One of the most exciting and rewarding things about doing what I do is that I get to hear success stories from my students. Following is a success story I received recently. Check it out as inspiration and to prove that anyone can make their Internet business successful if they have the tools and take action.

Here’s the story:

I am the guy who told you in February that it took my two years to get my head right and get it done after attending your IMI event in March of 2006. I wanted to give you an update followed.

I have slowly but surely been climbing the ladder of Internet marketing success. Since my last update I have continued to make small steps and more importantly, make money. I have only cleared $2,600 in profits in the last three months. I recently made $918 of that in one day. I still work a full time job 9 hours, teach tennis for extra money from 6-8pm after work, and then go home and work on my Internet business.

I am married and raising three children. Guess what? Now I get it. I love it and wouldn’t have it any other way. If I could make $918 in one day on a list of 523 people selling a $39.95 information product, only 120 people actually opened my email, and 30 of them made sales so I can converted 25%. I know that I can make ten times that in one day with joint venture partners.

I am planning a huge launch and networking, hopefully about 30 joint venture partners, to sell my product. I am tying that product in with my new membership site. This makes me excited. Monthly recurring income will be awesome, but you’re right. Just like you talked about in the Cash Flow 101, it easier to get in the cash flow business with a team.

My question is this: Will you please tell your listeners and readers the following: Mike Littman is great and said, You don’t have to get it right. You just have to get it going. Plus, Success comes from commitment to a single idea over time. And, You’ve gotta give to get.

I wrote 15 articles for ezines and I put 15 videos on You Tube on how to play tennis. And subscribers come each day from these videos being out there. It is viral. That’s it. I have a blue print and I’m going to lather, rinse, and repeat. I am going to continue making money doing what I love, tennis. Thanks for everything, I’ll keep you posted.

It’s these kinds of stories that remind me how much I love to help people, just like you, achieve their dreams in their Internet business.

Matt Bacak pansy report presents Pansy Report Matt Bacak on today’s topic: Membership Sites, It’s all about Matt Bacak’s last MEGA-successfullaunch and how he got flamed in the forums and betrayed by people he sincerely thought were his friends. Go to www.pansyreport.com

In the pursuit to deliver a better Internet experience, Google, Yahoo!, and the other major search engines diligently build better algorithms for ranking websites. While link popularity (the number of incoming links that point to your website) is still a valid search engine optimization tactic, it is far less vital to good rankings than trust and authority. In other words, if your website is considered authoritative, Google and Yahoo! will place it on the first page of organic listings for the competitive keywords you pursue.

The concept of trust and authority for search engine optimization is still hard to understand for many people. This article describes how a website becomes considered authoritative and explains the steps a website owner can take to build the authority of their website to enjoy higher organic rankings.

How A Website Becomes Authoritative

The best way to understand how websites become authoritative through search engine optimization is to consider research papers. For example, if a particular research paper is cited by other research papers, it becomes credible. As more people cite the research paper, especially authorities in the same field as that of the paper, it becomes trusted and authoritative. Just like if Stephen Hawking cited a paper someone else wrote on black holes, others would consider the paper authoritative because Stephen Hawking is considered an expert in the field of black holes.

Authority through search engine optimization works in the same way. For example, when operating a website that publishes articles about golf, attracting links from Golf Digest or The Professional Golfers Association would increase the authority of your website within the field of golf. Basically, the more authority you have, the more likelihood you will place high in the organic listings of Google and Yahoo!

Building An Authoritative Website

Building an authoritative website through search engine optimization is difficult. This is why many website owners turn to an SEO company. First, you must carve out a successful keyword inventory that targets and forms the foundation of your search engine optimization efforts. This requires extensive research, competitive analysis, identifying existing authorities in your field, and knowing how well those authorities control the keywords you want to target.

Second, you must build a satisfactory number of critical incoming links to your website. Ideally, these search engine optimization links should come from websites that are authoritative within your field. It isn’t usually easy (picture trying to get Stephen Hawking to cite your research paper), but with time and effort, it can be accomplished. By slowly working to attract incoming links from trusted and relevant content websites, mildly relevant education websites (or .edu domains), and social media websites, you will grow the authority of your website. As your authority grows, as will your rankings in Google and Yahoo! for your targeted keywords.

Receiving Qualified Traffic

One of the main advantages to having an authoritative website is that the time, effort, and money invested in search engine optimization will begin to bring in qualified traffic over time. As your website ranks higher, it gains exposure and respect, which attract more incoming links. The more this happens, the more authority you gain, the more exposure to qualified traffic you receive.

Building the authority of your website is a good search engine optimization strategy. Considering partnering with an experienced Chicago SEO company, or a search engine optimization company anywhere, to deliver the best results.

Aaron Wittersheim writes informative articles for Whoast, a Chicago SEO company. They help their clients boost their ROI through cutting-edge, ethical search engine optimization. Chicago serves as their headquarters, but they help clients nationwide.

If you have been involved in marketing for any length of time you have probably heard that the person most likely to buy from you is someone who has purchased before. This is so true. But if you have only one product to sell a customer you have reached the end of that revenue stream quickly unless it is some type of recurring billing product.

I see a lot of information marketers who develop a single product for a market niche. Then they immediately go to another market niche and develop a product for that niche and so on and so forth. While I am not against playing in multiple markets, I am against having only one product for each niche you are working in.

When you are always trying to get a new customer (since you have no repeat business), your cost of sale is higher. When you have a second and third and fourth product aimed at the same niche, your marketing costs for each additional product you are selling to that niche are effectively zero. It is simply a matter of emailing your customer list another offer they can take advantage of.

About a dozen years ago, I was involved in the development of a training CD for the plant engineering and maintenance market. The CD was on a highly technical topic. If memory serves me correctly, it was titled “The Rolling Bearings Troubleshooter’s Guide.” It was decided that the product would be marketed via the web.

I knew that one product would not make a company. So I negotiated deals with several technical publishers and other training developers for related books and training CDs that would be of interest to the same folks who had purchased the Rolling Bearings CD. A website was created and several millions of dollars worth of products have been sold via that site over the last 12 years.

The additional products you have to offer a market don’t even have to be your own product(s). You can offer related products from people that on the surface may appear to be competitors of yours. Find products on ClickBank that you can sell to your list.

People are thirsty for knowledge and many will purchase almost everything they find on a certain subject. If you have only one product to sell them you are leaving a lot of money on the table. Don’t close the door to repeat business.

Bret Ridgway is co-founder of Speaker Fulfillment Services, a company dedicated to helping information marketers. To pick up your own copy of his “New Information Product Development and Launch Checklist” visit http://www.50BiggestMistakes.com.

Some people fall so in love with their idea for an information product that they are totally oblivious as to whether or not a market even exists for that product. Now, if you are truly passionate about a subject and you just want to write a book for your own self-satisfaction, that’s fine. Go right ahead.

But if you are writing a book or developing a home study course, you’d better be sure that the market is even interested in your subject. So how do you determine the potential viability of a market?

The list below is not all-inclusive, but it will give you some excellent starting points.

1. Examine the trade journals that serve your industry. Go to your local library and ask for their guide to periodicals. This will identify those magazines that serve your industry. Get a hold of some of their back issues by requesting their media kit. Look through the ads to see if similar products are being offered to your market. You can also pick up issues on the magazine rack at your local bookstore. You should subscribe to those publications that are in your niche.

2. Google your topic and research the Internet to see what competitive products already exist in the marketplace. Remember, competition is not a bad thing. If nobody is offering an information product on your subject you may have uncovered a hidden niche. But, more than likely, you have uncovered a niche that hasn’t proven profitable so no one is playing in it.

3. Use online research tools such as “GoodKeywords” or “WordTracker” in order to identify what keywords and keyword phrases people are searching for online. This will help you gauge the potential size of the market you’re trying to reach. If very few people are looking for the subject you want to write about you’ve got a problem on your hands.

4. If you have an existing list, survey them using an online survey tool like “ASKDatabase” to see what level of interest they might have in your new subject.

It is foolish to jump into a market blindly if you are entering that market with the thought of making money in it. Make sure that you take the time to do your research in advance so that you don’t waste a bunch of your time and money chasing a market that doesn’t exist. What you do today can save you money tomorrow.

Bret Ridgway is co-founder of Speaker Fulfillment Services, a company dedicated to helping information marketers. To pick up your own copy of his new “Information Product Development and Launch Checklist” visit http://www.50BiggestMistakes.com.

I’ve seen it time and time again, especially with new authors getting a book published for the first time. They become so consumed with getting the lowest possible unit cost on the printing of their new book they order 5000 copies right out of the gate. So instead of paying $3.98 or $4.98 per book they get the unit price down to $2.98. Hooray, they saved a dollar or two per copy.

What happens next? 100 cases of books weighing 40 pounds or more each arrive at their home. They get stacked in the corner of the bedroom or in the garage, and there they sit, month after month after month. Sure, a few cases are opened and some books ship, but you’re continually stepping around boxes and cursing yourself for ordering so many books.

You’ve tied up thousands of dollars in inventory that you hope you can sell. Hey, but you saved $1 or $2 per book.

If you’re producing a “big box” package, you might also save some on the unit cost by producing more initially. But, unless you have a proven track record and can pretty accurately predict how many units you can sell, you’re better off spending more per unit and having a lower quantity produced initially.

“Big box” packages can cost $30 to over $100 depending on what all is included in your package. So, you can conceivably tie up tens of thousands of dollars in production for units you hope you can sell – all because it saved you some money on the per-unit cost.

But what do you do if you sell more product than you expected?

Have a plan in place to deal with your customers in case your product launch is more successful then you anticipated. If you ask your fulfillment house to produce 100 sets of a product for a launch and then you sell 300, you’ve created a potential problem you’ll have to deal with to keep your customers happy. Turnaround times for additional production can be several days or more.

It is recommended you have some digital component to your package that people can begin to read or listen to right away while they are awaiting arrival of the physical package. Or, if the package price justifies it, pull out a disc or small manual that can be shipped immediately to keep them happy until the “big box” arrives. Produce more of these up front than the full packages so you can immediately fulfill a portion of the package to all your customers.

It’s primarily a matter of managing customer expectations. If you keep your customers informed about the status of things proactively, you can significantly reduce any possible negatives that can result from having customers in a back order scenario.

Bret Ridgway is co-founder of Speaker Fulfillment Services, a company dedicated to helping information marketers. To pick up your own copy of his new “Information Product Development and Launch Checklist” visit http://www.50BiggestMistakes.com.

As an information marketer, you will have no shortage of great ideas. Oh, if I only had as many minutes in a day as I have great ideas… It’s great to have a variety of product ideas but if you want to start generating cash sooner rather than later, you need to stay focused.

Here is what typically happens to many information marketers when they are first starting out. They do some research and determine they have viable products they can develop in multiple markets. So they begin writing an ebook or developing a course on chinchilla farming, raising cacti, earthworms, and who knows what else all at the same time.

Their thought process is like this. “I’ll just work a little each day on each of my eight projects, and before long, I’ll have a great big library of information products that I’ll be making money on.”

So they work a little while each day on their chinchilla-farming book. Then they switch over to their book on raising cacti. After a while, they tire of that, so they begin some work on their great new ebook on earthworms. And so on and so on.

By utilizing this approach, you delay the completion of any individual project for some period of time. So nothing is making you any money because everything is still in a state of development. If each project takes a month to complete, you’re effectively delaying any possible revenue inflow until at least four months down the road if you’re working on four projects simultaneously.

And, invariably, something that you think will take a week ends up taking two or more. So maybe those four months becomes six or seven or eight. You are hemorrhaging cash, and nothing is coming in.

What is a better plan? Focus on one and get it done. Get it out in the market to begin generating you revenue. Then move on to the second project and repeat the process. That way you have one project generating revenue after month one, another generating revenue after month two, another generating revenue after month three, etc.. No waiting until month four to get anything coming in at all.

That is if you’re doing all the work yourself. Experienced information marketers know they don’t have to do all the product creation themselves. They use ghostwriters and other resources to help them generate more products more quickly. This is where you want to get to. Just be sure when you’re starting out you don’t get sucked into the multiple project trap.

Bret Ridgway is co-founder of Speaker Fulfillment Services, a company dedicated to helping information marketers. To pick up your own copy of his “New Information Product Development and Launch Checklist” visit http://www.50BiggestMistakes.com.

With the kind of tough competition you’ll have to face as an internet marketing business person, it’s important that you are aware of all the techniques available to improve your business and increase your earnings. If you’re an internet marketing newbie, optimizing social media can help you expand your audience and build your internet home business. Social media can be an effective and inexpensive means to establish yourself as long as you know how to use it.

How social media works

Social media helps you attain greater exposure to your audience, especially those you have already targeted. Like search engines, social media can help you promote your content and gain better visibility in the internet. Furthermore, it’s not a dead end. Promoting your content to your audience using social media lets your audience pass it on to others, particularly to people who belong to their social network.

Using social media in internet marketing

When you’re using the internet for profit, it’s important that you look at tools like social media as a means, not an end. Meaning, these tools will only be as effective as your content is good. Before going ahead and using social media, there are things that should already be in place, including:

-your site (should be usable and easy to navigate)

-content (should be existing on your site and should offer quality)

-your site’s management system (should let you manage content effectively)

Once you have the basics ready, you can begin expanding your reach. Here are ways internet marketing newbies can use social media to their advantage:

Choose the right social media.

Determine the type of industry or topic you want to be involved in and design your internet marketing efforts around it. Once you know the type of topic you want to engage in, it will be a lot easier to use which social media to choose. Whether you use videos, images, audio, articles or collaborative write-ups, it will be a lot easier for you to find the right kind of platform from which to promote your work.

Create relevant content.

Quality is of course, a very important consideration but so is relevance. Your content could be well-researched and well-written but if your visitors don’t find it useful, it will only be ignored.
Create content that’s highly prized by your target audience to encourage them to return to your site, recommend it and link up to it. More importantly, create content that your visitors will find worth distributing to the members of their social network. Keep your content updated.

Content can only be relevant as long as people find it so. Otherwise, it will outlive its usefulness. Do research to find out about changes in your industry or topic. Offer fresh information to keep your visitors interested and encourage them to spread your content.

Use more than one social medium if necessary.

You don’t have to limit yourself to just one social medium; there are several you can use at one time blogging, podcasting, discussion forums, networking, bookmarking, wikis, etc. Determine which type works best for your internet business and which one you do best.

If you’re uncomfortable with a certain social medium but find that it will be beneficial for your brand of internet marketing, hire someone to do it for you. Don’t miss out on a great opportunity just because you haven’t the time or the talent for it.

Direct the traffic to your site.

Yes, you still need traffic. How else will you be able to let them know you exist? Use all the tricks of the trade search engine optimization, quality content, link baiting, etc.
Build your network.

The social media thrives on strong networks. The larger it is and the more quality members it has, the better chances you’ll get. A strong network is extremely beneficial as an internet marketing tool not only because it promotes your internet marketing business to more people, but also because it allows you to gain foothold and influence in a very dynamic market.

Build a quality network. Find out which members produce better contacts or mean more business for you. For an internet marketing newbie, this may sound a little overwhelming but once you’re used to it, you’ll realize how advantageous it can be. Besides, all internet marketers have to start somewhere. Meet people and build friendships through social media. You not only get important information and updates about your business, you also get valuable feedback, which you can use later to improve your site, product and services.

Internet Marketing Co-founder of The World Internet Summit
www.brett.com.au

Running an Internet business involves a multitude of tasks, decisions, and operations. Many Internet businesses are one man shows. However, if you want to make the big money then your goal should be to build an Internet business empire. At the heart of your Internet venture is your business website. You probably didn’t go to college for web design nor did you learn on your own. Maybe you don’t even want to touch this task. The good news is that you can outsource this task.

This leads us to our question on outsourcing the building of your business website.

Question: Where is the best place to find somebody to build a business website? I don’t know how I want the design of the website to look. I just need somebody to build the structure.

Answer: First, let’s look at how you can communicate what you want to a freelancer. The cheapest and easiest option is to come up with words that will go on your website. For example, draw on a piece of paper the structure you want.

If you want a business website or a branding website then tell the freelancer that you want a Home page, About Us page, Contact Us page, etc. The key is to draw out the exact pages and tabs you want on the website. This will give the freelancer a definite idea of what you need. It can help them to give you a more accurate bid and time frame for the project as well.

Once you are considering or have selected their bid, give them the copy for each of the pages. Tell them to take these words and put them in the proper places. Let them work out the layout, structure, and graphics.

As far as where to go to find the freelancers, let me tell you that I have never used Guru. Just post a project that tells the Freelancers that you need a great looking website with X number of pages including (What we talked about above.)

Tell them you will provide them with all the copy, they just have to set up the structure and design. Also in the project description make sure to say This is a simple and easy task for anybody that has built a website.

Scroll through the bids on Elance to find your match. Check out their portfolio, rating, and bid amount before you select their bid. Ask for a mock up before you start working together.

These are tips that should help you find the freelancer you need to create the business website of your dreams!

Matt Bacak pansy report presents Pansy Report Matt Bacak on today’s topic: Membership Sites, It’s all about Matt Bacak’s last MEGA-successfullaunch and how he got flamed in the forums and betrayed by people he sincerely thought were his friends. Go to www.pansyreport.com

If you folks are really serious about earning an online income and starting some kind of business that you can eventually receive a residual income from then you better start thinking of some solid ideas right about now.

If you’re interested in this area of study then you’ve probably noticed that a recent trend on the internet has started. Basically anyone and everyone are teaching each other about how to successfully earn money on the internet. This is fine and definitely some of the people out there actually do make money online but I want to talk about today is how long term are most of these money making trends.

You see what a lot of people out on the web are teaching is to build up your internet income around mini websites that focus on a niche. My current thinking is that unless these websites actually have some real value they won’t make money in the future on the internet.

This method has been ok and made some people a small fortune. It won’t last for long though. Recently search engines like Google are already starting to let their users choose what search results they see as well as vote and comment on websites they find.

What does this all mean? Well basically if your website doesn’t provide true value to the users that find you eventually you’re website won’t get picked up by search engines no matter how many links you have built or how well you understand SEO.

You need to put yourself in the shoes of internet users. When you go online and do a search for some information, service, or product that is what you want to find right? You don’t want to arrive at a website with garbage content that doesn’t solve your problem and is plastered with advertising.

So what I’ve decided to start to preach to my readers is that if you want to earn passive income online then you really need to think about how you are going to do that before you start out. Think of an area you are interested in and then develop a website, blog, product, or service that offers value to your readers based on that.

We as online business people really need to think about the internet as a business and how we can help improve it. Although you can make some money from putting out websites and blog that don’t offer real quality just ask yourself how long will that business idea actually sustain for and will it make you residual income in the future?

Sam is the author of a website on how to make online passive income where he explains various methods on how to make extra income online and much more.