I recently bought this plug in after a recommendation from one of my colleagues. Thanks Marion!

I love a new toy and Impact Template Builder did not disappoint. For a while now I’ve been creating landing pages for myself and my clients and I have always had to create them outside of WordPress if I wanted them to be a different “brand”. That meant opening up Dreamweaver and creating the pages from scratch using html, very time consuming.

So when I found out the about Impact Template Builder plugin for WordPress I was excited to give it a try. It is a premium plugin so I had to buy it, but it was only $87 compare to the $400 I paid for Dreamweaver!

Impact is a really Powerful, easy to use WordPress plugin and it allows me to create an unlimited number of totally unique page templates right there within the WordPress enviroment. It is extrememly intuitive to use and is basically drag and drop with minimal amount of coding knowlege. It helps to know some CSS but honestly it is so easy to use.

It is completely compatible with all WordPress Themes. Impact in only activated on the pages & posts you want to use it on and it gives you total control on how the pages will look.

You can create an unlimited amount of templates and they are great for landing pages, squeeze page and you can even create a mini site within your main site and it will look totally seperate.

I’m really starting to get the hang of it now. If you need to create landing pages quickly and want them with their own look and feel, Impact Template Builder is definately a handy addition to your toolbox!

Check out the video from Eric Hamm (the creator)incidentally Eric also created the Frugal WordPress theme which was a game changer, the guy’s a genius! The video walks you through the software and it’s only 7 minutes long.

Today I have finally released my latest report on how to build your mailing list like the pros do it.

It covers the 5 essentials:

Mailing List Basics
Covering all the basics that you NEED to know , including software options, deliverability, mail format and so on

Easy Methods for Increasing The Size Of Your List
The “Surprise Secret Formula” for mailing lists

Managing Separate Lists – List Segmentation
Target exactly the right subscribers with your email marketing using filters and sub lists

Autoresponders
Creating a continual stream of income, setting up autoresponders and autoresponder sequences… staying in touch

Testing, Tweaking & Tracking
Testing and optimising your opt in forms for you blog and landing pages

Why not download it and check it out

Ok so you have your Facebook page all up and running, what now?

Today I have read four articles which really put that question into a nutshell, or is that four nutshells? Anyway the first artilce is a Facebook page business 101, just to get some myths zapped and to cover the basics. The next thee articles cover loads of different ways of telling everyone that you now have a Facebook page and you want them to see it.

Social media marketing has its own set of rules or etiquette if you will. It is not good enough to create your page then go a bang up a load of offers and products to sell. Build a relationship first and then go bang up some offers and some things to sell! I’m obviously being a bit facetious there but you know what I mean.

Here are the links to those greate articles, by Mari Smith and Social Media Examiner…

• The Facebook 101 Business Guide

• 21 Creative Ways To Increase Your Facebook Fanbase

• How To Better Engage Facebook Fan Page Fans

• 13 Ways To Move Your Facebook Fans To Action

This should be the main focus of anybody trying to create a business online. No if’s no but’s!

1. Define your market
2. Develop an ethical bribe – Solve a problem for your market
3. Create an Aweber account
4. Create a WordPress blog
5. Adding your opt in box to your site
6. Add relevant unique content to your blog
7. Drive traffic to your blog

Define Your Market

That’s it just 7 steps, and by targeted I mean that using this 7 step process you will attract visitors that are actually looking to your content for a solution to their problem. Define your market, find out what problems they are having and give them the solution.

So how do we “define” our target market? Well as luck would have it my one of my previous blog posts covers just that. It’s a journey of discovery and it is dreadfully easy. All we need is Google and a few other online tools, a couple of hours and we are done.

Check out that article here and I strongly suggest you do this first. Actually even if you are not trying to build a list, getting amongst your market and finding out what they are up to and what problems they are having is an excellent thing to do, it can become a great source of ideas for other content too like blog posts for example.

If done extensively and correctly you should end up with some idea of your potential client fears, frustrations, dreams and aspirations…. This knowledge is pure gold, I might of mentioned that before!

Develop an Ethical Bribe

Ok so we are armed with some fantastic knowledge of our market and potential clients. It is now time to create our “ethical bribe”. All we need to do is solve a problem for them. A prime example of a good bribe is my last report 7 Simple Step To Really Ramp Up The Traffic To Your Website. This addressed the problem most people have online which is getting more traffic, the report worked really well and I added a load more people to my mailing list.

The average internet surfer is getting more and more sophisticated so I am starting to find that one needs to push the envelope to get their attention. “The Crash Course” is something with a lot more perceived value than a simple report and is definitely worth giving a try.

After searching your market you should have a set of frequently asked questions that people in your niche are constantly asking. Create a multi part PDF or better still a video series that answers all of these questions. At the end of the video promote your products or services or simply your website. This is a solid piece of content and will create an excellent first impression. Hopefully they will be opting in left, right and centre!

Open an Aweber Account

The next important thing to do is open an Aweber account, this is where your email list will live and where you create your opt in forms. Instead of me taking you through the process I have added a link here on how to set up your first campaign. Opening an account is easy and you get the first month for $1. Check out his video on how to get started once you have opened your account.

Create a WordPress Blog

The next step if you have not already got a blog, is to set up a WordPress blog. This has is quite a simple process which is outline in this video tutorial. Bluehost will quickly walk you through the steps to get you started. There is obviously a lot more that can be done with the functionality, SEO, the design but you can source information on that very easily on my blog or with Google.

Adding Relevant, Unique Content

The next thing to do is populate your blog with relevant unique content, if you struggle to write blog posts you can outsource to a company such as Task Us. But remember the market discovery we did earlier, this can be a great source of inspiration to you for writing blog pots, again think about your client’s fears, frustration, their dreams and aspirations. Look to other articles for more ideas, Ezine Articles is a great place for this.

Being unique, interesting and maybe controversial are ways to grab people attention so bear that in mind. There are some great articles out there with information on how to create great content. Here is a post from one of my favourite blogs Pro Blogger

Install Your Opt in Form in Your Sidebar

Your sidebar is the best place to put your sign up form, top right is prime real estate on a web page and your visitors eyes are naturally drawn there. We simply go to the widgets section of the dashboard in WordPress and drag and drop a spare “text widget” to the relevant position in the sidebar, we then go to Aweber to get the form code and drop it in and click “save”.

Here is a video that shows you exactly how to create your form in Aweber and to install it on WordPress.

Drive Traffic to Your Blog

Once you have all the above set up it is time to turn on the traffic! My report I mentioned earlier about ramping up traffic to your site is a great place to start. This will help get your brand out there and give you plenty of exposure.

Traffic generation does not stop there obviously there are loads of other strategies and tac tics you can use to pull in the punters.

I’ve listed some below with links through to a third party “how to” of each one.

• Read my report “7 Steps To Really Ramp Up The Traffic To Your Website”
• Use Pay Per Click advertising at Google, Yahoo & Microsoft
• Go to Stumble Upon and create an account, use their Ad program.
• Use Facebook Ads – Connect with more than 500 million potential customers
• Install the All In One SEO plugin
• Submit an XML site map to Google
• Use Ryan Deiss’s Authority Code Strategy to create quality back links to your site
• Keep writing great quality, original, fresh content – This is the most effective means for increasing traffic to a website; offering people something that they cannot obtain elsewhere, or at least, not to the level of quality that you are offering it.

Conclusion

Creating a mailing list is one of the best things you can do for your online business, you are creating an asset and in time it will be your ATM, anytime you need more money you email your list with a fantastic offer!

It is a simple formula that Jeff Walker created originally TT + IB = HFL! Now excuse the Americanism but the formula is simply

Targeted Traffic sent to an Irresistible Bribe = A Huge Freakin’ List

On that note I will wrap this little post up.

I would love to hear your successes or otherwise in your quest to create a massive mailing list, feel free to leave a comment below.

Walkthrough the new Digg with Kevin Rose from Digg Videos on Vimeo.

I have pulled together 5 of my favourite online resources, these are website I constantly go back to learn and remind myself of what I should be doing. These 5 resources cover 99% of what you need to know to become successful online. Let me know what you think in the comments box below or simply click the Facebook like button above. Enjoy!

Resource One

The first resource is Michael Dunlop’s game changing site IncomeDiary.com, not only does this site have an awesome design that looks real sexy, the content is even more awesome. I was hooked from the first article I read which was “Michaels Story”. I briefly met Michael around 6 years ago; we were at a Yanik Silver seminar, 2006 I think it was. Since then Michael has gone on to become one of the leading bloggers IN THE WORLD! The boy did well, don’t you think?

His whole site is mainly a step by step tutorial on how to build a blogging business from the beginning, great mix of content from articles, videos & interviews.  For anyone just starting out focus on this site alone, you will learn so much!

Resource Two

The second site on my list is WPBeginners.com, If you have not used WordPress before bookmark this site right now. It is a great resource for help with installing, configuring and basic using of the WordPress platform. WordPress is now one of the most popular CMS’s out there today. As the title suggests it is great for beginners.

Resource Three

I’m not sure where to start with SocialMediaExaminer.com. There is absolutely tons of great information on this site. If you are new to Social Media bookmark this one as it is probably the best Social Media guide out there today. It has a great look and feel about it which makes the information easy to absorb. Posts come in the form of Case Studies, Vidoes, Interviews, How to’s, Tools & Resources. I love this site and it has taught me so much. I often use posts to send out to my audience. From beginners to advanced it is all there!

Resource Four

ProBlogger.net has been around for a while now in internet terms and is probably one of the the pioneers for Pro Blogging information for Pro Bloggers. Again there is loads of content on this site for beginners and the more advanced. It is heavily geared towards making money as the title would suggest. Some popular posts include, How bloggers make money from blogs, Ten top tips for writing a blog post
and Five ways to build your blogs voice. I strongly recommend subscribing to the feed on this blog. Darren writes some absolute gems.

Resource Five

CopyBlogger.com is brilliant, if you struggle as a writer (I know I do) you will find this site invaluable. Loads and loads of articles on copywriting for many different areas. You can find out how to write powerful headlines and read about how important they are. How to write compelling content for you blog etc etc. It also talks about Search Engine Optimisation, how to create great landing pages. This is defintalely another blog for your RSS reader.

LinkedIn has had a reputation for being a bit like an old gentleman’s club where everybody looks down their nose at new members.

I’m here to tell you that those days have gone! Hoorah! LinkedIn has recently added loads of new features and has even started looking a bit modern too.

Ok so it’s never going to have the laid back atmosphere of Twitter or Facebook but that’s cool because it is a slightly different species.

There is still a tiny bit of “old gentleman’s club” about it and that is because it is geared more toward the corporate world. Consultants, business owners, corporate employees and freelancers tend to be the “norm”. But it is still a great place to meet people and create solid business relationships and to showcase ones expertise.

I have 7 tips below to help you get the most out of your membership at Linked In, don’t be frightened to get in amongst it, there will be no Lording it up from anyone on my watch!

Tip One

Spend some quality time on your profile – this is the window to your soul. This is where a business connection starts, it you have not bothered to complete your profile properly then no one (and quite rightly so) is going to look past that. So beef it up, create a compelling profile and finish it off with a strong profile summary.

Tip Two

Add Connections! – It sounds obvious but yes add connections continuously. Once you have added everybody in your address book and email client, you can start adding people you hook up with on Linked In, through Linked In groups and all the other social media networking activities.

Tip Three

Recommendations – Ok there is a little etiquette that needs to be adhered to here when we ask for and give out recommendations. It is ok to ask people you work with Or have worked with in the past to give you a shout on Linked In. If you have worked with someone and your experience was a good one then give them a recommendation. Most of the time they will recommend you back.

Tip Four

Get connected - If you have a blog you can connect it to your LinkedIn account. Depending on your blog platform Linked In provide applications to hook them up, it’s automatic so when you post to your blog it gets fed to your Profile and Status feed. There are also tools such as http://hootsuite.com which is great for managing all your social media platforms.

Tip Five

Join or start a Group – If you only do one of these tips… make sure it’s this one, groups are one of the most underused features of LinkedIn. Starting a group is real easy and will create a lot of interest but if you have only just joined my advice would be to join as many groups as you can. Not just any old group but groups that are closely aligned to your niche or area of expertise. Once you have joined these groups it is now time to get involved. You can participate by posting news & blog articles, joining discussions and posting events or even job notices that you think will be of interest to the group. The more you participate the more you will get noticed as someone it would be good to be connected with.

Just by participating in two or three groups you will end up meeting dozens of people in the same industry as you. And you will learn a lot too!

Tip Six

Create a Poll – In my experience people like a good survey or Poll as it is termed in LinkedIn. Polls are a great way to get real time feedback from your peers & target audience. When you have posted to the group, created an event or just want some general feedback, use LinkedIn to carry out a poll. You can advertise it to your targeted industry groups and get some really great feedback.

Tip Seven

Ask Questions and Answer Questions – This is all about getting involved and creating activity around your area of expertise. Ask questions about anything related to your market. Ask about Start Up Businesses, Conferences, Event Planning, Group Creations or just general LinkedIn support. There are always bags of members willing to help.

On the other side of the coin is answering questions. This is where you can show off your knowledge and expertise and in the process end up meeting new contacts. There is a rating system with LinkedIn answers and getting the tag of “Best Answer” will give your creditability a great boost and will indicate to everyone that you are indeed an expert in your field.

So in conclusion you can see you can build your network with minimal effort. The key is to be present on Linked in everyday. Really get involved, join the conversation and you will soon be a powerful networker.

What does what?

I have been working with several clients on Facebook pages recently and it has come to light that the whole “like”, “share” and “become a fan” thing is a tad confusing for some people.

This post will clear that up for us. At the end of the post please feel free to ask any other questions you may have about Facebook.

Ok so here is what these things actually do (or did, in the case of “become a fan”)…

1. Like – as in like a status, a photo or more recently a website or blog
2. Become a fan –You can become a fan (“like” a page, a group, a person and a product.
3. Share – If you visit website and blogs you will notice that some have a little square Facebook icon with Share written on it. To post to your profile wall.

I’m not sure why but no one at Facebook seemed to think that it would be confusing to start calling all these three things “LIKE”!

“LIKE” on Facebook is now context sensitive and mostly depends on where you are and what you are looking at.

Ok now let’s take the originally interactivity actions and explain them in the new “Like” era

Like is the dominating action now when interacting with Facebook and is just the start of Facebook’s infiltration into web search. (More on that in a later post) You can now “like” a status, a photo, a comment, a friend, and outside of Facebook you can “like” blog posts and web pages if they have the like button installed.

You can install the like “button” using this tool

http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like

Or for WordPress they have a plug in

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/facebook-like-button-for-wordpress/

Become a fan is now “LIKE”. If you are looking at a product, service, or Facebook page (i.e. a business page such as mine) you click the “like” button and you essentially become a fan and that information is added to your INFO tab on your Facebook profile.If you have your own website or blog and you want to give your visitors the option to “like” and associated Facebook page you can use the Facebook Like Box

You can install the Like Box on your website or blog very easily by using this tool:

http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like-box

Share is now like AND share (LOL) This functionality is where you read a blog or website from outside of Facebook and you want to share it on your profile wall. You simply click on the little square Facebook share icon and the post will show up on your wall.

You can find the code to create a share button here:

http://www.facebook.com/share/

Or for WordPress users there is a plug in (obviously)

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/facebook-share-new/

While we are at it… The little green Tweet me box which is roughly the same size its fits nicely next to the Facebook share button, can be found here

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tweetmeme/

So in conclusion

It can be confusing and a tad annoying but looking at it with my web business owner’s hat on, I think of the three options like this:

To increase the fan base (or amount of “likes”) to your Facebook page that is associated with your website, install a Facebook Like Box in your websites side bar.

To have people be able to click on something on your blog or website and have a news item posted to their wall about that item use the Share Icon Widget

And Finally

You can achieve the same result as a share button using a “Like Button”

I hope that explanations helps. Remember if you have any   questions about whole “Like” phenomenon please leave a comment below.

The growth of Facebook in the past two years is difficult to ignore. So with that in mind I’m on a mission to help get Facebook pages up and running for those of you who want to stay ahead of the game. A compelling Facebook page designed specifically for your business should be an integral part of your business marketing strategy.

Facebook provides a great opportunity for exposure, Google indexing, live search ability and potential client engagement. It doesn’t matter if you are a solopreneur, a small company or an established major player in your market the opportunities presented by Facebook are incredible.

The way Facebook is set up to collect data from the user makes it easier for us as business owners to reach our target customers. We can “choose” our audience specific criteria such as location age & interests and we have the ability to connect with more than 500 million potential customers!

Check out this list of 10 successful Facebook Business Pages to get an idea of what I’m talking about.

Click here to find out how I can help you create your brand new branded Facebook page so you can start creating a massive following of targeted potential customers

It has never been so easy to find out what your competition is up to. There are some really simple strategies available for spying on them.

We can find out how they are advertising, we can find out how much traffic they get & we can even see what keywords are working for them.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here as I want to share some simple ways for finding out who your competition is. We need to find out who the main players are in our market if we want any chance of competing with them.

We find out what they are doing, and then do it better. This is a concept is called Piggy Backing.

We all have this grand notion that whatever we are doing is original and that no one has ever done it before… I am 99% sure that anything that we can think of has already been done before in some form or other. I understand this statement might upset a few people but I honestly believe it.

I’m obviously just talking about internet marketing here so don’t get me wrong.

So how can we discover what our market is up to?

Here are 11 steps to doing just that:

1. Keyword Research – do some extensive keyword research on your market using Google External Keyword Tool. Create a spreadsheet of all the related keywords. Have a brainstorming session and think of all the things related to your market.
2. Who Are The Main Player In Your Niche? – A good way to find out who they are is to do some Google searches on your main keywords, then note down who the top Adwords advertisers are.
3. What Forums & Communities Exist? Make a list of places where your target market likes to get together online. Use Google and search for <niche> forums and <niche> discussions
4. What Are The Top Blogs? – Again use Google or Technorati.com to find the most popular blogs in your market. Visit the links in these blogs sidebars to find even more blogs
5. Sign up to their Newsletter – or subscribe to the RSS feeds
6. Who is on the Front Page of Google – check out the organic results for your keywords who comes out on top
7. Build a Swipe File of Related Articles – search article directories such as ezine articles and copy all the articles you can find that relate to your market. Just for research NOT to plagiarize obviously
8. What Videos Exist? – Go to You Tube and search using your keywords, see what comes up, note down the videos with the most views
9. Set Up a Google Alert – set up an alert for your name, your company name and some of your main keywords. You will receive an email every time you are mentioned by other people google.com/alerts
10. Who Is Getting The Most Traffic? – Use Compete.com and Alexa.com to discover who has the most traffic in your market. You can set up comparison graphs and all sorts. Good fun this one
11. What Are The Latest Trends? – Go to Google.com/trends to find out what is new in your market

Once you have done this you will have loads of great information on your competition and it will give you a clear picture of what you need to do to get involved AND do it better?

Pure Gold!

Let me know if you have any new ideas for researching your market…