Your 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover Begins Today!

by Michelle MacPhearson

This entry is part 1 of 23 in the series 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover

Lemme take a couple of wild guesses here…  Do any of these sound like you?

  • I own a bunch of domains I bought with the best intentions, but I’ve not developed them yet
  • I’m not getting as much traffic to my sites as I’d like
  • Sometimes I’m a little overwhelmed and don’t know where to begin
  • I know I’m not earning as much as I could from my sites
  • I should be doing more lead generation and email marketing
  • I have too many projects and not enough time
  • I’m spending too much time on administrative tasks and not enough time growing my business
  • I sometimes finish a day’s work on my business but feel like I really haven’t accomplished anything

It’s ok, it’s pretty typical!  As an internet marketer, part-time or full-time, you’re really an entrepreneur to the core.  And with being an entrepreneur comes lots of ideas and ambition – all good things!

But we also tend to spread ourselves a little too thin, which is what leads to the “symptoms” above.

Join the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover!
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I’ve certainly been through it, and to prevent it, each year I spend some time to “makeover” my business.  Make sure everything is running like a well-oiled machine, getting priorities straight for the next year, determining which ventures should be ramped up and which aren’t worth the time and effort.

Over the next 31 days, you have the opportunity to give your entire business a complete makeover too.

And it won’t cost a red cent.

Your 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover

Participating is easy!

Each day, for the next 31 days, there will be a new post on this blog for you to read and take action on.

These posts will be focused on getting you out of any ruts and getting your pump primed for the coming New Year, so your business can take off running once the ball drops.

These posts will be action oriented, not “marketing theory” nonsense.

As you complete each days’ steps, you will make substantial and concrete progress in taming your business to make it more manageable, more profitable and MORE FUN!

How to Join:

Today is the first day of your makeover, so I’m gonna go easy on you.  All you have to do today is JOIN!

Join the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover!
First Name *
Primary Email *

Each day you’ll receive an email with a link to the newest 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover post.  You can unsubscribe at any time and I will never, ever, ever share, rent or sell your contact information!

You will also want to keep up-to-date with 31 Day IM Makeover happenings through the following channels:

Twitter: Follow @michellem on Twitter

Facebook: Become a fan on Facebook and you’ll get notification when a new post is up

RSS: Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to have new posts delivered to your feedreader

The official Twitter hashtag for the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover is #31DIMM (yes, I know it reads “31 Dim” but that’s kinda funny, right?).  You can find other participants by searching Twitter for the hashtag.

Look in your inbox tomorrow for the first step in your Internet Marketing Makeover!

Finally, if you have friends, colleagues or jut online buddies who you know will also benefit and enjoy the Makeover, tell them about it:

SHARE The Makeover on Twitter!

(You can review your tweet before you send it out).

Or use the social icons below on your preferred social network:

Post to Twitter  Post to Facebook  Post to StumbleUpon

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Take Your Internet Marketing Inventory

by Michelle MacPhearson

This entry is part 2 of 23 in the series 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover

Welcome to Day 2 of the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover (#31DIMM for short)!

My HandYesterday, your job was to SIGN UP!  (If you haven’t done that already, there are instructions on the bottom of this post on how to do so).

Today, we actually get to work revamping and remodeling your business.

(I was going to call this “Extreme Makeover: Internet Marketing Edition” but didn’t want to run into copyright problems! But when you follow the steps released each day, you’ll end up ready to jump into 2010 head first, with a new outlook, passion and enthusiasm for your business).

DAY 02 OBJECTIVE

To get a complete snapshot of each and every one of your internet marketing endeavors, how well they’re doing, and where they need improvement.

To understand what you need to do to clear out the crap, the time wasters and money-suckers, you’ve got to know your inventory, how much each site makes, how much each site costs, and what you need to do to complete work on a site.

DAY 02 ASSIGNMENT: TAKE INVENTORY

Get together all your domains and their stats.

To help, I’ve made a spreadsheet for you, you can access it in Google Docs by clicking here.  Make sure you’re signed in to your Google Account and choose “Make a Copy” from the “File” menu to add it to your Google Docs account. Then you can fill it out and edit it as you’d like.

Here’s a peek at the spreadsheet:

31DIMM-Inventory

For each domain you own, fill out a row as follows:

  • Domain Name: Simple enough – enter your domain name!
  • Active (Y/N): Is the site up and running?  Mark “Y” for “Yes” and “N” for “No.”
  • Analytics (Y/N): Does the site have Google Analytics installed and tracking your traffic?
  • Lead Gen (Y/N): Are you collecting email addresses at the site?
  • Traffic (Monthly): Enter in the number of visitors you site gets per month
  • Backlinks: Enter in the number of backlinks your site has pointing to it
  • Main KW Position: Where is your site ranking in Google for it’s main keyword phrase?
  • Income (Monthly): How much does your site earn, from product and affiliate sales, advertising, etc. per month?
  • Cost (Monthly): How much does it cost to keep the site per month? This includes hosting and domain renewal!
  • Hours to Complete: Assuming you know the site isn’t finished (you need to get it’s rank up, implement a lead gen strategy, add more content, etc.), how long do you think it will take you to complete that work? Be generous, remember things usually take longer than we anticipate!

This is a fair amount of information to gather, and I don’t want you to be overwhelmed.

Today we’re not judging the sites, we’re just compiling data so we can make informed and realistic decisions.  Tomorrow we’ll cull the herd, and in following 29 days make over the promising sites that remain.

ABOUT THE 31 DAY INTERNET MARKETING MAKEOVER

The 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover gives you a step-by-step process to crushing overwhelm and bring back conscious forward movement to your business, with a new post and instruction every day – and it’s entirely free, no strings attached.

As you complete each days’ steps, you will make substantial and concrete progress in taming your business to make it more manageable, more profitable and MORE FUN!

Fill out the form below and day you’ll receive an email each day with a link to the newest 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover post. You can unsubscribe at any time and I will never, ever, ever share, rent or sell your contact information!

Join the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover!
First Name *
Primary Email *

You will also want to keep up-to-date with 31 Day IM Makeover happenings through the following channels:

Twitter: Follow @michellem on Twitter

Facebook: Become a fan on Facebook and you’ll get notification when a new post is up

RSS: Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to have new posts delivered to your feedreader

The official Twitter hashtag for the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover is #31DIMM (yes, I know it reads “31 Dim” but that’s kinda funny, right?). You can find other participants by searching Twitter for the hashtag.

Join using the form above and look in your inbox tomorrow for the next step in your Internet Marketing Makeover!

And use the social icons below to share this Makeover post on your preferred social network:

Post to Twitter  Post to Facebook  Post to StumbleUpon

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Cull The Herd

by Michelle MacPhearson

This entry is part 3 of 23 in the series 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover

Welcome to Day 3 of the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover (#31DIMM for short)!

In August of 2009, Stanford University released a study on the productivity of heavy multitaskers.  Here are some choice findings:

[Multitaskers are] suckers for irrelevancy…  Everything distracts them.

[Multitaskers] couldn’t help thinking about the task they weren’t doing.  The high multitaskers are always drawing from all the information in front of them. They can’t keep things separate in their minds.

The low multitaskers did great.  The high multitaskers were doing worse and worse the further they went along… and had difficulty keeping [the tasks] sorted in their brains.”

(I promise not to get all scientific with you every day of the Makeover!)

Multitasking on a new dimensionBut this study illustrates the exact problem we struggle with as entrepreneurs in the internet marketing space.

By splitting your attention to nurturing tens, hundreds, even thousands of sites, projects and streams of income you’re diminishing your ability to focus on, complete and maximize any of them.

Yesterday, you took inventory of all your domains, their current status, earnings and cost to maintain.

Today, you’ll look over your inventory and determine which sites you should let go of and which sites you should keep and revamp throughout the rest of the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover.

Consider it a “fresh start” – after today’s Makeover tasks, those projects that were mentally weighing you down (“I really should finish adding content to site XYZ…”), not producing and distracting you from the bigger picture will be eliminated.

DAY 03 OBJECTIVE

Determine which projects and domains should be let go of.  Create a plan to get rid of them and implement it!

DAY 03 ASSIGNMENT

Consider your Inventory Spreadsheet from yesterday.  Most likely, there are already a few sites or projects that jump out at you as losers – ones you know just aren’t earning what it costs to keep them.  Highlight those in your spreadsheet with red.

There are likely a few domains or projects that you know you want to keep.  Perhaps they’re big earners for you (obviously, that would make sense to keep those!).  Highlight those in green.

And there are going to be projects that are in the “I dunno” phase.  They’re not earning much, but they’ve got potential, or they just need a little bit more tweaking to get them where you want to be.  Highlight those in yellow.

Here’s an example of a completed spreadsheet:

31dimm-cullLet’s go over the rows and some typical situations you’ll encounter and decisions you’ll be making:

Example.com is getting traffic and earning (although modestly) each month.  We’re guessing it’ll take about 5 more hours of work to complete the site.  In this case, it’s at position #3 for it’s main keyword, and those 5 hours will be devoted to link building to bring the site’s rank higher (and therefore earn more income).  The earnings are pretty low for the amount of traffic it gets, so perhaps we could be monetizing it more effectively too.  It’s marked Yellow because we’re never CERTAIN how much time it’ll take to get our rank to #1, and although it’s covering it’s own costs, it’s not really blowing us out of the water with it’s monthly income.

Example2.com is just not started.  Probably a domain name we bought when we had a really good idea, but we just never got around to it.  It’s going to require a ton of work (maybe that time would be better spent on Example.com above?) and it’s costing us about $1/month to own in domain renewals.  It’s Red because our time could be better spent elsewhere and it’s costing us money and mental energy.

Example3.com is active and it looks like we’ve done everything right.  It’s earning more than it costs to keep each month and doesn’t require maintainence time.  It’s in position #2 for it’s main keyword phrase (and if we spend some time on it perhaps we can take it to #1, that time should be added “Hours to complete.”)  It’s green because it’s working well on its own and earning.

Example4.com isn’t earning nearly enough considering the traffic it’s getting and it’s rank at #1 for it’s main keyword phrase.  It could be a situation where the market simply isn’t comprised of buyers or ad clickers, or it could be that the products that are being offered are not a close enough match to the market.  It’s marked yellow because it’ll need some adjustments to really earn to it’s potential.

With each line in your Inventory spreadsheet classified, go back and look over your GREEN and YELLOW rows.

Remember that sometimes we want to keep hold of things for emotional reasons:

  • I’ve already put in so much time!
  • I’ve spent $XXX to buy the domain and build it!
  • I just really love this idea and wanted it to work!
  • I committed to the project and to not see it through would be another disappointment!

But these emotional reasons for hanging on to projects aren’t helpful to us, just as the Stanford study proved.  They take too much mental energy – even when not working on them – and all our projects suffer as a result.  Look closely at those projects you’ve mentally earmarked as “keepers.”

GET BRUTALLY HONEST!

Are you wanting to keep this project for emotional reasons? Are you attached to it?

Remember, above all, this is a business.  It’s about the bottom line (last I checked, internet marketers like us don’t have angel investors bailing us out whenever we need more cash!).  If a project isn’t cutting it, it’s time to let it go.

And don’t forget that not only does a project need to be earning income for it to make business sense, but it’s got to make sense as far as your time commitment to finish the project and then maintain it in the future.

HASGJLetting go is a little scary, but it’s freeing too.

Free up the time you have to work on productive sites and your mental energy by releasing those projects that are weighing you down.

HOW MANY TO KEEP? WHERE DO I DRAW THE LINE?

This is a question I just can’t answer for you – I know, it’d be a lot easier if I could.

That’s why I asked you to get brutally honest with yourself.

Only you know how much time you have to spend on your business.  Only you know how much passion and motivation you have for a particular project.  Only you know the keyword research and affiliate program intricacies of your particular markets.

All of those factors will go into your decision as to what you keep and what you cull.

Just get real – is it worth my time playing around with this site anymore?  Do I really have the time for this given the other sites with higher earnings?

Update your Inventory Spreadsheet to reflect this brutal, forthright honesty.  You should have a few more red lines now.  That’s ok, it’ll give you the focus you need to work on your green lines.

HOW TO GET RID OF UNPRODUCTIVE SITES

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, or so the saying goes, right?

Your partially developed domain, or site that’s just not earning up to par can be sold to someone who has the time, resources or motivation to give it the attention it deserves.

The hottest place for selling websites and domains right now is Flippa, it’s a heavily trafficked auction house just for your web properties.

For the best listing, be as complete and honest as you possibly can about your site, it’s traffic and earnings.  People want to know what they’re bidding on and buying!

Look at the “Most Active Listings” and emulate the information they provide potential buyers.  Also notice that many of the “Most Active”  listings also have relatively low starting bids.  Don’t set a starting bid so high no one will take the bite.

Remember, you have nothing to lose and all the freedom, time and mental energy to gain for more lucrative projects.

Also peek at the “Ended Unsold” listings to get an idea of what makes for an unattractive auction, so you don’t make the same mistakes.  Many of the listings there are private (so don’t make your listings private!), have really high starting bids or tediously boring and cryptic titles.

List your RED sites today, because tomorrow we’re going to dive into those sites you left “in the green” and make them over!

ABOUT THE 31 DAY INTERNET MARKETING MAKEOVER

The 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover gives you a step-by-step process, with a new post and instruction every day – and it’s entirely free, no strings attached.

As you complete each days’ steps, you will make substantial and concrete progress in taming your business to make it more manageable, more profitable and MORE FUN!

Fill out the form below and day you’ll receive an email each day with a link to the newest 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover post. You can unsubscribe at any time and I will never, ever, ever share, rent or sell your contact information!

Join the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover!
First Name *
Primary Email *

You will also want to keep up-to-date with 31 Day IM Makeover happenings through the following channels:

Twitter: Follow @michellem on Twitter

Facebook: Become a fan on Facebook and you’ll get notification when a new post is up

RSS: Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to have new posts delivered to your feedreader

The official Twitter hashtag for the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover is #31DIMM (yes, I know it reads “31 Dim” but that’s kinda funny, right?). You can find other participants by searching Twitter for the hashtag.

Join using the form above and look in your inbox tomorrow for the next step in your Internet Marketing Makeover!

And use the social icons below to share the Makeover on your preferred social network:

Post to Twitter  Post to Facebook  Post to StumbleUpon

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Upgrade Day!

by Michelle MacPhearson

This entry is part 4 of 23 in the series 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover

Welcome to Day 4 of the Internet Marketing Makeover (#31DIMM for short)!

In the same spirit of preventing our attention from being spread across too many progect, to-do’s and tasks as yesterday’s “Cull the Herd” assignment, today we’ll be removing even more mental clutter by getting rid of annoying upgrade nag screens and popups we encounter all day.

I’m a sucker for putting of till tomorrow what I could have done today, and keeping my sites and my computer system up-to-date is no exception!

DAY 04 OBJECTIVE

Upgrade anything and everything related to our business so we’re running the latest versions.

DAY 04 ASSIGNMENT

Get current.

Those sites you’ve decided to keep because of their great performance or current potential deserve a little love – let’s get them slick, smooth, upgraded and compatible.

UPGRADE WORDPRESS

Assuming you’re using Wordpress, you’ll want to make sure you’re running the latest version.  When you’re logged in to your Wordpress admin, if you see a little yellow bar along the top (pictured below) urging you to upgrade, click the “Please Update Now” link.

31DIMM - UpgradeWP1

You’ll be brought to the screen below.  99% of the time, using the “Upgrade Automatically” option works just fine, click that.  (If there’s an error go to Wordpress.org and follow the manual upgrade instructions).

31DIMM - UpgradeWP2

Enter in your FTP info in the “Hostname” box and your FTP username and password in their fields.  Wordpress will upgrade itself, you may have to click a few “Continue” links along the way, but that’s it!

31DIMM - UpgradeWP3

(Those red boxes around the text fields are from a Firefox plugin I use called LastPass.  It keeps all my passwords for me, fills out forms with them, updates itself across multiple computers, and it’s free.  If you need a better way to manage all your logins, I highly recommend LastPass.)

Upgrade Wordpress to the latest version for ALL your sites.

There are security vulnerabilities in older versions of Wordpress, so it’s a must to do this not only to keep your site running quickly and compatible with the latest plugins, but also so you’re patching those security holes.

UPGRADE WORDPRESS PLUGINS

Next, upgrade plugins.  Go to the “Plugins” page on your site and find any plugins with the littleyellow alert and “upgrade automatically” link (pictured below):

31DIMM - Upgrade plugins

The upgrade process for plugins is similar to upgrading Wordpress as a whole, you’ll enter in your FTP credentials and it’ll do the rest for you.

Again, upgrade your plugins for all your websites.

UPGRADE YOUR COMPUTER

Run Windows Update or Apple Update and get your computer current with the latest bug fixes and enhancements for your operating system.

UPGRADE SOFTWARE

Open any software you use and ensure you’re running the latest version.  Some of the ones I always end up putting off to do later:

  • Java updater
  • Adobe updater
  • Seesmic
  • Market Samurai
  • Spyware / Antivirus software updates
  • Camtasia
  • Printer software

You know which programs you use that have been nagging you to download updates!  Today’s the day to get that monkey off your back!

(If you cell phone is super special and gets firmware updates, you might as well tackle that too!)

Depending on how many Wordpress based sites you own, how many plugins you run and how much you put of OS and software upgrades, today’s assignment could take you from 10 minutes to 10 hours.  Power through it.  It’s another mental weight off your shoulders.

See you tomorrow for more of the Internet Marketing Makeover!

ABOUT THE 31 DAY INTERNET MARKETING MAKEOVER

The 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover gives you a step-by-step process, with a new post and instruction every day – and it’s entirely free, no strings attached.

As you complete each days’ steps, you will make substantial and concrete progress in taming your business to make it more manageable, more profitable and MORE FUN!

Fill out the form below and day you’ll receive an email each day with a link to the newest 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover post. You can unsubscribe at any time and I will never, ever, ever share, rent or sell your contact information!

Join the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover!
First Name *
Primary Email *

You will also want to keep up-to-date with 31 Day IM Makeover happenings through the following channels:

Twitter: Follow @michellem on Twitter

Facebook: Become a fan on Facebook and you’ll get notification when a new post is up

RSS: Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to have new posts delivered to your feedreader

The official Twitter hashtag for the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover is #31DIMM (yes, I know it reads “31 Dim” but that’s kinda funny, right?). You can find other participants by searching Twitter for the hashtag.

Join using the form above and look in your inbox tomorrow for the next step in your Internet Marketing Makeover!

And use the social icons below to share the Makeover on your preferred social network:

Post to Twitter  Post to Facebook  Post to StumbleUpon

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Are You Complying With These 5 Regulations?

by Michelle MacPhearson

This entry is part 5 of 23 in the series 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover

Welcome to Day 5 of the Internet Marketing Makeover (#31DIMM for short)!

Today we tie up another set of loose ends that we sometimes overlook – isn’t building sites and generating traffic way more exciting than dealing with legal mumbo-jumbo?

But, being in compliance with the law and any advertising programs we’re using is a must to protect our sites, our businesses and ourselves.

Today we’ll cover the legal inclusions, disclosures and updates your sites and your business require.

DAY 05 OBJECTIVE

Ensure your sites are in compliance with the rules and regulations of the advertising programs you’re using and the law.

DAY 05 ASSIGNMENT

Firstly, I will preface this by saying that I am not and will never be a lawyer.  I don’t play one on TV and I’m not playing one on the internet. Always check with a lawyer to ensure you’re in compliance with your local and federal regulations for your unique situation, business entity and marketplace.

PRIVACY POLICY

Updated in 2008 (although many folks still aren’t compliant even today), Google’s Asdense Program Policies requires:

AdSense publishers must have and abide by a privacy policy that discloses that third parties may be placing and reading cookies on your users’ browsers, or using web beacons to collect information as a result of ad serving on your website.

What it means is that you need a privacy policy on any of your sites that display Adsese, and that privacy policy must let visitors know that data about their visits may be collected via cookies.

A Privacy Policy is not a bad idea even if you’re not running Adsense.  It’ll sometimes make visitors feel more comfortable navigating and buying from your site – I’m continually surprised at how many hits my Privacy Policy pages get.

For a Wordpress blog, getting up a privacy policy that’s Adsense compliant  is easy, there’s even a plugin to help.

Download, install and set up the Easy Privacy Policy for your Wordpress sites, particularly your Adsense sites.

You wouldn’t want to lose your Adsense account for overlooking this little detail!

If you’re not using Wordpress or you would like more flexibility and customization of your privacy policy, FreePrivacyPolicy.com has a fantastic template and generator service.

It not only allows you to customize the verbiage of your privacy policy, it also explains to you what each section means, in what locations certain disclosures are required, etc.

COPYRIGHT

It’s nearing the end of 2009 – time to change your copyright notice for the New Year!

A site with an outdated copyright notice is a surefire red flag to visitors and it makes your whole site look outdated and uncared for.

Update your copyright notice to reflect the coming change in year!

(Webmasters usually have a copyright notice in the footer of their site to protect their property, if you don’t currently have one, now’s a good time to add it!)

LOCAL LEGALESE

Are you licensed to do business in your county? Does your county even require a business license for folks working at home with no foot traffic?

US residents can get all the information on local, state and federal licenses and permits you may be required to have to legally operate your business from Business.gov’s Licenses and Permits page.

As an internet marketer, this is one of those “I’ll get to it later” kind of tasks that never get done – it’s not like you have a storefront!

But many counties do require you be licensed even if you’re not seeing customers or occupying a commercial office.  Check your local regulations at the link above to find out.

Today is the day to get legal – even locally!

FTC REGULATIONS

I’m sure you’ve heard the buzz about the new interpretations of the FTC regulations going into effect December 1.

There are two areas we need to be concerned about: testimonials and product endorsements.

TESTIMONIALS

If you have a salepage using testimonials OR you are an affiliate of a product and you are using testimonials for that product in your marketing, you must ensure that if those testimonials depict exceptional results, you also include a conspicious statement of typical results.  Simply showing the best of the best testimonials and than a “Results not typical” disclaimer is no longer enough.

The problem here is that we generally don’t know what the typical result is! In fact, many people buy a product and don’t even use it!

As such, many marketers are simply removing and performance based testimonials altogether.

Check your marketing materials, website, autoresponder, graphics, etc. to ensure you’re not using performance based testimonials.

PRODUCT ENDORSEMENTS

As marketers, we recommend products and services to people all the time – it’s part of the business!

Sometimes, we’ve purchased the product, think it’s great and refer our visitors to it though an affiliate link.

Now, we must disclose that we are using an affiliate link and may make money if the visitor clicks through from our link and buys the product.

The FTC’s thought here is that site visitors may not know your recommendation was an affiliate link.  If they did know that, perhaps they would not trust that recommendation as much – or maybe they would continue to trust you if you’ve built a relationship with you.  Either way, the FTC believes the consumer has a right to know if you’re earning via your referral.

You also must disclose to your site visitors if you received a product you’re referring for free, or got other perks from the company, such as a free trip to their corporate offices or a lap dance last Thursday night at Centerfolds (just seeing if you’re paying attention!).

Check your sites and ensure your in compliance with the FTC regulations.

You may even wish to add a statement to your site as a whole (perhaps in the sidebar) indicating your use of affiliate links throughout the site, as opposed to with each individual link separately.

ABOUT THE 31 DAY INTERNET MARKETING MAKEOVER

The 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover gives you a step-by-step process, with a new post and instruction every day – and it’s entirely free, no strings attached.

As you complete each days’ steps, you will make substantial and concrete progress in taming your business to make it more manageable, more profitable and MORE FUN!

Fill out the form below and day you’ll receive an email each day with a link to the newest 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover post. You can unsubscribe at any time and I will never, ever, ever share, rent or sell your contact information!

Join the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover!
First Name *
Primary Email *

You will also want to keep up-to-date with 31 Day IM Makeover happenings through the following channels:

Twitter: Follow @michellem on Twitter

Facebook: Become a fan on Facebook and you’ll get notification when a new post is up

RSS: Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to have new posts delivered to your feedreader

The official Twitter hashtag for the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover is #31DIMM (yes, I know it reads “31 Dim” but that’s kinda funny, right?). You can find other participants by searching Twitter for the hashtag.

Join using the form above and look in your inbox tomorrow for the next step in your Internet Marketing Makeover!

And use the social icons below to share the Makeover on your preferred social network:

Post to Twitter  Post to Facebook  Post to StumbleUpon

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Internet Marketing Makeover Week 1 Recap

by Michelle MacPhearson

This entry is part 6 of 23 in the series 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover

Welcome to Day 6 of the Internet Marketing Makeover (#31DIMM for short)!

Today is a recap day if you’ve not finished any of the past week’s assignments.  If you have, it’s a rest day – enjoy!

DAY 06 OBJECTIVE

Catch up on any #31DIMM assignments you’ve not yet finished!

DAY 06 ASSIGNMENT

Review the previous Internet Marketing Makeover posts and their tasks and complete anything you haven’t gotten to yet:

Take Your Internet Marketing Inventory

  1. Gather all your domains and sites
  2. Fill out the Internet Marketing Inventory spreadsheet for each project

Cull The Herd

  1. Assess your projects based on earnings, time to complete, backlinks, traffic, etc. and determine which are keepers, maybes and losers
  2. Color-code your Inventory spreadsheet rows as green, yellow and red (for keepers, maybes and losers)
  3. Ensure you’re not categorizing green or yellow projects as such for emotional reason, if so, re-categorize them as red
  4. Sell your red sites on Flippa

Upgade Day!

  1. Upgrade Wordpress
  2. Upgrade Wordpress plugins
  3. Upgrade your operating system
  4. Upgrade software (virus protection, Seesmic, etc.)

Are You Complying With These 5 Regulations?

  1. Add a Privacy Policy to your sites
  2. Update sites’ copyright notice for the current / coming year
  3. Understand local business license and permit law, start the application process if you are required to do so
  4. Update sites’ testimonials and product endorsements to comply with new FTC regulations

We’ll see you tomorrow for the next step in your Internet Marketing Makeover!

ABOUT THE 31 DAY INTERNET MARKETING MAKEOVER

The 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover gives you a step-by-step process, with a new post and instruction every day – and it’s entirely free, no strings attached.

As you complete each days’ steps, you will make substantial and concrete progress in taming your business to make it more manageable, more profitable and MORE FUN!

Fill out the form below and day you’ll receive an email each day with a link to the newest 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover post. You can unsubscribe at any time and I will never, ever, ever share, rent or sell your contact information!

Join the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover!
First Name *
Primary Email *

You will also want to keep up-to-date with 31 Day IM Makeover happenings through the following channels:

Twitter: Follow @michellem on Twitter

Facebook: Become a fan on Facebook and you’ll get notification when a new post is up

RSS: Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to have new posts delivered to your feedreader

The official Twitter hashtag for the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover is #31DIMM (yes, I know it reads “31 Dim” but that’s kinda funny, right?). You can find other participants by searching Twitter for the hashtag.

Join using the form above and look in your inbox tomorrow for the next step in your Internet Marketing Makeover!

And use the social icons below to share the Makeover on your preferred social network:

Post to Twitter  Post to Facebook  Post to StumbleUpon

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All About You

by Michelle MacPhearson

This entry is part 7 of 23 in the series 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover

Welcome to Day 7 of the Internet Marketing Makeover (#31DIMM for short)!

There are certain elements of a site that can inspire confidence in your site visitors.

Confidence that makes those visitors more likely to click you ads, buy your products or trust your recommendations.

We’ve covered some of these already in previous #31DIMM posts (if you’ve missed earlier articles, you can find instructions on joining the Internet Marketing Makeover at the bottom of this post).

Today, we’ll cover 2 more ways to increase the confidence of your site visitors and encourage conversions.

DAY 07 OBJECTIVE

Update your “About” and “Contact” pages.

DAY 07 ASSIGNMENT

ALL ABOUT YOU

Folks want to know who it is they’re buying from or taking advice from.

Not only do they want to know that you’re qualified, but they want to know who you are as a person.  as the old saying goes, folks buy from those they “know, like and trust” and without knowing a little bit about you, it’s impossible for people to know, like and trust you.

An “About” page gives people the opportunity to know a little bit more about you, and your blog sites should have one.

(An “About” page is probably not in your best interest in a salesletter type of site, instead, you can incorporate some of your story into the salesletter itself to build confidence in the visitor).

“About” pages always surprise me in that they get a lot more traffic than I ever expect.  So not only is it a good opportunity to let people know who you are, but it’s another chance for your to lead them into your marketing funnel as autoresponder subscribers, Twitter followers, RSS readers, etc.

Adding an “About” page to your blog, if you don’t have one already, is as simple as creating a “Page” in Wordpress and linking to it in your sites navigation (many Wordpress themes will do this automatically).

Let’s look at the central elements of an effective “About” page:

  1. Your Picture: A picture of yourself instantly gives credibility in that you are a “real” person.  Include one on your “About” page.
  2. Your History: Include how you came to be blogging in your niche, your expertise and passions and a bit about you personally.  Who you are in a business sense is important, but a list of your achievements alone can be off-putting.  Use your own voice and talk about who you are, not just what you’ve done.
  3. Your Offerings: Sometimes folks enjoy your writing and want to jump right into business with you – give them the chance to do so!  Link to a product (I speak of a link to Crowd Mountain on my “About” page), a main catalog page on your site or info on your services so interested parties can buy from or hire you.
  4. Your Loop: Those who aren’t ready yet to buy should still be brought into your marketing funnel.  Your “About” page should provide folks the opportunity and encouragement to subscribe to your mailing list, RSS feed, Twitter account, Facebook Fan page, etc.  Whichever are the most popular mediums in your niche are the ones you should offer here.

Add an “About” page to your sites (except salesletters, as mentioned above).

Include these pieces in your “About” page and visitors will not only get to “know, like and trust” you, but will also be funneled directly into your areas of influence so you can continue to contact them and impress them with your offerings!

GET IN TOUCH

Your “Contact” page will instill even more confidence in your visitors by letting them know, even subconsciously by just seeing that there is such a page on your site, that should they need it, they will be able to get help from you.  Whether it’s a shipping question or clarification on a product review, people want to know that if they have a problem there’s a way to reach you and solve it.

If you’re using Wordpress, you can install Contact Form 7 (that’s what I use on my Contact page).  It’s simple to use yet incredibly flexible.

If you’re not on Wordpress, you can use FoxyForm – it’s free and provides you with copy and paste code to put into your sites’ HTML.

With my Contact Form on the blog, I left separate instructions for folks who need customer support or are interested in a Joint Venture.  There were the two most common items people submitted though the contact form, and the least effective way to get help for either.  So I let people know where to go to get help with support or JV’s the fastest.  If you have similar inquiries that are best routed elsewhere, it’s a good idea to let people know!

Install contact forms on all of your sites – for salesletters, a “Contact” page might not be your best option, as support inquiries are usually best handled through a support desk software.

By giving your site visitors more information about yourself, ways to stay in your loop and options should they need help, you’ll bring their confidence and trust in you even higher – which can do nothing but help your bottom line!

ABOUT THE 31 DAY INTERNET MARKETING MAKEOVER

The 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover gives you a step-by-step process, with a new post and instruction every day – and it’s entirely free, no strings attached.

As you complete each days’ steps, you will make substantial and concrete progress in taming your business to make it more manageable, more profitable and MORE FUN!

Fill out the form below and day you’ll receive an email each day with a link to the newest 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover post. You can unsubscribe at any time and I will never, ever, ever share, rent or sell your contact information!

Join the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover!
First Name *
Primary Email *

You will also want to keep up-to-date with 31 Day IM Makeover happenings through the following channels:

Twitter: Follow @michellem on Twitter

Facebook: Become a fan on Facebook and you’ll get notification when a new post is up

RSS: Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to have new posts delivered to your feedreader

The official Twitter hashtag for the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover is #31DIMM (yes, I know it reads “31 Dim” but that’s kinda funny, right?). You can find other participants by searching Twitter for the hashtag.

Join using the form above and look in your inbox tomorrow for the next step in your Internet Marketing Makeover!

And use the social icons below to share the Makeover on your preferred social network:

Post to Twitter  Post to Facebook  Post to StumbleUpon

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Preparing For Utter Interwebs Disaster

by Michelle MacPhearson

This entry is part 8 of 23 in the series 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover

Welcome to Day 8 of the Internet Marketing Makeover (#31DIMM for short)!

I’m writing this at my home in Northern California, where we’ve just been buffeted by a nasty winter storm.  Our power has been out for just about 24 hours, and I can only hope it’s back on by the time this post goes live tomorrow morning!

Revolution Tilt Offices

My office in town, also without power (and Rory, 7)

We’re not in bad shape though – we have a small generator that will run a room or two in the house; that’s how I’m online right now.  We have a woodstove to heat the house so we’re toasty warm despite the temperature being well below freezing outside.  My truck has 4 wheel drive and we were easily able to plow out of the 2-3 feet of snow in our driveway to head into town (no power there either!).

With the lack of distraction from TV, the internet, phones or other electronic do-dads, it’s been pretty quiet.  And I got to thinking about how much this storm and power outage dovetails with today’s Internet Marketing Makeover post – it’s all about being prepared.

DAY 08 OBJECTIVE

Prepare your sites for disaster!

DAY 08 ASSIGNMENT

Anything can happen.  Murphy’s law says that if you’re well prepared, nothing will happen.  If you’re not prepared, every calamity imaginable will strike!

Today we’ll safeguard our sites for whatever fiasco the interwebs throws at us.

BACKUP YOUR SITES

Your web host should be performing some sort of regular backups of your sites.

Find out if they are! Also find out how long they archive those backups for.

Hostgator’s shared hosting performs an automatic backup every Sunday night, and they archive those backups for at least a week.  The host this blog is on, PowerVPS, backs up my servers every night (I’m not sure how long they archive them for, and I should find out!).

These kinds of backups are a must, but they’re not necesarily enough.

Like most things, if you’re running Wordpress than automatic backups are pretty simple.

Use the WP DB Backup plugin to automatically backup your core Wordpress database information (like your posts!) and email them to you each night. (Have these emails sent to an address that is NOT on the same server as your site – perhaps a Gmail account).

If you have a VPS you may have permissions to configure daily backups for your whole server (if your host isn’t doing this automatically for you) – talk to your web host about this and implement it as an additional safeguard.

MAINTAIN SECURITY

Most shared hosting and VPS’s are pre-configured with the most common and effective security options.  If you have any doubts or concerns, your should get in touch with your hosting provider.

Some VPS’s and dedicated servers are given to you pretty much out-of-the-box.  If you find out from your host that this is the case with your server, and that additional security measures should be configured by you, it may be in your best interest to hire a security expert at Odesk to “harden” your server.

With Wordpress, there are some modifications in the way of plugins that you can use to ensure your Wordpress installation is even more secure than it comes by default.

he was very business mindedFirstly, you’ll want to have the most current version of Wordpress, with each new version there are numerous security and bugfixes and maintaining the most recent version will protect you in that way.  (We discussed this at length during Day 4 of your Internet Marketing Makeover).

Plugins like Akismit and BadBehavior can help protect your blog from comment spam – use these.

Also you’ll want to install Secure Wordpress and WP Security Scan.  Secure Wordpress removes some vulnerabilities from your installation automatically, while WP Security Scan checks your site for security holes and makes suggestions for how to fix them.  Both are invaluable.

Other scripts you may be running on your server (like vBulletin) could have additional updates or plugins to enhance out-of-the-box security.  Ensure you’re running the latest versions of any additional scripts your running on your server as well as any well revered security enhancements that may be available for them.

MAINTAIN USABILITY

Not quite an “utter interwebs disaster,” but a whole buncha traffic all at once can bring your site to it’s knees if it’s too much for your server to handle.  You’ll see these problems sometimes when sites hit the #1 position on places like Digg or during product launches.  There’s simply too much traffic hitting the site all at once, and it fails.

Even if you don’t anticipate this kind of server crashing traffic, the measures below will help your site perform faster and decrease page load times, which your visitors notice and love.  Google has even commented on and implemented metrics to measure your sites’ speed – take notice! This may become even more important in the future for your search engine ranking.  Better be faster now than be ranked lower later!

Burning TrainNo matter what your site is running (PHP, plain old HTML, or a script like Wordpress), ensure that any videos you display for your users are NOT served from your own site.  Instead, use a third party video hosting service, like YouTube, or a third party storage service, like Amazon S3, to store and stream your videos.  You’ll cut down on the bandwith your users consume, prevent server overload, and 99% of the time a video from one of these services will load faster than one loaded from your own server.

If your site is very heavy on images (like a photo gallery) you can use a service like Flickr to host and display your images.

Images used for your site design (like headers) can be stored at Amazon S3 and loaded much faster.

Wordpress users can also install WP Super Cache.  WP Super Cache “generates static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog.  After a html file is generated your webserver will serve that file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts.”  The end result is that your site will load faster and not suffer from server meltdown should a large number of visitors hit it all at once.

Now is also the time to check your sites for broken links.  Check your main navigation bars, sidebars, footer links, etc. to ensure all your links are still active and directing to the proper place.

Wordpress Broken Link Checker will do this for you automatically, scanning your Wordpress posts, pages, blogroll and images and notifying you of any broken links.

Today’s measure will increase the overall security of your server and sites, and should there be a failure somewhere along the line, you’ll have backups to fall back on.

Join us tomorrow for another #31DIMM post.  2010 is going to be headache and worry free from January 1!

ABOUT THE 31 DAY INTERNET MARKETING MAKEOVER

The 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover gives you a step-by-step process, with a new post and instruction every day – and it’s entirely free, no strings attached.

As you complete each days’ steps, you will make substantial and concrete progress in taming your business to make it more manageable, more profitable and MORE FUN!

Fill out the form below and day you’ll receive an email each day with a link to the newest 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover post. You can unsubscribe at any time and I will never, ever, ever share, rent or sell your contact information!

Join the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover!
First Name *
Primary Email *

You will also want to keep up-to-date with 31 Day IM Makeover happenings through the following channels:

Twitter: Follow @michellem on Twitter

Facebook: Become a fan on Facebook and you’ll get notification when a new post is up

RSS: Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to have new posts delivered to your feedreader

The official Twitter hashtag for the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover is #31DIMM (yes, I know it reads “31 Dim” but that’s kinda funny, right?). You can find other participants by searching Twitter for the hashtag.

Join using the form above and look in your inbox tomorrow for the next step in your Internet Marketing Makeover!

And use the social icons below to share the Makeover on your preferred social network:

Post to Twitter  Post to Facebook  Post to StumbleUpon

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Know What Your Competition Doesn’t

by Michelle MacPhearson

This entry is part 9 of 23 in the series 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover

Welcome to Day 9 of the Internet Marketing Makeover (#31DIMM for short)!

Crystal CastlesYour metrics are the core of your business.  Knowing how well your site is performing in a variety of ways will help you improve it’s performance.  Without this knowledge, any changes you make are simply stabs in the dark that may or may not pay off – and the fact is, you’ll never know without monitoring your metrics.

Most of the competition won’t bother – they throw a site up, create content, build links.  That’s pretty much the standard operating procedure.

But the intelligence you will gain when monitoring your metrics, when acted on, can catapult you ahead of the other guys.  It’ll leave them wondering how you’re “cheating” – but the fact is, you’re not.  You just took the time to check your numbers and implement that information.

DAY 09 OBJECTIVE

Put in place monitoring tools to analyze your sites’ performance over time.

DAY 09 ASSIGNMENT

There are a number of ways one can monitor site performance, in today’s Internet Marketing Makeover assignment we’ll implement the most common and important ones.  Later in the Makeover, after these tools have had time to gather data, I will show you exactly how to analyze and act on the data the tools provide you!

GOOGLE ANALYTICS

Google Analytics is IMPERATIVE (that’s why it was a column in our initial Inventory Spreadsheet).  The data Analytics provides is unsurpassed.

Install Google Analytics on all pages of all your sites.  It’s a copy and paste action that’ll take you maximum of 5 minutes.

Wordpress users can use the Google Analyticator plugin to install the code.  Alternatively, just paste the code in your sites header or footer files.

We will be looking at Google Analytics specific data later during the Makeover, so while your web host may provide you with a built in stats package (like AWStats) you MUST use Google Analytics also.

Sometimes when I first put a site up I overlook installing Analytics because I’m futzing around with designs and content, if you’re like me, today is the day to add it to any of your sites that aren’t already reporting.

LINK ANALYTICS TO ADSENSE

Once you have Analytics installed, you can actually link your Analytics account with your Google Adsense account and get deeper data on your Adsense performance.

If you are monetizing any of your sites with Adsense, you will love, love, love the data you get as part of this integration.

“How to” manage this integration depends on your current Analytics and Adsense configurations, I’ll refer you to the official Google instructions page for details.

SEARCH ENGINE SITEMAPS

Having a search engine sitemap won’t boost your search engine rankings (beware anyone who tells you it will!) but it can help newer sites, or newer posts on older sites that aren’t crawled regularly get indexed in the search engines.

Wordpress uses can install the Google XML Sitemaps plugin for their blogs (currently the #1 plugin!).  This plugin will not only build and install the sitemap for you automatically, it’ll also notify the search engines of it’s existence.

Folks on other platforms can use the free tool at XML Sitemaps to generate a sitemap.  Download the sitemap.xml.gz file XML Sitemaps provides you, upload it to your server and then use Sitemap Writer’s “Submit Sitemap” tool to notify Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com about your shiny new sitemap.

WEBMASTER TOOLS

Finally, create an account (if you don’t have one already) at Google Webmaster Tools.

31DIMM SitemapClick “Add A Site” and go through the verification process.  Once that’s done, you’ll be brought to the “Dashboard” screen for your site, click “Submit a Sitemap.”  Add your sitemap.xml.gz URL (if you’re using the Wordpress plugin, there’s a link at the top of the plugin configuration page to this URL).

Google Webmaster tools may initially not provide you with much data about your site – that’s ok, it will update and provide you with lots of fascinating data over time.

We’ll come back to all of these tools in a later Internet Marketing Makeover post and analyze them till the cows come home!

ABOUT THE 31 DAY INTERNET MARKETING MAKEOVER

The 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover gives you a step-by-step process, with a new post and instruction every day – and it’s entirely free, no strings attached.

As you complete each days’ steps, you will make substantial and concrete progress in taming your business to make it more manageable, more profitable and MORE FUN!

Fill out the form below and day you’ll receive an email each day with a link to the newest 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover post. You can unsubscribe at any time and I will never, ever, ever share, rent or sell your contact information!

Join the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover!
First Name *
Primary Email *

You will also want to keep up-to-date with 31 Day IM Makeover happenings through the following channels:

Twitter: Follow @michellem on Twitter

Facebook: Become a fan on Facebook and you’ll get notification when a new post is up

RSS: Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to have new posts delivered to your feedreader

The official Twitter hashtag for the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover is #31DIMM (yes, I know it reads “31 Dim” but that’s kinda funny, right?). You can find other participants by searching Twitter for the hashtag.

Join using the form above and look in your inbox tomorrow for the next step in your Internet Marketing Makeover!

And use the social icons below to share the Makeover on your preferred social network:

Post to Twitter  Post to Facebook  Post to StumbleUpon

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Your Niche Is Evolving – Are You?

by Michelle MacPhearson

This entry is part 10 of 23 in the series 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover

Welcome to Day 10 of the Internet Marketing Makeover (#31DIMM for short)!

Tempus ex machinaWhat’s the old saying – “The only thing that doesn’t change is change itself…”

Everything is in flux, including within your marketplaces.  There’s breaking news, innovation, product launches, trends, and even general human fickleness!

This ebb and flow of what’s hot (and what’s not) effects even the most traditional and old fashioned niches.

As such, you must keep your keyword research data up to date and in tune with your market’s current wants, needs, and trends.

What was a good keyword set a year ago when you established your site may no longer be ideal.  There may also be new, popular keywords in the niche that you should be targeting but aren’t.

Today we’ll review our keyword research and identify areas of improvement.

DAY 10 OBJECTIVE

Update the keyword research for your sites.

DAY 10 ASSIGNMENT

MAIN KEYWORD PHRASES

Ensure that your main keyword phrase still meets the traffic and competition parameters you’re comfortable working within.

For example, I tend to look for main keyword phrases with at least 100 hits day, 100,000 or less competition and 10,000 or less title competition.

I also want a main keyword phrase who’s currently ranking sites aren’t all super old domains with super high PR and have a low number of backlinks to the ranking page.  Having a low number of backlinks to the domain as a whole is a bonus.

Watch my ‘Steal This Niche’ series for a walk through of several keyword research sessions and how one gets a “feel” for the different parameters to look for when conducting research.

Ensure that the main keyword phrase you are currently targeting is going to provide you with enough traffic, and that the competition isn’t too stiff.

If the traffic is too low or the competition too high, select another main keyword phrase to target.

LONG TAIL KEYWORD PHRASES

Microsoft Windows Vista WallpaperJust like you did for the main keyword phrase, you now will ensure that any long tail keyword phrases you’re actively targeting are still being searched and that their competition is reletively small.

For a long tail keyword phrase, you are looking for lower traffic and competition numbers than you were with your main keyword phrase.

Again, review the Steal This Niche videos if you need a refresher.

Ensure that the long tail keyword phrases you are currently targeting are going to provide you with enough traffic, and that the competition isn’t too stiff.

Now is also the time to look for *new* long tail keywords.  Since you set your sites up, there may be new trends or a change in the search volume and competition for keyword phrases that weren’t attractive at the time.

Keep your eyes peeled for new, low competition long tail keyword phrases that are closely related to your sites current focus.  You will capitalize on these opportunities throughout the Makeover!

If you aren’t actively targeting long tail keyword phrases, you absolutely should be!  You can usually rank for them much faster, and a couple of long tail keyword phrases that rank highly can easily surpass one main keyword phrase in traffic volume.  Identify long tail keyword phrases you could be targeting.

We’ll use these new keywords in later Makeover assignments!

ABOUT THE 31 DAY INTERNET MARKETING MAKEOVER

The 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover gives you a step-by-step process, with a new post and instruction every day – and it’s entirely free, no strings attached.

As you complete each days’ steps, you will make substantial and concrete progress in taming your business to make it more manageable, more profitable and MORE FUN!

Fill out the form below and day you’ll receive an email each day with a link to the newest 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover post. You can unsubscribe at any time and I will never, ever, ever share, rent or sell your contact information!

Join the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover!
First Name *
Primary Email *

You will also want to keep up-to-date with 31 Day IM Makeover happenings through the following channels:

Twitter: Follow @michellem on Twitter

Facebook: Become a fan on Facebook and you’ll get notification when a new post is up

RSS: Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to have new posts delivered to your feedreader

The official Twitter hashtag for the 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover is #31DIMM (yes, I know it reads “31 Dim” but that’s kinda funny, right?). You can find other participants by searching Twitter for the hashtag.

Join using the form above and look in your inbox tomorrow for the next step in your Internet Marketing Makeover!

And use the social icons below to share the Makeover on your preferred social network:

Post to Twitter  Post to Facebook  Post to StumbleUpon

{ Comments on this entry are closed }