RESOURCES
1.
Web site development
• Start with search engines and see if there’s a market
for your
product. Use any of the
following:
http://www.google.com
http://www.overture.com
http://www.yahoo.com
Type in a word describing your business, e.g.,
“speaking” (438,000,000),
“training” (3,010,000,000),
“fishing” (239,000,000),
“wine making” (84,500,000
),
“coaching” (131,000,000
entries), etc., and see
sites that relate to the product or service you are selling. You
obviously cannot look at all of the sites, but the first page or
two of entries will give you an idea of what other people are
offering in your line of work.
• Decide on a distinguishing name which will allow customers
to
know what you do. A good example
is “AutomotiveResearchService.com” in comparison to any
of the following: 4nra.com, 8tuv.com, a2zu.com, ayem.org, b-cx.com,
b2he.com, biqu.net, biqu.org, ccil.net, cokr.org, cyah.net,
dh2o.net, dh2o.org, ei41.com, gory.org, hjha.com, htus.org,
ih10.net, ip65.com, ip67.com, ja-1.net, ja-1.org, ksok.net,
ksok.org, o1ap.com, o1uk.com, psbb.org, qwke.com, timl.org,
uonq.com, urus.org, uxxi.com. Can you tell what any of the domains
do? This list is a very small segment of the daily names I receive
listing domain names which have expired.
• Plan your site carefully before contacting a web
designer, even if you plan
to design it yourself, and don’t worry about your site being
perfect. You can always make changes later.
• http://www.FiveStarWebDesign.com has tips and articles to
help you create an irresistible web site that keeps buyers coming
back.
• For help in developing your site, go to
http://www.elance.com
http://www.Searchenginewatch.com
http://www.web-source.net
• Your best bet is to contact a knowledgeable, creative web
designer such as the following:
•
5-Star Recommendation:
Mr. Ian Clark
Steam Power Design
ian@steampowerdesign.com
http://www.steampowerdesign.com
• Your site could be your brochure or it could be
interactive, according to
what you desire. See http://www.coachability.com for brochure type.
See http://www.coachability.com/profit-from-your-passion for
interactive type.
• Register your domain name. If you search
“domain name registration” through http://www.yahoo.com
or http://godaddy.com, you will find many choices. I use godaddy
because of the price, and I’ve never had a problem with
them.
http://www.godaddy.com (varies from $9 to $17--good price)
http:/www.register.com ($35/year)
http://www.domain.com ($30/year for 2 years)
• State your credentials clearly on your site.
If
you are going fishing in Alaska and looking for a guide, you
don’t care if s/he graduated with an MBA from Harvard. You do
care that s/he has experience fishing in Alaska. Make sure your
credentials relate to what you are doing.
• Give testimonials. Go to
http://www.coachability.com and click on “Seminar
Business,” then “Speaking Seminars.” Scroll down
until you see
“Click to read more testimonials.”
An
effective way to use testimonials is to weave them throughout your
sales letter so your potential client is constantly exposed to your
success.
• Make your web site exciting to look at and easy to
travel. Go
online and visit a variety of websites to see which ones look
like
what you want.
• Get name and e-mail of every person
who clicks through by
offering a free e-zine, e-book, coupon, coaching session,
something
that will be of value to the client and likely to make him/her
come
back to your site.
• Get a merchant account or secure credit card ordering. I
use
http://www.digibuy.com and http://www.ccnow.com.
There
are
numerous merchant accounts available.
• Get a free website review.
http://www.auditit.com and
http://www.marketingchallenge.com.
2.
SEARCH ENGINES
• Register with search engines. Go to
http://www.overture.com and enter “top ten search
engines” or go to http://www.searchenginewatch.com.
• Use good key words so search engines can locate you.
You
can check on the effectiveness of the words you use by checking the
information available to you through overture.com.
• Words for the main index page title are very
important. For
example, if you do e-book publishing, you could use the following
words: mailorder, mail-order, self publishing, self-publishing,
self publish, self-publish, publishing, information, mailorder
publishing, mail-order publishing, mail order publishing, training,
manuals, manual, speaking, imaging, public speaking, writing,
writer, booklets, how-to books, how to books, book publishing,
etc., etc. Including commonly misspelled words is also helpful in
case someone does misspell while searching.
• To get ideas for your keywords go to
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion.
When I entered the word “speaking” I found it is used
19316
times. Check it out
http://www.wordspot.com for their list of words.
• Put keywords on website. (See your web
designer if you don’t
understand.
• Title Tag at top of site
• Description of meta tag
• Keywords Meta Tag
• Body Copy
An excellent site for more information is
http://www.actionplan.com
• Automatic Submission to Search Engines.
http://searchengineblaster.com
• Manually Submit to Search Engines. The power
submitters mentioned in the next item are not recommended by some
site designers because many of them are blocked by the search
engines you’re trying to get ranked in. What’s worse is
many of them will add you to gigantic spam lists.
Here are the submitted pages you’ll need:
http://web.altavista.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=addurl
http://www.excite.com/info/add_url
http://www.alltheweb.com/add_url.php3
http://www.google.com/addurl.html
http://www.northernlight.com
http://www.yahoo.com
http://www.LookSmart.com
http://www.WebCrawler.com
http://www.seek.ask.com (An Ask Jeeves-type Service)
• List your website in top search engines. Although not
recommended by all, you could use power submitters to save time and
increase traffic:
http://www.webposition.com/default.asp.
http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/hub.mspx
• Make good use of e-mail signature. Write different
ones for different products, events, offers, etc.
• For more information on developing web sites on our
own, go to
http://www.studygs.net/design.htm, which has many tools which will
enable you to create clear, effective websites.
• I used to recommend investing at least $50/month in a
pay-per-click search engine, but on close analysis, I didn’t
find any increase in revenue while on overture or less when I
discontinued. The best known is
http://www.overture.com
which charges from $.05 per click on upward. For more information,
go to
http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com.
Other sites to check:
http://www.findwhat.com
http://www.7search.com
http://www.enhance.com
http://www.searchhound.com
http://www.search123.com
• Get listed in Regional Specific Directories and Search
Engines such as:
• Yahoo’s local directories, http://www.yahoo.com/Regional
•WowWorks, http://www.wowworks.com - Official state, city, and
county sites along with numerous community guides.
• Online yellow pages,
http://www.yellowbook.com
• Submit to and consider advertising in city
guides, such as
http://www.CitySearch.com. Likewise, every local media (newspaper,
TV, radio) now have web sites that usually accept
advertising.
• To track placement in search engines, go to
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/keywords
http://www.contentlogic.com/content/improve-search-engine-placement.html?ppc=awsearchengineplacement
http://www.netmechanic.com/promote.htm
http://www.agentwebranking.com/english.htm
• If you’re a local retailer, try SalesHound
at http://www.saleshound.com and http://www.salesmountain.com which
provide users with information about local sales and deals.
• Autoresponders. Can collect
e-mail addresses, upload followup
messages, program messages to out, etc. The best, in my opinion,
is
http://www.getresponse.com (free or various cost options)
http://www.adtrackz.com
http://www.aweber.com
3.
WRITING:
e-zines, articles, e-books
•
To create an ezine
http://www.ezineuniversity.com
http://www.EzineQueen.com (She has a book on ezine writing
and publishing, but she has gotten very expensive. Her
e-zines are worth subscribing to--lots of viable
information.)
•
Write paragraph describing newsletter and submit it to
newsletter announcement site
http://www.list-city.com
http://emailuniverse.com
•
For a multiple ezine site, http://www.webvalence.com
•
Get listed on the ezine search/directories
http://opt-influence.com
or hire an ezine marketing company
to handle listing process for you: http://www.sparklist.com
•
Register to win free ezine advertising to over
100,000
subscribers
http://www.subscribeme.net
•
Market services specifically geared toward increasing ezine
subscription base:
http://www.directoryofezines.com
•
Free resources for finding ezines to subscribe to and
advertise
in:
http://www.copywriter.com/lists
http://www.listex.com
http://www.ezinez.com
http://emailuniverse.com
•
Announce your ezine on these websites:
http://www.marketingforsuccess.com
http://www.ezineuniverse.com
http://www.ezinehub.com
http://www.newsletteraccess.com
http://www.marketingforsuccess.com
http://www.liszt.com
http://www.virtualpromote.com
http://emailuniverse.com
http://www.ezinesearch.com
http://www.new-list.com
http://emailuniverse.com/bestezines
•
To buy subscribers
http://www.NewslettersForFree.com
•
To sell e-zine ad space
http://www.BestNewsletters.com
•
Columns/articles: write one weekly
and submit to other e-zines-
make yourself known. Submit to local newspaper, magazine.
•
A good free e-zine for where and how to submit your
articles is The Messenger Seek ezine.
http://www.marketing-seek.com
Once submitted, the article will be transformed into a permanent
“.shtml” page and added to the archives. Your name,
e-mail address, Url and photograph are listed with your submission.
Each article is stored and used later to produce
“autobots” that are offered to anyone seeking a list of
the latest articles submitted to the database.
•
Invites articles: http://www.articlewarehouse.com
•
For newsworthy articles
http://www.imediafax.com (faxes to editors and newspeople)
http://www.xpresspress.com
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/home
•
Sites that post articles
http://www.mediapeak.com
http://www.homebusinessmag.com
http://www.web-source.net
http://www.ezinearticles.com
•
Submit to following article submission sites:
http://ezinearticles.com/submit
http://www.ideamarketers.com
http://certificate.net/wwio/ideas.shtml
http://www.topten.org
http://www.selfgrowth.com
At end of each article, mention that people are free to re-
publish the article as long as the include our information at the
end
of the article. Always include the URL of your website in
your
information box.
• Buy ezines
4.
E-B00K INFORMATION
•
e-book internet resources:
http://www.ebookmall.com
http://www.epublishing.com
http://www.ebooksonthe.net
http://www.iuniverse.com
http://www2.xlibris.com
5.
MAILING LISTS
•
For opt-in lists:
http://www.gotcorp.com
•
Guide to renting email lists
http://www.yesmail.com
http://www.postmasterdirect.com
http://www.bulletmail.com/default.html
http://www.worldata.com
http://www.Htmail.com
•
E-mail list
http://emailuniverse.com
•
E-mail lists where you can buy advertising:
http://www.memail.com (publishes over 50 ezines)
• There is great information from a
free e-zine from Mark
Wittkowski,
http://www.onlineautomation.com. On their
pop-up
screen you can download informative e-books and learn
invaluable
information.
6.
AFFILIATES
• There are
83,600,000
affiliated programs on Google.com. Sample
affiliates are Amazon.com, SuperLetters, Profit Pulling e-books,
coachville.com. You could set up an entire business just selling
affiliate merchandise.
•
Affiliates: For my web site,
logical affiliates are Amazon.com,
coachville.com, writeabooknow.com, etc.
•
Ideas: the best
mousetrap, sleeves to protect your arms from
being splattered, post-it notes w/sayings, jelly, tea, software,
etc.
•
Affiliate Programs:
http://www.findjvpartners.com
http://www.goemerchant.com/reseller_programs.htm
http://www.masterdiz.com/web01/affiliat.htm
http://www.InternetCheapskate.com
http://www.refer-it.com
http://www.associateprograms.com
http://www.clickquick.com
http://www.cashpile.com
http://www.revenews.com
http://www.affiliatematch.com
•
Use affiliate programs to build a huge customer
list.
7.
CHATROOMS/NEWSGROUPS/BULLETIN BOARDS
•
Join newsgroups related to your
product/service
http://www.usenet.com
http://groups.google.com
http://www.forumone.com
•
Webhosting companies that provide Email Broadcast Services:
http://www.jangomail.com/?s=g&w=broadcastemail
http://search.constantcontact.com
http://www.blifax.com/weblaunch_email.asp
•
Post messages. Get yourself
known.
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/messages/messages-02.html
http://www.learnthenet.com/english/html/59post.htm
•
Free Email Broadcast Service:
http://groups.yahoo.com (Yahoo groups)
http://groups.google.com
•
Resources to find other Broadcast Lists:
http://groups.google.com
•
Resource for promotion:
http://www.thenewsstand.com
•
Post your news release
http://www.businesswire.com
•
Post more general news
http://www.prnewswire.com
•
To e-mail your news directly to media, can buy a list of
e-mail
addresses from Direct Contact at 1-800-457-8746. To learn
more about this publication online:
http://www.imediafax.com
•
Chat rooms.
•Access Business Chat Room (13 to choose from)
http://www.clickit.com/cgi-bin/rbox/chatz.pl
•Talk City: http://www.talkcity.com
•11iVilliage (women networking)
http://www.ivillage.com
•
Bulletin Boards:
• Entrepreneurial Success Forum:
http://www.ablake.net/forum
• Free Publicity & Promotion Discussion Board:
http://www.free-publicity.com
• Get High (Traffic) Forums:
http://www.virtualpromote.com
•Web Marketing Forums:
http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt
•
Life support interfaces:
http://www.livehelper.com
http://www.HumanClick.com
8.
OPT-IN MAILING LISTS
•
Use to send notices, updates, special offers
http://www.postmasterdirect.com
http://www.yesmail.com
http://www.focalex.com
•
E-mail rental lists
http://www.postmasterdirect.com
http://www.bulletmail.com (targeted $.15-.20/name)
http://www.yesmail.com (major email campaigns @ $.25/name)
9.
ADS
•
http://www.jokeaday.com--
•
Free classified links:
http://www.tunza-products.com
http://www.hbads.com/index.php
http://www.buysellbid.com
http://www.freeclassifiedlinks.com
http://www.classifiedclub.com
•
Links to Symbiotic Sites:
http://www.linkleads.com
10.
FREEBIES
•
Register your freebies (most appeared
above)
http://www.freeclassifiedlinks.com
http://www.classifiedclub.com
http://www.ebookmall.com
http://www.epublishing.com
http://www.iuniverse.com
http://www.xlibris.com
http://www.freeclassifiedlinks.com
http://www.buysellbid.com
http://www.lifestylepub.com