She knew what she was doing, but was frustrated at the speed of filling her down line.

There was only one glaring flaw I noticed in her strategy. She was too focused on her product and now focused enough on building her community.

What I mean is this. She was driving her network marketing leads to her network marketing landing page instead of getting them on a list and then offering them a variety of options.

By building the list, you will be able to offer different network marketing products to people and let them by into the one that appeals to them the most.

You can also make money offering your network of people various tools to help them market their network marketing business.  This could really boost your income.

When you are doing lead generation for your network marketing produce, add the extra step in your lead generation system to add them to an email list and build a relationship with them that will be far more profitable down the road.

Here are 10 reasons it takes longer than people think (or hope) for building online income.

1. Google sandbox – while this is unofficial, most SEO people know that the first 6-12 months are much harder on a website with a new domain. It does not get consistent good ranking from Google until it ages. If you just quit your job and started an Internet business, I hope you were planning a year in advance and set up some niche sites.
2. No email list – Sure, there are faster ways to build a list. But starting from zero is just going to be a lot of work, especially if you have not done it before.
3. Selling something they are unfamiliar with – lets face it, no one likes to sell something that they do not understand. If you just started and you are selling a money making opportunity, and you are not making much money yet, how are you going to convince other people?
4. Lots of Internet Marketing courses – If you are buying a lot of Internet Marketing courses and programs you are probably not taking action – just learning more. Make sure to take action asap.
5. Focusing on one site – It is OK to focus on one site – but only if you are well targeted and are going to really make an incredible effort on that site.
6. Not testing – If you are spending money on pay per click or advertising but you are not building your list or making sales to a decent percentage of visitors, you are going to burn through your money with little outcome. Traffic is not the goal – conversion is the goal.
7. Not planning goals in tiers – Your goal cannot be to make $100,000 in 6 months from zero. OK, you can have that goal if you want to, but consider this. I always suggest someone set daily goals and when you are just starting out, learn to make $10 a day. I know that cannot support you, but until you know how to make a little you cannot scale up and make a lot.
8. Pick products that can be sold, not one’s with the highest payout. The places I make the most money besides working with clients are mid-priced products that have incredible quality and are very valuable.
9. Too complex of a plan – remember that people will not find your new website unless you promote it day and night. Keep your plan simple and focus on relentless promotion, value and content.
10. Giving up too quickly. Lastly, people do not make money fast so they think everything is wrong and they jump to the next idea. Unless you focus on a few things and do them well for an extended period, you cannot be successful.

Bonus: Especially when you are just starting, do not build many different business models. There are a lot of ways to make money on the Internet but you cannot do them all. Really master one and then learn a second.

No, I was not raising money.

Actually we were there via a referral and we were discussing how our lead generation system could help them grow their portfolio companies.  It turns out that over 50% of the companies were a good fit for increasing sales through our lead generation system.

That got me thinking about how to sell business to business.  It seems to me that it is smarter to go after venture capital people to get introductions to other business owners that can benefit from your product or service.  I am not saying this is easy, but the traditional route of hoping that business owners know other business owners and will refer you in just seems limited.  The nice thing about talking to these VC’s is that we sell a product that increases quality sales leads.  They have a great interest in increasing the portfolio company’s sales and profits.  It was a good meeting.

If you have only been going through one channel of people to do business to business lead generation, consider who else might be able to introduce you to the people that can benefit the most from working with you.

Understand, I have never felt it was a bad value or I would not have been doing it.  Period.

But there were issues around selling people software that they simply did not use to it’s full potential.  So the product was good but the average outcome was less than ideal.  -  By the way, I think Microsoft suffers from the same thing.  I want less, not more.

As a Marketing Speaker, I get a strong feel from the audience on what they want, and that is usually less as well.  Just tell me the couple of most important things – not a long list of things I will never do.

That is why we built our Lead Generation Product.

It is simpler than anything else I have ever built.  And it is more valuable.  It generates massive leads for clients that use the system.  And since the whole thing is automated, there is nearly nothing to do.  You only need to either write short articles or pay someone to write short articles.  Then leads find you and request information from you.

I often get hired as an SEO Speaker but most people do not want the details – they want to know how to get the maximum results for the minimum effort.

That is why I now do Web marketing workshops around using SEO, Social Media and Lead Generation Strategies to build your own lead generation engine.  You need to contact me if you are interested as we customize it to your industry and goals.

It is high, high value and I have never felt better about what I have to offer.  You should take advantage of it before your competition does.

Instead, understand what you want and find a specialist in that area.  For example, there are some great Akron Ohio Marketing Firms that do many things very well.  But a marketing firm that does everything is either going to be looking for big clients with big budgets – or they are not going to be good at everything that they do.

That is why knowing what you want to achieve is important before you start shopping around for a marketing firm.  If you are looking for a web and SEO expert, then Buzzoodle is the best choice.  If you are looking for lead generation via the web, Buzzoodle is the best choice.

If you are looking for a specialist in Direct mail or print, Buzzoodle is a terrribe choice.

It is good to work with someone locally.  In fact, I am writing this post just ten minutes before running off to see one of my local, Akron based clients.

But before you pick a local marketing firm, make sure you know what you want and make the firm prove to you that they have the skills and expertise to get the outcome you desire.

Working with a specific company in a specific niche, it is much easier and faster to get great results.

[Get More Waterproofing Leads from the Web]

Why?  In the case of basement waterproofing it is easy to target your prospects.  You need to define your target geographic region and then use Inbound Marketing to draw people that need your service to you.

The Basement Waterproofing Marketing results that we have been getting are great, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Any industry that addresses a specific solution to a specific problem that people are doing searches on and researching is going to get great marketing results in the form of targeted traffic and lead generation.

Granted, Basement Waterproofing is not the sexiest market.  However, it is a great example of how to pick your niche, understand your value to your prospects and make yourself easy to find.  It works like magic.

Many businesses have cut back on marketing over the last year or more.  Many reports show that investing in marketing during an economic downturn is a great investment.  But I am not going to beat that drum – if you are short on cash you have to do what you have to do.

But if you live in the North – as I do – you know what a Spring Thaw looks like.  The day seems like Summer even though it is 38 degrees because of what you are used to.  And the water starts slowly dripping off then end of the icicles.

With some positive things in the news about the economy, it is like that first day of thaw.  There will still be more cold snaps and it is certainly not Summer yet, but good things are on the way.

Which brings me to your marketing.  If you did cut back on marketing for a while, now is the time to really think about increasing your visibility again.  As soon as people feel like the worst is over, they are going to splurge a little bit because they have been holding back for a long time.

Our new Inbound Marketing product is going so well that I have already begun to spend a little more than I was spending.  I even visited a new restaurant (new to me) because of their marketing – I’d really cut back on eating out for a while.

Sure, my new found optimism is related to a new marketing product – but that new product is the result of the economy.  We were forced to look at simplifying our offer and creating the highest value possible.

Marketing is not a situation where you want to jump in after everyone else is in there.  You want to be early and stand out in people’s minds.  Today is the optimal time to pump up your marketing.  If you are interested in online visibility, request our demo of how to make it easier for buyers to find you.

If that is not right for you, then find what is right.  Now is the time.

Apparently, it takes a lot more hard work to own a successful blog that stand out from the crowd. Besides creating valuable blog content, bloggers nowadays are required to learn more in Internet marketing as well as search engine optimization (SEO) as these are the basic methods to expand readership.

Nevertheless, not every blog needs an SEO expert. Most mom and pop blogs, in fact, can achieve huge improvement with some simple SEO efforts. For instance, here are 9 simple ways you can improve your blog SEO scores.

1. Be a big fish in a small pond

The first thing to do in SEO is always keyword research. Get to know what the users are searching in your niche, learn your competition, and come up with a list of targeted keywords.

Smart bloggers avoid direct search engine competition with big players. Instead, they go for long tail keywords with moderate search volume and low competition.

2. Pick a keyword-rich domain name

A domain name is where blog readers start to know you. It should memorable and contains your primary keyword.

There are lots of examples proving that a keyword-rich domain name helps a lot in term of SEO. Blog ranks high for certain keywords just because the words are in their domain.

3. Focus on one to two keywords on each page

It is almost impossible for a webpage to rank high for 15 – 20 different keywords. Hence, it’s wiser to create several posts/pages and optimize each of them for a small number of different keywords.

Say that you are running a financial blog and wish to rank high on a series of technical terms like MACD, EMA, and RSI chart. The best way to do so is to create a different page for each of these terms and build different incoming links to these pages.

4. Customize your title tags

Title tags are the most important on-page SEO factor but yet most blog platforms emphasize so little on the issue. Most blog platforms use post title as the title tag and that is certainly not good enough. Title tags should be handcrafted independently and it should be more than just your blogpost title.
I am not sure with other blog platform but in case you are using WordPress, there are a few plugins that allow you to customize your title tags. Stephan’s SEO Title Tag Plugin (http://www.netconcepts.com/seo-title-tag-plugin/) for example, is a good one to go with.

5. Use heading tags wisely

Heading tags (<h1></h1>) is another tags that are misused by most bloggers. I am not sure why but most blog theme designers like to use heading tags for sidebar titles. These heading tags are used on irrelevant words like Categories, About, Archive which offer zero SEO value.

To make sure your blog do well in term of SEO, such heading tags must be alternated. You can modify your CSS and quit using heading tags at your sidebar; or you can insert targeted keywords into your sidebar.

6. Make your blog reachable

Don’t do silly mistakes on robots.txt, don’t fool around with your site navigation; always have a link to your achieved posts; make sure your blog has a XML sitemap. All in all, make sure your blog can be easily crawled by search engines.

We want the bots to index deep and wide on your blog content. So make sure you provide enough roadways for the spiders.

7. Proper optimized internal links

Interlinking your own blogposts is not enough. As you already know, search engines (Google especially!) pay a lot of attention to links and both of your internal and external links count.

You only have control over internal link thus that’s the least you can do with linking. Make sure your internal links are filled with descriptive keywords and avoid using anchor texts like “click here” and “read more” that are meaningless to search engines.

8. Be consistent

Posting consistently improve your blog creditability and expand readerships. More over, it increases the number of pages indexed in search engine’s database and in turn, increases the probability your blog to be found by searchers.

9. Build links

You need incoming links as much as possible. Trade, beg, buy, or even steal links from websites or blogs related to your blog. There are various ways how you can build links – writing guest post, directory submission, blogroll exchange, link trades, forum signatures, and text link ads are some of the common known methods – some of these methods contain risk of being filtered by search engines while some do not.

Guest Author Block
This guest post is brought to your by Jerry of Web Hosting Secret Revealed. Jerry inspects and reviews web hosting companies based on his own usage experience. Readers looking for honest hosting advice are recommended to read further at his blog.

Here is the trap you might fall into.

1. I don’t want to email the email list because some people might unsubscribe.
2. I don’t want to sell anything to my email list because some people might unsubscribe.
3. I cannot email my list more than once a month because they might unsubscribe.
4. I need to give incredible value in each email or my email list members will unsubscribe.

The reality is that people join a list fully knowing that you will also try to sell something.  They know that they can probably unsubscribe and they will if they get too many emails or get annoyed with your message.

However, would you rather have a email list of 100 people that buy things regularly for you, or an email list of 10,000 people that just delete your message.

I am not saying to be irresponsible with your email list.  But also do not be afraid to use it and do not take unsubscribes personally.

In practice, there`s only so much money you can make with the odd affiliate link here and there. To truly capitalize on affiliate marketing, your need to ensure that you can drive high quality traffic to you site at a sensible economic rate and that the programmers you are promoting are those that will attract the greatest click-through ratios and achieve optimal conversion rates.

From a merchant perspective, it is essential that you understand what attracts and motivates affiliates in designing or managing an effective affiliate programme. Getting the right affiliates on board is not only a great way of selling products on the Internet but it`s also an excellent way of boosting your reputation.

In general terms, the most effective means by which to promote your programme generally lie in networking, the affiliate networks themselves and in making direct contact with some of the high traffic “super affiliates”.

Most affiliates are ultimately motivated by earnings per 1000 clicks or EPM as it is commonly called. The factors determining this will include your sector, products, consumer brand awareness, the level of competition and the quality of your own site, together with your pricing strategy. All of these factors need to be correctly aligned in attracting and perhaps more importantly retaining the right affiliates. Major brands may offer lower headline commission rates but will engender greater consumer confidence and thus higher click-through rates and conversion rates and potentially better earnings. 10 sales at £20 commission from a major brand will be more attractive the one potential sale at £300 from an unknown market entrant.

That isn’t to say that new market entrants are unwelcome. Quite the contrary. New innovative offerings in a competitive space can server to help to differentiate one affiliate from another and most experienced affiliates will spread their risk accordingly.

Headline commission rates aside, affiliates are looking for merchants with attractive, FAST, easy to use sites (still sadly a minority). It takes a great deal of effort, time and money to attract traffic to an affiliate site in 2009. Few affiliates will be prepared to see their hard-earned visitors click the back button in frustration at a poorly designed or badly constructed merchant site.

If yours is a commoditised product or you have a large range of products, make sure you provide the networks and your affiliates with a data feed. This is particularly vital for price comparison sites and a decent Google Base feed may also help drive free traffic from Google product search and from the new `One Box`, part of Google`s universal search strategy.

Make sure programme terms are fair and that any commission reversals can be fully explained and justified. Keep you affiliates` attention with well constructed offers and voucher codes and be sure that the validity period and conditions surrounding these are made abundantly clear so that your affiliates can stay within the latest IAB guidelines concerning the use of voucher codes.

Communication is essential: whether you are working directly with your affiliates or via the networks and their account management teams, make sure that communications are clear, timely and positive. So many merchants rattle their affiliates with micro complaints, negative communications and poorly designed promotions. No-one wants to promote a £0.0002p saving on a bottle of shampoo between 3pm and 5pm this afternoon “sorry we forgot to tell you earlier”. No-one wants to be told that “we are currently reviewing the validity of the affiliate channel in the context of our upcoming marketing plans”. Positive. Timely. Accurate. Those are they keys.

Ultimately, any UK affiliate marketing program will only succeed so far without the backing of the major affiliate publishers. Getting them on side is only the first part of the equation. Handle the programme well and it will mushroom.

ABOUT Guest

Lammo.net is one of the most popular Affiliate Marketing Blogs in the UK. With a reputation for “telling it like it is”, it has attracted a very loyal following amongst the Internet Marketing community as a whole. Lammo is updated several times a week with news, comment and opinion on the very latest topics to affect the Affiliate Marketing Industry.

I went through a progression of different membership website software packages.  I tried Moodle, but it was too complex for what I was trying to do (and was hard to make look good.)  Then I tried a paid vesion on Ning, but that is more social networking and not great for leading learning.  I also tried Joomla, Drupal and DotNetNuke.

Finally I came to realize that a membership site is about publishing highly valuable content in a clean, private environment.  I decided upon WordPress and it was a great decision.

The only down side was the wordpress membership plugin made it necessary for me to set up people’s accounts.  That was just not acceptable.

Then I found WordPress Wishlist Member.  I already had ecommerce, affiliates and more.  I just needed an easy way to integrate membership and manage them.

The Wishlist development team does a great job with online training videos and their support is very good as well.  They have also just updated the membership website software to include paypal integration that looks fantastic.  I am looking forward to trying that option.

If you have ever thought about starting a membership website but did not know what is the best membership website software and the best membership site platform, I strongly recommend keeping it simple and powerful with the combination of wordpress and Wishlist Membership.

Want more infomation about membership site creation?  Visit How to create a membership site.

No, it means that there are more ways to reach people and depending on your target market, you have more options that all may be less effective than in the past when there were fewer options (and more people condensed into fewer communication channels.)

Here are some old school marketing techniques that still work.

1. Press Releases – When it used to be really read by the press, it was appropriate to call it a press release.  Now I would call it a news broadcast.  I do not believe a press release will usually find any major writers but I do think that you are going to get some good exposure and good back links to your website.  Also, if you focus on a niche or use the more expensive services you may still hit some great media outlets.
2. Email – Way more attention seems to be given to social media than email marketing.  However, email marketing will still generate a lot more money for you.  It is an essential part of your marketing and if you bought the whole Email is Dead crap, you jumped on the wrong bandwagon.  I make most of my money from email and SEO.
3. SEO – Search Engine Optimization is not the new hot thing, but if there is one area that is actually using social media well, it is the people that get how SEO and Social Media tie in together.  The key with SEO is that if you are in a tight target niche with little competition, you can probably pay for a one time project and reap the rewards for a long time.  If you are in an even slightly competitive market, you need someone that goes to war on your behalf every month to increase ranking and get more pages indexed.
4. Old Websites – Do you have one of those old websites sitting around that looks like late 90′s and does date back to then?  Don’t touch it without talking to a professional!  The age of your website is very valuable and the pages should not be changed unless you have someone that can look at your ranking first.  I updated one of these old sites after some research and got fantastic results within 3 days – I am talking #1 rankings where a lot of other people were fighting for it.  These old sites have great credibility in the eyes of search engines and can be ignited by a good search engine specialist.
5. Directories – Things like directories seem out of date, but getting listed in a good directory still gives you a valuable back-link and can generate a steady (if not huge) stream of traffic.  Some of my favorite are technorati and blogcatalog – but the older (less shiny) ones are still effective if you get into them too.
6. Link Exchanges – These things have a bad name, and anything that automates the process I would stay away from.  However, doing an occasional link exchange with someone else in your industry will help – not hurt – your website.  If link exchanges actually hurt websites, most blogs with blog rolls would be thrown out of Google long ago since they often link to each other.  This is one of those things that still works, you just have to be smart about it.
7. Word of Mouth – The oldest of the old school marketing is the new cool.  Finding ways to get people to talk about you are the holy grail of cutting through the clutter.  But it may just not work for you – you really have to be differentiated.

Dead Marketing – Some things are really gone

Yes, there are some marketing techniques that are really gone.  Do not do the following -

• Pass out your audio book on 8 track tape.
• SPAM – Does anyone fall for that now?
• Dressing up as a gorilla and selling encyclopedias door to door – OK, this still works but don’t do it.

Most things will still work with good execution and message.  Just be realistic about how people’s attention has scattered.  You need to scatter your message where your niche market is to make sure they can find you.  But that does not mean you throw the old school marketing in the garbage.