12 Struggles Every New Entrepreneur Faces

It's always good if you know the pitfalls to avoid before you start... if you'r a new entrepreneur, check out this video.

Top 5 Books for SMALL BUSINESS Owners - #Top5Books

We all know that as an entrepreneur we should be reading as much as we can to keep learning.. Here is Evan Carmichael's top 5 books for small business owners. 

How to Select the Affiliate Program that Works for You

Affiliate programs are a great means of earning some handy cash; but not all affiliate programs are profitable. Some will only take up your time and energy and some others may even spoil your website reputation. This is why you got to carefully select your affiliate marketing programs and make sure that they work for you same as your work for them. Given below are a few points that will help you make better decision in choosing an affiliate program that works for you rather than working only for the affiliate merchant.

Here are points to take into consideration before selecting an affiliate program:

1. Your website and your visitors

If you already have a website, make sure to go for affiliate programs that jell with your website’s theme, topic and audience.

Choose an affiliate program that offers products that are of interest to your target audience. If your website is about cars, then promoting scrapbooking products is going to have very little or no impact. Instead, join affiliate programs that offer car accessories.

To earn money from affiliate program, understand your visitors and target market. Look at the pages that they are interested in, the information or products they are looking for in your site. Your objective should be to find out what your visitors are looking for and then promote products that match their interest.

2. Affiliate merchant’s website

To earn from an affiliate program, your goal should be to send visitors to the affiliate merchant’s website. More importantly, these visitors should perform the action that the affiliate merchant wants within a set number of hours or days, be it purchase, downloads, subscription, among others. For example, as a member of the Amazon Associates program, you earn money by sending customers to Amazon.com who are willing to buy any of their products, subscribe to their Amazon Prime memberships, among others.

Check the affiliate merchant’s website or landing pages and ask the following questions:

• Is the affiliate merchant’s site designed to ensure that your referred visitors convert?
• Is it designed to sell with clear call to actions?
• Is the page littered with ads and popups that can distract the visitors you send?
• Is the page cluttered with competing offers that can prevent your referred visitor from buying?

Look at the sales copy, privacy policy, product guarantees, after sales service and special discounts/offers available with the product/service. The page should do a good job enticing your referred visitor to make a purchase.

3. Quality of goods and services

Just imagine how you would feel, if you were referred by someone to a product that turned out to be of inferior quality? Your visitors will feel the same way about your website if you promote inferior or overly priced goods/services.

Always make sure to know about the product/service you are planning to promote. Check for testimonials and references from existing customers to find out about the quality of goods. If possible, use the products yourself to be on the safer side (but be sure not to use your affiliate link when you purchase for your use). In addition,  make sure to compare similar products available over the internet for features and rates.

There are many products that have trial periods or return policies associated with them. Products having return policies can increase the conversion rate but may also lead to debiting in case of a chargeback. Promoting products sold on a trial period basis requires cookie detection to track sales at the end of the period which is very unreliable. So it’s better to confirm with the affiliate merchant the tracking method used or the affiliate payment scheme, in case the products have trial periods.

4. Reputation of the affiliate merchant

The reputation of the affiliate merchant is important. You may find some affiliate merchants that do not pay, or reduce the actual payments given. It’s frustrating to see that you have sent them a lot of paying visitors — and you don’t get the promised payout.

So make sure to research the affiliate merchant’s history of paying their affiliates. If the merchant offers a forum for their affiliates, check the chatter. In addition be sure to read their business literature to get an idea about their history of past and present operations.

5. Commission scheme of the affiliate program

There are many different types of commission schemes that affiliate programs use to reward their affiliates. Some of the most popular ones are pay per click, pay per lead and pay per sale schemes. Some others even offer two tiered and multi tiered commission schemes. Some commission schemes can even be a mix and match of the above.

In case of a pay per click/hit scheme the minimum commission that you can expect is $0.5 to $0.10 per click. For pay per sale a good commission rate would be 15% to 50%. Some companies even offer lifetime commissions, but as most of them are based on cookie identification, they may not work out well.

With the competition increasing almost all merchants have started offering two tiered commissions, some even offer multi tiered ones. Joining these schemes can give you a chance to get paid for the direct sales you make and also for the sales made by affiliates referred by you.

6. Tracking software used

Tracking software is used by the affiliate merchant to track individual affiliate sales. An affiliate merchant can make use of in-house tracking software, join an affiliate network or use services of an ASP in order to track leads.

In case the affiliate merchant makes use of independent tracking software or ASP services, make sure to find out if the software is reliable and has the ability to track all kinds of sales. If the software uses cookie tracking, find out the duration of the cookie. Although using cookies to track affiliates does not always work fine as the cookies can be deleted by the buyer.

Most affiliate merchants today make use of affiliate network services. Affiliate network services are the safest when it comes to making payments on time, conflict resolution and accurate tracking. Affiliate Networks are also great sources to find good affiliate programs and can help you get payments from different merchants through a single cheque. So make sure to register at some good networks. Some reputed affiliate network services are CJ Affiliate by Conversant (formerly Commission Junction), and Rakuten Affiliate Network (formerly LinkShare), or you can join directly to a company-initiated affiliate program such as the Amazon Associates Network.

7. Terms and conditions for payment

You do all the hard work as an affiliate and you should make sure that you get paid for it. There are chances that the affiliate merchant might have some unwanted rules and regulations in his affiliate agreement. It is your duty to check out the terms and conditions with utmost care and see whether you agree with them.

Some things that you got to look out for in the terms and conditions are as follows:

a.) Payment frequency/Payout rate

Make sure that the affiliate merchant makes payments at the end of every month or with- in a few days afterward. Anything above 2 months for making payments is not advisable. There are even some affiliate programs where they pay you once every quarter.

Also find out the mode of making payments. Payment gateways are safer and faster as compared to cheques. If you need to be paid by check, find out if there are any charges.

b.) Payment for future sales

Many visitors won’t buy products on their first visit. They might come back though after some time to make the purchase. Make sure that the affiliate merchant pays you for future sales made by a customer referred by you. Check the length of cookies, and what types of links have the longest cookies. In Amazon’s affiliate program, the cookie of their regular affiliate link is only 24 hours, but using the “Add to Cart” option gives you a 90 day cookie.

c.) Minimum Balance Amount for payout

Most affiliate merchants and affiliate networks have a minimum amount for payout. An affiliate would require reaching that amount to get a payment. Find out the minimum balance and estimate if the target is easily achievable for the given product/service.

d.) Roll over/carry over terms

Roll-overs or carry-overs are related to the minimum balance. If the affiliate fails to achieve the minimum balance within a month (or the set payment date), the payment keeps rolling on. Although this is not a problem, some merchant s may have a fixed rollover period after which the payments will not be issued. Joining such programs is not recommended.

e.) Conditions for Charge-backs on product return

Some merchants have a product return policy which allows the buyer to get full refund. The period within which the buyer should return the product to get a refund is called the chargeback period. Make sure to take note of the chargeback period of the merchant and also find out how much of your commission will be debited if this happens. While products with a return policy improve their conversion rate, they can also lead to the affiliates cash getting debited or completely taken back.

In addition to the payment terms some other conditions that you got to check out are the condition of exclusivity (which could mean the affiliate cannot promote any other product except the affiliate product/service or that he should not promote competitor products/services) and conflict resolution method of the merchant.

8. Additional facilities offered

In addition to simply offering banner ads most good affiliate merchants offer features to help their affiliates. They provide a wide variety and flexibility in product links. Others give real time sales statistics and tracking information, free training on how to promote the products/services, newsletters, affiliate help lines and even website improvement programs. Some affiliate merchants even offer their affiliates a say in their decision making process.

Many good affiliate merchants also have a policy of rewarding better performing affiliates with incentives, over and above the commissions. Joining such programs can really be a rewarding experience.

There are many entrepreneurs who are making money from affiliate program. It is not easy, but it is doable. To succeed in affiliate marketing, you need to know how to promote goods/services including the use of online promotion tactics such as email marketing, online advertisements etc.

Source: https://www.powerhomebiz.com/internet-marketing/affiliate-marketing/select-affiliate-program-works.htm

Exploring The Most Cost Effective Online Marketing Channels

What are the best online marketing channels? There isn’t a straightforward answer to this question. Every business is different. But, there are certain channels that tend to be more cost-effective and provide higher conversion rates.

If you are looking for a way to stretch your online marketing budget, then explore the most cost effective online marketing channels.

Here’s a quick overview of the online marketing channels that’ll be covered:

• Email marketing
• Pay-per-click advertising
• Social media advertising
• Blogging

Email Marketing

For some reason, many entrepreneurs believe that email marketing is outdated or ineffective. This is simply not true. Email marketing remains the most cost-effective way to increase conversion rates and boost sales.

Compared to all other online marketing channels, email marketing offers the lowest cost per lead. While social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, have millions of users, everyone has an email address.

As long as you’re smart about your email marketing strategy, you will get positive results.

Make sure that your emails encourage your subscribers to take action. This could include visiting your website or purchasing a product or service. You should also create a sense of urgency in your emails.

Also, don’t ever purchase an email list. You should always build your own list using opt-in forms and other methods.

PPC Advertising

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is another marketing channel that is thought of as being past its prime. Again, this isn’t true. PPC is affordable and effective. You just need to optimize your PPC campaign.

Before you put together your PPC campaign, you need to perform thorough keyword research. The key to an effective PPC campaign is choosing the right keywords. Use the Google AdWords Keyword Planner to research keywords and find phrases with low competition and medium search volume.

Along with keyword research, you need to have a title and description that grabs attention. You have limited space available. Your title and description used in your PPC advertisement shouldn’t be vague. It should be clear and direct.

By having a clear message in your PPC ad, you’ll naturally notice higher conversion rates. Focus on a specific demographic and speak directly to the customer.

Social Media Advertising

While email marketing and PPC advertising have been around since the beginning of online marketing, social media marketing is relatively new by comparison. There are two methods of using social media as a part of your online marketing strategy – regular activity and advertising.

First, you should be active on social media. Create a schedule for sending out new posts or tweets. This helps you build your subscriber or follower base.

Along with regular activity, you should include social media advertising in your marketing strategy. This could include Facebook Ads, promoted Tweets on Twitter, and advertisements on LinkedIn.

As with PPC advertising, you’ll need to optimize these advertisements to increase conversion rates. Again, use Google AdWords Keyword Planner Tool to find the most effective keywords. Focus on a niche category.

Blogging

Here’s one more online marketing channel to include in your overall strategy – blogging. Blogging is extremely cost effective. You likely already have a website. You just need to start adding regular blog posts.

Blog posts can be shared on social media, linked to from advertisements, and are incredibly beneficial from an SEO standpoint. Blog about topics relevant to your products or services.

You should also create a schedule for your blog posts. With a regular schedule, visitors will know when to come back for more posts. This increases repeat traffic and allows you to develop a loyal group of followers while also establishing yourself as a voice of authority in your niche market.

As you start developing and refining your online marketing strategy, consider using the marketing channels described above. Along with these tips, don’t forget to check out my simple lead generation system. Click here to learn more about my done-for-you system.

Bill Gates's Top 10 Rules For Success (@BillGates)

He consistently ranks in the Forbes list of the world's wealthiest people.

He's one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution.


He is also the second-most generous philanthropist in America, having given over $28 billion to charity.


He's Bill Gates and here are his Top 10 Rules for Success.

Increasing Sales Leads by Boosting Twitter User Engagement

Twitter is an effective platform for entrepreneurs that want to reach out and increase their online presence. But, these efforts don’t provide a lot of help if you can’t engage your followers.

Twitter user engagement directly impacts your ability to gain sales leads through this social media platform. Engagement refers to the number of followers, retweets, and messages you receive through your Twitter profile.

If you want to boost engagement, then take a moment to review these simple tips.

Shorten Your URL Links

Every entrepreneur should use a web-based program to shorten their URL links. Studies show that shorter URLs receive more clicks.

The programs that generate these shorter URLs also typically provide a method for tracking these links. You can see how many people followed the shortened URL.

Use Images in Your Tweets

Tweets that contain images receive more clicks and more retweets. If possible, all your tweets should contain an image.

If you’re sharing a link to a landing page or a web page that you own, you should set up Twitter cards. This allows Twitter to pull the featured image from your page and place it in the tweet.

You can also upload photos for each tweet. It’s time-consuming, but it can help you get more retweets, clicks, and new followers.

Ask People to Retweet Your Tweets

Sometimes you just need to ask people to do exactly what you want them to do. Ask people to retweet your tweets.

Including “RT” in your tweet can help you gain 10 times as many retweets. On average, including the word “retweet” in your tweet will result in 23 times as many re-tweets.

This only takes up a few characters of the space that you have available. Give it a try. Add “RT” to the end of all tweets moving forward.

Include Actionable Words in Your Tweet

Along with asking people to retweet your tweets, you should include actionable words. You may not have enough space to include a full call to action, but you can use actionable words to increase engagement. Examples of actionable words include:

• Download
• Free trial
• Subscribe
• Learn more
• Read now
• Gain access

 Engage Your Twitter Followers

You should also drive engagement by being more engaging. You can include questions in your tweets, to encourage people to respond. This drive engagement and could result in more followers.

If you haven’t already, you should set Twitter to send email notifications when you receive a new message and when your Twitter tag is mentioned in another tweet.

You should respond to questions and comments as soon as possible. Even if the comment is unrelated to the products or services that you sell, you need to be active on social media. Respond when people talk to you.

Tweet Late at Night

The final tip for increasing user engagement on Twitter is to tweet late at night. These late-night tweets obtain about 10 times as many retweets as similar tweets sent during the day.

If you go to bed early, you can use a social media management platform to automate the release of your tweets and social media posts.

In the end, using Twitter to increase your online exposure depends more on quality than quantity. The number of followers that you have is less important than how engaged your followers are.

Focus on engagement by responding to tweets, asking questions, and using these other tips. Increasing your Twitter user engagement will help you boost the number of followers that you’ve got, along with helping to increase traffic from Twitter to your website.

Gain even more internet marketing tips and access to a system for generating conversion-ready prospects, by clicking here to learn about my done-for-you system.

How to Grow Your YouTube Following

The use of video marketing is becoming increasingly popular for entrepreneurs. The reason is simple. More people are using mobile devices and the videos are easier to view on these devices than reading a lengthy blog post.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of competition on YouTube. Getting noticed isn’t always easy. But, with a few simple tips, you can begin increasing the number of followers that you’ve got on YouTube.

With more followers, your videos are more likely to get noticed. Here are several steps that you can take right now to begin growing your YouTube following.

Increase the Value of Your Videos

The first step is to increase the value of your videos. People won’t share videos that don’t provide any real value. You can’t just create a video introducing your business and hope to get thousands of views.

Each video needs to have a specific focus. It’s much like writing a quality blog post. In fact, you can recycle your most popular blog content into videos.

Whenever you write a script for a video, always ask yourself if you’d share this video with others. The video needs to offer some benefit to the viewer. You can provide instructions, demonstrations, or tips related to a specific topic.

Remain Consistent with Your Release Schedule

YouTube offers video recommendations based on what you’ve already watched. If you remain consistent with your release schedule, you’re more likely to gain new subscribers.

If a viewer watches one of your videos without following, YouTube may recommend another of your new videos as they’re released. This helps bring viewers back to your channel.

Whether you release one or four new videos each month, you should stick to a schedule. Decide which day of the week you’ll release your videos. Subscribers will know when to check back and your viewer retention rates will increase.

Ask People to Subscribe to Your Channel

Your videos should serve a specific purpose. As with your blog articles, the end of the video should include a call to action. You could tell viewers to follow a link or you can use this call to action to remind viewers to subscribe.

YouTube also provides the option to include an image or graphic to act as a clickable button overlay directly on top of your video. With this clickable button, you can include a link to subscribe to your YouTube channel.

Include a YouTube Widget on Your Website

You should also add a widget or link on your website that connects with your YouTube channel. Increase exposure to your channel by adding these features to your blog or business site.

If you use WordPress, you can find numerous widgets and plugins that allow you to add YouTube videos to your site. You could also add a YouTube subscribe button on your site.

Become a Featured YouTube Channel

You have the option to add “Featured Channels” to your YouTube channel. These are channels that you follow and recommend your followers to follow.

By getting these other channels to recommend you to their followers, you can boost exposure. There are two ways to go about this.

You can either directly ask a channel to add you or you can start following them. There is no guarantee that the other channel will follow you, but it’s still worth the effort.

Interact with People That Comment on Your Videos

You shouldn’t ignore the comments on your videos. Actively respond to these comments. People may leave a comment without following. After responding, they might rethink their decision and start following your channel.

Increasing your YouTube following is one method for improving your online presence. If you’d like to gain access to more internet marketing tips, and a way to generate new sales leads, then click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

Caveat Emptor – Watch Out for Internet Scammers When Buying Leads for Your Business

When you buy email lists, many of the less reputable sellers are getting the addresses they sell you buy scraping them off old lists, picking them off web sites, and collecting contact lists from conferences.

And some list sellers create their own squeeze pages and collect opt-ins, then turn around and sell them to other marketers.

The problem is that the people who opted-in did so for that company, not for yours. So when you contact them, they don’t know who you are and are more likely to mark you as a spammer.

Another problem is the way these lists are put together … hodge-podge, if you will … many of the addresses you receive are going to be misspelled, abandoned or even phony.

This is actually really common, so the legitimate companies that sell lists will usually give you a refund for these types of addresses up front. That’s another indicator that you are buying from somebody legit.

So when your autoresponder sends out your emails to these addresses, they are going to be kicked back. This is also a red flag to email providers like Gmail and Hotmail and it could cause them to block all future emails from you.

So once again you could find yourself having to start over again.

Know Your Intended Audience

Then there’s the ultimate objective of your email campaigns. Sometimes that gets lost in the shuffle.

Remember: The whole reason you are sending emails to prospective customers is to sell them your affiliate products.

When you send emails to people who don’t know who you are, haven’t asked you to contact them, and aren’t expecting to hear from you, how open do you think they are going to be to your sales message?

It’s like taking a shot in the dark. That’s why the conversion rate is so low with purchased lists. And the risks are high.

So you are almost always better off simply building your list the organic way. While buying a list may seem like a shortcut, it’s generally too costly and too high risk.

And it can actually set your sales program back because if you get banned you have to start over anyway.

Put Yourself in Your Customer’s Shoes

How you respond when you get an email from somebody you don’t know?

Odds are, you didn’t even open it, but instead either deleted it right away or sent it to a spam folder. You don’t know what’s in that email. It could be a computer virus that is going to damage your computer.

At the very least, it’s an unsolicited offer that you are probably going to dismiss out of hand anyway.

So if even YOU aren’t going to open emails from people you don’t know, how do you expect other people to react when they get an unsolicited email from you?

A better plan is to get your sales message in front of people by organically growing your list through squeeze pages, sales letters, SEO, social media marketing, blogging and all the other free methods we have discussed so far. Or to use the paid methods, such as PPC and other ads.

Being careful when dealing with people you don’t know is as important in business as it is in the rest of your life. Keep in mind that your customers aren’t familiar with you the first time you meet them, either. So you have to take steps to build their trust.

If you’d like to have access to even more powerful marketing tips, as well as a way to generate conversion-ready Internet marketing prospects each month, click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

How to Grow a Targeted Follower Base on Instagram

Instagram is becoming increasingly popular. It’s a useful social media site for any entrepreneur that wants to remain updated with the latest marketing channels.

As with most social media platforms, the more followers that you’ve got the more effective your social media marketing will be. So, to begin increasing your Instagram followers, you need to focus on a target audience.

Here’s a set of simple tips to begin growing a targeted follower base on Instagram.

Start Liking Posts Related to Your Niche

The first way to begin increasing your follower base on Instagram is to start liking posts. Like posts that are related to your niche industry.

For example, if you sell products for internet marketing, you’d want to like posts related to internet marketing.

Liking other posts is a good way to gain attention, especially from industry leaders or people with more followers than you.

Instead of simply following an industry leader, you should go through and like 5 to 10 of their posts. Make sure that you leave a comment on at least one of these posts.

Respond Promptly and Leave Authentic Comments

Commenting is a good way to gain followers, retain followers, and increase engagement. You should respond to comments as soon as possible. You can set up email notifications so that you never miss out on these comments.

Also, don’t be afraid to comment on other people’s posts. As mentioned, this can be effective when you start liking other posts.

While these comments are useful, they need to be authentic. Don’t leave a generic comment as a response.

For example, if someone leaves you a compliment, don’t respond with, “thanks!”

Instead, you should come up with a real response. It only takes a few minutes, but can have a major effect on follower engagement and your overall online reputation.

Create Your Own Hashtags and Get People to Use Them

You can start building your own community on Instagram by creating your own hashtags. Though, you also need to get people to start using them.

For starters, you can create a hashtag related to your targeted audience or niche industry. Combining abbreviations and words is a good way to create original hashtags.

You can also search for hashtags. When you create an original hashtag, perform a search to ensure that it’s not already in use.

Find Out What Your Audience Wants

If you know what your target audience wants, it’s easier to create Instagram posts that they’ll enjoy. You can start by looking at who they follow.

Look for Instagram accounts for other businesses in your industry that are followed by your target audience. See what types of posts these people put out. Also, see what types of posts your audience tend to share and like.

Continue to Release New Posts Each Day

If you want to target a specific audience, you need to remain consistent with your posts. Continue to release new posts each day.

You should also pay attention to the time of the day that you receive the most engagement from your followers. You might find that your target audience is more active during a specific time of the day. Use this to your advantage and schedule your posts to be released at this time each day.

Use High-Quality Photos and Videos

Don’t forget to use high-quality photos and videos. If the photos that you use appear to be professionally-taken photos, you’ll be able to gain more followers.

People perceive the value and quality of your products or services based on what you put out there. If you use grainy photographs, people will assume that you don’t have a quality business, as you can’t afford quality photos.

Start making better use of your Instagram account by focusing on your target audience. If you’d like done-for-you system.

even more internet marketing tips and a system for getting conversion-ready prospects, then click here to learn about my

6 Tips to Help You Increase Your Instagram Followers

Instagram is currently the fastest growing social media site. This provides a great opportunity for entrepreneurs looking to grow their brand. With Instagram, you get access to over 600 million active monthly users.

Not only does Instagram have the numbers to help you expand your brand, Instagram followers are also more likely to engage. This means you’ll have better chances of getting followers to follow your links. But, first, you need to gain these followers.

Use these 6 tips to start increasing the number of followers you have on Instagram.

Research Your Competition and Take Notes

The first step is to begin researching your competition. You should see what they’re doing to attract followers. Look at the type of content that they post, which posts receive the most likes and shares, and how frequently they post.

By researching your competition, you gain valuable insight into the needs and wants of your target audience. You eliminate the need to perform detailed consumer research.

Make notes on what you find. Write down the frequency of their posts and other details. Use this as a base for your posting strategy.

Announce Your New Instagram Account

You can also take advantage of your existing follower base on other social media accounts. This can give you a quick boost of new followers to your Instagram account.

Post an announcement on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites encouraging your followers to check out your Instagram page.

Create an Instagram Posting Schedule

The next step is to create a posting schedule. While it’s easy to say that you’ll post a few times per week, it’s hard to stick this routine without setting concrete goals and plans.

Generally, you’ll want to post at least once per day. You don’t want to bombard your followers with posts. But, you also don’t want them to forget about you.

Along with the frequency of your posts, you’ll want to consider the timing of your posts. The time of the day can directly impact post engagement. The best time of the day to post depends on your followers.

Pay attention to what time of the day users engage with your posts. Typically, the afternoon is the best time, as people are out of work.

Take High-Quality Photos for Your Posts

Instagram is highly visual. Each post will contain a photo or a video. Make sure that you use high-quality photos. You should consider investing in a decent camera unless your smartphone has a camera capable of taking quality shots.

If your images appear grainy or out of focus, your Instagram feed won’t be as appealing to potential followers.

Include a Clear Message in Every Post

Along with a photo or video, you’ll need to include a message. This message should be short, concise, and clear. Make sure that people understand the point of your post, especially when promoting your products or services.

Remember to Use Hashtags in Your Posts

After your message, you should add several hashtags. Don’t try to include the hashtags in your message. It makes your message difficult to read.

At the bottom of your message, include several relevant hashtags. This helps people discover your posts when using the Instagram search feature.

Combine these tips to get the most out of your Instagram account. In addition to these suggestions, the use of sponsored posts can help you attract more followers.

Instagram is growing quickly. Get involved while interest is still high. If you’d like to gain even more effective marketing tips and suggestions, along with a way to generate conversion-ready internet marketing prospects, then click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

Increase Your Online Exposure Without Increasing Your Budget

When you’re first starting out, every dollar that you spend on online marketing matters. You likely have multiple goals. You want to gain website traffic, increase your social media followers, and build your online reputation.

All these goals can be achieved with good marketing strategies. But, you might be able to speed up the process by increasing your online exposure. With brand recognition, it becomes easier to gain traction and get your foot through the door of your target market.

I’ll give you a few simple tips that you can use to increase your online exposure without having to increase your marketing budget. 

Use Consistent Branding

If you want people to recognize your brand, you need to be consistent with your branding. This means using the same logo on your website and social media profiles. Anywhere that your logo or business branding appears, you should use the exact same image.

You want to ensure that people realize that your website and your social media profiles are one and the same. They aren’t two separate individuals or businesses.

So, your YouTube profile, Facebook profile, Twitter, and other platforms should all use the same profile image and it should include the same branding that appears on your website.

Gain More Social Media Followers

Once your branding is in place, you should focus on gaining more social media followers. It doesn’t cost a dime to share content on social media. Monday through Friday, you should post at least twice per day on each of your social media accounts.

This means that you’ll be posting at least 10 times per week. But, you don’t need to worry about creating 10 original posts. 8 of these posts will come from other sources, such as industry-leading blogs and news sites.

Also, become active on social media. Interact with your followers. Share personal stories. Engage your audience and join communities. This all helps you gain followers without having to pay for marketing.

Start Creating High-Quality Blog Posts

Sharing content on social media should help you gain followers. It’s difficult at first, but once you pass 100 followers, it’ll become easier. Then, start creating high-quality blog posts.

You’ll already have a schedule in place for sharing 8 pieces of curated content on social media. For the remaining 2 posts, share links to your original content. The followers that you’ve gained will share these posts, increasing your online exposure without requiring any additional spending. 

Write Guest Blog Posts for Other Sites

After you get the hang of writing quality blog posts for your own website, start submitting guest blog posts to other sites. Look for websites that get a lot of traffic. Getting a guest blog posted on one of these sites will increase your online presence and help you establish yourself as a voice of authority.

Share Your Opinion with Everyone

The final step for increasing your online exposure without increasing your budget is to share your opinion with everyone. What I mean by this is that you need to comment on blog posts, comment on social media posts, answer questions on Q&A websites, and become active on relevant forums.

Blog and forum commenting can help you earn backlinks, increasing your search engine rankings. Commenting on social media or answering questions on Q&A websites can help you get noticed. These steps build backlinks, increase recognition, and could help you gain more followers.

You can increase your online exposure without spending additional money. It all starts with consistent branding. Then, focus on social media. Once you gain followers, start generating quality content and sharing it.

Use these tips to start increasing your online exposure. If you’d like to have access to even more powerful marketing tips, as well as a way to generate conversion-ready Internet marketing prospects each month, click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

From Little Things, Big Things Grow!

Songs have been written on this title about social change over the years and the saying was not new in the 1900's.

For me, I see this as a great quote for small business people who start out with very little and with courage and determination go ahead and create their passion into a business that they are proud to own. 

Great things may come from small beginnings as we find with small business owners. An essay within in 1798 by D.Everett in The Columbian Orator says: "Large streams from little fountains flow, Tall oaks from little acorns grow." So as we can see, this is a concept that has been around for a very long time! 

A more familiar quote is "Mighty oaks grow from little acorns" or "Great oaks from little acorns grow" no doubt rings a bell to most readers. Again, saying that sometimes small and modest can become very large and impressive with time. 

We start our business initially by using the skills we have learned. The most important structure we create needs to have a strong foundation so that it can build from small beginnings into what we want to create with our time and expertise in the future. Being aware of our own skillset and what the required skills are for success for the enterprise is all important. 

Great things or people often have humble origins. With the correct structure and people in place it is possible to create what we want. Being in business is a learning curve for us all.

Working with clients now over many years I have discovered that for a solo operator to become successful they must be aware of their own innate gifts. By understanding this, one can then find the people they need to surround themselves with to create the success that they want. This must be a win-win for all concerned and joint venturing or collaborations work well today for small business owners. 

I find that people go into business these days more out of necessity as they cannot find the job or work that they want. We are fortunate to be able to start out on a shoestring and work from home, which was not always possible. As the economy changes and people need to become more creative, we find that interesting businesses are arising from no-where, often from hobbies or a creative urge for survival.

Being in business takes a survival instinct, a creative bent and a courage that makes it all possible. 

Many businesses start with little or no funding other than lots of persistence, sweat and tears, along the way. To believe in oneself and the skills that each of us has is the biggest quality that is needed initially. Once we have been able in our head to create and see the vision of what we want to build, we then need to understand our WHY for wanting it.

Many business people understand and know the WHAT of their business. Without the WHY, which is what will make it blossom, failure is often inevitable. 

It is important to firstly know your 'why' for creating your business. Once you understand this you can then look at the 'what', then 'who' you need, 'where' and 'when' you need it and lastly 'how' are you going to make it happen? 

Dependent on the personality of the business owner, they will need to have the correct two people around them who will balance out the business skillsets. This process is found through 'Wealth Dynamics' created by Roger Hamilton. This is a thinking profile which supports solo and small business owners to greater success. 

So, are you ready to grow from something small to something large? 

If you answer yes, I will ask you 'Why'. I would then go through the series of questions using the above words to work with you. Understanding and having goals are necessary for you to build your business. Knowing how to plan and time your business is important to as many businesses grow too fast without the correct infrastructure, and inevitably run out of funds or the foundations crumble. 

Owning a business is the most freeing and creative endeavour a true entrepreneur can do. It is important that you have more than the technical skills though as understood the Michael Gerber's book 'The E-Myth - Revisited'. A MUST READ for all business owners. Too many people starting a business are the technician not the entrepreneur. 

Being an entrepreneur is about taking initiative and risks, in the attempt to make a profit. This is not as easy as it sounds as many people find out who have tried. Find the people to put around you who can help you grow your creation using their skills along with your ideas and innate gifts.  

One of the most important things that a business owner needs to do is learn to understand themselves. Start, if you haven't already, to do personal development. Getting to really know yourself, your strengths and weaknesses and what makes you tick will be the greatest gift you can give yourself. Only by learning about yourself can you really grow and be successful. 

The gift of a successful business owner is being able to go to bed at night and sleep well. If you toss and turn and become sleep deprived, you will make mistakes and not make good decisions for your future. 

So, I say, grow yourself and then grow your business.

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