales funnel.

In all honesty, I learned more about marketing my own business from the affiliate marketing training I received from Connie Green than an anyplace else. The beauty of affiliate marketing is that you can grow you email list and your business with your affiliate marketing efforts. Why not kill 2 birds with one stone when you can? (oops, that one slipped)

Here’s how…

First, creating a landing page, also known as an opt in page or squeeze page to capture leads and build your list is the smartest way to do affiliate marketing. Instead of sending precious traffic that you would never see again directly to your vendor’s sales page, you need to build a squeeze page with an attractive giveaway relevant to the product you are promoting so they will sign up for your list. This way you can market to them over and over again.

A giveaway can come in many forms. You can make an audio telling or video showing how to do something that pertains to the product. Write a special report or use Private Label Rights to create a report, ebook, teleseminar or ecourse. You can host a training webinar on the subject of your affiliate product and send them to the sales page to learn more on the topic.

Your giveaway can be a digital download or something tangible that they receive in the mail. I suggest the digital giveaway as it gives instant gratification to your prospect, usually costs nothing to produce and is free to deliver.

Once the opt in process is complete your new prospect should then be directed to the affiliate sales page.

Now that they are on your list, you can market to them through email with follow up messages about the affiliate product. Not to mention promoting other products as well as your own business over time. I suggest that you start affiliate marketing with products in your own niche so it will be a natural progression to promote your own products when you start creating them.

Be sure that you only promote products that you feel strongly are a good fit for your audience. Don’t promote an ebook on how to tie fishing lures to a list you’ve grown in the weight loss niche. That’s why I recommend you stay within your own niche in the beginning. It’s easier and much less confusing to build up one niche when you are getting the hang of it than it is to break-up or segment your lists into many niches.

The products you promote should be products you have purchased and see the value in or products from vendors you have purchased from in the past and trust to only create high quality products. Excessive returns are a nightmare, your list will unsubscribe and you will make a reputation for yourself as someone who would sell anything to make a buck. Reputations stick and are quickly spread on the internet. Guard yours carefully. It’s your 2nd most important asset. You list is #1!

See how it works? You if only promote quality products that fall within your same niche, you are growing a list of future buyers for your own products and building your business as you go. You are making a reputation for yourself, building relationships and becoming someone your prospects grow to know, like and trust. All while creating an income stream.

As time goes by, you may enjoy big enough profits to start niche affiliate marketing in numerous niches with numerous lists, just don’t muddy the waters too quickly.

In my opinion, affiliate marketing is a wonderful way to quickly become profitable while building your main business.

Let us know what you think in the comments. We’d love to hear it!

Building A List From Scratch – How To Build A Responsive Subscriber List

Celene Harrelson — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:52:49 +0000

When you are new to Internet marketing, building an e-mail list can be daunting. How do you go about doing it? Is there a process? Are there rules? How the heck to get people on your list? Why do I need a list anyway?

By now I’m sure you’ve heard the term” the money is in the list” . The truth of the matter is that the money is in the list. As an Internet marketer, your income is dependent upon your list. You must have a targeted responsive permission-based subscriber list. This is the single most important ingredient in your business. It’s absolutely crucial to have people to market to.

It is true that the money is in the list. And to take that a step farther, the money is in the targeted list. The quality of your subscribers is more important than the quantity. You will want to grow a list of people who are interested in who you are, what you do and your products and services. It’s better to have a smaller list of people that are interested in your niche, than a huge list of people who could care less. You’re list must be receptive and interested in order for you to convert them from prospects into buyers.

So how do you get started building a list? First you must give your prospects a reason to join your list. You will need to offer a beneficial giveaway to bribe them into giving you their name and e-mail address. This freebie can be anything from a special report, an audio, a video, a teleseminar, webinar, an e-book or a free trial offer.

In order to determine the type of giveaway your prospects would be interested in you have to ask yourself these questions.

What do they want?
What sort of problem do they have that you can solve?
What sort of information are they desperate to get their hands on?

Your free offer should be of high quality content – something that you should be able to sell. That way they will say “Wow if this was free, I wonder what they’re paid products will be like?”

Next you will have to create an opt in page. This page should be kept short and to the point. It should talk about a perceived pain that the prospect has and a promise of a solution to that pain. There should be an opt in box before the fold of the page. You must also give a very clear call to action. For example ” Fill in your first name and primary e-mail address in the box below to receive your free report.”

Your opt in page should be on a stand alone web page or WordPress blog with a keyword rich domain name. This way there will be no interferences or other things to pull their attention away from subscribing. The keyword rich domain name will help you get organic traffic.

Next you must create an auto responder series. There should be seven or more follow-up messages. A multi-part ecourse is perfect for this. In order to get your new subscribers attention the first autoresponder follow-up message should always over deliver!

The most important aspect of your list is building a relationship with them. They are your bread and butter. They pay your mortgage, make your car payment and pay for your vacations. You must treasure them and treat them well. You must always be thinking about what you can do for them - how can you be of benefit. In return you will build a targeted responsive community of people who want to be in your space, who are receptive to your marketing suggestions and much more likely to buy from you.

I’d love to hear your take away from this. Please scroll down to leave a comment below.

Business Secret

Celene Harrelson — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:56:03 +0000

By Donna L. Ward

Was marketing ever easier? It seems that online marketing was…

Yet, you still can double your business, sometimes in just 6 months or less!

What is this small business secret?

You can and need to work on your offline marketing, like:

– Networking – Where you focus on what you can give, rather than get. Follow up within 2 days. Calling and then mailing, or emailing, is best build that relationship.

– Cold calling – Warming them up first with valuable direct mail and email content.

– Trade shows – Always bring a notebook to get their information. And, then follow-up before they forget who you are.

– Advertising – Locally – We still use the newspaper and give fliers to businesses and even our neighbors. I have attained large sales just from putting my fliers at the Post Office bulletin board. Certain types of businesses do better with newspaper ads and others do better with fliers to local merchants and neighbors.

– Direct Mail – Doing this consistently to a targeted area builds your brand.

And, sending letters and post cards with valuable free information keeps you on top of their mind. This still works!

It is always about getting your clients’ attention rather offline or online. AND YOU being VISIBLE to the right target audience.

Online is familiar to most of us reading this. It includes:

– Blogging – giving valuable content of interest to your visitors. so that they will opt in to your list (because of your ‘FREE EXPERIENCE OFFER’) and build your database. Having a blog that you post to regularly is a wonderful way to capture and keep the attention of your targeted audience.

– Social Media – Tweeting, Facebook, LinkedIn – Build relationships with proven and effective strategies for generating more business.

Email Marketing – With consistent nurturing, your Email marketing helps list building. And, can be key to unlocking your sales.

Article Marketing is still one of the best sales lead generation tools available on the web.

– Training calls, tele-interviews, Tele-summits: Build trust, understanding and loyalty with your customers

– Your Online Site: After working on SEO priorities, you’ll find your site at the top of search engines for good keywords. SEO, link backs, indexing, pinging, and optimizing key word effects.

You have this site for one thing, this mailing to do to help promote interest, that platform for this, and this great program that will do whatever. And there can be so many things to get done and figure out that it seems like it would take a brain surgeon to figure it out, plus an extra 30+ hours a week to get it all done and continue to have learning time for your own business.

So what do you do? This brave new marketing world can be exasperating. But, it can be made easier by you.

What is the small business secret that will make it all more effective and easier?

You and your calendar are the small business secret – It is your essential planning tool and motivator. You have to be the action taker to make it happen!

Take the steps I have listed above and get into a real system of success secrets using your calendar…

You have to have your own “routine”, and you know I love systems. You need to have something you can follow each day of the week, each week of the month, each month of the year.

– When you have a schedule that you can follow, you’ll almost certainly become more productive AND effective in your efforts because you are working towards completing tasks that will be effective and useful in building your business and client revenue.

One of the easiest ways to get connected and run a small business more smoothly is to set aside each day for a specific set of actions important to your business.

How can you literally doubled your business in 6 months? Your calendar is a working business tool and this is where you use it.

You note on your calendar what you expect to do on that day! Call 2 clients a day, send out that email marketing note every other day, post 3 times a week on the same day, send out follow-up notes to specific clients on certain days marked on your calendar.

You got it?

Now all you have to do is take the action steps and you can double your business sooner than you think! Start NOW.

Coach Donna L. Ward, Certified Business Mentor and Client Builder – Coach Donna is Client Diva – Helping small businesses get client visibility, models and marketing systems, to stop money leaks, and create raving fans, without hassles. Putting charisma (personality and stand out actions) into their client appeal.

Visit Coach Donna’s Blog for training and resources: http://coachingbusinessentrepreneur.com/ And, I now invite you to Claim Your No Cost Business Planning, Strategies, and Savvy Special Report http://www.planningbusinessstrategies.com/

If Your New To Marketing Online… Or You’re Successful And Want To Take Your Business To A Whole New Level… then claim your copy now.

Do you have something to say? Please let us know by leaving a comment.

Dell Hell – Can Your Online Business Take The Heat?

Celene Harrelson — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:55:02 +0000

I’m a saver. If I think I might need it, I tuck it away for a rainy day. My husband on the other hand is a tosser. He keeps me from being too much of a pack rat. Ying and Yang.

Needless to say, he doesn’t mess with my computer, so I have lots of stuff there. All neatly filed and organized so I know just where it’s at when I need it. (In my home I can never find anything)

Recently there was an unexpected glitch in my perfectly organized computer files…

My computer started acting funny. A few days later, yikes, a nasty virus fried everything! Dell restored it all except my precious data. They hadn’t actually removed the virus and it attacked again. It fried everything once again, right before my eyes. My first thought was “holy $@%$!” Then when I calmed down, I remembered that I had an expensive contract with Dell for just that reason and I have all my files backed up online. Whew, relief!

For the next week and a half I spent more than a total of 24 hours with 6 different Dell technicians who’s first language is not English. I have no issue with that, unless my entire business depends on being able to communicate to get it back up and running quickly.

Each technician was supposed to call me back the next day to continue the repair process and didn’t. I haven’t waited by the phone that much since I was 16 hoping “he” would call and ask me to the prom. The schmuck never did. Guess what? Dell didn’t either. This meant that I had to start the whole process over each and every time with a new technician. It was pure hell! Never again Dell, never again!

After 10 days everything is under control again. I was able to continue on with business as usual because I keep my work scheduled out in advance. I’m back in business only because I took precautions.

Would you be able to continue doing business if your computer went on vacation without you? What would you do if the same thing happened to you? Are you prepared for the worst or are you just shootin’ from the hip, hoping nothing like that will ever happen. Would your business keep running or stop at a dead standstill?

There are ways to maintain your online business without your community and clients ever knowing anything is amiss. Here are a few tips to help you keep your business afloat when a crisis (otherwise known as”life”) happens.

Here are a few tips:

Make sure you have a good anti-virus software installed on your computer and scan often.

Check with your internet provider to see if they offer virus removal/technical support for a reasonable fee. Mine now have my business instead of McAfee and Dell. My IP provides online backup, virus protection, unlimited virus removal and tech support for $16 a month. If that’s not available to you, seek a reputable computer service and support business in your local area.

Always have online backup service or an external hard drive backup of your data.

Plan your work in advance. Not only will this help you to stay on track and organized, it will also help you to meet your goals. I am not as good a planner as I want to be, but I’m getting better at it. Because I had several blog posts and newsletters written and scheduled ahead, everything went along seamlessly for the 10 days I was out of commission.

Have a second computer or tablet and smart phone. You must be able to get online and do what you need to do every day. Things like connecting on Facebook and Twitter, keeping up with email, moderating comments on your blog, etc.

Schedule emails to your list in advance. You should have autoresponders in place with evergreen messages that will go out without your even having to think about it.

Use a service like AmazonS3 to store the files, products, audios and videos that you share with others. This will save loads of space on your hard drive and you will be able to access them at any time at a cost of pennies to a couple of dollars a month.

Save yourself the worry and aggravation. Your community and clients depend on you. For just a few dollars a month and a little planning you can insure that your business won’t suffer. You can’t leave anything to chance where your online business is concerned.

What did you think about this issue? Do you have something to add? Give us a shout out in the comments.

Photo by David Castillo Dominici

Can A Work At Home Mom Maintain Professionalism?

Celene Harrelson — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:52:17 +0000

In todays issue, The Happypreneur guest contributor Tracey DelCamp talks about how you as a busy mom can work at home, work around your family’s needs and still be professional with clients – all in the same day. Tracey is the queen of balancing it all beautifully!

I hope you enjoy today’s issue of The Happypreneur.

With love and blessings,

Celene Harrelson

How To Maintain Professionalism While Still Being A Mom

By Tracey DelCamp

Being a Work-at-Home Mom is very convenient because you can just crawl out of bed, make breakfast for the family, and start your work day just a few steps away in your office. Or in the kitchen. Or on the couch. Or outside on the deck.

You get to wear your pajamas all day if you like.

You don’t have to put on makeup or do your hair.

You don’t have to worry about your appearance because you work virtually from home and no one is the wiser!

It’s a very casual and relaxed gig!

But it can also hinder your mindset and hurt your business because your casualness will eventually carry over into your interactions with your clients and potential clients. Your mindset will shift also and you’ll forget that running a business takes an entrepreneurial approach to everything you do for the best success possible.

Here are a few tips to help maintain the fun of being a work-at-home mom, while also maintaining a professional image that is beneficial to you and your business:

Dress for success! Commit to getting dressed in business casual or business dress attire twice a week. Do your hair and wear makeup. Have you noticed when you dress a certain way, you act a certain way? This gives yourself (and your family) a little reminder that you’re an entrepreneur of your very own business and you deserve it!
Get out of the house! Commit to working from a different location once a week. Go to your local library. Go to a coffee shop (even Dunkin Donuts has free Wi-Fi nowadays). Removing yourself from your “Mom” environment gives you a shift and reminds yourself that you’re running your own business. It also gives you some “me” time.
Stick to a schedule! Commit to creating a schedule of when you’ll be in “work mode” and do your best to stick to it. Of course, flexibility is a huge bonus to working at home as you can shift your schedule to accommodate personal needs. However, by working specific hours on your business, your clients will know they can count on you to be there for them and you have a specific time frame to get things done on your business without interruption.
Take control of your phone! When you’re in “Mom mode,” don’t answer the phone unless it’s family related! Enjoy that precious time you have with your family. Don’t answer client emails, calls or text messages. Don’t be on social media. Your child(ren) deserves 100% of your attention and you’ve become a work-at-home Mom so you can have more balance in your life and more time with your family. Bonus tip: This also teaches your clients to be respectful of your boundaries and they’ll be more likely appreciative of the love and attention you give your family (and them) because of it!

Enjoy the fun, ease and flexibility working at home gives you. But also implement these tips to help you remember you’re also CEO of your own company!

What are your tips for having fun, but still being professional? I’d love to hear your comments – feel free to post your comments below!

Tracey DelCamp provides heartfelt business mentoring to Moms wanting to start a service-based online business while working from home to care for their family. Tracey understands the challenges Moms face in balancing work and life and guides Mompreneurs on strategies and techniques to build a successful, balanced business that is ideal for their lifestyle. Learn how to go from Mom to Mompreneur by enrolling in a complimentary mini-mentoring e-course at http://www.TraceyDelCamp.com.

Use WordPress For Super SEO – No Technical Skills Needed

Celene Harrelson — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:58:15 +0000

In today’s issue I’m going to tell you exactly how to use WordPress to make your site super search engine friendly without any tech knowledge. If you can point and click, you can be a Super WordPress SEO expert!

I hope you enjoy today’s issue of The Happypreneur.

With love and blessings,

Celene Harrelson

Use WordPress For Super SEO – No Technical Skills Needed

By Celene Harrelson

Did you know if you don’t use WordPress your competition may have a tremendous advantage over you to attract your ideal customers and clients to them? I know, right! The good news is if you use WordPress, the tables could be turned in your favor and their clients could be finding you.

You’re probably thinking “How the heck does that work? How much difference could a blogging platform make?” Well, a lot actually. WordPress was designed to be a search engine magnet. Google loves WordPress. When you use the SEO within WordPress properly, you should get a substantial amount of organic traffic.

Organic search results are listings on search engine pages that appear because of their relevance to the search terms typed into the Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. search bar, as opposed to the paid advertisements. Organic traffic is the result of the link in those organic listings being “clicked on”, sending prospects to that site from the link in listing.

Why is that significant? First and foremost, because it’s traffic you don’t have to pay for. Free is good! Also because it is targeted traffic. These are people who typed in an exact phrase relevant to your site. Basically that means they are likely interested in what you do. That’s huge!

Because it’s so easy to learn and use WordPress with it’s search engine friendly design, WordPress has become the industry standard. From small business to huge conglomerates, WordPress is the “content management system” of choice. Whether you need a simple blog or an all-out website, WordPress fits the bill. Businesses like eBay, Yahoo, Ford, People Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Sony just to name a few use WordPress. So if WordPress can handle their needs, it can certainly do anything you can throw at it.

Don’t be scared off by the big names either. The reason so many big companies have switched to WordPress is because of how easy and non-techy it is. Rather than employing huge costly departments of programmers and technical geeks, it just takes 1 or 2 people with a little WordPress training to get the job done! Amazing isn’t it? Let’s talk a little about WordPress SEO, shall we?

WordPress was developed to automatically “ping” or alert search engines to come take a look when you add new content. That’s a biggie! The trick is to optimize your site with the right keywords so when the spiders come a-crawlin’ they find content relevant to your site. That’s why it’s so important to choose your topics and keywords related to your niche. If you are all over the map with your topics, then the search engines will not work in your favor.

Here are a few easy SEO strategies to help you to get more organic traffic.

Use Google Keyword Tool External for keyword research. This is a free easy to use tool that will tell you exactly how many people searched for your keywords in the past 30 days.
Use your sites main keywords in the URL if possible
From your WordPress dashboard, go to “Settings, then “General Settings”. Put your main keywords in the “Site Title” bar. This is the first thing Google crawls when coming to your site. Right to left, so put them in order of importance.
Just under the Site Title bar is the “Tagline” – put secondary keywords there. This is the second place Google crawls.
Install the “WordPress Seo” by Yoast plugin. This will help you to identify where you need to put your keywords in your blog posts. This plug in was designed to look at your post the way a search engine does and make sure all the key SEO components are there. I love this plugin.
Google can’t see images. Be sure to use you main keyword as the title of your image. This is just one more trick to get your keywords in there, creating more relevancy. You’ll do this when you are uploading your image to the media library.
Always use the appropriate “category” and be sure to use your keywords in the “tags” as well.

It’s important not to “stuff” your articles with keywords. The search engines pick up on that and you lose credibility. Instead, sprinkle them in and use these strategies and you will soon be getting all kinds of targeted organic traffic.

Good SEO will get them to your site; it’s up to you to build the relationship that will convert them into clients and customers.

Top 10 Tips for Building Trust and Getting Business

Celene Harrelson — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:48:32 +0000

In today’s issue, The Happypreneur guest contributor Jimmy D. Brown shares how building trust with your prospects will become buyers. More buyers mean more profit.

Jimmy is one of the original “good ol’ boys” of Internet Marketing. He’s been around a long time and he’s more successful now than ever. You may know him from his Affiliatnaire and Membernaire courses as well as his fantastic IM PLR. I personally own literally dozens of his info training products and use them consistently, along with his PLR. You gotta love this guy!

I hope you enjoy today’s issue of The Happypreneur.

With love and blessings,

Celene

Top 10 Tips for Building Trust and Getting Business
by Jimmy D. Brown

Your prospects won’t buy from you unless they trust you.

Read that again, because fully understanding that deceptively simple sentence is crucial to the bottom line of your business. If you can’t establish trust, you can’t make sales. Period.

So, how do you start building trust? Like this:

1. Offer great customer service. Whether you have a prospect contacting you for the first time with a pre-sale question or you have an existing customer needing help, you need to provide prompt,

professional service.

2. Start a blog. A blog gives you an opportunity to interact with your prospects and customers. It also gives you an opportunity to show value to

your prospective customers. When they see what kind of help you give away for free, they’ll be excited to become a paying customer.

Tip: Don’t yet have a blog? Go to WordPress.org and download the free files.

3. Interact with prospects on social media sites. Yet another way to build relationships (and trust)

is by using social media sites, especially

Facebook.com and Twitter.com. There you can interact one-on-one, as well as provide good information.

4. Use your prospect’s name. Using someone’s name helps build rapport. Online you can collect your prospect’s first name when he joins your newsletter list. Offline, be sure to ask for his name so that you can use it during your sales

talk.

Tip: Don’t overuse someone’s name, as that can backfire and make them feel uncomfortable. Using it once or twice during an initial meeting should

be enough.

5. Follow up with your prospects. The vast majority of people who come to your website or store are unlikely to ever return – that’s why you need to get their contact information so that you

can follow up with them.

Usually this involves offering your prospects something valuable in exchange for their contact information.

Example: You can offer a free report on your website. Or if you have a bricks and mortar store, you can offer prospects a chance to win something in a contest. Just be sure in all cases that your

prospects know you will be following up with them.

6. Show your value now. Don’t make the mistake of promising a lot of value in the future… but only once someone pays you money. Instead, show your value now using newsletters, a blog, social media

and good customer service.

7. Be accessible. This one is of particular

importance to those who have an online business. The bottom line is not to hide from your prospects. This means offering multiple ways for your prospects and customers to reach you. The more accessible you are, the easier it is for

people to trust you.

8. Get personal. If your prospect or client

mentions a special event (like an upcoming wedding

or birth of a child), write this information down so that you can refer to it again. Then the next time you see this person (either in person or even online, like on Facebook), you can ask the person

about the event. He’ll be impressed that you remembered – and your relationship will grow!

9. Give your prospects what they want. Here’s the key: Help your prospects even if it doesn’t directly benefit you.

Example: Recommend a product that doesn’t garner you a commission (maybe the product is even free). When the prospect sees that you really care about

him and his problem, his trust in you will grow – and before you know it, he’ll be a loyal customer!

10. Be professional. Finally, maintain a

professional appearance, whether through your own grooming, your brick and mortar store, your marketing materials or your website. First

impressions count. And continued professionalism helps build trust.

Conclusion

You just learned 10 proven ways to build trust and generate more sales for your business.

To find out still more ways to grow your

business, GO HERE to discover the iBusiness Owner’s Manuals. Then

ask yourself: How many of these strategies are you currently overlooking? And how much more money would you make if you employed them, starting

today?

Sound Off! Do you have something to say? We’d love to hear it! Please leave a comment.