New Referral Program from Infolinks:

Infolinks, as you probably know, is one of the leading advertising companies online. They offer several advertising options, but their core product are the InText ads that are embeded directly on your content.

If you never tried this advertising format, it’s worth a shot. First of all it’s complementary to other formats, such as AdSense or banner ads. Second, depending on your niche and site style, you might actually get a good CPM rate for those InText ads.

A couple of weeks ago I discovered that Infolinks is rolling out a new referral program as well. The new system is pretty straight forward: for every publisher you refer to them, you earn 10% of the revenues of that publisher for his first 12 months. Not bad huh?

It works as any other affiliate program: you need to signup to get a unique referall link, and then whenever someone signs up using that link you get a credited with the referral. They also give you access to a web interface where you can track all your stats, clicks and revenue generated.

The new referral program is quite new, and I believe there might be good opportunities for people promoting it early on to make good money, so click here to check it out.

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How Bloggers Can Make Money Affiture Network?

As bloggers, one of the most important statistics for our blog is how much we are earning per visitor. While it’s great to have a site that gets a lot of traffic, if you are blogging to make money, tracking your visitor stats will only get you so far.

With a blog you have a lot of options for how to monetize your traffic, such as Google Adsense, paid placement advertising and affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is quickly becoming one of the biggest sources of revenue for sites and blogs of all sizes, simply because you get paid every time a user takes a specific action on your site (and usually don’t need to buy anything). If you are focusing on niche specific sites, then you should definitely be looking at affiliate marketing as one of the best ways to monetize your sites.

How Bloggers Can Make Money with Affiture Network

Affiture is an affiliate network that is focused on providing affiliates, site owners and bloggers with high quality offers that can be promoted through various traffic methods. Affiture is also a division of CPX Interactive, a success online media company with over a decade of experience.

In the world of online marketing, it seems like many ad networks come and go with time. However, it’s important to note that CPX Interactive is a company that has been around for over 10 years now and one that I had used to monetize many of my sites in the past. This means you are not only working with a company that has experience, but one that also has the necessary connections and funding to stand the test of time and know what it takes to create success in this industry.

Affiliate Offers Found within Affiture

With so many different ad networks already out there, it’s important to know what offers are running on each of them. With a solid collection of over 500+ different offers, there is no doubt that you will find at least a handful of quality offers to may convert well with your existing blog audience.

The majority of offers on Affiture are mobile pin submits, freebies, dating, downloads and gaming, along with a selection of exclusive offers that are only found within their network. The commission rates will vary based on the offers selected and can range anywhere from under a dollar to over $200 per lead.

You can see an updated chart of the highest converting offers on the network right now below.

After finding an offer that looks like it might convert well with your audience, you can decide how you would like to promote it (based off the offer restrictions). Each offer allows for a different means of promotion, but Affiture has you covered on these many different methods… such as on-site placement (text links), email, search, video, banners, newsletters, incentived (and non), co-registration.

Find an offer. View it’s advertising terms. Promote it and make money.

How Affiture Sends Out Payments

Affiture sends out payments to affiliates on a Net15 basis when the minimum payment of $50 is earned. Bi-Monthly Net 15 payments are available to any affiliate that earns over $1,000 monthly. Weekly payments are sent out to affiliates earning in excess of $1,000 per week.

Payments are sent out through Paypal, check, ACH and wire transfer (depending on monthly earnings).

How to Win a Apple Watch from Affiture

There is a lot of buzz and anticipation for the new Apple Watch, and if you don’t want to wait in long lines or pay a few hundred dollars to get one of your own, Affiture has a great opportunity for you!

Affiture is giving away ten (10) Apple Watches to their top performing publishers between the promotion period of April 1st through June 30th.

If you already have a high traffic blog or ad campaigns running elsewhere, why not test your traffic with some of the offers from Affiture and see if you can get your hands on a free Apple Watch in the process?

How to Join Affiture Affiliate Network

There are many affiliate networks out there for you to choose from, but not many of them are backed by a well known name like CPX Interaction. For this reason alone, it should be worth your time to fill out an application on their site and register to become an affiliate. Once approved, you can login and start promoting offers through your site or existing traffic sources.

In addition to gaining access their 500+ affiliate offers, you will also be in the running for their Apple Watch giveaway.

After registering with Affiture, you will get an email from their team on your approval and also be setup with an affiliate manager. Be sure to take advantage of your affiliate manager, by asking them about the best offers on the network. how to promote them and if there is any room for a payout increase with volume.

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Actionable Ways to attract more Paid Posts on your Blog:

     Paid posts or sponsored posts are one of the best ways to monetize a blog; not just any blog but those with 2+ PR (optional!), good Alexa, DA, PA, reader community, social presence and MozRank.
What are Paid Posts?
Paid posts are basically sponsored posting where the advertiser expects any of the three things:

    a full-review of their business product/s
    a link back via author bio
    a contextual link back

We bloggers charge for this sponsorship. Sometimes we have to write these paid posts to suit the requirement of the advertiser.

5 Ways to get more Paid Posts

Here are my personal recommendations:

1) Navigate on Social Media Platforms

My personal experience says that social media platforms are the best way to get more paid post offers.
When you are active on social networks, people come to know about your blog/s and it may so happen that someone or the other will offer you a paid post opportunity.

2) Craigslist Listings are Awesome!

In January, I did a little experiment and floated a “paid posts on offer” ad on Craigslist via a US friend to target US advertisers.
Initially, there were no responses. I created 4-5 more ads and floated them. Within 2 days, I had 10 offers for paid posts in my inbox!
They ranged from $50 to $275 per post. I declined and selected some.
The point is Craigslist works. Try it!

3) Contact your Guest Contributors

If you have a multi-author blog, check out their bio and see the sites they have linked with your blog.
Most of the time, those sites won’t be theirs. In other words, someone paid them to guest post on your domain.
You can do two things:

• Contact the guest authors and tell them you’re offering paid posts. The guest authors might get you some $$$ through their clients.
• Directly contact the owners of those domains the guest authors linked with your blog. Lay down your proposal. If they have more businesses or if you have more than one blog, paid posts will definitely come your way.

If you want to guest post here, check out the guidelines.

4) Paid Posts via Guest Blogging

I don’t have much success with this method but it does work, sometimes. It has so happened in the past that I have received paid posts opportunity from the owners of sites I guest blogged.
Some worked out; some didn’t so you should try this too.

5) Convert Guest Blogging offers into Paid Posting

All bloggers are aware of this situation.
We get guest blogging offers from SEO agencies wanting to post on behalf of their clients. Instead of allowing them to promote their clients’ site for free, ask them to go for paid posts.

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Can You Earn More Money with Cost1 Action Network?

One of the more effective ways to monetize your website or to make money on the Internet in general is with affiliate marketing. And you have the choice between so many affiliate networks. Another network that you may consider using is called Cost1Action and it makes some pretty big promises for all the publishers in the audience.

The Affiliate Network That Pays Daily?

When you first arrive on the Cost1Action website, you are immediately hit with a few bold statements. For example, you’re told that they can pay daily.

The vast majority of other affiliate networks typically pay on a monthly cycle, so to have the opportunity for daily cashflow is certainly appealing, right off the bat. As the statements come cycling through the main page, we also learn that Cost1Action offers “high payouts than any others networks.” There are certainly some grammatical concerns with their website copy, following with odd statements like “The world is business. Take your action to be in the business.”
But we probably shouldn’t be judging a book by its cover like that, especially in the context of affiliate marketing where the only thing that matters is the money, right? From what I can gather, Cost1Action is fairly typical in its approach with a ready-to-use API, over 500 incentive offers, 24/7 support, exclusive offers, free training and a rewards program.

The Familiar Has Offers Interface

After filling out the standard signup form, you only need to wait one to two business days in order for your account to be approved. There may be a Skype interview involved to verify who you are and the information that you provide about your promotion methods.

 

Once you have been approved, you’ll gain access to the main Cost1Action affiliate dashboard shown above. Veterans of affiliate marketing may recognize that this is based on the popular Has Offers platform, offering the same familiar navigation and layout style. You access your offers, reports and tools along the left sidebar. Contact information for your account manager is found below that.
At the top, there is a pull down menu for your account and this is where you would enter your billing information as well. Payment is available via PayPal or Payoneer with no fees or via bank wire with a $60 fee. Remember when I mentioned that daily payments were a possibility?
This is dependent on your performance and your traffic quality. Cost1Action makes these decisions on a case-to-case basis. If you don’t have “junk traffic” and if your revenue level is sufficient, then you can likely expect a net-15 schedule. There is no mention of a specific payment threshold, though I imagine one exists.

Hundreds of Offers at Your Fingertips

According to the homepage of Cost1Action, they boast that they have over 400 offers in their inventory. Browsing through the offer list in the affiliate dashboard, however, yielded closer to 400 offers across such categories as mobile, games, penny auctions, credit and loans, financial and online surveys.

A good international example would be the current offer from Booking.com. It will take traffic from a large number of countries and you earn a $10.50 CPA based on a valid booking. While there are some offers that are open to all affiliates, this particular example is restricted to approved affiliates only and you need to request approval.
What’s more, while different offers do allow different types of traffic, including incentivized or mobile traffic, this example does not allow for incentives, SMS, email marketing, search PPC, classified ads or co-registration. Each offer page is very specific in defining what promotions are and aren’t allowed.
If you would like to focus on incentivized traffic, you can filter for that particular category when browsing through the offer list.

Getting Ready to Take Action

On the surface, Cost1Action covers many of the major points that you’d want out of an affiliate network. The back end is simple yet robust, you have access to hundreds of offers, and you have a dedicated account manager too. Cost1Action even says that they’re willing to help with unique methods for every traffic source, outfitting you with the tools you need to succeed. Whether or not you find success promoting offers through this network is ultimately up to you.

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Twitter Marketing Tips for Bloggers:

When it comes to blogging, having a localized marketing strategy is essential. One of the best ways for bloggers to reach and build a fan-base of loyal followers is to utilize popular social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. These sites allow bloggers to increase their visibility across various demographics, which will inevitably lead to higher profits over time.
If you’re thinking about signing up on Twitter, it can be pretty confusing at first due to the vast amount of information that is constantly being updated in 140-character increments.
Luckily, there are a few tricks you use to ensure that you’re being efficient on Twitter, and reaching the right group of people. Check out the list below for five Twitter marketing tips for bloggers!

1. Localize Your Profile

If your blog is about something specific, then you have to make sure your profile is fully localized. To do this, you must include your niche in your Twitter bio. Another good way to reach targeted readers is to include the niche in twitter handle

2. Tailor Your Trend Updates

On the left side of the Twitter homepage you’ll see a box that says “Trending,” and it will have a list the most popular topics being tweeted about at that moment. This list is automatically updated whenever a new trend arises, and the greatest part is that you can tailor your trends to your specific location. That way, you can track the topics that nearby Twitter users are talking about in real time.

3. Use Relevant Hashtags

Hashtags are a great way to categorize your tweets in order to reach certain demographics and readership, and lots of popular bloggers on Twitter have mastered this strategy.
For example, if you’re writing about social media privacy, you can share post URL’s and hashtag it with #socialmedia #privacy #learnonlineprivacy and so on.
All the people who search the sports tag will then see your offer. Make sure your hashtags are relevant, because if you add a bunch of random tags—even if they are trending—it delegitimizes your content.
Your followers will assume your tweets are spam, and they’ll most likely unfollow your account.

4. Follow Users

If your blog is niche-oriented, then it only makes sense that you would want to build a solid following of people interested in the same niche.
So, how does one go about doing this? Well, most people on Twitter will follow back once you start following their account, so you have to do some research to find local users to follow.
There are several different resources you can use to pinpoint which users share same interests. A couple notable sites are Twellow, and Twitter Local, which allow you to enter your interest in order to view a complete list of all the relevant Twitter users.

5. Increase Your Local Presence

Increasing your blog presence on Twitter is a great way to get your name out there without bombarding users with information.
There are many ways you can do this, one being that you can re tweet other content. It could be news, sports, events, or anything that your blog might have a correlation with the chosen niche.
By doing this, the users will see your Twitter handle in their feed more often, and they’ll be more apt to check out your profile to see what you’re all about.

Endnote

With so many companies jumping on the Twitter bandwagon, it’s understandable why some bloggers become frustrated when trying to implement the site into their own marketing efforts.
Thankfully, you can bypass that frustration and get right down to business! Using the tips and tricks above will save you a great deal of time, while also adding to your blog’s bottom line in the long run!

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How To Find Your Targeted Market On Twitter:

Twitter is an online social networking website. With that said, you can do much more than update your friends and family on the happenings in your life. In fact, Twitter is a great online marketing tool. Whether you are selling a product or service, you can use it to increase your sales.

Many wonder how it is possible to make money with Twitter. The service is free to use, but you don’t get paid for using it. As previously stated, you can make money if you sell a product or a service. This is because you develop a following on Twitter. These individuals are called followers, but they are also your friends or your contacts. Messages are sent throughout the system. This article will cover how to find your targeted market on Twitter.

Finding Your Targeted Market On Twitter

When using Twitter to market or sell a product or service, proceed with caution. You do not want to outright sell, as you may be labeled as a spammer. Instead, do so subtly. For example, do you run a website that sells eBooks? If so, your message could say It took weeks, but my website is finally complete. I sell eBooks. Checkout the website and tell me if you like the format This gets people to your website, but without you technically soliciting a sale.

You can also use @replies to market a website selling eBooks, or any other product or service. Say you receive a message that says I wish there was an easier way to learn about making money online. There are so many websites to visit. You can respond with, Hey, I have a website that has an eBook for sale on working from home. It has all the information you need in one place. Since you are responding to a message, your aren't outright spamming Twitter members.

As you can see, there are multiple ways for you to use Twitter as an internet marketing tool and to improve your profits. The only problem is you must first develop a list of followers. Yes, your close friends and family are a good start, but they may already know all about your business and what you sell. That is why you need to expand your horizons, but how do you do so?

First, it is important to determine your targeted market. If you sell eBooks on a wide range of subjects, you will have a wide market. If you sell used kids clothes on eBay, your target market will include parents, and so forth. Once you know who your targeted market it, it is easier to find these individuals on Twitter.

As for how you can do so, the easiest approach is to join online communities. In keeping with selling kids clothes online. Join message boards for parents. Start conversations with other members. After a few days, make a post stating that you are a member of Twitter and are looking for other contacts. Say you want people to follow you on Twitter, but that you will follow them too. Not only do you get followers, but you get those in your targeted market.

Next, you can turn to the Twitter website itself. From the main page, you can click the find People,î link. Search for members with profiles online. You can search by location or name. Quickly scan a profile to see if a bio is present. If so, read it. What is the person interested in? Are they are parent, pet owner, or do you see other signs that classify them as a member of your target market? If so, make contact. This approach is time consuming, but it does work.

Finally, it is important to know how updates are sent. Although private updates are allowed, many Twitter members send updates to everyone on their contact list. If a reply is sent and not privately, you can see it. This allows you to see the name of other Twitter members. Become a follower. If the person you are now adding is a friend or family member of someone in your targeted market, they may share similar interests.

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A Beginner’s Guide to Google AdSense:

 Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to monetize a web site or blog. It has the amazing benefit of not requiring stock, and in many cases it’s a set and forget strategy. Often though, many affiliates, including myself, will also run Google AdSense on their web sites.

Adsense is a nice alternative, or complimentary monetization strategy to affiliate marketing.

My income increases when using AdSense – my affiliate sales are unaffected

It used to be that I was afraid to “lose customers” when implementing Google AdSense on my affiliate sites, because when they click the AdSense ads they leave the web site. But test after test showed me that implementing AdSense often did not have any negative effect on affiliate commissions.

So, really all it did was boost my income and allowed me to distribute risk by having more than just one monetization strategy.

AdSense ads run in designated areas on your web site – advertisers pay Google to run ads there – but you get a cut

Many people still ask the question: what is Google AdSense, and how do I get started?

I am in the position where I run a multi-author WordPress news web site and one of the attractions is that we allow authors to include AdSense on their articles. Many though, it turns out, do not know what AdSense is and don’t know how to get setup.

First, let me explain as simply as possible what AdSense is. When advertisers pay Google to run ads (with the Google AdWords program), if they opt to show their ads on Google’s Display Network, then their ads will show up in the “AdSense slots” on participating web sites.

In many cases, the owner of the web site “owns” (in a sense) all of the Google AdSense ad slots. In the case of a multi-author web site, it could be that the owner allows a sharing of revenue. In that case, there could be several publisher AdSense as slots being displayed on a given web site.

You must “own” the web site used during the Google AdSense application process – but could run ads on other sites after acceptance

It used to be that you could submit an application to become an AdSense publisher, enter “any old web site” and in most cases get approved, ready to run ads on any other site of your choosing. Nowadays though, as I discovered, Google now has a second level of verification, complicating things a little more. The publisher must now prove that they own the web site that they intend to run ads on.

When I say “own the web site” that is sort of a loose statement. Many times, as long as the publisher has the ability to create AdSense ads (either through direct code access, or some sort of widget) he or she could make it through the second stage of AdSense approval. That’s not always the case though. Having the ability to add AdSense code to a web site doesn’t necessarily qualify you as the “owner.” And Google’s recent(ish) requirement is that the publisher must own the domain of the web site that they use during the application process. It’s only after approval where the publisher can run ads on different web sites.

If you know someone that owns a web site and will let you “piggyback” you *may* get through the application process. But after awhile, Google stops allowing certain domain names to be used during the application process. Because like I said, technically you must own the domain. It seems the goal is to have at least one web site for every AdSense publisher, and this is the way they attempt to make that happen.

Buy a cheap domain name and attach it to a free web site creation service and you qualify

Fortunately, it’s quite simple these days to “own your own domain name” and create your own web site. And this doesn’t have to be expensive either. You don’t really have to go the route of getting your own hosting and getting a web site built (although that can be super cheap, especially when using WordPress). Realistically you can get a domain for $10-$15 (for the year) through Namecheap.com and build a free web site on Weebly.com (for example), attach your newly bought domain name to your newly created web site, and then you comply to the main rule of requiring your own domain name.

Be careful though when choosing a service. Some free web site tools, while they might allow you to attach a domain name to your site, you may not be able to run AdSense. WordPress.com hosted sites is an example of one where you cannot run AdSense ads. To keep it simple and cheap, I would suggest buying a domain from NameCheap, then setting up a quick free site with Weebly.com.

From there, publish really awesome, high value, content on your new site. Aim for about 6-20 really good articles before applying. Be sure to include a contact and about page for a better chance of getting accepted.

Fortunately you can re-apply to AdSense if ever rejected. Follow the advice Google gives if you get rejected, then re-apply. If you applied with a domain that you can’t add AdSense code too, you still have the chance to re-apply with a different domain name/web site.

What types of ads show up in the ad slots, and how do I generate income from it?

Now, for those of you that are curious, and would like to know about what types of ads show up in the AdSense slots, I will cover that now.

Keep in mind that you are giving control of a certain portion of your web site to Google to do what it pleases. You have some control over appearance, size, etc. plus you have the ability to block ads. And you can decide if the ads are text, images or animated. There may be other kinds as well.

Now, as for what ads show up. There are a few different things that can happen. First, the traditional way is… Google will determine what the content surrounding the ad slot is about, and display a related ad. Another way is… Google will follow a visitor from site to site (using what are called cookies) and then run ads attempting to get those visitors *back* to a previously visited site. This is often called retargeting, and only happens when the owner of the previously visited site has paid to run retargeting-style ads on the Display Network. The final way is for advertisers to run ads in very specific ad slots, on very specific web pages, on very specific web sites. There may also be other ways. These are the only three that I am aware of.

Oh, and a key piece of information that I should have mentioned earlier on… you get paid when people click your ads (don’t click your own! Google will know) and you may get paid per impression (or multiple impressions) in some cases. I don’t know for certain. I just know that Google AdWords advertisers have the ability to choose a pay per click or pay per 1,000 impressions model when running their ads, but to my knowledge, the revenue share for AdSense follows just a pay-per-click model.

As far as I know, Google AdSense tracking is lacking

Tracking the performance of your AdSense ads is very limited. I haven’t looked too deep into tracking methods lately, so it may have improved, so take this information with a grain of salt (or whatever that saying is that doesn’t make much sense). In general, you create an “ad channel” and that will help you determine the performance of the ad (or ads) *attached” to that channel. Many sites allow you to embed AdSense in templates or widgets so usually the same ad is used on the entire site. Therefore, tracking on the site level is often what occurs. But, folks will often track on the ad slot/web site level as well.

You could get clever and manually create an ad and ad channel for every page on your site. This could get very cumbersome. There’s got to be a better way, and there probably is. I won’t research it now though, this is just an “intro” article after all.

Applying for an AdSense publisher account – use your Gmail account!

Now, to apply you will need to have your web site setup already (with your own domain name and content!). Then, using your Google account (i.e. Gmail or YouTube account) go through the app process.

After Google peeps at your site, it will let you know if it qualifies or not. If so, you just have to place your code. The code will initially be blank after placement on your site. Once an ad shows up, you know that your account is active. After your account is active you can create new ads to run on other sites

The app process could take anywhere from one day to a couple of weeks or longer. Just be patient and wait it out. Google sends emails through each phase so you will know where you’re at. If you don’t see an email for quite awhile it may have got lost. That happens. Have a peek in your AdSense account and you will see messages across the top indicating where you’re at in the process.

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Top Tips For The One Person Marketing Department:

Regardless of what the economy is doing, Any CEO’s worth their salt are always looking for ways to get more value for their dollar and strengthen the bottom line. If your company has been burned by the 20 something that you hired because they were a friend of the family or they sounded smarter than you in regards to marketing or whatever the case, you may have spent way more money on a website and SEO/SEM and social media than are willing to admit in public.

I can understand your reluctance to try anyone or anything new. It reminds me of a story.

Once upon a time, (all good stories start with once upon a time, right) a very successful man owned a construction company. His workers though, used rope and mud and straw and rocks to build the buildings. Then one day the business owner’s good friend came to lunch and and told him that he had a tool box filled with new tools and and with these tools, he could help his workers build better and the word would get out about how great their construction company is and people would come from all over the lands to do business with them and it would be so much easier for the employees who are doing the building. Well, the owner agreed to this idea and paid his friend very well. After all, things are going well, and if his friend can help him grow his business even larger with these tools, then it’s worth a try. The owner didn’t understand the tools or how they worked. His friend seemed to know what he was talking about though. After a few years, the employees started to complain about the owner’s friend. They said his tools didn’t work and he didn’t even know how to use them. The owner was in a bad spot. This was his friend after all! He was also losing money though and, nothing to show for his investment in his friend or these new and fancy tools that were supposed to grow his business.

The two men fell into conflict. It was the first serious rift in 40 years of friendship side by side, sharing meals, drinks, and trading labor and goods as needed without a hitch.

Then the long collaboration fell apart.

One morning there was a knock on the business owner’s door. He opened it to find a man with a carpenter’s toolbox. “I’m looking for a few days work” he said.

“Perhaps you would have a few small jobs here and there. Could I help you? I have several years of experience and references…”

“NO,” said the business owner. “I trusted one person and they failed me. I tried a lot of different things that he said to try and nothing worked. I won’t waste any more money on someone else telling me about how they can grow my business or make my employees jobs easier!”

The carpenter said, “I think I understand the situation. If you give me an opportunity, I will guarantee my work. If I don’t bring value that you can measure and see with your own eyes, You can fire me and not pay me.”

The carpenter worked hard all that day measuring, sawing, nailing and showing the other employees and word began to spread around the town.

About six months later, the carpenter had just finished his job on the new building using the new tools and techniques. The business owner’s eyes opened wide, his jaw dropped.

“You are quite a fellow to build this building after I told you I didn’t trust you and didn’t want to try your tools,” said the business owner.

Word spread about the company and how their buildings were better than anyone else’s and people were traveling from all over to do business with the company…

“How were you able to do so much with the same tools as my old friend where he wasn’t?”

“It’s one thing to have the tools and techniques. It’s quite another to know how to use them,” said the carpenter.

So, the point of the story is not all tactics or campaigns will work all the time. Not every self-proclaimed marketing expert is in fact one who delivers results. Don’t quit all marketing and advertising just because it didn’t work one time.

Here is what the one man marketing expert should be doing:

• Marketing plan
  • This goes without saying yet is still rarely done. Start with a plan and execute the plan and make adjustments along the way.
• Media/design style guide
  • Without this, the brand identity is unfocussed and sloppy.
• strategy and daily checklist for social media across all channels such as
  – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Youtube, Google+, Pinterest
  • This checklist allows the management of priorities.
• Gain free PR through journalists on twitter
  • These are easily found and many journalists are accessable.
• Register with online directories
• Get online reviews from your customers on social media sites
  – Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Yelp, Manta, BBB, Yahoo Local, Bing, Foursquare, Kudzu, Localeze and Google Trusted Seller Rating / Review sites
• Add regular content with best keywords for your business to you website for SEO
• Have your website tell your story
  – Engage your target audience with why their life will be better with you in it.
• Place targeted ads on targeted sites (b2b or b2c)
• Make ads with a call to action and reward for taking the action

Use the above tactics as part of a larger strategy to create raving fans and reward them for telling your story for you

When you’re a solopreneur or a very small business owner or the only person in the small business marketing department, time availability is extremely constrained. Regardless of the situation, time remains to be the most valuable and limited resource and managing priorities are an invaluable skill. I know I definitely don’t like getting sucked into a task that I think will only take a couple minutes and that was 3 hours ago. Has that ever happened to you? Like checking email or updating a social media status for the business. These activities are time drainers or black holes.

To minimize that from occurring, I like to focus the majority of my time on MMA (Money Making Activities). It can be a challenge at first, yet as you practice managing and scheduling priorities which contribute to the bottomline, the better you will get it and the easier it will be because you are becoming a person who naturally focuses on MMA like calling on clients and potential clients and serving the clients.

There is a saying: You’re either working on your business or working in it. Obviously, you want to develop systems that create efficiencies and better use of time as your business grows so you can eventually hire others to assist in the marketing activities. Here are the Top 3 action items that I highly recommend you take away from this article:

1. Make a list of outcomes and work backward to determine required benchmarks and timeframes.
2. Block out on your Google Calendar the daily priorities, even lunch and stick to it.
3. Find inexpensive virtual assistants or outside talent to handle as much as you can budget. This will take some vetting above and beyond reading their reviews. You may have to try several people out before finding a successful fit.

This should be a fair start. I look forward to reading feedback from my fellow marketers.

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