Peter Hanley

Email marketing for a small business and why it is necessary. All businesses should email every day without exception and we tell you how.

Why email customers anyway

It has long been true that your customers thrive on touch, and without constant contact they will drift away. In fact you should use at least 7 different types of touch to maintain your customer based. Email can be some of them, throw in Social media and a few physical forms and you are on the way.

Do you have a customer list

While spamming is not allowed list gathering is legal.

Every business will have some form of a customer list however fragmented it may be. It can be stored in a simple excel spread sheet or a proper CRM format but certainly needs to be recorded somewhere.
Details can be collected from all sorts of sources and scrambled together to be used in many ways.
You must understand that this list represents a saleable asset that can increase the value of your business two fold, it is that powerful.
Used properly everyone on the list may return you $5 in value every month of the year and that's a lot of money.

My general advise is not to buy commercial lists offered for money, they are generally very low yield and will adversely affect your efforts in the long term.

Online business can gather lists by offering free products or from those seeking further communications.
At one time I employed some overseas telemarketers to ring and gain email addresses. They would ask along the lines of “Would you be interested in a support office service” “Great give me your email and name and I shall send you a bit of information”
They would then email the introduction and attach a product description.

Next they go into an autoresponder for a sales series that we will send daily for two weeks.

Finally we ring them and force the opportunity or hard close them. It was very successful.

Everyone that contacts me is put on my list and dealt with in some way.

What types of email are there?

You will be surprised at the reach of email and the overall effectiveness. I will list a few for you and go through each one further down.

Basic Introduction	The start of any campaign
Thank you	The all important curtesy
Invitation	To all sorts of activities
Selling email	Using an Autoresponder
New product	Launch email
Transaction email	Detailing the sale
Newsletter	A vey important item
Internal Update	Staffing changes etc
Co-Marketing	Joining with others
Special deals for customer	20% price drop
Providing a link to further reading	Maybe to an E.book or similar

Does email marketing still work

Everyday you will receive a bundle of emails and most you wont open because they don't apply to you at this moment. One of the many skills is getting people to read them and this is achieved in two very important ways. Without this you stand very little chance of being read or worse simply trashed, gone for ever.

Let's look at some stats to help strengthen your resolve.

• There are 3.9 billion daily emails
• 5.6 billion email accounts. (Statista)
• 46% of emails go to a mobile (HubSpot)
• and 35 % of businesses send 3-5 emails a week
• Newsletters for B2B are proffered by 87% of marketers

The growth of email marketing is consistent and increasing every year so if you are not doing it we may presume that perhaps you are missing out on business.

How do you get your emails read?

There are two important issues that you must achieve to get the readers near your content.
Yes content is very important but if you get Dissed before that it is a waste of time, and what's more it is mostly a customer gone for ever.

First of all you must be known. Sending random mail is not only illegal but it is first in the junk box every time. Think about your own activities and how you trash random mail that does not interest you at all.

Bought lists generally have a 1% open rate and a much lower click rate so it is a waste of your time and burning potential customers in the process.

Being known does not guarantee an opening but it does provide a window of opportunity. In fact you might only get opened when the second issue is covered.

that is one reason for the introduction email, this is not a selling tool but a handshake act of friendship.

Secondly is the subject line, what the email is about. I may know you and like you but what you have does not interest me at this time unless the subject line is scintillating.

You will understand that only a percentage of people will open any email and that will depend on what it contains and the interest to the reader.

A great example

Now I know Brian but this was the first mail in many months. He was the owner of Warrior+ and left to go into politics and now back on a new venture.
So if anyone knows the rules Brian certainly does, Yes I opened the email because I trust him and his new venture was really of interest, but did I buy?

Remember that not everyone will read your emails, they have a life that my not coincide with yours. We are working on percentages that can be worked to find improvement,

Moving on to content

Your content is important whether it be any type of email, sales, newsletter, offer etc.

However the content must matches the desire of the reader and generally answer some questions.

It can be short content or long however you must keep the readers attention and get them to commit to an action.

I like to use short form and have a link to a Post on my website where there is more information.
I have a friend in the Tyre business that does long form about all boy things, Cars, driving, tyre types, off road tips all the stuff for rev heads. It works well for him.

The successful business outlets are the ones that send newsletters, do they do it to become successful or because they are, a question I can't answer however they all believe in touch.

Again remember to include full contact details with a reason to sign your way.

The closing action

There is a golden rule in marketing that you are always closing however the closing changes with the action you want them to take.

To start with personalise the email as much as possible. Use names to get a far greater open rate. Next remember that you are writing to a mobile phone screen so test your mail to make sure it can be read. Don't put links close together they will merge on the screen and look really bad.

First of all give them contact details so if they want to leap they can, even in an introduction letter.
Secondly feed them information so they come to a decision on their own.

Next offer an incentive to move the process

And finally if they have no interest in you or your product delete them from the list.

Email marketing for a small business and choosing a supplier.

Email marketing for a small business and sending emails

How do you send emails

Off course there are many ways to do this depending on the volume. A single email is straight from your day file however you must then record a follow up.

Thank you emails are powerful and should be sent every time a new potential customer contacts you.

Auto responder emails are in a series that build to a buying cresendo.

Newsletters are for everyone on the list and should be every two weeks or monthly at the least.

I have tried all the Email carriers and have settled on Constant Contact as my preferred supplier.

They are not the cheapest however everything is easy and they have never let me down. If your emails work it is about performance not a small monthly cost as you build your list.

Conclusion

This is probably the cheapest and easies form of marketing that almost guarantees a return.
Maintaining customer contact over the long haul is a business must and emails allow you to do this.
It is not all hard work, once an email autoresponder is set up it just keeps working. You just put names in at the top and pull sales out at the bottom. When that is done you move them on to a separate list for either a new product or a newsletter to retain the loop.

Writing a newsletter is also easy with a nice template that maintains your brand in a consistent manner so it is easily recognized.

You can go hard or slow however you must be consistent and maintain a regular presence.

Email marketing for a small business by Peter Hanley

If you read emails then someone else must.

Does adding humour to a post get more readers? No it definitely does not and we will tell you why and then how to fix the laughs.

We all love a laugh but we search a problem

Internet searches are generally focused around a problem or something you want fixed. How to problems, why problems, when or if problems.

We don't search make me laugh my way to a bank loan. If we want humour there is a ton of it on YouTube and blogs are there to answer a question.

That is not to say you should not use humour in a blog, I would love to write more funny lines and have my readers chuckling along to my every word.

It is not an easy task to add a whole bundle of belly wobbles to a dry post unless they directly relate to the subject.

When writing a blog it is advised to stay on the subject and not wander off into uncharted territory and talk about something entirely irrelevant.

I just had a funny moment when my wife and I painted our toe nails pink. This was in support of my Grand daughter who has been involved in a very serious motoring accident and is in ICU at hospital.
We wanted to frame the picture with something different and chose our Cat a much loved animal of hers.
So we complete the painting and call the cat who looks entirely suspicious of the whole exercise, My wife grabs a few treats and again calls her however she bolts away at the speed of lightening. Katie cat thinks we are taking her to the Vet whom she hates with a vengeance. She has not been seen for several hours now. We needed another prop.

Does adding humour to a post get more readers by staying on the subject

Stay on subject throughout your blog

If you are still reading I can take that a bit further. I am an old bloke having suffered many long years. Not being able to use the Cat as my prop I then chose a red Rose instead
Next I decided to go and get my morning fix of coffee, Threw on a pair of sandals to my bare feet and headed of to the local shops.
Now imagine me in tracksuit pants and sandals wandering around the shopping center with Bright pink toe nails. Fortunately I woke up before leaving the house and covered up with shoes to save my acute embarrassment.

Weaving stories into a blog can be a diversion but it can also have an adverse effect.

Readers need entertaining

Readers are a fickle lot and they are soon diverted away from your post if they are not getting an answer, we use good sub headings and pictures to keep them reading but maybe they want more.
If humour entertains them it is a great ingredient to your post.

In the depths of horror beside the bedside of an injured young lady we were talking to her but she could only answer by hand signals as she has breathing tubes in her throat.

Her mother and her often work together so they understand each other very well. My daughter asked if she could take a photo to save for later times. Daughter has life saving equipment wired everywhere so it is quite a frightening vision and a very somber time.

So Mother G says can I take a photo of you lying under a single sheet wired to the world.
Patient GM waggles her finger in a no expression taking us by surprise.

She then points to her father and gives a thumbs up as we all know the mother takes lousy photos. A very funny moment in a serious situation.

Does adding humour to a post get more readers and do you need to focus.

Keep it real but still focused on the end result

I am taking you to an understanding that the subject is not the content so humour does not attract visitors but it can keep them engaged and willing to stay the distance.

This can, however, change.

I just read a review on a current TV series that aired the first two episodes of a celebrity challenge. Here the c grade celebs competed a grueling elite Army training exercise to see if they could go the distance of a beret soldier.

The heading was interesting because it simply read “Schapelle pulls out over a jog”

Then the Meta description was even better;

SAS AUSTRALIA RECAP: Not even Schapelle Corby, who survived ten years in a Balinese prison, can handle it

In this case readers want to know more and they expect to be entertained. The writer Belle Taylor is a funny lady and she writes;

One of the other AEM, not Ant, is talking about fear. All the recruits are running around with a tyre.

Actor Firass Dirani gives us a lecture about how he has the “blood of resistance” and is from “freedom fighter stock”. In case you’re wondering, his most recent role was on *checks notes* House Husbands.

He later gets told off for using his drinking water to wash his face.

“You can’t go through this course being the course clown!” Ant yells at him. Which is giving me serious flashbacks of the time my high school phys ed teacher Mrs Whipp (seriously) yelled: “Belle Taylor! Stop playing the fool and start playing some SPORT!”

Didn’t work on me, doesn’t seem to be working on Dirani either.

Nick Cummins runs into one of the girls and she is winded but seems fine, later she worries she has a broken rib and goes to the medic. She is told she doesn’t have a broken rib she was just winded by the Honey Badger and hey, she’s not the first woman on a reality TV show that has happened to.

A bit of clarification

Just for clarification the AEM is an Angry English man and the course trainer, Corby a Drug smuggler, Dirani a small tine actor and the Honey Badger an international Rugby player who also starred in The Bachelor series and picked no one.
These are just a few among the 15 or so players that participate.

This is entertaining writing with a quirky headline however aimed at a specific target, those that watched the show or wished they had.

It does however follow all the rules of writing and entertaining with tongue in cheek humor.
Is it a serious post or a humorous newsletter I believe it sits in the middle.

My point on humour in a blog

If the heading attracts and the description is apt to the subject go for a laugh but remember why you are writing in the first place. Most of us a writing for a reason the above was a paid article that's only job was to entertain and build a following.

Therefor I stick to my original point that adding humor to a post is possible depending on your market and what you want to achieve.
Your heading and description however must be focused to draw in readers.

Learning to write a blog

There are many rules to blog writing and most of my learning came from the Wealthy Affiliate university which has many articles on this and all the steps necessary to be read to have an effective blog.

I love a good laugh but find it hard to script write a comedy and wonder about you and your efforts,

Does adding humour to a post get more readers by Peter Hanley

To make some one laugh is a joy.

Blogging is money a 7 step guide to success Be the writer that the masses will follow. Miss any step and you will fail.

Blogging starts with a plan

It is a marathon and not a sprint. Like any race you need to understand where you will be running. If it is New York in summer then it is different to Tokyo in winter.
Your training will comprise putting in some hard miles before the big day and then you will follow a detailed plan. A plan that may change for all sorts of reasons along the way.

Your plan may be to change the world to a vegetarian diet. One blog is a training run for the end purpose, you might get one or two readers or even 10 however will they take action.

Did you know that less than ten people a month search for the Keyword Vegetarian diet so it will take a long time to build a crowd of followers.

Your plan will be to talk about the reasons for going vegetarian, the effect on your body, long term health and saving animals. Then countless recopies and diet guides, good foods, balanced intake, extra pills required, for the young and the old even for the family pets.

Your future is being build from day one as you progress in an orderly manner with a whole bunch of things to write about.

What ever your Niche you start with a plan and a blueprint for the race.

What will be your site name?

This a one time choice so choose carefully. You may make the site all about you and build a profile along the way. This is ideal if you are known in the industry and want to be a spokesperson. If perhaps you are a five star chef, or Michelin listed restaurant this would be good, for the Joe average maybe something better.

Google vegetarian and see what names are popular other than Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsey
Yes i would include something along the vegetarian line to make it more visible.
When you have done that purchase the domain name and host it with a carrier like Wealthy Affiliate.

Your blog must follow the rules

Not your rules but those of the internet and search engines. Search engine optimization
or (SEO) is a structure that allows your blog to be found and read. Without good SEO the best content in the world is wasted as no one will find it or read it.

First of all you need to use good Keywords. This is what people type in to find you.
If you used, as an example, “Ideal Vegetarian diet” the search volume is about five a month appearing on page one however there are 114 blogs in front of you, or in other words you will appear on page eleven or twelve.
If you used “What's a vegetarian diet” the traffic would be about 1500 a month and on page three or four. This is a massive difference in readership by the correct use of words.
A great tool for this is Jaaxy, yours for free to try

Your content needs to be good

Your content needs to stay on the subject, it is no good talking about the unnecessary killing of animals when all the reader wants is a nice recipe for Spinach Pie.

Content needs to be in short sentences , short paragraphs and written for the average reader
and most importantly answer a question.
If I Google how to cook a Spinach Pie I don't want to be sold a George Forman Grill. I just want a few ingredients so I can complete my nights meal.

A blog is generally from 300-3000 words long with a recommended range of around 2000 words. The main issue is to answer the question that is requested.

Readers have a pretty short attention span so you need to keep them on track with nice headings and some pretty pictures. The pictures must relate to the subject, a cow grazing in the pasture is far removed from a pie picture.

You must find your readers

Are your target readers in a specific place or area. You can use Keywords to narrow down the search. The Best Spinach Pie recipe may be universal however the best Pie shop in New Orleans has no interest to me in Australia.
To make a spinach pie edible for Teens is well removed from the healthy ingredients in a Spinach pie. The correct beer to have with Spinach Pie is another group, mostly male over 40
Understand your market and address them appropriately. Write to your group like you are talking to them and maintain the interest

Blogging is money a 7 step guide to success and gathering traffic

Gather some blog traffic the easy way

You will initially despair at traffic volumes, with one post you wont have many readers unless you are very lucky, with two post double very little and so on until you build a channel.
It is just a fact that blogging takes time however you can do things to help it along.
Social media can deliver readers to your articles by consistent posting on the correct channels. Each channel has an age group associated so using the correct ones can enhance your chances,
TikTok really young generally under twenty
Instagram, female 25-45
Facebook generally 35 plus
LinkedIn all business types
Twitter the more professional among you.

Next is YouTube which is searched nearly as often as Google. doing a quick video and adding it to your page and on a YouTube Channel will help you immensely

You can increase SEO buy using Bot traffic that provides thousands of clicks to your site increasing the page statistics.

Finally advertising on the various media to get you a following and hopefully a return on expenditure.

Email marketing to potential subscribers

Using Bot Traffic to get instant returns

Where does income from your site come from?

Are you writing to make money or for the love of the exercise? Either way you can monetize your site in many ways.

1. Sell things on your page, A George Forman Cooker through Amazon or a Spinach Pie recipe book by virtual download, written by you exclusively for viewers.
2. When you have traffic you can include advertising on your site for which you get paid either on a click or a sale.
3. Membership to the Pop Eye club at just $10 a month for all spinach lovers, as an example
4. Referrals to other affiliate offers and shopping lists
5. exclusive offers of all types
   
   

Maintain your focus

I started by comparing a blog to running a marathon. By now you will have seen the many parts of a long journey. It is not a simple run or sprint but a sustained effort over a long period of time, the time may be months or years but the results will come.

Never just give up and waste all the effort you have put in, keep plodding until you see returns that will push you along.

Increase your learning along the way because there is a lot to understand that will increase your traction in a busy industry.

I like Wealthy Affiliate training because the whole site is set up around writing and hosting bloggers in one form or another and is yours to try for free.

Blogging is money a 7 step guide to success by Peter Hanley

The best way to start online business without experience. Now is the time for action with COVID controlling our jobs and needing more money.

How do you start a business with no money.

You don't. However if I said with minimal funds we might be on a winner.
Don't believe the hype promises of no money , no experience , no website and massive instant returns.

Let's clear up that the internet is full of scams and there are those that make money and the others that pay money. Don't get caught up in the Fast cars, exotics holidays and no work. It is a fallacy.

Next up is a truth that not many will tell you, it is that you can buy a business or make one, the decision is yours. Suppose you wanted a Pizza shop near where you live, there happens to be one for sale and they want paying for all the fixtures and fittings and an amount equal to 2.5 years of proven profit. First of all if there is no profit why spend the money and secondly do they have a great reputation.

Suppose there is no Pizza place so you find a vacant shop take out a five year lease (commitment) buy all the ovens and boxes, paint the building and open the doors, and no one comes.
So you run for the first year at a loss and slowly build up a following however the cost is nearly the same as if you had bought a business.

The internet is different, yes you need a computer and internet connection but that is really all except for one important ingredient.

The best way to start online business without experience and choosing the best.

What are the most successful small businesses?

I don't want to be difficult here but generally it is the one most suited to you.

Do something you love and not something you know is my best advise.

Then think about your long term plan to build a sustainable business.

You can sell product on Amazon, eBay or other similar venues. This is really easy to set up but the margins are very low. As an example Amazon have cut commissions twice in months and you now earn between 1-3% on a sale, takes a whole bundle of work for a very small return.

Off course you can buy some products out of China for cheap, mark them up and advertise on Etsy or eBay. The problem is that many others like you are doing the same thing and the market is crowded. ( I have some left over if you want LOL). As well you are risking good capital if it does not work.

I am not knocking the idea of selling a hard product, hey, I have been there and seen it done successfully. In fact my Granddaughter makes jewelry and sells it around the world. She is not yet killing the pig but it is the start of perhaps a good business but certainly a good learning curve.

Selling virtual products on the internet

Just like selling free air. It may be audio books, training courses or any number of items we will cover. The transaction is virtual the result may be physical.

The option here is to gather products with a good return because the amount of effort is the same. You may sell an Amazon book and make $0.75 or an insurance policy on Prime and make sever hundred dollars. You must remember however you will sell many more books than insurance policies.

Recurring revenue products are my favorite because you build a stream of income that can be unlimited. Suppose you sell by some means a subscription to a online storage vault. There are many of these including Amazon. The user pays a monthly fee and you receive a percentage as long as they remain a paying customer, months or years. One customer may pay $10 a month but a hundred will pay $1000 and so on up to no top end.

We have a whole bundle of these products that are easy starters

The best way to start online business without experience however adding some training.

It all start with a basic knowledge of internet marketing

You will need to Know how to build a website or funnel at the very least to promote your products.
Then you build on that to all the marketing ideas that will make it sell.
SEO, paid advertising, external and internal links, structure and content as a start. If you don't have all this down pat then click below and start some basic training at no cost.

The benefit of taking this training is that you immediately become an affiliate and they will show you how to make money as you learn.

I can not teach all the basics in a quick post like this however they are necessary to build your income. I said no money but the substitute is your time, you don't make a Pizza without learning nor do you sell on the internet.

Is starting a business hard

This term is searched so often that I thought I should include it. No it is not hard and almost anyone can achieve a great result marketing on the internet.
The trick is understanding what you want to be involved in and doing it. Make a plan going forward and set a great destination where your personal success is marked as stage one. Then build on this to a far greater level than you ever thought possible.
Just like a fixed business you can buy one that is going but the cost is high. Starting one takes time and some learning to get to the point of sales.

The best way to start online business without experience and making money

Can you make money online

How about a Million Dollars a year as the first target. The beauty of this is there is no ceiling to your income. No one says what you can or will earn it is entirely up to you.

If you work a 9-5 and get paid $25 an hour you know the end result and then the government takes a dip into it. You also have clothing, transport and all the other expenses that limit what you can spend.

Online money does not have a clock it works around the Face and never stops. I am In Australia however the UK is eight hours behind and the USA up to 14 hours difference so whilst I sleep buyers are active.

I am not promising any money or any return to anyone however the facts are there to be seen but it depends on you, your effort and sometimes luck. If life was easy and you could just dial up a return everyone would do it. This does not happen in real life so understand the journey before you start.

You can make several hundred thousand dollars a year as an Engineer, Lawyer or Doctor but it takes six or seven years of advanced study to get a low paying job.

If you spent time on the internet the journey may be much less.

Is blogging a good idea to make money

Among many Ideas I am a blogger and have written enough words to fill about ten adult size books.
I am also a slow typist with two fingers so it has taken me a heap of time to get this far into my journey.
Blogging is a lifestyle for writers or those that want to write so make sure you are prepared to put a lot of time into a result.. In your blog you can sell products both physical and virtual and when you get enough traffic throw in advertising to complete the flow.

You can write blogs for other people and get paid for the effort or adversely have them write for you to increase your exposure. It is a whole world of opportunity but it is not a get rich quick scheme.

The best way to start online business without experience and getting rid of the hard bits

What is the hardest part of starting a business

This is included as another common question posed on the internet. The answer is knowing what you want to do and how you want to do it. This takes deep soul searching and often agreement with family members that will be critical and perhaps not have the same excitement you do.

The second part is planning. Not in your head but written down on paper detailing what you want to do and how you will achieve it. You need to know what you are selling and the returns you will make and how it will all be achieved The more comprehensive the greater your understanding and chance of success.

Finally you will need a cash flow going forward. To this day after many decades in business I still run a daily cash flow projecting the next twelve months. It is on a simple Excel spread sheet and each quarter summarized so i have months , quarters and years.

You will have commitment, costs and outgoings to meet so you must be prepared for them. Yes it is dynamic and things will change however you can see what is coming up and make changes to meet the variables.

Are there harder bits to a business once you are going

The first is continued commitment. If the returns aren't coming quick enough then the ability to give up is always present. Business takes time and perseverance and that is why you need to look at your plan and modify it to reality. It will take effort so accept the fact and allow for it.

Next you have diversion opportunities, those flash offers on the internet will look like better possibilities and will tempt you away from the main goal costing you money. It is called the shiny object syndrome and will remain with you fore ever. The only remedy is focus and maybe to be burnt a few times until you learn they do not work.

Traffic is probably the hardest element that you will face and it is a problem for us all. There is free traffic and Paid traffic

The tools you will require

I have already said that a long term plan and a cash flow are necessary and an understanding of web pages and using a platform like WordPress to build your business.

The next thing is to build a delivery mechanism around you that will create traffic.

Multiple streams of traffic are needed to create volume and regular viewers.

This starts with Social media and setting up your various accounts. First of all is a LinkedIn account with a great picture and BIO. Add some business details and treat it like any sales platform. Answer the question “why would they want to deal with you?

The next is the old standard Face Book. It may be a grandfather but it is still growing and is a source of many enquiries and a great advertising potential.

The balance depends on your market niche because each has a age and interest.

The next is content and its relevance to your audience . Content marketing is important because it builds a following.

Having a great web host is also important because site speed and mobile marketing are two important ingredients. These two small things can make a 50% difference in results. Therefore I choose Wealthy Affiliate, they are fast , efficient and with 24-7 support and a forum of willing helpers.

The best way to start online business without experience and getting traffic

Other traffic sources for your website

You can go on to forums like Quora to build a following and also try email marketing to a developed customer base. As you gather followers put them in a list and keep up the emails every month.

For local markets you can also use SMS marketing. This has a cost however it often returns a positive ROI.

Then there is paid advertising

Never even consider this until you are well into the journey and understand what you are doing and trying to achieve.

Spark Traffic is a traffic bot that will assist in some ways to help your site with SEO and Google positioning. take the free trial and see how it improves your page reports so that google will bring you forward in the search engines. Low drop out rate and increased page turns.

My conclusion

I originally went on line to help my day business because I had to keep up with the latest trends which led me to appreciating the abilities of this new style marketing and business building.

I have become a consistent blogger and email marketer and really do appreciate all that is on offer.
However I had to learn a lot along the way and did the course at Wealthy Affiliate to build a greater understanding of the whole picture. In fact I redid it a second time because I skim read it the first time and missed so much of the training.

I remain in the top 150 members out of about 1.5 million subscribers due to my continued contributions.

The best way to start online business without experience by Peter Hanley

7 Reasons for better traffic on your website. and how to make Google searching greater for your business or page. We give you power to win.

All website traffic is not equal but what can you do about it?

Google measures traffic not just on volume but in several key areas that are as important to your overall ranking. Understanding traffic will provide an opportunity to be in the ranking race.

Sessions	Over all traffic for a period of time
Page views	The number of pages opened
Average session	The time spent on site
The bounce rate	Good traffic or bad
Location	Your target area
Demographic	Age and sex
Free v Paid	The different delivery

The same site with different traffic and I shall show you how to achieve this.

The number of visitors

Off course the number of people that visit your site is important however not all visitors are buyers. In fact only a very small percentage are.

People arrive from many sources both free and paid. They are referred from other sites and Social Media so they vary in interest.

Mobile phones have a huge influence as the percentage of users grow daily.

Therefore you must know your traffic sources and work to improve them.

Overall page views

Again this can be highly misleading because everything is not as it seems. Furthermore it is reliant on other factors you can not see.
People are paid to skim pages as a financial incentive and they are after quantity and not quality. I tried this early on in my career to pick up a few leads instead of dollars. The interesting point was that I did click on several articles or areas that interested me, so all was not lost as I skimmed through business pages without an interest in a result.

Computer bots can also do this seeming like real people reading your site.
An overall reliance on page views can easily be distorted and unreal.

Relying on just one factor will create an imbalance and lead to wrong conclusions

Time on site

This is important but can also be misleading. A normal site will encourage further investigation flipping through pages of material and being sold an opportunity.
however a Funnel may just be one long page that takes you to a conclusion and will have no page jumping.

What is a computer bot?

An Internet bot, web robot, robot or simply bot, is a software application that runs automated tasks (scripts) over the Internet. Typically, bots perform tasks that are simple and repetitive, much faster than a person could.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_bot

When computer Bots skim sites they create traffic but little else. We have said that all traffic is not equal and the only good this traffic achieves is Google numbers and making the site owner feel great. Time on site is an indicator that the activity is far more sophisticated than just site skimming..

Bounce rate and your site

Again this is an indication of how real the traffic is, do viewers just click and delete or do they at least have some activity

Bounce rate is an Internet marketing term used in web traffic analysis. It represents the percentage of visitors who enter the site and then leave (“bounce“) rather than continuing to view other pages within the same site.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounce_rate

This may represent a Google measurement item or a trick of nature.

A high bounce rate is not always bad particularly where the information is contained on the front page of a site and the reader has no need to proceed further. Generally a bounce rate of around 40% can be considered a good average on most sites.

Location is your target market

If you are marketing to a single location, country, state or town any outside clicks are just wasted.
You may have a local shop or pitching for one on one training in your town you want consolidated information.

However if your pitch is wider you want a nice even spread.

One thing wrong in this spread is that it misses Australia in the top ten locations and I must address that in the next review.

Demographics

This is a very broad subject however Google analytics will supply all the answers.

• What Language are they reading in.
• What country are they from
• Are they male or Female
• Are they under 20, 20-25, 26-30, 30-40, 40-50, over 50 as example
• What are their interests, sports, hobbies or technology etc.
• A returning visitor v a new one
• The type of devise by percentage. Desktop or iPhone or Tablet

All this information is easily obtained from analytics and available almost live at any time.

This makes targeting your ideal customer a lot easier understanding the activities and who they are .

7 Reasons for better traffic on your website with free or paid traffic.

What can you do with this information

If, for example, you had a high percentage of females aged between 20-45 in your base you would immediately start marketing on Instagram. That is their market and they are there waiting for you to advertise to them. All social media has a dominant market so understanding your base can determine the outcome.

Like wise a professional group would indicate LinkedIn as the target.

When you are using a professional agency you will be armed with the correct information to ascertain the ability to achieve results.

Your traffic problems overcome with a simple fix

Paid traffic or free traffic

Certainly we all want the free traffic generated by all our site work and SEO adherence.
Google respects this traffic although rates it the same as paid traffic.
I like free traffic and it should be all you need in the early days as you build a business but sometimes you want a bit of a bump up. So take out the wallet and choose the option that provides the best return on investment (ROI).
You can advertise on Google or Bing. Certainly Facebook, Instagram Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube

Other sources of Traffic

To get numbers to your site we often use traffic bots. These bots become key numbers on the site and increase your Google rating.

This service comes ahead of all the others in providing a source of traffic that will make your stats stand out and Google take notice. We all started with a free trial and went on to a small monthly amount to keep the site improving in SEO and in Alexia which are both dependent on traffic

One of the most important ranking criterion is tour Alexia ranking.

Your site's Alexa Rank is a simple number representing the popularity of your website when compared to all other live websites. It does not measure your site's rank within your own industry, although you can make these comparisons yourself by checking the ranks of other sites. Most small businesses will find that their websites' Alexa Ranks are in very high numbers, meaning low popularity in comparison to other sites, but this is not a cause for concern. Consider that your Alexa Rank compares your website to the entire internet, which is home to over 1.7 billion websites! That's why Alexa Rank is best used as a benchmarking tool to help identify your site's rate of growth — as your business grows and you earn more traffic, your rank will increase.

3Dcart.com

You are not going to rank number one however compare your ranking with others in the same industry and also make sure it is going down in the stats. There may be nothing wrong with a three million figure out of 1.7 Billion sites.

The critical factor to measure

This is the most important factor of all and that is results. What percentage of your sales arrive from web activity. Mine is probably in excess of 50% because I work it hard.

First of all do you know where your leads come from? Every lead or new customer should be
listed by source so you can enhance what works for you. If 50% comes from the web and 5% from roadside signs where is the best place to spend money. The area that will send most business at the least cost is always the first choice.

7 Reasons for better traffic on your website and why you must understand them

My conclusion on traffic

This is always a major consideration for every online business. No traffic is a horror story because no one reads your stuff however too much may be the completely wrong traffic.

When you understand the basics you have a chance of making a difference.
Facebook has 1.9 billion adds a month and Twitter 152 million a day plus 15 percent of all US population view Instagram every day.

These are mind blowing figures that your little site needs to compete with.

However Google makes the world even and your market easy if and when you understand the basics of SEO

Finally remember to target your market and not everyone about everything.

7 Reasons for better traffic on your website by Peter Hanley

Knowledge is power.

7 Online Marketing Tips That Will Really Work and take your business to a new level of sales you never thought possible. Methods that work.

What are the seven tips that will change your world

Keywords	The start of a Journey
YouTube	A search engine
Newsletters	keep them close
Social Media	a necessary part of life
Blogging	An adventure to results
Loyalty program	They stay a lifetime
Email marketing	Still a major part of your life

You may think you are on top of all these but what are your results?

Are you achieving sales or just treading water and waiting for the big break.

Let's have a look in a bit more details for some ideas that may help.

7 Online Marketing Tips That Will Really Work starts with a word or phrase

Using a Keyword tool for extra oomph.

I spend a lot of time on Keywords and use several different tools. My latest is by Monster insights a WordPress plugin that makes you write in a certain way.

They then look at the types of words used and how they are put together. Common words and uncommon words, Power words and emotional words, all of which get a score.

With a list as above The monster states

Lists

Headlines that are lists and how-to get more engagement on average than other types of headlines.

Having followed the structure almost to the word I shall look for a good impact.

Keywords are about two principal items.

Traffic
Without any traffic you can't be read and that speaks for itself. There are different types of traffic but the main source is those that visit the page during a month. target is greater than 100.
This can come from all sources paid or free it matters not.

Competition.
for any heading or keyword you are generally not the sole user of the word so you may never get to page one of the term where over 80% of people look.

Word or phrase
When we started out with google search it was simple to use a word as your heading. However with competition we have needed to make a word into a phrase to make the search term more specific. Nike became, Nike shoes, then Nike shoes for men even Nike shoes for men playing basketball. A simple word now needs to be a phrase. They mean the same thing it just makes the Google search more specific.
Therefor Keyword and key phrase are the same thing.

7 Online Marketing Tips That Will Really Work includes YouTube

YouTube as a search engine

It is fast becoming evident that YouTube will lead the race in search terms. It currently is searched nearly as often as Google and more than Bing and Yahoo combined. Think along your own search history and go back on the ways you obtained your information.

There are two important points here;

Voice search is becoming more common particularly on mobile phones and Google will rank highly on any search term. Voice search will soon dominate the market and we all need to adjust our future to the concept.

You can do any type of Video including comedy, music and rubbish however you can do Branding, selling, explaining, unboxing and how to do things videos The world is yours.

If you think it is too hard have a go here and see what you can do, it's free for fourteen days and you get to keep any videos you make.

7 Online Marketing Tips That Will Really Work with Newsletters

Do Newsletters work anymore?

Your customer base is an important asset that steadily grows with your business.

To ignore them is at your peril because your competitors wont. Therefore a Newsletter is a low cost method of continual contact to keep them loyal and informed.

However you must understand it is not a sales tool. Your newsletter is there to entertain in an informative and intellectual manner that keeps them top of mind.

I have written much on newsletter over time and still today send one about every two weeks.
If you don't have a data base start building one today and reap the rewards of a long term asset build.

What Social media is best for you?

First of all maintaining a good presence in your media is a time consuming occupation however it can be extremely rewarding. Therefore focus your activities around the age and interests of your readers.

Every Channel will have some overlap but generally the majority come from a small band of age and sex.

TiKTok is the current rage for younger people, if that is your market you may have a chance but for the adults among us I would not waste my time, you want buyers not crazy dancers.

LinkedIn is a must for everyone. Have your profile and photo and a great bio because you never know who will be looking for you, a customer, a buyer or even a banker.
The professional groups can use this for marketing as it has a higher interjectural audience that use it more than most others.

Twitter has a following that can be developed if you have a profile and people want your thoughts and ideas. I follow a few out of interest and I guess the best user is Donald Trump who has a major degree in messaging. It works for him.

Instagram is for the younger female set and a few family's and followers. If this is your demographic it is an ideal platform to grab new business by daily posts and photos.
Female Hairdressers and Clothing, Fast food and Coffee, Jewelry, Pet products, adventure are some of the areas that would work well.

Facebook the old and still the best with an adult following across all sorts of ages and abilities. It is necessary to have a current Facebook page and use if for all sorts of promotions.

The art of blogging

Blogging has many benefits to business however it does have a high level of labour input. Although you may outsource the material to someone else to do for you.

If you are a business a blog can direct people to your webpage or Funnel to more directly perform a sales function. Blogging is, or can be emotional content that takes readers on a journey of discovery. It is written about a subject and can be viewed many times over a long period of time. Many years in fact.

You can build a following that wait for every new article and build a whole data base of interested buyers.
In fact every Webpage should have a Blog element so that those readers seeking more information can be entertained.

There are a few rules to blogging and I cover many of them in this short post.

Loyalty programs are an absolute must have for any business

have a look in your wallet or purse and see the loyalty cards from Major Chains, Food, Wine, Clothing, Coffee, Sporting goods etc. The reason they have them is really very simple, they work.
if they didn't they would not spend millions on promotions and driving you back to the store.
Importantly most are really pushy with offers nearly every day. Repetition and constant marketing works and they understand that.
Just perhaps you need to understand it as well.

Loyalty programs are to maintain customer touch and keep them coming back but they must be done correctly.

During the day I go to a few coffee shops depending on where I am and what I am doing. Some have cards and others don't however let me tell you the girls love a free coffee and they will chase the card outlets.

Some time ago I went to a local spot and purchased a coffee and a tea, this outlet is not the cheapest around or the best but it's situation sitting on the side of a lake is ideal.

The girl duly stamped my coffee card once so I queried why not twice, two beverages bought equals two ticks. In a high and mighty voice she firmly told me ” it is a Coffee card not a tea card.”

I could of explained it is a Loyalty Card and you have just blown a customer away but instead I voted with my feet and just don't go there. For maybe $0.20 she lost a customer for life.

Loyalty cards say that they respect your business and want you to return and buy lot's more.

Email Marketing works better than ever, however, it is now different

What do I meen it is now different? I meen that to be read you need to follow some basic rules or get lost in the flood of offers.

I get a couple of hundred emails a day and open but a hand full. I unsubscribe from a few and keep others for another time when I may be interested.

I am sure you are much the same so we need to find the answer to this problem.

You must be known and liked.

Probably 70% of my mail is from trusted sources so they stay on my page for awhile.

Most new authors get the delete button with hardly a thought and the older ones depending on what I am doing at the time. For example sometimes I do Facebook marketing so when I am in the mood anything along this line gets attention, however the rest of the time I generally just disregard these at this time. That is one reason that even great emails don't get opened, just timing

Timing

You can do somethings about timing that will help, certainly in the seasons or particular times of the Year. Black Friday is a big one, Christmas and Easter sales. holiday seasons, climate change, winter v Summer and even Covid lockdown. These all present an opportunity to offer an opportunity that will get a better open rate

Headline of offer

Finally on the first page is the offer. You know the sender, in fact they are in your like group but do they have anything to offer. Read my new book might not get me in however my new book that will make you an instant Millionaire might get my interest.
So combining the above in the best possible way may increase your open rate.

Something like emails on Black Friday get double the open rate says Peter Hanley.

I have my known name, timing and a seductive headline that may get a click.

The best content available is wasted if it is not read.

That brings me around to Content, the art of selling in just a few paragraphs.

Multi Channel marketing is all the rage and everything you do takes a buyer to a place they will commit money. The more often they see your product the greater their commitment to you is. When they finally land on a Webpage or funnel they are ready to go. Everything you do is a path way to business, new and repeat business which is the reason we are here.

When you have no traffic what do you do?

Traffic problems overcome

Utilizing all the above relatively low cost methods will deliver some traffic depending on the niche and the search volume. It may be substantial if the need is large or minimal in small outlets. Local marketing needs are far less that wide area requirements however the effort is much the same.

I like Low cost SEO methods but also buy some traffic at times to increase the volume and improve my ranking with Google and other search engines. I have been using Spark Traffic with some success and am now paying for volume after my free trial

My conclusion on marketing tips than work

These are just the tip of many channels you can employ. However they are the most important to in your base to deliver your message is a consistent and professional manner.

As a result you will begin to see a growth in traffic, enquiries and sales and understand you have made a difference.

7 Online Marketing Tips That Will Really Work by Peter Hanley

To sum up marketing tips you may not use them all at one time but work on them to make a difference over time.

Your traffic problems overcome with a simple fix. The one thing in all marketing is getting the right traffic and I have found an answer.

Not all traffic is good traffic

Traffic maybe a function of numbers however we are looking for a multiple of sales.

That means you have good traffic , average traffic and the bad stuff. However do you know which is which?

First of all good traffic is ones that look at your website and Hang around for a while. We know they won't all buy in fact it may be less than 1% or greater than 0% and that is why we need numbers.

Medium traffic or the average lot have some potential to buy but are generally floaters that really are not interested.

And bad traffic just hits and runs destroying your credibility with Google and your SEO.

Your analytics account will tell you about traffic

When analyzing your traffic there are important areas to look at.

Volume of traffic	Anything above zero is good
Bounce rate	You should try to be low
Pages read	More than one is good
Time on site	The longer the better
Where the traffic came from	Multiple sources
What pages they read	The more the better

Every bit of this is important to be in place and working as it should.

Where does traffic come from?

We all know the broad answer to this however we need to be a bit more specific.

Your SEO traffic.

This is generated through Google, Bing, Yahoo and YouTube with people searching for keywords.
This is free traffic and they are generally people wanting what you offer. Therefor they will tick all the boxes above and whether they buy or not depends on you.

Well, that's a bit harsh but the percentage of buyers or clickers are dependent on your offer because they have searched for you and want a result. Not easy but that's the game.

Paid advertising.

This maybe from all sorts of places including Social Media , super bots, and businesses designed around sending traffic shot gun style.

In the start of our internet journey we are often solicited into being paid for reviewing websites. This is easy stuff and you click away and earn a few bob as you go. The idea is making money not buying product so you are that medium traffic, not really interested unless we offer a gold mine.
This traffic varies with all sorts of parameters but it is traffic.

Then there are pop up adds on Social Media and Websites that attract clickers. This is a bit more focused because their interest has been aroused.

Your traffic problems overcome with a simple fix starting with SEO

A concentration on SEO

You should start by concentrating on SEO traffic, Get your Headline working first of all because without this you have no readers .

Next is content. I use Yoast SEO as my favorite plugin because they tell me when I am going wrong. This is a WordPress plug in used by half the worlds bloggers so you can be assured it is good traffic.

Finally a call to action. What do you want your readers to do.

When to buy traffic and increase your clicks

This site has been going for about ten months and I have my SEO working so it is time to branch out and invest in some traffic.
I looked at many sources and gee there are a lot of bad opportunities out there.

I have finally selected a site that will deliver the result I want and that includes traffic and Alexia ranking.

Has my traffic increased and is it worth while?

I tried the free version then went to a mini plan and now at medium because I am so impressed.

The bounce rate is in single figures, the time on site is in double figures page views are about 3 per viewer and my alexia rank is growing.

This is for websites and are up and going and you just need that additional traffic.

The start of your traffic journey

Every site needs to venture into paid traffic, it is just timing and Spark Traffic is a logical step in that direction. Pay monthly and if you are unhappy you cancel and keep the extra ratings. It is an investment in luck like all traffic bots but with 100% human traffic in good volumes what can you loose.

My conclusion on Traffic

As I said figures matter in life and traffic and further more results are intrinsically linked. You will not get one without the other. No traffic no sales is an important inpu.

Traffic is a challenge and always will push you harder to maximise the benefits you can obtain. However it is a journey you must take or lose the race. A simple statement of fact..

Test your arm with a starter pack at Smart Traffic and see how you go, there is little to loose and a lot to gain.

Your traffic problems overcome with a simple fix by Peter Hanley

Make your Video easy and free and capture traffic to help your SEO. Then build sales and customer numbers overnight the easy way.

Can you make a Video at home

Technology has changed and what was once an arduous task is now a simple procedure.

It is important to understand the impact a Video of reasonable quality can have on your business.
First of all YouTube the home of video's is searched nearly as often as Google.

Google does not share their search volume data. However, it is estimated Google processes approximately 70,000 search queries every second, translating to 5.8 billion searches per day and approximately 2 trillion global searches per year. The average person conducts between three and four searches each day.

• 73% of US adults use YouTube.
• 62% of YouTube users are Males.
• 78% of US men adults use YouTube.
• 68% of US women adults use YouTube.
• 81% of 15–25 year-olds in the US use YouTube.
• More than 15% of YouTube’s site traffic comes from the U.S.
• 80% of YouTube users come from outside the US.
• 62% of businesses use YouTube.
• 9% of small businesses are on YouTube.
• 35+ and 55+ age groups are the fastest growing YouTube demographics.
• 75% of adults turn to YouTube for nostalgia rather than tutorials or current events.
• Millennials prefer YouTube two to one over traditional television.
• 51% of YouTube users say they visit the site daily.
• 37% of the coveted 18 – 34 demographic are binge-watching.
• 70% of YouTube watch time comes from mobile devices.
• YouTube services are available in more than 100 countries in 80 languages..
• Males are primarily watching soccer or strategy games.
• Females are primarily watching beauty videos.
• 95% of global internet population watches YouTube.
• There 50 million creators on YouTube.
• YouTube has 265 million active users in India.

Omnicore stats

Only 9% of small businesses use Video

Does this look like a golden opportunity starring you in the face. That however is an American statistic and in Australia it is a lot less.
I threw those statistics in to give you an idea of the opportunity behind this massive market possibility for your business.

Make your Video easy and free and capture traffic working from home.

Making your video at home or work is easy

A video has several components that are put together to create an exceptional product.

A good template or story board	Vidnami
Your heading or Keyword	Something that is searched
A script that tells a story	Inspire them
Pictures to keep interest	Associated images
A voice track that has quality	Male or Female
A host to store the visuals	YouTube and your website
Your display of the product	Website, social media
Analytics and review	Important
Link a new video	Have two bites
Call to action	A must do button
Finish with enthusiasm	Leave them wanting more

Starting your video with an idea

The video has to be something relating to your daily business, blog or web page.
Next it requires a purpose, what are you trying to achieve with the video and how will you go about it. A selling video, a branding video, a how to do things video ( very popular) or even a humorous one.

Then it is your headline or Keyword, what will people type into YouTube to find you. I wrote a short piece on this that may help, keyword problems and fixes. This is an important part of the process.

Your Video content to excel

Vidnami will help you with this and I shall also give you some tips to start you thinking.
I use the AIDA principle of writing. This is a well recognized method to get attention and keep it through to the end.

Attention	Your opening statement to make them read
Interest	Why it is good for them
Desire	Build a fire under the viewers
Action	Tell them what to do
Close	Always end on a high

Pictures make the movie and retain attention

A pretty obvious statement however it can be still photos or action movie all included in your video.
It may be just a talking head with or without subtitles or just words rolling down a page.

There are many ways of creating a video and they are rolled out with an audience in mind.

In a corporate video it may show your magnificent building, profile pictures of staff, sales graphs and images along with drum rolls and clashing symbols.

How to fix a Washing Machine Drive belt could include a video shot on an iPad with a tech demonstrating how easy it is. Never works out as easy but you get the idea.

Unboxing videos were doing the rounds where a new product was taken out of a box and assembled live in the video.

A travel campaign my just be shots of fabulous get away spots with price flashes and discount opportunities.

A new product can be shown with a range of available attachments that take the price from a small start to a big ending.

You could just sell something or explain a situation using just words and background images.

The list is endless and the choice is entirely around your objective.

Add the background music

When you go to a movie or a show there is always music that dictates the mood.
It may be happy, scary, sad or a simple mind worm that hangs in the memory. Music is protected by law so you can not just add the latest Dolly Parton track to the Boot Scooting images. At Vidnami they have sourced allowable tracks to save you the problem. They have a huge range for any occasion and easily placed in the background to conjure up the required mood.

Throw in a voice track

Doing a Voice track is very easy with our template, you do need a microphone or even using your iPad. If however, you are shy you can chose any number of Male or Female voices from the Vidnami library. I have used my own voice and the canned ones at different times so both do the job. You can also get a professional voice agent to do the work for you, it all depends on the budget.

End by telling them what to do

Never leave a viewer in doubt about what the video was for. It has a purpose, no matter how hidden the meaning.

Sign up now, call for a discount, get our Newsletter, see our other great reviews but do something

My old saying is “If you don't ask you don't get” so don't be shy, tell them what to do. They want hand holding and support and not making hard decisions.

What do you do with your videos?

In most cases you can save them directly to YouTube, even building up a collection in your own gallery.
You get a Link to the video that can be used anywhere you want, webpage, Social, media even printed material. You Tube will track it for you nd retain analytics to monitor the performance.

Then you can embed the video into your webpage so it is there on demand. It can be clicked or start on opening, many options are available.

It could be downloaded to a thumb drive and put in a display terminal repeating the video for all to see. Particularly good at Trade Shows and similar, Grab their attention as they pass.
The world is yours and the opportunities endless

My conclusion on making videos

I said it was going to be easy so I have set out a few building blocks for the journey.

Do a rough plan and scribble down your objective, your heading and the conclusion.

Next write down a dozen sub headings that convey the message and simply fill in the words between. Use the AIDA concept so you have flow and carry your views along to a crescendo conclusion.

We give you the Vidnami fourteen day free trial so you can experiment without any cost and retain any video, in fact all the videos, you make by saving them out of Vidnami.

Make your Video easy and free and capture traffic by Peter Hanley

Fast Daily Planner Template and Easy Time Blocking Element. The latest trend for increased activity and achievement is time blocking.

Using a daily planner

Many of us use a to-do list to plan our priorities for a given day. This is to ensure we tick off all the necessary items on the list as done. Life is not that easy and many of them cascade into the next day.
Unfortunately the list also contributes to your stress levels as you worry about not completing everything written as urgent. The reasons are usually many and often unavoidable thus building a new bigger list.

The other problem is the items you never quite get around to. These are the not quite so urgent ones that move from day to day never getting attention and never quite falling from the list.

The big concern is the time you need to do the things that don't reside on the planner but are as important to your future as the pressing issues.

What is time blocking and how can it help?

Your week contains a work and lifestyle schedule that often over ride each other.

An example may be Gym time, Daily walk or even a Yoga session that needs to be included in your day. The important thing with exercise is that it can not be caught up, if it is missed it is opportunity and benefit, gone.

To ensure these things happen it is necessary to block out a period of time that will fit into your busy day.

The other issue is dealing with the one percent gains that will make a difference to the future but are ignored with seemingly more important issues.

What are one percent gains?

Every business, either fixed or virtual, needs constant growth challenges acted on or a decline in sales or service will slowly eat away the growth curve.

This starts with knowing your figures or understanding an analysis of results against forecast. Are you achieving everything you need or want in all your activities.

Let me explain the benefits of incremental aggregation further with an example.

Say you are a blogger as a business which means you write articles and post them on the web. Outwardly simple stuff however there are many elements that make the whole and ignoring them is the factor behind your lack of success.

My point is to make a one percent change to as many elements as you can to build up to a much larger cumulative total.

• Have I posted on social media today. or this week. A simple 10 second tweet is a 1% difference
• Did i check my header (keyword) against a rank tracker so it has an opportunity of being read.
• One extra picture with an appropriate link could be a 1% difference
• Have I linked to another page on my site to gain additional activity time can be a 1% difference.
• Spelling mistakes distract from the process so a spell checker can be used for a one percenter
  

Virtual or fixed

If all the above were done on a regular basis you may achieve a 5% gain in activity. In fact I work on nearly fifty items like this to ensure consistent growth in readers and naturally income.

In a fixed shop it is also simple things that make the difference.

• Are my window decals current, clean and enticing. If I add the word SALE could I get a 1%
• Do my staff ask for personal details so I can add them to my Newsletter or email list. a !%
• How often do we upsell, do you want fries with that? a 1%
• Social media posts tying in with other advertising to get multi media exposure. 1%
  

Now you should be getting the idea and thinking about your business and your 1% increases.

Block your 1% time to really grow

Aggregation of marginal gain

The problem with all the above is that it is not urgent stuff. It would never appear on a To-Do list simply because it is considered not urgent, a nice to do and not really necessary anyway?

From 1908 to 2003 The English cycle team had never won a major race let alone a Gold medal at the Olympics. They employed a team manager Dave Gainsford that simply went about making small improvements, 1% Changes.
They changed the saddle, altered a tire , wind tested the clothing and many other minor elements that all contributed to a change big enough to take them to the lead in all major events. They could all ride and had the equipment they just needed to hone the skills enough to make a 1/10 of a second change that added to a winning margin. They ended up winning the Tour de France for several years and Gold at the Olympics all because of small incremental additions.

Time blocking

Time blocking and 1% improvements or a Marginal gain from accumulation of changes

In this case my daily routine comprises emails, reading and planning my list. I have blocked out periods to make sure I attend the areas that need to be done and make sure I work on the small things. It is dynamic and yours will be different but make sure you concentrate your time

You need clarity to achieve goals

Knowing what needs to be done is very different to allocating time or resources to the project. By block scheduling time you are one step ahead in clarity. I have had success with the 1% allocation simply by stopping and thinking about it.
Furthermore forward planning saves your time following a well structured path instead of that wishy washy approach to a days work.

Clarity needs to be written to be constructive.

Focus is fundamental to results

Power work is a way to get more done in a smaller amount of time. Turn off the distractions, close the doors and apply solid effort for a set period of time. It may be an Hour or even two but set the clock and focus completely on the task at hand. I set myself writing goals by time and words and wont stop until I meet the goal. My attention span generally is butterfly like flitting from task to task unless I use control.

Focus is not reading Facebook during a busy day.

Control is up to you.

Control is in your hands and it is with you to manage every hour of every day unless the building is on fire.
Setting out Block activities allows you to really apply control to your time and increase your productivity.. Adding Control to clarity and focus will guarantee the results you want.

However these important essentials of your everyday life are very difficult to maintain unless you clearly designate your time blocks and generally follow your rules.

Furthermore until you establish an absolute desire to grow your business you will fall into the 90% that are declining, it is your choice.
Set your own standards and apply them religiously therefore achieving more

The ability to extend yourself beyond your capabilities

Dan Pena Multi millionaire says;

That is how to push the limit of comfort. The more the limits of comfort is being pushed in the wealthy direction, the more people find it easier to make a lot of money

Progress does not feel good most of the time. Dan Peña says when everything is going well and fine in a business, it is a sign that the business is not growing. If the business is not growing, it means the business is deteriorating.

Control comes from planning and focus

First of all this is in your hands and all I can give you is a few tools to ensure you have a small degree of certainty.
Your Block planner will do that for you and take you forward faster than anything else.

Fast Daily Planner Template and Easy Time Blocking Element set up.

How to set up a Block template

The structure can be used week to week by changing your inputs. I used a simple Excel spreadsheet, applied the days of the week and working times.

Next was to write down a list of activities that needed adding, including social and family.
The next step is to designate the time elements required and schedule a block.
I need to write about five thousand words a week for my blogging activity, a good typist can push this over in a short time but I am an old bloke that types two flingers so it takes me longer.

I also have a day business that requires attention and an exercise regime that must be added.

Finally I partition a time to address the 1% activities that will help me grow.
Apply some colour coding and the job is done.

Conclusion on time blocking

How you address your allocated working hours.is probably the best advise you will receive all year and it is really up to you to do it well.

Use time blocking, focus and extending your self to achieve far greater results than you could ever expect.
I missed my 1% time yesterday so I have doubled down today to make sure I accumulate the small percentages into the future. It reminded me of activities I have to do and are so easy to be forgotten.

Finally take the planning time to decrease the working time for extra results.

Fast Daily Planner Template and Easy Time Blocking Element by Peter Hanley

Certainly the future is in your hands.

How to blog with WordPress in 7 easy lessons starts with a desire to achieve as a writer with a good understanding of the procedures needed.

Lesson number one

Know where you are going by selecting your niche. grabbing a Domain and putting it on a host site.
I recommend Wealthy Affiliate because they are a premium provider and will not let you down. Support is there and you have a wonderful group that can help with any question along the way. Not only web site problems but any thing you can't solve yourself.

Next is to understand your journey. Make a plan of what you want to achieve, how you will get there and the time it is going to take you. Include the cost in time and money. Then work out a return from your production.

It is important to write about what you love not what you know. You can tire writing mundane subjects but not about your love interest it will flow naturally.

Creating a blog with WordPress

Lesson number two Keywords

This is an important part of your writing because it is the difference between being read and ignored. The best content in the world is wasted if it is not found with an easy search on Google, YouTube and a Mobile Devise.

There are several really important factors when selecting a Keyword.
The first is traffic, you need at least a 100 searches a month to be viable.
the next is competition, the number of blogs ahead of yours.

Just to clear this up if I search for example “Food” you will get a whole bundle of traffic but you will start on page fifty of the search term. Note that 80% of people never go past page one in a search so on page fifty you have no chance of rising to the top.

So we add a bit of a tail to your word, now called a phrase to better define what your offer is.
Maybe Food in Taiwan suitable for vegetarians. A lot less traffic however that is compensated by less competition.

Fortunately we now have tools to achieve a great Keyword and no better place to start than at Jaaxy. A tool that tells you everything you need to know. Fortunately I have a free entry for you to learn a bit more.

Wikipedia and the art of blogging

Lesson number three Content

OK, you are all fired up and ready to go but hold the horses and take a few suggestions that will help. Other than your Keyword Google also favors great content to improve your search engine optimization (SEO).

Internet readers are a very fickle lot, they have a low attention span and want to be entertained.
Writing a very technical paper will have few readers because it is too dry for the majority. How ever add some pictures and break it up.
Yoast SEO, one of the most followed SEO experts tells it like this.

A post should be about 1500 words long in general. Sometimes less but often many more. The absolute minimum is 300 for starters
A paragraph no more than 300 words and a sentence tops at 25 words. Fortunately there is a great plug in by Yoast for WordPress that holds your hand over this part of the trip.

All these are parameters you must understand when writing a blog.

Images maketh the blog

I throw this in as an extra because it really does make your readers take notice. You definitely should include some images that relate to what you are writing about. This pulls the readers attention quicker than a headline. No not a tree image when you are talking about an Indian dish of Curry. It must relate to the content.

Similarly lists and graphs are also important because they are just like a picture, attention grabbers.

Lesson number four SEO

This bit of the puzzle takes a bit more thinking about but no less important to achieve a result of being read. This is how you are found for free on the internet and requires you to follow specific rules to be found by your readers. Now don't blame me, Google is the main search engine and they make the rules. What's more they change the rules without telling anyone, every day they make minor alterations that can affect your work.
Even worse is that YouTube is now searched nearly as often as Google for thanks readers want.
So in reality you need to tie the two together.

Lesson number five marketing

There are basically two types of marketing and they are

• Organic, free traffic from SEO activities
• Paid traffic, advertising in all its disguises

I always recommend getting your organic traffic in order before shelling out money. If you are getting good traffic then paying for a result can get a return quicker.

Organic traffic starts with your SEO platform and structure being set up and working well. Your position in the market will bring its own volume of subscribers.
This may be supported by all Social Media channels pointing to your pages.
Family friends and followers can all add to the volume and refer new business to you.
Certainly a webpage link will do it as well.
Email marketing can include links to pages to further increase the audience.

Paid traffic can come from many areas including Social media to further build your followers.

Always have a sign box on a blog site

Make them an offer to get their names and email addresses. It may be an eBook a secret recipe from great nanna or any form of inducement. In the olden days we used join my newsletter however that does not work as well anymore.

Amazon have done very well with another option, you bought my deep Fryer maybe some long tongs to go with it. Or You read my post on Indian Curry may be you would like my Thai Curry recipes as well. Be inventive and work the numbers.

How to blog with WordPress in 7 easy lessons by knowing your numbers.

Lesson number 6 Analytics

This is a very important part of your daily life, knowing where you are in the journey. Google analytics will tell you many things including;

Daily and monthly traffic	You must know your numbers and see growth
Then the number of pages read	The greater the number the better
The time on site	Increase this with videos
Your bounce rate	Better referrals
What country the readers come from	Your target market
Male /Female/ and age bracket	Sometimes really important
Most read pages	Success stories

I recently wrote a lot more on google analytics in a recent blog so you can better understand the concept

Lesson Number seven perseverance

If you post one blog you have one chance of being read. if you write one hundred posts and connect them all you have 100 times the chance of capturing and audience. The average adult book includes about 90,000 words where as the average blog site will need nearly 400,000 to get any traction. It is not an overnight success story but a dedicated plan achieving an objective that you want to achieve. The results will vary however there are bloggers making a Million dollars or more a year so you build your own empire. It takes time but we are blogging because we want to not because we have to.

How to blog with WordPress in 7 easy lessons and make money.

Making money with a blog

Is this the interesting part or just a conclusion to the journey. If you are writing for the sake of creating maybe money is not in the goals at all. However you should be paid for your time and compensated for the effort . But how do you make money.

First of all you can sell your own stuff, it may be physical or virtual as long as it has value. We talked about food so recipes and eBooks or a link to Amazon store can create value.
That crosses to selling other people things as an affiliate or reseller. it could be slow cookers or
Frypans, Cooking tools or books.

When you have traffic you may get others to advertise on your site and get a return from clicks or sales, there are many choices and they will be easy when the time comes. You just need traffic.

Conclusion

I write because I want to share my knowledge and just maybe help someone starting out or in business and not succeeding. We understand it is a journey but I write what I love the most and that is small business marketing.
Your journey should be similar, one of passion and love of the time it takes to share with others a side of you that can be kept for all time.

Blogging is like any other business. It has rules and laws and you need to go to school to learn the basics or you will fail and give up. We need small wins along the way to keep our enthusiasm at the top.

How to blog with WordPress in 7 easy lessons by Peter Hanley

Blogging is a career for the dedicated.

Also read my 7 online marketing tips

Further training at Wealthy affiliate