Business Websites | Improve Performance Quick

Do you have a website for your business?   If so, would you like three quick ways to improve its perfomance?  Get you more traffic, make sales, make you more money?

1.  Check that you have a good Meta Title, relevent Meta Tags and a great, compelling Meta Description.

You would not BELIEVE how many expensive, corporate looking sites don’t have the basic information in the code of their index page, that the search engines need to list your site in the results, if someone is looking for a site like yours.  It’s easy to check, even for a non-techie.

Just right click on the background of the front page of your blog (the coloured area, outside the white page bit) and choose “View Source” or “View Page Source Code”.

Quite near the top you should see some words enclosed by the little chevrons which are tags.  I can’t reproduce them here as they screw up the layout of this email but imagine the word title had a chevron at each end.

title Your site info here          /title

Then, further down, you should see something that looks like this:

meta content=“money gym, nicola cairncross, blog, blogging…………..” with about 10-20 of your top relevent key words and phrases in.

Then you should also see your meta description, which is what Google shows the public, if someone searches on your key phrases and your site is shown.

meta description “Wealth expert & Money Gym Founder Nicola Cairncross shares the secrets about becoming wealthy, how to grow rich & become a millionaire, wealth creation, success thinking, the law of attraction, making more money, working from home, property investing, building a business to love and internet marketing.”

2. Add articles to your blog or website that contain your highest traffic keywords, to get more of the same.

Look up “entrance keywords” in your Google Analytics or on Alexa.com and make a note of the Top 10 or 20.

Write the article (or review someone elses!) but make sure to include the keywords in the Title of the article / blog post, and again in the first line of the article.  Sprinkle it throughout in a natural, conversational way.

Two of the biggest key phrases for The Money Gym are “how to be a millionaire” and “how to become a millionaire”.  When I posted my article “How To Become A Millionaire” containing the link to the report of the same name, using the guidelines above, and then, on the same day posted an article about “How To Be A Millionaire (Right Now” and tweeted it, which went onto Facebook too, our traffic tripled that day.  Now all I have to do is set that tweet to be sent out automatically every day perhaps, via SocialOomph (formerly TweetLater) and that will continue to bring traffic.

3.  Put yourself & your website in danger of making some money!

One of the first things a visitor should see is a free gift which you give away in return for their name and email.

If you don’t do this, you are losing the opportunity to follow up with all the people who are interested in your product or service but who are not yet ready to buy.  This follow up can be automated, and spread over as long a time frame as you like.

You can decide if you are going to share these leads, or keep them for youself (and you can set up your mailing list accordingly).  If you are in an industry where your competitors buys leads you can make a serious extra income from renting out those leads (via someone reputable like Hilite DMS).  If you are buying leads at the moment, you could reduce your lead generation costs dramatically.

And we all know that a reduction in overhead is like a pay rise!

A great tool that is evolving all the time is www.Alexa.com and if you don’t have Google Analytics you should skoot over there now and put your website URL in the Site Info section.

You will be able to see the keywords and phrases that bring your traffic currently, the demographics and age of your visitors and all sorts of other useful information.

Have you found this article useful?   I hope so, because I wanted to demonstrate to you the kind of knowledge we have and how easy it is to utilise it.

Because we are going to be sharing a lot more of this down to earth, practical, easy to use, yet dynamite information with you at our “Really Useful Internet Day” in Central London, on Saturday 10th October.

If you are a small business owner, or service provider, or solo professional trying to attract more clients, can you really afford to miss it?

I don’t think so!

http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/internetday/booking.htm

See you there!

NIcola

p.s. Don’t forget that all the ticket money is being donated to The Big Issue, who help the homeless help themselves.  I love that strapline, don’t you?

Business Profits & Success | You Need A Website!

I believe that the ability to create an effective online presence is absolutely crucial for any business.  If you are in business and not online, then you are leaving so much money on the table it’s unreal.

Every business needs a website, and not all websites are created equal sadly.

I’ll go further, there is NO real world business that can not benefit from having a coherent online presence.

I have one for The Money Gym (this one!), for my speaking/writing activities at NicolaCairncross.com, one for my Greek Property business, and made one for my friends Rona & Adrian, who lent me their gorgeous holiday home for rent, in Casares, Spain.  In fact, have a business idea, I make a website for it.  It helps me think through the offer and test the market, via quick free traffic.

Just think about it, for a second.

If you were out and about, and met two interesting people who both had a product or service that solved a problem you had, but only one of them had a website URL on their card, which one are you more likely to check out online and then use?  The one with the website of course!

Especially if that website was simple, colourful, professional looking, let you know about the people behind the business, and outlined the product or service, along with giving you some useful information on the topic of interest AND gave you the contact details.  Or a free gift of some kind, in return for your name and email, if you are not ready to call or email them yet.

So why don’t more businesses do it?

Because they think it’s complicated and expensive – but of course it’s not.

So, today I want to talk to you about how easy it is to do just that, and which elements you need to concentrate on first.

Nicola’s Quick 15 Point Step By Step Plan To Get Your Business Online & Making Your Money

1.  Visit https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and put in the key phrase you imagine your visitor would use to find your product or service

2.  It will show the results for the country you are in and the Global Search Results – click the column headers to sort by biggest numbers first on local or global.  Make a note of the top 10-20 relevent key phrases.

3.  Remember that these results are per month – this is the size of your potential market and customer base (even if you are usually very local, you can sell them SOMETHING surely!)

4.  Talking of local, while you are there, Add your business to Google Local www.google.com/local/add

5.  Buy a domain name which includes one of the most searched terms in your niche

6.  Get some decent, cheap hosting at someone like FunkyDomainNames.com or Hostgator.com

7.  Look for the link in your Control Panel to install a Wordpress blog on your hosting (it usually takes just one click – you will be amazed)

8.  Choose a theme you like and start adding information of interest to your ideal customer

9.  Find out how to enhance your blog website for customers and search engines alike with plugins

10.  Create a Facebook Page with the same name as your blog website and hook them up so that your Page shows on your blog/website and your site updates your Page

11.  Create a Twitter account in the same name as your blog website & Facebook page and hook them up with the TwitterTools plugin so they update each other

12.  Go create a profile and list your site at Technorati, StumbleUpon, Digg and any others you can be bothered with

13.  Create a YouTube channel in the name of your business and start “Favouriting” videos that would be of interest to your ideal customer and hook it up to your main site with a URL in the channel description.

14.  Hook up your blog/website to some sort of List Manager, we recommend Total Business Cart if you want to sell things or aWeber or GetResponse if you want to just recommend other people’s product or services

15.  Start selling stuff or recommending stuff and put yourself in REAL DANGER of making some money online!

Then just keep adding useful information to your blog website, which will update your Twitter and Facebook page, the search engines and blog directories.

As soon as you start making some money, invest a certain % of it into hiring the professionals to take your brilliant foundations you have built and take your business stratospheric.

How simple was that?

So why are you not doing it then?

If you did just those 15 Steps, you would be way ahead of MOST if not ALL of your competitors, I can guarantee you that!

HOWEVER!

If you STILL feel you need help and encouragement on getting going with making your business work online, then come along to our “Really Useful Internet Day” on Saturday 10th October 2009.

One day, just three experts, no bull, no hype, just down to earth practical stuff that you can put to work for you, making you more money from your business, or creating a second income for you, right now!

Seats are already flying out to our Silver, Silver Elite, Membership Club Magic and Gold clients, and the only way to make sure you get notified before the info page goes live at 12 noon on Friday, is to get on the VIP Priority Mailing list here

http://www.themoneygym.com/internetday

See you there!

Nicola

p.s. Tickets are only £25, it’s all going to the Big Issue and they are tax deductible if you have a business.  Don’t muck about, this is a day that could change your business life.

http://www.themoneygym.com/internetday

A Link & A List – How To Get Started Making Money Online

People who are very experienced at making money online always tend to forget the fact that most of the population don’t have a clue about the internet, beyond buying items on eBay or Amazon and using Facebook occasionally.

They certainly don’t know the potential for making money online, not as a full time job but as a second income.  And they certainly don’t know the basics of how to go about it.

All the infomation is available online, if you go to YouTube you can find a video to show you how to do just about anything, but the sheer enormity of the information is totally overwhelming, you don’t know who to trust and so nothing gets done.

Read more..

Skimboarding, Silver Elite & Susanne In Spain

This week has been absolutely mad!  We saw off five of them (phew!) at Malaga Aiport on Monday, and Susanne Jorgensen of  The Singles Gym joined us for a week as we packed them off at Gate 222.  She’s taken the town – no, the Costa – by storm and even the most grumpy waiter has not been able to resist her charms.

Nelson had to stay behind because he was three months too young to travel on his own, but he’s had a great time learning to skimboard and Susanne has turned out to be a great skimboard coach.

I had a great time turning the video footage and photos into a YouTube video for him as he’s all fired up now.  View his video and encourage him in his latest passion here

Read more..

Puerto Banus, Puerto De La Duquesa, Photos & Parasols

I’m very proud that I’ve managed to blog each day, while on holiday in Casares.

Why am I bothering you may ask?  Because one of the elements of the deal I’ve struck with my friends Rona & Adrian, who lent us their lovely house for three weeks, is that I’ve made them a Wordpress driven website to help them promote the rental of their property in Casares, short-term and long-term over the winter.

Read more..

Got A Website You Are Not Using?

Do you have a niche website or domain name you are not using? Perhaps you have several…..

Not sure what to do with it?

Why not list it for auction on a site like http://www.SitePoint.com?  Think ebay for website businesses!

I can see sites on there, only established last year, with only a couple of thousand unique visitors a month, no mailing list, no Google page rank, for sale at $3000 (buy it now) or minimum bid $500.

Do you have a website that needs more traffic and inbound links?

Why not buy a related site, with traffic and Google page rank, for $50 or $100 and not only create links to your site, but then look at how you can improve the one you have just bought, using what you learn in the Money Gym?

Do you want instant online income?

Why not buy a site that is generating revenue already?

If you spend $1000 to buy a site that is making $200 a month, it will take you less than a year to go into profit, and get you a 100% ++ return on your investment.

No idea what I’m talking about?

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, why not join me at Gary & Mark Vurnum’s one day “Recession Proof Income” workshop in Gatwick on Sunday? That’s 25th January and it’s very, very affordable.

I’ll be making a surprise guest appearance – Gary and Mark put on the first ever internet workshop I ever went to, in 2003, where I learned how to use Google adwords to dominate the bed & breakfast market in Worthing!!

http://www.recessionproofincome.com?mark

Cheers
Nicola

Want To Work With Nicola?

Do you have a new or established business that would benefit from more sales, more effective marketing – both on OR offline – or new digital products to add to your bottom line profits?  If so, would you like to work with me?

There are several ways you can do that and there’s one for every budget:

1.  Free

Join me on my weekly TV show at http://www.MoneyGym.tv and ask me your burning wealth creation or internet marketing question.  Next show Wednesday 1pm.  Submit your questions in advance here on the blog at http://www.themoneygym.com/blog/2008/11/nicola-money-today/

2.  £330 per year

Join The Money Gym Silver Level – buy the ebook to get a free 30 days trial and you actually save £2.50 / $3.50 http://www.themoneygym.com/book Then come along to our great workshops at a massive discount – I host every one.

3.  £1000 per day OR A Monthly Retainer TBA

CONSULTING:  So many of our clients have asked me if I would consult with them on their overall business’ marketing & sales strategy, I’ve decided to give this a go and see if I like it.  Think of me as a non-executive Sales & Marketing director, sitting on your board.  I can visit your business or work remotely, and can be at the end of the phone, email or skype for advice at any time.   Email me about your business at nicola [at ] themoneygym.com

BRANDING:  I am the official “Wealth Coach in Residence” for Visa International Plc and Pampers Nappies iVillage.   They pay me to appear on their website (and a bit more to be exclusive to their company within their niche), to interact with their forum users and to speak to journalists about wealth creation and comment on topical issues, on their behalf.  If you would like to discuss how I could bring value to your website, just email me to discuss it further.  nicola [at ] themoneygym.com

4.  £2000 per 12 hours over three months

COACHING – INTERNET MARKETING ONLY – Yes I know I keep saying that I’m going to stop doing this, but I enjoy it so much!  And I’m saving up for something very special so I’ll go another three months at least.  I offer coaching, by telephone, using GoToMeeting (I can see your screen and you can see mine) and email, on internet marketing particularly. Check out how I like to work here http://bit.ly/internetmentoring and then email me your ideas to nicola [at ] themoneygym.com

I can add Tuesdays to the Thursdays offered on the site.

This fee is equivalent to your selling 84 ebooks at £25 and that’s much more likely with my help / mentoring / coaching.

5.  £5754 per year

Join the Money Gym Gold programme
http://www.themoneygym.com/gold

I’m very active on this, our top level programme.  Even though you would be assigned your own personal coach, for your inspiration/accountability calls, I join in and coach our Gold members via private webinar and email – either in the group on the Mastermind Google Group or privately by email.

Your choice!

Let’s make 2009 a brilliant year for your business together!

Warm regards

Nicola

Nicola Cairncross Author, Speaker & Founder of The Money Gym

Chris Ogle’s Internet Marketing Journey – Part 2

As I said last week, looking back to the 26th or so of April 2008, when I joined Money Gym Gold Level, I realise that I have come quite a long way in 7 months. At that time I knew almost nothing about Internet Marketing except rumours that people were making quite a lot of money from this new phenomena.

It is also a twist of irony that I run a business which is pretty much entirely web based and that even with this knowledge somehow I had managed to remain fairly naive about what was going on.

True to my character however once I realised that this was something I needed to understand, I set about becoming a guru in 6 months, not perhaps adept at everything but at least a good understanding of what Internet Marketing was and how it all fits together.

I still remain a relative ‘newbie’ to the Internet Marketing scene and so I have not lost sight of the difficulties that I had trying to grasp the whole concept at the outset. The sheer volume of information and different sources of ‘Must-Have’ knowledge is very daunting when starting out. This article can perhaps serve as a small guide for those now embarking on the same journey that I’ve been on, and maybe speed up the process and shortcut the learning curve a little.

I think the biggest lesson I’ve learnt is that you can’t tackle everything from day 1! There is a logical sequence to building an Internet Business just it is so difficult work it out on your own with information flying at you from all angles. There is stuff you just have to know straight away and other things that can come on stream as your business and understanding develops. So I have put together 7 simple steps that help to break down the whole thing into a manageable process anyone can follow.

Steps 1-4 were covered last week, view them here >>

Step 5

We have at this stage pretty much built the bedrock for your Internet Marketing business. At step 5 we need to start actually marketing what we do.

This is done through a number of techniques, regular blogging, social networking, twittering, Article submission, joining Forums (relating to your business), commenting on other peoples blogs and posts, Press Releases and regular ezines or newsletters to your database list.

This process is ongoing and the more you do the better the results. It is all about little and often rather than big blasts once a week. The great thing about Internet marketing is that none of your effort is ever wasted, what you did this week goes into next week and then into the week after compounding your results. Once we start getting our traffic, names should start filling up our database!

Step 6

Monitor your results. One of the most important things about Internet Marketing is to be able to find out what is working and what is not working. Now we are starting to generate traffic we should be analysing the results.

More learning here I’m afraid, Feedburner, Google analytics and Ad-Tracking will all help you to see which links are working for you and those that are underperforming. Armed with this information we can now begin to put in some changes and improve our performance, honing what we do to maximise our return.

Step 7

Keep up to date! As you become more confident with Internet marketing and everything starts to become second nature, keep your ears and eyes close to the ground. Internet Marketing is constantly evolving and new ideas and concepts emerge almost daily.

Start to explore related activities or Joint Venture opportunities, why not work with others and pool your database lists to reach a larger audience?

Why not look at membership sites and how you might use these to generate an ongoing revenue stream, the opportunities are almost endless.

There is no doubt that Internet Marketing is exciting. The people who operate Internet Marketing businesses have an abundance mentality and are enthusiastic bunch. Everyone is keen to promote their own and other Internet Marketers products and it is easy to get sidetracked onto the next best thing.

CHRIS’ CONCLUSION:

In conclusion you need to have a plan and work your plan.

Don’t get sidetracked or lose focus on your project and your priorities. If something new emerges, make a note of it, understand what it is, assess it’s relevance, keep it safe and position it within your plan. These things won’t go away, the great deal will still be there when you get around to it, and you’ll get where you want to go more quickly by keeping focussed.

More information on how to turn your Internet Marketing into a process can be found at IPS-Freedom on http://tinyurl.com/5fx5vl

Chris Ogle’s Internet Marketing Journey – Part 1

Looking back to the 26th or so of April 2008, when I joined Money Gym Gold Level, I realise that I have come quite a long way in 7 months. At that time I knew almost nothing about Internet Marketing except rumours that people were making quite a lot of money from this new phenomena.

It is also a twist of irony that I run a business which is pretty much entirely web based and that even with this knowledge somehow I had managed to remain fairly naive about what was going on.

True to my character however once I realised that this was something I needed to understand, I set about becoming a guru in 6 months, not perhaps adept at everything but at least a good understanding of what Internet Marketing was and how it all fits together.

I still remain a relative ‘newbie’ to the Internet Marketing scene and so I have not lost sight of the difficulties that I had trying to grasp the whole concept at the outset. The sheer volume of information and different sources of ‘Must-Have’ knowledge is very daunting when starting out. This article can perhaps serve as a small guide for those now embarking on the same journey that I’ve been on, and maybe speed up the process and shortcut the learning curve a little.

I think the biggest lesson I’ve learnt is that you can’t tackle everything from day 1! There is a logical sequence to building an Internet Business just it is so difficult work it out on your own with information flying at you from all angles. There is stuff you just have to know straight away and other things that can come on stream as your business and understanding develops. So below I have put together 7 simple steps that help to break down the whole thing into a manageable process anyone can follow.

Step 1

The first step is to either (a) Find your niche, (b) Develop someting in your area of expertise or (c) apply Internet marketing to your current offline business.

Once you have defined this, you may need some help in planning how to tackle what you want to do. There are many tools available Blogs (multiple blogs), Web Sites, Member sites etc. and you need to work out which tools are best for your project and how it’s going to fit together. This is like architecting the foundation, the difficulty is that you need to understand Internet Marketing to plan it in the first place! So my recommendation would be to seek some advice, you could save yourself some blind alley experiences.

It is a good idea before you move on from step 1 to also start exploring Keywords for your project. These are words or phrases that people use to search the internet for what they are looking for and hopefully find you! We’ve all used Google and Yahoo so we are already users and know what we type in to find the things we want, now you have to start thinking about what you would type in to find your internet venture. You will need to then use these keywords in all your content and web based activities. Ideal keywords are those where people use them to search but where the phrase doesn’t appear on too many competitors pages. Luckily there are some great tools to assist with this process!

Oh, nearly forgot, you are going to need help when Internet marketing, it is a good idea at this stage to find a group or forum who you can relate to and who will provide invaluable feeback and assistance as you stumble through the early months !

Step 2

Put down the foundation stones of your Internet Marketing. This means getting a presence on the Internet. You are going to need to get familiar with a raft of Social Networking sites, communication tools and start to think about your Blog. If you are not so technical or are pressed for time you will need to enlist the help of a Blog Site developer who can get you a professional business blog up and running fairly quickly, once in place you have your very own soap box to communicate with the world.

This period of getting yourself registered, downloading useful applications and generally getting set up can take a month or two depending on the amount of time you have.

Why do you need a Blog? This is beyond the scope of this article, but it is like your very own website that you can maintain yourself. Blogging regularly will attract visitors and get you into seach engines and improve the chances of making sales either directly from your Blog or from associated websites or referral links.

Step 3

What are you going to sell ? You will have established this in step 1, however now you have something live on the Internet (your blog) from which to make sales from. You can sell other people’s products there are thousands to choose from (related to your niche is best), or you can create an e-book as an expert in your field. e-Books are fantastic way of sharing your knowledge and creating brand YOU. e-books can also be a good revenue stream. Never thought of yourself as an author? don’t worry it’s not as daunting as it first seems!

In this step you need to familarise yourself with Affiliate links, sites such as Clickbank and Paydotcom and possibly get yourself an account with one of the shopping cart companies such as TotalBusinessCart.

Step 4

Ensure that you have the ability to capture peoples names and email addresses. Internet Marketers do this through something called a ‘Squeeze Page’ and the details are registered into your own private online database which you can then email market to!

There are a number of database services out there and some combine shopping carts with facilities to collect names and addresses as well. You will need to learn what is an Autoresponder and how to use this to start building a relationship with your growing list of followers.

It is a fact with any business but especially for Internet marketers that your business is valued by the size of your list (contacts). If you do one part of internet marketing exceptionally well, make sure it is collecting names!

We will continue with Steps 5-7 next week….Thanks Chris!

More information on how to turn your Internet Marketing into a process can be found at IPS-Freedom on http://tinyurl.com/5fx5vl

Money Gym Top 5 Affiliates (August)

I’m delighted to say that many of you have jumped on board with our new affiliate scheme, and signed up at http://www.1shoppingcart.com/SYS/?m=36901&c=s to get your unique link, that now works across all our Money Gym products and services.  (Remember, if anyone joins Silver, you earn £10 a month for the life of their membership).
In August, our Top 5 Affiliates in terms of referrals to our mailing list were:

#1. Philippa Richards = 32

Philly is one of our coaches of course, and generated her referrals from her site at http://www.goldstarcompany.com

#2. Marion Ryan = 13

Marion is also one of our coaches, and generated her referrals from her site at http://www.marionryan.com

#3. Angela Farrell = 6

I’m delighted to say that Angela is a total newbie to internet marketing but is one of my mentoring clients ** Angela’s site has only been online for a few short weeks but is generating traffic and referrals to our affiliate scheme already. You can have a look at Angela’s fledgling site at http://www.newstartforwomen.com

4. Karen Knowler = 5

Karen is an ex-Money Gym Gold client and very much part of our community still, and an experienced internet marketer of her business, which is all based around raw living. Visit Karent at her blog at http://www.karenknowler.typepad.com

Joint 4th is – John O’Flynn = 5

I dont’ think I know John personally, but well done John! You can visit John at http://www.youcanachieveit.co.uk

Also Joint 4th is our very own Steve Watson = 5

This is Steve’s new MyViralSpiral site which he has had to put on hold a bit, working on the Money Gym relaunch, but it’s generating traffic and referrals for him even so! Download some of Steve’s fr.ee reports at http://www.viral-explosion.com

5. Margaret Collins = 3

Another Money Gym coach in the Top 5 – how marvellous! I know Margaret uses her email signature to promote the Money Gym and you can also visit Margaret’s own site at http://www.thegrowthzone.com

Joint 5th is Dr Alison Grimstone = 3

Alison is also an ex-Money Gym Gold client and again, very much part of our community still, as Money Gym Gold clients enjoy lifetime membership after their first year. Alison has a variety of sites, but the one listed in her affiliate details is http://www.TheNaturallyHealthyPet.com

BENEFITS OF BEING A TOP 5 WINNER

Apart from the potential earnings, I’m going to produce the Winners List every month, to remind you that you can generate referrals and ultimately passive income and to thank you publically, by promoting your sites to our entire mailing list!

And you will enjoy links on the new high traffic blog which, when Google get around to ranking it, will be as good a ranking as our old blog hopefully!  Inbound links from high ranking sites, helps your ranking remember!

You can login to your affiliate account to see how you are doing here:
http://www.1shoppingcart.com/SYS/?m=36901&c=l

And if you would like to help promote our Brett McFall event and you have a mailing list of more than 500 people, just email me at nicola@themoneygym.com for more details.

Well done all!

Warm regards

Nicola

p.s. If you would like to find out more about internet mentoring ** with me, I’m currently taking on clients for September.

Visit http://tinyurl.com/nicolamentoring for more details.

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