This concern is amplified by the increasing number of tools available to create alternate versions of your articles so the same one won’t be posted everywhere.

The Truth

The truth is, though, that you won’t be penalized for having identical articles around the web. The “duplicate content penalty” refers to duplicate content within your site. Even then, you’re unlikely to have a problem unless you’re trying to game the search spiders. Search engine penalties are reserved for sites trying to trick the search engines and very few average sites ever experience such a penalty.

What will be the effect on your Google search results if you have the same article posted to 30 different articles directories? Well, all the sites may not show up in the search results.

Remember what Google’s goal is: to return to searchers as many of the most relevant sites related to the search term they entered as it can. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to return 30 pages with the exact same article! So Google will filter out some of the duplicate pages from the search results.

Should You Be Concerned?

But that’s OK! As long as one of your article pages shows up fairly high in the rankings for the search term, the searcher may well see it and click to your article. And in many cases, there will be multiple links to versions of your articles.

Remember too, that even the sites with your article that get filtered from showing up in the search engine results are still contributing to the list of links pointing back to your site. You still get credit for that with the search engines even if they choose not to display that site in the search engine results.

And, of course, humans who browse or search directly at these sites can still find and read your article and click through to your site.

A Strategy to Consider…

There is one strategy you may wish to adopt if you publish your articles on your own site as well as elsewhere on the web. You may wish to publish on your site first and wait just a bit to publish to the other sites. The search engines will give some extra priority to the site that they believe is the original site for the content, and that site is more likely to show up in search engine results.

So, if the search engine spider finds the content on your site and later finds it elsewhere, your site will be considered the originator of the content and will likely get more weight in the search engine results than those sites with the content it found afterward.

While it may be slightly preferable to publish to your site first so it’s more likely to not get filtered out of search engine results, it’s not the end of the world if your site doesn’t show up. As long as other sites with your article are listed, searchers can read one of those instances and still click through to your site from your author’s box.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is that you can feel comfortable publishing identical versions of articles both on your site and to article directories and ezine publishers. If you want to take extra care, publish to your site long enough before publishing elsewhere to allow the spider to find your instance first.

The most important point is to publish your articles in as many high quality places as you can! The good it will do your business in terms of visibility, perception of expertise, new people clicking through to your site, and incoming links for the search engine spiders greatly outweighs any downsides.

No, I’m talking about the risk of complete lack of action due to information overload. Between the constant flood of email messages with valuable information, as well as those offering to sell you the latest marketing technique you absolutely must know about, it’s enough to keep you surfing the web seeking to learn more and more for the rest of your days.

Of course, the huge problem with this is that you’ll have lots of useful information that you never have time to use because you’re off looking for the next nuggets of knowledge. So, you spend time - and probably money - attaining all this know-how and what I want to know is, “When are you planning on using it to make some money of your own?!”

Now before I get too preachy about this, please know that I am as bad an offender in this area as anyone reading this. I don’t even want to count how many programs are in my office, many of them unread (or listened to or watched).

If you’ve been learning about internet marketing for any time at all, I’ll bet you have a long list of ebooks on your computer right now that you’ve paid for and never read. Nevermind the expensive multi-media programs on your shelf. Be honest now!

Rich Schefren calls this getting information “just in case”. He believes that many of us in online marketing already have plenty of information to make our businesses more successful and shouldn’t be so worried about missing something. He’d rather we got our information “just in time” rather than “just in case”.

I have to agree with him. The marketers out there selling this information make it sound like we’ll be losing out on a one-time opportunity if we don’t buy their current product. That’s the power of a persuasive email campaign, joint venture partners, and good web copy.

But think about it… Have you ever seen online marketing information offered that wasn’t available, often in a new, “better”, revised version sometime later? After all, these guys aren’t going to let “important” content be sold once only to languish forever unsold in the future.

Yes, I know there are huge packages that have been offered for great prices recently by John Reese, Mike Filsaime, Frank Kern, Andy Jenkins, Jeff Walker, Rich Schefren, and seemingly every other big name internet marketer out there. And I’ve bought some of them. But these guys aren’t going anywhere. And the information they’re offering will continue to be offered - if not by them, then by others who’ve often learned it from them.

So what I suggest is that you stop reading every marketing email you receive. Unsubscribe from most of them. I promise they’ll be more than happy to welcome you back later.

Also, don’t buy every great marketing package that comes along. If you really want to learn more, pick one marketer whose business model and style of teaching resonates with you and focus just on his material for awhile. Try to pick material you can implement right now in your business. When you feel like you’ve gleaned - AND PUT INTO PRACTICE - his material, then and only then might you want to find your next guru.

I love learning and never want to miss out on anything, so I’m a terrific prospect for the talented internet marketers. However, we all need to find the right balance between learning more and accomplishing more.

One of the reasons I’m writing this is in the hope that if I’m persuasive enough to convince you, I might follow my own advice.

With that in mind, I resolve to focus on one program at a time and schedule an hour a day to work through it. That’ll allow me to digest the information and implement it in my business as I go. And please Lord, don’t let me run across sales letters for any more “must have” marketing products for awhile! Neither my schedule nor my bank account can afford any more “help”.

What’s your plan to balance learning with action? Post a comment and share what works - or you hope will work - for you.

Maybe you want to get in on this, too? Setting up a membership can be a terrific way to create a stream of income often greater than what you’d receive from a single sale of the complete set of information.

But many are intimidated by the idea of offering a membership, fearing it’s too complicated to set up and run.

Here are three easy ways to structure a membership:

1. Set up a Fixed Term Membership using an autoresponder system

I learned this method from Jimmy Brown’s Membernaire program and am actually implementing a membership like this myself. (Stay tuned for details in the very near future!)

This is the simplest method of all. Basically, you create an autoresponder series where a message is sent to customers once a week and each message points to a web page that has a link to a PDF file (or audio or video) with the contents of that week’s lesson. The membership is of fixed length - 3, 6, 9, or 12 months for example - and you may offer additional bonus lessons along the way.

The easiest way to take payment is with PayPal or Clickbank. You’ll also need an autoresponder system that customers opt into after they’ve signed up so they can receive your weekly messages. Clickbank offers the additional benefit of an affiliate program for your membership.

Alternatively, if you already have a 1shoppingcart.com (or private label) account, you can use its autoresponders and recurring billing to implement your membership. In this case, the customer wouldn’t need do the extra step of opting into an autoresponder since you can have that happen automatically within the cart system.

So, to offer this type of membership, you need to create content, link to each bit from a separate web page, and create an autoresponder series with a weekly message pointing to the next web page. Of course, there are tips and tricks around how to create the membership, attract customers, and keep them subscribed that Jimmy covers in detail in his membership. Check it out Jimmy’s Membernaire program.

2. Set up a membership site using Amember and PayPal

Amember is fairly simple and inexpensive membership software that is installed on your web server. It can tie easily to PayPal for subscription payments and creates a separate, passworded account for each subscriber. Only users who have a current subscription to a product can login and access its content.

Both within Amember itself and by using the many plug-ins available for it, it’s possible to set up many types of protected content, from simple web pages to Wordpress sites, Joomla sites, and sites with incremental content available over time, similar to the Fixed Term Membership described above.

Amember includes support for autoresponders and an affiliate program for your memberships. Learn more about Amember.

3. Set up a membership site using Amember and 1shoppingcart.com

By buying a plug-in for Amember, you can use 1shoppingcart.com or one of its private labels to implement your membership. In this case, you’d use recurring billing within the cart to automatically charge your customers.

If you don’t already have a cart account, this may not be the best solution for you since using Amember with PayPal will give you much the same functionality. I think the autoresponder system within the cart is a bit more user friendly, and the cart’s affiliate program has some additional features, but neither of these is reason enough to spend the extra money for the shopping cart.

However, if you already use the cart for other products you sell, you may want to use it for your membership, too. You’d be able to keep your customer list, autoresponders, and affiliates all in one system rather than split between Amember and your cart. This can make your life much easier as you grow your business.

You can learn more about this shopping cart and sign up for a free 30 day trial by looking under e-Commerce at the Practice Pay Solutions site.

Want More Help?

These are three of the easiest ways to get your membership going. Setting one up may still sound daunting to you. But you have friends here at Success With Ease who are experienced with all these methods and systems and would be glad to help you get your membership ready to take orders and deliver content in less time than you’d believe. Contact us for a free conversation about offering your own membership!

Jack was addressing a question about the Law of Attraction. The questioner said that it worked for her in small areas, but she hadn’t achieved the results she wanted in larger areas.

Jack talked about going on a rafting trip that might be 10 miles long, with vans at the end to bring you back to your car. What if you decided that, instead of putting your raft in at the starting spot, you’d get a ride down to about 50 yards from the ending point and put your raft in there? After all, you’d then achieve the result much sooner.

Of course, you’re saying, “Yeah, but I’d miss the whole rafting trip!” In this example, it’s obvious that the trip itself is what we really want to experience.

But isn’t that just as true in our business and personal lives? Do we really want to find the perfect mate and then leap ahead to dying within months of each other at age 90? Of course not! It’s the life lived together, with its inevitable ups and downs, that we value.

It might seem more attractive within the business environment to start a business, for instance, and immediately jump ahead to making heaps of money. I suggest that this isn’t as attractive in reality as it sounds. (Not that I haven’t enjoyed this fantasy more than once myself!)

Let’s look at a slightly different example. Most big-money lottery winners do not fare all that well. They just aren’t prepared for what life throws at you when you suddenly have a huge amount of money - especially when everyone knows it.

I watched an Oprah show several months ago that addessed this very issue and was struck by the fact that Oprah, while very rich, accumulated her wealth over time as her career and business became more and more successful. She was able to learn over time how to deal with the new circumstances that her growing fame and wealth created. Whereas her lottery winner guests received sudden windfalls and found they didn’t make very good choices for quite a while. They hadn’t had any learning curve, just a huge leap.

In the business arena, most very successful people have had to work for years for their success. Even when it seems sudden to us, they’ve often worked without much reward for a long time before their “overnight success”.

I believe the lessons we learn on the journey are important to have when we do achieve success. Even more than that, the journey itself is often more valuable than the result.

So the next time you feel as though you’re not attracting what you want in your life, make sure you’re

• very clear on what you want;
• focused on what you want rather than what you don’t want;
• putting your attention on what makes you feel good to help quiet the monkeys in your head that tell you you can’t have the results you want;
• are taking action that will move you in the right direction.

And remember to appreciate the journey. Sometimes it’s the best part!

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil without saying a word.

After about twenty minutes, she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl.

Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.  Turning to her daughter, she said, “Tell me what you see.”

“Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” her daughter replied.

Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard boiled egg.

Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted inhaled its rich aroma and tasted its full flavor. The daughter then asked, “What does it mean, Mother?”

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. Each reacted differently.

The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak.

The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened.

The ground coffee beans were unique, however.  While in the boiling water, they had changed the water.

“Which are you?” she asked her daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?

Think of this: Which am I? Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?

Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff?  Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and hardened heart?

Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you.  When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest, do you elevate yourself to another level? How do you handle adversity? Are you a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?

The happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.

May we all be coffee.

Typically, members pay a monthly fee for information and/or support. The deliverable can be as simple as a digital report each month, or as involved as a package of materials, teleclasses, and one on one coaching. Some high end memberships even include live meetings. I’ve seen memberships costing from $10/month to $297/month and more for “platinum” levels.

I think memberships are great for both providers and members when the content is high quality. In fact, I’m preparing one myself that will launch in a month or so. (Stay tuned…)

There’s a technique being used to enroll members, though, that I’m not so keen on. I’ve seen it employed by a number of internet marketers lately and actually seen it taught by one marketer I admire.

The practice I’m referring to is known as “forced continuity”. It usually looks something like this: You receive an email (or dozens of them) pulling you to a site offering some amazing content for a pittance - often just shipping and handling. Either at the bottom of the first sales page or at the top of the order page, you’re told that part of getting this content involves becoming a member of an ongoing program and you will be charged monthly. If you want the aforementioned amazing content, you must join this membership. That’s the “forced” aspect of it.

Of course, you can cancel the membership at any time after you place the order. The marketers are betting in the best case, you’ll find the membership content valuable enough to continue, or in the worst case that they’ll get several month’s payments before you remember to cancel.

This example reflects the “ethical” version of forced continuity. Some less than stellar characters notify you that you’ve been enrolled in a membership after you’ve paid. Clearly, this is not cool.

But I think even the “ethical” version is uncool. It feels like bait and switch advertising to me. All the promotions and the bulk of the sales letter is talking about the amazing content for an incredibly low price. (That should be our first clue, right?) It’s only after you’ve gotten excited about the amazing content that you learn about the membership and the marketers are hoping you’re excited enough to go through with the sale anyway by then.

I’d rather see what marketer Jimmy Brown calls “persuaded continuity”. He suggests selling an inexpensive product upfront, like the other marketers. After the sale, on the product download page, is where customers find out that due to their purchase, they’re entitled to a free trial membership. But they are NOT automatically enrolled. They have the choice to join or not.

So, while visitors are initially attracted by the low price product, they are only introduced to the membership after purchasing the product, and it is their choice whether or not to accept the free trial.

Jimmy’s purpose is still to get people to sign up for memberships, but his preferred method is to get their attention with the lead product and then persuade them to join the membership rather than to get people excited about the lead product and then threaten to take it away unless they join the membership.

The persuasion method feels cleaner to me. It’s less coercive, and let’s be honest. If your membership offers great content, you should be able to sell it on its merits without needing to “force” people into it. By offering a free trial, members can check it out and will stick with it if they find it worth the money.

I also believe you will build a much stronger relationship with members who have freely chosen to join than those who have been coerced into joining. It’s better business and better karma!

I’d be interested to know if any of you have run across these forced continuity offers. If so, did you buy the product and join the membership? How did you feel about this technique? If you didn’t buy, why not? Leave a comment and let me know.

• posting a blog entry
• sending an ezine or newsletter
• article marketing
• using Google AdWords
• search engine optimization (SEO)
• creating more incoming links to our web site

There’s a key strategy that’s more important than any of these. To be effective, they need to be done consistently over a period of time. Not one of these strategies will help your business if you focus on it once and then move on to another strategy.

So the most important aspect to marketing your business is to develop a system - a routine that helps you implement your chosen strategies consistently over time to yield the results you’re looking for.

As an example, I’ll share my weekly marketing routine. It includes several, but not all, of the marketing strategies listed above.

Monday: Post a blog entry.

This adds content to my site, and since my blog software automatically “pings” several dozen blog directories, links to the post on my site will be created in these directories. Also, I’ve set up a system that emails each blog post to my subscriber list, so this one action is leveraged in several ways.

Tuesday: Submit an article.

I use a service that submits my article to hundreds of article directories and ezine publishers. And the article is usually a slightly modified version of the blog post from Monday, further leveraging that content.

Wednesday: Add a message to all appropriate autoresponders.

I have various prospect and customer autoresponder lists. Often, we set up autoresponders with some initial messages, and broadcast messages to them when we have an announcement to make. But that leaves long periods of time when we’re not communicating with the people on these lists at all. So Wednesday’s task is to add a new message to the end of as many autoresponder series as appropriate. This message might sell the “original” product to a prospect list, or cross-promote another product to a prospect or customer list.

Thursday: Build joint venture or affiliate relationships.

This task could be creating a new affiliate resource or touching base with a JV partner. It could include research or initial contact with a potential JV partner. Or it might be writing a new JV partner agreement. The point is to support and build better relationships with those who have agreed, or might agree, to help sell my products.

Friday: Post comments on selected blogs and forums.

Using a list of blogs and forums with topics related to my business, find some posts where I can add a useful comment. I also use Google Alerts and some software to find additional appropriate blogs and forums to post comments to. This practice is beneficial in two ways. First, people who read these posts and find my comment valuable may decide to click my link and visit my site. Second, these links pointing to my site are helpful for SEO.

Currently, I’m implementing this weekly calendar myself, but clearly much of it can be done by an assistant or outsourced.

You may very well design a different set of marketing strategies for your business than I have for mine. In particular, mine are all online strategies and you may have offline marketing strategies as well. The point is to create a system that encourages you to be consistent over time in implementing your strategies or they just won’t work well.

Would developing a system like this work for your business? Tell me what you think.

When I started my first ezine - long, long ago! - I was a little worried, too. But I soon realized it wasn’t that hard if I kept in mind the various formats I could use.

Your content can include one or more of the following formats:

Editorials

You will become seen as an expert in your field. Use editorials to express an opinion and share your viewpoint on a topic. You can also write a chatty, personal piece to establish a rapport with your readers.

Feature articles

These can be by you or other people. The best length is 300-700 words – long enough to have valuable information and short enough to get read. The topic should be related to your business.

News clips or stories

This can be timely news in the area your business covers that would be of interest to your subscribers.

Aggregating other content

As an expert on your topic, you can research and gather information from books and/or websites and present it. This can save your subscribers a great deal of time and be seen as quite valuable.

Reviews

Beyond listing sources of information in your area, you can do in-depth reviews of books, websites, software, etc. This can be a great tie to affiliate programs to which you belong. Tell your readers specifically what is good and bad about the thing you review, making sure to be balanced. But do offer a recommendation about it. Should your reader check it out, or is it a waste of time?

Announcements

These can be about your company, website updates, or new products or services you’re offering.

Website updates

I’ve separated this out to mention it again because it’s key. You want to get people to keep coming back to your website. The more they visit, the more likely it is that they will buy something. So, mention new articles, new topics you’re covering within your theme, a contest, a free giveaway, a special discount, or a seasonal offer. Anything to get them to come back!

Interviews

Publishing an interview with an expert is valuable content and not hard to create. You’ll just need to plan ahead a bit. Pick an expert and get to know a bit about him or her so you can be a knowledgeable interviewer. Decide on a topic for the interview and prepare a list of questions. Ask your expert to do the interview. Usually, they’ll be willing in order to get the visibility as an expert in your blog or ezine. Email a copy of the questions to your expert and review the reply. Prepare the article with the responses and get final approval from your expert.

Q & A

You can have a regular or occasional article where you respond to questions your subscribers or clients ask. You can also make up your own questions and answer them!

Entertainment

It can be fun to occasionally offer a joke or story. On my blog, I’ll sometimes post a funny story, jokes, or a thoughtful story or article that reflects my own philosophy. You can do this instead of a business-related piece, or in addition to one. You just want to make sure you have the right proportion of business content to entertainment content over time.

Quotes

Many publishers include quotes that are relevant to the topic(s) covered in the current ezine or blog post.

If you keep a list of these styles of presenting information to your subscribers handy, you’ll have an easier time creating content for your next ezine issue or blog post.

If you have any other formats you’ve seen or used, post a comment and share!

If you’ve been a subscriber for a long time, you may recognize this story. I published it in my ezine many years ago and thought it was worth repeating.

Donkey in the Well

One day a farmer’s donkey fell down into a well.

The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do.

Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway;  it just wasn’t worth it to retrieve the donkey.

He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him.

They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the  donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone’s amazement he quieted down.

With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing.  He would shake it off and take a step up.

As the farmer’s neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up.

Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and happily trotted off!

Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well  is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a steppingstone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.

NOW…

The donkey later came back, and bit the farmer who had tried to bury him.  The gash from the bite got infected and the farmer eventually died in agony from septic shock.

MORAL FROM TODAY’S LESSON:

When you do something wrong and try to cover your ass, it always comes back to bite you.

Make it a good week!

When business slows down, it’s a great time to increase your marketing. Why? Two reasons.

First, you’re looking to get more business and one of the most effective ways to achieve this is through marketing.

Second, since so many other businesses are slowing down their marketing, any that you do for your business will stand out that much more and be even more effective than usual.

If your cash flow is lower than usual now, here are some inexpensive ways to market your business:

• Create and send an ezine regularly to your subscribers. If you don’t have an opt-in form on your website, get one, even if you need to pay a web professional to help you. Then send your subscribers valuable content on a regular basis to build a relationship with them. Nothing will help you economy-proof your business better than a loyal group of subscribers who will buy from you.

• Submit articles to article directories and ezine publishers. The easiest way to create these articles is to repurpose them from your ezine. I use my blog articles with a few modifications. You can submit articles manually - that certainly takes the least cash - but there are services and software to help you accomplish the submissions.

• Start attending more networking meetings. These groups are usually not expensive to join and can be very helpful. I’d focus on the ones that emphasize giving and receiving referrals rather than just generic meet-and-greet types of groups if your goal is to increase cash flow now.

• List your web site in the numerous web site directories. Start with http://www.dmoz.com which only accepts manual submissions. After that, you have the option of submitting your site manually or using a service. Once again, I suggest using a service. This is a one-time job for each site you have and should cost less than $150 for hundreds of submissions.

• Find blogs and forums to add comments. This is entirely free, but can be time consuming. You want to find blogs and forums who attract your target market, and then find posts within them where you have something useful to add to the conversation.

• Develop a presence on some of the social networking sites. I like Facebook and Twitter.  These types of sites can provide another way to build a following of people interested in you and what you have to offer.

• Maximize the effectiveness of your affiliate program. If you don’t have an affiliate program, set one up. If you already have one, create some additional resources - buttons, articles, email messages - to help your affiliates sell your products and send them a message telling them about the new tools. You can have a sales force out there advertising your products and you only need to pay them after they’ve help make sales.

• Similarly, think about joint venture partnerships. Reinvigorate any you already have, suggesting a new mailing to their lists. And look for additional partners with lists that would be willing to work with you.

• Seek out opportunities to speak before groups. These events could be trade show seminars, local business associations, or corporate luncheons - anywhere you can get in front of your target market. Speaking can be one of the best ways to get more business quickly.

Many inexpensive marketing activites are available for small businesses. Pick several that appeal to you and allow you to become visible to your potential customers and get busy!

If you have other low-cost marketing techniques you use, please leave a comment and share them with everyone.