Frankly today, I had no idea I’d be writing about a new opportunity that I am still investigating. If you’ve read the blog throughout and around the presidential campaign, you realize that Scott and I are big on America and big on growth. We’re also, just like you, hoping to see the economy turn around - quickly. That’s why when I came across Rebuilding of America, I was more than intrigued.
(more…)

Sometimes I wonder about myself. I start at Point A only to arrive many clicks later at Point Z - which ultimately ends up providing me with the inspiration for my next post (even when I don’t find what I was really looking for!). Today is no exception.

I’m a regular subscriber to WebProNews and have been for years. Strangely enough I’ve seen “authority figures” poo-poo WPN in their forums, but I can tell you that the insights I get far outweigh the times where the information is intriguing albeit short of the mark. Doesn’t happen often, but some writers just don’t give you the full scoop. Whether their plan is to write more, or just provide surface-level research, I do not know. I have also read article bits and posts where I downright disagreed with the writer.

But that’s what makes WPN so interesting, and, more often than not, I get great input and ideas.

That said (that’s not an intentional plug, but will explain the convolution of the rest of this post nicely) that’s how today started out. (more…)

If you’re tracking stats on your own blog, and you should be, there will be posts that you make where you notice lots of activity. Ideally, you (like us) have your hopes up each time you post that your readers will do more than read (which is always cool), and stay to strike up a conversation with you (in the form of comments).

Well we’re no different than you

We track things. We love to track things! It just may be an obsession around here!

So in going back through our visitor logs, there is a striking up swing whenever we talk about ways to (more…)

Today, you’ll notice a new 125×125 widget on our blog (over there by the Entrecard on the right go ahead look!), and by the time you get done reading this post we’re hoping (betting?) you’ll be excited about the prospects of this NEW GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT, too!

Announcing… Buy From Bloggers A New Grassroots Revolution!

Okay so what’s so special about BFB? While this may be obvious to most - and the end game goal for many - the truth (cold hard reality) is a far cry from fact… more often than not (more…)

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is not our article, but the information is well worth your time.

by Gary Smith

The Web 2.0 social media revolution is in full steam. Are people finding your website?

As an entrepreneur, how do you make your business website stand out amongst 435 million other websites and more than 1 million blogs competing for your audience’s attention?

It’s not as hard as you might think.

To begin, let’s look at the demographics of Web 2.0 social networking sites, Myspace.com, Facebook and YouTube.com. This will give you an idea on how to position your message in the Web 2.0 World.

The Web 2.0 Social Networking Revolution

Web 2.0 is a real revolution on the Internet. And these aren’t just college kids…

- 62% of MySpace visitors are older than 25 (40% are 35+), and 83% are making over $30,000 a year. Nineteen percent (19%) are making $100,000 and up…

- On Facebook.com 46% are over 25 and 34% are 35+, but they’ve got deep pockets. Eighty-eight percent (88%) make more than $30,000 and twenty-three percent (23%) make $100,000 or more.

In the years ahead these numbers will get ridiculous…

- Social media giant Facebook is currently ADDING a million 25+ (non-student) adults per week to their rosters. That’s 52 million new users a year.

- YouTube.com gets over 50 million unique visitors per month. That equals over half a billion a year.

- Facebook and MySpace have the equal daily traffic of Google. Experts predict within the next year they will DOUBLE the daily traffic of Google search.

So your prospects are there. The traffic is there. The spending power is there. So NOW is the time you want to establish your presence on the social networking websites.

Web 2.0 Strategy: Why You Should Be a Maven, Not a Marketer

As a website owner, how should you position your message in the Web 2.0 world?

The increasingly savvy buying public will quickly shun marketers. Internet readers want information from the Internet. They don’t want advertising, marketing, or a “pitch”.

According to Schefren in his Attention Age Doctrine, the solution is to become a social media “Maven”.

A Maven is a trusted authority, like a friend, on the social media websites. As you gain their trust, your audience will return to you over and over again wanting to invest in your advice.

Five Steps to Becoming a Social Media Maven

Social Media Maven Step 1: Get in the Game

Begin blogging immediately. Create a video explaining how to solve a problem and put it on YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook with links back to your main website. Just those two things alone will establish more Web 2.0 presence than 90% of your competition.

Social Media Maven Step 2: Share your passion

Build your Web 2.0 website around your passions. Thirty-two year old Gary Vaynerchuk transformed his wine knowledge to his video blog, http://Tv.Winelibrary.com. It now has thousands of subscribers and does $50 million dollars a year in wine sales.

Social Media Maven Step 3: Be Controversial

Your audience will remember you more when you challenge the status quo. Controversy sells. Think like the tabloids and the local news channels here. For example, Web 2.0 Business Coach Rich Schefren challenges traditional marketing wisdom in each release of his Attention Age Doctrine special reports at www.attentionage.net/doctrine

Social Media Maven Step 4: Create World Class Content

You will drive repeat traffic to your website by offering top notch “how to” information. Gary’s wine tastings are highly educational on the benefits of wine, how to cook with wine, and how to choose a wine for your special occasion. Rich’s reports teach Web 2.0 marketing principles.

Remember, as soon as your audience feels that you are “pitching” them, you’ve lost them. So provide content not advertising.

Social Media Maven Step 5: Engage in the Conversation

Web 2.0 is a dialogue not a monologue. Internet businesses profit more when they observe and listen to their communities first before they broadcast their messages. Savvy mavens such as Gary and Rich encourage their audience to ask questions. The answers to these questions then become part of their user-generated content.

How Marketing in a Web 2.0 Social Media Environment Is Exciting

Visualize it like a big radio or television station or movie screen where you’re the star. You’re building a fan base so you need to entertain, inform, and deliver consistently for your audience.

You have more publishing power at your fingertips right now than at any time in history.

So use it.

Share your passions.

Reveal your trials and tribulations

Tell your story.

And, watch how quickly your audience builds.

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Master Copywriter, Gary Smith (www.rightbraincopy.com) has taught thousands of entrepreneurs how to write copy that persuades, motivates and inspires prospects to buy. He strongly suggests using Web 2.0 Internet Marketing Strategies revealed in Richard Schefren’s Attention Age Doctrine. Get it now for FREE at: http://www.attentionage.com/doctrine & discover never-before-revealed Web 2.0 tools and techniques to win in the Attention Age

Sometimes the perfect things land in your inbox that you just have to pass along quickly

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Enjoy These Other Viral Marketing Posts On the Net:

• Viral Marketing 101 - Not Using It Could Kill Your Business!
• The Power of Viral Marketing
• Viral Marketing
• Viral Marketing Techniques

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Dear Blog Visitor,

We’ve been reading a lot about the Web 2.0 in generallately, including it’s history and all of it’s uses…

There is VAST potential out there we are not using yet!

For instance, there is a very famous Marketer by thename of Seth Godin who pretty much pioneered Web 2.0, and he went on to found Squidoo.

One of the fundamental thoughts driving Web 2.0 is a quote of his; “Everyone is an Expert.”

It basically means that if someone is talking about the subject of what you ate for lunch today, YOU are the expert in that field.

Keywords out there are dedicated to you, 24/7/365. You’re the go-to person on several such subjects that could be searched in google for at any time!

(Scary, huh?)

We realize that it may be hard to think of this simple mindset for being responsible for all of Web 2.0, including the many big sites like YouTube, Squidoo, MySpace, Facebook, and Digg, but that is exactly what drives them and allows them to be profitable.

We already had a system in place to spread the biggest news’ out there. It’s called the Press and their AP newswire.

Web 2.0 makes YOU the new press and it is in fact cutting into a HUGE chunk of the profession’s profits…

Nearly half of America, for instance, reads Digg.com daily, so therefore isn’t turning on the Channel 4 news as much!

(TV Advertising rates have been dropping ever since Web 2.0 was created!)

So what does this mean for you? What impact should this have on your day?

Well, if YOU are the new press, why aren’t you being PAID to submit your news each time you use digg, squidoo, or any other web 2.0 website?

Think about it… A huge central focus of where we get our news is changing rapidly, but the new business model is to NOT PAY the new Reporters!

Well, you know SOMEONE is getting paid…

Luke Parker figured this out earlier than most of us and created a system that allows you to get paid for using Web 2.0… And paid well.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO

Believe it or not, he’s got a list as long as your arm of different places you can go to submit your news every day for cash!

That’s right, you can get PAID to report about your weird toenail clippings now… And in fact you really should have been paid for it all along, according to Luke!

He goes one step further and shows a way not just to get paid for the random gossip we mostly see out there, but to compound your income by thinking smarter…

For instance, if you have a business online you’d like to advertise, then he suggests you use these resources to get paid to promote that business!

Press for your business is another kind of news, and Luke makes tons of cash every day doing just that! We’ve been watching his Surefire Success System since it was just a ‘Version 1.0,’ and it was pretty impressive stuff already… But starting tomorrow at 11am EST, it’s graduating to full 2.0 status…

He’s added all kinds of tools and beefed up his strategy even more, so we really are looking forward to learning all about it ourselves!

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out Luke’s exciting free film on his site right now before he takes it down and puts up the new offer page:

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This really eye-opening film shows exactly how to become TRUE winner in Google and Yahoo using web 2.0.

It’s really excellent stuff that will open up your mind to all kinds of new possibilities. You don’t even have to opt-in to watch it, simply head over to that page to start watching:

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And remember, the doors open for that at 11am EST tomorrow, so be sure to check out his offer then!

All the best,

Diane/Scott

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“What Can a Dentist Teach You about Business, Life and Success? Discover Secrets to Achieving Total Success!”, a new book launching this week on Amazon, quickly teaches you that your willingness to be different can make all the difference in how your business is perceived. Dr. Joe Capista gives you an inside view of how he took a struggling business and, with a clear vision of what he wanted to accomplish, built a multi-million dollar business.

The beauty of this book is the way in which the story is told. Forget the dry, disinterested approach, Capista takes you on a journey through his life, the mentoring and direction he received, and sums it all up in a 222-page discovery he calls The Success Triangle(TM). Capista offers a roadmap that virtually any business can implement to achieve higher profits, greater customer satisfaction, more satisfied employees and the ability to sustain any turn in the economy.

With permission, we offer a few excerpts for you to enjoy below, ways you can become familiar with this author; his style of writing. Throughout this book, Capista brings you a wealth of information based on family type situations, business situations, and personal experience. We’ve chosen a few from Chapter 8 (along with the summary of what Chapter 8 covers) entitled, “Five Part Forumla for Success”:

Become an Expert
Have a Great Product and/or Service

“By investing in your own training and education, you will gain more in the long run than you’re giving up. With increased skill comes increased confidence. With increased confidence comes increased competence. The rewards will continue to multiply.

Many are comfortable with the status quo. They feel because they’ve been at something for a long time it qualifies them as an expert. I learned a long time ago just because you’ve got a lot of years in or you’ve done something repeatedly, that doesn’t necessarily make you an expert. Some people work in a vacuum doing the same thing day in and day out thinking they are the best at what they do. Wrong!

You can’t increase your expertise on your own; someone has to teach you. I don’t care if you’re already at the top of your game, there’s somebody that’s on top of you that’s doing it better. That’s the person you have to talk to!”

Develop Sales and Marketing Skills

“Sales is a kind of strategic influence. Too many times we think of sales as manipulation because we have the vision of the slick salesperson; the person who’s trying to sell for his or her good and not for the good of the customer. Sales is about benefits and coming to a mutual agreement with your customer that what you have to offer is of value. Once value has been established, you have the responsibility to influence the person to say, “Yes.”

You always have to have the other person’s highest good in mind. In fact, Charlie used to tell me about the U Attitude. When he first presented the U Attitude idea, it was foreign to me. He would sit in front of me, hold his pad of paper and he’d draw a U. One part of the U started with the customer coming to me and it ended back with the customer to complete the U. This means the process has to start with the customer, come to me, and then go back to the customer. The customer always has to be the person who benefits the most in the sales process and the U Attitude has helped me to remember this over the years.

Selling is about helping the client. The times I have been sold by people who have good sales skills is fantastic; a great experience. They see what I want and what I need. They know how I’m going to benefit by it and they help me get there. Sales require compassion, understanding, and talking in such a way people are comfortable dealing with you. When you create comfort for your customer, they will return again and again.”

Get Help from Experts (Mentors)

“Mentorship doesn’t have to be a difficult experience. There are very informal as well as formal methods of mentorship. Let’s begin with the informal. Consider the top five people you spend time with the most. Each can be a mentor in his or her own right. To be successful you need to make sure those you associate with most are people that inspire you and lift you up. You must be clear about who you want to spend time with and understand the power they have in your life.

There is an exchange of energy in all relationships. Some people enhance our energy; others can actually deplete our energy. I’m very deliberate in choosing people that increase my energy and fuel my dreams. We may not call one another mentors, but the influence we exert on each other’s lives is the same as a mentor/student relationship. I feel so strongly about this I’ve made efforts in the opposite direction, minimizing relationships with certain people because we weren’t on the same track or heading in the same direction. I look to mentors in both my personal and professional life.”

Chapter 8 Success Summary

1. Business Success and Life Success are not exclusive of each other. To have TOTAL SUCCESS you need success in both areas.

2. To have TOTAL SUCCESS you need to:

o Become an Expert (have a great Product and/or Service)
o Develop Sales and Marketing Skills
o Get help from Experts (have mentors)
o Control your Thoughts
o Create Balance in your life

3. You may not be the “best” at what you do, BUT be the best you can be.

4. To be the best in your field requires continued training.

5. The success of your business and the success of your personal life is directly proportional to your ability to sell and market.

6. Our lives revolve around selling a Product, Service or idea.

7. Sales is strategic influence, not manipulation.

8. Develop a ‘U’ Attitude.

9. Always have the customer’s interests foremost and have integrity and honesty in your sales process.

10. Sales and Marketing are skills that need to be learned. Very few people are “natural born” sales or marketing people.

11. You need people - mentors - to teach you what you do not know.

12. Find successful people and study their behavior.

13. Mentors can be living or dead.

14. Pay people to teach you what you do not know.

Again these excerpts are just that, pieces we’ve taken that caught our eye. The stories and information are much more indepth than we can cover here. Suffice to say this is an interesting, informative, and (more than slightly) different way of following key patterns to personal success.

Order you own copy of What Can a Dentist Teach You about Business, Life and Success? within the next 24 hours and receive over $2,551 in bonus gifts from experts around the globe. Go to www.joecapista.com/amazon.htm

A recent post on the Nichebot Keyword Research blog makes the assumption that too many people rely strictly on keyword research to begin figuring out what niche they would like to develop to make money online.

We agree with the overall presentation that one should not use keywords as the starting point to building an online business. Instead, your keyword research is conducted to further enhance search-ability for that particular segment or niche after you’ve determined your market. While keyword research is a mainstay for developing tags, metas, titles, and content on your website, as stated, it is a tool used to uncover what people are searching for.

On the other hand, to reveal what people are buying online, you need to use “market research” tools. The article goes on to give you some solid starting points which include:

To Uncover Hot Selling Products

Head to eBay and click on their BUY tab. You’ll know in a flash what people are purchasing. The “Popular Products” is another link resource to ferret out even more information.

Amazon is, of course, another place to go to see who’s buying what. The idea, keep in mind, is you are trying to figure out what niche you could likely corner based on what people are physically buying.

Where to Find Popular Digital Products

A good solid source for information about popular digital products is Clickbank’s Marketplace. You’ll be able to set specific criteria and pull up what’s popular based on criteria you set.

In fact, Clickbank suggests the following:

“How do I identify the most successful products to promote?”

“Some affiliates prefer to promote very popular products that attract lots of affiliates (high affiliate gravity), while others prefer to promote products with less advertising exposure (lower affiliate gravity). The Marketplace can be sorted, within each category and sub-category, by item gravity. Either way, your best bet is to promote products that are well presented and likely to appeal to the people who visit your website, or view your advertisements.”

Competition

The final section of their post discusses the dreaded word “competition!” Many people fear competition and so never make a choice of what to plunge into online. If you read the article, you will discover that:

“There is NO reason to feel that way. In fact, you should get excited when there is a lot of competition. Here’s why…

“If there is no competition whatsoever in a marketplace, there may be no marketplace (or people to market to) at all. You should actually be worried if you don’t find any competitors for a market you wish to enter.

“The more competition there is in a marketplace, the more commerce is being moved. The more commerce that is being moved, you’ll have a chance at grabbing a bigger piece of the pie.”

We give this informational article a thumbs up for clarifying a business builder’s first steps, and again we have only presented an outline of the full post.

You can read it for yourself here:

“Market Research (or finding a profitable niche market) has Nothing to do with Keyword Research”

Enjoy!