General Articles

Generating Leads With A Website

Today’s business atmosphere is more competitive than ever. A website is your business’ virtual calling card, a virtual home that offers customers an opportunity to learn about your business, your products and services. Beyond existing customers, your website is your business’ opportunity to make an internet presence and grow by reaching new potential customers. Most importantly, your website can be used as a tool to generate leads.

How hard has your website been working for you? If you don’t feel you’re getting enough out of your website, it might be time for a change. Your website should be considered a part of your sales team. The fact is, many businesses put up a general website that is informational. Though your website may look great and have a dynamic first impression, where does your website take your visitors when they land on that landing page? A website designed to generate leads is a bit different from your basic informational website. Yes, it will still have to look good. But the purpose of the website that generates leads is more specific. A website that is generating leads is a vital part of your sales team.

This website is designed to encourage potential customers to leave their contact information purposely so your sales team can sell your products or services to them. Every potential customer that visits your site and leaves their contact information is valuable to your business. What does this lead generating website have to do to increase your sales? For one thing, your website will need to be set up with SEO or search engine optimization in mind. This makes the difference between a dozen people and several hundred finding your site. It’s the law of numbers here. The more visitors your site attract, the odds are the more contact information will be left. Besides making an attractive presentation, your website should be accessible. Potential customers want to be able to find what they are looking for. That comes from good design and copy that gets your message across in the language your potential customers get. Lastly and most importantly, a website working to generate leads should offer simple contact forms. Even better, go one step further and offer potential customers a ‘freebie’ for leaving contact information. A ‘freebie’ can be a coupon, a report or eBook about your products or services.

With some careful planning and the advice of an expert, your website can work harder for you by generating leads that ‘lead’ you to more customers and increased profits.

How To Engage More People To Your Business Through Social Media

Social media has seen a phenomenal growth in recent years. With more and more people going online and more specifically opting for virtual social interaction, you can tap in to this immense potentiality. But merely creating an account on all the social media platforms will not fetch you the desired results. It may even backfire with your competitor hijacking your existing customer-base. Follow these simple rules to tap in the right people through the right means:

No self promotion – Merely directing people from the forums to your website will not fetch you the desired goal. You need to understand the questions posted by members so as to give a desirable solution. By just putting a link and having that same answer for everyone might have you pulled off from the site. Try to engage with the member and this will be sort of an indirect promotion.

Be available round-the-clock – Using social media for promoting your business gives you the chance to reach out to your customers or potential customers round-the-clock. People do social networking even after office-hours, so if you think of using this platform during a specific time of the day, you may do more harm than good to your company’s social profile.

Know your customers – Through the social medium, you can give a major boost to your business. You have all the information you need about your customers through them posting their updates on social networks. You can now be a part of their inner circle. Wishing your customers on their birthdays and also on other special days will earn you a lot of credibility. This credibility, once earned will make your customers loyal to you.

With every passing day, you have more and more companies jumping onto the social media bandwagon, but only a few last the distance. If you have already started it for marketing, then engage more and more customers to your business by being more attentive to their needs and wants. If your customers are happy with the services, then they will automatically fetch in more customers for you through referrals. This means you save a lot of money on advertisement with your good work doing the talking for you.

Always take in the advice of social marketing experts for chalking out a plan. GreenLionDigital provides you with the right expertise for giving your small business the social media boost it deserves.

3 Reasons You Will Possibly Plan To Attend An Internet Marketing Class

Exactly why might you, or anybody, for that matter, plan to attend an internet marketing class? The past successes of some people really encourage others to try. However, lots of people never get up from the couch and try it. When one really understands how it operates, the worries and misgivings fade and tend to go away. Reliable information will make things clearer. Through considering why you may want to attend an internet marketing class, let’s think about these 3 positive elements:

First, if you are just starting out in web marketing you will need a source of information and training. O.K., clearly your contention that it is difficult to sort out the legitimate training from all of the sources available may perhaps be a legitimate one. Even so, we ought to consider the idea that information and training is essential to internet success.

The second thing is, you need information and training that is current. Additionally, you need to obtain information and training on proven techniques that work. And also you need a source that is recognized as one of the top web marketing training schools.

Third and last, you need a community of seasoned marketers that is there to assist you in the event you have questions. Which means that you will have an advantage knowing that you can communicate one on one with expert marketers. Once again, take into account that you share information and ideas and do not need to be alone and on your own!

Think about those 3 reasons. Don’t they support your seriously contemplating attend an web marketing class? Now, think about that. Do not all those reasons have an affect on you?

They certainly affect others. When they attracted other people, don’t they attract you also? Possibly someday soon you will want to join the trend and attend an internet marketing class.

How to Choose a Theme For Your Blog

Most books and articles about blogging concentrate on the marketing aspects. Potential bloggers are advised to choose a subject that is not already taken by someone else. At the same time, they are told to avoid themes that do not connect with an already existing group of avid information seekers.

Under this perspective, the whole undertaking is presented as a platform from which the blogger can preach to those who are already convinced. The idea is that a blog should aim at becoming the focal point of a compact community in a specific field, such as practitioners of extreme sports or lovers of horror movies.

This paradigm dominates the internet scene to such an extent that most blogs have become one-idea shows. No wonder that, after a couple of weeks, their texts become short and consist mainly of references to what other people are doing. Under this point of view, producing content is tantamount to filtering reality.

With this approach, is it not surprising that blogs rarely last longer than a year. Popular recommendations about blogging tend to forget the spirit that moves the machine. Text is made of words. Sentences are made of ideas. Without fresh, wide-ranging philosophical subjects, boredom will eventually take over, followed by intellectual starvation.

Marketing virtuosity might quickly attract visitors to a blog during the initial months, but in my view, the critical element in blogging is not the short-term reading, but the long-term writing. If you have nothing to say, if you are not driven to make yourself heard, why on earth do you want to write in the first place?

In contrast to most internet businesses, such as a website selling personalized birthday cakes, a blog is deeply marked by the personality of its author. The bakery that produces birthday cakes wants to achieve its sales target for the week. What a difference with a writer who orchestrates his blog with a time horizon of decades, possibly his whole lifetime.

A hundred million people go daily on-line. In the near future, the number might grow to five hundred million. Many of them would gladly read more blogs if only they found something that appealed to them, something original, sharp, daring perhaps. Write about what you truly like. Given enough time, people with the same interests will find you. Forget about marketing and let your blog speak for itself. For more information, see John Vespasian’s blog.

Newbie Internet Marketing Roadblocks

One of the first obstacles that usually impede the Newbie Internet Marketer is the Seasoned Internet Marketer. Some of the Seasoned Internet Marketers are just waiting for unsuspecting Newbie Internet Marketers, to happen along and buy into their half baked ideas on how to get rich quick. This is a dark niche all by itself, which most respectful marketers avoid. This scares quite a few Newbie’s away for good, usually after they receive a product that is inferior, or their pockets are drained.

The second obstacle Newbie Internet Marketers face is a plethora of Internet Marketing terminology. There’s an abbreviated term for everything internet marketers do or use, and it can become very confusing and intimidating at first. This usually leads to frustration and/or giving up for the phonetically challenged.

The third obstacle Newbie Internet Marketers face, even if they manage to survive the first two obstacles, is internet development skills. These skills must be understood and implemented. Without these skills, you have to hire someone who does have them. This can get expensive in a hurry, and it also takes many forms of business control away from the business owner. I’ve seen unwanted business name changes this way.

The fourth obstacle is Business Management, this is one I can’t stress enough. Nurture, Nurture, and Nurture. A business is not a business without customers, and customers need care not shady products. A business is its own living breathing entity that requires attention. If you neglect it, it will die! Bad news travels fast on the internet. Enough said.

So most Newbie’s hit these obstacles and freeze, they begin pecking at their business like a hobby! Not that hobbies are a bad thing mind you, they are actually responsible for millions of dollars in internet sales every year. The only problem with that approach is you can’t pay the bills tinkering with a hobby.

It can be very difficult to start an Internet Business with any success at first, but it is very doable. It takes skill development in many areas, patients, passion, and a true love for the business. It will also take some trial and error, but most people are instant gratification junkies! If they don’t see money rolling in right away, “This Product Doesn’t Work”, that’s when product or business model hopping begin with no game plan. This means there is no real focus on anything, the grass is greener on the other side theory.

Some Internet Marketing skill development is pretty cut and dry, and comes fairly easy, but other skills such as HTML (hypertext markup language), SEO (search engine optimization), Article Marketing, PPC (pay per click), Writing EBooks, or Social Marketing…(traffic or product development skills), require some serious study habits, attention to detail, and a real understanding of what customers are looking for in your niche.

Just because you know how to ride a motorcycle, doesn’t mean you can beat a world champion motorcycle racer in a race! But if you followed the champ around the track for a while, and watched his techniques, and became more skilled at riding, and tuning your bike, you could probably give him a run for his money in a couple of months…right?

Internet Marketing is no different! This is a race with champs involved, take some laps and watch them in action. Take notes and apply what you learn. Go tune your Internet Marketing “Crotch Rocket” (Business) and get in the race! You have to trade some paint and scrub some elbows to compete in the Internet Marketing arena! Success only comes before work in the dictionary.

Focus, and remember: “If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything”.

How to Choose a Suitable Internet Marketing Mentor

Many business people who are new in the online industry are seeking for ways to become one of the top internet marketers. Tracking this path is not an easy thing because you cannot do it all by yourself. You will need the help of an internet marketing mentor who would guide you along the way. However, due to the huge number of internet marketing mentor you might be overwhelmed in choosing the right one. In this sense, it is important to know some pointers that could help you in making the right choice.

Primarily, the first thing that you should consider is to make sure that both you and the mentor have something in common. This is one way in which you can bond with each other to have a good working relationship. Likewise, this is also important because most of the time you will be communicating online more than personally. So working in the same time zone is something to consider.

In addition, it is also necessary to promote trust between the two of you. You can do this if the mentor you choose provides you the top internet marketers that used their services. You can also ask the internet marketing mentor the names as well as the contact information of their previous clients. In this way, you can ensure if they really saying the truth.

Another thing that you should consider is to do some research about their credibility. Keep in mind that you will be investing money in their service. That is why it is vital to get one who would provide you the necessary knowledge to become successful in your online business. If you find some negative or bad testimonials, you should think about it before working with them.

Aside from the credibility you should also consider to hire internet marketing mentors who offer low cost fees yet can provide the advanced method of internet marketing knowledge. A good mentor is one who is concern about your success and not the money that you will pay them. This means that when you get the service, they should assist you irrespective of the time until you can do it alone.

The most important thing is that you need to discuss the timeframe as well as the result you desire. Keep in mind that no one can determine your success online. That is why hiring a perfect mentor that provides perfect methods and services is a great factor to become one of the world’s top internet marketers.

Start a Career in Electronic Mail Marketing

Over the internet, there are lots of ways to expand one’s earnings. One of these is being involved in electronic mail marketing. Electronic mail marketing is the promotional dissemination of different product information through the electronic mails, for the purpose of attracting possible buyers. It is one of the most preferred ways of online advertising because of the following reasons:

Sending electronic mail is free, as long as you have a valid email and a list of contacts.

Delivery of message only takes a short time, usually in minutes or even in seconds.

It does not require purchase of resource materials, such as paper for paper advertisements and media services for telecommunications advertisement.

It can be easily accessed by readers.

There are millions of internet users all over the world, so there is a big market for possible buyers and consumers.

Because of the abovementioned advantages, internet marketing is often been used by many companies in order to promote their product. For a more effective result, companies usually seek the help of individuals who is willing to participate in sending electronic mails, in exchange of profit. This is a convenient way of earning money; you don’t have to leave the comfort of your own seats. It commonly yields successful results to the company, as an individual who is willing to participate oftentimes send the advertisement to people they know, therefore, trust is present. Moreover, there is a greater chance of buying the product if there is trust, so seeking individuals who wants to participate in internet marketing is very efficient for many companies. If you want to take advantage of this opportunity, several points must be considered first:

You must commit yourself. In every money-earning opportunity, determination and responsibility must be present.

Be patient, as success doesn’t come instantly. You may get frustrated at first because little money comes initially, but as time goes by and when you have mastered the principles of internet marketing, your monthly income will definitely expand.

Pay focus and have concentration. Treat it as your own business. Remember that in every business, if you are not paying attention the business will absolutely fail.

Always be positive. A lot of people have been rich through internet marketing, so gain inspiration from them whenever you are feeling down. Keep in mind that wealth is just a matter of time and determination, so don’t lose hope.

If you are ready, then start earning money through electronic mail marketing. There are many websites providing a list of host companies, just take time in coordinating with them. Furthermore, sending of electronic mails will be easy with the help of different kinds of software designed to ease the burden of electronic mail marketing. It commonly works automatically with just few clicks and then, you can leave it as it does its own work. This is useful, you just to click and leave it, then after several hours you can check how much you have earned. Investing to this kind of software products is a clever way of starting a career in electronic mail marketing, just find for practical and helpful ones.

What Are The Best Jobs For Retired Teachers

Retirement seems to be a reality for only the lucky few these days, as economic conditions have caused many retirees to return to the workforce. Educators who once thought they could live off their pension and Social Security money are finding this to be impossible. Among the best jobs for retired teachers are substitute teaching and work at home careers.

Since these individuals made a career out of educating others, it stands to reason that substitute teaching would be one of the best jobs for retired teachers. With flexible hours and great pay, this occupation can allow the retiree to live a comfortable lifestyle and enjoy activities like travel and recreation during the non-working hours. Some retirees find that they earn as much as full-time teachers if they regularly take on substitute assignments.

Another of the best jobs for retired teachers, and one that does not involve leaving the home, is working online. The individual can establish an Internet marketing business designed to help others in the online business community. Teachers have a passion for learning and passing along their wisdom that does not end with retirement. Retirees can learn how to make any online business more successful using Internet marketing techniques. They can then mentor other business owners in implementation of these methods.

Adult learners are just another segment of the student population. Retirees themselves are considered adult learners, as are the online business owners with whom they will be working. Teachers have experience working with all age groups for one purpose or another, so they tend to view adult learners optimistically. They feel comfortable working with other adults to create a successful outcome and they provide support throughout the process.

The most successful teachers are great communicators and some educators have honed this skill to perfection upon retirement. Communication skills are necessary to educate and mentor others in any subject. Being a great leader is also a positive attribute because it allows the retired educator to be viewed as a subject matter expert.

Patience is a virtue and never more so than when working in education. There are days that can try the nerves of those who do not have an abundance of patience, even when the learners are adults. The best jobs for retired teachers involve substituting or working from home doing things like Internet marketing and both require that the teacher frequently pull from the available supply of patience.

How To Gain The Most From An Internet Marketing Seminar

Since the concept of online marketing became popular,a lot of companies are interested to know more about it. That is why there are a lot of businesses who are eager to send their representatives and learn from the experts in this field. So if you are scheduled to attend an internet marketing seminar soon, here are the tips for you to make the most out of attending these big events.

Know The Important Details Of The Seminar

The event may be months away, but you need to get all the important information about this as soon as possible. For example, you need to check the venue of the seminar so you can inform your direct supervisor if you need to make some travel and accommodation arrangements.

Check Out The Profile Of Attendees And Other Guests

One of the reasons for having these events is for you to have a chance to network and meet other professionals that can help you grow your business. That is why it is important for you to have an idea on who will possibly go to these seminars. You can definitely learn a lot of tried and tested internet marketing techniques that can also work for your company.

You can also approach these influential people if you already have their contact information. Simply send an email, call and arrange a special meeting with them at the end of the seminar. You can use this time to talk to them about some interesting points that you have learned as well as the best practices that you can do as soon as you apply these changes in your own businesses.

Take Pictures And Share These To Your Online Followers

This means documenting your experience by taking your digital camera out and take pictures of the sessions that you go to. This is another fun way to go around, meet people with similar interests and make this experience really worth your time. You can also bring your laptop and attach these pictures on your business Facebook page for your followers to see.

You can even use these internet marketing seminar photos to update your company and personal blogs. See, there are a lot of ways that you can re-purpose these photos and use it on your business so make sure that you have your camera ready to do this job for you.

Give And Take Business Cards

Some people might think that bringing a business card is a thing of the past. But for serial seminar attendees, bringing these cards is a must. So make sure to bring a simple yet beautifully designed business cards in the event and use these to exchange contact information with other people in the seminar. Make sure to use these time as well to present your elevator speech so that they will know more about what you do even in a short time of exchanging information.

Please take note that these are just some of the easy tips that you can do to make the most out of attending an internet marketing seminar soon. You may add some more things to do, but these are the basic things that you should remember in order to make this experience worth your time.

Can Using Twitter Make You More Efficient?

Twitter is just a fad, right – peopled by a herd of sheep who can be categorized into two groups:

1. Those chasing their own tails looking for the next great get rich quick scheme

2. Those who have nothing better to do than to broadcast the minutia of their lives in boring 140-character snippets.

Wrong.

Sure, there’s a certain percentage of the 40 million folks on Twitter that may fall into one of these categories. There’s always at least a little truth in any stereotype. However, in the right hands, Twitter can be a powerfully efficient tool for business. And, if you’re smart enough to be reading this, I’m certain you fall into the latter group!

It’s all about connections

Every business has goals to strive for and problems to address that can be placed into two broad camps – both of which can be ably addressed via Twitter:

Connect with potential customers

Stay connected with existing customers

Connecting with potential customers

– Feedback. Want to know why people aren’t buying your product? Ask them!

– News. Get the word out about that new and improved product that they WILL buy. Tell people about the new store you just opened in their neighborhood.

– Trends. Following potential customers (or even competitors) can provide valuable insight.

– Your Product. By carefully selecting the people you follow, you can focus directly on those who need your product.

Stay connected with existing customers

– Feedback. Got a burning question you’d love to get answered right now? Who better to answer than your existing customers?

– Loyalty. Strengthen your bond with customers by providing a virtual “face” to talk to, confide in, get advice from.

– News. When you have news to share you want to spread it far and wide. Twitter friends not only get the news from you immediately, they also love to share with THEIR friends.

– Trends. Your current customers can show you what’s hot – and what’s not – immediately.

– Your Product. Customers know what they want and, if you’re willing to listen, they will happily tell you.

And the answer is….

These are just a few ideas to get your thinking started. All of them can be done better/faster/cheaper via Twitter than via traditional channels – and we all know that better/faster/cheaper translates to more efficient.

Goal achieved. Problem solved. Burning question answered.