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Comfortable Marketing Tactics

Do you feel you are too busy to do your own marketing? Do you feel like in order to make effective marketing happen you have to hire someone to do it for you?

Well, you may not even recognize it but you are probably already marketing from your comfort zone.

Here are 9 quick and simple actions to can implement to make your own marketing campaign:

1. Comment on someone’s blog. You can try it here!

2. Call up a client and ask for a testimonial for your website or blog. Be sure you follow up on it and when you receive it post it right away.

3. Sit down and create a marketing plan for yourself. Block out a 1/2 hour a week on your calendar and make things start to happen.

4. Follow up an interesting call or contact with a thank you email. You can include a link to an article on your website or another website that you feel contains relevant information.

5. Check out your competitors and see what they are offering.

6. Record a quick video or audio of something that has tweaked your interest. Post it on YouTube (the video) and on your blog.

7. Join a Facebook or Twitter page. If you don’t have your own create one.

8. Install website analytics and track your funnel results.

9. Reach out to a competitor and see if they are interested in participating in a joint venture that can be marketed to both of your lists.

If you take advantage of number 3 and set out your plan, you can track your results during that 1/2 hour a week that you have set aside for yourself.

How many of these techniques have you already been using without knowing it? How many look really easy for you to implement? You never know what that chance encounter at a networking event will lead to.

Consistently using these comfortable marketing actions will lead to taking your business from blah to success!

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Six Secrets Of Effective Squeeze Pages

 Yes! If you follow the six secrets below, you will easily create a squeeze page that will instantly build your list and bring you subscribers.

1. A typical monitor is 1024 x 768 pixels. When a visitor lands on your squeeze page, they should not have to scroll in order to view the whole squeeze page. So secret number 1 is: Keep it simple and keep it short! SNAP!

2. Unless you are selling really expensive products or services, don’t jazz your squeeze page up too much. The more basic squeeze pages effectively attract visitors without making them think that the items on the other side of the page are going to be too expensive for them. BASIC!

3. Show your gift off! Use a professionally created image. Don’t cheap out on this step. If your image doesn’t look good, people will think you are just offering freebie junk. IMAGES!

4.  Always use your own original images or licensed images. Source photos from iStockPhoto.com, Fotilial.com. Never violate copyright. ORIGINAL!

5. Size is important! Huge images take time to download and slows your page loading time. Always resize your photo to an appropriate size – usually around 150 to 200 pixels. Don’t use the “width=” and “height=” to make the browser shrink the image. SIZING!

6. Headlines, headlines, headlines! Try different headlines over several days and monitor the number of subscribers you get. Use a page counter or analytics software to track your results. Or, use test splitting software. The results may surprise you. HEADLINE!

So, there you have it. Six powerful steps to better results using squeeze pages to instantly build your list.

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Pinterest – A New Social Media Trend

Pinterest is the latest trend in social media. It may be too soon to see whether or not it can help your business grow.

Only personal accounts are allowed by invite at the moment but you can promote your business products on your personal page.

Pinterest works essentially like a vision board. You “pin” images/links to your board of things that have tweaked your interest. Then you can organize and share them with others.

They can be used as vision boards, to plan weddings or events or keep track of things you would like to decorate your home with.

Pinterest says that best of all you get to see what others are sharing on their pinboards so you can discover new things and get inspiration.

Google Ad Planner shows that 82% of the users are female with incomes between $25,000 and $75,000.

Some large companies have held contests using Pinterest. Visitors are asked to create pinboards featuring their products.

I think one of the best ways to use Pinterest may be to take advantage of the ability to add a “Pin It” button to your website which will allow Pinterest users to easily add a link to your website on their board. You can get all of the buttons Here.

When you are blogging, be sure to include an image that will grab visitor’s attention. That’s what will get posted to the board.

Are any of you using Pinterest?

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Are You Prepared for Disaster?

If you have read my previous post about what would happen if personal disaster strikes, you will have learned about the importance of having systems in place so anyone can step in and take over your business.

What happens if the unthinkable happens and your sites are hacked or accidentally deleted?

Do you have a backup system in place?

Even if your host backs up your site regularly, if your site is hacked, the backups also may be compromised. What do you do then?

Whether you are doing your own website maintenance or if you have someone else doing it for you, there are some pretty disasterous things that can happen.

Your website can be accidentally deleted from your host server. Yes, I have heard of web designers or virtual assistants cleaning out their clients’ hosting directories and accidentally erasing the wrong site.

Or

You can update your WordPress website and lose all of your theme customizations.

Here are the steps that I take to protect my websites:

1. For my WordPress sites, I install a backup plugin which automates the process and emails me the backup file at regular intervals.

2. Once every couple of months or so I download the complete directory to my computer for storage on my 1 TB external hard drive.

3. Prior to doing any major changes to my sites, especially to my WordPress sites, I download all the files to my computer AND I use the WordPress backup plugin to do a complete backup.

4. I make sure my hosting account also has backups set up.

The more backups the better, the safer I feel.

Have you suffered any website disasters? What systems do you have in place?

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Is There Really Gender Discrimination In Business?

Guest Post by Lynette Chandler

In a private Facebook group, I noticed a lot of people were looking for a tech person to work with. So, I introduced myself. Upon returning to check on the status, I saw a post at the very top of the wall from a guy who also introduced himself as a coder.

Now, I’m not that naive to think I am the only geek in a group. There are probably many people better at tech than me in any group. What gave me pause was, why this guy’s introduction got so many responses when mine hardly went noticed.

A horrifying thought flashed through my mind. It couldn’t be true. Did he get more attention because he’s a man? Maybe you have experienced something similar. Something that made you stop to wonder if you didn’t win the bid, secure that client or get that exposure because you are a woman. Then, you look around and it looks like all the top dogs are men.

Of course it depends on the industry you are in but I’m here to tell you, even in seemingly male-centric arenas, there are plenty of women quietly making serious coin. Sometimes, we aren’t seeing the ladies because women simply aren’t vocal about their successes. And, when we toot our own horn, we often express it in an entirely different manner.

For us, being able to support our families and being there when the kids get off the bus mean a whole lot more than ‘crushing it’ or making a million dollars in 24 hours. I’m not saying women don’t strive for that. I’d love to make that kind of money any day. It’s just, our goals are often more immediate and realistic.

That is why it’s always refreshing to hear stories about real women and how they broke through the barriers. If you need a little inspiration from authentic women just like you, head on over to SoloMasterminds. They are bragging on three ladies who turned their wildest dreams into reality while juggling homework, laundry, whiny children, soccer practices and meal plans.

As for that little incident I told you about earlier, after giving it more thought, I decided it had nothing to do with gender nor discrimination of any kind. There were plenty of logical and probably more accurate explanations like the timing of our posts and how quickly my post got buried under a flurry of activity.

What I learned that week – focus on being awesome instead of speculating about something that may not be true because when working for yourself, there is no glass ceiling. Especially with an Internet business. Don’t take my word for it. Check out the three case studies and let those women tell you their story.

— BIO —
Lynette Chandler helps small businesses leverage technology in their marketing. She is also the resident tech expert at SoloMasterminds and credits it for helping to turn her business around. Lynette would love to connect with you in this special community and invites you to come check it out.

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What Happens if You Get Hit by a Bus?

As a solopreneur myself, I realize the importance of having all of my systems in one place.

What would happen if you got hit by a bus? Would anyone know how to take over for you?

Here is what I do to help keep myself organized:

1. I have a list of all of my clients in one place. I use an online system for tracking my time and invoicing my clients.

2. I use an online email program. All of my emails are filtered into folders by client.

3. I have all of my usernames passwords in one computer file that is alphabetacized. I also have a backup in an old fashioned index card system.

4. I have created step-by-step manuals of all of my monthly processes. For example, how to create an ezine with my ezine provider, how to post a blog to one of my sites, etc.

5. I have set up my online calendar to send me reminders for all of the recurring tasks/appointments. It is a great tool!

It is important to have at least one other person who can take over for you and be familiar with your systems.

Are you organized or do you have your usernames and passwords saved on post-it notes slapped all over your computer or desk top?

It is a new year so now would be a good time to move your important information to one spot and to train someone to take over in a pinch.

If you would like someone to help, pop me an email!

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Grabbing Attention and Why You Have To

Does your website grab attention? Do you have the proper know how and tools to make your website a cut above everyone else?

Today everyone is using ecommerce. It is a cut throat business. Every day there are more and more sites clambering to optimize their rankings in the search engines. If you don’t know how to keep up, you are going to get trampled in the rush and just be one more website struggling to get noticed.

Search engines are the way websites get noticed on the internet. The more traffic you can drive to your site, the better it will show up on the search pages. You get a higher probability of clicks when you are ranking within the top ten on the page. The more traffic for your site, the more money you rake in.

That’s where SEO (search engine optimization) comes in. With properly functioning SEO you will reap the benefit of generating high traffic volume. Lets say you get 100 hits or more a day. If you can convert only 10% of those hits into sales, depending on the prices you are charging and what you are selling, you will be well on your way to making money online.

SEO does require a lot of work to be effective. You may have to reword parts of your website to capture effective keyword phrases without making it too commercial. Your site should use the keywords to keep your site’s content applicable and conducive to SEO but also keeping it light and informative.

The more you collaborate with other sites exchanging links and pages, also helps your SEO. The more outbound and inbound links your site has,  helps improve search engines ranking.

If you don’t have the budget to hire a professional, use the internet as your tool to search for help. Search for tips, guidelines and methods. Read as much as you can and implement as many ideas as you can. This will require time and effort on your part but will eventually lead to more hits on your site and more money in your pocket.

If you have a budget, you can find many sites that will help you achieve quicker SEO. Also hiring a professional content writer can boost your page ranking.

Do split tests using Google Analytics. See which squeeze page or landing page reaps the most hits for you.

Don’t be afraid to give different things a try. Almost any steps you take on your own will result in driving better traffic and more business to your site.

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I Cleaned Out My Inbox!

My inbox was a mess! I use Gmail to handle all of my various email accounts and even though I have been diligently setting up filters to go into labels, I had accumulated almost 4,000 individual emails in my inbox.

So, I took some time and sorted through them, created more labels and filters and have successfully reduced my inbox to daily incoming emails!

Because I didn’t have the time to read all of the emails in my inbox, I deleted those I wasn’t interested in reading, sorted some into an “important” file and then filed the rest under the appropriate label for reading at a later date. Of course, if I don’t read the emails within six months, I will delete them from that folder.

Do you want to get a handle on your Gmail? I have four easy to watch videos that can help you simply the setup process. Read more here.

What a great feeling to know that when I check my email now I won’t have to deal with thousands of emails in my inbox! I’ll be able to quickly spot the new important ones in their individual folders and am already feeling relief.

Why not start your New Years Resolution today and clean up your email account! Get the videos here.

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Sluggish Computer Slowing You Down?

Yesterday while on a client call, my computer suddenly slowed down and I had to wait for the browser to refresh. Talk about awkward!

During the day I usually have two different browsers open with multiple tabs – one on each of my monitors. Working like this will fill up your cache with temporary internet files and various other forms of clutter.

And, because I don’t normally reboot my computer on a daily basis, all that clutter eventually clogs up my system and slows my computer down like it did yesterday.

As you browse various websites, more and more personal data is collected and cookies are stored on your computer. There are “bad people” and programs that scout the internet for vulnerable computers that allow them to harvest that personal information. Your personal information can include your passwords to your online bank.

Yes, even though the internet is a wonderful resource, it can be scary. I’ve discovered a great privacy tool that gives you three options of dealing with the files saved on your computer. You have the ability to securely delete files, shred them or save them.

You can try Paretologic Privacy Controls for free here.

Don’t take chances and allow a “thief” to enter your computer. Take charge of your own security.

PS: Full disclosure. This is an affiliate site and if you purchase this program, I will receive a commission.

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