kO′ch VA adj. 1. a highly specialized and niched virtual
assistant who is in tune with their coaching clients and customizes solutions based upon their individual needs and goals 2. differs from a general virtual assistant as they only partner with members of the coaching industry [syn: 
Archive for Marketing
Creating and Generating Article Topics
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One of the biggest challenges for new article writers is coming up with topics to write about. The key to developing great article topics is to ask yourself the right questions. Using the topic of “Coaching”, pull out a sheet of paper and a pen, set aside 15 minutes to brainstorm, and jot down answers to the following questions:
1. What are the five most common questions people ask you about being a coach?
2. What are the top five things you wish all your new clients knew about working with a coach?
3. What are the five biggest lessons you’ve learned about working with your clients?
4. What are the top five things you can help your clients with?
5. What are the five biggest benefits of working with a coach?
6. What are the five biggest challenges to working with a coach?
7. What are five things every new coach needs to know?
8. What five things will make it easier for a business owner to work with a coach?
9. What five tools does every coach need to have?
10. What five questions should every business owner ask when interviewing a coach?
11. What five questions should every coach ask before taking on a new client?
12. What are the five biggest mistakes business owners make when hiring a coach?
At the end of 15 minutes, you should have a list of at least a dozen article ideas. But don’t stop there! Remember, articles for submission to article directories typically average around 300-500 words, so each one of the five answers in each question above can be turned into an article, digging a little deeper.
Another easy way to generate article ideas is to keep a notebook by your computer, and every time someone asks you a question, write it down. At the end of the week or month, look through your list for additional article topics.
By keeping your eyes open in your everyday life as you go through your own coaching responsibilities and tasks, you’ll soon have an endless supply of fodder for your article marketing.
Why You Need A Website
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Believe it or not, there are still many business owners who do not have websites. The Internet has dramatically changed the way people communicate, send and receive information, and shop. If you do not have a website, you are hurting your business.
A website makes you look like a professional. If you wanted to do business with someone, especially if it was business done long distance, you would expect them to have some type of website that gave you information about the type of services they provide. The costs for registering a domain and building and hosting the website are very inexpensive. Without a website, your business can look second rate.
Another reason why you need a website is so people can find you. If someone is sitting at home trying to find a good copywriter, they will more than likely turn on the Internet and perform a search. If you are a copywriter and you don’t have a website, they cannot find you. And if they cannot find you, they cannot hire you.
Even if you decide to build your business locally, it helps to have a website. You can distribute resumes, business cards, and flyers with your phone number, and you may receive some phone calls. However, if you have a website where people can get a glimpse of what you do, you will earn more business. Plus, some people would rather pop onto your website and email you versus picking up a phone and calling you.
Your website will also let people know exactly what type of services you offer and how much you charge. People do not want to wait for that information. They want to know things now. You can also include an online portfolio where prospective clients can view work that you have completed and read past clients’ testimonials. This can help them decide if you are the person who can handle the project they need completed.
Having a website will also allow for automated ordering. If you sell cosmetics and one of your clients is having a bout of insomnia and decides to surf the web at 2:00 in the morning, they can happily shop for your products at home. They do not need to wait until the next day to call an order in to you.
Websites also allow you to do business globally. Instead of focusing on your local area, people from all over the world can view your site and do business with you. This opens up a whole new base of clients and opportunities.
Having a website, even a simple one, will only help your business. Without one, you are going to be losing out on many prospective clients and sales.
Google Search Engine Optimization Tips
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Google is by far the largest search engine on the planet. Though Bing and Yahoo have merged, they still haven’t made a dent in Google’s market share. If you want to get free traffic, optimizing your site for Google is the most important thing you can do.
By and large, what you do that benefits your Google ranking will also help you improve your rankings with other search engines.
Here are a few tips for optimizing your website for Google SEO.
Start with High Quality Content
The content in your website is like the engine of a sports car. It’s what truly matters. Having great artwork on a sports car is a nice touch, but without a good engine, it doesn’t matter.
Marketers who focus on things like link building or SEO tactics at the expense of content will inevitably lose out. Google is constantly updating their algorithm to separate the high quality content from the chaff.
Design Does Matter
In addition to creating high quality content, aim to create a high quality website overall.
After Google’s “Panda Update,” the quality of your web design is starting to play an important part (learn more about how Google Panda has changed SEO). You can read more about Panda on Web Pro News here and here.
Google knows that great websites have great design. Without getting too much into the technical details, Google has essentially trained a complex artificial intelligence robot to spot the difference between good design and poor design and reward good sites accordingly.
Hire a professional designer to do your site. Or, if you’re doing the site yourself, at the very least hire a designer to do your header or look over your site.
Build a Variety of Backlinks
Build backlinks to your site using a variety of different tactics and methods.
There is no “golden method” when it comes to link building. Sometimes getting one PR 5 link is what it takes to get to #1, at other times you need 200 PR 0 to PR 1 links.
The best way to take your site to the top is to throw in a mix of all different kinds of tactics.
Use traditional press to get high quality backlinks. Do guest blogging on high PR related websites. Use low quality backlink tactics like social bookmarking or article marketing. Throw them all together and see what sticks.
When you get backlinks, optimize both your home page and subpages within your website.
Pay Attention to Internal Linking
Internal linking matters. It matters a great deal, in fact. Try to interlink all the pages on your website through a “related articles” section at the bottom of your post.
Silo your content so that different topics on your site are split into different “groups.” Grouping your articles is one of the proven methods of effectively passing link juice throughout a website.
These tips will help you get legitimately ranked in Google, which will help you rank in all the other search engines as well. Lay the groundwork and don’t take shortcuts with SEO. It’ll take a little while for your site to really get traction, but when it does, it’ll be unstoppable.
WordPress Widgets
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One of WordPress’s most innovative capabilities is “widgets.” Widgets allow you to customize your WordPress sidebar layout with a number of different pre-programmed options.
You can also expand your widgets to include all kinds of other features. Everything works through drag and drop and is extremely easy to design.
To get started, go to “Widgets” under “Appearance” in your WordPress set up. Here are a few of the most common options.
Archives
The archives shows a backlog of all the posts you’ve made this month, as well as provides direct links to the archives of previous months.
This is extremely useful for helping people find older content.
Calendar
The calendar is similar to the archive, except it lists your posts on a calendar. This can be useful for more visual people who are looking for content on your site.
Links and Blogroll
Are there other resources people in your industry should know about? The links and blogroll section makes it easy to link to other sites.
Links that go into your blogroll are site wide links, meaning every page from your site will point to that link through your widget. For other webmasters, it’s extremely valuable as it passes a lot of link juice.
Categories
If you have clearly defined categories, you can put them in the sidebar to make your site easier to navigate.
Tag Cloud
The tag cloud is one of the most visually stunning widgets you can choose from. It takes all your tags, which are like keywords you use to describe posts, and creates a “cloud,” a formation of different sized words. The more often you’ve used a tag, the larger the word.
This creates a very Web 2.0 kind of look, while giving people an easy way to find posts they’re looking for.
RSS and Social Media
By default, WordPress comes loaded with an RSS widget. The RSS widget makes it easy for people with RSS readers to subscribe to your blog.
WordPress doesn’t come out of the box with social media widgets, such as Like buttons or Follow buttons. However, there are plenty of plug-ins out there that can add this capability.
Raw HTML
Finally, you have the raw HTML option. This option gives you complete flexibility for what you want to put in your sidebar.
If you wanted to put a large banner image in the sidebar, how would you do it? One easy way would be to just use straight HTML code.
What if you wanted a subscription box? All you’d need to do is edit the boxes to be small enough to fit and put the HTML code in the side.
These are some of the most common WordPress widgets you can choose from. By mixing and matching widgets, you can create a highly unique and personal design that’s also very easy to use.
WordPress Widgets
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One of WordPress’s most innovative capabilities is “widgets.” Widgets allow you to customize your WordPress sidebar layout with a number of different pre-programmed options.
You can also expand your widgets to include all kinds of other features. Everything works through drag and drop and is extremely easy to design.
To get started, go to “Widgets” under “Appearance” in your WordPress set up. Here are a few of the most common options.
Archives
The archives shows a backlog of all the posts you’ve made this month, as well as provides direct links to the archives of previous months.
This is extremely useful for helping people find older content.
Calendar
The calendar is similar to the archive, except it lists your posts on a calendar. This can be useful for more visual people who are looking for content on your site.
Links and Blogroll
Are there other resources people in your industry should know about? The links and blogroll section makes it easy to link to other sites.
Links that go into your blogroll are site wide links, meaning every page from your site will point to that link through your widget. For other webmasters, it’s extremely valuable as it passes a lot of link juice.
Categories
If you have clearly defined categories, you can put them in the sidebar to make your site easier to navigate.
Tag Cloud
The tag cloud is one of the most visually stunning widgets you can choose from. It takes all your tags, which are like keywords you use to describe posts, and creates a “cloud,” a formation of different sized words. The more often you’ve used a tag, the larger the word.
This creates a very Web 2.0 kind of look, while giving people an easy way to find posts they’re looking for.
RSS and Social Media
By default, WordPress comes loaded with an RSS widget. The RSS widget makes it easy for people with RSS readers to subscribe to your blog.
WordPress doesn’t come out of the box with social media widgets, such as Like buttons or Follow buttons. However, there are plenty of plug-ins out there that can add this capability.
Raw HTML for Everything Else
Finally, you have the raw HTML option. This option gives you complete flexibility for what you want to put in your sidebar.
If you wanted to put a large banner image in the sidebar, how would you do it? One easy way would be to just use straight HTML code.
What if you wanted a subscription box? All you’d need to do is edit the boxes to be small enough to fit and put the HTML code in the side.
These are some of the most common WordPress widgets you can choose from. By mixing and matching widgets, you can create a highly unique and personal design that’s also very easy to use.
CONTEST: Blog More, While Stressing Less
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Is the thought of blogging for business stressing you out?
Is your blog neglected and in dire need of refreshment?
Do you want to attract the right type of client to your website?
If you answered YES to any of these questions have I got a treat for you! Janet Slack of Solopreneur.biz giving away ONE seat to Laurie Foley’s class “Blog More, Stress Less: Six Steps to a Sustainable Blog” valued at $497. You can find out more about the program here but now for the best part…how YOU can WIN!
There’s going to be a contest and here’s how it’s going to go:
#1 – To enter, simply create a post on your blog about why you would like to be in the class “Blog More, Stress Less”. You’ll even get bonus points in the contest if you link to Solopreneur.biz and the “Blog More, Stress Less” websites here:
http://blogmorestressless.com/
#2 – After you post to your blog, simply go to our contest page on Solopreneur.biz on Facebook and post a live link to your blog post.
That’s it! You’ll be entered into the contest. They’ll be reading your posts everyday and promoting them on the Solpreneur.biz on Facebook Wall and they’ll pick the final winner on Friday, March 2nd.
You’ve got nothing to lose (except perhaps STRESS) and everything to gain. Have fun and be creative, which relieves stress too! 
About Laurie Foley:
Laurie Foley is an online business coach with a thriving practice that specializes in branding. She got off to a rough start with her blog – Laurie wanted it to work but felt clueless and unsatisfied for months and months. Then she read in the New York Times that 95% of blogs are abandoned within 4 months, and she knew she wasn’t the only one who had been struggling to sustain a creative and helpful blog.
Laurie then spent a solid year (and a lot of money!) studying blogging to learn how to create a blog that is easy to sustain and helps you achieve more in your business as a coach or consultant. She put what she learned into practice and was awarded one of the “Top Ten Coaching Blogs” from the School of Coaching Mastery in 2009 and 2010 for her blog at lauriefoley.com
About Janet Slack and Solopreneur.biz:
Janet is a Professional Certified Coach, well-known author, speaker and blogger on topics related to running a successful small business. She has mentored, coached and supported hundreds of others as they started or grew their own small businesses. Her passion is coaching people to succeed in life through seeking fun, challenges and rewards whether they are small business owners, women in transition or even those conquering fear and learning to find joy. Her first book, Mind Your Own Biz, is a guide to starting and developing a coaching business. Janet is a coauthor of How the Fierce Handle Fear.
Search Engine Optimization for Coaches
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To have a successful coaching business you need to get noticed. No one will read or buy from you if they can’t find you right? But, how do you get yourself out there so people CAN find you? That is where search engine optimization, more commonly known as SEO, comes into play.
SEO What?
Search engine optimization, or SEO for short, is a series of tools, or thought processes and tasks completed on your web pages, that help your website or blog to get noticed by the search engines. Search engines use clever things called bots and spiders to crawl sites for anything that makes them relevant to search parameters entered by Internet visitors.
Most people either don’t know what they are looking for or they don’t know where to find it on the Internet. They rely on the search engines to do the work for them. The words that visitors use in the search boxes are termed “keywords” by Internet marketers. When you use the same words in various places on your site, search engines will rank your web pages in relation to others using the same keywords. The one’s who use research and optimization techniques the best, will end up on top of the list. Why does being at the top of search engines matter?
Research has found that 60% of all web searchers will click on one of the top 3 sites they are presented with. The majority of those will choose the number 1 ranked spot. Having one of the top three positions, therefore, can results in a much greater amount of traffic. It’s not just the amount of traffic that’s important to note, though. After the 3rd spot, the response from search engine users diminishes greatly. This means that the visitors that you get from position 4 and below are less likely to become paying customers.
How to Use It
So, how exactly do you get to the top spots for your coaching business in the search engines? There are several tools and resources that can help with creating top notch SEO for your websites. They revolve around keywords and keyword phrases but the problem is what words to use for your particular business niche.
Think like a customer. After all, you own a business but at times you are also a customer. If it were you, what words would you enter to find the information that your potential customers are trying to find? This will be a short list but one that you can start with.
From there, use some online keyword software to get more ideas. Many marketers use WordTracker’s Free Keyword Tool to help them determine which keywords are hot. These keyword programs get their results from various search engines so you can be assured that your keywords represent current parameters.
Search engine optimization is useful for content but that is not the only place. Use keywords to get ranked through other places on your site and other sites too. Here are just a few:
• Headlines (for each web page and article)
• Anchor text (for links within articles and elsewhere on the page)
• Picture tags
• Tabs (pulldown menus)
Search engine optimization helps you to create a relevant website for the search engines. After you take the time to set up your website with all the information customers will want to see when they visit, use your keywords. This gives the search engines what they need to rank you well so that those customers can find your products or services when it’s most important – when it’s time to buy!
SEO vs. Social Media
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Two of the most important factors for any growing online business are SEO and social media marketing. But is one more important than the other? Should you put more time and energy into one and not the other? Which can make a bigger difference on your bottom line?
Let’s explore some of these questions.
SEO Is More Important for Raw Traffic
SEO will get you more traffic up front than social media will. Though social media is gaining more and more traction every day, they still don’t come close to what a number one ranking can do for your site in terms of raw traffic.
On the other hand, top search rankings are hard to achieve. They can often take months, even years. They take a lot of time investment and often a lot of monetary investment as well.
SEO is a longer-term strategy than social media. You might get more traffic overall than social media, but it takes more effort and has a randomness factor as well. You don’t know if it’ll actually work.
Social Media is More Important for Reputation
On the other hand, social media is free. It’s easy to manage and doesn’t take months before you see results. That said, you won’t see the same kind of traffic that you’d get from a number one ranking search listing.
Social media has a lot of side benefits that go beyond the raw traffic stats. Prominent social media figures build a strong reputation in a space, which often increases their conversion rates because of their reputation. Likewise, they’re more likely to get invited to speaking engagements, where many profitable business deals can be made.
The key to good social media marketing is to provide something your users want, consistently. If that’s a weekly how-to video, then make sure you provide that video every week, without fail.
The Two Are Merging
Most SEO experts agree that search engines are taking many social media factors into account when ranking pages. In other words, instead of just looking at backlinks and PageRank, the search engines now look at your Facebook likes and reposts as well to help determine rankings.
When it comes down to it, the secret to successful SEO and social media are really the same. Provide good content, consistently. It’s what people tend to pass on and it’s what the search engines are looking for.
One may be more or less effective for specific businesses, but if you focus 90% of your efforts on creating a great user experience and 10% on marketing techniques, you’ll have a great chance of succeeding with both.
Is one more important than the other? “Yes,” in the sense that one may work better than the other for your business in the short term. “No,” in the sense that in the long run, they’re more or less the same.
How to Set Up PayPal
Posted by: | CommentsIt almost goes without saying that one of the main reasons you run a business is to make money. If you have a traditional store with a physical location, you can always accept payments from your customers simply by getting yourself a cash register or cash box.
Yet many businesses are exclusively on online. Then you need to figure out a way for your customers to pay for the goods and services you sell. For many businesses, PayPal has been the answer.
PayPal’s “Website Payments Standard” product is what many businesses use. There is no monthly fee associated with the service. It also allows businesses to accept customer payments via credit card.
The service works by providing customers a clickable button or link that takes them to the PayPal website when they are ready to purchase. The customer enters their information on PayPal, and is then returned to the business’s website after the transaction is completed. PayPal provides the shipping and other information to the business to complete the transaction.
Basic PayPal Set-Up
Set-up is relatively simple. Begin the process by signing up for a website payments standard account on PayPal. Provide your business information, including the bank account you want to link to your PayPal account. PayPal then provides you with tools to create the HTML code for the “Buy Now” or “Add to Cart” buttons. You can insert this code on the appropriate page of your website.
For an additional fee, PayPal also allows you to set up subscription services that your customers can buy. For example, a business that provides monthly reports can sell a subscription to customers who are willing to pay a certain price each month. Customers only have to provide their credit card information once.
PayPal also offers a service called “Website Payments Pro.” This provides you with the ability to accept customer payments directly on your website. This service costs $30 a month. It does require that you manage your own credit card data security infrastructure. This can be a daunting task for many small businesses. There are strict laws and regulations that apply. However, high-volume businesses may consider it worth the additional time and expense.
PayPal’s Fees and Charges
PayPal charges a fee for each transaction. The fee is based on the volume of your monthly sales. If your business does a monthly business of 50 transactions for $20 each, PayPal will take $44 of your $1000 as a fee. The fees generally decrease as the dollar value of your business increases. However, each individual transaction triggers a minimum 30 cent fee. If your business does lots of very low price or “microtransactions” online, then PayPal might not be an optimal solution.
PayPal has proven to be the convenient, reliable and reasonably priced service for a significant number of online businesses. It’s convenient for your customers. And it’s a fast and easy way to collect payment.
The Wonderful World of YouTube
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Do you enjoy using the internet as a source of education and entertainment? If you do, there is a good chance that you know what YouTube is. In fact, you may even be an active member of the YouTube community. With so many YouTube members and site visitors, there are many individuals who wonder what exactly it is about YouTube that makes it so popular. If you are one of those individuals, you will want to read on to figure out why.
Perhaps, the greatest reason why YouTube is so popular is because of all that you can do on the website. For instance, if are looking for entertainment, you can choose from an unlimited number of YouTube videos, many of which you are sure to love. If you want to do more than just watch YouTube videos, you can even make your own. YouTube allows all registered member to post an unlimited number of videos on their website. Whether you want to create a video blog, a comedy skit, or an educational video, you can easily do so.
Another one of the many reasons why YouTube is so popular is because it is free to use. Any internet user can simply visit the YouTube website and start viewing videos. Although it is advised that you register for a free YouTube account, this isn’t required to watch YouTube videos. With that in mind, if you would like to rate videos, leave comments or upload your own videos to YouTube, you will need to register for an account. Registering for a YouTube account is free and it only takes a few minutes.
When it comes to uploading videos onto YouTube, it is relatively easy to do. That is another one of the many reasons why YouTube is so popular. Even those with a minimal amount of computer experience can make and share videos. All you really need is a video recording device, such as a cell phone with video recording capabilities, a camcorder, or webcam. Most computers already have movie editing software programs installed, but you only need to use movie editing software if you would like to edit your video before sharing it within the YouTube community. When it comes time to upload your videos, you just need to follow YouTube’s uploading instructions and then your videos should be available for viewing within minutes.
As for watching videos on YouTube, it was stated above that you have an unlimited number of videos to choose from. This is another one of the many reasons why YouTube is such a popular platform. No matter what you like, whether it is romance, comedy, or educational pieces, you should be able to find whatever you are looking for. Popular YouTube videos include video blogs and comedy skits. Finding videos to watch is easy as well. YouTube allows you to browse through all of their videos or you can perform a search to find something in particular.
