Commit Your Works To The Lord

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Elisa

About a month ago I signed up to receive a daily email with a scripture for the day. I expected daily inspiration not sound business concepts, lol. I guess I should have known better but I’m lovin’ it!

I want to share a couple that I discovered help with my business. Just to preface this one, I have been reading reports and trainings by Rich Schefren so that I can start off better in building my business. So Proverbs 16:3 stood out to me: “Commit your works to the LORD And your plans will be established.” I love to dig in further so I was surprised to find that the word commit actually means “roll away.” It’s the Hebrew word Galal as in Galilee, Gilgal and you may recognize the term from the New Testament when Lazarus and Jesus were raised from the dead each time the stone in front of their tombs was “rolled away.”

I connected it with the business term to delegate as in delegating responsibility to a person on your team. It made even more sense in light of the faith of the Roman centurion mentioned in Matthew 8. He refused to have Jesus come to his house because “For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go !’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come !’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this !’ and he does it.” (v. 9)

The take away lesson is that committing your ways to the Lord is like delegating the responsibility for them to Him. You can get a visual by imagining whatever it is rolling away out of your hands and into His.

Creating & Marketing Product Using Facebook

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Elisa

I haven’t been posting on this blog much because I’ve been working like a crazy woman on a product that will include a membership site hosted within Facebook. Now just so I give the proper disclaimer Facebook has nothing to do with the product, they don’t endorse it, guarantee it or have anything to do with it’s development or operations, etc.

I know lots of legal stuff but I would rather include it then get complaints because I want to be able to share all the cool stuff I’ve been learning is possible with Facebook. I have never wanted to get into social media but I have come to the conclusion that is not only ridiculous but impossible. With the Google circus rolling into town every so often it’s even more important to rely on social activity and contribution rather than SEO alone.

It started when I finally realized where I wanted to focus, I thought for a long time that internet marketing would be my focus but I was torn with other areas I am also passionate about as well. So that started the hunt for the best platform aside from a blog to gain traffic without constantly begging for a spot in the SERPs. It occurred to me that the two of the most trafficked sites were social and they are Facebook and YouTube so why not leverage what’s already going on.

I had started a venture late last year that focused on hair products that was showing promise on it’s facebook page with an average of 2 new fans per week up from maybe one a month. So I’ve been paying attention to the types of posts that are gaining responses and attracting new fans. I’ve also been taking a closer look at what my fans might be interested in and it wasn’t what I had originally been feeding them.

The Initial Results

I realized that my fans were a specific subgroup of the audience I had been targeting, specifically women that color their hair. Also since the selling point on becoming a fan is to get tips and notified of bargains I realized I had been giving the wrong type of information in my posts. I had been giving information that would help my fans investigate the hair products they use as opposed to giving them more advice about how to care for their hair.

See the whole reason they liked my page was because they were trying to take better care of their colored hair and avoiding potentially harmful products was a secondary motive. So I’m getting a better response and even seeing some interaction now that I’ve changed my content.

The Next Step

So my next step is to expand my exposure using a traffic tactic I learned to attract more visitors. But this all has to be done keeping in mind that I don’t just want fans I want customers so I will also be setting up a custom tab so I can collect emails in exchange for a report.

This isn’t related to the product I’m developing but it’s helping me learn a lot about marketing on facebook and that is applicable across the board. Plus I am understanding what my mentor keeps saying “fail faster.” Which just means hurry up and just try and test different methods and niches so if I fail I can take what I’ve learned and do it better the next time. At some point I will have tried and failed enough times that I will be successful.

If there is anything you would like to learn more about from what I have just posted or have more to add just let me know if the comment box below.

Very Cool Trick I Found For Traffic

Posted on August 22, 2012 by Elisa

As you may or may not know I have been testing out traffic methods and for this site I am driving traffic purely through forum posting and blog hopping. I have CommentLuv on this site that allows me to link to my previous post when I am posting on someone else’s blog. I’ve been searching for related blogs with a lot of traffic and visibility and visiting blogs that were in Dean’s Challenge with me.

One day I was plugging way with at least five blogs on five different tabs opened up when it dawned on me that there must be a lot of blogs using CommentLuv. And if I can find other blogs that are using this plugin I can leverage the time I am spending on trying to add value to other peoples blogs and trying to attract traffic back here.

So I did a google search for blogs in internet marketing with commentluv. The results took me back because I didn’t get what I was expecting…

… what I did get was so much better I was ecstatic! I found a list some other blog owner had already put together of blogs that use the CommentLuv plugin and had volunteered their information so they could be on this list because they want to do the same thing I did. Here is the list that had the most blogs listed. There are over 400 blogs in that list and you can submit your own blog for them to add to their next posting if you love CommentLuv.

Well I hope this helps you, let me know what you think of this or if you have found any other cool tricks in the comments section. ttyl

Focusing In On The Next Steps For My Business

Posted on August 17, 2012 by Elisa

I didn’t get a chance to post last week because I have really been focused in on driving traffic to my squeeze page I have all the elements in place for the foundation. I’ve got my high converting front end offer, I’ve got a one time offer and an upsell set up.

So now I am creating content that will bring people to opt-in to my email list so that I can help them further. I did have someone suggest a very good resource for organizing all of this and keeping track of all that needs to get done. I am currently using Outlook to schedule the articles I want to write and the keywords I will be targeting in each article.

I have run into a couple of snags…

…when I submitted two of my articles the titles were very SEO oriented and they got rejected because the titles were overtly “make money” drive. So I had to rewrite those titles and come up with catchier titles that will have to rely on catching readers attention vs. ranking in the search engines. I am pretty sure they will get picked up anyway but I have a solution to this, I had already planned on turning them into videos. I’m going to pay someone to have those turned into videos, I’ll get them ranked on YouTube and then I’ll use them in a post on my site with the keyword-targeted title I wanted originally.

The other snag I have is verifying the traffic I already have coming to my blog. Google analytics is saying there aren’t very many visitors while cpanel is telling me I have over one thousand visitors already this month.

I had heard there are some WordPress themes that don’t allow the tracking codes in the widgets and plugins to work properly. I have had trouble with an app being able to verify code I had placed within a widget. But I wanted to see if there are any other possiblities so I put it out there in the private coaching page with Alex Jeffrey’s. A couple of people said to listen to Google and Alex suggested another tool that gives way better analytics called: woopra.com.

I’m going to see if I put the code into the theme’s field for the google analytic’s code if this doesn’t all change and I will keep you updated. Plus since my articles just got approved I will let you know how successful they are in driving traffic to my site. I know you must be curious as I am because I’ve heard a lot of disinformation about how article marketing does or doesn’t work so we’ll find out.

In the meantime if there is something about this process I’ve been talking about that you have questions on or suggestions then let me know in the comments section below. Plus stay tuned because I’ve found a really cool traffic method that I am going to share with you next time. Until then…

Internet Marketing Plan

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Elisa

Here is my internet marketing plan that I have decided to put into action. It’s based on what I have learned from people like Dean Holland, Alex Jeffreys, Michael Cheney, Rich Schefren, Alex Cass and of course Bum Marketing.

As I’ve mentioned in a previous post about working smarter I have a site that is kind of sentimental in that it’s the first website that I put up when I seriously wanted to get into internet marketing. It’s called GenuineWaysToMakeMoney.com because I’ve not only seen a lot of people struggling to make ends meet but I’ve been there myself and I really want to help people find a way that works for them. Even if it’s just being able to make more money in their current profession.

So I said all of that to explain why that is included in my plan. You can copy this if you want to I don’t hold the copyrights to any of this and I will keep you up to date on how this is all working out.

The Plan Man Drawing Internet Marketing Plan

Set Up Infrastructure: website, social media accounts, autoresponder, ezinearticles, etc and connect them all together so they distribute the content I produce amongst each other and leverage the work and time that I put in.

Plan Content Campaign: this includes researching my niche, keyword research, deciding on which keywords to target and when, then content distribution and backlinking.

Decide on Traffic Flow:

For genuinewaystomakemoney.com:

Since my product is installed on a sub-directory from the advise I’ve received is to point search engine traffic and instrinsic traffic to the blog and drive traffic from content distribution to my squeeze page.

For elisanavarette.com:

Continue to employ the same traffic generation techniques but increase efforts with links and ads pointing to my affiliate marketing product.

Checklists & Tracking: make sure Google Analytics is installed with separate tracking for my squeeze page. Create checklists & tracking sheets for content distribution, backlink campaigns and results monitoring.

Test & Tweak: identify any areas that need improving, test & tweak to improve traffic and conversions.

Identify Customers Needs: identify areas that customers need help or further education and provide solutions as appropriate.

I probably could have put this in a WSO and maybe I will at a later date but I would like to have the data before I tell anyone this is a great plan. So stay tuned and let me know if you think it’s a good plan or if I should make any changes or if you have any questions about it.

Results Update Since Dean Holland’s Quick Start Challenge

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Elisa

I just wanted to put in some of the results I’ve gotten from the approach I’ve been trying. The first month of this was just putting into action what I was learning from Dean Holland’s Quick Start Challenge. Keep in mind I have only been devoting about 2 hours per day 6 days a week to growing my blog traffic, I don’t have a lot of time to spare so I stay up late after the kids are in bed.

As you can see as soon as I put the methods Dean was teaching us into action the traffic came rolling, you can see the last few weeks where I have focused more on building the part of the business you can’t see, enhancing my web site and getting coaching from Alex Jeffreys.

Average visit duration is good, over a third of my traffic is returning visitors but my bounce rate is still atrocious. That bounce rate tells me that not everyone getting here is finding what they were looking for and I’ll show you later why I think that is.

So I want to dig in further to find out if the traffic getting methods I’m using are working or if some other intervention is bringing in the new visitors so I looked at the Traffic Sources Overview in Google Analytics:

Over half of my traffic is coming from referral traffic meaning that it’s a site where I have left my link and someone was interested enough for whatever reason to come and check out my blog. I am getting some search traffic and that could be contributing to my bounce rate because the search phrases I saw listed were specifically for Dean’s Quick Start Challenge and I don’t keep that content up on top where people can easily find it. That may be something I will look into changing.

The direct traffic is people typing in my website and I have no idea what the Campaigns are because I don’t have any Adwords campaigns set up to drive traffic here. Thank you to whoever is doing that.

If you aren’t familiar with Google Analytics you can dig deeper into these numbers and find out which sites are sending you the referral traffic. Just below where I took the screen shot is a link to show the referral sites, take a look at the top two:

What you can’t see is that there is a forum in the Quick Start Challenge website that I have been visiting and posting in to try and help other people and contribute to the community there. Obviously the warrior forum is a forum too and I’ve gotten a surprising number of visits from there. At least it’s surprising to me because to be honest I wasn’t that confident this would work but people kept reassuring me.

From here I can decide on a plan of action to increase the traffic I am getting by either optimizing what I am doing now so I don’t have to increase my efforts or just increase how much time I spend on this or both (most likely).

Other behind the scenes stuff I am working on include getting all my social media stuff lined up and communicating with each other so I leverage my time. You can follow me on Twitter but sorry I can’t follow you back as Twitter has told me I am maxed out on people I can follow. You can like my Facebook page (GenuineWaysToMakeMoney), be my friend on Facebook and/or subscribe to my channel on YouTube (this one still needs some love).

Working Smarter

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Elisa

I was just talking about working smarter while responding to a comment Nick had left me on my previous post. I ran across Rich Schefren’s webinar and found it to be very helpful in helping me get focused and shake off some of the overwhelm. As I mentioned in my last post I am following what Alex Jeffreys is teaching me, I’ve been making progress and seeing results which is a big change from when I first started with internet marketing.

My first real attempt at internet marketing was following a system that showed me how to build a squeeze page and send traffic to it but I never saw any results to encourage me to keep going so I gave up. With all the work it takes to get everything put together the site, the autoresponder and then generate traffic I was disappointed and gave up. Well this same site, genuinewaystomakemoney.com that I started with has had some overhauls over the past few years and I turned it into a blog (no squeeze page until recently).

I was posting on it regularly for a while and then let it go, well last month alone I had around 1,000 visitors and I hadn’t posted on it for over a year. So I must have been doing something right, right? Anyway I decided to leverage that traffic by building onto the site with the affiliate marketing project I’m working on through Alex Jeffreys training you can check out how I set it up right here.

Getting Back To Working Smarter

Having started working on this blog with Dean Holland’s Quick Start Challenge I didn’t want to just let it go either so I have labeled each site project A, project B, etc. So that I can focus on one at a time. I will still continue to post my journey here on this blog but I am taking my obstacles turning them into goals and then prioritizing what I need to do to get the money flowing.

I had gotten away from goal setting, which once I learned how to do this the right way, had really been helpful in the past. If you don’t know how to set goals so they help you let me know and I will gladly share how to do it the correct way. There is definitely a wrong way to do goals so don’t shy away from them if they haven’t worked for you in the past.

I’m getting organized again and by that I mean organizing for my brain, lol. I am very visual so it has been difficult to work on the internet where there is nothing to see unless I open my computer. Plus I think it’s easier to get overwhelmed because I have all of these ideas and tasks swimming around in my brain instead of on paper or some way that I can see them all laid out. So over the years I have developed a system for myself to help reign all that in and I’m getting that in place again.

Finally, one of the tactics I learned from Rich was that if you work with your strengths instead of trying to fit into someone else’s box you will actually get more accomplished and actually enjoy doing it which make you more productive. So I know I own a copy of Strength’s Finder 2.0, it’s somewhere in a box that has yet to be unpacked from moving. I know there are some other books but just a word of caution if you buy the ebook it doesn’t come with the code to take the strength finder test.

I would love to hear about your ways of working smarter or your comments on what I am doing or any recommendations you might have, thanks!

Trying Not To Freak Out – Stay Focused

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Elisa

Well I cannot say that I have stayed away from all the shiny objects (wonderful sounding WSO’s) that have dangled in front of me lately. I was accepted in to Alex Jeffrey’s 6 month coaching program, thank you Jesus. And I have determined to follow his program and stick with it the whole way through. Not so much to give him a chance but to give myself a chance to be successful. But then I ran into a WSO that offered a shorter term coaching from someone that had mentored Alex; Michael Cheney.

So I bought into his Millionaire Warrior training figuring their methods should be similar and complement each other. They absolutely have different approaches on training, fyi. I’ve decided to handle the situation by continuing daily training and taking action on what Alex and his team are teaching then taking time outside of what I normally have set aside to take in Michael’s training in “bulk.”

I say this just because if I had to do it again I wouldn’t advise it, it’s not bad to have more than one mentor but especially right now starting out having more than one is overload and then once the money is flowing expand.

Now I started on this journey wanting a fresh start but the reality of why I continue on with internet marketing is to make money, help people and provide a better life for my family. Well I got a statement for my student loans today and they want me to start paying just over $1,000 a month starting August 1st. Seeing that statement sent my mind into a spin and made it very difficult to focus on the business that I’m building.

I know this is the frame of mind that has thrown me into a buying frenzy in the past looking for the next “best” thing to help me make money but oddly enough I didn’t react the same. It has actually motivated me to start working on my first WSO though. And thanks to Dean Holland I do have training on how to get that done and Alex has provided training on creating my own product in the member’s area.

The news sucked but it has motivated me to move into a direction that I was hesitant to attempt previously so I will let you all know how it turned out. Encouragement, opinions and confessions can be entered in the comment area below;)

Quick Start Challenge Testimonial Video

Posted on July 3, 2012 by Elisa

Our assignment from this last week was to create a testimonial video that was to be posted to the community Facebook page. I feel like I’m running behind but it isn’t due until tomorrow so I’m still on time right, lol.

Anyway here it is, let me know what you think of it and if there are any questions you have about making your own videos:

I Really Didn’t Know I Needed This

Posted on June 27, 2012 by Elisa

Dean Holland's Quick Start Challenge - The Correct Way To Setup Your Internet Business I came into this challenge because of the valuable content I had been receiving from Dean already and I wanted more so I jumped on the chance to get to learn from him in a live setting. If you are reading this and don’t know what I am talking about I am referring to Dean Holland’s Quick Start Challenge.

As I mentioned before I wanted a fresh start, my newest little one will be three months on July 4th which is awesome but the addition of another little one to take care of has me looking at doing things differently. My offline marketing business will need to be built up again since we moved out of the area where I was networking and I am down to one client. I had made the decision not to take on any more work because I was expecting a baby back in December 2011.

So here I am taking action on what I am learning in the webinars and from the other students and I realize that other courses I have taken have either promised a faster route to internet income or they didn’t give me enough guidance on how to set up to run internet marketing as a business. I’m not trying to say all the previous programs I have bought were terrible or even lacking because I am sure that prior to this all I was focused on was how can I make money and have it flowing as fast as possible.

After 4 weeks of webinars I know feel like I have a very clear direction on how to grow my business, what I need to do to accomplish the consistent income and the amount of income I am looking for and I realize I absolutely need a mentor. I didn’t know that I needed someone to paint a clear picture of what I have to do to make money online. That sounds like it should be a no brainer but I honestly thought I knew already what had to be done

It wasn’t until I came with an open mind, ready to learn and accept that whatever I was told had to be done. Of course it helped that I found somebody that could deliver clear directions and honest advice as well as plenty of motivation and accountability.

So I want end this post with this quote let me know what you think in the comments:

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” Mark Twain

P.S. I can now honestly say I know what I have to offer people that will help them but this discovery only came through doing the exercises we were given.

Elisa Navarette

Internet Marketer | Eco Savvy Mama | Coupon Warrior