Internet marketers seem to be all too familiar with procrastination. That is not to say ALL internet marketers procrastinate but it is definitely something that most people have had to deal with at some point in their internet marketing life. Procrastinating is when we put off something that we should do right now. It is easy to fall into this pattern but thankfully once you are out of it, you can easily stay out.

1. Minimize Choices
One of the biggest time wasters for internet marketers is the choice of what to do. There are so many guides out there telling us about the hundreds of methods to make money online, it is little wonder people never get started. The key is to choose one method and carry it through completely. Then you can move on to something else. By narrowing down your choices of what to do, you pave the way for action.

2. Use Lists and Stick to Them
Making a list is one thing, sticking to it is another. If you make a list for the day, don’t do anything else until those items are checked off. The secret is to make your list realistic. There is little point having a list of 100 tasks for the day. Keep it short and simple and all those little jobs will add up to success over time.

3. Use a Digital Timer
There are handy free timer applications you can download and set for when you are working. If you get distracted easily, just turn the timer on for 30 minutes and work hard for that half hour period. Reward yourself after that by walking away from the computer. Doing this just a few times per day can add up to several hours of solid work time.

4. Unplug the Internet
This final tip can be a big time saver. If you have a habit of checking your email every five minutes or wasting time on Facebook, simply unplug your internet cord so you have no access while you are working. If you have to work online then this cant be avoided but become more disciplined in your internet usage.

These simple time management tips for internet marketers will save you time and assist your earnings.

Social media, or social networking, is a form of viral marketing which utilizes many different sites and formats. It can include using YouTube to distribute videos, Facebook and MySpace to make a network of friends or Digg, Stumbleupon and other services to tag and rate articles and websites. There is no doubt that there are internet marketers who are using social networking to their advantage and as a result have grown their business tremendously. On the other hand there are those who have not gained many benefits. The secret comes down to knowing how to use social networking in the most time effective, and cost effective way.

You should always be thinking about return on investment (ROI) when you are undertaking any new marketing strategy. How much time and money must you invest in order to get a return? Thankfully social networking is generally free, unless you are paying someone to take on the tasks for you. Social media is all about making contacts and building a brand. This brand can be yourself, your website or your products. Whatever the case, using this brand across a broad range of social platforms is the best strategy to take.

Some of the most popular social networking sites that internet marketers use include:

MySpace
Blogger
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
StumbleUpon
Digg
Yahoo! Groups
Xanga
MSN Groups
LinkedIn

Many internet marketers have been using the site Twitter for some time. This site involves ‘following’ other marketers so you can see what they are up to. Although big marketers have had great success with Twitter, less popular internet marketers have a hard time getting enough followers to make it worthwhile. For that reason, Twitter is best left to people with an existing reputation, rather than as a method of building one.

Possibly the most valuable sites for internet marketing social media is Youtube and Digg. There are many IM videos on YouTube that subtly promote websites and products. Digg allows people to post articles whilst other users rate them. A very popular article can lead to the ‘Digg effect’ where a site gets inundated with visitors for a short time.

There is no doubt that social networking, when used properly, can be a highly effective internet marketing tool but if used without thought it can result in wasted time and disappointing results.

It is no longer enough to leave very short, unhelpful comments on blogs with your URL. This is now seen as spam and as adding no value to the blog in question. In many cases, certainly on all good blogs, these short comments are not approved. That means you are completely wasting your time. Instead your time should be spent thoroughly immersing yourself in the blog comment conversation. Most blogs now encourage discussion of a blog post or issue and this can go on for many days or even weeks. By continually adding your comments and linking to your site through your name, you will encourage reader to click through and hopefully subscribe to your blog too.

The best way to see if blog commenting is working for you is to check your website statistics. Are any of the referring URL’s from blog comments you have left? If so, it is working well. Blog commenting has the ability to bringing traffic for many years, provided the blog stays online and comments are not deleted. When you look at it that way, it is very worthwhile taking time to write well thought out comments, almost mini articles in some cases.

Tips for Leaving Blog Comments

Your blog comments should be helpful and detailed. As mentioned, one liners simply don’t work anymore. The key is to find the line between getting to the point and providing just enough information for people to see that you know what you’re talking about and as such to gain curiosity as to what your own website or blog is about.

Rambling comments are not the way to go as people will skip through them. A comment of 100-150 words gives you enough space to make a counter argument or opinion and generate some more responses that you can too comment on in future posts.

Blog commenting is a highly effective traffic generation method and one that you should consider dedicating time to.

What are blog bullies?
Blog bullies are bloggers who post mean, criticizing or downright rude comments aimed at other bloggers or webmasters. It is called bullying because it is not far removed from the bullying that goes on in a school playground, except it is totally verbal. These virtual bullies gain great pleasure in posting controversial content even if it highly offends someone else.

There is a difference between being an opinionated blogger and bring one who is purposefully nasty. In most cases nasty comments are completely uncalled for and often indicate a lack of maturity in the blogger. This can lead to a decline in readership and in the worst cases, a complete boycott by all readers in favor of other bloggers.

Blog bulling can involve:

- Someone making fun of you
- Someone criticizing the way you look by way of photos
- Someone posting detracting comments about your personal life
- Someone posting private information about you without your permission

The above are all examples of blog bullying. It is easy to be a bully online – nobody can see you, nobody can easily find you and you can taunt people who you would otherwise not say boo at in real life. It makes you wonder how often a 30 year old blogger is being bullied by a 15 year old – something that would not occur too often in the real world.

Blogging can bring forward strong emotions, particularly when controversial topics are on the table. But bulling and posting nasty comments only serves to weaken a blog rather than strengthen it and eventually means that the readership will turn against the writer. After all, bullying has always been thought of as highly immature.

Some blog bullies take it a step further and even bash celebrities and well known people. This can be more than an inconvenience – it can lead to legal trouble. Bloggers should be extra careful when they are thinking of posting derogatory remarks aimed at someone well known as chances are someone will see it and not like it, leading to action.

Blog bullying can also take place in blog comments and be completely the opposite of what the site blogger stands for. In this case comments should be always moderated and distasteful remarks deleted.

There is no doubt that the vast majority of bloggers is doing the right thing and will never become embroiled in legal issues. In any case, there are over 70 million blogs predicted to be online so the number of cases is tiny in proportion. But is this number large enough to scare bloggers out of free speech and into censorship? Should bloggers have to alter their site content or even remove controversial content? That is a question many bloggers are now asking.

In reality, blogging is no different than putting a regular website online. Sure, blogging makes it easy to post content to and they are generally updated more regularly than normal sites but the possibility exists that controversial content can be posted anywhere online, not just on blogs.

Some examples that can land you in legal trouble include making threats on your blog directed at anyone else (even if you don’t believe they read your blog), harassing others either directly or indirectly and even making comments that are racist or criticize religions or cultures. Basically if someone reads your blogs and doesn’t like what they read, becomes offended or is just plain in a bad mood, there is the small possibility they will seek action against you.

Revealing state or national secrets is another no, no, as is releasing corporate secrets. If you are in a position to have this knowledge then keeping it to yourself is your best bet unless you want a legal battle.

Copyright infringement is a major problem online but it is highly unlikely copyright material will make it into a court of law. Nonetheless it is possible for this to occur.

Overall there is no real need for bloggers to fear writing what they wish. Keeping in mind the age old laws about copyright infringement, liability and other legal hot spots, bloggers can remain censorship free and worry free throughout their blogging careers.

Internet Marketing Spending Tips

Buy Only What You Need

You may think you ‘need’ all those ebooks from gurus that promise fortunes but in reality you do not. Most ebooks do not present much new information. Strategies and ideas can be seen online for free in forums and IM blogs. From now slow your internet marketing spending buying guru ebooks and start putting what you know into action. It may help to unsubscribe from some mailing list to avoid sales pitches if you are subscribed to too many. The only things you should buy are products which will definitely increase your income from day one. Generally this would be content, web designs and advertising.

Cancel some Memberships and Subscriptions

Do you have subscriptions to many services and websites? Are you really getting much use out of them? Doing a spring clean can reveal just how much internet marketing spending you do each month on memberships. Cancel the ones which you are not directly benefiting from. The best memberships to keep are generally ones which offer content such as PLR articles and ebooks as these can be used immediately to grow your business.

Stop Buying Traffic

Is your internet marketing spending on useless traffic? If so stop right now. Most traffic schemes are scams and rarely deliver quality traffic. Focus instead on quality and targeted organic and PPC traffic only.

Study Your Adwords Spending

How long has it been since you went through your PPC ad groups to see which are working and which internet marketing spending you are wasting you money on? Doing this can save you hundreds of dollars per month.

Stop Learning, Start Implementing

Although you don’t directly do internet marketing spending when you read forums and blogs all day, you are losing money by not working. It is easy to spend all day long on IM forums and blogs, reading and justifying this behavior by saying you are learning. You may be learning, but when will you put these ideas into action? Make sure learning only takes up 10% of your time.

These five tips will stop you wasting money and stop you wasting time. Once you eliminate everything that you don’t need you will be amazed at how much internet marketing spending can be saved, and how much clearer your work schedule will look.

1. Remember that first sequence messages are sent immediately
If you don’t want a message sent right away then keep that in mind when setting up your sequence because Aweber will send it immediately. If you are not happy with your sequence starting so soon then use the first message as a simple welcome message and let your content start on message number two.

2. Don’t add messages to an existing sequence
Aweber uses numbers for each sequence message so if you try to add another in the middle somewhere, the numbers will get messed up. This will result in your sequence becoming jumbled which if you are delivering a course, can spell disaster.

3. Set up automation rules
Use the List Settings > Automation options to unsubscribe people from one list if they have joined another. This is handy if you have a promotional list, and a buyers list. You would not want buyers to stay on the promo list once they have bought your product.

4. No line breaks in variables
It is easy to accidentally insert link breaks between a variable opening and closing bracket when you are setting up a custom variable. If you make this mistake then variable substitution will not occur.

5. No automatic subscriptions
Just because a person has subscribed somewhere else or is a buyer of yours, it does not mean you can put them on your list without their permission. Make sure all your members have opted in by choice.

6. One email each day
Aweber can not guarantee that more than one email a day will be delivered, most likely as an anti-spam measure. Making sure you only send one email per day is the best way to achieve high receiving and open rates.

These simple Aweber tips will help you to avoid problems that many other marketers experience in their initial learning stages. Aweber can be a complex thing to master but it doesn’t take long to get the important tasks down pat. Avoiding these common mistakes and others like then will save you time and frustration.

Surprise Your Readers
People love the unexpected. Make yourself unpredictable by doing things differently once in a while. This could be taking a new direction, using video or just simply something you don’t normally do. This keeps people interested.

Be Funny
Most bloggers are overly serious so being humorous can make your blog stand out. Blogs should be entertaining and not full and readers should not fall asleep reading your posts.

Predict the Future
Occasionally you can use your knowledge to make some bold claims about the future related to your niche topic. People will take notice, particularly if you have some authority on the subject.

Be Honest
People can pick a liar from a mile off; they can also pick those who are skirting around the truth. Telling the absolute truth is bound to gain attention.

Tell Stories
People love stories and stories can put a lot of weight behind your posts. Think up some great short stories and post them once a month or so. People will look forward to these posts as part of your schedule.

Break The News
If you can be the first to break a story, then your blog will be linked to like crazy. Stay on top of events to put yourself in this envious position.

Use Pictures
Pictures can tell a thousand words. They can also be used to entertain. Why not find a funny picture to go with a special post once per week?

Disprove Facts
If other bloggers are all talking about a particular topic but you can prove its wrong, do it! Being controversial gains you attention.

Put Readers First
Readers want to feel special. Write for them and you will be rewarded.

Quality over Quantity
Rather than post 3 unexciting posts per day, cut down to a few times per week and make them longer, more interesting and well researched posts. These posts will stay around a lot longer than short, meaningless blog posts.

These ten hot tips are great ways to get your readers hooked to your blog as well as attract new readers.

Will Social Media increase Sales?

Firstly, let’s just dispel the myth that social media marketing does not lead to a direct increase in sales. Here are some examples to prove this: Sony announced in February that through Twitter they had earned an extra £1million in sales, Dell announced in June last year that their presence on Twitter accounted for $3 million dollars increase in sales. You might argue that these are two big companies and they already have a brand reputation. However, other smaller companies have also experienced increased sales through this form of marketing. John Fluevog Boots & Shoes Ltd, a small shoe making company in Canada, reported a 40% increase in sales in 2009, the same year it started social media marketing, this was not by chance.

So how can social media marketing contribute to increased sales for your company? Social media tools allow you access to millions of people. A television advert will reach the people watching at that time and allows for no interaction with the consumer. One tweet can reach millions of people. Sainsbury’s for example regularly tweet their latest offers. Anyone wanting to keep up with these can simply follow Sainsbury’s on Twitter. This gives a much bigger potential customer base and allows for sales to increase, whilst also creating brand awareness. Furthermore, people can respond to these tweets, which provides a forum for customer interaction and thus customer insight. Your business can emulate this, tweeting your promotions provides free advertising. If this is done creatively, it really can boost sales and get your company noticed.

Social Media Can be Viral

Social media marketing works in a similar way to other forms of marketing; it is viral. A small company initially works on a word of mouth basis, people tell their friends. This type of marketing, especially Twitter and Facebook, work with the ‘friend’ concept. People can give you positive reviews, recommend your product and tweet about your company. This whole social community allows your company’s name and brand to be viewed by a significant amount of people. Continuous use of social media over time creates brand awareness and thus helps to increase sales. One of our clients, PeachorLemon, a car review website, gained over one hundred followers on Twitter within a week. This is a hundred more people who know about promotions and offers, may tell their friends, visit the website or use other social media outlets to mention PeachorLemon. All this creates brand awareness and over time increased use of the website, thus increasing its value.

The effect social media can have on brand awareness is critical in the future of small businesses marketing strategy. Brand awareness is only one way in which sales are increased, there are many other important contributing factors. However, as this article has demonstrated, creating brand awareness through this new exiting variation of marketing can have a huge impact on your business and revenues.

Anthony O’Flynn

http://www.Ortegra.com

Getting traffic has always basically built on the idea that good content finds it’s way to the people looking for it. If you have the best weight loss page it will get lots of traffic and if you have a terrible page it will get no traffic no matter what you do.

At the same time the best article that is of no interest to anyone will still not get any traffic. So be sure to write to a market that is big enough.

So here are a bunch of methods and sources of traffic.

Squidoo Pages – Squidoo is a popular site. Just make sure that you are not writing spammy enough pages and add all of your backlinks to your related pages

Hub Pages – A type of article site that will give you lots of traffic as long as your personal rating is at least 75% and your article is over 50%

Ezine Articles – Everyone knows Ezine Articles. Articles with backlinks rank high in Google and are good for backlinks

Article City – Another great article site although not as popular as Ezine Articles

Go Articles - Article site that allows direct affiliate links

Forum Posts – Post quality stuff on forums and you will be building trust with new possible readers

Comments on other blogs – Again a way to build trust with possible new readers

Comments on your own site – Keep the community alive. It is up to your re-commenting

Submit site to directories – Not as good as it used to be but sites and articles can be submitted to directories for both backlinks and traffic

Google Searches – The biggest source for most people for traffic. If Google loves you then you will get the most traffic from this source. Search engines are still the king of consistent traffic

Autoresponders – Your list can being you a lot of traffic if the like you and they see a link to content that they are really interested in. Be sure to get yourself an autoresponder quick and get it cheap.

Other Sites of your own – Put links on your other related sites. This is great for traffic as well as well as backlinks

Social Networking – Digg, Reddit and a ton of other speicalized Web 2.0 voting type sites can give you 1000′s of visitors in one day but none the next. Great spurts of traffic but terribly competitive

Social Bookmarking – Delicious is the best example of bookmarking traffic but there are many others as well

Linkbaiting to other sites – If you write great linkbait you will find other sites linking to it for traffic and quality backlinks

Returning visitors – Visitors through your RSS feed are great for getting traffic again and again

Adwords – Spending money on your money sites may work if your message is effective and your keyword terms are exact

Buying Links – Sites are always looking to sell links and this can help on a monthly basis if that sites traffic is very close to your sites vision.

I will post more as I think or find other sources of traffic. Good luck and think hard of the ways that you can get traffic. That is what it is all about for making money online.