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Preparing for a New Start

The New year is now only days away and if you New year's resolution was to set about improving your financial situation by starting up an online business, then there is no time like the present to get started.

Many people find it useful to find a mentor, I did myself many years ago and it was money well spent. A mentor will guide you and help you avoid the pitfalls which will trap the unwary. So where do you find a mentor? Well you can search online using Google, however most mentors charge to help you and how do you know that you are going to get along with their method of mentoring.

MarketHive can provide a solution for you, the site has been developed over the past few year by a group of entrepreneurs many of whom will guide you with free advice on how to become successful online. The advantage of using MarketHive is you are not limited to just one mentor and the chances are you will discover other people with similar interests to yourself.

MarketHive is an intuitive site with a FaceBook like look and feel, however it has been built from the bottom up to support budding entrepreneurs with a range of essential tools to maximise your marketing efforts.

David Ogden
Helping People Help Themselves
Http://markethive.com/david-ogden

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Planning your Life

Today is the shortest day of the year, Christmas is nearly upon us and the year end is in sight, so its time to start thinking about new year resolutions and start planning the year ahead.

Take some time this holiday season to carry out a personal view of your own achievements during the past 12 months.

One year ago we were living in Cyprus, I was working as a sailing instructor and we were planning on building our savings and improving Jay Education, little did we realise that 12 months later we would be living in the UK.

We certainly did not not expect to move to the UK, as we managed to get Jay accepted in a private English School in Paphos, however planning ahead, job opportunities are limited. I also discovered that because I had been working in Cyprus we could move to the UK without having to pay for a visa. We applied for a Family Pass in the spring and were somewhat surprised when it was granted. We did the maths and although the cost of living is higher in the UK we would save on school fees and it might open up a path for Jasmin and Jay to apply for British Citizenship. The biggest drawback was the weather.

We chose to live in Derbyshire due to the fact that is a reasonable cheap place live and generally still maintains British values with some beautiful countryside. Returning to the UK after a 15 year absence is a definite shock, on a visit to Nottingham seeing a sign in Polish enforcing no drinking in public places. We are still struggling to open bank accounts,paying over the odds for car insurance and cannot apply for credit as we have not borrowed money. Values have certainly changed, no longer is a man's word accepted as his bond.

Looking ahead to the forthcoming year we have some challenges, the first being my son who lives in Manchester and was diagnosed with a brain tumour around the time we arrived in the UK, an operation to remove it ended up in failure and he is now partially blind and facing an uncertain future, with no prospect of work and mounting debts. Some good news came last week when he was accepted for social housing, however the apartment is an empty shell, so we need to see what we can do to help make it habitable. This will mean both Jasmin and myself need to find jobs to bring in extra income in order to recoup money spent on moving to the UK, helping my son and building up a reserve so Jasmin and Jay can travel to the Philippines to visit their family, they have not seen for some two and half years.

One part of my plan for 2016 is to expand my MarketHive system, which keeps me in touch will fellow entrepreneurs and allow me also to help people understand what they need to do to earn money from online business opportunities.

So now its your turn, work out what is important in your life and get it down on paper, if you like share your thoughts on MarketHive, make a positive move to improve your situation.

David Ogden
http://markethive.com/david-ogden
Helping People Help themselves

 

Al Zibluk

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Britians Last Deep Coal Mine Closes

Britians last deep coal mineThe closure of the last deep mining pit at Kellingley Colliery  in Yorkshire, yesterday marks an end of an Era in the UK. I live in in what used to be a coal mining area  in Derbyshire, there is still plenty of coal beneath the ground, however it is uneconomic to mine, because countries such as India and China have lower production costs, probably due to lower safety standards and wages, together with state subsidies

The UK government plans to shut down all coal powered power stations within the next 10 years and it is ironic that once again it is China who will benefit from a building contract for a new nuclear power station.

Yes coal is a dirty fuel, however,  clean power such as solar and hydro power are also having subsidies reduced dramatically from the 1st January, which will make them less economical viable, for example a small hydro plant in a river in a Yorkshire village has just come online to supply some 40 houses. It will pay for itself in 10 years, however anyone planning a similar plant will need to wait 100 years for  payback.

Mining has been a way of Life in the UK and it is sad to see it coming to an end, with the reserves underground  miners thought it was a job for life but now have to seek other ways of earning an income to support their families.  Nowadays the problem is that many job only offer the minimum wage and these are usually snapped up  by foreign workers from Europe who are used to lower wages.

Miners like many others will either have to start looking further afield for work  or take stock of their situation, examine  what skills and interest they have and find a way of monetising them.

A few people who possess drive and enthusiasm might turn to the Internet as an alternative way of working, however it is a different kind of hard work, learning a new trade and there are traps in the way of the unwary in the form of Multi Level Marketing (MLM)schemes which promise a lot but from which few people can earn a living. If you want to earn a living online, it is easier to do so via an Affiliate system, earning a percentage of selling products and services.

Getting started working online can be a daunting prospect, and can raise  many issues, so most people seek advice from entrepenuers who have been successful and are willing to help others succeed in a selfless manner.

I am connected to one such group of people called MarketHive, I was asked to explain this the other day, it a mix of a social media for entrepeneurs to share business and marketing ideas, like a Facebook for business but  on a more professional footing such as LinkedIn. In addition MarketHive provides tools and widgets, to make the likes of WordPress better and enable anyone to get their message to the market place or customer via blogs, video or email

David Ogden
Helping People Help Themselves
MarketHive.com/david-ogden

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Affiliate Marketing Success

affiliate marketingAffiliate Marketing Success

As an affiliate marketer, your main objective is to sell the products and or services offered by your partner merchants. Unless you can do this, you can never hope to make a significant amount of money with affiliate marketing programs. So how do you boost sales? All things being equal, you have to increase your site traffic before you can get more sales. By the law of averages, the more people that are in the know of the products you are offering, the more products you will sell.

Here are three tips that can help you boost your site traffic:

1. Optimize your site for the search engines, SEO. The most successful sites on the Internet are the ones that are seen the most. There are many ways to achieve increased visibility on the Internet, but the best method is that of search engine optimization. A future article details how to help with SEO. In general, the purpose of SEO is to help your site get higher rankings on the search engines. If you have ever used a search engine, such as Google, you will notice that any keyword search will return thousands, if not millions of results. Most people won't bother to browse through page after page of results; they will prefer to look into the sites already shown on the first page. Statistically speaking, the sites listed on the first page will get the highest amount of traffic, putting those sites in a better position to make money.

2. Provide fresh content. Your site must be constantly updated if you expect your visitors to keep coming back. Your site must have useful content, as well as tools that will help your target audience. Make your site as easy to navigate as possible, and be sure that your links work the way that they should. There is nothing more frustrating than a “broken” website, and once your site has been labeled as such, chances are slim that people will want to come back.

3. Build an online community. Join some forums and meet people. Build relationships with your potential customers. You are able to put a signature file in many of the forums so be sure to put a link to your site in your signature. Make your visitors feel welcome and appreciated, and they are likely to come back. Be interested in solving their problems and they will thank you with their business.

More help about Affiliate Marketing

Making your affiliate marketing program work is really not that much different from operating a traditional business. The only way you can keep your customers is to treat them right. As long as you treat your customers with respect and exert effort in trying to meet their needs, you will find that they will be more than willing to help you with yours.

Affiliate marketing is greatly promoted on the internet as the answer to new found wealth. When in reality almost ninety percent that join up as an affiliate earn less than a hundred dollars a month. The Affiliate marketer isn't hurting though because everything they offered was geared to make sure they always win. It's best to remember that the ninety percent who are receiving little value financially are the financial life blood of the marketer.

They purposely design their website "squeeze" page to lure the gullible into believing in the dream of making lots of easy money. Offering free this and free that to help make the small investment required seem like a real deal. Now in all fairness there is the ten percent that achieve that higher income. However, they succeed because they know it's a highly competitive arena and understand what internet marketing practices it takes to succeed.

Many times the more successful affiliate marketers offer a free website as part of their road to wealth package. Oh, they keep their word all right. They will provide easy access to getting a domain name, web hosting, and the installation of the free website. However, it's usually a one-page website designed and optimized to benefit the affiliate marketer not the new affiliate. On top of that the marketers don't care if the new sign up understands what he is doing.

There's no "Before You Start" manual offered explaining established internet marketing technique. Even the hosting, which is an additional cost, is often also owned by the affiliate marketer. Those ten percent who are doing will either have enough capital to have well designed websites made or know how to make one themselves. To succeed as an affiliate, you must have a good website.

In order for an affiliate to earn income from their new one-page website they need one crucial thing. Customers! And on the internet that only happens if you get "traffic". This is when the small investment ends and the novice finds out that they have to again dig deep into their wallet. To make things worst most free websites have the HTML code search engine optimized to benefit the affiliate marketer. The internet newbie doesn't realize this having no understanding of the mechanics of websites.

Also even though they have access to the websites control panel it's meaningless. They have no way of making changes to their advantage unless they already own and know how to use an HTML editor which most folks usually don't. The novice affiliate is pretty much forced to use pay per click advertising to generate any traffic to their sight causing again more drain on the finances. The point being made here is that being an affiliate can be very profitable but it's not an accident.

Anyone who wishes to improve their income by being an affiliate needs to be patient and do their homework. Don't be sucked in by promises of wealth. One doesn't have to be a webmaster but they do need to understand how affiliate marketing works. There are hundreds of digital eBooks and paperbacks available to assist one on their research in this area.

There's also reputable software products that are specifically designed to assist the new affiliate in their endeavor to be more profitably productive. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be a part of the American dream of moving on up. Go for it. Just be careful so that when all is said and done it doesn't end up being an expensive nightmare instead of a dream come true.

Article by:
Brian Walters SEO

Skype: tuneup_bj

Brian Walters MarketHive
http://brian-walters-online.com/

http://briansmarketing.net/

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Starting an Affiliate Marketing Campaign

Starting an Affiliate Marketing CampaignStarting an Affiliate Marketing Campaign

Some business owners opt to start an affiliate marketing campaign as part of their overall marketing strategy. In most cases the affiliate marketing campaign is only a small portion of the overall marketing strategy but there are some business owners who opt to rely exclusively on this type of marketing. The main purpose of doing this is to save money while still achieving valuable advertising.

However, once a business becomes more successful they should consider being more proactive and combining affiliate marketing with other types of Internet marketing such as placing banner ads and orchestrating an email marketing campaign. This article will take a look at what affiliate marketing is and will provide insight into why this is popular and how it can be used effectively.

An affiliate marketing campaign is essentially a situation where other website owners place ads for your business on their websites. These website owners are known as affiliates. It is important to understand how this type of marketing works. In general the affiliates are given code for your banner ad to place on their website and given the freedom to promote their own website as they see fit. In promoting their website they are also attracting attention to your website because of the banner ad directing visitors to your own website.

One of the most appealing elements of affiliate marketing is the affiliate is only compensated when he produces a desired result. This means the business owner is not obligated to pay the affiliate unless the affiliate is successful. Success may be defined as generating traffic to the website, resulting in a sale or even resulting in the Internet user registering on your website or filling out a survey.

The compensation for affiliates is generally based on cost per click, cost per lead or cost per sale. Cost per click and cost per lead are usually paid in terms of a flat fee which is awarded to the affiliate each time an Internet user either simply clicks through the banner ad on his website or performs a specific action after clicking through the ad. Cost per sale may result in the affiliate being awarded a flat fee or a percentage of the sale depending on the agreement between the business owner and the affiliate.

The most effective use of affiliate marketing is to actively seek out affiliates with a proven track record of promoting the businesses which they support. Most affiliate programs are open to anyone with a website and it is not necessarily damaging to allow those who are not particularly knowledgeable about marketing to run your banner ad but it is far more worthwhile to seek out affiliates who are quite adept and generating website traffic to their own website. This is important because the more visitors they receive each month the more likely your website it to receive interest from visitors who click on the affiliates banner ad.

Another aspect of affiliate marketing which can contribute to success or failure is the design of your banner ads. It is important to remember affiliate marketing is viewed the same way other types of marketing are viewed and care should be taken to create banner ads which will be appealing to your target audience. This means everything from the colors of your ad to the size and style of the font should be carefully considered to create an appealing advertisement.

Article by:
Brian Walters SEO

Skype: tuneup_bj

Brian Walters MarketHive
http://brian-walters-online.com/

http://briansmarketing.net/

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From Hopeful Work At Home Mom to Entrepreneur

Article By Rita Taketa — I've been a successful Work At Home Mom for 18 years, beginning when there was little career work available at home besides telemarketing. After working for several different companies being in charge of multiple operations, I now have plans to expand my business-to-business professional services with virtual agents.

work at home mom business and entrepreneur

I've been steadily working from home for 18 amazing years. In the beginning, however, it was not a popular decision. The pay was poor and the quality of work was mainly telemarketing for the consumer-to-business market, or some other type of odd tasks that were not rewarding.

I started on this journey after I had my second child. I had been working for a marketing firm as a supervisor handling inbound and outbound calls for clients in the restaurant industry. I had a great deal of responsibility with data and order entry, managing our team, training, and being responsible for the entire company phone system, which was my first introduction to Telephony Software & B2B Marketing.

As much as I enjoyed my career, I had a nine-year-old son at home to care for as well. I always felt torn between being a mother and a working women. I had already been through the route of daycare and before-and-after-school care and all of the challenges that go along with being a working mom. I felt guilty when I was not with my child, and yet I needed to work to help provide for my family, just like the balancing act that we all face today now that most families need two incomes to stay afloat.

Research on the internet afforded me to learn more about working from home, but there wasn't much of a selection to choose from except telemarketing. I started working with a company that produced customer satisfaction surveys for a national tire company. It involved evening and weekend work, so I was able to work my day job but bring in a little extra money. As I worked on different projects for the company, gaining more experience and confidence, I was asked to do more projects in different markets. Eventually, I started doing surveys for a vast array of markets including insurance.

Networking, researching, and trying different work-at-home tasks allowed me to transition into a full-time career working from home as a business-to-business professional. I serve as an extension of a company's inside sales team as an appointment setter, lead generator, and customer service representative. I've worked as an independent contractor for many years, so I took my experience and branched out with my own company to accommodate the needs of businesses in supporting their sales and marketing efforts. My goal is to expand by hiring virtual agents to help with my growing client base.

I chose a rewarding career path that has allowed me to be home with my family (which was my ultimate goal), raise my children, do meaningful work, and make a good living right from the comfort of my home office. Work At Home Mom = a happy mom!

If you believe that my message is worth spreading, please use the share buttons if they are visible on this page.

Stephen Hodgkiss
Chief Engineer at MarketHive
markethive.com

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How to gain more MarketHive subscribers on a daily, weekly and monthly basis?

How do you increase your number of MarketHive subscribers, or "children" if you will?

I think LinkedIn is one of the best ways to accomplish this.  It seems at though, I may have finally cracked the LinkedIn code to do this, well sort of.  Today, I got 12 new invitations to connect with me this morning in my inbox, and I have added 981 connections so far this month.  This is a fairly rapid increase, that I believe few people are currently doing now, on LinkedIn.  

In addition, all of those new connections have been invited to join MarketHive.  (I am currently getting nearly a 1% response rate on invitations to MarketHive). I am actively trying to find a way to increase that percentage, but it is resulting in nearly one new MarketHive sign-up per day.

I don't know how many entrepreneurs realize that their first level connections are already in their sales funnel?  Everyone looking to market on LinkedIn needs to think this way.  Ok, it may not be exactly the same, but it is very close to it.  Everything depends on what you do with those connections.  

Some kind of automation is needed here for sure.  The manual way of messaging in LinkedIn will take you nearly forever to send a message to thousands of first level connections.  Btw, the LinkedIn limit for invitation requests per day is 40 maximum with a free account or a paid account, (Sales Navigator has a limite of 100 per day).  There is a limit of 250 messages per day to your 1st level connections on all LinkedIn accounts.  If you do that every day manually, that is a very time consuming process, for sure!

I am in the process of setting up a step-by-step training program on how to use LinkedIn to promote Markethive.  I may also expand it to a complete LinkedIn training as well, depending on the level of interest.  In any case, this is something anyone can do.  It can be done, even with a free LinkedIn account.  With additional low-cost automation software solutions, the process can be greatly accelerated.  

All for now.  Thanks for your interest.  

Best possible sucess in all your endeavors!

John Lombaerde

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How are Elon Musk and Orbital Velocity like the life of an Entrepreneur?

 

Strange title, this one, I know. I remember a famous tweet by Elon Musk saying that getting to space is relatively easy. He explained that you need to achieve Mach 3 to be able to reach space and escape the earth's atmosphere. Then you would come back down to earth again.

In order to stay in orbit, however, you need to be going much, much faster. You need to be traveling at Mach 30 in order to propel yourself fast enough to stay in orbit around the earth.

Here is a link that provides some explanation about this phenomenon.

https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/

I thought, this is similar to many Internet Marketing hype headlines. You know, the ones that say "Newbie Internet marketer makes $20,117.30 in 60 days with no previous Internet experience!" Well, maybe this headline is all hype, but again, maybe this person did achieve this result in 60 days.

Ok, sounds good, but what happened after that? Did that person fall back to earth again, after achieving that success and never managed to make a dime again after that? No one wants that kind of "one-hit wonder" success, right?

The headline would be so much more impressive if it said, "Newbie Internet marketer achieves 6-figure sustainable income, within 60 days, and is still going strong after 3 years". The headlines never say anything like that do they? They are always about the push-button, easy way to success, right?

So don't bother to open that email with a fantastic rags to riches headline. Who cares about flash in the pan success? To be truly successful, any start-up must exceed their intial altitude and achieve a self-sustaining orbit. Isn't that the goal?

In his book Startup Leadership: How Savvy Entrepreneurs Turn Their Ideas into Successful Enterprises — Derek Lidow has studied this phenomenon, and currently teaches Entrepreneurial Leadership at Princeton University. He uncovers the gems of principles that can be applied universally across industries, cultures, and geographies. He separates those that are merely entrepreneurs from those that can be considered entrepreneurial leaders that are able to create self-sustaining businesses.

There are unique skills required to nurture a start-up, and there are additional skills needed to navigate any company beyond the initial phase into continued success. Derek Lidow's book is highly recommended. (Available on Amazon and elsewhere)

Best of success in all your entrepreneurial endeavors!

John Lombaerde

Al Zibluk

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Using Tumblr, Yelp and Pinterest with MarketHive

I have wanted to write this blog post for a while showing people how I share pictures from popular sites like Yelp, Pinterest, Tumblr with MarketHive. I assume everyone is using MarketHive for their WordPress websites. If you have not signed up please feel free to visit my site at https://markethive.com/alzibluk or go to my own personal website at the end of this article to click on the widget on the top right.

I like pictures as a picture says a thousand words . I am a better photographer than writer. Pictures tell stories.

I use Instagram for all my pictures (userid alzibluk). The sundial really enhances them. Unfortunately with Instagram it uses embedded scripts in sharing with other sites which will not show up with the MarketHive Plugin. I have a similar problem with Pinterest but there is a way around this. I will show you later.

With Instagram I can immediately post my pictures to Flickr, Tumblr, Foursquare,Facebook and Twitter. Later I will go to my gallery on my phone to post to Pinterest and Yelp (only if it is involving dining).

The first thing when I am ready to write a blog post is find the pictures I want to use. I currently use Google Chrome as my main browser. Once I find the picture I want to use I will have my mouse on the picture. Then I click right mouse button which opens a new window where I select Open Image in new tab. I then proceed to go to that tab to copy the url address of it which I will copy and paste into my notepad. I did this three times for this post.

The second thing I do is have my text all typed out. I want my hyperlinks all set up. I do know basic html and still use EditPlus. I then go my MarketHive account, click Blogs and Write a new Blog Post. I click the source button and copy/paste my html text. I then hit source button a second time. I move my cursor between the paragraphs where I want to Insert image. Hitting the image button will open up a new dialog box. I will paste the image url where it says url at the top. I don t like going higher than 500 for my Width and Height settings.

My first picture I am taking from my Tumblr account. As I mentioned earlier when I publish in Instagram it publishes in Tumblr. This picture is Ordinary in New Haven, Connecticut. I like to go there on a Friday night after the end of the work week. Ordinary was listed in Conde Nast Traveler — Drink Up: The Greatest Bars in the World. While I am there I like thinking about content for my blogs. It is where I go to think.

My second picture I am taking from my Yelp account. I like to go to the Dew Drop Inn in Derby, Connecticut for Buffalo Wings on Saturday mornings. This picture is the JD BBC Cucumber Wasabi Wings which is probably my third favorite.My favorite so far are the Buttery BBQ Montreal Wings. While I am at the Dew Drop Inn I continue on thinking about what I want to post in my blogs.

My last picture I am taking from my Pinterest account. It is a foliage picture I took on Saturday October 31, 2015 in Bethany, Connecticut. It is part of the West Rock Trail that ends in New Haven. As you can guess while there I think about my blog posts.

I hope this blog post helps. If you believe that my message is worth spreading,please use the share buttons if they are visible on this page. I am borrowing that line from Stephen Hodgkiss, Chief Engineer at MarketHive.

All the best,

Alan
Alan Zibluk
http://alanzibluk.com
e-mail: alan@internetguy.ws

 

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