Your Visitors Want to be Blown Away!

Today I stumbled upon a cool music player – it worked so well, it was so easy and intuitive – it simply delivered. In fact it was quite remarkable. Take a look at that word – remarkable! Remark-able, yes, I was able to make voluntary, un-coerced positive remarks to my friends. They also liked it and may just tell their friends. What makes one website/product so remarkable? Well simply put when a website solves a problem, meets a need or satisfies a want, it’s likely to be a good site. However a remarkable site does all that so well that it literally over-delivers, surpasses all expectations and makes its visitors feel good just for finding it. In what way is your site, your product remarkable?

Why do you care? Because you want traffic, traffic, traffic. A good site may only convert 2- 5% of its traffic, so the higher your traffic, the more you sell. But other than positive, pervasive word of mouth you will have to work or pay for that traffic. I say work because there are some ways of generating traffic that don’t cost much money – rather they demand time and effort.

One of the best ways to draw people to your site is through original content, articles specifically. There are hundreds of sites dedicated to article postings and within your ‘author bio’ you can post the link back to your site. People go online primarily for content. They are looking for answers, looking for ideas and solutions – sure some people are just bored and browsing, but your potential clients will only exchange their hard earned money for the promise that your product will get them closer to their goal. If you can write articles that show you understand them and that you have a special insight into their interests, they may in return believe in your product enough to give it a try.

You can also write some press releases. A press release is nothing more than a written announcement that discusses something exciting and hopefully newsworthy about your business. Typically it will have contact information so that any member of the press can easily reach you in case they have questions. There are many press release sites that can educate and help you spread your news.

These ideas are just the tip of the marketing strategy iceberg. You ought to find a mentor who can help you do all the above and more. Remember – be remarkable. Let’s give them something to talk about!

Thanks for reading,
Your Rich Cousin
(Author and Business Success Story) Get the free e-book that got me started and helped me start making money at http://www.richcousin.com It's so straight forward and easy to understand AND you will have the support you need to start making a great income online.

Free Stuff = Solid Profits

Here is a well-known, but little used fact: People like free things. If you went to a street corner and started handing out staples, people would line up to take them from you. This is true even if you were giving away something they don’t need. If you told them the staples cost $2, they would feel proud of having snagged one for free.

Now what would happen if you gave out something that people actually wanted, that they actually wanted to pay for, even stand in line for. In fact, we assume that if something is given away free then it must be inherently invaluable about it. When we receive something that we know has value, either in dollars or in its interest to us, we not only remember who gave it to us, but we actually feel indebted to them.

Seth Godin is the author of an amazing book called ‘the ideadvirus’. In that book, to simplify, he states that in order to quickly spread a message (virus), one needs to give something of value away, make it significant enough that others spread it on your behalf, and if the message is ‘virus-worthy’ it will quickly spread through a group without much work from you. How can you profit from this? Read the book. To illustrate this, Seth gave the whole book away free on his site, asking only for emails in return and he asked readers to forward the book onto friends and workmates. Knowing the crowd he was looking infect with his virus, he knew that if they liked what they read – they would want to tell people and boast of what they smartly found for free. He actually had about 400 000 downloads in the first few weeks, and just before you think he made no money: when he released the hardcover through amazon.com, it climbed to the top of its sales charts. In fact people who had bought the ebook version, went and purchased the hardcover – they felt like they owed Seth. This was a 400 page book… I read it, twice – it was that good, and proof of the actual theory he was exposing.

Be aware that what is free for your visitors will cost you something – it will cost you in your bandwidth/hosting costs, it will definitely cost you something in terms of time and effort to produce the site and the very thing you give away – but if you play the strategy right, it can pay off well. Get a good idea of what you are trying to accomplish, and determine what you can do or give away to help you grow.

1. get something of value to your audience
2. Get them to give you something in return – their email and their friends email
3. Give them permission and instructions on how to share that free download.
4. Encourage, or reward those who share that download (sometimes if your stuff is good – the pride of sharing something great is enough to motivate people – but it has to be amazing!)
5. With all the awareness, buzz and traffic you generate – find away of profiting from that.

It’s not hard, but its easy to get greedy and mess up the strategy. In fact it takes a lot of courage to do this. You will be giving away something you could be earning from – Seth Godin gave up 500,000 potential sales – instead he had 500,000 advertisers who willingly and honestly spreading the word in a well defined market which resulted in sales of that book – and with his new popularity, many others. By the way, I don’t think its free anymore. It doesn’t need to be… companies actually buy books by the box for all their marketing employees. How did that happen? Because some net savy marketing VP downloaded the book – loved it, and bought a hard copy for his CEO, who thought it was brilliant and ordered it for everyone… and the waves of impact spread. You can do this too!

Learn from the masters. Find a mentor who can help you do your best!

Thanks for reading,
Your Rich Cousin
(Author and Business Success Story) Get the free e-book that got me started and helped me start making money at http://www.richcousin.com It's so straight forward and easy to understand AND you will have the support you need to start making a great income online.

Beat the Big Boys Online

There are more than a hundred websites; in fact the number of website is exploding exponentially. If there were only a hundred Web sites, you might think they would each get a lot more attention, but that’s not the case. If there only a hundred web sites, no one would bother surfing the Web at all. It’s the large number of sites covering a large range of topics that has caused hundreds of millions of people to go online.

Web presence is not a zero sum game. That’s a term that economist use to describe a situation where one person making a gain means that someone else is making a loss. Instead, the more people who play the Internet game, that surf and interact online, , the more audience and money there is to go around. Because of this, other sites aren’t the enemy. Other sites are your friend.

Here in Toronto, there is a district that seems to be saturated with computer stores. You can get computer parts at great prices. There is intense competition, as the different stores compete on price, on the latest technology, on selection and quality. If you think about it, these shops are all cooperating. Even if the owners of the shop never speak to each other, even if they despise one another, they make the district the place to go for computer parts. And by offering such a huge selection overall, they make sure that anyone looking for a part is sure to find it there – no matter how obscure. In contrast, the shopper at an unattached computer store may not find the desired part.

The stores are in competition, but competition and cooperation are not mutually exclusive. If you start an online site offering currency trading education and three other sites do the same, you are in competition with them. However your real competition is the similar educational tools in brick & mortar bookstores. If people start thinking that the web is the best place of tried and true trading strategies, then it helps you all.

All that is passive cooperation. It doesn’t require anyone to directly make plans with anyone else. Most of the active cooperation you are likely to be involved in will be with sites that are not offering exactly the same products and services that you are. Instead, you should try cooperating with sites that share the same audience but different products. A site that offers Country music may cooperate with a site that sells Cowboys hats.

The overall point is that there is a large ocean of potential clients out there, and when you cooperate with others trying to fish in this ocean, you increase your chances of success. Better to have 1% of a billion dollar market than 100% of a million dollar market.

Think about working together with others online – learn from people who are doing what you want to do. The internet market is still growing – in both the number of users, but even the current users’ willingness to engage in commerce online. Be a part of it – even if it’s a small part, the rewards will blow your mind.

Thanks for reading,
Your Rich Cousin
(Author and Business Success Story) Get the free e-book that got me started and helped me start making money at http://www.richcousin.com It's so straight forward and easy to understand AND you will have the support you need to start making a great income online.

Aim for the Moon, If you miss...

The saying goes like this "Aim for the moon, if you miss at least you will be among the stars!"

When it can’t be done – do it. If you don’t do it, it will not be done.

A new idea can be either unfamiliar, or silly, or both. It can be judged by description, it needs to be done to exist. It’s unlikely that anyone will invest or sanction the cost of something they don’t understand, therefore you have no choice but to do it yourself. You have to find a way to get it done

It’s exciting. It’s difficult and it’s fun. If it was easy anyone could do it. The film Citizen Kane is a very good example. It was stolen not sanctioned Orson Wells couldn’t find any financial backers, but he raised a small amount for casting. He begged, borrowed and milked people into building sets and shooting full –blown screen test which eventually formed a third of the film. Now it existed.

Backers could see what they were getting and he got the money. Without him doing it when it ‘couldn’t be done’ it would be another in the endless list of ideas that never happened. Myles Munroe says the wealthiest underground deposits are not the oil fields of Arabia or Alberta, not the Natural Gas deposits of the North Sea, it’s not even the diamond mines of South Africa – rather its cemeteries across the world. For in those graveyards are books that were never written, art never painted, songs never written, companies never started. In those tombs lies the greatest wealth potential – ideas.

You have them every day – what will you do with yours? What stops you from pursuing yours? Fear? Perhaps you are searching for an idea – well think outside the box. If you can’t think of anything that hasn’t been thought of already, then you need to start playing by the rules.

The person who doesn’t make mistakes is unlikely to make anything. Benjamin Franklin said “I haven’t failed. I’ve had 10,000 ideas that didn’t work. Thomas Edison said  “Of the 200 light bulbs that didn’t work, every one of them told me something that I was able to incorporate into the next attempt. Theatre director Joan Littlewood said “If we don’t get lost, we’ll never find a new route.”

All of them understood that failures and false starts are a precondition of success. It takes a positive attitude to make mistakes well. Samuel Beckett said “Fail, Fail again, Fail better!”

It’s wrong to be right.
Being right is based upon knowledge and experience and is often provable. Knowledge comes from the past and its safe. It is also out of date and the opposite of originality.

Experience is found in solutions to old situations and problems. The old situations are probably different from the present ones, so that old solutions will have to be bent to fit a new problems) and possibly fit badly). Also, the likelihood is that if you’ve got the experience, you’ll use it. This is lazy.

Experience is the opposite of being creative. If you can prove you’re right, you are set in stone. You cannot move with the times or with other people. Being right is also boring and you mind is closed. You are not open to new ideas.

Star being wrong and suddenly anything is possible. You are no longer trying to be perfect. You are in the unknown, with no clue as to what will happen, but there’s more of chance of it being worthwhile than if you try to be right.

Most people worry about suggesting stupid ideas because of what others will think. Yes, it’s a risky business – you can look silly. Risk is a measurement of a person. People who won’t take them are trying to preserve what they have. People who do take them often end up having more.

Let’s dare to try new things, to aim high knowing that if we miss – its ok… we are closer to something new that has never been seen or heard of. 

You should take a look at Internet Marketing, Forex Trading and other crazy ideas that everyone will doubt and predict your failure in. But its ok to try and fail…  but what happens if you don’t fail? What would your life look like if you were not afraid of the new, of being wrong or failing once again?

Thanks for reading,
Your Rich Cousin
(Author and Business Success Story) Get the free e-book that got me started and helped me start making money at http://www.richcousin.com It's so straight forward and easy to understand AND you will have the support you need to start making a great income online.

A Plan to Stop Working Soon

After you have figured out how much money you need to retire, you are stuck with one major problem – well two: How long will you need that money and where are you going to get that money! Well both have the same answer in a sense. You find residual income that is at the very least consistent, but possibly growing. Residual income by definition is recurring income that comes, usually without recurring efforts. For example... if you build a house and rent it out. The rent you receive is residual in that is comes in regularly and without extra effort beyond the initial construction. Once you pay your maintenance costs, then you have your residual profits. You will have that income as long as you keep the house – and you can keep the house as long as it brings in a profit – ideally as long as you live!

So besides real estate what kinds of investments bring residual income with minimal risk and fluctuation? Well if you have enough seed money, you buy dividend paying stocks or income trusts. You can easily research the dividend history of a company, look for ones that pay consistent dividends year after year. Banks and insurance companies are good for this. If in the last 20 years they have never missed a dividend you have a candidate. If they have gradually increased the dividend payout over time, you also have a solid winner. You don’t really care what the stock price does, you want to know how much dividend you can depend on from the company.

A $500 000* dollar investment in a diverse group of dividend paying stocks can let your retire on perhaps $50,000 per year* (* These numbers are just examples not real or validated.) If $50k is enough for you to retire on and live on for the next however long then you know how much you need to accumulate before you can retire. Another benefit of dividend income is that the tax rate on investment income in most western countries is much less than earned income taxes. So you get a break in all directions.

I recommend that you look into some great online income generating businesses. Maybe you won’t make millions – that’s possible too. But if in the next few years you can make more money than working could get (unless you are an E*ron CEO) – and you continually re-invest that in a residual investment vehicle, you could retire real soon. Your online business would also be residual and expanding and reinvesting part of that income into other areas would create multiple streams of income.

But if you are like me, the first major hurdle is how to come up with that initial investment. Well you build a business that requires less investment. Then you use the income from there to invest in other residual income sources. Internet Marketing is a great place to start with opportunities growing everyday as more and more people come online. It’s easier than you think, but requires some action on your part. The best thing you can do is find a mentor – someone who has done it before and is willing to help you get started. Don’t umm and haw – the worst that can happen is that you don’t make all the money you thought you would – but you have made more than you would have if you did nothing, and depending on the kind of life you have that little extra may be just enough!

Thanks for reading,
Your Rich Cousin
(Author and Business Success Story) Get the free e-book that got me started and helped me start making money at http://www.richcousin.com It's so straight forward and easy to understand AND you will have the support you need to start making a great income online.

5 Essential Elements of Profitable Sites

What technology tools do successful websites use? Remember that a website is a store front; it’s your customer service rep, delivery guy and your marketing department rolled up into one.

“We are open”
People don’t enter stores that have a closed sign at the door. (Well some do, but… you know, we talking about the law abiding kind here.) Nothing says ‘Closed” louder on a website than old content: old date references and postings. So one of the best things you can do is to get a script that keeps the current date front and center for your visitors. You don’t have to update it everyday – it does it all by itself.

Now that people think you are home, and open for business, they may inquire about your product. You must have a customer service desk. This can take the form of a form where they fill out their name and email. It can be to simply subscribe to your newsletter or they may have a specific question. If you want to have a ‘stress-free’ site, try post an FAQ section – Frequently Asked Questions. Then one of the important things you will want to have is an autoresponder.

An autoresponder will keep your site in the mind space of your potential clients who have signed up for your newsletter or requested more information. It will send out preformatted emails at defined intervals automatically. Did you know that after 5 emails, the likelihood of making a sale increases steadily? It may seem like you are being intrusive, but they will be able to unsubscribe if they wish.

Urgency Sells: When you offer limited time offers, you cause people to make decisions. You need a script that keeps a deadline up to date on your website. It would generate a line that looks like this: This offer expires on XX/XX/XX, so act quick!

The Popup Generator - Pop up windows that appear on your web site when a visitor enters or leaves your web site have been shown to dynamically boost subscriber rates and sales. Even if you don't have any programming knowledge, you'll be able to add a popup to your site with a single click

Tell A Friend Generator - No matter what promotional tools you use on your site, no tool is a match for the power of viral marketing. Use this generator to create a quick, one-step button that you can add to your web site that will let your visitors tell their friends about your site with just one click! Add this to your site and watch a whole new flood of targeted traffic come in!

All these types of scripts are available for free or for a small fee online. I suggest that in addition to these sites, that you visit lots of sites you would like to emulate and see what they do well, what strategies are particularly effective and find ways to incorporate them.

I know even just the little bit above seems overwhelming. Well perhaps a mentor, someone who has done all the above and more would be of interest to you.

Thanks for reading,
Your Rich Cousin
(Author and Business Success Story) Get the free e-book that got me started and helped me start making money at http://www.richcousin.com It's so straight forward and easy to understand AND you will have the support you need to start making a great income online.

3 Simple Steps to Your Own Website - Explained.

So you want to build that website – for whatever reason, perhaps you’ve started a business or simply wish to share pictures of the new addition to your family. Let me tell you it’s easier than you think – all you need is directions that you can follow and you will soon be online.

Let’s talk what it will cost upfront. For $10 - $20/month you can have a working website (Imagine: www.yourname.com), available to anyone in the world with internet access. That’s a trip to your favourite fast food joint. (Yes, you can afford it!) There are also some ways of getting a free site – still residing at www.yourname.com, but lets learn about all those weird internet terms first.

There are 3 basic components required to building a personal, custom website.
You need:
-     A domain name
-    A hosting account and
-    Content written in HTML or some other web language.
I know, what’s a domain name!!!?

Here is an analogy I teach:

You live in a home that is built on a certain piece of land (that you rent or buy). That piece of land has a specific address.

Your website (a collection of individual web pages) sits on a hosting account that you rent. That hosting account is found at a specific address – called a domain name.

Your Home    Your Website
Your Street Address: e.g. 1 John St, Anytown   
Your domain name: e.g. www.yourname.com
Your plot of land    Your hosting account
Your physical house    Your web content

Here is the 3 step process:
STEP 1: Choose your address
STEP 2: Rent some space on a computer connected to the internet
STEP 3: Build the house you want and place it on the space you bought in step 2

Let’s explain each step:
STEP 1: Choose your address (a domain name)
With the internet you can choose what you want your address to be (your domain name).  What are you selling? What would make a cool name? Understand that after over 10 years of public internet access – a lot of good names have been taken. So get creative, and be unique but understandable. An easy place to start with is your full name for a family/personal site or your product name for a business site. Make a list of about 10 possibilities that you like in this format www.yourdesiredname.com Move to the next step.

STEP 2: Rent some space on a computer connected to the internet (A hosting account)
With a quick search for the words “Web Hosting” on the internet, you get a list of web hosting companies – all eager to sell or rent you some space on their computer. GoDaddy.com and 1and1.com are some recommended companies – feel free to look into others, but there are thousands upon thousands – so don’t waste your time searching for the cheapest (you pay for what you get, but $10+ will get you a decent hosting account.

Many of the hosting companies will either give you or sell you your choice of domain name at the same time you start your hosting account. Bring out your list from STEP 1, and when instructed in the purchase process, enter in your first domain name choice. You will be informed if that name is available or not. Keep trying out your names in order of your preference until you find on that is available. Finish the purchase process and let the hosting company instruct you on how to access you account. (They’ll send you an email – and if you go with one of the companies I recommended, you can call them with your questions.)

STEP 3: Build the house you want and place it on the space you bought in step 2
You have some choices to make here:
A - You can ask someone to build you a site.
B - You can build it yourself.
C - Use a free website builder – (like a blog)
Each has its pros and cons.

The first option is great if you can afford it and can find someone reliable. If you want cheap, post a job at your local high school – someone in computer club will be able to help you for really cheap. The problem is that they may not always be around when you need them to make changes. Enter choice B

It’s great to learn a new skill, and you can learn for free online – just invest a little time. Remember once you know how… you own that knowledge forever and you will never depend on someone else to build your site. Again search online for “how to build a website” They will tell you how to design, build and upload your site onto your hosting account form STEP 2.

If you don’t really require a customized design and all you want to do is place some text and perhaps some pictures online. I suggest starting what’s called a blog - these are often free, and have a really simple “HTML CODE FREE” way of adding your content. All you do is type and publish. You can often still have your own domain name here, but each blogging company is different. Again search online for blogging – and read what the various companies offer.


Content
There is one thing that is really important and that ONLY you can do! That is come up with the content and the idea. Think about what you have to offer and what problem it solves for your visitors and prepare your content so as to answer that problem. E.g. You write great jokes. People are looking for jokes… your website should give people some jokes and perhaps they can register for your daily joke email.
Write simply, write short, write clearly. As time goes on, remember to keep your site fresh. Keep the content updated and relevant to your ideal visitors.

The goal of this article was to give you easy steps of how to get a website for yourself. Naturally you can learn more about each step, and there are many people who can give you help, but now you can start the journey. Create your list of domain names, purchase a hosting account (including the domain name you want) and build your site and keep the content fresh.

In future articles I’ll take about next steps:<br>
-    “I build it, but they ain’t coming to see it.”<br>
-    “I built it, but nobody’s buying”<br>
-    “I built it, but I don’t know how to improve it.”

A journey of a million miles starts with one step – so go to step 1 and start. (Don’t worry – this is not a long journey – but it’s exciting!).

Here to Help You!

Thanks for reading,
Your Rich Cousin
(Author and Business Success Story) Get the free e-book that got me started and helped me start making money at http://www.richcousin.com It's so straight forward and easy to understand AND you will have the support you need to start making a great income online.