You need to know 1. How to generate web traffic, 2. How to convert that traffic into leads and 3. How to convert those leads into sales. In this article we are going to talk about the first of these – how to generate web traffic.

You know that people are hungry for what you have to offer and you know that they are searching online for it. The problem is you can’t find them and they can’t find you. It’s like you’re both in a very dark room with lots of other people in it making lots of noise and everyone has a blindfold on. And while you know that each other is there you don’t know what to do to find each other. If only there were some signal you could give or a noise you could make that could bring you together …

Well how to generate web traffic is essentially the same problem. How to get your potential customers or clients is the same as trying to get someone in a crowded, dark room with a blindfold on to find you.

There are many ‘signals’ you can use to help people find you in that dark room. Some are paid signals and some are free. So I have made a list of 10 things you can do relatively quickly to get people coming to your site.

1. Make sure the words on your landing page are the same as the words someone has typed in to find someone like you, also make sure you aren’t competing with lots of other sites with exactly the same words!
2. Open a Social Networking account (Facebook, Twitter, Linked In or You Tube) target those in the niches you are trying to attract, then send posts there with links back to your site
3. Articles – this is one of my favourite ways to send good quality traffic. Write a short (300 word) article and post it up on ezine articles.com. If you don’t like writing go to elance.com and get someone else to do it for you
4. Maybe you like creating short videos – create one then use trafficgeyser.com to get it out there – but remember to tag it with the right keywords
5. Try a press release at PRweb – this will generate web traffic
6. ‘Ping’ your latest blog post at pingomatic.com  - this sends out your message right across the internet for servers to pick up
7. We’ve already mentioned Social Networking – but only the non-paid aspect. Try an ad on Facebook or Linked In
8. Submit your site to the top directories like www.DMOZ.org or www.dir.yahoo.com These are considered high authority by Google so will help you to get up the search results pages
9. Among my all-time favourite ways to drive quality traffic is Google’s Pay-per-click system ‘Adwords’. This is a paid solution but you will get a better return on your investment with this than virtually any other form of advertising.
10. Don’t forget good old ‘word of mouth’ –  any networking event or potential client you meet should get your business card with your website address on it.
11. Bonus tip – As you may be aware, traffic comes from having the right keywords and many of the above techniques rely on the relevance and power of your keywords. But the right keywords for your business may not be the ones you think they are. Don’t just choose keywords that have tons of search because these are likely to have tons of competition.  So pick keywords without too much competition. Go to Googles’ keywordtoolexternal and this will show you how to do this.

Now I know that not everyone is in a position to take action on all of these techniques. So just try one or two and get started. If you are familiar with some of them and are already using them, then try one of the others.

Also bear in mind web traffic is not easy – it takes time, energy and money. You need to be able to invest at least one of these, two is better, and the best results will come from investing all three.

Take this seriously and you will generate web traffic. Remember, the dark room – each technique you get good at is a light switched on or a blindfold removed and the more you do the more you get – generate web traffic now.

If you want a great product to help you to get more traffic, click here and TRY THIS

Good luck! hope this helps …

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But many people ask me:

“Why (and how) do you do this?”

“Why would you provide consultancy, training, and coaching on the internet”?

“Aren’t consultancy services provided by referrals and face to face?” and

“Isn’t the internet just a place to have a website and direct people to it so that they can see whether you are what they want”?

My answers range from explaining the disadvantages of just selling your time vs selling your knowledge and expertise, to describing the incredible opportunities the internet offers to help people to sell their knowledge online – and its not just about having a website.

The trouble is …most people switch off and don’t listen about the amazing things they could be doing on line to completely transform their business!

This  is the reason I set up the site www.sellmyknowledgeonline.com which now has over 8000 readers around the world. I started this so that people who already run service-based businesses (or who want to start on)  should be thinking VERY SERIOUSLY about using the internet as a primary platform from which to promote, sell and deliver the knowledge, information and skill they have.

First of all there are serious disadvantages with the traditional ‘professional service’ business model :

1. You are committed to cold calling or telephone selling (yuk!)
2. You have to rely on referrals (which is fine so long as your clients are doing well)
3. Your income is limited according to the number of days you can work – eg whatever your daily rate is multiply it by the number of ‘pay-days’ in a year  and that is what your income is limited to.
4. You’ll have to wait to get paid for your work (minimum 1 month, sometimes 3 or 4)
5. You are competing with lots of other people doing exactly the same thing
6. If your client goes bankrupt or is just a pain then you might not get paid at all

These are just some (of many) of the disadvantages which most who use this business model need to contend with. This is normal and many are happy doing business this way. But there is another way (and you don’t even have to stop doing it the traditional way (if you don’t want to) in order to implement it).

Let me put it like this, if you can talk for an hour on any or all aspects of what your knowledge and skill can achieve for a prospective client then you potentially have multiple ‘products’ that your clients would be interested in buying. Moreover, you can promote, sell and (in many cases) deliver these products online. So you can stop just selling time for money and therefore remove the limit on your income as well as eliminate all the difficulties associated with the traditional model.

You can create consultancy and training products for your clients:

E-books, e-reports, CDs, teleseminars, webinars, open workshops, digital audios, DVD programmes, online videos, and membership.  All of these can be created out of your expert knowledge in a way that either supplements the service provision you offer or even replaces it.

Having a range of products instead of (or in addition to) just selling your time for money eliminates ALL the above disadvantages as well as adding some clear advantages:

1. No more cold calling
2. No limit on your income
3. No more waiting to get paid – (because people pay up front)
4. You also get to create the product once and sell it over and over and over again

When I explain this to people I get a number of objections. Usually they are like the following:

1. This all sounds too technical – I can’t be bothered with that
2. Why should I put my expertise into some DVDs which sell for $1000 or £700 when I can get that each time I work for a client?
3. Won’t creating products take ages? I don’t have time for that.
4. I guess this can be done but it’s going to cost lots of money right?
5. I run a special kind of business – this wouldn’t work for me because my business is different
6. My clients wouldn’t buy online

Here’s what I say to each of these:

1. If you’re a technically minded then this won’t take long and in any case all the necessary tasks can be outsourced very cheaply.
2. There is no way you will incorporate every fragment of your knowledge into a programme of 5 x 1 hour DVDs – this is your introduction and so provides your client with an insight into your knowledge and expertise – there will always be people who will want more and more bespoke provision from you. So rather than deter them from buying your bespoke expertise it is more likely to encourage them
3. No, it doesn’t take ages. I can teach people how to create a great e-book within about 10 days without writing a word (that’s from having nothing at all to having it selling on their website).
4. Not necessarily – it can cost money, time and energy upfront but think of what it’s going to make you in the long run this is about investment in the future of your business– it’s a no-brainer!
5. This is one I hear a lot. Everybody sees their business as different. That’s great! But I do not know of any business for which this model doesn’t work. If your business involves your knowledge then it will work.
6. How do you know your clients would buy from you online? Have you tried? And even if they don’t it’s not difficult to find ones that will.

I’m sure those who don’t like my approach will find more objections to resist doing this. But I just want you to think about the many ways and methods you can promote, sell and deliver your expert knowledge online and hugely increase the potential of your business, create much better value for your clients and customers and most importantly increase your profits.

Think about how you could sell your knowledge and expertise without selling your time. Then think about how this could change the limits on your traditional business model and remove the limits to your income.

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10. You Aren’t Learning

Not all businesses have websites to promote their products and services. Of those that do it amazes me that they still don’t learn how to optimize it for potential business. The site may have cost a lot of money but it’s not generating visits, leads or sales. You may have a nice piece of artwork in cyberspace. But you need traffic you need leads and you need sales. If you are happy with your site as a rather expensive calling card that gets ‘seen’ 3 times a day then fine. If not, you acknowledge you need to take drastic action. So you go to your web-designer for some ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ (SEO). But this will only solve a small part of your problem. You need to know your keywords. And don’t assume you know what your keywords are until you’ve done these 2 things: 1. Got into the head of your prospect and typed into the search engine what they are typing it (not what you are typing in); 2. Checked out Google’s keyword tool to see what the search is for this. Learn what it is they are typing in and learn how to instruct your web-designer how to do this for your site.

9. You’re being too much of a perfectionist

Stop perfecting everything and get your site or post up there so that Google can start to find it. Don’t wait until everything on your site is nice and perfect before you go live. People fret and worry that there site is going to be seen by visitors and that they’ll be judged on a half done job. Don’t worry no one is going to see it until you start driving traffic.  When it’s 80% ready set it live and stop procrastinating – you can perfect it later as you go. But the time you spend on the remaining 20% will  not be worth your most valuable hours so don’t prioritize it. Do the remaining 20% when you have time.

8. You’re So Busy Thinking Small You Stop Yourself From Dreaming Big

Like anyone who starts a business I wanted to sell to “anyone who wanted my products and services” but soon learned about the importance of a ‘niche’. When I tried to integrate both I let my small thinking get in the way of my big dreaming. When I created www.sellmyknowledgeonline.com I did think about just marketing to consultants only and blogging about the activity of being a consultant. But I would have missed out on a lot of traffic and niches that want they same thing. There are lots of people who are aren’t consultants but who have knowledge they can sell and promote online. I wanted to attract all people who had knowledge and expertise and give them tips on how to sell it online. So my target became much broader but with finely defined niches so that people would be included but not confused about its focus. I sometimes got sidetracked into thinking too carefully about little detailed steps.  I learnt quickly I was just wasting time. Don’t be afraid to dream big and broad and stop thinking too carefully about your next ‘step’.

7. You’re Not Really Listening

About a year ago months ago I ran a workshop on how to get leads from your site.  I later met someone who had been on that workshop, I had originally told him a few things that should help him improve his list building and lead-generation. When saw him again he still wasn’t doing what I had advised but was still very animated in his conversation.  I struggled to listen to him making excuses and procrastinating. I repeated my advice and suggestions and about 10 days after that he emailed be to ask my opinion on a piece of software he was thinking of buying. This was completely unrelated to any of the advice I gave and he’d clearly gone off on another tangent and was wasting time, energy and money on something that I thought was not going to help him at all. I said that I didn’t really think he was listening. I haven’t heard from him since.

6. You’re Worrying About What Other People Are Doing

Frequently,  I get messages from people who are overly concerned that they are doing the wrong things online. I agree that an attitude of self-criticism is necessary but not to the point where it stops you going against your gut-feeling and certainly not where it just relies on the observation of what someone else in your sector or industry is doing. Don’t fret about what others are doing. No one wants a carbon copy of something that someone else has already done. They want something new and different, a fresh perspective. So stop worrying about what others are doing and concentrate on your own plans and ideas.

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5. You’re Not Taking Action

Then again, some listen too much and think too much and talk too much. In fact, they do everything too much except take action. For some reason when it comes to marketing and selling online there is a big appetite for learning as much as we can about the technical and aesthetic aspects of web-design and traffic and SEO etc. There is far less a desire to implement and take action on what has been learned. It is far better to learn a little and implement a little than to learn a lot and not implement at all. Action and implementation are the main teachers NOT theory when it comes to traffic, leads and sales online. The ideal mode is to learn and take action on what has been learned rather than just accumulating knowledge. When people ask my advice to try one course of action or another, my response is often to say “test it”. This galvanizes them to take action so that they become the authors of their own action masters of their own online marketing.

4. You’re Thinking “It’s All Too Hard and Expensive”

Internet Marketing strategy is not easy to teach (ask me, I’ve done it for a long time). Neither is it easy to learn. Subsequentl,y people think the whole area is just for geeks and nerds and is too hard for the ordinary person and too expensive to get someone else to do it. It’s not, I am neither a geek nor a nerd. And I’m not shy about paying an expert to do it for me if needs be. If you think something is too hard – eg coding etc then get someone else to do it. If you aren’t sure that the coder understands what you want that coding to achieve then ask an internet marketer or web-designer that understands marketing. If you think something is too expensive – get over it! One way or another it will cost you to learn what you need to learn – either in money, time or energy. For me, time is my most valuable commodity so I am happy to pay people to do the things I can’t or haven’t got time for. And stop thinking ‘expense’! Learning about Internet Marketing is an investment NOT an expense. Even if something does not have the result you desired in terms of return then consider that you have paid (invested) to learn that lesson. It’s not wasted – it’s what that lesson cost.

3. You Aren’t Concentrating on Your Prospect’s Demands

If you have a presence online such as a website then you probably know that it’s important that people are able to find it and that this happens as a result of what is called ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ (SEO). If you don’t know what this is then find out. However, it doesn’t stop there because the keywords and phrases that you use on your landing pages need to be not so much about what you do (eg consultant, trainer, coach, agent, advisor, or whatever) they need to be in the terms your prospect is typing in to the search engine to find a service or product of the type you offer (ie their demands and problems). So don’t just think in terms of your service or mode of delivery when coming up with your keywords and phrases, think in terms of what your prospect is typing in (eg their problem).

2. You Don’t Have A List?

Yes, we’ve mentioned building a list but I thought this area merited a larger comment. Did you know that selling a product or procuring a service online takes at least between 5-30 steps of contact to achieve (often many more)? And that between 50 and 90% of purchases are made after the fifth point of contact? This means that the vast majority of your sales will come after a potential purchaser has been told about it at least 5 times. And did you know that most marketers stop after three points of contact? Most successful commercial advertising campaigns have a multi-step approach to getting their message out to potential buyers. They don’t just rely on their site being seen once by whom ever happens to be passing by. In online marketing your first step should be to capture the contact details of anyone who is interested in what you are providing. This way you can contact them repeatedly and you can start to build a list of people who are most likely to buy from you. Once you have their contact details you can contact them whenever you want with repeat messages of your promotion or new offers etc. But you can’t do this if you don’t have a list. There is a saying in Internet Marketing that goes: “the money is in the list”.

1. Your Strategy Is all Wrong

Don’t try to market directly with your branded website. Regardless how many visits your site receives, hardly any of those who visit will buy or even become a lead the first time they see your site. It usually takes multiple steps of contact before your prospects get interested. So start by building a list of high quality leads first then market to them and send them to your main website. How to do this? Find your sources of traffic then set up a landing page for them to go to. Drive your traffic to a page that will generate leads for you at a 25% sign in rate. Not a landing page where you’ll be lucky to get 1-2% sign it rate. Then market to the sign ins. A single opt-in or squeeze page is good for this. A very simple message and a call to action (email opt in box). These will capture high quality leads quickly for you and much more effectively than a branded website.

So that’s it! There is always some agreement and disagreement when I discuss these with people and feel free to argue if you wish. If there was more space to talk and expand these things I would as it usually takes a bit more explanation to get some points over. Anyway, I hope this offers some help or some insights you can use. GOOD LUCK!

Don’t forget you can get it all and much more in my Business-Building Bootcamp videos here

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Select something which you know about and something which you like. Can you communicate the benefits of your skills to a lay person? Can you write about what you know in a way that is easy for a person to understand? Can you explain how your knowledge and skill could solve a problem. These are all essential talents you will need to have in addition to the basic knowledge of the area in which you are offering expertise.

Here are some steps that you’ll need to take to start a consultancy online:

1. Define your market before you do anything else. Who do you think will want to buy what you offer? Everything else rests on this. And there is no point in doing anything until you can answer these subsequent questions: Where are the people you will be selling to and how do you know what it is they want. My point is this: however clever or knowledgeable you are about something, it is no guarantee that someone will pay you for it. So find out what they want first (related to your area of expertise of course) then go from there. This goes whether you are setting up as a sole trader or with others to create accompany. A mistake that many make is that they invent or create a product and then look for someone to buy it. No! Look for something that people want then go away and create it!

2. Plan your approach Once you have answered the above question, prepare your business plan. A business plan will help you work through your vision and strategy for keeping the business working. What is the rationale that your business can succeed? Provide evidence! What exactly are your products and services (you may have a main one but develop other ‘back end products too). What is it that you want to achieve by when? How much do you want to make be when? Be realistic and bold. What is your evidence that this figure can be reached? How are you going to market it? What is your financial plan? Do you need to borrow money? How will you convince lenders of you plan? There are lots more things that should should be in a plan and each of these needs to be unpacked and detailed. Brainstorm these, then start putting them to a time-line.

3. Make a space to work Where are you going to work from? Many sole traders start from home. This is a good idea as it keeps overheads down, it’s familiar and comfortable. But if you do this make sure you inform the insurers of your house as turning your home into a workplace without telling them will render your insurance null and void. Choose a space in your home that is comfortable and warm. Obviously, you’ll need phone access, internet access, a place for your computer, files and books etc.

4. What about marketing? If you don’t have clients or customers then you don’t have a business. Usually, it pays to ensure that you have some before you leave your paid employment. The next thing to do is to inform them that you are ready and available for work. Your marketing should narrow in on you being the expert that people need to solve their problems. A good way to do this is publish a few articles on the internet with links to your site (you must have a site of some kind if your consultancy is online.  Show your practical value to your potential customers. People need to get the idea that you are an expert, the expert in your specific field.

5. Networking. When you start a consultancy (whether it’s offline or online) means networking. Going to events where your target market congregates is one of the most effective things you can do. You’ll need business cards if you go to these. Also be prepared to speak to a wide range of people with a wide range of potential issues they may be looking for answers to. Start with the people you already know – your former colleagues and bosses, your friends and existing industry contacts. If there are name badges make sure you have the right information on yours. Talk to as many people as you can and collect business cards. Online networks are also important. These are known as forums. Join the ones that form you target market. But don’t abuse these through blatant marketing or you’ll just get banned. Use these to build relationships

6. Ask for Referrals. If you get work and it’s successful ask your client for a referral or two. Normally people will be happy to recommend you. Ask for a quote you can put on your website. Even if the person to whom you are referred doesn’t have any work for you at the present time ask if they too could refer you to other potential clients.

7. Public presentations. Consultants are usually good at communicating. You need to be able to talk about your area of expertise to all sorts of people. Speaking at events offers a great opportunity to get your message out there. This can terrify some. But fear not. Practice with a friend what you want to say. Use visual aids to detract attention from yourself. Keep what you want to say short and to the point and ask the audience questions frequently to maintain attention and interest and interaction. Volunteer to offer them free information. Contact you chamber of commerce, organizations and forums in your locality. See what possibilities there are at local colleges, universities and libraries.

8. Adds and Articles. Try to get a short article in a publication or trade journal that your target market reads. This is good for your reputation and gets your message out there among potential purchasers. Make it interesting and engaging – not just an in-your-face advert. When you start a consultancy you don’t just want to slap up a cheap ad somewhere,  provide good information to a reader. Approach a journalist or editor to write something for you. They are usually happy to have new information to provide so you might want to use a case study. Put together a short e-book and put it on your website to sell.

9. Direct Mail. You can distribute direct mail as sales letters, ad mailings, or brochures. The thing is to create a document that attracts the attention or your recipient, engages their interest, provokes their curiosity ultimately compels them to take action. It is absolutely imperative that you emphasise the benefits that your client will receive as a result of buying your services. Concentrate less on everything else.

10. Your website. It is true that even if you start a consultancy online some of your business will be generated from face to face relationships. But obviously you need a presence on the web. People look online to solve their problems. It’s a place where all those internet articles you are going to write can be stored so that people can see at a glance your expertise and the benefits of working with you. It is a place where you offer back-end products and services, related business products and so on in addition to your consultancy service. Your site has the potential to send your income through the roof. Apart from having your contact details on there you absolutely must have lots of great copy (Yes, ‘salescopy’), and don’t forget to have an ‘opt-in’ section so that you can collect all the email addresses of people who are interested in what you do.

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 1. How to sell online means finding keywords that define and articulate not what you offer but what your prospective buyers’ problem is. Admittedly, this is both technical and psychological but this is where you should be starting. Your visitors don’t so just find you by typing in your solution they find you by typing in their problem too. So make sure the words they use to do this are among the keywords you have on your landing page.

2.  Your landing page should not jump out and start ‘selling’ at a visitor straight away. It should provide part of the solution to the problem the searcher has written. You should then seek to invite them to some action to get the rest of your solution. This might mean calling you or giving you their email so that you can inform them of how they can get the rest of the solution.

3. Research on the psychology of browsing shows that we are getting less and less tolerant of sites that don’t help us right away. Generally, you have about 5-6 seconds for a visitor to take notice of what’s on your site if they are dissatisfied they’ll move on – so use that time in the most efficient way. A strong headline is the first step.

4. How to sell online and the psychology of internet marketing is often ignored when people set up their site. We instinctively know that there is a lot involved but we try to get our site to do far too much work – it can’t. Don’t burden your visitor with too many choices to make – find out about you, make contact, buy something and so on. This can be confusing and a confused mind quickly loses interest. Give your visitor a simple choice – to take action or to move away.

5. Show a visitor immediately that you understand their problem and have an answer to it. Show empathy that you know what they are going through in trying to find a resolution to their ‘problem’. I’ve mentioned before, we go online for 2 reasons: 1 to access our email, 2, to solve a problem. Aim to fill the gap posed by the second (then later you will be accessible from the first!!!). What problems do you propose to solve then provide that solution.

6. Ensure that in addressing your visitors’ problem you don’t overwhelm them either with all your information, how clever you are, or how you are just the greatest thing ever. We all see through that kind of vanity and ‘salesy’ type talk. Just offer a response to the reason/problem they have come to your page.

7. Give your visitor some good information that helps them to see that you are indeed the answer to what they need. Begin to tell them what the answer to their problem is (for free), then get them thinking about what they need to do for the complete answer and solution – which they will need to buy from you.

8. When it comes to what you charge for your product or service, get your reader’s attention away from what it costs. Because that does not help them and that’s not where you want them. You want them thinking about the value of the transformation you offer. When I buy products and services to build my business I don’t care what the provider is going to actually do – I just want to be sure I get the result I want.

9. Get your reader to think in terms of getting the solution NOW – not next week! Tell your prospects that you are offering a special price now but if they delay they will miss this and the price will increase. You can do this through offers and promotions of (lower price now, then higher price later).

10. Seek always to build trust and a strong relationship with your visitor. We tend to buy from sources we know, like and trust. Few people buy from sources online the first time they are visited so create content and information that is valuable to your visitors – so they’ll come back again and again…when they are beginning to know, like and trust you.

These are just a few psychological techniques that can help build your business. There are many, many more which I will blog about another time but these are some of the basic ones.

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1. No big capital outlay. Selling online is simple and cheap. There is not huge investment of capital required – so you don’t have to borrow a fortune or use up all your savings and you don’t need to go into debt.

2. You can start small. You don’t need to have tons of employees and you can build it step by step while not neglecting your regular job or activities. Remember, all things need a chance to incubate before they can grow and a small online business is no exception. So you can take your time and work on it by yourself.

3. Simplicity. Online businesses are simple to start. I have trained and helped freelancers to start and develop their own consulting and training businesses and to sell their knowledge online and initially they think it is harder than it is. They think they need to be doing lots of marketing things and spending lots of money on brochures, cards, letters, advertising, etc. In an online business the idea is to get clients to come to you rather than you having to go to them. Simple!

4. Extra Income. Most people who run an online business do it in their free time while keeping their regular jobs – that means they make extra money on the side – until it’s making enough money for them to stop working for someone else. This is because it can be done fairly quickly (compared to a traditional business) and easily a few evenings (or mornings!) a week.

5. Passive Income. Very few business models for small businesses allow you to make money while you sleep. Usually, in a traditional business you only get paid while you are actually working and trading your time for money. I still remember the thrill the first time I woke up and finding money in my account – the result of e-books I’d sold while sleeping. I never used to believe the people who would say this, but it happens and it’s a great feeling.

6. Return on Investment. Online businesses offer much higher rewards for very low risk. Without doubt lots of successful businesses involve high levels of risk but I personally don’t like risk although I have learned to be a little more ‘risky’ as my confidence has grown. But this would never had happened if I hadn’t learned to sell my knowledge online.

7. Security. Whether we like it or not we in the midst of an economic crisis that is going to continue to get worse before it gets better. How confident are you that your job or your current business will survive? Even if you are confident, you would do well to consider what would happen if the worst situation came about. Selling your knowledge and expertise online offers the most cost-effective and exciting opportunities for those who need to face the possibility of redundancy or falling income.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying everyone who sells their time for money should become full-time internet marketers. I still provide consultancy to clients and I love doing that but I am less reliant on it now that I can sell my knowledge and expertise in products and services online.

I just want to conclude by saying that this is not about me telling you things. Okay, I admit it is about me communicating an idea – an idea about YOU and what you can achieve if you take your knowledge, expertise, business online. This is about YOU, your freedom from debt and from being reliant on employers. It’s about you starting your own business with your own knowledge and passion.

Good Luck!

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1. Have a passion for some aspect of knowledge. It might be helping people improve their management skills. It might be informing people about company law, it might be guitar playing, gardening, or helping people through a personal problem.

2.Find a niche: Niche marketing is what most successful online businesses are all about. Finding a niche and marketing to it. Niche marketing is essentially about finding a hungry crowd that are looking to solve a problem and not finding any. Don’t create something then expect to just sell it. The great thing about selling knowledge online is that it is easy to find a viable market. Find what people want then provide it.

3. Just a word of advice here – you don’t have to be an expert when selling knowledge or information online, you simply need to point people in the right direction to get the knowledge they need or just recommend others’ products for which you get a commission.

4. Communicate with your niche through others’ blogs and discussion forums. Get a feel for what they are looking for and the issues and problems they would like to resolve.

5. Set up a lead generation page or a ‘squeeze page’ with a free download that a visitor can get if they put their name and email into your sign up boxes.

6. Create a product or service. Write a short ebook on the topic you think they’d be interested in. Better still get some to write it for you. You can do this on elance.com. Send them a list of 10 possible chapter titles and get them to create an ebook for you. Even better again find an affiliate product that someone else has created (and which relates to your audience’s problem) then sell that for a commission

7. Collect sign up names until you have 100 or so then make an offer to them that you think they would be interested in. You can do this using a product called icontact or aweber. This way your market is coming to you rather than you having to go to it.  Make your offer via emails. Check out how to do email marketing in my other post  here…

8. Set up a simple, low cost pay-per-click campaign with Google Adwords. This will drive people who are desperate for what you offer to your sign up page. Although this costs money it is in my view the best chance of getting immediate, high quality leads to your page.

9. If you get sales from this then you know that some are interested and you can create another similar product or offer a course of audios or videos, CDs, a coaching programme, a more comprehensive report. If you don’t get sales then you know you need to tweak your offer – the title, the content, your style.

10. If you make sales from these then create other products. There will always be a small proportion of your audience that wants more from you. If you don’t, then communicate with your audience. Try to get more detail on what they want or need. This needs to be a genuine engagement and not just a blunt way of getting them to buy your products. You can do an online survey and ask them the main problem that they are trying to solve within the area you can offer responses

Tip: Don’t bombard people with sales offers. Just offer good content and valuable information on a regular basis. They may not buy the first, second or third time around but they may well buy the 7th, 8th or 9th time. I know someone who has an autoresponder running with 100 automatic messages in it! He’s found that some people still buy on the 98th message, having previously ignored 97 of them. So don’t give up!

This 10 step strategy is a simple way forward to understand the basics of selling knowledge online. Simple does not me easy however and most marketers are forever tweaking details in their strategies to make them more effective – so expect to do the same. Any business of value and genuine help to others is build slowly and carefully.

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Article marketing strategy is what any person or business trying to sell something online or start internet marketing should have. If you don’t have one yet then make sure you develop one. Why? Well, before I give you the key reasons. Let’s explain what it is exactly.

Article marketing strategies have been used by advertisers and promoters of business almost since the invention of the printing press. So it isn’t new and is not unique to internet marketing or internet marketers. An article marketing strategy is normally a way of getting free press for a service or product promotion. Because print and other media are expected to present content on a budget, this arrangement is generally considered a ‘win/win/ for all parties involved. But what makes an article marketing strategy even more appealing now is that you can do it easily on the internet.

For example, a law firm may ‘article market’ itself by writing a series of articles based around “The Top 10 Ways to claim Compensation” and offering that to some local newspapers. Similarly, a building company may develop an article marketing strategy for a local magazine around a “How to Make Home Improvements”. If you are a consultant, trainer or coach you would think of other topics that would appeal directly and immediately to people who would be your customers.

An Internet article marketing strategy is a series of articles on your topic submitted to the internet via online article directories. These are places that host articles. Many directories get a high volume of traffic and are described as ‘authority’ sites by search engines, which can mean your articles getting a lot of free traffic.

So here are some things you should consider when starting an article marketing strategy:

1. Understand that an article gives you authority. It shows a viewer that you are knowledgeable about your topic and not just trying to sell something.
2. One of the most important aspects of ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ (SEO) is backlinks to your site. Articles provide a great opportunity for these.
3. Make sure the content is valuable in your article so that readers get good information from it. That is more likely to lead to them clicking on your link and arriving at your site.
4. Because article directories are great ‘authority’ sites this means they will get good traffic and if your article is there then you get a share of that traffic
5. Because you are getting backlinks and free traffic to your site, this means you will improve your rankings in the search engines.
6. There are some dos and don’t when it comes to creating an article marketing strategy. Let’s begin with the dos:

7. Do begin with keywords in your niche. What are the key words that people are searching for in your niche?               You can find this from Google’s free keyword tool.

8. Do spend a little bit of time researching your article, but only enough to get around 300 words written

9. Do try to provide really good content and valuable information and not just a salesletter

10. Do try to make it interesting and even fun

11.Do upload your article to several article directories

12.Do provide a link in those articles to your site

13.Do look for others to produce articles for you if you are uncomfortable with this yourself. You will find                      people at elance.com to help you for a fee

14.Do open an account at www.ezine.com and submit articles there. This is the best of the free article directories

15. Do find a time in the day when you can best produce good content quickly – mine is first thing in the morning

Now let’s look at the don’ts:

16. Don’t spend ages putting your article together – try to get your time down to one hour. 10 minutes on                         keyword research, 10 minutes on layout. 35 minutes on writing quickly, then 5 to upload it.

17. Don’t spend hours doing it – you only need 300 words

18.Don’t be a perfectionist! Yes Give good content but don’t spend trying to make it perfect

19.Don’t think too hard – just write!

20. Don’t be too formal, over- serious, or boring

21.Don’t put yourself under too much pressure to produce

So here is your plan: find a topic, look for high search keywords and phrases (preferably with low competition. Sit down and plan your article. Write about 300 words on it (write, don’t think). Make some corrections. Upload it to your article account in ezine.com with a link to your site. If you don’t want to do any of this then go to elance.com and post it as a project for someone else to do and pay them – but get an article marketing strategy going.

Good luck!

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2. Watch out for the ball – – it’s that round thing that gets in the way of running and falling down. But it’s really important and if it goes the wrong way you can find yourself in trouble. In this world cup some players have been surprised by the ball dipping and bending in an unusual way – especially if you’re a goalkeeper. Beware sometimes in business your attention can get deceived and either you lose an opportunity or make a big mistake. I know I still miss opportunities all the time but the great thing about marketing online is that there are always plenty of others around.

3.  Make the most of your team – you may wonder what they are doing there but believe me you’ll need them. In the early stages Switzerland beat Spain (one of the tournament favourites). You may not have any big star players or even big star ideas in your business but if you are careful and consistent you can surprise those expected to beat you.

4. Don’t be afraid to be yourself and show off what you know about –  you may be amazed at all the amazing talent around but don’t let this hypnotise you. They’re amazed by you too! The world cup is the shop window for lots of bright young players to show their skill. Who knows who’s watching. Someone special may come and make you an offer you can’t refuse.

5.  Sometimes the context in which your business is occurring is more important than the business itself. South Africa’s hosting of the world cup is a monumental and hugely significant event (20 years ago they were banned from participating in any international sporting events). It’s important to recognize this for your business. The very fact your business exists at all is partly due to the context in which it exists – it’s not an island! Websites are only successful because of the internet. Certain websites are successful because of other bigger websites and so on…

6. The other side of the same coin is that the event is not just a product of its context but affects its context. Like the world cup, your business should seek to change what goes on around it and not just be changed by it. Every player in the world cup is looking to make history, change destinies and do something great. Business should have the same aspirations.

7.  Just because you score an early goal doesn’t mean you have won the match. And just because you are led by a ‘legend’ doesn’t mean one good result proves their worth. You need to be there for the long term. Don’t just look for quick mini-wins. Look to win the match, the group the tournament itself. Look ahead not back. Okay there’ll be disappointments but move on. Feel the thrill and the excitement when that happens and remember it for as long as you can.

8. You will find yourself on your backside many times, sometimes because you dived to get someone else in trouble,  sometimes because someone pushed you or kicked you there. You won’t always get justice and you won’t always get decisions that go your way. Get up, forget about it and move on to the next great chance.

9. Finally, if you’re like my team England you’ll know that you can have all the right team in the right place at the right time. Your preparation perfect and everyone’s expectations ridiculously sky high. But occasionally it can still go all wrong. Sometimes it’s unexplainable! Ever seen The Twilight Zone’ just plain bizarre…

10.   If you don’t succeed this time around there is always the next time. Start preparing now and apply what you’ve learnt so you’ll be even more ready next time around.

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According to some recent Research, businesses and professionals spend around 35 per cent of our time with emails: accessing, reading, and responding. This suggests that makes sense to have an effective email marketing strategy that fully engages with your customers.

Email marketing has so many great advantages. It allows you to create a relationship directly with the recipient and to focus your advertising and promotional budget precisely on your targeted audience. By measuring response rates it is also proven to be very cost-effective, delivering the return on investment so vital in today’s economic climate. What other kind of marketing allows you to target so precisely people who have explicitly asked for your information?

At sellmyknowledgeonline.com I offer clients an e-mail marketing service which helps my customers connect effectively and efficiently with both customers, leads and prospects. We’ll work with you to understand your objectives and create an e-mail marketing strategy that will deliver much higher response rates than you may currently be getting.

In the meantime, if you haven’t tried them already. Here are 8 top tips to help you improve your email marketing campaigns to your clients:

1. Deliverable – make sure your message is deliverable. There are strict rules now because of SPAM. So get yourself a good autoresponder system. I use this one: icontact.com Open an account here and get your campaign started or improved
2. Subject – this needs to be compelling enough for the recipient to open
3. Subheading, or opening line  – this needs to relate to the reason they are opening in the first place
4. Relevant – the message needs to be relevant to the subject and the subheading and also to the reason you have their email address in the first place
5. Interesting – make sure the body of the email is interesting enough to keep you reader there – until it’s time to take action
6. Call to action – every message should have some kind of call to action. This is something that you want your reader to do – click on a link, visit a certain web page, buy a certain product etc.
7. Test – in subsequent emails, just follow the same formula. But change things from time to time to test what works best for your audience and what doesn’t
8. Repeat – once you have permission from someone to email them – send messages frequently and give good helpful information that increases their knowledge and awareness of topic they

I work with my clients to ensure personalised content in their emails that delivers relevant information to their customers. My team helps them focus on the benefits you offer, not just the features, and helps them decide on a frequency of contact that ensures communications are timely but not too intrusive.

By incorporating your email marketing strategy with other online marketing activities such as keyword search advertising, search optimisation, we help clients to get more responses and leads.

Why do people choose sellmyknowledgeonline to help with them with email marketing?

• I’ve been working on email marketing for many years with clients, and have transformed their campaigns
• I have a remote team of trusted copy writers who use a range of techniques to create compelling emails
• We have a trusted e-mail management system with which you can measure deliverability and open rates, and which we will teach you how to use
• We create engaging and interesting content for your readers so they will open and read your messages and make the response you want
• We combine all these elements and more to develop and deliver email marketing campaigns that work

If you need help setting up an email marketing campaign – contact my team at: support@sellmyknowledgeonline.com

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