Steve Wagenheim’s Home Business Blog

If you’re new to making a living on the Internet, you’ve problem heard a lot of talk about SEO, or search engine optimization. A lot of what you’ve heard may sound confusing or overwhelming. Well, while this article in no way can possibly cover the entire sphere of SEO, it is the hopes of this author that it will at least give you a starting point so that this maze of information isn’t so totally out in another solar system. With a little bit of reading and maybe some luck, you’ll come away from this article with a clear head a little knowledge.

The first step in this process is that you have to understand that there is on page SEO and off page SEO. I’m going to give you examples of each so don’t worry. The point is, in order for SEO to be effective you must use both on page and off page methods. Leaving either one of them out can spell disaster in a big way.

Let’s start with on page SEO. On page SEO is where you actually add certain things to your web page in order to placate the search engines. One of these things is meta tags. Meta tags are pieces of HTML code that tell the search engines something about your page, such as the title, description and what keywords you’re targeting. This is very important to do in order to naturally get your pages up the ranks of the search engines.

Off page SEO is more related to things you do outside of your web page to also get that page up the search engine ranks. One of these is article marketing. This is the practice of submitting articles to directories while utilizing the resource box of your articles to include the link to your web page. The more links that are out there, the higher up the search engines you’ll go. This isn’t an overnight process and it does take a lot of work, but over time, with enough inbound links to your web page, you’ll see an improvement in your search engine standings.

The interesting thing is that there are really more things you can do with off page SEO than on page. There are only so many things you can do with a web page, such as adding meta tags and adding content to your site, which is always something search engines want to see. But with off page, the list of things to do is almost endless. Aside from article marketing there’s link exchanges, blogging, social bookmarking sites and the list goes on and on.

If you are going to optimize your site for the search engines, you are going to have to use a combination of SEO on page and off page strategies and use them often. Optimizing your site is an ongoing process that never ends.

Hey, if it was easy, we’d all be making a fortune on the Internet.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of busting your behind for peanuts online? Go to my web site and find out how I earn a monthly income that exceeds 5 figures and how I can help YOU do the same. Get your free report at http://www.mysecretarticles.com/report.html

I remember going to a seminar many years ago. The speaker there, though he turned out to be a major con artist, spoke very well. He talked about why people fail with their business. He told a story that I’m going to share with you today. While the guy was as crooked as the day is long, he did make some good points. Too bad he couldn’t use his smarts for something honest. Anyway, here is the story. I hope you like it.

Joe went to his friend Bob and told Bob that he was having problems with his home business. So Bob asked him what he had done so far in an attempt to get Joe some help. He first asked Joe if he had created a business plan. Joe had no idea what that was. All he knew was that he wanted to create some product to sell. So Bob asked him what he thought of selling. Joe had an idea for some book on gardening. Bob asked him if he had started writing the book yet. Joe said he hadn’t. The questions kept coming. Eventually, Bob realized that Joe hadn’t done anything at all with his business.

I’ll stop the story there. I think you can see where this is going. See, Joe had a lot of ideas. Some of them were very good ideas. But Joe didn’t know how to implement them. So Joe did nothing. He just kept on thinking about all these things that he wanted to do without taking any action whatsoever. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that you blindly jump into something. You definitely want to do your research to make sure that what you’re planning to do makes sense. But eventually, you need to get off the pot and do something. It isn’t just going to happen.

But why do people fall into this trap? Why so many ideas and nothing to show for them? It comes down to one thing…fear of failure. And it’s that very fear that causes the failure. It’s kind of ironic, don’t you think? The main reason people fail is because they’re too afraid to do something in the fear that they’ll end up falling on their face.

Well, here is my simple solution to that problem. It’s called logic. Yes, you may try and fail. But if you do nothing then you will definitely fail. So what have you got to lose by trying? At least that is the way I look at it.

So don’t let that fear hold you back. Get out there and do something…anything.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business…FREE? Pick up my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!

I don’t care how talented a writer you are. You can’t keep writing quality material if you live in a cave. The world is changing at speeds that you can’t even comprehend. And the Internet changes faster than anything else on Earth. What was hot and new yesterday is old news today. So, if you want to stay on the cutting edge of the information highway, you have to keep up with what’s going on. Otherwise, your writing is going to become stale and boring. Nobody is going to want to read about yesterday’s news…especially when it’s so old that it’s no longer relevant.

Okay, so how do we do this? How do we keep up with what’s going on? Is there a place to go? Well, there are several places to go. One of them is a site called Google Trends. Each hour…yes, each HOUR…this site is updated with the latest info that people are interested in getting. You can’t even begin to imagine how quickly trends change. For example, as I am writing this, last night was the Oscars and the trends today are all people looking to find out about things that happened at the awards ceremony. This alone should give you plenty to write about. So Google Trends is a great place to start.

What about just going to a news site like CNN? There is always something going on in the news. These days, the hot talk is about Obama and the economy. Certainly you can find enough to write about in those areas. I mean for crying out loud, we have our first African American President of the US. This is news…BIG news. And the economy? Do you think it’s going to get better any time soon? Certainly you’ve got opinions on this mess. You could write enough opinion pieces on the economy to fill up a library alone.

How about just opening up the newspaper if you’re really lazy? I mean after all, it DOES get delivered right to your home, correct? So look and see what the latest news is. Heck, just read the front page. That alone should give you plenty to write about.

And I haven’t even gotten into going to authority sites like WebMD to find the latest medical stuff or Entertainment Weekly to find out the latest entertainment stuff. There is NO excuse not to know what’s going on in the world.

So get out there, learn something, and write about it.

It’s NOT hard.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to write articles that get people’s attention and can earn you up to $200 per article written? Then check out my Complete Article Writing And Marketing Guide that you can find at http://www.honestincomeprogram.com/tcawamg.html – This is my own book that I wrote from over 30 years of writing experience.

In this installment of Internet marketing tips, A-Z, I’m going to discuss diversification. This may be one of the most important things any marketer can do. I say this based on my six plus years of marketing online. So you may want to take these words to heart. They just might save your business in the process.

Let me start with a little story. Not too long ago (okay, maybe it was a long time ago) there was a guy who came up with an idea for a web site. Actually, it was going to be a series of web sites. And these sites were going to be the next big thing as far as making money online. All you had to do was crank out as many of these sites as you could and you’d make a fortune. It even got to the point where software was created to mass produce these sites. And sure enough, people were making a fortune.

But then, something happened. Another guy, a big guy on the Internet, caught wind of what these people were doing and didn’t like the looks of it. This guy thought that these sites were adding no real value to the Internet. So, what this big guy did was put a ban on these sites. They were thrown out of the search engines to start with and then, the income generation source that these sites was using, it was made unavailable to them…a lifetime ban. Suddenly, this millionaire maker was dust. And businesses were literally destroyed overnight.

Most of you probably recognize the above story as the rise and fall of MFA, or Made For Adsense, sites. Remember them? Yeah, they were all the rage quite a few years ago. People were raking in the bucks until one night it all came crashing down around them. I hope that this story has made my point. I know it’s a terrible cliche, but it’s true. You never put all your eggs in one basket because you never know when that basket is going to be taken away from you and you’re left with nothing but dust.

Diversification…It is the key to Internet marketing success.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of busting your behind for peanuts online? Go to my web site and find out how I earn a monthly income that exceeds 5 figures and how I can help YOU do the same. Get your free report at http://www.mysecretarticles.com/report.html

In this article, the third in my series of Internet marketing tips from A-Z, I’m going to discuss the subject of copywriting, but not so much from a copywriting perspective, but from the perspective of the Internet marketer. I think you’ll find this a little different from your usual copywriting article.

Okay, we all know how important copywriting is. We’ve seen the articles sharing copywriting tips from headlines all the way to the final PS. We’ve talked about telling your story and AIDA and all that great stuff. Wonderful. But what so many articles on copywriting leave out is the human element. We’re so caught up in the X’s and O’s of writing “good” salescopy that we sometimes forget that there is a human element. That human element goes way beyond the X’s and O’s and it’s hard to define in terms of “what to do.”

The reason for that is simple. People are still individuals. And in spite of what all the expert copywriters tell you, there is no one way of writing copy that is going to appeal to everybody. We haven’t perfected that science yet and I seriously doubt that we ever will. And the reason is because people are unpredictable. A person who is rational and stable one day can turn into a raving lunatic the next, simply because of an event that occurs in their life.

Now sure, the masters of copywriting have studied human behavior and have determined what the “usual” response will be given a set of circumstances. That’s why we have things like AIDA and headlines and bullet points and all those other fancy copywriting techniques. They didn’t just come from a hole in the wall. They came from a lot of study of human nature and human response.

What’s my point? My point is this. When you go to write copy, don’t just go through the motions by the numbers. Just because somebody says that “XYZ” works in 80% of the cases for a particular sales letter, doesn’t mean you should accept it on blind faith alone. I have written sales letters that have gone against just about every rule of copywriting that STILL converted well because I thought about my audience, what they were sick of hearing, and instead gave them something I thought would work better. I ended up selling 200 units a month of this product for a year. Most copywriters would have cringed if they saw it.

So please remember…there is a human being on the other side of that sales letter.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to write copy just like the pros? Visit my site at http://www.bcipe.com/ and discover killer copywriting tips that have allowed me to write my own copy for years and earn myself a 6 figure a year income selling my own products.

Video marketing is great. With sites like YouTube, the possibilities for getting targeted traffic to your site are unlimited. However, the video itself has to do the job it’s supposed to do. And a big part of that is what I call “focus” or, as others might put it, the “star” of the video. Who or what is the star of your video? Does it matter? And if it does, do you always get it right? The answers may not be what you expect. Keep reading to find out more.

Know what a lot of prospects hate? I can tell you this because I hear it all the time. They hate videos where the speaker is making it all about them. Look at my house, my car, my boat, my company or whatever. Look at how successful I am. Guess what? Nobody cares. Sure, they want to know that they’re getting advice from somebody with credentials, but the genuflecting that goes on in some of these videos is almost comical. The speaker, or marketer to be more specific, is missing the point. They’re making it all about them. Instead, they should be making it about…the prospect.

That’s right. The prospect is the real star. The prospect is the person you want to focus on. How can you make their life better? Is it through a new piece of software? Maybe it’s a new book on health that will help them live longer. Whatever it is, the focus should be on the prospect and what you can do for that person. Then you want to focus on the product, service, procedure or whatever it is that’s going to make their life better. The last thing that you should focus on is you.

Now, there are exceptions. For example, let’s say you’re selling a program on bodybuilding. If you’re 300 pounds and all muscle and can press 550, yeah, you want to show the viewer of the video what YOU can do because of what you know. In this case, you MUST be the focus because that’s where all the credibility is. And even there, you don’t want to overdo it. You want to make it clear to the viewer that THEY can do this too by using your proven program. You still want to focus on how YOU can help THEM.

When you make a video, think about our audience and what they want to see. Think about what’s going through their mind while they’re watching the video. If you do this and always concentrate on THEIR needs and wants, you’ll almost always come up with a killer video that will rake in the sales.

To YOUR Success,
Steven Wagenheim

Want to find out how to create killer videos like my friend Kevin Riley and rake in a 6 figure income like he and I do? Check out my review of his dynamite product at my blog at http://stevenwagenheim.blogspot.com/2008/06/kevin-rileys-recipe-for-success.html

In my A-Z series on Internet marketing, we’re up to the letter B. I thought a good topic would be business planning. Why do I feel that way? Well, let me put it to you this way. Trying to market without a business plan is like trying to get a date with a super model when you look like Quasi Moto. My apologies to the hunchbacks of the world. Anyway, this article is going to talk about business planning, what it is, what it consists of and why it’s important. So I hope you’re taking notes.

Let’s start with what business planning is, because a lot of people really don’t understand this. Business planning, according to the dictionary, encompasses all the goals, strategies and actions that you envision taking to ensure your business’s survival and growth. So, you need to have goals (how much you want to make, plan to spend), strategies (how you’re going to spend this money, what market to tackle) and finally you must take action (where to advertise, what products to create or sell, etc.) So as you can see, business planning encompasses a lot of things.

Okay, we’ve covered what it is and, in sense, what it consists of, all in one shot. But, and this is probably the most important part…why is it important? I mean do you REALLY need a business plan to succeed? Are there people out there without a business plan who are having success? I’m sure if you looked hard enough, you would find some folks who maybe put up a blog with some affiliate product reviews, wrote a few articles, submitted them to directories, and maybe took out a solo ad or two once in a while who ARE having some success online. They may even be making a decent amount of money…in their eyes.

But that of course brings us to this question…is what I just described, in a way, a business plan? If the person was doing this consistently, had it all thought out, and decided that this was how they wanted to make money online, one could argue that this is indeed a business plan. Business plans are not written in stone. However, they all have one thing in common. They are all thought through…from the simplest to the most complex.

So by all means, if your business plan is nothing more than just putting up a blog and selling some affiliate products, then that’s fine. Just make sure that simple plan is thought carefully through in order to get the most out of it.

One man’s junk pile may just be another man’s business plan.

It’s all how you look at it.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business…FREE? Pick up my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!

Probably one of the most frustrating things you can run into as an affiliate marketer is a great product with a lousy sales page. What do you do? You know you could sell the product well if only the sales page was better. Well, there are a few things that you CAN do. This article is going to offer some suggestions for making the most out of these less than ideal situations.

Probably the easiest thing to do, and this works great for me, is to write a review of the product and in the review, mention that the sales page looks like garbage. Even tear it to shreds if you want. But make it crystal clear that the product itself is top notch. That kind of honesty will usually go a long way in converting a prospect who might not normally buy to a paying customer. It isn’t the ideal solution, as they still have to get through that horrible sales page, but if you warn them in advance, you’ve got a good shot at making the sale.

Another thing you can do is ask the product creator if they’ll allow you to make your own sales page for the product. Be honest and up front with them. Tell them that you feel the sales page is lacking and that you could make more sales if you had a better one to send people to. All the creator has to do is send you the pay link that you can then enter into the page itself. The reason I say to ask permission and not just make your own sales page is because the creator may not want another sales page out there representing their product…no matter how much “better” it might be.

There is no reason to let a poor sales page get in the way of you making sales. If you feel you can improve on the one that’s out there, do it. Maybe you can even give the product creator some suggestions on how to improve his sales page, if you feel you have the answers. If the changes bring them more sales, I’m sure they’ll thank you for it.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of being an affiliate failure? Want to turn yourself into an affiliate assassin like I am? Want to land in the top 20 of every affiliate promotion you tackle just like I do? Check out my site at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/affiliateassassin/index.html and start earning a solid income as an affiliate marketer.

For some reason, many beginning Internet marketers think that it has to cost a fortune to build an opt in list. It doesn’t. Truth is, you can build a substantial list of prospects for next to nothing. As a matter of fact, I do it for nothing more than the cost of my autoresponder service each month and have built a list of thousands of subscribers. In this article, I’m going to show you just one simple way to do this.

What I am going to show you takes no advertising expense whatsoever. You heard me…none. First thing you want to do is create a free report to give away based on the niche that you’re targeting. So, if you’re targeting the make money online niche, you want the report to have something to do with making money online. Make sure the report is of quality. There is no point giving away junk because then your list is going to be totally unresponsive to anything you have to offer.

Next thing you want to do is create a simple squeeze page in order to collect opt ins to give the report away. You can even do this in notepad. You don’t need any fancy HTML editors to make a squeeze page. Heck, there are places online where you can get free squeeze page templates already made for you. All you have to do is put in the code for your autoresponder.

That’s the next step. Get a decent autoresponder. I suggest Aweber or GetResponse. The cost is like $20 a month and is more than worth it. After you get your autoresponder, set up a series of emails to send to each person who subscribes. Make sure one of them contains the link to actually get the report you’re giving away.

Finally, to get people into your list, write a series of articles related to your niche and submit them to an article directory like EzineArticles. If the article is of good quality and the call to action in your resource box captures the reader’s attention, you’ll end up with another subscriber to your list.

Your total cost…your monthly autoresponder expense.

I have built a list of thousands doing just this. I spend no money on PPC or any other form of advertising. My point is, it doesn’t have to cost a fortune to build an opt in list.

I am living proof of it.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of not getting your emails delivered, read or opened? Sick of not making any sales from your email marketing efforts? Visit my site at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/emailmarketing/index.html and get your hands on 5 years of my personal experience with email marketing…experience that has earned me tens of thousands of dollars yearly.

Copywriting is an art. And like with any art, care must be taken when doing a design. You don’t see a painter recklessly tossing paint all over his canvas, do you? Well, maybe if he’s an abstract painter. But that’s besides the point. When creating your sales page, care must be taken. That means that any changes you make to the sales letter must also be done a little at a time. This article is going to explain why.

A sales letter, when all is said and done, comes down to conversion percent. How many people out of each 100 that views your letter actually turn out to be buyers? That’s all that matters. Now, when you first write your sales letter, it’s not going to be perfect the first time. I don’t care who you are. You’re going to put it out there and it’s going to convert at a certain percentage. Let’s say it converts at 1%. Okay, you’re pleased that it’s doing that well (some sales letters don’t convert at all) but you’re looking to do better. So where do you begin?

See, this is where a lot of beginning copywriters make their mistake. They look at their initial sales letter and scrap the whole thing, or most of it, because it didn’t do too well. They’ll change the headline,. most of the copy, rewrite the bullet points, change the graphics and do a ton of other things to the point where you can’t even recognize the original from the remake. This is absolutely the WRONG way to go about the process. You want to change one thing at a time. But why?

The answer is simple. You don’t know what changes you’re going to make are going to have what kind of effect if you do more than one at a time. For example, if you change even just the headline and the bullet points and your conversion goes from 1% to 1.5%, what made the change? Was it the headline? Was it the bullet points? Did one actually bring it back down while the other brought it back up? Now I know people talk about multivariate testing, but I’m not a big fan of it. And even with that, you don’t want to change more than a couple of things at a time. Changing a whole sales letter is just unproductive. You’re essentially shooting in the dark.

If you’re first starting out, change one thing ONLY and see what kind of an effect it has. If the change turned out to be for the worse, revert back to the original and try something else. If it turned out for the better, leave that change alone and then change another parameter. Keep doing this until you have a conversion for your sales letter that you’re happy with.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to write copy just like the pros? Visit my site at http://www.bcipe.com/ and discover killer copywriting tips that have allowed me to write my own copy for years and earn myself a 6 figure a year income selling my own products.