Article Marketing & Online Marketing Strategies from IdeaMarketers - Where Your Ideas Shine

Running Your Business from the Road

These days a lot of people have notebooks or portable devices to check their email as they travel, but for those who don't travel that often these technologies might be more of a nicety than a necessity. If you're away from your computer and need to check your email from a friend's or from a cybercafe, you can reach it without downloading it to another computer. Many Internet providers have ways for you to check your email from the Web, but if yours doesn't or you don't know how, here's a handy site that lets you check your email from anywhere - http://www.mail2web.com/

Shoestring Web Site Idea

Any web site traditionally has three components - the domain, hosting (a place for your site files to reside), and the site creation. What if you don't have a lot of money and know nothing about creating a web site? Can you still have your own domain to promote affiliate programs, your blog or your newsletter?

You sure can, and you can completely bypass the hosting and site creation fees. For example, let's say that you enjoy healthy eating/living and you want to start a blog about nutrition, weight management and natural foods. You will earn money from it by promoting different affiliate products. You also want your own domain name so that you can put your site on a business card or give it to friends over the phone. Here's a shoestring method for getting your own domain and blog:

1) Decide on a blog service. Many of them are available for free. I like www.typepad.com . They have a free service or an economical advanced service. You can also get free blogging at www.blogspot.com . Use one of these user-friendly services to set up your blog.

2) Go to a domain registration service. I like www.Dotster.com . It's easy to use and manage my domains. A domain costs $14.95/year with Dotster. Sometimes they run specials for even less. Use their search function to find out if the domain you want is available and then buy it.

3) While you're buying your domain, buy a URL Forwarder for $5/year. You can now point your domain anywhere you'd like. For example, you could set it up so that YourDomain.com automatically goes to yourblog.blogspot.com. If you use "Masked URL Forwarding" then to the visitor, it will still look like they are on YourDomain.com.

4) Now you just put YourDomain.com on your business cards, in your email signature, and on your other marketing materials. With this method, you have a snazzy looking blog/web site for as little as $19.95/year!

I use this technique a lot to point URL's to directories on my web sites. For example www.CleanRomanceClub.com is really working off www.1ChapterFree.com/cleanromance/  . I do this for two reasons:

1. It cuts down on my hosting bill.

2. It makes management easier. I get to use the membership management system I already built for 1ChapterFree.com to power CleanRomanceClub.com . I use this same system to power www.LDSFictionReaders.com and www.BelieversAtWork.com . My motto is always create once ... use many ... sell many.

Strategy for Online Success: Take Action!

You might wonder what this post has to do with on-line marketing, but if you'll keep reading, you'll discover a strategy that is critical for on-line success. I have known so many people who talk and plan but who never take action. Or if they do, they're like elephants trying to turn on a dime. By the time they make their move, the opportunity no longer exists. The face of the Internet changes from minute-to-minute. One must be willing to make decisions quickly and take action on gut instincts. If you spend too much time mulling over a decision, you could miss important windows of opportunity.

If you have an idea for a web site or a virtual product or service, don't spend an excessive amount of time pondering over it. Take action. Buy the domain, build the site, and start promoting it. You'll never know if the idea is good until you test it. Sure, you're going to make mistakes. Yes, some of your decisions will be wrong. No, you don't have to have everything figured out to get started. Just do what you can and keep adapting and tweaking until you get it right. Learn and test as you go along. The victory goes to those who "do," not to those who talk.

Rome wasn't built in a day and neither is a successful on-line business. Give it time. Those who are willing to make timely decisions, act upon them, and adapt with determination to persevere are the ones who achieve success.

As Theodore Roosevelt said, "It’s not the critic that counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man (or woman) who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs and often comes up short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have known neither victory nor defeat."

Insider Secrets to Self-Publishing

For several months I've been mulling over the idea of conducting a teleclass on the subject of self-publishing. Today, I finally decided to run with it. So if you're one of those people who has a manuscript sitting on your computer and you aren't quite sure what to do with it - whether to send it to a publisher or self-publish it yourself, whether to print it in paperback or make it available as a downloadable ebook, then this class will give you the basics of what you need to know.

I've done it every which way - self-publishing over a dozen titles in ebook and print, fiction and non, and now have been picked up by a "real live publisher." Print on demand and ebook technology have revolutionized the publishing industry. You're no longer at the mercy of publishing houses. As a matter of fact, I've earned more profit from selling fiction ebooks than most writers earn from a traditional publishing contract!

In this class, I'll be sharing a step-by-step method for self-publishing that works. Insider Secrets to Self-Publishing is a free 1-hour teleclass to be held on Tuesday, April 11, 2006. If you're interested, click here to register. Attendance is limited, so please only register if you really plan to attend the call.

Coaches, Do You Have All the Clients You Need?

If you're a coach or a consultant, do you have all the clients you need? If not, you might find this post interesting...

Back in 1999, I first learned about the field of coaching when a coach volunteered her services to me for a 3-month trial period. I’ve always been a “get it done” kind of person and really didn't think I needed a coach, but I wanted to learn more about it since many of our writers on IdeaMarketers.com were coaches. I was amazed at how much I was able to accomplish with this woman’s help! The Publisher’s Toolbox system on IdeaMarketers is a direct result of that coaching experience, as is SheLovesGod.com.

Eventually, I worked a barter arrangement with her where she worked with me for about 18 months in exchange for me promoting and marketing her coaching practice. We worked together until she retired to dedicate her time to her first baby. In the process of promoting this coach’s services (and other coach’s services), I learned an immense amount about promoting this field of business online.

Coaching is one of those illusive services that is hard to quantify – "a better life," "more peace," "more free time"... none of this really tells you anything you can grab onto. Why would you want to spend your money on something you can’t quantify? Not only do coaches need to learn to quantify what they do for people, but also they have to get out there and prove that they are experts in their fields. It takes writing articles, doing teleclasses, putting your name and face in front of your prospects repeatedly. The LocateACoach.com system is an automated compilation of everything I’ve learned about promoting coaches online.

Most people think this site is just a directory of coaches, but it is SO much more than that. It’s a system for marketing a coaching practice. It takes the powerhouse traffic of IdeaMarketers and puts it at a coach’s disposal. Free members can list their coaching services in LocateACoach, but for those who are willing to pay a modest fee, they gain access to powerful marketing services on IdeaMarketers.com.

Hands down, the best bang-for-a-coach’s-buck is a Gold membership for $29.95/month. They get the following:

• $30 in promotional bid dollars every month that they can use to promote their articles at IdeaMarketers,
• a Publisher's Toolbox PRO account for creating killer-ezines and finding content for their sites,
• their teleclasses are promoted on IdeaMarketers!
• their profile on LocateACoach is enhanced with their articles, teleclasses, special offers, etc.
• and much more!

It’s an amazingly powerful group of services... IF the coach will get in there and use it. It's one of those sites where the more you put in about yourself, the more we can promote you. The question you might have is, "Is it hard to use?" No, it’s incredibly simple! Even the biggest technophobe can use this site. It’s all just fill-in-the-blank. The biggest skill one needs to know is how to cut and paste.

So if you’re a coach, hop on over and give it a try…

Are You Getting All the Traffic You Deserve from Your Articles?

Here's a little known tool at IdeaMarketers that only a few writers take advantage of... Did you know that your article listing on the home page and channel pages of IdeaMarketers can link directly to the article on your site? I'm not talking about the headline linking to the article on our site and then there being a link over to your site. I'm talking about the headline linking STRAIGHT to your web site to display the article. This is one of those tools that I dreamed up one night that I haven't marketed to its fullest, but it's extremely powerful.

Here's an example, if you look at any of Ted Sares' articles on the home page of IdeaMarketers, they'll link to Ted's articles on his site!

Pay close attention to this, because this is powerful stuff! IdeaMarketers' home page is a hot spot in Google's mind. It's a PR5 page ... it's the home page of a site that receives 1.2 - 1.6 million page view a month! A keyword targeted link off this home page directly to your site is worth an immense amount!

Not to mention that we're sending our traffic straight to your site where visitors can then view other resources you have to offer! It's powerful from a search engine perspective AND from the standpoint that you've got a much better shot of grabbing your visitor and getting them to buy something once they're on your site!

An added benefit to this service is that you have a dynamic library of your articles on your site that is easily managed from your IdeaMarketers Writer account. Every time you add/edit/remove articles from your IdeaMarketers account, the changes are instantly reflected on your site!

For further details, learn about our Article Content Management System here. For a limited time, we're offering free setup with a 1-year subscription! Hmmm... this is so powerful, I should probably be charging more. You better hop on while I'm in a generous mood. :)

Getting on the Radio

I'm certainly no expert on getting on the radio. I've done a little of it, but have never taken the time to become proficient. But one of our writers sent me a site that looks like a great place to learn about radio promotion. Wayne Kelly, who's been in radio over a decade, has a teleclass entitled 30 Days to Radio Success. The class is starting today... so I'm a bit late on posting this. But, he does have a 30-minute preview call there that you can listen to through your computer. It had some great information on it, and I'm sure he'll be holding the class again. One site he mentioned that is a great resource when approaching radio stations is http://www.radio-locator.com/ . It's a comprehensive radio search engine. You can use this site to target radio stations that reach your audience.

For example, if I wanted to promote my Christian book, "You Can't Fly If You're Still Clutching the Dirt: How to Stop Worrying and Achieve Your God-Given Potential" I'd do best doing a search under "Christian Contemporary."  If I choose this category, it delivers 194 matches, and there are links to each of the stations. I can then visit sites, study their format and find just the right individual to contact about interviewing me on my book. A fantastic resource!

Second Alternative on Proofreading

We've decided to offer two tiers of proofreading on articles - one price for articles that are 600 words or less and a second pricing for articles that are between 601-2,000 words. Receive details on our proofreading service here.

Here's a special offer for our blog readers: Place a 7-day bid for promotion of $30 or more on any article, and we'll give you a complimentary proofreading on that article! Just place the bid and then email me at [email protected] to request your complimentary proofreading! Offer good through April 15, 2006.

Btw, our editors are too busy proofing your articles to proof my blog. So if you ever find typos or errors in my blog... know it's because I've got a million and one irons in the fire, and I'm just trying to get the information out to you in the timeliest way I can while keeping our editors working on things that matter most. :)

How to Increase Your Email's Open Rate

Did you know that about 70% of email received in the US is perceived as spam?  Either it never even makes it through the individual's mail server, or it's blocked by their email spam filters or the person deletes it as junk mail. So how do you get your ezine or announcement to your subscriber list and know that they'll actually read it?

Recently, I've been using a handy little free service that checks for spam triggers - www.ezinecheck.com . You just copy and paste your email into a form on their site and submit. Then it tells you all the words/phrases or triggers in your email that would be red flags to spam filters. When my assistant and I started running our IdeaMarketers newsletters through the program, we were appalled to realize that most of our subscribers were not given a chance to receive the newsletters to which they had subscribed.

Abbie Drew of DEMC has an excellent article that covers this important topic for on-line marketers: "How to Increase Your Emails Open Rate." If you're publishing an ezine or have any type of email contact list, you'll definitely want to read this article. Using ezinechecker.com is just one technique Abbie suggests. She also talks about keeping emails shorter and then linking to your site to give people the full details.

Again, I've been experimenting with this technique, and it definitely works. In a recent email where I sent out an announcement about a free ebook on How to Become a Syndicated Columnist on the Web, I actually had a 24% download rate within the first 2 days! That's people who not only read the email, but also visited the site and downloaded the ebook. The email was short, to the point and included a link for downloading... I ran it through www.ezinecheck.com and sent it out. Powerful!

Understanding Statistics on Articles

This question was submitted by Dennis AuBuchon of www.myqualitywriting.com :

"I was reviewing my articles in the edit/remove screen and it indicated that I had 2 syndicated hits for my Free Speech and Integrity article.  I would like to know who the hits were by if that is possible.  I did not have any requests in my account where it states view requests unless I am not looking in the right location.  When you click on the view requests link on your site where does the information appear."

There are 3 types of statistics we offer you on your articles.

1. Requests. The first is under the "Requests" link in your writer login area. This link shows you only the people using our Publisher's Toolbox system who have put your article in their basket when building a newsletter. It doesn't mean they actually printed your article or published it in any way. It only means they added it to their basket for possible publication.

2. Hits on our site(s). Whenever your article is viewed on our site(s), a hit counter is incremented so you can tell how many times someone has opened the page for your article.

3. Syndicated Hits. Whenever your article is shown on outside sites through either our Writer Syndication or Category Syndication systems, this hit counter is incremented. If you've never received an email saying someone has picked up your syndicated column, then most likely your article was viewed through the Category Syndication.

We syndicate the top 15 articles in Business, Marketing, Tech, Home/Family, Personal Development, Christian, etc... The top 15 articles in each channel category are sorted from highest to lowest bidder and then by date. You must mark your articles as "syndicateable" in our system to be included in our channel category syndication program. Site owners pick up a snippet of code from us, put it on their sites and then the top 15 articles for a category will automatically stream onto their sites. This is a live feed from our database so the stream can change from moment-to-moment.

In your situation, most likely your article spent some time in category syndication.

There's no way for us to tell you exactly who ran your article when, but you will receive an email anytime someone picks up your personal Syndicated Column or anytime someone fills out a "Request to Reprint" form on our site.