I’ve been paying close attention to my spam complaints in Aweber because I use single opt in and don’t wan’t to switch to double.

Lately I’ve been noticing that my complaint rate was higher than the acceptable level by Aweber. Their acceptable complaint level is .1 % or 1 complaint per 1000 subscribers.

I put up disclaimers in my emails, given my subscribers useful information and still couldn’t get under the acceptable level.

So after testing a lot of different options, I finally figured out something that works for me.

The first step is that I decided to remove all tracking links from my e-mails because they look rather long and can be looked at as spam by certain people. Once I removed my tracking links my spam complaints dropped by 200% instantly.

To get it to drop another 200% what I did is I made links to domain names that didn’t look like they were sales material. For example: if I’m trying to promote something as an affiliate. I would send somebody to a link that read http://domainname.com/news.html

This way people looked at my links is being user-friendly and didn’t see them as being spam. And I get very few spam complaints now because of it.

I can still track my open rate by using HTML e-mails. And I can also track the click throughs by just using unique landing pages for each e-mail I send out.

If you have any thoughts or suggestions on how you lowered your spam complaints let me know.

So this is how my story begins:

I started out just like most people, looking for a way to make some extra money from home. I hated my job and I was in my seventh year of college. College to me, was just a chore that I knew I had to complete. The job market was terrible because it was just after 9/11.

So I was jumping from business opportunity to business opportunity, hoping that I would strike it rich but I kept coming up extremely short.

I jumped head first into a company call ACN, hoping that I would make it big from energy deregulation, but deregulation didn’t make my checks any bigger.

One of the things that I learned on this long journey to “success” is that making money online or from home is NOT about what business opportunity you join or whether you’re on the so called “ground floor” of some opportunity it’s about making sales. Now that’s the God honest truth.

Whether you’re selling a your product, a product of someone else, or you’re just selling advertising space on your website, you’ve got to know how to sell.

I think and know that this is the truth that most people want to act like doesn’t exist. This is the big elephant in the room.

There is a shortcut though to making money online or at home without knowing how to sell and I’m going to reveal that to you in this letter, but before I do, let me finish my story.

So back to my story:

So I was working at a job that I hated and looking for a way to start making money with the internet because I was certain that there just had to be some money to make on this crazy place we call the internet.

I had started to make some headway after buying my 100th ebook, and I decided that it was time for me to actually do something. If you read any part of this article, this is the part that you should pay close attention to. Nothing happens until you start doing something. Whether good or bad. Success or failure, nothing happens.

I get emails all the time from people that read my ebooks, and after about 2 days of reading they say, “this sounds great, but I don’t think this is for me”. You don’t think this is for you? That’s always what I ask myself. Everyone thinks that quitting their day job, be able to travel whenever you want, making more money in a month than most people make in a year is for them, but most people can bring themselves to actually doing anything about it.

So on my last day of work, when I got fired for being late, it was actually the best thing that could ever happen to me. I was scared and excited all at the same time. But that pressure is what drove me to take action and create the internet life style that a lot of people, maybe even you, are looking for.

So my secret to selling without knowing how to sell is this: Let other people that know how to sell do the selling for you for free. I’ll be covering how to do that in the next article so make sure you check back here in a few days to get the scoop.

So if you can learn anything from this article, learn that you have to take massive action in order to be successful. Because the faster you fail, the faster it is that you’ll be successful.

Here’s to your success and God Bless.

Right off the top, you MUST make your blog worth reading. That means adding content to it that is relevant to the topic of the blog itself. So if you have a blog on music events, make sure you cover the most recent ones, hot off the press. You want people to read YOUR blog before anybody else’s. This way, you’ll get a fair number of readers on a regular basis. Once you’ve done that…

The next step is to make sure you monetize your blog. That means simply, make sure that after they’ve read your great content, they have something to buy, download, sign up for, or whatever. You want to make sure that your reader is not just a reader. You want them to be an active participant. That means you want them to post their comments and maybe even submit their articles. The more content on your blog, the higher up the search engines it will go. An active blog is a popular blog. Don’t ever forget that.

Another important thing is how you promote your blog. Sadly, many marketers do nothing more than blog and ping. This is going to get you close to nowhere. A blog has to be promoted just the same as any other site. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean people are going to come to it. A great way to promote a blog, and one that is dirt cheap, is to submit articles to article directories and include a link to your blog in the resource box. Make sure you give the reader a good reason to go there. So a strong call to action is essential. Offering your free report or newsletter is a great way to get the reader to your blog.

These are just a few of the many things that you can do to increase the popularity of your blog. By following these few simple tips, I have no doubt that your blog will be climbing up the search engines in no time.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Related Links:

What is Your Ideal Dream Blog Job?

STAN’S BLOG Just doing my Job

I like the networking at seminars, because it allows me to meet people face-to-face that I normally only chat with online. It’s kind of crazy to me how you can be good friends with somebody. But only chat with them on Yahoo messenger.

But if you don’t learn anything from me, this is the one thing that I really think that you should do. At least attend one seminar or networking event once a year. What this does is allow you to meet face-to-face with people and share ideas. Sometimes I get too many ideas from these networking sessions.

Another thing that happens at seminars, is that you actually run into people that you end up working with. I know in this crazy world we call the Internet, we try to do everything alone. But I’d rather get 1% of 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own. And that’s exactly what networking and working together with others will get you.

I have talked to too many people that have made thousands and thousands of dollars online just because they networked with the right people.

Some sites and some businesses are destined to fail right from the start. Sad to say, but it’s true. But why? Why is it that so much promise can be shot to heck right out of the starting gate? Well, there are several reasons for this.

The first one is that many people who do start their own business don’t do the proper research that is required in order to give their business the best chance of succeeding. This starts with the simple task of making sure that the product or service that you’re trying to sell actually has enough of a demand that the resulting sales are sufficient enough to justify your expense.

The second is seeing if the existing competition, even if there is a big demand, isn’t putting out a product that is better and cheaper than yours. Just because you have something great and people want it doesn’t mean it is going to sell if somebody else is selling that same product for less and on top of that, the product they’re selling is top notch. That’s tough to compete with.

Then of course there is the problem with free information. Just because there is a demand for what you are offering, doesn’t mean that people are going to be willing to part with their hard earned money if the same information, or at least a good part of it, is available for free. That’s why so many times you’ll do your keyword research and find that there are many daily searches but very few competing sites and almost no paid ads. The reason is, more often than not, because the information is freely available.

And of course there is more to this, but the point is, when the foundation of your business is shaky because of poor or no research, what is going to happen is that after you launch your business, you’ll see no sales for weeks, maybe months. Naturally, there are other factors such as advertising, but more often than not, it’s the foundation that’s the problem. That’s when it’s time to realize that you need to walk away from the table and try something else.

It’s a tough thing to do, to admit that you misjudged your market. But doing so can save you many wasted months or even years promoting something that nobody wants.

Resale rights are very basic. Products that come with regular resale rights allow you to simply resell the product as an affiliate of the product. Usually you’re given an affiliate link that you send your prospects to and a cookie system tracks where the sale comes from so that you will get credit for it. The most popular affiliate marketplace on the Internet is Clickbank where you have your choice of literally thousands of products that you can resell.

Master resale rights are a little different. With master resale rights, or MRR, you not only can sell the product but you actually get a license to sell it at any price you choose as if it were your own product. Most MRR products come with their own sales page that you can upload to your own domain. In effect, this is very close to creating your own product to sell. The only difference is, the product is not unique as there are many others just like yours out in the marketplace.

Private label rights, or PLR, are the most powerful of all the rights. Not only can you resell the product as if it were your own, but you can also make changes to the product itself. You can change the name of it, redo the graphics and sales page and even change the content itself. This truly makes this product your own if you put enough work into it.

Now, some PLR products do come with restrictions such as you can’t sell them at an auction site or you can’t pass along PLR rights to others. This is why you have to read the rights file that should come with all products that give either MRR or PLR rights away.

Products that come with rights are a great quick shortcut to building your own product line fast.

And the sad thing is, customer service doesn’t have to be time consuming or a burden. Yes, there are going to be those who purchase a $7 ebook from you and then expect $3,000 worth of coaching in return. That’s where you have to make the customer understand that a $7 purchase does not entitle them to $3,000 of your time and if they have a problem with that they should ask for a refund, which I will gladly give. But people SHOULD get what they pay for at minimum.

So here are a few things that I suggest you do once you reach a point where you actually have customers to service.

For starters, make sure that all product deliveries are automated and that the process is working correctly. That means you have to test it out. With Clickbank products they have a test mode and with PayPal products they have what is called the sandbox. Both work very well for testing purposes.

Another thing you want to do is make sure you process all refund requests promptly. I know, nobody likes to give refunds, but if you have a refund policy, honor it. I even go one step farther and offer a free gift for their trouble as my way of saying I am sorry they didn’t like the product. Try it sometime. It makes for great customer relations.

Finally, when a customer asks a question, answer it. It doesn’t have to be a long drawn out email. Just get to the point and give the customer what he or she wants. Most emails can be answered in under 5 minutes.

If you do these three basic things, you’ll be surprised how much ahead of the game you will be as far as customer service goes in comparison to everybody else.

Take care of your customers…or else the consequences could be severe

The best way to explain this concept is with a specific example. Let’s for argument sake say that your target market is new people who are looking for earn a living online. What do all these people have in common? Well, if nothing else, they all have never had any success with an online business. That doesn’t meant that none of them have had any success with an offline business. Quite a few people who have successful offline businesses try to bring that success online. But the common denominator is that none of these people have proven themselves online and therefore may be a little insecure when it comes to starting an online business. You will need to approach these people a certain way.

Now, let’s take folks who have been marketing online for a while and let’s say that they are your target market. Well, these people are probably already having success, though it might be at different levels. But they are not new. They are going to need a different approach than the new person. Okay, what about the two different approaches. How do they differ?

Well, for the new person, you might present them with a sales pages that essentially assures them that it is possible to earn a living online and show then proof, both with your own success and with the success of others who have used your product, whatever it might be. With the more experienced person, you might approach them in a manner where you’re telling them that your product will take them to the next level, regardless of where they are. And again, show them your success as well as the success of others. Depending on where each person is will determine how they respond to your message.

The point is, both markets have to be approached differently because each will respond to different things. The new person just wants to make any amount of money to start. He wants to see some results. The experienced person wants to see improvement.

If you keep these things in mind when approaching your market, you’ll give yourself the best chance of approaching them in the correct way.

Now, you’re probably thinking, “What does it matter as long as he’s successful?” Well, it does matter. And I’m going to explain to you why. See, even if you are successful, if you’re not testing and tracking, you can’t possibly be optimizing your promotions.

Let’s take an example. Let’s say you have about 5 ads running all over the Internet and each one is costing you $200 a month. That’s $1,000 a month in advertising expenses. Okay, at the end of the month, you’ve made $3,500 on the $1,000 in ads. Now, you’re not tracking these ads to see which ones are actually bringing visitors to your site. You’re assuming that each ad is doing $700 worth of business.

But what happens if you tracked each ad to see how many sales each one was actually bringing and you found out that three of the ads weren’t bringing you any sales at all? Do you realize that’s $600 in expenses that you could save by killing those ads? So then instead of having a profit of only $2,500 a month, your profit is now $3,100 a month. That’s quite an increase…just because you tracked your ads and killed the ones that weren’t performing.

And tracking ads is not the only thing you should be doing. You should be doing split testing on your sales pages to see if one letter performs better than another. If you only have one letter out there, you have no way of knowing if you are optimizing your sales. And you don’t have to change much. You can start by just comparing one headline to another to see which one generates more sales.

Basically, if you’re not testing and tracking, you’re working in the dark. There is no other way to put it. So if you’ve been letting your business fly by the seat of its pants with no clue of whether or not you’re getting the most out of your ads and sales letters, you might want to think about doing some testing and tracking.

It certainly can’t hurt.

Okay, first a true story. When I first started out, I had no idea what I was doing. I finally found some books on traffic generation and started to have success. So at that point in time, I didn’t need a mentor…not yet. But then as time went by, I discovered that I wasn’t making any progress. I was still making money, but I wasn’t making a lot of money. So I realized that I needed more help. I just didn’t know where to go for it.So I sought out a mentor.

I got the help I needed from a guy by the name of Juan Walker. He gave me, in just one conversation, all the information that I needed. Notice I didn’t say I needed months of mentoring. I just needed a little direction, which I got. My income then increased by four times because of his mentoring. But that wasn’t the end of it, because again, after a while, my income stagnated and I couldn’t make it to the next level. I didn’t know where to go from there. I was truly stuck.

Okay, do you see the common pattern? I needed a mentor when I couldn’t think of how to do something on my own…when the information I needed was not something I was going to get from a book because I didn’t know what book to turn to. I didn’t have any direction as to where to look. So I needed somebody to give me direction. That’s when I needed a mentor.

If your problem is you’re trying to decide what book to get on traffic generation, or even if you’re having trouble understanding the book you got, that’s not a time for you to get a mentor. The time is when you have exhausted every avenue and you literally don’t know where to turn. It has nothing to do with what you don’t understand but EVERYTHING to do with what you don’t even know exists…when the void in front of you is so wide that you’re literally clueless and without hope. That’s when you need a mentor.

If you keep these guidelines in mind, you should have no trouble when deciding on getting a mentor or not.