Go MLM Online Blog — MLM for People Who Want to Market Their Business Online

Online MLM Marketing: Does Social Media Work for MLM Newbies?

by Stephanie Valentine on March 30, 2010

Social media is the big buzz these days, but it can be so confusing, especially to the online MLM newbie.

If you are an online MLM newbie, you probably know you should do social media, but you have a million questions and zero answers. Yikes! What should you do? Get help.

But first, get all your ducks in a row. Write down your list of questions about social media so you can think and speak about it conherently.

For instance, here are some questions you might have:

Does social media really work for MLM?
Which social media platforms should you pursue?
How many social media platforms do you have time to work with?
What steps do you need to take on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, and others?
Is there an easy way to learn the lingo of each social media platform?
Should you friend, follow, or otherwise connect with everyone who wants to connect with you?
Does it matter if you insult people you don’t even know by not following, friending, or replying?

Ack, yikes, and yowza! That’s a lot to think about.

With all of these issues, does social media still sound like a good idea? Yes! The good news is this: even you, the total online MLM newbie, can do social media. The trick to doing social media well is this:

Gang up on social media with a bunch of your buddies.

How Does Social Media Work When You Gang Up?
If you are an online MLM newbie and you want to do social media, get a small group of other newbies together and learn to do it together. Now, in order to avoid wandering around in the wasteland for 40 days and 40 nights, you will need to have some kind of fearless leader.

Who is this fearless leader? It can either be a person in your organization (upline or downline) who already uses social media, or it can be one of the famous social media people who freely give away information. Examples of popular social media people include Chris Brogan, Seth Godin, Brian Clark, and John Jantsch. If you choose to follow one or more of these social media people, then you will need to dig through their blogs and piece together “lessons learned” that you and your group can then use to pursue a social media agenda.

If you can find someone in your upline or downline who is already successfully using social media, then all the better. Approach this person and see if they are willing to put on a social media teleconference series for your group. Pay them to do so, if they are willing. It’s definitely worth it.

How to Gang Up on Social Media
So once you’ve got someone willing to guide you on your social media trek, how do you gang up on it? There are tons of ways to do it, depending on which social media platforms you choose, but here are some ideas to get you started. Suppose your group chooses to keep it simple and use only blogging, Twitter, and Ezine Articles. How does social media look when you gang up on it together with these three platforms? Like this:

post links to each other on your blogs
swap guest posts on each other’s blogs (saves writing and spreads the word)
follow each other on Twitter
retweet at least 3 tweets per week for each person in your group
comment on each other’s blogs
get together and write a “give away” ebook that you can all use and promote to build a following
each of you should follow completely different segments of people on Twitter, which means when you retweet other people in your “gang” their message will reach lots of different people
swap good Twitter search terms with each other
put each other on your lists which makes for greater visibility as well as easier retweeting
connect people in your gang with people who follow you on Twitter
comment on each other’s Ezine Articles postings and rate them
swap blog topics or brainstorm topics together
swap good niche and theme keywords, and keep a running list so each of you does not need to “look up” good keywords each time you want to write something

These are just some simple ways to get started with ganging up social media. Does social media work well with this “gang up” method? It has for our group! We meet weekly to work with new ideas, try them out, and promote each other.

Here are some of their blogs, which you may want to check out just for fun:
Buckaroo Texan Blog
Go Cowgirl RN
Go Cash Flow Now
Horses 4 Dummies

If you want to find out more, drop me a line. I’m always interested in working with people looking to join an online MLM opportunity that actually works without excessive blood, sweat, and tears!

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader. Or contact me if you want to join our MLM team. We are teaching people to dive into online MLM head first … successfully! I’m holding out for a few good people. Really.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcogomes/ / CC BY 2.0

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Online MLM: Having a Hard Time Using Keywords? 3 Strategies to Ease Your Pain

by Stephanie Valentine on March 16, 2010

Newbies to online MLM are drilled endlessly on the importance of using keywords in blog posts, articles, or any online marketing piece

… and that’s a good thing because choosing and using the right keywords are literally the “keys to the kingdom” when it comes to being found online.

But it can be a pain in the ass!

For newbies, the process of first finding and then using the right keywords can be downright difficult. Just writing a good article or blog post is difficult enough, but requiring the use of keywords of the correct density is sometimes asking too much, right?

3 Strategies for Online MLM Keyword Usage
OK, so if you are a newbie at this and are having a terrible time with keywords, let me first stop here and say, “I feel your pain.” Any good article marketer, home business blogger, or MLM online marketer does. We’ve all had to go through the same blood, sweat, and toil you are now experiencing in using the right keywords in your online marketing materials. So, to ease your pain, here are 3 strategies to help you use keywords properly in your online materials.

Online MLM Keyword Strategy #1: Use Only 1-2 Keywords
Some newbies try to cram their blog posts with tons of great keywords. That’s overkill. Instead, use no more than one niche keyword and one theme keyword per blog post. Or, to make it even simpler, go with just a single niche keyword (or keyword phrase — I use keyword and keyword phrase interchangeably).

To clarify, a niche keyword is one that has a significant number of searches (at least 1,000 per month) and low or no competition. A theme keyword is one with a huge number of searches (say around 40,000) but also average to high competition. You can use just a niche keyword in a blog post, no problem. However, if you are going to use a theme keyword, use it to write a blog series and pair it with a different niche keyword in each blog post. For instance, Horse Health Care is a commonly used theme keyword, which won’t result in targeted traffic. But if you use Horse Health Care along with the niche keyword Horse Rider, you get targeted traffic.

In short, though, don’t try to pack your blog posts with lots of different keywords. Not only is that a lot of work, but you will also dilute the effect of your keywords by using too many of them.

Online MLM Keyword Strategy #2: Insert Keywords After You Finish the Blog Post
A lot of newbies find their writing style hampered by the need to use keywords at regular intervals (a good keyword density is around 2%). If this is the case for you, instead of letting keyword-mania inhibit your writing style, just write your blog post with your keywords in mind, but don’t worry about inserting them into the actual post as you write. Just write.

When your blog post is done, go back and find logical places to insert your keyword. You will want to put your keyword in the title, in the opening line of your blog post, if possible, and also about once per paragraph (on average). You may have to rewrite a sentence here or there in your blog post, or rework your title, but you’ll probably save yourself a lot of time by doing it this way. By inserting keywords after your blog post is already written, you run less of a chance of hitting the dreaded “writer’s block.”

Online MLM Keyword Strategy #3: Take a Day Off from Keywords
Using solid keywords in your online MLM materials on a regular basis is truly important, especially if you are just getting your blog off the ground. However, every now and then you can and should take a day off from keywords. After all, your blog is reflection not only of your MLM business, but of yourself. So there will be days where you will want to write blogs that are a little more personal, not all business. That’s a good thing because it shows your readers that you are human. On those days, don’t worry about keywords. Just write about you and your life. Take five … it’s OK.

Online MLM Keyword Strategies
I hope these three strategies help to ease the pain of learning to choose and use keywords on a regular basis in your online marketing. Keywords are truly important, so do what you need to do to use the right keywords as much as possible … and take a day off when you need to.

Good luck and happy hunting for your keywords!

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jason-morrison/ / CC BY 2.0

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Online MLM: Why You Must Work for You, Your Group, and Your Company

by Stephanie Valentine on March 9, 2010

An online MLM business is all about the freedom of working for yourself. But if you want to truly succeed in your MLM business, you have to understand that ultimately you work not just for yourself, but for three different sets of people.

Who are these three sets of people?

- yourself
- your group (includes upline and downline)
- your company

That you work for yourself is easy to understand. You work your MLM business so you can enjoy the time and money income afforded by a passive income stream. That’s the “take” part of your business.

But what about the “give” part of your business? You’ve probably heard about the practice of “tithing,” or giving back in various spiritual practices. Tithing forms a karmic circle where what goes around comes around. What you give comes back to you tenfold. It’s a basic tenet in many spiritual practices … and it works just as well in any online MLM business.

The “Give” Part of Your Online MLM Business
So if working for yourself is the “take” part of your business, working for the good of your group and the good of your company is the “give” part of your business. And anything you give from your business will come back to you in some positive form.

What does it mean to work for the good of your company and your group? Giving can take on a lot of different forms, but when it comes to online MLM the giving is often more specific.

Since many people in your group, meaning both in your upline and downline, may be interested in working their business online, giving often means sharing your knowledge with these people.

Educating Your Group about Online MLM
Educating your downline is a “no brainer,” since that’s the way any MLM business is structured: you can’t succeed unless the people you sponsor succeed. But because online MLM skills are still fairly rare at this point, giving to your downline may mean reaching down many levels in your group and helping even those people who are so far down in your group as to be out of your pay level. You may need to do this because these people may have no other upline to help them with online marketing.

Educating your upline, and other parts of your upline’s group, may be a little more difficult to wrap your mind around. After all, your upline is supposed to educate, train, and guide you, right? But, many upline folks have been working their MLM business in a more “traditional” way (via 3-way calls and hotel meetings) and may not be able to help you. So you have to help them. If you have pioneered online MLM marketing methods that are working for you, then it’s always a good practice to “give” this knowledge with those in your upline who are interested and open to new ideas. By educating them, you help your entire group … and you gild your MLM karma, so to speak.

Giving Back to Your MLM Company
Then there’s your company, which can be a dicier proposition altogether. Why? Because MLM companies are struggling hard to come to terms with the brave new world of online MLM. The online world is difficult for our parent companies to police, yet police it they must or they risk infringing on all kinds of rules from the FTC to the FCC to the FDA.

The result is that many parent companies are cracking down on people doing online MLM by laying down such stringent regulations that the average newbie can’t afford to work his business on the internet. If you have success and experience with online MLM, it becomes your job to educate your parent company on the benefits of doing business online … and perhaps negotiate some solutions that both allow the company to remain in compliance with federal laws AND allow newbies to go online with their businesses.

For instance, my parent company at one point instituted just such a stringent rule. I took part in an active campaign to change this rule by sending in a lengthy letter detailing the reasons this rule would not only be unenforceable, but ultimately inhibit the growth of the company. The company eventually repealed this rule and we all breathed a sigh of relief!

Online MLM Folks are Pioneers
Whether you want to be or not, if you are working your MLM business online then you are a pioneer. As such, you would do yourself a favor by sharing your pioneering knowledge with your group and your parent company. It even means sharing your knowledge with cross-line folks who ask for your help.

But are you giving away the farm with all of this sharing? People often ask my why I share my online “secrets” so freely with others. The answer to that is easy:

There are no online secrets. Truly.

There’s only a learning curve to be scaled and experiences to be had. Join any online forum about MLM or online marketing, and those who understand the art of giving will easily share their knowledge with you.

If you are one with such knowledge, then pay it forward to your group, your company, and anyone who asks. Your business will flourish as your giving comes back to you tenfold. I kid you not!

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/timothymorgan/ / CC BY 2.0

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Online MLM: Search Keyword Statistics and the Two Kinds of Keywords

by Stephanie Valentine on March 2, 2010

For online MLM marketers, the search for keyword statistics and finding the right keywords are a crucial part of the formula for success. After all, keywords are the signposts that help people find you online.

Search keyword statistics the right way and you will unearth a goldmine of keywords for your online MLM business. Have the right keywords in the right places on your MLM blog or website, and people will find you more easily. Have the right density of keywords in the right places, and search engines will rank you higher in “expertise” about that particular set of keywords.

But not all keywords are made the same, nor should they be used in the same way. That’s why it’s important to understand the two types of keywords when you search keyword statistics for your perfect set.

Online MLM Keywords: The Two Types
For you, the online marketer, there are two kinds of keywords (or keyword phrases-I used the two interchangeably) worth pursuing when you search keyword statistics:

niche keywords
theme keywords

Both of these kinds of keywords have their place, and should be used accordingly. Let’s take a look at these two different types of keywords and see what role each plays in an online MLM marketing campaign.

Online MLM and the Niche Keyword
These keywords are the ones that go with a small, well-defined, highly-searched, but not very competitive niche. To translate it into Google Keyword Search terms, niche keywords are the ones that have at least 1,000 searches per month and have no or low competition. If the searches for a niche keyword run 5,000 or more, it is marginally acceptable to use it even if it has average competition. Be out on the lookout for niche keywords as you search keyword statistics because they are valuable!

So how do you use niche keywords? Simple. You use them as they apply to specific articles or blog posts. Suppose your niche keyword phrase is “home-based business blog.” The way you would use this keyword is to put it in the following places in your blog post or article:

Title (at the beginning of the title, as in “Home Business Blog: How to Write One)
Headers within the article
Somewhere in each paragraph (on average)

This gives your article or blog post enough “density” that the search engines will rank it quite high for expertise. If you include pictures in your post, you can also include the keyword in the caption.

Online MLM and the Theme Keyword
Now let’s take a look at the other kind of keyword that you will encounter as you search keyword statistics: the theme keyword. By definition, theme keywords are keywords that have high searches but also high competition. The good news about theme keywords is that a lot of people type in this search term every day. The bad news is that a lot of other people are already using this search term, so you have to compete against these folks.

But that’s OK, because you will be using theme keywords in a very different way than you will niche keywords. While the aim of using a niche keyword is to get a search engine to recognize the expertise of particular blog post or website article, the goal of using a theme keyword is to get a search engine to recognize the expertise of your entire blog or website.

To get down to brass tacks, here’s what it means to use theme keywords. As the name suggests, this kind of keyword will become a “theme” on your blog or website. That means that you will write a series of blog posts under the umbrella of that theme. For instance, on another blog of mine where I write about my passion for horses and country living, I use the keyword phrase “horse health care” as a theme keyword. I’ve written probably a dozen or more blog posts in this theme. Here are some examples:

Horse Health Care: How to Find the Right Supplements for Your Horse
Horse Health Care: Can You Do Your Own Bodywork?
Horse Health Care: The First Aid Kit for All Emergencies
Horse Health Care: Does Your Horse Have Ulcers?
Horse Health Care: How to Communicate with Your Vet

Do you see how this set of keywords is a theme on my other blog? While there is a lot of competition for this keyword phrase, by using it repetitively as a them on my blog, search engines eventually begin to recognize the consistency of this keyword on my blog, and increase it’s rank.

It’s important to look for theme keywords in addition to niche keywords when you search keyword statistics. When you use theme keywords, just know that it will often take longer for the results to appear in search engine results, but they will appear over time.

If a theme keyword closely matches the topics you are going to blog about, then use it and use it liberally on your blog. These kinds of keywords need to be placed in the same locations in your blog as niche keywords … you just need to use theme keywords in many more blogs than you do niche keywords.

Make sense?

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Online MLM and SWAG: Scientific Wild Ass Guesses

by Stephanie Valentine on February 25, 2010

I’m a big fan of mystery novels, and the other day I came across this acronym in one of my novels: SWAG.

The detective in the novel said it stood for “Scientific Wild Ass Guesses,” as in:

“Give me your SWAG about this.”

That got me thinking about doing online MLM because there is a certain amount of SWAG in this business. The SWAG part is the part of the business that you can’t control. Then there are other parts of the business that you ca definitely control.

Online MLM: What You Can Control
There’s a lot that you can control when you decide to run your MLM business online. For instance, you can control:

Your online home base (where you promote your business)
Which social media outposts you use (to drive traffic to your home base)
How much time you dedicate to your business
Which niches you choose to pursue online
Which online services you choose to pay for and which you do for yourself
Which online marketing leaders you believe and follow

If you have a fairly good level of organization, a definite online MLM marketing plan, and a strong streak of perseverance, you can control a lot in your business. Success in doing MLM online is 10% inspiration, 80% perspiration, and 10% SWAG.

The words “elbow grease” tell you all you need to know about perspiration. Inspiration comes from reading what online marketing leaders are writing, looking at other industries to see how you can apply their tactics to your business, and staying in touch with your spiritual life.

And then there’s SWAG.

Online MLM and SWAG: The Part You Can’t Control
SWAG is the 10% of your business that you can’t control. It covers the parts of your online MLM business where you have to go with your best guesses and hunches. For instance, the online world moves so fast (and it’s only getting faster), that you often have to guess where it’s going to go … not just in the next step, but three steps from now.

For example, will Twitter always be a popular social media platform or will it fade into oblivion like some other social media platforms? How many people who fear computers now will love them in 5 years? What factors will affect the way we interact with other people, either in person or digitally? How will technology increase the demand for “personalized marketing”?

Yeah, I know, these kinds of questions can really drive an MLM business builder crazy! But if you do want to get a handle on the SWAG factor, then start reading the writings of futurists to understand how the shape of the internet will change in the coming years. Some books and authors to consider include:

“Smart Mobs” by Howard Rheingold
“The Next Millionaires” by Paul Zane Pilzer
“Convergence Culture” by Henry Jenkins
“The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom” by Yochai Benkler
“Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age” by Duncan J. Watts
“Seeing What’s Next: Using Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change” by Clayton M. Christensen
“Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means” by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi
“Beyond Mobile: People, Communications and Marketing in a Mobilized World” by Mats Lindgren

And that’s just the short list! These books are not very technical and they give you a rich look at the effect of technology on the ways we do business in the future. If you read even one of these books you will be amazed at how much more certain you will feel about doing MLM online … and you will be in a position to make much more informed SWAGs … sound good?

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fhashemi/ / CC BY 2.0

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Wanted: Wallflowers Tired of MLM 90-Day Wonders

by Stephanie Valentine on February 18, 2010

What do you hate more? Going to your MLM company convention and hearing the 90-day wonder story, where someone hit the top of the pay plan 90 days after joining the company

… or shrinking back in your seat and knowing that you, as a wallflower, won’t be able to duplicate that?

Personally, I hate both.

I’m not a wallflower, but I also don’t believe in 90-day wonders. Do they happen? Yes. Is it a good role model for 99.99% of people who do MLM? Absolutely not! For most people, listening to a 90-day wonder describe how “easy” it is to hit the top of the pay plan quickly isn’t inspiring … it’s downright discouraging. And for those who are kind of shy, introverted, or just not born with the gift of gab, it’s enough to cause them to quit, right there, on the spot!

That’s where online MLM comes to the rescue!

Online MLM as a Solution for Wallflowers and Introverts
The problem with 90-day wonders is that either they are freaks of nature or they entered the business with a huge Rolodex filled with high-powered friends who already “get” MLM. So of course they are able to hit the top of the pay chart in 90 days. Unfortunately, that makes the rest of us look like wallflowers and introverts.

Luckily, wallflowers, introverts, analytical types, and nerds can flourish by moving their MLM prospecting online. First of all, you don’t have to have the gift of gab to do online MLM because you mostly type rather than talk. Second, even if you didn’t start your MLM business with a huge Rolodex, you can acquire one online in fairly short order … a lot more quickly than you can in the real world.

Three Benefits of Online MLM
Here are three of the benefits of online MLM for those stumped at prospecting in the real world.

Benefit #1: Online MLM Gives You Time to Think
Unlike prospecting someone over a cup of coffee, you don’t have answer objections “on the spot” when you are prospecting online. If someone sends you an objection via email or text message, you have time to think through your response. You even have time call your sponsor and get some help. You won’t “ruin” a prospecting session just because you don’t have an immediate answer.

Even better, you can offer an ebook or audio that not only presents the most common objections, but answers them as well. The big benefit of offering an ebook or audio like this as a free download (via your website or blog) is that you can offer something that is educational, useful, and well-researched to your prospects. This makes you look like the MLM expert that you are, which is way better than stumbling your way through an unprepared answer at a live presentation.

Benefit #2: Learning to Write is Easier Than Learning to Present
Fear of public speaking is one of the top three fears that people have. That’s a really harsh statistic for MLM business builders who want to prospect in person because live prospecting is all about public speaking. Whether you are inviting someone to a presentation given by your upline or actually presenting your MLM opportunity, you are engaging in public speaking. Even speaking to a single other person is a form of public speaking. That’s a bummer.

On the other hand, almost no one puts “fear of writing” at the top of their list of scary things. Learning public speaking can be embarrassing for a lot of people, but you can learn to write without ever being embarrassed. Whether you start out with a simple blog on a topic that interests you and is related in some way to your business, or you actually take a writing course, you can learn to write. It may not be totally easy, but you won’t scare yourself half to death.

And, as a bonus, there’s no need to imagine everyone in the audience in their underwear. I’ve done quite a bit if public speaking, and frankly I have to say that that image has never done a thing for my nerves!

P.S. We are currently gathering a very small group of people who want to start an MLM business and want to do it online. If this interests you, drop me a line. The group is limited to 5 people.

Benefit #3: Rejection is Usually Anonymous and Painless
I gotta love that analogy they always throw around at convention which compares prospecting to a deck of cards: to get to the aces (your big time business builders) you have to go through a lot of other cards (rejections). Well, be that as it may, I like taking my rejections while on Novacaine. In a word, painless.

In the real world, rejection of your opportunity varies from embarrassing, from friends who don’t want to hurt your feelings, to downright ugly, from acquaintances who have had bad experiences with MLM. Rejection, no matter how the other person tries to soften the blow, isn’t fun. That’s why there are at least two articles in every MLM magazine dedicated to the art of handling rejection.

You know what? I don’t want to handle rejection. I don’t even want to touch it. That’s part of the beauty of online MLM. Rejection happens beneath the radar. With online MLM, rejection looks like people who:

visit your site but don’t stay or buy anything
see your blog post title on Twitter but don’t visit
read your blog but don’t comment
download your free ebook but never contact you
don’t respond to your auto responders

Of course, there is some outright rejection, like the occasional person who slams MLM by leaving an ugly comment on your blog, but compared to constant outright rejection, I prefer the online variety. Don’t you?

Is Online MLM for You?
So whaddya think? Are you the 90-day warm market wonder type or does online MLM seem to be more suited to your personality? You don’t have to be a wallflower, committed hermit, or established nerd to do online MLM. There are lots of reasons to bring your business online.

Some people don’t feel comfortable prospecting their friends and family. Some can’t prospect those people anymore, having already done it two or three times. Some people deal with other people face-to-face all day long, and would rather grow their MLM business with a digital approach.

It really doesn’t matter what your reason might be. The key is this: if any of the benefits of doing your MLM business online caught your attention, then it is definitely worth exploring.

As I mentioned above, we are gathering a very small elite group of people who want to start an MLM business and promote online. We won’t torture this group with analogies that compare prospecting to decks of cards. What we will do is teach this group how to develop an online MLM business with technical correctness and statistical expectations of success. The approach helps you do MLM sanely and without embarrassment. If that hits home for you, drop me a line fast ’cause we’re limiting this group to 5 people!

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sashawolff/ / CC BY 2.0

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Online MLM: The Five Most Common Mistakes in Ezine Article Submissions

by Stephanie Valentine on February 16, 2010

Ezine Articles is one of the most popular article directories online today, and a source that generates some of the highest traffic for contributing authors.

That makes it a crucial part of any online MLM marketing toolkit. If you have informative and useful content, Ezine Articles can promote that content in a way that no other article directory seems to.

But you have to do it right … you have to follow the rules.

That’s where most MLM business builders get screwed up. They don’t read the editorial guidelines for article submission, and submit articles that break the rules. When you break the rules, then you end up having to “redo” your articles. You also keep yourself from being granted Platinum status, which is the “end all, be all” of this directory. When you have Platinum status, your articles are quickly approved and posted, which means more traffic reaches your site quickly.

So how do you reach Platinum status? By not breaking the rules.

The Five Most Common Mistakes I See in Article Submissions
The folks at Ezine Articles no doubt have running tallies of the most common mistakes they see, but I can’t speak for them. I can only speak for myself and the people in my online MLM group. Within my own group, I see five common mistakes when it comes to submitting articles to this directory, mistakes that break the rules and detract from reaching Platinum status. I’ve been guilty of these myself … so save yourself some trouble. Learn from my mistakes and save yourself a few headaches.

Mistake #1: The Use of Links
There are two kinds of links that Ezine Articles allows authors to use: self-serving and non-self-serving links. Self-serving links are links that point to a website or blog that you “own, control, or have an interest.” For online MLM, that’s usually your main website, your blog, or your company-approved template website (where people can place orders or join your group). All other links are non-self-serving.

Ezine Articles allows you to use a maximum of two self-serving links, and you can only place them in the resource box of your article. The resource box appears at the bottom of your article, and is the place where you describe you, your products, and your business. It is the promotional part of the article, also called the “take.” You “give” information useful to the reader in the body of the article, and then you “take” or promote in the resource box. If you put any self-serving links in the body of your article, you’ve broken the rules. Oops, thanks for playing, please try again!

In the body of your article, you can place two links to websites that you don’t own, control, or have an interest in. But, and here’s a biggie, those links can’t appear in the first 3 paragraphs of you article. This can be a consideration if you are posting an article that reviews online resources for MLM newbies, or a similar subject. If you are posting this kind of article and you point to many different websites, instead of using links, just give the name of the website and let people search for the websites themselves on Google.

So just remember, no more than 4 links in your article. No links in the first 3 paragraphs of your article. No more than 2 non-self-serving links in the body of your article. No more than 2 self-serving links, and those must appear in your resource box.

Mistake #2: The Use of Affiliate Links
The use of affiliate links ends up being a big deal for online MLM marketers because most of the time we are forced to use a company-approved template website. While we may have personal blogs or custom websites, most MLM companies don’t allow their distributors to take orders via these web portals. So most of us have template websites that have URL addresses resembling this:

http://yourname.yourMLMcompany.com

This is called an affiliate link and Ezine Articles does not allow you to use this kind of link in your resource box. Instead, what you have to do is purchase a separate domain name and forward it to the affiliate address.

For instance, instead of using the long affiliate address above, you could purchase the domain name TryMyStuff. Then you forward this domain name to the affiliate name above. With a domain service like GoDaddy, forwarding is a simple step and takes just a couple of clicks. It’s pretty simple.

Then, when you go to write your resource box in Ezine Articles, just use the TryMyStuff address in place of the affiliate link to the company-approved website. Assuming that you have forwarded your domain correctly, when someone clicks on the TryMyStuff link in your resource box, they will be forwarded to the company-approved website.

Note: If you already have a domain name for your blog or custom website, you cannot use a subdomain or subdirectory of that domain as your forwarder to the company-approved website. I’ve seen people try this as well, only to have their article rejected. For instance, if you already own TryMyStuff, you cannot use the following to forward to your affiliate website:

subdomain.TryMyStuff
TryMyStuff.com/subdirectory

Both of these will get your article rejected. It’s better to go ahead and buy a whole new domain that you use solely as a forwarding address to point to your company-approved template website. It’s only about $10 a year … an investment that will pay big dividends in the end. Trust me.

Mistake #3: Too Much Sales Pitch, Too Little Information
If your article is nothing more than a sales pitch for a product, product line, or MLM opportunity, you’ll get busted. You can promote a general category of items, but not a specific brand.

For instance, if you write an article about gum health, you can suggest taking coenzyme Q10 as a useful supplement, but you cannot recommend a particular brand. And unless your article explores all the scientific whys and wherefores of coenzyme Q10, your article on gum health needs to contain more than that single suggestion. You might include tips on flossing and brushing, or lists of foods to avoid for better gum health.

Don’t sell hard in the body of your article. Instead, give the reader useful tips and information that they can use. If your article is interesting, informative, or funny, readers will scroll down and read your resource box. That’s where you can pitch your own brand of product or invite people to learn more on your website.

Mistake #4: Article Content
Any article you submit must be original, informative, your own writing, correctly punctuated, and not include any personal correspondence. In other words, turn in some truly good stuff that you have proof-read and double-checked.

Some things to avoid:

more than 5 lines of quoted text
articles that are not totally unique (don’t submit the same article with just a few words changed and a new title)
advice column-type articles that answer a question from a reader (reformat these to be true articles rather than a Q&A type article)
too much cussing (some people can get away with this on their own website, but Ezine Articles is a public directory so avoid cuss words if possible)
excessive punctuation (a single exclamation point is enough, you don’t need three of them)

Finally, if you are quoting someone else’s material in your article, at least reference the original author in a parenthesis or by giving the name of their website. Give credit where it’s due, even if you don’t follow the Strunk and White rules of footnoting!

Mistake #5: Keyword Packing
Ezine Articles allows a keyword density of about two percent. Keywords are definitely important, and you should use your most important keywords at the beginning of your title, at the beginning of your keyword list, and in the body of your article. But, you can’t “pack” your article full of keywords just for grins. Your article will get tossed.

Luckily, if you can’t count or have no sense of keyword density, Ezine Article has a nifty tool that now counts keyword density for you when you submit your article. If the article is too heavily-loaded with a single keyword or keyword phrase, the tool pops up and tells you. Then you can correct the problem by rewriting the “keyword dense” problem areas before doing a final submission.

This tool won’t catch keyword packing in your title, though, so you’ll have to check for yourself that you are not overloading your title with a keyword phrase. One instance of a keyword phrase in a title is enough. No need to hit your readers over the head with a hammer. They are smarter than you think.

At the End of the Day
If at the end of this article and at the end of your day you are completely clueless about what makes a “good” article for Ezine Articles, it’s no big deal. Ezine Articles has a free multi-part email course that tells you exactly what to do and what not to do. I suggest you take the course. It’s not lengthy, but it does teach you what flies and what doesn’t in this particular article directory. Being that it’s the top article directory out there (in terms of driving traffic to your site), you can’t help but emerge a better writer for taking this course. And if you manage to reach Platinum status in this article directory, then you know you’ve made it.

Got it? Good. Enjoy!

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/simax/ / CC BY 2.0

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Allergic to Prospecting Family and Friends for Your MLM Business? Online MLM to the Rescue

by Stephanie Valentine on February 11, 2010

Family and friends is a great plan … for a cell phone. It can also be a great plan for many people just starting an MLM business.

But what if you have already prospected all of your family and friends? Or what if your family and friends are more conventional thinkers than you, making you a leper among them when you talk MLM? Or what if you are just plain allergic to talking to them guys about your MLM business?

That’s where online MLM comes in: it expands your reach far beyond just family and friends.

Online MLM Helps You Create a New Circle of Friends
Don’t get the wrong idea here. I’m not bashing the idea of prospecting your warm market to build your MLM business. Your warm market is what is, in business circles, termed “low hanging fruit.” Your friends and family already know you, probably trust you, and may be easier for you to prospect. MLM businesses have thrived on warm market prospecting for decades. If that works for you, go for it.

But this article is dedicated to all the people who can’t, won’t, or don’t want to talk to their warm market about MLM. It may be you … or it may be someone who has just joined your MLM business. Either way, the person who won’t talk to their warm market has to have another way to build their MLM business. Online MLM can help them do that.

Lots of people who are afraid to directly speak to others, especially people they know, about their MLM products or business, are not afraid to type about it. Online MLM provides a way for these people to offer their expertise, knowledge, humor, and enjoyment of their business to an entire online audience, and attract interested parties.

The big benefit for these people is that rejection occurs mostly out of sight. That really helps the people who are uncomfortable talking about MLM because they fear face-to-face rejection.

An Online MLM Case Study
Joan, already employed but shaky about her job security, loved the idea of creating a passive stream of income, and immediately joined a prominent MLM company after watching a DVD about the business. The only problem was that the training her upline offered was all about three-way calls, webinars, and weekly training teleconferences. In short, all the training was about prospecting to a warm market.

Joan practically got hives when she thought about talking to her friends and family about MLM. She knew that most of them wouldn’t “get it,” and they already thought she was weird enough. No way, Jose. The warm market idea was out.

Being computer-literate, Joan created a very simple plan for reaching out to a completely new audience: a cold online market. She created a basic blog and began writing 3 posts a week about the benefits of MLM and creating a passive income streams. In these posts, she also included the fits and foibles of her own journey learning about MLM. She invited her readers to chip in their two cents’ worth and help her along her journey.

She also interacted with people on Twitter and Facebook. She asked questions. She tweeted and retweeted. She posted on other people’s wall. She spent 4-5 hours per week, after work, on the computer blogging and interacting via social media. The writing was difficult, at first, but the social media was a breeze. Joan found quite a large circle of people who were also interested in MLM through this cold market.

Best of all, Joan wasn’t discouraged by face-to-face rejection. She figured out that the people who didn’t want to hear what she had to say just never showed up on her radar. They didn’t read her blog. Or, if they read her blog but didn’t like it, they didn’t leave comments. They just never came back.

With Twitter, the people who didn’t want to know more about her MLM opportunity simply didn’t respond to her tweets or direct messages. Those who liked what she had to say retweeted her.

Friend and family wasn’t a plan that worked for Joan, but online MLM did. Joan could face rejection in online MLM because most of the rejection was invisible. Most of the feedback she did get was positive, which encouraged her to keep going with her business, even though it took her almost a year to find her first strong business partner. The social interaction online was, in itself, enjoyable, which gave her the patience to wait for that business partner to appear.

So what do you think? Are you like Joan … allergic to the friends and family plan? If so, consider the online world as a place to create a new circle of friends, not to mention a place where rejection is less painful than in the real world.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alishav/ / CC BY 2.0

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Doing MLM: Getting Over the Doubt Factor

by Stephanie Valentine on February 9, 2010

Alas, the doubt factor always seems to crop up in any MLM business builder’s mind, whether the business is being built online or offline.

If you are building your business offline and using warm-market prospecting, you wonder if you are going to offend your friends and family with your MLM offer. If you are building your business online, which has a longer lead-time before you see results, you begin to worry that all of your endless efforts are never going to produce results.

Doubt … it happens to all but the most freaky MLM business builders. And to be successful, it’s a hurdle that MUST be overcome. In this article, I’ll tackle doubts about MLM in general.

Having Doubts about Your MLM Business?
Building an MLM business takes just as much effort as building any other small business. The only difference between an MLM business and a regular small business is that it takes much less capital to get started in MLM. But other than that, the effort and sweat equity are about the same … which means it can be hard going in the beginning.

At some point, just about every serious MLMer wakes up sweating in the middle of the night wondering, “Am I doing the right thing by pouring all this time and energy into this business?”

Others question the value of the products. For instance, one of my business builders had great experiences with the products, but being an analytical thinker, he keeps asking, “What if the results are just in my head? What if the products don’t work for everyone else like they worked for me?”

Yet another variation of the doubt factor centers around the fact that many people can’t keep up the level of effort it takes to build critical mass. For instance, another of my business builders has achieved a significant level of success in her business within 9 months, generating a regular $800 monthly check. That’s not a bad check, especially as, these days, it comes month after month with relatively little effort on her part. But she’s a driven individual, and she doubts whether she can find others who will work as hard as she had to work, at least in the beginning, to achieve this level of income.

Overcoming Your Doubts About MLM
So let’s take these doubts one by one and see if we can tackle them into submission. Overcoming doubt about your MLM business isn’t so much about squelching your fear as it is about considering your life and lifestyle from a whole new point of view.

MLM Doubt #1: Upsetting Friends and Family
If you are going prospect your warm market, then chances are that you will be talking to friends and family about your MLM business and products. With each person, one of four things can happen. They will:

truly want to buy the products or join your group (yay!)
buy products because they want to support you in your efforts
refuse to participate but nothing will change in your relationship
think you are a crazy nut and refuse to have anything more to do with you

Knowing this, you have to consider the value of your relationship to each person before you approach them. If you value a friendship so much that you would never do anything to jeopardize that relationship, then you probably won’t approach that “friend” if you feel that it might end the friendship or change the relationship in a negative way. You can just approach the people you feel will be supportive of your efforts, even if they never buy from you or join your group.

With regard to the friends you are afraid to approach for fear of ruining the relationship, you have to ask yourself this question: “What kind of friendship can’t stand an invitation to look at an MLM opportunity?” Is that the kind of friend you want? Are they fair-weather friends only? If so, maybe you don’t need friends like that. Or maybe you do … it’s up to you, but as you know building an MLM business is an AFGO (another freakiin’ growth opportunity). So just know that in the process of building your business, you may shed a few friends here and there. Just a thought.

So in approaching friends and family, pick and choose the people you approach with care, and decide ahead of time whether you are OK with letting a friendship or two go. Once you have decided, get on with the job. Approach the people you feel comfortable with, and leave the rest alone. If this shortens your warm market list considerably, then think about going with some cold market approaches like advertising, posting flyers, and attending trade shows.

MLM Doubt #2: Is Building an MLM Business Really Worth It?
If this question crops up frequently for you because you find the effort difficult, then you need to ask yourself some other questions. For instance, if you have a day job, you might ask yourself:

Do I feel secure enough in my job that I don’t need another source of “fall back” income?
If my job is secure, can I continue doing what I’m doing for the next x number of years?
If I feel comfortable doing my job until retirement, do I feel my retirement is secure enough to last me through my old age?

If you answered “no” any of these questions, does that change the way you view your MLM business? Does that strengthen the resolve you have in building your business, despite the difficult effort? Have the reality of the economy hit you yet, and have you really thought about what it will be like to go to work, day in and day out, for the next decade or two?

If you “reframe” your situation in this context, it may help you overcome your doubts about all the effort and money you are pouring into your current MLM business. If these questions don’t help you overcome your doubts, then maybe MLM isn’t right for you. If that’s the case, get out now and get some sleep!

MLM Doubt #3: What If My Product Experience Was a Fluke?
So you have a great experience with the products your MLM company offers, which convinced you to hop on the MLM business bandwagon. You start prospecting your warm market with the products, and a few friends do buy the products. One or two have pretty good results while the rest are pretty indifferent. You wake up in the middle of the night and think, “What if I’m just a weirdo and my experience with the products was a fluke?”

I can tell you for sure that you are a weirdo, but that’s OK because we all are. Some of us just cover it up better than others. Here’s the thing about product experiences: it’s a spectrum. Some people will get great results, some will notice something but not be overly impressed, and others will get nothing at all. That’s the deal with any product, whether it’s sold by an MLM company or not.

So don’t waste time on the people who got little or nothing from your products. Instead, look at the people, yourself included, who did benefit from the products and figure out the common thread in the group. Were these people just more open-minded to begin with? Are they innovators? Are they desperate for a solution and thus ready to see the benefits? Find the thread and you will find your niche. When you find your niche is when you truly begin marketing your product to people who actually want them, not just to people you happen to know. Know what I mean?

MLM Doubt #4: What If I’m the Only Workaholic Out There?
So you busted your hump and created a steady passive income in a year’s time. You worked hard and you doubt other people are willing to work as hard as you. Hmmm … that’s giving yourself a lot of credit and not giving other people much credit. No doubt you are a hard worker, and kudos to you for being one. But do you really think this country was built on the work ethic of a bunch of lazy slugs? Nope, not really.

There ARE other people out there who are willing to work hard now so that they can work less in the future. While we do live in a culture of instant gratification, there are people who have learned to delay gratification. You just have to find them … and they may not be in your circle of immediate friends and acquaintances, which may mean you need to reach deeper into the community, either online (via LinkedIn or Plaxo, for instance) or offline (via business organizations in your local area).

When I used to express this doubt to my mentor, she would tell me, “Oh honey, you are NOT that powerful. You are not the only one in the world who can do this. Give me a break!”

So give yourself a break and get over the fact that you are an all-powerful workaholic freak. If you can put in the time to get to a significant check, so can others. Trust me. MLM would not be a booming worldwide business if you were the only one with a strong work ethic on the planet.

Think Through Your Doubts about MLM
Stifling doubt isn’t useful when it comes to working your MLM business. Instead, try to think through your doubts until you get a new perspective. Asking yourself certain questions and thoroughly exploring your options is a way to put your business in a new context. Don’t go on blind faith and just squelch your doubts. Think it through.

Does this process get rid of all doubt? Probably not, but at least doubt won’t stand in the way of expanding your business. It is as human to doubt as it is to err. So feel the doubt if you want to, but keep asking yourself questions until your doubt shrinks into its proper perspective.

Hope that helps those of you doubting Thomases out there who can’t sleep at night!

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/betsssssy/ / CC BY 2.0

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Online MLM: Why I Would Rather Scare You than Lie to You

by Stephanie Valentine on February 4, 2010

I scare a lot of people who ask me for tips and help for their online MLM business. I don’t mean to scare them, but sometimes the truth is scary.

For instance, the truth about what it takes to develop a visible and interesting online presence can frighten people. So can the truth about how many hours it takes to ramp your knowledge and climb up the learning curve.

But I’d rather scare you than lie to you.

The Truth About Online MLM
The online world can be vastly different from the “real world,” but in some ways it is very similar. Remember in the old days when you used to “paper the town” to establish a presence for your MLM business? You might run ads, hang flyers, mail out tapes, and work trade shows?

Well, you do the same in online MLM, only you don’t “paper” the town, you spread the word about your business digitally. You blog, comment on other people’s blogs, submit articles, join online forums, and work social media platforms. It’s the same as papering the town, only in electronic form.

And, it takes just as much time and effort to get known in the online world as it did to “paper the town” in the old days.

The Bottom Line About Working an Online MLM Business
At the end of the day, the division between people who truly want to work their MLM business and those who don’t is still there, online and offline. The ones who want to create a truly passive ongoing income stream know that it takes consistent effort over a number of years to achieve the end goal. And they are ready to put in the sweat equity.

Those who just want to work MLM as a sideline business or like the business for its social aspects will find the effort required scary, horrifying, and way too much work. They don’t want to get their hands dirty.

What Does it Really Take to Do Online MLM?
So what is it that so scares people who ask me for help? Well, I’ll give you the list I give to just about everyone and you can see if it scares you. There is no “secret formula,” just varieties on the same theme. For the list below, you can either do it yourself, or you can pay someone to do it for you. Just be forewarned that if you pay someone to do it for you, it will cost you quite a bit, $250 per month and up. So here’s what it takes:

1. Establish a home base: A blog is the easiest way to create a home base. Here is where you talk about whatever you are passionate about that relates to your business, whether it’s the products, the passive income, or both. Post a minimum of once a week to your blog, and with good stuff, too. No filler junk. Write quality content or no one will read your blog.

2. Ping Your Blog: Pinging is a way to alert blog search engines like Technorati that you have a new blog post. Every time you post a new entry to your blog, use a service like Pingoat or Pingomatic to “ping” your blog.

3. Submit to Article Directories: Submit your best blog posts to article directories. Be sure to follow their editorial guidelines closely to avoid rejected submissions. If you only have time to submit to a single directory, go with EzineArticles. They have enormous traffic. Their editorial guidelines are tough, but if you follow them to the letter you WILL get a lot of traffic from your submissions.

4. Feed Your Blog to Social Media: Whether you do this manually or use an automated service, send a feed of your blog to social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. This tells people in your social media circle when you have a new blog post, and helps spread the word about your business.

5. Feed Your Social Media Circle: At least once a week, add friends or followers or buddies to your social media circle. Whether you ask for a recommendation on LinkedIn or follow new people on Twitter, increase your online “reach” weekly.

6. Always Look for New Keywords and Niches: At least once a month, use a tool like Google Keyword Search or Twitter Search to look for new keywords or niches. A good keyword phrase in the Google tool has at least 1,000 hits and low competition. On Twitter Search, search for new hashtags (#) that relate to your business. Once you find a new keyword or hashtag, incorporate these into your blog posts or tweets.

7. Check Your Stats: On a weekly basis, check your stats using Google Analytics or some other traffic statistics tool. You want to look for spikes in traffic, and then determine what caused the spike. Was it a particularly good blog post or a blog title that really struck a chord? Did you make a special offer? Did you finally gain some “critical mass” on a social media platform? If you don’t check, you won’t know what’s working, so you’re basically flying blind. So take the time to check … it will keep you from wasting time on stuff that isn’t working.

Online MLM and the Truth: Did I Scare You?
Well, did I? I hope not. But as I said, I’d rather scare you than lie to you about what it takes to be found online. It’s not that bad, is it? There are 7 items on a single list. It’s also what any successful online MLM business builder will tell you on a forum or if you email them for help. There are no secrets. There’s just straightforward effort … smart effort. It takes 7 to 20 hours per week to get your online MLM business up and running, and generating passive income. The level of effort is no different than offline MLM. It’s the truth. Honest.

Make sense?

MLM for People Who Want to Market Their Business Online

Online MLM: Having a Hard Time Using Keywords? 3 Strategies to Ease Your Pain

Online MLM: Why You Must Work for You, Your Group, and Your Company

Online MLM: Search Keyword Statistics and the Two Kinds of Keywords

Online MLM and SWAG: Scientific Wild Ass Guesses

Wanted: Wallflowers Tired of MLM 90-Day Wonders

Online MLM: The Five Most Common Mistakes in Ezine Article Submissions

Allergic to Prospecting Family and Friends for Your MLM Business? Online MLM to the Rescue

Doing MLM: Getting Over the Doubt Factor

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