1) The graphics files that make up your website are too large. Web graphics are different than print graphics. If you use graphics meant for print on a website, it’s going to take forever for those graphics to load on someone’s screen.

2) There’s too much extra code behind the scenes of your website.

3) Your hosting account is slow. Your hosting account is like the gas for your website. If you have a junk hosting account, the site’s going to always run slow no matter what.

What’s the fix?

A) Have a web professional like myself or someone else have a look at your website for a free quick assessment.

B) Try switching to a new hosting account. I won’t name names but some are notoriously slow. Want a fast one? Here’s a company I recommend: Unlimited Domain Hosting Only $9.95 a Month

It happens to everyone that unrolls an effective online marketing campaign. First, there’s the thrill of new business leads magically appearing in your email box. Then, those leads get lost among your other email, then your mental Rolodex of leads maxes out, and finally all leads mix together and your lead management turns into and endless game of 52 Card Pickup.

Ah, you remember 52 Card Pickup. I remember the first time I was taught how to play that game. I was about 8 years old and I was invited to play a card card came. “What’s it called?” I asked enthusiastically. “It’s called 52 Card Pickup,” was the reply. “How do you play?” I asked. And down went the entire deck of cards all over the floor waiting for us to pick them up.

If you feel like you’re constantly playing 52 Card Pickup with your leads, you need a lead nurturing software to keep all your leads under control in a tight deck.

As soon as the cards, I mean leads, start hitting the floor there are usually two reactions: 1) generate more leads to replace those that you know are falling by the wayside or 2) tighten up the deck and get a follow up system for lead management.

The best solution is to tighten up the deck and manage or nurture your leads effectively.

So, what do I personally use to manage my leads? Well, I’ve tried all kinds of solutions that I won’t go into here and the best solutions I’ve found is a software called Act! It’s fantastic. You can track your leads from the source, through the sales process, and into production. It will even track the money your leads are converting into.

Is it intuitive? Yes. I don’t have time to read instruction manuals, and I use the software just fine.

Can you take it for a FREE Act! Test Drive to try it out? Absolutely.

Now, I don’t own Act! or anything. I bought the software to use for my business, it solved my problem, and I recommend you check it out. Here’s where you can get FREE Act! 2010 test drive, no strings attached. Great company!

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!

While it’s a piece of cake to register domain names and build a D0-It-Yourself website for cheap that you will quickly realize must be replaced by a professional site if you have any hopes of generating business with it, it’s a royal pain when you’re ready to cross that bridge.

Rather than bore you with all the technicalities or the system, it would be like handing a bag of  ’86 Toyota Tercel car parts to a master mechanic and asking him or her to build a Porsche.

What do I wholeheartedly recommend? Scan the sidebar to the right of this post for the answer.

New income streams and sources of revenue to new and existing businesses are always on my mind. I am flattered when a good friend of mine, Mark Seery, franchise owner of  The Referral Institute, introduces me to others as a web designer, SEO, and online marketing specialist, then follows the introduction by saying something along the lines of, “But still waters run deep, and with Nate they run really deep.”

Do I have multiple streams of income? Yes. Am I willing to share what they are? Yes, for those who are interested.

Now, when you read that opening paragraph, you probably had one of two thoughts:
A) Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. I’ve heard that before.    Or. . .
B) Nate, you are exactly right. You nailed it right on the head.

The truth is, if your thoughts were somewhere along the lines of  response “A”, you either haven’t been in business very long, or you probably won’t be. If your thoughts were along the lines of response “B”, you probably have a steady flow of clients or customers.

In a day 0f instant gratification from a consumer point of view, business owners often seek after instant gratification from the service provider point of view, anxious to move on to the next customer without really meeting the needs of their current clients. The service provider is going after the instant gratification of a happy client when, the truth is, that client may have expected more.

Take care of your clients, my friends. It’s quick becoming a lost virtue. Those who do are poised for success!

Here’s what Linda emailed me today, “Hi Nate: Thanks so much for the referral to Vistaprint. We just received our first order and they’re exactly the same as we’ve been ordering from our prior supplier – but at almost 25% of the price. Wow, that’s 75% off!!! We do a full bleed, glossy business card and are so sold on Vista Print that we’re now excited about having them print other marketing materials. – Linda”

We’ll here’s the unreal deal like I said, a FREE one!

Why would Vistaprint give away free customized business cards? It must be a trick right?

Nope. There’s no trick. You don’t have to order anything else. Just get your free cards. Vistaprint knows their cards are so good that, when the give away a free stack of them to business owners like Linda at Aloha Kine, they are confident that the business owner is going to be a new client for life. Was it worth giving away a free stack of cards? Absolutely.

I found the banner below and put it in this blog post so you can get your free cards.

Give ‘em a shot, it’s free.
On a side note, I honestly don’t know how long this offer is going to last but if the banner is still down there, click it and jump on the offer before Vistaprint takes it down. . . here it is ↓↓↓↓

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.