Dimdim.com - excellent conferencing

Website find of the day

Dimdim.com

Visit http://www.dimdim.com to see a demonstration of a new and very powerful online conferencing tool.

It's FREE up to 20 participants. Some uses: Share your desktop, Show slides, Talk, Listen, Chat and Broadcast via Webcam

This is a very sleek system for personal or business use.

Greg Cryns
The Mighty Mo Website Design and Business Promotion
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Online newsletters

20 Ways To Make $100 A Day Online

Here is a guest post by one of the Internet's finest writers. There are many reasons to write fine articles than just to attract search engines to your website. Great articles will gain visitors on their own power.


Newsletter Publishers: The Redheaded Step Children Of Internet Marketing
Copyright (c) 2009 Bill Platt
the Phantom Writers
http://thePhantomWriters.com


People who publish online newsletters, often referred to as
"ezines", have always played an important role in the growth of
the Internet economy. In fact, if you listen to any of the
Internet gurus, they are going to tell you time and again that
the most important thing you can do towards the success of your
online business is to build a list.

I think Titus Hoskins said it best when he said, "It is a well
known fact that the key to successful online marketing comes from
building a well targeted and responsive opt-in email list. This
is mainly because your online marketing success comes from
building relationships with a large subscriber base." Titus is
the owner of http://www.bizwaremagic.com/

Successful newsletter publishers have built profitable niche
businesses that represent the very specific needs of very
specific consumers in the marketplace. While it is true that some
newsletter publishers have subscribers that number in the
hundreds, those who have been building their newsletter for years
have a subscriber base ranging in the 10's to 100's of
thousands of subscribers.

Joel Christopher (http://www.masterlistbuilder.com) says, "It's
not just about building a list of names and emails, it's about
building relationships and connections." He also says that
newsletters are "not about huge numbers, it's about
conversions. Converting names and emails into prospects, then
into customers/clients, and finally into people who will promote
you."

For the newsletter publisher, it is about giving readers what
they want and to win the loyalty of their readers for the years
to come.

Alexandria K. Brown, The Ezine Queen (http://www.ezinequeen.com/)
advises her clients, "By showcasing your knowledge and skills,
you will attract more and better clients and customers. You
don't have to go say you're an expert. Instead, your audience
will assume it." She also recommends, "What many folks don't
know is that THE easiest and most effective way to do all this is
to publish an e-mail newsletter or ezine."

As an advertiser, it makes a lot of sense to have your ads appear
in the newsletters that best serve your target market -
preferably in those newsletters that have a large subscriber base
of responsive readers.

Ironically, it was newsletter marketing that turned me on to the
potential of article marketing to promote my online endeavors.
Ten years ago, I had a newsletter of my own. In order to grow my
opt-in mailing list, I began doing advertising swaps with other
newsletter publishers - a process by which I ran an ad for the
other newsletter, and in turn they ran my ad in their newsletter.

As the result of those advertising swaps, I found that some
newsletters had a really responsive group of readers. I was so
impressed with the interest generated for my business in some
newsletters that I began to pay for advertising in those mailing
lists.

Angela Booth (http://www.hotwebcopy.com/newsletters.html) says,
"Once someone is on your ezine's subscriber list, you can
connect with them each week or each month. Since you need to have
several interactions (some authorities say up to seven times)
with a customer before they buy, an ezine gives you the ideal way
to build the customer relationship." Booth also pointed out that
"An ezine can be 'the lifeblood' of your business."

Yes, the money is in the list. And there is money not only for
the person, who owns the mailing list, but also the advertiser
who supports the publisher of the newsletter, and the persons who
are involved in contributing content to the newsletter.

I never fully appreciated that concept until March 6, 2000. That
is the day that my first "reprint article" was published in a
newsletter called Internet Day. It was a fairly substantial
publication, formerly operated by http://www.Internet.com. In
2000, Internet Day had over 150,000 subscribers. The response to
that article was huge. I signed on a boatload of new subscribers
to my newsletter, and I began to field questions from other
Internet marketers about their businesses.

Suddenly, I was considered an expert, and my advice was in
demand.

Between you and I, although the article was decent, it was not
exceptional, and I was not the guru that so many of Internet
Day's readers wanted to believe that I was.

But, Internet Day did teach me a very important lesson about the
value of writing reprint articles. When an article gets published
in a newsletter, it can drive a boatload of traffic to the
authors' website on the day of publication, and over the next
three days after publication.

In a recent article of his own, Willie Crawford
(http://timic.org/) explained, "I also understand that part of
my job as an ezine publisher is to serve as a filter. My
subscribers learn to expect quality from me, and will pay more
attention to future offers from me than they will from the
marketers who filled their hard drives with a bunch of useless
'fluff'."

When I sit down to write an article, I write that article with
the express intention of making sure it is good enough to be
considered by a publisher for his or her newsletter.

In my thinking, publication in a newsletter can be more important
than publication on a website, because it can literally put
thousands of readers on my website in a single day. Over my years
of writing articles, I have found that publication in a major
newsletter can very realistically send a wave of thousands of
targeted visitors to my website in just a few days - visitors who
are interested in buying what I sell.

It is true that like everyone else, I also want my articles to be
published on websites, so that I can get that all-important link
popularity from Google and to improve my websites' rankings in
Google's search results. But above links on websites, I want my
articles exposed to large newsletter audiences. I find that I
still get my articles published on websites, whether I write the
article with the intent of finding publication in newsletters or
not.

Did you realize that most newsletters are archived on the
Internet? So when published in a newsletter, not only do I get a
ton of traffic from the newsletter itself, but I also get links
from the newsletter's online archives, and I also get my
articles published on websites, whose webmasters tend to reprint
articles found in their favorite newsletters.

One example of someone who reprints articles found in her
favorite newsletters is Debbie Johnson
(http://friendfeed.com/debbiejohnson). Whenever she sees one of
my articles in a newsletter that she reads, she adds the article
to the forum at http://www.DreamTeamMoney.com. This results in my
article being read by hundreds, perhaps thousands of additional
people - people who may have not had the chance to see my
articles elsewhere.

Another example of someone who republishes articles they like,
after reading that article in a newsletter, is Flavio Bernardotti
from Alessandria, Italy. After reading one of my articles in a
popular newsletter, Flavio republished the article on his
Italian-speaking website
(http://www.bernardotti.it/portal/showthread.php?t=128997).

If you think for a minute that my article would have been
published on Debbie's or Flavio's forums if the article had not
been published in several large newsletters, then you are bound
to keep overlooking the real potential of publication in
newsletters.

This article has actually been inspired by a number of people,
with whom I have spoke with on the phone. Each wanted to know a
bit more about my business. And when I told them that our article
distribution service targets publication in newsletters and
websites, I was told that they did not care about publication in
newsletters. I was told by each person that his or her only
concern was links on websites to propel their websites rankings
in Google.

Every time I hear this from a potential client, my initial
thought is, "Oh, my mistake... I have mistakenly believed you
were in business to make money..."

To tell you the truth, I am floored when I hear people tell me
that newsletters don't matter... I have personally earned
hundreds of thousands of dollars in free advertising, as a result
of my articles appearing in newsletters over the years. And more
to the point of everyone reading this article, I have earned
hundreds of thousands of dollars in new sales, as a result of
being published in newsletters.

Yes, I do get links in websites also, and my websites generally
rank well in Google and other search engines for competitive
keywords. But my Google rankings are only part of the story...
Less than 10% of the 2.5 million page views on my website were
delivered by Google in 2008, and still, I received more than
200,000 visits to my website in 2008, as a result of the
thousands of top 10 and top 20 listings my websites possess in
Google.

The truth is that you can target newsletters with your articles,
and still achieve your search engine goals. But then again, if
you never write articles that newsletter publishers want to
publish, you will never know the power of newsletters for driving
traffic, sales and search engine rankings.

While newsletter publishers may be the redheaded stepchildren of
most Internet marketers, they are and will always be "my
favorite stepchildren".

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Platt has operated http://www.thePhantomWriters.com article
distribution service since 2001. Rather than to rely on article
directories, The Phantom Writers has been designed to send
articles to the newsletter publishers and webmasters who are most
likely to want to publish an article. A current customer recently
said, "I've used other article distribution sites, but your
distribution seems to yield a higher quality of publisher and a
higher volume." Learn more at: http://www.thephantomwriters.com

Greg Cryns
The Mighty Mo Website Design and Promotion

20 Ways To Make $100 A Day Online

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Business Advertising Mistakes

I talk to people every day who paid me to help them make some changes on their website and advise them about how they can help themselves (without handing me their checkbook).

These folks mean well. Many of them start out doing what they need to do. Others never really get started. Something puts them off. I don't think it is laziness. I think it has something to do with inertia. We simply don't want to change our habits. It is too painful to carry out projects that are unproven but which could change our lives. Here is a nice article about how to improve your advertising. Will you take action?

7 Common Business Advertising Mistakes

by Kevin Sinclair

You've probably heard the famous saying "I know that half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted: if only I could figure out which half it is!” Well, now you can. By eliminating the common mistakes many businesses make with their advertising programs, it's easy.

Here's a checklist of mistakes many companies make with their advertising:

1) Not focusing enough time and effort on their advertising

Most business owners spend far more time and effort on mundane things that don't really affect their bottom line than on advertising. This is the first huge mistake. Without effective advertising, almost all businesses will fail.

If you feel you don't have the time or desire to handle the advertising for your business, consider hiring a consultant or agency - but with caution. It's almost more difficult to find an ad agency that knows what is effective than it is to study it yourself. Many agencies are far more focused on winning awards than creating profits for their clients.

If you do feel you need to hire an agency, find one that will work on a results compensation basis vs. a straight commission for all the media they buy. This gives them an incentive to provide results and not pad the budget to justify a larger commission for the agency.

2) Relying on advice from friends and relatives

If business owners do handle their own advertising, many times they let their friends/wives/husbands or other various employees who have no idea whether or not advertising is effective make the decisions about their advertising plan.

Would you ask your dentist for advice about fixing your car engine? Of course not - that's not their expertise. So why in the world would you base something as important as decisions about your advertising on a relative who has no idea what he's talking about?

3) Being led by pushy or aggressive media sales people

The reason media companies pay their sales people big bucks is because they can influence you to buy space, air or time (in the newspaper, radio or television) and give you no guarantees if it doesn't work. Sounds kind of crazy, doesn't it? Your customers probably wouldn't buy from you and not expect the product or service to perform the way it should. But ad sales reps do it all the time.

Now sometimes they really mean well, and they have lots of experience and some fluke event or problem comes up. But for the most part, ad sales reps will do virtually anything they can do to get the sale.

If you feel like you're being bullied by an ad sales rep or that they really aren't looking out for your best interest, but really feel you want to work with that station/newspaper, etc., then ask for a new rep. They want your business and you're the one calling the shots, so if they want your business, they need to find someone you're comfortable working with.

4) Allowing your creative delivery to be ineffective

You can buy the best media schedule in the world that reaches 100% of your market 100 times, but if your message is not well created, it won't bring you the results you want. Most companies rely on either their ad agency or the media company themselves create the ads for them. This is a very difficult thing because most companies acting on your behalf don't take the time to learn about your business, your customers and what makes you different in your market.

To be effective, your commercial or ad must give the potential customer a compelling reason to buy your product or service. That means you have to come up with a better slogan than "we have the best service and we've been in business for 112 years."

No one really cares....well they do, but they don't believe you. If that's what you want to convey to your market, then give them a story that tells them that you have the best service. Make your company stand out.

You also have to include some sort of call to action. If you have a wonderful warm and fuzzy commercial that makes people 1) notice the ad, 2) actually read or watch it without being distracted by one of a million other things going on in their lives, and 3) become compelled and engaged by the message to have a positive feeling about your company and don't ask them to do something as a result of that - you're wasting your time and money. This is something that many ad agency creative types don't get.

If you don't ask them to do something specific within a certain time period, there's no way to measure the response. You may say that you can compare last year's sales for the same time period with this year's, etc., but that doesn't take into account a myriad of other possible reasons that your sales went up or down.

By giving your ad viewers/listeners/readers a specific action to take, you know that the reason they did that is because they were motivated to do so by your ad.

5) Always doing the same old thing because that's what you've always done.

If you're not growing, you're dying - and the same goes for your business. If you're happy with the same old returns on your advertising (assuming that you're measuring it in some way), then continue to do the same thing. Most business owners aren't though, so it's important to try new things.

The way society changes the way it uses media and as quickly as those changes happen, you need to keep up or lose out. Many business owners are afraid to try something new because it takes them out of their comfort zone - especially if no one in their industry has ever tried the new idea. This is a huge mistake and robs them of potentially huge profits.

6) Falling into the price trap.

This is another huge one! Unless you're Wal-Mart and can guarantee that no other business can sell for a lower price, don't use that as your main selling point. Once you start down that path, it's virtually impossible to stop.

If you can't come up with another reason for your potential customers to choose you instead of your competitor, you really need to find one (or more)!

7) Not using publicity or events in their advertising plan

It's amazing how few businesses even try to use publicity or special events in their advertising. It's often the best advertising you can get - not only because it's free, but because it cuts through the clutter. If the newspaper runs a story or a TV station is covering something during their newscast, it has automatic credibility that you just can't buy.

Of course you can't control the message 100%, but if you learn solid techniques of creating your publicity or press event, you can have a great deal of influence about how a story is covered.

If you can eliminate only 1 or 2 of these mistakes (assuming you're making them all), you'll wonder why you didn't do so earlier! In business, if there are enough of the right customers buying your products and services, many of your problems seem to disappear.

Kevin is the publisher and editor of besuccessfulnews.com, a site that provides information and articles on how to succeed in your own home or small business.

Greg Cryns

The Mighty Mo Website Design and Promotion

Interview with top notch Virtual Assistant - Jennifer Jarvis

(Picture: Katy Cryns, actress, writer. VA)

You've got questions. We've got answers. At least Jennifer Jarvis does.

What can you expect from a Virtual Assistant?
What does a VA expect from you?

Read my interview with Jennifer Jarvis. She owns her own VA company.

Learn more about this exciting profession at
http://www.workathomeprofiles.com


Greg Cryns
Instant Niche Emails - This is a fantastic list building tool. It is an incredibly simple way to create a year’s worth of emails for any niche market literally overnight! (also can also be used to create 52 blogging posts.

YouTube Goodies and Ways to Search

We are beginning to see why Google spent so much money buying a property that made almost nothing for over $1 Billion. For example, authors are streaming into (no pun intended) YouTube to tell you about their new books in person.

Here is a trailer for my sister's new novel, Swimming Lessons, due out in May, 2007. Her name is Mary Alice Monroe. Mary Alice has at least seven novels in print.
Swimming Lessons: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=558k1rYQ-vo

~~~~~~

Stephen King understands the power of YouTube! Very funny stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz9CMhMWl_E

Here is a clever ad for an Advocare mixer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTCvtC7JygI

How about setting the mood? Brought to you by MickeyMade.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOikXE0MhrM

Not to be outdone, check out this candle made specifically for a massage
from fairyline.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdkq-2u0tFY

More beautiful candles presented by drippingincolor.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atyfzHnQ95c

Ameriplan is getting into YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvaCAUDNrgs

Mompreneurs has a very interesting clip for moms who work at home
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHm9VI3-G8M

Bookwise presentation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ8-jNfofsU

A marketing individual shows his stuff – Site Builder
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuyjkO9SIKs

Why Coastal Vacations?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEfbFEZATqA

Julie wants to show you how to make money from home
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd1sm5yFvWw

Britney Spears shaved head – ooops! How did this get in here?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBt_lPcz1EM

Jerry Maurer uses YouTube to tell his sales story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOo9tAORxi4

Pampered Chef can opener demo (how exciting)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfLB10D7s3U

What is Passion Parties about – a lady promotes herself!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13vq-D5-oKw

Mimi thanks you for visiting her profile
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTmzNtgnCnc

The first 5 people who contact me at wahmwed@yahoo.com will get a no-cost web page with their own, self-made, video on it.

I'd love to have you receive my weekly marketing newsletter. I provide solid, no BS, marketing information for people who work at home. If you sign up I will send you an interesting report called "17 Bible Foods That Heal" . It is 36 pages in length and chock full of wonderful information. Just send me an email telling me you have signed up and I will send you this report asap.
Newsletter: http://www.wahmsearchengine.com/newsletter-signup.shtml

Good luck!

Greg Cryns

Wahm Search Engine - http://www.wahmsearchengine.com
Check out - http://www.workathomeprofiles.com
Social Networking Lessons: http://www.squidoo.com/goaffiliate