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Let me tell you a tale about 3 small cute little turtles. They are named Gizzy, Gizmo and Gizzard. The picture to the left is Gizzard the last addition.

For Mother’s Day, Maude, my better half (and I would be dead if I said it any other way wanted a turtle. She had seen these cute little turtles at a local pet shop.

Being the softy and peace loving person I am we went to the store and came home with 2, Gizzy and Gizmo. You need a home so we bought them one of those cut little bowls (it even had a palm tree) and a jar of food.

This was going to be easy and watching them could be fun. After all how hard can it be to feed and care for two little turtles.

We had not done any research on turtles before we made the commitment. We quickly learned that it wasn’t really all that easy. Now that we had turtles we figured we should learn a bit more. Big surprise.

These weren’t just turtles but red ear slider turtles (Trachemys scripta elegans) and you think some of the marketing language is tough These cute little turtles will grow to about 10 inches across eventually. First surprise.

First Lesson - Do a bit of research first before jumping into a business model. You will still have surprises but they hopefully won’t be as big.

Now we got a used aquarium, went out and bought a ramp for them to get out of the water and figured now we are set.

Then came surprise #2. Turtles are extremely dirty creatures. They can cloud a clean aquarium with a standard pump in about a day and a half so you can’t see the other side. Hmmm. Back to researching in more depth.

Second Lesson -Even research won’t stop all the surprises. Be prepared to add more investment into your business that you were not expecting.

Out to the pet store and get a second filter made for turtles and a 10 gallon tank. Problem solved. Until 4 days later when the water was cloudy again.

Now with 3 filters running, a cleaning maintenance schedule set and a separate feeding tank we are hoping to have a clean tank to watch the cute turtles do their thing.

Will it work? Don’t know for sure but each step has improved the process and we now have a much better idea of not only what we are doing but what we will need in the future.

After finding other turtle owners and seeing the set up they have we know that we have to prepare for. (Don’t be surprised if I run a new Turtle Home Sale in the future.)

Eventually this small $30 initial investment to get Maude her Mother’s Day gift will end up in over $500 and probably closer to $1000 of expense for the new home in the future. Not exactly what I signed on for when I paid the initial $30 (That does not count feeding or God forbid a vet trip. Just the gas to get to the closest turtle vet hurts forget the vet fee.)

How does all this apply?

You need to do research before you start something new.

Take action. Yes I probably would not have bought the turtles if I had researched them properly. I have adapted and learned what was needed.

Be prepared for the unexpected. It will happen no matter how well you research. That is why action is the most important.

You won’t get it right the first time. Learn from it and continue to improve.

Are you taking action? Have you goofed it up the first time and adapted? (I do it all the time)

Leave a comment and let me know.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: adapting, marketing, researching, turtles

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Getting back to the business building series.Today is probably the most important piece of the puzzle and the one that separates the winners from the losers.

Testing and tracking

Hey I’ll be the very first person to tell you that this isn’t fun. It is where the money is though. See I am not smart enough to guess exactly what will work and what won’t. Too many personal prejudices. To easy to think like a customer and not a business person.

You need to be constantly improving your process and updating it. First you need some tools to do that. Here is what I use and what will be mentioned in this post.

• Google Analytics - A free resource
• Google Website Optimizer - A free resource
• Hits Connect - A paid service
• AWeber - A paid service

You can also grab a copy of my report Tracking Your Way To Profits.

For this discussion we will talk about your squeeze page first. After all that is the key to your business.

AWeber will allow you to add a tracking code in your form. Create a different form for each page you are testing and you can see which page got you the results.

Now you need to be sending traffic to your site. Hits Connect will allow you to see which source sent how much traffic and if you add the pixel on your thank you page you can see which source actually converted into a subscriber.

Hits Connect will also allow you to set up a rotator so you can test two pages and use the same link to send half the traffic to each. This also allows you to make changes on the fly at one place and not have to go change each traffic resource. A great time saver.

Now what do we want to test. Start with your headline. That will usually make the most difference. If your headline doesn’t catch people the rest of your copy doesn’t get read.

Keep going until you have a clear winner. Get rid of the loser and create a new test. Each time you keep the winner get rid of the loser.

Once you have a good headline you can test other parts of your page. It is important in this type of testing to only test one thing at a time so you know what made the difference.

In the meantime you are also testing your traffic sources. If you were using 5 traffic exchanges in this example my experience has shown that 2 will probably be head and shoulders above the rest. You can keep to 5 but keep changing your bottom source of traffic to test a new one. Just like the headlines keep the winners and replace the losers.

This can very easily increase your response as you test but this is a never ending process. Traffic sources change and your best source today may stink 6 months from now.

With traffic exchanges you should be able to get your squeeze pages to one signup per hundred page views or better. That should be your goal.

Now you want to be testing the same way in your email series. Take advantage of the stats you get at AWeber and use their tracking to see which offers are getting clicked on.

Also keep track of where people unsubscribe. If you are marketing correctly you will be getting unsubscribes so don’t let that part bother you. Not everyone will like your style not even affable Old Bald Guy’s like me.

What you do want to be tracking is places where the unsubscribe rate jumps. If you are seeing a significant increase in unsubscribes on email #5 and (this is important) it is not converting significantly higher then you need to look at that email.

Sometimes a really strong call to action will generate more unsubscribes but will also convert into more cash too. Look at both sides and remember what my mentor Robert Puddy says “Give them quality but ultimately the purpose of the list is to make you money.”

Likewise if certain calls to action aren’t being clicked then that needs to be addressed too.

If you are using sites like blogs to get organic search traffic or if you are using PPC you need to use Google Analytics to understand which posts are being indexed and which terms people are searching for that send them to you.

For our process we won’t get into Google Website Optimizer but it will allow you to do Taguchi testing on your squeeze pages and sales pages. Once you have gotten comfortable with the A/B testing described here it can be worth your while but there is a learning curve in using it.

Technorati Tags: aweber, Google Analytics, Google Website Optimizer, Hits Connect, testing, tracking

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Usually, when I see “free training” online, I expect it to be some kind of 5 page report or dinky review of something else.

I’ve just been reviewing Bob The Teacher’s Teleseminar Formula free apprentice program, and I can’t believe how much detailed teaching he has packed into this.

You’ll learn a ton quickly from Bob in this training, and whether you have already held your own teleseminars successfully or you laugh at the thought of you hosting one yourself, this is a must read.

Teleseminar Formula

My top 3 favorites from the book:

1) How to make mcney from a teleseminar even before you pick up the phone… (see page 33)

2) How to increase affiliate commissions by holding a specific type of teleseminar… (page 14)

3) Where to get a free affiliate program so you can have others promote your teleseminars for you (page 37)

As you can imagine, just those three tips alone make this free training worth a lot more.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bob starts charging for it.

Better not take any chances - create your free apprentice account now and start learning the 7 Secrets to Success With Teleseminars…

You’ll see the 7 Secrets To Success With Teleseminars is more than a 50+ page ebook - you also get an audio MP3 and study guide to make sure you get the most out of it all.

Teleseminar Formula

One more thing… you will have the opportunity to learn even more from Bob.

I recommend you jump on the lower price you’re offered right away and take the complete course.

Still not sure if this is for you? Check out the video below.

 

Go get your free copy of Teleseminar Formula.

As always your comments and questions are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: bob jenkins, product creation, teleseminar, teleseminar formula, teleseminar review

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Well here in the US it is Independence Day. Hope if you are here that you are having a great holiday. If you are not I hope you are having a great Friday.

One of the things I look back on at a time like this is how nice it is to be independent from the JOB. One of the ways of creating that independence is building a business from home. Selling in various niches has had a lot to do with accomplishing that.

Using blogs as my primary site builder has allowed me to be in various markets and have them run almost on autopilot. Lets be clear there is effort involved in creating and maintaining these. But…

When I want off I take off. If my children or grand children have something I can attend. Until I left the plastics plant I never was able to get to my brother’s annual pig roast. Seems I was always scheduled for work. Well tomorrow there won’t be a week in review because I will be at…

My brother’s pig roast.

That brings us to the release this week of a new site to speed up the process of creating, improving and maintaining these types of sites - Firepow.

Now I have gotten a lot of questions about this product - many more than I usually get from a recommendation. I have even had people call me on the phone.

So to answer some of those I created a video so you can better understand if this is for you or not. (If you are niche marketing and use blogs the answer is YES

Take a few minutes to view it and leave your comments below.

Technorati Tags: firepow, independence, independence day, niche blogging, niche marketing

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This will be a bit of break from the business building series but not really. Yes I know I am talking in circles.

Here’s the scoop.

If you are using a blog in a niche market you need to do all of the following.

• Create the blog with all the plugins so it is search engine friendly
• Add content continuously
• Promote the blog through bookmarking, trackbacks, RSS submissions
• Check your status in the serps for your keywords
• Keep track of where you are on each niche

Now that is a very basic list but that is something called work. Personally, I out source most of that except for the blog install. (I tend to be a bit fussy about those .

Then Firepow launched today and set the whole thing on its ear.

It will automatically install your blog with the plugins and turn them on. (Yes there are a few things you need to tweak afterwards but 98% of it is done automatically. They even give you a checklist of the things you need to do.)

Now as to content I have recommended Blog Desk for that but I had to go in and add my tags, change the title tags, etc before I would publish my blog. Firepow allows me to do all of that at once and set up my content to drip in at a rate I choose. There is even a tool to easily add H1 and H2 tags to your posts.

Once you have set up the bookmarks you can automate that from within the control panel. (I do like automation .While I am adding content I can search from within the control panel and find similar sites to trackback to on that specific topic.

After you install the blog and get content up there you can submit to 40 RSS directories with one click. (Saves at least an hour over manual submission or $60 if you are paying for it.)

There is a section to keep track of your notes so you can control everything from one place. Also do a check on your own ranking in the serps for your keywords and see the top 10 sites that you are competing against easily.

Now if this was all that Firepow did it would be worthwhile but there are 14 custom plugins that were developed just for this platform.

My favorite but far from the only one is the ability to add related videos to the bottom of your post from You Tube. If someone clicks them they open a new page on your site (not send them away to You Tube) so you still have a chance to get Adsense clicks or sell an affiliate product.

This platform does all the time consuming pain in the a## stuff for you so that you can spend more time doing the stuff that pays - Finding profitable niche products and content that pre-sells.

Check out Firepow - You will really love it.

I have added a video walk through of the tutorials at Firepow Review on my blog at WordPress Made Easy.

As always your comments and questions are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: blog, blogging, firepow, niche blogging, niche marketing

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I knew Lucid SEO from David Congreave and Roy Miller was going to be big…maybe the “missing link” most folks were looking for to start slapping SEO and getting massive traffic.

But I really didn’t know how big this was going to be.

I looked at the pre-launch, “rough” copy of Lucid SEO and I knew it was going to be good. But the final version I just got my hands on is shockingly good. And it taught me a huge lesson. More on that in a second, but first…

If you’ve been longing for free traffic from the search engines, but you though you had to be a PhD in search to make that happen, you MUST grab Lucid. Here’s why:

* It gives you 14 practical, easy-to-implement tips you can implement within an hour or two of reading the book

* It tells you the ONE tag on your pages you have to hit like a ton of bricks

* It reveals “insider” tips and tactics that even some so-called SEO experts miss

Lucid SEO skips past all the theory and gives you practical advice real people can understand and implement.

Bottom line: Do you want to be on the first page of Google for kick-butt keywords in your niche within 30-60 days? Then you need this book immediately. Go here to see what I mean.

Lucid SEO

Most people think SEO is some sort of voodoo that you have to a propeller head geek to understand. Nope. These are regular guys who figured out how to manhandle SEO and crush the search engines within a couple months.

Now they’re giving you the formula so you can use it for any site you want.

Based on what I’ve seen, this is something that needs to be in every online marketer’s library. You don’t have to be a techie…you don’t have to be geek…you certainly don’t have to be brilliant. You just need Lucid SEO.

If I were you, I’d drop everything I was doing and head over to this page right now:

Lucid SEO

The title of the book says it all. SEO can indeed be “lucid”–absolutely clear. This one book could turn your world upside down.

Imagine getting wave after profitable wave of absolutely free traffic, while everybody else struggles to break even on their AdWords sweat. Wouldn’t that be great? It’s all waiting for you here:

Lucid SEO

You’re hearing about this as early as possible, but there’s no time to waste. David and Roy tell me they’re not kidding about closing the doors. Frankly, I’m surprised they’re waiting…their launch price is silly low for what you’re getting. And they’re not kidding about raising it, or about taking this off the market VERY soon. So get over there fast:

Lucid SEO

And by the way, you now have two options to get in the game. You can join monthly, and get the material over time (and quit anytime you want). Or you can pay a ridiculously low one-time fee and get the entire package in one go. This is too good to pass up:

Lucid SEO

Technorati Tags: free traffic, lucid seo, search engine traffic, seo, traffic

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