Feb 02

When you are looking to save yourself time and to make sure that your online business is running to the best of its ability, you will find that one of the things that you should look at is outsourcing. You may consider outsourcing to be something that only huge companies do, but you’ll find that online business and outsourcing are a perfect fit. Because online business calls for a wide variety of skills and talents, no one person can or should tackle them all on their own. There are several tasks that can easily and, more importantly, beneficially be outsourced elsewhere. Here are just a few of them.

    Writing

For many people, writing is not a strong point in their business. Therefore, putting well written, action provoking content on their website is a difficult task. However, this is NOT an area to be skimped upon when it comes to online business. The content on a website has a direct effect on search engine rankings. Copy that is neglected will show when it comes to a business’ bottom line. If you find it difficult to get the results you are looking for with your writing, consider outsourcing it to a qualified writer. You will find that there are a ton of freelancers who can help you get the content you want, to help generate sales from your visitors.

Recommendation: www.Shelancers.com/directory

    Website Design

If you are running an online business, you need to put as much time and effort into your website as you would a brick and mortar store. Getting an attractive, easy to use website is not easy and you will find that there are many professional website designers who are looking to wow you with their expertise. This is something that is well-worth the money spent. You’ll be able to rest assured that your website design is attractive and easy to navigate, which is always a plus for turning visitors into buyers.

Recommendation: Site Build It

    Search Engine Optimization

If you run an online business, you already know how important search engine traffic is to your success. In order to rank high for your keywords and phrases, hiring a search engine optimization expert or link-building service will help to put you on the map. Search engine optimization, when done correctly, will increase the traffic to your website and is an easy way to get your business name out there for the entire world to see.

Recommended Service:
http://easyplr.com/vana.htm – Sit back and let this service write blog posts on their network of blogs and link to your websites.

http://easyplr.com/kings.htm – This new service will create a youtube video about your website, submit your blog to RSS directories, and handle your social media for you, while you focus on other parts of your business.

    Customer Support

For those who sell a product, whether it’s candles or ebooks, more than likely you will need customer support. Outsourcing is a great deal easier than putting together a full support staff, training them, and then getting them set up with equipment. When outsourcing customer support, you will be making the most out of your time and ensuring that your customers get the most out of their products.

    Blogging

If you’ve been online for any amount of time, you already know that Web 2.0 and all that goes with it are important parts of your business. One way to add value to your business is to create a blog. You can easily find a qualified contractor to help you update the blog and provide ghostwritten blog posts for you. A great way to keep in touch with customers, clients and others interested in your business, outsourcing your blog tasks will keep you from overextending yourself.

Outsourcing is something that every business owner, whether large or small, can do to help make their business more successful. Put the work in the hands of the experts and you can focus on the things that you enjoy and come easier to you.

These are only a few of the many business activities that you can outsource. ?Check out www.OutsourceWeekly.com for a step-by-step guide to get started.

Jun 09

By Jimmy D. Brown, SalesArmySecrets.com

What if there was a magic bottle that you could rub and a
traffic genie would pop out to beckon to your every
internet marketing command?

After the initial shock wore off, you’d be quite happy to
have it in your possession, right? :-)

Well, in a manner of speaking, such a genie exists. She
exists in the form of an “affiliate manager”.

An “affiliate manager” is someone who oversees the
operations of an affiliate program in exchange for
compensation.

And, out of all the traffic “tools” on the market, the
affiliate manager is the one that you should be using daily
in your business if you own your own product.

Why?

The bottom line is: more traffic, which results in more
revenue for you.

But, specifically, there are 3 reasons why you need an
affiliate manager…

1. Recruiting.

Your affiliate manager can recruit new affiliates into your
program for you. Instead of you spending time trying to
find (and then convince!) affiliates to join your program,
your “affman” can do this for you while you focus on other
things.

2. Rewarding.

Everyone knows that simply getting people to join your
affiliate program is not enough. It takes a lot of effort
to get passive affiliates to become (and stay!) active. An
affiliate manager is responsible for motivating your team
to remain involved in your promotions.

3. Running.

Beyond getting affiliates into your program and making sure
they stay active, your affiliate manager can “run” as much
of your operations as you want her to. Here are just a few
things my affiliate manager (props to Nicole!) does…

* Creates training materials
* Write follow-up mailings
* Communicates with affiliates
* Answer affiliate support questions
* Monitors contests and incentive programs
* Posts to our blog
* Clerical stuff (creates rebrandable files, etc.)
* Circulates content (article directories, etc.)

I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

Perhaps the best part of hiring an affiliate manager is the
fact that it doesn’t have to cost you a penny in out of
pocket expenses. That is, you can setup your agreement to
be performance-based: you pay the affiliate manager a
percentage of the overall revenue generated through her
efforts … the more revenue she brings in through the
affiliate program, the more she earns.

Now, the question is –

** Where do I find an affiliate manager? **

There are actually quite a few ways to find quality
(emphasis needs to be on “QUALITY!”) affiliate managers for
your program. Let me share just one…

One of the easiest ways to find an affiliate manager is to
visit your favorite affiliate marketing (or internet
marketing) forum and post a request asking for
recommendations or responses for your needs.

You can do this in two ways -

1. Post a PUBLIC Request.

That is, you post a message for everyone to see, with brief
details on the position you have available and that you are
seeking recommendations or interest to explore further.

2. Post a PRIVATE Request.

The other option is to identify those participants at the
forum who appear to have experience and/or knowledge in
affiliate marketing who might be good affiliate manager
material. Then, you would simply contact them privately to
see if there is interest in discussing your needs.

Running your own affiliate program is a tremendous traffic
generation tool, but it has a lot of parts. There are many
different activities that are involved in successfully
running an affiliate program, and hiring an affiliate
manager to oversee your operations is a great way to free
up your time to work on creating additional products and
other “creative” work.

A good affiliate manager can bring in affiliates, train and
motivate them, and run your operations for you. Her efforts
bring in the traffic; your efforts turn the traffic into
orders.

It’s the closest thing to a traffic genie in a bottle that
you’ll find. Rubbing is optional. Using this strategy
isn’t.

———–
Jimmy D. Brown is the author of Sales Army Secrets, full of
meaty details on ways to find affiliate managers, how to
structure your agreement with them and tasks to have them
handle. Details at SalesArmySecrets.com

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