So, I figured I would try and clear a few things up.

First, the question was raised by Donna-Lee. Donna-Lee asked;

“I am a bit confused by the contradictory information…

You have to have a list… it’s a must for internet success.
But, email is for “old-timers”. I realize the importance of
incorporating web 2.0 into our marketing plans, but what
good is a list if it isn’t effective?

How do you incorporate your list with web 2.0
without ’spamming’?

Can you please give us a little more on these topics?”

Good questions. And Donna-Lee raises some good points.

You are correct when you say that you have to have a list. It’s
an absolute must.

For any business to survive, whether it’s a “bricks-n-mortar”
business or an online business, lists are essential.

Lists of:

> Potential customers (leads)
> Customers/buyers – without this list there is no business
> Partners/Vendors – this list includes JV partners, product
manufacturers/distributors or producers, etc.

But, what we’re focused on in the online world is double opt-in
lists of leads or potential customers and lists of buyers.

(For an explanation of “double opt-in” leads visit Aweber, which
is who we recommend for list management.)

Double opt-in leads help us avoid the spam issue, by the way.

Whether or not we’re using Web 2.0 tactics in our marketing or
we’re using the more “traditional” forms of advertising and
marketing of running ads in newspapers or magazines or Pay-
Per-Click advertising, we should be constantly trying to capture
the contact information of the people who respond to our ads.

If I gave off the impression that email is dead or not effective,
that was not my intention.

I just used the comment that my son had made to me, “Email
Is For Old-Timers” as the headline of the article.

Having him say that to me made me realize that the next
generation of Internet users just might be a different animal
that we’re dealing with.

Their ways of communicating and interacting on the Internet
have spread to the mainstream or the majority of the Online
population since more and more people are using these Web
2.0 modes of communication.

My point is that we should be learning about these Web 2.0
modes of communication, embracing them, figuring them
out and using them in our marketing efforts.

We should keep in mind that building a list of customers and
potential customers should be our first and foremost priority.

How do we integrate the new Web 2.0 modes of communication
with our list building efforts?

By constantly keeping the goal of list building at the forefront
of our marketing efforts.

If you put up a blog (and you should have a blog no matter
what business you’re in) you should have a way for people to
sign up to your list. (Take a look at the upper right hand corner
of this blog’s main page)

When you build Squidoo lenses you should have a sign up form
on every one of them so you can share even more information
about whatever topic you are writing about as well as share your
marketing message with them in your follow up communications.

Pretty much any webpage you put up whether it’s a sales page,
content page or just about any other page, should have a sign
up form.

Every Web 2.0 property that will allow you to put a sign up
form on your profile and content pages should have them.

Again, any of the lead capture forms that you put up will be
double opt-in to avoid the whole spam issue.

Although email can be challenging as far as getting your message
delivered, opened and read, it’s still very effective.

Especially if the prospect that signs up to your list is very interested
in the subject or content that relates to whatever it is that you are
marketing.

If they’re insanely passionate about whatever the topic of your
content is they’ll be more likely to open your message.

If they are on alot of other publisher or advertiser’s lists, it may
be a little more difficult to get their attention and to get them to
open your message.

Email marketing is an art that you really should spend some time
studying.

I’ll share some resources here soon that go into how you should be
using email in your marketing efforts.

I hope some of the confusion has been cleared up about the use of
building lists, email marketing and the use of Web 2.0 in your
marketing.

Until next time, keep the home fires burning. It’s cold out there!
(at least it is in this neck of the woods)

Talk to you soon!

Jerry

But it has to be done…

You have put your trust in me to guide you in the
mission of becoming a successful online entrepreneur,
I must first thank You for lending me your trust.

“Thank you” on behalf of myself and my family.
Truly, without you we would not have enjoyed the
“Internet Lifestyle” for so long.

As you may have seen on many of my webpages, blog
posts and emails to you my motto is:

“We Don’t Succeed Until You Succeed”.

I have always done my best to try and live up to
that code of conduct.

I have always been able to pride myself as being
someone who goes above and beyond for my customers.

If there were questions or problems I would answer
the questions or correct the problem to the best
of my ability.

Truly giving my best to you in the hopes of your
success. This has always been a top priority of
mine.

Life is full of tough decisions. And once again,
I am faced with a very tough decision.

With that said, it is with deep regret that
I must tell you that I can no longer continue
producing the I-Marketer Newsletter and must
also discontinue my involvement with the
All-In-One-Business.com website.

Without getting into the unneccessary details, I
have had some major health setbacks over the last
couple of years.

My recovery is calling for my immediate and
continued attention.

The health issues that I am now dealing with have
made me dig deep and have caused me to consider
some serious soul searching.

I have had to completely reevaluate what my goals
are in business and in life for that matter.

I pride myself as putting family first and do
consider you as one of my online family members.

It would not be fair to you to continue to operate
this business in the manner that I have been lately.
I have not been able to provide you with the
adequate education and support that is necessary
to properly run a profitable online business.

I certainly don’t want to short change you after
you have blessed me with your trust. So, with that
being said, I would like to make the following
announcement.

I have found a way to keep my word of providing
you with the necessary tools, training and support
to succeed and thrive in your online business as
well as keep my obligations to my family.

The main obligation to my family is to get myself
physically healthy so I can be there for them for
many more years to come.

I am so pleased to say that Scott Logan and
Jerry Belcourt from Night Owl Marketing have
decided to keep my legacy alive!

Scott and Jerry have purchased the exclusive
rights to my entire product line and websites.

They will now be the marketing engine behind
All-In-One-Business.com, The I-Marketer Newsletter
and my other online endeavors.

In working with Scott in my mentorship program, I
know he and his partner Jerry are more than
capable to continue on in the spirit of what I
have been aiming to help you achieve.

Please welcome them with open arms into the
All-In-One-Business.com family as I know they will
do their very best to help you achieve your own
level of success.

Please keep an eye out for a message from them
on Friday Aug. 31.07. As they have plans to
re-introduce The I-Marketer newsletter.

Scott and Jerry have been online for many years
and are extremely knowledgeable in the Internet
Marketing arena.

They have worked in many different niches in the
online world and between the two of them have a
very impressive portfolio of projects under their
belts.

They have shared some of their ideas with me. And
I’ve got to say, WOW! Do they have some amazing
things in store for you!

Also, I must say that I fully endorse the direction
they have mapped out for you.

I completely trust that they will continue to treat
you with the ultmost respect as an
All-In-One-Business.com family member.

Thank you for all the great comments over the years.
I have appreciated every one of them and will always
remember the good times I’ve had building the
All-In-One-Business.com community.

May you be blessed for many years to come with your
online careers and with a balanced, happy life.

Sincerely,Kevin Bidwell

P.S. Scott and Jerry would like to ask you a quick
favor before they send out Friday’s newsletter.

Would you do me a favor and help them out with a
quick one question survey?

Trust me when I say that taking a minute to complete
the survey will be to your greater benefit.

It will not only help Scott and Jerry find out what’s
going on in your online business but it will also
allow you to ask a key question that all business
owners should be continuously asking themselves.

Here’s the link to the quick one question Survey:
http://www.sajeserv.com/quickquestion.html

I know this feedback will be extremely helpful to
Scott and Jerry and as a final favor to me I would
appreciate it if you would take a minute now and
answer this quick question.

P.P.S. Please, let’s not make this a final goodbye.
I will do my best, health provided, to drop in once
in a while to keep Scott and Jerry on their toes.

I’m going to be making sure that they are doing
they’re very best in treating you right like I
know they will.

Take care of yourself.

Wishing You Whole-Life Success!

http://www.All-In-One-Business.com/fall

But before we get started, I wanted to find out from you what your most pressing problem or question about online business might be.  That way I can be sure we cover those topics both in I-Marketer future issues as well as in the self-help products course.

So, here it is.  Post your comment below and let me know.

One more thing…

As I write this you only have 8 remaining spots for the Self-Help Products Crash Course.  You need to register today if you are going to be a part.

http://www.All-In-One-Business.com/fall

I get this question, or variations on the same theme, every week. Today I wanted to give you just a quick run-down of what it costs to start a SUCCESSFUL online business, while giving you a HEADS UP about the BIGGEST but often HIDDEN cost.

Now, before we go any further, I need to define what I mean when I say a “successful online business”. A successful online business is one that makes a profit for the LONG HAUL, not just a few bucks this week. There is a huge difference between the two. You will not make any real long-term income by putting up the latest self-replicating site, or hawking the newest “business opportunity”. The kind of business I am talking about is one which will support your lifestyle for years to come.

 In order to start an online business, you first need access to a computer and the Internet. That doesn’t mean that you need to own a computer, just that you have access to one. That may cost you nothing–especially if you already have a computer and are already paying for access.

A word to the wise: You DO NOT need to have the latest, Pentium 8, running at 6 gigs, in order to start a business. In fact, many people who go this route spend so much on their computer equipment that their businesses grow slowly for lack of capitol.

Next, you need to have a web page. That means a couple of different costs:

You need to have a way to create web pages. By using web templates and Notepad for an editor, this may cost you nothing. But if that is beyond your ability, then you can download a free WYSIWYG editor or you can purchase one to use.

If you choose to hire someone to build your site for you, the rates vary considerably. Shop around for the best price and always check their references to make sure they can deliver you a quality, functional site in a timely fashion.

You need to have a web host. I know that there are still a number of free hosts out there, but sites that are going to be profitable are rarely able to be sustained on a free server. Plan to spend between $10 and $75 for your hosting, depending on the type of site, features and traffic.

http://www.All-In-One-Business.com/hosting

You need to have autoresponders. This is the one thing most beginning sites overlook. This is your first line of customer follow-up and one of the best ways to close sales for those who don’t buy on the first visit.

Autoresponders are available either through your host or separately. I choose to use a service that provides me with more features than I would get through a hosting company alone. If you do not get autoresponders through your hosting company, plan to pay from $10 to $30 per month for this service.

http://www.All-In-One-Business.com/list

You need to have advertising.

Before I go any further, I want to dispel a myth. Ready? Here it is: A slick looking site with all the bells and whistles does NOT sell products.

Did you catch that?

People tell me all the time that they have a great site. Usually, they are right. The only problem with putting all that effort (and often money) into a site is that they often have NO MONEY LEFT to get traffic to their site. A MEDIOCRE SITE WITH LOTS OF TRAFFIC WILL ALWAYS OUTSELL THE PERFECT ONE WITH NO TRAFFIC.

So, how much do you have to pay for advertising your product or service? Here is a rule of thumb: For every product you sell, plan on putting 45-50% of the gross profit into advertising.

So, if you want to sell 100 units this month, and your gross profit per unit is $30, plan to put around $1500 into ads THIS MONTH.

Can you do free advertising? Yes, and you might want to start that way if you are strapped for cash. Just know that your business will grow more slowly. In the long run make sure to set aside 50% of your gross profits for NEXT MONTH’S advertising. You will be glad you made the choice.

Now, that about covers it. There are certainly more things you can spend money on, but most of them won’t make you very much and can cost you plenty.

But, there is one cost that I haven’t yet covered. Here it is:

To start your own business will cost you more emotional strength than almost anything else you will ever attempt. Most people will never have the emotional strength to make it through those first hard weeks and months. Most people will give up just on the verge of success.
Only the strongest of us will make it, and that’s the real cost to weigh.

“What is the best day to send out my newsletter?”

If your newsletter goes out mainly to non-work emails, then you will find your best results by sending Friday evening or first thing Saturday morning.

Here’s why:

I want to make sure that people open, read and respond to my newsletter.  Since almost everyone who reads it does so at home in their spare time, I know the majority of those people have the MOST free time from Friday evening to Sunday  evening.

Most people are in a positive state of mind on Fridays after work–they are optimistic about the weekend, wanting to work on their own online business, etc.  A number of people open their email as soon as they get home.

But some people have a social life.

So, they don’t get to their email until Saturday or Sunday.

Sunday afternoon has the highest click through rate of any period from Friday through Sunday, but by making sure my message is in front of my prospects throughout the period I actually get more responses total.

“What makes a good keyword phrase?”

A good keyword phrase is one that is closely targeted to your product or service and reveals intent on the part of the searcher.

That’s a mouth full. Let me break it down for you:

When people do keyword research they often focus on keywords that are far too general.  Let’s say I have a site where I sell digital sheet music for classic rock songs.  Here is a list of possible keywords:

Sheet music
Digital music
Lyrics
Music lyrics
Classic rock
Rolling Stones
…and so on

There are a couple of problems with this keyword list:

1. They are only loosely related to my core product—digital sheet music for sale.

Take “sheet music” for example.  Do you sell sheet music?  Sure you do.  But the sheet music you sell is very specific.  Most people who are typing “sheet music” into Google are looking for something other than what you are offering.

Would it benefit you to target this phrase?  If you got to the top of Google for this phrase it WOULD result in sales, but because it is only loosely targeted to your product it would likely not be worth the effort you would put in to get there.

2. They don’t reveal intent on the part of the searcher.

Let’s consider “classic rock.”  When someone types that phrase into a search engine, they may be looking for the phone number of the local classic rock radio station, a way to download classic rock music or lyrics to a specific song.

These aren’t likely to do you a lot of good.

Here’s how you can improve your search terms, decrease the competition you have to overcome and get more sales per visitor:

1. Look for keywords where intent is clear.

Let’s look at the term “lyrics”.

While you DO sell lyrics, adding a few words to the term will help it be much more closely targeted to your product.

Classic rock lyrics
60’s rock lyrics
Rock lyrics of the 70’s

Can you see how these specific terms reveal what the searcher is looking for?

2. Target keywords specific to your product/service.

You should target the exact keyword phrases describing your product or service.

For example:

If you sell sheet music to the Rolling Stone’s “She’s So Cold”, then you want to make sure you have targeted all of the relevant keyword phrases:

Rolling Stones Sheet Music
Rolling Stones She’s So Cold
She’s So Cold Lyrics
She’s So Cold Sheet Music
She’s So Cold music
…and so on.

Remember this rule:  The more specific the keyword the less competition and the more sales you will make.

Take time to create very specific keyword lists and you will climb quickly in the search engine results and make a boatload of money.

Think about it this way: If you were going to build a new house you probably wouldn’t do it yourself, you’d hire a professional. But you wouldn’t call a professional if you wanted to hang a picture on the wall.

The same is true for a website: You don’t need to know all there is to know about html, PHP, Javascript and ASP, but you should learn how to do a few little things. One of the little things you need to be able to do is to add a link to your site.

It’s simple and you can do it. Here’s how…

First, let me show you what a link looks like (in HTML):

<a xhref=” http://www.All-In-One-Business.com “>Click Here</a>

This code will make a link pointing to http://www.All-In-One-Business.com with the text “Click Here”. It would look like this on a web page:

Click Here

OK, now all you have to do to make your own link is change the URL in the link:

http://www.All-In-One-Business.com

to wherever you want the link to point.

So, if you wanted to point to http://www.TrafficWriting.com it would look like this:

<a xhref=” http://www.TrafficWriting.com “>Click Here</a>

To point to http://www.All-In-One-Business.com/getdirection (a free resource on Goal Setting) it would look like this:

<a xhref=” http://www.All-In-One-Business.com/getdirection “>Click Here</a>

Get it? Good.

Now, what if I wanted to not use the words “Click Here” but “A Free Resource on Goal Setting”? Here is how the link would look:

<a xhref=” http://www.All-In-One-Business.com/getdirection “>A Free Resource on Goal Setting</a>

On the web page that code would give you this result:

A Free Resource on Goal Setting

Any words you put before the </a> will show up in the blue underlined link.

Now you know how to create a link on your website.

If you want to learn every aspect of creating and running a business from home, check in to this resource:

http://www.All-In-One-Business.com/?z=2

“I am trying to start a business from home and as I study I keep reading about Google page rank.  What is Google page rank?  It seems everyone talks about how important it is, but I can’t find a clear explanation of what it is and how it works.  Thanks.”

Dear Mike,

It takes guts to start a business from home!  Good for you.  I know it can be tough when there are terms floating around that everyone seems to understand but you.  Let me see if I can help clear this up for you.

Spend any time talking about search engine position and you will eventually come across the phrase “Google Page Rank” or just “PR”.    For many it is one of the most  confusing terms around.

I’m about to shock some of you.  Ready?  Here goes:

GOOGLE DOES NOT RANK WEBSITES

Are you shocked?  Here’s why:  Google doesn’t rank sites, Google ranks individual pages within a site.

All-In-One-Business.com has somewhere around 2,500 individual pages.  Some of those pages are completely internal—meaning they are used by me and my staff internally and are not available to the public.  Some of those pages are available only to customers for certain products.  Some of those pages are available to the general public.

Google has “indexed” those public pages on my site—as of today they have 584.

When anyone anywhere in the world types in any search term, Google looks at all the pages in their index—including mine—to pull out any individual pages relevant to the search phrase.

So for one search phrase I may have a page that is number 1 on Google.  But for another search phrase I may not have ANY pages showing up.  I may have one page that shows up #1 for one search phrase and #25 for a slightly different search phrase.

That’s because Google doesn’t rank websites, Google ranks all of the individual pages within a website.

Got it so far?  Good.  Now it begins to get complicated.

Most people in the world assume Google ranks the pages in the search engine result pages (or SERPs) according to the particular keywords actually ON the page.  The “perfect” page scoring #1 and next most perfect page #2, etc.

The reality is much smarter—and more complicated.

Google looks at two types of data to determine where to rank a page on your site in its SERPs.

First, Google looks at ON PAGE factors.  On page factors are all things you, as the website owner, control.  These include the title of the page, the headlines on the page, the page content and a thing called “keyword density” (don’t worry about these yet—we’ll cover it in a later lesson.)

The biggest factors Google uses are not even on your page—or even on your site.  The biggest factors Google uses to determine what your page is about are called OFF PAGE factors.

Off page factors include:  The number of other web pages that link to your page (called back links), the importance of those pages (called Page Rank), the subject content of those pages and the linking text those pages use to link to yours.

Back links are simply links from someone else’s page to your page.   Pretty simple.

Page rank is a little more complex.

Page rank is a number from 0 to 10 which Google assigns to every page it spiders.  To Google the page rank determines how “important” an individual page is compared to other pages on the web.

The higher the number the more important Google sees the page.  Page rank 10 pages are the most important, page rank 0 pages are the least important.

Important note:  “Page Rank” is often a misunderstood term since we often use the word “Rank” to refer to how a page comes up in the search results.  Often people think a page rank 10 page will be in the number 10 position in the search results, a page rank 8 will be in the 8th position and so on.  Page rank is not the order a page will show up in the search results!

A good way to think of page rank and importance is to view each page as having a certain number of “votes” to give to another website.  When a high page rank page like CNN.com (page rank 9) links to a web page, Google sees CNN’s “vote” as much more important than a link from a site like my SeminarBonuses.com website with a page rank of zero.

How much more important is a “vote” from a high page rank page?

Each page rank number is worth roughly eight times the number below it, meaning a link from a PR 2 page is viewed by Google as important as 8 PR 1 pages.  PR 3 links are worth 8 PR 2 or 64 PR 1 (8 x 8).

A PR 7 link is worth:

8 PR 6 Links
64 PR 5 Links (8 x 512 PR 4 Links (8 x 8 x 4096 PR 3 Links (8 x 8 x 8 x 32,768 PR 2 Links (8 x 8 x 8 x 8 x 262,144 PR 1 Links (8 x 8 x 8 x 8 x 8 x
While this is somewhat of an oversimplification, it will serve to help us find niches we can easily dominate.

You want to have as many “votes” as possible from other web pages as possible.  You can get thousands and thousands of PR 1 and PR 2 pages or you can get a few PR 5, PR 6 and PR 7 pages.

Obviously a small number of higher page rank pages are much easier to get and maintain than a huge number of lower PR pages.

So if you have a web page all about cultivating elm trees and want to score highly for the term “cultivating elm trees” then ideally you want many high page rank pages about elm trees on other sites to link back to your page with the term “cultivating elm trees” in the linking text.

Now that you understand how Google ranks pages, you can put that knowledge to work to get top search listings for YOUR pages.