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The Process for Launching Niche Sites on Wordpress If you've been reading my recent posts, you already know I'm trying something new over the next few months and documenting it here. If you've haven't been reading along that's totally fine. To bring you...

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The Process for Launching Niche Sites on Wordpress If you've been reading my recent posts, you already know I'm trying something new over the next few months and documenting it here. If you've haven't been reading along that's totally fine. To bring you...

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Building an E-commerce Website So I've decided to launch my very own e-commerce website. I've got some experience optimizing other people's e-commerce websites, but I've never actually built one up from the ground up and am beginning...

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My Try Creating Affiliate Relationships with Local... Ever had one of those ideas that just won't go away? Me too. One concept that's been rolling around my mind for the better part of a year was to forge an affiliate marketing or lead gen relationship with...

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Search Engine Optimization Secrets Book Review [caption id="attachment_1563" align="alignright" width="250" caption="Meet The Author of Search Engine Optimization Secrets: Danny Dover"][/caption]I opened my mail box to discover Search Engine Optimization...

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About
I'm Brett, Co-Owner of StartSEOCompany.com. Here I write about SEO business strategies, along with the struggles and rewards of owning an SEO company. If you'd like to learn more about me click here or follow me on Twitter.

SEM Business Blueprint: Review & Bonus

Posted by admin | Posted in seo business | Posted on 12-09-2011

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Thinking about starting your own SEM or PPC business? The SEM Business Blueprint from the Internet Marketing Advantage training program can speed up the process of setting up your company, teach you how to turn leads into customers, and get paid handsomely for it as well. As the SEM Business Blueprint training explains, you only need 5 – 10 customers to be able to quit your job and live an extremely comfortable lifestyle running an internet marketing firm.

If you’re a real go-getter and have a solid background in PPC and SEO, you should be able to get your business built and accepting new clients in less than 3 days.

At a high level, here’s a review of the training material included in the program:

- Instruction on the different services you’ll offer and how to provide them to clients.
- Two free websites for your SEM company
- Business proposals
- How much to charge clients
- Tools that help automate the SEO work
- How to find clients and get them to sign with you (the most important part)

Try SEM Business Blueprint 7 Days for $1

Remember: You’ll get the full Enterprise SEO Business Package free just for trying.

Here’s what the program does not include:

- Adwords Training
- SEO training

You don’t need to be a guru by any means for the SEM Business Blueprint to be valuable for you. However, you should have a basic understanding of SEO and PPC marketing. So for example, if you don’t know why building back links is important for SEO you’ll need to get yourself educated about the basics of internet marketing before starting a search-engine marketing business.

My SEM Business Blueprint Bonus

If you want to start an SEM business, I recommend and use this product. You can try it for 7 days for only $1 so there’s no risk if you don’t find the program valuable. Additionally, I’ll send you the entire Enterprise SEO Business package that outlines everything you need to build your own wealth-generating SEO company just for testing the program. Between both of these SEO business boxes, you’ll have everything you need to start signing clients and getting paid.

As I mentioned in the first paragraph, the SEM Business Blueprint is just one part of the much larger Internet Marketing Advantage (IMA) training program that I’m a member of. However, the first time you log into IMA it can be difficult to find the SEM Business Blueprint because there’s so much additional content in the membership area (this is a good thing).

Here’s how to find SEM Business Blueprint within Internet Marketing Advantage:

After you log into IMA for the first time you will be brought to the main page of the membership area. Here you’ll find a links to a smorgasbord of internal marketing training like affiliate marketing, link building, product creation, a domain flipping course, e-commerce website training, and a lot more. To locate the SEM Business Blueprint, scroll down to the middle of the page and click the “Miscellaneous Content and Training” link as illustrated below:

internet marketing advantage

Next, scroll down the the “SEM Business Blueprint” link to access the full training materials:

sem blueprint

You will now be able to access the videos, documentation, free websites, and other materials associated with the Internet Marketing Advantage training program. Since there’s little risk in testing the SEM Business Blueprint I recommend giving it a try. I think you’ll be very happy with the level of detail provided in the course.

Got any additional questions about Internet Marketing Advantage or the SEM Business Blueprint? Let me know in the comments and I’ll be happy to respond.

Download Free SEO Contract: Plus 5 Key Areas Need To Cover In Your Agreement

Posted by admin | Posted in seo business | Posted on 01-08-2011

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This is a guest post written by John Roberts. His views about SEO contracts should not be construed as legal advice since he is an SEO and not a lawyer by trade.

Lets face it, having a solid contract when offering search-engine optimization services is an absolute must. But unlike tangible goods, SEO isn’t one of those things that you can just return if it doesn’t work right.John Roberts

Even when compared to something like web design where the work is actually performed then delivered, SEO isn’t quite the same thing. To many clients, SEO still remains a misunderstood dark art with variable results.

Because of these unique circumstances, it’s vital to insist on good contracts and documentation when dealing with paying clients. Regardless of whether you’re offering $200 worth of keyword research or taking on a giant retailer at $250,000 a month, having a formal agreement will help protect both parties in the unfortunate event of future disputes or disagreements.

In this article I’m going to cover five key areas that must be addressed in every SEO contract. These are 5 areas I consider to be most important to protecting your own business and making sure you’re on the same page with a client.

They are …

No Guarantees

This is definitely an area of any campaign or project that must be completely transparent. Clients must be fully aware of the risks involved with SEO and that regardless of your best made efforts, there simply are – no guarantees. To me, this is so important that I use a separate contract document to which the client must sign off against, in conjunction with the actual main contract. This way, there’s no way the client can accidentally overlook, or miss it.

Payment Terms

Nobody wants to get burned by dodgy clients. Whether they pay late, or skip town completely, you need to protect yourself at all times. Unfortunately I’ve been in the position of having to chase clients that owe me money, and let me tell you, it’s no fun. I don’t care whether they owe me $50 or $5,000, business is business. By using a correct system of invoicing along with clear and concise payment terms within your contract, youre immediately taking proactive steps in preventing the likelihood of non payment.

Personal Liability

If something goes pear shaped, then what? Could you imagine having a large corporation decide they want to sue you because their site ended up being penalized and even though it wasn’t your fault? The thought of that makes me shudder. I don’t know about you, but most freelance SEO consultants don’t have deep enough pockets to do battle with large corporations. You want to ensure you waiver any potential liability on damages before you start a new campaign. One simple clause in your contract might mean all the difference between losing everything and being able to sleep at night.

Service Provided – Definition of a Deliverable

There’s no point signing up with a client, only to find out afterwards that their expectations and yours are entirely different. I’ve had clients in the past that have begun making small requests that I didn’t agree to in the contract or proposal, and when met with resistance they wondered why. Remember, as a freelance SEO consultant your job is to improve search placement. It’s not your job to write articles, and do web design. Your contract should stipulate clearly, the services provided, along with exclusions – or what you don’t do.

Termination.

I recall working with a difficult client once that began making demands that were well outside the scope of the agreement. In addition to this, his temperament became quite aggressive. This was expressed in his phone calls and emails. In the end I became so unhappy that I decided I no longer wanted to continue working with him, and that I figured it would be best to terminate his contract. The issue was that he’d paid 3 months in advance, and there was nothing in my contract that covered cancellations or account closures. So I ended up finishing up with that client thankfully after 3 months, then immediately amended my contract and entered a termination clause, which gave me more control – in that, I could close accounts or terminate agreements if I so wished.

So there you have it. 5 key areas of any contract that you must be mindful of when working with paying clients. These are by no means a definitive list, but they’re what I consider some of the most important parts.

I hope this article has given you something to think about before you submit your next contract to your client and kick off a new campaign.

Click here if you’re interested in learning more about contracts. Sign up for my email list and I’ll send you a total of 5 contracts for free and tell you more of my thoughts on SEO business.

Download SEO Contracts: SEO Contract, No Guarantee Contract Disclaimer

My Try Creating Affiliate Relationships with Local Businesses

Posted by admin | Posted in seo business | Posted on 18-07-2011

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Ever had one of those ideas that just won’t go away? Me too. One concept that’s been rolling around my mind for the better part of a year was to forge an affiliate marketing or lead gen relationship with a client I’d created a website for a couple years back. I’ve remained on good terms with the business owner and she’s sent a handful of solid referrals my way in the meantime, which has built a considerable amount of good mojo between us.

However, over the course of the past year I continued to procrastinate and failed to take any significant action toward setting the project into motion until just a couple of weeks ago.

Now that the project has been organized things are moving quickly. Two weeks from now, my local affiliate marketing website will be launched and I’ll soon find out whether or not this little scheme is actually going to work.

The Theory: Creating Affiliate Marketing Programs with Local Businesses

The business model I’ll be using with this company is basically the lead generation model that captures traffic from PPC ads. I’ll be forwarding phone calls to the local business through a custom 1-800 number along with email form submissions. If the the paid ads prove to be lucrative, I’ll (of course) move to local SEO later. But not until the campaign proves itself profitable as organic optimization is too time consuming without knowing for sure if there’s money to be made.

Here’s the deal: I’ll only be getting paid on phone/email contacts that actually convert for this business so this is true performance based marketing. Starting out, we’ve worked out a deal where I would get 10% of each new customer I bring to the business. Although this commission could change in the future I think this is a good baseline to get started.

Here’s the interesting thing about this service based local business. Typically, when you’re marketing affiliate products you know exactly what each sale is going to bring in. For example, if I sell a $97 e-book through ClickBank, I know that I’ll make $43.52 per sale (depending on the product). With this business a new customer could be invoiced anywhere from $300 on the low end up to $80,000 on the extremely rare case. Needless to say, a handful of conversions like that over the course of a year would be a nice score for me.

Although I’ll know how many phones calls and emails the business is capturing through my affiliate website, I won’t actually have any insight into how many of these phone/calls and emails are actually converting into customers. As I stated in the introduction, I’ve built up a significant amount of trust with this proprietor and am not worried about getting screwed. However, this arrangement wouldn’t be possible without that previous history between us. Without this trust, I would need to be paid per lead.


These Opportunities are Everywhere.

local affiliate marketing business

The small business I’m working with to create this affiliate program is not unique, although you’ve probably never heard of the industry. Think car dealerships, doctors, lawyers, or dentists. These kinds of businesses are located in every town or city and all of them see the value in this kind of pay-per performance marketing for their business. If I can get this campaign to work for one, I’ll probably be able to duplicate the model across other cities and states.

Additionally, there’s no risk to the business owner. Unlike placing an ad in the telephone book or hiring a sales person, the business owner doesn’t need to take a leap of faith and write out a check to you until you’ve already made them money.

I know. I’m not exactly breaking ground here.

I understand that I’m a little late to the local party. But better late than never right? I hope so.

To prep myself I’ve been reading the following Ad Hustler’s Local Online Advertising at a Glance and ShoeMoney’s free Guide to Local Affiliate Marketing. Both are awesome resources for local affiliate marketing newbs.

So what do you think of this little plan? Any advice?

FreeSEOReport.com Review: ShoeMoney’s New SEO Audit Tool

Posted by admin | Posted in seo business, uncategorized | Posted on 11-07-2011

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Jeremy Shoemaker doesn’t get much love, much less a mention among the SEO aristocracy, which is why you might not have heard of this guy before now. Perhaps it’s because Shoemaker AKA “ShoeMoney” covers topics beyond search engine optimization on his blog, like PPC, affiliate marketing, entrepreneurship, and even general marketing principals so its tough classify him as a pure-play “SEO guy.”

Well, for whatever reason you haven’t heard about Shoemaker up until now, it’s time for SEOs to take notice of his new tool FreeSEOReport.com since he’s developed what is quite possibly the best automated SEO audit generation tool to date. Much better than MetaFever.com and WooRank.com in my opinion.

Hasn’t the free SEO report already been done?

Yes, the SEO report has been done many, many times before. I even considered developing my own audit tool at one point. But there are some key differentiators I believe sets Shoemaker’s tool apart from similar tools.

Branding

One enormous differentiator is the ability to add unique branding (logos, links) to each SEO report then download and distribute it in PDF format at no charge. Check out the quick SEO report I downloaded from FreeSEOReport.com to audit my own website here.

Off-page and On-page Analysis

Most SEO reporting tools I’ve seen analyze on-page ranking factors exclusively. You know, title tags, meta descriptions, h1 and h2 headers. This information is also outlined in the FreeSEOReport.com audit. However, that’s where the similarities end.

FreeSEOReport.com takes SEO analysis a step further by reviewing the on-page optimization of the top 10 websites in Google for the keyword you’ve selected. The output of this analysis is also presented in a format that’s similar to other paid tools from SEOMoz that you might be familiar with.

Off-page or link metric data is provided from Yahoo. The assigned PageRank number for each of your competitors is also displayed. Again, this data is presented in a way that’s very similar to the Keyword Difficulty Tool from SEOMoz.

Bottom Line

If you need a fast way to produce a website audit with your business’s custom branding, this is a great tool to get started. However, since the information presented in this SEO audit is fairly detailed I doubt the majority clients would understand what the report actually means. If you’re going to share this info with a potential client, be ready to hold the clients hand and walk them through this entire report.

So You Want To Start Blogging for Clients and Customers?

Posted by admin | Posted in seo business, seo strategy | Posted on 16-05-2011

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So you want to start blogging for clients? It can work. But if you’re expecting to get even a handful of clients in the first 6-months, I’d say you’re setting the bar of expectation pretty high. It could happen. But for most of you, it won’t.clients

But don’t be discouraged. Blogging for clients does work, but it will take time and an enormous amount of effort to build up the the kind of traffic required to generate enough traffic and qualified leads through your website, particularly in the pursuit of SEO, PPC, or web design clients.

So how long will the road become? It’s different for everyone of course. But my bet is that it will become a pretty damn long, dark, and lonely path. Especially while you’re just getting started and no one is paying any attention to your little blog.

You see, unlike other markets where publishers might know next to nothing about SEO, you’ll be publishing content alongside other SEOs and internet marketers. Many of whom have a few years head start on you. This makes generating traffic to your blog more difficult since you’ll be fighting for tid bits of long-tail traffic for quite some time. Fighting for the scraps is where we all must start I suppose.

Taking the Plunge

So you’ve decided fight the up-hill battle, take on the world, and dive into blogging for clients. If I haven’t scared you off yet, I commend you. You’re either utterly determined to make your business work or clinically insane. (Both can be advantages when starting your own client-based businesses.) And here’s a bit of advice if you do decide to go ahead with it.

In my opinion, one of the most important points to remember when blogging for clients is that it doesn’t necessarily pay to be the smartest guy in your given industry even if you are. Think about it. Who’s going to read advanced SEO content? Probably guys that already know a thing or two about search-engine optimization and aren’t likely to ever need your services. It might feel nice to get a comment or a retweet from an industry vet, but it probably won’t improve your bottom line. Nope. More often than not you’ll be much better off creating content that’s geared toward the novice.

But Brett (you might be thinking), don’t you have an SEO blog and sell services/products on it? I sure do partner. The key difference is that I try to offer services that align with the kind of products and services my audience might need. For example, I’m not selling SEO services. I’m providing white-label reseller SEO services to other SEOs that might need a helping hand outsourcing some of their work instead. Big difference.

Not Your Flavor of Soft Drink?

In short, if slogging it out in the blogosphere isn’t your cup of tea don’t worry. Blogging is just one way you can attract new clients to your business, certainly not the only way, and definitely not the fastest way to get a new client. But if you’re utterly determined to make this thing work, blogging can be a nice long-term play to attract more interest in your business.

Search Engine Optimization Secrets Book Review

Posted by admin | Posted in seo business, seo strategy | Posted on 18-04-2011

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author danny dover

Meet The Author of Search Engine Optimization Secrets: Danny Dover

I opened my mail box to discover Search Engine Optimization Secrets: Do What You Never Thought Possible With SEO a couple of weeks back and figured a review was in order (even though I’m only 75% of the way through it).

Much to my initial chagrin, Search Engine Optimization Secrets isn’t available on the Kindle. However, after receiving the book via snail mail, I was happy to have the content delivered in a more traditional textbook format as some of the sample SEO templates would have been hard to decipher on my fave reading device.

The reason I decided to buy Search Engine Optimization Secrets for about $35 is because of the author Danny Dover, formerly of SEOMoz fame and more recently the Senior SEO Manager at AT&T fame. Essentially, I wanted to see how the big boys conduct website audits and how Dover structures SEO reports for the biggest companies. Anything else I learned would just be gravy on the mashed potatoes so to speak.

As Dover points out early in his book, this manual is not for beginning SEOs. If you don’t know know what a robots.txt file is you should probably start somewhere else. But if read this blog, you won’t have anything to worry about. :)

Holistically, the book begins by covering the basics of SEO, which are always good to review. Stuff like Robots.txt files, sitemaps, and site architecture is addressed here. Next Dover moves on to explain how to pick the best SEO tools, fix search engine penalties, and use alternative search engines like YouTube to drive traffic to a website. I could go on, but you’re better off reading the book’s details at Amazon. I’m going to give you what I think makes Search Engine Optimization Secrets unique to other SEO books on the market.

What’s Different?

One thing that makes Danny Dover’s book so different from other guides is his understanding of the business side of search-engine optimization. Dover is acutely aware that it’s not always the best SEO that gets the most clients. More often than not, it’s the most well connected and business savvy consultant that makes the most money and Dover isn’t afraid to say so.

The second portion of the book I found tremendously valuable was the Answering Hard Questions from Clients portion of Chapter 7. Here Dover explains how he responds to a few of the open-ended client questions that can be hard to explain. Things like:

Why Should I Care About SEO?
Why Should I Go With You When Company X Charges Less?
If You’re So Good at SEO, Why Don’t You Rank #1 For “SEO”? (I love this one.)
How Do I Improve My PageRank?

Any of these sound familiar?

Finally, Dover provides an example of his comprehensive SEO site audit. For experienced SEOs, there’s probably not a whole lot of new information you’ll find here. But I think it’s always interesting to see what metrics top level SEOs use when conducting a full website analysis because I’m a geek.

Bottom Line

If you’re looking for a “magic bullet” to help you rank #1 in Google for everything in two weeks, you won’t find it here. However, if you’re SEO that works with clients regularly and are looking for a no BS road map to help step up your game, I give this book my full recommendation.

Why Every Business Should Add a 1-800 Number To Their Blog

Posted by admin | Posted in seo business, uncategorized | Posted on 21-02-2011

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Last week I got a 1-800 number for my blog. Okay, actually I picked out a 1-888 number which is more like the toll-free number’s little brother, but I think the number’s presence sends the same message to new visitors: I’m legit and open for business. 800 number

If you’re running an online business, especially anything service oriented like SEO reseller services to web design or even e-commerce sites, this is one of the easiest ways to create instant credibility with new visitors. There’s even research to suggest a telephone number will boost conversions.

As referenced from Matthieu Dejardin’s Landing Page Optimization Study telephone numbers improve conversions in a handful of ways:

1.) Some people just plain old would rather call you.
2.) Some people are still hesitant to order anything online for security or privacy reasons.
3.) Some people just feel more secure knowing that if there is a problem in the future, they know how to get a hold of you.

1-800 Numbers Are Cheap

Little tips on ways to improve conversion and build website authority are nice. But if they’re too expensive or take too much time to implement, they can end up being pushed aside and forgotten forever.

Fortunately, hooking your business up with an 1-800 is ridiculously easy and cheap right now so even if you don’t expect many phone calls initially, getting a number posted so people know you’re open for business makes sense. I used a company called Grasshopper to set up my own (888), but there are dozens of other vendors that provide similar services.

The reason I chose Grasshopper is because of the ease of set up and the virtual phone hierarchy with unlimited extensions that you can set up. Grasshopper even provide some pretty catchy options for call-waiting music.

If you don’t have full-time staff yet to respond to phone calls, that’s okay too. You can automatically route calls placed to your 800 number directly to your cell phone. You can even set up the hours you want to receive calls through you 800 number so you won’t be woken up with weird 2 a.m. phone calls. I’ve got mine set up to direct to a representative 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Monday – Friday, after hours callers can leave a voice mail.

That’s really all I’ve got for you this week. If you’re looking for an easy and cheap way to set up a phone system for your business, check out Grasshopper.com. The set up is super easy, affordable, and might even get you more clients.

Scrappy Back-end Affiliate Programs that Increase Revenue for Offliners

Posted by admin | Posted in seo business | Posted on 18-01-2011

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As a provider of digital services, how often are you asked questions like this: Where do you recommend registering a domain at? Who’s a good hosting company for my website? How do I set up my email marketing?backend revenue

Every time you’re posed a query such as this should also sound the ring of cash register because this question is really the camouflaged statement of someone that’s ready to make a purchase. Cha ching!

And while the decision to buy has already been made, the question of WHO the customer will buy from has yet to be determined. This can put you in a very profitable position, IF you’re prepared to take advantage of it.

Simply put, as an offliner or digital service provider, if you’re not increasing revenue through back-end affiliate offers for hosting, domain registration, or email marketing you’re leaving money on the table. In many cases these affiliate programs also offer recurring commissions that pay out each month, which can result in a more consistent income over time.

As SEOs, it’s easy to forget about the affiliate opportunities for increased revenue since these types of marketing programs are often synonymous with “hypey” internet marketers and spammers whose techniques are largely ignored by the SEO aristocracy.

But me, I’ve got no problem promoting affiliate offers as long as the product is legit. Neither should you as it’s one of the easiest ways to create back-end revenue for your business.

Back-end Affiliate Programs for Offliners

The following affiliate offers are perfect recommendations for existing clients. They’re also products your clientele will need to purchase anyway so it really is a win – win. You could even offer discounted rates when customers order through your affiliate links they would need to purchase anyway. Here are a few types of affiliate promotions that work well for digital service providers:

Domain Registration:

GoDaddy.com: I use Go Daddy for domain registration and hosting of my own websites and I recommend the same to clients. If you ever experience a hosting problem or tech issue, there’s always someone in the United States that you can call 24/7 with questions which is the biggest reason I’ve remained a Go Daddy customer so long. The Go Daddy affiliate program offers a healthy 20% commission per order and they’ve got an unmatched upsell / cross-sell checkout sequence that ensures you’ll get the most out of each referral.

1&1.com: I’ve registered domains here before and been satisfied. 1&1 has an affiliate program I believe could deliver exceptional results since there are a lot of incentives for first time customers like 6 months of free hosting and 30 day risk free trials that can save your customers money while adding to your bottom line.

Hosting:

BlueHost.com: I’ve never used this service personally, but I know a lot of internet marketers recommend it. Blue Host offers a whopping $65 per hosting referral, which is likely a contributing factor to the number to the number of testimonials. (Note to self: I need to try Blue Host.)

As mentioned previously, I’m currently recommending Go Daddy for hosting as well as domain registration because I’ve never actually used Blue Host. Although I must admit that healthy commission makes it tempting.


Email Marketing
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aWeber.com: Email marketing or auto responder services won’t be necessary for all of your clients. But depending on the client’s business model the addition of an email marketing campaign could be a game changer. aWeber is the service I use to manage my email/auto responder campaign. The service is easy to use, offers a free trial period to new members, and can result in longterm monthly commissions when customers use this service longterm.

MailChimp.com: Here’s another email list management service that I’ve heard good things about. Mail Chimp also has an affiliate program that provides another viable option for email marketing.

Design:

LogoNerds.com: If you’ve followed my blog for a long period of time, you know I love this service to outsource logo design and other small projects. Logo Nerds delivers high-quality designs on time at an affordable price. They also offer 25% commissions for affiliates. If you want an even higher rate of commission, you can just mark up the price of the design to your clients and charge them whatever price you feel is fair. I’m a big evangelist for these guys.

99Designs.com: This website has received a lot of attention throughout the blogosphere. I’ve never used it, but I plan to test the service in the future. Here you can outsource design for websites, brochures, logos, business cards, and WordPress themes at a reasonable price.

Premium Themes: Every client won’t require a custom design. For customers that want to save money on design, offering customization of premium themes is a good idea. And there are affiliate programs for here that can add to your bottom line as well.

Dream Templates: You can register for Dream Templates for under $100 per year. This is the first place I go for CSS templates, stock icons, Joomla and WordPress skins. This is a great value for people that plan to launch multiple websites over the course of a year. It’s also a smart resource for small web design firms to have on hand.

OrganicThemes.com: I’ve never used this service, but they’ve got nice looking templates and a 30% affiliate commission. Could be a good option for offliners that want build more income through back-end methods.

For even more back-end affiliate marketing opportunities, check out the big third-party affiliate marketing companies like Commission Junction and Share a Sale for even more monetization opportunities that might work in your own business.


What’s your opinion of recommending affiliate marketing products to customers? Slightly skeezy or business savvy? I’d like to know in the comments below.

The Four Actions that Bring More Money to an Internet Business

Posted by admin | Posted in seo business, uncategorized | Posted on 09-01-2011

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Working online all day, every day, makes it easy to maintain a well developed facade of “busyness”.

Look at me making phone calls, responding to emails, checking my Google Reader, and Tweeting in one fell swoop of multi-tasking awesomeness.

While the ability to effectively juggle multiple projects is a hallmark of the entrepreneur sometimes you need to take a step back and ask yourself, “Is my business really moving forward as because of all this stuff?”

Let’s face it, as a business owner you’ve got to respond to emails, take phone calls, and set out fires. But it’s your job to make sure the business is moving toward its ultimate goal as well.

One way I stay on track is to make longterm plans that–if all goes as planned–will result in longterm traffic gains, more products/services, and of course more cash for my little business.

But while listening to one of my favorite podcasts this week, Jay, from InternetBusinessMastery.com fame, referenced a thought-provoking way of thinking about the type of deliberate actions you can take to grow a business. It’s one of those concepts that simple, yet profound.

There are four action steps that if you continue to take consistently will result in more money for your business.

If you’ve already made a plan for your business goals in 2011, I recommend making sure a number of them fall into one of the four following categories.


Four Fundamentals that Make Money for Internet Business

fundamentals internet business profit

Traffic: The more visitors that land on your website, the more opportunities for the making of money. Pretty obvious. But the point is to make sure you have a clear plan of action to develop more traffic for your business website.

Conversion: The higher rate you are able to transform traffic to email optins and buyers the more moola you’ll make online. There’s an infinite number of things that you can test to improve conversions online, but I’d recommend starting with testing various offers, price points, product benefits, headlines, and the position of buy now buttons or email opt-ins.

New Value: Providing additional value to customers could be as simple as providing a new product or service. For example if you’re running an SEO business, create a how-to information product or offer reputation management services.

Retention: The longer you are able to retain each customer, the more consistent your income will be. Ways to improve client retention could be as simple as scheduling regular customer touch points that help identify potential problems, solving additional problems, or simply delivering so much value to a client that it wouldn’t make sense to ever leave.

Free Getting Started with Raven SEO Tools Beginner’s Guide

Posted by admin | Posted in seo business, seo strategy | Posted on 03-01-2011

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Creating your own monthly reports for clients by hand is fine when you’re just getting started with consulting. It gets the ball rolling and positive cash flow coming in the door. But eventually, you’ll need a more automated system in place to curb the increased labor associated with all those new customer accounts.

I mean, why pay competent employees to copy and paste dozens of Google Analytics graphs into report templates? That can get expensive quickly.

In my opinion, once you hit the 5 – 10 client range, you should start automating the routine tasks that would otherwise eat up countless hours of your employee’s time.

One way I’ve been able to create near instant customer reports, whilst cutting my own work load is by harnessing Raven SEO Tools.

Here are a handful of the tasks I use Raven to do:

  • Schedule Routine and Time Consuming Client Reports, Automatically
  • Track YouTube Analytics and Visitor Data
  • Track Keyword Rankings in Google, Yahoo, and Bing
  • Analyze Competitor Backlinks
  • Monitor Your Clients Online Reputation Management
  • Leverage other third-party tools like SEOMoz Pro Tools.
  • Those of you that have been following my blog awhile know I don’t make product recommendations often–almost never. But this is one of the few tools that after using for a few months would be tough to go without in the future.

    Getting Started.

    Right now, you can take Raven for a test flight risk free for 30-days. Getting the tool set up for your customers is fast. But if you don’t use Google Analytics, this tool probably won’t be the right fit for your business. Raven relies heavy on Google Analytics integration to provide data for it’s one-click reports.

    Once installed you can measure visitor engagement, high-volume search keywords, top landing pages and other popular metrics then have these reports distributed via email automatically each month.

    Download Now

    Click here to download the Getting Started with Raven SEO Tools Beginner’s Guide free.

    In this guide you’ll get an introduced to the user interface within Raven, learn how to add a new client’s website to Raven SEO Tools, how to integrate Google Analytics, track keyword rankings, and more. Enjoy.

    Full disclosure: These are affiliate links and I will receive a small commission if you decide to purchase Raven SEO Tools eventually. However, it’s a tool that I use daily myself so I have no reservations recommending it. Also, the 30-day trial period is enough to time to decide whether or not the program is right for your business. So if you give it a try, please support me by following through the affiliate links.

    Please email me if you decide to try Raven through my link. I might even be able to scrounge up some cool free bonuses for you if you do.