I remember when I first got started on this Internet Marketing Journey. I was jumping onto every website possible, in hopes of making mega money overnight. I held on to all of the promises that were being told to me.  With intense focus, I was determined to dissect this industry to find out if it was really true that we could earn thousands of dollars online, and find out the specifics of what I needed to do to make it happen!

After personally spending thousands of dollars on courses, e-books, programs, videos, software and the likes, I’ve come to learn one of the most important aspects of establishing true online wealth. You see, many people look at the internet as a place where people voluntarily give you their credit card for products that you “claim” are good. But that’s not really how it happens. If you want to know how it really works, then here it goes:

1. You create a website that is focused on a specific “niche market”.

2. You then begin to put valuable information on that website, sharing with those in your target market, valuable information that the feel they couldn’t find elsewhere.

3. You then have an “opt-in” form on your website that allows visitors to receive “FREE” resources or e-book that they feel they have to have…when they opt-in, you then have their email information to stay in contact with them.

4. You set up “auto-responder” messages, that automatically communicate with your list, to work for you, building a relationship with them along the way.

5. After they’ve seen 5-7 messages from you that are of value, they begin to feel like they know you personally.

6. As you build up your list, you then proceed to share valuable “affiliate programs” that allow you to “monetize” from your list. Because they’ve come to know and trust you, they buy from you and you start making money.

7. Down the line, when your list gets big enough, people begin to approach you about doing “joint-ventures” because your list is so big, they will pay you to market their product….

And that’s where the big bucks come in my friend!

So if you have been excited about the fact that you have a website or have met many friends in your social media circle, my question for you today is “Are You Building A List”? IF not, click here to get started on building your list today!

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My daughter and I were out shopping for my husbands birthday last week – three hours before his surprise birthday party.  However, with a crying one year old, I found myself in a frantic panic trying to shift her around in her stroller while holding a hand full of clothes and looking for her bottle, pacifier or anything to calm her down. In an effort to pick her up, I went to place the clothes on a little rack at the edge of the aisle to free up my hands.  Next thing you know, the whole counter came crashing down.  I felt my blood pressure rising, seeing all the neighboring shoppers give me the eye with the “get that whining baby outta here” look.

Feeling completely overwhelmed, a young lady was coming my way as I attempted to clean up the mess, calm Chloe down and pick the clothes back up.  I felt a little relieved when I saw her coming, excited about the fact that someone was willing to help me in the midst of this chaotic moment.  The closer she got, the happier I became….until she stepped right over the pile of mess and worked her way around the stroller to go on her merry way…….!!!!!!!!!!!

Immediately I was so disgusted, thinking about how selfish of a society we have become. To think that I’m in a busy store, in the middle of it’s busy hour on a busy shopping day and NOT ONE PERSON would come over to help me. I was steaming mad and embarrassed at the thought of our culture.  An innocuous acceptance of an egotistical, pompous, me-first,  power hungry population is vastly on the rise, and this girl was living proof!

As pissed as I was……. a very valuable lesson was brought to my attention as it relates to our industry,  challenging me and my personal integrity.  I was personally questioned with the following: “do you have a servants heart, or are you just like that young lady, passing people by in an effort to pursue your selfish endeavors?”.…………..

OUCH!!! I really had to think about that for a minute. It’s not to say that we should’nt have personal goals or ambitions. That would be totally unreasonable.  But do you have a heart to serve others in their efforts to succeed? Are you willing to put your goals in proper perspective, and know that if you help others, you will then help your own business to grow?

What do I mean you ask? Well, in life, we are taught to go for what you want and be aggressive about your success. Although I agree with that statement, there are certain aspects that can be unruly, often leading to a very pushy, selfish kind of character that makes one feel that they “deserve” to be successful and will do what ever they have to do to make it to the top…even if that means stepping on other peoples toes to get there.

When I first stepped into the world of internet marketing, I initially wanted to just focus on “building my business” and “making myself money”. But I quickly discovered that these two goals would become the last on my list of priorities. If you haven’t discovered it yet, Internet Marketing is not for the “selfish”. This industry is based purely on helping and serving others with the goal of making money on the back end. I’m not saying that it’s impossible to make money without building relationships. But if you truly want to be a long term winner in this industry, you must be willing to serve and help others!

Why?? Do you ask. Think about it….how many times do you give up your money to someone that “isn’t adding value to your life”? Can a person just walk up to you on the street and say…”hey, I’ll make you rich if you give me $500 dollars” and you willingly give him that money? OF COURSE NOT!….so why should people spend money with you BEFORE you show them how you can add value to their lives?

You see my point? …….Good!

Once you realize the need to add value to others, then you will be able to properly determine your place in this industry. If you are someone that is willing to learn so that you can help others advance in their journey, then you will be on the winning edge.

In the world of Internet Marketing, a servants heart is required!

If you have been searching, going from website to website, signing
up for program after program but still can’t seem to put it all
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It’s time to stop chasing your tail, and get a method to the
madness of your internet marketing strategy!

Tell a friend and join me to get the BluePrint for your Internet
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Date:           Monday, March 30, 2009

Time:           9:30 PM – 11:00 PM EDT

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PC-based attendees
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Many of you have asked me to share the various article submission sites that I recommend you submit your articles to. Here is my top 10 list that I find drives a log of traffic to your site.

1. Ezine Articles

2. Go Articles

3. Article DashBoard

4. Article City

5. Idea Marketers

6. Search Warp

7. Articles Base

8. iSnare

9. Article Mark

10. Article Alley

How many times have you googled a specific topic and had an article pop up on the first page that was relevant to your search?  If your a habitual googler like I am, you may have experienced this a couple times a week.  If you clicked onto the article, you would have found a one page article that addressed the specific topics that you entered into the search engine, and at the bottom of that article, you would have seen the photo of the Author and a small bio at the end that told you more about the author with a link to their website.

If the article was interesting and filled with great info, and addressed your areas of concern, providing quality information, you might have visited the Authors site and even signed up for their newsletter.  In the eyes of the readers, credibility is established on behalf of the Author who displays some level of expertise in his field with his article.  But the amazing thing is that the Author may have a fair amount of knowledge in his field, but because of a short one page article that addressed specific problems of a target audience, this Author will forever get highly targeted leads to visit his website and potentially become a client because he positioned himself as “the expert”.

If you are ready to get started on writing articles and you just don’t know where to start, I will share 5 steps to take so that you can begin to benefit from article marketing.

1. Set up an account with Ezine Articles.

2. Begin looking up valuable “keywords” that are related to your industry so that you can add them as the keyword for your articles.

3. Think about the problems that people are faced with, and provide them with a valuable solution through your article.

4. Provide valuable content that people wouldn’t normally find for FREE.

5. Give them steps, like this article “5 Steps to Article Marketing Success”

For extra assistance on getting your Article Marketing campaign going, please feel free to contact me for a consultation on Article Marketing Success!

“Is your cup half empty or half full?” That was a question posed to me by my wonderful mentor Teshana Henderson, over 15 years ago. She is known to be an optimist and no matter where she is in life, she always found the cup to be half full.

In Todays language, the majority of the world has a “half empty” view on the opportunities that are readily acceptable to us in this current state of our economy. I find it extremely challenging to buy into this negative mindset because my wheels never stop spinning. I feel like I come up with a new idea at least once a day. I could be watching a show, reading something online or having a telephone conversation, then voila!…the light bulb comes on.

With a mind that never goes to sleep, I don’t believe any of us are limited in our options. I do believe that we are limited in our “effort” to pursue our options, which leads one to believe that opportunities do not exist.

My message to you today is to seek a “half full” transition in your life, that gives your mind the ability to just “be”. The mind is a terrible thing to waste and if you aren’t giving your mind the freedom to run and work with the ideas that it conceives, then you are limiting yourself to the confines of a mental prison.

In this economy, opportunities are all around us. We can learn a very valuable lesson from a girls best friend: “Don’t be afraid of pressure because pressure is what turns a lump of coal into a diamond!”

Keep your wheels spinning and give yourself the opportunity to grow and blossom in this trying time. Only those that truly desire to make drastic changes in their lives will make it to the top, which is why only 3% of the world, has accomplished this feat!

Make today matter. Learn something new. Indulge in a foreign experience. Step outside of your comfort zone. Meet somebody new. Read a book that you wouldn’t normally read. Get off your butt and get your wheels spinning!

I recently responded to a question that a young lady had with regards to finding a “honest” home based business. With new businesses appearing every day, I thought that these points were very essential to finding the right business opportunity for you. See my response below:

Hey,

So glad to know that you are seeking independence in the form of working from home. My name is Nicole Cooper and I mentor and coach others on how to brand and market themselves online. Having a background in Home Based Businesses (HBB) and Network Marketing, I just wanted to shed a bit of insight into what you should look out for when seeking a HBB…

<b>1. Find something that you can believe in.</b> It is so important to believe in your product. You do not want to do something “just for the money”. It will never last, and starting an HBB can be pretty challenging at times in all honesty, so you want your passion to see you through the challenge of the development stage.

<b>2. Find a mentor that you can trust. </b>Although you will be in business for yourself, you will not be working by yourself, but will be working with a team of people that ‘MUST’ have your best interest in mind. I’ve worked under good and poor leadership, and trust me, the poor leadership nearly killed my business. Find someone that will show you how to disover your passion and push you to maximize your potential. But also keep in mind that you must be self motivated as well.
<b>
3. Make sure that the compensation plan is worth your time and is tangible.</b> In every business meeting opportunity, you will have the “highly paid” testimonials of that someone in the company that is making all this money in a short period of time…..BIG DEAL!!! The reality is, how possible is it for you to really make that money yourself, based on your talent and your efforts? Find a company with a compensation plan that is worth your time…..if that money is just a few dollars here and there, you may get discouraged and quit, feeling like your spending more money than your earning. There are companies that aren’t that expensive to get involved with, and will pay a reasonable amount of money. YOu have to be realistic with how much money you want to make in comparison to how much effort your willing to put into it.

<b>4. Be ready to work hard….</b>Working from home can often be harder than working a job. The reason why is because your hours go way past the normal 40 hours a week and you arent’ getting paid every two weeks. You must also be disciplined with a daily agenda of “money producing activities” that will promote you to where you want to be financially. The downfall with network marketing companies is that most people rely on their upline to get them to their desired level of success. The truth of the matter is that it is all up to you. They may support you, encourage you and guide you but YOU must do all the work! At the end of the day, you can not place your future in anyone elses hands so be willing to be in control of your future and your work ethic.

This is my tidbit of wisdom that I felt is necessary to share as you seek a business. One last tip….
<b>
5. MAKE SURE THAT YOU ARE WORKING WITH A MENTOR THAT CAN SHOW YOU HOW TO BUILD YOUR BUSINESS ONLINE! </b>- It’s obvious that using the internet to build your business is the most effective use of your time…..their really isn’t any other way to leverage yourself outside of it….need I say more.

If you have any additional questions…

feel free to contact me at nicolescooper@gmail.com and visit my sites:

http://www.BuildMLMBizOnline.com

http://www.ViralMarketingGeeks.com

Nicole S. Cooper

Internet Marketing has become a hot topic these days.  Whenever I open up a magazine, read online articles or speak with a business professional, some form of Internet Marketing is in the mix!  It’s no secret that Billions of dollars are being made every day online, while young savvy teenagers are claiming their stakes as Millionaires in the making, due to their internet hobbies.

If you have recently been laid off and looking to start a business, or if you are already a business owner, network marketer or consultant, then you would want to implement these specific strategies to see an opportunity with generating income online.

1. Learn the ropes with building a strong presence online. Far too many people think they can open up a few social media sites, add a few friends and start spamming the heck out of those people to try to solicit business. This is not the way to go. You want to learn what people are looking for and become the solution to their problems. I highly recommend this online system that gives you a crash course in Internet Marketing.

2. Pursue to be known as the expert in your industry. People like those that appear to be in the know…so educate yourself and provide valuable content for FREE that allows a rapport to be established and your expertise to reflect in the resources that you provide to your followers.

3.  Don’t focus on the Money, but pursue the relationships.  For those that are desperate to make money now, this industry is not the answer. Although you can start making money immediately, your emotions translate through your efforts and if people feel that you are trying to rush them into a quick sale, they will quickly run the other way. You want to position yourself as someone who is here for the long haul.  This is a long term business that provides short term benefits. But you must make people feel like you will always be around.

Every day, thousands of hungry job searchers are discovering the lucrative world of Internet Marketing. With a desperate need to make money, they immediately jump at the opportunity to purchase products for $99, $197, or in some cases $999 with the hope that this “magical payment” would be the answer to their financial worries.

After many attempts to see the results, many ultimately get discouraged and feel duped because they’re “magical payment” didn’t lead them to millionaire status. With the established opinion that “This doesn’t work”, they write off the opportunity to really become a student of the industry, and instead, go back to chasing their own tails in hopes of finding a J.O.B!

If this has been your story, I’m here to tell you that internet marketing does work. What many don’t get is that “Niche Marketing” is the secret weapon to success.

Niche Marketing is defined as the process of finding and serving profitable market segments and designing custom-made products or services for them.  The goal is to provide an answer to a group of people who are searching for a solution to their problem on the internet.

One of the biggest misconceptions of Internet Marketing is that “anybody can make money online”. This is a half truth that I will explain.  Anyone can make money in this industry IF AND ONLY IF they have something of value to provide to a Target Market of people that want what they have, and are willing to pay for it.

The first most important aspect of Niche Marketing is knowing what people want. You can think that once you come up with something, people will be waiting in line for it. Instead, do research to find out if the demand is there. If it is, go for the gusto!

Secondly, make sure that there are “many” buyers that want what you have. The smaller the audience, the lower your possiblities of making some real money int his niche. You want to be involved in something where there is a high need.  One recommendation is checking google adwords keyword search tool to see if the keyword for your industry has a high number of hits. If it does, then you know your on to something. Keep a list of the related keywords to make sure you use in yoru marketing strategy.

Thirdly, you want to have some form of lead capture page that will allow you to collect information from the visitors so that you can keep up with them over a period of time.

Fourth, you want to start promoting your website by writing articles, doing videos and social bookmarking to drive traffic. Once you start generating a list and building a good amount of traffic, you can start focusing on the fifth and final element of Niche Marketing:

Fifth, is to MONETIZE. This simply allows you to start generating an income from those that are visiting your site. This is the rewrding part of Niche Marketing and you will discover the joy of all yoru hard work if you properly follow in these footsteps!

One of the most common questions that I receive on a daily basis from hopeful Internet Marketers is how can they generate leads online.  Thousands of dollars go into marketing and advertising in hopes of getting the phones to ring.  But in today’s world, if you aren’t applying Web 2.0 strategies to your marketing plan then you might as well throw your money out the window while driving down the highway because most alternative methods are outdated and ineffective.

Web 2.0 is the latest trend and buzz to business marketing pursuits. From the use of Twitter and FaceBook to YouTube and blogging, all things internet based have become a priority for business owners.  The challenge with this is knowing the “right” way to use these tools, allowing you to truly convert potential leads to loyal customers.

As savvy as we all think we are, your potential lead is a few steps ahead of you when it comes to research and “the know”.  Just because they may not be knowledgeable about your specific product or service, they are still fully aware of your competition and what other possible services are available to help them solve their problem.

I will share with you the 5 most important things that you need to do to guarantee your success with generating leads online:

1.  Position yourself as the “Expert” in your industry and promote “YOU Inc.” everywhere you can think of online.  The reason why you want to do this is because those that are in your target market “online” are looking for you “online” and when they google your name, you want them to be thoroughly impressed with the fact that they can find you “everywhere”!

2. Know your industry in and out; make it your lifes work and post as much valuable content as possible to provide to your readers/target market.  The purpose of the internet these days is to provide “information”, and with the likes of google, yahoo, lycos and the likes, people want to find all of their important answers online.  Just make sure that they find them from you when they’re looking, so that they can unknowingly begin to build a strong rapport with you as the expert!

3.  Have a Lead Capture Page – One of the biggest downfalls of most Pursuing Internet Marketers is the lack of a lead capture page or form.   In order to stay in contact with those that stop by your page, you MUST COLLECT THEIR EMAIL ADDRESSES.  To learn more about Lead Capture Tools Click Here.

4.  Build a Relationship with Your Leads – Through the use of an autoreponder, you should keep in contact with your leads by providing some form of “valuable content” as it relates to your industry.  This way, people will come to appreciate you, and anticipate gaining more information from you that will benefit the readers in ways they’d hoped for.

5.  Monetize from those leads – Monetization is simply a way to generate an income from your leads.  You can monetize in many ways and over the course of a few weeks, I will touch this topic more in depth. If you really want to learn more about how to monetize, I highly recommend that you join my FREE NEWSLETTER to get insight on the many ways that I have been able to monetize.