Would you like to know how to use Twitter?

Do you know what Twitter is?

Do you know how to setup a Twitter account?

Do you know how to use Twitter to market your business or product?

Do you want to know what all the cool software, tricks, and tips for getting the most of Twitter?

Here is a free ebook for you called A Beginners Guide to Using and Marketing with Twitter!

Download it free

- Ben

Popularity: 4% [?]

There are only two ways to make money in MLM.

1. Gather customers
2. Teach other people how to gather customers

One of the problems in many MLM organizations is the focus isn’t on gathering customers. The focus is on doing the bare minimum of customer gathering and mostly sponsoring new distributors.

When I’m focused strictly on sponsoring new people I sponsor people that don’t do anything. I sponsor customers that don’t use my product and I don’t make much money! This is one of the habits many MLM’ers fall into. They just focus on the short term money made from sponsoring people. The people they do sponsor tend to drop out quickly because they haven’t gotten any customers and haven’t made their money back.

When your focus is on gathering customers and sponsoring customer gatherers then you build long term income. The people who join your organization will be more likely to stay longer as they will be getting quick income from their customers. The volume in your organization will grow and so will your residual income.

Don’t fall for the hype of short term income by focusing too much on the opportunity. Remember to always keep your focus on people who will use your product and teach other people to use your product. That is how you will build true residual income.

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 3% [?]

Finding a niche can be a powerful method for succeeding in business. You have less competition and you are better able to capitalize on the leads, referrals, testimonials, and exclusive knowledge you get from working within a niche. I’ve written a book on finding your niche on the internet. The below is something I just learned that I am adding to version 2 of my book: Nichework Marketing.

There are a few methods to finding your niche. A few of the ones I cover in my book are:

• Choosing topics you know something about already.
• Choosing topics you think you want to learn more about.
• Choosing a topic that you think will be a hot topic or controversial topic.

I’ve recently become aware of another method for those of you that already have a business and have had a little success. That method is called LCD or Lowest Common Denominator. The idea is you look at your business and try to figure out what one thing most of your customers or most of your distributors have in common.

Are they male? Are they female? What ethnic group are they? Where do they live? What kinds of jobs do they have? How much money do they make? Where do they shop? What do they like to do?

So for example… My business appeals to realtors. My business does well in the winter when real estate typically slows down. My business also has a product that goes really well with the real estate industry. So for me a niche I might focus on might be realtors. By focusing on this niche I learn how the real estate business works. I learn what language they use when they talk to each other. I learn what software they use. I learn about how transactions work and how the broker takes a big chunk of the sale. I learn why realtors get involved in my business and now I’m better able to go talk to realtors.

So what is your lowest common denominator?

You might think it’s women… but what type of women? Middle aged? Baby Boomers? Gen X? Gen Y? What race? What kinds of jobs do they have? Are they busy? Are they moms? Are they grandmoms? Are they active? Do they participate in clubs or communities? Are they church goers?

You might be surprised at the results. When I was taught about this method of finding your niche it was in regards to a lady who had a window treatment business. It’s sort of like interior design but focused primarily on window treatments, blinds, curtains, etc. She thought her market was “anyone who needs curtains” but WHO needs curtains? Most people you talk to don’t need curtains. When she looked for her lowest common denominator she found that most of her customers were women… that makes sense right? But she also discovered most of them were nurses. She began to talk to them and find out why they wanted to purchase her service. She came up with the following:

• Nurses have good jobs, so they have money.
• Nurses are busy at their jobs, often working long hours, or overtime so they don’t have a lot of time to fix up their house.
• Some nurses work nights and evenings so they sleep during the day and want nice curtains to keep the room dark.

Now she had her niche. She could target nurses and specifically could target nurses who worked the night shift. Imagine how successful her business became after that! Plus she got more and more referrals because the nurses talked to one another!

Are you beginning to see how a niche can help you?

There are some other tricks to finding your niche especially online. If you are wanting to market your business online check out my book on internet network marketing. I teach how to find your niche and build a web site to focus on that niche.

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 6% [?]

In my ebook Nichework Marketing I talk about finding your network marketing niche and why a niche is so important to people like Google.

Yesterday I was at a BNI (Business Networkers International) training and the director was talking about how we all need to know what our niche is. She was saying how important it is when you advertise. When you market your business your target isn’t “someone”, “anyone”, or “everyone”. That is too broad and you will have a very hard time marketing to such a broad audience.

The same thing goes in your network marketing business. Your target market is not anyone, someone, or everyone. Those are all too broad. Your target should be tightly focused. Sometimes when we’re just starting out we think that if we tightly focus on a specific group of people we limit ourselves too much. We’re afraid we won’t get enough prospects if we focus on a small group of people. However the opposite is true! If we focus on a small group of people we actually get a much better response rate so we get more prospects! Plus when you focus on a small niche you are able to build upon your success. You begin gathering testimonials and referrals. You learn the “language” of that niche. You may join one of their trade organizations. You may begin to advertise in their industry specific magazines. Are you beginning to get my picture?

It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about gathering customers or finding distributors for your business. Either one can benefit from you having a niche. Let’s say for example that you find that you sell health and wellness products and you are finding a lot of chiropractor’s that like your product and recommend them to their clients. Some of the chiropractor’s are joining your business so they can develop a second income stream. You begin to learn what issues are important to chiropractors. You begin to learn their language. You can talk to them instead of talking at them. More and more chiropractors join your business. Some of them have great testimonials about how your product has benefited their customers. Are you seeing the picture yet?

Finding your niche is how people make millions of dollars. Not everyone can be everything to everyone. By focusing on a smaller group of people you can be much more successful.

Tomorrow I’m going to talk a little bit more about finding your niche and how you can use the “Lowest Common Denominator” to find what your personal niche is. Also if you’re interested I wrote a book on how your Niche can help you succeed in marketing online, especially with Google. You can get my 44 page book on finding your niche here.

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 8% [?]

Hi everyone,

I just posted an interview with the legend, John Milton Fogg.

John Milton Fogg is one of the most well known network marketers who authored the best selling book The Greatest Networker in the World.  In this interview we discuss the book and the lessons learned from the Greatest Networker in the World.  Plus John has some great advice that you don’t want to miss about building a massive network marketing empire!

If you are serious about growing your MLM business then you definitely want to check out this interview.  It’s free

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 7% [?]

Hi everyone,

I found this GREAT article by Mari Smith.  I had to share this with you.

How to secure your Facebook username (Vanity Url)

You see on Friday evening at 9:01 PM Pacific time you’ll be able to choose your own facebook username instead of having a number.  This also means that you will be able to have your own facebook vanity url like:

http://www.facebook.com/username

If you have fan pages with at least 1000 members you can also secure a vanity url for your fan page.

Now is your chance to protect your online identity. If you have a nickname you use a lot on the web now is your chance to protect it.  That way people who go to facebook looking for you can easily find you.  It also makes it easier to remember your links to put links to your profile on your other web sites.

Mari Smith goes into complete details on how this process will work.  She explains the rules, what types of usernames are allowed, and how to go about registering your username.

Read all about how to get your facebook username here.

Thanks Mari for the great info!

-Ben Fitts

Popularity: 12% [?]

Hi everyone,

You’re probably wondering why I haven’t been writing as much this week.  Well I’m happy to say it’s because I have been working on a new podcast called: Home Business Interviews!

This will be a regular weekly interview program where you can hear from top producers in our network marketing industry, the brightest personal development coaches, expert internet marketers, and much  more.  Every Wednesday I’ll post a new interview with another expert.

I’ve already recorded the first several shows.  They’re really good!  And I’ve got a half dozen more experts lined up for interviews in the next few weeks.

Best of all the web site is free to join (or download on itunes!) So check out Home Business Interviews today!

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 10% [?]

We’ve had a lot of comments on my article: Local Ad Link – Scam or Legitimate Advertising Opportunity?

A few of our readers have had some pretty interesting arguments.  Several felt that Local Ad Link (LAL) was a scam and were claiming bounced checks.  Others (mostly people SELLING the service) were talking about how great LAL is.  They talked about how LAL had problems and was in beta and things were getting better all the time.  They also talked about customers who were happy because they saw themselves listed on Google.

A couple criticized me and said I don’t know what I am talking about.  One criticized me for recommending people invest $47 in a Perry Marshall training on how to properly do their own PPC advertising.  Keep in mind that the top package at Local Ad Link costs $200 A MONTH.  I was recommending a training program that someone would buy one time and would give them a good understanding of why LAL is a scam.

Some other people recommended I do my homework.  They didn’t think I knew what I was talking about.

So let me clear up a few things…

I’ve been doing pay per click probably longer than most of you have been on the internet!

I’ve been on the Internet since 1993. I’ve owned my own internet service provider (1995-1996).  I created a search engine of soccer web sites which I sold for 5 figures in 1999.  I’ve been doing pay per click since Overture was called GoTo.com (Overture was bought by Yahoo and is now Yahoo’s PPC service.)  GoTo.com got started doing PPC in 1998 and I started with them in 1999.

Here are some reasons why I continue to think Local Ad Link is a bad investment.  I won’t call it a scam for now but I’ll continue to say LAL is a rip off and is for people who don’t know any better.

First and foremost…

Most LAL customers are basically buying ad placement on Google NOT clicks!  They are happy just to have their web site listed on Google. They don’t realize that there advertisement may not be getting clicked on AND even if they do click on their ad they have to go to Local Ad Link first before getting to their web site!  Since LAL is basically reselling Google ads Google requires them to go to the LAL web site first, then on to their web site.  Most of the LAL customers are too ignorant of internet marketing and PPC so they don’t realize how bad this is for them. This also effects the page relevancy which I’ll talk about in a moment.

Second, LocalAdLink provides a limited number of keywords and you must pay more if you want more keywords.  LocalAdLink limits you to 3 keyword phrases.  You should only pay more for more clicks NOT more keywords. That way you can buy keywords that are not clicked on very often and you can buy a bunch of them. Therefore you can buy a bunch of cheap keywords.  LAL instead charges  you based on the number of keywords you buy regardless of whether or not you actually get any clicks from them! (In the search engine world we call these long tail keywords and they can be some of the most profitable keywords to bid on.)

Third, You cannot select negative keywords which allow you to exclude certain negative phrases from your ads. PPC experts know that negative keywords are just as important as the keywords you want people to use.  Negative keywords allow you to weed out freebie seekers and people who are wasting your money. For example, you can setup negative keywords like “free” or “hacks”.  If you were selling cellular phones for example you wouldn’t want people who are looking for cell phone hacks to waste your advertising money.  LAL does not allow you to select negative keywords.

Fourth does Local Ad Link allow you to pick exact matches? I doubt they do since they don’t allow you to do negative keywords.  Basically there are 4 types of keyword matches at Google.  Broad match which would match any keywords were “cellular” and “phone” appear in the search.  Phrase matches where only phrases that match “cellular phones” appear in the search and exact matches which are only “cellular phones” and no other matches so it would exclude “free cellular phones” or any other 3 keyword searches.

You might be saying Local Ad Link defaults to “broad searches” so that’s best but in fact this is a major flaw in the LAL system. Because they are by default doing broad searches it means they are paying for a lot of extra clicks that are not effective clicks.  Since LAL is basically reselling Google PPC ads and they are wasting money on broad matches, they will run through their advertising budget faster!  If they used phrase matching, exact matching, and negative keywords the advertisers would get fewer clicks but they’d get better quality clicks.  LAL would save money.  LAL is trying to show a lot of clicks to their advertisers which is actually the OPPOSITE of what you want to do in PPC advertising! You don’t want a lot of clicks you want HIGH QUALITY clicks that lead to sales!

Fifth, LocalAdLink offers limited zip code selection and charges you based on how many zip codes you select. PPC should charge you based on the number of clicks you receive not the number of zip codes. You should be able to pick as many locations as you want!  If you pick a zip code of a high end neighborhood for example you might not get a lot of clicks.  For example I know of a neighborhood in Boston’s Back Bay that is very exclusive.  One city block has it’s own zip code!  Needless to say you wouldn’t get very many clicks by targetting that zip code, but anyone who clicked would be a millionaire and would be the kind of audience you would want to target.

Finally and perhaps worst of all is the fact that Local Ad Link provides a negative relevancy on your advertising. Google has a page relevancy or advertising relevancy rating. This essentially means that if you link your ad to a crappy web site you will show up lower in the listings.  It also means that if you’re ad gets more clicks than your competition you might be able to bid less on the ad and get rated higher on Google’s search engine listings. LAL is providing a negative relevancy because they are performing in a role of intermediary.  Linking to your page at LAL isn’t as good as linking directly to your web site is.

When you click on a LocalAdLink advertisement you are taken to LAL’s web site! This is the WORST possible thing to happen. MANY MANY MANY people who click on your ad will get to LAL and will NOT click through to your web site. You have a short period of time to get someone’s attention and making them click through LAL before they get to your web site adds complexity.  This means you’ll be paying for a lot of people to visit your web site that will never actually get there. They will get to LAL and click back to Google, click away to another link, etc. BUT you’re paying for them to visit your web site and they NEVER actually get there. (Actually LAL is paying for them and that is one reason why they will never succeed at this game financially unless they rip off a lot of users by providing them far less advertising for their money.)

Let’s say LAL is a good web site. Let’s say the design is good. Let’s say they Let’s say do a good job of getting people to click on your link  and go to your web site.  A GREAT result would be 80% of the people who click through get to your web site… That basically means you’re paying for 20% of the people to click on your add that don’t actually get to you. That’s 20% LOSS.  That’s 20% BREAKAGE.  What if the site isn’t any good? What if 50% of them fail?  Should you pay for a 50% failure rate? Should you pay for a 20% failure rate?

Here are some other good articles on whether or not Local Ad Link is a scam:

http://www.forestmarie.com/why-localadlink-is-a-scam-localadlink-review-local-ad-link/

http://hubpages.com/hub/Local-Ad-Link-Scam

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/427/ripoff0427685.htm

http://www.idowebmarketing.com/local-ad-link-review-its-a-scam-people-heres-why/

And some message boards where there are a lot of complaints.

http://www.feedagg.com/feed/138261/Local-Ad-Link-Scam-Comments

http://scam.com/showthread.php?t=80303

Some of these go back to the discussion of bounced checks, bad support, and technical problems with Local Ad Link.  I haven’t used it so I can’t talk about those things.  My analysis is based on sound PPC advertising practice.

I dare anyone with a strong background in PPC to tell me that using LAL is better than doing your own PPC advertising OR hiring a firm who charges you a small percentage to manage your ads for you.

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 16% [?]