Steve Wagenheim’s Home Business Blog

If you’ve been marketing online for a while, whether it’s a product you created or one that you’re promoting as an affiliate, you’ve got some site up online. If it’s your own product, it’s a sales page. If it’s an affiliate product, it’s some kind of blog or landing page where you’re either reviewing the product or just making a brief pitch. In either case, your web site stinks and you know it. Let me explain before you take your head off.

Let’s start with your own sales page first. If you’re reading this article, then you probably suspected that what I am saying is true. A big name marketer with massive amounts of success wouldn’t be reading this, unless it was to amuse himself. But you’re reading it because you know it’s true. The question is, WHY is it true?

For starters, you probably designed the sales page yourself. Marketers just starting out don’t have the bucks to spend on a copywriter so they do the job on their own. The results show. Your sales page looks like garbage. Forget that the copy itself is weak and converts at less than 1%…if that good. And if you did get a copywriter, you got one of those $197 specials from somebody just starting out. Unless you’re VERY lucky, that copy isn’t much better than your own. Either way, your sales page stinks…and you know it.

Now let’s move on to affiliate marketing. This is where these pages get even worse. See most affiliate marketers who are just starting out can’t even afford to get themselves hosting and a domain to at least give the appearance that they’re running a professional business. So, they get some free hosting account that gives them some URL that’s as long as the Gettysburg Address and littered with banners and ads all over the place. It looks like a carnival. Then they slap some lame review or copy together and toss it up there like yesterday’s trash. Can you say “stinks big time?”

If I’m wrong, please feel free to disregard the rest of this article because you don’t need the advice that’s about to follow. What advice?

For sales pages…hire a pro. You get what you pay for. If you have a product WORTH selling, get yourself a copywriter with the chops to get the job done. Make sure your graphics are done by a pro too as well as the page design itself. Unless you are a killer copywriter, you can’t get away with a weak looking page. A great copywriter can slap his words on a white background and make sales.

For landing pages, get yourself professional hosting. It will only cost a few bucks a month. Get a domain that isn’t so long that people can’t remember the name. If you can’t write content, get a content writer. Don’t leave anything to chance.

Bottom line is simple. If you’re going to do a job…do it right or don’t do it at all.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Is your site sinking like a dead weight in the SERPs? Want to get your site to the TOP of the SERPs? Pick up Kurt Melvin’s Think Links. You can read my complete review of the product at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/internet-marketing/review-of-think-links-for-seo.html

This article was inspired by an interesting conversation over at the Warrior Forum. We were discussing who to buy from and who to trust. It them dawned on me that just because somebody wasn’t a brilliant business person didn’t mean that they weren’t to be trusted. They might have other things to offer. Let me show you what I mean with an example.

Few people know this, but in my early days before the Internet, I was a computer geek. I did programming at this one company I worked for. I could come up with some great programs, but I was no business person. I would have never known how to market them. It didn’t make the programs themselves worthless.

Some people are under the impression that in order to be respected in this business, you have to do it all. If you’re a programmer or graphics designer or whatever your business is, you have to be able to do the technical part of it AND be a great business person as well.

Unfortunately, no matter how talented you are, if you don’t know how to get your talents to the masses, you’re not going to do much business. BUT…that doesn’t mean that you have to do it yourself. If you really have no head for marketing, hire a marketing manager. Certainly if you have a product that you know for certain is going to help people and sell, the money spent will be well worth it.

Conversely, let’s say you have tons of marketing smarts but you have absolutely NO product to sell. Guess what? That smart guy who doesn’t know how to market water to a man dying of thirst…he’s looking for somebody like YOU to help him sell HIS product. Work out a deal with him. Ask for an affiliate commission if you don’t just want to settle for a marketing fee. There are many ways you can get a decent income out of this situation.

Point is, in both of these situations, something was lacking for each person. They didn’t have the whole package. And yet, there was plenty of opportunity for each person to be successful as long as they hooked themselves up with the right person…thus making it so that it wasn’t necessary to have to do it all.

Too many home business owners work themselves up into a frenzy because they don’t have certain skills. What they SHOULD be doing is looking to see how they can get OTHERS who DO have those skills in order to put together one solid business plan.

It’s not as hard as you might think.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Sick and tired of all the home business schemes? Want one that will really deliver on its promises? Read my totally unbiased review of Carbon Copy PRO at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/internet-marketing/review-of-carbon-copy-pro.html and get yourself a home business that is all substance.

In a recent article, I went over some of the biggest SEO myths. Because there are so many of them, I couldn’t possibly go over them all. So, in this article, I’ve picked out a few more SEO myths that I am sure you believed at one time or another. Don’t feel bad. Everybody, including myself, falls for these at some point in time. It does take a while to smarten up and realize that people are just feeding you a load of horse manure. Anyway, I hope you find these helpful.

I’m going to start off with a myth that really drives me crazy. It has to do with getting your site crawled by the search engines, or more specifically, how NOT to get them crawled. Many people are under the impression that simply by adding some code to your robots.txt file that this will do the trick. Sadly, no. The search engines have ways of getting around this. The only REAL way to keep your page from getting crawled is to password protect it. That way, the search engines can’t possibly get past it. Sorry, but if you want fool proof, that is your only option.

Then we have this myth…You know that description that you see whenever you do a keyword search? People have been lead to believe that this description will be whatever you designate in your meta tags. Well, here’s another one that gets blown out of the water. The search engines will crawl your page and pick out little bits and pieces of phrases that it feels are relevant and add them to the description. So don’t be surprised if, when you do a search for your site in the listings, that it isn’t exactly what you thought it would be.

Here is one of my favorites. The higher your page rank, the higher you will rank in the listings. While at one time page rank did help a bit, today, it is all but worthless. Google has recently made some major changes in the way page rank is handled and quite honestly, don’t even worry about it any longer. It’s as close to worthless as you’re going to get. Yeah, I know…some people are never going to believe that, and that’s fine. But I don’t even know what the page ranks of my sites are…nor do I care.

There you have it. Just a few more pieces of misinformation that you can tuck under your cap. And the sad part is…this is just the tip of the iceberg. Maybe I’ll write another article in the future with yet some more SEO myths. And who knows…maybe some day, these myths will be a thing of the past.

One can only hope.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Is your site sinking like a dead weight in the SERPs? Want to get your site to the TOP of the SERPs? Pick up Kurt Melvin’s Think Links. You can read my complete review of the product at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/internet-marketing/review-of-think-links-for-seo.html

As much as I don’t mean to, this article is going to come off as a bit of a rant against people who decide to start their own home business and try to do it on the cheap, or worse…at no cost at all. I understand that times are tough but as with anything else, you get what you pay for. And if you’re not willing to invest in your business, quite honestly, you probably shouldn’t bother at all. This article explains.

Let’s start off with something basic. If you’re going to run a home business on the Internet, there is one basic thing that you need…a web site. Now, having one consists of two things…the site itself and a hosting company to host it for you. Now, the site you can design yourself if you have the skills. No problem there. There are even free HTML editors that you can download that will do a respectable job. So far, so good.

But what about the hosting? Well, yes, there are free hosting companies…tons of them. But here is where we run into problems. See, there are serious limitations with free hosting companies. One of them is the actual look of your site. The reason these companies stay in business is because they force the people who use them to clutter up their site with their ads. This ends up making your site look TOTALLY unprofessional and, at least for the purpose of making money, worthless.

And hosting is just a basic function. What do you think happens when we start getting to the more advanced parts of running a home business? What about promotion? Sure, there are plenty of places to advertise your business for free. But what do you think the problem is with these places? Well, think about it logically. If these places are free then that means that everybody who is looking for free advertising is using them. That translates into more competition for you as far as prospects seeing your ads. The truth is, on most of these free sites, your ads will NOT be seen. So free, in this case, is worthless.

I could go on but I think you get the point. I know it sounds like a terribly old cliche, but it’s true. You really DO get what you pay for. When I first started my home business in 2003, my monthly expenses were a few hundred dollars a month…and THAT was cheap. Had I tried to do this at no cost, I would have never made it to where I am today. It just wouldn’t have been possible.

Anyway, you have to do what’s right for you. I’m just trying to show you that the free way isn’t always the best way, and in some cases…it can be downright a waste of time.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Sick and tired of all the home business schemes? Want one that will really deliver on its promises? Read my totally unbiased review of Carbon Copy PRO at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/internet-marketing/review-of-carbon-copy-pro.html and get yourself a home business that is all substance.

Imagine if you will, this common scenario.

A web site builder puts together his site. He is very meticulous about every detail. He’s got the perfect domain name, his H1 tag just so, his anchor text perfect and enough content to choke a horse. He’s gotten himself backlinks from some great sites. His site, after just a few days, is number 3 on Google’s hit parade. He is on top of the world.

And then it happens…the dreaded Google dance, or as I call it, “The Google Shuffle.” Maybe I should write a song about it. But I digress.

Anyway, the Google dance takes place and this site is now nowhere to be found. The site owner is in an absolute panic. So he starts tinkering with the site. He starts slamming it with content, some of it which is not so good, and goes about doing some other things that I won’t mention here because I don’t want to give anybody any bad ideas. He does everything he can to save his site…only to end up making matters worse and getting it sandboxed for life.

If only he had left things alone.

Truth be told, most new sites get a pretty good boost up the rankings the first day or two. This is common. Then, as Google gets a feel for your site, it then settles down to where it should be AT THAT POINT IN TIME. Then, when you’ve settled in, THAT is when you SLOWLY start to work on your site. Maybe add one or two pieces of content a day. Don’t go crazy. And don’t go crazy with getting backlinks either. Too many, too fast is trouble.

But don’t tinker with the structure of the site unless there are really some major things wrong with it, in which case you wouldn’t have hit number three on the hit parade in the first place. Your site, with many flaws, would have been nowhere to be found and you wouldn’t be in a panic in the first place. Well, you’d be in a panic…just a different kind of panic. At least then, you’d have something to panic about.

SEO is a time intensive task. It doesn’t happen overnight and it isn’t permanent. There will always be new sites coming up and trying to take your place in the rankings. Therefore, you will always have to add content and get backlinks. But don’t do it all at once and don’t panic when Google does its dance.

It’s just part of the process.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Is your site sinking like a dead weight in the SERPs? Want to get your site to the TOP of the SERPs? Pick up Kurt Melvin’s Think Links. You can read my complete review of the product at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/internet-marketing/review-of-think-links-for-seo.html

Well, we’re just a week away from the New Year (as of this writing) and I am sure a lot of marketers are wondering if 2010 is going to be any different than 2009. Well, if you’re looking to me to answer that question, you’re looking in the wrong place. Where you should be looking is in the mirror. If you’re not quite sure what I’m talking about, keep reading. This article SHOULD make things crystal clear.

Sure, there are going to be technical changes in 2010. There are ALWAYS changes. Look at 2009. Google put the clamps down on crappy landing pages, Ezine Articles cracked down on crappy articles and the FTC has declared war on scammy web sites. We saw Twitter become a major phenomenon. New methods of promotion popped up along with new products and services. Sure, those things are going to occur every year. But that’s not the kind of “different” I’m talking about.

What I’m talking about is YOU. Are YOU going to be any different in 2010? More to the point…are you finally going to have the kind of success that you SHOULD have? And please, don’t look to new technology or Google or the FTC to save your backside. If anything, they’re only going to make things harder for you, especially if you’ve been playing with fire in 2009. No, you’re going to have to pull yourself up by your own boot straps and get it together. But how?

Ah, sadly, that is a question that only YOU can answer as well. Everybody has a different business model and therefore a different way of doing things. If you’ve been using pay per click and your campaigns haven’t been as profitable as you’d like, maybe you need to take a look at a few things. For starters, the product you’re promoting. Is it something people really want? What about your ads? Are they written as well as they could be? Are you targeting the right keywords? Are they keywords buyers look up or are they the ones that tire kickers use?

What about if you’re using article marketing to get people to your site? Is your landing page worth squat? If it’s not, the greatest article in the world isn’t going to do diddle. For that matter, if your resource box isn’t up to snuff, nobody is ever going to hit your landing page. And naturally, your articles better be well written with a catch title that actually gets people to read it in the first place. Every little detail must be just so or your campaign is going to be derailed.

Point is, you need to go over what you’re doing with a fine tooth comb and make sure you have all the T’s crossed and the I’s dotted. Otherwise, you’re going to be throwing away time AND money that you can’t afford to squander.

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

This article is specifically for Internet marketers who sell their own products. If you don’t sell your own product, you can skip this one. Okay, for those of your left…question time. What sells your product? Is it the product itself or is it your sales letter? No, this isn’t a trick question but hopefully, my thought process here will actually help you sell more product and have fewer refunds in the process.

Way too many marketers think that in order to sell their product, they have to have some slick copy written by a big shot copywriter. And then, if they do that…they don’t have to worry about the actual quality of the product because the copy will do the selling. Well, yes and no and for the yes part…maybe not the best idea. Let me explain.

Sure, a sizzling hot copy can sell a crappy product. I have seen it time and time again. You read this fantastic sales page and then you buy the product and you find it’s nothing with nothing. For me, these sales pages are doing the product creator a disservice because of the number of refunds they’re probably getting.

Instead, here is a novel idea. And I know you copywriters are going to hate reading this. How about the product creator actually creates a killer product that actually does what it says it does and THEN write copy that doesn’t go over the top and just states what the product does and how it can help the customer? Yeah, I know…it’s a novel concept.

See, I truly believe that if you have a solid product, you don’t have to have a copywriter write a tons of hype and borderline lies to sell it. Yeah, I know…a lot of marketers AND copywriters will tell me that you have to sell HARD. I don’t know…I never had to and I’m doing fine. But maybe I’m just a weird animal.

But let’s get back to the question that this article asks. Is your product selling itself or do you owe your copywriter a big bonus at the end of the year? Look, I’m not trying to be your conscience here but eventually, you sell enough products that have to be artificially pumped up by a slick sales page and you’re going to be working at a McDonald’s asking patrons if they want fries with their burger.

Next chance you get, take a look at your product and your sales page and answer this question honestly…

Which is better?

I know what I want MY answer to be.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Need a sales letter that will get the job done…PERIOD! Hire a copywriter who has been in the trenches marketing his own products for 7 years. Visit my site at http://www.bcipe.com/copywriting_service.html for details and get copy that isn’t over the top and overpriced.

In Internet marketing, there are tons of myths…and they’re almost like a plague. Unfortunately, many new marketers hear these myths and take them as gospel. With SEO, this is no different. In fact, I think there are more SEO myths than anything else when it comes to marketing online. Well, in this article, I am going to share what I believe are the biggest SEO myths going around. You can take this information to heart or with a grain of salt. That choice is yours.

At the top of my list is all this nonsense about keyword saturation on a page. Some people say 2%, others say 4%. I don’t care what number gets thrown at you. Google (the top search engine) has algorithms that will detect any pattern, whatever it is, that you use. So if you use 4% for each of your pages, Google will figure it out. If you use 2%, same thing. So what I do, and this has worked very well for me, is that I don’t even pay attention to the actual keyword saturation. I let the chips fall where they may, keeping in mind that I want to stay on topic and provide the reader with relevant information. If you do that, you’ll perform a lot better with the SERPs than if you try to stuff your pages with keywords.

Next on my list is this one. You can do all your SEO in one shot. Yeah, and pigs can fly. SEO is not a one shot deal. Sure, maybe you can put your site together in a day and get IT optimized in a day, but there is more to SEO than just what you did with the site itself. There are a lot of factors that affect SEO that take time, such as getting backlinks. In fact, there is more work to do OFF PAGE than there is to do on page. And these things take time. Getting 1,000 backlinks right away is going to get you sandboxed faster than you can say “Bob’s your Uncle.” Okay, got it? SEO takes time.

Finally, and I love this one, if you do everything that you need to do to properly SEO your site, you will reach number one and NEVER have to do another thing again. Yeah, I wish. The real truth is, the guy who is number two is going to be constantly looking to knock you off your pedestal, and the guy behind him and the guy behind him. It is a never ending war. I had a site that I thought would be number 1 forever. So I stopped working it and now it’s number 6. So the work starts all over again. Okay, got it? It never ends.

There you have it…the three biggest SEO myths..at least in my opinion. Are there others? Plenty. Maybe in future articles I’ll touch on some of them. In the meantime, don’t forget…keyword saturation should be flexible, you can’t do all your SEO in one shot and nothing you do will ever be enough to keep you on top forever. The work never ends.

Fortunately, this article does.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Is your site sinking like a dead weight in the SERPs? Want to get your site to the TOP of the SERPs? Pick up Kurt Melvin’s Think Links. You can read my complete review of the product at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/internet-marketing/review-of-think-links-for-seo.html

A lot of copywriters just starting out ask about swipe files. They ask what they are, how to use them and even if it’s okay to use them. Well, depending on who you ask, you’re going to get a lot of different answers. So instead of trying to confuse you with a lot of answers, I’m going to give you the ones most commonly responded with and then add a little bit of my own common sense advice. Take this advice for what it’s worth to you.

First of all, what’s a swipe file? Simply put, a swipe file is a file that contains bits and pieces of a copywriter’s work. It could contain a number of headlines, maybe some subheads, bullet points, price pitches, guarantees and so on. Many copywriters use these. I do not, but I’ll get into the why of that later. These swipe files are used to get ideas for your own sales letter. At least that’s what they’re SUPPOSED to be for.

Okay, so now that you know what a swipe file is and what it is used for, the next question is, where do you get them from and are they okay to use?

Swipe files can be gotten from a number of places. The copywriters themselves may actually have files on their site that you can download. Other swipe files are created from actual sales letters by the copywriter doing the swiping.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Is that legal?” Again, it depends on who you ask. Many copywriters will actually encourage you to borrow their work to get inspiration from. Notice I said “inspiration” and not outright copying. A copywriter worth his salt will NOT flat out copy the material but use it to come up with similar ideas that will actually fit HIS sales letter. And many copywriters have no problem with this.

However, there are some copywriters who will sue your backside off if you even take a word of their work. They make it very clear that their work is copyrighted and that you have NO claim to it under any circumstances.

So what do YOU do? This is where I am going to give you some common sense advice. Take it for what it’s worth to you. If you see a copywriter’s work and it doesn’t specifically say that you can or can’t use it, contact the copywriter and ask. It’s that simple. He will either say yes or no. If yes, feel free to use the work. If no, I strongly advise against using it anyway unless you have a good lawyer.

There you have it. That’s the deal with swipe files. If you can get your hands on some legally, they can be very valuable to your copywriting. But do NOT use them word for word. Apply them to your OWN sales letter. You will get much better results anyway as each piece of copy SHOULD be tailored to the sales letter it is being written for.

And no two sales letters are ever exactly the same.

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.

I always encourage people to ask me questions when they have a problem with their marketing. That’s what I’m here for…to help people. But there are three questions that you NEVER ask an Internet marketer. I don’t care how close you feel to the person. These questions are just not asked under ANY circumstance. Okay, you’re probably wondering what they are. Well, wonder no more. I am now going to reveal just what these questions are. Ask them at your own peril.

Question number 1 – “How much money do you make?” Now think about this for a second. Imagine you walk into a bar and sit down next to somebody and you start having a casual conversation about the weather, favorite football team or whatever. Then suddenly, you say to the guy, “So, by the way…how much money do you make?” Either the guy is going to give you a dirty look or slug you one. I know in some countries this is not so taboo. But in the US, you just don’t ask people how much they make. It is NOT cool. Don’t do it.

Question number 2 – “What niche can I get into that will make me a lot of money?” Okay, this is another one that you’re not going to get an answer to. Let’s be honest. These marketers work very hard to find these niches that are making them a good living. Do you REALLY think they’re just going to share them with you out of the goodness of their heart? The last thing they want is more competition. Now, I’m not saying there’s not reason for them NOT to tell you because quite honestly, you entering the market isn’t going to have any impact on THEIR business. But this is the way marketers think. So don’t ask this question as you’re likely to get a very snarky response.

Question number 3 – “Can I have your product and pay you IF I make money with it?” Okay, this is one that really burns me up. I understand that some people are low on funds and really can’t afford things, but I’m sorry…if you can’t afford to invest in your own business then you have no business being in business. That’s the way I see it and that’s the way a lot of other marketers see it. Plus, I make everybody else pay for my product so why should I treat you any different? It is this entitlement mentality that drives me and every other marketer up the wall. Anyway don’t do it!

There you have it…the three questions that you should NEVER ask another Internet marketer.

Unless of course you want to end up with coal in your stocking this Christmas.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to know what the 7 Deadly Sins of Internet Marketing are? Get my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/7deadlysins/7deadlysins.html and save your business from going down the tubes before it even has a chance.