Today I want to talk about building one page websites. These can be lead capture pages or subscription pages, landing pages, or just about any kind of one page site you want to create.

So you understand what kind of pages we are creating, let’s talk about these different kinds of pages.

Lead capture pages – These are pages where you have a short sales letter encouraging someone to sign up for your list. In addition to the short sales letter, there’s also a subscription box on the page. You should either include a privacy statement on the page, or add an additional privacy statement page. You should also have a link to your support email or support desk so that if your subscribers need to contact you, they can.

Landing pages – These are pages that are generally used for pay per click marketing. Depending on what you are marketing, and what you want the visitor to do will decide the type of content that is on this page.

Sales letters – you should already know what this is, but in case you don’t, it’s a web page selling some kind of product. You can also include a way for visitors to subscribe to your list, but weave this information into the sales page carefully because you don’t want to distract your visitors.

Let me mention here that there is another type of website that is also a minisite eventhough it may seem like a content site. That’s a membership site. When you visit a membership site, generally you are asked to do one thing: join. There are scripts you can use to build these different types of sites that will save you a lot of time. I won’t discuss those here because there’s so many different types of scripts you can use.

Tools for Building Your Sites

At one time, when you built any kind of site, you had to know HTML in order to do it. It meant hand coding all of your pages, which is very time consuming. Although I still recommend that you learn a little HTML so you can make minor changes to your site, it’s not necessary to know HTML now to build your website.

(HTML is hypertext markup language. This is the format that pages are coded in to display your pages.)

Although there are many resources available to help you build your pages, here are a few you can use:

Instant Site Creator – This software will help you build your sales letters without knowing HTML. What I like the best about this tool is that it has a keyword finder, site submitter (for the search engines), JV partner finder, and a linking tool. There’s also a JV letter generator, SEO press release generator, and you have a choice of templates for your sales letter.

Page Gorilla – This is another free tool you can download to create your sales letters. You’ll need to subscribe to the list, but it’s free, and there’s also a support forum if you have questions.

EZMinisites – This site offers a free bronze membership giving you five different templates you can use to create minisites, including landing pages.

Niche List Builder – This free software will help you build lead capture pages. You create a short sales letter with bullet points and then copy and paste your autoresponder code into the page. Very easy to use.

My Free Website Builder – If you want to build more than just a one page website, this software will help you create a site. It includes over 150 templates, as well as a free ebook to help you improve your website conversions. You’ll also get free videos that will teach you how to use the software so you can get started fast.

The most important thing I want to emphasize here is that regardless of what type of website you plan to build, you need to make sure that your website works in both Internet Explorer and Firefox. Currently, around 65 percent of internet users use Internet Explorer, while most of the rest use Firefox. If you are an IE user, your website may display correctly in IE but not Firefox.

That’s why it’s important to check it. If you’re building a personal website, and you want to optimize for one browser or the other, fine. However, if you’re a business owner, you need to build your website so that all of your customers can access it. This isn’t about making your website pretty, or pleasing the browsers. Just as the search engines don’t buy anything from your site, neither does Firefox.

It really doesn’t matter what browser you prefer. It’s what browser your readers and customers prefer. It’s worth the extra effort to make your site appeal to both IE and Firefox.

If security is an issue for you, choose your browser accordingly. It’s a matter of preference. Just remember your customers and readers. They may not make the same choice as you do, and you should respect that and make your content readable for both audiences.

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Bob the Teacher is one of the top experts on Squidoo. Squidoo is a business in and of itself, and you can make thousands of dollars a month from it without creating any of your own websites.

What I mean by this is that you can make money simply from creating your own Squidoo lenses. Now there is an art to this. You have to find products that people are looking for, and you need to write about topics that others are interested in.

Squidoo is a way for you to sell your own products and services, or you can sell affiliate programs. These lenses get high rankings on the search engines, and it’s not that hard to get on the first page.

Bob the Teacher has a video for you to explain some of these things. For those of you who are looking for the easiest business model on the internet, this is for you.

 

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MLM stands for Multi Level Marketing. It is also sometimes called network marketing.

It is a way for a new person to business to start a business because generally these types of companies offer support, as well as sales materials, and once you build a solid downline, your business can become automated.

Now, the internet has changed the way that MLM works. First, the old way of connecting with your potential customers and downline has changed. You can advertise your opportunity online, and you can use a lot of different ways to market your business.

One thing I don’t see a lot of MLMers do that they really should is:

1. Build a list – Companies are getting better about this because they are now offering lead capture pages that MLMers can drive traffic to.

2. Use traffic techniques that can differentiate you from those who are also in your company.

After I joined GDI/Website.ws, I started using these types of techniques to promote my business: article writing, SEO, free ads, and other types of advertising. One of my upline called me up and said something about it. I basically told him not to call me anymore.

Quite frankly, when you’re marketing these types of opportunities, you need to adjust your marketing based on the market. You also need to recognize that you have different audiences for this type of plan.

First, there are those who might be interested in your opportunity. What’s given MLM a bad name is hounding family members and what MLMers call “Your warm market.” Your warm market is supposed to be those around you, those you know.

I can’t even begin to imagine marketing any aspect of my business to my family. They just don’t understand why I am so hell bent on being self employed, so they’re not a good market for me.

If you’re marketing MLM, then you’ve probably run into the same thing. The other aspect of this is that you also have those who are interested in the particular product you sell, i.e. your customers. These are people who may want to buy your product, but they’re not interested in selling your product.

It’s just as important that you tailor your offering to them as it is to tailor offerings to those who are looking for a business opportunity.

The biggest downside to MLM to me is that whatever opportunity you participate in, you’ll be required to purchase the products yourself, and this usually includes a monthly subscription of some kind.

This is a vital factor in choosing your opportunity. If you’ll be stuck with more product than you’ll use in a month, you’ll want to be a lot more careful in the opportunity you choose. That is, it’s vitally important that you choose an opportunity you’re really interested in because you will be paying for it on a monthly basis.

The advantage here though is that you’ll really get to know the products you are selling, and it will help you in writing reviews, articles, and sales materials.

Another thing to consider here is a website and domain. The reason is that some places, like Ecademy, won’t allow you to market MLM on their sites. If you’ve got your own site with lots of great content on your site, like reviews, articles, and other resources related to your product, this will help you bypass that kind of prejudice.

Personally, if you can learn how to recruit, as well as market your product, I think this is a great business model because it has a low startup, more support than if you’re selling your own products, services, or affiliate programs, and once you get some momentum, it becomes a good, passive, residual income stream for you, allowing you to build economic freedom for yourself, as well as have more time to do the things you want to do.

There are three resources that will help you with this type of business, and they’re either free or very low cost:

Recruit Like Crazy – This is a free CD you can order for the cost of shipping. It was created by Daegan Smith, an MLMer who currently earns $80,000 a month from his MLM business. He offers the CD for free to encourage people to join his membership site (still a bargain). Daegan will show you easy ways to recruit others to your opportunity, and he also talks about a lot of the aspects of automation, which is crucial to building a business where you aren’t working 16 hours a day.

The Renegade Network Marketer – This ebook, written by Ann Sieg, is, in my opinion, the best ebook I’ve ever read on MLM. I really wish she would publish it in print so we could make it a best seller. My copy would be dog eared. Ann covers everything in this ebook from how to generate leads to how she built a $90,000 a month business. You can sign up for her list and get a free copy of The 7 Great Lies of Network Marketing, which is  short ebook I recommend every internet marketer read whether you are doing MLM or not.

Downline Secrets 2 – Honestly, I don’t think most people can imagine earning $80,000 – $90,000 a month. In fact, I think most are looking for more money to pay bills, like maybe a few hundred or a few thousand a month. Written by James Grandstaff, you can get a free MP3, transcript, and James will show you what opportunity he used to build a residual income of several thousand dollars a month.

The most important thing I want to emphasize here is to do your homework. Find a solid opportunity that doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg to get involved in. Get involved with a product you love and will actually use because you will be with that product for as long as you are in that business.

Learn everything you can about marketing. Go where your market is an build relationships. There are forums, groups, and other communities on just about every product you can imagine. Don’t try to sell your product. Just build relationships. Let others get to know you, and your opportunity/product will sell itself.

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12 Best WordPress Plugins

Mark Ling of Affilorama has a post on his site about WordPress plugins he recommends for affiliates. These plugins can be used on any blog, not just a blog for affiliates.

Recently WordPress went from the 2.3 series to the 2.5 series. (Not sure why they skipped the 2.4 series).

2.5 is definitely an improvement over any previous WordPress installations. The interface is much cleaner, it seems to be much faster, and there’s not the errors involved with earlier installations. In fact, I like it so much, that it’s actually a pleasure to blog again.

Many of the developers have been really good about keeping up on the plugins and making them 2.5 compatible, so WordPress is really a great deal.

Currently, the only site I have on WordPress is this one, and it’s also the one of my sites that ranks the highest in the search engines, and this site comes up on the first page for hundreds of terms. WordPress is really easy to optimize for the search engines, and it works really well for both a blogging platform as, well as content managment system for your business because it allows you to create pages.

If you add the plugins to it that Mark recommends, it makes WordPress even better, and it will definitely help you improve your rankings in the search engines, as well as encourage comments and keep that pesky spam away.

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One of the things you should do when planning your business is to really take a look at your life and the things you know. What are you really good at, and what do you have to offer?

There are probably plenty of things that you are good at or that you know that maybe you’ve never even considered as a business idea.

Maybe you like to do crafts, or you’re into fishing, cooking. The list is endless. All of these types of hobbies can be turned into businesses.

You can offer ebooks and books on your site about your topic. Sites like Lulu,  Create Space or even Cafe Press offer you an opportunity to sell products related to what you do, and you can even create your own ebooks, books, and CDs on your topic.

Maybe you want to teach classes on your topic. Sites like Pod Class and Universal Class offer you an opportunity to share your expertise on these these topics, and you can make money doing it.

These principles can also be applied to any kind of business skill you have. Can you write, can you program computer software, or write scripts? You can sell these things online as both a product or a service by either creating ebooks, books, and CDs on your topic, or actually offering these things as a service.

One thing I do want to mention here is that the most important thing you should do is make sure there is a market for what you sell. You can find this out by doing keyword research, which I already talked about, and you can also use other tools to help you find hot markets, whether you’re selling your own products or services or not.

First, do a search in your favorite search engine for your topic, plus the word forums. For example, if you’re thinking of starting a business on crochet, look for “crochet forums”. I would recommend you put your search terms in quotes because it will help you find more optimized results and locate more quickly what you are looking for.

You can also check these sites to see what is selling well online:

Ebay Pulse – This site will tell you what is hot, as well as telling you about current trends on the internet, as well as what’s hot on Ebay. This can really help you, especially if you’re considering selling on Ebay.

Google Hot Trends – This is Google’s service where you can find out what the hottest searches are on Google. It’s presented in list format, starting with the most popular searches, as well as a daily format so you can see what is searched for each day.

Yahoo Buzz – This is Yahoo’s version of what’s hot. You’ll find an extensive collection of help resources here that will help you quickly locate what you are looking for.

Lycos Top 50 – This search engine offers its top 50 hottest topics as searched for. I believe there’s also a blog here you can read, and the information you’ll find here is quite valuable.

Niche a Day – You can join this daily list. You’ll get a different popular niche each day, and it can be on just about any topic you can possibly imagine. This site is really good about providing you with lots of information on the niche, including how often the niche has been searched for, and even keywords.

Once you’ve settled on what kind of products or services you plan to create, then you’ll need to decide where you want to create them. The sites I mentioned above, Lulu, Create Space, and Cafe Press, have forums, groups, faqs, and lots of other free resources to help you get started. If you’re planning to sell services, then I would highly recommend you look for forums on your topic and find others you can connect with to help you get started.

In my next post, we’ll talk about MLM, and I’ll give you some tips for helping you get started.

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