Frequently Asked Questions

Affiliate Marketing | Article Marketing | Blogging | Ezine Advertising | General Questions | Joint Ventures | List Building | Mindset | SEO | Technical | Traffic Generation | Web 2.0

Affiliate Marketing

Question: I understand how to receive an affiliate link to promote a product using clickbank, but how do I add that affiliate link to my blog or website? I was hoping you would cover that also!

Answer: If you're writing a review blog, it's simple. Just write your review of the product, and hyperlink a keyword for the product or the product name itself by selecting the words, and then clicking on the "chain" icon in your Visual editor. Plug the Clickbank hoplink in there, and your link will be live. Always use a smaller link for your hoplinks. You can make a smaller version of the link at http://BudURL.com and track the clicks you get on your link there, but there are many other link shortening URLs, such as TinyURL.com, SnipURL.com, and ShortURL.com

Question: I just watched the Quick start video. My question is what is the easiest market to get into. I know you said to pick a topic that you could talk about intelligently if you were drunk, however, I am having trouble just picking a subject. I prefer doing affilate marketing as I do not have a product of my own. 

Answer:A new audio was just put into the Quickstart and the Lessons areas. It's about picking your niche, and you can hear some great tips on doing that from Kyle Battis and Pat Marcello. We encourage you to listen to this audio, which will make choosing a niche much easier for you.

Question: How do I find products to promote as an affiliate?

Question: The statement was made that when we send one of our prospects over to the sales letter of our affiliate, that you should retrieve the prospect's information for our own use. Obviously, that is an important thing to do. But, from a technical point of view, I don't understand how to do it. That is, keep the information and pass the lead on to my affiliate's sales letter in a single action.

Answer: When you're working as an affiliate, the easiest way to capture a lead's name and email address is by using a squeeze page. Have them opt in to your list and set up a redirect at AWeber. In List Settings, when you're setting up your web form, you can redirect people to your affiliate sight as the "Thank You Page," if you aren't concerned about confirmation. It's generally a good idea to use a page that says, "Thank you for opting into my list, you will receive a confirmation message from (Your Company). Be sure to click on the link inside to get the information you requested," for your thank you page, or something similar.

If you choose to have people visit your affiliate page after optin in, at AWeber, in the "Verified Optin" tab, set your "Confirmation Success Page" to your affiliate link.

Question:  How can I sell affiliate products from my blog?

Answer: There are several different ways you can sell affiliate products from your blog.  Here are some of the most popular, as well as a "secret strategy" very few bloggers use.

First, you can always include links on your blog to affiliates products. It is recommended you use anchor text as much as possible.

For example, if you were promoting a weight loss product, the link on your blog would say, "Click Here to Learn How to Lose Up to 30lbs in 30 days."

When they clicked on the link, they would go to the product your are promoting, via your affiliate link.

Another popular method of promoting products is to do "Product Reviews" on your blog.

Have a section on your blog where you do product reviews and write posts that review products.  Of course, when linking to the product, you'll link to it with your affiliate link.

Finally, the "secret strategy" that few bloggers use...

Email Marketing

If you aren't already, you should be collecting the information of your blog visitors with an opt-in form.

Rather than using your blog to sell and promote products, focus on giving great content and building a relationship with your audience to begin to know you, like you, and trust you.

If you accomplish this goal, people will be more than happy to opt-in the your email list where you can email them anytime you update your blog.

You can also use email to send direct affiliate promotions to your list. 

Email marketing is the most powerful form of marketing online, and is overlooked by many bloggers.

Question:  What does it takes to become a super affiliate?

Answer:  That's a great question, and it really depends on the market you're in or the person you're dealing with, how many sales they consider normal.

A lot of times, the fact that you're even willing to become an affiliate people give you preferential treatment or they take requests. Even if you've never made a sale for someone before and you contact them and say, listen, I'm interested in promoting our site as an affiliate, but I'm not really comfortable with your sales process, or I'm looking to get higher commissions, can you arrange higher commissions," they'll just do it for you.

In some cases, if you contact someone and make that request, they'll laugh you in the face. You really don?t know until you contact that individual website owner. But if you want me to throw out just a general number, I'd say to get someone's attention maybe if you do around, say, 500 to $1,000.00 in product sales in a month. That's going to at least get their attention.

Article Marketing

Question: I just watched your first video about articles. Should your title have your keywords in it? What about in the body?

Answer: Yes! Always use keyword as early and often as possible without making your article seem unnatural to the reader. Go to http://Live-Keyword-Analysis.com and check the density. It should be right around 2%.(See Lesson 2, Step 13 for more on that topic.)

Question: Is it necessary to put the articles you submit to enzine and isnare on your blog too?

Answer: You should never put the same article into Ezine Articles, iSnare, and on your blog at the same time. That's known as duplicate content, and only one piece of that content will be given credit for it. Instead, put unique content in all three places. Or, rewrite the article and then, put it into another place.

Question: I had trouble adding anchor text to my ezine article.

Answer:  You can switch to a WYSIWYG interface at Ezine Articles, which will make choosing and linking the anchor text easier for you. Log into Ezine Articles, then mouse over Account Manager and click on Account Preferences. At the top of that window, you'll see "Article Editing,"  Select "Use WYSIWYG Editor," and then, save. You will now be able to use Ezine Articles just as you would your HTML editor. When you need to make a link, select the words, then click on the link icon. A window will pop up for you where you can enter the link you want to use. When you save that, you'll see the text you linked have changed color.

Question: I'm not sure how often to post articles and if I should post the same article to different directories.

Answer: There is no set standard for article submission. If you submit one per week, at the end of the year, you'll have 52 articles published. If you submit more, you'll have more. You shouldn't post the same article to your website as you submit to article directories because the search engines will consider it to be duplicate content. You can use unique articles for the directories, or you can rewrite the article on your blog or website and then submit it to article directories. Just be sure that's it's radically different from the article that is on your site.

Question: Article Submission: Do you use any article spinner or submitters to help facilitate this process?

Answer:  We don't use article spinners because they do little more than substitute synonyms for the words in your article. When the articles are spun, they often come out unreadable. It's better to rewrite  paragraph by paragraph in other words. Just take the gist of the paragraph and write it another way.

We do use submitting software, but for subsequent versions of an article. So, for example. You submit the first one to Ezine Articles. Then, you rewrite another version and submit it to iSnare.com and have them submit it to directories and ezines for $2. Or, you can use submitting software. It's been our experience to use Article Submitter Pro. iSnare is just faster.

Blogging

Question: I am wondering if I try to change my theme on my wordpress blog after I have already started blogging, will I lose the content that I already have. Is it best to just start another blog from scratch or is there a trick to switching themes with no incident. I am currently using the standard theme and my branded name is outgrowing it I think..or should I say hope?

Answer: No, changing the theme will not lose your content. Themes are easy to switch in WordPress 2.8. Just go to "Appearance" and "Add New Theme." You can search for the theme you want, download it and install it all from your blog. You will have to fill in the username and password for your FTP account when requested, however. But, you can still change your theme the old-fashioned way. (See Lesson 2, Step 11a in The ListBuilding Club.) and it won't affect your content at all.

Question: Does the Wordpress Blog have to be on your own server? What if I am an independent rep with a replicated site that is hosted by the company?

Answer: Yes. If you want to make money online, you should follow what we teach in the ListBuilding Club. It's the only way we can assure your success. A replicated web page on someone else's server will not help you to build your list. A blog is a great way to drive traffic, and having it on your own server is the only way to guarantee that you can do what you want with it. Most hosted solutions do not permit commercialism, nor do they allow optin boxes. If you want the ListBuilding Club to work for you, follow our instructions to the letter, and you'll see results.

Question: I watched the video with Brian on creating the opt-in form for your blog. I completed all the steps and the opt-in form is on the blog and works fine, EXEPT, it is so small that I'm getting complaints from people saying they can't enter their entire email addresses. How do I make it larger? I'm starting to generate some decent traffic so please HELP ASAP!

Answer: Don't worry! Though the boxes for entry might look small, they hold much more information. Just tell the people who ask (and we have run smaller boxes on many sites in the past and never had this issue) to keep typing... It will all fit!

Question: How do I change to capital lettets on my blog? my title on my blog is lower case, i dont know how to change it.

Question: Can I set up more than ONE blog in wordpress on different niches?

Answer: Yes! You can have as many WordPress blogs on your hosting account as your plan allows. Notice the MySQL database limit. This will determine how many blogs you can have. If it's unlimited, as it is with HostGator, you could have 1,000 blogs in different niches and it would be fine.

Question: I have a hosted domain with Wordpress installed. I have 2 questions; Can I place a squeeze page on the same domain/blog site, or should I have a separate domain? If on the same domain/blog site, how do I use wordpress to do that?

Answer: You can have a squeeze page on the same domain, if you put it into a subdirectory. It would look like this: http://yourdomain.com/squeezepage. ; You wouldn't use WordPress to do that, as WordPress is really a separate application on your hosting account.

Use your FTP client to create a new folder inside your public_html folder. Name this new folder what you want the squeeze page to be titled. For example, if you're in the dog training niche, you might use the label  "training."  Then, upload your squeeze page to that folder and title it "index.html." The resulting URL from that action would be http://yourdomain.com/training and that's where you would send people to opt in to your list.

Question: I have installed my Word Press, but it is in the wrong directory. How do I move it, or delete it and start over again?

Answer: Deleting the blog would be the easiest thing to do.  Then, you can reinstall it in the proper directory.

Question: I tried to go into my c-panel to set up wordpress from video #4. You went right to the exact site needed for word press. When I attempted to use my domain name and cpanel it came up URL not found.

Question: I made a terrible boo boo, When I typed in my website in my blog on the front page said, 'www.jayrossi.net' when it should have said 'JayRossi.net'. How do I fix this because I'm afraid of undoing all the work I did.

Answer: No problem. Just go to "Settings" and the first tab will be "General." You can change the name and the subtitle of your blog there.

Question: When starting out my blog I deleted my about page. I don't know how to get that segment back so I may add it. Is it possible?

Answer: Sure it is! All you have to do is go to your "Write" area, and instead of "Post," select "Page." Then, title it "About" and you're all set.

Question: Why is it that my blog that was downloaded exactly as instructed in previous videos doesn't have the same tabs as in this video I cannot find the blogroll to delete links and add different ones following this video?

Answer: That is because WordPress upgraded the software, which happens all the time. Just explore your new version and you will find all the same things as in the previous version of WordPress, but it may be in different places or have different labels. There is a video that describes the differences just below the video you watched.

Question: I cant find the blogroll. the site has changed al little bit since this video was made. can you tell me where it is now?

Answer: After logging into your dashboard, click on Manage, and then, links.

Question: How do I delete the standard blogroll and add my own links to my blog? 

Answer: Go into your WordPress blog dashboard, and to the "Manage" tab. There, you will see "Link Categories." Just delete the Blogroll and add a category of your choosing. Then over to the right, you'll see "Links." Add any links there you wish.

Question: I just finished the video about changing the name of my blog. I've changed the name and made it more relevant to my market and according to some keyword info I have found, but now my URL doesn't reflect the name of my blog at all. Is this a big problem and if so, what do I do?

Answer:Your blog's URL should refelct your niche, as should the title and description of your blog. However, if it's dogtraining.com and your niche is now quilting, you need a new domain.

Question: I'm not good at writing so how do I write a blog to post?

Answer:You don't necessarily write to have a blog. You can make audio recordings and turn the blog into a podcasting blog. You can make videos and have a vlog or video blog. Or, you can hire someone to write posts for you at www.Elance.com.

Question: I can't seem to find the general Option so I can edit the title and tagline of the blog.

Answer: In WordPress 2.5 or 2.6, go to the "Settings" tab at the top right-hand side of your screen. The first tab that opens--General--will show the name of your blog and the tagline. In WordPress 2.8, at the bottom of the left-hand sidebar, you'll see "Settings," the General setting is the first one there.

If you haven't upgraded to WordPress 2.8, then go back into Fantastico and perform the update.

Question: Now that I have a second domain set up and a squeeze page set up on my new domain, you say that my blog is ready to direct trafic to my squeeze page. How does that happen? I post nearly everyday and can't get people to opt in and I do not understand why.

Answer: Blogs are search engine friendly. If you post to your blog every day, using keywords appropriate to your niche, you should start showing up in the search engine results pages for those keywords after a while. Be sure to do some keyword research and don't try to use generic terms as keywords. For example, don't use "golf," if you are in the golf niche. Find another keyword that has people searching for it, but that isn't so competitive, like "leather golf shoes" perhaps, if that's what you're selling.

If you use those keywords in your blog posts, you should be able to rank in the search engine results, over time. It doesn't happen in just a few days. You need to diligently post, using appropriate keywords.

Two good keyword research discovery tools can be found at http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com and http://SEOBook.com  Both are free resources.

Question:  I have been building my site following you videos and I have come across a stumbling block trying to get API key with WordPress I keep getting a message saying that I have a WordPress account with WordPress.org is this the same as WordPress?

Answer: WordPress.com is a free blog site. This is not what we recommend. WordPress.org is where you can download WordPress blog software, and install it yourself. (This is what you install via Fantastico, as well, with less trouble.)

You can also get new themes and plugins at WordPress.org. You may already have an account with WordPress.org, so try to retrieve your password by the means provided on that site.

Question: Can you explain how to use RSS, what it is and how to set it up? What benefit is it?

Answer:  RSS means "really simple syndication" and what makes it simple is that it's completely plain text without formatting. You don't have to set up RSS for a blog because blog software automatically transforms your posts into a feed. People can subscribe to your feed, which makes it rather viral. You'll also get better ranking with the search engines, if you post regularly. Spiders read feeds very quickly and easily and they love sites with new, original content. You can boost your blog's search engine rankings very quickly just by posting in your blog often.

Question: I've set up a Word Press blog as you recommended.  My question is how can I change the template to make it look different rather than having the same default template as everyone else?

Answer: That's a great question.  There are two things you can do to make your blog look different and stand out:

First, and easiest, is you can change the theme of your blog.  Changing the theme of your blog will change the entire over-all look and feel of your blog. There are many places on the internet where you can find free or paid Word Press themes.  An easy way to start is to log into your Word Press back office and click on the Presentation tab.  Go to the themes sub-category. You'll find some additional themes there, as well as a link to search for more themes. Once you find a theme you like, simply download it to your computer then FTP it up to your website, and select that theme in your Presentation tab. If any of this sounds confusing, don't worry, you can find someone with the technical skills that can easily do this for you.

The second thing you can do to make your blog stand out is to put a custom header graphic into your blog.  You can see an example of this at www.InternetIncomeCoach.com. There you will find an example of a Word Press blog that uses both a custom theme and custom header graphic.

Question: I've followed your videos step by step and understand all the benefits of using a blog. My question is whether or not I have to use a WordPress blog, or if I can use a template style blog like blogger.com instead?

Answer: Using most hosted blog solutions will present a problem when you try to use them for business. Check the terms of service at your blog hosting company (in this case Blogger) and see if they allow for commercial advertising. If I'm not mistaken, Blogger does allow you to use the blog any way you want within reason, of course, but other services don't allow what they call "third-party" links. It's only a matter of time before they will ask you to remove the commercial content from the blog or you will lose the blog entirely. They'll just shut it down.

We recommend that you use a WordPress blog, hosted on your own web hosting account for a several reasons.

First, WordPress is the darling of the search engines, and it's very easy to have your blog listed high in the results pages, if you target keywords for your niche and write with them in mind in every post you make. Don't artificially stuff keywords into your post, but use them whenever it makes sense to do so.

We also recommend using WordPress because it's so user friendly. Not only can you customize it to your liking with the thousands of free themes that are available, but you can customize how it works, as well. There are lots of plugins that will help you with things like using Google Analytics for your blog, easily inserting video and audio, adding PHP code widgets to your sidebar, and more. There just isn't a substitute when it comes to customizing the functionality of a WordPress blog. Hosted solutions can't compare to what you can do with a WordPress blog, and I don't care what host you're using.

And the third reason is because you can make your own blog on your own server as commercial as you want it to be. I write that with a caveat because blogs strictly used for AdSense and spamming will be penalized rather than gain any true advantage with any of the search engines and they won't do you any good at all. For a good example of a mix of content and advertising, you can go to Tellman's List Building Blog at http://listbuildingblog.com.

If you already have a Blogger blog or another hosted blog, move it to WordPress before it becomes too unwieldy. You can do that pretty easily right from the WordPress "Manage" tab for places like Blogger, TypePad, Live Journal, or WordPress.com (which is the hosted version of WordPress.org's stand-alone blog and it definitely forbids commercial blogging). If you have another kind of blog that's not listed in the WordPress easy import function, then there should still be a way to migrate your blog. You should be able to export it as a .gz of .xml file and have your webmaster do the migration for you.

Question: Is it best to have an opt-in page promoting the upcoming book or is it better to have a blog developing the expertise on the backend?

Answer: A blog is a traffic source and the reason is because search engines love blogs.  They’re all information. Their RSS feeds are all text based and it’s very easy for search engine spiders to go through them and see what’s there and they can do that pretty easily. So what you want to do is use your blog to drive traffic to your squeeze page.

The way you do that is to take a keyword in your niche, whatever your main keyword is and you link in every post at least once that keyword to your squeeze page so that when people see that, you know they click on it and they go to your squeeze page.

You’re also going to want to put a call to action at the bottom of your post, whatever it is, whether it’s a video, an audio, whatever. You’re going to say, "Go to this site to collect your free report or whatever it is you're giving away. Use a callto action to make people click through and go to your squeeze page and sign up for your list.

You don’t want to do this too often. I would say do it once in each post; twice at the most, because you don’t want to make the search engine spiders think that you’re spamming the search engines. That’s a big no no. So, just post every day and then link once or twice back to your squeeze page and you’ll find that you’re getting a lot of traffic pretty quickly.

Question: Do you have any other great ideas for pinging your blog since pingoat is down?

Answer:Yes! Try http://pingomatic.com

Answer: Ezines generally have contact information on their websites. If you're using those addresses and get no response, it either means they're not publishing the ezine anymore or they're just super busy.  But, if you don't get a response within a few days, you probably don't want to advertise in those ezines, anyway. It's best for them to build a relationship with clients, and for you to build a relationship with them. Not getting back to you is a sure sign that they don't have time to care.

Question: As a newbie, how do I know what is a fair price to pay for ad?

Answer: You should generally pay no more than $8 per thousand for your ads, but in general, $4 - 5 is good. To find your cost per thousand (CPM), divide the cost of the ad by the number of subscribers to the ezine.

General Questions

Question: I have put in my affiliate link to tiny url and it directs back to tiny url and you can see my affiliate link and my tiny url link. This is not what I want everyone on my blog to see. I don't know how to get it not to show my affiliate link. I also cannot click on my link. Please help me to solve these problems.

Answer: If you go to the affiliate center at http://ListBuildingClub.com/affiliates/ and watch the video on making redirects. That will solve your problem.

Question: I keep hearing that GoDaddy will dump/keep/remove my domains if they consider anything might be wrong with the way they are conducted. Which other domain provider would you recommend?

Answer: Unless you're planning to do something illegal or run an adult site, I wouldn't worry too much abou that, but it is true and it's also true of most hosting companies. We recommend HostGator, and many of us at OE use it for our own businesses.

Question: All i want to do is promote products how to make money online etc., how am i suppose to write an article or ezine if i dont know any thing about internet maketing?thats the only thing im struggling with at the moment.

Answer: To make money online, it's very important to have people who trust you, and who will buy from you if they do. To get that list, you need to follow the steps in the list building club. You need to have a blog and you need to drive traffic to that blog by writing articles or paying to have them written. We're giving you the stepping stones you need to follow in order to be successful online. It won't happen just by joining an affiliate program.

Question: Is there a list of the lessons on the videos starting at number one and if so how do I get it?

Answer: There is... Click on the "Quickstart" button in the menu and scroll to the bottom of the page. There is a link to the Master Video Checklist there.

Question: The gator hosting site runs on Linux. Is this a problem with my windows OS? Also they list an autoresponder on their features column. How does this compare with aweber etc.

Answer: First, the platform that a server runs on has nothing to do with your home computers operating system. Linux is preferred for online business.

The autoresponder in Host Gator is not as sophisticated as AWeber, AKA NinjaResponder. It will allow you to have one response sent for your account, in the case of vacation response or "out of the office" type responses. They don't allow you to send broadcast or email series to your list, like NinjaResponder will do.

Question: Hey Tellman, I am recently getting started with the webpage. I made the email address for it and all but how do i access the emails sent to that address?

Answer: You have two choices, you can set it up to work with Outlook or Outlook Express, or you can read your mail via web mail. If you're using Host Gator, go into your cPanel Account, and then to Email Accounts. Next to each mail account you'll see the options to either use web mail or to configure your email client automatically.

Question: We are stuck on lesson 7 where we have to copy the html code in our Notepad so that we can easily transfer that code into our text1 widget. We have to inform you that we work with Windows Vista and we don't know how to find our Notepad.

Answer: Simple! Go to your Start Button (the Big Blue button with the Windows logo on it), then "All Programs." Scroll down until you find "Accessories," and inside that folder, you will find NotePad and WordPad.  Both are text editors and you can use either program for this exercise.

Question: Just started the Quick Start Program and bought my domain in GoDaddy. Do I have to set up an email account with that domain name as well? How is this done?

Answer: No, you don't have to set up an email account, but if you'd like to have email coming and going from your own server, it's quite possible. Go into cPanel  and click on Email Accounts. Then, at the top of the next screen, you'll be able to select a name and password for your new email account.  Once the account is created, you can click on "Configure Mail Client" to see if your mail service or the software you use to receive and send email is included there. You can also set up a web mail account through cPanel to check your email, if you prefer. Consult HostGator's Help Guide for more Instructions.

Question: How many websites can you send to a hosting site?

Answer: You can have as many domains on your hosting account as your level of membership permits. Check with your hosting company for their current policies.

Question: Why can I not download the films? I prefer to work offline and study.

Answer:We are sorry, but allowing the films to be downloaded would be a security issue. Someone could join for the free trial period and download everything and then, just walk away. We hope you can see why this is something we can't do.

Question: How can I cancel my account?

Answer: You can only cancel your accout through http://TellmanSupport.com

Question:Questions: As per your advice when I click webhosting in host gator, it offers linux web hosting and when i click the Windows web hosting the message displayed is "Coming soon." Please clarify

Question: If I happened to have couple of domain names in the future, can the same hosting account handle those two domain names or do I have to buy another hosting acount?

Answer: It depends on the level of hosting account you choose to buy. For example, at Host Gator, the "Hatchling" account only allows you to have 1 domain, whereas the "Baby" account allows you to have  "unlimited" domains hosted there. So, check with your hosting company. It's always better to go for the multiple domain account because your business is bound to grow and change over time. That's why we recommend getting the "Baby" account to start.

Question: In the video on Setting Up A Word Press Blog there is a part referring to emails. What is shown is an email address associated to the new site name. How would I: 1/ retrieve emails sent to this account and 2/ redirect these emails if possible, to an existing ISP. 

Answer:You can set up new email accounts for any domain through cPanel. Just go to Email, then Add/Remove/Manage accounts. You can set up an email account with any prefix (the words before the @) and choose the domain you want to use with it. You can then go to "Forwarders," choose the account you want to forward and let it know the address you want to forward the mail from that account to.

Question: I have a website already can I use these domain names for my list building. Can i use more than one domain name?

Answer: You can have as many domains on your hosting account as your plan allows. Though you may already have a website, you probably don't want it to be your squeeze page. The reason to buy a separate domain for your squeeze page is so that it's something easy for people to remember and so that they don't have to type a long URL into the browser's address bar to get to your page.

Question: Is there any way that downloading can be made faster? It takes forever to download.

Answer: This has to do with your Internet connection. If you're on dial-up, the downloading will take a very long time. Even some broadband accounts don't have very fast download speeds. The only way to make downloads faster is to upgrade with your Internet Service Provider.

Question: How do I find where my log in information is and get it?

Answer: Go to http://club.myfirstlist.com  to log into The ListBuilding Club. If you have forgotten the password, you can type in the email address you used to join the club and your password will be sent to you. If you forget what email address you used or if you have any problems logging in you can write to our support department and outline your issues at http://TellmanSupport.com

Question:I was going to purchase a couple from Go Daddy and have them host my pages. Are you advocating Host Gator instead?

Answer: You can get a really good hosting account with Host Gator starting at $7.95 a month and if you really want to go all out and have the big package, spend the $12.95 a month. On Host Gator, you can host an unlimited number of domains.  With Go Daddy, you have to pay every time you add a domain.  You get tons and tons of space with Host Gator, and more space and more bandwidth than you’ll ever need.

With Go Daddy, once you start getting significant traffic to your site, the cost of hosting with Go Daddy can grow exponentially. With Host Gator you can have unlimited; unlimited e-mail addresses, set up several different e-mail accounts. With Go Daddy, you’re going to be paying every time you want to add an e-mail account. We definitely recommend Host Gator for your hosting solution.

Joint Ventures

Question: Being a newbie, if I could come up with an e-book and a program and a Web site with a good sales letter on it, would I be able to attract people like Tellman, Matt Bacak, and Shawn Casey to JV with me?

Answer: Very highly doubtful.The reason is because you can't offer anything to help them in their  business yet. You’re focusing on your own business, which you can do, but that’s certainly not how I started. I started only doing affiliate marketing, promoting other people and learning how to get really good at promoting other people so I could develop that skill set first before I focused on telling the world how smart I was.

So, it depends on your goal. If your goal is to sell an e-book, great, but if you made your information available for free, couldn’t you get really good at selling other people’s products or services in your niche?

And couldn’t you turn around and; and do joint ventures with the people in your niche? Absolutely.

List Building & Email Marketing

Question: Please teach us how to use ad swap to grow our list quickly. Where and which forum to go to find the JV partner to do that?

Answer: An ad swap is when two partners team up to send each other's messages to their lists. For example, your partner sends your email to your his or her list and you send his or her email to your list. You can find the JV Forum in the ListBuilding Club under the "Community" tab in the top navigation bar.

Question: What is the difference between Autoresponderhero and Aweber why do you suggest using Autoresponderhero?

Answer: Both addresses will take you to the same place. AutoresponderHero is a redirect URL. You can use either address.

Question: Please explain the relationship between an opt-in page like your My First List page and a long sales page?

Answer:   The squeeze page (such as the one you arrive at when you go to MyFirstList.com) leads to the sales page. The URL to your sales page should be the address that you redirect customers to once they have opted into your list. You set this "redirect" up in your autoresponder when you are filling in the information needed for your web form. In AWeber, it will be the "Thank You" page.

Question: How can I ensure that the largest percentage of my e-mails possible get delivered to their intended recipient?

Answer: Use AWeber for your autoresponder. They have the best deliverability rate. The only drawback is that if you use another service, it's very hard to import your list into AWeber, unless you have a very small list. Plus, they will have to re-verify that they have opted into your list, even though they already did it twice in the past. Many of your leads could remain unverified. Still, if you have a small list, think about switching to AWeber. It will help with deliverability and get your messages delivered. In the long run, it could help you to communicate with your list and make more money, too.

Question: How do you build a list when you don’t have a product yet?

Answer: When you're building your list all of the traffic that comes to your website, should be focused on building your list.And you can really do that just by giving away something for free or giving away something of value.

When you're giving away something of value you don’t even have to have a product. You can just put together a special report, even the simple incentive like offering someone a subscription to your newsletter if your newsletter is focused on your niche.  "Subscribe to our free newsletter" is sometimes all it takes to get someone to opt in.  Really, ideally, you want to sell the opt-in, and you want to really give them a reason other than just, "Sign up for my list" and that's by giving away something for free. 

One great way of creating a valuable resource to give away is to find a bunch of articles, maybe five or ten articles, related to your topic of what your website is. You're free to publish articles in your websites, in PDF reports and anywhere you want (usually) as long as you include the author's resource box. One of the things we talked about with the List Building Club is actually writing articles ourselves and putting them out there in ezine articles and other areas and having your own resource box.

But also, on the flip side of that, is we can use other people's articles. So, here's a great strategy which works really well in terms of giving something away. Find a couple articles that have really good headlines in them. You know the importance of headlines. Your headlines are really the ad for the ad. A great headline makes a great bullet point. Find the ten best articles you can find with great headlines and put them into a PDF document. Make sure you include the author's resource box, as long as it's Tokay for you to do that. If you're selecting articles from a free web directory, that's usually the case.

Then when you're writing your sales page or your squeeze page where you're offering a free special report your bullet points for your free special report you're giving away are just the titles of the headlines of the articles that are included. And that's a great way to come up with something free to give away that you can give away on your website, in giveaways, or as an incentive just for joining your list.

Question: I want to know how to include the giveaways which is an article; an audio interview with the wisdom guide or a small dollar item which would be a video; a DVD video. Should it go on the sales page or the squeeze page?

Answer:the main thing you need to remember; the main thing you need to remember is nobody cares about the article.  Nobody cares about the video or whatever. People care about the benefits that you’re giving them from the article or from the video.

So it almost doesn’t matter what media style you deliver it in because hey, two or three years ago you wouldn’t have even been able to consider using video. You wouldn't have used audio until a couple of years ago.

You would have strictly done it in an article or an e-course.  So people are opting in; but you could still get, you know, 50; 60 percent opt-in rates if you’re a halfway decent copywriter, right? So the main thing, Tom, that you want to do; No. 1 is on your squeeze page, you want to explain the benefits of what it is that you’re delivering to people and why it is that they want those benefits.

What you would do is to offer the free resource, whatever that is, on your squeeze page. People would opt-in to get your stuff, okay? You would; you would drive them directly to a thank you page for the double opt-in that says "to confirm your subscription, go back to your e-mail and click on the link in the e-mail with the subject line..." whatever your subject line is.

So after they opt-in, they’ll go straight back to their Inbox. They’ll go straight back to their Inbox –

And they will look for that e-mail. They’ll click it and it says to get your; you know your audio and your video and your list describing all those cool things, click on; click on this link right now. You click on the link right now and that brings them to the long copy sales page. In the meantime while they’re reading the long copy sales page, their free bonuses are automatically delivered to them via e-mail.

Question: I’m just wondering, in your opinion, can you; can you explain in that the best, in your opinion, the best multi-function and why it is autoresponder that’s cost efficient? And also the second best multi-function, cost effect; cost efficient autoresponder and why it is second, in your opinion?

Answer: If you are using or considering ever using co-registration as a way to build your list which I personally; when you’re starting out, I advise.Because it’s a way that you can get used to building your list, and you can get some subscribers on your list quickly without feeling extreme amounts of frustration. Co-registration is a great way to build your list, to get started, and obviously, there are a lot of people that are out there who have used co-registration to build multi-million dollar companies, as well. I use co-registration very, very much but not in the traditional sense these days, but I still do use it.

And so one of the main things that I would throw out there to you is that if you want to use co-registration, 1 Shopping Cart is a phenomenal resource and they are great because not only do they offer you an autoresponder and you can have all sorts of, you know, multiple autoresponders and everything. But they also offer ad trackers and the ability to process payments and a shopping cart and an affiliate program and all this kind of cool stuff. If you’re not going to use co-registration, we advise that you go with AWeber because they’re deliverability is very, very, very high. There are very, very, very inexpensive and they are extraordinarily reliable.

Question: The "Set up WordPress blog video stops around half way through and I've had the same thing happen on another one as well. I don't think it's an issue with my computer because it does not do it on all the videos.

Answer: It's probably your connection. You need to wait until the entire video loads. It stops because there is only that much of the video downloaded into your computer. You can pause the video and wait until the whole thing downloads and that way, there should be no interruptions.

Question: What is a squeeze page and how do I make one?

Answer: A squeeze page is a specific page on your website (in many cases the home page) that is used to collect the information of the people visiting your website. The information you collect can be anything, including first name, last name, email address, home address, phone number, etc.; but usually just asking for the visitors first name and email address is adequate.

As a best practice, the ONLY purpose of the squeeze page is to collect the visitors information, therefore you shouldn't have any other links, buy buttons, or any other actions your visitors can take... they either opt-in to your squeeze page or leave.

There are several ways to set up a squeeze page, here are the 2 most common:

1. HTML:  you could create a squeeze page using straight HTML programming.

2. WYSIWYG Editor:  another more common method is to use a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editor such as Microsoft FrontPage or Dreamweaver. This is an easier option for most people, and you could also use pre-existing templates to edit an existing squeeze page to meet your needs. Don't forget you'll want to use an autoresponder service to integrate into your squeeze page.  AWeber and GetResponse are popular options for internet marketers.

( See Lessons 8 and 9 in the video section, which explain squeeze pages in depth.)

Question: How do I get an opt-in box onto my blog?

Answer: This is a great question.  If you don't already have an opt-in box on your blog, then you're missing out on the opportunity to get subscribers and utilize the power of follow-up marketing...

Generally, all this requires is getting the opt-in code from your auto-responder and putting it onto your blog. The specifics of this will be determined by what blog platform you are using.

The List Building Club recommends using a Word Press blog over any other blog platform. If you are using a word Press blog, then it is really quite easy to get your opt-in form on your blog, and in an optimal position.

Simply log-in to your Word Press back office and click on the Presentation tab.  Then click on the Widgets Sub-category. Once you are at that screen you will see a Sidebar list and a list of available Widgets.

Drag a Text widget into the Sidebar area (we recommend putting it into the top position). Now you will need to add your opt-in code to the text portion of that widget.

Save those changes and your opt-in box should now appear at the top sidebar of your blog.

(See "How to Add the Optin Form to Your Blog" in Lesson 1 for complete video instruction)

Traffic Generation

Question: How do I get traffic to my squeeze page?

Answer: There are several ways to drive traffic to your website and squeeze page.

Though there are potentially hundreds and hundreds of ways to do this, we have identified 17 specific ways of driving profitable traffic to your website.

The key is to use the resources your have available, whether it be a specific skill, a lot of time, or a lot of money.

Here are three of my favorite ways of driving traffic utilizing each of these resources:

1.  Using a specific skill: Article Writing

If you're a good writer, then article marketing is one of the best ways to get traffic to your website.  Articles are a great way to demonstrate your expertise as well as get good rankings in the search engines and have links pointing back to your site.

Other skills you may have to drive traffic include podcasting if you're good at talking your ideas and thoughts out loud and creating videos if you're good at video and editing.

2.  Time:  Forum Posting

If you have a lot of time, then there are various things you can be doing on the internet every day to drive traffic to your website.

One of my favorite things to do is find forums related to my topic / niche, and post to them.

I like to participate in controversial topics, as well as answer questions that other people have.

The benefit is you can have a signature file that links back to your site.

Other ways to get traffic if you have time are to write blog posts on your blog, visit other blogs and comment on those blogs, and answer questions on sites such as Yahoo! Answers.

3.  Money:   Pay Per Click Advertising

If you aren't on a tight budget or have set aside some money for paid marketing, then Pay Per Click Advertising is a great way to drive traffic to your site.

The good thing about pay per click is you can set a daily budget that you don't want to go over while you're testing new ideas.

Other paid methods you can use that are effective are ezine advertising and co-registration.

You can also outsource a lot of traffic building activities which were mentioned above.

When it comes to driving traffic to your site the key is to focus on just 2 to 3 methods, become very good at them, then expand out.  If you try to use too many traffic tactics at one time, you're results may not be effective at all.

Question: I'm starting a membership site, and I was just wondering Brian what's some of the best ways I can bring some traffic in to my site to have members join.

Answer: There's really several different ways ? there's tons or ways to drive traffic to your site. Tellman himself has identified at least 17 highly effective ways of driving traffic to your website. Of course, there's many other ways outside of those 17.

Find a form of traffic that you like, that you're interested in generating, and that really comes down to your likes. If you like writing, writing articles can be a great way to generate traffic. If you're good at writing small, classified-type ads and you're good at testing and tracking and tweaking different types of copy for small ads, pay-per-click may be a way you want to go. Search engine optimization is a great way to get traffic if you like that and you're good at it. identify the areas that you enjoy studying about and you enjoy learning about in terms of traffic, and then focus on just those areas.

One or two at first, master those, and then go on to find other ways to generate traffic and master those areas. Trying to generate too much traffic in too many different ways, all by yourself especially, aren't going to generate the best results.

Web 2.0

Question: tagging your blog post if I have a few blog sites for different products/services, should I create a different acct. on the social networking sites for each different product/service if totally unrelated?

Answer: No. Within the social bookmarking sites, people prefer natural marking. So, if you're bookmarking across niches, it will look natural because folks aren't generally interested in just one thing. It's considered bad form to only bookmark your own websites and nothing else. Actually being in more than one niche benefits you at these sites.

Question: Regarding the video onlywire.com and bookmarking,it sure sounds like a powerful tool. I have never used bookmarking. Please explain how one uses bookmarking and how it is useful for your blog site. Have I been missing out on a key internet option?

Answer: Yes! Social bookmarking is a very effective traffic generation tool. Only Wire (there is a new video up as of Feb. 16, 2009) that not only shows you how to install the plugin, but gives you a zip file for it so that you can just let WordPress 2.7 do its stuff. When you have that, you need only click on the button under your post and bookmark in about 25 sites at once. You do have to join each one and fill in your login information at Only Wire first, but it's definitely not a waste of time. People in the bookmarking sites will come to your blog, if they're interested in what you have to say from all of the sites.

Question: I am having difficulty adding only wire to my bookmark

Answer: You can drag the "Save" button at Only Wire to your browser's toolbar.  Regular "Save" will take you to Only Wire to complete your entry. "Save fr" means to save via frame. This is a little quicker, but not all of the tags you've used will be visible.

Question: After viewing the video for the social bookmarking tool Onlywire, my question is do I need to create separate user and passwords along with a separate matching email address? Does having the same exact accounts and email address for each tool negatively impact my site, especially for search engines?

Answer:Yes, you will need to create a new account in each of the social bookmarking sites at OnlyWire.com to use the service. It's actually easier if you use the same user name and password for every site you join. And no, search engines aren't that smart. They have no idea what your user names or passwords are for any site you join.