Cathy Stucker - The Idea Lady

Attract Customers and Make Yourself Famous

Make Money with Affiliate Marketing

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affiliate-marketing

There are many ways to earn money online and one of the most commonly used is affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is popular because it’s relatively easy to make a steady stream of money and you don’t need to develop any products of your own. Of course, if you have your own products, you can still use affiliate marketing to create an additional income stream in your business.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is based on a very simple concept. You share content that informs or entertains your readers. Along with your regular informational content, you also pitch products that your audience would be interested in. These are the products of other vendors, not your own, and you get a commission for any sales you make. You promote, customers click and buy, and the vendor pays you for the sale. [Read more…]

3 Incredible Reasons To Become An Amazon Associates Member

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Amazon Associates is Amazon’s affiliate marketing program. With Amazon Associates, you can make money by referring customers to Amazon.com. It can be as simple as putting a link on your site. Then, when your readers click the link, go to Amazon and buy something, you get paid.

Affiliate marketing doesn’t have to be difficult. Too often, marketers try to talk about how complicated it is to male sales with certain programs, and the fact of the matter is that it can be easy, if you know what affiliate network to join and how to use it to your advantage. If you have a website, any type of site, you have a platform to be successful with affiliate marketing. One of the easier platforms to work with is an option that comes from the powerhouse site Amazon. Amazon Associates is one of the best options that you can sign up for, and if you are not a member yet, you should look into it. Here are 3 reasons you should become a member.
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How Personal Should You Be?

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How much personal information should you share with customers and the world? That question has become more important than ever with the proliferation of social media sites and a tendency to overshare when it comes to things that traditionally were kept private.

If you are willing to give customers a peek into your “real life” it can help to build relationships with them. The trick is figuring out how much to tell and how much to keep private. Telling too much can make you appear unprofessional and damage your reputation. And too much personal information will turn off people who are following you or reading your blog to learn about your expertise.

One way to manage this is to have separate business and personal accounts. That can be difficult to manage (How do you make sure that business contacts are in the business account and family and friends are in the personal account?) but keeping things separate can be a good choice.

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Little Known Tip for Building Facebook Fans

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This is a guest post from Ann Baker, CEO of Publicity Pros.

You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.  It’s an age-old attention grabber that goes back to childhood days.  Apply it to your Facebook business page, and you’ll build Likers in rapid order.

Here’s the concept:  When a visitor comes to your Facebook page (more on how to make that happen in a minute), you lure him to a special tab you’ve created – one that offers something of interest or value that your visitor will want.  The trick is, you don’t just give the item to the visitor straight out – you show a screen that offers to show or deliver the item when the visitor clicks ‘Like’ for the page.  The offer could be for something like a tip, access to an article or video, a coupon code, or simply placing a vote for something fun – like a thumbs up or down on a recent event.

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5 Step Google Places Page Optimization

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NOTE: An updated version of this post is available: 3 Steps to Claim and Optimize Google Places for Business Page

This post is from Lauren Bradley of Boston SEO Services.

If you haven’t noticed, Google drastically changed its local search results late in 2010. Prior to the change, when a user would type in “Plumber St. Louis” the results would show 7 listings at the top next to a map.

After the change, the local search results take up the entire first page (for most searches) pushing organic listings way far down.

This change is powerful for small business owners. If you simply type in “shoes” to Google, it will most likely return shoe stores closest to your current location.

Google has made it pretty simple for small business owners to set up and optimize their Google Places pages. These are the pages that help to determine local search rankings. Many local business owners do not want to mess around with setting up and optimizing their Google Places page because 1. they don’t know where to start or 2. don’t have time to set it up.

I have simplified the process as much as possible for these reasons. If you do anything to help build your online presence, complete the following five steps.

Step One: Verify and Claim your Google Places page
Verifying your Places page as the owner of the business is important if you are at all concerned about controlling information about your company that is on the internet. As a verified owner, you can edit and add information to your Places page as you wish.

Verifying it is simple, after finding your Google Places page, there is a link in the top right corner that will either say “Owner verified” or “Business owner?” After clicking on that, you will be walked through the process of claiming your Places page.

Step Two: Consistent NAP
Maintaining a consistent NAP (Name, Address and Phone number) on your Google Places page and across the internet plays a strong role in rankings. Everything on your Places page from the name of your company to the suite of your office needs to be consistent with your website. Saying Suite 210 on one place and then #210 on another is inconsistent. This seems minor, but does play a role.

Step Three: Keyword Optimized Categories
This seems intuitive, however the number of business owners who list their categories incorrectly is a little shocking. If you have already done some keyword research for your company, this is where those words come into play. If you haven’t, you should have a decent understanding of your products, services and how your prospects might be searching for you.

Use those keywords when filling out your categories. As you type in words, Google will make phrase suggestions for you to choose from. I would recommend picking at least two Google suggested phrases of your five categories. It is important to also fill out all 5 categories.

Step Four: Natural & Complete Description
Completing your description is something you should put a few minutes of thought into. If you sell pastries, put a little more thought into your description than just, “Your neighbor pastry shop.”

What’s unique about you? Do you do something different than others?

Google gives you this opportunity to talk yourself up to your prospects. So do it. Don’t stuff it with keywords. This about writing to impress the reader and not the search engine.

Step 5: Collecting Honest & Legitimate Reviews
Word of mouth advertising is the most profitable, powerful and persuasive marketing tactic. Google has set up a review system that allows your current clients to talk about you and your services. Not only does this give your prospects more information about your offerings and personality but Google also uses this as a “voting” system when determining rankings.

Keep in mind that you are not wanting to scam the system or seem at all spammy. It is important to collect legitimate and honest reviews from your clients.