Using Web Audio for Success

There is no doubt that web page audio significantly increases results. In fact, not using audio is a big mistake. Audio increases opt-ins. It boosts sales, too.

But why?

It’s simple. Audio breaks the silence of the web. It adds a human touch to your site. And makes people feel they’re dealing with a real person. Basically, audio brings your site to life. Which fascinates greater interaction from your visitors.

Here are the benefits

Adding audio increases your profits in two ways. You will close more sales. And you’ll spend less getting those customers. You see, you’ll be able to skip the expensive copywriter. Just record some audio and add it to your site. Your honest message about your product will sell better than a professional copywriter.

And you will increase your subscriber opt-in rate. The reason this works so well is because people need to be told what to do. So you make an audio recording that says: Put your email and name into the form and submit. Just this one simple thing will boost opt-ins up to 315%!

Some web audio ideas

Add a welcome to my site message on your main page. Most websites are cold and in-human. This could be all it takes to get your visitor to decide to stay.

A guided tour. The same principle the we used to boost opt-ins applies. You just explain what to do first, then next, etc. That includes filling in your order form!

Testimonials for your product or service. A written testimonial is good. But audio testimonials are great! It’s much hard to fake an audio testimonial. So audio adds real believability. And that increases your results.

Power tip

Did you ever think of making a product just by recording some audio? You’ll be able to produce audio products faster than any other kind. Plus people love audio products. The great thing about audio products is people can take them with them on the go. And once you record the audio, you can pay someone to transcribe it for you. Then you’ve got an eBook, too – but it was easy to create!

Is it hard to add audio?

It’s so simple you won’t believe it. There are quite a few audio streaming software programs out there. The software does all the work. The program records and then converts the recording and generates an audio button. Just paste the code you copy from the software. So don’t let this stop you.

In closing

Let’s take another look at the benefits. Setting up some web audio will do wonders for all your results. You’ll get more sales. You will also increase your subscriber opt-ins. And don’t forget that you can easily create sales pages and products in a flash. You’ll be one of the few you use these strategies. So you’ll be one of the few reaping the rewards. Don’t be lazy! Add some audio today.

Sneaky Affiliate Tricks

Yes affiliate marketing rocks, but it’s really hard to get started. The reason is because there is a lot of competition. The challenge is to try and outdo other affiliates and think of ways to do a better job promoting. It’s also hard to figure out what to do because there’s a lot of information out there. But here’s one tip that almost no one is talking about.

Video marketing

The power of video is undeniable. People love watching videos and that’s why they’re everywhere. It’s so much easier to keep people’s attention with video. So why wouldn’t you use it in your affiliate business?

Here are a few ideas for creating affiliate videos:

• Testimonials
• Walk-throughs
• Record the order process
• Sneak peak

Do a testimonial video

It doesn’t get any easier than this. Just click record on your web cam and start talking. It does not need to be polished or pro. Seeing a real person on the other end helps your viewers make a buying decision. In truth, mistakes and mess-ups just make it more believable. You can literally just press record and talk. If you don’t want to be in front of the camera use one of the other methods.

Do a video walk-through

This one is a little more subtle. Make this more like a tutorial helping them use the product. And in the process you’re actually selling the product. As long as the product is good, the tutorial makes them want it. So, obviously, pick a good product to demo.

Ordering

This could be the most powerful method of all. Record yourself placing an order. Watching you make a live purchase will inspire your viewer like nothing else. First of all it’s what’s called “social proof”. Once they see you doing it, they feel more secure. It also build your viewers trust. They are much more likely to take your advice to buy when you’ve taken it yourself. And let’s not forget about good old fashioned envy. They see you getting the satisfaction of making the purchase and that makes them want it. You can add additional juice to this one with: In order to get to see the inside, you gotta buy the product.

Do a preview video

This one is perfect for building up the value of what you’re promoting. What you do is record a tour of the back end. You show them the entire contents of what they get. It also reduces the reservations of skeptics. It’s much easier to trust they’re getting something if they actually seen it.

Anyone can do it!

There’s no technical knowledge required. Some very easy to use programs make the videos for you. The software really does all the work So you don’t have to worry about the technical part of this at all. Keep focused on the rewards:

• More sales You will increase your affiliate sales when you start using videos. People love video, so please use them.
• Reduce refunds You’ll lose less of the commission your earn. Thanks to you people know what’s inside before buying. So, very few of them will cancel their order.
• Beat your competition! This is a really easy thing to do. But pretty much no one does it. That puts you ahead of the pack.

So get serious about your affiliate business and add video in now. The bottom line is that if you’re not using video, you’re losing money.

Email List Building Strategies

If you’re going to be successful in internet marketing, you need to build a list. It’s the number one key to opening the success floodgates. After it’s built, it’s yours to use any time you want. Just push a button and print money – literally.

How’s how to build a list:

Here’s what you need to build your list:

• Your Opt-in Page
• The Incentive
• The Opt-in Success Page

The Squeeze Page – The squeeze page is the first thing your visitor is going to see. It’s the page where you ask them for their email address. That’s why it needs to look like a professionally designed page. And have an easy to understand opt-in form. And have a clear call to action.

Failure to include a great “call to action” will result in failure. This is a definitive message that tells your visitor what to do. Without this your opt-in rate will plummet. Oddly, if you don’t make it clear, people will be confused and end up doing nothing.

You can take your opt-in page to the next level if you make it a video squeeze page. Adding video will help keep your visitors attention. It also allows you to tell them what to do several times. And you can have the video just tell them to fill in your form after it’s done playing.

It’s OK, if you’ve never made a video before. It’s very easy to hire people for a couple hundred bucks to make one for you. Or you can get email list tools that include video squeeze pages.

The Bribe – Next, you’ve got to figure out what your bribe is. You have to give people a compelling reason to give your their email. Email privacy is very important to most people. So make your “bribe” a good one!

The only way to make this work is to provide real value. That means you make it something people would actually want to receive. And something from which they can derive a benefit. Here’s some examples:

• A PDF report
• A piece of software
• A video tutorial
• An email series

It all boils down to content. And make it both helpful and informative. It goes without saying it must be free. If you make it good enough, they will give you their email in exchange.

Now, if you don’t know how to create the bribe don’t worry. Here again, you can hire freelancers to create this for you. You just pick the topic and they create the training. For example, you could have them write a 5-part email course. And you can get emails ghost written for about $20 – $25 each. So, a great premium will cost you around $100 – $150.

Or again, you can find complete list building packages for sale online that include an email series. Two critical aspects of using a follow up series. The first thing is that it delivers value to your subscribers. And second, it needs to make you money. The easiest way to do this is to market affiliate products in the emails. This is such a simple solution because you don’t have to create the product. And make money right away from your list.

The Opt-in Success Page – Finally, you need to consider your opt-in confirmation page. After subscribing to your list, your visitor is redirected to this page. A great thing to do here is provide some immediate value. This helps them feel they’ve made the right decision giving you their email. It also helps to build the relationship. So when they get your email, they’re happy to hear from you.

Again, a simple solution to this is to get an email marketing package that includes everything. You can also put the whole thing together on your own. And write it all yourself. Or hire ghost writers to write them for you.

Final thoughts

Whether you decide to build your email funnel yourself. Or pay a freelancer to write produce it all for you. Or if sign up for a “complete package” solution. It’s just important that you start today building your opt-in list. Once you’ve got it built. You’ve got a license to print money!

Affiliate Business Tips

Preselling for profit

If you want to make more money as an affiliate, you must presell.

Before we begin, we need to first define what preselling is. Preselling is both an art and a science. The goal is to get your reader prepped to make a purchase. Then sending them to the product sales page to make the purchase. When done correctly, your reader will not even notice.

In a nutshell, you provide value. Then send them to the sales page. We’ll get into how to do it correctly in a minute. But before we do, you need to know why it’s so important. Just a few of the reasons you want to presell.

• It builds trust – Once you have your readers’ trust, they will click your links more readily. And the more traffic you can send to the sale page, the more commissions you’ll earn.
• It takes your reader out of defense mode – Nobody likes to be sold something. By not doing that to them, your reader is less defensive. This means they are more open to what you’re saying. So your message gets across.
• It puts them in a buying mood – Now they’re open to hearing what you’re telling them. And in turn, they’re open to other messages, as well. For example, the sales message on the page you’re linking to. And being open to the information there means they are much more likely to buy.
• You make more money – They arrive at the product website prepped to buy. Open to the sales message and feeling safe. The only possible result is more sales!
• It increases customer satisfaction – Your referral now feels like they decided to buy. Instead of feeling pressured or “sold”. And this makes them feel better about the product they purchased.
• Your profits go up – A satisfied customer doesn’t ask for a refund. And that translates to more commission staying in your affiliate business.

Obviously, it’s important to presell. You make more money. And produce happier customers. That’s a clear win-win.

OK, so how do you do it?

You’ve learned the importance of preselling. And I hope you’re resolved to being preselling, too. You’re ready to learn how to do it properly. Like we talked about before, it’s an art. And it’s a science.

The art of preselling

First, you have to gain the trust of your reader, so they let their guard down. And the only method of doing this is to give exceptional value to your readers. The art of this is to provide enough information to be of value, but not enough to satiate the hunger. That is, they have to be wanting more when you refer them to the product sales page for the product you’re trying to sell. And because you’ve gained trust, they’re more receptive to the sales message and more likely to buy.

It’s also a science

There’s also a specific formula you need to follow.

First of all, it’s important HOW you present your information. You need to know where you’re going before you begin. Your goal is to sell the product you’re promoting. How can providing information accomplish this goal? One way is to give them enough info to whet the appetite, but not enough to satisfy it. Or you can give them so much information that it feels overwhelming to do what you’re talking about. In either case, the product you’re referring them to solves the problem for them.

But you can’t link to your affiliate link. You have directly to the home page of the product. When you do this, you’re click-throughs go way up. But how will you earn affiliate commissions if you don’t use your affiliate link? There’s a trick to make this work… You use the “covert cookie” strategy.

You also want to link to the sales page from inside your article’s content. People are used to clicking on hyperlinked words to get information they’re looking for. And when the words are in context like this, it makes perfect sense for your reader to click them.

Using this system, you’re virtually guaranteed to increase your affiliate business success.

Now for the bad news…

This process is not easy – at all! Let’s talk about everything required to put this plan into action: Awesome content. First and foremost, you have to be able to write a great article that provides valuable information. To do that you have to have enough information to be valuable and be able to present it in a useful way. Writing to presell. First, you have to give good information. And you have to make the content accessible in order to provide value. While at the same time making them want more. Or make the information so overwhelming they realize they can’t do it on their own.

Product selection. After that you have to figure out which products you want to promote. Even if you can pull off writing and great article. You’ve wasted all your effort if the product doesn’t sell well.

Techy stuff. One of the keys to this system is using “covert cookies” for the tracking. This is fairly simple – you use a 1 X 1 image and set the “source” to your affiliate link. (But if you do it wrong, you won’t get paid for the traffic you send.)

In closing:

Now you’re armed with the information needed to effectively presell. And doing this increases your affiliate commissions by over 500%! The important thing is to use these techniques for everything you promote as an affiliate. Take action now. Put in the effort to reap the greater rewards.

Traffic Generation Tips

Everyone knows the number one thing you need to be successful online is traffic to your website. Obviously, this assumes you actually have a reason for wanting this traffic. After getting the traffic you just need to convert it into subscribers and customers . . . but that’s the easy part. The important thing is getting the traffic and sustaining it.

How, then do you get traffic to your site?

Here’s a short list of great, free traffic generating methods:

• Web 2.0
• Article Websites
• Video

Let’s talk about each of these.

Web 2.0

A Web 2.0 site gives its users the ability to interact with each other and create the site’s content together. The exciting thing about Web 2.0 sites is that you get to add your own content and it becomes part of these sites. And because of the highly interactive and popular nature of these sites, Google and other search engines “index” their content regularly. Which means the content on them gets “indexed” faster and with more weight. And any links in your content that point to your own sites count as a strong “vote” in favor of your sites – lending you credibility in the search engines. This is the hidden benefit of using Web 2.0 sites. There are many more web 2.0 traffic tactics we don’t have time to get into here, but this will get you started.

Articles Sites

The natural next topic is article marketing. Article directories fall under the category of web 2.0 sites. Article directories are sites where users (including you) can upload articles they have written. And just like other web 2.0 sites, you get all the SEO benefits from having your content on them. And in addition to this, other users can take your article and place it on their own website. And in return for getting to use your content, these other users include links back to your website that gives you further search engine ranking and more free traffic. If you want to generate traffic from articles follow these steps:

• First, spend the time to determine your keywords
• Tailor the content of your article for the keywords
• Be sure to link to your site on the keywords you’ve chosen. Do this inside the article itself and in your author’s bio.

Video

And finally, we need to talk about getting traffic from videos. Here to we’re really looking at a web 2.0 sub-category. And just as article directories give you great SEO benefits and allow others to redistribute your content on their sites. video sharing sites give you all these same benefits. And if all that wasn’t enough, you also stand a much stronger chance of getting a high search engine ranking for the keywords you want with video than you do with text-based content.

OK, so how do you do effective video marketing?

• Sign up for YouTube
• Turn off all the modules in your account profile
• Add tags to your profile
• Make sure to include in your profile a link to your site
• Add at least one video to your profile
• In the title, the description and the tags for each video, include your main keywords

In closing…

If you want to get traffic to your site, then follow the advice in this article.

Membership Niche Selection Tips

Let’s talk about niche selection. This is very important to ensuring the profitability of your membership website.

Step 1 – Find a Fanatical Market

If you want your membership business to be profitable, you have to find a marketing with fanatics in it. Simply put, a fanatic is someone who’s willing to spend time and more importantly money on a topic they are interested in. OK, so we know what a fanatic is, but how do we find them?

• One simple idea that’s easily forgotten is to scan the magazine racks when you’re out and about. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to run a print magazine. So if you see one on the shelves you know they are making money, which means that there are enough people interested in what they’re saying to make it profitable. That doesn’t mean definitely that it will make a good membership business, but it’s a good starting point.
• You’ve got lots of opportunities every day to see what people are interested in. Just pay attention to what people talk about on the radio, at social gatherings, at the store or restaurants and anywhere in public. People generally talk about things they are interested in. And this means there may be a market for information about it.
• Don’t forget about clubs and organizations. If there are enough people to to build a club, there are certainly enough people to start a membership site on the same topic. By the same token, if enough people are interested to hold a convention on a certain topic, you can definitely find enough people to build a membership business around that same topic.
• Think about the things that you are interested in. Chances are that if you like a certain topic or hobby, other people do, too. And, as an added bonus, it’s much more fun to build a business around things you’re interested in.
• Another fantastic way to discover what people are interest in is Google Trends. Google Trends tells you the most popular current search terms. These are the things people are actively searching for in Google. They’re searching because they want information. Building a membership business around things people are actively searching for is a great way to ensure your success.

Step 2 – Determine the financial feasibility

Once you found a potential niche or topic to center your membership site around, you need to figure out if you can actually make any money in it. One way to figure this out is to see if other are making money in it.

Here’s a punch list for figuring out if anyone’s making money in your niche:

• Are there blogs or forums in this niche? Take the name of your niche and search for “niche name blog” & “niche name forum” in Google to see if there is an active group of people talking about and interested in the niche. This means there is a large group of people already assembled for you to market to.
• Search Amazon, Google shopping and eBay to see if people are creating and selling products in the niche. If other people are creating and selling products in this niche, it means there is money to be made.
• Look at Google Adwords for the same ads are running over time. If people are running the same ad over time it means they are making money in the niche. They would not continue to spend money on the ads if there were not making a return from them.

Last, but not least… How hard will it be to break into this niche?

OK, so you found a hot topic and you know other people are making money on it. Will you be able to get involved and do the same? Here’s how to make this determination:

• Figure out what kinds of products people are interested in. If it’s mostly physical products, coaching and live seminars, then it will be harder to break into this niche. That’s because it’s much easier to build a membership business around information vs. any other kind of product.
• The next thing to look at is the competition. You don’t want to try to break into a saturated marketing, so figure out how many people are already selling in this niche.
• Compare the size of the market versus the number of competitors. Some competition is a good sign – just make sure the market is big enough for you to join in.
• Market readiness. Are people ready to buy? Are the receptive to marketing messages? Some niches are made up of people who require lots information and have a very long lead time, and some markets are filled with people who will spend lots of money right now.

Putting it all together

At this point you’ve figured out what niche you’re going into. You found your fanatics, you know they spend money and you’re confident there’s room in the market for you. Now that you’ve prepared properly, you’re success is 99% guaranteed. How to actually run your membership website is the only thing left to talk about…

Traffic is King, but this comes FIRST

The best way to ensure your success is to build automated traffic sources to send you visitors day and night.

Before we begin

Keyword research is really the first step in getting traffic to your website. The reason this is so important is that you are going to be building content and traffic sources for specific keywords. This means it’s critical to select your keywords properly.

Here are the important considerations for your research:

• Are the keywords you’re interested in attainable? You’ll have to analyze the competition and see what’s out there for this.
• What kinds of visitors do these keywords bring? If you don’t do your research you’ll end up with a lot of traffic that doesn’t buy from you. You want to generate visitors ready to buy.
• Will these keywords bring affiliates? If you want to build a huge business, you’re going to need affiliates to help you. This means that some of your traffic focus should be on getting affiliates to your site.

Of course, this all takes time if you plan to do it yourself. Experts are expensive and don’t guarantee results. The upside is that these two factors keep most everyone from even doing their keyword research. If you’re smart you will use website traffic software to help you with this process. This way you get this critical step done fast and done well.

OK, now we can talk about traffic…

Now that you’ve completed your keyword research, you can begin using these keywords to get traffic to your website.

Here are a couple of clever ways to do this…

• Surveys
• “Answer” Sites
• Video Websites

Surveys

People love filling in surveys. And smart website owners know this, so they will include your survey on their site if you make a good one. It’s a win-win. They get a great perk on their site and you get a link back to yours. The beauty of this is that it generates website visitors for you with no work on your part. Most people think surveys are just for collecting data, but in this case you don’t even care about the answers. So, get creative and make up a survey that’s wacky to get other people interested in putting it on their sites.

“Answer” Sites

These sites, like answers.yahoo.com are filled with people asking and answering questions for each other. However, you’re interest in these sites is not to ask and answer questions. What you want to do is use these sites to generate traffic and leads for your business. One thing you can do is to visit sites like Craigslist and Yahoo! Answers and manually extract contact info to contact other users. So, if you’re smart, you’ll use website traffic software to do it all for you. These tools put the whole thing on auto-pilot and just deliver the leads to you each day.

Video Sharing Sites

Another great resource is video sharing sites like YouTube. YouTube is one of the most highly traffic and search websites on the entire internet! If you’re not taking advantage of this rich source of website traffic, then you are really missing out.

And don’t worry if you don’t have any idea of how to make a video. It’s really easy to just start with an article or something you’ve already written. Then just do a screen capture of yourself going through it. You can even get software that will automatically do this for you.

Summary

Figuring out how to get some visitors to your site is not hard at all. It just takes a little time and some ingenuity. And today there are tons of options for software tools that can help with every part of this process.

Get started right away:

• Keyword research first is key
• Next, set up a survey or two with viral appeal
• Make sure to use the “answer” sites
• Capitalize on video!

Affiliate Marketing Secrets

The Need to Know Affiliate Marketing Secrets

If you want to get started quickly and easily in internet marketing, then affiliate marketing Secrets is for you. What “affiliate marketing” means is that you just send traffic to someone else’s website, they handle the sales, support and billing, and you get a percentage of the sale price as your commission (usually 50% or more for digital products).

The benefits of this are

1. You can start instantly with no up-front costs and no need to create a product, craft a sales letter, develop the website, create marketing materials, or set up the ordering, billing & delivery system.
2. It runs on auto-pilotfor you because the product owner does all the hard work of support, maintenance and billing.
3. There’s no risk for you, because the product owner has already done all the research , development and testing. So you already know that the visitors you send will result in commissions for you.

Obviously affiliate marketing secrets makes sense – these benefits make it a clear winner!

OK, but it’s not all rosy…

You work hard to send the traffic to the product owner’s website, but once you do that you will never see those visitors again. Most of them will not buy on their first visit, which means you’re losing over 90% of the traffic right off the top. The 10% or less that make a purchase now belong to the product owner. She can sell them additional products, but you can never sell to them again.

Affiliate Marketing Secrets way around this?

Simply put, you need to capture the name and email of your visitors *before* sending them to the product sales page. By getting their contact info, you can follow up increase your odds of making the sale by sending them back to the product owner’s website multiple times. And if you’re a super star affiliate, you’ll provide high-quality content before sending them to the product website.

Here’s what these affiliate marketing strategies will do for you:

1. Owning a list of potential buyers gives you the ability to market additional products at the push of a button.
2. You’ll be warming them up by providing valuable information and then casually linking to the product sales page in the context of this information.

In order to set a system like this up, you will need the following affiliate marketing tools:

1. A lead capture page, preferably with video
2. One or more content-rich “warm up” pages
3. An email series with at least 5 high-quality content emails

The video squeeze page is where you’ll direct your traffic instead of directly to the product sales page. Your squeeze page adds your visitors to you autoresponder. This is how you start building your list, and at the same time begin sending them useful information. After subscribing them to your email list, it redirects them to your content mini-site.

You content mini-site builds the good will, so that when you send them to the product sales page, they are in a buying mood. And at the same time, the email series begins following up with them to get them back to the sales page, in case they don’t buy on the first visit.

Putting all of these Affiliate Marketing Secrets together will increase your sales by 500% or more, so it’s obviously worth the time and energy to do it. And once it’s set up, it runs automatically – you just send visitors to the squeeze page, instead of the product website.

One option, if you’re not up to the challenge of setting this all up yourself, is to let someone like Affiliate Silver Bullet do it for you. With a service like that, you don’t have to do anything. They make the video, build the squeeze page, write the email series, develop the content mini-site, etc. And then just give you a finished package. The benefit is that it’s much less expensive then you could do it yourself, and it’s instantly set up. One negative is that there will be other people using this same affiliate marketing system. However, the odds of you and them both finding the same visitor are so small, that it doesn’t really matter.

Alternatively, you can use a service like Elance to “outsource” each of these compnents. Whichever way you decided to go, it’s critical to get an affiliate marketing system like this in place,

if you’re at all serious about your business You will use these Affiliate Marketing Secrets.