Got some fun stuff in the mail the other day – my daughter’s homeschool supplies. 64 pounds of books and other supplies for her lessons.

It’s going to be a fun school year.

Believe in What You Know to Be an Authority

When you’re trying to sell something online, whatever that may be, it helps to look like an authority on the subject. It’s the fastest way to get people to trust you online.

Makes things sound kind of hard if you don’t think you’re an authority on the subject you’re working on. Fortunately, looking like an authority online may be easier than you think.

An authority online is someone or a site that provides good, accurate information on their topic. With a little bit of research you can quickly learn more about your subject than many people searching on it.

This isn’t to support “fake it until you make it” kind of thinking. There’s a time and a place for that, and I’ll leave that to you to work out.

Your Website Gives You Authority

Your average visitor doesn’t know as much about how websites work as you do, even when you’re pretty new at the whole game. I know people who are shocked to find out that just anyone can start a website.

Whether your site is made to be a major resource on your topic or a quick hop to make some affiliate sales, people are going to see it as an authority if you build it right. Your site should offer enough information upfront to encourage people to see you that way.

Authority in Article Marketing

Writing and distributing articles is one way to build your perceived authority on a subject. They should be well written and informative, but give just enough information that people will want to visit your site for more, so they might take whatever action you’re hoping for.

That your articles are published anywhere online makes you an authority to some people. It doesn’t matter that the article directory accepts lots of articles, so long as you sound like you know what you’re talking about, your article will build your authority in the minds of many web users.

Don’t Fake Authority in the Wrong Areas

There are niches where you can look like an authority with just a little research. There are others where you really shouldn’t.

Medical niches, for example. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, you can do some actual damage to people. Don’t mess around that way.

Don’t fake income claims for business opportunities either. This is one of the things the FTC is paying attention to these days. You don’t want to be caught pretending to earn more than you do.

But if you can quickly learn enough about socks, dining room furniture, cooking, or the darkness that inhabits the human soul, give it a try. You may not look like an authority to the search engines, but to the visitors of your website you can be convincing if you’ve done your work right.

We’ve done it. We’ve officially decided to homeschool our oldest this year. It’s looking like a really good choice. At the very least, a good experiment to see if we all like homeschooling or public school better. We’ll be using the California Virtual Academy through K12 for our curriculum.

How To Create A Sustainable Work-At-Home Affiliate Marketing Business Through Recurring Commissions!

When first starting out in affiliate marketing online, most new marketers make the same mistakes – they throw up a few banners and expect to earn great income, they tweet about a new e-book that’s just come out, they post in forums with that affiliate link in their signature and hope for the best.

While each of those and similar methods may or may not create sales and result in some commissions coming in, none of them are leading toward a sustainable online business model. In order to build a strong, well-oiled affiliate marketing endeavor, it’s necessary to focus on residual income, not simple one-off sales promoted once or twice.

Most successful individuals in the field look for services to promote, services with on-going billing that then pay recurring commissions. Some of the most common of these include web hosting, membership sites, services like autoresponders, etc. These are opportunities that tend to be used by the widest section of your target market, and as such have the highest potential income for you.

It’s simple to see the power of this – if you promote an e-book and it sells, you make your set rate – say 50%. But if you’d sold a site hosting package to someone and they kept their site there for two years, you might have made that same commission 24 times! Retention rates vary by the type of site, with hosting and autoresponders usually keeping their clients longer than the average paid membership site does.

If you promote a site with a retention of 1+ years, for example, and can generate an average of 5 sales per month, you’re being paid for 5 sales the first month, 10 sales the second, 15 sales the third, etc. – you’re still just selling 5 sales per month, but the renewals keep building if the people stay with the service. Likewise, if you stop promoting that service today, you’ll receive a declining amount from your renewals each month, but could potentially go on to receive income from it for a year after you moved on to other projects.

Now don’t pass up on hot opportunities that spring up along the way, but be sure to focus most of your efforts on recurring income possibilities to try and bullet-proof your online business… It’s the best way to make sure your time, money and efforts invested are best reflected in your affiliate marketing success!

Doug Champigny is a world-famous Internet marketing coach, mentor & speaker and the creator of the PowerStart Marketing 4-week Internet Marketing Crash Course. To learn more about Doug or to book him to speak at your next event, contact him through his blog at http://DougChampigny.com.

It really is summer! The kids are in swimming lessons now. That’s the first activity I sign them up for each and every summer if at all possible.

I’ll be spending part of the summer figuring out if homeschooling will work out for my oldest or not. I’d like to, but it’s tough. The local school really didn’t meet her needs this year, and while I would expect a different teacher next year, I don’t think things will be different enough. So if homeschooling works, so it will be. We’re looking at the k12.com program.

Summer Sanity For Work at Home Moms

We all love our kids. In fact, they are the reason most of us decided to stay at home. But, for work at home moms, and dads, summer can become a very stressful time. With the kids out of school, and our jobs still demanding our time and energy, it can be a very trying time. Here are some suggestions to help you keep your sanity during the months of summer.

1. Make and Keep a Schedule — As a former teacher I can assure you that the only way teachers keep a bit of their sanity is by keeping and maintaining daily routines and schedules. Take their cue! While initially kids tend to recent this type of structured approach, they will appreciate it in the long run. See, kids appreciate the comfort of knowing what will happen next. If they have a set routine that gives them a sense of security and they actually miss it when it is disturbed. Keeping to a schedule might prove a bit difficult at first, but I promise you, the end result will be well worth it.
2. Make Meals Ahead of Time — It is a lot less stressful to spend a couple of hours one day fixing meals that can be reheated or used in several ways during the week, than to have to spend time every day thinking about what to cook, and actually fixing it. Prepare a roasted chicken, then use the leftovers for pasta or omelet later on in the week. Prep a lasagna and freeze it for a later date. You get the idea. Fix things that can be easily stored and that will not consume too much of your time later.
3. Schedule Some Outdoor Time — You know you have to set aside quality time to spend with your kids. So, one of the easiest ways to ensure that you will be given time to complete your work is to begin the day with fun, TIRING activities that your kids will really enjoy. Take them to the park first thing in the morning. Plant some new trees or a new garden in your backyard. Go bike-riding on a trail. Do these activities early, before the sun becomes too fierce. Then, when you get home, the little ones will be ready for a nap, and the older ones will be ready for some sitting down and being quiet time. Now, you can get some work done!
4. Enlist the Help of Friends and Family — Your kids are not the only ones on vacation, are they? So make arrangements with your neighbor or your sister. Offer to take their kids with you on your outing to the park on Thursday, if they will in turn take yours on their trip to the beach on Friday. That will guarantee both of you at least one day of total freedom. Also, don’t hesitate to as the retired grandparents to take the kids for an afternoon. Maybe Aunt Mary took some vacation time. Ask her if she’d like to take the kids to the amusement park. You get the idea. It is not a crime to ask others to help you, and you are not the only one who ever felt they needed a time out from their kids!
5. Keep Things in Perspective — Keep two very important things in mind: your kids will grow, and summer will not last forever. If you think back to when your kids were born, and how quickly they’ve grown, you’ll understand the importance of cherishing every moment. Soon, they will be off living their own lives. So, enjoy their childhood moments. And, summer is only a few months. What if the business side gets a bit sloppy? It will still be here tomorrow. Your kids, however, will only be this age once. Thank God for the overwhelming feeling of having young kids. Enjoy the blessing of being home with them. Most importantly, trust, that with a bit or organization and planning you will survive this summer, and be closer to your children at the end of it.

Bottom line: Summer is a time for building memories! Create memorable moments and enjoy every second of them! Love on your babies, and don’t forget they ARE the reason you became part of the work at home moms crew!

Marcy Amaro is a successful online entrepreneur. A wife and mother of two, Marcy has found a way to work with millionaires and earn a living from home, while staying with her kids. As a former teacher, her Passion is helping others who have a burning desire for success achieve their dreams. You too can succeed. Here is the program that has made all the difference for her, http://www.strategicmarketingmaven.com

This is it! School’s out tomorrow for kids around here, and the week has already been crazy because it’s all half days for them. I guess it’s a warmup for me, getting used to the interference in my daily routine.

I’m a Crap Writer, So Why Do I Blog?

I’m a sub-par writer, and the weird thing is that I’m fully aware of it. I don’t have the natural wit or mastery over the English language that you’d think would be a prerequisite for any aspiring blogger. What’s more I chronically include typos and errors in my posts…so why do I persist with blogging?

There are a large number of reasons for my persistence, but they can be classified into two broad themes:

1. Business Reasons
2. Personal Reasons

Business Reasons For Blogging

• SEO - Now that we’ve turned iThnk into a business – the key word optimisation and inbound links that come from blogging can’t be ignored.
• Promotion - Writing semi entertaining or insightful content that might just get retweeted and shared could result in business growth – in fact this is how we got our first contract.
• To Be Respected – People who blog tend to aspire to be seen as thought leaders – I’m not so phased about being the next Seth Godin but I do love it when someone recognises the hard work and thought that I’ve put into a post (believe me when I say blogging is hard work!).

Personal Reasons For Blogging

• Making Connections – Through blogging and twitter I’ve met some great people who I enjoy cyber stalking to see what they’re up to, I’m also often challenged by some of the readers of iThnk which brings me to my next point….
• Expanding My Thinking- Blogging helps me develop my thought process and expand on ideas that deserve a bit more time and attention. Half of the things I write about start off very simple and end up in places I never intended. Sometimes this is great, other times it can be a little frustrating…but it’s always worth it.
• Forcing me to up-skill- Even though I’m never gunna win a Pulitzer, I’m quite passionate about blogging and as with any sort of passion you tend to unwittingly up-skill yourself. In my case I’m getting better with image editing/design and also using the the back end of WordPress to it’s full potential.
• It Adds Structure To My Life – Blogging forces you to sit down and dig deep on a regular basis (in my case once or twice a week). Sometimes this is a chore, sometimes it’s fun and sometimes it’s a bit like meditation.
• Exploring New Conversations - Because of my efforts in blogging I’m also forced to enter conversations that I otherwise wouldn’t have dreamed of entering. I’ve had to look into design forums, WordPress forums, and I’ve even stumbled into the odd artistic convo. I love the serendipitous feeling of stumbling into something that resonates with me on a level I never could have anticipated.

Summing Up

There are probably a hundred and one reasons why I shouldn’t blog….I have a career and business to focus on, or I’m too young to have an opinion of value etc.

But the thing about my journey with blogging thus far is that I’m having fun.

If no one ever reads another post I write and I see no more opportunity come from blogging I’ll probably keep at it because it’s now an important part of my life.

How has blogging effected your life?

If you’re a sub par blogger or if your a pro I’d love to hear about the motivations behind your blogging/blog reading? What does it add to your life?

Oh and if you’re looking for some blogging inspiration check out this post by Steve Aitchicon: 100 Ways To Find Blogging Ideas

by Sam Schuurman from http://ithnk.com

Feeling a little blue this week. My grandpa died over the weekend. He was 90 and we knew it was coming soon.

Other than that, I’ve been keeping busy around here, like always. As any of you who combine kids and business know, it’s quite a balance to keep. I just count on the exhaustion being worth it.

How to Get Found in Social Media

So, you’ve selected which social network sites to build on, you’ve laid out your goals and time-lines for social media marketing, you’ve identified your audience, your message and your approach to relate to them, and you have your profile pages set up. The next step is to get found. If you build it, no, they will not just come, unless you’re a superstar or a big brand name…but if you invite them to come, they’ll show up… and if you prove to be useful and helpful, they’ll keep turning up and keep coming back.

Letting people know is the first step to getting found in the vast social media landscape and you can make it easy for them to find you in two ways:

1). Social interaction – Get noticed by getting out there, socializing and staying visible.

• Announce your presence:  Put out a bold and irresistible press release through:
• A Tweet
  A Facebook status wall update
  A LinkedIn update
• A video in YouTube
• Circulate your URL’s/links everywhere, every chance you get online or offline, affix them in your business cards, your marketing materials, your email signature, your profile badges
• Give out and pass around content that’s valuable. Keep in mind content is what people dig up all the time. If it is of use to them they will distribute it.
• Participate – involve yourself in the social media way of life, share, comment, vote, link, reply, tweet, retweet, and bookmark
• Be sincere – never suck up. People do eventually recognize flattery.
• Associate with influencers – Gain their vote of confidence and they will give active help and encouragement

2). Through search – Add SEO to your social networking initiatives and you’ll get the visibility in search results.

• Content optimization – select right keywords, proper keyword placement, and sufficient keyword quantity
• Site/Page structure optimization  - add your links in every visible , clickable area in your profile page and content that’s within acceptable limits

Social media marketing is an investment in time, money and effort. To get noticed is only the first step; there are still the areas of content creation, engagement, measuring, fine-tuning, and expanding to deal with.  You will really need to direct your attention, time and resources to this particular activity over a period of time.

But ask anyone who is a dominant force in their own social setting, you’ll likely get the same advice: social media is a tool in online marketing you cannot do without now, and the paybacks to this initiative are well worth it.

There is much to learn about me and my website. When I’m not enjoying my life as a father, husband or son, I am a member of the fraternity known as “Major League Baseball” (MLB). Over the years I’ve been viewed around the circuit as an intelligent and committed businessman. So I often pride myself for being the multi-dimensional athlete that I am. Extremely grateful for the gift that God has given me, yet being keenly aware that I will not pitch forever. I choose to use my platform as a professional athlete to foster my growth, as well as the growth of others in the world of business. Jasongrilli.com serves as the connection of my business to yours.

Jason Grilli
Perfect Pitch Marketing Group
http://JasonGrilli.com
http://wildpitchmarketing.com

When you run a home business, it’s important to think about how to keep improving your business. Standing still, doing the same things you’ve always done only takes you so far, and for most of us that’s not far enough. You need to keep trying new things to find more things that work.

This summer should be interesting for me in that regard. Not only am I trying some new things, mostly more social bookmarking, but I’ll also be teaching my oldest daughter a bit about what it is I really do. She interested, so it’s a good time to get her involved.

Rejection Free Marketing – Double Your Sales Conversions With 3 Simple Video Marketing Secrets

Internet marketing is about building your list. The larger your list is from your target market, the more money you will make.

A lot of marketers focus the majority of their efforts on increasing the number of subscribers to their list. And that is time and energy well spent. However, if these same marketers with huge lists would just make a few minor adjustments, they could possibly double their sales conversions from the same list.

I am referring to the power of video marketing.

Many people think of video marketing as a form of creating leads to add to their list. And that definitely works, but the real power of videos comes after the lead is created.

Use videos to connect with your list. Videos will help your list get to know and trust you. Videos will enhance your credibility. They will have you stand out as a leader and expert in your field. Your audience will better connect with you because through video, you will become real.

Here are three specific tips on using video marketing to better connect with your list and put you in a position to double your sales conversions:

1. Auto-responder messages

2. Facebook

3. Testimonials on your blog

Include links to videos in your auto-responder messages. I have found that my broadcast emails are opened 16.1% more often when I mention in the email subject box that the email contains a video clip. I also have 19.4% more clicks in my auto-responder emails when I indicate that the link will direct the reader to a video clip.

What good is having a huge list if nobody is opening the follow-up or broadcast emails?

Increase the number of emails that are opened. Increase the number of emails that are read. And increase the number of email links that your readers will follow. Your readers will also feel more connected to you. They will feel that they are getting to know you when they watch videos of you giving them content rich information directed at helping them in some way.

Do not abuse video marketing in your auto-responders by constantly sending videos that are nothing more than a sales pitch.

Use videos with Facebook and other web 2.0 sites. Provide a link to a new video with helpful content that your Facebook friends will appreciate. Wish somebody happy birthday with a short video. Think about all of the birthday wishes someone receives on Facebook. If you do this through video, who do you think they will remember most? This will help you stand out from the rest and brand you as someone that is different that offers an enormous amount of value.

Use video testimonials on your blog. Find several people that can vouch for your unique ability to create value for others. 3rd party validation is very powerful in the relationship business.

These 3 techniques are very simple, yet not many people use them. Keep building your list every day to increase your sales. Now double those sales by using these 3 simple and overlooked video marketing tricks.

Nick J. Lang is an online business and marketing coach. He offers a special free gift to network marketers that are serious about creating 50 to 100 quality leads per day. It’s a free report that will drive massive traffic to your site. View short video by visiting:
http://www.RejectionFreeMarketing.com

It’s almost tax day here in the United States. Here’s hoping everyone’s done or close to it! Let’s try to not add to the midnight rush to the post office. Why do people still do that anyhow? I just love filing online… relatively speaking, that is.

This week I thought I’d share an article with you on social bookmarking. It’s one of the areas I’ve been trying to work on with my own marketing, as it can be quite valuable. There are a few tricks to learn to keep it all natural, of course, but some people get great results from it.

Social Bookmarking For Added Traffic

To take great advantage of the tremendous traffic potential of any social bookmarking site, certain steps should be taken to make your campaign effective. Before a site is bookmarked, care should be taken to ensure that the site is properly optimized for the search engines; if not it can limit the effectiveness of the social bookmarking campaign.

If your site lands front page on the bookmarking sites, you will produce a large increase of traffic to that site. The following will give ways you can utilize bookmarking to drive an insane amount of targeted visitors to your website.

A catchy headline is important as it is the first thing a visitor will see. It must grab the reader’s attention without being very long. Using action verbs in the title, or using words, such as “how to,” will also draw in the readers.

Using a meaningful description that relates well to your content is important. Do not use sentences that are too long, and do not lie in that description.

The first paragraph should be captivating, because if you were able to catch the reader’s attention with the title and the description, you want to hold that attention in the first paragraph also. If this paragraph is not well written, the reader will promptly leave the page.

The content of your site should be both relevant and original, since bookmarking sites place a priority on quality content. The information provided on the site should be the relevant and required information readers will want to read.

Keywords are of great importance here also. People searching the bookmarking sites, will use keywords to obtain the information they are looking for, as they would when searching the search engines. Insert these keywords in the body, the title and in the description.

Be sure to proofread your content for grammatical errors, spelling errors and the correctness of your facts. Submit your link to the correct category, so that your information will be easily found by those searching the targeted keywords you have chosen.

Articles should be submitted to the articles directories for more visibility, and the links from these directories will provide another good source of even more traffic, if the content is relevant, interesting and good. Try to avoid boring, old news topics as this will not hold the reader’s interest.

Your site should include a good sampling of relevant articles, to provide the readers with the information they are looking for, and entice them to come back again and again.

Proving newsletter subscription options and RSS feeds will keep the site interesting for readers. Be sure to make them easily visible on the site. Provide bookmarking buttons on your site, to help the readers bookmark your site, and position those buttons where they will be easily seen.

Bookmarking should not be used to just create links to your sites, because this behavior is not considered natural bookmarking. In the natural bookmarking account, a variety of sites will be bookmarked. So in the link building, links should be built on social sites linking to a few web properties, and not just to your sites.

After the social bookmarking submissions are completed, you will need to make sure the search engines are aware of them, and you achieve that by pinging the bookmarks to ping sites like pingomatic. These ping sites are constantly crawled by the search engines, and the spiders will follow these links back to the social bookmarks and will index them.

Because of the enormous popularity of the social bookmarking sites, they provide a tremendous source of traffic, when used correctly. Ensuring that your website is search engine optimized, mixing links with your links in the bookmarks, and then pinging your submissions, will allow you to get an increase in targeted web traffic to your website but only if the process is followed on a consistent basis.

Direct Horizon Business Development Group has over 50 years of technical experience behind it’s business practices. Whether it’s web design, content creation, content distribution, point of sale systems, traffic and conversion tracking, ppc or custom software, Direct Horizon Business Development Group is the one you want to call.

For access to our blog please visit http://blog.directhorizon.com
For access to our website please visit http://www.directhorizon.com

The kids are back home, and school’s back in session. The house is now much noisier than it was all last week, and that’s such a good thing!

This week’s article is about keyword research. It’s an easy area to neglect in the rush to create a website and content for that website, but it’s just one of the steps you need to take if you want your pages to be found.

Keyword Research is Critical to Your Small Business Internet Marketing Plan

A critical component that must be included in the internet marketing plan for your small business is a dedicated and complete effort at keyword research. No matter whether you plan to use Pay-Per-Click, Search Engine Optimization, Local Search, or simply want your company to rise search engine rankings, you must be using the appropriate keywords to be successful.

Most people would normally assume that they know the best keyword for their specific niche. While that may be true, what they fail to understand is the competition that they are likely to face online using their selected word of phrase. That’s right, on the internet, a “keyword” is a word, a group of words, or a phrase that describes an item, industry, hobby, business, or whatever. For example, in the “Business” category, you will also find “Small Business Internet Marketing Plan”, which is a five word phrase that describes a very specific part of the category.

Most single word keywords will have loads of sites and pages on the Internet which will be competing with you for the attention of your target market. You can quickly see how broad that competition is by doing a Google search on the keyword and then checking out
“results” at the top of the page. For, example, when searching on the keyword “business”, we get 1,600,000,000 places on the Internet where the term is used. It will be very difficult to get anyone’s attention when your entre’ on the Internet is one of a billion, six hundred million!

When searching on “small business Internet marketing plan”, however, there are only a mere 28,100,000 results. While that still seems like a big universe (and it is), this keyword is far more likely to provide a market in which I can gain some recognition and presence. You can certainly get “ranked” on the search engine using either keyword. Under the “business” keyword, an article or video or blog or website might appear several thousand pages deep in the search results. Chances are, nobody will ever see it. By using a coordinated effort, though, my site or blog or article can appear in the top ten search results for “small business Internet Marketing Plan”

There are many tools available on the Internet with which to research keywords. Most are free and some can be pretty expensive. When you are just starting out and trying to research your first keywords, you are directed to use the Keyword Tool provided free of charge by Google. Simply search Google on the term “Keyword Tool” and the first result will be their free keyword tool. Using this neat tool, you can enter a keyword (word or phrase) and Google will return to you the monthly volume of searches based on that keyword as well as an indicator of how competitive the word is. It will also provide many, many derivatives and permutations of you word or phrase and their relative results.

You can further research these words by downloading the results list to a comma separated value or CSV file that you can open in Excel. Then you can choose certain words or phrases that particularly fit your target niche or sub-niche and perform your own searches on those words in Google to learn more about your competition.

To embark on any sort of venture on the Internet without thoroughly doing your keyword research in advance, will surely meet with frustration and a waste of your time and energy. Good keyword research need not take an inordinate amount of time and it will greatly enhance the success of your small business internet marketing plan.

Resources Don Seibert is a retired business executive who, as an Expert Author, writes timely articles, books, and blogs on issues concerning using the Internet in a small business. Having retired twice, Don is host of http://www.LocalBizIdeas.com. Visit the site for a complete discussion of how to attract more customers to your business using the power of the Internet.

Don and his business partner, Rich Lamkin, have recently published a popular book entitled “Powerful Small Business Internet Stratgies”