The online landscape is - as always - changing rapidly. Sites that encourage visitors to become members and to interact with their peers are becoming increasingly more popular.

If you need evidence of this growth, simply look at the massive number of people who have joined Facebook, or the increasing popularity of Twitter!

And, if you need a more factual confirmation of the importance of Social Marketing here's a snippet from a recent research report:

According to the findings of the 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study, almost 60% of Americans interact with companies on a social media Web site, and one in four interact more than once per week. The survey finds that 93% of Americans believe a company should have a presence in social media, while 85% believe a company should not only be present, but should also interact with its consumers via social media.

If you want to stay ahead of your competitors, you must engage your target audience by building a community. Your primary objective in today's landscape is to build trust, engage your audience in an ongoing conversation and extablish yourself as a key influencer in your niche.

Look at the sites that are rising in popularity as a benchmark. Examine why they are so successful. What are they doing that you can model or replicate in your specific niche market?

I spent some time with my son and his family yesterday. I enjoy playing with my granddaughter.. she ask great questions. We read a few books together and bedtime arrived far too quickly.  When asked to get ready for bed Grace replied: "Else what?"

As a parent you may see that question as a challenge. As a grandad I saw that as a great question!

It's all too easy to go through life without taking the time to question the choices that are available to us. In the online world it's all too easy to fall into a pattern, to follow daily routines, to blindly follow links, to click a buy now button without thinking of the consequences.

I'd encourage you to act like someone who's five years old and ask great questions.. "Else what?"

How many internet marketing books have you read that told that you had to do something but they didn't explain the how?

Why are so many information product creators writing “What to do” books, when they should be giving you the full “How to do it” books?

It's really very simple.. it's because it's much easier to tell you what to do, rather than take the time to actually sit down and show you.
Hamster lover Kevin Riley (If you know Kevin you'll "get" the hamster reference) writes the kind of detailed e-books that show you exactly, step by detailed step how to do something. Kevin never assumes knowledge, he never skips over anything. And now, he's created a comprehensive Home Study Course that takes you every little step of the way from the very beginning all the way to having your own profitable home-based Internet business.

With his step-by-step screenshots, illustrations, and photographs, Kevin lays out a Home Study Course that anybody – of any skill level – can easily follow. He even includes a valuable 'Set Yourself Up For Success' guide to get you fully organized for success.

Kevin is also well known for vastly over delivering on highly under-priced products, and this Home Study Course is no exception. Go now and get it while it's still at the ultra-low Recession Buster price.

It seems to me that blogs are becoming more and more the norm when it comes to setting up a niche based website. The problem with using a blog is that, unless you invest some time in configuring the right template, layout and settings, you offer the visitor far too many choices.

Just look at this blog.. there are lots of navigation links, there are links to other sites in the sidebars and almost every post contains an external link.

Blogs are great for building relationships with your readers, they are an excellent branding tool and they will certainly help to build your credibility as an expert within your chosen niche.

However, the blog was not designed as a selling platform.

Perhaps we have become too lazy, or maybe we've come to be far too reliant upon the blog as our tool of choice when setting up new sites?

If you want to sell a free ezine subscription, if you want to sell a free report or if you want to sell an ebook.. then you need to provide your visitor with a much more linear path to follow than offered by the blog.

So, the next time you want to offer your visitor with an offer you'd prefer that they don't refuse please consider the Minisite.

The minisite is designed to sell. When the reader lands on your site, you need to grab their attention with a benefit rich headline, you should draw them into your sales copy with a story, make them curious, build their interest and then persuade them that your offer matches their desire. Finally, close the deal.. tell them exactly what you want them to do!

Your Minisite can include a squeeze page, a simple sales page or a combination of the two. If you want to increase your sales revenue you might consider adding a One-Time-Offer.

It's easy to set up a minisite these days, there are lots of graphic designers who will create a minisite for you, you can use one of the many minisite templates that are available or you can do it yourself with the Minisite Kit which contains all the elements you could possibly need to build your own minisite.

Sometimes spam makes me do the strangest things.. like call the idiots:

Scothosts - Spammers I guess my enquiry was too technical.. she hung up on me!

The part that pushed the idiot buttun:

We offer both Windows and Linux packages backed by 24/7 telephone support and unprecedented powerful junk email filtering.

Would you ever consider using a hosting provider that spams and doesn't train their customer service staff?

Nope, me neither!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

So, You Want To..

* Grab A Top Position In The Search Engines
* Drive Targetted Traffic To Your Sites
* Boost Your Link Popularity
* Increase The Value Of Your Sites
* Lift Your Page Rank

It's always seemed so obvious that I suspect many people just can't see it..

The more links that point to your site, the more opportunities there are for people to click them!

Search engine spiders love to follow links, when those links point to your site they treat them as a vote. The more of those votes you have, the better your sites will rank in the results pages.

That's why I submit all my sites to my own list of directories. It's a list that I've recently updated and it contains a total of 839 directory sites ranging from PR1 to PR9. The vast majority (592) are PR2 and PR3 sites but at the end of the day a link is a link!

So, what's the deal then?

Simple really, you and only 29 other people can own a copy of my list of directories for a mere $14.98 and you can use it to submit your own sites or, if you're really smart, you can provide it to your virtual assistant and get them to do the grunt work.

When prompted, enter coupon code "silver" to claim your 25% blog reader discount..

Simply click here to continue..

I was watching "Jimmy Carr Live" on TV tonight and a member of the audience shared an advert from her local indian restaurant..

Try One Of Our Curries - You'll Never Get Better

Apologies to Paul Myers for rearranging a subject line from today's issue of Talkbiz News one of my favourite Internet Marketing newsletters.

Improving the way that I communicate the benefits of each product that I recommend has probably been the one of the top factors that has contributed to me making six figures as an affiliate marketer.

If you know how to pre-sell, you will almost certainly make more money than the affiliates who simply copy and paste the copy provided by the merchant.

Pre-selling requires more effort than merely copying and pasting, but it will set you apart from your competitors and put you in a strong position in your niche market.

Effective pre-selling doesn't just result in more sales, it helps to position you as an expert in the market place. People will come to you for your opinion, you'll be seen as an authority and will gain much more influence.

Pre-selling is about positioning yourself in the right place and at the right time in the purchasing process. If you want to increase your affiliate income, build your credibility in the marketplace and gain the reputation as an authority.. improve your pre-selling skills.

I'm upgrading the site and apologise for any weirdness!

I'm sure the "stole" bit is a complete exaggeration, but I have to admit being pretty annoyed when I saw Matt's newly launched Product Calendar site. You see, I had the same idea some time ago, I even discussed it with one of my coders but I had too many other ideas to follow it through.

So, all credit to Matt, he's done a great job and I wish him every success with Product Calendar. When you see how Matt has used Wordpress to manage the site, I'm sure you'll be as impressed as I am!