The Duchess

Good morning, dear readers!

It’s a cloudy morning and chilly as the Duchess of Earle arrives at the Hampton Inn in Bloomington, MN, for the iNetGlobal AdPacs Rally.  This Rally will segue into an Millionaire Intensive Training (MIT) this afternoon and will continue tomorrow.

“iNetGlobal AdPacs Minneapolis Rally 

The iNetGlobal AdPacs Minneapolis Rally starts today.  You can join us LIVE at 9:00 AM Central.  Posted by Steve Renner on 11 15th, 2008 “

The Duchess is invited to assist in getting things going as people arrive today.  The room fills and people join the webcast online.

Steve Renner begins to address the group now assembled.  He talks about his beginnings on the internet and how Googling advertising a few years ago would have yielded one brick-and-mortar companies, but today will offer a wide variety of companies marketing online.  That is the way of the day and the wave of the future.

Steve starts out showing how he commands the internet with his blog posts.  He how many people promoted this rally and only one in the room raises their hand.  It’s the Duchess and, to her  great surprise, Steve takes a wad of green stuff out of his pocket, peels off a $20 and hands it to her.  There’s a happy surprise for having taken action!

Now he takes a photo of the people assembled in the room, transfers it from the camera to his computer and posts it up on his blog.

He talks about the need for having a marketing list.  A list of about 4000 addresses will generally bring at least a couple of thousand in income every month.  One can market many ways - have different lists for marketing different items.  As your list grows and you observe the buying patterns of your clients, you can make a list of the ones that faithfully purchase from you.  Dividing your list up like this is called segmenting your list. 

iNetglobal will host your domains - all for the monthly fee.  Your business can have as many as you wish at no additional hosting charge.  One iNetGlobal member has 1700 sites hosted here.  That’s a lot of sites!  Think what this fellow is saving himself in hosting fees by hosting with iNetGlobal!

Linking services are also provided by SEOLink.net.  These links are very valuable - they started out being free and now they cost money.  They can be expensive, too - even for a single link. 

Steve again shows how he commands the search engine results by his dominion over the search engine links.  He’s got the top listing for MIT Workshop, though not all the first page.  He says that, with a little effort, he could command the entire page - but there he is at the top without even working on it.

Another service he provides is BlogPros, which is comprised of half a dozen blogs that will bring links back to your site when you post on blogpros.net.  You create content for your self and then get it posted all over the internet, which makes it easier for your information to come up on the search engine results.  Even better, there will very soon be six more blogs added; shortly after that there will be another dozen blogs added to the service - and after that, within about 90 days, there will be another 24 blogs added.  One will be able to post to a single blog and then have it posted to them all, which will create a veritable TON of links coming back to one’s site.  Great way to get your page rank moving upward in a hurry!

V-Shops is a shopping cart service that has a built-in affiliate program.  This service is one of two iNetGlobal services that come at additional cost.   The second is V-Webcast, the web conference service.  These two services can be purchased for a reasonable cost and provide valuable services for your company.

The newest thing in the network of services offered by iNetGlobal is Cash Club, which is scheduled to launch today.  The email has not yet gone out, but it will definitely be going out yet this weekend.  We’ll all be able to sign up, along with those we invite to join us - and we’ll all earn rebates  on what we purchase at both major and local retailers - and commissions of 40% on the purchases of those we invite to join.

iNetGlobal also has AdPacs, which is an online advertising service.  Members surf websites of member businesses for 20 seconds (or stay on the site as long as they wish) before moving on to view the next site.  Surfing the minimum number of sites per day brings rebates on the your own advertising dollars and commissions on the advertising purchases of those to whom you market advertising.

@cesse.com  is the service that offers advertising on a search engine.  This service is still in beta phase at the moment, but will be formally launched within the next few months.  By that time, the search results will be as good as Google’s - and the cost of advertising on this search enging will be must less than Google’s.

OK - it’s break time, so the Duchess will send this posting into the ether.  Watch for more when we reconvene in a few moments!

This is a bit off the beaten path for the Duchess of Earle, but here goes:

A few days ago, the Duchess of Earle was out with her Duke, assisting him in the work he was doing refurbishing a leather sofa in a swanky home on the shores of Minnesota’s beautiful Lake Minnetonka.  On the way through the area after they were done, the Duke and Duchess stopped at the Bob’s Shoe Repair shop in Wayzata to say hello to the shop owner, Bob Fisher, from whom they have been receiving business referrals for a year or two.  (This began when Bob put up a sign in his front window saying that his shop now offers repair for leather furniture.  Bob himself only works on small leather goods and luggage, but he and his team graciously refer the big stuff on to the Duke - and Bob’s generosity has been indeed been a blessing.) 

Now, you may not know who Bob Fisher is, but if you live in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, you may recognize the name ‘Shoe Bob.’  And if you know that name, you may also recall that Bob has been engaged for some years now in raising funding for the homeless.  This all started out when he decided to sleep out in his tent in his back yard about a decade ago.  It all turned into a spiritual journey for Bob - and others in the Wayzata community - and a benefit for those in need.

While chatting with him that afternoon, Bob offered an invitation for the fund-raising event this year and the Duchess thought she would share it with you.  The invitation is for November 22nd.  Bob is teaming up with former Minnesota Twins player Corey Koskie to have a sleep-out in cars in the parking lot at the Wayzata Bay Shopping Center , which is the location of his storefront.  There will be festivities in the evening and, for those who hang in there over the night, breakfast with Bob and Corey in the morning.

This sleeping in cars stuff sounded like a novel approach to the Duchess, until she came across an article (in a recent AARP Bulletin - y’know those things they start sending you when you’re in your twenties - I guess they’re afraid they’re going to miss you when you get into your fifties and sixties, so they start early!) entitled, ‘No Place to call Home.’  This article begins with the story of a 55-year-old California woman who holds two jobs, but has lost the properties she once owned and is now sleeping in her car - unbeknownst to even her co-workers.  The piece goes on to tell of 1.6 million other Americans in the same boat - er, automobile - in the past twelve months. 

So the sleeping-in-the-car approach really is the real deal.  People really do this - especially those that have recently wound up in foreclosure.  Now that she gets to thinking more about it, the Duchess recalls reading about school children whose families live in cars after being forced from their rented homes without notice when the landlord lost the property to foreclosure.

So -back to Bob and the sleep-out in the cars under the stars.  The goal for that evening of November 22nd is to raise $56,000.  If you’re in the Twin Cities area and wish to help raise the funds, c’mon down and tell Bob the Duchess of Earle invited you.  Get some sponsors, so you can help put a dent in that $56,ooo they’re raising.  Then bring your food for the tailgating, wear your earmuffs and long handles for the chilly evening, toss your sleeping bag and pillow into the back seat - and oh! - bring your sweetie for moral support and a little extra warmth!           

It’s a pleasant, almost balmy for this time of year, fall morning as the Duchess of Earle arrives at Steve Renner’s Bloomington, Minnesota office.  Faithful Jonathan greets her at the door and they walk together into the room.  This morning the population in the room is unusually sparce, but she is warmly greeted and begins to set up her computer.  The aroma of coffee wafts from the breakroom next door and doughnuts are on the counter to tempt the eye and the palate.

Steve begins at length, talking about the early days of his business and how everything was free in those days.  They went on to pioneer the digital currency business; Cash Cards International has been his foundational business for about eight years.  Over those years, the business as a whole has expanded to include a whole suite of services - and it continues to expand.  Today the services include the cash cards, web hosting, seo link, blogpros, internet marketing training, autoresponder, shopping cart and affiliate program, webcasting, advertising - and now the soon-to-be-unveiled Cash Club, which will offer rebates from many, many companies, not to mention the opportunity to sign up others and earn 40% of what they buy as well.

SEO Links offers 17 directories and multiple links back to one’s site - an absolutely phenomenal deal, considering one can pay $50 per month for a single link. 

Blogpros, currently comprised of six blogs (but about to be expanded to a full dozen) is a blog content network that helps one get this own word out there.  Soon it will also offer full written posts and even comments to be posted.  There will be a re-introduction of Blogpros and it will have the new name of V-Blogs - oops! he let the cat out of the bag!  There will be an additional charge for this service after the first of the year, as with all things, as previously announced.  (You can get in now and pay $39.95/month to try it out, but after the first of the year there is a program with graduated costs, each gradation bringing with it additional services.)

He mentions that there is an ebook in the IMTrain materials that explains about the mini-network that one can set up with blogs.  It is called Revenge of the Mininet and was written by Mike Campbell (The Duchess checked and this book is no longer available for sale, so membership in iNetGlobal is a way to get a copy of this linking strategy teaching).  So iNetGlobal members, the Duchess recommends you join her in looking this little goodie up and learning how to make the system work.     

Finally, there is AdPacs advertising service, which allows marketers to increase the traffic to their sites.  This is a cooperative advertising network, as all that purchase advertising agree to look at others’ websites in exchange for others viewing their sites.  AdPacs have taken the surfing network beyond the scope of the average surfing network.  It reaches beyond the limited market of the surfing network by using a search engine of its own, for which members get credit when they conduct their searches on the search engine.  This search engine has yet to be declared officially online, but is being called acesse.

There is a really good financial opportunity in this program.  Earnings can be stellar for those willing to work the program. 

There is a Rally in Dallas next weekend, November 8th.  There will be a Rally in Minneapolis on November 15th.  This latter Rally will immediately segue into an MIT and more training will follow the next day.

Then, in response to questions and requests, Steve goes through how to post on SEO Links and Blogpros, which is a big help to the Duchess and others.  Now she thinks she’s got it and will be starting to utilize these most excellent services.

Well, that’s a wrap for today.  Oh - one last thing:  No webcast on Tuesday evening, as it is Election Day, a big day in America.  Don’t want to compete with people getting to the polls!

See you next week on the training calls and next Saturday on the Rally webcast from Dallas.  Until then, this is the Duchess signing off - have a great weekend!

It’s quiet in the room when the Duchess of Earle enters this morning.  Steve Renner and Jonathan are sitting at their computers, getting set up for the meeting.  There are welcoming words exchanged and then pretty soon, others begin to arrive.  The aroma of coffee wafts from the break room next door and a box of bakery confections awaits on the table to tempt the ones that showed up without breakfast. 

Renner begins to talk about how his business started: how they signed up 10,000 people within a week.  As his business progressed, he found that people were asking for training and that they were doing the same thing over and over in teaching them.  So he decided that he should set up a training system, which started out as The Affiliate Community (TAC) and then became Internet Marketing Train, or IMTrain.  In the wake of IMTrain, he began to add more and more services, opening up his entire business plan for sharing with his customers and students.  The addition of all the extra services led to a morphing of the business, because it called for an all-encompassing organization - and thus was born iNetGlobal.

The services included in iNetGlobal are Cash Cards International (the original foundation of his business), IMTrain, SEOLinks Network, Blogpros, V-Mail (autoresponder), AdPacs, V-Shops (shopping cart and affiliate program), V-Webcast.  All these services, with the exception of the latter two (which cost extra) come to a member at a monthly subscription price - a steal of a deal - of $39.95 (!) per month. 

The lifeblood of any internet business is traffic.  If you had the best-looking billboard in the world, but it was located in the middle of the desert, all your efforts to create that wonderful sign would be in vain because no one would see it.  So the AdPacs program was started in order to offer the opportunity to internet marketers to easily increase traffic flow to their website.  Put your site up on AdPacs and inside of ten minutes, there will be more people viewing your site.

Other ways to increase traffic to your website include setting up an affiliate system, buying traffic, borrow traffic or you can do what Renner refers to legally “stealing” traffic by the means of smart marketing.  This latter technique involves positioning your business such that it diverts traffic to your site.  This involves a learned skill - which is where his education comes in.  He offers training in his 2-day course, which he calls MIT, or Millionaire Internet Training.

His system is affordable and offers people the opportunity to get their businesses online without great expense.  It’s very expensive to advertise on the likes of Google and this fact excludes a lot of businesses that have little to no advertising budget. 

He goes to the iNetGlobal website and selects AdPacs on the menu.  AdPacs offers three ways to advertise: surf, search and content.  Advertisers earn up to 50% in rebates on their advertising, plus online advertising credits for their business. 

One can participate in the program for free, show one site and surf to earn credits that enable one to show their site.  As a customer, one can earn up to 50% on what one spends in advertising.   If one chooses to become a distributor of this system, there is a five-level program one can enter.  This marketing program has reasonable monthly volume requirements with increasing benefits for performance.  See the chart below.

AdPacs Member Levels

AdPacs can handle all of your Online Advertising needs!

Individuals and businesses considering this program should be clearly aware that this is NOT a paid-to-surf type program.  The benefits of this program, which - as the Duchess can attest - can bear much fruit, are based on sales. 

He goes to the new soon-to-be-launched search engine, www.acesse.com .  He illustrates how members can advertise on the search engine, the same way that they can advertise on Google.  But the cost will be much more reasonable.  This search engine also offers a benefit that Google doesn’t offer - the ability to earn for utilizing the search engine. 

At this point, Renner’s spiders are indexing about 8,000,000 pages per day and have been at it for about a month.  They still have a long way to go to get to everything that’s out there, but they’re well on their way. 

Costs initially will be based on the amount bid for the advertising.  Later they will develop a more complex system for determining who gets to advertise.  But with this new search engine, it presents a perfect opportunity for a newbie to learn how to utilize search engine advertising and have it be a lot kinder to the business pocketbook. 

So, how does one make money with AdPacs, anyway? 

The plan is called a differential program.  One enters at the base level and earns their way up the ladder.  Those above the newly sponsored person/business earn the difference in the earnings on a particular sale.

Here’s the chart posted on the website about what the program offers:

Level		Gold	Platinum	Diamond	Blue Diamond
Total Pay-Out		17%	18%	19%	25%
Requires $100 Personal Sales Volume Per Month (Minimum)
		3-Distributors	3-Gold VIP	3-Platinum VIP	3-Diamond VIP
		7%	8%	9%	10%
Distributor		4%	5%	6%	7%
Gold		- -	3%	4%	5%
Platinum		- -	- -	3%	4%
Diamond		- -	- -	- -	3%
Blue Diamond		- -	- -	- -	3%
		Infinity Bonus
		2%	3%	4%	5%
		Down To The Next Gold	Down To The Next Platinum	Down To The Next Diamond	1% 5 Generations Of Blue Diamonds
**PSV = Personal Sales Volume Required To Be “Active” (Qualified For Commissions)

Revenue Share Rebates And Rewards

Note: It is not possible to make a profit by simply buying AdPacs and surfing websites. 
Surfing can generate a rebate on someone’s AdPac purchases, and they can get credits
for AdPacs, but it is impossible to make a profit simply through buying and / or surfing. 

Copyright 2008 iNetGlobal.Com

Now, Renner realizes that not everyone is a sales person, so he is working to make it easy to bring people aboard.  Therefore, he is launching a new program called Cash Club, which offers rebates from one’s online purchases at major companies, such as Target, Macy’s, Best Buy,  and MANY more.  In addition, when one invites others to join the free program, one also earns money on what those folks purchase - 40%!

Steve invites some testimonials from some of us sitting in the room - Andy Anderson, Jim Eng and the Duchess of Earle herself. 

Then he fields questions:  When will Cash Club be available?  They were hoping to unveil it next weekend in Miami, but it is not looking as though it will be ready that fast.  But it will definitely be ready for the holiday shopping season - likely it will be ready for the Rally in Dallas Nov. 8th. 

In Miami, there will be a gathering Friday evening.  They will be broadcasting next Saturday, starting a 9 AM Eastern, and the meeting will run until 4 PM.  After that, in the evening, there will be a party and dancing.  

Any new member that signs up and purchases a package will be matched 50%.  They have one more opportunity for a match, which is 100%, if they attend a live event.  Sponsors also get a match, the amount of which depends upon your rank.

Well, that’s a wrap!  The Duchess and the iNetGlobal team bid you adieu until Tuesday evening.  Have a great weekend! 

It’s Tuesday night again and the Duke and Duchess of Earle, along with their friend, Merryn Flavell, arrive at the Bloomington office of Steve Renner, the internet marketing visioneer and founder of iNetGlobal and AdPacs.

Renner isn’t going to spend a lot of time on the particulars of his suite of products this evening, but he is going to dwell on the newest program in his wide world of internet marketing.  It’s called Cash Club - if you’ll recall the Duchess mentioned it last week and mentioned that you’re invited to get ready to sign up for it in about the next ten days or so. 

Cash Club offers cash back on purchases from both local and national stores.  There is also the opportunity to earn on what your recruits purchase.  They can sign up too - it’s free and you’ll make money on what your sponsorees purchase.  Great program!

The other exciting thing that’s getting closer to being unveiled is Renner’s new search engine, which is called www.acesse.com .  There will also be plenty of opportunity to advertise on acesse.  He shows how to go into one’s AdPacs site and how to set up the ads.  There is a four step process that will get your ads launched.  The word is going to get out quickly, Steve says, that there is inexpensive advertising available on acesse. 

There will also be a blog widget coming out within the next week or so.  It just keeps getting better and better! 

Then he shares the AdPacs marketing program, wherein one can surf and earn 75% of one’s advertising expenses back.

Cash Cards International is a digital currency company, which offers your company the opportunity to pay its affiliates around the world.

There also is IMTrain, SEOLinks Network, Host2Profits, Blogpros, V-Shops, V-Mail, V-Webcast.  Access to all of these programs is available for one reasonable price, with the exception of V-Shops and V-Webcast, for both of which there is an additional charge.

There is also an excellent opportunity to build an organization in iNetGlobal.  One can begin as a Distributor and build his/her way to a large, profitable business. 

Traffic is the key to internet marketing.  You can have a billboard, but if it’s located in the desert and no one drives by, you’re not really in business.  You can buy traffic.

One way to buy traffic is to join the AdPacs program as a free surfer, where one can show one site and surf from 24-100 sites per day and thereby earn credits to advertise.  If one signs up as a paying customer, one can show an unlimited number of sites and earn up to 50% in rebates.  There are additional levels that take one up to a maximum of 75% rebates.

But there are also rewards available, which can take the total funds/credits that come back to the advertiser up to a maximum of 125%.   This is based upon one’s membership level.

Steve gets a request to create a widget on AdPacs and so he walks us through the process of making a widget for Merryn’s online university, Flavell International University.  When it is complete, he posts it on his own blog.  Then he shows the group how one fellow puts a large ad in each of his blogposts.

Well, that’s a wrap for this evening.  Everybody grabs a cookie (not the virtual kind!) before they head into the cool fall evening.

Well, troops, this is it!  It’s crunch time!  Time for the Duchess of Earle and her fellow students to get set up so we’re ready to roll when the MIT Worship Live is over! 

Not much time for the Duchess to type notes to share.  We’re all working like crazy getting our stuff set up, helping each other, working to get past computer glitches and lack of experience or understanding.  Steve is going step by step, walking us all through the path of getting set up.

He counsels not to make photos any bigger than 400, as they get distorted and will “mess up your blog,” Steve says. 

We go over buying a domain, setting up the hosting, getting into the cpanel and setting up a blog.  Next we discuss choosing a theme for your blog.  Then there are widgets and banners for advertising - and an autoresponder.  He tells us that there is a program that we have access to in iNetGlobal that offers all the different kinds of letters that we’ll need for the autoresponder system.  Hooray!  That means, even if we want to write our own letters, at least we have some guidelines to go by.

The class is supposed to be over at four, but we’re all trying to jam in so much this afternoon that it isn’t done until closer to five.  And then, by the time all is packed up and put away and everyone has traded the last contact information and said their goodbyes - it’s after six. 

Whew!  It’s been a very busy two days!  But this Duchess is grateful for the greater understanding she has gained and is ready to go out and tackle more aspects of internet marketing.  She feels emboldened to progress beyond what she has heretofore attempted - and that’s a good thing!  Matter of fact that’s a GREAT thing!  Thank you, Steve!

She also earnestly hopes, dear reader, that you have been able to glean some nugget from what she’s shared of the proceedings of this past weekend.

And at this point, she’ll bid you good night and wish you a wonderful week ahead.  For the Duchess of Earle and her Duke, this new week holds the arrival of the newlyweds back from their honeymoon.  It will be fun to hear of their adventures on the Florida Keys!

P.S.  Here follows what Steve wrote on his blog in the wake of the class.  Check out the photo - you’ll be able to see why that conference room was bursting at the seams!  (FYI - The Duchess is in the middle row, immediately to the left of Mr. Renner, who is in the middle of that row.)

“We had an Incredible weekend here at the MIT Workshop Live. This was the Best MIT Ever. We had an excllent group, many who flew in from around the country to attend.

MIT Workshop Minneapolis October 2008

“To me the best thing about MIT is to see the “Light Bulbs” go off as new Internet Marketing students start to put it together and unravel the mystery to Marketing Online.

“We covered a lot of material, and as usual it was Total Information Overload. But I like the 2 Day format, and I think it’s just right so people don’t get totally overwhelmed.

“I want to thank all the Students who were here and I look forward to seeing you all again soon, and especially to see what you put together in your own Online Business.”

It’s a humid, cloudy Sunday morning as the Duchess of Earle makes her way from west to east across Bloomington, MN for day two of the MIT Workshop Live with Steve Renner.  It’s a bit slower trip this morning, as I-494 eastbound is closed for the weekend as the crews work on the bridge at Lyndale Avenue.

Everybody arrives a few at a time and gradually settle in, chatting and grabbing coffee and sweet rolls.  About 9:15 Mr. Renner commences to talk about how your online business works.

Establish yourself as a brand on the internet - you don’t have a sales page yet.  Start building your list with a squeeze page so when you offer a product you’ve got people to ‘talk’ to about your offer. 

The basic order of things is:  get the customers on your list (capture their information), make a compelling offer, collect the funds, and follow up with other items. 

Amongst the students, only one has their payment system set up.  That student is using Paypal, which has been purchased by Ebay.  Paypal is a digital currency system, as is Renner’s own V-Cash and Cash Cards International.  Steve points out a difference between Paypal’s system and that of V-Cash:  Paypal has direct access to one’s bank account and V-Cash does not.  Another processing company is 2Checkout.

He says one can always adjust their process as they go, but encourages everyone to “get it out there” and give it a try.  “The fortune is in the followup!” he says.  “Write that down!”  Don’t always try to sell them something - send them things for free at least once a week, things such as informational items.  Write your emails as though you are talking to your good friends.  Eventually there won’t be email, because it will all be RSS feeds that one subscribes to.

Next topic to be addressed is the students’ homework.  Steve asks for volunteers and finds one.  Keywords for the businesses are scrutinized and then a list is made to use in creating statements that will draw the readers’ attention when they land on the page.  Steve writes a headline on the board, then stands back to take a look at how it can be improved.  Students offer suggestions and discussion follows.  He talks about the great need for a compelling offer on the page.  People click on through when there is not compelling offer.  Offer a guarantee for your product - be confident in it and tell them you’ll give them their money back if they’re not satisfied.  Make it simple and easy to buy.  If possible, get testimonials from clients or documentation that substantiate your claims. 

The students are given fifteen minutes to complete their headlines.  Then we start working together on the headlines they have produced - crafting the lines so that they draw the readers’ attention.  Up until today the Duchess rather objected to the term “capture page” - it sounded to her too much like warfare.  But this has given a new perspective - one of capturing attention more in the sense of attracting attention, which, in the Duchess’ view, is a far more positive thing than imprisoning it.

After all students have had their headlines looked at, we name our keyword lists and are told it’s time to name our keyword list.  Then we announce it and invite folks to sign up for it.  A 20% conversion rate would be considered good.

Go to all the search engines and sign up with them to advertise.  Concentrate on one thing and promote it.  Have a series of emails ready to send those that sign up on your list.  They are available in the IMTrain materials - in the “Follow-up System in a box.”  It’s one of the many benefits of belonging to iNetGlobal and IMTrain - there is a veritable TON of information at the members’ fingertips.  All one has to do is open the website and look for it! 

Headline, subhead and offer are the first three paragraphs on your capture page. 

 Well, it’s lunch time.  When we come back from lunch, we’ll be setting up our blogs and autoresponders.  It’s off to Ikea for a chicken wrap and a cookie!  See you soon!

After the MIT Workshop breaks for lunch there are cookies awaiting in the break room - chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, English toffee and more -a tasty treat to finish the lunch hour and start the afternoon session.

This section of the day is devoted to business systems.  The object of this class is to get your own business systems going.  With this program, the student gets a domain and hosting for a year. 

A discussion about website appearance ensues.  Steve cites some of the less attractive sites he’s seen, which shall remain nameless here.  He also says some of them, in spite of their lack of pulchritude, still make a ton of money.

For your system, you’ll need a squeeze page, branding site and sales page.  The whole internet is based on keywords, which is how people find you on the internet.  He shows a squeeze page for one of his businesses, pointing out the layout of the copy on the page, saying (with a grin) how carefully the whole thing is laid out.  He has put his own success testimonial on the page, so that readers will know that he’s a real person - it builds credibility, especially since he includes his contact information. 

The branding site shows people who you are - he suggests having a blog for the branding site, so that your readers can get acquainted with you and your brand.  The average site has about five pages.  He suggests droople or joomla to create blogs - they don’t require a lot of high-tech skills to run those systems.  They’re easy to learn and run. 

People who go to the internet are looking for information and they type in keywords.  The search engine takes the keywords and looks for those words in order to bring back appropriate results.  They’ll be taken to a branding site.  From there, the advertiser can have multiple squeeze pages (also called landing pages), each one geared to a particular keyword.  Once the prospect opts in on the squeeze page, they are taken to the sales page.  When a person opts in, your autoresponder receives the names and addresses and sends out emails to the prospects.  Mail them regularly until they buy from you.  Once they buy, move them to another list, for the next stage of marketing. 

There are other kinds of pages, but these three are the types for a basic systsem.  First order of business is setting up the branding page lets them know who you are - and even how big you are as a company.  For the hosting of your website, there is something called a cpanel - the control panel, in other words.  Your first job for your business is to be the visionary and run the business, but if you’re not yet in a position to hire it done, you’ll have to learn how to run the cpanel.  Your website is your virtual office and you’ll need to do the simple things that you’d have to do in a real brick and mortar storefront: sweep the floor, change the light bulbs, etc.  But with a website, all these maintenance issues are accomplished through the cpanel. 

Set up your blog as your branding site (such as the Duchess has done) and create your personal or corporate identity, whichever the case may be.  You’ll need content on your site and this should be comprised of your keywords.  Content on your site is critical for assisting search engine seekers to find you.  Figure out your niche of the marketplace and then find out what keywords are being searched for in that niche.  Your keywords are the basis for your content.  Content comes in many forms: articles, books, videos, etc.  Mostly you want to focus on words, however, because the search engines read words, not graphics.  “Content is king on the internet,” says Renner.

In order to get your blog started, you’ll need to get at least 25 posts going.  Put in major power articles - about four or five of them - on your topic(s).  How do you get these articles?  You can get articles from the IMTrain section of iNetGlobal and write something for the front and back ends of the articles and publish them (this is because as an iNetGlobal member you have the rights to utilize and publish those articles).  Also the government employs people to generate content of behalf of the government - and it all belongs to the taxpayers and is usable as content.  Put up stories about your company and product.    This creates content for your market niche.

You can also make videos, upload them to online video sites and they will be available within minutes. 

“Do follow” sites are the kind of sites you want to post your items, because the search engines will follow those links.  Some sites “do not follow” and you’re after the ones that do, because they offer links back to your site, which helps build your site in the “eyes” of the search engines.

Postings on your blog need to be indexed by the search engines.  There are many different bookmark sites that will ping for your blogpost.  The key to being linked up is getting your posts ‘pinged’ and the search engines alerted that there is new information showing.  This is highly important for getting your site notice.

Steve takes us to our cpanel, to the AWStats, which shows the site’s activity.  It’s a fun and interesting look at who has been looking at your site and where they’re from.  The Duchess was quite surprised the first time she ever looked at her stats - there were people from all over the world looking at her site - whodathunk that the li’l ol’ Duchess would reach such a far-flung group!  And she was even more surprised (not to mention pleased) when people from those far-flung places began signing up with her!  (Hey - making friends around the world is FUN!)

Next on the list of tasks is taking the MIT Tools disc that each student is given and opening it up on one’s computer. 

The first thing we’re going to do is get the squeeze page; then the branding site and sales pages.  After that there needs to be a way to collect payment, so accounts need to be set up.

What makes a good squeeze page?  It should be short and simple - keep it to just a page, beginning with a bold and compelling headline.  The opt-in box should be obvious on the page.  Stress that you are anti-spam and that their information is secure, that you will never sell their private information. 

Your branding site has a name, term, design/logo or some feature that distinguished your product/service from what’s available on other sites.  Branding can be done with your blog - it doesn’t have to be a formal website.

Then he discusses sources for good keywords, which is pretty important, of course.  If you’re in a highly competitive market, you may not want to use the top keyword listings.  Try going down the line a ways and pick keywords with a longer tail.  For example, on the post for his blog today, which was titled “MIT Workshop Live,” he chose the longer tail name instead of just going for “MIT Workshop.”  This is because he can get ranked for the former title a lot faster than for the latter.

It is important to get feeder sites - create your own mini-internet of content about your materials. 

Here’s our assignment for the evening:

Get your keywords - at least 50

Come up with a 15-30 word descritpion for your website

Come up with list of power words

Most searched for terms on the internet:  MySpace, Google, Yahoo, Ebay and sex.  Take into consideration the traffic potential for a particular keyword and make sure you’re working with words that aren’t too heavily targeted, as those words are difficult to rank for.

Well, that’s a wrap for today.  The Duchess of Earle will see you tomorrow morning at the MIT Workshop Live!

Well, troops, the big day has come and gone.  Life can get back to normal - at least a bit! :)  

In appreciation for the grand time we had at our groom’s dinner on Friday evening, the Duchess penned these words today: 

                                                                                                               October 6, 2008

To: Managers of the Catering and Banquet Departments

Embassy Suites Hotel

34th Ave. South and I-494

Bloomington, MN   

To All Whom it May Concern: 

This letter is sent to you in appreciation for your staff.  Here are some pertinent details: 

We have worked with Erika LaDousa to plan our groom’s dinner, which was this past Friday evening, October 3.  Erika has been a pleasure to work with - patient with questions and issues that have arisen.   

So far as the room preparations on the day of the event went, she had told us that we could show up any time that day to decorate the room and tables (as there were no other events scheduled in there that day).  When we arrived, things weren’t as far along as we expected, but Krystal was there and she said that her team would put things in order for us when all was set, so we took the decorating so far as we could and then left the favors and other items in her hands.  Well, I can tell you we were really impressed and pleased at what she and her team (Shannon, Alejandra and Gramma Sue) had accomplished when we came back with our group after the rehearsal.  It was more beautiful than I’d ever thought it would be!  They had used different candles - ones that better fitted the candle rings that I’d brought, decorated them  and the tables with the autumn leaves we’d provided, added things that created greater ambiance - it was just lovely!  They went out of their way, I feel, to make it a special evening for us and for our guests. 

In addition, Krystal and the kitchen staff were very responsive to the particulars of our situation because, as it turned out, the rehearsal was delayed in getting started by about 45 minutes.  So our arrival at the hotel was similarly delayed - and actually, it was even more than that because most had traffic troubles on I-494 in coming from the church.  She was on the ball at every stage, asking me how I’d like to proceed, giving me her cell phone number so that I could keep her posted on our situation, staying on top of things all the way through the evening.  Impressive!

 I sincerely hope you give your staff the kudos they deserve - and that you pay them well for their efforts!  They are great folk and have a very “can do,” positive attitude that makes them wonderful to work with. 

I also would like to mention that the staff in the restaurant is laudable for their daily efforts as well.  We have been meeting with Dreambuilders Club at the hotel every week since the first of June, including having dinner in the restaurant most every Monday evening, and every one of them has been courteous, helpful and offered excellent service.   

So, we are writing to tell you that you have built a superior team and we are most grateful to be the recipients of their outstanding efforts, both every week and this past weekend.  In this day and age of diminishing services and social graces, this fact is certainly worthy of remark.  Please accept our hearfelt thanks.  We will certainly be making others aware of the great service your staff provides. 

Sincerely, 

The Duke and Duchess of Earle

contact@duchessofearle.com