Here’s what else he said: “The last tip I just received was to look into social networks for boosting traffic… duh! Come on Guru’s, [sic] it’s old news… actually after digging through your content, it’s all old news.”

Old news, huh?

Sure, the buzz about social media marketing has been around since 2006 — we were one of the first companies to start reporting on it! — but the fact is, many of our readers are new to the world of Internet marketing and don’t know a digg from a tweet.

And we feel it’s our responsibility to give them the information they need to start off on the right foot — even if that information is “old news” to some of you more experienced marketers out there.

Searching for the “latest killer strategy” that’s so hot you need to wear safety goggles just to look at it?

Better keep looking, then.

Sorry, but if you’re the kind of marketer who is always looking to jump on the bandwagon of the latest hot trend, you’re probably in the wrong place.

We don’t teach trends, we teach proven strategies that get RESULTS.

And we refuse to share any new marketing strategy with you unless we have exhaustively tested it to determine whether it actually helps real people make real money… as opposed to being some kind of elaborate pyramid scheme that only makes money for the handful of people who started it. Not that there are many of those going around the Internet. (Note sarcasm).

But that doesn’t mean we teach you outdated strategies that last worked in 2002!

The strategies we teach are constantly being tested and refined by our mentors. These folks are successful online entrepreneurs in their own right, and they work one-on-one with hundreds of clients every year, helping them make money in every industry you can imagine.

If we tell you something works, it does. It’s as simple as that.

… So does that make our information “old news?”

Maybe for the marketers who are making money hand over fist because they already have fully automated web businesses that target a thriving niche and are totally optimized for the search engines and have cost-effective PPC campaigns that are driving scores of eager buyers to their site and run sophisticated email campaigns that turn one-time buyers into lifelong customers and have used social marketing techniques to build up an active community of loyal customers who do their marketing FOR them.

… But if you haven’t quite managed to accomplish all of that with your business, we’re pretty confident our information can help you make more money online… and grow bigger, faster, quicker, without wasting money on any here-today-gone-tomorrow trends.

To your success, as always,
The Internet Marketing Center Team

It’s the only way to keep track of what you’re doing right with your online business, and what you need to improve.

For example, let’s say you want to make some changes to the layout of your web site. Obviously, you don’t want to make changes just for the heck of it. Any changes you make should be for one main purpose: to do a better job of converting visitors into customers.

But if you don’t test the new version vs. the old version, how will you know if the changes you make actually DO improve the performance of your website? And if you don’t track the results of your testing, how will you be able to know exactly which changes had the greatest effect?

Simply put, if you don’t test and track every single change you make to your site… every promotion you run… and every traffic generation strategy you try… you’re going to be shooting in the dark every time. And there’s absolutely no way of knowing what you’re going to hit.

So here’s my list of the top 5 things you absolutely MUST know about testing to keep your business on target.

1. Only test ONE thing at a time

The most important thing to remember is this: KEEP IT SIMPLE.

Test one thing at a time. It’s the only way you’ll ever know exactly which change is causing which effect.

Let’s say you want to increase the number of opt-ins from your site. There are lots of different things you could test to make this happen.

You could try putting your opt-in form in a different location. You could change the wording of your opt-in offer. You could try offering a free gift instead of just a free newsletter.

But if you made all these changes at ONCE and your opt-in numbers began to skyrocket, how would you know which change was responsible? Besides, one of these changes could actually be having a negative impact — and you’d never even realize it!

If you have no way of knowing, then the next time you change your opt-in offer, you’re back to square one.

2. The MOST important numbers you need to know

You need to know TWO main numbers to keep on top of your website performance: the number of visitors you get and the number of sales you make in any given period. That way, you can figure out exactly how many visitors you need to attract to your site in order to make a sale.

Here’s how you do it:

Let’s say you got 300 visitors to your site in one day and you made 12 sales. Simply divide the number of visitors by the number of sales like this: 300/12 = 25.

For every 25 visitors you got that day, you made 1 sale. (Expressed as a percentage, this means your conversion rate was 4%, as 1/25 = 0.04)

If that conversion rate remains steady, then you can expect to make one sale for every 25 visitors. If you get 100 visitors, you’ll make 4 sales. If you get 1000 visitors, you should make 40 sales.

It’s a simple conversion — something everyone should know. It tells you EXACTLY how well your website is doing its job.

If that conversion rate drops for some reason, it could mean there’s a problem with your website — and you should do a thorough examination of it right away.

On the other hand, if it spikes, then you should try to figure out why more visitors are suddenly buying your products — so you can repeat this success!

3. Test the most important things FIRST

Don’t start off trying to track 30 things at once! Focus on your money makers first, as they’ll have the greatest impact on your business.

If your site sells more than one product, then you should be tracking the conversion rate for each product separately. Maybe your site is doing a great job at selling one product, but a lousy job at selling another. This is something you need to know, so you can figure out what’s going right in the first case and what’s going wrong in the second.

4. Think in terms of RATIOS as opposed to ABSOLUTES

Think in terms of percentages, not whole numbers.

Instead of thinking, "Hey, I made 25 sales last week!" — think, "Hey, I made 25 sales per 1000 visitors last week!"

Knowing you made 25 sales is nice — but it doesn’t tell you anything by itself.

If you know you made 25 sales per 1000 visitors, however, you know your conversion rate is 2.5%. (In other words, 2.5% of all your visitors last week bought something from you.) If it was a normal week, then going forward you can expect that 2.5% of all your customers will probably buy something.

This kind of knowledge is ESSENTIAL if you want to forecast how much revenue you’re going to make in any given time period. It also gives you a baseline number that you can refer back to when testing different elements of your web site in order to grow your income bigger.

For example: imagine if you changed the headline of your sales page this morning — and you ended up making 25 sales, just like you did yesterday. Does that mean that the change to your headline had no effect on your sales numbers?

Not necessarily.

Maybe you only got 100 visitors to your site today, instead of 1000. That means your conversion rate today is actually 25% — which is HUGE! That means 1 in every 4 people is taking action on your site. Wow. That must have been some headline you wrote.

(However, you really should find out why you only got 100 visitors to your site today. Once you bring that number back up to 1000, then if your conversion rate stays the same, you’ll be making 250 sales a day!)

5. Track your conversions by SOURCE

It’s not just enough to know what your conversion rate is. You’ve got to know where your best-converting visitors are coming from.

For example, are your most qualified visitors coming from pay-per-click ads you’re running through Yahoo Search Marketing? Or are they coming from your organic listing on Google — or maybe your affiliate network?

This is something you need to know! It’ll help you understand where your most lucrative stream of traffic is coming from — so you can focus your efforts there and work on growing those high-converting traffic numbers even bigger.

I’m interested in hearing how your testing is performing… please leave me a comment.

Advantage #1: Viral marketing exponentially increases the visibility of your business

If you can persuade 10 people to pass your eBook on to 10 of their friends, and those friends each pass it on to 10 of their friends, you will exponentially increase the impact of your marketing message!

After only three generations…

• First generation: 10 people see your eBook

• Second generation: 100 people see your eBook
• Third generation: 1,000 people see your eBook

… 1,110 people have seen your eBook!

Obviously, this example has been oversimplified so it is easily understood. There will always be people who don’t pass your message on, and there will always be people who pass your message on to significantly more people than average. Still, you can see that even with only a handful of people participating, your exposure on the Web can increase at fantastic speeds.

Advantage #2: Viral Marketing establishes credibility and trust

With a free, informative eBook, you’re not beating someone over the head with a message that shouts, "Buy this product!" Instead, you’re offering them something they’re likely to find useful and inviting them to share it with anyone else who might like it.

This way, every time your eBook is shared with a new person, it will come with a personal recommendation from one of that person’s friends or family members… and this can be extremely powerful!

People are very open to these third-party recommendations because it’s like one friend telling another about a favorite restaurant or movie. They are doing their friend or family member a favor by recommending a quality product or service. And that’s why people who learn about your eBook via a friend or relative are much more likely to trust you!

Amazon.com knows this strategy well. Anyone who has visited or bought something from this Internet giant has probably noticed that they encourage you to send a gift to a friend or relative. But did you know that with every gift you send, Amazon.com includes a flyer that promotes their products?

You send a gift to a friend. They open your package and discover your gift… and the flyer. You have just sent your friend a very subtle — but VERY effective — endorsement for Amazon.com.

Advantage #3: Viral marketing compels people to interact with your message

Viral marketing compels people to actively engage the message you send, rather than passively hear or view it. This dramatically increases the probability that they’re going to absorb that message, remember it, and repeat it.

For example, if someone tells you a joke, and you repeat it to one or two friends, chances are pretty good that you’ll (a) remember it, and (b) repeat it again when the opportunity arises. If you hear a joke, but don’t repeat it within a reasonable period of time, you’ll probably forget it forever (unless you have a fantastic memory). Viral marketing works on the very same principle.

When people think about sharing your eBook with friends or associates, they’ll likely feel compelled to consider what they’ve just read and come up with an explanation of why they’re sharing it. For example, if they know that a friend is having difficulty housebreaking a new puppy, they might share your eBook on puppy housetraining and add a comment like "Check out the strategies in Chapter 5 — I’ll bet you haven’t tried all of these yet!"

Interacting with a message makes people more likely to remember that message — and pass it on!

Advantage #4: Viral marketing keeps your advertising costs low

The beauty of viral marketing is that it keeps advertising costs down by getting your customers to do the advertising for you. If they see real value in your eBook, readers will feel compelled to share it with friends, family, and colleagues, who will in turn sing the praises of the eBook to their friends, family, and colleagues.

And no matter how many people start recommending your eBook, you won’t have to pay them a cent! It’s human nature to want to be the first to share exciting new information with people we know. By using this knowledge to your advantage, you can get your message out to thousands or even millions of people — and after you’ve created the eBook, you won’t need to pay a single penny to spread it across the Internet!

Advantage #5: Viral marketing keeps the integrity of your message intact

Ever notice how a rumor can shift and change until its original message has been replaced with something entirely different? Well, the great thing about viral marketing online is that it’s far easier to keep the content of your original message intact so that…

1. Everyone gets the same, compelling message, and

2. Your message has the same impact on the first generation of people who see it as the 30th generation of people who see it.

For example, let’s say you publish an article in your local newspaper. The article is filled with useful information that your target audience has a direct interest in. At the end of the article, you include a brief plug for your business and say, "If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to share it with a friend!"

This month, I’ll be sharing strategies you can use to quickly spread
the word and get a ton of new readers downloading your viral eBook. Please leave me a comment if you’d like me to cover any specific topics on using eBooks to drive your Internet business.

How many people do you think will share this article? Probably a few, but not as many as you’d like. Why? Because to share the article, they have to either clip the article or haul around the bulky newspaper until they can give it to their friend. And if they don’t forget about it entirely, the fact is, they’ll probably only give it to one friend.

Of course, the other possibility is that the reader might try to tell their friend about your article during their next conversation, but this means that the impact of your original message will be lost. At most, their friend will probably express polite interest, and then move on to another subject. The friend wasn’t exposed to your original message, so the impact has been significantly diluted.

With a viral eBook, using our eBook Pro software, these problems are easily eliminated. When someone decides to share your eBook with a friend, they can simply click the "Share" button to instantly create a new e-mail message with your eBook attached, along with all the instructions their friend will need to download and unlock a new copy! Within seconds — and with a single click — your message has been shared, without editing, in its entirety!

This ensures that your message is just as powerful for the hundredth generation of people who see it as for the first!

Apparently, a whopping one-third of all inhouse email marketers don’t have a separate line item in their budget for email marketing.

In other words, when these marketers promote a product, they don’t bother to track whether it’s getting sold through their website… or through their email marketing campaigns — and so they have no idea how well each channel is performing.

Please, please don’t make this mistake yourself! If you run an email marketing campaign — and you don’t bother tracking the results — then how can you tell if the campaign is successful or not???

After all, there’s a HUGE difference between a campaign that results in hundreds of sales… and one that results in hundreds of people hitting the "unsubscribe" button!


Don’t you want you want to know which actions YOUR email readers are taking?

Of course, it’s difficult to track your campaign results if your email software or service provider doesn’t provide tracking features!

Fortunately, there are some excellent online service providers that make it easy for you to track the results of your email campaigns so you can see where they’re hitting the mark, and where they’re falling short.

After extensively researching all the email marketing service providers out there, we’ve discovered one that really stands out from the crowd — iContact.com. It provides extremely detailed tracking features that allow you to find out exactly how well your emails are performing — how many people are opening them, how many are clicking on the links in the message and visiting your sales page, how many visitors actually make a purchase, and a whole lot more.

Best of all, iContact is dead easy to use, so even a raw beginner can start sending emails to their list right away, without having to suffer through a painful learning process.

What really impressed us, however, were all the additional features iContact offers.

For example, they provide a built-in HTML WYSIWIG newsletter editor you can use to make extremely professional-looking newsletters — and there are 300 different templates to choose from, so you can guarantee the look of your newsletter is as fresh and original as the content it contains.

And — get this — you can even put a survey right in the body of your email! (If there’s one sure way to get your subscribers to interact with your email messages, it’s to ask them to fill out a survey.)

Plus, you can set up an unlimited number of merge fields within your emails — and send to as many list segments as you want — which means you can fully personalize your messages. (And when it comes to email success, personalization is the key!)

So if you’re currently using an email marketing tool that doesn’t offer detailed tracking features — or if you haven’t gotten your email marketing campaigns off the ground yet — then we highly recommend that you check out iContact.com before you consider going with any other email service provider. The prices are extremely reasonable, and for all the extra features you get, it’s pretty much the best deal out there. (They have set up a free trial for our readers at the link above.)

All too often, when I ask them to tell me about their business models, I discover they’re selling only ONE product.

So I ask them, "Have you ever considered selling backend products to your customers?"

Backend products are simply products you can offer to your existing customers, after they’ve made their initial purchase.

Because you know what they’ve already bought from you, you should have a good idea of other things your customers like to buy. And that should make it easy for you to think of new things they’d want to purchase!

Backend products can be anything you think your target market might be interested in. For example, if your site sells cameras, new products could include:

• Add-ons like wide-angle or telephoto lenses for your cameras
• eBooks that teach people how to take better pictures
• Other complementary products, such as camera cases or tripods

The brilliance of this strategy lies in the fact that you already know what your customers like to buy! So you can easily create highly targeted offers for them — leading to higher conversion rates and more sales… and more money in your pocket!

The truth is, if you’re not following up with your customers and targeting them with highly appealing backend products, you’re losing out on a TON of profit.

In fact, by adding just ONE more product to your site, you can increase your revenues by 30% to 50%!

You need to think "lifetime value" rather than "single sale"

The other day I got an email from Amazon.com telling me about a new Internet marketing book they just got in stock.

They knew I might be interested in it because I’d bought other Internet marketing books from them before. (Hardly surprising, right?

And I was interested in that new one, too! In fact, as soon as I got Amazon’s email, I immediately clicked through to their site, checked out the book, and bought it!

And in doing so, I boosted my "lifetime value" to Amazon by another 20 bucks.

Lifetime value is simply the income generated by a single customer over the course of your relationship with him or her. If you sell only one product, then your customers’ lifetime value will be limited to the net income that comes from a single sale of that product.

But if you sell a wide range of products, your income will grow exponentially!

And selling to existing customers is easier and cheaper than selling to strangers because you’ve already cultivated a relationship with them:

You’ve put in the time and money to…

• Get their attention
• Establish your credibility
• Build their trust in you
• Overcome any resistance they may have to buying online
• Close that first sale

On top of that, you now know what your customers like!

So, after that, it’s much easier to sell to people a second time… and a third… and a fourth… and so on.

Reward your customers for being loyal… they’ll reward you by becoming even more loyal!

Take the book I bought from Amazon… all they had to do was send me an email about a product they thought I’d like, based on my previous purchase history. They didn’t have to sell themselves as a company to me because I’ve already bought from them before.

In fact, I’ve bought maybe one book a month from Amazon over the last five years at an average of $20 each — meaning my lifetime value to them so far is $1,200!

And it’s much easier — and way cheaper — for Amazon to sell me 60 books at $20 each than to persuade 60 new customers to each buy one $20 book.

When to follow up with your customers for maximum returns

The best time to offer your customers backend products is when you’re given a natural opportunity to follow up with them.

Here are some examples of what I mean: You can…

• Follow up after a purchase: Right after someone buys from you, you can send them a "thank-you" message that includes an offer for a related product. For example, if you sell project management software, you could offer your customers an eBook that gives them advanced project management tips and techniques.

  Or, if you sell "how-to" guides that teach people how to build their own sundeck, you could offer customers a special package deal on the tools they’ll need for the job.

• Follow up on a purchase anniversary: An easy way to get a follow-up promotion in front of your customers is to send them an offer one month, six months, or even a year after they made their first purchase.

  Email them to ask how they’re enjoying the product, and let them know you’ve got similar products available at a special discount price that’s being offered only to previous customers.

• Follow up whenever you can provide new products or information: If, for example, you sell snowboard equipment and clothing, and you’ve just received stock of a cool new snowboarding jacket, you could contact your customers who bought a snowboard or boots and offer them a jacket at a special discount.

  They’re obviously snowboarders, so there’s a good chance they’d be interested in a new jacket.

The important thing to remember is, the backend products you offer HAVE to be things your target market is going to be interested in.

The bottom line is, if you’re not offering backend products to your customers you’re losing out on 30% to 50% more income.

That’s because if you sell only one product, your profits will always be limited by the number of new customers you take on.

It takes a LOT more time and money to acquire new customers than it does to sell new products to your existing customer base, so selling only one product can really eat into your profits.

Because you know what kind of products your customers like, it’s easy to create brand-new backend products that complement your existing products, or join an affiliate program and sell other people’s products.

And if you segment your customer list to target focused groups of customers with products that will appeal specifically to them, you’ll show them you understand their particular needs — and they’ll thank you for it by buying more products from you, and staying loyal to your business for years to come!

So that’s why, when I’m asked, "What strategy will most help increase my Internet marketing sales?" my answer is always… "Backend selling!"

(Because there’s nothing they like more then fresh, original, and frequently updated content!)

However, when I tell my students they need to start their own blog, they often look at me like I’m crazy.

"But I’m not a writer!" they cry. "What on earth could I possibly write about that would interest my visitors?"

The good news is, you don’t HAVE to be a professional writer to have an incredibly successful blog. All you have to do is be able to write passionately about the subjects that matter to your industry, and let your personality shine through so people can feel like they know you..

And while we do recommend you try to publish at least 2-3 posts on your blog a week, they don’t have to be very long! In fact, they shouldn’t be. People don’t go to blogs expecting to read in-depth essays. A blog post that’s only 200 words — or even shorter — is perfectly fine.

(To give you an idea of how long that is, by the time I reach the end of this sentence, this blog post will be 231 words long.)

The challenge most people experience is having to come up with different things to write about all the time. So to help with that, today I’d like to share my…

20 Great Ideas For What To Write About On Your Blog!

1. Tips on how to make the best possible use of your product

2. Tips on how to use other products that are related to your product in some way

3. Great places to go online when searching for information related to your industry

4. An interesting experience you just had with a customer

5. Your thoughts on a recent news story that relates to your industry in some way

6. A list of your top 10 "Frequently Asked Questions" — and your answers to them

7. The strangest question a customer ever asked about your product

8. Reviews of non-competitive but related products you think your visitors might be interested in

9. What you always dreamed of doing as a child — and how that relates to the business you’re running now

10. What made you decide to get into your particular industry

11. New product ideas you’re working on

12. Something your partner/child/friend once said that made you think of your product or industry in a whole different way

13. A memorable customer service experience you recently had. (It can be memorable because it’s particularly good… OR because it’s particularly bad.)

14. A brief "day in the life of" snapshot of your daily itinerary. What do you do all day long, in order to serve your customers in the best way possible?

15. An interesting personal event that just took place within your business. (E.g., maybe an employee just got married and you’d like to tell your customers what a big help she is around the office.)

16. Your favorite quotes from famous people — and how you apply them to your business or industry

17. A story you recently read about a celebrity doing something related to your industry in some way

18. A recent trip you took — and any insights you may have had on the journey that are helping you with your business in some way

19. A recent movie you saw, whose plot is related to your business or industry in some way.

20. Whether you drink coffee or tea — and if it helps you run your business or not. (Seriously… people LOVE knowing personal details — it helps them put a "face" on the person behind the website.)

Okay… those are just a few ideas to get you started! If you have any other topics you want to add to this list, leave us a comment and tell us about them!

To your blogging success,

Derek Gehl

One of the questions I get asked all the time is "Derek, how do I start a successful Internet business?"

My response? There is a very specific sequence of steps you NEED to follow to guarantee your success.

How do I know?

Because it’s the exact same sequence of steps that my team and I have used to grow from a one-man company to a team of over 100 Internet marketing experts… generating more than $60 million in sales!

Over the years, my team and I have continually tested this system, and have proven its effectiveness over and over again.

But this system hasn’t worked only for us… Since IMC opened its doors in 1996, we’ve seen a staggering number of real, everyday people follow these steps to earn life-changing incomes with their Internet businesses. And the numbers keep growing exponentially!

Anyone, from newbie to seasoned Internet marketer, can benefit from going through this proven series of steps. No matter where you are in your business, it always pays to revisit the basics and make sure you’re doing everything possible to grow your business to be as good as it can possibly be.

Read on to review this proven eight-step system – and discover how simple it is!

Step #1: Find a hungry niche market – BEFORE you decide what to sell

Most marketers make the mistake of looking for a "hot product" to sell when they’re first starting out online – and they end up choosing a product before they determine whether there’s a market for it. And this is the reason the majority of Internet startups fail!

The fact is, most people do NOT go online to buy. They go online looking for information or to solve a problem.

What you need to do is find an untapped niche market: a group of people who are going online to solve a common problem, but are not having any luck finding a solution.

By doing some simple research, you can discover EXACTLY what these people are looking for – and then figure out a way to give it to them. That way, you KNOW you’ll have a market that’s eager to buy your product – before you even know what it is!

Once you’ve found a hungry niche market and come up with a product that will satisfy their wants, it’s time to write your salescopy…

Step #2: Write compelling salescopy that draws in your visitors

Without a doubt, the most important part of your website is your salescopy. It’s the only contact most of your visitors are going to have with your business – so you have to make sure it does the job of a top-performing salesperson.

A lot of people don’t feel confident about writing. But don’t worry! Writing salescopy is a "science," not an "art" – there’s a specific formula to follow that will lead your visitors smoothly through the sales process.

You need to focus on how your product or service will solve people’s problems or make their lives better. Think like a customer: "What’s in it for ME?"

A few key things to remember when you’re writing your salescopy:

• Include a headline and subHdrlines that are packed with benefits
• Build credibility with testimonials
• Offer a strong guarantee
• Pile on the bonuses
• Don’t forget to ask for the order! Never assume that your visitors will understand what you want them to do on your site – you have to TELL them, and then make it easy for them to follow through with their purchase.

And remember: You want your copy to emphasize the BENEFITS of your product, not its features. What’s the difference? Features TELL, benefits SELL.

Say, for example, you’re selling low-energy washing machines.

Feature: They use less electricity than conventional machines.

Benefit: You save money with every load!

Do you see the difference? You want your visitors to have a clear idea of how your product is going to help improve their lives – because that is what’s going to convince them to make a purchase!

Step #3: Design a winning site that converts visitors into buyers

Yes, it’s true: You should only start building your website once you know what you’re going to sell and have written your salescopy. That way, your site design will facilitate the sales process, rather than get in its way.

The most important thing to remember when designing your sales website is KEEP IT SIMPLE! You only have 10 seconds when someone arrives at your website to grab their attention – otherwise, they’re gone, never to be seen again.

Some important tips to keep in mind:

• Choose a plain, sans-serif font (like Arial or Verdana)
• Use black text on a white background
• Make sure your navigation is clear and simple, and include a sitemap
• Avoid using cheesy or distracting flash or audio (using video and audio is OK so long as it supports, rather than distracts from, your message)
• Make sure you include an opt-in form to collect visitors’ names and email addresses – offer something useful, like a free subscription to a monthly newsletter or a free report that’s loaded with useful information

Whether you decide to teach yourself a bit of HTML and design your site yourself, or hire a web designer to do it for you, your goal is not to confuse your visitors, but rather to draw them in and lead them step by step through your sales process.

Make it EASY for them to purchase, and they will!

Step #4: Use the ‘Net’s top search engines to drive tons of targeted traffic to your site

Now that you’ve got your site built, it’s time to start selling. But how do you get traffic to a brand-new site? The answer: search engines!

Over 90% of Internet users start with free search engines when they’re looking for information online, so you want to make sure your site ranks as high as possible in their listings.

There are two ways to use search engines to drive traffic to your site: Using pay-per-click (PPC) programs like Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing, and getting ranked in the "organic" search engines. You’re going to want to start with PPC, as it’s the best way to start driving IMMEDIATE traffic to your site.

Once you have some paid traffic coming to your site, and you’ve figured out which keywords are performing best, you’ll want to optimize your web pages for those keywords so that your site starts showing up in the organic search engine results as well.

Step #5: Tap into secret sources of cheap (and even free!) traffic

As an online marketer, one of your most important assets is your reputation. People need to know who you are, and why they should trust you!

So how do you "spread the good word" about you and your business to the far corners of the Web?

Easy! You can:

• Give away free, expert content! Write a series of short, informative articles packed with useful information and tips, and submit them to online article directories. Include a brief bio and a link back to your website at the end of each one.
• Issue press releases about your business. This is a great way to announce a new product, or report on exciting developments in your industry – and it’ll drive traffic back to your site.
• Become an active expert in industry forums. Find out where your target market hangs out, and share your knowledge with them by posting knowledgeable replies to their questions… and remember to include a link back to your site in your signature!

Sending all this great information out – with your name and website URL linked to it – will also help you get a better ranking in the search engine listings, since every site that posts your content will link back to yours. Search engines LOVE inbound links from relevant sites, and they will reward you accordingly.

Step #6: Use the power of email marketing to keep in touch with your visitors… and turn them into buyers!

I hear it all the time: email marketing doesn’t work anymore. And when I hear that, I just laugh… because it’s not true AT ALL. In fact, according to PostFuture, 82% of online buyers have made at least one purchase in response to an email promotion.

It takes an average of four to seven contacts with someone before they will be comfortable enough to buy something from you, so you need to stay in touch with your visitors and build a relationship with them.

Email marketing is the ideal way to do this. You can show your subscribers you really know what you’re talking about and make them feel comfortable enough to make a purchase.

Plus, you can stay in regular contact with your existing customers and keep them informed of new products you have to offer!

Step #7: Grow your business by selling new products to your existing customer base

It’s a little-recognized fact that at least 36% of people who have purchased from you once will buy from you again IF you follow up with them. That means one-third of your customer base is just waiting for you to offer them something new!

You have already cultivated a relationship with your customers – you have put in the time and money to get their attention, establish credibility, and close that first sale. That’s by far the most difficult part – not to mention the most expensive!

(Think of all the planning, advertising, and promotional activity that goes into getting those initial sales… )

But once you’ve acquired those customers, you want to develop their "lifetime value." An old marketing adage says that 80% of your sales will come from 20% of your customers.

This means backend selling and upselling are your best bets. You can:

• Offer products that complement their original purchase
• Send out electronic loyalty coupons they can redeem on their next visit
• Include an offer for related products on your "Thank You" page
• Sell affiliate products that complement your product or service
  

By staying in regular touch with our customers and letting them know about new products we have available, we were able to increase our revenues by over 30%!

Step #8: Harness the power of affiliate programs for hands-free traffic… and sales!

Once you have a profitable business on your hands, you should always be on the lookout for new ways to grow it. And one of the best ways to do that is to launch your own affiliate program.

Affiliates are people who promote your products on their web site for a cut of the selling price. Every time they send you a buyer, you pay them a commission.

With an affiliate program, you have the power to exponentially increase your income. Think of it… You don’t have to go out and spend any money on advertising because your affiliates do the advertising for you… and you only pay them when they make a sale. You can’t lose!

(And I’m a pretty excitable guy )

For years, I’ve wanted to provide people with a "one-stop" free online resource center that offers the strategies, tutorials, and tools they need to build their own successful Internet business.

But… because our company — The Internet Marketing Center — has grown so FAST over the past couple years, all our resources have been committed to dealing with that rapid growth, while making sure we still provide top-notch service to our customers and subscribers.

And so we haven’t been able to achieve nearly as many of the items on our "wish list" as we’ve wanted to.

Well, today is the day I get to cross a seriously HUGE item off that wish list!

… Because thanks to the after-hours efforts of my crackerjack team of content developers and web designers, I am enormously proud to introduce IMC’s brand-new Internet marketing blog. It’s absolutely STUFFED with free information you can use to make your business more powerful — and more profitable!

Here you’ll find an entire multimedia library full of tested, results-driven strategies to help you build your business. You’ll discover the latest proven SEO techniques that will flood your site with eager buyers. You’ll learn basic and advanced marketing tips from the video tutorials we’ll be posting here.

And you’ll be able to stay on top of the latest news from the Internet marketing world — so you’ll know what the big "movers and shakers" like Google, Yahoo, and eBay are doing, and how it’s going to affect your business.

… And THAT is just scratching the surface.

So what you need to do right now — in order to ensure you never miss a single strategy or hot tip — is click the button in the upper right corner of your screen that says, "subscribe."

That way, you can add an instant live feed to this site into your Firefox or Internet Explorer 7 browser, or to your personalized Google, Yahoo, and MSN pages. So whenever we post hot new strategies or late-breaking news to this site, you’ll be the first to know.

PLUS — if you haven’t already done so — make sure you sign up for our weekly newsletter, "The IMC Insider." (You can subscribe by filling in your name and email address in the orange box on the right.)

Every Monday, you’ll receive even MORE free in-depth strategies and tips that will turbo-charge your Internet marketing know-how and give you an "MBA" (a "Marketing Brain Asset" )– in no time flat!

In the meantime, feel free to browse through all the information featured in our new information portal — and please leave a comment, letting us know what you think!