Moms Online Business Coach

5 Types of Blog Posts

Kristen — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 10:00:00 +0000

The time has come… I NEED to teach my mother how to blog. I have no problem teaching the theory of blogging or the “how to” stuff or even breaking it down to the simplest form so that she can do it herself and be successful. It’s the “finding the time” that is the hardest part. I’ve actually started recording short snippet videos for her and the last one I recorded was the video version on the article below about the types of blog posts.

Here are the 5 Types of Blog Posts

How you create your blog posts depend on the type of blog you are writing for and what the goal of that blog is.

If you want to keep your blog fresh and interesting, you should post often. Creating different types of blog posts will help to keep your audience interested. It will also keep you from getting bored with your blog.

It really doesn’t matter if you are blogging so that you can earn income from selling ads or affiliate products off your blog, selling your own products or services. You should try mixing it up with these 5 types of blog posts.

1. The Review Blog Post.

Review blog posts can help you monetize your blog. You “review” – take a closer look at – a product. When you review a product and include an affiliate link, you’ll make a commission off of each sale generated with your affiliate link. Review blog posts should go over some of the major pluses and minuses of the product. Even if you loved the product, you should keep your review balanced by mentioning a few things that could have been improved. Your audience will appreciate your honesty and be more likely to trust your recommendation.

2. The INSIGHTS Blog Post.

Quick tips are great “in between” posts since they are so short. They are normally between 100 and 250 words. If there’s a great bit of information that you want to share with your niche but it doesn’t really warrant a full blog post, you can post a quick tip. The tip should be focused on one key area of the niche. For example, “How to Grease a Muffin Pan” is a perfect quick tip article for a cooking blog.

3. The Tips Blog Post.

Blog readers love lists! If you’ll look at the most popular blogs you’ll see that they make good use out of this type of blog posts. You can make lists fit any niche topic imaginable. They are great ways to convey information online because they can easily be scanned by web readers who like to skim over information. You can create resource lists that will help your readers find information on your niche. You can also create lists of different ways to accomplish a goal in a niche, like “5 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Sales Letter.” The possibilities are endless.

4. The INTERVIEW Blog Post.

Although these require a bit of preparation, they can be very valuable to your blog. You can interview someone in your niche and share the results of the interview with your blog readers. This will not only help provide valuable content for your blog, but you can also get more traffic to your blog. Likely, the person who you are interviewing will publicize the event on their blog and around the ‘net which will bring more traffic back to you.

5. The Tutorial Blog Post.

Like quick tips, how to posts help you provide valuable information to your readers. However, unlike quick tips, these posts go into detail on a certain topic. Some how to posts are even separated out into two or three part courses. For ideas on what to create how to posts about, look at the most frequently asked questions in your niche and develop posts around those topics.

There you have it, 5 simple ways to juice up your blog writing and give your readers some variety!

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

5 Types of Blog Posts

How To Invite an Expert on your Webinar

Kristen — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 17:32:07 +0000

One of the easiest ways you could host a successful webinar is by inviting an expert. Having an expert take part in your webinar has a number of advantages:

You don’t have to rely on your own expertise – your expert will be there to educate your audience.
You’ll achieve expert status by association. Think of Oprah: She isn’t a weight loss expert, but because she has interviewed dozens of them, she is seen as a health and fitness guru in her own right (even in light of her ongoing battles with her own weight!).
You can bring new expertise to your audience. Offering an added perspective to your audience raises your value in their eyes. You become a “connector,” someone who knows all the right people.
You can get in front of new prospects. Many experts have audiences or lists of their own, and their “tribe” will follow them to your sphere of influence. If they like what they see, they will stay a while – and maybe even buy something!
You can do soft-sells on affiliate products. If you are an affiliate for a book on, say, cheerleading, you can bring the author in front of your audience for a Q&A session. Then, when the author mentions her book, you provide your affiliate link and get a commission for every book your audience buys.

So what do you need to watch out for when you’re selecting an expert to interview? Here are several factors to consider before issuing an invitation:

Are they a good fit for your audience? Don’t invite the cheerleading expert when your list consists of survivalists and expect to get a warm response.
Are they personable and good at public speaking? Few things are more painful than listening to a poorly prepared, poorly skilled public speaker – even in an interview setting. Have a screening phone call or listen to other interviews with your prospective guest before you issue an invitation.
Do they have something valuable to say? Make sure you’re spending your time – and your audience’s time – wisely by offering something unique, interesting, educational, or entertaining.
Do they have a large list? This isn’t a must-have, but it definitely helps if your speaker has a large audience of his or her own and is willing to promote your webinar.
Do they have products or services to promote? If you are hoping to earn commissions by promoting their products or services, find out how their affiliate program works, and if their products or services are right for your audience.

When you are first starting out, the top tier experts, such as those with New York Times best-selling books, those with their own talk shows, and those in the million-dollar-plus income bracket, can be hard to reach for a relative unknown. Don’t let that stop you from asking, though! You never know when someone will say “Yes,” so don’t say “No” for them.

Get in touch with them directly or through their publicist (contact information is typically available on their website). Write a polite, SHORT email saying who you are, why you think your market would be a good match for their area of expertise, when you’d like to speak with them, and how long it will take. Then tell them what’s in it for them, for example exposure to an enthusiastic new market or a share of the proceeds. Finally, send it off, and start thinking about who else you could invite if your first choice isn’t able to participate.

It’s really not a complicated process. Choose someone you would like to hear from, write them a polite note to invite them, and then move on if you don’t hear back or if they can’t help at this time. A “No” isn’t a “No” forever; it’s just a “No” for today. So keep asking others until you get a “Yes.”

If you’re ready to roll with your first webinar, I put together a short report that’s chock full of easy to follow directions in “How To Host Successful Money Making Webinars”.

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

How To Invite an Expert on your Webinar

Email Marketing News

Kristen — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:13:09 +0000

Send Your First Email Newsletter Today – AWeber Communications

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Email Marketing News

4 Steps To Planning Your First Webinar

Kristen — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 10:00:29 +0000

In order to pull off a great webinar, you’ll need to plan for success. Sure, there are things that can go wrong, but if you plan your webinar well, most of them can be avoided. Let’s review what you need to do to ensure your webinar will go as smoothly as possible:

Choose a good topic. Choosing a topic for your webinar is much like choosing a topic for a blog post. You don’t want something too broad, or you’ll have no focus. And you don’t want something too narrow, or you will run out of things to say. Instead, you want to balance your need to cover new ground with your need to keep the length and breadth of your teleseminar manageable. For your first go-round, I suggest keeping things tight and focused. You should also plan keeping your call to an hour or so. Any longer and you may burn yourself out or run into more problems than you’re prepared to deal with!
Start by brainstorming a list of possible topics for your webinar. When it comes to scope, ideal topics are suitable for magazine articles rather than books! In short, go through your list of topics and decide for each one whether it is so broad you’d need a book to cover it, or if you could do it justice in a magazine article. Then make a list of your top picks.

Can’t pick just one? Remember, you can always hold another webinar — and you should! Right now, you’re just getting ready for the first one, so select a topic you feel comfortable with.
Decide on an expert. One of the greatest advantages of webinar is that you don’t have to be the expert; you can interview someone else with more experience. You can also hold a dialog between the two of you, or you can do the whole thing yourself. It’s entirely up to you.
Pick a day and time. Next, you need to pick a day and time. It’s easy to drive yourself nuts trying to find a day and time that works for everyone in your target audience. Just realize that no matter what you do, you simply won’t be able to pick a time that is convenient for everyone! Instead, pick a time that works for you, and go with it. You can always make the audio available later if you like.
Decide on whether to charge or not. Are you planning to charge for your webinar? You’ll want to decide upfront whether to charge or not, and what you should offer as upsells.

That’s it! These are the key decisions you need to make before you get started because they will affect a lot of your other activities. Just keep in mind that they’re not necessarily either/or decisions. There are a range of options you can select, so let’s discuss those in greater detail, starting with inviting an expert.

For more details on deciding the best strategy for your first webinar, pick up my meaty short report “The Top 5 Webinar Formats” and you can choose your direction today!

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

4 Steps To Planning Your First Webinar

What Can Webinars Do for You?

Kristen — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 17:11:38 +0000

I’ll be the first one to say it.. Webinars Are Intimidating!

Ok, with that said.. I owe you the next sentence..

“Get Over It!”

It’s the direction we are going, people want to talk and hear real people and from a marketing standpoint, if you are not already thinking about how you can add webinars into your mix, you better start thinking about it because it’s not a fad and the time to take action is now!

Here’s what you can do with teleseminars and webinars:

Introduce new products
Get known in a new market — and get to know that market in turn Explain how a product or service works
Interview experts and share their knowledge with your audience
Answer questions about your area of expertise

But wait!..that’s not all..

Webinars can help you do the following:

Sell more. By presenting a sales presentation over the phone, you offer much more interactivity and a stronger personal connection than you can through a website or direct mail piece.
Create products. The calls themselves can be turned into products or classes. You can sell access to your live events, or you can record them and sell them later as videos or audio downloads. And that’s just for starters.
Get to know your audience. Being able to interact with your audience in real time allows an unprecedented level of market research, right in the moment.
Establish yourself. If you interview experts in your area, you will quickly be seen as an expert by association.

Build your list. Webinarss are popular ways to introduce yourself to a new market. It’s easy to invite people to your free events — and as they sign up, they become part of your list.
Create trust. Trust is crucial when you want to do business online. And one of the best ways to build trust with your audience is to interact with them directly. As they hear your voice live on the call — and as they ask questions and get answers right then and there — you become “real” to them and they’ll be able to bond with you. This is something that’s much harder to accomplish through sales letters and emails.

But what about skills? Don’t you have to have some kind of “chops” to host a teleseminar? Stop wondering! If you have enough experience to start a business, you have enough experience to produce and host a webinar.

Now that your wheels are spinning with all the opportunities that webinars can bring you!

I have a free report that you can download: Grab your copy of “The Top 5 Webinar Formats” here

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

What Can Webinars Do for You?

Virtual Assistants: Stop Stressing About the Economy, Have Some Fun AND Get Smarter About Getting Ahead!

Kristen — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 22:21:20 +0000

Back by popular demand, the VA Virtuoso Seminars (VAVS) are happening once again. Make sure you reserve your online seat today as seats are over half filled now.

Tawnya Sutherland, a leader in the Virtual Assistant world, has rounded up the brightest and the best in the VA industry. And they’ve committed to sharing with you real world tools and examples of how they themselves are maintaining-even growing-a successful VA practice.

FINALLY – SOME GOOD NEWS FROM CREDIBLE SOURCES!

Here’s what Tawnya’s put together:

An exciting workshop series of 16 educational online seminars to benefit all virtual assistants worldwide.

These seminars will be presented, over the course of 6 days, by fellow Virtual Assistants who have been there, done that, and want to share all that (and more) with you! I mean, really… learning from those that DO it and can share their insights, tips and tricks is priceless!

AND…she is making it affordable during these trying economic times so that ANY Virtual Assistant at ANY stage in his or her business career can attend, accessing cutting edge information about getting ahead in an increasingly competitive virtual business environment.

The cost? ONLY $27 to attend all 15 online seminars!

That works out to less than $2 per seminar.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER NOW >> Take Action NOW

(NOTE: ONLY 100 SEATS AVAILABLE which will go quickly at this fantastic low price!)

You can’t beat that price anywhere online that I’m aware of when it comes to furthering your education as a Virtual Assistant (not to mention having a fantastic time without even starting the car).

Hope to see you at the VA Virtuosos!

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Virtual Assistants: Stop Stressing About the Economy, Have Some Fun AND Get Smarter About Getting Ahead!

How To Be An Online Video Marketing Specialist

Kristen — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 19:49:13 +0000

The new VAClassroom Online Video Marketing Specialist program begins this Monday, March 21. Craig Cannings, Co-Founder of VAClassroom.com, has put together a powerful demo video that demonstrates some of the learning outcomes you will gain from the Online Video Marketing Specialist course… and these are powerful!

This seven-minute demo video outlines the exact system that will be taught to help you scale up your income opportunities by learning how you can take this proven online video marketing system and apply it to virtually any type of client.

The cool thing about this system is that it is structured so you can provide top-notch online video marketing services to your clients without handling any of the time-consuming video editing and production work.

Believe me, there is massive interest in online video amongst the business community, yet many end up avoiding it due to an unclear understanding of how to integrate an online video strategy into their marketing game plan. This is where you can come in and use the system that is discussed in the course to “WOW” your clients and increase your retainer packages!

Check out this seven-minute video below:

Online Video Marketing Specialist

Don’t miss out on an opportunity to play a bigger game with your clients and offer a valuable service in the hottest marketing medium on the web!

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

How To Be An Online Video Marketing Specialist

How To Link Up Your Content

Kristen — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 16:50:15 +0000

I love this trick that Nicole shows in the video on how to create one page on your blog to add all your content into. I followed her video and created a page on my Kristen Arnold blog and it took 5 minutes, tops!

Remember, think about all the places you post your content that has an RSS feed that you can add into one spot! YouTube, Article Directories, Feeder Blogs.. the list goes on! Seriously, take a minute and add this to trick to your bag!

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

How To Link Up Your Content

How To Display A Blog Feed

Kristen — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 02:45:33 +0000

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

How To Display A Blog Feed

Even on email lists your first impression is important

Kristen — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 13:02:31 +0000

We often forget that even in the online world that first impressions count. Think of the times that you’ve clicked on a link and gone to a horrible website where the colors and blinking graphics burn your retinas, yikes! What can you do but click away fast! The same thing happens if you join an e-list hoping to get some really great information and all you get is five emails a day that appear kind of spammy. What do you do? Delete, and unsubscribe. Click, Click, Click. That fast, and that permanent.

If you do not want to be in the spam folder or the recycle bin of your subscribers then remember that first impressions count. Your subscribers are judging you from the first time they land on your website, until they get their first welcome email to your e-list, and beyond. You have to look at everything that you do from the user’s or client’s perspective instead of as the creator whose baby is being judged.

If you aren’t able to look at your welcome email from new eyes, ask someone else to do it who has not seen it, and ask for honest to goodness feedback. Better a friend or paid collaborator hurt your feelings than have people subscribe, then unsubscribe that fast. (or not subscribe at all) Believe me, it happens. The best way to avoid these issues is to test.

Unsubscribe rates — If you are getting a lot of un-subscribes after your welcome email, take a look at it and consider rewriting the welcome letter. You can ask people why they unsubscribed by creating a redirect from the unsubscribe successful page so that you can get a few responses about why.

Open rates — You should be checking open rates on your welcome email, plus any email that you send to your list. The reason is that if one opens then they unsubscribe immediately, the reason might have something to do with the email itself, but if they just unsubscribe and never open anything it could be something else. Maybe your subject lines, maybe something else.

There is, of course an alternative way to look at this problem of un-subscribes after receipt of welcome email. Your welcome email can be a way to weed through people who really aren’t interested in your information or products but are only after freebies. Did you offer a freebie to this subscriber? If you’re trying to draw people into your list and soft sell to them your products and information, you don’t want them turned off right away by your welcome email. Read it out loud, have a friend read it. Pay someone to judge it if you have to.

Testing is fundamental to ensuring that your websites, welcome emails, ad copy, sales copy and all your content is functioning properly. Third party feedback can be essential in helping you improve your offerings. You can include a survey to people who unsubscribe and ask them why, or you can get professional feedback.

Are low open rates and even lower conversions killing your email marketing campaigns? Discover how you can build a list of eager fans who can’t wait to OPEN and ACT on every email you send. Grab a copy of my 37-page report, “Hot Response Emails: How to get your subscribers to open, read and take action on your emails.”

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Even on email lists your first impression is important