Let's take a moment to think about how you would really answer this question. If given enough thought, just about any network marketers who utilize the Internet for any purpose will likely find that whether or not they intentionally organized an Internet marketing campaign, they may already be marketing their products and services on the Internet. Now, I will examine some subtle ways network marketers may already be marketing their business on the Internet.

Do you have a website for your business? When I mean by website is any site that is related to you and your business online. It could be in the form of a website that you develop yourself, a duplicate website that's developed by your company for its associates, a blog, a squidoo page, a hub page etc. This basically should cover any of your online presence. Network marketers who answer 'yes' to this question are already marketing their products or services online just by virtue of the fact that they have a website online. Having a live website means there is the potential for curious Internet users to access your website. You may not be actively promoting your website but you may still find that your website generates interest in your products despite the lack of promotional endeavors; this is a form of passive marketing.

Do you participate in message boards/forums and include a link to your website in your signature? Again network marketers who answer 'yes' to this question are already marketing their website online. Savvy network marketers realize the importance of participation in industry related message boards to create an interest in their products and services, establish themselves as knowledgeable about the industry and offer a link to their own website even if it is in the signature line of their posts. However, even network marketers who do not realize this may already be inadvertently enjoying the benefits of Internet marketing which result from message board participation just by doing something they enjoy and may be doing as a form of leisure activity.

Do you visit blogs that are relevant to your interests or business and leave comments on any article there with a link back to your website? Comments that add value to the content of any article will pique the article's readers' interests. This will result in these readers visiting your website  or blog as they are curious about you and what you have to say. And this is your chance to show to these folks that you are all about providing value, through the content that you provide in your website.

Do you include keywords which are relevant to your business in the content of your website? Network marketers who answer 'yes' to this question are also already marketing on the Internet by optimizing their website for these keywords. This is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Network marketers will likely use certain words often depending on the type of products and services they offer just because it is natural and logical to do so. This tendency, however, can result in search engines boosting your website rankings for these particular keywords. The concept of SEO is much more involved and complex than simply using keywords frequently but network marketers can gain some benefit just by naturally applying relevant keywords to their website. Using certain words in your website is just one of the common SEO techniques. Keyword density is the ratio between the number of  keywords that you use in a specific content in your website and the total words in that content.

Do you solicit feedback from your customers online? This is yet another example of how network marketers may be accidentally marketing their business on the Internet. Most network marketers realize the importance of soliciting feedback from customers for business purposes and network marketers who offer products online might solicit feedback in the form of online surveys. Although the network marketers may be doing this simply for a business purpose the fact that it is done online makes it fall into the category of Internet marketing.

We have already discussed several ways in which network marketers may already be marketing online but what about network marketers who want to have an increased online presence? Network marketers who may already be marketing online accidentally may wish to launch a full scale Internet marketing campaign. And this is what I intend to do with this site - share all my internet network marketing lesson learned in launching a full scale Internet Marketing Campaign with you!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I can't think of a more common concern or question among both beginning and experienced bloggers alike: which blog platform should I use? Aside from learning how to blog, it's an almost universal concern. And there is no one-size-fits-all answer. All bloggers MUST own their domain names, but choice of the platform is largely dependent on the specific blogger's needs. With that stated, I've compiled a list of advantages and disadvantages of the two primary platform categorizations below. Hosted Platforms Hosted platforms refer to services whereby a service provider gives you access to their hardware, network connection, and software, and you setup a blogging account to use on their service. With a hosted blog, you have access to an admin panel for your blog, and that's it. Popular hosted platforms include solutions like Typepad, LiveJournal, and Blogger. Advantages of Hosted Platforms

• Cheap: most are free; others (like TypePad) are offered with multiple price points
• Simple to get started: just create an account and then quickly  learn how to create blog posts
• Automatic updates: you don't need to worry about keeping hosted software up-to-date and patched.

Disadvantages of Hosted Platforms

• Rigid: there are fewer configuration choices with hosted platforms.
• Limited design choices: you usually only get to select from a limited number of mediocre designs, and you often can't make updates to them
• Generic URL: some hosted platforms don't offer the choice to use your own URL
• Less control: you are at the mercy of the platform
• Migration issues: migrating from many free hosted platforms results in a lot of effort and often the temporary loss of search engine rankings

Self-hosted Platforms Self-hosted platforms consist of a web hosting account you establish with a host, and the blogging software you install on the data center's server. With a self-hosted blog, you have access to an administrative panel for your blog, but you also have access to a server account and the blog software where you can do almost anything. Common self-hosted software includes WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. Advantages of Self-hosted Platforms

• Design flexibility: you have full control over design and layout
• Great software: the best software is available on self-hosted platforms
• Custom URL: custom URL's are ubiquitous on self-hosted platforms
• Adaptability: you can change your blog as your needs change
• Easy migration: should you ever want or need to migrate to another platform or another server, migrating is a snap

Disadvantages of Self-hosted Platforms

• Difficult setup: setup can sometimes be difficult, but this can be overcome with a good blogs how to
• Cost: while the blogging software is free, the hosting platform will cost you money
• Hosting issues: unless you choose a good host, you might have to suffer from down-time or poor support
• Upgrades: you will need to keep your software patched

The majority of my blogs are self-hosted, and it's what I generally advise anyone looking to create a professional presence. There are too many advanatges to turn down, and you usually have the ability to host many domains and blogs on one account, lowering the cost per blog down to a small amount.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

In today's internet age, it is a fairly simple matter to get a basic and simple blog online, as there are loads of tools and resources for bloggers that make the whole process easier than ever before. No matter if a person wants to design a site for personal use or wants to build a blog to help promote a small to medium sized business, with today's blogger resources, a site can be built and running in record time. Many of the software programs no longer require the user to learn difficult programming or coding.

The fact of the matter is that there isn't even very much technical knowledge, skill or experience required these days to become a blogger and have your own successful money making blog once you have an internet marketing strategy in place. Most people with average skills can put together a simple 6 to 10 page blog in just a few hours of tinkering with a brand new piece of blog development software.

The fact is that today even a child can easily get a blog up and do it pretty quickly and easily. But, the thing that seems to vex bloggers the most is finding ways to bring traffic to the site once it is up and running. While creating a site is an accomplishment, all that work goes by the wayside if no one knows the site even exists.

For people who are building a personal blog and who will send out an email to all their friends and family to view their new blog, this is probably not even a problem and they perhaps might even prefer that strangers don't find it. But, the lack of blog traffic can be terribly vexing for bloggers who have worked hard, even if it was only a few hours, to put up a new site with some good web content in order to help promote their business or to try to start selling something online.

All too often, someone with plans to make money blogging will complete their new blog and then sit back and check their stats hourly, only to see that the only one visiting the site is the blogger himself, or the search engine spiders. However, if there is some activity from those spiders from the search engines, then at least there is some hope.

One thing every blogger must learn to do is to utilize proper search engine optimization, or SEO techniques. This is the part that can be much more complex and time consuming to learn than the technical aspects of building a webpage and taking care of the blog hosting. SEO entails a number of things, in order to attract the attention of those search engine spiders and get them to index the site with a high ranking.

There are a couple of blogs offering keyword tools and great advice about making money blogging. A few of of these blogs go into great detail about how to do proper search engine optimization. With a bit of perseverance, even a newbie can take the information they can find about search engine optimization and apply it to their site and eventually they will start to see their site climb the search engines for certain keywords and phrases.

Bloggers have to identify the main keywords that their target audience will use when they employ a search engine. With this information in mind, the content can be optimized for those keywords, as well as other on-page elements that can help the page rank well for that search term. With this kind of search engine optimization, careful monitoring of the blog statistics, some additional tweaking and some patience, the natural traffic from search engine listings will start to bring traffic to the site.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Many studies have proven that radio is a good medium for product advertisements. People listen to the radio for entertainment, usually to listen to the latest music or to their favorite radio program. In between the program, advertisements on products and services are being played.

For many years, this has been the trend in advertising. But now that the radio medium is almost behind the audio-visual medium, the TV, and the Internet, other marketing strategies have to be employed to continue the benefits of advertising through audio.

It is then that the benefits of using music on websites were discovered. Before, music on the Internet was just available in downloadable forms as mp3. Even through hosting downloadable music on their servers, companies were able to get much traffic on their sites. And everyone engaged in Internet marketing knows that website traffic plays a big role in boosting product and service sales.

However, there had been a problem with illegal music download in which artists, musicians and record companies have lost millions of revenues.

Then, came the popularity of Internet music streaming. Unlike the former, radio streaming does not allow download of the music files. Thus, the copyrights of the artists and record label owners are protected.

So, how can this be done? There are several ways to stream audio from your site. First, is to stream a radio program from your site or blog. You can find free affiliate programs that allow you to stream their radio content from your site.

What will this mean to you? This means that your site will have new audio content every time it is visited. What's even great is that the content is being updated even without much effort from you.

In this case, what you needed to do is to signup with an Internet radio station and have the link embedded on your blog or website.

Another way is to stream mp3s. To do this, you just need to upload your mp3files on a server and add the files' links to the page. When the link is clicked, the browser opens a media player window and plays a file. However, since the file is in mp3 format, it may also be downloaded. Downloading music files without the authorization of the copyright owner is illegal. Therefore, if you will be using this type of streaming, make sure that you have the appropriate permit to do so.

A third way to add audio to you blog or website is to stream music through organizing playlists. Playlists are m3u files, which if downloaded, will not play music if offline. Using this process, however, can be complex. Here is a short instruction on how to do it.

1. Save your mp3 or wma file on the server. You may skip this step if you know that the file exists on another server and know the link to that file. Make sure that the link has a .mp3 or .wma extension.

2. Open your text editor and type the path to the file. Include the http:// and the file extension. Repeat this step until you have included all the links to the files that you would like to be included in the playlist.

3. Save the playlist with a .m3u extension.

4. Upload the m3u file on the directory where the music files are hosted or to your server.

5. Open your html editor and embed the link to the m3u file. Through this, you can also set if you want to have the playlist to autoplay if someone visits your site of if you want your visitor to control playing the music. You can also set the volume level.

After the code is embedded on the html file, and whenever your site is visited, the songs in the playlist will be buffered, streamed and played one after another. If your playlist has several songs, the user can skip forward or go back a song in the playlist using the media player controls.

Doing this setup works for many website owners. Through this you can customize the type of music being played on your site. You can even play recordings related to your product to boost product awareness.

It requires knowledge of html to be done. But if it will be the best way to increase traffic to your site, why not request assistance from programmers. After all, having audio on a website is a proven way to increase sales.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Every single small business owner is an expert in their field. No matter what product or service  you provide, your customers do business with you because you are the expert in that  arena, and if you are not an expert, then they very quickly realize that and go  somewhere else. People trust experts, and when making a decision about a purchase, they look to  the expert to tell them what they need to know and to give them all of the information they need  to make an informed decision.

For a small business owner who is just getting started, however, it may take some time and effort  to establish yourself as an expert in your field. You may know what you need to know,  you may have the information you need, you may do a superb job at what you do, but if your  potential customers do not know that and cannot see it, then why would they choose to do business  with you? You need to, essentially, place yourself out there in front of them and demonstrate  your expertise. You need to build your reputation as an expert in your specific area, which will  build the trust of your customers and potential customers.

An excellent tool to use when establishing yourself as an expert is blogging. A blog is  essentially an online journal. You write about whatever you want, it's easy and simple to use,  and easy for people to read. This gives you a medium to communicate your expertise, as you can  blog about what you know about your product or service and provide useful information for your  readers.

For example, if your business is selling salt-water fish and aquariums, then you would want to  set up a blog and write about the care of fish, how to set up an aquarium, what you will need to  get started, what kind of fish are good to start out with, what fish and creatures dwell together  well, and so on. Since your business is marine fish, you obviously know a lot about them and have  a lot of information to share, and you can do this in a fun and interesting way, and in whatever  style is you.

Another example, if your business is a car repair service, then you would want to write about not  just car repair, but car maintenance, how to prevent common neglect and accidents, how to care  for your car after repair, how to choose a good mechanic and what to look for in a repair shop.  And the list can go on.

Setting up a blog is easy and inexpensive. There are numerous websites where you can sign up for  free and create your own blog. They already have the tools that you need integrated into the  website, ready for you to use - you can start blogging almost immediately! You can add photos to  your blogs, you can allow readers to post comments, and most blogs have an option for your  readers to subscribe to receive new blog posts via email or rss feeds. Google has a blog service  that can be found at www.blogger.com. Another free one is at www.thoughts.com. For other options,  just do a google search for "free blog" or similar keywords. These sites will give you your own  subdomain, such as www.yourblog.blogger.com, which links directly to your blog. You can then give  this url out to your friends, customers, and include it in your marketing materials to direct  people to your blog.

If you are not sure what to write about, or are afraid you will run out of topics, try some of  these ideas:

Keep a paper and pen handy with you in your purse, by the phone, on the dash of your car, in your  shirt pocket or wherever is convenient for you. You will find that as you go through a normal day, you may get ideas for blog topics. Write these down as you get them, then when you go to blog, you will  already have a list of great topic ideas!

Ask your readers what they would like to know about. Invite them to email you questions. Some  blog sites may have a tool where you can create a quick poll or a short survey. Use these to get  feedback and to find out what your customers are interested in knowing about your subject.

Browse magazines on your subject. This may spark ideas and you may be able to build off what you  read about.

Borrow from other experts. If you run across another blog, or website, or an article in a  magazine that you really like and would like to feature in your blog, then get permission from  the author and post the article on your blog. Most authors will be more than glad to let you use  their article as long as you provide their information and a link back to them.

Use your own experience. Do you have some entertaining stories from your experience in this  field? Do not be afraid to throw in some fun and humor.

Blogging does not have to be tedious and boring, or take up huge amounts of time. If you are not a  natural writer and feel like it's too much of a job to sit there and write a long post, then  don't! Keep it short and simple, or whatever is your style. Remember that it is your blog, so let it reflect your personality.

If you find you simply do not have any time at all to do your blog, then hire someone else to do  it. Perhaps you already have someone working for you who can take it on, or perhaps you know  someone who would be interested. You can give them your topic ideas, or even use a voice recorder  to record the posts for them to type out in the blog. Again, whatever works for you, your style  and your business!

The world of blogging is a wonderful tool to use to keep in touch with your target customers and  to establish trust as an expert. If you take the time to start, you will find it well worth the  while and will learn a lot from it as well! You have information and expertise to share - a blog  is a great medium to use to get it out there!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

In my previous post I went over several different traffic generation methods. The next question is, once you have visitors coming to your website/blog, what's the next step?

Step 4: RETAIN TRAFFIC (LIST BUILDING)

First, let's find out if you have your company duplicate website or you have your own website/blog. If you have your company duplicate website, you pretty much don't have to write any content as the content has pretty much been laid out for you. Also, you don't need to figure out what structure to use for your website to get and retain visitors. All you need to do is generate traffic to your website. The drawback is you can't do much to your company duplicate website because normally, you would not be able to gain access to your website back-end. And the reason is because your company want all its marketing materials to be standardized. Website included.

If you have your own website/blog, you are responsible to write good valuable content for your website. You are also responsible in making sure that your website content is structured in a way that's logical and easy to follow. I have mentioned briefly in my previous article about what's considered to be a good valuable content. A simple way to tell if your content is valuable for your prospects is if at the moment you are writing your article, you are thinking about your prospects' needs rather than your needs first. If after reading your content, your prospects feel good, better, more informed and more empowered, you can pat yourself in the back for having created content that has changed some aspects of your prospects lives. Once this happens, more than likely your prospects will come back to read your latest and greatest article. And they will come back...and come back...and come back...They will become your loyal website visitors whom you can turn into prospects, then into customers later. While writing your content, don't forget that you are writing for humans 1^st, and for the search engine 2^nd. You are not writing solely for the search engine. If it seems to be an overwhelming task to write for both, humans and search engine, I would recommend that you start with writing for humans 1^st and forget about writing for the search engine. Once writing good valuable content becomes an easier task for you, you can start focusing writing for the search engine. Here's why. The search engine may like your website content because it finds all the keywords that it sees as being relevant to the search terms that your prospects are searching online. However, if your prospects don't like your website, possibly because of its content (or lack thereof), they will leave your website instantly and may never bother to come back to see if you have better content for them in the future.

In the Internet Network Marketing world, first impressions do count. On average, you only have 3 - 5 seconds to capture your visitors' attentions the 1^st time they visit your website. If they're not impressed by what you have to say, they will leave in an instant and may never come back. Once you have visitors coming to your website/blog, it is really important for you to retain them. Here's why. Your website visitors are your leads. They are not called prospects yet, because they have not gone through the proper qualifications. Sometimes your leads can be turned into customers straight (I.e. when they visit and purchase from you right away without asking you any questions). On the other hand, most leads need to go through the proper qualifications first before they turn into prospects. Your website content is your means to qualify your leads to turn them into prospects. How is that? Let's say you sell diet products. Visitors that go to your website are your leads. You can turn them into prospects by providing them with the right content. For example, content such as "How to Lose 10 pounds in 1 Month", "How to Lose Weight Without Depriving Yourself from Carbohydrates" would trigger your leads to inquire and express their interests in what you have to offer. They can do this by emailing you, calling you or subscribing to your website for more and more valuable content. After they do this, they have become your prospects. The next step is turning your prospects into your customers. You can do this, again, by providing good valuable content. The content in this step should be geared more towards turning your prospects into customers. Nobody, even the most awesome sales person, can turn prospects into customers the 1^st time he/she interacts with them. So, in a nutshell, someone is your prospect after they have warmed up to your idea and started asking question about whatever products or service you're selling. As you can see, you need 'content' to generate leads and you also need 'content' to turn leads into prospects and prospects into customers. Have you ever heard the term "Content is King"? It exists for a reason!

Once your leads visit your website/blog, you have to be able to retain them by doing the following:

1) Regular updates

I would recommend that you update your website / blog often. For a blog, daily updates is desirable, especially if you're just getting started. If you can't update everyday, a weekly updates is fine too, as long as you do it regularly. Why do you have to update your website / blog everyday or regularly? Because your visitors go to your website seeking for information and if the information that they find is the same as last week information, they may not want to visit your website/blog again in the future. It is your responsibility to make your leads visit to your website worthwhile. The your content will do most of the work for you, from turning your lead into your prospect and your prospect into your customer. Another reason why updating your website/blog regularly is a recommended practice is because the search engine loves website that's updated regularly. By nature, a blog is structured to enable marketers to updates the blog content daily or weekly and add whatever add-ons easily. And this is why more and more businesses from small businesses to big corporations are currently blogging as blogging allows them to keep their content updated and get their message across to their customers. For an explanation of what "blogging" is, you can read my article .

2) E-Newsletter

An e-newsletter is very similar to newsletters, which are printed and distributed via mail or other avenues. The most significant distance is the method of distribution. While traditional newsletters are typically mailed to the recipients or distributed in person, e-newsletters are distributed exclusively online. These e-newsletters may be either emailed in the body of an email message or may be included as a link in an email which directs the recipient to the website for the e-newsletter. In either case the recipient can read the e-newsletter while online and print it out or save it to their hard drive for future use.

For this you will need an auto responder service like Aweber. Auto responder is automatic email response system that will take care of any emails you receive, and automatically deliver a response to potential clients 24 hours a day - 7 days a week. When your leads give their names and emails by filling out a subscription form in your website/blog, that information is sent to your auto responder service. Depending on your auto responder set up, you can send e-newsletters automatically to your leads weekly and bi-weekly. I wouldn't recommend that you set up your auto responder to send e-newsletters to your leads longer than bi-weekly. You want to build a relationship with your leads to turn them into prospects and then later on customers.

3) Mini Lessons

Give free mini lessons to your leads! This will help you in positioning yourself as one of the thought leaders in your niche market. For this you will need an auto responder service like Aweber. Auto responder is automatic email response system that will take care of any emails you receive, and automatically deliver a response to potential clients 24 hours a day - 7 days a week. When your leads give their names and emails by filling out a subscription form in your website/blog, that information is sent to your auto responder service. Depending on your auto responder set up, you can send mini lessons automatically to your leads weekly and bi-weekly. I wouldn't recommend that you set up your auto responder to send mini lessons to your leads longer than bi-weekly. You want to build a relationship with your leads to turn them into prospects and then later on customers. Getting in touch with them longer than every couple weeks would not help in building that relationship. Once you start sending your mini-lessons to your leads, if there is any part of your lessons that your leads don't understand, they will ask you for some clarifications, whether it be through your website / blog or email. They may even decide to call you. And guess what...this is your time to shine by giving them the answers (I.e. solutions) to their problems. Once there is a good relationship between you and leads, it would be easier...much easier for you to turn them into customers.

Which traffic retaining method that you think you'd like to learn more and why?

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

In my previous post, briefly, I went over Step 2: Generate good, valuable content for your target audience. It's worth to emphasize that out of all the Internet Network Marketing steps, this step is one of the most important step. Why? Because your prospects are already bogged down by thousands and thousands of non value added messages all over the net that scream "BUY MY PRODUCTS!" first even before trying to add any value to them. And you certainly don't want your content to be one of them.

The other most important step is the next step.

Step 3: GENERATE TRAFFIC (To Your Website / Blog)

As you can see from the internet network marketing flow chart in my last post, Internet Network Marketing - Step by Step Guide (refer to last post), there are all sorts of ways to generate traffic to your website / blog. Let's briefly talk about each traffic generation method one by one. This list is, by no means, ranked based on priority.

A) Social Networking sites - MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, Squidoo, Gather, Hubpage, Blogs

Social networking is defined as the grouping of individuals together into to specific groups, often like a small community or a neighborhood. Although social networking is possible in person, especially in schools or in the workplace, it is most popular online. This is because unlike most high schools, colleges, or workplaces, the internet is filled with millions, if not more, of individuals who are looking to meet other internet users and develop friendships.

When it comes to social networking online, websites are used. These websites are known as social networking websites. Social networking websites are, in a way, like an online community of internet users. Depending on the social networking website in question, many of these online community members share a common bond, whether that bond be home based business, hobbies, religion, or politics. Once you are granted access to a social networking website you can begin to socialize. This socialization include reading the profiles or profile pages of other members or even contacting them or commenting on their content on these social networking status. After you get more comfortable with the way things are in the social networking site you sign up with, you would want to generate content with a link to your website, make it visible for the site member, and encourage comments on your content.

When it comes to social networking online, websites are used. These websites are known as social networking websites. Social networking websites are, in a way, like an online community of internet users. Depending on the social networking website in question, many of these online community members share a common bond, whether that bond be home based business, hobbies, religion, or politics. Once you are granted access to a social networking website you can begin to socialize. This socialization include reading the profiles or profile pages of other members or even contacting them or commenting on their content on these social networking status. After you get more comfortable with the way things are in the social networking site you sign up with, you would want to generate content with a link to your website, make it visible for the site member, and encourage comments on your content.

For tips on Social Networking, you can sign up for my FREE TRAFFIC COURSE on the top right hand side of this page.

B) Article Marketing

If you like to write, you can write an article about product or something related to your website. (If you can't write, don't worry... you can pay someone as low as $5 to get a quality article written for you).

Once you're done writing your article, do a search on Google for these keywords"article directory".

You will find numerous lists of article directories in Google. Choose one of the article directories and register as an author or an article writer and submit your article to the directory. It might take a few days or even a week to get an article approved, so make sure you are patient enough to wait. Once your article is approved, it will remain on the ‘front page' of that particular niche for a couple of days before it is ‘pushed down' by newer article submissions. You would want to submit your article to article directories that have Google Page Ranks (PR) of higher than 3 and approval time of less than 1 week. Ezinearticles.com qualifies for both criteria.

The article that you submitted should have the same theme as the niche of your site. Write something that you have expertise on and/or have huge passions for so that when the article directories visitors read it, they can feel your knowledge and/or passions about the subject and will be eager to go to your site. It is also worth considering that articles that provide tips and guidelines to the subject or niche your site will attract more visitors to your website. .

At the end of your article, there is a resource box where you can put a link to your site. In this resouce box, I would recommend that you write a little about yourself, your business and your website. If you provide information-laden and interesting article, they will go to your site for more by clicking your link.

The process of writing fresh and unique articles and submitting the articles to the article directories of your choice should be done frequently (weekly, monthly etc) to ensure increased traffic to your website. This is especially important to be done at the beginning of your blog career.

For tips on Article Marketing, you can sign up for my FREE TRAFFIC COURSE on the top right hand side of this page.

C) Link from other people's blogs A blog is short for weblog, which means an online journal or "log". Generally, blogs are created for personal use. Like a journal, people can write their daily adventures, sentiments, and whatever ideas they want to express online. Nevertheless, with the advent of the online businesses, blogs have gradually taken a big role in providing businesses a chance to boost their productivity online. This is where the blogs have taken the limelight. Blogs are user-friendly, easily customized and extremely flexible medium for disseminating useful information for effective positioning of your products in your niche market. Let's say you sell diet products. You can choose to have a blog to promote your diet products while establishing yourself as the thought leader in your niche market by providing your readers (I.e. prospects) with valuable content about diets and diet products. In general, blogs are interactive as most blogs have the comment sections right at the bottom of each blog article posted. Readers who are interested in expressing their opinions on the article can leave their comments in the comments sections. All blog comment sections have a space where you can put your website/blog http address.

To generate traffic to your website/blog, you will need to leave comments that would be value added to the readers of the blog that you leave your comments in. It can't just be "good article", nice job!" etc. Write at least 1 paragraph responding to the article.

For tips on using Blogs to generate traffic, you can sign up for my FREE TRAFFIC COURSE on the top right hand side of this page

.

D) Pay Per Click (PPC)

Pay-per-click (PPC) is also a good method in Internet Network Marketing. You will only need to pay for the ad if your link is clicked. If you prefer this method of advertisement, make sure that you are using services that set limits on daily expenses. There are also services that help you determine effective keywords and monitor the PPC results. Currently Google is the #1 PPC provider and I think it does all the aforementione desire features from a PPC provider.

When an online consumer searches for a specific product or service on the Internet, corresponding PPC marketing ads are also displayed alongside the organic results generated by the search engine. This forms a highly targeted visitors that are more likely to turn into customers by purchasing specific products or services from your website.

E) Directories

Website directories are a source of one way inbound links that will make link building very easy for you. There are directories for Ezines, Affiliate programs, Websites of all kinds, and many others. To find directories, type your main keywords into Google with the term "directory". Here is the kicker - Don't just search the first few pages. Go as deep as 10 pages and look closely at the websites. There will be diamonds in the rough there. Remember to submit your website to more than just one directory.

For tips on submitting your website to online directories, you can sign up for my FREE TRAFFIC COURSE on the top right hand side of this page

.

F) Forums

No matter what the topic of your website or what product or service that you are selling that somewhere people are discussing it right now as we speak on blogs and forums on the Internet.

They gather in blogs and forums discussing a topic for which your product or service is an answer to their problem. Therefore, the traffic (your website visitors) that you will get from forums is normally highly targeted traffic considering these visitors hang out in the forums of your niche products, looking for a solution to their problems. I use the word ‘problem' rather loosely here. ‘Problems' are simply things that people want but don't have...and your product is obviously one of those things...at least for some of them. Now...your mission is to find these people.

Go to your favorite search engine and in the search box type in your key words followed by the word ‘forums'. Hit search. You will be amazed at the number of forums on which your potential customers are discussing the topic that you are most interested in and the one where your product can actually be of service. If you google these keywords "network marketing forums" you'll be amazed by the amount of network marketing forums you'll find. When you're inside the forum, I would recommend for you to introduce yourself in the community first, and then shopping, should you insist :)

For tips on posting your message in forums, you can sign up for my FREE TRAFFIC COURSE on the top right hand side of this page.

G) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine optimization is utilizing tools and methods in making your site top ranking in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Sites that employs good SEO are the ones that appear in the first few pages of the SERP, in the organic search results section. The organic search results section is the left side of the results page (see below). This is where you want to be because getting yourself in the first few pages and better yet in the first page, will ensure that you will generate public awareness of your site's existence and subsequently generate more traffic, not just any traffic, but targeted traffic - traffic that could lead to potential income and business. There are two types of SEO - "On Page" and "Off Page" Search Engine Optimization. "On Page" optimization is SEO that ....."Off Page" optimization is SEO.

H) Video Sharing sites - YouTube, Revver, Metacafe

Online video websites are known as websites that display content in the form of videos. These websites often allow viewers to view the wide array of videos that are hosted on their websites. Most of the time, these videos can be viewed free of charge. However, there are some videos that require payment. Those videos are likely to be rebroadcasts of popular television shows or music videos.

In addition to being able to watch videos, online video websites also give internet users the ability to make, upload, and share their own videos. Perhaps, this is the best part of online video websites. Many individuals would love to create their own videos, but without online video websites many would not have a place to upload or share their videos. As with viewing videos, most online video websites allow internet users to share their own videos free of charge. For tips on posting video in video sharing sites, you can sign up for my FREE TRAFFIC COURSE on the top right hand side of this page. I) Social Bookmarking Sites - Digg, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon

Social bookmarking sites are used to share people favorite websites/blogs with the social bookmarking community. And the community can vote your favorite article down or up.

For tips on using Social Bookmarking, you can sign up for my FREE TRAFFIC COURSE on the top right hand side of this page.

J) Viral Marketing

Viral Marketing is a marketing technique that's used to build the public awareness of one's product or company. They use many forms of media to reach out to the public without actually promoting the product by riding on in other forms of addictive means that could get a person hooked and be obliged or amused to actually pass it on, with the advertisement along with it. Sometime they're subtle, sometimes they're just blatantly advertising. One of the popular viral marketing media is e-books.

K) Link Exchange

The basic idea of a link exchange is that two companies who market to the same segment of the population but who market complimentary rather that competing products or services can help each other by exchanging links. The link exchange is free to both parties of an agreement. For example; if you sell diet products, you might want to exchange links with a company that sells herbal tea, low fat food etc.. You are not competing with each other but you are both targeting the same buying segment of the population... Folks who are overweight and want to lose weight.

For tips on Link Exchange, you can sign up for my FREE TRAFFIC COURSE on the top right hand side of this page.

L) Traffic Exchange

This is like exchanging links but on a different higher level. This may cost a bit more than exchanging or trading links but it could be made cheaper as you get to earn credits as you go along. You can use those credits when viewing others traffic, while you earn credits when someone views yours. Traffic exchange services are the viewing of another's site or page. This is done vice versa where a site can use your sites contents and so can you to his or her site. You both benefit from each others efforts to generate traffic. The other sites visitors can go to your pages and know more about your site as well. For tips on Traffic Exchange, you can sign up for my FREE TRAFFIC COURSE on the top right hand side of this page.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Now that you know why Internet Network Marketing is far more superior than Traditional Network Marketing, I would like to show you how to get started on marketing your Network Marketing business using the Internet. The internet network marketing flow chart below depicts the step by step process that I am currently using also to market my business online.

Step 1: Create your online presence

If you are serious about marketing your Network Marketing business using the internet, the very 1^st thing that you must do is to create your own website or blog. You can also sign up for your network marketing company website to start with. However, as we progress, you will see why it is important and so much better if you have your own website or blog.

Some website and blog resources that I would recommend:

A) For websites:

1) Blinkweb

• FREE and very user friendly "Drag and Drop" & WSWIG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor

• Very user friendly monetization and list building widgets (google adsense and subscription form, respectively)

• Can use blinkweb or your own domain (www.yourwebsite.com)

• Low monthly hosting fee

For a short video on blinkweb, please see below.

2) Weebly

• FREE and user friendly Drag and Drop &WSWIG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor

• Very user friendly monetization and list building widgets (google adsense and subscription form, respectively)

B) For Blogs:

1) Wordpress.org

• Free

• Open source platform. This means any programmer that wants to create a program or widget for wordpress.org can freely do so. If a blogger likes his/her widget, this widget is then used in the blogger's site/blog. With this open source feature, you can beef up your blog with all the cool bells and whistles easily i.e. poll, flickr photo album, google adsense, subscription form etc.

• Some computer techology and basic programming and html experience may be required.

• You have to have your own domain and hosting.

2) Wordpress.com

• Free

• Even though it is not an open source platform like wordpress.org, it also has some widgets.  Though, the number of widgets used in the wordpress.com may not be as many as the widgets used in the wordpress.org.

• Minimum computer techology and basic programming experience may be required.

• Your own domain and hosting are optional. But for SEO sake down the road, I would recommend to build your own website / blg.

3) Blogger.com

• Free

• Not an open source platform however it's very easy to use.
• Very little computer techology and basic programming experience may be required.
• Your own domain and hosting are optional.

Step 2: Generate good & valuable content for your target audience/prospects

The 2^nd thing to do is for you to populate your website or blog with as much valuable content as possible for your target audience. From time and time again, it's been proven that a good and valuable content/article is the one that would make prospects to feel that their needs are satisified. So what is a good and valuable content? A content does not always have to be an article. It can be a video, a podcast, a recorded webinar etc. An easy way to tell if your content will be valuable for your prospects is if you're thinking about your prospects' needs rather than your needs first when you are creating your content. If after reading or watching your content, your prospects feel good, better, more informed and more empowered to do the things that they've been wanting to do but couldn't because they felt clueless about the subjects of their interests, I would say you are doing an excellent job in creating your content. With your personality and some entertainment factors infused into the mix, I can almost guarantee that your content will generate some follower readers who you can turn into prospects later on! For example let's take a look at the following examples:

Okay. Let's say you are your prospects.

How do you feel after watching the movie?

For me personally, I felt good and anxious to see other BlendTec blender demos after watching this movie. I was constantly being entertained also! The video is certainly not boring!

What do you think about the blender?

For me personally, the blender looked very strong and sturdy . It made me curious what other product line they have to complement it.

Do you like the presenter/actor?

Yes. I like his sense of humor by giving his audience a Chuck Norris quote (I happen to know some :) )

Do you think he's funny with his Chuck Norris comment? Yes.

Now, I'm not suggesting that you should jump off your seat and start destroying your company product to proof to your prospects how robust the stuff is :)  What I was trying to illustrate was: Good & Valuable content that's mixed with your personality and some entertainment would create a golden content that you can use to turn your readers into prospects and later on into buyers.

What's the proof?

Ever since the Blendtec youtube video marketing started, the company's sales have grown by approximately 600%! For more information, you can read the article here. .

We'll continue with Step 3 in the next post. More about "Good & Valuable" content in the later posts.

Till later,

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Up until recently, prospecting with the traditional network marketing method, the 3 foot rule, proved to be really challenging for many people. The major barrier was that you had to find some warm contacts, or basically, "bother" your friends, relatives, acquaintances, and those friendly looking people in the grocery store check out line, coffee shops, to tell them about the wonderful opportunity that you've just found. Often people got discouraged with this approach, and stopped pursuing their dreams by quiting the network marketing business altogether.

Can you imagine how much easier network marketing would be if you didn't have to go around bothering people? Wouldn't it be nice if your network marketing business worked for you, even when you are busy? Wouldn't it be great if interested people actually came to you, instead of you having to chase after them? Not only would you have more targeted prospects, you would know that they were interested, or they wouldn't have contacted you. Thanks to the internet, all the above items are made possible these days!

Today with the internet, Network Marketing is just exploding! This phenomenon is called the Internet Network Marketing. Several years ago most people who got introduced to network marketing were introduced by a friend or relative. Through the internet you can now market your products and/or your Network Marketing business to so many people from around the world without having to travel or to “bother” your friends, family, and acquaintances. As a Network Marketer, you can now bring to your prospects articles, audio, and video that are related to your business right away, no matter where you are located in this world.

However, being able to market your products and/or Network Marketing business to so many people around the world is NOT the only reason why I think Internet Network Marketing is far more superior than the Traditional Network Marketing. There are other reasons for this. I would like to present those reasons by comparing the Internet Network Marketing with the Traditional Network Marketing.

A) INTERNET NETWORK MARKETING ENABLES YOU TO TARGET YOUR MARKET IN AN EFFICIENT MANNER (SAVE TIME)

Traditional Network Marketing:

We are taught to approach our friends, family, relatives or anyone we know personally. We are also taught to approach random people in random places to “share” about our network marketing products and/or business opportunities. This is a very tedious process, as most of the time, we have to approach them ONE by ONE. Moreoever, with this marketing approach, the chance of you getting any targeted prospects is really slim. A target prospect is a prospect who needs you, your products and/or your business opportunity to help them resolve any problems that he/she has so that he/she can lead a better life. For example, let's say you have a health juice product that according to the product label, can boost the energy level. How do you plan to market this juice with the one to one approach? Would you just start asking people around about how they feel, out of the blue, at whatever places you go to, and hope that they would answer you with: “yeah...I've been feeling down lately, I think I need some energy boost?” If that's the kind of answer you get most of the time, GOOD FOR YOU!

Let's say you have a goal of approaching 100 people (from friends and relatives to random strangers at the mall, grocery stores, etc.) per week. That means, you will have to talk to about 20 people every day, provided that you work for 5 days per week, 3-4 hours per day. If out of those 100 people, 2 people either buy or join your business, this would mean you have a 2% conversion rate (2 out of 100), which is considered to be a standard conversion rate in sales. This means, each month, you will have 8 people who either have bought your product or joined your business. This is the best case scenario (2% conversion rate is not bad at all!!!). The worst case scenario is since most of our prospects are skeptical about network marketing, if you don't have the right sales and marketing skill, what may end up happening is after approaching 100 people, you'd end up with 0 prospects! How about those 98 people that you talked to? Either they are not interested with what you have to say or they dont't really need your product and/or business opportunity. In either case, wouldn't it be nice if you know this first-hand before you spend your time and energy talking to these people? This is what it means by targeted marketing. Targeted marketing allows you to only talk to those who have shown deep interest in you, your product and/or your business. If you're just starting out and run on a shoetring budget, it is almost impossible to do targeted marketing in the traditional network marketing.

Internet Network Marketing:

Thanks to the power of the Search Engine like Google, Yahoo, MSN, to name a view, and the Pay Per Click, you can have your business website viewed by hundreds (and even thousands) of prospects that are looking for your product and/or business opportunity at the same time. Let's compare this with the one to one approach that’s always being touted in the traditional Network Marketing.

Let's say you have a goal of approaching 100 people per week. That means, around 15 people have to visit your website every day for a week. Is it doable? Absolutely! Do you have to work 5 days a week, 3-4 hours per day? Absolutely NOT! In the first few weeks, when you are in the process of setting up your website, its content and marketing, you may have to work for 5 days, 3-4 hour per day. However, once your website already has the right infrastructure (the website itself, its content & marketing) to market yourself, your product and/or business opportunity, there is no need to work 5 days a week and 3 hour per day anymore. Why? Because your website and its infrastructure will do the marketing work for you! If out of those 100 people, 2 people either buy or join your business, this would mean you have a 2% conversion rate (2 out of 100), which is considered to be a standard conversion rate in sales. This means, each month, you can have 8 people who either have bought your product or joined your business. You may even end up with higher conversion!

Moreover, you don't have to deal with your prospect's skepticism one by one. I'm not saying that you don't have to deal with any skepcticism at all. There will some level of skepticism over your product and network marketing business online, BUT, your website infrastructure will do its job in sorting out the 98 people who are not interested with what you have to say and dont't really need your product and/or business opportunity. This is a sample oif targeted marketing at work!

From this illustration, it is clear that to achieve the same end results (i.e. 8 customers/team members each month) the Internet Network Marketing offers more benefits compared to the Traditional Network Marketing approach.

B) INTERNET NETWORK MARKETING ENABLES YOU TO BUILD TRUST WITH PROSPECTS MORE

Traditional Network Marketing:

All my posts below are the reasons why the Network Marketing/ MLM business has a bad reputation in the business world out there and why I think it would be more challenging to build trust with your prospects with the traditional network marketing:

1) Why the 97% failure rates in Network Marketing?

2) I’m in the Network Marketing Biz! What’s wrong with that? What’s with the Renegade Network Marketing?

3) All the 7 Great Lies posts

Internet Network Marketing:

It is easier to build trust through the internet than through the traditional network marketing. However, marketing your business online would require a TOTAL MINDSET CHANGE. If in your traditional network marketing, your business platform is “RECRUIT...RECRUIT...RECRUIT” everywhere you go, in the internet network marketing, your platform should be “VALUE...VALUE...VALUE” everywhere you go online. But why, you might ask? Because using the internet to market your network marketing business doesn't just mean that you transfer your “RECRUIT...RECRUIT...RECRUIT” mentality over to the internet! Your prospects are smart people and they will be able to smell this right away! Once you change your mindset from “RECRUIT...RECRUIT...RECRUIT” to “VALUE...VALUE...VALUE”, it would become easier for you to build trust with your prospects using the internet. This mindset change will prompt you to relentlessly provide valuable information to your prospects, over and over again, even if it's for free. This will improve your relationship with your prospects as your prospects will see you as someone who gives valuable information freely and lavishly first before you present to them your product and/or business. Providing valuable information lavishly will also position you as a thought/education leader in your industry as hardly anybody is doing it :) In the industry that's full of hype, the fewer value providers there are out there, the better positioned you will be to be a thought/education leader, because you will stick out like a sore thumb! If a prospect feels that you are a person that they might like to do business with, then they will buy because they feel that you have offered them some value for free. If they are considering your network marketing venture then they will come because they know that you will be the one to help them have a better life or increase their income. The deal is you must be more of a consultant and less a salesman.

In order to consult you should know the product and know how to allow the prospect to sell themselves on what they are buying. In the early days, Internet marketing was all about building a website or putting up banner ads on other websites. A website with appropriate text content, image inclusions and audio/video features is an excellent option of reaching out to a world audience and informing them about a company's products/services and their features. Remember, in Network Marketing (in fact, in most businesses) you must remember that people usually buy based on their emotions, not because they like the product or the company necessarily but because they like the presentation and the presenter.

After all, which one would stand out among the full of hype crowd and which one would you trust more:

a) Somebody who right off the bat slams you with sales pitches - Buy my stuff! Join my business oppportunity! My product is the best! Let's make money by recruiting..recruiting...recruiting! OR

b) Somebody who right off the bat slams you with lots and lots of valuable information for free before he/she presents his/her product and/or business?

C) INTERNET NETWORK MARKETING ENABLES YOU TO GENERATE YOUR OWN LEADS IN AUTOMATIC MODE

Traditional Network Marketing:

One common way to generate lead is to speak to your friends, family, relatives or anyone you know personally. This is a very tedious process that has to be done manually. You have to approach your prospects one by one and mannually write down their contact information in a small notepad.

Internet Network Marketing:

You can approach (or BE APPROACHED) by 100s, if not 1000s of prospects online, 24/7, provided that you've built your website infrastructure correctly. The world wide web never sleeps!

D) INTERNET NETWORK MARKETING IS MORE ECONOMICAL THAN THE TRADITIONAL NETWORK MARKETING

Traditional Network Marketing:

With the traditional network marketing, there are several marketing expenses that need to incur. They can be really costly especially if used towards marketing to non targeted prospects (i.e. not interested prospects).

1) Gas expenses

Imagine having to drive around to your prospect's residence one by one, over and over again until your prospect turns into your customer/business team member. What if you have 100 people that you want to talk to?

2) Meeting room rental fees

If driving around to your prospect's house one by one is not an option due the rising gas price, how about renting a meeting room in some hotel? Rental for a meeting room in a 3 star hotel would normally be costly as well.

3) Marketing pieces

Marketing pieces like company magazines, CDs, brochures, postcards etc. can be very costly if sent to uninterested prospects (i.e. not doing targeted marketing).

Internet Network Marketing:

With the Internet Network Marketing, there are several low marketing expenses that need to incur.

1) Hosting fee for your website / blog (around $10 per month)

2) Domain fee for your website / blog (around $10 per year per domain)

3) Internet Network Marketing training (at the beginning stage of your Internet network marketing)

E) INTERNET NETWORK MARKETING ENABLES YOU TO MONETIZE YOUR MARKETING EFFORT

Traditional network marketing:

“Monetizing my marketing? Is this person taking non-sense?” :)

Up to the time of writing of this article, I am not aware that you can monetize your marketing effort through the traditional network marketing.

Internet Network Marketing:

If you have a website or blog, you can monetize your marketing effort through several different ways:

1) Google AdSense

2) Affiliate marketing

3) Getting paid blogging (with blogs)

4) Contextual advertising

5) Selling advertising space to other vendors/marketers

Each of this monetization method will be discussed in my later post.

What do you think? Stick with the Traditional Network Marketing or Go with the Internet Network Marketing?

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

As part of acknowledging that there is a high attrition rate of 97% in the Network Marketing industry, I will try to dissect the problem to get to the bottom of the root cause. In addition to the major causes that Ann has mentioned in her 7 Great Lies of Network Marketing e-book, there are other causes to this high attrition rate.

1) No upline support.

Once a person joins a new Network Marketing business, he or she is vulnerable and needs a lot of help from something or someone.

In many cases, the uplines are not actively helping them. This happens a lot when the uplines are simply sponsoring as many people as they can with no regard to what happens to them after they get sponsored.

In most standard network marketing programs, it is important that the new person gets immediate assistance from a local person, or tools that you have. Otherwise their chances for survival are very slim.

This type of mentality of RECRUIT...RECRUIT...RECRUIT...is what has caused the Network Marketing business to be viewed as merely a Pyramid scheme, as according to the wikipedia, a pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves the exchange of money primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, without any product or service being delivered. It has been known to come under many guises.

The Renegade Network Marketing system touts offering your business opportunity to prospects (i.e. recruit) should be your back end offer and NOT your front end offer. Your product/service is your front end offer. If you can offer free information about your product/service, this would be an even better front end offer!

2) New Network Marketers Cannot Sell.

This is probably the major reason most people do not make it in the Network Marketing business. This was discussed extensively in my "7 Great Lies of Network Marketing - This is Sharing not Selling" post.

3) New Network Marketers Cannot Generate Good Leads.

Next to the selling problem, this has to be the next biggest reason most people fail in MLM marketing. Here is a picture of what normally happens. The new person has just signed up in an exciting MLM program. He is taught by the manuals, meetings and so forth, how he should "share" his product with his friends, neighbors and relatives.

Normally, he is not comfortable with this, and if he is typical, he will have many sleepless, tossing and turning nights. He just doesn't want to "impose" on his friends! He would feel a lot more comfortable just presenting his opportunity to strangers. Sounds familiar?

4) No true duplicative system.

If the Network Marketing business must be promoted through expensive methods like buying company promotional products (ie CDs, DVDs, magazines, brochures, postcards etc.), renting a hotel meeting room to conduct a business opportunity presentation and promoted with the 3 foot rule prospecting method, a true duplicative system is not feasible. Why? Because not everyone who wants to join the Network Marketing business has the same budget and the GUTS to talk to random people in random places to recruit them into his/her marketing business. Learning how to sell, or to speak and conduct an opportunity meeting is just not duplicative. Only a few people can do this.

5) Selling by using standard Network Marketing techniques.

The traditional way to market a Network Marketing business is to spend all spare time to call around and travel around to get prospects. A lot of people already have full time job, it is very challenging to find extra time to travel and make phone calls. This is why these marketers cannot keep their program going. Additionally, not everyone who wants to join the Network Marketing business has the the guts to talk to random people in random places to recruit them into his/her marketing business.

More of the challenges in selling by using the standard Network Marketing techniques are explained in greater details in the 7 Great Lies of Network Marketing e-book.

6) The marketer is not sure about the Network Marketing business or service.

Often a person will sign up in a MLM marketing program in a "fit of excitement." After the dust clears, he comes down to earth and reality slowly sets in. What did I just do...I'm in a Network Marketing business...now WHAT?

How should I market my product? Whom should I market this product to? How would my product benefit my prospects? How much time should I allocate into this business daily? Does  If you're not sure how to answer these questions, you should allocate some time to do this before you even start with your marketing efforts.

7) They do not stick with it long enough.

Starting any business will take time, and this is true with a Network Marketing business as well.

By the time you study the business, write and receive literature to study and use to sign up, get the literature, etc. a lot of time has been spent. And it doesn't end there. The next step is you have to market your business and product/service, generate your own leads and so on.

Depending on where you are in the Network Marketing business (i.e. are you new to the business, do you have any prior marketing and sales experience, are you doing this part time or full time), it is normal to take several months (sometimes years, to those that are really new to the industry) before you can expect much of anything to happen in your Network Marketing business. You should set have a mindset that you are going to stick with the business for at least sometime. Of course that sometime is different between one person to the next.

Till later,

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!