When it comes to marketing online, Google, Yahoo!, Bing, AOL, and others don’t care where you business is, how many employees you have, what your tax return was last year, or what you wear to “the office”, which for many businesses is little more than a leisurely stroll past the refrigerator for a cold drink then on to a laptop at the kitchen table. The job of the search engines is to deliver relevant information to those searching for it.

The real online marketing magic happens when you learn how to make your business the source of information that people are searching for.

Let’s go through a real life example. Suppose you have a small boutique in Hawaii on the North Shore of the island of Oahu that sells a variety of products. Where would you start marketing online? Well, first of all, with some research you learn that every month there are about 1,000 people around the world searching online for the exact phrase “gifts of Hawaii”. Next, you make some changes to your website so that it comes up at the top of Google when people search for “gifts of Hawaii”. Then, if your website is built to sell, you’ve tapped into a steady stream of customers.

This is a perfect example because the average business owner would not think that “gifts of Hawaii” is what people are actually searching for. Well, they are. And when that little Hawaiian boutique owner’s business starts showing up on the Google search engine when people search for “gifts of Hawaii”, the sales are poised to go up.

And for all those Hawaiian boutique owners that read my blog, “You’re welcome”. Happy marketing!

Violations are not determined by the size of your company. And, when they contact you it’s not for a citation or for negotiations, it’s because you’ve already been tagged for the violation.

What’s the fine? I know of 3 businesses that were fined one for $25,000, another for $85,000, and a third for $100,000. And the last one was simply for not obtaining verifiable parental consent prior to collecting personal information from children.

What’s the solution? I personally use and recommend Len Thurmond’s Auto Web Law.

It’s a simple piece of software that you download and use right away. You simply choose the form you want, fill in the blanks and click “Get Document”.  Instantly, you have document you need for your website. Then you just cut and paste the text when you need it.

Here’s a screen shot of how it works:

For a closer look at Auto Web Law, click here.  They have 2 options:

1) Auto Web Law Pro – Has almost 70 documents. This is not a blanket legal forms software. This is for website owners and is being constantly updated as new laws regarding the internet come into effect.  (THIS IS THE ESSENTIAL PACKAGE)

2) Auto Web Law Pro + IPPP Intellectual Property Protection Plan – Includes legal forms to notify those who are stealing content from your website or digital books.  (THIS IS FOR ULTIMATE PROTECTION)

Both include Privacy Policies and Terms of Use forms.
Again this is exactly what I personally use to legally protect my websites.
If you don’t have it, get it.
Visit the Auto Web Law website HERE.

Getting paid for giving away things for free? Sounds fishy right? It’s not.

It’s called CPA marketing. No, not Certified Public Accountant, it stands for Cost Per Action.

Let me make an example to show you how it works.  Company ABC knows that if they give away 5 samples of their product or service that, statistically, one of them will turn into a long term customer and make the company $200 per year.  So, Company ABC is willing to pay people like you and me $10 every time we send someone to their website and they order a free sample.

The math is easy.  Company ABC gives $10 to each its 5 affiliates who each sent one person to the website to sign up for a free sample. One of the free samplees becomes a customer bringing the company $200. And in the end, the company nets $150.  So, the more free samples the company gives away, the more money they make, and the more money the CPA affiliates make.

It’s not tricky or fishy, it’s just affiliate marketing on steriods! And, you get paid whether or not your referral every buys anything. All they have to do is take a free sample and you get paid. Traditional affiliate marketing pays you when a sale is made. CPA marketing pays you when your lead takes an action as simple as entering their name and email on a form.

The problem is “just anybody” can’t become part of these CPA networks. You had to “be somebody” in the marketing world to join them…until now.

Affiliate Jump is a CPA affiliate network that is open to the public.
Yes! I am a member of Affiliate Jump.

Interested? Click this banner to watch a free video about CPA marketing:

Most website owners would like to think that’s the way it works. They play their website like the lottery. . . throw some money in, get a site, and hope the world falls in love with it making the owner insanely rich.

If that’s how you’re going to play the game, save your money for Las Vegas. You probably have a better chance of winning there than online.

Successful websites that generate leads and make money for the owner are planned out meticulously and strategically positioned for success. I know what you’re thinking. . . how?

Well, I used to buy run down houses, renovate, them and resell them. My mentor taught me the secret trick to fix anything. He would say, “How you do you fix a leaking roof? It’s easy! Write a check.”  ”How do you fix a broken foundation? It’s easy. Write a check!”  ”How you to get rid of scary mold? It’s easy! Write a check.”

When he used to say things like that, I would think to myself, “Oh man, I can’t keep writing checks for stuff like that.” But the truth was I had to, and it was was well worth it. I was running a business, and my job was to run the business, not to try and fix the leaking toilets. And the truth is, paying to get things done was always a fraction of what I though it would actually cost.

What’s my point you ask? We’re not fixing houses.

The point is, when you take your business online, treat it like a business and get the right people working on your team. If not, while you’re trying to figure out how to get a video to show up on your website, your wise competitor has already hired the right guy to do it for him, and he can now spend his time where  it matters most, helping his customers and filling orders.

So, the thought quickly permeates the entrepreneur and small business world that websites cost SO much money. Well, if your website isn’t making you sales, it could actually be costing you much more than you even paid to get it built in the first place. The real question is, “How much money is your website costing you?”

Let’s look at  a fictitious scenario that may be all too real for some of you. You may never look at your own website the same way again. Read at your own risk.

Kip the Carpet Cleaner – Kip owns a new small carpet cleaning business. In fact, he bought the best carpet cleaning equipment there was to offer. At first he operated off of word of mouth referrals and did a darn good job. However, after he had cleaned all of his friends and family’s carpets, his well of business leads was almost dried up. So, he decided to look into getting website. His brother-in-law once built a little website for his son’s karate team, and said he’d do it for him cheap. Cheap is what Kip wanted. After all a good businessman gets things cheap right? So, he pays his brother-in-law a couple hundred bucks, and gets his website . . . 4 months later. While he was waiting for his site, Kip had to get a part-time job at the grocery store to make ends meet. Hey, that’s okay, we have to do what we can while we’re building our businesses, right? When he finally got the site, it was nothing special, and looked like those free ones you get with some hosting plans. In fact, it might have been just that, but Kip couldn’t tell, but he paid for it. Well, when Kip got his website, nothing changed. The site was boring, it wasn’t search engine optimized so nobody ever found his business online, and those who he gave his business card to, with his web address on it, went to his website and quickly left, not impressed by his online business-front. Kip kept working at the grocery store and still has some nice carpet cleaning machines out in his shed.

Randy the Rug Magician – Randy also started a carpet cleaning business. Although his equipment wasn’t best money could buy, it was good enough for the average carpet, and he would respectfully decline jobs that he knew he couldn’t handle. Randy had decided to invest his money into a marketing plan that included a professional website that cost him 4x what Kip paid for his. Randy’s plan was to focus on marketing so that he could get a steady stream of customers that would help him pay for the top of the line equipment he desired. So, while Kip was waiting on his brother-in-law to do his website for 4 months, Randy got his professional website in 2 weeks, and started marketing it online immediately. His website was professional, search engine optimized, and built to convert visitors into customers. In fact, when you went online to Google.com and searched for “AnyTownUsa carpet cleaning”, his website came up on the first page of the results. When potential customers went browsing for the right company, Randy’s professional website told his clients that he really knew his stuff and would do a great job. The result, Randy had steady flow of business from his investment in a quality website that was search engine optimized and built to convert visitors into buyers. He quickly was able to upgrade his carpet cleaning machines, and then franchised his operation to neighboring towns.

What does, Kip’s website cost him? Well, it cost him his business.
What does Randy’s website cost him? Absolutely nothing. It’s a money-making lead-generating asset.

What is your website costing you?

Ready to make a change? I can help. Visit my company website here.

For those of you who have been attending my workshops on a regular basis, you know that I often recommend a specific company by the name of GoDaddy for registering hosting and domains. Well, things have changed for me and I have new hosting and domain favorites,  and what are they?

For domains, I recommend NameCheap.

For hosting, I recommend HostGator.

Now, I’ve played with both in the past but over the last 2 weeks I’ve experienced the quick power of both. Why the switch you ask?

Well, don’t get me wrong, GoDaddy is a good company. In my opinion, their customer service for the newbie is unsurpassed. However, here’s what put me over the edge and has me converted to NameCheap and Hostgator:

As some of you may know, my wife has a stand up paddle lessons school. Well, every month we organize a big cleanup where we invite anyone who wants to come, to paddle up the river and gather as much trash as we can from the riverbank and bushes, then bring it back down the river and throw it all away.

The event has been growing in popularity, and yesterday in the local paper, an article was printed announcing the next cleanup, which is this Saturday. The problem was, the article directed people to go to www.anahulucleanup.com for more information. I DIDN’T EVEN OWN THE DOMAIN NAME YET!

A few weeks ago, I registered some domain names with NameCheap and used Hostgator for the hosting, and I had a website live in about 10 minutes from domain registration to uploading the site. I was definitely impressed. Well, in a rush I decided to register the domain with NameCheap, then use my GoDaddy account for hosting. The domain registration and configuration went off without a hitch. Then, I went to GoDaddy to link the domain name to the hosting account hoping it would all come together quickly.

I submitted the request to GoDaddy, and quickly whipped up a crude website just to get something online. Everything was ready to launch and I was still waiting on GoDaddy! I waited at least an hour for it all to go through, and it never happened.

Fed up with waiting,  I canceled the request with GoDaddy, went into my HostGator account to add the domain to my hosting account, and shazzam! The site was live in about 2 minutes! Perfect. And, I was converted.

What does that all mean? If you don’t have the patience to wait on your domain or hosting account changes, like me, I recommend NameCheap to register your domains, and Hostgator for hosting. It’s quick, easy, and changes seem to happen instantly.

Hey, if you’re planning a product launch, you don’t want to be waiting on your hosting account or domain registrar make your site live. You need it now! You don’t have time to wait on www.GoDaddy.com to update all the necessary settings for your website.  Go with my new recommendations and you may save yourself a headache. Now I know why GoDaddy has to have good customer service.

On a side note, I also don’t agree with GoDaddy’s marketing plan and would have started moving my business elsewhere for just that. I found my new favorites just in time!

You wouldn’t believe how many turn-key websites are lying around just waiting to be marketed online. Why don’t I market them myself? I simply don’t have the time. My attention right now is on my private marketing  and web design clients, and I don’t have time to market other websites. So, rather than letting them collect dust, if you want them, they’re yours. And I’m selling them off cheap!

How can learn what they are and get one?

You have to be on my Entrepreneur Hot List!

Last year, I launched the Entrepreneur Hot List and registration was open for only about a week before I closed it. It’s an exclusive list and has been closed ever since, until today!

Today I am opening up registration for the Entrepreneur Hot List, and for a limited time membership is FREE for my blog readers and those subscribed to my newsletter.

How can you join?

Go to www.entrepreneurhotlist.com.

If registration is still open and FREE, you’ll be able to sign up right there and get on the list.

Now, I have to get back to packing up these businesses for you!

Peace. . . I’m back to work.

Are you committed to coming out on top? What will make the difference for your business in 2010? The economy? Wrong! A bail-out bill? No! The FED printing more money? No! The answer is YOU!

In this workshop, web designer and online marketing specialist, Nate Burgoyne is going to blast through the fluff with a “double-barreled marketing shotgun” and show you what really works!

More info and pre-workshop download at http://www.nateburgoyne.com/double-barreled .

Register Online at http://bit.ly/doublebarreled

Register by Phone at 526-1001

Space is Limited. First come, first serve.

Workshop is at the Hawaii Women’s Business Center in Honolulu. http://www.hwbc.org

Got pre-workshop questions, email Nate at nate@nateburgoyne.com or connect through LinkedIn. You are also welcome to comment on this thread.

Nate Burgoyne ( http://www.nateburgoyne.com ) is a web designer and online marketing specialist. He is president of Integrity Online Marketing (http://www.integrityonlinemarketing.com)

For me, one of the most difficult decisions of all is deciding on a domain name for a new business of mine. Man, it seriously stresses me out sometimes. This is the domain name that you will be telling all of your friends, family, and business associates about. This little domain name will often be the first impression your customers will get about you before they even see your website. This is the domain name that you will be launching a serious marketing campaign around. And once a viral marketing campaign is underway, there’s no turning back.

I was thrilled when I got an email this morning from Network Solutions letting me know that they’re running buy one get one free sale on domain names! Now, instead of having to decide between the two finalists for a company web address, you can just register both and sleep on it without worrying that someone else might register the other one overnight.

Yep. Buy one domain and get one free. Pretty awesome. Anyway, here’s a banner that you can click on to get your free domain name. . .

eCover Created by eCover Generator

Hey gang! If you’ve been wondering how to make ebook covers, this is the blog post you’ve been waiting for. There’s a piece of software I’ve been using over the years that creates covers for my eBooks, digital audio files, and special reports. So, I thought I’d share it with you. It’s the same software I used to create the eCover to my audio book, “The Truth About Online Marketing: Confronting the Biggest Mistake” that you see to the left there.

This software creates eCovers for reports, books, software, and CDs. You upload the pictures or create them using the software, then you simply choose the size, angle, and shadow of the images. The software does the rest and “presto” you’ve got slick covers to your ebooks!

You don’t have to be a design genius to use it. The software was developed so that anyone can use it right away. After you get the software, you simply download the file, double click it to install it, and it’s ready to do the hard work for you.

What does this mean for your business? Well, first of all you don’t have to pay a graphic designer big bucks to make 3D images of your ebooks. And, secondly, now you can give a professional look to all the information you’re selling or giving away to your website visitors. The software is called eCover Generator. Enjoy!