Google Search Gets Warp Speed With Google Instant

Google now has over 1 billion users on its sites every week.  Today, at the San Francisco MOMA event, Google unveiled a fundamental transformation in their premier search engine.  Google Instant is the next generation of search features, giving Google users a real-time, psychic search experience.  Not everyone will have this feature, and you can download it here. 

Google Instant is an upgrade from Google Suggest, whereas, now when you start typing, Google “Instantly” kicks in search queries, and automatically displays likely results you may be searching for.  Additionally, you don’t even have to finish typing the rest of your search keyword or phrase.  You can use a live demo of Google Instant here.

Features:  Google Instant Goes Into Hyperdrive

Faster Searches: By predicting your search and showing results before you finish typing, Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search.

Smarter Predictions: Even when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, predictions help guide your search. The top prediction is shown in grey text directly in the search box, so you can stop typing as soon as you see what you need.

Instant Results: Start typing and results appear right before your eyes. Until now, you had to type a full search term, hit return, and hope for the right results. Now results appear instantly as you type, helping you see where you’re headed, every step of the way.

So, how exactly can Google predict what you are instantly searching for?  Well, Google brought this to scale through optimizing the most likely searches.  The search engine also checks users search queries on another server & then caches the results.  The average search query has 20 characters, and now every time a user types in an character, the goal is to show you more search results.  Now instead of just 10 results per page, you can get 20 or more results per page on your search.

One issue I already see is as users get used to searching with one letter and two letter combinations, like “w” or “the”, and suddenly get the search results they want, then what type of effect will this have on SEO optimization, keyword research and phrases.  If Google collects data on keywords that include simply letters of the alphabet, and then people stop filling out full search terms, then how can you actually tell what is actually being searched upon?  Now, obviously, 100% of the users won’t just put in 1 letter of the alphabet & suddenly get their exact search term, but I have tried this & it has happened.  Simply type in “W” and you get over 20 sites for the Weather!  But, if this is the case, what becomes more relevant, the search “term” or the actual click through of the site after the search has taken place.  Will this allow sites who optimize letter by letter rank higher?

What do you think of Google Instant search so far?

Do Your Blog Visitors Need A Roadmap To Navigate Your Blog?

Some bloggers have clutter up their blog so much with advertisements, pop-ups, content that doesn’t even have any relevance to what their blog is about. There so much distortion, that you seriously need a roadmap just to navigate and figure out what there blog is about. The worst part of a visitor experience, is having a visitor “purposely” go to your blogs sitemap or archive section just to understand what section or part they should read first. It may make for good page views, but it doesn’t give a good overall visitor experience.

One method of cutting through the distraction, especially if you are offering a members-only section on your blog, is to implement category and page icons to your site. Additionally, you may want to add post icons as well to enhance your bloggers experience if you write series of posts, or even posts that are continually relative over a period of time.

Here at ProfitDoctrine, we feature a members-only section which is called ProfitDoctrine Premium. ProfitDoctrine Premium is symbolized by the royal crown. Additionally, this premium section of my site has a keyworded navigation section so visitors can directly gain access, as well as on the homepage, provides a selection of categorized posts as in a magazine layout. So when visitors come to ProfitDoctrine.com, they will clearly see the royal crown section, which is a symbol that is engaging, and allows visitors to want to become members of the site. This section gives teaser content as well to pique additional user interest.

Next, we have what is called Profit Pulse. The Pulse is all about various Internet Marketing news, the state of the IM industry, and news that is affecting ProfitDoctrine the business. Profit Pulse is symbolized with a News symbol icon, so when visitors want to know where to get the latest updates and news stories, they can easily navigate to Profit Pulse. The term “pulse” is used to symbolize that here at ProfitDoctrine.com, we are committed to delivering daily updates, factual and relevant information to our readers.

Lastly, our third section of the site is focused on the behind the scenes, and inner workings of ProfitDoctrine. This section for our readers is called Profit Lab. The “lab” is symbolized by a chemistry lab beaker. This is to represent the ideas, strategies, theories, and reviews section of the site.

Additionally, there will also be other sub-sections within Pulse, Lab and Premium sections of ProfitDoctrine. These sections will also be featured with a unique symbol that represents the topic of the post or category. Adding category post icons to your site allows for a fun and engaging visitor experience. If you have a WordPress site, one plugin you can use is the Category Page Icons, which will easily help you implement icons for your selected categories.

Blog Brainstorming To Blast Beautiful Content To Your Blog

In your efforts to improve your blogging skills, one technique you can use is the concept of brainstorming.  Brainstorming is an idea generation technique.  It does not necessarily involve putting ideas into action, but more to get the creative juices flowing, allow you to think broad and then narrow down your a set or group of targeted choices.  Blog  Brainstorming is more of a creative exercise so that you can have a range of topics to write about.

One key to have an effective brainstorming session is to set up a process in which you will conduct the process, and focus on a specific topic.  My method for brainstorming to come up with incredible content involves not only my blog ProfitDoctrine, but also, coming up with unique ideas for developing information products, launching products, developing blog contests and even creating exceptional free giveaways.  Each of these areas, are separate sessions in which I conduct a brainstorming ideas session.

Brainstorming Blog Blast

Create your mission: The first step in creating your brainstorming session is to set a specific mission.  This means, examine what your problem is, and set what you aim to achieve.  For example, if you have chosen to focus on specifically the topic of “blog posts for your site,” you need to state the problem, state the goal, and set a timeframe.  I am having trouble creating ideas for blog posts for my site.  For the next 30 minutes, I will focus topics relevant to my blog and create a minimum of 10 topics for the week.

Set Your Time Table: Create a timed outline – break it down by hour or 10 minute increments if its less than an hour.  One the first two timed increments, write out some of the topics you will cover, so that you have some preparation and have some ideas pre-ready to go & to think about. Note, after every time period you should take a 5 to 15 minute break just so you can continue to keep fresh and not get frustrated.

Set a Quota:  In this brain storming exercise, your goal is to create a constant flow of ideas.  It doesn’t matter if the ideas don’t make any sense, but your goal is to get your mind moving, writing, and eventually your brain will start connecting the dots on its own.  Therefore, set a high standard to achieve that is obviously reasonable in your specific timeframe, but be sure to push yourself.

Read Out Loud: After you have written out your ideas, read them out point by point, and idea by idea out loud.  As you do so, you may want to combine selected ideas into new ideas, or even write down ideas that are popping into your head at that very moment.

Evaluate: Take a look at your written document, and evaluate the best ideas.  Highlight them and start conducting research on those specific ideas.  At the end of this session, you not only have a list of specific & fresh ideas, you have a plan to research these topics, apply your curious mind to them and simply begin writing.

If you are having any trouble coming up with fresh ideas for your blog, then try out this brainstorming exercise.  Leave a comment below and let me know what you brainstorming methods you use to get new & fresh ideas for your blog.

Mission Review: Create Planning Documents To Manage Workload

One aspect of business that tends to go unnoticed not only on a personal level, but also a strategic business level is the concept of “Accountability.” Everyone always talks about “taking action”, and “getting a mentor”, but they never really get into the details & specifics of what is really going on with an individual, the business, or even the reason on why certain results have not been achieved.

At ProfitDoctrine, I want to bring to my readers and members a higher level of transparency, and give them a real in-depth look into what my goals, objectives & aspirations are, and to get a factual and accurate look at whether or not the ProfitDoctrine Mission has been achieved.

The Mission Review will be a category in the Profit Lab section of our site.  Mission Reviews will be conducted on a weekly basis, not necessarily on the same day of the week.  But this section of our site will be denoted by our police man icon.  I thought that would be pretty cool and provide as my countability watchdog.

In terms of accountability, we will be focusing on specific business strategic objectives on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.  Every business usually has a strategic plan.  In the case of Internet Marketing, you see many product launches happen every week and month, but you never really know for sure what was actually happening behind the scenes, nor do you get an accurate picture if that launch was successful.  You may know a bit of the story if you are an affiliate for that product, or are in direct contact with that product owner, but you don’t really get a personal sense of the state of that persons business, whether the business is failing or succeeding.  Now, some marketers may not want to give out this information, and that’s totally okay, they are a private independent business afterall, unless they have shareholders to answer too.  However, in today’s market economy, transparency should be the norm, and I think people should know whether or not your business is truly successful. They should know what it took for you to create the product they just bought.  They should know the pain and suffering, they should know celebration of success, your customers, readers, visitors, members, subscribers, all should know the truth and the facts from start to finish.  This is exactly what the Mission Review will aim to provide.

The ProfitDoctrine Mission Reviews will focus on the results of the monthly VISION. You can learn more about the VISION as a Profit Premium member.  Mission Reviews will be results based only, and will only focus on that specific weeks achievements. Overall, I am hoping that my readers will get an accurate picture of what it really takes to be successful in their online business.

MISSION REVIEW:

Content Development: Create high quality articles for the launch of ProfitDoctrine.com by Saturday, Sept. 11th.

Results: I am currently on track to complete all the articles.  I personally research, develop and write all my articles personally.  I do not outsource the writing of articles on ProfitDoctrine.com.  I have the ability to write over 100+ wpm (words per minute), but things have been slower than I wanted them to be.

Analysis: In the future, I will need to pre-plan out a weeks worth of topics to write about & focus on those topics specifically for a week.  This will allow me to write faster and stay focused.  I shouldn’t be spending the whole day writing articles, and thinking about which ones to write.  Also, I will aim to complete all articles by a specific morning time frame, I’m not sure of what time yet.  But the afternoon will be spent developing inspiring and cutting edge reports to add to the ProfitDoctrine Knowledge Base, and to giveaway to my readers.

ProfitDoctrine Site Development:  Configure any outstanding worpdress plugins, site design.  Ensure site is performing properly.

Results: I have performed daily maintenance on the site.  I personally am developing and designing the website with the skills and abilities I have.  At this moment, I do not want to outsource these tasks, whereas, it’s not an expenditure I want at this moment, as well as I am not fully sure of all the tasks I will need as of yet.  The focus first is to ensure I have all the content ready prior to doing any last minute design and development items.  I have tested my payment processor and membership management tools and they are all working at 100%.  I will do further testing prior to blog launch day.

Analysis: It would be good to have a web designer & programmer on call to get things done as needed.  However, it may be better to have a written task list of all items that may or may not be needed so when you do actually need a designer or programmer, all you will need to do is 1.) Edit the list, and 2.) Give the list of tasks to your workers.  In my case, I haven’t created a rolling list, but, my progress is definitely on schedule.  I think I will create a formal list just in case, that is definitely a great idea.

Summary: Overall, this week is on schedule and I have achieved all the goals for this week.  I will be developing a rolling tasks list to have a list of current and outstanding issues, and create a document to plan out the weeks blog posts and articles.  Obviously, there will be some exceptions, as I may find some top information for the week, but it’s always good to be ahead.  These two documents will be placed in the ProfitDoctrine Knowledge Center.

Does Your Blog Have A Lead Generation Process?

Generating leads and building your list is a key business process as an Internet Marketer.  Lead generation is basically the life blood of your business.  Many bloggers don’t embrace the concept of the lead generation process until it’s too late.  Many bloggers are inclined to slap on a email form and call it a day, however, by not planning and systematizing your process, you could be doing yourself a great disservice.

Whether you are a blogger, specializing in direct linking using PPC, selling information products, or any function in Internet Marketing, you must build a solid lead generation process.  This is one area I am looking at heavily as I build and grow my new media publishing firm.  As I looked at the process, I wanted to focus on multiple areas that will not only provide a systematic process in generating a lead, but also not to be intrusive to my readers.  Some blogs have pop-ups after pop-ups, trying to collect leads and monetize them at the same time.  In my opinion, you still need to give your readers a quality experience while they are on your blog.

There are 7 areas I have looked at to developing a strong lead generation machine on your blog.  These 3 areas revolve around 1 model, which is the concept of the freemium business model.  In each of the areas I will outline below, will consist of providing high quality freebies, and giveaways to my readers.

NAVIGATION BAR: I will feature a dedicated page for people to directly sign up for my custom free reports or free product that I create. This will be prominently displayed in the navigation bar, won’t be intrusive, and basically adds to depth of my site.  On the actual page, it will be a short sales copy of the freemium offer, with a focus on signing the visitor up to become a subscribed member of my email newsletter.  The goal here is to focus on building customer loyalty.

SIDEBAR FORM:  The sidebar form is like a direct marketing piece.  It will feature directly a call-to-action to visitors who want to quickly sign up for my email newsletter.  The sidebar subscription form will consist of direct subscriber message, as well as a high quality graphic of my ebook or information product that I will create.  I may possibly use video to give more of a face to face connection.  Some bloggers have opted to add a direct video describing either what they are getting, or what there site is about.

DELAYED POP-UP FORM: I will create a delayed pop-up form which will be a large direct call-to-action of the feature freemium product that I will be offering.  I will use the newly created WordPress plugin called Pop-Up Domination.  I have researched this product thoroughly, have purchased it, and will be using it avidly not only on this site but also on products that I create.

BLOG POSTS: Blog posts are an overlooked lead magnet.  If used wisely, the blog post will be an effective tool to capture leads who are really interested in what you have to offer.  The benefit of a blog post is that it will be in a controlled area where the visitor will be wanting to see your offer.  If you have keyword researched, and SEO’d blog post, it will also increase your leads heavily if done right.  In capturing leads through blog posts, Iwill focus on a highly targeted and keyword research title, and presenting a specific offer for my readers to accept.  There are numerous methods I will use which will include:

1. Request for more information: I will provide teaser information, and a person can sign-up to not only get that information, but also subscribe to the newsletter.
2. Graphical Ad Unit:  Within the blog post message, I can direct readers to a graphic based ad unit, which will include a link to subscribe to my offer.
3. Subscribers Only Posts:  Create subscribers only posts.  These are different from Members-only posts, where as you may have a paywall for premium type posts, whereas, subscribers are just gaining access to the information.
4. Contests:  Having subscribers sign-up to the newsletter specifically for a blog contests.  This will be highly effective whereas, you are engaging in one-to-many relationships, and interacting with readers who are interested in your offers.

SIDEBAR & END OF POST ADS: What can be extremely useful are graphical ad units spread throughout your blog.  You will be marketing your lead generation process via ads on your sidebar, and at the end of your blog posts.  Utilize 125×125 ads, and 468×60 size ads, or whatever suits you best.  I would recommend varying what they look like, as to not overdo readers viewing the same ad over & over, but ensure that it does not deviate too much from your original brand that you are offering.

MINI-TEXT BOXES: Another method we will use inside of blog posts is the use of a mini-text box.  This can be a highly effective method. If you have knowledge of CSS & HTML, you can create contextual text boxes that are placed within your content, requesting readers to simply sign-up to your offer.

WP GREET BOX:  Show a different message to your visitor depending on which site they are coming from. For example, you can ask Digg visitors to Digg your post, Google visitors to subscribe to your RSS fee, and much more. Download this plugin at the WordPress extension repository.

These are all free methods you can get started today in creating your lead generation machine. Provide a quality offer, implement these strategies, and increase your leads to your blog. What methods have you implemented on your blog to improve or build your lead generation strategy? Let me know what you’ve done, what has worked, and what has not worked in generating more leads to your blog.

Top 10 Ways To Sucessfully Promote Your Website For Free

As an Internet Marketer, you should always be cognizant of what methods you are using to promote your website.  Website promotion should be a ritual that is done on a consistent and methodical basis.  To have a successful promotion strategy, you should keep a set of standard operating procedures, or simply a basic plan of what promotion methods you will do, when you will do them and how often you will do them.  Then to ensure success, you simply need to adhere to the goals you set and promote your website.

Here are 10 free methods you can use today to promote your website.  You may choose to do some, and it’s better to do them all so that you can enhance the awareness of your site.  Promoting your website is a must if you want to become a successful Internet Marketer, and must be done on a consistent basis.  You cannot rely on just setting up a site, and hoping that someone will search on a keyword you have chosen.  Remember, keywords are competitive on a daily basis, so you not only have to ensure your sites marketability, but also compete against others vying for the words you want to be searched about.

1. Write Articles and Submit Them:  Not only you should be writing for your blog, you should also be writing articles for article submission and syndication websites.  These are like free giveaways, and the positive outlook for yourself, is that your article will be attributed to you, whereby, it will have your signature and site reference on there.
2. Building Community Through Forums: Build relationships by signing up to related forums in your specific niche.  Be an avid contributor by not only offering your own expertise, but ask questions on things you may not know about or require assistance on.  There is always someone will to provide their two cents.
3. Email Newsletters:  Ensure you always place a link to your product or site in your signature of your emails newsletters.  People not only need to know who is writing them, but also, where that information is coming from.  This is a method of building trust amongst your readers and followers, in addition to building direct traffic.
4. Blog Commenting:  Select a variety of blogs that you like to read, and ensure you provide quality comments.  You can also link back to your blog.  This combination will not only get you respected in the community, but also provide you valuable backlinks.
5. Guest Blog Posts: Find and select a variety of blogs you like to read and contribute to them by being a guest poster.  Many blogs are starting to do this more now, not only to increase quality & unique content on their blogs, keep them up to date, but it will allow them to increase revenue and share in that revenue, as well as get their sites ranked faster.  So, there is mutual benefit in guest posting on blogs.
6. Free Giveaways:  Create a high quality ebook, report, video or even piece of software. Create a section on your site where it can be downloaded and accessed.  Give this product away for free and let them know that they can give it away for free.
7. Create and Distribute an Email Newsletter:  Start a newsletter, it can even be a physical one as well.   You can give it out for free, or even sell it.  But if you have good ideas, and have something important to distribute in this format, then this is another avenue which will attract readers and promote your site.
8. Directory submissions:  Boost your rankings by submitting your sites to various directories.
9. Post & Ping:  After publishing your blog post, use pinging directories to get your sites indexed fast.
10. Create Social Avenues: Create a Facebook page, create a YouTube account, and other social media accounts that all link to your product, site or service.  Ensure you provide quality content on them, and promote them the same way you do your site.

Increase Brand Awareness With A Mobile Site and Mobile Apps

As an online business owner, you are always on the lookout for new income streams of revenue as well as improving your existing streams of revenue. One market that is extremely hot is the mobile phone market and app market. You should be sure to understand that these are two separate markets, however, they are two markets that have a high level of synergy.

The greatest thing about these two technical markets is that even without a lot of technical acumen, you as an online business owner in the Internet Marketing field can tap into these two markets, and it is definitely something you want to do specifically if you want to enhance your brand awareness.  I will be providing a series of articles specifically to introduce mobile marketing and mobile apps.  I will be looking for your support in comments in what specifically you want to learn about and to focus on, so be sure to provide some insights of what you see as trends, what your concerns are, what you would like to learn and know about in regards to mobile marketing and mobile apps.  This is the first in the series in the Profit Lab, discussing successful methods that are working now and reviewing various marketing strategies and providing you the tips that you can implement today.

MOBILE MARKET

If you have a blog and are regularly providing content to your readers, you may want to look into expanding your brand.  Creating your blog or website to be readable on a mobile phone will not only enhance your brand, but give you more readers, and even make you more distinguishable in the search engines.  Whereas, your mobile site can also be marketing online as well as via mobiles.  I will be focus on the wordpress themes for mobiles in this case.  There are advancing and improving themes that will instantly turn your site into a site that is readable on a mobile phone, specifically there is a wordpress theme that will create your site into a iphone themed site.  Additionally, there are wordpress plugins that will instantly allow you to mobilize your site, add unique advertising so that when mobile users see it, you can also generate revenue from simply someone using their phone.

MOBILE APPS

In 2008, Apple launched it iPhone App store to developers all around the world.  If you had an idea for an app, you could simply develop it, make your store submission, and generate 70% of the profits on app sales.  After launching the App store and the 3rd party development partnership, Apple announced 500 million downloads, and this was only 6 months from launch.

One app was developed by Internet Marketer, Joel Comm, where him and his company launched the iFart app.  This was widely successful and generate a ton of revenue for his business.  There was also the Ocarina app, which turned the iPhone into a musical flute.  This app was downloaded over 400,000 times at $0.99.  That’s a $396,000 payday!

There are resources online and toolkits one can use to create an app.  The goal is to create a quality app, that will be useful to the end user, and that has the potential to go viral.  More importantly, you want to do something that will also enhance your brand.

The successful methods to examine is that if you can combine the concept of create a mobile app, in conjunction with creating your website or blog to be mobile ready you have just boosted your brand two fold and increased the value of your product or service.  If you decide to sell your business, you can use Flippa to sell your online site.  Just think of the value you are bringing to the table with:

1. A Blog or Product Site
2. A Mobile Ready Themed Site
3. A Mobile App branded to your site/product

Having these 3 items prepared for sale will make your product/service for sale extremely unique and will demand a higher value in the market place.

Have you created a mobile app or site yet?  Leave a comment below and provide some insights on what you think about the mobile market and mobile apps.

How To Increase Profits With A Resellers License

Have you ever had a “license to print money?” You may think that a license to print money was just for governmental agencies such as the treasury.  However, you can boost your revenue with a Resellers License. There are multiple ways you can make money with a resellers license.  As an internet marketer, implementing a resellers license strategy into your business model is not only one way to give back to your customers and followers, but also a profitable method to increase your bottom line.

The Resellers License business strategy is the concept where you contract with a company or individual giving them explicit permission to sell your products or services to sell them to a 3rd party.  Essentially, the strategy is basically a “licensed affiliate” – who is aimed at promoting and marketing your specific product or service under a set of guidelines.  However, usually under the Resellers License, you allow for 100% of profits to be generated solely by your licensees.  There have not been any basic ground rules or set standards for the reseller license business strategy, and this is one of the downfalls in Internet Marketing, where some marketers either don’t fully specify a guideline or implement a high quality strategy.

In my opinion, the reseller license strategy is a bit different from the concept of content licensing.  Whereas, in content licensing, you are selling your content on a subscription basis for a fee.  Customers would have the right to use that content based on the standards and guidelines set out in your terms and conditions.  As a product owner, licensing your content can be very profitable, whereas, you can package and sell your content in various ways, such as article reports in a specific format, as an ebook, convertible formats such as PDF, Powerpoint, sell as audio or even video.  Content licensing is usually pre-made content or content and media that has already been produced and proved successful in some event of venue such as a successful and verifiable product launch, or a membership site, or even simply on an public access website.

In regards to the reseller license strategy, I feel that it is different than content licensing whereas, you are not selling a subscription based license, but more offering a full working, business model with revenue potential for free!  This is just one business model that ProfitDoctrine will be implementing in the future.  You may be wondering, why would you give away a revenue producing product for FREE?  Well this depends on how the strategy is implemented in your business.  Our goal here at ProfitDoctrine will be to:

1. Create a short term, subscription based training course
2. Launch a high quality informational and educational training product
3. Generate and assess success stories from customers
4. Take the training course, study materials, assessments and develop it into a book
5. Create a sales letter and site portal for the new book
6. Give the new advanced book away to members with a lifetime resellers license

This model will provide its members an instant way for them to generate revenue using methods and strategies that are already proven to be working, as well as provide the members with a product that is already generating revenue.  Essentially, the resellers license is a business in a box and a license to print money!  These are the steps and methodology that ProfitDoctrine will take in implementing the Reseller License business strategy.  I think this is a great way to be able to give back to my followers and members and give them an opportunity to implement the ProfitDoctrine principles and practices that they have already learned in Internet Marketing.  This gets my members up and running quickly and I can provide instant support and training as a service to all my licensees.

Other marketers have used similar reseller type strategies, but I don’t think they really provided out in detail why or even kept up with providing a quality product.  The goal is to ensure that the product you provide is of high quality and that 100% of the profits can be generated by its members.  Now, when implementing this strategy, I have outlined the base concepts.  Obviously there are some technical aspects to this. You can learn more about the technical aspects and how to develop a quality reseller product and set up the site when you sign up for ProfitDoctrine Premium.

Successful Membership Site Trends and Ideas

There has been a trend in Internet Marketing in regards to creating a profitable membership site. There have been information products launched about building successful membership sites, blogs writing about the best membership site business models, and downloadable reports about membership site tips and strategies. There are many opinions on the way a membership site should be operated, even down to what is the best software to use when creating a membership site. Some of the trends I see are a bit disturbing and some trends are an advancement and beneficial in the Internet Marketing community. A membership site overall is an excellent model to be able to create a stable, and long-term income in building your online business. But more importantly, with a successful revenue generating revenue site, you have more of an ability to provide quality and service to your customers.

NEGATIVE MEMBERSHIP SITE TRENDS

Yes, you may have heard of the six-figure launches, and the seven figure launches that have been happening over the past year.  As of today, there have been approximately 9 product launches with a price point of $1,997 in only a time span of 6 months, specifically in the internet marketing niche – and the year is not even over.  It’s great that there are new products created, however, a disturbing trend that is happening is that products are being launched without even having the full course content  or materials in them.  Now, it’s one thing to have the product training set to start on a specific date after customers purchase, however, one negative trend that is ever increasing is that  many consumers are noticing that what was stated on a sales page, and in their order forms does not match what was in the actual product.  Customers are finding out that:

• Product Delays:  Product Information & trainings are not available during the time frame they purchased them.
• Product Inconsistencies:  Information Products that were ordered don’t always match what was sold on the sales page
• Pricing Issues:  Increased buyers remorse after learning that the product sold is not updated material, or a version 2.0 with just some added webinars, or price is not a fair market value.
• Outrageous Claims:  Sales claims that their product can do a specific result, when it wasn’t that product that produced the result
• Poor Customer Service:  Product owners not fully responding on a timely basis or responding to their questions and concerns in a full, thought out answer.
• FTC Compliance:  Some marketers are out there still not adhering to the FTC regulations – specifically in the areas of Free plus shipping offers, Results claims and testimonials.  (Note: FTC regulations went into effect Dec. 2009.)  You can download a copy of the guide here:

These are just some of the negative trends I see that are continually happening.  This will be the first of a series of articles where I will go into more of these negative membership site issues further.  But to give a brief overview of what the root cause of these issues, specifically on the issue of product delays, one reason could be due to that many gurus and product owners focus on the concept of creating the product content as you go, while at the same time teaching “creating information products fast“, and “create information products in 24 hours“.  Product owners are developing the product either at the last minute, creating the product on a month-to-month basis, or having high ticket products where the main meat of the product is an virtual chat, or real-time webinar.  These methods can definitely have some drawbacks, whereas, many customers are focused on getting started quickly, and want to utilize the training on their terms and schedule.  Many marketers do not make it clear enough in their sales copy what exactly a customer will receive and when they will receive it.

A prudent and satisfied customer should be able to easily audit the purchase they made.  From a purchase a prudent customer should be able to match what was in the sales page to the actual ordered content, from the claim that was made to operational methods outlined in the product/service, all with easy to find methods and processes of cancellation and refund, to specific and detailed customer support.  It’s not just boasting about “quality content” that will make a satisfied customer.  The customer of 2010 and 2011 will be satisfied when what is “stated” matches what was “purchased”, and that if questions are asked, they are given VIP treatment at all times, and when questions are not asked, there is some engagement to gain an understanding of the customers experience.

POSITIVE MEMBERSHIP SITE TRENDS

There are also positive membership site trends that are also happening.  These trends not only improve the customer experience, but also, allow for product owners to create better information products and provide higher quality service.

• Social Proof: One trend I see happening a lot more is the use of social proof.  Many launches that are happening now are utilizing (although latently) social proof tools such as Facebook like buttons, and commenting.  These tools combine with a successful product launch allow you to see sometimes in real-time real people “like” what they see and buy.  Additionally, you have real people on Facebook commenting on their product purchase.  This takes the concept of testimonials to a new level.  I’ve discussed a recent product launch that used the social proof concept during a live launch with AffiliateDotCom.
• Advancing Technology: By December 2010, we will see the advancement of WordPress 3.1 with more features and functionality than it already has today. WordPress as a CMS is one of the premier blogging and content management systems platforms in the world today.  Now, you can easily and quickly create a network of sites with the new Multisite functionality, create unique style blogs, custom themes and frameworks, the sky is the limit.  Combine WordPress with a strong membership plugin, such as Wishlist Member, you are sure to have the ingredients to develop a quality membership site.
• FTC Regulations: The FTC Regulations have definitely shaken up some online business models, and this is certainly for the betterment of the industry.  Marketers who were misrepresenting results and their products via false testimonials, adding Oprah to their endorsements, conducting false scarcity tactics, and the whole concept of Free plus Shipping will continually to become void.  The FTC provided guidelines for not only consumers to be aware of but also directed at online marketers who were performing deceptive practices.  Many marketers have followed these practices.  But I think one way to enhance these practices and principles is not only to abide by them, but also improve them.  At the end of the day, the regulations bring out a much needed focus on the concepts of transparency, business quality and ethics.

Be on the look out for my next article in this series regarding membership site trends and ideas in Internet Marketing. If you know or have seen any trends in membership sites you have joined or contemplated joining, please leave a comment below and share your experiences.

Boost Search Engine Rankings by Pinging Your Blog

Increase your search engine results with a untapped method of pinging your blog. Pinging your blog is a method that lets the search engines know that there is something new on your blog. When you ping your blog, your site is crawled by various bots and crawlers which then allows your blog post or page to be indexed in the various search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. Pinging is usually done automatically if you have WordPress, specifically after a blog post or page is published. Overall, the normal service commonly used is Ping-O-Matic. However, if you want to improve search engine ranking optimization, and take your blog to the next level, then you can always use my secret ping list.
This is a list of the top sites to use to notify updates to your site.

There is basically two ways you can use the Secret Ping List:

1. Copy & paste the list into your “Settings > Writing” area in WordPress & update your ping list.
2. Go To: PingNinja.com:  You can simply cut & paste your list there, and the service will ping the entire thing for you.

Doing this combined with other keyword research and SEO strategies will ensure that you will always be ranking and getting noticed in the search engines.  Again, ensure not to overdo this process, whereas, too many updates on the same posts or in the same period of time can also be a negative.

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