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Introduction

Optimism is assuming the best outcome is possible. Pessimism assumes the worst outcome is inevitable. These two different types of people view life entirely differently. However, there is little doubt that optimists are happier, healthier, and generally more successful in all aspects of their lives. A little optimism goes a long way.

Many people believe that one’s past determines one’s level of optimism or pessimism. To a certain extent, that is true. Children raised to think positively are far more likely to remain optimists than children raised with negativism. However, as adults, we always have choices. Whether we spend our time making lemonade out of lemons or complain about the shortage of lemons is always choice. While optimists see possibilities, pessimists see problems.

Pessimism is a mindset that we can change. This will happen when we want more out of life and when we believe we can achieve it. While negative thoughts keep us focused on roadblocks and reasons not to act, optimism and positive thinking open our mind to new opportunities. It fills us with the belief that life can provide us with more. Optimists don’t expect guarantees, but they are willing to risk roadblocks and failure for the chance at success. They see every reason why they should try for happiness.

It is this belief and mindset that determines the quality of their lives, not their ability, luck, or fate.

Optimists never see themselves as victims of circumstances. They understand things can go wrong at any time, but they also know how many good opportunities are possible. So, they learn to deal with obstacles to reach their goals and dreams. For optimists, obstacles are lessons to be learned on the road to success.

Optimists feel in control of their lives, while pessimist are certain that life controls them.

Everyone can become more optimistic, happier, and more successful. All you have to do is expect more out of life and realize that more is possible. Expectations have a way of being self-fulfilling. Those who view the glass as half-full have an excellent chance of enjoying a life of abundance because that is their expectation of life. Pessimists who see the glass as half-empty may spend a lifetime suffering from thirst.

This book attempts to explain the mindset and benefits of optimism, and how to increase positive thinking for a better life. Regardless of your circumstances, you can make positive changes that lead to greater success. The way you think determines how you act. And your actions determine whether you are guided by optimism or negativism.

Chapter 1 - What is Optimism?

We all have a vague idea that optimism is good – seeing the glass as half full and making lemonade from lemons. Optimists see success as their right. It’s there if they are willing to work for it. Many people, however, believe it’s some innate ability we are born with. Either you have it, or you don’t. Nothing could be further from the truth. While optimism can be partially genetic (if you were raised in an optimistic family, the odds are you will have that trait), it can also be learned.

Optimism is a mindset that believes in the possibility of a good outcome. Equally as important, it understands that there are hurdles along the way. Life is filled with the unexpected. No one gets everything he or she wants, and optimists don’t expect it. However, they build the type of resilience that encourages them to keep trying. Optimists are not guided by failure. There may be many rainy days, but eventually, the sun will always come out. If that glass of water gets spilled, it can always get refilled. That’s how an optimist approaches life. He or she may stumble but will always get back up.

Research has found that being optimistic will enhance your quality of living and your health when compared to pessimists. It encourages flexible thinking, creativity, and greater problem-solving capability. All of that decreases stress and ensures a healthier body.

Let’s take a look at how optimists behave when compared to pessimist, because there is a significant difference.

1. Optimists know that they are responsible for their own life, with all of its ups and downs. They don’t depend on others to feel good, successful, or attractive. They are the masters of their own fate.

To be clear, it is not necessary for an optimist to be overly successful or attractive. An optimist can be an unassuming person, living a simple life, and extremely content with everything he or she has. To him or her, that is success.

2. Optimists associate with other optimists. The people you associate with impact your life in many ways. It has been said that we are the sum of the five people whom we associate with the most. Optimists choose their friends wisely.

Pessimists will, unfortunately, drag you down with their negative thinking. It’s almost inevitable. Some people can complain about anything – the world in general, the job, a meal at a restaurant, a movie … the list doesn’t end. This attitude invariable rubs off on others and is best avoided if you are an optimist. And if success is your goal, know that the number one trait of successful people is positive thinking. A positive outlook is the sure way to get through hard times.

Introduction

Over the last several decades, the real world has moved online, and so has the money. Whether it's for a commercial website, personal blog, turning a profit through online advertising, or finding a way to improve the exposure for your business, today's currency of success heavily relies on being able to cultivate more traffic to your website.

While the world may be getting smaller, the Internet is quickly getting much larger, and it seems that everybody wants a piece of the pie.

The good news is that a majority of visitors to the millions of websites, get funneled through the rather narrow search engines to the various sites. This leaves the market far from saturated regarding a division of resources. Therefore, there are still plenty of ways that you can successfully direct more people to your website.

Unfortunately, with everything good, there has to be something terrible. Most of the ways that you can drive traffic to your site as evident as they may be are only entirely understood by those people who have dedicated themselves to understanding Search Engine Optimization, (SEO) and digital marketing strategies, merely because they are more driven to do so.

Consequently, a job that is so simple anyone can perform it with the basic understanding of how to operate a computer ends up being done by specialized digital marketing firms that increase the operational costs for small businesses like yours.

Chapter 1 – Content, SEO, and Analytics

When it comes to driving traffic to your website, your first efforts have to come from your own backyard. The first and most important rule for building an excellent foundation for driving more traffic to your site is creating unique content.

As a small business owner, you need to learn to fully appreciate the vast array of tools that are at your disposal for you to use to make your site a fantastic experience for visitors.

The first rule in content creation is that you need to diversify your content among as many of the media formats as possible. This includes textual, audio-visual, exclusively aural, and so on. Every business will require a specific skill-set to survive and ultimately succeed.

However, most people just shrug these skills off as an everyday occurrence. This is why those people who are more willing to acknowledge their gifts will always receive more attention, more publicity, and ultimately more business through their higher web traffic numbers.

So, the first thing that you will need to do to start increasing your web traffic will be to isolate the specific skills that qualify you to succeed in your chosen profession. This could be your salesmanship, creative business modeling, financial acumen, investment skills, or strong research skills. Most small business websites that make it big, don't do it because they are loaded with business jargon, but because they can extract the qualities of great businesses into various articles and anecdotes, that the general public can relate to and can learn from.

This means that in addition to having your usual web content and products listed on your website, you need to have a blog as well. Your blog will serve as an exciting and informative target for your audience. Having greater public visibility will naturally lead to an increase in web traffic.

Creating Content

When you begin to create the content for your site, you want to identify the styles of content that will benefit you the most. Determine whether the information you are trying to convey will be better discussed in a short video, or will it be better to create a podcast or textual article.

Having a more significant variation in the styles of your content will allow the visitors to your site to scratch different itches depending on their mood at the time. By using various media to convey your information you can satiate your visitor's need to learn through video, audio, or literary outlets all at once. When it comes to the frequency of posted content, you want to make sure that you do so on a regular basis. Nothing turns away an existing visitor base quicker than a stagnant website.

People are only willing to invest their time in a site that continues to develop and grow, rather than wasting their time on a site that seems to be dying out and heading towards the cyber graveyard.

Web Analytics

Beyond the kinds of content that you need to create, you also need to keep your eye on your website analytics. This is usually provided in-house through portals like WordPress, or through Google analytics for general internet sites. If you don’t already have it, head to Google analytics to complete an easy sign-up process. Boost

Once you've signed up for the service, you should begin receiving analytical data on the dashboard within a week. The analytics that you receive will allow you to identify the favorite pieces among your hosted content quickly and to determine whether or not a new video or article received public approval, which is determined by the amount of time spent, on average, on that particular piece of content by your audience.

If they sat through an appropriate amount of time to view the content in its entirety, then you can rest easy because you've done your job. However, if they move on after just 30 seconds, you may need to revisit your judgment regarding the topic or style of the content.

Keeping an eye on the analytics of your website, and tweaking your content accordingly will allow you to understand the tastes of your regular audience members better. This will help you to cater to your visitors appropriately so that you can work to nurture your growing visitor base.

CPA Beginnings

Right now, about 80% of internet advertising falls into traditional categories such as PPC. This means that so far only about 20% of advertisers have started some sort of CPA program, but these numbers are quickly changing. That's because CPA is rapidly becoming the most effective way for publishers and advertisers alike to make money, especially in this difficult economic period. Drastic conditions require new and innovative strategies for tackling the consumer market.

Why Are CPA Networks Booming?

CPA network offers provide advantages to both the publisher and the advertiser in a tough economy. Many consumers aren't willing to buy things as easily as before, and so pay-per-sale offers are harder to convert for publishers. However, a consumer might be more willing to hand out information that an affiliate advertiser can used to market to them later, and that provides some value to the advertiser, too. So publishers find a CPA offer is easier to convert into income in a recession and an advertiser finds that he can still build a great contact list and get visitors more involved in his products and services by using a CPA offer.

Let's take a quick look at a traditional online marketing strategy using PPC offers, to understand why CPA networks can be perceived as having a higher value. When an advertiser decides to implement a PPC campaign, they target a bunch of keywords that a search engine like Google will use to serve up a bunch of ads to people who search for those particular terms. Those visitors then go to a site where the ad is being published, click on the link, and go to the advertiser’s offer. However, the advertiser doesn't know who has clicked, has gathered no information on that potential buyer, and can only hope that the click converts to a sale. Even if it doesn't, the advertiser will still have to pay for the clicks and many advertisers simply want a little more for their money.

Add to that the frustration of click fraud and campaigns that run over-budget with few ways to determine how much they actually impacted sales, and you can see why some advertisers are beginning to opt for CPA offers that cost them less money and will, at the very least, generate a lead if not a sale.

However, it's not just the advertisers who are getting additional benefits from CPA network offers. Publishers are finding that the offers are much easier to implement and the payouts can be higher than a traditional PPC campaign. At rates of $1 to $50 for an offer that generates a valid lead, and with conversion rates of 20%, the take for a publisher can be higher with much less stress and worry. That's because publishers do not have to create landing pages for a CPA offer if they don't want to; additionally, they don't have to research keywords, grab traffic to their site first, and then send them on to the affiliate. Instead, they can go directly to where the biggest traffic sources are online and post a link there directly to the CPA network offer they are promoting. In many cases, the legwork to get a CPA offer up and running is minimal, when compared to a PPC campaign.

How Do I Apply?

Applying to a CPA network can be very different from applying for other traditional programs because there is a greater degree of verification within the network both for advertisers and publishers alike. Don't expect to be accepted automatically just because you fill in the application form, because this is just the just the beginning of the process rather than the end. You will be investigated much more carefully than with a PPC affiliate type program. They will make sure you are the person you say you are, even going as far as to check ownership of websites and contact information you gave on the application form to ensure everything matches. Be as accurate as possible when applying to CPA networks as they are very selective about who they accept.

The CPA network employs people who know how to spot deception in an application by cross-checking one piece of information with another. For instance, if you give one name on the application form but the owner of the website in the WhoIs record is someone else, they may decide you're not being honest with them. Also, if you give out a phone number or email address that you never respond to it will be an automatic red flag that will kill your application, so be prepared to answer the phone and/or email promptly to speed up the approval process.

Cross-Checks And Double-Checks

Now that you understand the process a bit more, let’s review the items you need to make sure are consistent and accurate on your application form.

- Your Website(s) – You don't necessarily have to own a website with a CPA network to be accepted, but it does help. Make sure you are listed as the owner of the site, as they will verify this is a match.

- Your Country of Origin – They will check your IP address to make sure it is coming from the country of origin you are claiming you reside within. If you outsource the application process, make sure it is to someone within the same country where you live. Otherwise, it will look very questionable, and have no doubt that they will reject you based on that alone.

- Your Contact Information – Throwaway email addresses are an automatic reject. Unlike traditional affiliate programs, you can expect to receive a call from an affiliate manager of the CPA network using the phone number you provided. Be available to take the call, as they do not call twice, and they will reject your application if you don't answer. They will also check the area code to make sure it goes to the state of residency you claim on the application form. Make sure it matches.

- Incomplete Applications – Don't uncheck boxes that they've checked, like a box typically saying “incentives” for your advertising method. It's their hint that's what they want you to use.

The Single Most Important Question

Expect to be questioned on how you intend to promote or drive traffic to the affiliate offers, if you are signing up to be a publisher. This is the single most important question and your answer will greatly impact whether your application is accepted or not. If you don't have a clear idea, it will only prove to the affiliate manager that you are not a valuable affiliate partner to include in their network. Make sure you have a good answer for this question.

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Introduction

There seems to be an unwritten rule that some people will succeed no matter how little they try and that others will fail regardless of how hard they try. The truth of the matter is that we all live in an existential framework where we are all presented with opportunities to pursue our purpose in life. Despite the seemingly insurmountable odds that are stacked against a considerable number of people, few people have accomplished their goals. Interestingly enough, many of the people that have achieved success, don't necessarily come from a privileged background, but they have one thing in common. They are able to embrace the opportunities available to them, and through hard work, they were ultimately able to become successful. They have found a way to live purpose-driven lives. When you look at the data available on

the lives of people who have found success, you will find that because of their determination to find success, they were able to form a solid support system and have a sophisticate and wellresearched toolkit that they use to confront the challenges they face on their journey.

People who are determined don't find success by accident; instead, they have trained themselves always to think and troubleshoot before they undertake any projects and pursuing specific causes. Their toolkit contains many valuable resources, including resourceful people and mentors, ways to cope with uncertainty and negativity, positive visualization techniques, goal setting strategies, and alternative courses of action when they run into roadblocks and face challenges.

With this determination, you can't afford to scroll through life without having a clear understanding of your potential, goals, and personal strengths. If you want to be able to discover and understand your purpose, you have to set aside time to think about the things that make you genuinely happy. This becomes your path of passion and the moment you discover it; you need to pursue it to the very end.

Chapter 1 – What is Purpose?

One of the driving forces that have encouraged recent research into personal development and social behavior is purpose. As more people begin to become gradually aware of who they are, they feel the need to discover more about their existence and their life's purpose. The best approach to adopt when delving into and discussing the concept of purpose is to know what purpose is and how it is different from goals.

Purpose refers to a cognitive process that defines your goals in life and provides you with personal meaning. It is, in essence, a central self-organizing aim that stimulates goals, manages behavior, and give you the reality of existence.

Purpose directs your decisions and goals by guiding the use of your finite personal resources. Instead of governing your behavior, purpose offers you direction, not dissimilar to a compass that guides a navigator. Following your purpose is purely optional, but there are significant benefits for doing so. Living in accordance with your purpose makes you a selfsustaining force and an aggressive agent in goal pursuit and goal attainment. Therefore, purpose is critical for helping us to organize our lives and develop persistence that resonates across time and context.

The Difference Between Purpose and Goals

Even though they are mentioned continuously together in conversational context and research, purpose and goals are not synonymous.

Goals are more precise in their impact on proximal behaviors. They focus on a more specific endpoint and serve to guide our behavior either toward or away from the endpoint.

Purpose, on the other hand, is a broader component that influences behavior and stimulates the goals. Purpose doesn't point you toward a designated outcome, but instead, it motivates

you to be goal oriented. Unlike goals, which have terminal results, purpose and values merely provide you with the general direction of life.

Another way to look at purpose is to view it as the goal manager. Those who have a purpose in their lives are better able to move seamlessly from goal to goal and even have the capacity to manage multiple goals at once.

On the other hand, those who don’t have a purpose in life may be successful in achieving a single goal, but immediately afterward they find it extremely challenging to identify their next target. Therefore, goals act as the center point and are produced and inspired by your purpose in life.

The Dimensions of Purpose

Purpose is found on a three-dimensional continuum consisting of strength, scope, and awareness. Scope refers to the extent to which your purpose affects your life. For example, a goal that influences all your actions, thoughts, and emotions is said to have a broad scope.

A purpose with a narrow scope is more organized but doesn't impact a greater range of behaviors in comparison with a purpose with a full reach.

Strength, in regards to purpose, is the tendency for the purpose to influence your actions, thoughts, and emotions on the domains relevant to its scope. A definite purpose powerfully influences appropriate behaviors to your purpose. Combined with scope, strength dictates the extent to which your purpose will affect your health, longevity, and well-being.

For instance, a purpose that is characterized by great power and a broader scope will have a more pronounced effect on your life. Additionally, a strong and broad purpose brings resilience to obstacles and barriers that you may face during your journey. Awareness reflects the extent that a person is knowledgeable and can articulate their purpose. Both scope and strength strongly influence it. Consider the analogy of gravity for a moment. On earth, the force of gravity is broader in scope but weak in its impact.

As we live our lives, we don't pay attention to the gravitational forces that are keeping our feet firmly planted. However, if we were to be taken to Jupiter, which has twice as much gravitational force, our awareness of the force of gravity would increase substantially.

Behaviors consistent with purpose can be activated to provide motivation for action. When you are aware of a purpose, it will require you less effort to pursue it than if you were completely unaware.

The Pursuit of Multiple Purposes

It isn't that unusual for someone to have multiple life purposes. However, having many purposes can only be beneficial to a certain point, after which such purposes only serve to reduce the resource allocation.

For instance, if you pursue a single purpose, you might become discouraged if the challenges and obstacles you face become too substantial to surmount. On the other hand, if you have multiple purposes, which are independent of each other, then the moment you encounter an obstacle or face a challenge in one purpose, you automatically shift your attention and focus to the other purpose.

This shifting between life purposes can enhance your pursuit of purposeful living and might even increase your chances of obtaining positive results.

Multiple purposes, however, may result in your constantly switching from one purpose to another, which can greatly hinder your progress. For a sensible and sustainable approach, you need a manageable number of life purposes to which you can allocate the adequate resources to and focus on so that you can reap the tangible benefits.

Critical Elements of Purpose

For you to live a purposeful life, some elements are essential. You must display consistent behavior. This serves as the motivating force that will help you overcome obstacles, maintain your focus, and seek alternative means irrespective of the changing environmental conditions. People that live a purposeful life are more consistent in their behaviors in both their public and private lives.

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GETTING ORGANIZED

When you have an internet marketing business the worst thing that you can do is to treat that business as a hobby. People who treat it as a hobby will never be very successful. You have to take your internet marketing business or any business for that matter very seriously. This means that you have to work hard to make it successful. You can work whenever you want to but you will have to work at it.

No one can make your business successful except you. There are too many people who start a business and then treat it like they would their favorite hobby. They don’t understand why they are not getting the results that they want.

A Business has to be treated very seriously. When you have a brick and mortar business you would definitely not treat it like a hobby because you know how much it cost you to get it started. So why would you treat your internet business any different? Even if it doesn’t cost you a lot to get started you still have to think of it just like you would any other type of business. This is one big mistake that a lot of people make but don’t even realize it. So your best bet is to start out treating it like a business and continuing in that fashion. That way you will not be making the same mistake that a lot of people do.

TREATING YOUR BUSINESS LIKE A HOBBY CAN BE DAMAGING

When you have a business online you will automatically expect it to be different than a brick and mortar business. This is true in a way but it is still a business and not a hobby. You have to realize this up front because there are things that can happen to your internet business if you don’t take it seriously enough. Here are some very common things that happen when people don’t take their business seriously enough.

• Your advertising will fall short. This means that as a hobby you will only do a small amount of advertising. When you have a business you have to continually advertise using more than one method. A business that will be successful will have to be seen by a lot of people. This is very important but if you don’t take it seriously enough then you will never do the advertising that you have to in order to be successful.

• The money that you want to make will never materialize. In order for your business to make money you have to get it in front of as many people as you can. When they can’t find your business they won’t buy your product. This is just a fact of life. By treating your business as a hobby you will never have enough people who see your products. It takes hard work and continuous advertising to sell your products. People who don’t work their business the right way will never make the kind of money that they want.

• You will end up quitting your business or getting very discouraged that you give up. There are so many people who never treat their business like it should be. They then don’t make enough money and can’t figure out why. They will then get so discouraged that they give up or they just quit altogether. This has happened so many times with internet businesses. Having a business online is not going to be easy but it will be very rewarding if you are willing to make it happen. You have to do whatever it takes and don’t let anything or anyone discourage you from your goals.

BELIEVING THERE IS NO WORKINVOLVED

This is a huge mistake that so many people start their business believing. Just because your internet marketing business is online does not mean that you won’t have to work to make it a success. With any business you do whether online or not you have to be willing to work hard to get where you want your business to be. You can’t just do a little work and expect miracles because when you do that you will end up sorely disappointed.

Even if you are only willing to do a little work every day on your business, you have to at least do something. The more effort you put into your business the more money you will make, and the more successful your business will be. You have to make as much effort on your business as you can every single day. Otherwise, you will never get anywhere with it.

You have to be constantly learning about anything that affects your business, and advertising with three to five different methods at a time. You want to make sure that you don’t put all of your eggs in one basket, so to speak. The more methods you are using the more advertising success you will have. This is very important if you are going to have any kind of success. You have to learn how to work hard but also smart. This means that you need to do things that will help your business grow, and don’t let yourself be sidetracked by anything that will not help your business.

Too many people start their internet marketing business believing that they will be successful and get rich quick over night. This has happened but it is very rare. This brings you to the next mistake that a lot of people make with any business they do.

YOU WILL NOT GET RICH QUICK ONLINE

You have heard about people who get online, start their business, and then make a ton of money right away. This can happen if you are very lucky but it is not likely to happen to you at all. Too many people hear about the people that it does happen to and think WOW I can do that. You might be one of the lucky ones that it will happen to but most of you will never have it happen. So you need to be realistic about doing a business online.

You can get rich online very easily. However, you will have to work hard, be persistent, have patience, and have the attitude that no one and nothing is going to stop you from becoming successful. Most of the people who have already achieved success from their internet business, had to do the same thing to make it where they are today.

When you have an internet marketing business you will be able to make as much money as you want to but it will take you some time to do. For some people it will take months and others it may take years. You need to realize that no matter how long it takes you, you will have to work for it. There is no other way for you to have a successful business.

When you start with a business that promises to make you rich over night or quickly, you might want to run the other way. They are usually not being honest with you. Honesty is a big thing on the internet because no one has any other way of knowing you or what your business can do for them.

You have heard the saying, if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is. This goes double for any business online. So before you start any business you have to realize that no matter what business you do, especially internet marketing businesses, you will have to work hard in order to be a success with it.

KEEP YOURSELF FOCUSED AT ALL TIMES

When you start an internet marketing business, one of the mistakes that you will make is to let a lot of different things distract you from building your business. This happens to everyone that has a business online. The one thing that you have to do is to learn how to keep yourself focused on what you are trying to achieve. The more focused you are on your business, the faster you will make money with it, and the success you want will be yours that much faster. There are a couple of different things that you can do to help you stay focused on your business.nt to write down your long term goals for one year and five years. Make sure that you are realistic with your goals.

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Making Sure You Plan For Success

Getting affiliate links is the easy part. Having a place to host them—now that's a little more involved. Having a place to host them where people will convert to buyers—that's even more work. You need to create a place where people can find you, where they'll want to come for information or assistance, and where they'll leave only to go complete the sale (even though they may not realize they are 'leaving'). Nevertheless, it can be done. But before you do anything, you need to structure a game plan. You need to write the plan that gives you all the potential for selling that you need.

But first, your plan

We won't go into detail about how and where to get an actual website—that's information you can find out easily enough and quite possibly already have. We'll throw out a couple of names like GoDaddy and HostGator, but also know that there are numerous hosts and website building templates ranging from the freebie that came with your ISP to being your own host. The only point you need to know is that anyone can build a workable, attractive website; and even if it's not the best looking on the block, if it's built so that traffic can come, they will.

What we want to focus on more is the structure of your website and/or websites. First off, we'll talk about the individual sites themselves.

If you will be promoting more than one product—and to make money the way the Big Dogs do you will need to—each related group of products should have their own dedicated site; out of that group, you will focus on your one most promising product most of the time. This site doesn't need to be huge, it can be just a few pages in total—say between ten and twenty, depending on the number of products you'll be selling; but it does need to incorporate all the elements that will gain you attention from the search engines, and thereby from visitors and buyers (targeted buyers with a need!).

Eventually you will want to build a master website that directs to each of your smaller, product-focused websites. This will be the website you use to "clean-up" the rest of the traffic generated by the keywords you haven't targeted—those generalities that aren't necessarily on the verge of buying anything. But that can come later. First, build the sites that will sell and start making money sooner.

So initially, your plan will look something like this:

• Target markets and keywords
• Choose specific affiliate products
• Build a website around a specific group of products
• Build more product-grouped websites for each affiliation
• Create a master website that captures traffic, then links traffic to smaller product-specific websites

Let's try to put this into perspective and give you a real-world example.

Okay; let's suppose that you are selling fitness-related products—a variety of sorts from body-building supplements to fifteen minute workout routines. The buyers who are looking for muscle-building supplements and powders could probably care less about your crunch-time workout videos. And you don't look like much of a reliable authority by just slapping up one ad next to the other. So you break down each of those product types into groups, and market five or six or so together on one website dedicated to each. So instead of having a catch-all website with fitness products, you have two dedicated websites that specifically serve the needs of the visitors ready to buy. You have

• A 10-20 page website selling body-building supplements, and
• A 10-20 page website selling workout videos for the too-busy-to-exercise crowd

Each site gives your buyers what they need—not what the other needs. After those sites are established and doing their thing, you can go back to that model of the fitness-products store, and create sections and virtual "aisles" that point to these smaller dedicated sites.

Now here we need to clarify a bit. This structure is one of the number-one things that Big Dog affiliates do, and small players do not.
What you will see many times is that small players collect a number of products, usually related, sometimes not even, and group them all on one website. They market their affiliate site as a sort of one stop-shopping storefront for everything. And they create so much confusion and competition amongst their own affiliate products that they never maximize the potential of the sales traffic that is coming in.

What the Big Dogs do in contrast is start by focusing on the small sites. They build up products in a way that clearly sells each one. They create choice for buyers by comparing their own like-products against each other, so that whatever product is chosen, the sale is theirs. Genius, yes?

Then they get the traffic going to and buying at those sites. Later on they'll build something more akin to the storefront, and link to these smaller sites when visitors click to learn more, just to clean up the rest of the lookers.

In the end, eventually anyway, both the Big Dogs and small-timers both end up with catch-all parent sites, but the Big Dogs have that added layer of sales protection that gives the customers what they need to make the sale, and also brings traffic in at both ends.

Now build it and they'll come

What you most need to know, then, is how to build that small-niche site.

To reiterate, the purpose of this site is to develop a very consumer-specific website that provides information and resources for the person who is looking to buy a product of this type. That's from the buyer's perspective. But you have search engines to please, too, so that content will need to do double-duty and also help you be found and ranked well for your target keywords and target audience.

There are two basic components to these small sites. Those are

1. Articles and buyer-centric information
2. Products

The pages of your website will be split amongst these two components. It probably should not be a straight 50/50 split. The division should be weighted more in favor of information than products. This will serve two purposes:

1. Information gives the buyer all the supporting information and details they need to decide to buy.
2. Information provides more feed for search engines so that buyers can find you.

However you decide to structure the actual website, it should have a simple division—information and products.

The product pages are simple. Create a page for each individual product that gives the specifics on the product (often the information provided by the affiliate). You need to give enough detail without overdoing it. Set up the product pages so that when the visitor performs the desired action—clicks a 'buy' button, or opts for a free sample or service—they are taken to the affiliate website, where they [hopefully] will order and purchase your product.

The informational pages require a little bit more work, but not too much. Each of these pages should host one piece of supporting information which helps your visitor decide to buy. It should be an article, product review, or product comparison. As you'll learn later, these are the things that will really draw the very specific and targeted ready to buy consumers that you want. This is the information that they are looking for just prior to purchase, and so it is the information that is most likely to net serious buyers, and not just curious visitors.

Back to our example, if we have five muscle-building supplements, we'll have five pages of products and perhaps ten pages with articles and comparisons. Use the articles to address the concerns of people in the market for supplements, and include topics important to them. They might be side-by side comparisons, reviews of specific powders, or topics such as "Five Tips for Building More Muscle."

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INTRODUCTION

WHAT IS TWITTER, ANDWHY SHOULD YOU BE INTERESTED IN IT?

Why indeed? Isn’t it just another social networking site?

I think it is a little more than that. It IS a way of networking with other people, that much is true, but you could also call it a phenomenon. Sharing knowledge, advice, updates and much more in just 140 characters is a challenge that thousands of new people are taking up every single day. Twitter has hit the headlines more and more in recent times, and revealing just a few of the stories that have been published should give you an idea of just how important this site can be to you.

When the Presidential race was on, both candidates were making good use of Twitter to garner support for their campaigns. Barack Obama is still the most followed person on the whole of Twitter… although he hasn’t been tweeting much since he started running the country. He still has well over 600,000 followers at the last count however.

And celebrities are using the site more and more too – to connect with their fans, promote their careers and much more besides. Some of these have been proved to be fake, but there are plenty of real celebrity Twitter users out there too.

The British comedian, actor and writer Stephen Fry has the second biggest number of followers on the site. He often responds to messages and takes part in conversations as well. American actress Demi Moore proved that Twitter can be much more than just another social networking site by helping to prevent an apparent suicide bid by another user.

You can see how Twitter has pervaded the lives of many different people. You can make a difference with this site, and you can also use it for many different purposes, as we’re about to find out in this book. But the main thing to remember at this stage is that you can reach a huge audience. It may not be anywhere near as big as the one President Obama enjoys, but you can still end up with thousands who will read every tweet you write.

Twitter is not just for the rich and famous – although judging by the number of stories along those lines that have been hitting the headlines recently, you may wonder.

But no matter what line of business you are in; whether you are based primarily online or you have offline interests as well, you CAN benefit from having a free account on Twitter. And this book will show you exactly how you can do it.

We’ll explore everything you need to know during each section. You’ll not only know how Twitter works and how to make the best of it, you’ll also discover how you can make it work for YOU. There are certain points that you will need to bear in mind if you want to build up a huge band of followers instead of just having a few hundred, or even a few dozen. We’ll cover all of these one by one.

We’ll also cover the importance of getting set up in just the right way. Once you know what you are doing on Twitter, you will instantly be able to tell which people haven’t taken the time to get set up properly. You won’t be one of those because you will have read all the tips and techniques I am about to give you.

You’ll soon see that the book is split up into several different sections. These have been designed to be read in that order, so as to get the best out of this book. You need to have a great home page before you start learning all about the tricks of the trade that I have included in Section Four. So let’s get stuck in and go straight to Section One, so you can get started with the least of delay.

1WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU’VE JOINED?

Okay, so you have gone to https://twitter.com and signed up for your free Twitter account. That is the easy bit, and it should only take a few moments to complete the process.

The first thing you need to think of when you sign up is what username you are going to use. This could depend on how long your own name is, as you only have a limited number of characters to use. Your username will then form part of your own unique home page address, i.e. https://twitter.com/username And of course you don’t need to use your own name either. You could use your business name if you wish.

The next step is to go through the five step process I am about to share with you. Now I know you are probably itching to start ‘tweeting’ – the term that is given to sending messages through Twitter – but it is essential that you make sure you get your account sorted out properly first.

As you become more and more familiar with the site, you will be able to spot those people who have jumped in without completing all the steps I am going to show you. And there is one word for what their home pages look like – unprofessional. It can’t be a coincidence that most of these people have either (a) tweeted a few times and then disappeared entirely, or (b) made sure all their messages are of a marketing kind.

There is nothing wrong with marketing on Twitter, but if you are going to heavily promote everything you have to sell, don’t expect to get many followers or much success. You’ll find out why as we go along. Incidentally all of these steps can be done by clicking on the ‘settings’ option at the top of your home page once you are logged in. So let’s get started with the first step, shall we?

Twitter is all about brevity. And when you only have 140 characters to use to create each new message, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to find that your bio only consists of one line as well.

But it isn’t much of a problem – provided you write it in the right way. You need to think about it from a certain angle to make sure you have a successful bio that draws people in. In other words, a good bio will get you more followers.

One good method to get ideas for your own bio is to have a look at what some other members have already done. Type a word into the search box – any word will do for the purpose of this example – and take a look at the results you get back. Click on a username and you will be taken into their home page, which will have their bio in the top right hand corner, underneath their little photo.

Which ones really get your attention? The best ones are generally those which describe the person and what they do without going into sales mode. Your bio is not the place for trying to sell people something. It is a place to introduce yourself, and nothing more.

You will no doubt also notice that some people don’t bother to fill in their bios at all. This is a BIG no no. If your bio is not filled in, people only really have your tweets to go on to decide whether you will be worth following or not. And if they aren’t interested in the latest few they read, you could easily lose a potential follower there.

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Why You Need to Follow Up with Your Customers

You create a digital information product, and work hard towards your product launch. You announce it to your list. You’ve even done quite a bit of legwork in advance and promoted it via email, Twitter, Facebook, article marketing and guest blogging… and maybe even a guest interview on a web radio show.

The big day comes. You’re quite pleased with the sales. But they trickle off within the first month - perhaps even the first week or two – and after that, you’re lucky if you make $100 a month on your product.

There’s something wrong with the scenario here: Most likely the lack of a follow up plan.

Your Follow Up Plan

It’s actually amazing how many people don’t realize the importance of contact or sales follow up – let alone having an actual follow up plan for every campaign. Yet this happens with a huge percentage of online entrepreneurs. They put all their emotion and energy into creating the product and launching it... and leave the sales to take care of themselves.

The truth is, even if your sales are good, there are so many more ways to maximize them, and it should all be done at the planning stage.

Here's an example of proactive launch follow up (names changed to protect the unauthorized).

Derek has his big product launch. A couple of days later, he sends out an email to his list. The subject line reads: "Hey, It's Not Too Late!" After greeting his list member by her first name, goes on to say:

"I know how busy life is, online. So if you meant to pick up a copy of my new eBook, "54 Ways to Love Your Car Without Being a Mechanic", but got distracted or even just plain forgot, here's your chance to still sneak in under the gate. For the next 3 days only (till midnight on Friday, May 13) if you click on the special link below will be able to buy it for only $14.75 - less than half of its regular $27.75 retail price.

“So if you'd love to know everything you need to about maintaining your car in perfect condition (and pay less to learn it), download "54 Ways to Love Your Car Without Being a Mechanic" right now - and get it at my special less-than-half price..."

Derek sent out that email on the advice of his copywriter - and, being a new marketer, was absolutely stunned when this follow up letter produced more sales than his initial pre-launch efforts and launch day combined!

In fact, when the dust settled, Derek was able to ascertain that this one, single follow up letter had produced 64.9% of his total sales!

The Power of Follow Up

By now you’ve probably become aware that the biggest crime of internet marketing is "leaving money on the table". What this phrase means is simply "not making the most of every single opportunity to exploit this one product". Not having a well-thought-out and implemented follow up plan is doing just that - missing opportunities for further sales, right, left and center! When you consider how many sales Derek made that were generated by that single follow up letter, it puts the power of following up into strong perspective.

Just consider these statistics, reported by the 21centurysales.com blog:

"According to the National Sales Executive Association

• 2% of sales are made on the 1st contact
• 3% of sales are made on the 2nd contact
• 5% of sales are made on the 3rd contact
• 10% of sales are made on the 4th contact
• 80% of sales are made on the 5th-12th contact"

What that really says is... anyone who expects all sales to happen based only on a couple of initial contacts is neglecting further opportunities for profit.

3 Key Ways Following Up Benefits Your Business

Taking as much care with your follow up as you do with your product creation and launch prep should be a consistent part of your marketing process. We've already taken a look at the sales stats in the previous section; and if that's not enough to really drive the point home, here are 3 more powerful benefits to consistently using well-thought-out follow up process...

1. Following up builds trust - one of the key questions we ask ourselves, when preparing a new product launch (and especially in affiliate marketing) is: "Why should Josephine Customer buy from me?"

When asked why they choose one particular marketer over another, customers frequently answer: "Because I trust so-and-so".

I'm sure you know about building up trust through solving problems - and not always through paid products. But your follow up process also helps to build trust too.
It's like being introduced to someone at a convention. You may like them, but if the contact is brief, you may also forget them. And it's not until you've met each other at least 3 times, and had a couple of conversations about your shared interests that it naturally occurs to you that your new conference buddy is the very person you should speak to about the subject you're both passionate about.

So it is with internet marketing: Your perfect potential customer "meets" you... but if all she hears is one sales pitch, with a couple of sporadic letters that don't do anything towards building up a relationship, she is likely to go elsewhere to buy a similar product - even though yours is actually far more in tune with what she originally wants!