Onlinebizhq

Plant Your Online
Biz Money Tree
Successful Strategies to Make Money

Online …and Watch Your Business
Bloom!
By: Steve Burgess

Ajay Prasad
Joe Sanfellipo
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Table of Contents
Page No.
Forward: Is This Book for You? 1
Section One: Planting the Field
1. A Website – Is it Really Needed? 11
2. The #1 Mistake EVERY Business Makes

When Building a Website 15
3. The 7 Secret Seeds to Making

Money Online 20
Section Two: The 7 Secret Seeds
1. Secret Seed #1: Let Your Passion Be Your Guide 27
2. Secret Seed #2: Know Your Customers 39
3. Secret Seed #3: Failing to Plan is

Planning to Fail 55
4. Secret Seed #4: Building Your Website to Be

a Money-Making Machine 78
5. Secret Seed #5: Have Multiple Points of Entry 102
6. Secret Seed #6: In the Driver’s Seat: Generate

Traffic Without Breaking Your Bank! 119
7. Secret Seed #7: Build a Funnel to Multiply

Sales! 197
Section Three: Reaping the Harvest of Your Money

Tree
1. Review of the 7 Secret Seeds
2. More on E-Commerce Websites
3. Keep Your Money Tree Blooming: Ongoing Education
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FORWARD:
Is This Book For YOU?
There is a simple answer and a not-so-simple answer to
this question. We’ll start with the simple one.
If you picked this book up — whether you purchased it,

borrowed it from a friend, found it online, received it as a
gift…. However it is you came to be reading these words
right now, the answer to the question of whether this book
is for you is YES. An absolute, irrevocable YES.
The answer is YES because something inside of you had the

foresight, the desire, the drive, or even just a curiosity to
learn more about how you can make money – or more money
– over the Internet.
Lao-Tzu said, “The longest journey begins with a single step.”

What was true in 600 B.C. when he uttered this wisdom is
still true in our fast-paced world of the 21st century. You
made that first step today toward your success by picking
up this book. For that, we commend you.
However, you aren’t alone in this journey to Internet wealth.

Millions of people right this very second are trying to capture
their piece of the Internet Pie. While there are virtually an
infinite number of ways in which you can make money online
(this is the good news), there is almost an equal number of
people who believe they have The Answer….and they are
shouting it to anyone who will listen. With any real
opportunity comes a plethora of opportunists eager to cash
in on honest people trying to get some reliable knowledge
and education. This is the not-so-good news.
1 www.OnlineBizHQ.com
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In fact, if you have even a passing interest in this subject
(and you must, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this),
you probably have been inundated with emails, newsletters,
seminar invitations, you name it… all claiming they have
the “Foolproof Blueprint” to making millions overnight, while
not spending a dime, sitting on your couch, and leisurely
wiling away your time watching your bank account grow. Is
this right?
To put this point to the test on the sheer amount of this kind
of information out there, we did a quick Google search on
the term “make money on the Internet”. Here is a screen
shot of part of our 1st page results:
Gee, only 70,300,000 results to sort through, most of which

are claiming easy ways to overnight dollars! The top headline
is “Make Money on Autopilot”. We see another ad here that
claims you will “Make $6,082.60 Overnight”. Wow, they have
it down to the actual penny! They must have it figured out.

OK, so we’re being a little tongue-in-cheek here, and we’re
not trying to disparage any particular website, person or
company’s claims or methods to making money online.
(Our attorney is making us add this disclaimer, by the way.)
But, you can see just how daunting it is for someone that
wants to cut through all the hype and outlandish claims. So,
find out first, is this really something you can do? If so, how
do you go about doing it without spending a fortune or being
taken advantage of?
Our answer to you is yes, you can absolutely make a lot of

money online, when you have the right attitude, the right
planning process, and the right tools and basic knowledge.
This is exactly what we will outline for you in this book.
Which leads us to the not-so-simple answer to our question

of whether this book is for you. Can you make a lot of
money on the Internet without a PhD in marketing or even
a lot of web knowledge? Yes, absolutely. (More on this in
the next chapter)
Can you really do it overnight or without spending any

money, time, or energy? This one gets a resounding NO.
Sure, there are great success stories out there like eBay
and Amazon, but they certainly didn’t happen overnight!
What we can tell you is this: we’ve been working in this
business since the idea of e-commerce was in its infancy.
We have yet to find a real-life, no gimmicks example of a
true ‘get rich overnight’ story when it comes to making
money over the Internet. Scratch that, we have yet to find
a true ‘get rich quick’ story anywhere. Why should
cyberspace be any exception? Especially in today’s
environment, where the Internet is becoming a more and
more complex and competitive marketspace every second.

So if loads of cash with little or no effort is what you are
looking for, please do yourself a favor and put this book
down now. You aren’t going to find any overnight success
claims here. We’re not going to promise anyone they will
make millions without a lot of hard work, which starts with
spending some time to educate yourself.
What we will do is share with you our collective experience

of nearly half a century as successful business builders,
entrepreneurs and growth experts to give you a practical,
step-by-step guidebook to what you really need to know
(and what most people won’t tell you!), how exactly to go
about creating and implementing your plan; step-by-step,
and the real, legitimate resources and tools out there to
help you start and grow an online business successfully.
And by the way, our definition of ‘success’ when it comes to

an online business, or even any website for that matter, is
whether or not it is making money. Anyone can have a
website. Anyone can even have a well-designed website
with all the latest technology and bells and whistles with a
little know-how and money. But who cares if it isn’t making
you money?
Chances are, you fit into one of two categories of people if

you are reading this now. You are either an existing business
owner that already has a website (or knows they need one…
or needs a better one). You want to ‘go virtual’, ‘go global’,
or simply leverage the power of all those billions of people
online, searching for your products or services to generate
more sales…but you have no idea how or where to get
started.

Or, you are an entrepreneur or infopreneur – or an aspiring
one – that knows there is an opportunity out there, and
wants to find their piece of the Internet Pie. This book
speaks to both people, and we will use real world examples
for each case.
Whether you are struggling in today’s economy and looking

for a way to earn a little extra side income, or are hoping to
create an online dynasty with multiple, million-dollar plus
revenue streams, the blueprint is the same. The same exact
planning and steps outlined in this book are still necessary
to follow.
What is different is your personal time commitment, level

of dedication, aspirations, passions, decisions, and desire
to succeed. What we do guarantee is this book will give you
a blueprint - and all the tools and resources with it - in
order to earn as little or as much as you would like on the
Internet today.
As they say, “The rest is up to you.”

Introduction
“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who

said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with
your own reason and your own common sense” - Buddha
First of all, congratulations. You’ve made it this far.
Actually, we’re not kidding. Because you’re already on the

right path. For while we know that a great number of people
buy business books, we also know that far too many never
bother to read them. And worst of all, even of those who
do read them, the majority fail to do what’s most important
of all: take action on the advice that was imparted inside.
So, by all means, congratulations. You’ve just taken the

first step to separate yourself from the crowd.
Our names are Steve Burgess, Joe Sanfellipo and Ajay Prasad
- and as you probably already know, we are the guys who
wrote this book. Together, we have almost a century of
combined entrepreneurial experience, in areas as diverse
as strategic consulting, information technology and business
building, franchise development and marketing. Between
us, we have helped start or grow more than 3,500 businesses
– creating over 13 billion of dollars of revenue and more
than 7 billion dollars of equity in the process.
For many years, we have worked with each of our individual

clients and businesses through Global Marketing Resources
and our other entities. But at the beginning of this year, the
three of us sat down to discuss the topic of combining our
experience, pooling our resources and starting a new

business created specifically for the purpose of helping
would-be entrepreneurs decide if owning their own business
is right for them - and if so, how they can get the help they
need.
We knew from our own experience how much useless, wrong

and misleading information was being used to take
advantage of gullible newbies. And we all agreed there should
be a way for people to get fair, legitimate help that was
actually designed to service their needs – and not just pad
someone’s sales commissions.
The result was Online Biz HQ (www.OnlineBizHQ.com) and

our series of information products and services. Specifically
designed for those who are serious about the prospect of
starting their own business, our products enable would-be
entrepreneurs to directly benefit from our years of helping
people do just that.
Now, as you can imagine, over the course of that time,

we’ve learned a lot. We’ve learned that owning your own
business can be perhaps the single-most wonderful,
rewarding and liberating experience one can have. A
potentially limitless goldmine that can change your life and
transform your ability to control your destiny in this world.
But we’ve also learned something else. That making this all
happen can be very, very hard.
Though the entrepreneurial life can indeed offer tremendous

rewards, it can also saddle you with countless numbers of
heartbreaks, financial risks and outright failures. Every
success we’ve achieved has been hard won – and often at
the cost of many painful mistakes. We can’t tell you how

many times we’ve all thought, “if only I’d had someone to
show me how to do all this beforehand.”
But, of course, we realized that wasn’t an option. Because,

despite the many offers we’ve seen, we knew that a
legitimate, useful, step-by-step guide dedicated to helping
people create a real-world online business simply did not
exist.
That is, until now.
We like to think that the book in your hands is just that. A

real guide to the real world from real entrepreneurs who’ve
built real businesses. All the while learning from their very
real mistakes.
But because this is a real book from real people, we’re going
give you fair warning: we’re going to be real honest with
you from the start. And we’re going to stay that way
throughout every step of our relationship, whether you buy
our books, take our courses or attend one of our
Entrepreneurial Boot Camps.
We’re going to stay that way because, quite frankly, we

have to if we are to help give you a decent shot at success.
We have no interest in sugar-coating the truth, or misleading
you about the hard work required or selling you a sure-fire,
get-rich-quick scheme.
We’ve been around. So we know those are usually just

sure-fire ways to guarantee failure.
We also know that, while many people would love to be

entrepreneurs, there are significantly fewer who can actually
make a go of it. It is extremely important to think this

through. Is owning a business right for you? And if so,
what kind of business would suit you best? And once you’ve
identified that, how would you go about starting one?
These questions are so important, that we could write a

book on it. In fact, Steve and Joe are already working on it
(it’s called “Discover Your Own Goldmine” – but we’ll tell
you more about that later).
Suffice it to say that if owning your own business is not

right for you, it’s far better – and far less expensive – to
discover that sooner rather than later. And if you by chance
arrive at that conclusion after reading through this book,
then take heart; it may well have been the best $20 you
have ever invested.
But we do know there are thousands of people who have

what it takes. Who are willing to take the time to learn the
skills they’ll need, to put in the hard work that’s required
and to demonstrate the patience and perseverance
necessary to make their dreams come true.
And for those people, we have some very specific advice.

You will find it interwoven into the chapters you are about
to read. It will come across in many forms, stories and
examples. But if we could give would-be entrepreneurs the
three “secrets” to long-term success, they would be as
follows:
1) Be a life-long learner. The world is changing every

day. And each day brings a new opportunity to
discover new truths, techniques and means of being
successful. They are there for all of us – almost
everywhere we look. The key is to be receptive.

2) Surround yourself with experts – Perhaps the
single greatest – and most common – mistake made
by any entrepreneur is to think that they must do
everything by themselves. Smart entrepreneurs
learn a simple truth very early; the right kind of
expert doesn’t cost you money. They make it for
you.
3) Take action – As we said in the beginning, you’re

already on the right path. The path of action is the
path of success. As you’ve seen, it is important to
think before you proceed, to ensure this course of
action is right for you. But once you’ve arrived at
your conclusion, it is equally important to act on it.
So congratulations again. You’ve made it this far. And now

that you’ve read the introduction, you’re ready for your next
opportunity to take action. You’re about to discover what
that is.
By turning to chapter one.

Section One: Planting the Field
1. A Website - Is it Really Needed?
This might seem like an obvious question, but let’s really
look at it for a minute. After all, there are still millions of
business owners and entrepreneurs that don’t have a
website, don’t believe they should bother with one, or can’t
see how it would have any real benefit to them. You may
very well be one of those people, and it’s a legitimate
question for many businesses (or potential ones). Here are
some of the most common reasons we’ve heard why not to
have a website:
“My customers are local to my town; they aren’t going online

to find me!”
“I’m a small business, I can’t afford to advertise and have a

website too!”
“I don’t sell any products, only my services. I have to build

relationships and get people to know and like us before
they’ll do business with me. I can’t do that over the Internet!”
“I don’t appeal to the masses. I work in a very specialized

industry and have a specific type of client; the Internet is
too general for my customers to find/look for me.”
“Everything I do is custom for my customer; I couldn’t

possibly ‘standardize’ enough to market my products online.”
“I work only with senior citizens and retired folks. They like
to do things the old-fashioned way and probably don’t even
own a computer, much less search online for me!”

You may have your own reason or a similar variation on one
of the above. While these may be valid concerns, the truth
is they are outdated myths in today’s online world.
RULES OF THE WEB #1:
EVERY BUSINESS - NO MATTER WHAT THE TYPE OR

PRODUCT OR SERVICE BEING SOLD - NOT ONLY
SHOULD HAVE A WEBSITE BUT CAN BE MAKING
MONEY ONLINE WITH IT.
That’s right - every business, without exception. Even if

your business is organizing rodent races in Wichita, Kansas,
you can and should be attracting customers and making
money online.
In fact, the more specialized or targeted your particular

business is – whether by the uniqueness of your products
or services, a highly targeted customer niche, or operating
in a specific geographic region – the more potential you
have to market yourself effectively over the Internet.
THE MORE SPECIALIZED YOUR BUSINESS, THE MORE

MONEY YOU CAN MAKE ONLINE.
This may seem to fly in the face of common sense; after all,
isn’t the point of taking a business to the Internet to broaden
and expand your market to all those billions of people online?
Not if you want to make money! We’ll discuss this in more
detail later on, but our point is that EVERY existing or
potential business can be using the Internet to make money,
either exclusively (like an e-commerce business), or as a
supplement to your ‘bricks and mortar’ sales.

And there are plenty of statistics to back us up, and dispel
those outdated myths we mentioned above. We won’t
overwhelm you with facts and figures, but for those of you
that are still skeptical, consider this:
• As of January 2009, it is estimated that over 1.5

billion people worldwide use the Internet regularly.
(Source: AMD, Wikipedia.com)
• Just 17% of the world’s Internet users are in North

America, although English is the prevalent language
used online worldwide. (Source: AMD,
Wikipedia.com)
– Talk about the potential to leverage your business

worldwide!
• U.S. retail e-commerce (online) sales in the 4th

quarter of 2008 alone were $31.9 billion. Total online
sales for 2008 are $133.6 billion in the United States
alone. (Source: The U.S. Census Bureau of the
Department of Commerce, 2009).
• In a December 2008 study, 45% of people aged 70

and older indicated they are “active users” of the
Internet; it is estimated that over 70% of ‘Seniors’
aged 65 or older use the Internet and related
applications, such as search engines and email.
(Source: Pew Research Study, December 2008)
• 93% of global consumers use search engines to

find websites and products. (Source: Forrester
Research, 2006)

• More people use search engines and other online
sources (51%) to find local businesses than any
other method, including the Yellow Pages (30%).
(Source: comScore and TMP Directional Marketing,
2008)
• The majority of people using local searches to find

products and searches take further action (approx.
70%), and are more likely to be making a final
purchase decision. (Source: comScore and TMP
Directional Marketing, 2008)
The moral of the story here is simple: No matter what your

business, who or where your target audience is, if you don’t
have a website and aren’t selling your products or services
online, you are missing the boat!

2. The #1 Mistake EVERY Business
Makes When Building a Website
By now we’ve established that every existing or potential
business can and should be making money online. So how
do you get started? Obviously, you need a website! As we
discussed in the last section, this is important for every
business, but even more so for new and small businesses.
Here are four reasons why today’s business owner needs a
website:
1. To exist for prospects. As we’ve seen, a vast majority

of consumers go to the Internet when looking for a product
or service. If your company is not found, then you do not
exist for them. With Internet presence you will be able to
magnetize more people to your unique products and services.
2. Name recognition. If consumers don’t know about

you, because you are a small business, they won’t know to
type your website address when looking for your service.
For example, someone wanting to buy a computer is likely
to type in Dell or Apple on the search engines because those
names are familiar and recognizable. This is what is meant
by name recognition. However, someone looking for a
transcription service is unlikely to type gmrtranscription.com
(a small transcription company). It is vital, then, that the
owners of gmrtranscription.com find Internet presence on
the search engines.
3. To establish credibility and reputation. Consumers

like to research a company over the web before setting a
foot in the door. If you do not have a website, you lose
them.

Today, websites are like business cards, if you don’t have
one, many people will disregard you as not credible or
legitimate. Large businesses have no such problem because
of their better name recognition, reputation and track record.
4. To widen your sphere of influence. Large businesses

have distribution networks that give them regional, national,
or global presence. Having a website is the first, best and
sometimes the only option for small businesses to get
national or global presence.
However, simply having a website live is not enough. As we

said earlier, you can have the slickest website around, but if
no one is visiting it, what good does it do you? This brings
us to the #1 mistake EVERY business, to some extent or
another, makes when building their website…our third rule.
HAVING A WEBSITE IS NOT THE SAME THING AS

HAVING A WEB PRESENCE.
This is probably the single most important concept we can

share with you; in fact, it is what the majority of this book is
about! If you take nothing else away from reading this, make
sure you understand what true web presence means. Here
is the biggest mistake made by every company and every
website we’ve ever seen:

Failure to plan your site properly
to maximize your web presence potential.
So what exactly is the difference between being on the web

and having web presence? Quite simply this:
Web presence does not only mean having a website for

your business; it also means that when your prospects
are looking for the product and services you offer,
they find YOUR website. As statistics have proven, a
large percentage of those who find your website through a
search engine are likely to become your customers if your
website is clear, commanding, and creative and follows the
criteria outlined in this book.
Notice we said above “when your prospects are looking for

the product and services you offer”….This is a key concept
as well. Simply driving traffic to your website is NOT the
same thing as having web presence either. You can have a
million hits on your site a day, but if they aren’t the people
who would actually have an interest in your products or
services (i.e., not your target audience), they aren’t going
to buy anything!
Hits, Visitors, and Website Statistics
There is a big distinction that web techies make between

the term “hits” and “unique visitors” when it comes to your
website traffic. A “hit” is not a visitor to your web site
necessarily, but a hit on the web server. A hit on the web
server can be a graphic, java applet, an html file, etc. Okay,
a little bit techie in this last statement; we’ll try not to do
this too often.

Since this sounds a little confusing let us give you an
example. Let’s say the front page of your website has 50
different small images or graphics on the page. In this case,
every visitor to your site will register as 51 hits on the server
(the 50 graphics plus the html file, or your actual web page).
This can vary widely, but on average 80,000 hits translates
to just 1,000 actual visitors.
This is why as webmasters, designers, business owners,

etc, we are not concerned with hits to a site. We want to
know the number of visitors to our site. And we don’t just
want to know about every visitor—we want to know about
every unique visitor.
The difference between a visitor and a unique visitor is also

simple. Most website tracking software will count each time
a person clicks or lands on a page as a visitor. The same
person therefore can be counted as a visitor many times if
they enter or exit your site or different pages multiple times,
which people tend to do. A unique visitor is each individual
person that enters your site. They are counted only once,
no matter where they enter from or how many things they
click on while visiting or returning.
Website statistics software can also track all kinds of useful

things about your unique visitors that can be invaluable as
you refine your web presence strategy. You can find out
how often your unique visitors visit, which page they enter
and exit on, what links they click and in which order, etc.
This can be very powerful information not only about your
potential customers but the positives and negatives of your
website as well.

We’ll discuss this more later, but an important point to
remember when it comes to having a web presence vs.
simply a website is having a website statistics tool in place
to track all the traffic and metrics of your website. There
are all kinds of these tools available out there that are quite
good, and most host companies (the company that “houses”
your website on a server and keeps it up and running on
the Internet) offer this automatically for free. You can also
easily add advanced tracking tools to your site, such as
Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics) or WebTrends
(www.webtrends.com).
The good news about gaining and tracking your web presence
is that you can quickly compete with your larger competitors
through a well-planned and well-executed Internet strategy.
Moreover, the cost of execution should not be high if you,
as a small or aspiring business owner, use creative web
presence options available through website design/marketing
companies.

3. The 7 Secret Seeds to Making
Money Online
Building a business (or extending your existing business)
online has the same basic rules as “offline” businesses when
it comes to planning. You’ve probably heard the statistic
that 80% of all new businesses fail within the first 5 years.
The failure rate is even higher when it comes to e-commerce
(online) businesses. However, what you may not know is
that the reverse is also true – 80% or more businesses will
stay in business and flourish – if they research, plan and
follow a detailed, written strategy for success BEFORE
opening their doors (or in the case of online business,
BEFORE going ‘live’).
Unfortunately, most people do the exact opposite, especially

when it comes to online business. They design and build
their website first, and then try to figure out how to market
it or who to market it to… when they should have done the
exact opposite! We can’t tell you how many people have
come to us and said, “I don’t understand it. We spent all
this money on these expert designers and programmers to
put up our website, but it’s all a waste. Nothing is happening!”
Nothing is happening because they didn’t properly put in

place a well-researched strategy for success first! They
counted on ‘experts’ that may have great skills when it comes
to designing an aesthetically pleasing website but don’t
understand or care about your product or customers. They
took the leap of faith (maybe you did too!) with a “Build It
and They Will Come” mentality. It’s sort of like throwing a
bunch of mud on a wall and seeing if anything sticks. As
you will see in this book, designing and building your website

is actually one of the last steps you should take when it
comes to growing a successful (i.e., money making) online
business!
Don’t believe me? Here is what a few of our own clients

have to say:
“We contacted Ajay with a dream and a very loose business

plan, with minimal capital available to start our business.
He developed our website http://www.yourmakeovers.com/
well within our budget using his GMR WebTeam, and used
the money saved in web development to launch our internet
marketing campaign. We are off to a great start with
revenues beyond our expectations. His low cost web
maintenance program is working great.”
- Shannon S., Founder, Yourmakeovers,

Mission Viejo, CA
“The GMR WebTeam was awesome. Their price was very

reasonable for the services they provided for me, and they
finished the product ahead of schedule. I would highly
recommend them.” http://www.trinityphotography.com/
- James Francel, Owner/Lead Photographer,

Trinity Photography
“We approached Ajay in March ‘04 when we were barely

breaking even with about 20 surgeries a month and
approximately $2 million annual billing. He instituted offline
and online marketing programs, which has resulted in over
80 surgeries a month and our annual billing rate exploded
to over $10 million by August ‘04. Our doctors are so
overworked that we are actively looking to add new

surgeons! Ajay developed our website http://
www.beliteweight.com/ from scratch using his GMR
WebTeam. I highly recommend his services to any business
that is looking to use their website for actively growing their
business.”`
- Joanne N., President, Beliteweight, Tijuana, Mexico
“GMR has made the process of getting a web site up and

running so simple. Every concern and request I had was
answered promptly and with concern. I highly recommend
them to everyone I know. I searched through a lot of different
companies and found GMR to offer amazing value for their
services. I am so pleased with my web site and all the
services GMR provides me.”
- Lauren Carroll, Professional, Organizer, Miami, FL
“We have found GMR to provide outstanding service for us.

We had a major revision to our website http://
www.thebusinessprophet.com that we thought would take
days to complete and instead it was done overnight. And,
despite the complexity of the changes, it was completed
without an error. Truly outstanding! Thank you GMR.”
- Kimmy Burgess, COO, Corporate Toolbelt

Now, here are a couple of case studies to think about.
Case Study: ValueAmerica.com
ValueAmerica.com was created as a business-to-consumer

company that offered customers a wide range of products.
It was an inventory-free firm that acted as a conduit
between manufacturers and consumers.
The company raised more than $65 million dollars and

then went public and raised another $126.5 million. At
one point the company was valued at $3.2 billion dollars.
However, the company failed in key areas when it came
to thinking through their ordering and fulfillment issues:
- The manufacturers it chose could not effectively ship
items in small numbers to individual buyers
- Too many mistakes were made in processing orders
- There were long delays between order processing
and delivery
- As a result of the previous issues, few customers
made repeat purchases = no stable client base was
established
The company ended up filing bankruptcy and being sold
for $2.4 million to Merisel.
(excerpted from Failures in B2C Companies, Sian Owen,

University of Technology, Sydney, Australia)
From the testimonials above, I’m sure you can now see the
importance of thorough planning first, no matter what your
online business goals.

We’ll keep using examples throughout this book, so you can
learn from others’ successes as well as avoiding the pitfalls
of their mistakes.
Case Study: Flooz.com
Flooz.com blew through up to $50 million dollars trying to

convince new Internet users that money online would work
like frequent flier miles or gift cards. Part of that money
went to a notoriously bad ad campaign featuring Whoopi
Goldberg, who was at a low point in her career at the
time. And the name? Flooz is derived from the Arabic word
for money, but it had a very negative connotation for the
American market it was primarily targeting. In August,
2001 the company folded their chairs and went home.
Apparently, people could just use their credit cards.
Whoops!
What can we learn from Flooz.com? Aside from their

gross overspending on advertisement and perks that was
notorious during the dot-com bubble days of 2000-2001,
Flooz is a classic case of a company not understanding or
bothering to research their target customers, a BIG no-
no, especially in the e-commerce world. They also failed
to ensure their product was viable, had demand, or even
a realistic market. Basically, by failing to fully research
and plan their product, branding, market strategy, etc
ahead of time, they made a $50 million mistake. Ouch!

Your Online Money Tree
Planning and growing your online business – or any business

for that matter – is like growing your own personal money
tree. You can’t reap the rewards of your harvest before first
taking many steps.
First, you need to decide what kind of tree you want to

plant, and if the personal conditions surrounding you (the
climate, soil type, etc) will support it and give it the potential
to thrive.
Next, you need to till the soil and dig your hole. Then and
only then can you plant your seed.
While your seedling is growing, you need to pay careful

attention to it, watering and fertilizing it, and knowing when
it might need pruning or protection from unforeseen
elements, like an insect invasion.
Finally, you can stand back a little and watch it grow,

sprouting into a glorious tree that blossoms and bears more
fruit than you can possibly eat!
The next section of this book will dive into all the steps – or
‘Secret Seeds’ as we call them – that will help you grow
your online money tree from its planning stages to
outrageous fortune and success beyond your wildest
imagination! Here are the 7 Secret Seeds to Success:
Secret Seed #1: Let Your Passion Be Your Guide
Secret Seed #2: Know Your Customers
Secret Seed #3: Failing to Plan is Planning to
Fail

Secret Seed #4: Building Your Website to Be a
Money-Making Machine
Secret Seed #5: Have Multiple Points of Entry
Secret Seed #6: In the Drivers Seat: Generate
Traffic Without Breaking Your
Bank!
Secret Seed #7: Build a Funnel to Multiply Sales!
If you follow and systematically implement the 7 Secret

Seeds to Success as outlined in this book, we know you
will be well on your way to planting and growing a money
tree that will blossom and bear more ‘fruit’ than you ever
dreamed.

Section Two: the 7 Secret Seeds
Secret Seed #1:
Let Your Passion Be Your Guide
Did you know that seven out of every ten adults in America
dream of owning their own business? Sadly, most of them
never take action – or even know how to get started exploring
the possibilities.
We can’t tell you how many times we’ve talked to people

who have thought for years about starting their own online
business. Unfortunately, many of them are afraid to take
the plunge — they’re too worried they don’t have enough
skills, knowledge, or money to get their business off the
ground. They also don’t know what they should be selling
online, or if they have an existing business, how to translate
their products and services to online sales.
Believe it or not, everyone has some knowledge or expertise

that can become the basis of a successful online business,
and you don’t need to break the bank either to get started!
So how exactly do you guarantee the success of your

business, right from the start? You look for people, NOT
products.
FINDING THE RIGHT PEOPLE IS THE KEY TO MAKING

MONEY ONLINE, NOT THE RIGHT PRODUCT OR
SERVICE.
You see, most people are focused on finding what that

newest, hottest product or trend is they can jump on….

instead of looking for the everyday things ordinary people
like you and me need or want. This is particularly true in e-
commerce businesses where new trends and buzz words
and catchy products pop up everyday (and seem to fizzle
out just as quickly). With the speed of development and
growth online, most people (us included!) often feel like
they’re losing the race before they’ve even left the starting
gate! So it makes sense that to be really successful in online
business you need to figure out what that ‘Next Big Thing’
is going to be and capitalize on it fast before you miss your
piece of the Internet Pie. Right?
Wrong. Sure, there are people out there that have made a
bundle by happening to be fortunate enough to have a “hot”
product or business idea at the ideal time in the market,
and were smart enough to take some action. 99% of the
time, these “success stories” are really what we call RPRT….
that’s Right Place, Right Timers. Basically, they got lucky,
and stumbled their way through the business while it ran
it’s course, and probably made lots of mistakes along the
way too.
You may recall at the beginning of this book we said that

whenever there is enormous opportunity like we are
experiencing now with the explosive growth of e-commerce
world wide, there will be plenty of opportunists looking to
take advantage of the masses. These folks are all over the
Internet with their own version of what’s the latest, greatest,
hottest guaranteed way to make a million dollars overnight
online! Again, if this is what you are looking for, you may as
well throw this book away now. Or find a new use for it…
perhaps as a coaster? Maybe you can wedge it underneath
that short table leg to stop that annoying tilt that’s been
driving you crazy for months?

OK, so we’re joking now, but what we are trying to say is
this: Looking for The Next Big Thing or the new hot product
to sell online is one of the biggest mistakes you can make,
and it remains one of the biggest ones made today by newbie
online entrepreneurs. So simply by avoiding this pitfall, you
are further ahead than the majority of people out there.
What you are much better off looking for is a market with a
common problem that people are actively trying to solve.
SUCCESSFUL BUSINESSES FIND A PROBLEM PEOPLE

SHARE, AND SOLVE IT.
It sounds simple, but it really is an essential first step to

setting up a profitable online business: Finding a group of
people that share a need or want, then coming up with a
product or service idea that satisfies that need or want.
We realize this thinking may seem a little backwards at first,

so let us explain it another way. The fact is, most people
don’t go online with the intention of making a purchase
right then and there — they go online to search for solutions
to their problems. Think about it for a minute. If you had a
toothache, you wouldn’t go online to buy a root canal!
However, you would search for dentists in your area, or
look for information on home remedies, pain relief, etc.
Once you identify a group of people with a common problem,

you can start to think about what kind of product or service
you might offer as a solution to that problem.
About now, you are probably thinking, “Well, this is all well
and good, but how do I go about finding people with a

problem that is marketable? And how do I know this is the
right business for me?”
Again, the answer is simpler than you may think. Since these
problem-seekers we are discussing are potentially going to
be your future customers, you should probably look for
people you have something in common with! You’ll be much
more passionate about your business if it’s based on
something that holds a lot of interest for you. Or, for that
matter, something that has presented a big problem for you
personally, either currently or in the past.
And guess what? People are more likely to do business with

you when you share common interests (or problems)!
The bottom line is this: If you’re not passionate about what

you are doing, it won’t be fun. If it’s not fun and you aren’t
enjoying yourself, you’ll be much less likely to succeed.
People who follow their passions are the ones who are truly
motivated to succeed — and will go the extra mile to foster
their businesses’ growth, development, and continual
improvement, no matter what.
Maybe just this discussion alone about doing something you

are passionate about has been enough to turn on a great
big light bulb over your head, and you now have the perfect
business idea (or way to improve upon your current
business). If so, wonderful!
You are way ahead of the game! But if you are like most of
us, you are still scratching your head, maybe even feeling a
little self-conscious or silly, because the truth is, you really
aren’t sure what it is you are passionate about!
There’s a simple way to help find the ideal business for you

that you feel passionate about, too. Before you answer the
questions below you should identify your F.I.T. as an
entrepreneur.
What does F.I.T. stand for? Financial Intelligence Test.
What does it mean? Well, we could write a book on this

(and we are – it’s called…Discover Your Own Goldmine) but
here are a few, quick tips. You need to know what the cost
is to start, build and market your business. You need to
know what your expectations are from the business, both
money and otherwise. You need to know how you plan to
exit the business and much more.
To further help get you started, here are some questions

you can ask yourself:
• What subjects or topics do I have a lot of knowledge
about?
• What kinds of hobbies do I have?
• What would I enjoy learning more about? What do
I always wish I had more time to do or explore?
• What do people come to me for advice about?
• What things are most important to me in life? At
home? In business?
When you’re thinking about these questions, really

brainstorm and write down anything that comes to mind.
Whether it’s information you picked up on the job, skills you
developed as part of a hobby, knowledge gained from a
previous business or encounter... or anything else you can
think of, just about every experience you have has the
potential to become the foundation of a successful business!

After this exercise, you should have a list of your current
skills, hobbies, and interests that are very likely to lead you
to an ideal market you can target to your online business.
Once you’ve finished this, take a few minutes to shorten
your list to the top two or three topics that really spark your
interest or you’d like to explore further. With a little further
research, you should discover an online business that you
are not only passionate about but can solve a real problem
people have and thus has a demand!
Albert Einstein said, “I have no special talents. I am only

passionately curious.” We can’t all be Einstein, but his point
is clear: You don’t have to be extremely talented or have
the most expertise in a certain area, you just need to have
the passion to pursue it and excel at it no matter what! With
this mindset you can build a team of experts to help you
achieve your goals.
Do YOU have what it takes?

Experts have found that existing or aspiring entrepreneurs
with certain skills and attitudes are more likely to build
their business faster, with less effort, and be more
successful overall. Using the statements below, assess
yourself as truthfully as you can. Give yourself a “5” if the
statement is completely true for you and “1” if it doesn’t
describe you at all. Maximum possible score is 100; the
closer you are to 100, the more likely you are to have the
attributes to be successful in an entrepreneurial role. This
can also help you to identify areas that you don’t excel in
and may need to work on.
PERSONALITY
1. I love interacting with others and friends often refer to
me as a “people person”.

2. I enjoy meeting new people and am genuinely
interested in others.
3. I find it easy to make new friends and can comfortably
carry a conversation with someone I just met.
4. I’m confident that, with a little training and guidance, I
can easily fit in and network with small business owners
and other professionals in order to develop my first
business contacts.
WILLINGESS TO LEARN
1. I realize that with owning a small business I will have
to change some of my old habits and I’m willing to
commit to developing myself as a person.
2. I recognize that, although I may have prior business
experience, I will need to quickly develop new skills
and stay up-to-date in order to succeed in my new
venture.
3. I see the value of following a proven and written success
system.
4. I’m willing to work with a business support coach or
advisor to get my new business started quickly.
WORK HABITS / INDEPENDENCE
1. I’m a goal oriented person. I set my own objectives
and then work independently to achieve them.
2. Although I love the interaction with other people I feel
equally comfortable working by myself out of my home
office.
3. I’m willing to set and follow my own schedule even
without having a boss.

4. I’m able to focus on and follow multiple activities as
may be required by my business.
5. I’m willing to put forth extra effort for the next 24-36
months to build a successful business and gain financial
independence.
TECHNICAL SKILLS
1. I’m extremely comfortable using the computer and the
Internet.
2. I can, or can easily learn, to participate in an online
community or coaching group to discuss business issues
and marketing skills.
3. I have a specific professional or educational background
in my chosen business.
4. I’m organized and have no problem developing or
following systems to make my work simpler and more
efficient.
FINANCIAL COMMITMENTS
1. I have a plan to start my new business on a part time
basis or have enough financial resources to support
myself while I’m developing income from my business.
2. My life partner fully supports me in undertaking a
business venture of my own, but just in case he or she
is a little hesitant, I’m prepared to work independently
until I have some successes to win my partner’s support
later.
3. I can see the value of investing in my education and
ongoing training and the support of a community of
other independent business owners.
YOUR SCORE _________

OnlineBizHQ’s 5 items You Must Know
Before You Choose Your Online Business (or any

business)!
1. Find a business that offers high profit margins.

(Fortunately, this isn’t a problem with most online
businesses when they are run right!)
Businesses fail because they run out of money and

cash flow – period! It is not uncommon for businesses
to gross a million dollars and not turn a profit. On the
other hand, you can pocket a nice 70 or 80 thousand a
year from a business with only a hundred thousand in
sales. The difference is in what it costs to operate the
business - materials, supplies and marketing. Choose a
business with a high profit potential!
2. Practice consistency and persistency.
When you find a business you like, stay with it long

enough to succeed! The problem many people encounter
is they keep chasing after new things. In fact, studies
have shown that good old-fashioned perseverance, or
“stick-to-itiveness”, is more likely to predict success – even
over one’s education, intelligence, and resources available!
Regardless of what you are selling – online or off -

consistent and persistent action towards one goal
breeds success!
Why do you think the ex-CEO of Frito Lay is now running

IBM? Because success is something you own for life.
Practice “stick-to-itiveness” and realize success!

3. Take calculated chances.
Has anyone ever told you “You better not start another
business – remember what happened to the last one that
didn’t work out for you?” Unfortunately, it is not uncommon
for the people closest to you (like a spouse) to be the
worst critics and skeptics! But wait a moment – there is
something really wrong with that statement. It implies
that you only had one chance for success and you blew it.
That’s NONSENSE! You didn’t start walking the first time
you tried, did you? But that didn’t stop you from trying
again and again, and eventually succeeding, right?
You will find that each new business venture brings more
experience. If things in the past didn’t work out, you’ve
likely learned valuable lessons that will help you now. In
fact, many successful entrepreneurs have several failed
ventures behind them! Those past challenges become
stepping stones to future success!
4. Become an expert in your new trade.
Notice that the people around you who make a lot of money
and are in high demand are experts in their respective
fields. They are excellent at what they do. Become the
most knowledgeable you can in what you are doing and
you will not worry about money again.
Once you choose your new business commit to becoming

the best at it. BE PASSIONATE! Buy books, courses,
products, and join networks that teach you how to operate
your business, market and sell your service or product.
Now that we have our ‘short’ list of areas that we are

particularly passionate about, we need to translate that into
an actual business. As we’ve already mentioned, the key to

making sure your online business is successful is finding a
group of people who share a common problem, then finding
a product or service idea that will solve their problem.
For example, one of your hobbies might be building

birdhouses, but you’ve had a hard time finding any plans to
do it with. Or maybe you grandmother fell and needed a hip
replacement, and you needed to find physical therapy options
specific to the elderly. We refer to these narrowly defined
groups of people as “niche” markets.
You’ve probably heard the term “niche market” many times

before. We’ll get into more specifics about niche markets in
our next chapter, but it’s important to note a couple things
about them while we are discussing choosing an online
business that we identify with and feel passionate about.
People define niche markets in different ways. A company

that provides lists for purchase of potential consumers, for
example, might define a niche market as any group sharing
certain broad characteristics, like women 30 or older with
one child or more, or living in a certain metropolitan area.
For many businesses, this may represent their target
audience, and a sufficiently narrow niche in which to market
to and make money. However, a true niche market in the
online world, particularly when the business is e-commerce
based (i.e., sales transacting online), must have a much
more narrow definition.
We’ve already discussed in the last chapter how the more

specialized your business is, the more money you can make
online. (Remember, Rules of the Web #2?) Now we will
narrow our definition of ‘specialization’ even further.

AN ONLINE NICHE MARKET IS DEFINED AS A GROUP

OF PEOPLE WHO ARE SEARCHING THE INTERNET FOR
A SOLUTION TO A COMMON PROBLEM — AND CANNOT
EASILY FIND ADEQUATE RESULTS TO SOLVE THEIR
PROBLEM.
Identifying a focused online niche market is key to selecting

your final product and/or service offering; in fact, once you
have identified this specific group of people (i.e., your ideal
customers), it is usually quite easy to identify their needs
and what your products and services should therefore be.
We will discuss niche marketing in more detail in the next
chapter, Secret Seed #2: Know Your Customer.
But identifying this specific group of people you share a

common problem or interest with has another purpose as
well; it gives you a direct tie and connection to your unique
customers. It provides you with a true purpose and passion
to help others. Obviously, by rooting your business strongly
in something that gives you purpose and passion you will
not only shorten your road to prosperity, and allow your
online money tree to blossom, but you’ll enjoy the process
along the way so much more!

Secret Seed #2:
Know Your Customers
As we discussed in the last chapter, one of the biggest
challenges on the road to choosing a product or service to
sell online is identifying your true online niche market. Your
online niche market is almost always more specific and
focused than a similar business being marketed offline. That
is, if you want to make any money and not throw away
thousands on ineffective web marketing efforts!
Let us give you an example. Let’s say you own a women’s

clothing store specializing in business clothes. The niche
that your offline advertising and marketing efforts are
focused on is likely professional working women in your
surrounding area. However, taking that same niche online
and typing into Google “business clothes for women” yields
18,800,000 results and this is only one of many possible
iterations for search terms! For example, you could also
type in “women’s business suits”, “professional women’s
clothes” or any other number of search terms, all yielding
millions of results. Not to mention you are competing with
some real heavy hitters with that broad of a subject, for
example, in the first search, Nordstrom’s came to the top of
the sponsored ad list (see sample below).

Even taking into account your geographic area for your online
search (which, in many cases like this one, you may not
want to do when taking your business online; after all, isn’t
part of the attraction of the Internet having the ability to
expand beyond your local market?), you are still bulldozed
over by the competition. For example, we typed into Google
“business clothes for women Los Angeles”, and we still
received 339,000 results, and many of the same big hitters
also appeared at the top of the list.
To take such a business online, you may really need to focus

your market, or as often is the case, your product line. A
BIG mistake many online businesses make is they try to
sell everything for their perceived market on one site. This
is an absolutely horrible idea. You are almost always best
off focusing on your top selling items, or maybe even just
one product or service per website. We’ll discuss this more
in more detail in Secret Seeds #6 and 7.

Back to our local women’s clothing store example. Perhaps
one of your best selling lines is discounted designer blouses
for professional women. Type in “discounted Ann Taylor
blouses” (a very popular professional women’s line), and
the results shrink to 52,000. Granted this is still a large
number, but the first several listings all point to the Ann
Taylor official website, or link to press releases or news stories
related to the Ann Taylor corporation, which leaves room
for a competing company to come in and potentially gain
good placement.
The point is to always remember Rules of the Web #2:

The more specialized your business, the more money
you can make online. This applies to your niche market
too. Many aspiring online business owners have difficulty
being as tightly focused as they should be — and often try
to go after niche markets that aren’t really niches at all, but
huge general markets in which they couldn’t hope to
compete.
Let’s take another example. If you’re passionate about

golfing and want to sell golf products, then ‘golfers’ is your
obvious niche market. But try typing the word “golf” into
Google, and you’ll get 408 million results! Do you really
want to try to compete in that market?
Narrowing the focus of your online business to a
small, niche market gives you the following
advantages:
• There’s way less competition
• Small markets are much easier to dominate, making

it possible for you to become the primary source
for your product or service online

• Niche markets are often close-knit communities, so
your reputation can be spread by word-of-mouth,
and via the increasing popularity of viral and social
marketing tools over the Internet (More on this in
Secret Seed #7)
• You can more easily gain the loyalty of your

customers because you become familiar to them
and you are passionate about what they are
passionate about! This gives you loads of
opportunity to upsell to your existing customers with
related products and follow-up offers
Remember, people don’t go online looking to buy a product

or a service — they go online to find information and a
solution to their problems. When planning your online
business, website design, and marketing, it is imperative
that you think like your potential customers, which means
not only offering a solution to their common problem, but
effectively expressing that in ‘online search terms’.
Still having a hard time narrowing down your online niche

market? Here is another tool that can help. Actually write it
out using the following formula:
My niche are people who (problem) + (your area of

interest).
Using our earlier examples of golfers and women’s business

clothing, your niche can be narrowed down using the formula
above like this:
My online niche market is people who consistently miss

their putts to the right or left and are trying to improve
their skill.

My online niche market is busy executive women who
love custom-made designer blouses, but don’t have
time to shop.
See how that works? Finding an online niche market is about

finding a specific and highly focused group of people who
are all looking for a specific solution on the Internet, but
are not having much luck. If you can’t describe your niche
market using this formula, you may not be focused enough
yet.
Your website layout, design and contents should be solely

influenced by your online niche customers’ characteristics,
expectations and needs. It should easily and concisely
present the information your customer needs to solve his/
her problem, with a prompt call to action (usually, to buy).
So once you’ve identified your online niche, you need to

really dig deep by researching and gathering information
about this group of people to help you execute your online
marketing strategy and optimize the effectiveness of your
website.
A New Paradigm
There are a thousand articles and books written about how

you can “know your customers”. And we have yet to find
any that tell you what you really need to know about knowing
your customers.
You see, there is a paradigm, a belief system out there that

is taught in virtually every business school and adhered to
by virtually every business. And it is wrong!
Here is what you have heard and been taught: identify your

‘target’ market and go after it. Translation = Take your
products and services and find customers who will buy them.
%@!#$*&H” (fill in your own words).
But here’s what you should be doing: find customers and

hang onto them with every breath you have. Identify
products and services these customers want and need and
provide them. Seems counter-intuitive, right?
Joe has a philosophy about the difference between large

corporate marketers and what he calls “street smart
marketers.” There is a major difference in the mindset. Big
corporations typically develop products and services and
then go looking for customers or markets. Street smart
marketers identify the market or find the customer and then
find or develop products and services to meet their needs.
If you want loyal, repeat buyers you must develop a

relationship with them. Part of the way you do this is by
giving them what they want. Forcing products or services
on customers is what other businesses do. It’s no wonder
why ‘customer service’ is at an all-time low.
You can’t give someone what they want if you don’t know
what it is they want! So, how do you figure this out?
First, you never assume that you know what the customer
wants. Sure you might be able to guess the answer
occasionally, but this is what often leads to poor customer
relations. Businesses start to think they know what their
customers need -whether they are right or not- and go about
fulfilling needs that are not important or don’t even exist.
Think about it, how many businesses think they know exactly
what you want and what you’re looking for. If you’re like us,

you find yourself not wanting to buy from them anymore.
After all, who likes being told what they want by a company
who didn’t care enough to actually find out!
Okay, so now you’re probably wondering “if we find

customers and build a relationship, how do we know exactly
what it is they want?” Well, one sure way is to simply ask
them. This may seem obvious, but you would be amazed at
how rare it is.
You can also start by doing some research. Customers have

bought before… shocking isn’t it? So pay attention to what
they bought, when they bought it, and why they bought it.
Study what other businesses have done, even if it was wrong.
You may notice a trend in certain items at certain points
that reflect what people were looking for at a particular time.
The economy has changed dramatically and so have the

way people buy, why they buy, and what they need and
want. So pay attention to trends but don’t ever assume
“one size fits all.”
For most businesses, the best source for new business is

their current customers. Want more business? Find out what
these customers want and give it to them.
Joe says, “If you think about it, there are only three ways to
grow a business. Everything falls into one of these
categories:”
1. Attract more buyers
2. Increase the average sale price
3. Get buyers to come back and buy more

So get feedback from customers by asking them about
everything they need and want. People like being asked for
their opinion and like knowing that you value their input.
By asking these vital questions, you will improve your image

in the eyes of your customers simply because you asked for
their advice, which can then be used to grow your sales
even more.
No matter the industry you’re in, the instant you assume

you know who your customers are and know exactly what
their needs are, you’ll immediately stop taking the time to
get to know them. People often change, and businesses
that fail to change with them, or fail to recognize those
changes, will be left behind.
So do your homework and/or find an expert team that can

assist you in getting the answers you need to these
questions:
Who are my prospects?

1. How old are they?
2. What cultures do they come from?
3. Where do they live?
4. What is the household income, size of family?
5. What is their occupation?
6. What is their lifestyle like?
7. What are their beliefs?
8. What are their radio/TV watching habits?

What are my prospects’ buying habits?
1. What are their hot button issues that your products

or services address? (Zero in on their biggest
problems).
2. How do they use your products/services?
3. How often do they use your products/services?
4. How much money do they spend?
5. What are their expectations from the products/

services that you offer?
What are my prospects’ internet usage behaviors?
1. What percent of your prospects look for your type

of product/service on the internet vs. the Yellow
Pages?
2. What keywords or key phrases do they use to search

products or services similar to what you offer?
3. What percent of your prospects purchase your

product/service over the internet?
4. What makes them decide to buy on the web vs. in

a store?
Notice these questions go beyond the general,

demographical information that only partially defines many
niche markets, such as men between the ages of 35-55
with an income of $50,000 or more. When thoroughly
researching your online niche, you must also look at their
psychographics.

The dictionary defines psychographics as the criteria for
segmenting consumers by lifestyle, attitudes, beliefs, values,
personality, buying motives, and/or extent of product usage.
Psychographics have more to do with an individual’s (or

group of individuals’) behavior, particularly when it comes
to their beliefs and buying behaviors. Understanding your
online niche’s psychographics is VERY powerful and can set
you apart from your competition. Most people don’t do the
research, or even understand the need for it. Think about
it: If you know how your key customers think and feel
about your product, where and when they use it, what they
are trying to solve by having it, and what triggers them to
buy… you have a pretty clear roadmap to bringing in sales,
right?
Research, Research, Research
Now that you’ve identified your online niche (or maybe you
have more than one), we need to learn as much as we can
about them, especially if they offer real money-making
opportunities!
A good place to start is to find out what the people in your

online niche are looking for online right now, and how they
are looking for it. After all, your customers are not going to
change their searching or buying habits based upon your
new business and online presence, so you’ll need to target
your efforts towards what they’re already doing.
The good news is there’s an abundance of free and low-cost

research tools you can use to find out exactly what your
ideal customers are looking for.

Using these tools, you can actually see what people are
looking for using search engines on the Internet. You can
see what they’re complaining about on discussion boards
and consumer review sites, and find out exactly where they
go to get the products and information they need. You’ll be
amazed at how much information you can dig up on your
customers when you know the right resources to use!
When you’re looking for something online, what do you use?

Search engines, right? These are hands-down the best
research tools you have at your disposal, and you probably
didn’t even realize it! The three top search engines — Google,
Yahoo, and MSN — have indexed billions of web pages that
you can find simply by typing keywords into their search
windows.
Let’s take an example of how you use this to find information

about your online niche. Let’s say you’re a model airplane
enthusiast and are interested in selling something to other
enthusiasts like you. Get started by simply typing “model
airplane” into Google or one of the search engines we
mentioned above.
(By the way, we mention and use Google throughout this

book because the vast majority of people worldwide use
them for searches – the figures vary but as of the publishing
of this book Google accounted for about 65-70% of all
searches in the United States).
The results you get for “model airplanes” will undoubtedly

include a bunch of websites that sell model airplanes. Explore
these sites! Make a list of the ones you find interesting, so
you can return to them later. Take notes on what kind of
products they offer, and how they position these products.

Do they solve a common problem model airplane enthusiast’s
share (perhaps this may be offering how-to guides, or having
tough-to-find parts)? How much are people willing to pay
for the products? All of this information will help you when it
comes time to design your own site and product offering(s).
Once you’ve compiled a list of specific sites related to your

niche, it’s time to take a look at how your competition —
online and offline — caters to those markets.
First of all, take a look at how much competition there is

offline, such as in retail stores. Are there a lot of specialty
model airplane shops out there, and do they cater to their
customers needs effectively? How important is the “in-
person” buying experience with your product or service? Is
this something that could just as easily be purchased online?
Are there tons of websites already catering to the market
you’re interested in? Are they giving away information, selling
it, or offering products that solve the problem?
A great tool for checking out the competition online is Alexa

(www.alexa.com), which offers a free toolbar you can
download for your web browser that will provide you with
competitive insight for the websites you visit. One of the
most useful features is the “Site Info” option. When you
click this, Alexa lays out all the details for the site you’re on,
including:
• The traffic ranking of the site: This will give you

an idea of how many visitors the site gets. Important
Note: With Alexa, the more popular a site is, the
LOWER its ranking. For example, a site with a
ranking of 7 is extremely popular.

• A list of related links: These links lead to other
sites that feature content similar to the information
on the page you’re looking for (i.e., more of your
competition!).
• The number of other sites that link to the site:

This is another important indication of how popular
the website is. The more high-quality, relevant sites
you get to link to your site, the better your ranking
will be with the search engines. More on this very
important point later.
• All site/user reviews: This information is worth

its weight in gold when it comes to researching your
potential customers. It will show you what past
visitors think about the site and the products and
services it offers.
This is exactly the type of information you need when

researching how your competition is catering to your niche
market. It will help you determine the credibility and
perceived value of the sites compared to similar sites, and
also to sites serving different segments.
Another great place to find out detailed information about

your online niche is to look for websites where your prospects
hang out and talk to each other about their common interests
(like model airplanes, to use our example). Some of these
types of interactive sites include forums, discussion boards,
chat rooms, and blogs. According to Wikipedia, over 6 million
people use blogs or message boards regularly as a means
of communicating and sharing ideas. Clearly, these are
powerful data collecting tools!

At the end of this section, we’ll provide you with some great
links to visit to find these types of sites that are relevant to
your niche market and product/service. Not only are these
kinds of sites a great research tool, they will also become a
great marketing tool for you when you launch your online
business, so learn all you can about them now! When you
visit these discussion sites, see what people are saying.
Find out what they like, what they don’t like, and what they’re
looking for. People regularly visit these areas looking for
advice, or solutions to a common problem (this should send
off alarm bells in your head!). By monitoring these
discussions, you will likely begin to notice that certain
questions appear again and again.
In case you didn’t catch it the first time, let us spell it out:
This is a great way to locate potential product or service
ideas for your niche market! If you see the same questions
repeated in a forum or discussion group, there are likely
hundreds, possibly thousands of other people out there with
the exact same question or problem.
To find discussion forums relevant to your niche market, a

good way to start is to simply type in what product or market
you’re looking for followed by the words “discussion forums.”
For example, type in “model airplane discussion forums”
and see what kind of results you get.
Once you’ve identified some good discussion boards to visit,

don’t be afraid to talk to your future customers directly!
Join their forums and discussion threads and ask them what
they think about the products that are currently being sold
in the market. Most people are happy to give you their
opinions and reviews; that’s what these sites are all about!

Most importantly, ask them about problems or needs they
have that aren’t being addressed by any of the products or
services currently available (or tell them about a problem
you’re having as a fellow enthusiast and what you think
might be a good product or service idea). This information
is essential to helping you come up with a product/service
that your market is already hungry for and best of all - it’s
free!
Later in this book, we’ll get into these types of interactive

sites more and their specific potential to make you lots of
money online. Until then, here’s some specific site resources
you can go to now to find the forums, blogs, and other
research tools to locate your niche market:
Discussion Forums
• MSN Groups (http://groups.MSN.com)
• Yahoo Groups (http://groups.Yahoo.com)
• Google Groups (http://groups.Google.com)
Keyword Search Tools
• Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com)
• Trellian (www.keyworddiscovery.com)
• Yahoo Search Marketing (www.inventory.overture.com)
Blog Directories
• Bloggeries (www.bloggeries.com)
• Best of the Web Blog Directory

(http://blogs.botw.org)
• Blogarama (www.blogarama.com)

Don’t forget you can research your potential customers using
offline resources too! Look for advertising of companies
providing similar products and services, and how they
advertise. Do they use the Yellow Pages, direct mailers,
magazine or newspaper ads, newsletters, etc? How effective
is it? What kinds of “hot buttons” or problems are they trying
to solve for their customers?
Often, your niche market has its own clubs or associations.

Contact or visit these, or join yourself. Talk to its members
and share your ideas. In fact, you can conduct your own
informal focus group yourself that professional marketers
charge thousands of dollars for!
Finally, the United States government has a wealth of

information about consumers, and you’d be surprised how
much specific information you can find out about a group of
people! Visit www.census.gov for more information.
In this chapter, we’ve seen how defining and understanding

your online niche market and potential customers is
absolutely critical to your success in making money over
the Internet. We urge you to take the extra time now to
thoroughly investigate and learn all that you can about your
market, your customers and their buying habits. We
guarantee you that this will light your path to success to
making money online!

Secret Seed #3:
Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail
You were probably thinking as you read the title to this
chapter, Secret Seed #3, “Wait a minute, haven’t I already
done all my homework? Just how much more research and
analysis do I need to do?!”
Our response to you is simple: Just how successful do you

want to be with your online business? Do you want to make
a lot of money or a little (or in the unfortunate case of
many, none at all)?
The key to ANY successful business be it online or offline is

thorough planning. So don’t give up on us just yet, we’ve
covered a lot of ground already! In the previous two Secret
Seeds chapters, we’ve asked you to put careful thought
and methodical research into:
• What you are truly passionate about and translating

that into a potential business idea
• Taking that potential business idea and identifying

the specific people that share that passion
• Determining whether this group of people have a

common problem they are trying to find a solution
to
• Once we have found a common problem, defining

what product(s) or service(s) could solve that
problem
• Narrowing the market for our product or service

into a clearly definable online niche market

• Thoroughly researching this specific set of online
customers, including their demographics and
psychographics, the size of the market online, how
exactly they search online for your product or
service, and determining who your competition is
and how they market themselves online.
That’s quite a list – and a great start to creating an online

money tree that will yield a bumper crop over and over
again – but we’re not done yet. You see, there is a big
difference between research and planning. Now that we’ve
got a lot of the research out of the way and feel pretty
confident we know who our customers are and that a distinct
need exists for our product or service online, we have to
analyze what we’ve found and create a written
marketing plan for success.
NO MATTER WHAT THE PRODUCT OR POTENTIAL, ANY

ONLINE BUSINESS IS MUCH MORE LIKELY TO FAIL
WITHOUT A WELL RESEARCHED, WRITTEN PLAN FOR
SUCCESS.
The key phrase here (in case you missed the underline and
bold capital letters) is written plan. We can’t tell you how
many people we have met over the years that have skipped
this crucial step…no matter what the business or even if
they had some initial success – they have ultimately faltered
and often failed without a written plan of action in place. A
well written plan crystallizes thoughts and forces you to lay
out steps.

This may sound extreme, but it’s the absolute truth. It’s a
little like a pilot taking off on a cross-country trip without a
flight plan. Without major landmarks and coordinates to
follow and compare their trajectory to, they would soon be
off-course. The same is true for your online business. If you
want to be successful, you need to do more than just your
homework, just as a pilot needs to do more than simply go
to flight school. You need a written guide that you can
continually refer to, and update or adjust accordingly as
you move forward on your path to success.
So what exactly is included in this written plan to online

success? Most people are quite daunted by the thought of
writing a business or marketing plan, but it’s really not as
scary or as difficult as you think. Remember, you’ve already
done the brunt of the research necessary to develop a
comprehensive strategy! You do not need a three-inch thick
plan complete with exit strategies, appendices and 10 year
pro forma financial statements in order to have a viable
written plan. This is particularly true of online businesses,
when the landscape and trends of the Internet is changing
so quickly and technological advances abound.
In fact, we personally do not recommend projecting any

further than one to two years forward when it comes to
your sales forecasts and marketing strategy for your e-
business – and even that will likely become outdated as you
move forward and need regular review and adjustment. This
is a good thing. So relax, take a moment and breathe…look
forward to great discoveries, tilling the ground and laying
the foundation for your planting your online money tree.

Now, let’s take a look at the major components of a well
planned & written marketing strategy for your online
business.
Unique Value Proposition (UVP)

This is arguably the single most important component of
your online business — of any business for that matter. It
is the cornerstone of your marketing and business strategy.
OK, so now we know your unique value proposition (UVP) -

or unique selling proposition (USP) as it is also known (We’ll
use these terms interchangeably) - is mucho importante…
But what exactly is it?
The idea of a unique selling proposition isn’t new or unique.

According to Wikipedia, the term was first coined in the
1940s by Rosser Reeves of Ted Bates & Company while
conducting extensive research for their company’s
advertisements (maybe that bit of trivia will come in handy
one day… like while watching Jeopardy).
One definition of a USP or UVP is as follows:
A simple statement about your business, product or

brand that tells your prospects that you are the only
alternative for them.
According to Mr. Reeves himself, every unique value

proposition must have the following components:
1. It must make a proposition to the consumer. In

other words, it must say to the reader, “Buy this
product or service, and you will get this specific
benefit.”

2. The proposition must be one that the competition
either cannot, or does not, offer. It must be unique—
either a uniqueness of the brand or product, or a
claim not previously made in that particular field or
industry.
3. The proposition must be so strong that it can pull

over new customers to your product from the
competition (This is where the value or sales
component of USP/UVP comes from).
With all the research you’ve conducted thus far on your

online niche customers, it sounds like a response should
just jump out at you, right? Yet most businesses (on- and
offline) cannot provide an answer that simply rolls off the
tongue. Or, more appropriately in the case of e-commerce
businesses, an answer that appears on their website’s
homepage in a simple and straight-forward way for all to
see and connect with.
One important distinction to make is that a USP is not the

same thing as a slogan, tagline or catch phrase that appears
in your logo or advertising, although that’s one potential
use for it. Rather, it is the concise and memorable phrase
that answers your prospect’s always-implicit question, “Why
should I do business with you and not somebody else?”
Linda Bustos, an e-commerce consultant at the Get Elastic

blog wrote:
“Why should your ideal customer purchase from you rather

than from anybody else? I would even go so far as to ask
yourself, what one thing about your company, your product
selection, your customer service or your customer loyalty

is so compelling, that even if your product was out of stock,
or some functionality were broken on your site, a customer
would stick around and buy something? “
The folks at Marketing Experiments.com believe so strongly

in the importance of the ‘conciseness’ of your value
proposition in online business that Dr. Flint McGlaughlin was
bold enough to say ‘‘if you get your UVP right, you can get
many other things wrong on your website and landing pages
and still increase customer conversion dramatically.” Okay
– sounds convincing, now what?
Here’s a quick, easy process for writing a powerful unique

value proposition:
• Ask your customers what they value most about

your product or service and make a list. (If you
don’t yet have customers, you can go back to those
trusty discussion boards and forums where your
prospects hang out and ask there.)
• On your list, look for repeating themes and list those

separately.
• Hand the list to a good writer. Ask that person to

write 5 to 10 versions of a potential unique value
proposition based on the list.
• When you build your site and begin web marketing,

test three to five of the most promising UVPs (You
can do this using different landing pages, more on
this in Secret Seed #5).

Pick the best-performing unique value proposition.
Still having a hard time with figuring out what makes
a good UVP/USP? Here are a few famous examples that
were pioneers when introduced:
Domino’s Pizza: “You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to
your door in 30 minutes or less — or it’s free.”
FedEx: “When your package absolutely, positively has to
get there overnight.”
Oil of Olay: “You get younger-looking skin.”
We’ve spent a lot of time discussing unique value

propositions, but we hope the point is driven home what
critical importance it has in your overall marketing and
business strategy. Remember this is the foundation you’re
laying here, so think of your UVP as the fertilizer that will
allow your online business seed to sprout and grow faster
and healthier.
Major Components of Your Marketing Strategy
Your marketing strategy is the compass by which you

navigate your online business. As new opportunities present
themselves or your business environment changes, the
objective and strategies in your plan will help point you
toward the best action. Without a strategic plan, you risk
becoming unfocused in your marketing efforts, resulting in
guesses about what might be best for your e-business.
Your business or marketing plan’s focus will in part be

determined by your site’s status. If you already have a
website in place, your plan can focus strictly on marketing
issues. In other words, how to most effectively market using
your existing website and product(s) or service(s).

If, however, you have a site that needs improvement, your
marketing efforts will be more effective if you incorporate
some changes and enhancements into your website as part
of your overall plan for success. The changes you make will
be based upon everything you have now learned about your
online niche customers and your unique value
proposition. The same concept goes if you do not yet have
a website; you can develop your marketing strategy with
your plan focused on launching your site with all these factors
in mind. In any case, remember that your objective,
strategies, and overall plan can and most assuredly will
change over time.
An online marketing plan is similar to a business marketing

plan, but with a narrower focus. The web-based plan focuses
on Internet marketing strategy and programs while the
overall marketing plan encompasses the entire business,
detailing both on- and offline marketing efforts. We will be
focusing on your online marketing plan here.
As with any marketing plan, your online plan will include

developing strategies and tactics (also known as action plans)
that, when implemented, will help you reach your sales goals.
An objective, strategy, and tactic are each progressively
narrower in scope:
The objective addresses the ‘big picture’. In general terms,

your objective answers the question “How will I overcome
my main marketing challenge(s)?” If your company’s main
online marketing challenge is figuring out how to use your
website to help build client business (as is the case with
most online businesses!), for example, an objective for your
online marketing plan could be “To significantly enhance

online client services as well as improve site awareness and
interest with clients thus building client business online.”
A marketing strategy supports your objective. The

strategy defines general approaches you will take to meet
your objective. For example, strategies to support the above
objective could include (1) improve online communication,
and the information and education available on your site,
(2) build awareness of and interest in your company on the
Internet, and (3) (If you’re a pre-existing business)
effectively communicate your website’s existence and
advantages to existing clients.
A marketing tactic is where the real action takes place.

Also called marketing programs or action plans, they are
the specific things you will do to bring each marketing
strategy to life. For example, in strategy #1 above - to
improve online communication, information, and education
- some tactics could include: (1) sharing experiences and
observations in your industry through participation in
discussion boards or a personal blog linked to your website
(2) offering a regular email newsletter (3) writing articles,
e-books, or special reports available for free download and
(4) listing/submitting your site to targeted search engines
and directories.
By implementing marketing programs that are consistent

with your site objective(s) and marketing strategies you
greatly improve your chance of business success.

Developing Your Online Marketing Plan
Planning need not be scary or difficult. Take the process a

step at a time. First, create the marketing plan outline,
then write the plan from the outline, one section at a
time. You will need to set aside quality time for creating
your plan, whether a single day or several sessions.
There is no single “correct” way to develop the outline. There

are, however, some generally accepted topics to be covered
in a plan. Some of the most common and accepted marketing
plan topics include:
• Executive Summary: This concise statement

(usually no more than a page or two) answers “who,”
“what,” “when,” “where,” “why” and “how” with
respect to your marketing objectives and strategies,
sales forecasts, the positives of your financial
statements, etc. It summarizes your mission, overall
business strategy and key strengths. Note: The
Executive Summary should always be done last,
after the rest of the plan has been written.
• Industry Analyses
- SWOT Analysis: Strengths, weaknesses,

opportunities and threats (See section below for
more detail on SWOT analyses.)
- Competitive analysis: Analyze the current (and

projected future) activities of your competitors,
and how that compares with your business.
• The Online Niche Market

- Target market demographics and psychographics:
This includes detail on your niche market,

including: Income levels, gender and age ranges,
interests, activities, living environment,
geographic descriptions (if applicable),
psychological mindsets, values and affiliations,
family situations, tastes, buying habits, and so
forth.
- Industry or societal trends that affect your

customers.
- Your target customers’ needs and wants, and

corresponding product benefits.
• Marketing Strategy
- Overall objectives and mission statement.
- General strategies to reach your objectives and

fulfill missions.
- Marketing mix, AKA your marketing programs or

specific plans of action:
- Products: Description, market need, and

positioning in the eyes of your customer and your
competition.
- Pricing strategies (for each product or service as

applicable)
- Distribution channels: The various ways or

‘funnels’ your product or service can reach your
customers
- Promotions, advertising and other marketing

programs: Specific action plans for marketing your

product online (and/or offline), such as email
campaigns, press releases, viral marketing, social
marketing, pay-per-click and SEO, etc.
• Forecasts
- Size of current online niche market and growth

projections.
- Sales growth projections and rationale or

assumptions behind your reasoning.
• Financial Analysis
- Pro forma profit and loss statement (also called

P&L) for each product or service and in total: This
may include sales forecasts, cost of goods,
marketing budgets, fixed overhead and variable
expense projections, and profit margins.
- Breakeven analysis: This is the point at which you

have covered your overhead and all costs through
product sales and start making a profit.
-“What-if” scenarios: This provides realistic

examples of what could happen if your sales
forecasts or profit margins are lower or higher
than expected. Also known as a Sensitivity
Analysis.
• Measurements
- Measurable goals and success metrics for each

program.
- Intermediate measurements for monitoring

progress. This may be a benchmark to follow or a

simple statement saying you will review your plan
and adjust accordingly every quarter, etc.
A marketing plan is more than something you “have to do”

each year. It is the framework upon which your company’s
marketing success depends. As you begin writing your plan,
keep these important tips in mind:
1. Be strategic about your online marketing. There

are more web marketing tactics out there than you can shake
a stick at, much less implement! Your job is to figure out –
through the planning process – which of these programs
makes the most strategic sense for your business, and your
budget. Your marketing plan can help you stay focused on
this throughout the year by tracking your results and
adjusting accordingly.
2. Understand that feeling uncertain is normal. Feeling

overwhelmed or incredibly confused at the beginning of the
planning process is expected. The purpose of planning is to
find your way to the best actions for your business at each
stage. As you progress towards the end of the analysis, the
best programs or types of marketing to include in your unique
plan to grow your online business will become much clearer.
3. Be realistic. Optimism is a plus in marketing your

business, but understand your company’s limitations. A small
or one-person business can implement only a fraction of
the marketing tactics that large companies can. So, choose
programs carefully and concentrate on seeing them through
as the year progresses.
4. Stay focused. Your marketing plan is only as good as

your implementation. Keeping your “eye on the ball” – rather

than spreading yourself too thin and implementing poorly –
can make the difference between profit and loss. One of the
greatest things about the Internet, especially with the advent
of tactics like social and viral marketing, is that there are
lots of very inexpensive ways to market yourself online that
can be extremely effective when done properly.
5. Watch the budgets. For each marketing program

included in your plan, spend some extra time to collect real-
world costs to use in your financials. This can prevent
overspending later on.
6. Don’t forget all four of marketing’s P’s. Although

promotion, or the actual web marketing methods you
decide to utilize, tends to get a lot of attention, pricing,
place (or distribution strategies) and product are equally
important to your bottom line. Consider adding new or
improved products or services to the mix as you begin to
see results and evaluate and test your pricing very carefully.
7. Put measurements in place. It is difficult to tell if a

marketing program is a success if there are no mechanisms
to measure results. Write up what you wish to accomplish
with the program, how you are going to measure those
accomplishments, and your baseline measurements or
benchmarks. Later, you will be able to identify and fix
problems as well as pinpoint reasons for success, and
continue to tweak and capitalize on those efforts.
Following through with these seven tips while writing your

marketing plan will strengthen both the long-term and short-
term foundations upon which your online business depends.

More on Measurement: A Word of Caution
A common mistake many new (and even seasoned) online
marketers and business owners make is that they focus
on the wrong measures of success. For example, when
asked what their goals are, clients often tell me things
like “We want to have ten thousand unique visitors driven
to our site each month.” That is all well and good, but
unless your website makes money through its marketing
efforts so that this raw traffic actually adds revenue and
sales, then traffic, even if it’s highly targeted traffic from
your ideal prospects, is the wrong measurement.
The lack of clear goals and real measurement benchmarks
reminds us of watching a bunch of six year olds playing
soccer. If you’ve ever seen little children on the soccer
field, you may know what we’re talking about! They move
around like one giant organism, all packed together,
everyone focused on one thing: chasing the ball around
the field. Coaches and parents may be yelling from the
sidelines “Pass the ball! Johnny is open!” or “Move towards
the goal!”, but the effort is usually futile. The children still
focus on the wrong thing – the ball – instead of the goal.
This is exactly what we tend to do as business owners.
We fill our marketing strategies with balls, like generating
website traffic or having 20,000 people on our email
subscriber list, but we lose sight of the real goal – which,
we can only assume for you, is the green stuff! Cha-Ching!
SWOT Analysis
Let’s take a deeper look at a major section of your marketing

and business plan that is particularly important in the online
world to review and update regularly: your SWOT analysis.

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities, and Threats. Completing a SWOT analysis
helps you identify ways to minimize the affect of weaknesses
in your online business while maximizing your strengths.
Ideally, you will match your strengths against market
opportunities that result from voids in your competitors’
products and/or services. In other words, you can find areas
where your product solves a problem for your online niche
market that no one else has or does, or solves it more
efficiently or quickly. Remember, customers have short
attention spans. This is especially true in the online world.
They want information and solutions to their specific
problems that are fast and easy to get. This should be the
ultimate goal of any online business and the message that
is immediately conveyed on your website and landing pages
(more on this in Secret Seed#4).
You can develop a basic SWOT analysis in a simple

brainstorming session. To begin the analysis, create a four-
cell grid or four lists, one for each component: strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Then, begin filling
in the lists:
Strengths Weaknesses
Think about what your List the areas that are a
company does well. Some struggle or disadvantage for
questions to help you get your company. Some
started are: What makes questions to help you get
you stand out from your started are: What do your
competitors? What customers complain about?
advantages do you have What would you do
over other online and/or differently if you had more
offline businesses? budget or money available
to improve your business?

Opportunities Threats
Traditionally, a SWOT looks Threats in a traditional SWOT
only at the external analysis are also considered
environment for an external force. By looking
opportunities. We suggest you both inside and outside of
look for areas your your company for things that
competitors are not fully could damage your business,
covering, then go a step however, you may be better
further and think how to able to see a clear picture and
match these to your internal pitfalls to avoid. Some
strengths. Uncover areas questions to get you started:
where your strengths are not Who is/are your strongest
being fully utilized. Are there competitor(s)? Are there
emerging trends online or in emerging trends that amplify
the market that fit with your one of your weaknesses?
company’s strengths? Is there Internally, do you have
a product or service that financial, development, or
others have not yet covered? other problems often facing
start-ups?
Brainstorming and coming up with your strengths,

weaknesses, opportunities, and threats should be a fairly
easy exercise with all of the research you have already
conducted about your target market, your competitors, and
common problems your customers share. Continue to keep
your finger on the pulse of your market using some the
resources we have already provided for you. Often,
opportunities arise as a result of a changing business
environment or emerging trend that you can capitalize
quickly on. Some real world examples of this include:
* The print media, particularly newspapers, are suffering as

more and more people are turning to online sources to gather
news and other information quickly.

* A customer segment is becoming more predominant, but
their specific needs are not being fully met by your
competitors. The U.S. Hispanic population experienced this
phenomenon in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, and
arguably still has a need for more online business dedicated
to this growing community.
* A competitor or supplier goes out of business or merges

with another company. With the demise of many “dot coms”,
examples of this abound. If one of your competitors goes
out of business, immediate opportunities arise to gain the
defunct business’ customers.
Case Study: Pets.com
Pets.com, best remembered for its infamous sock puppet

dog mascot, is a classic example of the many companies
during the dot-com boom that went bust within the same
year. Why? Experts site a poorly planned business model,
way too many dollars spent on advertising with seemingly
little concern for budget, improperly formed distribution
channels, leading to customer dissatisfaction, and trying
to grow and offer too much too quickly. While some of the
fault may lie with the grossly overinflated value of dot-
coms during this time period and investors’ willingness to
go along with it, it’s still obvious to see that Pets.com did
not effectively nor thoroughly plan its roadmap to success.
The result? Pets.com closed its doors within months, but
the retail chain competitor PetSmart quickly swooped in
to buy the valuable domain name and expand its online
presence… sans sock puppet.

By taking the time to brainstorm and list a thorough SWOT
analysis of your new or existing online business, you are
sure to come away with newfound insights. Use these to
increase your company’s effectiveness and as valuable input
into your business and marketing plan.
Don’t Throw Your Plan Away… But DO Trust Your

Intuition
“Going with your gut” is one strategy you aren’t likely to

find in any other marketing book. While thorough planning
is of utmost importance to the success of your online “money
tree”, it is not the end-all-be-all, final word of what is best
for your business at any given time. Your intuition will, at
times, come to a better conclusion before even your best
and most careful research and planning does. If during the
course of your online business venture, your intuition or
‘Eureka’ radar goes up, trust it.
Here’s why: Every business – online, offline or both (also

known as “brick and click”) – has an optimal marketing
strategy uniquely its own. This is not only because each
individual business is a bit different, but also because the
strengths and weaknesses of that venture, as well as the
preferences of those involved create an environment like
no other.
In other words, given identical circumstances and identical

marketing programs, the people involved will manage the
execution differently in every company, creating different
results. Those differences – the abilities of you and your
people to execute certain plans of action better than others,
or to work with some outside agencies/services first or most
effectively – create more variables and potential
opportunities waiting to be captured than can be captured
by analysis.

Your intuition and innate knowledge of your skill set,
however, can capture those variables and innovations and
guide you in making the best choices to help guide your
online business to wild success.
Our Special Offer to You
Conducting thorough, proper research and translating that

to a well-thought out strategic plan specific to your unique
business is vital to your success as a profitable online
business owner. In fact, we believe in that so wholeheartedly,
we help every single one of our clients with this process.
And now we would like to extend that same offer of help to
you.
Having been in businesses for a combined seventy-five plus

years and working in almost every industry and business
type – from custom made baby clothing to multi-million
dollar energy corporations – our team has become pretty
darn good at teasing out just what it is about your business
idea that is unique, who exactly your online niche customers
are, where they hang out and how and when they buy online,
and the best combination of web marketing strategies that
translate to REAL SALES. Therefore, every one of our new
clients, whether they already have a website built and
operational or not, get included in their development and
marketing package a preliminary marketing and website
analysis to maximize their results with minimal expenditure.
In short, you should do it right the first time, which is why

we’ve gone into such detail here about the importance of
planning in the first place. Now we’re even willing to do a lot
of the legwork for you. Here is just some of what you need
for an Internet Strategy Analysis:

• Determine your Unique Value Proposition to clearly
portray on your website (and make any
recommendations to improve your website
accordingly, if already existing)
• Internet market size for your business –Identify

the number of searches currently done by Internet
users related to your business. This information will
help identify the potential targeted visits to your
website.
• Relevant keywords currently used to search

your business over the Internet –Identify
keywords and key phrases that are used to search
for your specific business and product/service. The
short listed keywords and phrases will help focus
your website layout and content so that it is
optimized for the targeted keywords and phrases.
• Our recommendation for your focus keywords

–Recommend the best targeted keywords for SEO
(Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search
Engine Marketing) to maximize returns on your
website investment.
We look at the following metrics for recommending focus

keywords and phrases:
o Highest relevance to your overall business strategy
o Number of searches by each keyword and phrases
o Number of competitive web pages for the keywords
o Difficulty of optimization for each of the keywords

• Competitive analysis– Once the keywords and
phrases for your website strategy are identified, we
analyze your competitors who come up on top of
the search engines for those keywords and phrases;
and do a complete competitive analysis of the
website. These findings are used to identify tactics
for implementing the website strategy.
• Tactics for maximizing returns on your website

investment – Based on the above analysis and
our experience, we will suggest website tactics or
plans of action to achieve the agreed upon website
strategy. Examples of this may be: email marketing,
social or viral marketing, pay-per-click campaigns,
blogs, articles, ‘white papers’ or other information,
press releases, etc (See Seed #6 for more
information). We are well equipped to implement
any tactics identified as part of your website
strategy.
Get the complete website analysis, Internet strategy, and

tactics for implementing your strategy for a one-time fee of
$2,000. This investment is at our cost to conduct the analysis
and pay our team; we make absolutely no money from this
service. This is our special offer for readers of this book as
a gift to you. (Further Bonus! This fee will be applied
toward the implementation of your website strategy
should you choose us to help you start making oodles
of money online).

We welcome you to Contact Us or call 714-731-9000 anytime
for a free one-on-one consultation.
Remember, a well-written strategic plan is the foundation

to success for your online business. It is the strong, deep
root system of your online money tree that will nourish and
support growth now and for years to come.

Secret Seed #4:
Building Your Website To Be A
Money-Making Machine
We’re no physics majors, but we’d be willing to bet right
about now you’re thinking “Finally! We’re actually going to
talk about websites!” And you deserve to feel enthusiastic;
we have made it through the brunt of the research, writing
and planning process and guess what? It didn’t kill you. In
fact, you may have even had a little fun and made some
important and inspirational self-discoveries along the way.
Now, we are ready to really dive into the nuts and bolts of
this book, which begins with discussing the building (or
improving upon) of your website that will produce what we
consider the all-important 5th “P” of marketing: PROFIT.
The old saying says, “You reap what you sow.” If you follow
the path outlined here you will create a strong foundation
for your little seedling money tree. The rest of this book is
dedicated to helping it grow tall and strong and bear as
much fruit as possible.
And believe it or not, even with no website and no online

customers yet, you’ve done the majority of the work already.
You are already ahead of 99% of the people in the Internet
Pie game. You have a clear, concise, and well-written plan
that is based on solid knowledge and real-life research.
Most people (perhaps even yourself included, prior to reading

this book) started their online business the exact opposite
way. The website design and building came first, and when
the dollars didn’t immediately start falling out of cyberspace,

the head scratching started and anxiety set in.
Next is panic and trying any marketing idea or latest

‘foolproof guide to success’ that comes along. Before long,
another casualty in the world of online business has occurred.
The good news is that this fate is completely preventable by
following the steps outlined in this book.
Website Development for Dummies
We better throw in another disclaimer or two here so our

attorney will sleep tonight: First, the subtitle above does
not intend in any way to refer to our fine readers as
unintelligent or “dummies”, and secondly, we are not in any
way infringing upon the content of a certain widely popular
yellow-and-black covered book series with a similar title
theme.
OK. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, the reason
why we’re titling this section as we are is because we want
to take some of the wind out of the sails of the mysterious
and oh-so-complicated ‘Website Development’ process. Now
don’t get us wrong, website designers and programmers in
general are extremely talented folks. Most of these
professional men and women are highly educated people
that are very good at what they do. They understand what
.html, .asp, .css, .php, .rss and .xml mean, and when to
use which format. In fact, there’s probably a class just to
learn what all those extensions mean!
Luckily, you don’t need to take that class, or any other one.
The rest of this book will, at times, deal with some pretty
technical and cutting edge new technology, terms, and
trends. And even if you dedicated your life full time to the

subject of website development and web marketing, you
would not be able to stay on top of this rapidly changing
landscape.
We certainly can’t, and we’ve been doing this for many years!
Even if you already have a strong working knowledge of
Internet-related development and marketing concepts, you
couldn’t possibly keep up with it all. For example, Search
Engines are constantly changing their algorithms for how
they index and rank websites, so this is more than a full
time job in and of itself.
So what is an aspiring zillionaire online business owner like

yourself to do? In two words: Use Experts. You are going to
have to rely on the expertise of others to do things right and
truly become a real success online; that’s just all there is to it.
The problem, of course, is finding the right people for the

job. We’ve already discussed all the opportunists out there
just waiting to take advantage of people eager to cut corners
to online success, so we won’t say any more on that subject.
What you will learn here is exactly what to look for (and
what to avoid) in a programming or web marketing expert.
You’ll also get a general education on the subject of website
design, development, and marketing so you can feel
comfortable ‘talking the talk;’ you will then be able to make
appropriate, knowledgeable decisions about what is best
for your online business (AKA, $$$$). Next, you’ll see how
to outsource appropriately without breaking your piggybank.
WORK WITH PROFESSIONALS WHO UNDERSTAND

WEBSITES AND ONLINE MARKETING – AND MAKE AN
EFFORT TO LEARN ABOUT YOUR SPECIFIC BUSINESS.
This is extremely important, and a mistake most people

make when choosing a web designer. You may think that it
isn’t a programmer or web master’s job to know about the
basics of your business and who your customers are, but
you are dead wrong. Your online business is a (potentially
major) source of your income. It is imperative you find the
right people to help you design your website. Not doing so
is a little like handing over the keys of your brand new car
to a twelve year old.
Let’s put it another way: When you’re planning your financial

future, you hire a financial planner or an attorney who
specializes in that area of law. When you want plastic surgery
you don’t go to a podiatrist.
Your 17 year old nephew may be able to create your website

or you can likely get a free “web template” from your host
company or other service and they might even look pretty
good. But in our research and experience, less than 1% of
businesses have websites that have planted the seeds to
online success. And guess who are the ones who have?
Your most successful competitor(s).
The problem is most web designer’s focus on the

technical aspects of your site. They don’t have a clue
how to build a website that makes you a ton of money,
drives floods of traffic, and gets you top placement
on search engines.
Your sole purpose in having a website should be to use it as

a marketing and communications tool. While of course having

a pleasing, professional design to your website is an
important component to sending the ‘right’ message to your
potential customers, it should not exist to look pretty or to
win awards. It is there to make you money, period. Even if
you have a better product or service than your competition,
the website that attracts more prospects and customers
wins! When it comes down to it, being the best at marketing
– and being able to translate that to your website design
and content - is all that matters.
So why wouldn’t you hire someone who specializes

in creating money-making websites to build your
website? Why would you hire a techno-wizard who
knows nothing about businesses? It may seem like
common sense, but that is exactly what the great
majority of people do – pay someone to build a pretty
site and slap it online and hope for the best.
Here’s some good news. There are web companies out there
that specialize in building profitable, working online
businesses. They understand business, the online world,
and the Internet marketing you must have to create an
automatic profit machine. They are few and very far between,
but they do exist.
Years ago Ajay took one of his own ideas and created a $1
million+ online business from scratch. It is now on the first
page of all the major search engines, and often in the first
position for our top keywords. Wouldn’t you want your own
website professional to have similar real world experience?
It should be very appealing to know your web expert owns
or has owned a successful – i.e., PROFITABLE - online

business and knows about how to run it effectively. Don’t
be afraid to ask about personal success stories (and failures
too!). Definitely ask for client examples. Check out how their
own company’s website ranks in the search engines for
obvious key phrases (for example: “website design Orange
County”).
How does a website generate money? There are really

only five things that ultimately matter if your site is going to
be a cash magnet:
1. You have to be “findable” on the web = show up

within the first page or two of results on the major
search engines for your primary keywords
2. You have to generate leads = people to your site
3. The leads need to become interested and become

prospects
4. The prospects have to be converted to buyers =

sales
5. It should save you money on overhead and labor

costs on things like customer service, order
fulfillment, delivery tracking, automating offers, etc
- anywhere that information is provided without
getting a bunch of humans involved
Bearing this in mind, you need to be sure your online partner

can:
• Create a site that entices visitors to convert from

information seekers to paying customers

• Thoroughly understands the importance of
keywords, the difference between SEO and SEM,
and how to get your site a high ranking on the major
search engines
• Generate a stream of leads from your specific online

niche market and show you the secrets of capturing
information and how to utilize it for easy access
and follow up
• Show you what functions of your business can be

automated to save you money, and how to put that
savings to good use… by getting more customers
• Show you how to make more sales with your existing

customers
• Help you set up marketing campaigns that get real

results and build customer loyalty
• Use email marketing ethically and effectively
Seriously, if you have an existing site and your web team,

programmer, graphics guru, etc. CANNOT do ALL of these
things and more, FIRE them now. You are wasting time
and money!
Remember, the most successful online business owners truly

value all the real-world information and experience they
can get. How do they get it? Simple, by surrounding
themselves with the right team of experts who can provide
the knowledge, guidance and successful experience
necessary for generating money online, that’s how.

Website Design Tactics and Techniques
Now you have an understanding of the type of website design

and marketing partner you want to seek out for your online
business. Let’s talk more specifically about the mechanics
of site design and the must-do techniques for building a
traffic-driving, lead generating, profitable website.
Let’s leave the truly technical stuff for the programmers. In

the following pages you’ll get a solid overview of the major
do’s and don’ts of website design. This will ultimately
determine the success of your online business. Remember,
even with the best marketing, a poorly designed, difficult to
navigate and uninformative site will drive your prospects
and customers away almost instantly…. and directly into
the hands of your competition.
Website Use 101
First, let’s take a look at some basic facts about how and
why people use the Internet and visit websites today:
• Consumers use the Internet to research

providers or products/services and to do
background searches of companies before setting
foot into the physical location of the business (if
one exists). As we discussed earlier in this book, no
matter what your business, not having a website
today is like not having business cards; you very
quickly lose all credibility with your potential
customers. Make your website a one-stop-shop for

finding out information about all aspects of your
company and the products/services you offer.
• Consumers SCAN website pages. They DO NOT

READ them. This is very important to understand
when designing and writing the copy for your website.
With the exception of sites that provide stories and
articles, blogs or forums, consumers generally skim
the web pages; they do not read the content word
by word. While there may be several reasons for
scanning vs. reading, it is a fact and website pages
need to be designed for scanning. Some suggestions
for pages designed for scanning are:
Identify your business with a name or tagline that

reflects what you offer. For example, Paolo’s Pizzeria
identifies your business as a pizza shop. Domino’s
conveys the same message because it is a well-
established brand. Our website development firm,
www.gmrwebteam.com, has the same business
name as in the website address – GMR Web Team –
with the tagline “We build web businesses.” Keep it
clear and to the point. Reference to the view of the
home page, below.
Promise the reader something in your page title,

tell the reader what to expect from your website.
The GMR Web Team home page title (found in the
upper left hand corner of your browser window) is
“Website design Orange County California.” Because

a lot of search engine marketing is local, most
targeted visitors are looking for local web experts –
and voila! At a glance, they can see they have found
what they’re looking for!
Confirm the promise given by your title in your

page description. This should be all over your home
page with clickable boxes that list all the different
types of services you provide, bolded
descriptions, and other visual aids and graphics
on the page.
Educate the customer in the body of the pages by

using catchy words, bullet points that are bolded,
or providing free information resources. Again, every
graphic and every word should be designed to
educate the consumer about your business and how
you can help them. You should also prominently
offer a free report on your product or service and a
newsletter signup.
Invite or call the reader to obvious action. You

may notice several calls to action directly on GMR’s
home page; for example, it invites people in two
different prominent areas to learn more about E-
Commerce Website Business Partnerships, they are
encouraged to download a free report, and are
invited to take advantage of a website strategy and
market analysis offer.

• Give consumers a satisfactory solution that is
easy to find and understand. Contrary to common
belief, consumers generally stop at a satisfactory
solution rather than compare and get the best
solution. They stop when they find something they
think will work rather than go on looking for the
site that gives them the ideal.
This means that you should focus on offering what

the page promises in the page title, making the site
user friendly, and inviting very clear calls to action.
These things will result in the most effective website
in terms of converting visitors to leads and
customers. Put another way, the chances of losing
a customer because he or she is confused by
something on your website are much higher than
the chances of losing someone because another site
offers a better solution or value.

Having said that, price is still an important factor in
a customer’s decision making process. It needs to
be within the spectrum of what consumers expect
to pay for your products or services.
• Give consumers what they are looking for on
your site rather than make them read instructions
on “how to use.” Many readers seem to be allergic
to reading instructions on how to use something -
for example, we’re sure you’ve heard people say,
“I hate reading manuals, I’d rather just call tech
support or have someone show me how to do it.”
There is a tendency for people to want to just start
using whatever it is they want to use.
So, because human nature tends to be this way, the chances
of someone leaving your site because they could not find
(or understand how to find) what they are looking are
significantly higher, even if you have detailed instructions
on the site. Thus, the more straightforward and easy your
website is to navigate and understand the much higher the
chance your valuable visitors will remain on your site (and
hopefully, buy) rather than going on to the next one.
Site maps are also an important Search Engine Optimization
(SEO) tool. They are accessed by search engine robots or
‘spiders’ in order to “crawl” the pages and sub-pages of
your website. Google, MSN, Yahoo and Ask now all use the
same sitemap protocol, a rarity in the SEO world. Having a
site map lets the four biggest search engines have your
most updated page information. While site maps do not
guarantee all links (or pages) will be crawled, and being
crawled does not guarantee indexing, they are still the best
insurance for getting a search engine to learn about your
entire site.

Here is a graphic sample of the site map of Google’s home
page:

Now you understand a little more about how people use
websites today, and some general tips to clearly convey
your message and keep your visitors on your site. Let’s dive
a little deeper into some key rules for you to follow when
building your website. Discuss each of these in detail with
your web designer prior to commencing work on (or updates
to) your site.
The Ten Commandments of Website Design
1. I MMEDIATELY TELL YOUR VISITOR WHAT YOUR SITE IS ALL
ABOUT –
You typically have three to seven seconds to convey to
your visitors what you offer. Thus, the website should
convey:
• The product or service you offer
• Why consumers should use your product/services
• How do you differentiate yourself from competitors
YOU CAN INSURE THE WEBSITE EFFECTIVENESS BY:
• A website address that communicates what you do
• Company name and a tagline that conveys your

business
• Graphic design of the site that is clear, familiar and

uniquely attractive
• A clear visual hierarchy that amplifies key messages

on the webpage. Present key messages in order of
importance
• Conventions currently used by leaders of your

industry
Designers generally do not like conventions – fight

them
• Pages broken down into well defined sections – this

helps consumers quickly scan a page
• Clickable links obvious – whether it is tabs on the

top of the page that leads to another page, or anchor
text leading to a website, make it very obvious that
it is clickable. Follow existing conventions of
successful and heavily used sites to clearly
communicate this fact
• Web pages that are not cluttered
• Messages that are short and exclude needless text

– given that consumers only scan a page, not read
it, use the least number of words to clearly
communicate your message
• Clearly defined search bars for finding contents on

site
• Every page has a title and description that clearly

explains what the page is all about
• The pages are scan-able because you use bulleted

messages.

2. TAILOR YOUR MESSAGE TO YOUR CUSTOMERS—FOCUS ON
THEM NOT YOU!
Consumers purchase a product or service for their benefit,

not yours. Many small businesses fall in the trap of talking
about themselves (The “We syndrome”) rather than what
benefits they offer to customers. This explains why a web
page that starts with “Welcome to our website” is not
effective!
Given that you have only three to seven seconds to grab

the visitors’ attention, you do not want them to decide you’re
not right for them in those seven seconds; you want them
to search further.
Here are the four components of effective web

page content writing
1. Title – The title of the web page is the most important

part of your page. It conveys what your website is about
and builds the expectation of the benefits the visitor can
expect from the site. Effective titles have some or all of the
following:
1. Consumer hot-button issue the webpage is

addressing
2. Keyword that consumer used to land to this page
3. Statement of a problem
4. Promise of a solution

5. Facts, not platitudes (Ex. “Highest rated car by J.
D. Power & Associates” instead of “Best Car.”
6. Special Offer (discount, free, etc.)
2. Description – This is typically your sub-headline or the

paragraph that immediately follows the title. The description
serves the following purposes:
1. Confirms the page is about what the title promises
2. Builds the expectation for the reader
3. Helps to transition to the detailed contents
3. Value Proposition – This section (your offer) is the

body of the page where consumers get to decide why you
are the only/best business for their needs. Build an effective
case for your business by:
1. Stating facts that support your value proposition
2. Talking about aspects of your products, services and

processes that differentiates you from your
competitors
3. Providing examples of past successes
4. Focus on consumer benefits. Do not emphasize that

you have been in business for 100 years unless it
has direct benefit for the consumers.
5. Testimonials of your customers

4. Call to Action – every website page should include a
call to action to help the visitor take next steps. Examples:
a. Discounts for buying “now”
b. Free reports by signing up
c. Enter drawing for prizes by purchasing (or filling

out forms)
d. Limited time specials
e. Memberships
3. LEAVE WHITE SPACE –

Leave sufficient white space on the webpage. Cluttered
sites make it hard to find information and are distracting
to the readers. This increases the probability that a reader
will give up and go to another site. A site with lots of
white space makes it easy to follow the page and increase
the potential of the visitor seeing the call to action offer.
Your webpage should follow a clean outline. Leave adequate

space between each section. Do not cram in too many
pictures and ads.
4. SEVERELY LIMIT ANIMATION & FLASHING OBJECTS –
Limit animation and flashing objects on the website. Why?

Excess animation and flashing objects:
• Distracts the visitors away from the primary

message of the site

• Increases load time of the webpage, which could
result in loss of the visitor
• Dilutes the positioning of the site. Animation rarely

helps in positioning your site
If your product presents better in multimedia, give your

viewer the choice of viewing it in multimedia; do not force it
on them.
5. KEEP CONSISTENT NAVIGATION –
The page layout of the index-page should be the same for

all pages on the site. You may have different links in inner
pages, but make sure that Home, About Us, Contact Us,
Testimonials and Site Map tabs are present in all pages and
linked to the respective pages. This will make your website
easier to use.
6. MAKE SURE THAT TEXT LINKED TO A PAGE IS OBVIOUS –
It may make sense to keep all links on your page in blue.

Consumers have started to associate blue text with links
(hyperlink); use the color to clearly convey to your visitor
that clicking on the word will take them to a word-specific
page. Title links appropriately; don’t use misleading or cute
names—it will only confuse your visitors.
7. MAKE SURE THAT THE WEBSITE LOADS QUICKLY (less than

eight seconds) –
Research suggests that you can lose 1/3 of your visitors if a

page takes longer than eight seconds to load. Here are some
things you can do to make sure your page loads quickly:

• Do not use flash
• Do not use too many graphics
• Make content available in HTML
• Use XML for database driven websites with more

than 15 pages.
It may make sense to use XML for your website if you are
using a content management tool for making changes in
the site through the database.
8. USE A “SITE MAP” –
This will minimize confusion for visitors, especially for large

websites. A site map also helps search engines crawl all
pages of your website which could result in higher page
ranking and optimization for higher search ranking.
9. CHECK CONTENT SPELLING –
Misspelled words in your website contents can be distracting

and lose credibility. You can check spelling for each page by
simply copying and pasting it in your MS Word and do spell
check. There are web based solutions that you can use.
However, you should use your own due diligence to make
sure the words are exactly as you want. This issue is too
important to trust software to do the job.
10. DON’T OVERDO PAGE TEXT AND KEYWORDS –
A good rule of thumb for the amount of text on any given

web page is about 300 words; any more than that and your
visitor may lose interest because they’re trying to find

information and solutions quickly. It’s also important to try
and stick with optimizing each web page with one or two
keywords only; do not try to “stuff” your whole list of
keywords on every page. It can be distracting to the visitor,
taking away from the clarity and effectiveness of your
message. Furthermore, search engines don’t like it and may
even black-list you! You also don’t want to use the same
keyword over and over again on your web page.
11. TEST THE SITE BEFORE LAUNCHING –
OK, so we told you we had 10 Commandments of Website

Design and here we are on #11… but that brings us to
another key to your online business (or any business for
that matter) success:
If you want loyal customers, always over deliver!
Now back to testing….. Before you officially publish your

website, do the following tests:
• Test to see if your site loads in all browsers
• Test to make sure that all links are working
• Test for any site errors
• Test for spelling errors
• Test for site load time
This is something your web designer should do automatically,

but don’t leave it to someone else – test it yourself!
Once you publish the site, periodically review server log

data and analyze all metrics. Make improvements based on
web analytics on a regular basis. Web analytics is the
study of the behavior of website visitors. In a marketing
context, web analytics refers to the use of data collected
from a web site to determine which aspects of the website
work towards the business objectives; for example, which
landing pages result in the most visitor purchases. We
provided a list of both free and subscription-based web
analytics software sources earlier in this book. Often, your
web designer or host company will provide some form of
analytics for free; be sure to ask about this!
WEBSITE DESIGN NO NO’S:
Now that we know what we should do to create as effective

a site as possible, it is often equally important to know what
should not be done. The following are some top website
no-no’s:
1) Putting all the products or services you offer on one page.

This is a big one, and a common mistake. Consumers are
typically looking for a single product or service at a time.
Over 80% of the searches for information online are done
through keywords in search engines.
2) Asking a visitor to download a special program in order

to see your site correctly. People are extremely distrustful
of downloading anything from sites they do not know (and
with good reason!). If you ask them to download something
in order to simply view your site, a vast majority will move
on to other sites.

3) Making a visitor scroll sideways to see the entire page –
make sure the whole content of the web page fits on the
screen.
4) Adding frames: Websites built in frames are currently

not searchable through search engines.
5) Allowing “Under Construction” pages: This is the most

complained about feature of any website. If a web page or
site is incomplete, do not show it!
6) Optimizing web pages for keywords only: At first glance,

this doesn’t sound like such a bad thing, but it actually can
be a big mistake to optimize a page based on keywords for
a higher search engine ranking. Always optimize the page
for your visitor first, then figure out how to make it search
engine friendly. (Note: If you’ve done your online customer
niche and keyword research correctly, optimizing by what
your visitor is looking for will most likely also optimize by
the appropriate keywords.)
7) Putting in too many graphics: This will slow your site

considerably and typically does not help convert a visitor to
a buyer.
8) Allowing your website design to be managed by a

programmer:
Let a marketing professional design the site and write web

page content, or take a stab at it yourself and let a
professional review it before you hand it off to your
programmer.

We’ve covered a lot of ground in this Secret Seed, so let’s
do a quick review on the major topics we’ve discussed:
• Why planning before building your website is so

important… and puts you ahead of the game against
your competition!
• Don’t be a maverick: How to choose the right

professional(s) to build your online money tree
• How and why people use websites today – and tips

on how to use that knowledge to make your website
most effective in reaching your potential customers
• 10 (make that 11) Commandments of Website

Design
• Design No-No’s to avoid at all costs
• The importance of web analytics and testing your

site regularly
You are well on your way to online success, and although

it’s a lot of hard work, the pay off will be in the form of a
strong, healthy web-based business that is ready to blossom
cash like a tree in the Springtime. In the next chapters,
Secret Seed #5: Have Multiple Points of Entry and
Secret Seed #6: In the Driver’s Seat – Generate Sales
Without Breaking Your Bank! We discuss the ins and
outs of marketing your website online and share with you
all the secret techniques and tactics of each method
the experts (and your competition) simply don’t want you
to know. So get ready, get set, it’s off to the races we go!

Secret Seed #5:
Have Multiple Points of Entry
In previous chapters we have briefly discussed the
importance of using landing pages as an important part of
your online marketing strategy. But what exactly are landing
pages and why are they so important? What is their
connection to keywords, and how do they fit in with the
marketing of your website? These Secret Seeds will be
unfolding in this chapter.
We have found that many of our clients and the people we

talk to regularly are very confused about what exactly landing
pages are, and what makes them different from your
website. It’s one of those trendy “e-terms” that is thrown
around a lot but not many people really understand. So
let’s start with a basic definition.
According to our dictionary, landing pages are pages where

a website visitor “lands” or is routed to when clicking on a
web page link or typing a URL string directly into an Internet
browser. URL is an abbreviation for Uniform Resource
Locator used to locate a specific address or domain name
(For example, http://www.gmrwebteam.com is my website’s
URL).
I don’t know about you, but that definition doesn’t really

tell us much. How is that different from any other website
or web page? If they aren’t any different, then why are they
called landing pages anyhow?
The difference between a landing page and a regular old

web page has to do with the marketing intent behind it. Let

us explain further. A landing page is any page on a website
where traffic is sent specifically to prompt a certain action
or result.
Here’s an analogy for you sports fans out there. Think of a

game of football. A landing page is the 10 yard line that the
offensive team is trying to drive the ball (prospect) to. Once
on the 10 yard line, the goal is to get the ball into the end
zone to score a touchdown, right?
Likewise, the goal of the copy and design of a landing page

is to get the prospect to take your desired action, such as
purchasing your product or service. In football, you drive
the ball close to the goal line by running plays, passing and
throwing the ball down the field. Similarly, you drive your
prospects to your landing pages using specific marketing
programs or campaigns.
Here are a few examples of ways that landing pages are

used with various online marketing techniques (although
people can be driven to landing pages using offline marketing
campaigns, too – such as when a specific website address
appears at the end of a television commercial or on a
magazine ad):
• Traffic (or visitors) is sent from a pay-per-click (PPC)

search marketing campaign (such as Google
AdWords) to multiple landing pages optimized to
correspond with the keywords the searcher used.
This type of paid search engine results campaign is
probably the most common type of marketing used
when people refer to landing pages
• Traffic is sent from a banner ad or sponsorship

graphic to a landing page specifically designed to

address the target audience most likely to be on
the original website your banner ad was located
• Traffic is sent from a link in an email to a landing

page designed to prompt a purchase or other action
• Traffic is sent from a blog post or sidebar link to a

landing page that sells affiliate products or
encourages opt-in to a subscriber list
Creating Landing Pages that Convert
The ultimate goal of any marketing effort is to create revenue

or sales. The same is true of landing pages. The web
marketing efforts (described in our next chapter, Secret
Seed #6) help get your prospects there; it’s up to the landing
page then to get those prospects to take the desired action.
Initially, it may be simply database building goals such as
getting the person to sign up for your newsletter or a free
report. But this book isn’t called Planting Your Online
Database-Building Tree, it’s about M-O-N-E-Y.
So, how do you design your landing pages to convert visitors

to prospects, and prospects to customers? To help us answer
this question, let’s refer back to some quick facts about
website usage from the last chapter:
You have three to seven seconds to grab a visitor’s

attention and communicate that they are at the right
place for what they are trying to find
Consumers scan web pages, they do not read them
Most visitors (80%+) get to your site through

keywords on search engines

You know that your website visitor has probably
landed on a web page through a search engine using
a keyword or a key phrase
Therefore, it is imperative that a consumer sees the

keyword or key phrase they used in the searching
engine immediately after landing on the web page.
This way your prospect knows they have landed at the right
website if they see the keyword or key phrase in the page
title, and more of them will stay on and read the page
content.
This is where the “keyword connection” comes in when it

comes to using landing pages as part of your marketing
strategy. It is THE major advantage landing pages have,
because unlike a full spectrum website, you can make a
landing page completely focused or optimized to a
specific keyword, key phrase, or specific campaign
theme.
USING THE RIGHT KEYWORDS IS THE KEY TO

BUILDING SUCCESSFUL LANDING PAGES WITH HIGH
CONVERSION RATIOS.
The Nuts and Bolts of Designing Landing Pages
Every successful landing page answers the following
questions:
• What’s the offer?
• Who’s interested?
• Why are they interested? (and why they should take
further action)

• How do they get started?
Before we address these questions (and the answers to

them), we’re going to share with you a recent study done
by customer-data and marketing guru Jim Novo regarding
landing pages and conversion ratios. He conducted a three-
part test:
1. Visitors were sent to a website home page containing

content addressing three different offers in a
generic, high-level manner. Prominent links to more
information were readily visible on the page.
2. Custom landing pages were then also developed

and written to match each search term used for the
individual offers, and a pay-per-click campaign was
started on Google AdWords for each keyword in
order to track traffic (one of several SEM strategies
used to increase unique visitors to your website—
more on the difference between SEO and SEM later).
3. Google traffic was separated from other search

engines’ combined traffic in order to compare
results.
When visitors landed on the generic home page, they stayed

longer and visited more pages. Yet a larger percentage left
without converting. When visitors landed on custom pages,
they stayed for less time and viewed fewer pages. But these
visitors converted two to three times more than the visitors
to the more generic web pages!
When a prospect sees your ad or paid search result, one of

two things happens: they will click on it, or they won’t. A
click-though reveals a certain degree of visitor intent. The

search term and the relevance of the term that brought
them to your landing page should be reflected in the header
and copy. Assuming your product or service offering is what
that prospect needs, you have a recipe for better conversion.
What does this study teach us? Avoid using your website
home page or all-inclusive, multipurpose landing pages for
your marketing efforts. Instead, create specific landing pages
for every campaign or paid keyword or search term.
Now, let’s get back to the questions every successful landing

page answers:
What’s the Offer?

This is the foremost question in your prospect’s mind as
they click through. He or she is hunting for a relevant “scent”
and determines within seconds if your product or service
meets her needs. The moral of this story is, don’t beat around
the bush on your landing page; tell prospects what you’re
offering right up front. Don’t over qualify or try to lead them
into the offer.
Who’s Interested?
When you know more about your prospects, such as their
motivations, needs, and preferences, you can more easily
provide the information they need to pull themselves into a
conversion (See, we told you all that research about your
online niche customers would pay off in more ways than
one!). The keywords they were referred in on and the SERP
(Search Engine Results Page) content will also help to reveal
intent.
Let’s hold it right there for a second and define SERP a little
more closely. SERPs and landing pages go hand in hand, so
it’s important we understand exactly what this means.

A search engine results page, or SERP, is the listing of
web pages returned by a search engine in response to a
keyword query. The results normally include a list of web
pages with titles, a link to the page, and a short description
showing where the keywords have matched content within
the page. A SERP may refer to a single page of links returned,
or to the set of all links returned for a search query. Below
is a sample of what a typical SERP from Google looks like:
The individual results or links on each SERP is the ad that

links to the appropriate website and has a brief description.
In a pay-per-click (PPC) advertisement, such as in Google
AdWords, you or your web marketer can write the copy for
your search result ad yourself.
Depending upon your marketing savvy, your ad can make a

BIG difference in how many people actually click on your
link and visit your landing page. Google AdWords and most
of the major search engine paid advertisement programs

offer free white papers and tutorials with tips on how to
write your search results ads to encourage maximum click-
throughs. We strongly encourage you take advantage of
them.
The other links and descriptions that are listed on a SERP

are non-paid and considered “organic” results or rankings.
You do not have control over the text description that appears
in organic listings. It is taken from the content of your web
page being linked to what the search engine picked up as
most relevant to the keyword being searched.
Organic ads that appear on the first one or two pages of a

search are the result of having a well optimized website
(SEO) and have nothing to do with a particular PPC/SEM
campaign. The search engines determine from ‘crawling your
site’, whether it should have a high ranking on that particular
keyword. More on organic ads and SEO in the next chapter,
Secret Seed #6.
Now, let’s get back to the original question that every landing
page should ask: “Who is interested?” This describes your
prospects and the characteristics that make them more likely
to search on certain key terms.
When evaluating the effectiveness of your landing page,

ask yourself these questions:
• How are keywords and ad copy related to how each

visitor is trying to solve his/her problem?
• How do keywords and ad copy relate to the visitor’s

stage in the buying process?
• What would the visitor consider a success based on

keywords and ad copy?

Answering these questions can help you better refine the
content of your landing page, the top keywords you choose
to conduct marketing campaigns around, and the content
of your SERP ad(s).
Why Are They Interested?
When we know who our prospects are and what makes them
tick, we can begin to answer the big question: Why should
they buy from you? Remember; lead with benefits, not
features. Be as persuasive as possible. A well written
landing page will match the customer’s buying process and
habits to your selling process. The more you commit to this
process and understanding your customers, the bigger the
harvest.
How Do They Get Started?
What action do you want visitors to take? Make it prominent

on the page. Make sure the visitors know by taking that
action, they’ll also know what happens next. You do not
want to leave any questions unanswered. That leads to
uncertainty in your visitors, non-conversion and likely a quick
exit from your web page.
For example, while investigating an online service site

recently, Steve clicked to view what he thought was a flash
demo, only to watch the download progress indicator pop
up. Needless to say, he canceled the download and quickly
left the page.
Test, Test, and Test Again
You could test virtually everything on your landing page,

but that would be a waste of time. Focus on the most
important items, such as:

• Bonus gifts
• Coupons
• P.S. messages
• Guarantees
• Opening sentence/images
• Closing sentence/images
• Calls to action
• Headings
So Many Clicks, Too Few Conversions
As Jim Novo says, “Not all traffic is created equal.” Traffic

you pay for deserves extra time and attention to ensure
your return on investment. Here are a few suggestions to
consider when writing your landing page content and related
campaigns:
Calls to Action
Make sure you have included a call to action towards the

top of the page. This will ensure your visitors know what
you’re offering upfront, and it may result in quick conversions
on more impulsive people or those who are already familiar
with what you’re offering. There should be calls to action
sprinkled throughout the remainder of the content. People
have different tipping points in the sales process. The call(s)
to action should be linked to the order page or subscription
form, depending upon what action you’re trying to solicit
from your visitor.
A call to action is simply telling the potential client what

they need to do in order to receive whatever you are offering.
Simple examples of this would be bolded hyperlinks or

buttons saying things like “Purchase Today!”, ”Buy Now,
Limited Offer!”, “Sign Me Up!” or “Subscribe Now!”
Every Landing Page Needs a Unique Value

Proposition
In recent years, some experts have started suggesting clients

use unique campaign propositions (UCPs). These are meant
to reinforce the content, keywords, and offer from your
search results ad or other marketing campaign. When visitors
arrive on your landing page and take their precious eight-
second first impression, you want them to know exactly
why they should buy from you and not your competitors.
Short Statements
There are different schools of thought on this, but in general,

there is no need to get long-winded on a highly focused
landing page. Remember that most people scan web pages;
they don’t read them word for word. Therefore, your
sentences should be brief and include bullet points, but do
make sure to provide valuable bite sized chunks of
information. Always offer an avenue of communication or a
link to further information for the more inquiring and
discerning potential clients.
Length of Page(s)
This will vary greatly and again, there doesn’t appear to be

a general consensus as to how long a page should be. The
more costly an item is, or the more unique it is, the more
content will be needed to convince a buyer to purchase or
explore the possibility of purchasing further. However, do
not forget that calls to action should be within easy reach
throughout the page and not have to be hunted for.

Ask and Answer Questions
Ensure that the major questions someone may have are

addressed in your marketing copy. Pose a few questions
yourself, and then provide the answer, such as a FAQ
(Frequently Asked Questions) section.
Logical Sequence
Ensure your marketing copy follows a logical sequence and

that you don’t bounce around from point to point as it will
only serve to confuse.
White Space, Headings and Colors
As discussed in the previous chapter, you want to keep your

landing page as clear and uncluttered as possible. Use large
headings and separate different sections with clear lines
and plenty of white space. Stick with traditional, easy to
read color schemes (like black text on a white background).
You can separate some elements of your landing page that
you want to draw attention to – such as your call(s) to action
- with different, but complementing colors.
Provide a Bonus
Everyone loves a freebie. On a landing page it can be

especially effective. Even if the visitor doesn’t take you up
on the main offer or call to action, by offering a free report
that requires their email address in order to download, it
will give you a second chance at acquiring their business
through ensuing follow ups you create (or have some create
for you) and implement. For example, a free newsletter
subscription will allow you to build a loyal, trusting
relationship over time with more cautious clients.

Use of Images
Studies recently carried out in ‘eye tracking’ indicate that a
visitor’s eye is usually first drawn to images on the page. If
your product or promotional image is on the right hand side
of the page, it requires more effort for the visitor to move
their eyes back to the left, where your marketing copy will
be. It may sound like such a minor detail, but in the online
world every second counts when trying to convince a
potential client that you are offering what they need
(Remember, you only have about 8 seconds!). Landing pages
are definitely not the place to have unnecessary, superfluous
images.
Testimonials
Testimonials can be a big help in converting a browser to a
buyer - just be sure that the testimonials are believable and
traceable. When trying to sell a product, a testimonial from
“M.S.” doesn’t have nearly the same persuasive power as
one from “Michael Simpson, Buffalo, NY USA,
michael@gmail.com “ with an accompanying photo.
Fast Load Times

Remember, not everyone has a broadband connection, and
even if the bandwidth is available, you shouldn’t feel you
need to use it all! You need to get your message to the
potential client as quickly as possible, so while your page
needs to look good; it also needs to be lean. Studies have
shown that pages that take more than 8-10 seconds to
download result in losing up to 1/3 of your potential visitors!
Pay-per-click (PPC) Driven Landing Pages
If you’re using PPC advertising to drive traffic to your landing

pages, you may want to consider using different marketing

copy in your search results ads based on the different key
phrases you are bidding on. It’s a little extra work, but given
the prices of PPC traffic, it’s often well worth the time.
Let’s look at one example of this. Say that you’re promoting

an inexpensive, but good quality product called Widget X.
Some of the key phrases you may consider bidding on could
include:
“cheap Widget X”
“quality Widget X”
“bargain offers Widget X”
The “cheap” key phrase attracts the interest of those for

whom price is likely a primary concern or major
consideration. The “quality” key phrase appeals to a buyer
who knows low prices often mean poor quality. The last
phrase may be targeted to someone who wants a blend of
the two, is looking for a good deal, but willing to consider all
the alternatives.
Given that, you may want to implement 3 different landing

pages, one that focuses on the financial benefits of
purchasing through you (i.e., cheaper than your
competitors), the other on the solidness of your product or
related services such as money back guarantees and after-
sales support, and the final page a balance of the two. The
correlation and degree of relevancy between your key
phrases, your search engine ad, and your landing page copy
is very important in terms of PPC effectiveness.
More Ideas
If you still need ideas for landing pages for your product or
service, try searching Google for terms such as:

Landing page case study [your industry].
“Your industry” is the industry your business is in or the

product or service you’re offering. There’s a stack of publicly
available; info on the web with strategies and results of
various landing page campaigns.
Special Search Engine Considerations
If you are creating multiple landing pages with only slight

variations in text, it’s wise to ensure that these pages are
kept away from search engine spiders. Make your general
purpose landing page available for indexing, but use a ‘robots
meta tag or robots.txt directive’ to exclude the others.
(Another techie programming term, but basically it is a tag
placed in your website code that gives specific instructions
to the search engine bots, such as to ignore a particular
page. Ask your web master for help if this is a concern for
you).
This is to prevent search engines from assuming that you

are trying to spam their listings and consequently having
duplicate content penalties applied.
Testing Your Landing Pages
In the case of PPC, in order to test your landing page, you

first need to decide upon your pay-per-click keywords and
ad copy. Also, you want to be sure to only change one
variable at a time. For example, if you change your PPC
key phrases and some of the text on your landing page at
the same time while in testing phase, it will be next to
impossible to truly gauge the effectiveness of either piece,
or which one is increasing or decreasing your positive results.

Instead, get traffic flowing to the page at the level you want
first, then tweak the copy in one area at a time. When editing
your marketing copy, do it step-by-step; adjust, test, adjust,
test. Too many changes at once can be just as ineffective as
making no changes at all. Again, you run into the problem
of not knowing which change may be the one contributing
most to your results.
A good general initial test is to ask friends and colleagues to

view the pages for about 5 seconds. Don’t tell them what
the page is about prior to displaying it to them. Allow them
to view it and then ask them what they remember about
the page. Get their concept of the message you’re attempting
to relay. If it’s the same or close to the answer of the question
mentioned earlier of “What are you offering?” then you’re
on the right track!
Make sure your web analytics software is tied to your landing

pages so you can track statistics on these pages, as well as
your ‘main’ website. A key metric to look at is how long
your visitors are viewing your page for. If it averages
just a few seconds per visit, it’s obviously not grabbing
their attention enough and you need to rework your
page.
Case Study: Examples of Landing Page Successes

and “Makeover” Studies
The web is full of excellent real-world examples of case
studies of wonderful sales successes with marketing
campaigns tied to specific landing pages, and critiques on
existing landing pages to help them improve their results.
Here is a list of case studies offering a variety of products
and services in different industries, courtesy of
CopyBlogger.com:

1. Landing Page Makeover Clinic: 10 Tips for Better Book
Sales
2. Landing Page Makeover Clinic: SEOmoz.org
3. Landing Page Makeover Clinic: StartBreakingFree.com
4. Landing Page Makeover Clinic: HelenGraves.com
5. Landing Page Makeover Clinic: Last10Pounds.com
6. Landing Page Makeover Clinic: HireAHelper.com
7. Landing Page Makeover Clinic: EMKPress.com
8. Landing Page Makeover Clinic: Mindmap-Ebook.com
9. Landing Page Makeover Clinic: Steve-N-Lee.com
10. Landing Page Makeover Clinic: The Four Ps of
Podcasting
11. Landing Page Makeover Clinic: HowtoWriteBio.com
12. Landing Page Makeover Clinic: Real Estate Client
Referrals.com
13. Landing Page Makeover Clinic: Soxialize.com
14. Landing Page Makeover Clinic: Crystal Reports
Book.com
15. Landing Page Makeover Clinic: MagicPumpkinArt.com
16. Landing Page Makeover Clinic: TheWeddingLens.com

Secret Seed #6:
In the Drivers Seat: Generate Sales
Without Breaking Your Bank!
Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines! We have finally

reached the really exciting part of building your online money
tree: The Wonderful World of Website Marketing!
And oh, what a tangled “web” it is! Website marketing (also

known as online or Internet marketing) today takes the form
of a myriad of techniques and methods, each of which are
becoming more and more innovative, and the features more
advanced. And new methods of advertising your wares and
services over the web are being introduced every day.
It’s also an extremely exciting, but often very confusing

universe. The right form of online marketing can make your
website wildly popular virtually overnight and draw in oodles
of cash – and often you spend very little to implement it.
You can also spend a fortune on the wrong form of web
marketing or an improperly executed one, and it can yield
little to no results. You could be out of business before you
even get started! This may sound painfully familiar.
So how do you navigate through all the possibilities and

latest trends and determine what is best for you and your
business? The answer is different for everyone. There’s just
no magic formula or “foolproof” method to website marketing
success.
Further, it is often a combination of efforts that work best,

which may change by the month or even the day.

Sounds daunting, but it doesn’t have to be as scary or as
overwhelming as you may think. In this chapter is an in-
depth overview of the major forms of website marketing
that exist today, the pros and cons of each, and some specific
resources and popular sources you can utilize to help you
implement the marketing programs of your choice.
We’ll go through the tried and true methods as well as the

latest cutting-edge trends. While you won’t walk away from
this section with a PhD. in Web Marketing, you will have a
good working knowledge of the options available to you.
Before we dive into the specific forms of online marketing,

let’s go over a few general rules of thumb to remember
before implementing your web marketing strategy:
Seek professional help.
No, we don’t mean you should be lying on a couch

somewhere talking about your childhood! Remember RULES
OF THE WEB #8?

This is really important. Because highly successful and

profitable websites – no matter what business you’re in –
likely utilize multiple forms of marketing and have a
professional, or more likely, a team of professionals in place
to help manage your programs.
Successful marketing takes know-how, continual

management and follow up. The online world is no different;
if anything, it requires even more TLC and continual

attention. Do you want to keep an eye on your pay-per-
click keyword conversions and expenditures, stay in touch
with hundreds or thousands of ‘friends’ in your social
marketing sites, post to your blog, and email new prospects
every single day?
Chances are you have better things to do, like counting the
money as it adds up in your bank account! Bottom line is it
pays to at least take the advice of a professional who
understands your business and is well versed in website
marketing. And if you can afford it upfront, or as your sales
grow, hire someone whose job it is to keep on top of your
online marketing. It’s well worth the investment.
Write it down
Don’t forget what you learned in Secret Seed #3: Failing

to Plan is Planning to Fail when it comes to creating a
successful marketing program: Plan it out carefully and put
it down on paper! This way, you aren’t tempted to try every
slick new marketing trick that comes along; you already
have a well thought-out roadmap to success to refer to.
Remember your customers
This brings us to our next point, and why we bothered doing

all that research on your online market niche(s) and
painstakingly incorporated it into your written plan for
success in the first place!
If you know exactly who your customers are, what solution(s)

you’re providing for them, when and why they’re searching
for you, and how they tend to buy….. Well, that makes
choosing what forms of web marketing to use kind of a no-
brainer – or at least, a whole heck of a lot easier than going

in blind! You may as well make a little campfire of $100 bills
in your backyard if you start spending money for online
marketing without at least a basic knowledge of who your
prospective customers are.
Prospects vs. Customers

There are two different types of marketing, whether you’re
talking about on or offline efforts: (1) That which you do to
attract new customers, and (2) that which you do to keep
the ones you have coming back.
Both are equally important and necessary if you want to

have a successful online business. Some forms of web
marketing work better than others for prospecting, and some
forms are better suited to keeping up a dialogue with your
existing customers.
This by the way, can be completely different depending upon

the kind of business you’re in and marketing strategies you
may employ; what works best as a prospecting tool for one
website may best serve as a keep-in-touch technique for
another. Together with your marketing experts, you can
figure out what are the best methods for your business –
just make sure you have both in your marketing strategy!
Relationship Building
Whether you’re talking about brand new visitors to your
website, or the most loyal of customers, having relationship
building measures in place is an integral part of any
business’s marketing strategy. This is especially true in the
fickle world of online buyers. You might spend a fortune
getting visitors to your site, but if you don’t stay in touch
with them regularly in order to build familiarity and trust,
you’re throwing your money out the window.

And if you think once you have someone as a customer
your relationship building work is done, consider this little
fact: It costs, on average, seven times more to acquire a
new customer than it does to keep an existing one! And
what’s the reason most people cite for leaving a product or
service provider? Lack of attention on the part of the
business.
This form of marketing is arguably the most important of

all, and where you can most likely outshine your competition.
More on this in the next chapter, Secret Seed #7: Build a
Funnel to Multiply Sales.
Don’t let money be your guide
Even if you’re relatively new to websites and the world of

online commerce, you’ve probably heard that you have to
spend a lot of money in order to be really profitable or even
to generate a large amount of traffic to your site. We can’t
tell you how many times we’ve sat down with business
owners who already have websites and have said, “I just
can’t afford to do any marketing online. I don’t have that
kind of money!”
This idea that a large marketing budget equals large sales

online is simply untrue. Don’t get us wrong, you would be
naïve to think you don’t need to have any online marketing
budget and will be successful in your business venture. And
certain paid advertising techniques online, such as pay-per-
click, can be very effective when implemented correctly.
But today more than ever, there are new ways to generate
buzz and send droves of highly targeted traffic to your
website while spending little money. We’ll cover some of
these techniques in the next section.

Keep it simple
You would truly drive yourself batty trying to incorporate all

the various forms of website marketing that exist today into
your business strategy… yet this is exactly what a lot of
aspiring e-entrepreneurs do. They think they need to do it
all – the blogging, the RSS feeds, having profiles on three
different social networking/marketing sites, chatting in
forums, daily email blasts – you name it, they try to do it.
Inevitably, these folks burn out fast and disappear from
cyberspace.
The most highly trafficked and successful websites, you will

notice, tend to focus on one or two main prospecting
techniques online. Perhaps their strategy is to use pay-per-
click advertising to dominate a certain keyword in their
industry and appear in the #1 spot. Or they do heavy email
marketing in order to generate click-through leads.
Either way, rather than try to do it all, it is best to focus on

just a couple of strategies, and really work at dominating in
those areas. Here’s a tip: Sometimes taking a look at what
your competition is not doing (or not doing well) can be a
good strategy for you to focus on.
If you are like us and are a “I must cover all my bases” kind
of a person, then we suggest you focus your marketing
strategy not on how many different kinds of web marketing
you can juggle, but rather make sure you have a solid plan
and technique for each type of marketing as we discussed
above: prospecting, customer marketing, and relationship
building. Having a well-rounded, simple marketing plan is
guaranteed to yield more profits than trying to do a little of
everything.

Case Study: Online Transcription Service
Transcription services have traditionally been used mainly
in the medical field, and require highly skilled labor. Several
years ago, Ajay saw an increase in demand for more
general transcription services, which required only good
typists with an eye for detail. Seeing this opportunity, Ajay
started an online general transcription service:
www.gmrtranscription.com using contracted typists from
around the country.
Ajay conducted research on his target markets (one
example: professors or public speakers that wish to have
their lectures in written format) and determined the
keywords that these main targets search on for this
service. Ajay then launched a pay-per- click (PPC)
campaign centered around these few keywords, and
tracked its effectiveness closely, ‘tweaking’ his keywords
and ads as necessary. Aside from some website
optimization to help increase his organic search engine
ratings, this was the only marketing he did.
Result: GMR Transcription was immediately profitable,
and today holds the 1st or 2nd ranking for the top keywords
Ajay originally marketed on. The website is on track to
generate over $1 million in revenue this year
without spending any money on offline marketing
whatsoever. Why? Because Ajay focused his initial
marketing efforts on one area and now he is considered
by the search engines as a premier source on the web for
that service.
Web Marketing 101
Now that we’ve talked a little bit about the basics of website
marketing, let’s take a closer look at the major forms of
online marketing out there today.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of

improving the amount or quality of traffic to a website from
search engines via natural or “organic” search results. SEO
looks at how search engines work (i.e., what rules or
“algorithms” they utilize to determine rankings), and what
keywords people are searching on for that particular website.
Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content,
particularly its text copy and its HTML coding, to increase
its relevance to specific keywords and also to remove barriers
to the indexing activities of search engines.
The acronym “SEO” can also refer to “search engine

optimizers,” a term adopted by an industry of consultants
who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients or
by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search
engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service
or as a part of a broader marketing campaign.
Because effective SEO usually requires changes to the HTML

source code of a website, SEO is often included in website
development and design services. The term “search engine
friendly” may be used to describe website designs, menus,
content management systems and shopping carts that have
been optimized to be indexed by the search engines.
The leading search engines, such as Google, Yahoo! and

Microsoft, use crawlers (also known as “spiders” or “robots”)
to find pages to rank according to their algorithmic formulas.
Pages that are linked from other search engine indexed pages
do not need to be submitted because they are found
automatically.

Some search engines, particularly Yahoo!, offer a paid
submission service that guarantees “crawling” for a set fee;
however, this does not guarantee premier ranking and has
drawn criticism from advertisers and competitors. Two other
major directories, the Yahoo Directory and the Open
Directory Project require manual submission and editorial
review. Google offers Google Webmaster Tools, in which a
tool known as the XML Sitemap can be created and submitted
to Google for free to ensure that all pages within a website
are found.
SEO techniques can be classified into two broad categories,

known as “white hat” and “black hat”. White hat techniques
are those which search engines recommend and recognize
as good design, and have content that is created for the
users of the website, not the search engines. Black hat, on
the other hand, includes various techniques search engines
typically do not approve of. Some black hat techniques
include “spamdexing”, hiding text on a page, keyword
stuffing, and link farms. Make sure your web developer does
not recommend or utilize these techniques as you may get
blacklisted by the search engines. In other words, you will
be out of business instantly.
Because over 80% of Internet users find information,

products and services using search engines, SEO is largely
considered an important part of your overall online marketing
strategy. However, it is important to note that traffic
generated from search engine results does not necessarily
guarantee more sales. Furthermore, search engines are not
paid for organic search traffic, their algorithms change
regularly, and there are no guarantees of staying highly
ranked without continual monitoring and updates. Due to
this lack of guarantees and certainty, it is typically not

recommended that a website rely on SEO as its only online
marketing strategy.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search engine marketing, or SEM, is considered a close

cousin to search engine optimization (SEO), but with a
fundamental difference. SEM is a form of online marketing
that increases a website’s visibility in search engine result
pages (SERPs) through the use of paid services, including
paid placement (pay-per-click), contextual advertising, and
paid inclusion. We will look at each of these in turn.
The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization

(SEMPO) is an industry organization for search engine
marketing firms. A non-profit professional association,
SEMPO was formed in 2003 to promote search engine
marketing and provide educational resources to members
and consumers. Its sponsors include Google, Yahoo,
Microsoft, SuperPages, and Search Engine Strategies. Visit
SEMPO at http://www.sempo.org for more information on
SEM.
Pay-Per-Click
Pay-per-click (PPC) is an online advertising tool used on

search engines, advertising networks, and other content
sites (such as blogs), in which advertisers pay their host
only when their ad is clicked.
When advertising on search engines, advertisers typically

bid on the keyword phrases relevant to their target market.
Content sites commonly charge a fixed price per click rather
than use a bidding system.

Websites that use PPC ads will display an advertisement
when a keyword query matches an advertiser’s keyword
list, or when a content site displays relevant content. Such
advertisements are called sponsored links or sponsored ads,
and may appear anywhere a web developer chooses on a
content site, but usually in a prominent location. On search
engines, sponsored ads appear adjacent to or above the
top ranked “organic” results on search engine results pages
(SERPs).
Although many PPC providers exist, Google AdWords, Yahoo!

Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter are the three
largest network operators, and all three operate under a
bid-based model. Cost per click (CPC) varies depending on
the search engine and the level of competition for a particular
keyword. Cost per click pricing can range anywhere from
$0.01 to several dollars per click depending upon the
keyword or phrase.
PPC advertising can be very effective and highly useful when

testing certain keywords, marketing campaigns or landing
pages, as the results are immediate, and easily changeable.
A major drawback to using PPC is that the model is open to
abuse through click fraud.
Commonly, this is when a competitor will click repeatedly

on your ad in order to run up your account charges, and
you receive no “real” traffic. However, Google and other
search engines have implemented rigorous automated
systems to guard against this abuse and those that are
caught doing click fraud are blacklisted and reported to
authorities. One other drawback, the conversion rate of click-
throughs is less than from organic search clicks.

There are two primary methods for determining your cost
per click: flat-rate and bid-based. In both cases you must
consider the potential value of a click from a given source.
Some factors that should influence this value include what
type of visitor you are trying to attract to your site, and
what you as the advertiser can gain from that visit, both in
the short term as well as in the long term.
Because you’re spending marketing dollars for every click,

a purchase should most often be your goal for visitors.
Flat-Rate PPC
In the flat-rate PPC model, you and the publisher of your ad
agree upon a fixed amount that will be paid for each click.
In many cases the publisher has a rate card that lists the
CPC within different areas of their website or network. These
costs are usually related to the content on the various pages.
Content that generally attracts more valuable visitors or
has higher traffic (such as the home page) will have a higher
CPC than content that attracts less valuable visitors or a
website’s “inside pages”. While rate cards are common in
flat-rate PPC sites, you can often negotiate lower price points
for longer term contracts or premier placement, similar to
advertising in a magazine.
The flat-rate model is especially common in comparison

shopping engines or directories. You can usually spot these
sites as they consist almost entirely of links that are
compartmentalized into product or service categories.
Typically, virtually the entire content of these sites is paid
advertisements.
Bid-Based PPC
In the bid-based model, you as the advertiser sign a contract

that states you will be competing against other advertisers
in a “private auction” type setting. The way it typically works
is each advertiser informs the search engine or website host
of the maximum amount that he or she is willing to pay for
a given keyword or keyphrase. The highest bidder wins the
top spot or highest frequency showing when that keyword
term is searched upon. This auction model plays out
automatically every time a visitor triggers the ad spot by
typing in the competing keyword.
Similarly, when the ad spot is located on a search engine

results page (SERP), the automated auction takes place
whenever a search for the keyword that is being bid upon
occurs. The major search engines take it a step further by
looking at other factors of the advertisers that have bid on
a particular keyword, such as the searcher’s geo-location
relative to your location, the day and time of the search,
etc. These factors are compared and the “winner”
determined. In situations where there are multiple ad spots
available, a typical occurrence on SERPs, there can be
multiple winners whose top position ranking on the page is
usually determined by the highest bidder, although additional
factors such as ad quality and relevance can sometimes
come into play.
Major PPC Resources:

Google AdWords: http://adwords.google.com
MSN AdCenter : http://adcenter.msn.com
Yahoo Search Marketing: http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com
Ask.com: http://www.ask.com
Baidu: (Chinese search engine): http://www.baidu.com
Looksmart: http://www.looksmart.com
Business.com: http://www.business.com

Contextual Advertising
Contextual advertising is a form of highly targeted marketing

for ads appearing on websites or other media, such as
content displayed mobile devices. The ads themselves are
selected and displayed by automated systems based on the
content the user is viewing.
A contextual advertising system scans the text of a website

for keywords and returns ads to that webpage that it believes
would be relevant to the content of the page and the user
viewing it. The advertisements can be displayed directly on
the webpage or as pop-up ads.
For instance, if a person is viewing a website pertaining to

music and that website uses contextual advertising, the user
may see ads for music-related topics, such as upcoming
concerts in local venues or guitar dealers. Contextual
advertising is also used by search engines to display
advertisements on their search results pages based on the
keywords in the user’s query.
Google AdSense was the first major contextual advertising

program. It works by providing webmasters with JavaScript
code that, when inserted into web pages, automatically
displays relevant ads from the Google inventory of
advertisers. The relevance or ad selection is calculated by a
Google robot known as ‘Mediabot’ that indexes the content
of the web pages of websites participating in the program.
Recently, new service providers have emerged with more
sophisticated systems that use advanced algorithms to
increase matching accuracy.
Since the advent of Google AdSense, Yahoo! Publisher

Network, Microsoft adCenter, and Ad-in-Motion, others are
making similar offerings.

Contextual advertising has made a major impact on earnings
of many websites. Because the ads are more targeted, they
are more likely to be clicked on, thus generating revenue
for the owner of the website. Google, as the provider of the
ad, also receives a percentage of the revenue. A large part
of Google’s earnings now comes from contextual
advertisements, and this form of advertising is growing
quickly. You may want to consider becoming a Google
AdSense program participant as a way to generate extra
income and increase your site visibility.
Paid Inclusion
Paid inclusion is another SEM product where the search

engine charges fees related to inclusion of websites in their
search index. Paid inclusion products are provided by most
search engine companies, although this has been criticized
by SEM marketers. Google is a notable exception to the
major search engines; it does not offer a paid inclusion
service.
Although each search engine is different, the philosophy

and fee structure behind paid inclusion is designed to filter
against bogus submissions and simultaneously serve as a
revenue generator for the search engine. Typically, the fee
covers an annual subscription for one web page, which will
automatically be catalogued on a regular basis. A per-click
fee may also apply.
Some detractors of paid inclusion allege that it causes

searches to return results based more on the marketing
budget of a website, and not on the relevancy of that site to
end-users. Those for paid inclusion insist they are not actually
advertisements or PPC since the website owners do not

control the content of the listing, its ranking, or even whether
it is shown to any users.
Another advantage of paid inclusion is that it allows site

owners to specify a specific schedule for crawling its pages.
Generally, you have no control as to when your website will
be crawled or added to a search engine index. Paid inclusion
can be particularly useful in cases where you have web pages
that are dynamically generated or frequently modified.
While paid inclusion is considered a search engine marketing

method, it can also be a valuable search engine optimization
(SEO) tool, since your webmaster can test out different web
page versions to improve its search engine ranking, and
see the results often within a couple of days, instead of
waiting weeks or months. You can then use this knowledge
to optimize other web pages within your site, without having
to pay the search engine company. So it may be of great
benefit to consider using paid inclusion as a tool to
quickly test and improve your organic search engine
rankings.
Web Directories
A web directory or link directory is essentially a database of

websites on the Internet. It specializes in linking to other
web sites and categorizing those links.
It is important to understand that a web directory is not a

search engine and does not display or rank websites based
on keyword searches; rather, it lists websites by category
and subcategory. The categorization is usually based on the
whole website, and sites are often limited to inclusion in
only a few categories. Web directories often allow website
owners to directly submit their site for inclusion, and employ

editors to review the submissions to ensure they are
categorized correctly. Many web directories offer free
submissions, while others charge a fee.
Most web directories are very general and list websites across
a wide range of categories, geographical regions, and
languages. But there are also niche directories which are
geo-targeted or focus on a specific industry. One type of
niche directory is shopping directories, such as
Shopping5.com and Google Shopping, which list only retail
or e-commerce sites.
Two well known general web directories are Yahoo! Directory

and the Open Directory Project (ODP). ODP has become
highly significant in the world of website marketing due to
its extensive categorization, large number of listings, and
its free availability for use by other directories and search
engines.
Web directories have different ways of allowing submission

to its database of websites:
• Free Submission – There is no charge for the

review and listing of the site. (Example: ODP – http:/
/www.dmoz.org)
• Reciprocal Link – A link back to the directory must

be added somewhere on the submitted site in order
to get listed in the directory. (Example: DMOZlist
Link – http://www.DMOZlist.com)
• Paid Submission – A one-time or recurring fee is

charged for reviewing and listing the submitted link.
(Examples: Best of the Web – www.botw.org, and
Yahoo Directory http://dir.yahoo.com)

• No Follow –There is a “nofollow” attribute
associated with the link, meaning search engines
will give no weight to the link. (Example: http://
exlink.freehostia.com)
• Featured Listing – The link is given a premium

position in a category (or multiple categories) or
other sections of the directory, such as the
homepage. (Example: Exact Seek – http://
www.exactseek.com)
• Bid For Position – Sites are ordered based on bids.

(Example: Fosee – http://www.fosee.com)
• Affiliate Links – The directory earns commission

for referred customers from the listed websites.
(Example: http://www.affiliateseeking.com)
Today, submission of websites to web directories is

considered a common SEO technique to get vital back-links
for your website which in turn improves your search engine
ranking. One negative feature of directory submission is
that it cannot be fully automated like search engine
submissions. Manual directory submission is a tedious and
time consuming job, and is best outsourced to your web
marketing professional.
See this website for hundreds of web directory

listings, both general and niche specific: http://
www.submitedge.com/directory_list.html
Forums
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion

site. It is the modern equivalent of a traditional bulletin board.

If you’re an expert in an area and have a well-defined niche
market (which you should, after reading this book!), then
forum marketing is likely a good component of your
marketing strategy. This form of marketing is one of the
oldest and most subtle forms of indirect marketing.
The main purpose of using forums as a marketing tool is to

establish your expertise, build brand awareness, and create
visibility.
Forums foster online communities, which can lead to loyal

followers and customers. However, forums are different from
social media marketing (SMM) because SMM is mostly about
networking, whereas forums are generally for problem
solving (More on social media marketing coming up). In
forums, people ask questions and get answers, and
participate in animated discussions.
There are two main ways in which you can participate in

forum marketing:
1. Get a forum on your website: Websites need

fresh content and a forum is a great way to attract
traffic to your website. There is a ton of free forum
or bulletin board software available over the Internet
which is usually easy to install and administrate.
Most of the process for forum software installation
is self explanatory. You can do it yourself if you are
adventurous enough! Otherwise contact your web
designer. They will do it for a small fee.
Managing a forum involves a lot of hard work initially

because no user wants to post in an empty forum!
So you will have to create interesting discussion
threads and topics and categories that visitors to

your website would be interested in responding to
or getting involved in the conversation. Another word
of caution: Forums are often targets of severe
spamming, so increase your security by blocking
automated sign up or sign in.
2. Join a Forum: You can also join an outside forum

relative to your online business or niche market.
The idea is to post regularly and be as helpful as
possible. Eventually, you can become a sort of expert
and users and readers will visit the links back to
your website.
Before joining a forum make sure you research it well. Find

out:
What is the page rank of the forum?
What is its policy of sending a link to your website?
What is the level of expertise of the forum / what kind of

audience participates in this forum?
Another word of caution: While forum marketing can be a

great way to gain credibility and keep your finger on the
pulse of your target market, do not join every forum related
to your business. We suggest that you conduct thorough
research first and join no more than the top two or three in
your industry or interest group.
Post almost every day in each forum. Most forums have a

rule of 15 to 20 posts before allowing you to link back to
your website. If you post frequently, you have a great source
to generate highly targeted traffic to your website from
visitors who you’ve already developed a sort of “community”

relationship with. Because of this, traffic to your website
from a forum tends to have a higher conversion ratio than
traffic generated from other means, such as pay-per-click
or a banner advertisement.
How Do Forums Help In Your Website Marketing?

• They bring targeted traffic to your website if you’re
diligent about posting
• People have to register in a forum, so you get to

build a list and personal network
• You can gain credibility as an expert or fellow

enthusiast
• You develop a relationship with the forum users,

which can result in higher conversion rates when
your fellow forum participants visit your website
• You upgrade your knowledge base and keep your

finger on the pulse of what your online niche market
is having problems with, asking questions about,
etc – which can be invaluable information and give
you new product and service ideas!
• You get a link back to your website from a highly

targeted source. This not only can drive forum user
traffic, but it also helps to increase your organic
search engine ranking
In general, provided you’re passionate and knowledgeable

about your online business and product/service, forum
marketing is a highly beneficial research and marketing tool,
if you stay active, be as helpful and educational as possible
when replying to posts, and do not blatantly self-promote
(This is a big forum etiquette no-no).

Blogs
According to Wikipedia, a blog (a contraction of the term

weblog) is a type of website, usually maintained by an
individual with regular entries of commentary, journal-like
entries, descriptions of events, or other material such as
graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-
chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb,
meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. A blogger is
someone who maintains or writes in a blog.
The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive

format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are
primarily textual, although some focus on art (artblog),
photographs (photoblog), videos (vblog), music (MP3 blog),
and audio (podcasting). Micro-blogging is another type of
blogging, featuring very short posts.
As of December 2007, popular blog search engine Technorati

was tracking more than 112 million blogs. The collective
community of all blogs is known as the blogosphere.
Several blog search engines are used to search blog contents,

such as Bloglines, BlogScope, and Technorati. Technorati,
which is among the most popular blog search engines,
provides current information on both popular searches and
tags used to categorize blog postings. The research
community is working on going beyond simple keyword
search, by inventing new ways to navigate through huge
amounts of information present in the blogosphere.
Blogging can be an excellent web marketing tool, particularly

for drawing a loyal readership and eventual customer base,
but they are definitely not for everyone.

It may be after analyzing your business, experiences,
personality, and style that you find having your own blog
fits well into your marketing strategy - but it may also be
true that other web marketing efforts fit better with where
you are at. Our advice: don’t go rushing into blogging unless
you feel comfortable and are ready to commit time to it.
Is blogging right for you?
Even if your blog is meant solely for promotional or
business purposes, blogging by nature has a highly
personal element to it. Therefore, you may want to
consider the following before deciding to jump on the
blogger bandwagon.
1. Do you enjoy writing? - Blogs are predominantly
a written medium. If you do not enjoy writing then
the chances are blogging is probably not for you.
2. What’s your message? - While there are many
applications for blogging, underlying most of them
is the aim of communicating some sort of specific
message. Having a well thought out theme for your
blog is important before getting started.
3. Are you better at writing or speaking? - Most
communicators have a preference (or at least have
better skills in one form or another). If speaking is
more your thing you might want to consider
Podcasting or even a Video-based website.
4. Do you want to be the central voice on your
website? - While blogs are good at building
community - they generally feature one person as
the central voice. If you’re after something where
anyone can start a conversation then a Forum might
be a better medium.

5. Are you a self starter? - Starting a blog takes a
little initiative. While blog software these days makes
it simple to start them, they don’t run themselves
and it takes a motivated person to get them off the
ground.
6. Are you disciplined? – Similarly, blogs require
regular attention over time. While daily posting is
not essential, it’s probably a good level to aim for.
Will you be able to motivate yourself to write
something new every day?
7. Do you enjoy reading? - Being good at writing is
very helpful - but so is the ability to read what others
are writing to draw inspiration from and stay involved
in the ‘blogosphere’.
8. Are you an organized person? - With incoming
emails, following feeds, writing perhaps on multiple
topics, and moderating comments daily, it’s pretty
easy for time to slip away without getting much done
if you aren’t organized and efficient.
9. Are you a social person? - When it comes down
to it most bloggers have some sort of a desire to
connect with readers. One of the biggest advantages
of blogging is this ability to connect and actually
engage your readers in some way. If you don’t like
interacting with people then this probably isn’t for
you.
10. Are you a creative person? - Once again this is
not a ‘must’ - just an advantage. The web is a
cluttered place and being able to develop content
and community that stands out from the rest and
that surprises readers is a big plus.

11. Do you have stick-to-itiveness? - While some
blogs are overnight successes, most are not. Most
blogs are never as successful as their owners would
like. A long term approach is one of the basic pieces
of advice that we’d give most bloggers.
12. Do you have time? - Linked to the need for regular
updates is the fact that this takes time. Do you have
enough time in your schedule to write daily? Not
only that, do you have time to moderate comments,
respond to readers questions, read other blogger’s
posts, network with other bloggers etc? If you start
a blog, the chances are that it will be found and
others will write about you or some aspect of what
you’re doing. This is great when the comments of
others are positive and in agreement with you - but
it’s not much fun when you’re critiqued. Do you have
the ability to take criticism well?
13. Do you have any technical ability? – You’ll be
working on a computer with web based software
and at times you’ll need to ‘tweak’ your blog.
Knowing how to do it yourself can be very handy. If
you’re not this type of person, you might want to
make sure you have the assistance of your web
developer to help you.
14. Do you take yourself too seriously? - One of the
characteristics we think bloggers should have is a
sense of humor - particularly when it comes to
looking at themselves. While there are plenty of
examples of bloggers who do take themselves too
seriously, most successful bloggers do laugh at
themselves.

5. Are you willing to learn? - We like to look at
blogging as a journey where everyone knows
something but nobody knows everything. The best
bloggers are willing to share what they know but
also seek out and promote what others know also.
In this way everyone learns - even the ‘experts’.
Blog Platforms
Different blogging platforms offer different levels of service.

Some like Blogger.com and WordPress.com offer both the
platform, domain name and even the hosting for free. Others
like Wordpress.org (note this is different to WordPress.com)
offer the platform for free but you then need to find and pay
for your own hosting and domain name. Others still, like
MovableType charge for a license for the platform (depending
on how many blogs you have and whether they will have a
commercial, personal, educational or not-for-profit use) and
then you need to arrange and pay for your own domain
name and hosting.
Building a Readership
Having a loyal following of readers from your blog is simply

not something that happens overnight. However, the
following tips, courtesy of ProBlogger.com, can help you build
your blog into a money-making web marketing tool.
1. It takes time - It may not be what you want to hear, but

unless you’re a genius, extremely lucky or have an amazing
new idea, it takes time to build a readership. So settle in for
the long haul and muscle up some patience.
2. Content, Content, Content – Good, relevant content is

the key to success for any blog. It should be useful, unique,
up-to-date, educational, fresh, etc. And don’t forget to use
spell check!
3. Link to others - Perhaps one of the central features of

generating exposure to your blog is linking it to other blogs
and blog directories. Participate in the linking to other blogs
and you’ll find that many benefits come. Of course you don’t
want to be linking randomly to everyone and anyone - be
selective and link to quality content that is relevant to your
niche topic. This may seem counter-intuitive, but as you
engage in linking, you’ll find that others will link back
(assuming you have something worthwhile to say yourself)
and you’ll find the traffic begins to flow - from their sites to
yours. It will also help to increase your search engine ranking.
4. Participate in other people’s conversations - We

suspect that a number of first blog readers originally came
to a blog because someone left a comment on theirs. It was
not a strategy they consciously thought about; they just
found themselves quite addicted to reading others’ blogs
and giving feedback. When you leave a comment leave your
own blog address. Often people like to know who is reading
their blog and will come visiting you. However, don’t
comment just for the sake of it. If someone leaves you
a ‘hi’ comment or is obviously spamming your blog then
don’t visit them; delete the comment. Make genuine
comments on posts that connect with your business, product,
service, or interest.
6. Interact with your readers - When a reader reaches

out to you with a comment, email or link from their blog –
make sure to interact with them as soon as possible! For
starters it’s good manners and secondly it’s a good way to

increase the chances that they’ll come back again – or better
yet, become a customer.
7. Update frequently - With the advent of news

aggregators and RSS feeds (more on this in the next
section) people can be notified of your new post in real
time. We noticed that when we publish a new post that our
stats nearly always go up slightly just afterwards as those
readers with aggregators log in to have a quick look at the
latest musings. This works a lot better on some blogs than
others. Another side benefit of frequent posting is that search
engines like it. Similarly, the more you post the more you’ll
get indexed by blog engines like Technorati.
8. Add a signature to your outgoing email - This is an

oldie but a goodie. Simply add your website domain name
to your outgoing email. Most email programs will allow you
to do this automatically via a signature option. However be
careful with automatic signatures if you don’t want your
blog to be read by everyone that you email.
9. Promote your RSS Feed - Most blog platforms come

with a RSS feed built in but there are ways of increasing
your subscriber list. Make sure your RSS button is in a
prominent position on your blog.
10. List your site on portals, blog indexes, directories

and search engines - There are many places that you can
list your blog to help it get more attention. Make sure you
get listed on some of the bigger sites like Technorati first,
and then, in your spare time you can start adding or linking
yourself to other sites.
11. Participate in other web forums – You can increase

the amount of traffic to your blog by being a contributor to
relevant web forums and adding your link in your post

signature. Don’t spam these forums; but be a genuine
contributor that adds useful comments and you’ll find people
with similar interests in these forums will be drawn to you.
12. Make it viral – You want people to be able to pass on

your blog and its content easily from one person to another.
There are a number of things you might want to consider
doing to help with this. For instance, you can add links to
your posts that allow readers to bookmark the post in social
bookmarking sites like del.icio.us and Digg. Other bloggers
have features that allow bloggers to ‘email a friend’ about a
particular post. All of these types of plugins allow your
readers to do the work for you in either spreading the word
about your site or making it more “sticky” (a blog term for
you to learn).
13. Link baiting - This is one of the terms that has become
quite common among bloggers over the last year. In essence
‘link bait’ is some sort of comment that will attract links to it
and in many ways is no different to #2 above - write good
content and people will link to you.
14. Take all this advice with a grain of salt - Be yourself

and have fun! - The web is full of advice just like we’re
providing for you here. What we’re saying isn’t rocket science
and it isn’t the end all be all of blogging success as a web
marketing tool. It seems to us that the first rule about blogs
is that there often are no rules! We’re sure there’s a lot of
blogs out there that ignore all or most of the above advice
that have a bunch of regular readers and healthy hits. So
relax, be yourself and have fun with it. Experiment with
new tools, styles of design and writing.
For your easy reference, the following links provide extremely

comprehensive listings of many of the blog directories out
there:

http://www.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet/
On_the_Web/Weblogs/Directories/
http://www.toprankblog.com/rss-blog-directories/
RSS Feeds
RSS. You’ve heard about it. Bloggers and maybe

your techno neighbor rave about it. But what
exactly is it? What does it give you in terms of
marketing benefits and promotion? How can you
use it to aggregate the vast amounts of information out
there? Let’s answer these questions in turn here.
RSS, or Really Simple Syndication was a concept introduced

in the late 1990s to present data in an open format for data
exchange. In other words, much like the meaning of its
name, it was a way to syndicate data for other services,
computers or tools using a common format. Because RSS is
a special XML-based format, it is intended for computers to
understand, not for us mere mortals!
How do I Start Publishing RSS on my Blog?
If you use one of the major blog platforms such as WordPress

(http://www.wordpress.org) or Moveable Type (http://
www.moveabletype.org), you don’t have to do anything.
You may not even realize it, but your blog is already
publishing a RSS feed and most modern browsers will alert
your readers to this fact.
Figure 1: Firefox alerts the reader to the presence of feeds

by placing an RSS icon on the extreme right side of the
address bar.

Figure 2: Internet Explorer 7 has a grayed out RSS icon on
one of its toolbars. The icon becomes orange when an RSS
feed is available on the site.
Instantly, that means opportunity for you. RSS allows you

to blog in three dimensions. Let us explain what we mean
by that.
Two dimensional blogging (without RSS) requires readers

to visit your site to read your material. It requires that
interaction be confined to the Internet and your blog website,
whereas three dimensional blogging (with RSS feed) gives
the reader the chance to read your entries through their
email, a web based news aggregator or alert system, or
other similar central and convenient location for your readers.
The benefits of RSS for your readers are (to name a few):
• Central location that they can subscribe or

unsubscribe to the blogs that they want to read
and not have to remember to visit the site. For
instance, we personally subscribe to over 75
different blogs on a variety of different topics that
interest us through a feed reader. If we had to
actually remember to go visit each of those sites
every day…. Well, let’s just say we’re not that smart.
Even if we were that smart, we certainly don’t have
the time to check 75 different websites daily!
• Another benefit is near real-time access to your most

current content. When you publish, the RSS feed is
republished and available for your subscribers to

view almost immediately. That means that you can
take a vacation and they will pick up on your blog
content as soon as you start publishing again.
The benefits of RSS for bloggers and online marketers are

equally big:
• A wider audience. You can rest confidently

knowing that their content is being automatically
fed out to interested subscribers who want to be
the first to see anything new that you write
• A lifelong reader. Once you’ve convinced a reader,

through quality content and a positive reading
experience that they should subscribe to your blog,
it is very hard to lose them. Most of the time, blogs
that go into feed readers just stay there. There’s
no harm done to the reader in having a subscribed
blog that doesn’t update often.
Using RSS to Find Content
RSS provides another benefit in addition to providing a

syndicated format for your content. It also serves you in
that you can receive relevant content from other publishers
and bloggers (even your competition!). If you are even a
somewhat active blogger and do not use a feed reader such
as Bloglines or Feed Demon (or one of the many other options
out there), then you’re really creating a lot of extra work for
yourself!
Most of the feed readers provide a way to group feeds

according to topic. As a blogger, this is a great way to get
the flow of information on a regular routine. No longer do
you have to use search engines to research for things

pertaining to your niche, now you can get them coming
directly to you!
RSS Services
As you become more involved with RSS, you will quickly

see how it can help your blog grow from a handful of readers
to upwards of thousands without much effort. The following
tools are “RSS friendly” and can help you grow your audience
even faster:
• FeedBurner is an excellent service that offers feed

replacement. In other words, it monitors your
existing RSS feed and says, “I can do that better”…
and does! It tracks how many subscriptions your
feed has and offers a host of other options to help
you get the most out of your feed.
• Email Services such as Gmail, and the new Yahoo

Mail give the users of these services the ability to
keep track of websites and blogs of interest in an
unobtrusive way.
• RSS-to-IM services, such as immedi.at, provide

a means to get new news delivered to the instant
messenger of your choice.
Top Blog and RSS Feeds List:

http://www.toprankblog.com/rss-blog-directories
Email Marketing
Marketing via email is a tricky matter. It is extremely

powerful, but often misused and abused. It is easy to
implement, but can be really difficult to manage properly

and generate results. It is our hope that the facts, tips, and
secrets presented in this section will make email marketing
an easy and powerful tool in your arsenal. Because it is our
opinion that email marketing, in one form or another, has
a place in every online business’s marketing strategy. That’s
right, every single one, without exception. (More on this in
the next chapter, Secret Seed #7: Create a Funnel to
Multiply Sales).
Why do we feel that strongly? Because when used properly,

email marketing is one of the most cost-effective tools you
can use to not only communicate with your customers,
clients, or membership groups, but also utilized to build
strong, loyal relationships with them over time. When it
comes to selling products or services on your website, email
is a fast, efficient and inexpensive way to keep in contact
with your customers and prospects, get traffic to your site,
and boost your profitability. Furthermore, if you use a good
email management company to deliver the mail, you can
track in detail the effectiveness of subject lines, article
headlines or special offers in virtually real-time.
People unfamiliar with email marketing often wonder what

all the fuss is about. Didn’t spam kill email as a marketing
vehicle? And if spam didn’t kill it, what about web feeds,
instant messaging, social marketing and all the other clever
ways we can now communicate online? Isn’t email passé,
outmoded?
There may be some that disagree with us, but we believe

the answer to that question is a resounding NO. If you’re
still wondering about the effectiveness of email marketing
in today’s ever-changing, high-tech online marketing
environment, consider the following facts:

• According to research conducted by the Direct
Marketing Association, email marketing generated
an ROI of $48.34 for every dollar spent on it in
2007. The expected figure for 2008 is $45.06, and
the prediction for 2009 is $43.52. As such, it
significantly outperforms all the other direct
marketing channels, such as print catalogs or
personalized letters
• A December 2008 survey of hundreds of marketers

by MarketingSherpa saw pay-per-click search ads
rank top for ROI, followed by email marketing to
“house lists” (prospect or client lists compiled by
your business) in second place.
• Marketing service Epsilon determined that clients

were getting $0.14 revenue for each email delivered
in Q3, 2008.
• A February/March 2008 retailer survey by Shop.org

revealed that email marketing has the second lowest
cost per order (CPO) of any other online marketing
tactic. The average CPO of $6.85 for email compares
with, for example, paid search’s (such as pay- per-
click or contextual ads) CPO of $19.33
• A 2008 survey by Newsweaver and B2B Marketing

Magazine of 175 UK B2B marketers revealed 78%
considered email “critical” or “very important” to
their B2B marketing strategy
• In a December 2007 survey of Internet marketers

by MarketingSherpa, email to house lists beat paid
ads in terms of ROI, with 42% describing email as
having “great ROI - outperforms other tactics.” Only

SEO and behavioral targeting (which you can also
do with email) scored higher
• In another December 2007 survey of over 2000

marketers by Datran Media, 80% of respondents
“indicated email was the strongest performing media
buy ahead of search and display.” 55% expected
“ROI from email to be higher than any other
channel.”
• Research conducted by Shop.org in 2007 revealed

email generates sales at an average cost per order
of under $7, comparing favorably to $71.89 (banner
ads), $26.75 (paid search) and $17.47 (affiliate
programs)
• In a March 2007 column, usability guru Jakob

Nielsen listed an email newsletter as “probably the
single-highest ROI action you can take to improve
your Internet presence.”
Believe us yet? If there is one thing we’ve learned in our

years as business owners/entrepreneurs, it’s that if
something has been proven to yield real profits and high
ROI in my business, we have no problem putting our money
where our mouth is. Follow the money trail, and you’ll find
success:
• The CMO Council’s Marketing Outlook ’09 Report

reviewed the plans and opinions of 650 marketers.
Email marketing was the top target area for
investment in 2009
• A survey of B2B marketers in November, 2008 noted

that 68.3% intended increasing spending on email
marketing in 2009

• The DMA estimated spending on email marketing
(in the USA) will increase from $600 million in 2008
to $700 million in 2009
• A 2008 survey by Forrester Research revealed that

95% of surveyed marketers use email marketing,
with another 4% planning to do so by year end.
(Are 99% of marketers wrong? Hmmm….)
• In a 2008 survey of 200 corporate marketers, 74%

said they would increase spending on email
campaigns over the next three years
• In January 2008, Jupiter Research forecast that

spending on email marketing will grow from $1.2
billion in 2007 to $2.1 billion in 2012
• An end-of-year 2007 survey of marketing and sales

execs by PoliteMail found over 80% “have plans to
increase use of email for sales and marketing.”
• In a September 2007 article, eMarketer predicts

spending on email advertising to rise 82% to $616
million by 2011. And spending on email marketing
in general to rise 11% to $1.6 billion over the same
period
• In McKinsey’s July 2007 global survey of marketers,

more respondents used email than any other form
of digital advertising vehicle
If you’re wary of statistics, then consider the results obtained

by real marketers in real organizations. There’s a list of over
90 case studies at www.emailmarketingreports.com/
casestudies/ showcasing successful uses of email. And nearly

all of those are published at independent media websites,
not at vendor sites where they’re just trying to sell their
particular email marketing solution.
Why it Works
Email marketing, when used correctly, works for a variety

of reasons:
• It allows targeting
• It is data driven
• It drives direct sales
• It builds relationships, loyalty and trust
• It supports sales through other channels
• It is a great customer service tool
Modern email marketing services and solutions support

database integration, segmentation and various other tricks
and techniques for improving the targeting of outgoing
messages. Advanced methods generate on-the-fly emails
customized down to an individual recipient basis (for
example, a subject line that reads: “John, get your free TV
in Irvine today!”).
And every email campaign you send out generates a ton of

data you can use to refine your approach and messages,
not only in your email efforts, but in your other online (and
offline) marketing efforts as well.
Email promotions and offers generate immediate action:

sales, downloads, inquiries, registrations, etc. Informative
email newsletters and other emails send people to your
online store, educate your prospects and customers about

your business and topics that are interesting to them, builds
awareness, contributes to branding, strengthens
relationships, encourages trust and cements loyalty.
This brings us to an important point about email marketing

that we feel is probably what makes it such an effective
marketing tool for any business. Remember at the beginning
of this chapter we discussed the three different types of
marketing? This is so important, in fact, we’ve made it one
of our Rules of the Web:
EVERY WEBSITE MARKETING STRATEGY SHOULD

INCLUDE TECHNIQUES FOR ALL 3 TYPES OF
MARKETING: TO GENERATE NEW CUSTOMERS, TO
KEEP THE CUSTOMERS YOU HAVE COMING BACK, AND
TO STRENGTHEN RELATIONSHIPS.
The beauty of email marketing is that it is probably the only

online tool that can be used very effectively for all three; all
in all, a pretty good way of going about growing your Internet
business.
But let’s not get carried away!
Just like your online money tree (i.e., your online business)
will only bear fruit if properly planned, implemented, and
managed, so it is with email marketing. The statistics prove
it can and does work, but you must get the basics right,
which isn’t always easy to do and often involves time and a
lot of trial and error. Namely, you need to know how to build
a list of people who want to hear from you, craft messages
people want to read, and ensure the emails get through to
those on your list so they get opened.

Once you have those basics right, there’s a whole spectrum
of more sophisticated tactics you can employ to drive further
success. You do this because the metrics show us that there’s
always room for improvement and plenty of rewards waiting
for those who do improve.
For example, a report by Jupiter Media in 2008 found that

“using web analytics to target email campaigns can produce
nine times the revenues and eighteen times the profits of
broadcast mailings.”
List Building
Building a strong, permission-based email list is one of

the first steps to effective email marketing. You don’t want
to miss any opportunity to communicate with your customers
and clients, networking contacts, and other prospects. Make
sure you give everyone you come in contact with – both
virtually (online) and in “real life” - ample opportunity to
join your email list.
Some of the best ways to build an email database include:
Newsletter subscription or mailing list signup forms

on your website. This is a fundamental marketing activity
everyone should have on their website – a way for visitors
to your site to have the ability to ask for more information
or stay in touch. Make sure you have a prominent
SUBSCRIBE NOW or SIGN-UP link at the button of your
website, attached to a simple form with basic information
such as: name, email address and phone number. You may
want to have ‘signup box’ on every single page of your
website, or if you have long scrolling pages, in several
locations on the same page. Many email service providers
(such as Constant Contact or Ready Campaigns.com) will

also provide you with the website code to allow new signup
information to be automatically ported into your email service
provider account.
Send to a Friend. Every email or newsletter you send,

every free report or article on your website, and every
posting on your blog should automatically include a “Send
to a Friend” link, that allows your email recipients to easily
forward a message on and add a personal note to their
friends and family.
Make a habit to collect emails at every opportunity.

Just remember that you’re building a permission-based list,
which means a person must give their permission before
being added (See discussion on opt-in, below). Here are a
few tips for growing your list:
• Always have a ‘sign-up and subscribe now’ on all of

your online marketing efforts and on your website
• Train employees to collect addresses and permission

at every single point of contact, from initial visitor
to prospect through repeat customers
• Collect business cards at tradeshows and events
• Network, network, network! Join your local Chamber

of Commerce or other professional networking
group, and collect business cards at every
opportunity
Single Opt-in vs. Double Opt-in
No doubt you’ve heard these terms before when it comes

to email marketing. But what exactly is the difference, and
which is best to use? “Opt-in” basically means that you have

received some type of permission from the email recipient
to send them information.
Email addresses on a single opt-in list are not confirmed.

Anybody can submit anybody’s address to the list, and it
will be there until it is unsubscribed. For example, if you
collect business cards at an event to promote your website
and add them to your email list after the event; this would
be an example of single opt-in.
On a double opt-in list, all email addresses must be confirmed

before they are added to your send list. A request for
confirmation is automatically sent to the submitted email
address and that address owner must take some action to
confirm that:
• He or she is the owner of the email address
• The address is working and
• He or she indeed wants to subscribe
Most often, the confirmation action is as simple as replying

to the confirmation request or clicking on a link. While you
may lose some people from your list using a double opt-in
method, chances are the people that do confirm really are
interested in your website or products and services and
therefore more likely to respond to your email marketing
efforts.
Whether single or double opt-in, it is federal law (CAN-SPAM

Law) to always give everyone the ability to unsubscribe to
your email list. This usually takes the form of a link at the
bottom of your email along with a disclaimer statement.
You also must provide your company name and address in
every email campaign you send. Most email service providers

automatically include this information for you and will remove
(or make inactive) people that unsubscribe automatically
from your list.
A good marketing practice, particularly if using a single opt-

in list, is to put a “permission reminder” at the top of your
email communications: “You received this email because
you’ve requested information from Business XYZ in the past.
Click here to unsubscribe.”
The one area of email marketing you want to absolutely

avoid is spam or UCE, which stands for unsolicited
commercial email. Spam is email sent without the recipient’s
permission. A good email marketing vendor can help you
email responsibly, make sure your email gets delivered and
keep the reputation of your company intact.
The 4 “U’s” of Effective Subject Lines
Writing a successful email campaign is both a science and

an art. The first obstacle you must hurdle is to get people to
open your email. When prospects get your email marketing
message, they make a quick decision, usually within 2 or 3
seconds, whether to open or delete it based largely on the
subject line. But given the glut of promotional email today,
how can you convince a busy prospect – in just a few words
– that your message is worthy of attention?
The “4 U’s” of writing effective subject lines can help.

According to this formula, strong subject lines are:
Urgent. Urgency gives the reader a reason to act now

instead of later. You can create a sense of urgency in your
subject line by incorporating a time element. For instance,
“Make $100,000 working from home this year” has a greater

sense of urgency than “Make $100,000 working from home.”
A sense of urgency can also be created with a time-limited
specific offer, such as a discount or premium if you order by
a certain date.
Unique. The powerful subject line either says something

new, or if it says something the reader has heard before,
says it in a new and fresh way. For example, “Why Japanese
women have beautiful skin” was the subject line in an email
promoting a Japanese bath kit. This is different than the
typical “Save 10% on Japanese Bath Kits”, and asks a
question that is compelling enough to your readers to want
to find out the answer.
Ultra-specific. The direct mail company Boardroom is the

absolute master of ultra-specific bullets known as
“fascinations” that tease the reader into reading further and
ultimately ordering your product or service. Here are some
examples of “fascinations”: “What never to eat on an
airplane,” “Bills its okay to pay late,” and “Best time to file
for a tax refund.”
Useful. The strong subject line appeals to the reader’s self-

interest by offering a benefit. In the subject line “An Invitation
to Ski & Save,” the benefit is saving money.
Ask yourself how strong your subject line is in each of these

4 U’s. Use a scale of 1 to 4 (1=weak, 4=strong) to rank it in
each category.
Rarely will a subject line rate a 3 or 4 on all four U’s. But if

your subject line doesn’t rate a 3 or 4 on at least three of
the U’s, it’s probably not as strong as it could be — and can
benefit from some rewriting.

Strong Call to Action
Sometimes, you will get newsletters and marketing

messages via email that have everything except a clear call
to action. They’re beautifully designed, a joy to read, and
they get us in the mood to do something — if only we knew
what the sender expects us to do!
We don’t know where to click, what link to follow, where to

order. This is why one of the most crucial elements of an
email marketing campaign is a clear call to action:
• Lay out exactly what you want the recipients of your

message to do, and
• Design the message to make that path clear for the

recipient, and easy to follow
Don’t distract with too many links or offers, and be sure to

make not only the call to action clear, but also what recipients
can expect when they click through. This can be as simple
as “Click here for a 20% discount on your next weekend
trip.”
Test, Test, Test
One of the greatest assets to email marketing is your ability

to measure results instantly, and easily test or adjust your
messages. Here are some tips to improve your email
campaigns through thoughtful testing:
Form sub-groups out of your list.
This is the first and most important step in testing and applies
to the other four tips. You may be grouping your list into
distinct groups based on a customer’s profile and are sending
them messages that pertain only to them. For example,

you may send a new prospect one email, whereas an existing
customer would receive a different message. This is terrific!
Now split each of these groups into two or three sub-groups
and send the same message with slight tweaks to measure
what works and what doesn’t.
Subject Lines
Send email campaigns with very different subject lines, but

with the same content in the email body to each sub-group.
This will help you learn what drives higher open rates.
Imagery
Have you ever thought about what effect it might have on

an action decision if you included a picture of your logo,
your product, yourself, etc in your email campaign? Keeping
all else the same, send one graphical design to one sub-
group and an entirely different design to another; wait for
results and evaluate carefully.
Link Positioning
Applies to positioning both in regard to physical positioning

within the email and whether to include banner links or
buttons or text links. It’s worth experimenting. After all,
don’t most of your links lead to an action decision?
Timing
Are your customers weekend warriors who would rather

plow through email on Saturday and Sunday? Or are most
of them in a different time zone? It’s worth testing different
days and different times of day for send activity. Maybe
you’ll find out that the normal Tuesday mid-morning send
isn’t right for your contacts.

Remember when testing your email campaigns for
effectiveness to change only one variable at a time;
otherwise, you have no way of truly knowing if what was
‘tweaked’ improved your results or not! Email Marketing
Case Study: Circuit City’s “Eleventh Hour” Holiday
Shopping (they may be gone but this was well done)
The following email was sent from Circuit City in 2008. This
particular campaign is an example of several design
elements, messaging, subject line, and strong calls-to-action
– many of the things we’ve been talking about as the key to
effective email marketing.


Now that you’ve seen the email in its entirety, let’s break it
down into the various visual components:
Circuit City uses an attractive image with a simple message

that solves a customer problem: “Find the perfect last-minute
gift.” The image features 3 of the hottest selling product
categories - digital cameras, iPods and GPS systems.
The reader is reminded of Circuit City’s in-store pickup option

- even if you’re past the shipping cutoff date you can still
shop from your desk, Blackberry or wherever you are right
now.
Hey even if you’re done shopping for your honey, you can
still take advantage of the deals you’ve come to expect from
email offers. There’s a time limited deal - wanna see what it
is? Then click through NOW.

Don’t forget gift cards. These cards come with Valentine’s
designs - nice touch.
What we like about the way the products are laid out above
is, much like how people scan navigation links looking for
“trigger keywords,” they could also scan images for products
that appeal to them. The customer can navigate to the
category she wants straight from the email.
And if nothing else enticed you today, here’s a contest.

Although we’d like to see more details - what’s the dollar
value of the prize and is there a purchase necessary?
It’s a challenge to design an email packed with so many

different messages and calls to action that still looks clean
and uncluttered. The messaging is themed around Valentine’s

Day but not restricted to it. Whether you’re a last minute V-
Day shopper or just a gadget-lover, this email is highly
relevant to just about any of its readers.
Media Releases
Media releases were originally designed as a communication
tool between company PR staff or public relations firms and
the media. But now that online news websites such as Yahoo
News and Google News contain such an abundance of media
release content and RSS makes it easy to syndicate news,
press releases can be very effectively used as a direct to
consumer communication tool.
Not only are media releases an effective tool for distributing

content to the media and consumers, they can easily be
syndicated creating an excellent opportunity to attract
incoming links. Media releases also often gain very high
rankings in SERPs on relevant keywords, which can be a
useful tool for driving timely traffic to your website.
Using progressive wire services like Business Wire, PR

Newswire, PRWeb and Market Wire simplifies the process of
getting news content into these popular search engines.
comScore has reported that half of all internet users visit
an online news site in a given month.
Here are 10 tips for maximizing the visibility of media release

content:
1. Start with something worth announcing. Boring

news gets little results no matter how well it’s
optimized. It’s important to focus on a specific topic.
Too much information and focusing on too many
keywords will dilute the message for both news search
engines and readers.

2. Think upward and to the left. Optimize a media
release using web page optimization principles and
keep in mind that important keywords need to be
near the top of the document with the most important
keyword phrases first.
3. Distribute the release via a wire service like

Business Wire and PRWeb or PRNewswire. If you
distribute the same release through more than one
wire service on the same day, it is very likely that the
news search engines will filter out the duplicates. If
your story has more than one angle, take advantage
of that and mix it up.
4. Give the reader a reason to click through. A direct

to consumer release needs to offer more than an
announcement of news. It needs to provide the reader
with a call to action opportunity. Examples include:
white paper downloads, free trials, special offers,
podcasts, webinars, reports, email newsletters and
consultations.
5. Create a landing page to convert referred press

release visitors to prospects. This is very similar to
using landing pages for PPC campaigns. Embed links
in your release to relevant resources as well as a strong
call to action. Along with giving the reader a reason
to click through, the destination of that link should be
designed to bring the visitor further along the sales
cycle for whatever the desired outcome is.
6. Assemble a list of media contacts for the release

and email them the release along with a concise
summary.

7. Make it relevant and make it easy for journalists
and bloggers to write about your news. Research
bloggers that write about topics in your industry and
pre-write a summary of the release for them. In many
cases, bloggers will simply copy/paste all or part of
your summary and add their own commentary.
8. Write a blog post version of your media release

and submit to relevant social media sites. This does
not work for all types of content and you need to be
sure that what you’re writing resonates with the
culture of the social media networks you want to
promote to. Do not submit media releases directly to
Digg, Reddit, Stumble Upon, etc. (See next section
for more information on these websites).
9. Use social bookmark sites as a clipping service.

Bookmark pickups of the release using social
bookmark services such as Delicious. Such services
can be linked to & from the online media room and
many then become crawlable links for search engines.
Social Media Marketing (SMM)
Social media marketing (SMM) involves engaging with online

communities (examples of large, popular ones include
MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc) to generate
exposure, opportunity and sales. The number-one advantage
to using SMM as a web marketing strategy is to generate
exposure for your business, followed by increasing traffic
and building new business partnerships that will ultimately
result in sales.
In the context of Internet marketing, social media refers to

a website or online community whose content is primarily

published by users, not direct employees of the property.
For example, the vast majority of the videos featured on
YouTube are published by “regular” users, not YouTube
employees.
Social media optimization (SMO) is a set of methods for

generating publicity through social media, online
communities and community websites.
Social media marketing has two important aspects:
(1) Adding links to services such as Digg, Reddit and

Del.icio.us so that your web pages can be easily ‘saved and
submitted’ to and for these services.
(2) Building ways that fans of your website, product or

service can promote for themselves in the various online
social media venues of their choice.
The Changing Landscape of Social Media

Optimization
Social media marketing, while its concept and fundamentals

have been around for a while, has changed remarkably within
the past six months. There was a time when a social media
link building campaign was very easy. The big search engines
valued domains like Squidoo and MySpace to the extent
that your profiles could easily rank for targeted keywords.
This is no longer the case, however.
It may be considered both fortunate and unfortunate that

search engines like Google have severely toughened up its
standards for ranking profiles from sites like MySpace. For
marketers, it means a lot more work. For users or people
searching online, it means far less noise and spam in their

search results, and more chance for your website to receive
better ranking on keywords.
Social media marketing is now a relatively delicate process.

Traditional link building campaigns often involved blatantly
asking for links, or simply buying them. Today, SMM is usually
only effective if you can convince others to link to your
material or website, not by asking, but by creating fantastic
content.
The reason is that most people’s accounts and profiles on

social media websites are intrinsically attached to their offline
self. The majority of people want their user history on sites
like Digg and Reddit, and their friend lists on MySpace and
Facebook to reflect something about their personalities. The
less socially appealing and more exploited your industry is
offline, the harder it will be for you to take advantage of
online communities and social media marketing tactics.
This section documents the procedures and practices that

should be followed in order to reap the benefits of social
media marketing today, as well as gives an overview of the
most popular online communities and SMM entities being
used today. While utilizing SMM can be extremely effective
in increasing “buzz” about your product or service and
increase traffic to your website, remember that this is a
quickly changing and complex landscape, so proceed with
caution.
Some General Rules

1. When dealing with social media, you may have to
leave your political or more conservative moral beliefs
behind. For some reason, a high percentage of users
at the most popular social media outlets are of a liberal

or libertarian persuasion and they tend to join groups
and vote on stories accordingly.
2. In general, people are a lot more wary about social

spam now than they were even a year ago. Even
legitimate yet misguided marketing efforts can be
taken as spam by users.
3. The widespread adoption of the nofollow tag, which

tells search engines not to put any value in tagged
links, means that marketers need to appeal to
communities as a whole instead of simply taking
advantage of a sites’ domain strength.
4. Buying votes to gain popularity for submissions on

social media websites is highly frowned upon today.
However, search marketers and webmasters ask their
friends, acquaintances and business associates for
links all the time. They even ask total strangers for
links via link submission forms and unsolicited emails.
Asking for votes in social media is fine – people have
the right to decide if your content is not to their liking
and not to vote for it.
5. Every community is different, even if the same people

use a number of different communities. People do
not behave the same way at LinkedIn as they do at
MySpace; neither do they look for the same content
at Del.icio.us as they do while browsing on
StumbleUpon. Every social media effort has to take
the intended audience into account.
6. Even if you have the most compelling content on the

Internet, an ugly website, boring layout or even a
questionable color-scheme can hinder your success
with social media.

7. People can be very mean. Social media is a popularity
contest of sorts and people love to bring down things
that are popular. When your content receives a lot of
attention on a prominent online community, there will
be those who add nasty comments. However, consider
those comments as part of your success, because
rarely do users bother commenting on content that is
receiving no attention!
8. Timing can be very important. It is typically not a

good idea to submit content related to marketing your
online business to most social media sites when it is
the middle of the night in the United States. The U.S.
is the main source of traffic for sites like this and you
will generally notice the best results if your content is
gaining votes during the United States’ work day and
Europe’s evening.
Popular SMM Communities
The following section provides a brief overview and main

uses for some of the most popular social media marketing
websites.
MySpace
MySpace is a social networking website with an interactive,

user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs,
groups, photos, music, and videos for teenagers and adults
internationally. It is still considered the most popular
networking site in the United States and boasts hundreds
of millions of accounts; however, according to comScore it
was overtaken internationally by main competitor Facebook
in April 2008 in terms of unique monthly users.

Reasons many cite for the decline in the utilization of
MySpace as a web marketing tool include its frequent site
crashes and page errors, and the large amount of unsolicited
“friend” requests, messages, and promotions from people
and companies that users do not know and do not wish to
receive information from. An advantage to MySpace is that
it is open-platform, meaning you may search its universe of
user accounts for people matching characteristics of your
online niche market and invite them to be your friend and
view your profile or website. However, many people consider
this spamming, which is generally frowned upon as against
SMM etiquette. Today, as in most other SMM communities,
MySpace is most effective as a web marketing tool by
providing excellent or unique content that makes people
want to link to you, rather than the other way around.
Facebook
Facebook is arguably considered the world’s most popular

social networking website. However, from a link-building
point of view, Facebook is completely useless because
everything on the site apart from the official blog, some
About pages and the Help menu is hidden from search
engines. Facebook is a “walled garden” (i.e., closed-
platform), and the wall is topped with razor wire. You need
a membership in order to see anyone’s profile, and you can
only see the profiles of your friends and people within your
networks who have not restricted their privacy settings.
Of all social media and social networking websites, Facebook

is probably the one that you have to be the most respectful
of. Its community takes the integrity, cleanliness and lack
of spam very seriously.

However, you should not necessarily let the service’s closed
doors put you off exploring its network: You can consider
Facebook to be a little Internet of its own where subtle
marketing can take place through forming your own group
and organically building your friend base. Facebook also
offers an inexpensive paid “flyer” service (similar to small
banner ads) that appear on the side bars of user profiles.
Because of the more affluent socio-economic status and
web savvy characteristics of its audience, Facebook still draws
the attention of a lot of web marketers.
YouTube
YouTube is a video sharing website on which users can upload
and share videos, and view them in MPEG-4 format. Three
former PayPal employees created YouTube in February 2005.
In November 2006, YouTube was bought by Google for $1.65
billion. The YouTube website displays a wide variety of user-
generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips,
and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video
blogging and short original videos.
Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by

individuals, although media corporations including CBS, the
BBC, UMG and other organizations offer some of their
material via the site. Unregistered users can watch the
videos, while registered users are permitted to upload an
unlimited number of videos. All content is searchable and
can be rated by its users. The “Most Popular” clips appear
on the home page, along with a paid “Featured Videos”
section.
YouTube is a highly trafficked social media site with enormous

web marketing potential when used correctly. Video clips
are often great tools to promote your online business – either

directly through a commercial, demonstration, or trailer, or
indirectly using a creative story line or “e-movie”. YouTube
is well connected to various web feeds and thus runs a strong
chance of being picked up by other sites if your video
generates interest and attention. In this regard, YouTube is
perhaps best known as a viral web marketing technique
(see next section on Viral Marketing).
Digg
Digg is a social news website made for people to discover
and share content from anywhere on the Internet, by
submitting links and stories, and voting and commenting
on submitted links and stories. Voting stories up and down
is the site’s cornerstone function, respectively called digging
and burying. Many stories get submitted every day, but only
the most Dugg stories or articles appear on the front page,
which can yield astronomical traffic to your website if you
can manage to accomplish this feat. However, expect to
receive a lot of negative comments as Diggers tend to “bury”
its more popular submissions. Digg’s popularity has
prompted the creation of other social networking sites with
story submission and voting systems.
Squidoo
Squidoo is a user-generated website which uses the concept
of a “lens” as its primary feature. In his eBook “Everyone’s
an Expert,” founder Seth Godin describes a lens as “filtering
light and showing us what we need to see.” Specifically, a
lens is quite similar to a blog, except it is on a single subject,
and can contain links to Amazon.com, Ebay, and other
external sites. Users creating lenses, called “lensmasters,”
can be anyone with a passion for a specific subject, and do
not necessarily have to be renowned experts.

Squidoo, unlike most other social media marketing sites,
pays its contributors. It has a unique payment scheme: 5%
of its revenue goes to charity, 50% goes to the lensmasters,
and 45% goes to Squidoo. The lens and Squidoo rely on
advertising and affiliate links to create revenue. Squidoo is
in the top 200 most visited sites in the world, and in the top
50 most viewed in the United States. It has donated
hundreds of millions of dollars to charity since its inception.
Reddit
It has been said that Reddit is Digg for adults. While Digg’s
homepage is often overrun with inane “tech” news, juvenile
humor and poorly-spelled, grammatically horrifying
comments, Reddit’s top stories are usually a little meatier
and more educationally oriented. Users who submit articles
which other users like and subsequently “vote up” receive
“karma” points as a reward for submitting interesting articles.
Reddit also includes topical sections called “subreddits”, which
focus on specific topics, such as politics, business or science.
There are hundreds of subreddits, and users are allowed to
create their own, which is one potential advantage to a web
marketer hoping to promote its product or services.
Yahoo! Answers
Yahoo! Answers is a community-driven knowledge market

website launched by Yahoo! on December 13, 2005 that
allows users to both submit questions to be answered and
answer questions asked by other users. The site gives
members the chance to earn points as a way to encourage
participation. Yahoo! Answers has become the second most
popular Internet reference site after Wikipedia, according
to comScore.

As a web marketing tool, businesses with enough man-power
can sometimes afford to have a person constantly monitoring
the questions at Yahoo Answers in search of opportunities
to give helpful advice and insert an appropriate link. While
not everyone can task someone with monitoring categories
or feeds at this service, checking in a couple of times a day
can help drive targeted, interested traffic. Marketers and
online business owners often report good results from
Answers’ audience.
StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is an online community that allows its users
to discover and rate Web pages, photos, and videos. It is a
personalized recommendation engine which uses peer and
social-networking principles.
Web pages are presented when the user clicks the “Stumble!”
button on the browser’s toolbar. Users can rate or choose
not to rate any Web page with a thumbs up or thumbs down,
and clicking the Stumble button. StumbleUpon also allows
their users to indicate their interests from a list of nearly
500 topics to produce relevant content for the user.
As a web marketing tool, StumbleUpon can be used to submit

your homepage and sites’ internal pages, but seems to work
best for internal articles, tools, pictures. For example, rarely
will the service take you to the New York Times’ homepage,
but you will often be presented with interesting NYT pieces.
You can also pay for your website to appear in StumbleUpon’s
index, on a paid inclusion basis.
Delicious
Delicious (formerly del.icio.us, pronounced “delicious”) is

a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and

discovering web bookmarks. Delicious is more concerned
with bookmarking good content than it is with promotion,
but the site does feature a popular stories section. As with
Digg, the popular stories are promoted to the front page
based upon how many people have saved the stories as
favorites.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a professional, rather than social, networking

site that allows users to connect with business associates,
their classmates, potential clients and friends. As opposed
to most networking services (which tend to focus on the
social side of people’s lives as opposed to the professional),
LinkedIn will not require that you give it a relationship status,
political and religious preference or even a photograph. The
service has often been referred to as Facebook for
professionals.
Because of its business-oriented nature, LinkedIn presents

a bit more opportunity for online promotion of your website,
products or services than other SMM sites. LinkedIn contains
virtually no social functions and thus is a fantastic place to
establish a professional web presence outside of your primary
blog or website. Establishing connections and receiving
recommendations via LinkedIn rather than (or in addition
to) Facebook or MySpace presents a very positive
professional face to your online clients and customers.
Twitter
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service

that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates
known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140
characters, displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered

to other users who have subscribed to them (known as
followers).
Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends

or, by default, allow anybody to access them. Users can
send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, text
message, or external applications. The service is free to
use over the Internet, but using SMS may incur phone service
provider fees.
In March 2009, a Nielsen.com blog ranked Twitter as the

fastest-growing site in the Member Communities category
for February 2009. Twitter had a growth of 1382%, making
it a social media marketing resource worth taking a second
look at.
Viral Marketing
The buzzwords viral marketing and viral advertising refer

to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks
to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other
marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-
replicating viral processes, analogous to the quickly
widespread nature of viruses such as the common flu. It
can be word-of-mouth delivered and enhanced greatly by
the network and linking effects of the social media world.
Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive

Flash games, eBooks, email campaigns, brandable software,
images, or even text messages. As with most quickly spread
campaigns, the basic form of viral marketing is not infinitely
sustainable.
The goal of marketers interested in creating successful viral

marketing programs is to identify individuals with high Social

Networking Potential (SNP) that would be interested in your
product or service, and then create viral messages that
appeal to this segment of the population, thereby creating
a high probability of being passed along.
What is Linkbait?
Linkbait is a newer web marketer term that goes hand in

hand with viral marketing. Any piece of web-based content
created with the purpose of attracting links and attention
can be called “linkbait.” There are three primary goals to
creating linkbait:
• Attract Inbound Links

• Generate Press / Build Buzz
• Drive traffic
Occasionally, there is a fourth important component –

increasing sales – but with linkbait, this is more often a
secondary purpose. Similar to viral marketing, while the
normal content of a website is meant to appeal to potential
customers, linkbait is created for an altogether different
audience, one that must be understood in great detail in
order to be successfully targeted. We techie folks
affectionately call this group of tech-savvy, social media
participants the “Linkerati.”
The following are a few examples of highly successful online

viral campaigns:
• In 2001, Business Week described the web-based

campaign for The Blair Witch Project (1999) as a
striking example of viral marketing

• After dropping hints about a new record even though
they weren’t attached to a record label, Radiohead
shocked the entire music industry when they
announced that they were giving away their In
Rainbows album for free through their website.
While downloading the album, fans were given the
option to donate any sum they felt appropriate.
A month later, we can already state that this is one

of the most effective marketing moves in the history
of music. Even within two weeks, they had “sold”
over 1.2 million albums, and on average each buyer
had paid $8. That is almost $9.6 million in gross, all
from a marketing campaign without any middle
men, and practically no budget at all!
• The marketing campaign for the 2008 film The Dark

Knight combined both online and real-life elements
to make it resemble an alternate reality game.
Techniques included mass gatherings of Joker fans,
scavenger hunts around world, detailed and intricate
websites that let fans actually participate in “voting”
for political offices in Gotham City, and even a
Gotham News Network that had links to other
Gotham pages such as Gotham Rail, a Gotham travel
agency, and political candidate’s pages.
• The Big Word Project, launched in 2008, aims to

redefine the Oxford English Dictionary by allowing
people to submit their website as the definition of
their chosen word. The viral marketing project,
created to fund two Masters students’ educations,
attracted the attention of bloggers worldwide.

Affiliate Programs
Affiliate Marketing is an Internet-based marketing practice

in which a business rewards one or more persons,
companies, or websites for each visitor or customer brought
about by the affiliate’s marketing efforts. Affiliate marketing
can be a valuable marketing strategy for your online business
because it is sort of like employing your own (outsourced)
sales or promotional team to bring sales directly to you.
The Affiliate Marketing industry has four core players at its

heart: the Merchant, the Network, the Publisher and the
Consumer. The market has grown sufficiently in complexity
to warrant a secondary tier of players, including Affiliate
Management Agencies, Super-Affiliates and Specialized Third
Parties vendors.

Affiliate marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing
methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular
web marketing methods to try and attract customers for
the companies, products or services they’re promoting. Such
methods include organic search engine optimization, paid
search engine marketing, email marketing, and in some
sense display advertising. Affiliates also sometimes use less
orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products
or services offered by a partner.
Merchants (in this scenario, you as the e-commerce website

owner would be the Merchant) favor affiliate marketing
because in most cases it uses a “pay for performance” model,
meaning that the merchant does not incur a marketing
expense unless results are accrued (excluding any initial
setup cost). Many e-businesses owe much of their success
to this marketing technique, probably the most notable
example being Amazon.com.
Implementation of an Affiliate Program
Some merchants run their own (i.e., in-house) affiliate

programs using popular software while others use third-
party management services provided by intermediaries to
track traffic or sales that are referred from affiliates.
Merchants can choose from two different types of affiliate
management solutions: standalone software or hosted
services, typically called affiliate networks. Payouts to
affiliates or publishers are either made by affiliate networks
on behalf of the merchant, by the network, or directly by
the merchant themselves.

Recruiting Affiliates
To recruit affiliates, first of all you need to think like an

affiliate. There’s no point in trying to recruit affiliates if they’re
disappointed when they visit your website, examine your
affiliate product or if you have a poor affiliate agreement.
If possible, hire another experienced, successful affiliate as

your affiliate manager - someone who knows what affiliates
want and can talk the same language. It’s disconcerting for
an affiliate to talk to an affiliate manager and find out that
he’s never built an affiliate site before.
If we meet a website owner or affiliate manager who’s like

that, we immediately think, “Can we trust what this person
tells us?”
Pay your affiliate manager performance bonuses. Give him/

her a strong incentive to help your affiliates achieve sales.
Affiliates will be looking for the following main criteria when

examining your website or program: (1) Whether you have
a superb product that is interesting or easy to promote; (2)
If you pay the best commissions in your industry; (3)
Whether you use tracking software which affiliates are
comfortable with; (4) How you pay commissions and when
(Affiliates like their commissions paid fast – and preferably
on the first or second of the month), and (5) What kind of
materials or marketing tools you may provide affiliates to
help them promote your product. It’s important to ask your
affiliates what they want and do your best to provide it.
When dealing with subscription based sales or products that


commonly have repeat customers, affiliates really like to
see lifetime commissions or residual commissions, but this
isn’t always necessary.
Make sure you’ve tested and tweaked your website so that

it has the highest conversion rate you can achieve. Serious
affiliates hate being used as guinea pigs. So get your
conversion rate up as high as you can BEFORE you start
recruiting affiliates.
Before launching your program to the masses, you’ll probably

want to test your affiliate program quietly with a few affiliates
so that you’re 100% sure everything is working smoothly.
When you do all these things, you increase the chances

that serious affiliates will not only join your program but
also stay loyal to it. You’ll also find that affiliates will
recommend your program to their friends.
Once you’ve polished the basics, you’re ready to find and

recruit new affiliates.
Here are some important tips to consider when recruiting

successful and loyal affiliates:
Don’t Compete with Your Affiliates!
If affiliate marketing is a key strategy you decide to employ

in marketing your online business, be careful with your paid
advertising in particular. If you purchase a large number of
key phrases on AdWords and pay-per-click search engines,
you’ll scare away many affiliates. After all, you can afford to

pay more than they can because you don’t pay a commission
on the sales which you generate.
SEO is a Double-Edged Sword
Search engine optimization (SEO) is an obvious way to attract

the attention of affiliates. However, it too can be a two-
edged sword. If you’re TOO good at it, being very well placed
in search engines for many phrases in your industry, you
may scare away serious affiliates who don’t want to compete
with you in the search engines. Tread carefully.
Develop Your Own List/Newsletter
Your own email list is a good place to start looking for

affiliates. Develop your own email list or newsletter for people
who are interested in your industry. Give your readers useful
information, earn their trust and friendship, and then offer
them the opportunity to be an affiliate of your website. Some
of your customers could eventually become some of your
best, most loyal affiliates.
Email Prospects Individually
While it may be terribly time-consuming, contacting affiliates

personally and individually by email can work well. While
doing this, you must keep in mind that professional affiliates
receive a lot of spam and junk mail. So your email really
needs to stand out. As with any email campaign, the first
few seconds are vitally important.
Start your email by praising a particular section of the

affiliate’s site. For example, comment on a particular article,

and explain how an affiliate link to your product could be
woven into that article. Or, if you want an affiliate to promote
your product, explain where the affiliate could promote it
on his/her site. Do your homework.
Always use the website owner’s name. If you can’t find the
name, even by doing a whois search at DomainTools.com,
say something like: “Sorry, I couldn’t find your name,” to
indicate that you tried. This is very important. You don’t
want your email to look like spam.
Describe some of the benefits of your affiliate program. If

it’s a downloadable product, give the affiliate a link to a
review copy.
You want the affiliate to do something. Figure out exactly

what this is and write a call to action. This can be as simple
as “Click here to join our affiliate program.”
If you receive no reply, follow up briefly, and use another

email address for that person if you can find one. Filters
may have swallowed your first email. Do not send bulk email
addressed to “Dear website owner”. If it smells like spam,
and looks like spam, it will most likely be treated as spam!
Participate in Forums
Take part in forums in your industry. Respond helpfully to

questions. Demonstrate that you have a firm grasp of your
industry. There also exist many affiliate forums on the
Internet, and it can pay to introduce yourself and build a
reputation here. However, tread carefully on affiliate forums.
Members of these forums are usually highly sensitive and

web-savvy marketers, and every move you make online
either builds your reputation or helps wreck it.
ALWAYS read the forum rules or guidelines. You may be

allowed to link to your site in your post, or more likely only
in your signature file. Create an attention-getting signature
file. Again, think like an affiliate. Say things which will attract
affiliates, such as, “Excellent product, high commissions,
good conversion rate, fast support.”
Search in Google for “affiliate forum” “affiliate forums” or

“marketing forum” to find appropriate affiliate forums for
your product or service that you feel comfortable with.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
You can advertise on AdWords and pay-per-click search

engines to attract affiliates, for example by using the phrase
“your product affiliate program” or “your industry affiliate
program”. You may not get much response this way, but the
ones you do attract should be interested and well targeted.
Two-Tier Affiliate Programs
In the web marketing industry, a two-tier affiliate program

can be extremely effective in spreading the word. The model
is similar to a multi-level marketing company. First, you
lure an affiliate who’s a key person in a key place. You want
someone whose opinions are respected by other affiliates.
That person recommends your program to his or her
newsletter subscribers or list subscribers and earns, say,
10% of the commissions of the people who sign up because
of the recommendation. Then those people then tell other
people...and so on.

Remind your existing affiliates that they can earn second-
tier commissions.
Some savvy marketers pay key people in key places an

above average commission. An excellent product combined
with high commissions is a powerful persuader.
Strategic Partnerships
Look for people who are in your industry but are not direct
competitors. For example, if you own a web development
company, you can target people like marketing consultants
that outsource a lot of website work to be affiliates of our
company. They often already have a built-in client base that
can immediately benefit from your services. Or, offer a
reciprocal agreement, in which they promote your affiliate
program while you promote their affiliate program. This can
be a win-win situation for everyone and is often well received.
Advertise for Affiliates
Place advertisements in positions where affiliates are likely

to see them, for example on affiliate forums, in affiliate
newsletters, affiliate blogs, affiliate directories and affiliate
networks (for example, AssociatePrograms.com). When
advertising, try to get inside the mind of the potential affiliate.
Don’t just send them to a sign-up form. SELL your affiliate
program. Send them to a page which explains the benefits
of your program. Tell them why it’s so good.

Leverage Your Own Affiliates
Once you have some affiliates that are having some success,
encourage them to send you more affiliates. Your own
affiliates are a great resource. Do you reward them for
sending you more affiliates? Even if you do not have a two-
tier system, you can still give better commissions or bonuses
to those affiliates who send you a quality affiliate.
Outsource Affiliate Recruiting
Hire a company to recruit affiliates for you. Be sure to look

for testimonials. Partnerific (http://www.partnerific.com) is
a well-known super-affiliate recruitment company which has
plenty of enthusiastic testimonials from satisfied clients.
Types of Affiliate Websites
Affiliate websites are often categorized by merchants (i.e.,

website owners with products and services to sell…i.e., YOU)
and affiliate networks. There are currently no industry-wide
accepted standards for the categorization. The following
types of websites are generic, yet are commonly understood
and used by affiliate marketers.
• Search affiliates that utilize pay-per-click search

engines to promote your offers (also known as
search arbitrage)
• Comparison shopping websites and directories
• Loyalty websites, typically characterized by providing

a reward system for purchases via points back, cash
back
• CRM sites that offer charitable donations
• Coupon and rebate websites that focus on sales

promotions
• Content and niche market websites, including

product review sites
• Personal websites (This type of website was the

reason for the birth of affiliate marketing; however,
such websites are almost reduced to complete
irrelevance compared to the other types of affiliate
websites.)
• Blogs and website syndication feeds
• E-mail list affiliates (i.e., owners of large opt-in mail

lists that typically employ e-mail drip marketing)
and newsletter list affiliates
• Registration path or co-registration affiliates who

include offers from other merchants during the
registration process on their own website
• Shopping directories that list merchants by

categories without providing coupons, price
comparisons, or other features based on information
that changes frequently, thus requiring continual
updates

• Cost per action networks (i.e., top-tier affiliates)
that expose offers from the advertiser with which
they are affiliated to their own network of affiliates
• Websites using adbars (e.g. AdSense) to display

context-sensitive, highly-relevant ads for products
on the site
A Final Word on Website Marketing
Whoa, we’ve really covered a lot of ground in this chapter!

We realize this is a lot of information to absorb and is likely
overwhelming at first read. That’s why we highly recommend
reviewing this chapter more than once as it was intended to
provide you with a strong working knowledge of all the
various forms of web marketing available to you today, not
to encourage you to try it all.
By now, you’ve probably noticed a recurring theme repeated

throughout this book: Thorough research, combined with
careful planning, a team of experts and strategic marketing
is your best formula for success in growing your online
business money tree - bearing unbelievable fruit. So relax.
If you’ve done your homework, you already have your
roadmap well laid out, and the forms of web marketing that
will work best for your particular online business should be
fairly apparent to you.
Keep your website marketing strategy simple, and choose

to utilize the top, we’d say no more than 3 or so tools/
methods initially to launch your marketing programs. You

can always experiment with other formats and tactics later
as you start to build revenue.
If all else fails, remember Rules of the Web #8 and #10,

which we discussed in this chapter:

EVERY WEBSITE MARKETING STRATEGY SHOULD

INCLUDE TECHNIQUES FOR ALL 3 TYPES OF
MARKETING: TO GENERATE NEW CUSTOMERS, TO
KEEP THE CUSTOMERS YOU HAVE COMING BACK, AND
TO STRENGTHEN RELATIONSHIPS.
Seek help from a professional that understands your business

and has a strong working knowledge and experience in
various forms of website marketing to help you build a
successful web promotions strategy that covers the three
main forms of marketing. We guarantee if you stick to this
formula you will soon have our favorite “P” word when it
comes to websites: PROFITS!

Secret Seed #7:
Build a Funnel to Multiply Sales!
Fundamental to the success of virtually any website that is
in existence to make money and maximize profits from
their customers (which is the reason you’re reading this
book, right?) is the concept of the sales funnel. This is
particularly true in the quickly growing world of information
product based businesses. But it is equally important for
any online business that wishes to make money to
understand how you can benefit and increase your revenues
dramatically by creating and implementing a sales funnel
into your online marketing strategy.
One of the things that most online business owners don’t

understand is that they need to think of the future if they
are to maximize their profitability over time using a sales
funnel. In other words, the first product you sell to your
prospects should never be your ‘be all and end all’ product.
If it is, then you have nothing to entice them with and sell
them down the road!
Many of the most well known Internet marketers, such as

Cory Rudl or Yaro Starak (from whom many of the ideas of
this section can be credited), were able to establish
themselves in a niche and then dominate it, by crafting a
highly refined sales funnel process which systematically
guided their consumers through a carefully tested and
optimized channel of marketing and increased sales.

The Basic Sales Funnel Structure The sales funnel is a
systematic marketing
process where you
progressively filter your
prospects into
customers and further
refine them into hyper-
responsive customers.
Your customer base
becomes smaller and
your profits increase as you sell higher priced items to your
hyper-responsives in the back-end of your sales funnel.
The sales funnel begins by capturing the attention of

prospects. By attracting a lot of qualified prospects, you are
bound to have some buyers who purchase an entry level
product, demonstrating that they have a need for what
solution you’re offering and they’re willing to invest money
to solve their problem. The sales funnel continues to nurture
the best customers, filtering out mismatches and refining
the specific target customer.
By the end of the process the funnel has identified the ultra-
responsive customers who purchase everything being offered
and experience the most value and satisfaction from every
purchase made. It is from these ultra-responsive consumers
that the majority of profits are made. By the way, these
customers usually become your biggest cheerleaders and
may even become affiliates of your website.

But before any of this can happen, you need to attract lots
of prospects to the top of your funnel, and it’s at this point
where your marketing creativity can really shine.
In the following section, we will introduce you to the sales

funnel process. We will teach you how to craft a sales funnel,
including analysis of the front-end and back-end, and
demonstrate why you must continuously test your funnel
process to ensure long term success.
The Front-End of Your Sales Funnel
The front-end is the most dynamic aspect of your sales funnel

and the area that requires continuous marketing and
experimentation. There are literally endless techniques
available to attract prospects to your business at the front-
end, limited only by your resources and imagination.
As the Internet changes and evolves, new methods to market

and capture leads continue to surface thanks to advances
in technology and the creativity of e-entrepreneurs. In the
“old days” leads were primarily generated via methods like
banners and newsletter advertising. While these are still
highly common and effective marketing tools today, they
are now joined by more sophisticated options such as pay-
per-click advertising, social media marketing, blogging, and
other “Web 2.0” tools and tricks, as discussed in
Secret Seed #6: In the Driver’s Seat: Generate Sales

Without Breaking Your Bank!
The focus at the front-end is to attract and qualify people


who may have an inclination to purchase your products
further down the sales funnel. At this stage you begin the
process of refining your target customer and educating them
of the possibilities you and your products or services present.
In most cases the process begins when a person opts-in to

receive something from you. It’s this opting-in step that
transforms your everyday web surfer or site visitor into a
prospect, since they have just taken an action that indicates
they have at least some desire for what you offer.
There are many ways in which to create opt-in options that

capture the attention of people and subsequently push them
into the top of your sales funnel. Here are some examples
of “front-end marketing” tools:
• Signing up for your email newsletter
• Subscribing to your blog via RSS or email

notifications
• Opting-in with a name and email address to

download a free report, article, white paper, e-book,
audio download, video file or any other media
• Registering for a free online service, for example

MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo! Games, Flickr,
Skype - pretty much anything where you have to
register with some form of contact details
• Checking a box to receive further information about

a topic or product when registering for something
(also called co-registration)

Strictly speaking, for someone to have entered your funnel
as a prospect, they must have agreed to receive some form
of communication from you. This is essentially permission-
based marketing, where your prospects give you
permission to contact them with further materials, all of
which is a critical part of your ongoing marketing and sales
funnel.
In today’s more dynamic online marketing world, we prefer

a looser definition of a lead, in which a user doesn’t
necessarily have to specifically opt-in to your marketing
stream - they just need to pay attention to you.
For example, perhaps they’re reading your content via RSS

or directly from your blog, or are listening to your podcast
or watching a video clip you posted on YouTube. The point
is that you have their attention. You don’t necessarily have
permission to continue marketing to them, however, because
you are providing value they’re likely to choose to receive
or review more material from you. This is a subtle difference,
but a key point for marketing online today, particularly in
the world of social media marketing. Your relationship with
prospects counts much more than whether they gave you
their email address or not.
Of course there’s no reason why you can’t take the people

currently paying attention to whatever you do and prompt
them to funnel into an opt-in list of some kind, which
essentially asks them to create a stronger relationship with
you. This may be as simple as including a link to your website
in the signature of your blog or at the bottom of your

published press release. The point is, you eventually want
to get them to raise their hand and say “I’m a lead!” by
giving express permission using some form of opt-in, so
that you can continue marketing to them. This is what the
front-end is all about.
Since email marketing is the most prevalent communication

tool in order to market online, often the process of handing
over your email is the initial “price you pay” when you enter
a sales funnel. From that point onwards you must feed
prospects value for that “price”, disqualify those prospects
who are not truly suited or interested in what you’re offering,
and start to offer front-end products that may begin to
generate revenue for you.
It is important to note that disqualifying leads is a very

important process that must occur at all points of the sales
funnel. This is a difficult concept for many online business
owners to grasp, especially those just starting out. We often
hear things like, “But wait! I can’t afford not to market to
everyone and anyone that shows even remote interest!”
Our answer to them is you can’t afford to market to just

anyone, nor would you want to waste your time doing so. If
someone doesn’t perceive any value from what you’re
offering for free or very little money, then it is
extremely likely they won’t purchase further down
your sales funnel. Assuming of course that there IS a
group of people that love what you provide, it’s your job to
focus attention on them and filter away everyone else.

Profits Are Not In The Front-End
A common focus of many online business entrepreneurs -

and we’ve made this mistake ourselves more than once - is
to think about the launch of your first or “main” product as
your big ticket to wealth. You don’t realize that the real
profits are made at the back-end.
A successful information product business called Double Your

Dating is a fantastic example of this principle. The Double
Your Dating affiliate program pays out 200% to affiliates.
Yes, that’s right - they pay out $40 to affiliates for every
$20 sale of the front-end e-book they refer. They can afford
to lose $20 – and gladly do so - because they know how
much they will make on the back-end.
We’ll go into more detail about how they can do this in the
next section discussing the back-end of your sales funnel,
but for now just remember that your front-end offers are
lead generation tools, they are not necessarily your profit
centers.
There are exceptions to this rule, however. You can

sometimes offer something that costs money as the “entry
point” into your sales funnel if it has a high enough perceived
value; although, even in this case the price point is generally
kept very low as it’s the top end of your sales funnel. You
don’t want to miss what could potentially be your best
customers because they aren’t ready to invest a lot until
they learn more. (In general, it is true that consumers who
are willing to spend the most money with you often take

the longest time getting through your sales funnel, and want
a high amount of ‘freebies’ and education first in order to
build a strong relationship). There are also certain companies
that make their money strictly from what we would consider
front-end sales. In most cases, by adding a back-end to
your sales funnel the profits of your business will explode!
A key to successfully building a profitable sales funnel in

your e-business is to know your numbers. Once you know
how much a lead is worth to your business (and you can
only really know this once your back-end, or main product
offering, is defined) then you go to work building front-end
marketing tools. This is a process that literally should never
stop. As long as there are methods to market you can be
out there testing them, see which methods bring in the most
qualified traffic and tweak the process until your conversation
rates are sky high.
Obviously the size of your organization dictates how much

you can do, since resources are limited. In most cases you
will discover a “best” front-end solution that works for you,
which might be writing and publishing free articles or e-
books, using affiliates, running a teleseminar to educate
your prospects about your product or service, encouraging
word of mouth referrals, posting to a blog or any combination
of these tools. Offline marketing methods are also equally
important when it comes to generating online prospects.
Your front-end helps to qualify prospects and convince them

that your business is worth forming a relationship with. That

relationship becomes stronger as customers consume more
of your free marketing resources, purchase front-end
products and learn to trust and appreciate what you do.
From there, they enter your back-end, where you can make
bigger revenues with higher margins.
The Back-End of Your Sales Funnel
Now we head into the meaty section of the sales funnel, the
back-end, where the “real” product or service sales are
made. Potential customers, generated from your front-end
marketing efforts are called leads, or prospects. The
expectation is a certain number of your leads will convert
into customers, and a small but very responsive group, will
buy up everything you offer (or depending upon your
business, become frequent repeat customers and strong
advocates of your products or services). This last group is
called your “hyper-responsives” and it’s this group that fuels
your back-end sales.
Your back-end is typically made up of your higher priced

items, products and services that present significant value
- or at least perceived value. The specific distinction between
the front-end and the back-end is all about the type of
customer and the price paid. In the back-end all your
customers have traveled through your front-end, sampled
your free materials, purchased an entry level product or
service (or several) and have enjoyed significant value from
what you offer, so much so, that they are eager to buy
more from you.

At this point, it becomes much easier to make sales, even
though the price point to your customers is usually much
higher. In many cases it’s common that only a small
percentage, say 1-2% of the overall people entering your
front-end, make it through to the back-end. That’s okay
because that small group is spending big bucks.
While in the case of information product businesses, front-

end products typically cost under $100, back-end products
are usually priced in the several hundreds or thousands.
There is no strict formula for pricing a back-end product, or
a front-end product for that matter, but in nearly all cases
the profit margin is more significant at the back-end. It
represents the “real” product or service you were originally
aiming to sell when you planned your online business.
The back-end ‘high priced items’ are bought only by the

“hardcore”, well-matched folks in your online niche customer
group. These clients have the funds, time and inclination to
attend events, spend big on your largest product or service
package, and care enough about their specific problem to
justify the expense in time and money in your solution.
When working within a sales funnel, the back-end is the

core profit center for your online business because it is stable
and predictable. Most problems occur in the front-end
because the customers are more price sensitive, they are
not “perfectly matched” and may grumble, ask questions
and generally cause greater customer support issues.
The entire sales funnel is about numbers, specifically when

it comes to your opt-in rates and conversion rates. You will
want to carefully track specific metrics, such as how many
people sign up to each of your opt-in mechanisms, like
landing pages, newsletter sign-up forms and free report
downloads, how many people buy your entry level products,
and then go on to buy higher priced products in the back-
end.
Once again, the back-end proves reliable and predictable

and this is the main reason for establishing a back-end in
the first place. If you knew, with relative consistency, that
for every 100 people you brought into your front-end, two
of them would make it all the way through and buy your
back-end or “real” product(s) you would know with
considerable accuracy how much each customer is worth to
you.
Once you know these conversion rates, you can go back to

work testing as many front-end mechanisms as you can
handle in order to drive as many leads through your funnel
as possible.
It may take many months, even years, to fully establish a

refined sales funnel. However, if you have a sales funnel in
mind as the “big picture” during your initial product selection
and marketing planning process, it makes the process of
building your online business that much more enjoyable. It
also grants you some strategic and creative freedoms you
might not otherwise have had if you hadn’t considered
building a funnel.

The most important concept to grasp, even if you do not
intend to build a sales funnel, is to understand why they
work. It’s about capturing attention, filtering and then
isolating the customers who you should spend most of your
time with. This should be a continual process in your
marketing activities no matter what your online business.
We’ll conclude this Secret Seed with our final Rules of the
Web.
BUILDING A SALES FUNNEL INTO YOUR ONLINE

BUSINESS WILL MAXIMIZE YOUR PROFITS AND MAKE
YOUR MARKETING ULTRA-EFFICIENT, SO YOU CAN
FOCUS ON THE CUSTOMERS THAT MATTER MOST.

SECTION THREE: REAPING THE
HARVEST OF YOUR MONEY TREE
The Seven Secret Seeds: A Brief Review
We have walked a lot of ground in this book, so we thought

we would take a minute to briefly review the major Secret
Seeds to successfully building your online money tree we’ve
covered so far. You can use these pages as a quick reference
guide as you begin planting your seeds to online success.
Secret Seed #1: Let Your Passion Be Your Guide
Discovering what you’re passionate about is key to

determining what type of online business - and the product
and service that best solves a specific problem people are
searching for – is right for you.
Secret Seed #2: Know Your Customers
Researching and knowing as much as we can about our

online niche market is truly the key to online success, and if
executed properly, affects every decision and action we take
in our online business.
Secret Seed #3: Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail
Creating a well-researched, written plan for our online

business is like building a proven roadmap to success,
without which we will ultimately flounder.
Secret Seed #4: Building a Website to Be a Money

Making Machine
Only after the planning stage should we build a website

entirely based around making money, using a professional

that understands your business and website marketing.
Secret Seed #5: Have Multiple Points of Entry
The use of landing pages is critical to converting mere website

visitors into prospects and buying customers.
Secret Seed #6: In the Driver’s Seat: Generate

Profits Without Breaking Your Bank!
Developing a comprehensive and creative website marketing

strategy that emphasizes prospecting, customer retention,
and relationship building efforts should be the focus of any
successful online business.
Secret Seed #7: Build a Funnel to Multiply Sales
Building a sales funnel into your online business and

marketing strategy will both increase your customer base
and maximize your profits.
And don’t forget our Rules of the Web to online success:
Rules of the Web #1:
EVERY BUSINESS - NO MATTER WHAT THE TYPE OR

PRODUCT OR SERVICE BEING SOLD - NOT ONLY SHOULD
HAVE A WEBSITE BUT CAN BE MAKING MONEY ONLINE.
THE MORE SPECIALIZED YOUR BUSINESS, THE MORE

MONEY YOU CAN MAKE ONLINE.
HAVING A WEBSITE IS NOT THE SAME THING AS HAVING

A WEB PRESENCE.

FINDING THE RIGHT PEOPLE IS THE KEY TO MAKING MONEY

ONLINE, NOT THE RIGHT PRODUCT OR SERVICE.
SUCCESSFUL BUSINESSES FIND A PROBLEM PEOPLE

SHARE, THEN SOLVE IT.
AN ONLINE NICHE MARKET IS DEFINED AS A GROUP OF

PEOPLE WHO ARE SEARCHING THE INTERNET FOR A
SOLUTION TO A COMMON PROBLEM — AND CANNOT EASILY
FIND ADEQUATE RESULTS TO SOLVE THEIR PROBLEM.
NO MATTER WHAT THE PRODUCT OR POTENTIAL, ANY

ONLINE BUSINESS WILL FAIL WITHOUT A WELL
RESEARCHED, WRITTEN PLAN FOR SUCCESS.

USING THE RIGHT KEYWORDS IS THE KEY TO BUILDING

SUCCESSFUL LANDING PAGES WITH HIGH CONVERSION
RATIOS.

EVERY WEBSITE MARKETING STRATEGY SHOULD INCLUDE

TECHNIQUES FOR ALL 3 TYPES OF MARKETING: TO
GENERATE NEW CUSTOMERS, TO KEEP THE CUSTOMERS
YOU HAVE COMING BACK, AND TO STRENGTHEN
RELATIONSHIPS.
BUILDING A SALES FUNNEL INTO YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS

WILL MAXIMIZE YOUR PROFITS AND MAKE YOUR
MARKETING ULTRA-EFFICIENT, SO YOU CAN FOCUS ON THE
CUSTOMERS THAT MATTER MOST.
More on E-Commerce Websites
There is another form of a money-making e-commerce

business that we have not yet discussed, but which is
generating a huge amount of buzz in the online community,
not to mention hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue a
year! Interested? We thought you might be!
We’re talking about drop-ship e-commerce websites. What

exactly does drop-ship mean? According to Wikipedia, drop
shipping is a just-in-time supply chain management
technique in which the retailer does not keep goods in stock,
but instead transfers customer orders and shipment details
to either the manufacturer or a wholesaler, who then ships
the goods directly to the customer. As in all retail businesses,
the retailers make their profit based upon the difference
between the wholesale and retail price.

Translating this to an online business, you would select from
thousands of products you wish to sell and display these on
your website and in your marketing as though you were the
direct provider of the merchandise. When you receive orders,
they are automatically and “transparently” sent to the drop-
shipper, who processes the order and ships the goods directly
to the customer.
Most drop-shippers have highly automated systems so that

the flow of orders from your website to the drop-ship
company, tracking the fulfillment and shipping status of the
order both to the consumer purchasing the product and the
retailer it was purchased from, and payment to the retailer
all happens seamlessly and without much human interaction.
Many of these fulfillment companies also use “blind shipping”
tactics, in which the return addresses on the mailing labels
are generic or blank, or include the logo and company
address of the retailer, so that it appears they’re truly the
ones providing and shipping the product.
A new emerging trend in the drop-ship business is private

label drop shipping, in which a manufacturer produces a
custom item for a retailer and also performs the drop
shipment services for it. The range of private label drop-
shipped items varies widely, from simple keychains and t-
shirts with custom logos or pictures to customized
formulations for vitamins and nutritional supplements.
Two main benefits of drop shipping for you, the online

business owner, is that there is no upfront inventory to
purchase or control, and you have an immediate positive

cash flow cycle. A positive cash flow cycle occurs because
the seller is almost always paid when the purchase is made.
The seller usually pays the wholesaler using a credit card or
credit terms, for example net 30 terms. Therefore, there is
a “float” period of time in which the seller has the customer’s
money, but has not yet paid the wholesaler.
Other benefits of drop shipping include:

• Eliminates duplication of effort as only one
warehouse will pick, pack and ship the product
thereby reducing costs in the supply chain
• Reduces total inventory management and shipping

costs which can be passed on to the customer by
the retailer
• The retailer does not have to worry about processing

and shipping orders, and can focus exclusively on
marketing and sales, and continually improving
these efforts to increase conversions and profit
margins
• Due to the highly automated nature of drop shipping

software, the retailer does not have to monitor his
or her online business 24/7. Once you have the
proper relationships and some marketing in place,
you can go on vacation, focus on other endeavors,
etc and still be making money!
As in any business, some risks are involved in drop shipping.

For example, back ordering may occur when a seller places

a shipment request with a wholesaler, but the product is
sold out. Back ordering may be accompanied by a long wait
for a shipment while the wholesaler waits for new products,
which may reflect badly on the retailer. A good wholesaler
will keep retailers updated, but it is the business owner’s
job to be aware of the quantities that the wholesaler has
available, and sell accordingly.
In our website development company, we have seen a strong

demand and opportunity for entrepreneurs interested in
making money online using drop shipping, but don’t know
how to get started or how to manage the relationships. In
response to this demand, we have developed an E-
Commerce Partnership Program, in which for a very
modest upfront investment, we work with you to:
• Build your website
• Pre-screen drop shippers to improve quality and

lessen your risk
• Host and manage your website, including the

shopping cart and credit card transaction companies
• Conduct basic marketing for you
• Help increase your website marketing through our

easy step-by-step process - OR -
• We will do advanced web marketing for your site
We will also work closely with you to help you determine

what types of products you’re most passionate about (which

as in our earlier discussion, will help you tremendously in
being successful), and also locate an appropriate and
reputable drop shipper in which to fulfill the product orders
you decide to sell.
For all of this, we receive a small percentage of your sales

from the website we designed and helped market for you,
and $75 per month for hosting and maintenance; sound too
good to be true?
It actually gets better. We forgot to mention another major

benefit to creating a drop shipment e-commerce website,
aside from the immediate revenue potential and all the other
advantages we already listed above. Okay, we didn’t really
forget, but we wanted to save the best for last.
Because of the nature of the no inventory, little overhead,

and immediate positive revenue/cash flow cycle drop-ship
model, you can very quickly build equity in your website
while simultaneously earning money. What does this mean
to you?
As the traffic to your website and subsequent sales increase,

so does the value or worth placed on your website and
domain name. Research has shown that as little as $1,000
in monthly revenue from your drop-ship website has
a possible market value of $100,000 for your domain.
That’s a 100x return on your investment! So not only are
you building a lucrative, highly automated revenue stream
for you and your family currently, you’re also investing
significantly in your future should you decide at some point
in the future to sell your domain.

We don’t know about you, but that sure blew our mind when
we first heard it! This is why we jumped on this opportunity
personally, and have dedicated ourselves to helping other
aspiring online business owners like yourself to achieve the
same results. In short, we will help you grow as quickly and
earn as much revenue as you desire.
One important note, however: As we said in the very

beginning of this book, we do not wish to disillusion you into
believing that this is a “get rich quick” scheme, because like
all other online businesses, it simply is not. You will still
need to invest time, money and passion into your business
in order to achieve results. You will need to be savvy in your
marketing efforts. However, we believe we have put in place
a model in our Partnership Program that virtually guarantees
success if followed correctly, and is a mutually beneficial for
everyone.
We like it when everyone wins, don’t you?
For more information on this program, please visit http://

www.gmrwebteam.com/ecom_partnership.shtml.

Read the following Case Study:
Drop-Shipping Case Study: Automotive Aftermarket

Supplies Company
The automotive aftermarket (selling car parts and
accessories) is a multi-billion dollar a year business. Most
of the sales happen through standard brick and mortar
stores. This provides an opportunity for a web-based
retailer to grab a share of the market of this huge industry
by providing these products online.
Steps to Success:
1. Determine what automotive parts and accessories you
wish to sell, if not all of them.
2. Research automotive parts wholesalers that drop and
ship product, their pricing, available database, and
order and shipping process.
3. Select the best drop-ship wholesaler and sign a
contract.
4. Develop your website to have the following features:
Easy navigation, ability to visually show all products
on the site, and easy to use online credit card
processing system.
5. Increase your online presence following a SEO/SEM
campaign:
a. Optimize website by part/accessory name and part
numbers.
b. Identify keywords used to search those parts and
accessories.
c. Launch PPC campaign for each keyword and track
its effectiveness closely.

d. Launch SEO/SEM to bring the website up for organic
search at Google and other search engines.
e. Accomplish 1st or 2nd placement for most important
keywords.
Result:
Following this model, this company has evolved into a
$100 million dollar business with $25+ million in gross
annual profits.
Note: While we are talking about an auto parts
website and their success, virtually any business
could be successful following this same basic model.
We helped this business and we can help you too.

Keep Your Money Tree Blooming:
Ongoing Education & Resources
Your journey to online success is just beginning. Along the
way we promise it will prove to be exciting – and
PROFITABLE! – if you follow the principals and guidelines
we’ve covered throughout the course of this book. You now
have the solid foundation and all the tools you need – not
only to plant your online money tree, but to allow it to grow,
to bloom, and to reach its full potential. You are now in the
driver’s seat of your own destiny and can create your own
online success story, complete with a level of income and
satisfaction you may have only dreamed about, leveraging
the awesome power of the Internet today.
Want to continue to learn, receive new and updated

information, find out about the newest online and home-
based business opportunities, and much more?
Then visit www.OnlineBizHQ.com your headquarters for

learning about, starting and building your home-based and
online business from the ground up. If you’re a future or
current entrepreneur, a business owner looking to expand
and grow, or even an established business seeking the
expertise to take your business to the next level…you’ll find
what you’re looking for at OnlineBizHQ.
So what are you waiting for? Call us or we’ll see you
in cyberspace!

Onlinebizhq

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Plant Your Online

Biz Money Tree

Successful Strategies to Make Money

By: Steve Burgess

front page.pmd 1 8/27/2009, 4:36 PM

Forward: Is This Book for You? 1

Section One: Planting the Field

1. A Website – Is it Really Needed? 11

2. The #1 Mistake EVERY Business Makes

3. The 7 Secret Seeds to Making

Section Two: The 7 Secret Seeds

1. Secret Seed #1: Let Your Passion Be Your Guide 27

2. Secret Seed #2: Know Your Customers 39

3. Secret Seed #3: Failing to Plan is

4. Secret Seed #4: Building Your Website to Be

5. Secret Seed #5: Have Multiple Points of Entry 102

6. Secret Seed #6: In the Driver’s Seat: Generate

7. Secret Seed #7: Build a Funnel to Multiply

Section Three: Reaping the Harvest of Your Money

1. Review of the 7 Secret Seeds

2. More on E-Commerce Websites

3. Keep Your Money Tree Blooming: Ongoing Education

front page.pmd 3 8/27/2009, 4:36 PM

If you picked this book up — whether you purchased it,

The answer is YES because something inside of you had the

Lao-Tzu said, “The longest journey begins with a single step.”

However, you aren’t alone in this journey to Internet wealth.

inner page layout.pmd 1 8/27/2009, 4:40 PM

Gee, only 70,300,000 results to sort through, most of which

inner page layout.pmd 2 8/27/2009, 4:40 PM

Our answer to you is yes, you can absolutely make a lot of

Which leads us to the not-so-simple answer to our question

Can you really do it overnight or without spending any

inner page layout.pmd 3 8/27/2009, 4:40 PM

What we will do is share with you our collective experience

And by the way, our definition of ‘success’ when it comes to

Chances are, you fit into one of two categories of people if

inner page layout.pmd 4 8/27/2009, 4:40 PM

Whether you are struggling in today’s economy and looking

What is different is your personal time commitment, level

As they say, “The rest is up to you.”

inner page layout.pmd 5 8/27/2009, 4:40 PM

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who

First of all, congratulations. You’ve made it this far.

Actually, we’re not kidding. Because you’re already on the

So, by all means, congratulations. You’ve just taken the

For many years, we have worked with each of our individual

inner page layout.pmd 6 8/27/2009, 4:40 PM

We knew from our own experience how much useless, wrong

The result was Online Biz HQ (www.OnlineBizHQ.com) and

Now, as you can imagine, over the course of that time,

Though the entrepreneurial life can indeed offer tremendous

inner page layout.pmd 7 8/27/2009, 4:40 PM

But, of course, we realized that wasn’t an option. Because,

That is, until now.

We like to think that the book in your hands is just that. A

We’re going to stay that way because, quite frankly, we

We’ve been around. So we know those are usually just

We also know that, while many people would love to be

inner page layout.pmd 8 8/27/2009, 4:40 PM

These questions are so important, that we could write a

Suffice it to say that if owning your own business is not