Author Archive | Zed Debebe

There’s a ferocious killer that halts success more than anything else. This one success killer has ended the hopes and dreams of countless entrepreneurs. No, it’s not the lack of a great idea, inadequate funding or not knowing how to pull it all off. So… What is it?…

It’s waiting to get started. Waiting for the perfect moment. Waiting until everything is just right. Waiting for permission from the marketing Gods to begin building your business.

Waiting has killed more businesses and deprived more entrepreneurs of their fortunes than anything else.

Which is why I propose this: Start now, BEFORE you are ready.

When you come up with a new idea, do you feel like you need to get everything just right before you can get started? Most people do – but the problem is you’ll never get everything just right. You will always find something else that needs doing before you can begin, and so you will never start. Or eventually, one day months from now, you will finally get started only to realize you’ve run out of steam and no longer have an enthusiasm for your venture. It’s too late.

So why not start now? When you wait you get sidetracked and distracted. You listen to feedback from people who tell you it’s a bad idea. You talk yourself out of it. Sometimes you just forget about it completely, and there’s another opportunity lost forever.

Worse still, when you wait someone else can get the jump on you. Realize this – every time you have a great idea, there are other people in the world having that same idea. Do you want to be the first, or do you want to be an “also ran?” Take action and you’ll be a prosperous leader instead of a follower begging for crumbs.

Be impatient. Figure out how to get your idea out there sooner rather than later, even if you’re not ready. Are you writing a book? Give away the first chapters or the first version and ask for feedback. Gather email addresses to let people know when the book is ready. Launch the first version as an inexpensive Kindle book, get more feedback and re-release it as a hardcover. You could have waited until you thought it was perfect and released it as a hardcover to start with, but you would have missed out on the buzz you created and the feedback you received to make it even better.

If you wait to start, you’ll go through the entire process of writing and perfecting and publishing the book before you even know if there is a market for it, before you know how it will be received and whether or not people will buy it. By waiting you could spend the next year of your life on a project that yields nothing but frustration. Had you started marketing it immediately, you could have course corrected along the way to create a product the market truly wanted.

No matter what you’re doing, you can start right now. Even the act of starting gives you a momentum that can carry you through to the end. Take the book – with all the feedback you receive along the way, you’ll write a book people love, so now you can start a coaching program based on the book. Should you wait until you get the coaching program just right? No! Start now and perfect it as you go.

One more benefit of starting now – enthusiasm. When are you the most enthusiastic: When you first think of an idea, or 6 months later? When you’ve already experienced some success, or when that idea has been sitting on a shelf? By starting today you immediately make progress and get feedback, thus building your enthusiasm even further. When you work in a vacuum getting ready to start, you lose enthusiasm.

All the greats start now, whether that means writing the business plan now, writing the first chapter now, setting up the website now, getting feedback from social media now, etc.

Whatever your new idea is, start now and in 30 days you will be well on your way to seeing your idea not only begin to come to fruition, but also succeed in dramatic fashion.

It’s a mantra you’ve heard time and time again – write great, interesting, exciting, sharable content. But what if you’re in a boring niche? Or working for a boring client in a boring niche? How do you get readers excited about mundane topics like locksmiths or plumbing, or even icky topics like personal injury lawyers or rash creams?

Here are 10 tips to help you create interesting content ideas for even the most boring of niches.

1. First, change your perspective before you write anything. If you think it’s boring, your readers will, too. Everything is interesting if presented in an interesting manner. It’s simply a matter of finding the right angles to present your content. And the first step is to get fascinated in your topic so your enthusiasm will show in your writing.

2. Find the golden number nuggets. Dig out the industry statistics and find the fascinating bits that pull people into your story. Do you sell nails? How many nails go into building the typical house? Is your niche floor coverings? If you took all the carpet made in one month, how big of a city/state would it cover? Numbers fascinate when used in a way people can easily grasp and share with others.

3. Use stories and anecdotes. Let’s say you sell instructions on how to refinish furniture. “14 year old Annie was always the shy type, afraid to speak up and withdrawn, lacking confidence to do even the simplest of things. Then she got our beginner’s instructions for refinishing simple antique chairs. Within a month she’d finished her first project, and now a year later she’s refinished over a dozen pieces, resold 9 of them for substantial profit that she’s put away for college, and kept or given away the rest of the pieces. Most important of all, she’s gained a new sense of accomplishment and confidence which has spilled over into other areas of her life.” Wow, that’s pretty exciting!

4. Do a daily question and answer. Each day create an “ask an expert” blog post or video in which you answer one question. Create interaction, likes and shares by getting real people to ask questions through social media such as Facebook.

5. Talk about what’s wrong in your niche. Maybe legislation is pending that could hurt your industry, or someone in your niche is ripping people off. Be the leader and speak up about it. You’ll not only capture the attention of your readers – you’ll likely get links from other sites as people join the conversation.

6. Promote a cause. Sometimes when you run out of things to say about your business and your niche, it’s time to look outside of your business and find a cause to make your own. For example, a personal injury lawyer who’s helping homeless puppies and kittens to find new homes – that’s not only unexpected, it’s even warm and fuzzy – literally. And if your business is strictly virtual, you can still choose a cause and make it your own. Put real faces on it – furry or human – and tell why you and your business strongly support this cause. If you can choose a cause aligned with your business, so much the better. For example, a food niche might choose a program to feed the hungry, while a remodeling/building/decorating business might choose something like Habitat for Humanity.

7. Hold content contests. Get your readers to create content for you, based around the keywords you choose. The better the prize, the more entries you’re likely to get. Pick the top entries and then get them to get their friends to vote for the best one with retweets and Facebook shares. Publicize the contest to get more entries, more press and more backlinks.

8. Become a hub for industry content. Who says you need to write all of your website’s content yourself? Ask other industry leaders to contribute if they like.

9. Use images. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – people stay on your blog or website longer when you use interesting, compelling and relevant images.

10. Stretch. Okay, so your niche is car accessories – why not do an article on the top coolest cars in movies? Or maybe your niche is math tutoring – again, find the movies that use math and talk about those. It’s a great way to get your audience to relate to your products.

Even the most mundane of topics can become interesting – you’ve just got to find the right angle to write about.

You’ve got a DYNAMITE idea for a new product and you can’t wait to get started on it – or maybe you already have. Then it happens: You see that someone else has beaten you to the punch and released a very similar product just last week. What should you do??

At this point many people will simply fold. They’ll scrap their product idea and begin a search for a new idea.

Then there’s the successful marketers who wouldn’t bat an eyelash just because someone else released a product like theirs. They would go ahead and finish their product and release it as soon as possible.

Do you know why? Two reasons: First, a successfully selling product on a particular topic means there’s room for another product on the same topic. And the reason there’s room is because of reason number 2: People who are deeply interested in a topic don’t buy just one book or just one course – they buy everything they can get their hands on.

In fact, the person who released their product ahead of yours did you a favor, because you can now see how well their product is selling. You can look for the information holes they forgot to fill and you can be the one to create a better product. You can also see what their price point is and act accordingly. If they’re priced at $17, you might want to shoot for a higher price and provide a much higher value. On the other hand, if they are selling their product at several hundred dollars, you can choose to become the affordable alternative.

So the next time you’ve got a great product idea and someone else beats you to the punch, you might want to thank them, and get excited!

One more thing – don’t be afraid to approach the other product developer and suggest doing a deal together. They might also be open to becoming your affiliate and sharing your offer with their list and customers. Yesterday’s competitors can become tomorrow’s partners.

Remember – competition can be a GREAT thing when you’re marketing online.

Anthony Burgess was just 40 when he was told by his doctor that because of a brain tumor, he only had less than a year to live. It was 1960 and he was broke and worried because he didn’t have anything to leave his wife Lynne.

But for as long as he could remember, there was a nagging little voice in his head that said he could be a great writer.

Unfortunately, Anthony had never listened to that voice before. But now that was dying, he hoped he could write a book that would create royalties for his wife.

So for the next 9 months Anthony wrote day and night, finishing a whopping five and a half novels. That’s more than many professional writers create in 10 years, or for some in a lifetime. And that isn’t even the exciting part.

While he was busy doing what he had known he was meant to do for his whole life – while he was busy being creative and productive, his cancer quietly disappeared.

In his long and prolific life as a novelist, Anthony Burgess wrote more than 70 books, including the famous “A Clock-work Orange.”

But without his death sentence, he may never have written at all.

Just imagine for a moment that you have less than a year to live. What will you do with it? Whether it’s one year, or a lot more, if you are not doing what you were born to do, isn’t it time for a shift in that direction?

If you’re in the IM niche, you probably get the same emails I do asking: “I need to make money YESTERDAY, what do you recommend?”

Or maybe you need some extra money for a project you’re working on right now, or you’ve got an unexpected bill.

Here’s a method I sometimes suggest for earning a quick $500 or $1,000, and what people seem to like about it is how simple and straightforward it is.

Ask yourself what skills and knowledge you possess right now. Maybe you can write really well, or you’re good at building WordPress sites. Maybe you’re a graphic artist, or a photographer or videographer. Maybe you’ve got great people skills and you can act as an affiliate manager or set up joint ventures. Perhaps you can coach people on how to do something specific, or teach them how to find the perfect virtual assistant. I guarantee you have at least one skill or piece of knowledge that others are willing to pay for.

“But I don’t have a skill!” Really? Then you need to find dynamite outsourcers who do have skills you can market. You must find something that others are willing to pay for, and that’s usually a skill and sometimes simply a piece of very valuable knowledge.

Once you’ve identified your skill, set up a web page offering that skill for hire. A simple blog site will do, preferably on your own domain. Check out other similar websites to get ideas on how to set yours up.

Find blogs that are relevant to your skill and allow guest bloggers. For example, if you’re really good at writing engaging blog posts, find blogs about blogging. If you can troubleshoot antique engines over the phone, then find blogs about old cars. These blogs should have a bare minimum of 5,000 readers a month, and be sure they already allow guest posting.

Now write articles that provide awesome content for these blogs. Study each blog and write an article just for them that solves a problem or tells how to do something that is totally relevant to your particular skill. For example, if your skill is article writing, you’re going to tell them how to write the perfect article. If your skill is photographing products, then that’s what you’ll teach. Don’t worry about giving away all your secrets – some people would much rather hire a professional than do the work themselves. Link back to your website in the author’s box.

Don’t know if you spotted it, but there is a flaw in the steps above and here it is…
It can sometimes take WEEKS to get your guest blog post published. How do you speed up the process? One way is to link whatever you are writing about with something that is current in the news, preferably in the last 12 to 48 hours. You might need to get a little creative here but if you can pull it off then blog owners will be racing to publish your post. For example, if you’re a sales letter copywriter and the FTC just handed down new rules for what you can and cannot say in your sales copy, you’re golden.

Another trick for getting published quickly is to provide dynamite graphics, pictures or even infographics to go with your article. In fact, your infographic could even BE your article. And don’t forget to politely make a good case to the blog owners on why they should consider publishing your article as quickly as possible.

Continue writing articles and getting them published until the orders start coming in or your phone starts ringing.

The entire process could take as little as 48 hours or as long as 10 days, depending on how fast you get those first blog posts published.

Added benefit – you’ll make more business connections which can continue to benefit you in the future.

You’ve either got a blog already, or you’re just about to start one. Congratulations! You are one of only 500 million. Now then, knowing that your blog is (statistically speaking) less than a needle in a haystack, how are you going to get it NOTICED and read?

In one word, the answer is BRANDING. You can either throw together a blog and hope it somehow gets found, or you can carefully craft a brand that captures readers’ attention and keeps them coming back for more.

To throw one together, just do what 99.9% of other bloggers do – wing it. Fly by the seat of your pants and hope for the best. In six months (or sooner) you’ll likely be so discouraged you’ll give up.

Building a brand is obviously the way to go. Think Google, Coke, Apple and Nike to understand the huge potential branding holds for your blog. Brands stand for something, mean something and create loyalty in their customers. They stand apart and often far, far above the competition. And best of all, really good brands get remembered and are sought out by consumers.

Here then are 10 tips for building your blogging brand:

Who are you writing to? Exactly who is your blog meant for? Create a clear picture of your ideal reader, including age, profession, family, worries, problems, hobbies, etc. You’ll be writing to this one person rather than trying to talk to everyone. Remember, when you target everyone, you interest no one. But when a certain segment of the population believes you’re writing just for them, you’ll build a loyal following.

Why are you writing to your specific readers? What is your goal? It might be to educate, to persuade, to motivate, etc. Keep your goal in mind at all times.

What are you writing about? This is your topic. It might be physical fitness, marketing, dating, etc. Decide in advance what your message is going to be.

Choose a brandable name. If you’re creating a fitness blog, for example, then you might choose a one or two word brand name that people are likely to remember, rather than a keyword laden name.

HowToGetHealthyAndLoseWeight.com isn’t really brandable – it’s too generic and too keyword rich. Think in terms of “Google” – now that’s a brand. You might try things like FitMonkey.com or SkinnyCakes.com – those are brandable and memorable.

Create a snappy tagline. A name generally isn’t enough – you also want a tagline to help brand yourself, to clarify what you do and to make your blog more memorable. If your blog is on bacon recipes, your url might be DeadPiggy.com and your tagline might be “Bacon lover’s recipes for the non-chef.” See how the tagline not only defines that the site is about bacon recipes, but also narrows the niche to those who don’t consider themselves to be good cooks? This is a prime example of using a tagline to define what you do and WHO you do it for.

Get a logo. Can you picture the Apple logo? Nike? Coke? A logo is an integral part of your brand. Make it clean, simple, eye-catching and unique. It’s worth the extra money to get your logo just right.

Adapt your logo into a favicon. Again, this is an important part of branding your blog.

Use a website design that matches your topic. A header full of balloons and clowns on a website about grieving generally isn’t going to work. Dull colors on a children’s website or a lack of photos of gardens on a gardening website won’t work. Make sure all of the visual elements of your site correspond with your topic.

Choose a writing style and stick with it. Take a lesson from McDonald’s here and give your readers what they’ve come to expect from you. Maybe you’re writing to a technical crowd – then you might write like an engineer. Or perhaps you’re taking on a persona, like the Rich Jerk. Odds are you’re going to write like yourself, which is perhaps best of all because you won’t have any trouble maintaining that style. Consistency is key because if one day you’re writing like the guy next door and the next day you’re writing like an English professor, your readers are going to get confused and likely won’t return.

Promote your blog’s name through social media. Consistently use your blog’s name everywhere. Don’t use “Law Enforcement Weight Loss” on Twitter and “Muscle Cops” on Facebook – no one will realize it’s the same blog you’re referring to. Again, this is another reason to choose a unique, short, brandable name that no one else is using anywhere.

If your blog is going to stand apart from the crowd, then you’ve got to do a little extra work, but that work will likely pay off handsomely in the end.

Not only will you stand apart from the crowd, you’ll also discover that if you ever decide to sell your blog, you’ll be able to charge a great deal more because you took the time to brand it.

No matter how hard you try to prevent it, sooner or later you’ll have prospects land on your 404 error page. When they do, they have a choice – try to find what they were looking for or give up. Care to guess what happens more often? They leave in frustration.

So instead of the usual “Whoops! We’re sorry but what you’re looking for has moved” page, consider customizing your error pages to get these people to do something.

For example, you could give them an option to opt into your list with an offer that is different than your landing page. This can be highly effective. For example…

“Congrats! You just found our secret page where we give away ___. Just tell us where to send it and it’s yours.”

Or you might make them an offer they can’t refuse, such as a great deal on one of your most popular products, or a combination offer for a super low price. Like this…

“Oops! You just landed on our error page, but we’re going to make it up to you. Here’s $xx.xx off of our super hot selling ___.”

For one reason or another, if you have your own website online long enough, you’re going to start getting a stream of people who land on a page of your website that does not exist, and leads them to a 404 error. Plan in advance for this hidden opportunity and you can turn some of the strayed visitors into subscribers and customers.

I’ve seen three different marketers doing a variation of this business, all with the same result – they earn a bare minimum of $5,000/month and usually 2 to 3 times that much.

Two of them are completely unknown marketers who are quietly doing this in their spare time. The third marketer is a fairly big name, and odds are you’ve heard of him. He doesn’t do any of this work himself. He simply outsources the whole thing and brings in over $10,000 a month in profit doing it.

All three of them do this business in the online marketing niche. Essentially, they are helping new marketers to quickly have a money generating business of their own by building it for them. No doubt you’ve seen these ‘business in a box’ packages you can purchase that contain a product, a sales page and so forth, right? You put your own name on them, upload them to your site and start promoting.

There’s nothing wrong with these, and if you have your own list, you can often make good money with them. But these marketers have taken things a step further by creating a unique business in a box for each customer. These are genuinely one of a kind and even include a list.

Here’s how it works:

They start by creating a unique funnel complete with a squeeze page, high-value free gift and unique upsell product. The free gift is usually a plugin, because they have a higher perceived value than a report. You can find plugins with giveaway rights available all over the internet. Buying the rights is usually about $37-47 and then you are free to give it away to your heart’s content.

You can get a coder to rebrand, tweak and/or rename the plugin, usually for $100 or less. This is optional but again, it makes your package unique from anything else out there.

The upsell product is made from good PLR that’s then reworked and rebranded, complete with a new name, new graphics and so forth. It’s important here to use truly quality PLR – don’t skimp on this.

The cost of the content will be perhaps $150 if you rework it yourself, and twice that if you hire someone to do it for you. Since you’re going to price the upsell at around $47, you want the product to look and feel like it is worth at least that much if not more. In other words, make sure it doesn’t look like PLR.

Once the squeeze page and upsell are set up on a domain, it’s time to spend about $250 to purchase 1,000 solo ad clicks. Send them to your squeeze page.

Your goal here is three-fold:

→ Start building a list
→ Establish that the squeeze page and upsell convert
→ Make some money on the upsell

From 1,000 solo ad clicks you should hopefully get about 300 new subscribers. Maybe 10 of those will buy the upsell, bringing you about $470. That’s covered some of your costs right there.

Once you’ve done this, it’s time to cash in. You’re going to flip the entire funnel to one buyer. You can use Flippa, Warrior Forum or any of the site flipping websites out there.

You’re offering a proven funnel with a list, a proven squeeze page and a proven upsell page complete with the lead magnet and the product. This is VALUABLE because it’s proven and because it’s unique. Bonus points if you’ve chosen a great name for the URL, lead magnet and upsell.

Once you master how to do these things (and they’re not difficult) you can probably build 3 of these a month all by yourself and still have plenty of time to do other things, too.

And you can flip these packages for $2,500 to $7,500 each. Not bad for a part time business!

There’s a common theory that you’ve got to warm up your list for a few days, or even a few weeks before you try to sell them anything. But if someone came to your website looking for answers and opted into your list – then they are a hot prospect right NOW.

That’s why you should go ahead and make them an offer within the first 7 days. In fact, make them 2 or 3 offers.

Yes, you still need to provide some great content, whether it’s telling captivating stories or giving them hot tips. But at the end of each email be sure to make them an offer they can’t refuse. You may be surprised how many of your prospects become customers in that first week. And as you know, once they buy from you they are far more likely to buy again and again, as long as you continue to make them happy.

But we’re not done yet. In addition to making them offers via email in the first week, you also want to make them an offer IMMEDIATELY.

Let’s say they sign up to get your free report on 10 ways to banish acne. If you’re using single opt-in, they’re now on your list. So instead of sending them to a page that tells them to check their email for their free report, send them to a sales page that tells them the free report will be sent to their email shortly, and in the meantime to check out the one time fantastic offer you have for them.

Depending on your offer, there’s no reason why you can’t convert 10% or far more of these prospects into IMMEDIATE buyers with this simple technique. And best of all, it’s something you set up once and then you can forget about it, earning yourself a nice little additional income while you continue to grow your list.

I get a lot of questions about how to build a business online. Here’s some of the top questions and answers to help you get your own online business started and profitable.

Q. I keep hearing that I’ve got to get people to know me, like me and trust me before they’ll buy from me, but how do I do that?

A. You’ve got two choices, and I recommend you do both. First, position yourself as an expert in your field. If you’re not an expert, surround yourself with experts by interviewing them, letting them guest post to your blog and working with them. Second, be generous. Give away great content that instills confidence in your abilities and expertise that builds your reputation. Offer free tele-classes or podcasts, guest post on popular blogs with info-packed posts, and author a book or report.

The better your free content is, the more people will trust you and your content. As an added bonus they’ll also be more likely to share your content with others, thereby helping you to build your reputation and your following.

Q. Is there a way to reach a wider audience while simultaneously delivering more value to my current customers?

A. You might consider lining up some partnerships or joint ventures in your niche. First, make a list of the areas your customers are interested in. You’re not looking for direct competition here, but rather complimentary sub-niches. For example, if you teach how to do Forex with a certain method, your customers will likely be interested in how to trade on Forex with other methods, and even how to invest in other areas besides the Forex market.

Once you make your list of areas, choose an expert in each that you’d like to partner with. Go online to get their contact information and then approach them with a win-win-win reason of why they should partner with you. They should benefit, you should benefit and of course your customers need to benefit as well.

Do something together that you can offer to both your customers and your partner’s customers, whether it’s a free webinar with an offer at the end, or creating a series of videos together, or even creating a new membership with a free introductory period. This will add value to your customers and theirs, as well as expanding your reach to a wider audience.

Q. I’m just a newbie in my niche – how do I approach the “big dogs” and get their attention so they’ll partner with me?

A. Two words – help them. Comment on their posts, share their stuff through social media, ask if you can re-post their work to your blog, etc. Find a way to be of service to them so that you can get on their radar and start building a relationship for the long haul.

Note that the bigger the person you’re targeting (IE: The larger their following and the greater their influence in your market) the longer it’s going to take to attract their attention as someone they might want to work with. It’s recommended that you begin by targeting more accessible people and work your way up to the giants of your industry.

Also, consider writing a book, devoting one chapter to each “big dog” you are targeting. In this manner you can make friends with these players, and some of them will actually end up promoting your book to their audience.

Q. I keep hearing that I need to “have a story” to share with prospects. What does this mean?

A. In a marketing context, ‘your story’ is what led to you doing what you do today. For example, someone who teaches basketball techniques may have been a lousy basketball player themselves until they learned and mastered certain fundamentals and techniques that caused them to become an all star player. In a nutshell, that’s their story. Of course they’re going to want to embellish with details, such as how rotten they felt when they got laughed at for missing the easiest of shots.

The purpose of having your own story and sharing it with your readers is to make a connection. Someone having trouble making the junior varsity basketball team wants to know you went through some of the same trials and tribulations they are experiencing. This bonds them to you and causes them to be far more receptive to your message. Remember, “birds of a feather flock together.” Once they realize you’ve been through the same struggles they’re currently going through, and that you not only persevered but overcame, they’ll want to know exactly how you did it.

Q. But isn’t that manipulating them?

A. Not at all. You are showing that you have indeed walked in their shoes, experienced their problems and found a solution that works.

I heard a story once that illustrates this beautifully. Imagine you’re in a foreign country and you don’t speak the language. For days you’ve been struggling to understand and be understood. Then all of a sudden someone says hello to you in your language, and asks how you are. How would you react? No doubt you’d rush up to that person and start talking, feeling that you finally are making a connection with someone. Imagine the relief you would feel, finally being able to communicate, to understand and most of all to be understood.

Telling your story does the same thing – it creates a bonding connection that lets the prospect know that you understand what they’re going through because you’ve experienced the same problems they have.

Q. If I want to create a product or success system based upon my own personal experiences, how do I go about that?

A. If you’ve become really successful at something, you have a ready-made product you can sell to others who want to master that same skill. Here’s how to get it into product form: Recall where you were at the beginning of your success. What was the first thing you did? The second? Write down everything that you did and put it into step-by-step form.

Now you’ve got the ___ number of steps to accomplishing ___. Name it something appropriate, get the domain for that name and start marketing it. You could do it as an ebook or audio/video course, or you could offer it as a series of webinars or even one-on-one coaching. Each step will represent one chapter in your book, or one webinar, or one coaching session.

HOT TIP: You can use this exact same process to partner with anyone who’s mastered a skill others want to learn. Interview them extensively to discover exactly how they reached their success and then create the product based on the interviews. Split the profits with the expert and rinse and repeat with more experts or the same expert and different topics.

Q. I have a friend and fellow marketer who’s continually writing posts for other people’s blogs. I think she’s foolish because she’s giving away her valuable info on other blogs instead of using it on her own to boost her standing in the search engines. She says it’s worth it because she’s getting new prospects through her guest posts. Who’s right?

A. You both are correct, to a degree. While it’s true that placing her best content on her own blog may help to get her site ranking in the search engines, SEO is always a gamble. On the other hand, guest posting on popular blogs practically guarantees exposure to new prospects as well as new alliances with the blog owners.

When your friend guest posts, she’s hopefully targeting blogs that already receive plenty of traffic interested in her particular niche. This will help her to gain exposure to new audiences and get her endorsed by leaders in her field (the blog owners).

Q. I’ve contacted blog owners about being a guest blogger for them, but because I’m new in the niche I don’t get much response. What can I do?

A. Begin by posting repeatedly in their comments section. Join in the conversation, add relevant comments, ask good questions and answer other people’s questions. Hyperlink your name to your website to get new visitors (this is automatic when you fill out the comment form – just be sure to fill out the website URL box as well as your name, and your name will become a hyperlink to your URL.)

Use a catchy, memorable photo on all of your posts. Register your email address along with your photo at: en.gravatar.com

By taking part in the community, the blog owner will likely notice you and will be far more receptive next time you offer to do a blog post. In addition, visitors to the blog will also begin to recognize you and visit your blog as well.

Q. I write a newsletter, but lately I get the feeling that no one is reading it. What am I doing wrong?

A. You may need to get back in touch with your market to find out what it is they want to know. Go to forums and watch social media to find out what they’re talking about and especially what they’re asking. Ideally you should be answering their questions and helping to solve their problems, because when you do that they will read every word of your newsletter.

Q. I HATE writing headlines and subject lines, and I don’t like using headline templates. Any ideas?

A. Interestingly enough, your best headline is often buried inside your copy or your email. You already know all the best selling points about your product, how best to present it, who your target market is, and how to craft the best call to action. So forget the headline, write your copy or email, and then go back and reread what you just wrote. Oftentimes you’ll find your jewel of a headline right there inside your copy, just waiting for you to pluck it out and place it at the top.