Category Archives: Internet Business

Video Sales Pages Gone Wild

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TV-234x300aI’ve seen many debates lately about video sales pages, and whether they’re effective or not. Coincidentally, as I began writing this post, a blog announcement showed up in my inbox from Terry Dean regarding this same subject! D’oh!…

We’ll Terry did a great post, so instead of getting over detailed, I’ll simply elaborate and add to it. One thing that I’ve seen around the net lately are people debating on whether ‘video only’ sales pages vs long / short copy are more effective.

I’ve seen responses that video chases away customers, and that written copy is the only way to go. Others feel that ‘video only’ is the way to go, and to heck with writing copy.

In one of my recent posts, I talked about videos with no control functions, and how some people were irritated by them while others claimed getting great conversions off of them. I also mentioned that ultimately, my own testing has shown that I do best with a combination of both on my sales pages.

Here’s my take on it. In my case, I mostly get new prospects across my sales pages. My testing is based on these types of prospects. I think that new prospects probably are more receptive to having an option whether to view either the video, or to simply skim over the hard copy.

Some of these other marketers who are using video only to promote a product, from my observation, are getting the bulk of their traffic from email lists, including JVs & affiliates. I haven’t actually tested yet using a list / JV against other types of traffic to a video sales page, but at this point, I have a hunch that the best conversions from these ‘video only’ sales pages are coming from people who are already fans of the list owner, or were pre-sold somewhere else before being directed there.

These types of visitors are already “warm” to the idea of checking you out. A visitor who clicked on your PPC ad on the other hand, might see the video and run. Most people who don’t know you want to quickly see who you are, and what you have. If you can’t convince them why they need your product within that first critical minute, you’re toast.

For all my main sales pages, I have moved to the combination of written copy with video. This is what works best for me with my particular traffic. The only real way to know what works for you is to test it. I’ve noticed that many who tout their points of view on the subject are biased either for or against video for various reasons, without ever testing one way or another themselves.

If you want to read more about what Terry Dean has uncovered in his own test results, simply click the link below:

http://mymarketingcoach.com/big-mistake-in-using-video-to-sell

Terry Dean has been successfully marketing online for years, and he is definitely one of the good guys. He is one of the few that I would highly recommend.

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Are You Chained to Your Business?

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image credit - www.funkyspacemonkey.comA vast majority of us who venture into online business have one real goal in mind…

In the beginning, you may think that your desire is simply for extra money, or maybe its because you just don’t want to worry about money. Perhaps your goal is to be filthy rich. But is money really what you are after?

When you think about it, money is really just a tool. The more you have, the more that you can accomplish. It gives you to power to do what you want when you want.

It gives you the ability to travel, to purchase things that make your life more comfortable. It can allow you to spend more quality time with your family. It gives you the power to tell your boss to stick it where the sun don’t shine… It is liberating. And the list goes on.

Many realize (often too late) that their true core desire is freedom. Having this goal defined in the beginning will allow you to create systems in your business that will keep you out of the trenches, so that your business can grow faster while freeing you up to enjoy the finer things in life.

A prosperous business can ultimately give you freedom if you structure it that way. Your business can be your ticket to freedom, or it can be your master and jailer.

Way back in the day when I was living out of my car in Virginia Beach, I was able to wander around and walk the beaches, as if I was truly free. There was just one catch… this wasn’t the way that I wanted to live out my life.

Without money, my options were really limited. On the one hand, I loved the freedom of not answering to anyone or anything, but on the other hand, I was imprisoned by my circumstances. Scarcity was my mindset, and as a direct result, scarcity then became my reality.

Our business can become a prison too if freedom was our core desire, and we didn’t have this goal defined from the start. When you get started, really drill down and get in touch with your core desire, so that you can shift into the right direction from the beginning.

Are you working 16 plus hours a day trying to scrape a living out of your business? If so, you’re probably using the wrong systems (unless you enjoy working 16 + hours a day).

Don’t be a hero. You can duplicate the things that make you money in your business by outsourcing it to other people. Would you spend $500 in a month to have someone make you $2000 or more?. Would you then spend $5000 to make $20,000 or more?

Of course! Getting rid of the “no one can do it better than me” mindset, and stepping away is one of the best ways to really multiply your business.

The most you can work yourself is about 60 to 80 hours a week with a guaranteed burnout in the end. By outsourcing, you can get hundreds or thousands of hours accomplished in the same amount of time!

…Just a little something for you to ponder.

The Greatest Secret Ever

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secret

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, then the first thing that you might be thinking after seeing the title is “yeah, I know Jack, there is no secret, no magic bullet, I’ve heard it before.”

Well, it seems that there IS a secret. This secret was so well hidden that even I never spotted it right away.

No, it wasn’t stashed in a secret vault deep underneath the Pentagon. It was actually hidden in plain sight.

I’ve taken many journeys through the net over the years trying to reverse engineer why one person would use a certain color in their headlines, and that person would use long copy in their sales letters while others used short copy.

Some have started using “video only” sales letters. Some videos start automatically and have no controls for the users to pause it, or skip ahead. Some videos have the controls left in so people can skip ahead, or pause.

I’ve seen the debates as to why this it the absolute WORST way to do it, while others staunchly defend their positions because their conversions have skyrocketed because of it.

So what’s the deal? Are those people that hate video sales pages in the majority, or simply a vocal minority?

Still, others have found that they get much better conversions with printed copy than they do with video. Man!, why all the conflicting information?

On the surface, none of this really makes a lot of sense. Maybe nothing works… maybe everything works. Okay, I’m not trying to give you a headache, and you might be wondering what this has to do with “the big secret”.

This secret actually gets more profound the more you think about it. Incorporate this simple philosophy into your mindset, and your business will love you for it.

The secret is that your business is as individual as you are. Your business is a reflection of you. When others view your sales pages, read your articles, forum posts, see your products & reviews, your personality is being ingrained into all of it.

You may, by nature be a little introverted, so maybe people relate to your hard copy better than someone who has the “video” personality. As a result, your copy will do much better than your video pages, because your true persona is expressed best via this medium.

As a result, it is a hundred times more powerful than your video pages. By contrast, the other guy’s personality may be oriented in the opposite direction and get a hundred times better results with video in the very same market.

So the key here is this: It’s always good to emulate successful marketers in order to understand the components of a successful website, BUT… and this is the “but” that nearly everyone misses…

It may not work for you because, not only do you not know the history behind that technique (why its being used), but you also have to ask yourself, does it fit in with my persona?

Testing is the bottom line. You may find out that you have a knack for making video presentations. Maybe you think that you sound like a moron, only to find out that others who listen to you love you!

The same may be true for writing. Without testing, you would have never known, because we are almost always perceived differently by others, than how we perceive ourselves.

So in a nutshell – emulate others only to get the foundation of the basics, but be true to yourself as you build. Express your business by expressing yourself, and the results you get will be pure gold.

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Article Marketing Vs. Video Marketing Vs… blah blah blah

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YMISC820493

One of the most common questions that I encounter in online marketing is the “which is better” scenario.

Which is better, article marketing or video marketing? Is Forum marketing better than article marketing? Is blog commenting better than forum commenting?

We can apply this same line of questioning not only to traffic generation, but also list building techniques, keyword research, yadda yadda…

So back to Article marketing vs. Video marketing. Which IS better? Okay, here’s my short off the cuff answer… I dunno, test it and find out.

On the surface that doesn’t sound very helpful does it! Well if you think about it for a minute, you’ll realize that this is exactly what you should do. Don’t worry about whether it works for Joe marketer on the warrior forum.

Find out if it works for you. What works wonders for Joe may not be the best for you. It depends on your market, what you’re trying to accomplish, and even how you have your procedures set up. You do have procedures… right?

Also, I think that it’s a big mistake to be limiting yourself to only the “best” way to do something. Test all of the above and see what works for you. I’m willing to bet that they all do.

One of the techniques may work better than the others, but that doesn’t mean that you should ignore the others! Incorporate everything that drives traffic to your website or squeeze page.

Why would you want to limit yourself to only the best performing one? If you had 15 streams of income, would you dump them all and only keep the best income source? Heck no! A little bit of income from many sources really adds up.

The same is true with traffic generation. Joe Smoe might get tons of targeted traffic from article marketing, because he’s a great writer and passionate about it. You on the other hand, may be a great communicator and draw tons of traffic from video marketing, whereas Joe sucks at it.

Starting to see the picture? Traffic generation isn’t just a “apply one principle” technique. A little traffic from stumbleupon, a little from article marketing, a little from youtube, viddler, from forums, blogs, twitter, SERPS, etc, etc… it all adds up to a lot of traffic.

For free traffic generation (and pretty much everything), focus on the techniques that you are best at which give results. Outsource the tedious stuff so you don’t have to mess with it.

Do I hear mechanical turks?

As a business owner, your time is too valuable to be spending on tedious stuff or stressing over which is better because you’re obviously not testing. You’re the idea person… the creator, the captain.

Sam Walton didn’t build an empire by running around all day unloading trucks, stocking shelves, helping customers, and running the cash register. Why should you?

It’s a big world out there full of opportunities to achieve your goals. Test everything, scale up what works and toss or tweak what doesn’t.

In either case, tweak, tweak, tweak. Always try and improve what you have. The results will reverberate all through your marketing funnel. A little improvement goes a longgggg way. :)

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5 Things You Should Unload From Your Schedule

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dogface

Running an online business can be challenging, especially in the beginning when you are trying to find your bearings as to where to go and what to do next.

Probably among the biggest mistakes that online marketers make is allowing too many non-productive tasks into their working schedule.

Here are 5 things that you should unload right now so that you can get on track to making that serious bank and growing a healthy online business.

Forums – Forums are a great place to interact with others in your market, form joint ventures, pick up valuable advice (sometimes), and to gain exposure in your market as an authority.

So why are Forums at the top of this list? Because during your working hours, you need to stay the bleep out of the forums and concentrate on the tasks at hand.

Don’t allow yourself into the forums during your working time! Unless there’s a specific purpose, surfing the forums must always be reserved for being outside of your working schedule.

How many times did you decide that today you were going to do a big push on driving traffic, creating a report, etc, only to end up checking in on the forums (“real quick”) to see what’s new?

Let’s be honest with ourselves, because we’ve all done it… before you know it, the day is half shot and now the momentum is losing steam on all those great accomplishments that were going to get done today.

Oh well, tomorrow is another day… or is it?

TV – Television is one of the greatest killers of dreams out there, especially when you are starting your new venture and developing your self-discipline.

This mindless programming does nothing but instill in you a loser mindset. TV exists as an advertising and propaganda medium to keep the sheeple in check and obedient to various agendas across the spectrum.

Don’t allow this electronic vampire to suck your precious life experiences out of you. You’ve been robbed long enough… and you’ll never get that time back again. Don’t watch life, live it!

Skip the TV for a week and see just how creative your mind starts to get. Your business (and bank account) will love you for it.

Email – Huh? But you NEED email to run your business, answer support inquires, etc. Yeah, that’s generally true, but there’s a time and a place.

Many will use “checking the email” every 5 minutes as a desperate attempt to escape the possibility of failure by floundering away their time, which ironically enough guarantees failure!

Maybe there will be a cool new opportunity… “inside info” on how some guy named Frankie made it big in MLM.

By investigating this, you’ll still be “busy” because you’re pursuing something… right?

Telephone – During our working times, we need to eliminate as many distractions as possible. The telephone can totally screw up your game when you’re trying to focus on something important, especially things like making videos, writing articles or sales copy, etc.

During these times, I turn off the ringer until I’m ready to accept calls again. If someone has anything important to say, they’ll leave a message.

Aunt Martha – If you’ve reached the point where you have left your J.O.B., or you are working on your internet business in your spare time, you may find that one of your biggest challenges is how to stave off the time vampires.

It’s great to have friends and family, and by all means, we need to spend time with them and appreciate having them in our lives. However, during our critical working hours, they must respect that you need this time to yourself so that you can realize your dreams of a better life for you and those you care about.

Let people know that during the hours of * and * on x days of the week you are not available for anything because you are working. Even though you are home, it is still your place of business.

There are more things I could rattle on about, but these 5 I especially wanted to touch upon.

The main point of ridding yourself of these distractions during your working time comes down to one thing… managing your time effectively.

Think of it this way, when you run a Pay Per Click campaign, you track what keywords convert and which ones don’t. You then eliminate the dud’s and ramp up on the profitable ones.

It works exactly the same way with your time. Track all the different things that you do during your working hours and see which activities are actually building your business and which activities amounted to nothing, costing you potential revenue.

Now cut out those dead weight activities and ramp up the ones that are really productive and actually build your internet business.

You’ll be absolutely stunned at how quickly your business turns around when you start feeding it a nice healthy diet of productive activities. :)

48 Hour Special

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24-hour-special-flagIf you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you’ll know that when I launch a product, I always run a 24 hour special for my blog readers.

After this is over, the special will not be repeated, so don’t bother waiting around for another one. These normally only happen around the initial launch of my products.

This is my way of showing my appreciation to you for being on my announcements list or as a reader here on my blog.

I’ve decided to increase the length of this special to 48 hours instead of 24 since most of us are still recovering from the holidays.

This special is for the Red Hot Mini-Sites with WordPress Course. You will be given full lifetime access to the Mini-Site course.

If you haven’t gotten your online presence started yet, what are you waiting for? This course will show you how to quickly get a professional looking website up & running in no time flat.

There’s no need to shell out all that cash for that expensive website developing software that you need a college degree plus 5 years of trial & error just to figure out.

You can harness the power of WordPress, a FREE CMS (Content Management System). This blog is built on WordPress. Most people think of WordPress just for use as a blog. I’ll show you how to use it to create fantastic websites!

You can find out more information for this course in the menu on the right, but DON’T buy it from that link during this special! If you want the discount come back here and click on this link instead.

Red Hot Mini-Sites with WordPress is going to be available for the next 48 hours for an insane price of only $15.

This special will end on Sunday evening at 7:00pm EST (GMT -5). If you show up on Sunday at 7:01pm EST it will be too late.

You can grab your VIP access here:

http://www.declareyourday.com/amember/signup-rhms-special.php

Five SEO Tricks to Help Increase Your Traffic

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Traffic picSEO, or Search Engine Optimization is considered by some as the holy grail for driving traffic if they can either master it or pay a master to optimize their website.

Some are confused because they think “huh? Search Engine Optimization… How can I optimize a Search Engine?!” SEO of course is really referring to the Optimization of your web page for the Search Engines to consider it most relevant to those keywords for which you are optimizing.

Keep in mind that SEO is but one strategy to drive traffic. Many people wrongly assume that all you have to do is optimize your website and then watch the visitors come rolling in by the millions.

Did you ever notice on those cereal commercials how they tell you that their cereal is part of a balanced breakfast. Notice the catch word “part“. The balanced breakfast in addition to the cereal may also include juice, toast, bacon, and eggs.

By eating cereal alone, you are only getting part of the nutrition. The same applies here. SEO is a part of a balanced traffic strategy. Other components can include article marketing, blog & forum commenting, paid traffic, affiliate traffic, & list building, for starters.

Okay, onward & upward. Here are my top picks for getting my page relevancy recognized by the search engines.

  • A good title tag – The title tag is one of the key elements for good SEO. Always get that important keyword into the title of your webpage.
  • images; Name, Alt & Title tags- Name your image something relevant to your keyword / web theme. Always get your keywords into your alt & title inside your img tag, but and this is a big but, I mean like J-Lo big… they must be relevant to your image & the image must be relevant to your keyword. Don’t name non-relevant images, or use alt / title tags with them. Non-relevant images could include a buy button, checkmarks, background gradients, etc.
  • Link Text – Always include keywords into your links. Creating a link to somewhere and making the active text something like Click here now is a wasted opportunity. Instead, make your links keyword rich such as “get your Sony Bravia LCD HDTV here”.
  • Bold & italics – Use bolding on some keyword rich phrases where you would like that extra attention from the search spider. Don’t over do it though or it could backfire. Italicized words can also add some juice.
  • Menus & Footer – The footer is another key area to get the attention of the Search Engines. Getting active keyword rich links into the menus & footer of a web page is an important factor to peaking up your page.

Consider these five as a primer. There are a lot of aspects to good SEO, but much of it isn’t exactly rocket science either. The key thing to remember is to never get spammy with your content. Writing strictly for the search engines and not keeping your visitors in mind is a sure way to not keeping (& converting) your visitors, and you’ll lose ground as well.

Stuffing your web page with hundreds of invisible keywords (using text with the same color as the background) might have worked back in the stone-age of the internet, but search engines are much smarter now.

It’s all about relevance and what will keep your visitor on your page for more than a just few seconds. When your visitor found you in the search results, they expect your content to be relevant to what they are searching for. Google has many methods for determining if that visitor had a relevant search experience with your site or not.

I’m going to be covering SEO in much greater detail in my first edition of the “Jack Keifer Letter” which will be debuting soon. Keep an eye out; the Jack Keifer Letter will get you access to the inner workings of my business where I will reveal information that is only available to paid subscribers.

This will be premium meat & potatoes stuff, with surprise bonuses shipped out to you from time to time, and I don’t mean cheesy PLR stuff, I’m talkin’ my own genuine KeiferSoft™ products FREE just for being a part of my inner-circle!

My next post will probably be a 24 hour special, so stay tuned. :)

The Universe According to Geltdrakken

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singularityThe Law of Attraction was in full swing a couple months ago when an old friend appeared in my facebook friend requests seemingly out of nowhere.

It was none other than the infamous Geltdrakken! As I learned once from one of the Three Amigos, “infamous” means “more than famous” of course. ;-)

I’ve known John since way back into the mid-eighties. Somehow we lost touch over the years & I always wondered in the back of my mind what ever became of John.

John is one of those rare people who has a brilliant mind and a bizarre, but really great sense of humor. In other words, he’s a heck of a lot like me.

If you’ve followed my blog for any amount of time, you’ll know that I tend to go off on tangents about the quantum nature of our perceived universe and how this directly correlates to your ability to create any future that you desire.

Here is an exerpt from one of his posts:

“comprehend a universe, that exists simultaneously as a singularity and an infinite space all in one moment. IT is impossible without a greater set consisting of an inner consciousness and an extant factor to withhold it in apprehension.

 

Right?”

Of course I had to throw in my two cents – “Consciousness is necessary to facilitate the illusion of infinite space…
And why does the universe appear to be exapnding? Because we are observing it!

-Jack“

His new blog is located at http://geltdrakken.blogspot.com and has nothing to do with internet business. John is an excellent writer and you may find his material interesting, bizzare, or it may simply piss you off depending on your current stage of evolution.

Welcome to the blogosphere John!

Are You Working on Building That Internet Business?

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WonderingBird

Often times I hear people tell me that they are working on building their online business. So many people are “working” on creating their product, but don’t have one. Many are “working” on their business, but don’t yet have one.

Others are in a perpetual planning stage. I know one person (That’s you Rob!) that’s been “working” on building a business for well over a year now, and still has nothing to show for it.

Either you have a business or you don’t. Imagine if you were perpetually “working” on getting a drink of water, but never actually took a drink? Within a few days you would end up as a dehydrated carcass sprawled out on the sidewalk with some stray dog gingerly picking at your good parts.

To get that vital life sustaining fluid into your body, first you get a signal from your body that says “hey, I need water!” Instinctively, we respond by taking an action to get up, walk over to a water source, pour it into a glass, and then put it to our mouth, and drink it.

The result is that our body is now satisfied and can continue to function in a normal fashion. It wasn’t rocket science. We didn’t spend all our time in some forum asking what is the best way to get the best glass of water in the shortest amount of time.

Are you were addicted to the rush of getting in on the latest & greatest money making systems, traffic strategies, internet marketing tools, etc, but never actually do anything with them? Maybe you try one or two of the nuggets that appeal to you, then when you don’t get the desired results, you totally abandon it and move on. Well, you’re not alone. At least 98% of new marketers out there do this time and time again, all the while building an arsenal of valuable, but useless information on their hard drives.

Remember, The value of information is directly proportional to its application. Consuming the info is only half of the equation. Think of it this way… everything you have ever accomplished, no matter how big or small started as a vision or an idea first. Locked away within you, it was pure potential which hadn’t yet manifested itself into the physical world. It was your conscious decision to act that made it reality.

Why did it become reality? Was it because you were focused on making it work? This could have been something as simple as putting together a jigsaw puzzle. When you tried putting the first two pieces together, no doubt you were putting the wrong pieces together many times before you found the one that fit.

Suppose after that first failed attempt to fit that puzzle piece with it’s matching piece, you gave up and tossed the whole jigsaw puzzle. Suppose you were halfway finished but you tossed it because the picture still wasn’t complete. Now you’re off to get a new jigsaw puzzle and start over again hoping for better, quicker results. Rinse & repeat this a few times. Look at all that time & effort that has gone out the window time and time again.

This is exactly what most do in their online ventures. If this is your conundrum, you need to break out of this cycle. Now is the time to start with that first piece and build your momentum. Someday is today!

Don’t have a website yet? Did you know that can build a professional looking website that search engines love in just a few hours without knowing HTML or using an expensive website builder?

My Red Hot Mini-Sites with WordPress course will show you how. WordPress is best known as a blogging software, but I will show you how to use it for making websites. Best of all, WordPress is FREE and its easy to manage.

Now you have the power to stop “working” on building a business. Now you can just build it. Next you’ll need a guiding hand to get your business moving. The Jack Keifer Newsletter will soon be available. In the newsletter, I will be revealing valuable information every month that I don’t share publicly. If you like the free information on this blog, you’re going to love the Jack Keifer Newsletter.

I will also be announcing some very valuable perks that will be included for all my newsletter subscribers. Okay, now you’ve got a plan. Get that website built or upgraded today, then join me on a virtual road trip via my newsletter on an exciting journey to a successful online business !

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