Do you do great things or do great things happen to you?

What is the foundation of successful thinking?

For me it’s the way in which we perceive and think of ourselves. I’m not talking about simply thinking happy thoughts and good things will happen, I’m talking about the level in which you perceive yourself and the world around you and your place in it.

Your mind-set and belief system will greatly influence your creativity, potential, and most likely determine your success in business.

Life sort of molds us into the person we are today. Determining factors can be such things as where you’ve been and where you live, who your friends and family are, your income level, environment, etc. The elements around us condition the way we think. And the way we think determines how well we do in business.

This conditioning many times make people think of themselves in terms of “me,” and not “I.”

Do you see the difference?

You can think of it like this: Me is a person who is acted upon; the person who believes in God because his or her parents said there is a God. They have been molded into the person they are today because of influence from others without self discovery.

When you think of yourself as “I,” you are thinking in an active subject way and not the passive, me.

This line of reasoning can be displayed by looking at simple grammar. Let’s look at the following two sentences.

• “I started a new web development company called, eVentureBiz.”
• “The new web development company, eVentureBiz, was started by me.”

Do you see the difference? The first one is active, the second is passive. In business and as an entrepreneur, you need to think in the active subject way. And this is something you need to beat into your core beliefs. In my real estate investing experience, I’ve had plenty of Realtors and contractors tell me this is what needs to be done and this is how you should do it.

But guess what? I am the entrepreneur. I am the one who knows how to turn a profit, they don’t make the profit for me.

Do you know who the real you is? Do you believe in yourself because you founded your own beliefs or were they someone else’s beliefs that you adopted? In business (and in life), are you the active subject who does things or are you the passive object things happen to?

If you’re a me, what can you do to become an I?

Like Morpheus said in the movie The Matrix, “I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.”

It is my pleasure today to welcome aboard Theresa Hoff to the eVentureBiz team. Yes, you may have noticed her last name is the same as mine and I have a perfectly good explanation why.

She’s the person who taught me many things in life and along with my father, taught me such things as thinking laterally in business, integrity, and good will. You’ve probably guessed it, she’s my mother ;).

Theresa has worked in the legal field nearly 20 years and is our resident paralegal, notary, and director of our new department which will provide incorporation and living trust services here at eVentureBiz. Oh yeah, and she also knows a thing or two about filing state trademarks in case you need one or have questions.

What This Means For Business Owners & My Blog Community

To put it simply, this means we can now help you structure your business entity (C or S corporation, LLC, Partnerships, etc.) and help you protect your personal assets from lawsuits against your company. Theresa and I are here to help and answer any questions you might have.

You might be wondering how much it costs to set up a corporation or LLC.

Our rates are relatively low compared to many other companies out there because a) we don’t believe in price gouging and b) we realize starting a business is tough both mentally and financially and we want to help you get started without breaking your limited start-up funds.

See our incorporation home page for more details on this service.

Theresa also guest authored months back an articled called How A Revocable Living Trust Can Save Family Heartache where she detailed the advantages of a living trust over a living will and also why a living trust can be important for business owners.

Now that she’s joined our team, every now and then you’ll see an article of hers pop up. She already has a few articles in the works such as:

• Why Nevada is the best state to incorporate in.
• Why Delaware has long been a desired place to incorporate and how it compares to NV.
• The true facts about which state governs how your company will pay taxes if your business is incorporated in one state and you are doing business in another.

If you have a moment, please feel free to welcome Theresa aboard and if you have any questions about corporations, state trademarks, or living trusts, feel free to ask.

Welcome aboard, Theresa!

My blog follows my journey and forces me to push my creative business ideas and mesh them with what I know about creating a successful website.

I’ve read article after article telling me I need to laser focus my blog’s niche crowd and write to them. These articles tell me if I write about web development, then only write about that. And if I write about entrepreneurship, only write about that. Consistency is key, otherwise, you’ll lose readership.

Don’t write about Google Sitemaps one day and then write about Unconventional Thinking the next, they say.

I don’t believe this is always the case.

To be a Web Entrepreneur, it’s not enough to only learn about popular web designs. It’s not good enough to only learn SEO techniques. And it’s definitely not good enough to only learn about marketing.

To be a successful Web Entrepreneur, you need to know all these things. You need to know how to budget, how people view your website, how to be creative in business, how to push your own creative limits, how to write a business plan, the thinking process of creating profit where others may not think, and you definitely should understand the Time-Value of money.

This article comes about because I found the following message in my Inbox the other day:

After seeing that I sat back in my chair, turned my eyes away from the monitor, and questioned if my blog’s focus was a little off. I then jumped online and headed for my blog, I wanted to examine it the way I believe others might be viewing it.

The first area I looked to was my Categories. I had 6 listed:

• Business 101
• Entrepreneurial Learning Curve
• General Discussion
• Marketing
• Real Estate
• Web Development

On the surface I can see how a few of these don’t go together. I mean, how does real estate go with web development?

To me, there really should only be two categories: Entrepreneurial Learning Curve and Web Development. But to file away my articles a little better for my readers, I’ve created a few separate categories.

I believe whole heartedly these categories all go together, or at least, the way in which I write about them. Here’s an example:

Real Estate and Web Development - How They Go Together

Real Estate

My entrepreneurial experience comes from owning 2 businesses and real estate investing.

If you follow my blog, you’ll notice my Real Estate Category doesn’t concentrate on tax laws, how markets are doing, which city is the best to invest in, etc.; instead, it concentrates on how an investor thinks.

How they find profits by thinking creatively. How they market themselves. How they solve seller’s and buyer’s problems to succeed in business.

It concentrates on the entrepreneurial experience as an investor. When I write a real estate article, I’m not trying to teach you how to invest in real estate, I’m trying to show you how you should think as an entrepreneur through the entrepreneurial experiences I’ve had as an investor.

Web Development

As a Web Entrepreneur, it’s important to know how to design a website people won’t click off of the instant they come to it. It’s also important to know important tools like WordPress and Google Sitemaps that are out there and how to leverage them to rank well in search engines. So I write about that.

By learning how to think creatively and how an investor solves problems for buyers and sellers, you can take that new found knowledge and plug it into your website. By learning how an investor does things differently than a Realtor, like buying and selling, you can use that knowledge to zag when others are zigging.

I thought for a moment about what a Web Entrepreneur needs to know. Here’s a short list of only a few things I came up with. They know about:

• marketing
• search engine optimization
• what makes a good website
• setting up a business and protecting their assets
• managing money
• being creative in a competitve marketplace
• listening and reading between the lines

My actual list was much longer but I think you get the point.

Searching a bit more, I headed over to my StumbleUpon page and took a look at a few friends I have and noted the interests we shared in common. Here’s a snapshot:

Conclusion

You see, by writing only about one niche, web development for example, I am leaving out all the important things a Web Entrepreneur needs to know about the entrepreneurial experience - and visa versa.

It’s not enough for me to focus in on only one topic and stick to it. I feel I would be doing you an injustice. The images above prove to me people out there have an interest in both being an entrepreneur and succeeding online.

And that’s the focus of my blog. Read each article with the Web Entrepreneurial spirit in mind and how it can benefit you as a person. How can my experiences help you grow? By commenting, you can help me grow as well. Entrepreneurs need to know to some degree a little about web development. Web developers should know a little how entrepreneurs think.

The above paragraph is why I love to blog, even though it seems like a chore sometimes. This is the notion behind the yin and yang symbol which I associate with this blog and my company’s brand.

The result hopefully molds you into a person *like this*.

#1 on Google, and ok, maybe Yahoo!

That’s what Web Entrepreneurs want - and we all compete for it.

Here are some SEO guides I go by when optimizing a website.

Keep in mind though you should always first make sure your website is designed well for human navigation and readability; SEO is secondary. Googlebot doesn’t buy from you, humans do.

When thinking about search engine optimization, I always design with the notion that search engine algorithms change over time. Therefore, even if something today doesn’t have a huge impact on SEO but it seems logically it might, I use it when possible. I try not to assume, but always plan.

Please note this article has a lot of links. Ironically, I didn’t do this for SEO but rather educational purposes.

SEO Tip 1 - Using keywords and phrases in your content

Search engines crawl your website’s content, links, and headers to look for keywords and phrases that match what a user typed in the search engine box. So if someone goes to Google and types “how do you catch butterflies” and you have an article with that exact phrase in your content (or even better, title or header), you stand a decent chance of getting indexed well for that search term.

They say Content is King. Web crawlers love to spider your content, so a large portion of your SEO will take place there. Keywords and Keyword Phrases are your best bet. Read more here and here.

SEO Tip 2: Sub-domains

A little less known SEO trick is the use of sub-domains. One of our forum users, ishkey, explained the use of sub-domains in his forum thread found here. Sub-domains use their own dns and are indexed differently than normal directories.

SEO Tip 3: Permalinks

Anyone who blogs knows what I’m talking about. A permalink makes your web address look pretty and understandable by humans. So for example, the following two links point to the same article on my blog:

• http://eventurebiz.com/blog/?p=118
• http://eventurebiz.com/blog/2-keys-to-beating-your-competition-in-business/

You see, the first link tells Googlebot ?p=118 is important to your article. The second link, however, tells Google 2-keys-to-beating-your-competition-in-business is important to your article. Which do you think someone is going to type in Google’s search box? “?p=118″ or “2 keys to beating your competition in business?”

Kyle over at Hack WordPress has a great article on the subject.

SEO Tip 4: Get A Google XML Sitemap

In my last post Is A Google XML Sitemap Necessary? I talked about how a xml Sitemap doesn’t necessarily affect your search engine rankings unless your site is not being indexed well. I think since it can’t hurt, go ahead and get one just in case a key page on your website is having problems getting indexed. Obviously, if the page isn’t getting indexed, it won’t show up in a search.

SEO Tip 5: Optimizing Your Web Page’s Title

This is probably one of the easiest things you can do which gives you a HUGE search engine ranking advantage, but so many people get it wrong. Each of your pages should have their own title and when possible, put a keyword or phrase in there.

Let’s look at the following two title examples I could use for the eVentureBiz About Us page.

1. eVentureBiz - About Us
2. About eVentureBiz - A Web 2.0 Hosting and Development Company For Businesses

The first example has no keywords while the second contains: web, hosting, development, company, businesses. Looking at the second one, I’m sure I can improve on it still.

Side Note: In my opinion, this is the fastest way to get a key web page from your site ranked well in search engines (i.e. matching up your page’s title to what people type into a search box).

SEO Tip 6: Include <meta> Tags

For the most part, Google pretty much ignores the famous <meta name=“keywords” tags. However, other search engines, such as Yahoo!, still reference these tags to help digest and index your website. So don’t forget to omit these. As proof that Yahoo! still references this tag, here’s a test run by Let’s Start Coding!

On another note, Google as a proven track record of tweaking their indexing algorithm. One day they may start referencing the keywords tag again in some new way to index and rank your website, so you might as well drop them in your code.

SEO Tip 7: Use the <alt> Attribute For Images

When you use images on your site, be sure to include the <alt> tag. Many times, people do an image search in search engines and these tags will all of a sudden become important parts of your website’s code.

Plus, Web crawlers can’t crawl images, but they can crawl your <alt> tags.

Once again, I’d like to stress the importance of designing for humans and not search engines. For example, people who are blind typically have Web browsers speak content to them and for images, will read the alt text. Just describe the meaning of your image and that usually will have a SEO impact.

SEO Tip 8: Check Your Template’s Uses Of The <h> Tags

This is a little trick I figured out a while back that not many people know about. The header tags (<h1>, <h2>, and <h3>) are important to Web crawlers. What you put between them ranks higher in importance than normal content - hey this reminds me of only reading the bold print back in my college days.

If you run a script on your Web server, such as a blog, forum, or image gallery, it’s likely that your h tags are being misused by your default template. Let’s look at an example.

Near the top left corner of my blog you’ll see a heading in my sidebar called “About This Blog.” Looking at my blog’s code, you will find *About This Blog* is nested between two h2 tags as follows:

<h2 class=”widgettitle”>about this blog</h2>

So what my blog is telling Googlebot is the term about this blog is an important term to be noted. Is it though?

Nope.

Words like entrepreneur or web development should be my <h> terms. So why haven’t I changed this yet? Because I’m saving those changes for a post I’ve got in the works which is about speeding up and customizing your WordPress template once it has found a home on your site.

SEO Tip 9: Flash Sites Look Nice, Index Poorly

Flash sites can be fun, but you gotta be careful when designing an entire site in flash because spiders currently have issues when crawling and understanding flash sites and menus.

SEO Tip 10: Avoid Duplicate Content

Ideally, only show the same content once to Googlebot. In case you didn’t watch it on my Videos To Help Craft A Better Website & Attract Attention article, I present it here again for your viewing. Popcorn anyone?

SEO Tip 11: Use The Correct TLD For Your Website’s Target Country

TLD stands for Top-Level Domain and refers to the .com, .uk, .ca, .gov, etc. that you see at the end of domain names. To learn more, Raj explains it well in his article entitled, What Is A TLD Domain Name?.

Using the correct TLD for the country in which you plan to do business in is of high importance when it comes to search engine optimization.

For example, if you own a landscape company based in London, England, you’re going to want your domain name to end in the .uk TLD. When someone from the UK goes to the UK version of search engines and types in “landscape companies,” they will most likely be taken to .uk websites.

It is not necessary to find a web hosting company in a specific country to obtain a particular TLD, though some TLDs come with restrictions, such as .gov.

As an example of the many TLDs that are out there, you can view the TLDs eVentureBiz offers for domain names here (opens in a new window).

SEO Tip 12: Keyword Domain Names Rule!

When signing up for a domain name, keep in mind domain names weigh heavily on SEO and could get your site indexed near the top of the SERPs (search engine results page).

I always say design for humans, not search engines; however, if you can come up with an easy to remember domain name which includes a keyword for your website, that’s gold. For example, if you do landscaping in Las Vegas, a great domain name to have is lasvegaslandscape.com.

I happen to own a Las Vegas landscape company and no, our address is not the one listed above, however I still managed to incorporate those words.

The address is modernlandscapelasvegas.com and happens to be listed #1 on most search engines, including Yahoo!, Google, and Ask for the search term las vegas landscape company. I mention this only to show you that all these tips do work.

SEO Tip 13: Get Your Site Listed In DMOZ

DMOZ, The Open Directory Project (ODP), is a Web directory you can list your website’s url in but is so important I chose to make this its own separate tip.

First, just take a look at its PageRank. As of the writing of this article, it’s an 8 out of 10 - not so shabby. Second, and probably the biggest reason for getting your url referenced in DMOZ is the fact that its directory is downloadable and search engines, such as Google, download it and use this directory for searches.

Needless to say, that then is a great place to have your link submitted to. Here’s an article explaining it in more detail.

SEO Tip 14: Use The <title> Attribute For Links

This one I’m bad about and forget to use all the time. When creating links, it’s a good idea to use the <title> tag. This tells the Web crawler, such as Yahoo, what this link might be about and what it can expect to find if it follows that link. Here’s the example code:

<a href=”http://eventurebiz.com/webhosting” title=”web hosting by eventurebiz”>

At this moment, SEO-wise this probably has very little, if any, value for you. However, every search engine is different and it’s impossible to say if none of them use the title tag to help index your site.

Plus, you never know what Google and Yahoo might decide to change next time in their algorithms. We just might find that one day this attribute weights heavily in your search engine optimization.

SEO Tip 15: Googlebot Can’t Read My Javascript Menu. What To Do?

Javascript brings great interaction to your website, the problem is, Web crawlers can’t read it.

So if you design your navigation using Javascript, make sure to include a “noscript” tag as an alternate menu. This way, Web crawlers will skip over your Javascript menu but read the html version and you’ll still be awarded brownie points by your friendly neighborhood spider.

SEO Tip 16: Using WordPress? Use The Platinum SEO Plugin

For those who use WordPress as their blogging client, the All-In-One SEO Pack Plugin has long been known to be the plugin to get for optimizing your WordPress blog for search engines.

Personally, I like the Platinum SEO Pack Plugin better than the All-In-One. It will automatically generate keywords and a description for your article as well as help you to limit the amount of duplicate content search bots will see.

SEO Tip 17: Link Exchanges And Getting Linked To

Most, if not all, search engines use hyperlinks to help determine a website’s reputation. The more relevant links pointing to it, the more votes that are cast to increase its PageRank.

If starting a new website, one way to help search engines find you is through exchanging links with other similar websites. So if you provide landscaping services in Phoenix, Arizona, try finding and exchanging links with similar websites in your area, such as a gardening tips website based out of Phoenix, Arizona.

Do be careful, though. There is a whole topic on how you need to be careful buying, selling, and exchanging links. You can read more about it here and here.

Skelliewag has a great article on how to attract links. Also, check out our Search Engine Optimization & Web Tips forum right here at eVentureBiz for some more tips.

It’s good to note, though, that one way links pointing to your website are the best kinds of links SEO-wise (i.e. similar websites that link to you but you don’t link back).

SEO Tip 18: Directory Submissions To Bring In Some Backlinks

A Web Directory is a place that lists websites under sub categories and is where you can go to submit your website’s url. One of our forum members, Linx, has provided a great list of Web Directories you can submit your link to. Make sure you submit your site in the right category.

SEO Tip 19: Name Your Directories and Files Wisely

As mentioned in Tip #12, domain names are of high relevance in SEO, so don’t forget this rule when naming files, subdomains, and subdirectories on your site.

For example, eVentureBiz also provides incorporation services for businesses. Once this Web page is finished, I will be dropping that page into an *incorporation* folder rather than a *services* folder because “incorporation” is a keyword people will use to find this service.

SEO Tip 20: The 411 On Keyword Density?

Some people have this notion of the more times you mention your keyword, the more weight it will carry and the better indexed your page will be for that term. On the other hand, others say after you reference a word once or twice, the repeated references have no SEO value.

If you’re curious what others are saying, here are two links with more on the subject (one for more keyword density is better and one against)

• The Keyword Density of Non-Sense - An article about how keyword density is of little importance.
• Keyword Density Is Important For Search Engine Position - I think you can figure which way this article leans.

Personally, my tip here is don’t focus on repeating your keywords more than 2-4 times. Focus more on where and how they are used and write so your content reads well for humans ;).

SEO Tip 21: Feed Googlebot New Content

It’s not uncommon to see early on some of your Web pages indexed by search engines only to find out a few months later only your home page is showing up in searches.

Many times this is due to content never changing on Web pages. One way to combat this is by updating your website’s content from time-to-time. Blogs are great for this.

SEO Tip 22: Write A Press Release

Ok, I pounded my head against the table a few times trying to figure if this one was truly a SEO technique. In the end, it does attract links to your site so I felt it had some SEO influence for your website, but probably not a lot. This technique can also be used by writing articles for other companies (and linking back to your site) and guest posting on blogs.

SEO Tip 23: Don’t Be Too Concerned With <NoFollow>

Don’t be too concerned (SEO-wise) about leaving links in places where your link will have the NoFollow attribute assigned to it, that link will still have some SEO value.

No, Google and other search engines won’t give your website a backlink credit (because it’s not suppose to follow that link), however when the page gets spidered by a Web crawler, links will be considered of higher relevance and this person’s page (with the link to your website) may show up in the SERPs (search engine results page).

SEO Tip 24: The Best Way To Leave A Link In A Comment Section

If you blog like me, you read other people’s blogs and comment; sometimes, you might even leave a link or two. When leaving links in a comment section or new forum thread, there are two ways to leave a link - see example below (links open in a new tab).

• http://www.topseotricks.com/improving-your-link-popularity-with-directory-submissions.html/
• Directory Submissions For Attracting Backlinks

Both lead to the same place, however the second one is much clearer to readers and straight forward for our pal Googlebot to digest. Like in Tip 24, the nofollow tag won’t necessarily give you a backlink credit, but it will help the website owner’s SEO for that page and as a result your link may get his page referenced in the SERPs for that keyword phrase (which happens to lead people to your website).

SEO Tip 25: Link To Your Own Web Pages

As noted above, links are considered important to Web crawlers. It’s perfectly fine if those links are links to your own site. Just be sure those links are relevant to the content.

Bonus Tip: Starting A Blog? Don’t Choose Blogger.com or WordPress.com

Start a blog the right way and don’t go with a free Blogger or WordPress account - trust me, not only will it save you a lot of headache trying to transfer everything over when you do decide to use a real hosting account, but switching to a paid account from a free one has major SEO implications for you.

When you decide to go with an actual Web hosting account, you will be assigned a new domain name. When you transfer your blog articles over to your new domain, guess what? All the links and momentum that your free Blogger or WordPress blog has gained will be lost.

No more links pointing to your blog. No more PageRank. No one can find you immediately in search engines. People you personally don’t know no longer know about you. You have to start attracting links all over again.

When I brought this topic up in one of the forums I frequent, ishkey made a great comparison between free and paid hosting and how search engines read your domain. Remember, free hosting has its drawbacks.

—————————————-

If you’d like me to personally review your website, simply post in our Website Review forum. I’m always here at eVentureBiz to help.

And if you need to get online, start here.

Is it necessary to have one? Will it affect my search engine rankings if I don’t have one? Will Google visit my website less because I don’t have one?

Let me see if I can clarify some of the questions people have when it comes to the widely known, but little understood, xml Sitemaps.

A xml Sitemap is a sitemap generated for your website that you have created for our buddy Googlebot to read and get to know your website.

There are some arguments out there as to whether or not a Sitemap is really beneficial to your website. The obvious advantage of having a Sitemap is to help Google index your site better, but does that really have any say in search engine optimization or PageRank?

Does Having A Sitemap Help My Search Engine Rankings?

It’s a crappy answer, but the answer is yes and no.

Having Googlebot crawl your website - and - getting ranked near the top of searches are two different things.

This means having a xml Sitemap does not necessarily affect your search engine rankings. If your website is well laid out through links, Google (and other search engines) will spider your website just fine; so in this case, the answer is no.

However, if your site is not well laid out for search crawlers to index your site, some of your web pages might not get indexed at all. In this case, if you had a xml Sitemap which filled in that missing page, it would now be indexed and thus have a search ranking.

Does Having A Sitemap Get Google To Spider My Site More Often?

Not as a standard setting, no, but . . .

By submitting a Sitemap and using Google’s Webmaster Tools, you can see how Googlebot is indexing your site, how many pages, any problems that might be occurring, and tell it to visit and spider your site more or less often. Keep in mind that with each visit by Googlebot, some of your bandwidth will be used. This could be an issue if your site is already getting a lot of traffic.

Where Can I Get A XML Sitemap?

There are a number of free Sitemap generators out there, just go to your favorite search engine and type “free xml sitemap” and you’ll be taken to a few sites where you can generate one for free.

Note though that if you have a large website with over 500+ pages, you may have to purchase a generator to index your entire site. If you’re using WordPress, you can download an easy plugin to generate your Sitemap automatically.

Once you have a xml Sitemap generated, upload it to your root directory and then head over to Google’s Webmaster Tools (accounts are free, but you need a username and password) and tell Google where your Sitemap is.

Do you use a Sitemap? Do you think it has added any value to your website?

Sean D’Souza wrote an article on Copyblogger entitled Why Urgency Succeeds Like Nothing Else In A Bad Economy.

While I agree with Sean that creating a sense of urgency is definitely a key factor in boosting sales during a slow economy, we also shouldn’t forget the power of adding company value to the list.

In marketing, you should always keep these 3 things in mind that your customer wants to know:

• So What?
• Why Now?
• Why Your Company?

Of course we should never forget the P’s of marketing and you should try your best to answer the above questions in your P’s.

The so what? factor isn’t necessarily a key to beating your competition, but rather simply shows potential customers the need of your product or service. “So What?” “Who Cares?” “Why Do I Need This?”

Once they understand what it is you offer and how it can benefit them, you have to show them why they need to buy from you and why they need it now.

Key 1: Creating A Sense Of Urgency

I think Sean explained the why now? very well in his article about creating a sense of urgency. He shows us how without a sense of urgency, people wait to buy.

Oh they might need it - they might even need it really bad, but without someone showing them that by waiting they could be making matters worse, they’ll just put off buying until the very last moment.

So the first key to beating your competition, in any market really, is to create a sense of urgency. Tell them the benefits of buying now opposed to the frustrations of buying later.

Key 2: Adding Value To Your Company

This part may involve a little creativity. Maybe you need to spend some time finding your Purple Cow or researching your competition to examine what it is they are lacking in and you can improve upon.

Company value tells your customers, “Hey, I provide those services, too - but guess what you get (or can count on) when you use our company?”

For example, I am co-owner of a landscape company called Modern Landscape that’s based here in Las Vegas, NV. My brother is a genius when it comes to landscape design and creating a beautiful lush yard filled with vibrant colors that beautify our barren desert.

Problem is, there are a ton of landscape contractors out there. Why should someone want to use us over the next guy?

After doing a competitive analysis among local contractors and evaluating our own customer feedback, we found there was a great deal of mistrust going on. Customers didn’t trust contractors to show up on time and finish the job. Therefore, because we are truly a family business and personally we knew our good family values would shine through, we decided to market our landscape company as a family-owned business that always shows up on time and completes the job.

And you know what? It worked. At first we just stated it. But as time went on word has spread around the community and local businesses that our company is very trustworthy.

Can you see the value our company has built up for customers? We built trust through our actions and word of mouth. What better value can you provide your customers?

Here’s a quick list off the top of my head that companies can use to increase company value to their customers:

• Slash prices (not my favorite method but still works)
• Increased customer support and service
• A better warranty (think how some car manufactures market this way)
• 2 for 1 deals
• Money-back guarantee
• Free subscriptions
• Free bonuses
• Gift wrapping

To figure out what kind of value you can bring to your customers, you need to evaluate. Evaluate you, your business, your expertise, your budget, customer profile, competition, products offered, surrounding neighborhood, lack of services in your area, conversations in message boards, educate yourself, and maybe throw in a little unconventional thinking.

What other values can you think of that a company can market to their customers which once they overcome the urgency factor, they pick you?

If you’re new to this real estate investing series I’m writing, the purpose of it is to show you as an entrepreneur that learning your trade well and opening your mind to endless possibilities can help you achieve your goals.

I have a passion for creativity in business and I love investigating intuitive ways to invest in real estate.

When investing, I typically buy and sell differently than most Realtors suggest or know about. I listen to everyone, but ultimately I’m the investor, I’m the entrepreneur, and I make the decisions.

Today I want to show you how by thinking creatively and solving your customer’s needs you can create a win-win situation and ultimately get what you want (in this example the customer will be the seller of a house I want to buy). It just takes a little creative thought.

The first thing I do when I meet with a seller is just get’em talking. I not only listen to what they are saying, I listen for what they are meaning they want to do (i.e. read between the lines).

Why is she selling? What does she want to do with the profits? What kinds of hobbies does she have? Talk about family, sports, vacations, etc. Not only am I learning what she needs from the sale of her house, I’m also becoming more personable and not this big scary real estate investor.

To parallel this for a moment, this is a great way to interact and connect with your customers in your business, especially new customers.

When late replying to emails, for example, let them know why you were away. If you took the kids to the zoo, tell them. Show them you’re a normal guy or girl who is flesh and blood and not some corporate VP of a web hosting company. In time, they will see you more as a friend and connect with you on a certain level. Also, while they talk, you’re learning more about this customer and their needs as well.

So now that you’ve listened to the seller talk a little, you have a better understanding of where she’s coming from.

To overcome the mental block most sellers have when it comes to accepting a non-standard way of buying their house, it is important to first begin with showing them how your goal is to make sure their needs are satisfied. Like with any company, if you screw enough people over (I don’t usually put it that way) no one will want to work with you. Through examples, show them how there are different ways to buy and sell real estate and emphasize how even though most sellers think they know what the best solution to their needs are, many times there are better ways.

For example, if I wanted to purchase and flip the seller’s vacant property using the example “option” method in this post here (a very profitable method), I would show the seller how allowing me to buy in such a way would benefit her the most. I’d show how if I failed to buy, she’d have a renovated house and I’d of lost a lot of my time and money . . . which is reassurance that I will close on the house.

People feel more comfortable when they know how much they have to gain and how much you have to lose. If you were to hire us to design a website for you and you knew if we didn’t satisfy your needs our company would go under, you’d know we would probably be a company that would give everything we got into designing you the best website ever.

If, however, you knew to us you were just another number and our primary focus was on larger corporations with big spending limits, you might feel the job you’d get from this company would be a little less personable and the attention to your specific needs aren’t as important (not always the case, just an example).

So whether it’s investing in real estate or trying to grow your small business, solving your customer’s problems and being a little less corporate is a great way to achieve success. Just keep in mind that many times your customers think they know the solution to their problems, but often times they don’t.

If you own a business, I’m willing to bet you have experienced this before.

I do sometimes. Especially if it’s a list that I know others will add links to in a comment section.

Like mine, most WordPress blogs you go to have the Subscribe To Comments plugin so those that comment can keep up on the conversation going on in the comment section.

There’s a little tweak I did to my Subscribe To Comments plugin many bloggers may not be aware of that you can do.

By simply adding the following line of code to your comments.php file, you can allow your blog readers to follow a topic without commenting.

<?php show_manual_subscription_form(); ?>

As mentioned above, add the code to your comments.php file and just below the </form> tag near the bottom of the file’s code.

This will add a small box under the “Subscribe To Comments” checkbox where your commentators can enter their email address and stay connected. For an example, scroll down and see how mine is displayed below.

This is a special blog post as an introduction for new visitors to this blog coming from Liz Strauss’s second official Blog-to Show which showcases blogs from all over the blogosphere (mine is #132).

The idea is bloggers can find one another through her blog and make relationships with like-minded people. Thank you, Liz.

For those of you who are new to this blog, thank you for stopping by. My name is John Hoff and I own a few businesses including this one, eVentureBiz. eVentureBiz is a Web 2.0 web hosting and development company targeted at helping those who wish to create an online presence, incorporate their business, and learn what takes to become successful online.

From the first day of conception of eVentureBiz, I knew I wanted to create a home on the web for web hosting customers and give them a different experience from the typical boring web hosting company’s site. If you’re curious what I’m talking about, I wrote an article on the topic entitled, Is Your Website Web 2.0 or Corporate?

About This Blog

This blog journeys with me as I take the path of the web entrepreneur and share with you my knowledge and experience. My goal is to help you learn what it takes to create a successful online venture and help new entrepreneurs develop a lateral and creative thinking process.

I also invest in real estate, so you may see an investing tip or two while visiting.

If you’d like to see a list of all my articles (to get a better idea on what I write about), head over to my blog posts site map.

Thanks for stopping by and don’t forget to visit Liz’s site if you get a chance.

If you’re new here (or just want to say hi), feel free to say hello in the comment section so I can thank you for stopping by. And if you have any questions about business structures, protecting your assets, or web development, please don’t hesitate to ask.

With so many options for affiliate marketing,
which do you choose?

So you got a blog and want to start earning enough money to support your Starbucks fix each week through the use of affiliate marketing and ads.

But if you’re like me, you don’t want to slap any ol’ product on your site and send your visitors to who knows where.

Yes, I’ve been working on ways to monetize this blog and I’d like to share with you some thoughts I have on this topic because to be quite honest, most of my options out there for affiliate marketing violates many rules I go by when creating a brilliant website.

Although I’ve only been blogging for about 9 months or so, I’ve had my share of time in designing websites and providing business advice to entrepreneurs. Anyone who knows anything about marketing knows you need to focus your product on something your target audience wants or will listen to, otherwise it will be ignored.

And by all means, don’t confuse them!

In other words, if you blog about being an entrepreneur and succeeding online (like my blog), you should focus your affiliate links to products or services that would benefit the kind of readers who read your blog.

The Problem I Have With Google’s AdSense

Google’s AdSense tries its best to generate links to websites that relate to the content you write. When people click on those links, you earn a small profit.

But the problem I have with AdSense is you don’t know who’s website you’re linking over to. How am I suppose to know the sites my blog is recommending will provide any value to my readers? Am I doing them justice by sending them there?

Or . . . am I wasting their time. I don’t know. Do you care?

It’s as if those links are there for one purpose and one purpose only, to earn me a Starbucks coffee.

My Take On Kontera (a.k.a. ContentLink)

ContentLink is another pay-per-click tool that works a little differently than AdSense.

Instead of placing a few links in one or two chosen spots by you on your blog or website (like you do with AdSense), ContentLink recognizes the value of placing targeted affiliate links in your content where your readers have no choice but to notice them.

But that is the exact reason why I prefer not to use ContentLink - it gets in my reader’s attention away from my message and disturbs them. Like I’ve always said, you have to design your website for humans first, otherwise it doesn’t matter how many affiliate links you have.

Can you guess why?

Questions I Asked Myself For Monetizing This Blog

• Why do I want to monetize this blog?
• Who are my readers? What are their backgrounds? What are their needs?
• Do I care what products or services my blog recommends?
• What’s my limit on affiliate links before my blog gets “too busy?”
• How should I display my affiliate links and where? How will they get noticed?

David Hobson wrote an articled called, Three Most Common Mistakes of an Affiliate Marketer in which he shows us how many affiliate marketers fail because of:

1. Incorrect Product Choice
2. Same Old Messages (i.e. selling the same product everyone else does)
3. Their Too Afraid (afraid to try something new and stick with the usual)

My Decision And Direction Of Choice

Sticking with what I know about how people view and read my website, I decided to stick with affiliate links that I feel will provide value to my readers and shy away from random generated links which send them to who knows where.

Furthermore, all my affiliate links (for now, anyway) will be displayed in the same place on my blog but randomly generated so you will see a number of products I recommend each time you visit my blog (for the moment, I only have my Amazon Widget, but other links will be coming soon).

Amazon.com’s Affiliate Program - my first affiliate decision

You may have seen over the past couple weeks my Amazon.com’s book recommendations hovering down at the bottom of my posts.

I really like this for a number of reasons:

• I feel good about sending my readers to this site.
• I know these books are great books and can provide value to my readers.
• These books go hand-in-hand with my blog’s focus.

I also love the fact that it’s big and highly noticeable but yet is not intruding upon or interrupting my reader’s focus. Also, because I have control over what’s displayed, I can determine the focus of my affiliate book links.

Although in your content is probably the best place to put your affiliate links for visibly, I chose to place mine at the bottom of my posts. It goes back to adding clutter to your website and confusing your visitors. I prefer a simple and clean approach for delivering my content and assuming someone reads my article, their eyes hopefully are naturally following a downward path and will run across my not-so-small, non-intrusive advertisement.

Same Products = Boring And Ignored

Currently, my Amazon Widget is my only affiliate link, but that will change soon. You see, displaying only one product limits your possible earnings and just because it sits there for a year doesn’t mean you’re going to change your reader’s mind and decide to buy the product. In fact, after they see it once or twice it’ll probably be ignored.

So change it up!

I cheat a little because I know html and css. The area my Amazon Affiliate link sits in is actually a randomly generated inline web page.

“Uh, what was that?”

I’m using the Random iframe content script provided by Dynamic Drive which places a number of web pages in an array (an ordered holding place) and then displays those web pages randomly in my inline frame (the small area where my Amazon Widget is displayed). Each time my blog is refreshed or a visitor returns for another visit, a new affiliate product that I’ve selected will be displayed.

Ok, a bit confusing. If you’re interested in this, comment below and I’ll try to explain it better.

So What Is The Best Kind Of Affiliate Marketing For Your Website?

To keep it simple, laser focused products and services that appeal to the kinds of people who read your blog are the best affiliate programs to sign up for and advertise. This is Marketing 101. Otherwise, it’s hit and miss and clutters up your website.

Ok so I admit, I’m relatively new to affiliate marketing on blogs (but not marketing in general). What advice do you have and what have you learned works well and doesn’t work well for you?