Telstra  have recently provided free access to Facebook to all users of their mobile network.

If your mobile phone is equipped with a web browser, you can access the Facebook site from your mobile by going to 0.facebook.com (that’s zero dot facebook dot com)

(don’t put www in front of it – it doesn’t work)

When successfully connected, you should see “Free Access by Telstra” at the top of the screen.

This free access will give you access to a text only version of facebook, which is fine for making  and reading posts.

If you want to view pictures, you’ll have to use the normal version of facebook, which is not free. Data charges will apply.

I wouldn’t normally use Facebook while I’m out and about, but it’s come in handy a couple of times over the last week.

Those “get rich quick” merchants whose aim in life is to separate you from your money have an important role.

They collect the “Stupid Tax”.

Some people pay this tax forever.
And others “wake up”, learn how to identify it, and stop paying it.

I’d like to share this article with you.
The Role of Get-Rich Quick Merchants | Psychotactics Zingers

It’s by Sean D’Souza, who writes down to earth, commonsense, and inspiring things.
(He’s a great cartoonist too!)

These are a some of Sean’s rules for success:
- I started avoiding anything ‘instant.’
- I started avoiding anything that offered ‘tsunamis of customers’
- I started avoiding anything that had fancy cars, surfboards, planes, jets, boats.
- I started avoiding anything with graphics of cheque books and bank balances.

He also lives in New Zealand, but I won’t hold that against him

cheers,
Eric G.

Yellow Pages Vs. The Internet.

Your competitors could be making a killing from a tiny Yellow Pages Listing, while your hugely expensive  display advertisement becomes less and  less effective in generating  business for you.

What you are about to read will probably shock you, and then delight you as you realise that you can take advantage of something that almost none of your competitors know anything about.

Here’s the old mantra that  we hear repeated endlessly. (Especially from YP consultants wanting to sell us bigger display adverts)

“A bigger Yellow Pages advert will bring you more business.”

But over the  past year or so, you could be finding that the phone isn’t ringing as much for your business. Even if you bought a bigger advert.

There’s a reason for this. Internet Searches.

How the Internet Smashes the Old Advertising Rules

People aren’t using their paper directories any more. How often do you still use yours? Ask your friends – Do they use a directory to find goods and services?

Or do they use Google.

This Graph Is a Wake Up Call.

Latest research from the US shows that all age groups up to 65 years old now use the internet in preference to paper directories.

The blue parts represent internet searches. The yellow parts are printed directories (ie Yellow Pages)
Yes, the survey was done in the United States. But it would be a brave person who said that these results wouldn’t apply in Australia.

Our statistics could be the same now, given the penetration of the internet into the Australian lifestyle, where 72% of households now have internet connections. (ABS, 2009)

So if you believe that an increasing number of Australians are using the Internet to search for goods and services, the following discussion is valid.

Your Expensive Yellow Pages Advert means NOTHING  on the Internet.

The trend towards internet search means that fewer and fewer people will ever see your  prime position display advert in the printed directory.

They will instead see a Google Local Search box at the top of the screen, which normally contains the names, addresses, phone numbers, and website links for seven businesses.

These seven businesses will receive the majority of enquiries from internet users.

Because they are perceived as being the most important, because they are at the top.

Just like the business with the biggest display adverts printed in the directory are seen as the most important.

Here’s the punch line:

The businesses appearing in the Search Results  have NOTHING to do with the size of the listing that was purchased.

This is REALLY IMPORTANT to grasp, so I’ll put it another way.

If you have a huge listing, you won’t necessarily appear on the first page of search results. You could be on page 3. Or page 27. where NOBODY will ever find you or your business.

Do you reckon this would explain why you’re getting less calls, despite buying  a larger display advert?

On the other hand, a business with  a tiny three line listing could be on page one of the search results.

DO This Test NOW.

If you advertise in the Yellow Pages in Australia, do this little test. (I’ll wait)

1. Open up Google and do a search for your business category, and your location.

For Example,  Assume that you are a plumber in Dandenong, Victoria and you wanted to check out your local search listing.

Open up google, and search for plumber dandenong

You’ll see this  Local Search Results box at the top of the page.

It has maps, and up to seven names, addresses, and phone numbers of businesses in the areas you specified.

Now, if I was a plumber who had paid for a full page advertisement, I’d be pretty annoyed if my name wasn’t on this list.

And if I was a plumber with a small, 3 line entry, I’d be very pleased.

2. Check the results for your own business type and location.

Were you shown in the results?

If not, it’s very likely that you are losing customers to the businesses who are displayed there.

Not On The List? I Can Help.

The businesses that appear  on the list are there not because they  paid Yellow  Pages the most for their advertising.

They  are there because Google thinks they are the best examples for that category.

You can research Google Local Search and find out all the things you can do to make your business move higher up in these listings .

Or you can engage me to do it for you.

The cost of this will depend on your business category, and the “strength” of the businesses currently shown on the first page.

Because hardly anyone knows about this at present, you have a change to take first page position – or even the top position – at a cost that is a fraction of  your yellow pages display listing costs.

In many cases, you could appear on the first page for under $1,000.

And have a higher internet visibility than a business who had spent $100,000 or more on a full page advert.

Contact Me Now.

I will only work with one type of business in any one location, so if you want to find out more please me an email telling me about your situation.

Or ring me on 0417  010   575

Eric Graudins
Eric@TheInternetBloke.com

Case Study on Local Search

You now know the basics of how Local search can help your business.

If you want to know more about how it works, here is a small case study. You can repeat this yourself for any category and location you choose.

I’ve chosen Furniture Removals and Storage, because there are 7 full page advertisements in the phone directory. So, if the old visibility rules apply,  you would expect these companies to come up first in the online listings.

Starting Page  444 of the 2010 Hobart Yellow Pages-

Full page adverts for Grace Brothers, Bells Removals, Wridgeways,  Chess Price, Watkins Removals, Radcliffe Transport, and Easy Move.

This is a competitive category.

7 full page advertisements. That’s a LOT of advertising dollars.

A Google search for furniture removals Hobart shows the following local results:

Here’s the size of their advertisements in the printed Yellow Pages:

1. Pickfords – half page
2. U-help -  half page
3. Budget rentals – 3cm column listing
4. Grace removals – full page
5. Storage Tasmania – simplest line listing
6. Radcliffe – full page
7. Wridgeways – full page.

The companies on the first page of this  local search results will get the majority of calls from the Google results.

It’s interesting that 4 companies with full page advertisements do not  appear on this list. And that 2 companies with tiny listings do appear.

Remember: For more and more people, these companies will be the only ones that they see when they search for a removalist in Hobart. They won’t bother looking at the paper directories, or click through to the “More Results” link which shows  the 46 removalist companies on another 5 pages..

If I were one of those 46 other removalists, I’d sure as hell want to be on that first page.

If you want to be on the first page, you have 2 options.

1. Learn all about Local search optimisation, and push one of the existing removalists off the first page.

2. Engage a local search consultant to do this for you.
I offer this service, and in most cases can get your business onto the first page of the local search results for under  $1,000 (sometimes under $500, depending on the strength of your competition)

Sometimes there are strange things in the promotional world that sometimes allow those with a small budget to leap ahead of the big boys? Well, this is one of them.
It may not be fair that a business that pays for a one line ad is more prominent than a business paying tens of thousands for a full page advert.
But that’s the way it is.

I hope you can see the implications of this.

If you have spent tens of thousands of dollars on a full page listing, I’ve probably ruined your day.

You should go and do a search right away to make sure that you appear on local search for your service and location. If you are not, you will certainly be losing businesses to your competitors who appear there.
If you’ve been wondering why your market share is falling despite you buying bigger adverts, you’ll now understand one of the reasons.

If you are a smaller business with a tiny directory, you should be jumping  for joy.
Because this is your chance to steal a lot of business from the big players in your field.

Go and check your local search listings. Does your business appear on the first page?
If not, you need to do something about it.
Or face losing more and more business as more and more people start using the internet to search for their goods and service providers.

Unhappy with your Local search Result?
Contact Me NOW.

If you think that your business would get more calls if it was in the top local search listings for your business and your location, contact me now.

I can get your business onto the first page of the Local search listings.

For most business, I can get you onto the first page for less than $1,000
(And generally, this is a one off cost – unless your competitors lift their game and start optimising their sites.)

But for the moment, this is unlikely. Because  nobody knows about this yet, and those businesses who do this now should make a killing.

(Note: due to the nature of Local Search, I will only do this work for one type of business in each local area. Otherwise a conflict of interest will exist.)

So go and check your local search results.
If  you’re not happy with them – contact me ASAP to discuss your situation.
Before your competitor does

regards,
Eric Graudins
0417  010  575

Eric@theInternetBloke.com

Hi,

Here are some video clips you may find useful:

Is YOUR Website Asleep On The Job?

The Internet Bloke can show you how to make changes to your website that will make you money, cut your costs, save your time, and even make your clients love you.
Pay him a visit at www.theInternet…

How To Use GMail to tame all your Email accounts

You can store all of your email on your computer, as well as having it backed up and instantly available over the internet.
Great to manage multiple email accounts from your computer, mobile phone, or while travelling overseas

Local Search Marketing with Google

Effective use of Google Local Search marketing gives you a big advantage over your competitors, because most of them don’t know that you can usually appear on the first page of the very prominent local search box without too much effort.
This gives you a tremendous advantage over those businesses who are not listed on the first page of results.

Don’t Watch This.

Ever wondered how a website is put together? I’ll show you by taking one apart.
(This is the first video I ever made. It’s pretty cringeworthy, especially the start! But there’s some great info there that covers some of the topics covered in my “Starting An Internet Business” book.

There are thousands of sales letters, forum posts, and gushing articles written about someone achieving the miraculous feat of being listed on Google’s Number One position for some keyword phrase.

The writer then usually goes on to say that this is especially miraculous, since there are several million other pages competing for that keyword phrase – and THEIRS is at the TOP!

Then come lots of comments from other people, congratulating them on this marvellous achievement.

Or you’ll see some dodgy Search Engine Optimisation company promising to “Get you to the top of Google in 7 days for only $99″

And the scary thing is that they CAN.

WOW! Order the champagne and dancing girls, it’s party time – because huge amounts of money will surely start flowing from Adsense earnings.

Well Sorry guys, but I’m going to pee on your parade.

Just the fact that you are on top of the Google listings is USELESS. Unless it’s for a term that a lot of people are searching for.

And because they say “Number 1 out of millions of pages” can also be misleading – because they will be giving you the number of pages in a broad match search, instead of an exact match search (Google these terms if you don’t know the difference.)

Now where was I before I started raving on – oh yes! -

Getting number one position on Google is DEAD EASY.

I’ve done this myself, by just making some posts on a few websites.

Go on – check it out if you don’t believe me. Do a search on Google for:

rex the performing ferret.

At the time of writing, the top 2 positions for this term are for an article on Hubpages which is MINE!! MINE!! MINE !!!!

So that must make me a search engine champion, who is about to make a squillion dollars !!!

Sadly, No.
Because being on the top of Google doesn’t mean anything in this case. Because nobody but me – and those who read my articles – will ever search for that term.

I’ve written a short report about keywords and how they work. It’s easy to understand, and will give you a good basic grounding in the topic.

You can download it at TheInternetBloke.com/Keywords.pdf

( There’s no email address, pint of blood, or anything required.. Just download it and read it. And you’ll never be conned by those dodgy SEO messages ever again.)

Cheers,

Eric Graudins.

Here’s my 3 step guide to success in internet marketing.

1. First, you need to do some research and choose ONE basic method of marketing to learn.

It could be bum marketing (ie article marketing with affiliate links)
Or other kinds of affiliate marketing
or Building a mailing list and selling to that list
or CPA offers
or any one of the many other ways of making money on the net.

2. Second, you need to find someone you can trust who has been personally successful in using your chosen method and who is providing instruction in this method. This could be by an e-book, or membership course, etc.

3. Last of all, you need to follow what they teach and take ACTION on what they tell you to do.

That’s it.

Until you have mastered the method taught by your mentor, totally ignore all other offers and sales pitches.

No matter what method you choose, you’ll learn a lot. Which will give you the knowledge you need to move into other methods.

But until you have learned everything that your mentor has to teach you, ignore everything else.
(And spend some time on choosing your mentor wisely. There’s some shockers out there)

regards,
Eric G.

Hi,

I’ve just signed up for RapBank, which is a new affiliate sales network similar to Clickbank, paydotcom, etc.

There’s about 600 products to sell at the moment, and more are being added all the time. This is just coming out of Beta, and I reckon it will be HUGE, because it’s superior to any other affiliate network that I’ve seen.

You can join for free and start selling their products immediately.
(And be paid immediately through Paypal)
You can also list your own products for sale.

Paid members get extra benefits.
At the moment it’s $27 per month, but this will increase to around $60 per month on 1st April when this comes out of Beta.
(that’s in about 10 hours – so check it out NOW if you are even slightly interested. )

Rapbank. Check it out now.

This operation has been set up really well.
I’m impressed, and have put my money where my mouth is by signing up for paid membership myself.

cheers,
Eric G.

I was thinking about the thousands of internet marketing instruction programs that are available on the internet – both free and paid.

And realised that the process of learning internet marketing is just like baking a cake.

Let’s compare all the “recipes” for internet marketing success to recipes for making a cake.

• There are thousands of them around
• Most contain the same basic ingredients that are slighly re-arranged, and in slightly different measures.
• They often have a variety of exciting names
• they can have many different “outer coverings” over what is basically the same thing.

The difference is that a cook will select one recipe and follow it.

The internet marketer will grab lots of different recipes, grab bits from each one, and never get around to taking action (ie putting it in the oven)

So instead of searching through the hundreds of different recipes that are continually thrust in your face, just choose one.

And bake your internet marketing cake.

cheers,
Eric G.

Have you ever tried to run a mailing list for your business using a normal email program ?

I pity you. You’ve experienced hell!

Manually entering people onto lists, removing them, sending messages, etc. is a time consuming thankless job that nobody should be doing.

Autoresponders are like electronic slaves that do this work for you.

They can achieve amazing results in the important areas of increasing profits, cutting costs, and making your clients love you.

Once you tell them what to do, they automatically chug along providing enormous benefits to your business that will truly seem like magic!

Basic Autoresponders.

You’ve probably sent an email to someone, and instantly received a reply saying that they are on holiday, and will be back on a certain date. You may have even set up something like this yourself on your own email account.

The reply to your message was sent by a mailing program that responds automatically to an incoming message. (that’s why they are called  AutoResponders). Programs like this are standard on many email systems. Their job is to wait for a message to arrive, and then send a pre-prepared message back to the sender.

Sequential Autoresponders

A sequential autoresponder is the “Big Brother” of  the basic autoresponder. They can send back many messages to the sender of that email, at whatever interval you specify.

A properly set up sequential autoresponder is one of the biggest benefits that the internet can provide for your business. It will automatically register new users, and send them a series of messages that you have prepared for them.

You might not see the benefits of this immediately, so I invite you to experience the power of this yourself.

My main “DoubleHeader” mailing list is run by an autoresponder ( I call him “Otto”)

When you enter your name into the signup box, here’s what happens:

1. A message is sent to AWeber, (the autoresponder service that I use) saying that someone wants to join my mailing list.
2. Otto  immediately sends a message to the email address entered on the form, asking you to click on a link to  confirm that the request was genuine.
   The process is called ‘Double Opt In”, and is necessary to conform to the anti-spam laws that exist in many countries.
3. After you confirm, your name and email address is placed onto the mailing list for “doubleheader”, and you will immediately be sent the first newsletter. In the newsletter is a link so that you can download your free copy of my Website Owners guide.
4. After 2 days, you’ll be sent the second DoubleHeader newsletter, and you’ll keep receiving them at various intervals as long as you remain a member.
5. At the bottom of every newsletter is a link that will immediately remove you from the mailing list if you don’t want to receive it any more.

All of this happens without any intervention from me.

Due to the nature of  this newsletter, I can pre-prepare a number of messages, because I am introducing things in a sequence.

Other types of  newsletters that are on current events, etc. require newly written content for every issue.

Which method you use depends on the nature of your business, and the type of information you are sending.

For me, a structured sequence with the occasional “live broadcast” works well.

I could have hundreds – or even thousands of people signing up and receiving my newsletters, buying  products, and signing up for other, more specialised newsletters that I am offering.

Practical Example -  How I Sell my Ethical Email Course

As a practical demonstration of  what Otto does for me, here’s how I sell my Ethical Email Marketing Course.

I have a sales page, which talks about the course, it’s benefits, and what you get.

If people are interested but are not ready to purchase it yet, I offer to send them a series of useful hints and tips.

If they want these, they sign up to a seperate list, and Otto sends them a message every 3 days with a new insight into Ethical Email Marketing. It’s good info, with no hard sell. There’s just a link to the sales page for the course at the bottom of each of the free tip pages.

Yes, my objective is to sell them my course.

But if they just want to learn from the free messages, that’s fine too. And I’ve identified some people who are interested in the benefits that ethical email marketing can produce for their businesses.

If someone reaches the sales page and wants to purchase the whole course, they pay online and are automatically sent a link where they can immediately download the entire course. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
It’s all hands off, once everything has been planned out and set up.

I receive an email telling me that a sale has been made. It’s a great feeling to wake up and have an increased bank balance.

Of course, you have to invest time or money to set this process up. But once it is in place, you really can make money on auto-pilot.

To see the process in action, just go to www.theInternetBloke.com/emailcourse

You’ll see the sales  page, the payment section, and the offer to join the “Ethical Email Marketing” mailing list.

So, How Would This Work for an Ordinary Small Business?

Surprisingly enough, you can do email marketing even if you don’t sell anything online.

You don’t even need to have a website!

If you are a bit creative, almost ANY small business can come up with a way to use email marketing.

If you want me to write up a case study, please make a comment on this blog post.

Even if you don’t sell anything online, (or even own a website!) Email marketing can work for you.

Lots of people have an almost unnatural obsession with how their website looks.

Especially many web developers, who convince their clients to spend tens of thousands of dollars for award winning sites that are monuments to the skill and flair of the developer, but may not do much to improve the profits of the client.

Well, I don’t believe that the look of your website is that important, if the visitors REALLY are interested in what you have to say to them.

Sure it needs an effective navigation system so that visitors can find what they want, as well as contain content that is important to them.

But most of the other stuff is just eye candy.

My reasons for making these heretical statements are:

1. Nobody ever refused to read a letter from someone they love just because it’s on the “wrong” colour paper, or the writing is too large or too small, or it doesn’t have pretty pictures.

2. I recently saw a museum exhibition of wartime relics, which contained letters from soldiers written on toilet paper. The writing was small and hard to read. And then the paper was turned 90 degrees and filled with more lines of text.
Paper was precious.

And reading those letters was extremely difficult:  but I’ll be that none of them were ever screwed up and thrown away.

Because again, the readers were vitally interested in what they had to say.

The reason that there is so much emphasis on presentation these days is because a lot of people are saying basically the same thing, and they need to have the gimmicks to attract the attention of visitors.

That’s why I believe that if your content is good enough -  and you have the attention of your readers, the  look of your website isn’t that important.

cheers,

Eric G.