Photo Credit Japokshee

In last 6 months, if you haven’t

1. Turn your computers off – Most of us (so called internet marketers) spend way too much time in front of our computers doing almost nothing. We are always “In process” or “in creation” mode which gets done nothing. So switch your computer off for now.

2. Make a list of all things you have done so far and failed – Take out your pen and paper and make a list of all things you have done online whether they were successful or failed. It doesn’t matter, you need a list of things out there to get a real time understanding of the situation.

3. Reboot Yourself – John Reese talked about this few years ago. You write down everything related to you, your goals, your debt, your health, wealth, spiritual and get it out from your head on to the paper. It’ll get all the junk out of your mind and make it feel relaxed.

4. Fix and schedule your “Internet marketing” time – Schedule your internet marketing time. I got this idea from my fitness routine. Everyday when clock starts 5:55 pm, I automatically change my clothes and at 6:00 I start working out. This is a habit. Make your internet marketing a habit.

5. Save Your money to put it in business – Save your money to put it in the business. Do not think about buying products for now. Just save it, get a few extra jobs to get cash flow in the business. If you don’t treat your online business like a business, chances of your succeeding goes way low.

6. Make Your goal – how much action you take completely depends on your goal. If you fix your goal, schedule your time and start taking massive action, you’ll succeed. It’s about either doing it or not doing it at all. There is no middle road, only road kills, remember.

7. Understand which markets you can jump into – You cannot jump into every market you think are profitable. Answer completely honestly, Can you really survive in the market you chose? Can you answer to the readers, client’s question related to the market?

8. Understand your clientele or readers – It comes down to knowing your market profile. Like they say in marketing, “get in bed with your client”. You have to intimately know your market. You have to know their fears, their hope, their failures, their successes.

9. Develop relationships with everyone – It always comes down to who you are connected. Developing relationship with people will go long way. You need that elusive PR 7-8 link or may be get your product promo all over the web? Relationships with your readers, your friends, your business partners is going to help you.

10. Work, focus and then work some more – Time and time again, I’ve found there’s no substitute for hard work and focus. If you focus 100 percent on the task for next 60 minutes, you’ll get better results rather than spending 4 hrs with 80% focus.

Heck I personally belong to the list, who is likely to spend 5 hrs with 100% focus. Is it easy? heck no… Does it product result? Hell yes.

11. Make Your own product – Regardless of the monetization methods out there on internet, the fastest and surest way to make money online is to have a product. I have said it on this blog time and time again about this. If you are worried about your writing skills. Break the project down in small chunks.

12. Write your own blog – Starting your own blog is going to get connected with people. This is a platform where you’ll build relationships. This is a platform where you’ll find joint ventures. So get started.

13. Take a Break 1 day per week. Following from John reese’s reboot yourself theory. One thing I learned was that you need to reboot yourself regularly. Think of it as a computer. If you keep your computer on for 24/7 for next few weeks, how’ll it effect its performance?

Chances are it’ll slow down, programs may not work properly, even with the latest technology. Taking a break 1 day per week will allow you to gather yourself, gather your thoughts and get focused for the upcoming week.

14. In crunch offer services.  When you are in financial crunch, you should not hesitate to offer your services. It’ll get you cash in the hand very quickly. There was time when I designed websites for peanuts. Remember, you are not supposed to supplement income this way for long term.

15. Only 3 things you need to remember in online business. Online marketing is simple. You only need to work on 3 steps.

1. Find a market
2. Create a product
3. Promote he heck out of your product and website.

16. When you are overwhelmed, yell out loud, pound the boxing bag, do something physical – Your body demands physical attention. If you do not let it out, stress will kill you slowly. I workout and do martial arts. Some people do surfing. Some go out and play for neighborhood teams. Do something physical. Let the stress out.

17. Traffic is quite important, but don’t spam 1000 sites for that. – This one is simple, stop spamming your website to 1000 website. I know a webmaster (who is great friend) who literally opened account of 50+ forums on his market. Though he is still respectable member of that society, but we still remember it.

People have long term selective memory when they want to remember.

18. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. – I’ve personally tried to do it and failed. Trust me, if you do things certain way, people will talk and you can’t please everybody. So stop trying to be everything to everyone.

19. Don’t run after every new, shiny and loud objects. There are tons of marketing launches happening at any current moment. Do not get distracted. Do not run after every new thing.

This is a list of things or suggestions I’d give to anyone who haven’t achieved the success or the success they wanted. It does come from last 6 years of experience.

This list can either be in google search results or in any article directory. It doesn’t matter.

There are chances that some article links will be clicked more often than others. Your job as an article writer is to provide a reason so that reader will click your link. After all you are providing quality information. Right?

Often the answer to your problem is writing a better headline.

But that’s not the right answer. If you start comparing your headlines with others (that suck way too much) then you are not exactly winning you know.

For example look at this list of headlines. They don’t inspire action at all.

Now Do you really want to compete with these kind of headlines? I hope not.

How to increase your readership of your article.

The answer is very simple – Ask a mind boggling question.

Ask a question which makes your reader stop for a second and wonder “What the heck?”. This is where you are going to need all of your headline copywriting skills.

For example you check out this article’s headline

“Are you using this technique to increase readership of your articles?”

The question is different. Very different than other people ask.

In our culture, we are trained by birth to always answer the question. So If I ask you a question, you’ll probably try to give me the answer. If you cannot, you’d go bonkers. Pretty neat. na?

That’s the only best part about education

So how to re-write your headline with a question that brings attention to your article?

Just like that… My statement above can be used as another headline.

Step 1. Write your headline (doesn’t matter if it’s just a statement).

Step 2. Add “How” Or “Why” Or “What” in front of your headline and see how you can make changes to it.

Step 3. Add Oomph in your headline by adding few specifics.

For example from above set of boring headlines

“How to earn an online income easily?” into

Headline #1 : How you can Earn $100 a day online with this formula?

Headline #2 : What steps you should take to earn at least $100/day with online business?

Headline #3 : How I can spend 1 hr a day to earn $100/day with my online business?

See, it’s not hard to write a good headline. A good headline will always increase your readership. Try it.

Best Regards
Varun Pratap.

Check out “Article Writing Tips” to write high quality articles in no time. I was able to write 12 articles in 3 hrs with using this formula.

This discussion was all about Pro’s and Wannabe. I was telling him pro takes charge in his life and every step of the way. Wannabe’s sits there and wait for stuff to happen.

Pro is serious about his work and its value. Wannabe is unsure about it.

Pro is dedicated about it 7 days a week, 30 days a month and 365 days a year. Wannabe is a weekend warrior.

My thought was, “If you love your stuff, you should not hesitate to sell. If you are selling, do not hesitate to name your price. It’s your work, create the value for it by yourself”.

And this is exactly the biggest difference in most beginner internet marketers.

They do not take the business of building business online seriously.

They do not think in terms of Profit and Loss in monetary value.

They are buying stuff, expecting things to happen.

So what you can do things differently to make things happen in your favor?

1. Create a Product in your market (I don’t care if you create 10 page ebook, Just do it. On other note I just finished 16 page ebook in 3 hrs)

2. Set advertisements (PPC/PPV/CPA) to bring immediate traffic to your website sales pages.

3. Test your sales letter and find out ways to improve conversion.

Next Steps can be optional.

4. Create content to promote your content.

5. Create more ways to get traffic (blog comments, article marketing, forum comments, SEO, affiliate system etc).

6. Make a goal to at least sell 1% conversion of your sales letter.

If you just do the first 3, you’ll be better than 95% of other marketers. If you do the next 3 steps, you’ll be rarer less than 1% who acts and gets results.

I dare you to try it and see if it doesn’t change your life in next 30 days.

The essence of the article was to “Un-complicate things”. Like he said, most internet marketers are chasing after the new shiny tool like dog chases its tail.

Like I always talk about “Mastering one way of doing things before you move on”. Often Doing it One way produces far better than spreading out in many different fields. Again, Do not complicate things.

People often equate simplicity = Not advanced enough = Bah, I am an expert, this thing is below me.

For anyone who ever practiced martial arts knows, “Basics properly executed often wins over advance technique”. In MMA UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), Royce Gracie+’s (Elite Fighter) most victories came from simple arm bar.

1. Streamline
2. Systemize
3. Stick

Are the simple formula Jimmy Uses in his life and marketing.

I also use simple formula to explain my philosophy.

Product + Targeted traffic + conversion = $$$.

Then I talk about 1 way of doing things. 1 way to create product, 1 way to increase traffic, 1 way to improve conversion. It starts with just 1 way.

And folks, that’s how you do things.

Varun Pratap

Aim for that peak like mad
Shadow Such people and Cheer Them On.

Internet marketers talk about giving Content as a strategy in newsletters, which I believe is as strong as a house of cards, full of air (hot air). I noticed couple of glaringly obvious problems with this strategy.

1. Everyone and his dog is giving away content – How the hell will you differentiate yours? If it wasn’t the only pain in the neck, then you have to worry about writing content on regular basis.

2. How much of content is enough? Can you tell how much is enough and when it’s time to shift from telling to selling?

3. Perception of content – If I am publishing something and an Already expert marketer publishes the same content. The perception of his content is going to be higher than mine, even if his ideas are inferior to mine.

If I play the games by same rules, I don’t stand a chance whatsoever against other marketers. So I have to bend the rules.

After realizing it, I went back to the drawing board.

First thing I notice was the marketers I was personally following, reading their emails or bought stuff from. And that number I can count of one hand. Very few marketers. Very Few.

We’ve been hammered to death about how content is important and it is, but one thing they forgot to tell us, that there’s no shift between telling and selling. Either you are persuading people or your are not. It’s as simple as that.

So if you are differentiating between giving content and sales pitch, you can never give enough content. And that’s the wrong way to do this. Remember, you are always selling.

Eben pagan talks about “moving the free line”, again good advice with half truth. Move the free line, but don’t forget to sell along with it. There’s no difference between telling and selling.

How to increase conversions on your email marketing?

1. Create a better relationship – Go Beyond content. Create a relationship with your list without using content. Content is small part of the strategy. Using content is like creating friendship with hidden motives. And that sucks.

When my subscribers write back to me, they write like they write an email to their friend.

2. Talk like a normal Guy – Again, following the first tip, I am just another guy who understands their situation and have a solution or an example that they can learn from. Don’t Act like a guru. If you don’t understand this, look at Frank Kern and Ed dale.

3. Connecting from the very first email – Your first email is very very important. Try to create a connection from the get go.

4. Use preview to increase readership – One of the good technique I learnt from Jimmy D brown was to use previews to talk about upcoming stuff. It builds anticipation and curiosity.

5. Don’t use too much of their name – Have you seen how some of the marketers use subscribers name in every subject line or emails. The personalization trick works but doing it for every other time is way too much.

Imagine how you’d feel if someone starts talking to you like this. Use their name when it’s natural.

6. Enjoy writing your emails – It’s such a little thing that we miss. If you don’t enjoy writing to your subscribers, it’ll come across through your emails. And this will create a disconnect. Which will always drop your sales.

Phew, I am typing from last 30 minutes and I need a little break.

Before I end this article, I have to comment on few questions/things I got from subscribers.

1. Someone asked me, if I write regularly to my list? How many times per week do you write?

The answer is yes. Write whenever possible is good way to start. Either people like you or they don’t.

2. Do you use and combine blog with email marketing?

Again, the answer is yes. But it’s not that necessary.

Varun Pratap

Aim for that peak like mad
Shadow Such people and Cheer Them On.

PS: This week India is celebrating Deepawali, so I won’t be able to do more than 2–3 Blog consultation. So if you want to get your blog strategy reviewed and consult, then you should contact me as soon as possible.

You have to take it seriously and think like it’s your own business that you are working towards. People have this attitude from their teenage years where Part time = pocket money = few beers and pizza with friends. And this attitude cross over when you start building your own business online.

Think of it like this. You are baking a cake. It takes 7 ingredients to bake a cake. But what if you miss 3 of the ingredients. Will the outcome be still a cake? Heck even if you miss 1 ingredient, the outcome will not be a cake.

For internet business, you need

1. Ingredients – Raw Materials to work with – i.e. Website, domain name, hosting etc.

2. Time limit – Working hours – You have to spend time daily on your business.

3. Experience – nobody can make a decent enough cake with their first try– It comes with experience. You’ll have to get improve your skills with writing, seo, building traffic. It’ll take some time.

If you understand this simple aspect of building business, you’ll go further than most people. One of the studies about affiliate marketers suggested that 90% of them do not make more than $200 a month. To me, Which is not surprising. Taking into the account of their hard work, I am not surprised at all.

Whenever I think of new marketers, I remember someone who in this first month as affiliate marketer made $800. He worked harder than anyone, he worked longer hours than anyone, he focused on his objective better. He jumped into 10% of affiliate marketer in his first month. Is it surprising? No.

All you need is a niche.

This has been one of my pet peeves about internet marketers approach. Especially after frank kern/ed dale’s underachiever method, everyone was trying to make their dogs and parrots sings.

The problem with this advice is that Internet does give you with an ability to target thousands of niches. But to try and find out if they are profitable will take consume lots of your time and money. And the worse part is, you don’t know how niche, your niche should be to be profitable?.

I know the idea of having 15 websites making $300–$500 per month sounds lucrative and effortless (sheesh how much marketing it needs to do to get that much money, I bet not much). It’s not.

And trust me, if you think handling 15–20 niche markets is easy? You have no idea.

Gary Halbert told me a better approach.

As you know Late gary halbert has way with words (Read his newsletter archive, it’s goldmine better than few of those $997 products put together). He talked about “Hungry market”. He said, “If I have a burger store, I am not going to try for the biggest, baddest, tastiest burger. No sir, I am going to want a bunch of hungry people who just wants a burger RIGHT NOW”.

In fact this approach is one that’ll make you most money. Find a herd of people who are hungry and put your burger mobile in front of them and charge money. There’s never been a better money making forumla told.

Find something that people want and charge for it.

Competition worry – Now in this situation, quite a few smart marketer will be using same approach (same ones who told you to find obscure niche for yourself). There’ll be competition. And I say “YAY” to that… With competition, you’ll learn faster. Either you’ll shape up or ship out. Simple.

I used to be worry myself sick with the competition. It never helped me. I could never market myself with more gusto. Worrying about it made me more worried. When I said, hell to all competitors and challenged them head on… I started making money… and fast too.

I always believed in “Push people in the water, they learn to swim faster” approach.

So What to do now?

Make a list of things you know and talk about to people. Includes your habits and other stuff. Chose 2–3 different topics and see how people are making money in those markets. (Check monthly magazines, websites with products etc). Jump into the water and learn to swim.

Oh… Don’t give up. Trust me, each failure will bring you so closer to your goal.

Often my response is “Do you really need mass article submitters?”

With so many article submitters out there and promises of tons of free traffic, people do get lured in and wonder about this.

Personally I don’t use any of the paid softwares to do article submitting.

Here’s why –

1. Every article directory needs to be signed up and logged in to submit articles.

2. Almost all the good submitters are what you call semi-automatic. You have to sit through the process of submission.

If I am going to do it manually then what’s the reason of using submitters?

Oh… I remember…

it’s those 457 article directories plus 576 ezine directories that those submitters got access to …. Right?

Frankly speaking you are better off using few of the top directories like www.goarticles.com, www.ezinearticles.com etc.

BUT I still want to mass spam article directories. Can you please tell me which is the best?

Like I said, I don’t use any of the article submitters but I use Firefox to submit my articles.

No, I am not kidding at all… Here’s how you can use it.

Create a new bookmark section in firefox bookmarks with all the logins. and Use “Open All in Tabs”.

See? If you have a list of 100 directories… all you need to do is create 10 “Article submit” bookmark folders to easily handle the list.

Well, To start off this blog again, I am starting “Traffic Tactics 7″ where I’ll share tactics/ strategies to build traffic for next 7 days. That means one tactic per day. I’ll be post today’s tactic later in the evening (I am working on it). If you want to build traffic to your website. You better keep your eyes on next 7 days on this blog.

Re: Your headline goes here….

Now Re basically suggest that someone wrote back to your email and often make you open these emails (to follow the conversation).

Frankly speaking this is really underhanded way of getting attention. About a year ago they were using “You made a sale” or “You got a commission”. I remember I un-subscribed from almost every guy’s list who sent me with this headline.

I sometime wonder if marketers think we are stupid dumb farts?

If you are using these kind of tactics, you might get a few emails open but people will become blind to these tactics sooner or later.

Attention Marketers : How about becoming honest for a change?

I learnt most of my email-ing techniques from Jimmy D brown. Frankly speaking his methods works like gangbusters in every niche. I get High open rates for this website and other websites. When I am saying High, I do not mean 30-40% open rates… No even better than those.

If you check people like Ewen Chia, they are not using these tactics… I have a swipe file of his email from last 2-3 years. He isn’t using these tactics. Do you wonder why?

If you are a marketer out of ideas and using these tactics. Here’s how to become better email-writer.

Step 1: Get a new gmail account. Yes that is necessary.

Step 2: Subscribe to every marketer you know of in varieties of markets too. Try dating, health, Internet marketing, self defense etc.

Step 3: Notice which emails you read and figure out WHY? Why did you opened that email? Why did you read that one and clicked on the link.

Step 4: Start using same tactics that worked on you. You want people on your list, who are like you, who shares same thoughts… So you’ll be sure that these people will open your emails.

See was it really that hard to get new ideas? Nope… So don’t be lazy. I know marketers wants to be lazy and get cash while they are sleeping… but sometimes you should wake up and see the light.