GT Bulmer © Affiliate Power Central

Just going through some notes and came across these tips for successful home based business websites. Thought I would share them with my readers and visitors! Maybe something will trigger an idea or some inspiration for you.

I consider myself to be a student of Internet Marketing and I’m always looking for ways to improve my marketing skills and my websites. It’s my belief that we should always be working on improving and growing.

Here goes – a few thoughts that come to mind regarding website design and presentation. …

1. The first tip is to a have a clear idea what your website is all about and then build both the site design and your marketing plan around it.

Determine what your marketing theme or niche is and then make that very clear and apparent on your site. If possible, build it into your domain name and the title tags of your site. Make that theme the focus of your keywords and keyword phrases both in the content of your site and in the off-site promoting that you do. Clarity is the foundation of every successful home based business website.

2. Be upfront regarding the prices of your products and services. Don’t hide that information or make your visitors search for it; that only frustrates them. The thing is, if you are offering value and you make that value apparent to your visitors, then you have no need to be sneaky about your prices. Your prospects will respect you more if you are upfront and honest.

3. Make your site easy to navigate. Include a menu or tabs in some form that are clearly stated, and make certain that the pages they point to contain the info and topics promised. The same goes for your article and content titles. Always tie the content of an article directly in to the title. Readers do not appreciate being drawn to an article or a page with a catchy or controversial title only to discover that the content doesn’t live up to the promise.

4. Give your visitors a great user experience so they will get a positive impression of you and your site and will remember you and be encouraged to return again. Avoid making your site all advertising, promotion and hard selling. Be certain to include informative, helpful articles, blog posts and other content; recommend some beneficial resources; offer some freebies, like a report or an eBook with information related to the theme of your website; and interactive elements like surveys and videos.

The bottom line to these recommendations is to make your website attractive, appealing and professional so your visitors will know you care about them and that you appreciate the time they have taken to check out your site.

It is my hope that you will have found some value in these tips for successful home based business websites. Let me just say again that it all starts with you being very clear about your market niche and who your target audience is. Everything else should flow from there.

* You might also enjoy these Affiliate Power Central blog posts:

– Optimize Your Website Pages For Different Keywords

– Search Engine Optimization Strategies Must Be Balanced

– How I Started My Internet Based Home Business

GT Bulmer © Affiliate Power Central

Keyword marketing is the foundation of search engine success, but some marketers focus only on their home page. Other areas of a site need attention, too, and you should optimize your website pages for different keywords.

A balanced program of search engine optimization (SEO) should include all key pages on a website and each page should be optimized for different but related keywords and promoted with off-site methods accordingly.

The more pages you can add to your website and optimize for different keywords, the better. Many Internet Marketers use longer keyword phrases, at least in the early stages of their online business, because longer phrases have less search engine competition. …

As their web pages begin to show up and stick on the first page of the search engine results pages, the marketers will then begin marketing with shorter phrases and more competitive search terms.

One example I have seen of optimizing for different keywords comes from the Axandra Search Engine newsletter, which states:

“For example, start with the keywords ‘buy sneakers in atlanta’, ‘buy cowboy boots in
atlanta’, ‘buy pumps in atlanta’, ‘shoe shop atlanta’, etc. When you have managed to
get high rankings for many of these keyphrases, Google will know that your website is
relevant to the topic ‘shoes’.” – From the Axandra Search Engine Newsletter

In recent blog posts and in forum discussions and articles, I have commented about how the search engines are now placing an even greater emphasis on quality content. Websites are suitably rewarded that offer good, quality content that is positioned high on the web page, offers value to the reader, and is not repetitious on the site.

Keeping that in mind, when you create additional pages, make the content somewhat unique from page to page. It can follow the theme or niche of your site, but give it a different angle and use different, but similar, keywords as noted.

When you optimize your website pages for different keywords, it helps to accelerate your success with search engine positioning and also helps you reach a wider market of targeted prospects. Start putting this into practice today!

* You might also enjoy these Affiliate Power Central blog posts:

– Search Engine Optimization Strategies Must Be Balanced

– Rank Higher With This Search Engine Optimization Resource

– How to Build an Email List

GT Bulmer © Affiliate Power Central

Search Engine Optimization strategies must be balanced no matter what method happens to be your favourite. On-site and off-site SEO factors each have their place of significance and should be given due consideration.

Newcomers to Internet Marketing are very often overwhelmed by information overload and it is not uncommon for their SEO education to be buried somewhere way down the list of priorities. I know. I was in that place when I first started looking at Internet based home business opportunities.

Fortunately for me, I had good mentors who guided me along and helped me learn the basics of marketing, step by step. Early on, I was coached on the purpose of effective SEO and I gained some valuable insight that continues to guide my efforts today. …

I learned that if you want to get your website to the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs), there are three steps to search engine success and your search engine optimization strategies must be balanced between them.

To begin with, every experienced marketer knows that choosing the right keywords is the first step. Keyword planning must then be followed up with on-site optimization, and in turn, that must be followed up with methods of off-site optimization.

Keyword marketing involves identifying the right keywords and phrases for your website, researching the level of competition for those keywords, choosing the ones most suitable for your purposes and then using them in your on-site and off-site optimization and marketing.

On-site optimization will include areas like the text on your web pages, the number and positioning of the keywords on those pages, links on the pages that point to other pages on your website, certain factors in the HTML of your web pages, and other factors.

Off-site optimization will include areas like the number of backlinks that point to your website and the quality of those links. You may not have complete control over these factors, but you do have some control. For example, when you create backlinks through article marketing, guest blogging, social networking and several other methods; in those cases, you get to choose some of the sites where those links will appear, and in some instances, you can also choose which keywords are used as anchor text in the links.

Newer marketers sometimes ask which of these SEO practices is most important and which to place greater focus on. The answer, as noted earlier, is that they each have their purpose and their place, and to be most effective, they must be used in balance. Off-site SEO depends on proper on-site SEO, and that depends on effective keyword research and application. If one area isn’t set up quite well enough, the others will not be as effective.

I have noticed that even experienced Internet Marketers lean towards certain optimization methods because they like those methods better, or they are easier to do. But if you truly want to be successful and want to develop a professional online business, you will see to it that your search engine optimization strategies are balanced. Make it a priority.

* You might also enjoy these Affiliate Power Central blog posts:

– Rank Higher With This Search Engine Optimization Resource

– How I Started My Internet Based Home Business

– Getting Free Targeted Traffic In The New Year

GT Bulmer © Affiliate Power Central

You can pump up your earning ability through personal growth and development. In fact, success in every area of your life, whether business or personal, depends on your commitment to building your knowledge and skills.

I launched this website with the original intent of providing information and resources related to Affiliate Marketing and home business opportunities. However, I soon realized that many aspiring entrepreneurs could also benefit from some insight into personal development.

I like to share thoughts and ideas I have gleaned from training materials I have personally purchased from Brian Tracy International. It is my belief that anybody who takes the time to learn the basic characteristics needed for success and achievement will be happier, more productive and will contribute much more to their business, their family and their community in general. …

Getting straight to the point of this blog post, Brian Tracy tells us that our most valuable asset is our earning ability. “It’s physical, it’s mental – it’s your capital,” he says. “And your most precious resource is your time.”

I appreciate Brian’s point of view, and the way I see it, no matter what lofty ideals we may have in life, it all comes down to survival and doing what we have to do to put a roof over our head, bread on our table, and money in the pockets of utility providers so we can have heat, power and telecommunication services.

Since our earning ability is the foundation on which we build a comfortable lifestyle, we should make it a priority to find ways to enhance this most valuable ability through personal growth and development. We need to work at developing suitable physical skills as well as the complementary mental and emotional attitudes necessary to support them.

And since time is our most precious and non-renewable resource, we must choose to invest it wisely on the activities most beneficial to the achievement of our primary purpose, whatever that may be.

The physical skills that we need, we can learn through apprenticeship programs, on-the-job training and general work experience. The more we practice, the better we get.

The mental principles and attitudes that we need, we can learn through the study of written materials, audio programs and the examples of others who have travelled the path before us. After we study the theory of these principles, we must then put them into practice and remain constantly mindful of their purpose, importance and value.

We may at times be dependent on others for their service and support, but ultimately, our success and the degree of lifestyle that we are to enjoy is our own responsibility. The kindness and patience of others will go only so far. And then we must be accountable for our own well-being.

If you see the value in pursuing programs of personal growth and development to enhance your earning ability, then let me encourage you to make it a priority to find and follow such a program at your earliest possible convenience. My recommendation is Brian Tracy’s The Universal Laws of Success and Achievement.

* You might also enjoy these Affiliate Power Central blog posts:

– Universal Laws of Success and Achievement Review

– The New Psychology of Achievement, Review

– The Time Has Come To Unlock Your Potential

– Make 2012 Your Year to Believe and Achieve

GT Bulmer © Affiliate Power Central

Everybody has a story and very briefly, this is how I started my Internet based home business. It is probably a fairly common story, but never the less, here goes!

Working from home on a part time basis, I had been involved in various forms of offline marketing through the ‘80s and ‘90s. I have always been interested in marketing, promoting, sales and writing.

I connected to the Internet in the mid-90s mainly so I could communicate more effectively with upline and downline members in the Network Marketing opportunity I was promoting at the time. …

By the end of the ‘90s, that company had faded away, like so many other such companies, and I couldn’t find another one that I liked as well. I think I was just tired of the whole multi-level marketing scene.

For a few years, while working at a day job, I focused on developing my writing abilities. By 2007 I was ready to further develop my growing freelance writing business and pursue online writing markets.

Well, once I started researching online writing opportunities, one thing led to another and the next thing you know, I’m back into the marketing and promotion business, this time with an Internet based home business!

I signed up with a program that gave you a ready-built, affiliate-based, fully monetized website. The package included a training program designed to teach members the basics of Internet Marketing.

Here are a few of the key points that I still recommend to newcomers to the business:

First of all, if you are going to be in business today, you need to be online and you need to have a plan.

This means choosing and registering a domain name and getting a professional website set up. When you have your own website, you have complete control over what goes on it and how you want to change things from time to time. It also shows your targeted market that you are in business to stay and that you take it seriously.
==> Your own Domain and Website: very important.

Next, make certain your website is properly optimized for the search engines. Do it at the start and save yourself a whole lot of aggravation later on. If you can’t do it, find a service that will do it for you or find experienced mentors who can coach you.
==> Search Engine Optimization (SEO): very important.

The next thing you need is an autoresponder service, like GetResponse, so you can set up an email opt-in form on your web pages to capture the email addresses of your visitors. You will then use the service to send regular messages to your subscribers, providing them with a good balance of useful information and recommended products and services to purchase.
==> Autoresponder service: very important.

My final recommendation in this brief Internet primer is Traffic. You need to learn and apply as many ways as you can to drive targeted visitors to your website. In the early days, it might have been easier, but now, with so many millions getting involved with online marketing around the world, getting traffic to your site has become one of the biggest challenges.

Popular traffic methods include blogging, guest blogging, article marketing, social networking, traffic exchanges, advertising and more. Learn from others what works and why it works, and then experiment to find the traffic methods that work best for you.
==> Traffic Plan: very important.

That is the strategy I have followed since launching my online business:
==> Website, SEO, Autoresponder, Training and Traffic development.

And that is how I started my Internet based home business. I have found it to be a process of continual learning and development, and it is enjoyable and rewarding in a variety of ways.

* You might also enjoy these Affiliate Power Central blog posts:

– Successful Home Businesses Need This Support

– How to Build an Email List

– Google Website Traffic Tips eBook and Free Bonus

GT Bulmer © Affiliate Power Central

Every Internet Marketer needs to learn how to build an email list. There are many ways to make money online, but a well-developed email list is one beneficial resource that has the potential to pay you dividends over and over again.

This post will highlight the key points of opt-in list building. More detailed guides can be found by searching online or by joining a membership site like the Affiliate Power Group.

The first step in building your list is understanding the value and importance of doing it. …

Most visitors to a website do not purchase anything the first time and in this age of transient web surfing, few of your visitors will return. Getting them to sign up and opt in to your list is a way to capture their email address so you can keep them in your marketing funnel.

Once they are on your email list, you will be able to send them follow-up messages anytime you want. However, do not overwhelm them with persistent and frequent hardcore sales pitches or you risk offending them and having them withdraw from your list. Make sure each message you send includes something of value, not just a sales message or product offer.

Here is a brief outline of the process of how to build an email list:

1) Get an Autoresponder account: I recommend GetResponse as I have been using it successfully for a number of years.

An autoresponder is an email service that allows you to automatically collect and record the emails of people who opt-in to your list. You can then set up a series of automated messages to go out to each person on your list at scheduled intervals. The beauty of it is that once your prospect signs up to be in the system, the service takes over the automatic messaging from there.

You can also send updates anytime you want without interfering with the automatic messages.

2) Create an Incentive for people to sign up: A newsletter is a popular incentive. You write, or have written for you, a series of informative and helpful articles that will be of interest to your targeted audience.

The newsletter articles will be delivered at designated intervals. You can also include a more immediate bonus for signing up, like a free eBook or report, a training course, software or useful products or services – anything that you can provide at no cost or low cost to you, but will have value to the recipient.

3) Put an Opt-in Form on every page of your website: Most autoresponder services will help you create an opt-in form and will give you the form code to paste onto your website. Most forms ask only for the visitor’s first name and email address. The incentives or benefits being offered should be briefly stated. Most Internet Marketers place their opt-in forms in a prominent position near the top of their web page.

4) Promote the Benefits of signing up for your email list: These are all optional, but if you choose, you can write blog posts, post notes on social sites and traffic exchanges, and use lead capture pages. Or you can skip the direct promoting and simply put all your effort into recommended traffic methods for driving visitors to your website – but that’s a topic for another day!

This has been the “short version” of How to Build an Email List. For more insight and discussion on the topic, you can search online, or look for a good mentoring group to join. I recommend the Affiliate Power Group.

* You might also enjoy these Affiliate Power Central blog posts:

– Affiliate Power Group Review

– Successful Home Businesses Need This Support

– Google Website Traffic Tips eBook and Free Bonus

GT Bulmer © Affiliate Power Central

Even with all of its bells and whistles, I think free Social Networking with Twitter is still the easiest of all the Social Media sites. Just like all the others, Twitter keeps adding features, but at its most basic, it is simple and quick to use.

I started my first Twitter account a few years ago to test the social marketing waters and see what all the fuss was about. Since then, I have launched several other accounts for various purposes and while I can’t say that any of them have brought any significant amount of sales, the ones I use to promote my home business opportunities have definitely helped to increase my presence within Internet Marketing circles.

My most prominent Twitter accounts are gtbulmer and mypowersite. Whenever I post new blog posts, or articles to the directories, or start new discussion groups in other free social networking sites, I always tweet the links out to my followers on these two Twitter accounts (and sometimes on other accounts). …

Twitter is extremely easy to use. It takes only minutes to sign up for a free account, upload a profile picture, write a brief profile description of who you are and what you do, add a website link to the profile, and you are ready to begin tweeting!

Some of the other sites require a lot more time and study to get the profiles set up and your account ready to start posting content. Nothing wrong with that. I’m not complaining. Those social sites serve a valuable purpose too, and you just have to learn how best to use them.

I’m just saying that with Twitter, all you really have to do is set up your profile and begin tweeting.

Some social networking sites are set up so when you are on other pages on the Internet that you want to share with your social circles, you just have to click an icon for that social site, log in and send the message you want posted to that particular social site.

Twitter is set up this way, too. There are very few websites that don’t have the Twitter tweet option available.

When it comes to using Twitter directly, every Internet Marketer has their own ideas or methods of how best to use the service. Some use it strictly for social contact and seldom post anything commercial. Some use it almost exclusively to post links to their business blogs and articles, their affiliate links and other promotional links.

Some marketers apply the “rules of social marketing” where you tweet a fair balance of social tweets, commercial tweets and informative tweets. This is probably best so you don’t get labelled – and ignored – as a promoter, or worse yet, as a spammer.

Some marketers tweet maybe once or twice a day, or a few times a week. Some tweet regularly throughout the day.

If your preference is to tweet often, it is recommended that you at least space them out so they don’t bunch up in your followers’ timelines. That sort of thing just doesn’t go over very well. Even if the information you post is valuable, it just comes across as annoying.

There are a lot of great social sites out there and every smart marketer makes use of some of them. My opinion still remains that for basic service and convenience, free social networking with Twitter is an ideal choice. Follow me on gtbulmer and mypowersite. A little birdie tells me I’ll follow you, too!

– Promote Yourself On Business Social Networking Sites

– 30 Ways of Getting Website Traffic FREE in 30 Minutes or Less

– Google Website Traffic Tips eBook and Free Bonus

~ ~ ~

GT Bulmer © Affiliate Power Central

Google isn’t pulling any punches with their latest update, indicating that good web page design now means you may have to move some of your ads down so you can push your content up “above-the-fold” for greater exposure and appeal.

So suggests the Google blog post highlighting their Jan. 19 page layout algorithm improvement. This is just one of more than 500 such improvements that the Search leader plans to roll out in 2012.

Marketers and advertisers may not like this change, but if the ads on your web page currently overpower your content, and if you don’t adjust and improve the positioning of that content, you may feel Google’s wrath in the form of lower rankings on the search engine results pages (SERPs). …

The purpose of this page layout algorithm update is to enhance the search results for search users by encouraging good web page design among webmasters. The search engine will now examine the layout of your web pages and will measure the amount of your content and it’s positioning.

If you have too many ads above-the-fold (the portion of the web page that the visitor immediately sees upon landing there) your SERP ranking may suffer. If your content is too low on the page, or if it is buried in ads, your ranking may suffer.

Google says this does not make for a very good user experience and the Jan. 19 update was introduced to address it … on behalf of search users who have complained about landing on pages and not being able to easily find the expected content.

This update should come as no surprise to most Internet Marketers since the trend in recent years has been towards an increased focus on improved website content. Over the years, some website owners have become very good at optimizing their websites for the search engines while ignoring the ease and comfort of the human visitors that land on their sites.

The search engines are now placing much greater emphasis on the importance of quality content that is easy for the visitor to find. Websites that do not consistently produce quality content and position it in a user-friendly manner could begin a downward spiral in the SERP rankings.

Check out the Google Page layout algorithm improvement blog post for more insight into this update and what you can and should do about it.

In the post, the final word of advice from Google’s Matt Cutts is to “focus on delivering the best possible user experience on your websites and not to focus on specific algorithm tweaks.”

Unless, of course, your practices are in serious need of improvement, in which case you should probably follow the Google blog closely for tips you are going to need! After all, good web page design doesn’t just happen. You need to learn what to do, then you need to do it.

* You might also enjoy these Affiliate Power Central blog posts:

– Google Website Traffic Tips eBook and Free Bonus

– 30 Ways of Getting Website Traffic FREE in 30 Minutes or Less

– Sales Psychology Starts With You

GT Bulmer © Affiliate Power Central

Sales psychology starts with you, no matter what kind of business you are in. All forms of marketing come down to sales in some form and your success in sales is directly proportionate to the inner game you play with yourself.

Smart marketers are always looking for insight and insider tips on how to improve their sales abilities. You need to develop your outer skills: your product knowledge, your presentation script and presentation style, your ability to communicate clearly with prospects and paint appealing pictures of your product.

You need also to develop your inner skills, the psychology behind what makes you effective as a marketer and sales person. Here are two basic concepts that can have a huge impact on your success. …

These two concepts come from Brian Tracy who is a master at sales psychology.

The first concept is something Brian calls the Law of Substitution. He refers to this law when coaching his students on ways to cultivate happiness in their lives. Because when you are happier, you are typically more productive in every area of your life.

Brian describes the Law of Substitution like this: “Your mind is like a garden,” he says. “Unless you cultivate flowers, weeds will grow.”

How do you cultivate flowers, rather than weeds? By keeping your mind positive. This is an active process, not a passive one. You have to “cultivate” positive thoughts. How do you do this?

“To keep your mind positive, substitute positive thoughts for negative thoughts,” Brian explains.

Get rid of negative thoughts. Banish them from your mind. Replace them with thoughts that are uplifting, constructive and positive.

This leads into the second concept: The Law of Practice, as Brian calls it. (I really appreciate how he simplifies these lessons and whittles them down to a few simple, easy to follow words.)

This law is all about practicing feelings of cheerfulness and optimism.

I know it sounds kind of simplistic, but it really does work.

Brian tells us, “If you practice feeling cheerful or optimistic, you will form the habit of BEING cheerful and optimistic.”

It’s an odd thing, but if you are feeling down or negative and you force yourself to smile or laugh, it can work wonders in making you feel better. And if you do this with other people around, they will respond with a smile or a laugh of their own and this, in turn, boosts your feelings of positive energy. It works.

What does all this have to do with marketing and selling?

When you project a positive attitude of cheerfulness and optimism, it flows from you to your prospect through your eyes and your smile and in the words and expressions you use. If you are truly positive and enthusiastic, it will also flow through your computer keyboard and into your blogs, articles and other sales and marketing materials that you produce.

If you promote home business opportunities or any kind of online products or services, you have to know that it’s all about sales, and without a doubt, sales psychology starts with you. Make personal development a focus, and invest in some training aids that positively pump you up!

* You might also enjoy these Affiliate Power Central blog posts:

– The New Psychology of Achievement, Review

– Seriously Unlock Your Potential In 2012

– Make 2012 Your Year to Believe and Achieve

GT Bulmer © Affiliate Power Central

Submit to this article submission site today! It’s popular. It attracts all of the industry leaders (EVERY industry – check it out!) And it gets hundreds of thousands of visitors each and every month.

I am talking about the article directory on the EvanCarmichael.com site. You can promote yourself free in this directory and you will be joining well over 6,000 other entrepreneurs, some of them quite famous.

The reason Evan’s site attracts so many monthly visitors is because it is literally loaded with helpful articles written to inform, inspire, motivate and encourage entrepreneurs of all kinds, whether involved in big business ventures or home business opportunities. …

You simply have to check out this article submission site for yourself to see the quality of the site in general and the variety and quality of the content in particular.

I will admit that I am somewhat partial to this directory. I serve on Evan’s team as his forum administrator, so it stands to reason that I would recommend other areas of his website in the bargain. Still, as a home based Internet Marketer and entrepreneur, I can recognize value when I see it and compared to other similar article directories, this one is a definite winner.

Once you are a registered author, you can submit articles free anytime you want, day or night, and there is no limit to the number of submissions. In fact, the more articles you can include in the directory the better because it will bring you more exposure and will help to establish you as an expert or preferred source in your field.

Every marketer knows the value and purpose of article submission: in addition to the exposure just mentioned, it can also bring you more traffic, including targeted traffic, depending on the focus of your articles; and keyword rich articles will help your website rank higher in the search engines.

It is easy to become an author on EvanCarmichael.com. You simply take a couple of minutes to fill out a short form and once you are entered into the system, you are set to go! Visit the site for a list of FAQs and more information and testimonials about Evan’s article directory.

There are many good article directories online and this is one you will want to make certain to post all of your articles in. So, sign up and submit to this article submission site today!

* You might also enjoy these Affiliate Power Central blog posts:

– Article Marketing Sites Can Draw Targeted Traffic

– Entrepreneur Forums Offer Friendly Support

– Google Website Traffic Tips eBook and Free Bonus