Sometimes life’s greatest lessons come from the strangest places.
I learned an interesting fact about sharks today and it is a great analogy
for our personal growth and development.

What I learned is that sharks are very adaptable and grow
to a size that is only as big as their surroundings allow.
When a shark is put into a tank it will only grow to a
size appropriate for that space.  A shark in a small tank
may only be inches long fully developed.  Now put a shark
in an ocean and it has space to grow, there is nothing
limiting the size it can grow.

I think this is similar to how some humans never seem to do much
while some people thrive and create an amazing life. If we choose
environments that don’t challenge us, keep us in our comfort zone
and surround ourselves with people who don’t build us up we will stay small.

If we choose to expand our horizons and do things that challenge us,
get ourselves out of our comfort zone and surround ourselves
with people who will push us there is no limiting how big we can grow.

So what environment are you choosing?
Are you staying in places that will keep you small or are you willing
to get in a environment that will help you thrive?

To living life by design!

Angela Paige

angela@angelapaige.com

Connect with me on Twitter – Angela_paige

Connect with me on Facebook – Angela Paige

Interested in working with me – Work with Angela

While there are a whole lot of great social networks out there the most popular sites do not aim only at a business demographic.  That is one of the things that is so attractive about IBOtoolbox as a business owner, it is a business social network.  It is a safe place to meet with others business owners and share and learn helpful information.

5 Reasons I think IBOtoolbox is a great business social network

Meet and connect with other business owners- It is always great to network with people who are in the same industry.    I have learned from others, shared strategies with other business owners and built relationships.

Free advertising- IBOtool box has a free advertising platform.  When you become a member and complete certain tasks such as completing your profile, commenting on blogs, making blog posts you get credits.  The credits you accumulate can be converted to impressions for listings or banner ads.  I have found it is a great demographic to test ads with and see what copy works well.

Generating leads-  The IBOtoolbox has a powerful tool for generating leads.  Within you profile page and any of your squeeze pages are contact forms and people who fill those out become your leads.   IBOtoolbox recently released a cool new tool called the live chat button that you can put on your blog or website to drive leads to IBOtoolbox.

Branding- Creating exposure and building your brand is a great part of IBOtoolbox.    The things you share on IBOtoolbox  go on your profile page which is like your digital business card.  Your profile page not only has what you have done on the site but more about your business.  It is a great way to show what you are all about and build your credibility.

Blog Tools- IBOtoolbox has a very simple, easy to use and SEO friendly blogging system.  Blogging on IBOtoolbox is great because people are encouraged to comment on and share your posts so it not only gets shared with the community it gets shared across other platforms. 

If you own a business I highly recommend getting started today.  It is a great place to network and create lasting business relationships.  Get started here for free and then pop on over and say hello to me!

Are you constantly banging your head in frustration because you are not getting the blog traffic you would like to get? Are you tormented from information overload listening to all the latest free blog traffic tactics?   Are you stupefied by all the seemingly constant changes to Google that caused you to drop in the search results?  You can employ traffic tactics and be getting blog traffic without spending dime. However, knowing how is the real deal.

Here are 3 ways you can go about getting blog traffic without spending any money

1. Link it

Of all the effective blog traffic tactics that can get you best results, linking to and from other websites is the one of the most widely-used method. Just make sure that the businesses you are exchanging links with are relatively if not utterly related to your own business. And of course, don’t overkill as this might ban you from search engines.  One of the best ways I have found to get blog traffic is with a tribe.  A tribe is a group like minded people who share, collaborate and comment on each others blog content.  It is a great way to both build relationships and create links to your blog.  My favorite is TribePro because it is free and is a large, friendly community.

2. Meet Meta Tags

Another way of getting blog traffic is through having your Meta tags contain specific keywords that target your business. Meta tags help search engines in describing your web page. If you’re good with the HTML aspect of your web pages, manipulating your meta tags would be a breeze.

3. Keyword-rich AND sensible content

Writing  articles that provide solid information regarding your business is one of the best ways of getting blog traffic. Making use of free keyword suggestion tools such as Overture will help you on which keyword or phrases to work on to better lead more traffic to your website. Making these write-ups very readable and genuinely informative will bring you many repeat visitors to subsequently become repeat clients.

Submitting these articles to various article directory listings will provide more visibility for your business as long as you keep your resource box in tact to create for yourself numerous back links.

These methods, if employed properly, will not only make your blog popular but will help you achieve the desired results of getting blog traffic and thus – higher conversion rates.

To living life by design!

Angela Paige

angela@angelapaige.com

Connect with me on Twitter – Angela_paige

Connect with me on Facebook – Angela Paige

Interested in working with me – Work with Angela

Pinteresting things are happening as Pinterest has come into it’s own and taken it’s place near the top of the social media world.  Pinterest  is now the 3rd most visited social media site in the US according to a report released by Experian Marketing group.

Maybe you have not hopped on the Pinterest band wagon yet but if you have any sort of business it is definitely a site worth checking out.   I recently wrote a post on how Pinterest drastically increased my blog traffic and helped increase my brand’s reach. If you are not building a business Pinterest is a great way to find inspiration and help you to easily keep track of things you are interested in.

I wanted to share some of the companies and brands I find Pinteresting and worth your time to check out.

Pinteresting Companies

Check out some of the companies you know and love and how they are using Pinterest.

Zappos- The online company known for shoes and excellent customer care should also be recognized for great pins.

Michaels- If you are a craft lover you will love Michael’s Pinterest boards.  Their boards are full of interesting ideas, crafts and DIY projects.

Coca-Cola-Branded to Coca-Cola but has some very inspiring pins.

Lowes- The home improvement store has a Pinterest page that has a lot to love and great ideas for everyone.

Today Show- Great pins with some of the Today show highlights and stories but filled with so much more.

Kate Spade- Kate Spade which is known for stylish fashion has colorful and inspiring pins.

Etsy-The fun site to shop for handmade goods had fun pins to check out.

Lindt Chocolate- Umm…Chocolate, need I say more?  Yum!

Whole Foods- Whole foods is a whole lot of fun to check out for food and recipe inspiration.

Williams Sonoma- If you like to cook and entertain William Sonoma has lots of great pins.

Pinteresting Fashion and Beauty

If you like fashion, style and beauty you have to stop by and check out these Pinteresting people.

Michael Kors- Michael Kors fashion along with style tips and more.

Eat Sleep Wear- Lots of great pins here for style, fashion and beauty.

In Style Magazine- The fashion magazine shares lots of great fashion inspiration on Pinterest.

Melanie xeinalem- With over 20,000 pins you will not be short on inspiration here or visual eye candy here.

Lucky Magazine- The shopping magazine sharing some of their favorite things and great pins.

Joy Cho-  Design and style abound on Joy’s boards.

Who What Wear- Who What Wear brings their fashion newsletter to life on Pinterest.

Pinteresting Fitness and Health

These Pinterest users are sure to get you fired up and inspired with health and fitness inspiration.

Fitsugar- All things fitness and health.  A great place for fitness inspiration.

Spark People- The number 1 weight loss website has excellent pins for weight loss, health and wellness.

FitFluential-This group of fitness enthusiast has a lot of great fitness pins to get you revved up.

Fitness Magazine- Fitness magazine brings to life the best of it’s fitness, recipes and inspiration.

Pinteresting Foodies

If you like to cook, enjoy food or are looking for great recipes you have to check out these Pinners.

Andrew Zimmern- The host of bizarre foods on the Travel Channel shares some of those Bizarre foods on Pinterest

Paula Deen-If you like to cook and enjoy finding new recipes Paula has TONS of recipe boards.

Food Network- These pins will have your mouth watering.

Eating Well- If you are looking for a more healthy selection of recipes Eating Well has pins you need to check out.

The Recipe Club- The online community for cookbooks brought a great collection of recipes to Pinterest.

Pinteresting Art, Photography and Design

If you have an eye for art, photography or design you want to check these pinners out.

Design Milk-If you appreciate modern design Design Milk has great boards to check out.

Ideas to Steal- If you are looking to get inspiration for decorating your home you will find lots of it here.

Life- Life always has great photos  in their magazine and they have a great collection of beautiful photos on Pinterest.

HGTV- I have to admit I am a HGTV addict and their pins don’t disappoint.  Great design, decorating and gardening pins.

Pinteresting Celebrities

Gary Vaynerchuk- Gary of Wine Library TV and “Crush it” fame tears it up on social media and Pinterest is no exception.

Oprah-A lot of what you would expect from Oprah recipes, style, shopping and inspiration.

Ellen DeGeneres- Ellen brings her comedy to Pinterest with lots of humor.

Martha Stewart- Would you expect less than the most beautiful pins from Martha?  She has great pins on food, fashion, design and home.

Mark Zuckerberg- Mark only has 3 Pins but there are lots of cool group boards on his page.

Ryan Seacrest- I am pretty sure Ryan does not have time to Pin himself but his team put some cool pins together.

Yoko Ono- Interesting and original pins.

Pinteresting Travel

Travel Channel- If you are a travel buff or just want to take a mental brake  by looking at beautiful destination photos you have to check out the Travel Channels pins.

Eat Travel Love- Fun pin boards with pins from this blogger’s travel adventures.

Voyages ideal-A group of women who have been planning travel for 40 years but their pins are travel and so much more.

I would love to hear who I missed on this list who you find Pinteresting on Pinterest.  Leave me a comment below and let me know your favorite pinners.

On Pinterest? Let’s connect!

SEO or PPC are two of the best ways to promote your business since there are millions of consumers that tap into the internet looking for what you have to offer.  Those searchers need to be able to find you so you need to decide whether you will choose SEO or PPC or both.

At the same time, the internet also poses a quite different challenge. The easy access that the internet provides also gives you as much competition as you can imagine. It can be crowded and congested.

Just having a website is not enough to open the flood gates of your business.  You must get your business out there to for the online community to access.  The two best ways to do this are through SEO or PPC.

You have to expose your website. Make it known. It has to be visible. It has to be frequently targeted by consumers and surfers and SEO or PPC will help you get the people to your site.

If you want to create an online business you need to invest in marketing your site. There are basically two options available to you,  SEO or PPC. These two are probably the best choices for your strategy in search engine marketing.

Comparing the two, SEO or PPC?

1. SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Some researches indicate that 60% – 70% of internet surfers use Google  to find and locate web sites and pages, for what they are looking for.  SEO is the steps someone uses to make sure that the internet uses will find your website by having it ranked among the top results of a Google search.

In SEO, there is no need for you to pay for the clicks although it will require you to spend time doing research to get the traffic you are looking for. The SEO process is a long term strategy. It requires months of work before you start to see the outcome you want, but once the goal is accomplished, you will definitely get a steady source of profit.

The advantages of using the SEO strategy

SEO allows you to show up in search engine results without paying per click

SEO allows you to get traffic over and over at no cost

2. PPC

PPC means Pay Per Click. . These are sponsored listings that you see whenever you are searching.  You will be charged whenever a visitor or web surfer clicks on any of your ads. There will first be a bidding process. The highest bidder for the price per click will definitely get the chance to be first listed in the search engine.

With this kind of advertising, you can still basically have control over your campaign as you get to create your own ad. You also have control of the target audience and still stay within the bounds of your budget. Most of the providers of PPC advertising will allow you to specify the target market, either by topic, industry or geographical location.

The advantages of using  the PPC strategy.

-PPC is relatively easy to set up.

-PPC can seem to be very costly but if you are know what you doing you can do it quite inexpensively.  This video shows an example of how to do PPC for very little cost on Facebook.

-PPC  allows you to adjust to changes in market demands and trends.

In deciding if SEO or PPC will work right for you, think of your goals and of your resources. They both have their advantages and disadvantages depending on your needs.   The better way to approach this two is to evaluate according to your short term and long term plans.

To living life by design!

Angela Paige

angela@angelapaige.com

Connect with me on Twitter – Angela_paige

Connect with me on Facebook – Angela Paige

Interested in working with me – Work with Angela

P.S  Want to learn how to get 85% of your articles on the first page of google using SEO?   Check out this free video.

Image: KROMKRATHOG / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Are you looking online for a possible network marketing business to create income and relieve you of your present challenges?

You are not alone. Many individuals see the potential for building their own business from wherever they are on this globe by means of the Internet. A network marketing business provides a level playing field and appeals to men and women of all ages as a prospective means of doing business from home.

Despite the fact that running a business through the Internet can often be less expensive than a traditional business and allows you access to a worldwide market at any time of the day, the truth behind starting a network marketing business online is that it can be just as stressful as any other business. How can you prepare yourself for this obstacle?

2 Ways to prepare for stress in your network marketing business

Always put on  your “game face”.

It is a tough game to start a network marketing business. You are guaranteed to experience times when your self-confidence is shaken, you feel the task is beyond your abilities and you beat yourself up for making mistakes.

Move on. It is part of creating business and you will have to face these issues whether it is your first attempt or even if you have been in a network marketing business online for years. Changes happen fast on the Internet and that includes changes to businesses. One day you will be amazing yourself and the next day you will think you’ve been beat.

The best solution to this is to expect it and plan to move on despite those feelings. Forget the hype.

Nearly every business can benefit from online network marketing business exposure. Are you inspired by the many programs that claim “instant wealth – easy to learn!”? Do not believe it. Regardless of if you have been in business for a long time or this is your first attempt, network marketing business done through the Internet has it’s own methods and you better be ready to learn them if you want to make money.

The learning curve can be steep and some individuals find it daunting. The good thing to remember is that it is possible for nearly anyone to operate a network marketing business online no matter what their previous experience. Just be prepared to learn and have patience with your attempts.

Do not use all your money.

It is easy to forget the need for a budget when you can spend money so easily online. Do not buy into every network marketing business opportunity online or training program. Visit online forums to acquire a feel for the best systems available. Make friends on these forums that will support you when you are overwhelmed or needing advice.

The only thing worse than finding out you made a mistake is finding out that it cost you money. Remember that every experience is a learning experience. Try to stick to a budget but do not permit yourself to dwell on mistakes when they happen. Learn and move on.

Taking the necessary steps to prepare you for the stress and rejection that all new network marketing business owners” online face will enable you to build on that knowledge and create a successful business.

Fortunately, there are many who do not make it that far in their network marketing business. So that leaves the door wide open for you.

To living life by design!

Angela Paige

angela@angelapaige.com

Connect with me on Twitter – Angela_paige

Connect with me on Facebook – Angela Paige

Interested in working with me – Work with Angela

P.S. Want to learn the secrets to get more sign ups in your network marketing business?  Check out this free recorded video on where you will hear the secrets one leader uses to recruit 2-3 people per day.

Image: nokhoog_buchachon / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Everyone who is a network marketing success has understood and mastered one basic principle. That principle can be summed up in two words: Repeat Business.

Pick any major traditional business name: Microsoft, Walmart, McDonald’s… and you will see this is where the majority of their profits come from.

The reason behind their success is repeat business – the simple fact that most of their customers are repeat buyers. Sure, they get new customers as often as they can. But the majority of their business, and profits, come from repeat buyers. These businesses depend on their existing customers to earn consistent profits.

And it’s no surprise that the number one reason most businesses go out of business very quickly is this…they don’t take care of their  existing customers. They don’t build a relationship with them, and they definitely don’t sell to them more than once.

Just about every business you see, either online or offline, is so busy finding “new” customers that they forget about their existing customers.

You want to know what the biggest network marketing success secret on the planet is? This is it. This is the biggest secret. It’s not coming up with new marketing ideas or trying every new marketing twist that you hear about, or running after every new marketing manual that hits the web promising to teach you a new marketing trick.

The secret really is no secret these days…

Repeat Business!

Why is this secret to network marketing success?

One of the most powerful things you can do to create network marketing success and make a killing in profits is to sell to the same customers over and over again. There’s nothing wrong with finding new customers, as long as you continue to sell to your existing customers! That’s where the real money is.

It’s a simple strategy. It’s a powerful strategy! And it works very well for many people who have found network marketing success.   Having your own responsive “opt-in” mailing list allows you to use that strategy.

The true beauty of network marketing is you can sell to a customer just once, and earn a profit every single month, for many, many years – maybe even for the rest of your life! Plus you are not limited to the number of customers you can sell to.   That means that if you were to sell this to 100, 1,000, or even 10,000 customers, you would earn a profit from each of those customers every single month, without having to lift a finger to do any additional work.

With this model, you can use all that saved time and energy on getting more customers and increasing your cash flow to create lifetime residual income.

That is the ultimate business model!

To living life by design!

Angela Paige

angela@angelapaige.com

Connect with me on Twitter – Angela_paige

Connect with me on Facebook – Angela Paige

Interested in working with me – Work with Angela

P.S. If you want to really fan the flames and create network marketing success check out this free recorded webinar on how to recruit leaders into your business.

Image: Kookkai_nak / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Social Media Marketing  is a form of internet marketing, which seeks to achieve branding and marketing communication  through the participation in various social media networks like You Tube, Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook, as well as social bookmarking sites like digg, delicious, and reddit. The goal of each social media marketing program varies from business to business, but mainly involves building of an effective brand, increasing visibility and through this, sells a product or service.

Why social media marketing is important

Social Media Marketing is becoming an essential marketing tool for connecting with customers and optimizing your online presence. Social Media describes the tools and platforms, people use to publish, converse and share content online. Video, podcasts, blogs, discussion boards and social networking sites are all tools that you can use to build relationships with you customers and keep them coming back to your websites and hanging out longer. Social media also provides more opportunities for you to present optimized content that can be indexed by search engines and ultimately improve your site rating.

To implement some of the social media marketing elements, it is first important to evaluate your customers and your goals to create an effective strategy. You want to match your goals and strategies with your customers wants and needs.

Posting video content on YouTube is a unique opportunity to improve your position on Google.  With YouTube, customers can visit the site, view your video and easily post it to their own blogs, social networking profiles or websites. YouTube is a great way to reach a broader audience and generate buzz around new products, especially if your product has a visual appeal.

A blog can build interest and loyalty among customers and be a great way to take advantage of search engine optimization.  Social media encourages social visits to your blog. When you keep up with your blog and add content frequently it encourages customers to return regularly.

With the advent of social media, consumers have become contributors, contributing to brand messaging. Social media marketing  is something that should be a part of an overall marketing strategy.  These days it just can’t be ignored.

P.S. If you are using Facebook as a part of your social media marketing strategies and want to learn how to increase monthly active users by 91% each month check out this free recorded video.

Image: KROMKRATHOG / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Many people rush into their network marketing business thinking it will be easy, but very soon they realize that it is not as easy as it looks. A successful network marketing business is a finely tuned machine. In order to keep your business running smoothly it is important to avoid making mistakes.

Promoting your network marketing company  is one of the most important things to do to ensure that you have long term success. However it can be very difficult market your business correctly. Read on to find out 6 marketing mistakes to avoid when promoting your network marketing company.

Here are the 6 mistakes to avoid in promoting your network marketing company:

1. Not having clear objectives: Many network marketers  start a business without clear objectives. They fail to set realistic goals for their marketing and consequently set themselves up for failure. It is important to make a list of goals and objectives based on a quarterly time line. If you do not have goals and objectives you are like a car driving without a road map.  You are going to have a challenge reaching your destination.  Lord knows there are lots of distraction as a network marketer so you want to be certain you have clear objectives when you are promoting your network marketing company.

2. Neglecting to analyze your potential customers is a dangerous mistake. It can lead to many problems. When you do not analyze your customers wants and needs you do not know what products and services to develop for them. This will lead to targeting the wrong market and neglecting to understand your own niche market. It is important for any business to do their marketing analysis so that you can target your market and maximize your sales.

3. Not testing: By not testing your sales copy and places you advertise with split testing your advertising, you will be losing sales. Split testing is simple to do but many network marketers fail to do this. This results in a lot of wasted time and effort. If you do not test your ad copy and promotions you will not have an idea of what is and what is not working. It is simple to do by placing 2 ads for the same product in a publication or website etc. You can then see which one is performing the best.

4. Not budgeting: Budgeting is extremely important in business.  This is especially true with your marketing and advertising. It is important to have a monthly or quarterly budget for your marketing. Within that budget put aside money for each promotion you will be doing. Start small, test and then build on successes. This will allow you to always stay solvent and have enough for promoting your network marketing company.

5. Giving up too soon: Promoting your network marketing company is no easy task and many people do fail. One of the reasons is that the owners give up too soon. Just when success might be just around the corner they give up and decide to quit. In exactly the same fashion marketing promotions can fail. You need to give your promotions at least 3 months before you decide to scrap them. Some promotions will take longer than others to bring results. As always, test all marketing tactics before you launch a larger promotion. Patience is one of the hallmarks of business and you need to implement it.

6. Poor sales copy: How often have you wanted a product but when you read the sales page you had serious doubts? Poor unprofessional ad copy will cost you sales. In fact without good sales copy you will not be able to sell effectively at all. It is critical to your business to get this right. If necessary get an experienced copywriter to do this. It is worth the investment, as you will see returns when you make sales.
The golden rule in promoting your network marketing company is  to diversify. You should always use multiple forms of marketing in your business. Do not just do one or two promotions and then wait for results. This will slow company growth and your business will stagnate. Pick 2 or 3 things that you can be doing at the same time to be promoting your network marketing company.

By avoiding these mistakes you be able to achieve to the success you deserve. You will be able to have year round success for your business.  So plan ahead and be careful not to make these common mistakes.

Image: Kookkai_nak / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Want some great ideas for promoting your network marketing company?  Watch this free recorded training that gives you 25 ideas for marketing your business.

There was a period business owners needed to depend only on traditional advertising to market their products and services. Most often, enterprises chose print, TV, radio and outdoor ads for transmitting information about their products. Evolution of internet – World Wide Web – has entirely changed that scenario. Today, lots of internet tools have simply replaced many of the long-followed marketing techniques, amazingly with no cost at all. Blogging seems to be the most cost effective way for populating particular brands and improving businesses in the virtual world.

What blogging can do for your business

Before exploring the possibilities of blogging for business, we can see what blogging really is. Blogging is all about posting frequent content including texts, images and video on a web page. Blogging is not primarily a tool for business promotion. It is an online platform, internet users can talk about anything they wish to.
There is no intermediary between a blogger and reader on the web. These days, businesses largely utilize this freedom in blogging to promote their services.
Businesses simply have to blog on various topics with back links to their merchant or home sites. Content on these blogs will be accessed by internet users through web searches. Once users search for a product or service on web via a search engine, take Google for example, they will be directed to the blogs. On reading the post on the particular product – may be a review, slideshow or a video clip, the users will get fascinated and it may prompt a purchase.
Is blogging for business a viable option?
Of course, it is. Blogging is a highly practical option to improve business. Today, most businesses have online presences, at least in form of a homepage. If a business intends to enhance its online presence and attract customers, blogging is one of the first-to-be-considered options. The business owner just wants to run multiple blogs on different products it markets. For example, an online vendor of electronic gadgets can grab the attention of lots of fresh customers through blogs on product reviews, image galleries and video clips. Giving back links from blogs to the home site of the businesses is already a commonly accepted SEO (Search Engine Optimization) technique to improve the page ranking of a particular site in web searching.
As a whole, blogging can be seen as an essentially important method to increase sales in your business. It is as important as running a social media campaign. Most businesses focus their online promotion  in various social media sites only. That is effective, of course; but a blog can take your business to the next level.  In coming years, a big portion of global populace will go online. This means businesses can meet all their potential customers on the web for free of cost through blogging.

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