What’s better than services from a trusted partner? Each of these companies I’ve used myself and just love. Check them out here…

Tweet This Post

Time is money. Did you know that your website can waste both your time and money if it is not performing for you? Take 30 minutes to have your site reviewed. Let’s work together to develop a plan to make your site an atm on the web!

Call 404.631.6229 today and get the ball rolling for 2010!

Tweet This Post

You have been so supportive this year that I thought it would be nice to give you a little something back ~ Thank you and have a prosperous New Year!

Tweet This Post

Video on the web has simply grown to become an expectation. Sites these days feature video for every imaginable use and visitors and users have grown to anticipate this engaging medium.The good news is that creating and using video on your websites and blogs has never easier or more affordable. (One disclaimer: Professional videographers can help you produce very high quality, engaging videos, just like a graphic designer can help you produce high quality print materials. Consider a professional option like TurnHere as well, but arm yourself with the tools and knowledge to get it done right either way.)

Some reasons to use video
• Interview customers and capture testimonials and success stories (Here’s a fun idea – hold a testimonial party)
• Interview employees as they discuss what they do and how they help customers
• Record a greeting from the CEO – don’t sell, just let them know your story
• Use video as a call to action in your email campaigns (Here’s how)
• Add video to your Google Maps profile, Facebook Fan Page, and LinkedIn profile
• Create product and service training videos showing customers how to succeed
• Record FAQs with real prospects or customer posing the questions
• Interview your key strategic referral partners
• Create all manner of “how to” video and screencast to help demonstrate your expertise

Getting started with web video

This is not meant to be the complete online video tutorial, but the following items will help you get started as you consider ways to enhance your online presence with video. (Some resources for that:ReelSEO, MakeInternetTV and Online Video Toolkit)

Capture

Recording video has become fairly simple. High quality digital video cameras have dropped below $200. Highly portable options, such as the Flip cameras make it easy to pack a camera anywhere and most new phones, such as the iPhone 3Gs, feature video recording capabilities.

Determining the best option for you depends a little on your objective. If you want to grab lots of impromptu shots out in the field a Flip is a nice option, if you are doing interviews or product demos the digital video camera is probably a better choice.

A couple of things to keep in mind.
• Get a camera with the ability to add an external microphone so you can get a lavaliere mic for interviews. The sound will be much better.
• Use a tripod – you can’t hold a camera very still no matter how hard you try.
• While HD cameras produce higher quality output, they also produce much larger files. Ask yourself if your use requires the higher quality

Don’t forget screencapture software for recording tutorials or capturing slide presentations in video. Camtasia Studio from TechSmith is the leader here (new Mac version) but Adobe’s Captivate is an alternative. Mac users also use ScreenFlow Pro

Another emerging option is live streaming video. Creating and capturing live video, much like a live reality show, is another possible outlet. USTREAM.tv and Livecast.com offer nice platforms.

USTREAM also offers a live streaming video app (this is an iTunes store link) for the iPhone 3Gs – you can point your phone now and stream live video.

Edit

Once you’ve recorded your videos you probably want to edit them in some fashion to make them more engaging, logical or professional. This is an area that can way technical, so I’ll just point out a few ideas.

Video editing software such as the very basic Windows Movie Maker and the more robust iMovie on the Mac are both standard and free. More robust programs such as Adobe Premiere Elements andPinnacle Studio for PC and Final Cut Pro for Mac are also good options.

Publish

Video sharing sites offer an incredible service for the small business video publisher. Sites such as YouTube allow you to upload, host and stream your videos for free. Video files are large and demanding so hosting and streaming them on your own can get technical and costly. Video sharing sites make the process very easy. You simply upload your videos, create some setting and then copy the embedding code to publish the video, with player, right to your site. While most of these sites offer free versions, consider the pro versions if you intend to use this medium often. Pro versions give much more control and more professional end product.

Popular sharing sites include:
• YouTube – the Google owned grandaddy
• Viddler – standard feature set and more flexible than YouTube
• Vimeo – offers a paid version that gives you much more control
• Blip.tv – focus is show format
• Brightcove – more focused on creative video

Promote

Video promotion is one of those odd topic, because it can get lost in the whole viral conversation. If you’ve found a logical way to create a video that millions want to watch and share and that video supports your brand and marketing objectives, go for it. But, it’s probably not a great idea to sit around thinking of ways to create funny viral type videos unless they make sense for your brand.

Having said that, getting your video viewed by prospects is usually a good thing.

Some video promotion tips:
• Make your videos sharable – add social media links or tools likeAddtoAny so people can pass you videos on
• Optimize your videos – when you upload a video to a sharing site make sure you use keyword rich titles, descriptions and tags (getting your videos to show up in Google search is a good thing!)
• Optimize the video pages – Search engines aren’t great at knowing what’s in a video (although they are getting there) so make sure you thoroughly describe what your video is about on the page or blog post where it resides on your site.
• Publish your videos on social networks – Facebook Fan Pages, LinkedIn profiles and Biznik profiles are great places to run some video
• Push your video to lots of places – video distribution services, such as TubeMogul, allow you to upload your video once and distribute to many sharing sites. TubeMogul also offer tracking as part of the service.

Posted by: John Jantsch  http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/

Tweet This Post

It is not just a website. It is where the bricks-and-mortar world meets the clicks-and-mortar world, and your website has an impact on your company’s image. Because your online market presence is viewed by individual-defined norms, you must ensure the site meets the expectations of your site visitors. In fact, a visit to your site must not only meet the visitor’s needs, but also delight her to promote subsequent returns. After all, what good is your site if you only get someone to stop by once and never return again? Although there are many different objectives and strategies for various websites, one fundamental objective is to have visitors bookmark the site and return again and again and again.

So how can you satisfy your visitors’ needs and increase the frequency of visits from the same visitors? There is no magic formula or secret java scripting that will do it. However, laying the foundation of your site by answering five basic questions prior to building your site will allow you to develop an online presence that meets your business goals and encourages visitors to return to your site time after time. The five questions to be answered are: 1) Who is your target audience, 2) What are the objectives of your website, 3) What does a visitor expect from your site, 4) What do you want the visitor to leave with, and 5) Why should a visitor return to your site?

Five Questions, Five Answers

There are many excellent books, magazines, and e-zines available that describe in great detail the points presented in this article. However, for those of you who are considering building a website, the questions posed here will help to layout the roadmap for your site. Laying the foundation of your site by answering these five basic questions prior to building your site will allow you to develop an online presence that meets your business goals and encourages visitors to return to your site. The key to getting off on the right foot is …read this complete article

Copyright © 2002 Martz Marketing Group, LLC  Article available at http://www.theinternetdigest.net/articles/five-questions.html

Tweet This Post

Network Marketing can produce outstanding results if you know to harness it’s awesome power to secure your business success.

Terms such as Network Marketing, ‘MLM’, and Multi Level Marketing all refer to the same type of business model. This industry has had more than it’s share of scumbag crooks and con artists that have used and abused the concept. However, if you do your homework and get involved with a legitimate network marketing organization, this business model has exceptional income potential.

Network Marketing, MLM, and Multilevel Marketing are unlike franchises or conventional businesses in that they take advantage of all three of the important, yet misunderstood principles of:

1) Leverage (of Time and Money)
2) Residual Income
3) Geometric Growth Through Duplication

Unfortunately these principles are not well understood by many of the people that undertake network marketing. And that’s just one of many reasons why so many fail at network marketing. There are lots of other reasons, and it would take volumes to cover them all. But this is one of the more common ones. Because if you don’t comprehend and believe in these principles, it’s impossible to help others fully understand and appreciate them.

First, lets look at LEVERAGE:

Every successful person or business takes advantage of leverage. There are only 24 hours in a day and no matter how talented you are or how much you get paid per hour, if you don’t take advantage of leverage you’re limited by the number of hours in a day. As a side note, I have heard of cases where an occasional lawyer was billing more than 24 hours per day…but, I guess that’s another story. By learning to leverage your time, you can also benefit from a percentage of other people’s efforts, and dramatically increase your income while creating more free time for yourself.

The unique and wonderful thing about the Network Marketing business model is that everyone has the same opportunity to become the ‘owner’ of his or her own business – with a fraction of the investment of time and money of a franchise or traditional business.

In network marketing the people at the top definitely have a vested interest in helping others on their team succeed.

Would you rather receive 100% of one person’s efforts, or 5% of the efforts of 100 people?

Obviously 100% of one is always only ONE. But 5% of 100 is FIVE.

Not only will the total result with leverage almost always be amplified, but your income is not dependent on only one person. If your income is produced by the activities of many, it is much more dependable. Even if something unexpected or negative happens to one or more of those people, it only has a minor effect on the TOTAL production.

It’s great to get paid while you’re sleeping or away on vacation. That’s one of the many advantages of leveraging your time.

Now, lets consider RESIDUAL INCOME:

When someone mentions residual income many people automatically think of actors or musicians.

Residual income is recurring income that you continue to receive long after the work you’ve done to produce it has ended. There are lots of ways to produce residual income. However, many people don’t understand it, and still others have never thought about or been exposed to it. A very simple example of residual income is interest earned on money in the bank or investments. You continue to receive this income without having to invest any more time to produce it.

Suppose you had the choice of doing a job and earning $1,000 once, or getting paid $50/month for the rest of your life…which would you choose? If you chose the $50/month you obviously “get” the concept of residual income.

Clearly, $50/month will surpass a single payment of $1,000 relatively quickly. And if it lasts for a few years, or better yet – the rest of your life – it will really be a blessing.

Residual income is certainly not about “getting rich quickly”, even though with the right opportunity it’s possible to produce a substantial residual income stream in a relatively short time.

Most people who fail at network marketing either choose the wrong network organization or just give up too soon and quit because they expect overnight results. It is important to recognize that the real beauty of residual income is on the back end, not the front, and that once you build it you have the financial security and time flexibility to do just about anything you desire for the rest of your life!

Last, but not least, lets address GEOMETRIC GROWTH (DUPLICATION):

The classic illustration of geometric growth is the frequently used penny-a-day example.If you save one penny on the first day, and double it every successive day, (day two you have 2 pennies and day three you have 4 pennies, and so on) how much will you have at the end of 30 days?

The answer, to the astonishment of many, is $5,368,708! Amazing, but true.

That’s a simple and dramatic illustration of how networking can work. If I can teach you, I’ve doubled myself. If we each teach someone else, we’ve doubled again. As this duplication or geometric growth process goes on and on, it can produce some amazing results in a relatively short period of time, just like the penny example above.

So there you have it, understand and apply these three principles

1) Leverage (of Time and Money)
2) Residual Income
3) Geometric Growth Through Duplication

And, given sufficient time and effort, you should enjoy a successful and financially rewarding network marketing experience.

About the Author
Kirk Bannerman operates a successful home based business and coaches others seeking to start their own home based business. Visit his website at Legitimate Home Based Business for more details.

Tweet This Post

Last week I did a Webinar on “How to get your first 1,000 visitors for free”. Special thanks for Mark Roth from Offer Vault who had me on as a guest. As an experiment, I gave my email out to participants so they could ask Internet marketing questions. I received about a dozen or so questions and came to an interesting conclusion.

Each of us is in a different place when it comes to Internet marketing. Some people are just starting out while others are much more advanced. For example, in the area of SEO, I was asked, “where is the best place to buy a domain name” to “does having an individual IP address for each affiliate web site have a direct impact search rankings?”

It just goes to show that each of us may be at a different stage in our online marketing career(s). As a result, it’s my advice to find resources that are appropriate for different stages of marketing. Whether you are focus on marketing as a whole (American marketing association) or SEO (SEOmoz), there are plenty of resources targeted to your current level of expertise.

Always keep learning

I think the most important thing to keep in mind is to always keep learning. Even as someone with 13 years of internet marketing experience, I am still listening to other people’s webinars, reading their articles, and blog posts. This is important because one person can’t know everything there is to know about Internet marketing.

Ask for help

Sometimes, even I get stuck. That’s why I depend on resources like the Internet marketing forum to get answers to my most difficult marketing questions. Not only can I ask questions, but contribute on topics aligned with my expertise.

Learn from doing

The best thing you can do for yourself is to learn by doing. Today, marketing online doesn’t take much of an investment. I have learned the most by listening, reading, and then doing. It’s great if you have help, but if not, don’t hesitate to try something online. Whether it’s SEO, PPC marketing, or affiliate marketing, you’re going to gain valuable insight into what you’re trying to accomplish.

Don’t be concerned if you’re just starting out. Now is the best time to be engaged with Internet marketing. Find a resource that works for you and engage. Over time, you’ll be so knowledgeable about Internet marketing that others will seek out your advice!

Post compliments of Michael Fleischner, a marketing expert and author of SEO Made Simple with more than 13 years of hands-on marketing experience. You may have seen my interview on the TODAY Show or heard me on Bloomberg Radio and other major media. Find out more about Michael and his blog at http://marketing-expert.blogspot.com/

Tweet This Post