Category: Grow a Home Business

    Top Secrets for Creating a Mobile-Friendly Website that Passes Google Muster

    “Mobilegeddon” the masses cried when Google announced the mobile-friendly changes it would be making. Sites that passed the mobile-friendly test would be given a higher ranking than sites that were merely responsive or were not optimized in any way for mobile use.

    Google did make mention of the fact that the changes were specifically designed for mobile results, but the masses had already cried and few heard the calming words offered up by Google.

    Mobile-friendly is a GOOD THING. If your website is not currently mobile-friendly, then you are making it less likely that the largest percentage of users will ever visit your site. More people surf the internet through mobile devices than with any other method.

    Mobile-friendly can also be an easy thing. Google has set up an explanation of what makes a website mobile-friendly. Google also offers a test to insure that your website meets the Google requirements.

    Top Things to Include in Your Mobile-Friendly Website

    1. Create a strong call to action what is displayed front and center of mobile devices. Know what you want visitors to do and ask them to do it when they land on your website.

    2. Keep it simple. Clean and precise content that displays on the mobile device will make it more likely that mobile visitors will utilize your site.

    3. Keep it short. Remember that answering questions or filling out forms on mobile devices can be more challenging than for laptops and desktops. Minimize the number of fields or offer autofill when possible.

    4. Make “home” easy to find and use. Easy navigation is essential for mobile-friendly.

    5. Keep it about that initial call to action. Your company may run specials or feature events, but ultimately your website needs to be about that call to action.

    6. Make search easy. Keep the search button in an easy to find location.

    7. Create a user friendly site. Although it is all about your call to action, it is also all about the visitor. Allow the visitor to use your site before she is forced to commit to the call to action.

    8. Offer conversion buttons. Allow information to be easily accessed across platforms or sent to a second platform for use at another time.

    9. One or the other. If you are not ready to commit to the mobile-friendly way of life, stick to the traditional website. Avoid mixing in elements of mobile-friendly until you are ready to optimize for mobile users.

    10. Avoid making more work for the user. Create a site that will adjust the size of the screen appropriately so that users do not constantly have to adjust the size to get the information needed.

    There are a number of things that you can add to your website that will continue to enhance the mobile experience without detracting from the desktop experience. Work with a website designer to discover which elements work best for your company. Embrace the Google mobile-friendly changes and elevate your website for the largest percentage of users today.

    Categories: Mobile Tags: Tags:

    Great Ways to Use Facebook for Marketing

    Facebook is truly a boon to savvy online marketers. Using Facebook for marketing your business is honestly a no-brainer. You can do so much on Facebook, mostly free, that you just cannot pass it up as a great marketing opportunity for your business.

    Set Up a Business Page

    In order to set up a business page on Facebook, you first need a personal page. But once you do have that, you can set up your business page. The business page enables you to promote your business actively while a personal page is not supposed to be used for that. It’s free to set up.

    Set Up a Community

    A Facebook community is very useful in terms of being able to discuss things with your customers, or potential future customers. You can easily set up a community in the same way you set up the business page – just choose “community.” A community has more communication ability between your likes and followers than a business page.

    Set Up a Private Group

    A private group is a great way to run a small mastermind group without having to invest in the technology to have one of your own hosted on your website. You can make them private and even secret. If you have a secret group, you’ll have to actively recruit people to join; you can even charge people money to join.

    Promote a Post

    On your business pages you’ll have the capability to post things and you’ll get a button that offers you to “promote” the post. You can bid a certain amount and choose your audience too. The capability to narrow down who you want to see your promoted post is genius and will enable you to truly target your audience with posts you want them to see.

    Run a PPC Advertisement

    Even without a business page you can create advertisements via your personal page on Facebook. It’s wonderful because you can narrow down your target audience in ways that you may not have realized that you could. You can target with age, sex, location, groups and affiliations. It doesn’t get much more niched down than that.

    Join Groups and Communities

    A great way to market your business on Facebook is to join other groups that consist of your target audience. Then, simply help others without an agenda. Do not market yourself or break any rules of the page owners. Instead, just be helpful, and share when requested to do so. Let your reputation speak for you.

    Comment on Pages, Groups and Communities

    When it comes to marketing on Facebook, a good use of your time is to make smart, intelligent and useful comments on posts that the owner of the page or group post, as well as being helpful to others who post.

    Share and Like

    If you want people to share what you are doing, be sure to share and like what they are doing. When it comes to online marketing, people like helping others when they are helped too. It’s a very generous community when it comes down to it. You’ll find competitors sharing each other’s work most of the time, instead of bashing each other. Although that does happen, it’s not likely.

    Using Facebook to market your business is an excellent way to market online. You can do so many things including contests, share images, videos, blog posts, memes and more. Don’t be shy; get started using Facebook to market your business today. But, be warned, you need to follow Facebook’s terms of service in order to continue.

    Categories: Facebook, social media Tags: Tags:

    Software for Teleseminars

    If you want to conduct teleseminars, you’ll need the right software. Which software you choose will depend on what features you want it to have, plus how much your budget is and whether or not you plan to charge for attendance. Write down a list of features you want, and then match each of these choices to your list.

    * Instant Teleseminar – You can connect by web, phone call or Skype to use this teleseminar software. You can run and record a live event, then load in the recording for later and run as a live event again. Great CTA features are included too.

    Link – http://instantteleseminar.com/

    * Auto Teleseminar – This teleseminar service offers a lot of features that others don’t, such as the ability to upload an MP3 to run as a live event so you don’t even have to be there while your event runs and you earn money.

    Link – http://www.autoteleseminar.com/new/

    * FreeConferencing.com – Your customers can use their iPhone or regular phone and even a VOIP service to attend the events. Everything is always completely free other than long distance for the callers.

    Link – http://www.freeconferencing.com/

    * FreeConferenceCall.com – A completely free on-demand service that also allows recording of events and more. In exchange for the service being free, advertisements are run during your event.

    Link – https://www.freeconferencecall.com/

    * Maestro Conference – This teleseminar software allows for breakout groups and desktop sharing if you want it to go behind the telephone, and social conferencing, which motivates people to share and take action during a call.

    Link – http://maestroconference.com/

    * ReadyTalk – They offer on-demand conferencing, as well as operator-assisted services. Plus, with broadcast audio services you can allow your attendees to listen from their computer instead of a telephone. This works domestically and internationally.

    Link – https://www.readytalk.com/products-services/audio-conferencing

    * Toll Free Conference – With this service you can give conference calls inexpensively. Instead of paying monthly, you only pay per minute while you are conducting the call. You can even get an experienced operator to help you with the technology.

    Link – http://www.tollfreeconference.com/

    * GoToMeeting – This is also webinar software that enables you to share your screen to show a PowerPoint slide and other features. But it also allows people to dial in to listen to the event on the phone. This makes it a super full-featured teleseminar software product that you’ll love.

    Link – http://www.gotomeeting.com/online/

    Trying any of this software out before you implement it is a good idea. Use the free or low-priced trial offers, try it out, and then see which one you like best. You may like a free service with commercials, or you might like a more full-featured service that has no ads. It’s up to you which one you use, but first you have to test them out.

    Categories: teleseminars, webinars Tags: Tags:

    Why More Isn’t Always Better

    When you embark on using blogging to increase traffic, newsletter sign-ups and to get more customers, it often seems as if the more you blog the better. But, there are many reasons why more isn’t always better when it comes to blogging.

    * Your Blog Has No Focus – Writing a bunch of 500 word blog posts that have no purpose other than SEO isn’t going to help if they’re not focused and purposeful. You need to find a voice for your business and stick to it with a strict focus.

    * You Don’t Understand Your Niche – Understanding the minutia of your niche is important and if you don’t, it will be hard for you to write useful blog posts that speak to your audience.

    * Your Post Has No Reason for Being – If you are writing things without any purpose, it’s going to be difficult to get a permanent readership going. You might attract one-time viewers, but if they click around and find no cohesiveness and no call to action, they’ll just read and leave.

    * You Don’t Understand Your Audience – It is difficult to write blog posts that speak to your audience if you don’t know why they are. It’s imperative that you spend time studying your audience so that you know the right words to use to express what you need to say.

    * Your Writing Is Boring – Putting it all together, if you are mostly concerned with churning out more content rather than quality content, your content might just be super-boring to the point that it puts your readers to sleep. Working on quality content that speaks about your niche in an intelligent way to your audience is more important than having more content.

    * You’re Not Including Other Types of Content – Blogging is more than written text today. You need to include a variety of formats of content such as podcasts, videos, text content and more.

    * You’re Not Curating Other People’s Content – Other people have important things to add to the discussion of your niche with your audience. If you can find blog posts that say what you want to say that other people wrote better than you can, share it with your own thoughts added to it to round it out.

    * You Aren’t Promoting Blog Posts That You Have – Writing or creating a blog post is just the first step. After you publish it, you need to promote it. If you’re not spending time promoting your blog posts, maybe they’re not good enough to bother even publishing.

    When starting a blog, it’s far more important to craft a simple plan of action than to just write. Understand your readers, take the time to optimize each blog post, and never skimp on promoting every blog post that you create. Spending all your time writing and not focusing on these other issues won’t give you the business you want, but doing all these things will.

    Categories: blogging Tags: Tags:

    Starting a Mastermind Group

    A mastermind group is a small group of people who share information, education, and support. As an expert in your niche, starting a mastermind group is a lucrative and promising venture. If you have a good following already, starting a mastermind group is almost a sure thing. But, if you are not quite established you can still start one; it will just take more work to get members.

    * Understand the Purpose – If the purpose of your group is to earn revenue while helping others, establish that from the start. Otherwise you can easily start small mastermind groups on Facebook for free. Setting everything up from the start with a vision for what you want your mastermind group to be like is essential.

    * Set Goals for the Group – What do you want to accomplish with the group and what do you hope individual group members will accomplish? These goals will directly determine the type of content you’ll need for your mastermind group, plus even dictate the potential platform you may need to use.

    * Narrow Down the Target Audience – Try not to reach too far with the audience in terms of the mastermind group. Casting a wide blanket will just cause confusion. A mastermind group by definition is a small group of like-minded people sharing resources and information.

    * Establish Rules and Procedures – When you set up the group, you want to establish strict rules and procedures to ensure that the group works together to reach the common goals. If no one in the group understands the expectations and standards, then you may not have much participation.

    * Set Limits – Don’t open your group up to an unlimited membership. If it grows too large, it will be difficult to have a real mastermind situation. The number of members you can handle will depend on your platform and what you plan to do personally for the group. Remember not to bite off more than you can chew.

    * Decide Your Platform – Depending on your goals you can pick different platforms of delivery, such as NewRainMaker.com or aMember.com. Or if you want to offer the group free, you could use Facebook’s private groups feature.

    * Get the Ball Rolling – Once you set it up, get the ball rolling by planning some promotions like a blog tour, pay-per-click ads, and free giveaways, up until the day of launch. Blog about it, talk about it, and bring it up when you can. Give a sneak peak to super affiliates.

    * Promote Your Group – Once it’s established, even when your group is full you should actively promote it. In this way, you will always have a list of people who want to be in the group at your fingertips so that it will never be empty.

    Mastermind groups are wonderful for getting support and giving support. But as the leader of the group, the resident expert, you will be relied upon to provide direction for the mastermind group. Take it seriously, and remember to cover the areas that will interest your members most, depending on your audience.

    Categories: Membership Tags: Tags:

    Self-Sabotage: How to Recognize and Overcome It

    If you’re not having the type of success that you want, it is possible that you’re experiencing some self-sabotaging behaviors. And, if you are engaging in these types of behaviors then it’s important to identify what you’re doing and turn it around.

    * Playing the Waiting Game – If you ever hear yourself say, “I’ll be do that when xyz” then stop it right now. You may have always done this and not realized it. “When I lose weight I’ll go hiking.” “When I finish this client’s work I’ll write the great American novel.” “When I do x then I’ll do y.” It all makes sense but it’s a waiting game that will never end. If you don’t take action now, nothing will happen.

    * You Hang Around the Wrong People – Yes, even as an adult you can choose the wrong friends. If you often find yourself at odds with your friends’ values and goals in life, or find yourself apologizing for other people’s behavior, you’re just making excuses to avoid an uncomfortable conclusion. You’ve outgrown your friends.

    * Saying: “I’ll never ….” – Fill in the blank about what you’re never say, do or feel. They say you should, “never say never”, and nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is, if you don’t believe you’ll become successful at your business, or lose that extra weight, you likely won’t. You have to envision the success you want to achieve to make it happen. If all you see is negative, that’s all you’ll get.

    * I Don’t Want to Do “It” Alone – The fact is we are all ultimately alone. If you wait around for everyone to be on the same page as you, you may miss out on a great new adventure. Whether it’s starting a business, seeing a movie, or trying a new restaurant, you can do it yourself without anyone else doing it with you.

    * Thinking You’re Not “Smart” As…. – The truth is, someone is always going to be smarter, prettier, or something more than you. By saying that you’re not something, you will have a hard time breaking out of the box you’ve put yourself in. Forget about who you think you are, and do what it is that you want to do. No need to be perfect.

    * You Hide Your Feelings – When someone asks you a question about your feelings, you simply say “I’m fine” and leave it at that – even when you are not fine. Did you know that you can get stuck in a certain mindset if you avoid it and don’t talk about it? That’s true whether it’s about work or something personal. You have to name it to change it.

    * My Client Needs Me – The fact is, everyone is replaceable. If you find that you’re working with someone just because you think they need you, even when the relationship is not working for you, you’re really wasting your time. A client who is not compatible with you will drop you the moment they find someone they’re compatible with. Don’t do anyone any favors unless you really just want to.

    * You Lack a Support System – Support can come in a variety of forms, from human support to electronic support. If you set up a good system to help you stick to your schedule (whether it’s for work or fun) and get help when you need it, you will be a lot more successful than if you don’t do that.

    Finally, being self-aware enough to notice self-sabotaging behavior will go far in helping you curb it. Give some thought to how you’re running your life so that you can kick self-sabotaging behavior to the curb.

    Categories: Grow a Home Business, Mindset Tags: Tags:

    Getting More Information from Your Subscribers AFTER They Opt In

    The best email subscription forms ask for very little information to start. But, the more personalized the emails you send your subscribers, the more response you’ll get. Therefore, you need to come up with ways to get more information from your subscribers after they’ve already opted in so that you can ensure that you are sending them the right information.

    Welcome Message – Right off the bat, when you send your new subscriber a welcome message to your list, it is a great opportunity to seek more information from them using a web form. Depending on which email marketing program you use will determine which features it has to collect more information.

    Thank You Page – Another great place to get more information from your subscribers. This can be true of an opt-in thank you page, and a product purchase thank you page. Create a form for the page where your subscriber or buyer can click to provide more information about them to help you serve them better.

    Polls and Quizzes – Periodically, it is helpful to send your list subscribers interactive information such as polls and quizzes. This will help engage your list subscribers in a new way and open them up to providing more information about themselves so that you can personalize your interactions with them even more.

    Coupons and Codes – Any time a subscriber takes advantage of a coupon code is a good time to collect more information about them so that you can personalize the information you send them. You may have only collected an email and name when they first opted in but when they redeem the code, ask for just a bit more info.

    Request for Response – Sending out an email to your subscribers requesting a response such as a comment on your blog, or for them to fill out a form, or to ask you a question that you’ll answer on your blog, is a good way to get more information about each subscriber that can be used to create more personalized messages.

    Surprise Gifts – You probably gave your subscriber a freebie when they signed up for your list. You can use the same tactic in your subscriptions to get more information from your subscribers. Offer them a new free gift for some sort of action taken.

    Subscriber Preferences – This is a good way to get more information is to offer your subscribers various preferences they can choose for the type of information they want. If you have more than one type of list, why not give them a chance to get on other lists that you have at this point?

    Behavioral – Moving your subscribers from list to list due to the behavior that they demonstrate is a great way to personalize the information that your subscribers receive. For instance, if they click through to buy something, they should be moved to a new list.

    Don’t just try one time to get more information from your subscribers. Take time to build the trust between you and your subscribers and as time goes on, ask more questions and seek more feedback from them so that you can make the information you send them more personal than ever before. The more personal your messaging is to them, the more response you’re likely to get.

    Categories: Email Subscribers, Grow a Home Business Tags: Tags: ,

    Nine Ways to Promote Your Membership Program

    You’ve built an awesome membership program and now you need to get members. Members will bring in regular income on a monthly basis that you can count on. But, first you have to get the attention of your target audience. You do that by promoting your membership program in a variety of ways.

    1. Social Media – Not only should you post information in your updates about your membership, but you should also put information about your membership program in your profile. On LinkedIn, for example, you can even put videos and other information for viewers to see so that they can get more information.

    2. Blog Posts – Create a lot of blog posts leading up to the launch of your membership program. Discuss problems, solutions, and how your group fits in. You can put the posts in different formats like videos to get even more reach.

    3. PPC Ads – Social media like Facebook is a good place to run pay-per-click advertisements about your membership, because you can laser target your audience using the tools provided.

    4. Affiliate Marketers – Let other people market your group by setting up an affiliate program. Offer your affiliates all the tools, graphics, emails, posts and more to help them promote your membership.

    5. Webinars – A popular and effective way to promote your new membership program is to have a webinar that offers some solutions for the problems of the target audience. At the end of and throughout the webinar, promote the membership program as an extra form of help.

    6. Email Marketing – Using these other venues, get people onto your email list. Then send them a series of emails educating them about their problems and how the membership is the solution.

    7. A Great Sales Page – Your sales page for your membership is very important. There are a lot of tools you can use to ensure that you create a good sales page, like LeadPages.net or InstaBuilder.com.

    8. Magazines – You can put advertisements in specific magazines that have to do with your niche. Trade magazines often have cheaper advertising costs than popular general magazines, so look for the right niche magazine.

    9. Personal Networking – Whether in person or online, networking is an important component of helping spread the word about your membership program. Tell everyone you know that you have it when the opportunity comes up.

    Promoting your membership program is imperative if you want to get enough members. You can’t build it and expect them to automatically find you. You have to be proud of what you’ve created, and get your membership program to more people who are in your target audience by promoting it.

    Categories: Grow a Home Business, membership Tags: Tags:

    Page Load Speed Improvement

    Improving your page load speed can increase conversions and drastically improve the user’s experience using your website. Thankfully, there are some very simple things that you can do to improve your page load speed.

    The More You Have on a Page the Longer It Takes to Render

    These are called HTTP requests, and they bring in the components of all the things on the page – from images to style sheets and everything that makes your website look as it does. But there are ways to minimize the HTTP requests so that it doesn’t make it take longer. Even a few seconds of improvement will mean higher conversions.

    Use the Information on Google’s Webmaster

    Google Webmaster gives you all sorts of tools to use, including something called Page Speed Tools. This allows you to analyze the speed of your website, as well as gives you suggestions of what to do to fix it. You can also use Chrome to install various extensions that help you keep your site running fast.

    Be Sure to Compress Where You Can

    If you are creating very long, high quality pages, they are likely huge and require a lot to download to your visitor’s computer. When you can reduce the size of the pages, which also lowers the HTTP response, you can get the pages to load faster. There are many tools that you can use to help you compress pages, for example GNU Gzip which is open source software. However, if you’re not experienced you need to ask your web host to ensure that your server has the right settings.

    Link to Gzip – http://www.gnu.org/software/gzip/

    Ensure that Browser Caching

    If you don’t know what that is, it’s the way that a browser downloads parts of the website on the user’s computer into their temporary storage when you call up the website more than one time. This will make the page load faster each time they visit your website. It’s an important way to speed up a page.

    Format Images Properly

    On websites, the best form for an image is JPEG, which will load the fastest. Next is PNG, and finally do not use GIFs unless you must for animated gifts. Never use BMPs or TIFFs as they will not work correctly. You can change the type of image you have by using free open source software such as GIMP’s photo editing software that is a lot like Photoshop, but free.

    Link to GIMP – http://www.gimp.org/

    Optimize Your Style Sheets

    It is thought to be better to use only one external CSS style sheet. Every additional style sheet will increase the slowness of your website. The more you can combine external CSS files, the better the speed of your website will be. If you’re not sure about how to do these things, you may need to seek out an expert.

    Reduce the Number of Redirects on Your Website

    Many people use redirects for affiliate programs and other reasons to make the link look prettier or to hide the affiliate link code. However, while these are great uses for redirections, try to keep them to a minimum. Redirects take more time to send the code to the user and will slow page speed.

    Most people expect pages to load super-fast, so you want to do all you can to maximize the speed at which the page loads – especially if you’re hoping they will purchase the item you’re promoting.

    Use Fewer Plugins

    Many people use website builders like self-hosted WordPress to build their websites. These builders have little applications called “plugins” that expand the functionality of the website. These are great, but it’s important that you find or purchase themes with as much of the functionality already available as possible and use fewer plugins to accomplish what you need for your website.

    Page speed is a very important part of your web design if you want to keep people on your website long enough to make a purchase. If the site loads even seconds slower than they desire, they’ll click away and not buy.

    Categories: website Tags: Tags:

    How to Get More Bang for Your Social Media Buck

    Using social media to promote your business can be lucrative if you know what to do to make the most of it. You have to remember that social media is not a short-term game. It takes time and commitment as well as a specific goal in mind.

    * Complete Your Profiles – Fill out your profiles completely, using keywords that your audience as well as search engines would use to find you. Show your personality, link to your online real estate, and make sure people can connect with you easily.

    * Post Quality Content – When you post anything on social media, take the time to consider whether the content is relevant, has quality components and will give your audience a reason to want to keep following you.

    * Play the Long Game – Social media marketing results don’t happen overnight. It can take months of consistent and focused activity to get the outcomes that you want. Don’t expect it to happen straight away.

    * Engage Influencers – Use the search function on all social media networks to find movers and shakers within your industry so that you can engage with them. Getting their attention in a good way will help increase your influence too.

    * Avoid Time Wasters – When you get on social media it’s very tempting to start looking at memes, talk to your friends and family, play Farmville, and pretend you’re working.

    * Do Unto Others – If you want people to comment and share your information, be sure that you do the same for other people. The best course of action is if someone markets to your same audience but is not direct competition. Work together to promote each other.

    * Pay for Promotion – When you are trying to get a more likes, followers or newsletter sign-ups, it’s a good idea to pay for promotion. On Facebook you can pay to promote particular posts, or run a pay-per-click ad relatively inexpensively.

    * Add Value – Don’t just like and tweet things without adding something to the conversation that is important. The more value you can add to social media discussions, the more people will want to get to know you and follow, friend and like you.

    Using social media to promote your business is a great way to get more visitors to your website and make more sales. But, you have to be willing to be committed to taking the time to do what it takes to reach your goals. Avoid pretending to “work” on social media while you’re really just socializing. Set specific goals, develop tactics to reach the goals, and you will be successful.

    Categories: social media Tags: Tags: