How to Build Trust in Social Media Marketing

How much is trust worth? How much is word-of-mouth worth? We know that people don't trust TV ads like they used to. And, journalism gets murkier by the minute. So, how can you still reach people and build trust?

Nielsen surveyed over 250,000 internet consumers from 50 countries and found:

• Recommendations from personal acquaintances or opinions posted by consumers online are the most trusted forms of advertising.
• 90% or consumers surveyed noted that they trust recommendations from people they know.
• 70% trusted consumer opinions posted online.

These numbers are staggeringly positive! At the heart of social media marketing is "trust" marketing. How do you cultivate this? How do you showcase it? How do you help your biggest fans amplify it?

What can you do starting this week to cultivate trust online?

• Showcase your latest case study on Facebook. Tell a story!
• Ask your Client/Customer base to Tell a Friend about your Website. Give them a pair of movie tickets as a way of saying thanks.
• Put a rating system in place for your products. Let the fans attract the business.
• Invite key bloggers in your industry to experience your product/service.

Keep an ongoing list of ways you can build trust online, and leverage your current network whenever possible. Just be sure to give back. It always comes full circle.

Hope you have found this article helpful. Please feel free to leave me a comment.

To Your Success,

Chad Timothy
http://www.softwarebillionsclub.com/
http://www.chadtimothy.com/
Chad Timothy's 500K Instant Cash Flow System

20 SURE- FIRE Tips For Optimizing Time Spent on Social Media Sites by Chad Timothy

In respect to your time reading this, I’m going to keep the tips brief and to the point.

1. Become a search ninja. Search really matters to be ultra-successful in social, and knowing all the specific Google operators can help you get to what you need for your marketing efforts fast (such as content creation that requires research).

2. Unfollow those who don’t add value or aren’t important to your network. This tip isn’t for a brand or company seeking to make themselves accessible to the world at large, but for you as a marketer personally. How many times have you logged into Twitter, Facebook or FriendFeed – even just after a few hours of being away – and felt totally lost in the conversation. Unless you’re going to devote your life to watching the stream, make sure that who you’re following is actually worth your time.

3. Unsubscribe to all RSS feeds that aren’t unmissable. RSS is the perfect, simple way to keep track of relevant feeds, but over time your reader can become bloated. We’ve all logged into reader and seen Google display the euphemistic “1,000+ unread items” before. This isn’t very fun – so be sure to keep your subscription signal-to-noise ratio positive.

4. Learn to skim. As marketers, there just isn’t time to read everything fully. Learn to skim past the noise and recognize when there are conversations and content worth your time to read carefully. On the flip side, make your own content scanable to entice readers to skim. Done properly, this should increase engagement and draw people in deeper.

5. Establish a set of trusted sites to read frequently. No matter what niche you’re interested in, you absolutely must identify the trusted, valuable sites in that area. Read their content carefully, as in many cases, those at the top are the conversation starters for those in the tail. In other words: Following the leaders can keep you at the forefront of the greater conversation.

6. Audit your time. Calculate how much time you spend daily in different areas of the social web. It adds up, and no one is immune to losing time. Carefully audit just where your time is going and realign efforts to the areas that make a different in achieving objectives.

7. Automate where it makes sense, but do so carefully. Setting up feeds to auto-tweet when you add new content to your blog or share something in Google Reader may make sense. But careful not to automate things like direct messages, something that may irk those on the receiving end.

8. Analyze how people react to the content you create or share. Look at what content archetypes your community reacts to, learn from them, adjust and sharpen as you go forward.

9. Realize there is no information overload. Learn to navigate the unstoppable river of real-time information.

10. Aggregate social content about your company, brand or even yourself into a real-time feed using one of the many tools available to do this. Bring the relevant mentions to you instead of always searching for them.

11. Consolidate your network presence keep your posts short and to the point.

12. Learn the ebbs and flows of content in a niche and what networks, sites and users matter. Get an understanding of how your corner of the web works, and in time you’ll develop an understanding for how it functions at the macro level.

13. Develop an efficient routine for your time spent in the social web. This will allow you to know how much time each set of tasks and updates take and allow you to become more efficient each day. With that said, as marketers it is also important to understand that we all use the web differently. So if you’re going to do this for efficiency’s sake, continue to explore other tools, trends and options. You can be efficient with your core functions but still experiment.

14. Make your processes simple. No one is going to argue against copying and pasting being the best social media tool. There’s a reason for that: It’s dead simple. Make your time spent on social media as a participant and contributor as simple as the idea of copy-pasting content.

15. Use only the essential tools. With a constant slew of new apps being developed, it’s easy for marketers to get shiny new object syndrome. And while you should be trying new things out, you should get to the point you’re only using the tools daily that are essential to your core purposes in the social web.

16. Don’t multitask. If you want to do things like develop killer blog content, you have to turn off Twitter, walk away from email and focus. Social media makes it all too easy to multitask, but the results of your efforts will be sub-par compared to those who focus.

17. Cross-pollinate content sharing. Do things like sharing StumbleUpon or Digg links in Twitter – encourage users from one network to share content in another. Get creative with how you do this and make it subtle or even invisible.

18. Embrace imperfection. Part of social media means, well, being social. And our social interactions are by their very nature imperfect. Some of the best blogs on the planet are hardly perfect, but that’s not what makes them compelling.

19. Eliminate busy work. Identify where the valuable, creative opportunities are that resonate with your key audiences. Now focus there – the rest may be busy work that can be trimmed.

20. Quality over quantity – more participation does not trump higher-quality participation. As the social web continues to grow, this will only become more important.
This is certainly a shortlist, so I’ll turn it over to the readers: What’s your best tip for optimizing time spent in social media?


I hope you found this article useful. Feel free to leave me a comment.

To Your Success,

Chad Timothy
http://www.softwarebillionsclub.com/
http://www.chadtimothy.com/
Chad Timothy's 500K Instant Cash Flow System

6 KILLER INTERNET MARKETING WEAPONS YOU CAN USE ON A SHOESTRING BUDGET - BY CHAD TIMOTHY

I have some useful tips for you. When many people consider of Internet marketing, they consider customarily of websites. Are they right or wrong? Well both. While websites have been the pass member of Internet offered as well as in many cases have been the customarily Internet offered apparatus businesses use, they have been not the “be all, finish all”. They have been not compulsory for Internet marketing. However, we do rarely suggest them as they have been many appropriate matched to lay during the core of your Internet offered plan, the heart so to speak, though that’s the subject for an additional conversation.

So here have been 7 torpedo Internet offered collection which we can exercise upon the shoestring bill but carrying to have the website of your own:

1. Email Marketing – When scrupulously implemented, there substantially isn’t the quicker, better, as well as reduction costly proceed to stay in front of your prospects as well as clients than to precedence the energy of email. You can literally reason a total volume of prospects as well as clients with the singular click – how’s which for power?!

2. Blogs – Blogging is the good apparatus when we would similar to step it up the nick as well as stay in consistent hit with your prospects as well as clients. Some ideas upon how to have use of it competence be to post what’s brand new with we or your business, post ominous calm as the value-add to your clients, or reason as well as interactive forum with your clients geared towards bargain how to improved offer them.

There have been the handful of giveaway or low price blog hosts out there which unequivocally have this routine elementary (e.g. Blogger as well as TypePad).

3. Article Marketing – This is the unusual proceed to bringing notoriety, seductiveness as well as in conclusion leads for many sorts of businesses. It can be used as the vital differentiator or value-add upon because someone should buy from we instead of your competitors. Whether your clients have been local, regional, inhabitant or tellurian — articles have been unstable as well as serviceable in all situations — that’s partial of their charm.

4. eZines – Much similar to blogs as well as essay marketing, eZines have been good proceed to stay in reason with your prospects upon the some-more scheduled basis. Additionally, they have been substantially the foregoer in assisting we rise the list of prospects to marketplace as well as sell your wares.

5. Affiliate Programs — Get others compelling as well as offered for you. This apparatus can turn the homogeneous of carrying both the full blown offered as well as sales staff which gets paid upon performance. They don’t foster as well as without delay lead to the sale for you, they don’t get paid. For the do-it-yourselfers, there have been copiousness of collection out there to assistance we set up this sort of program. For everybody else, there have been glorious use providers out there who can coordinate as well as conduct this routine for you (e.g. Clickbank as well as Commission Junction).

6. Viral Marketing – Again, the good proceed for removing others to foster as well as assistance emanate the hum about you, your business, your products and/or your services. The best, many genuine proceed to get this proposed is by formulating vehemence fans out of your existent clients as well as afterwards assisting them assistance we widespread the word.


I hope you found this article useful. Feel free to leave me a comment.

To Your Success,

Chad Timothy

http://www.chadtimothy.com/

http://www.softwarebillionsclub.com/

Chad Timothy's 500K Instant Cash Flow System

Internet Marketing Made Easy for the Newbies

There are so many internet marketing possibilities for promoting an online business, or even a traditional business. The ability to engage in internet marketing has truly opened the door for women in business and has made working from home a lot easier than it used to be.

Internet marketing can be much less expensive than traditional marketing and it can reach a huge, precisely targeted audience. Because there are no geographic barriers in internet marketing, it is truly possible to do business worldwide and to sell anything from anywhere, even from the comfort of your own home. Following is a simple explanation of some of the most common internet marketing options that you can use to promote your business.

Article Distribution

Distributing professional articles with a resource box that directs readers to your website is a very valuable and effective method of internet marketing. The articles can be given away with permission to reprint at-will under the terms that the article content and resource box cannot be changed. Many website operators will post these articles on their websites which will direct visitors to your website as well as enhancing your internet marketing link campaigns.

Directory Listings

Directory listings are a form of internet marketing that can be very useful. Directories are a lot like search engines, only listings in the directories are managed and ranked by people rather than by automated, electronic means. Many directories accept directory listings free of charge, so they can be an inexpensive and effective form of internet marketing.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is a viable internet marketing technique that is very similar to direct mail. Generally, it is best for internet marketing messages sent via email to be sent to opt-in or subscriber lists. However, third party lists can be purchased for the purpose of email marketing.

If using third-party lists, check into how the email addresses were collected and make sure that they are truly targeted lists with content gathered from individual who opted to receive information relevant to what you are sending.

Ezine Advertising

Ezine advertising, as an internet marketing option, is a lot like advertising in a magazine; only the “magazine” is delivered to subscribers electronically rather than through the mail. Companies that distribute online newsletters often sale advertising in their newsletters as well, and some may even trade out for an advertisement in your newsletter.

Link Campaigns

Building links to your website from other websites that have information relevant to your target market should be a part of your internet marketing plan. Link popularity, the number of links coming in to your website, and link relevancy, the relevance of the website that is linking to you, can improve your website ranking in the search engines as well as directing targeted traffic to your site.

Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing

Pay-per-click search engine marketing is one of the most successful forms of internet marketing. Basically, pay-per-click search engine advertising is a process whereby you bid on specific keywords that will direct targeted traffic to your website. You are listed in the search engines based upon the amount you bid for the keyword. You are charged the bid price each time a visitor clicks on the search engine listing, through to your website. This is a good internet marketing option because you only pay for successful click-through’s which result in traffic to your website.

Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing is a much preferred internet marketing option because the majority of visitors to just about any website come via the use of a search engine. Search engines use what is called spiders or crawlers which are really just software programs that index websites and determine their relevance, based on the search engine’s rules, to the information a person using an internet browser is looking for.

There are also meta search engines that draw from the results of other search engines, and specialty search engines that are geared to a particular topic or industry. To get listed in search engines, a website needs to be optimized and submitted to the search engines. Major search engines include Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Alta Vista and others.


I hope you found this article useful. Feel free to leave me a comment.

To Your Success,

Chad Timothy
http://www.chadtimothy.com/
http://www.softwarebillionsclub.com/
Chad Timothy's 500K Instant Cash Flow System

TWITTER ADVERTISING MADE EASY

Here's what's available if you're interested in Twitter advertising?

1) RevTwt

This service offers a variety of advertising options. Publishers can select from CPC (cost per click) ads, CPT (cost per thousand), which you must have a specific number of followers for, or CPA (viewers must perform a specific action). RevTwt supplies the links and you paste them into your Twitter timeline.

2) Adf.ly

A link shortening service with a twist. Shorten the URL, then post it to Twitter, Facebook, or other social networks, and you'll earn money with every click. The current payout for those in the U.S. is about $1.00 per thousand visitors.

3) Adjix

Another link shortening service with an advertising twist built in. Twitter users can choose to embed ads inside their tweets. Advertisers set the rate they are willing to pay for someone to tweet their ad. Ad selection varies from a random ad to allowing you to target a specific subject area, for example health. An informative video is available at http://adjix.com/ddew

4) Be-A-Magpie

A variety of compensation modes to pick from, including pay-per-sale, pay-per-lead, pay-per-click, or pay-per-view. Enter your Twitter user name to see how much you can earn. You'll be paid to allow "Magpie" to post tweets to your account. Tweets sent will be matched to the topic of your usual Tweets, so you won't need to worry about off-topic messages. It's up to you how many ads get posted. It can be set at the default, which is one Magpie tweet for every 10 of yours, or changed. You will need a PayPal account in order to get paid.

5) PayMeTweets

To use this "micro-promotional" tool you'll first need to follow "@PayMeTweets.com". Watch for tweets you like, then "retweet" (RT) them. You'll be paid a set amount for each one. Payment varies depending on your "influence". Credits you earn can also be used to advertise your own products/services. Payout per tweet ranges from a few pennies up to $20.00 for those Twitter users with heavy influence.

6) SponsoredTweets

Connecting advertisers with Twitter users to sponsor "conversations". All paid Twitter ads contain a disclosure to such in order to comply with the FTC. To set up an account you'll need to set your price, and then add a category and keywords. Advertisers come to you, and you'll make the decision to reject or accept them. You'll be paid within 24 hours of posting Tweets, and you must earn $50.00 before cashing out. Ads are not posted to your Twitter timeline, you must manually post them.

As Twitter continues to evolve and grow, the number of advertising supported services will too. Like it or not, Twitter is a powerful communication tool that allows people to connect with each other all over the world, and marketing to that audience is a natural by-product of that.

No matter whether you like the idea or not, advertising to Twitter users is here to stay. I'm not taking one side over the other, just reporting some of the options. As my Mama used to say "Don't shoot the messenger!


I hope you found this article useful. Feel free to leave me a comment.

To Your Success,

Chad Timothy
http://www.chadtimothy.com/
http://www.softwarebillionsclub.com/
Chad Timothy's 500K Instant Cash Flow System

13 Special Offer Ideas

If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you KNOW that a good portion of your income comes in during specials or sales.

As a matter of fact, you don’t even have to be in business to know that. Just watch the retail industry and how even minor holidays become major events.

Every weekend seems reason for a new sale. Obviously this is because these events are working. And they work online as well.

The below article was originally written for my offline business owner training guide. That’s why you see the references to restaurants, stores, etc. BUT these same principles apply to online business owners as well. Sometimes it’s to your advantage to LOOK OUTSIDE your industry for ideas of what’s working.

Big breakthroughs aren’t usually something totally brand new. They’re little variations created as a marketing strategy is moved from one industry to another.

This is one of those posts you will want to print out and keep on your desk whenever you need more special offer ideas.

Here are 13 ideas to get you started in creating your special offers. The key principle to any offer is to give your customers/clients a benefit for taking action now.

What can they get right now which they don’t normally receive at your business?

Remember, it is never about you. It is about your customers/clients. Everyone is tuned into one radio station, “What’s in it for me?”

Offer #1 – Free Giveaways
FREE is one of the most powerful words in marketing. It makes people’s ears stand at attention. In Robert Cialdini’s “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion,” he lists reciprocity as one of the key influencing factors. This simply means that when someone gives a gift, the receiver feels the need to give back to the giver. It’s hard-wired into our system. If someone gives you a Christmas card or a present, you feel a need to give back to them. This is also the reason why many charities send you address labels in their request for donations (this method has been tested and proven to increase gift giving).

The restaurant can offer a free lunch to a new customer. The optometrist can offer a free eye exam. The health club can offer a free 1 month membership. The chiropractor can offer a free first visit with x-rays. The dentist can offer free teeth whitening. All of these offers can be totally free with no purchase required. Nothing beats the word free when applied to generating new customers. That $5 free lunch doesn’t cost much when you compare it to the restaurant with the $500+ Lifetime Value.

All you have to do is specify it is for new customers only to give you a try. The restaurant that just opens up could launch quickly by giving out the free coupons to business owners in their area as a gift to all their employees. The health club can give their free 1 month memberships to the health food stores and sports clothing stores as free giveaways to all their clients. A consultant, lawyer, or accountant could give a free 30 minute consultation as a gift to all the customers/clients of a noncompeting business in an endorsed mailing or Christmas gift. A house cleaning service could promote themselves by giving away a free house cleaning as a mother’s day present idea (in card and gift shops, florists, and publicity).

Offer #2 – Sales
This is the “normal” offer for most businesses. You place items on sale or run your 30% off President’s Day sale. The sale has become the normal way of buying for retail businesses. Every single holiday elicits numerous sales. The newspaper is filled with sales for Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, President’s Day, etc. There is a reason why businesses have sales for every possible event. They work. People love buying at a discount. Collect the newspapers on Thanksgiving for the day after Thanksgiving sales.

You’ll see all kinds of tactics to get people in the stores. There are huge discounts, door prizes, free gifts, etc. Everyone is competing for the biggest shopping day of the year. A good percentage of coupons are also of this type. They may give $10 off or a 20% discount until a certain date. This type of discount can be used in almost any business. You receive a discounted price or percentage off the product you’re selling. A “sale” I’ve personally loved to do is to offer a discount on one of my more expensive products whenever someone purchases a lower cost item from me. For example, if someone purchases a $97 item, I may send them a $97 discount off a $497 item if they purchase within 30 days. In essence, they get the first item free for upgrading to the larger purchase.

Offer #3 – Private Sales
This is a variation on the sale, but it is only offered to a specific segment of customers. It takes the “exclusivity” motivator into account. Customer appreciation sales are common. You can send out a direct mail letter, postcard, email, or even phone call to your current customers. You alert them to a special sale good only for current clients. It may be a special on your website or something offered over the phone only. It could be a special they need to come into your office to receive on a specific date or dates. This is a good way to activate previous customers and to increase the Lifetime Value of your clients. Everyone likes to receive exclusive deals and to be made to feel special.

This can also be used when you’re marketing to a specific group of new customers. You could make an offer to all the employees of a business that works next door by contacting the business owner. You could run an offer that is only good for members of a specific group (senior citizens, college students, Lion’s club members, etc.). Many endorsement deals where another business endorses your products or services make use of some private type of sales. For example, you could have the business promoting you send out a letter for a special discount. Anyone who comes into your store must bring the letter and hand it discretely to the sales associate because no one else receives this private sale price.

Offer #4 – Free Trials
Let’s say salesperson A offers you a $1,000 vacuum cleaner. He tells you it will be easier to use, reduce your workload, and last at least 10 years or more. All you have to do is act now and you’ll get it for $500. Salesperson B offers you the same vacuum, BUT on a trial basis. He’ll leave the vacuum with you for free for the next 30 days. You try it out. You use it whenever you want. In 30 days he’ll return to give you the opportunity to keep the vacuum and make monthly payments or he’ll pick it up and take it with him. If you decide it isn’t for you, you don’t owe a penny. There’s no obligation to purchase. Which offer is more enticing?

With mail order offers, this type of trial offer has been proven to triple sales in many markets. This works extremely well for products people use regularly and won’t want to live without once they’re used to it. It gives your prospect zero risk and allows you to use the puppy dog close. “You don’t have to decide today. Try it out free the next 30 days. If it isn’t everything I say it is, just send it back. You owe nothing. If you decide it does benefit, benefit, benefit…just keep it and simply pay this price.”

Offer #5 – Two For One
This is another common type of sale you see in grocery stores, but it has much greater application than this. In retail it is simply buy this product, get one free. In other applications it can be used to double your customer base. The health club can run a buy one membership, get another one free to get two clients in the door. The restaurant can follow the same principle since no one likes to eat alone anyway. Magazines offer a free subscription for your friend when you buy one. Seminars often earn the same or greater profits from purchases at the meeting, so they can run a bring-a-friend free promotion. The more people at the conference, the more they’ll make in back of the room sales.

This tactic is also used to increase the volume of sales. Buy four and get one free. Nobody might ever want to buy four of something, but the bonus one convinces them to go all out and increase the overall sale value. You may test this type of upsell offer for your business. Whenever someone purchases one bottle of whatever, offer them a free bonus one if they upgrade to a purchase of three.

Offer #6 – Better Terms
We’ve been trained to think in terms of monthly payments. You pay for your house in monthly payments. You pay for your car in monthly payments. In many cases, people don’t even think in overall price anymore. They simply think about the low monthly payments and how much they can afford. Many businesses simply take this low monthly payment road as part of their primary marketing offer. You can find sales with no interest for a year. There are low interest rate sales.

The business consultant can offer a pay as you profit monthly plan. The real estate agent can find the best mortgage brokers for lower interest rates for their clients (they wouldn’t earn anything from this but they’d increase the number of clients who could buy). Any retail store could offer a store credit card plan. The plumber could offer a payment plan for those who don’t have the money for an emergency service. Many lawyers offer contingency deals where you pay only when you win.

Offer #7 – Bonuses
Make an offer with special bonuses. For example, in the newsletter business you often “sell” the bonuses. A monthly newsletter may offer a set of training CDs as the offer for subscribing now. In the majority of cases, they’ll even put more attention on the free gifts than they do on the subscription itself. People want results now, and newsletters are products you receive overtime. So bonuses you can receive instantly work extremely well in this market. Sports Illustrated is one of the most well known magazines who does the bonus offer. They “sell” you on whatever bonuses you get with your paid subscription. It may be a special swimsuit issue, a phone, a DVD, a jacket, etc.

Whatever the bonuses are at the time, you’ll notice them in the offer they make. You’ll notice that when you purchased this course it came with a multitude of bonuses. You received bonus reports on copywriting, joint ventures, headline writing, and more. In fact, you should have noticed the value of the bonuses exceeded the price of the product itself. That was done on purpose and every one of the bonuses really does cost that much when sold separately. A service business can offer a set of other services along with the main service people purchase. For example, if someone purchases an hour of time from an accountant, they could give them a free tax savings CD or CD set. The printer could find and purchase resale rights to a copywriting course and offer that with a certain volume of orders from local businesses. The dry cleaner could offer free delivery and pickup for a certain size order.

You often see the bonus offer used in retail and restaurants as well. The pizza restaurant may offer a free 2 liter with delivery orders. Another restaurant may run a special coupon in the paper for a free dessert when you buy an entrée. A retail store may offer a free dust buster with a vacuum. A make-up purchase may come with a free carrying bag. The men’s body spray has a bonus shaving lotion with it (notice on this one that they’re also getting you to try another product). No matter what business you’re in, there is a way to run a special offer with some type of related bonus.

Offer #8 – Package Deals
This is related to the free bonus but comes at it from a different direction. The make-up counter may put together a package with all different items in it for a discount price. You get A, B, and C for only $50 instead of the individual total price of $75.

Automobile manufacturers put many of their most popular options together in package deals (such as off-road packages consisting of larger tires, chassis modifications, etc.). The restaurant may offer a complete meal for two including appetizer, entrée, dessert, and roses all for one price during Valentine’s Day. They could even make a “deluxe” larger offer at the same time to include the previous dinner plus a limo ride (through a joint venture deal with a limo company).

The basic and deluxe package deals can be applied to a lot of business offers. A vacation company could offer basic vacation packages with no frills. Then they offer the deluxe version including hotel upgrades, dinner at nice restaurants, etc. The electronics business could offer a home theater system package including surround sound, subwoofer, amplifiers, and TV (or projector system). They could also offer the deluxe version which includes high quality items across the board. The gym could package a membership, personal training sessions, and nutritional supplements together in both a basic and deluxe version.

Package deals also make great upsells. If someone just wants to purchase an entrée, you could tell them about your discounted three course meal package deal. The garage offering oil changes could offer a package of other routine maintenance items as an upsell. The pet store could offer a deal on dog food, treats, flea medicine, and toys all as a discounted package upsell. Any service business could figure out how to combine several services together to make their upsell package.

Offer #9 – Continuity Programs
Too many companies allow their business to be based off one-time sales. Look carefully at whatever you offer and figure out a way to build a continuity plan. The tree trimmer may get hired to do one service, but after doing the service they could offer their 4 times per year plan including the one today in the rate. My furnace and air conditioning company offers me a twice a year plan where they come in and service the furnace in the fall and the central air in the spring. A large number of mail order businesses offer autoship until cancelled programs.

The garage could offer oil changes 4 times a year for a discounted continuity rate. The nail salon or stylist could offer a yearly discounted plan for their services. Even the young person who has a summer job of mowing yards could offer a seasonal plan for every service. In each of these plans, you’re doing the customer a benefit. They’re getting a discount rate for buying the larger service program and they’re also using your services on the regular schedule they need. You benefit because you’ve locked-in business in advance. What way can you build some type of continuity plan into your business?

Offer #10 – Guarantees
You should find ways to build guarantees into every offer you make. The more risk-free you make your offer for your prospects, the easier it is to generate new business. If whatever you sell doesn’t work for your clients, they should have a way of getting it fixed of getting their money back. Risk reversal should be a part of your bottom line way of doing business. You can also take guarantees even further and make a special offer based simply off your guarantee.

The accountant could run an offer to guarantee savings on a tax return, or your money back (it then costs you NOT to use them). A company offering any type of business service could give businesses a call and offer a “try-us-out deal.” If the company doesn’t save money or make more money than with their current vendor, they owe nothing. The copywriter or business consultant could guarantee results by charging a small fee and then taking the majority of their income through a percentage of increased profits.

This could even be used outside of owning a business. Want a promotion in your job? Offer to work at the higher level position at your current salary for the next month. If you enjoy the new job and your employees see the good work you do, your salary can then be raised to that level. If either you or your employees don’t feel you’re right for the position, you can go back to your old job. As a business owner, don’t you wish you received that offer?

Offer #11 – Contests
Your offer could be based off a contest. Since you don’t want to be involved in running a lottery, this should be used on your free offers (consult with a lawyer for the legalities for contests). You can collect names for your new email list by offering a monthly prize. Restaurants collect business cards for a free dinner. Vacation and timeshare companies give away cars for people to sign-up to receive more information. Is there any reason why your business isn’t collecting names, addresses, business cards, etc. to build your opt-in email and customer lists?

On the Internet, you can run contests for people who sign-up through your opt-in email form. At your physical business you could ask for people to come in and drop off their information to enter your contest (getting them into your place of business). If you’re running a contest with very nice prizes, you can even use publicity to promote it for free around the area or in your niche market. Another idea is to have a “testimonial” contest where people tell you the results they’ve achieved from using your products/services in the past.

Offer #12 – Charity
You could run an offer based on giving to charity. All your proceeds from a certain sale may go to charity. Ten percent of all your proceeds may go to a specific charity. You could even have customers pick one of several charities for 10% of their proceeds to go to (for example, a Christian bookstore could offer to give 10% to different churches in the area). If you wanted to generate new customers/clients and were willing to give up all the profits on the front-end, you could offer your product to charities for free for them to sell by phone, in letters, or by door-to-door marketing. They keep all the money, but you generate a new customer. You can donate products/services to the charity auction to generate new clients.

A good example of this is a marketing plan used by Bill Philips of EAS who sells sports supplements. He wrote a book called, “Body for Life,” and all proceeds from the book were given to the Make-a-Wish Foundation. The book gave you the complete workout plan he used and then told you about his Body-for-Life contest where you get your body in shape in 12 weeks or less (they had other time frames as well). Everyone would submit before and after pictures along with an essay on their results. The contest was sponsored by EAS offering multiple products to help you achieve results faster (to win the contest and the prizes). This whole plan combines both charities marketing with contest marketing. It even generates “testimonials” through the essay and pictures sent in. It shows you how you can combine multiple offers in one plan.

Offer #13 – Events
Hold a special event as your offer. Get people into your bookstore through a book signing or a special author presentation. The Mercedes dealership could have a fashion show in their office. The restaurant could have a “sports” night with a popular sports hero. The website could run a teleseminar, webinar, or live conference for their memberships to meet a celebrity in the industry or simply to network with each other. The clothing store could have a fashion show or a clothing consultant to help their customers choose their garments.

Combine the charity offer with an event and hold an event at your place of business to promote through publicity. You could offer free advice on whatever business you do at a charity event. A real estate agent can offer advice on improving home values. The chiropractor could offer advice on taking care of your back. The massage therapist could give free massages. You’ll generate leads while helping out a charity at an event such as this.


I hope you found this article useful. I have used several of the above ideas.

To Your Success,

Chad Timothy
http://www.chadtimothy.com/
http://www.softwarebillionsclub.com/
Chad Timothy's 500K Instant Cash Flow System

130 Social Bookmarking/News Sites You Could Submit Your Website to Get Free Traffic

1. Digg: The social news site that changed the Internet, Digg is a high power authority and a listing in Digg for a site, even if it only has a couple of votes, will rank highly on Google and other search engines for certain terms. If your site is shared and voted upon on Digg, and makes the Digg homepage, you’ll get a lot of traffic and attention from other bloggers who read Digg.
2. Yahoo! Bookmarks: The MOST POPULAR social search and bookmarking service on the web. It’s similar to Delicious and something they launched before acquiring Delicious. Yahoo Bookmarks lets users store bookmarks using their Yahoo Toolbar and access them from any computer.
3. Technorati: Always changing and reinventing themselves, this recognized authority offers links to blogposts, tagging and a social bookmarking WTF section.
4. StumbleUpon: Owned by eBay, StumbleUpon is an amazing blend of social bookmarking, voting, networking, web surfing, search and blogging. Best of all, StumbleUpon can send major traffic with its userbase of around 3 million users.
5. del.icio.us: THE social bookmarking site. It allows you to easily add sites you like to your personal collection of links and to categorize those sites with keywords. Not to mention that if enough people save your site in a bookmark, it will make their popular page and send a lot of traffic. Delicious is owned by Yahoo and is a MUST for your social media and bookmarking strategy.
6. Reddit: Timely and shocking news oriented, Reddit stories are instantly voted upon and if liked by the community as a whole, can drive incredible traffic and users.
7. Restnews: SEO Social Bookmarking, your scoop can be published in real-time and get free back-link easily.
8 Mixx: An up and coming bookmarking and social news sharing network which should rival Digg, Reddit and others, Mixx blends popular photos, videos and stories.
9. Propeller: Formally known as Netscape, AOL’s Propeller has become a great social bookmarking news community tool which is considered an ultimate authority by Yahoo Search and passes link juice in its news story profiles. Propeller is also going to redesign very soon, which should be quite exciting.
10. Fark.com
11. Backflip: Backflip is a free service currently being run by volunteers. Backflip was started in 1999 by Netscape veterans Tim Hickman and Chris Misner. As a research tool, Backflip is clearly of value to the education community, and that community (or at least certain segments) has certainly embraced Backflip. A Google search of sites that contain the term “Backflip.com” results in numerous education-related links, including Teacher Tools.
12. barksbookmarks: BARKS=BookmARKS is a website that combines social bookmarking, blogging, RSS, and non-hierarchical editorial control.
13. BibSonomy: BibSonomy is run by the Knowledge Data Engineering Group of the University of Kassel, Germany. It’s specifically designed for researchers, in sharing bookmarks and bibliographies.
14. Blinklist: A social bookmarking site launched by Mindvalley. According to their site, they launch several web businesses a year and are focused in 3 areas. – Technology, media and Marketing. BlinkList does have a user friendly interface indicating that it’s being run well and efficiently. They also quote “fully profitable” on their site. Furthermore, you can label and comment about any web page on the Internet.
15. Blipoo: Meet Blipoo, a social bookmarking site for “cool” people sharing “cool” stories. It claims to help bloggers drive more traffic to their blog because they allow self promotion.
16. BlogBookMark: Designed specifically for Blog hunters, BlogBookmark.com claims to have the hottest news, gossip, and blog chatter from around the web. I highly suggest that mainstream bloggers bookmark their entries here.
17. BlueDot: This basic social networking service allows users to save and share bookmarks.
18. blurpalicious: Get Blurped! Not too different from other social bookmarks, but I love the tagline.
19. Bmaccess: Social bookmarking with thumbs.
20. Bookkit: BookKit.com is an absolutely free web service designed to facilitate bookmark (favorites) management needs.
21. BookMarkAll: Bookmarkall is an online bookmark community where users can create, organize and share their favorite web links online and access them anywhere.
22. Bookmark-manager: Organizer for bookmarks, calendar, diary and knowledge.
23. bookmarktracker: Free online storage, management, synchronizing and RSS sharing of your bookmarks.
24. Bookmax: You can store your bookmarks and links to your favorite sites online and access them from wherever you are, basic Social Bookmarking.
25. Buddymarks: The online personal, group and social bookmarks manager.
26. Bukmark: Bukmark is a social bookmarking website.
27. Chipmark: Another basic social bookmarking site.
28. Citeulike: A free service to help academics to share, store, and organize the academic papers they are reading.
29. Claimid: Manage your online identity. Although this is not a normal social bookmarking site, users can bookmark sites which reference their identity and build back-links in this fashion.
30. Clipclip: Clipclip allows you to save images and text, with a “bookmarklet”.
31. Cloudytags: A unique word analyzer connects to your page, gets all the words and suggest you the real tags your site is showing to the world.
32. Complore: Derived from com-(with, together) and explore-(search, research). As the name suggests, complore is a vision to connect people from diverse backgrounds.
33. Connectedy: Lets you establish a personal link directory online. As you surf the web, you collect links, categorize them in a way that makes sense to you.
34. Connotea: Social bookmarking (for researchers).
35. Contentpop: It has the latest Web 2.0 features such as social bookmarking, blogging & RSS. It also uses the word POP in the title which means it must be good.
36. coRank: coRank is a site where you can share whatever you find interesting on the web with people who value your opinion.
37. Crowdfound: CrowdFound is essentially a social bookmarking website, but with a different vision in mind.
38. de.lirio.us: Store, share and tag your favourite links. Open source clone of del.icio.us with private bookmarking, tagging, blogging, and notes.
39. Diigo: Social bookmarking on steroids.
40. Dropjack: DropJack.com is a social content website and owned by the ExactSeek company.
41. Easybm: Allows users to bookmark their frequently visited sites on their private page, allowing 1-click access to their favorite web sites.
42. Enroll: Social bookmarking system based in India.
43. ez4u: Social Bookmarking – Ez4u to Bookmark : “Ez4u to Organize Ez4u to Share with Others Ez4u to Remember”.
44. Favoor: Favoor is your personalized new start page. Collect your favorite internet addresses.
45. Folkd: Folkd is a social web-service about pages, news, audios, videos and blogs.
46. Freelink: Freelink.org provides free pages of links that you can access anywhere at anytime.
47. Freezilla: FreeZilla claims to be the first Web 2.0 freebies and promotions social networking site.
48. Fungow: Fungow was designed to help better organize and keep track of your bookmarks.
49. Furl: Like Delicious, LookSmart’s Furl.net is one of the first social bookmarking sites and considered an authority by the major search engines. Listing your sites in Furl will lead to traffic from organic rankings and its popular page drives traffic.
50. Gather: Gather is a place to contribute articles and content, blog, tag and connect with people who share your passions. (Plus you can link out from the articles in this authority site).
51. Getboo: GetBoo.com is yet another free online bookmarking service which allows you to store, edit and retrieve your bookmarks from anywhere online.
52. Google: Allows users to save and create bookmarks in their Google toolbar that can be accessed anywhere online. Google is getting more social by the day, so take advantage of their Google Bookmarks and citations, because one day they probably will have some kind of influence on external meta data considered by the Google ranking algortihm.
53. Hanzoweb: Hanzoweb – Bookmark, tag & share knowledge online.
54. Hyperlinkomatic: Hyperlinkomatic – bookmark list manager.
55. i89.us: i89.us offers a free service which allows you to save your favorite website/links at one location that can be accessed from anywhere.
56. Icio: Danish Bookmarking engine.
57. Ikeepbookmarks: Popup feature allows you to add links while surfing the web.
58. Iloggo: Simple web based bookmarking tool that you can use for attractively displaying your favorite websites on one page.
59. Jigg: Jigg.in is a socializing community with the latest stories / news submitted by users and has a familiar name.
60. Kaboodle: Kaboodle is a 2.0 shopping community where people recommend and discover new things.
61. Kinja: Kinja is a blog guide, collecting news and commentary from some of the best sites on the web.
62. Lifelogger: “LifeLogger is a great way to keep things that matter to you alive and sparkling.” And worth considering in a bookmarking campaign.
63. Lilsto: Lilisto lets you store, manage and find your favorite links (or bookmarks) and removes the need to maintain them through your browser.
64. Linkagogo: Favorites and Social Bookmarking Application, its unique dynamic toolbars automatically adapt themselves.
65. Linkarena: German Social Bookmarking site.
66. Linksnarf: Social link sharing with groups of friends.
67. Listerlister: ListerLister is a social list building community where you can create, add to, and vote for both lists and the items added to them.
68. Ma.gnolia.com: Like Furl and Delicious, another major bookmarking site which lets users organize bookmarks, search other people’s favorites and make friends and contacts.
69. Markaboo: MarkaBoo is tool for saving websites, files, and notes from your browser, email or mobile phone.
70. Marktd: Marktd is a reference & voting system that highlights marketing articles considered valuable by the marketing community.
71. Memfrag: memFrag stores your favorite’s personal notes, making them globally accessible from any computer.
72. Memotoo: Lets users centralize and share your personal data.
73. Mister Wong: Mister Wong is a social bookmarking site that originated in Germany, and has since become a popular and widespread tool.
74. Mobleo: Allows you to easily add, organize, and share your mobile phone bookmarks with your friends using your desktop computer.
75. Multiply: Florida-based social network Multiply, which reports nearly 3 million users and $6 million in funding, opened its social bookmarking site recently and has done well. Definite authority.
76. Murl: My URLs is a free online bookmarks manager, think of it as a bookmarks community.
77. MyBookmarks: MyBookmarks – access your bookmarks anytime, anywhere. Free productivity tool for business, student or personal use. Another popular bookmarking site.
78. Myhq: Store your bookmarks in one central location. Fast, text-based, banner free!
79. MyLinkVault: A free online bookmark manager. Other bookmark managers can be so clumsy to use – trying to rearrange your bookmarks can be slow and frustrating.
80. mySiteVote: mySiteVote is a community where you can vote your favorite site/s and view how popular a site is.
81. MyWebDesktop: A collaboration and communication tool, designed to be as generic and easy to use as a telephone and email.
82. Newsvine: The mission of Newsvine is to bring together big and little media in a way which respects established journalism.
83. Newsweight: NewsWeight is a democratic news, information, and entertainment resource.
84. Oyax: Oyax is a social bookmark manager which allows users to easily add sites you like to personal collection of links, categorize those sites with keywords.
85. Philoi: Person-to-person link sharing community. Save bookmarks and share links with your friends.
86. PlugIM: PlugIM is a user driven internet marketing community. Submit content, share articles, comment on projects and promote your favorites to the front page.
87. QuickieClick: QuickieClick is a second generation social bookmarking website with a visual twist.
88. Rambhai: An Indian social bookmarking community.
89. RawSugar: A social search engine powered by user contributions. It’s an online community, with over 130,000 URLs already tagged by their members.
90. Searchles: Owned by the DumbFind search engine, in my opinion Searchles is a much overlooked bookmarking tool and loved by Google, Yahoo and the other major search engines with its passing of link juice and high rankings for terms within search results themselves. Do not overlook Searchles.
91. Segnalo: Italian Social bookmarking site.
92. Simpy [late addition]: Social bookmarking & search, Simpy lets users “save, tag, search and share bookmarks, notes, groups and more.”
93. Sitebar: A solution for people who use multiple browsers or computers and want to have their bookmarks available from anywhere without need to synchronize them.
94. Sitejot: Free online bookmark manager. Like every other social bookmarking site, it allows users to manage all of their bookmarks online in one convenient place.
95. Sk*rt: sk*rt is a social media ranking platform of “pure goodness”, targeted towards women. Given the right story, Sk*rt can send A LOT of targeted traffic.
96. Slashdot: The godfather of social news, SlashDot bookmarks are still quite powerful…keep in mind the site has a heavy slant towards Linux and Open Source issues.
97. SocialDanger: SocialDanger is a Web 2.0 open source content management system.
98. Socialogs: A Digg-like Social Bookmarking Service.
99. Sphinn: Very popular search marketing oriented social news and discussion site run via the Pligg system.
100. Spotback: Spotback is a personalized rating system that recommends relevant content based on personal rating history using collaborative filtering.
101. Spurl: Another cherished bookmarking and tagging site, Spurl lets users keep online bookmarks & tags while offering full text searching, recommendations & storing of entire documents.
102. Squidoo: Kind of spammed out, Squidoo is a 2.0 property which lets people and businesses set up a lens’ which lists links, tags and relevant RSS feeds to different subjects.
103. Startaid : I’ve noticed that StartAid bookmark pages rank highly in Google and other search engines. This basic bookmarking service allows users to describe, tag and categorize sites.
104. Stylehive: The Stylehive is a collection of all the best products, brands, designers and stores discovered and tagged by the Hive community.
105. Syncone: SyncOne is an Internet aggregator of bookmarking and browsing.
106. Tagfacts: Basic bookmarking and tagging, a social knowledge base.
107. Taggly: Store, share and tag your favorite links.
108. Tagne: TagNe.ws is user-submitted, community voted links and resources related to SEO, Blogging, RSS, Tagging, Internet Marketing and more.
109. Tagtooga: Says that this bookmarking engine can be used to discover great sites difficult to find in Google/Yahoo by browsing categories.
110. Tagza: A very young Social Bookmarking site mostly being used by Indian and Pakistani web masters.
111. Tedigo: Personal and social bookmarking in Spanish and English made simple.
112. Thinkpocket: Lets users pocket websites you find valuable. It is a web service that aims to help store, organize and share your favorite sites.
113. Thoof: Thoof is a user generated news and information service that claims to learn about what users are interested in and delivers news that they care about.
114. Totalpad: TotalPad is a new online news and article community where people are free to voice their opinions.
115. Urlex: With URLex system users are able to leave a comment regarding any internet link on any site. Possibly good for linking.
116. Uvouch: Another basic social bookmarking site, users can save their findings with one click, at one place and access it from anywhere.
117. Vmark: An online bookmark and online favorite’s manager.
118. Voteboat: VoteBoat is a user-controlled rating and voting site.
119. Votelists: VoteLists lets users create a list of rankable items. Other can add items, comment on them, rate them and more!
120. Vuju: Vuju allows user to submit/publish content which can be tagged and promoted.
121. WeTogether: Social bookmarking site where people will have great opportunities to promote their own sites.
122. Whitelinks: Securely store and quickly access favorite websites whenever connected to the Internet.
123. Wink: A social search engine where users can share results and answer questions. Users build profiles which can link out to bookmark pages or other web sites (hint hint).
124. Wirefan: Social bookmarking, news articles submission site.
125. Xilinus: Organize and manage bookmarks online.
126. Xlmark: xlmark is an easy social bookmarking site.
127. kaboodle.com
128. Yattle: Bookmark Management and Mini-Blogging Service.
129. Zlitt: Zlitt is a social bookmarking system which gives users the opportunity to share and tag favorite news, images and videos.
130. Zurpy: Saves bookmarks, text clippings, images, files, and news feeds in one place.


I hope you found this article useful. I have used several of the above social bookmarking websites to generate an incredible amount of traffic for myself and my affiliates.

To Your Success,

Chad Timothy
http://www.chadtimothy.com/
http://www.softwarebillionsclub.com/
Chad Timothy's 500K Instant Cash Flow System

Chad Timothy's How to Rank High on YouTube Article

YouTube Traffic Monster

Did you know that youtube.com is ranked number 3 on the entire internet as one of the most popular sites in the world according to Alexa.com.

Of course you knew that well here is couple of statistics you might enjoy.

• Total number of YouTube videos = over 120,000,000
• Number of videos uploaded per day = about 200,000
• Time required to see all the videos = over 600 years
• Number of videos watched daily = over 100,000,000
• Amount of content uploaded every minute = 13 hours
• Number of accounts on YouTube = over 300,000,000

Obviously this is the best place to drive traffic to your website or become popular online but competition is tough and get your videos to be seen by people becomes more difficult by the minute.

So, today you I will share some of my tricks that I personally use to get more views, ratings and subscribers into your YouTube account.

Page 1 of YouTube

YouTube is kind of like Google, people search for something and expect to get results (in this case videos) related to the keywords they used.

Well lets say you wanted to post a video about "How to make a blog" if you go on YouTube now and type that exact same thing about 85,000 results will show but of course most people only look at the first page, your goal is to be on that first page and this is how to do it.

SECRET TIP #1: Every time you’re going to upload a new video search for keywords related to the content of the video you’re going to upload, the video with most views will pop up on the first page so before you upload your video, click on the first video of the first page and see their video info. You must copy their tags only not their description. The purpose of this is to get your video to be in their related videos even though yours is new giving you a bigger chance of exposure.

NOTE: If your video has a lot of views it will instantly dominate the keyword your aiming making you number 1 on the first page, and even if it doesn’t have a lot of views it is still possible to be on the first page just by copying the tags of the most popular video.

Increase Your YouTube Views

Some people try to cheat YouTube to try to get more exposure for their videos using Auto-refreshers and software’s like Tubeincreaser to give fake views to their videos. I believe this is unnecessary because the whole point of uploading videos is for people to see them.

But, if you still feel the need to do it, you can do it with YouTube simple.

SECRET TIP #2: After you have uploaded your video go to My Videos> AudioSwap and click on "I'm feeling lucky" as many times as you feel like it, this action will reload your video again, and again with different songs in seconds, giving you instant views every time you reload, once you get the views you want simply exit and don’t save your changes, since your doing it within YouTube, your views will not be frozen once they hit a certain amount, but if you use software like tubeincreaser there is a chance your views will get frozen.

AUDIOSWAP: allows you to replace the background sound of your music with music provided by YouTube.

Getting Subscriptions, Comments & Ratings

Subscriptions in YouTube are the main topic, people like having subscribers which is the equivalent to followers on Twitter. Now I will share some tips that will help you gain subscribers in YouTube.

• Offer something free to share with viewers, or give something free to viewers for example an eBook or share something someone might enjoy usually giving freebies can help you gain subscribers
• Upload videos every month constant activity and videos in your channel will gain you subscribers, there is more chances of getting subscribers if you have 5 videos than someone that has 1
• Subscribe to other people's channels sometimes they will sub back
• Comment, rate and complement videos as well as channels that you like some users will appreciate it and subscribe in return
• Also add as many friends as you can, not only will make you popular but your videos will get viewed more.

YouTube & Google

Since YouTube is owned by Google, your videos can sometime show as results in Google, the more views you have the more traffic your going to get and the more popular your channel will be.

One more tip when uploading a video, make sure your video title always is clear and related to the content of the video, when a user makes a search on YouTube or Google they look for titles related to the keywords.

If your title is "How to make a blog" and a user types that same keywords then most likely your video will show as first result, numbers and symbols might not be helpful to better rankings in YouTube or Google.

I hope this article helps you attain the YouTube views you desire.

To Our Success,

Chad Timothy
http://www.chadtimothy.com/
http://www.softwarebillionsclub.com/
Chad Timothy's 500K Instant Cash Flow System

Chad Timothy's 21 Websites That Save You Time And Money

It’s hard to imagine what life was like before the Internet. Yet as wonderful as it is to have so much information so readily available, it can be overwhelming. Take “grocery coupons,” for example. Type that into Google and you’ll get 19 million results. Search “budget” at Yahoo and up pop 1.25 billion options!

To narrow the field, here are 21 websites to help you save – I’ve even included a couple of great coupon sites, so you won’t have to sift through all those Google results.

Save Money

1. Shop Local
Wouldn’t you love to have the weekly ad for lots of stores in your community (electronics, clothing, shoes, furniture, home and garden) – all indexed, organized and updated for you? That’s exactly what you’ll find at ShopLocal.com. In just minutes you can assess what’s on sale, and who has the best deal this week on the items you need.

2. Mommy Savers
Not just a treasure trove of coupon codes, printable coupons, freebies and bargains, Mommysavers.com is also a comprehensive site that provides the support moms need to live the frugal life. Its informative articles, eBooks, and Web videos provide a wide variety of money-saving tips on topics such as grocery shopping, decorating, family road trips, garage sales and clothes shopping. The twice-yearly “Forget the Joneses” boot camp gives members practical steps for creating a budget and living within their means.

3. The Bargainist
If all you want is a simple, coupons and freebies, then Bargainist.com is for you. Recent Bargainist sightings: 40% off Citizen watches at Amazon.com, $10 tanks and tees at Eddie Bauer, up to 70% off at American Eagle plus free shipping. No need to join, register or pay a cent. Just check back often – the site is updated several times each day.

4. The Coupon Clippers
Choose exactly the ones you need at TheCouponClippers.com, one of the nations’s largest online grocery coupon clipping services. Founder Rachael Woodard has more than a million national-brand and restaurant coupons in her warehouse and shipping center at any given time. You can order coupons today and for just a small handling fee of a few cents per coupon plus a 50¢ administrative fee per order (there’s a $3 maximum) and postage, have the coupons in your mailbox before week’s end. Last time I checked, I could get a $1 coupon for Coca-Cola for 20¢ and a $1 DiGiorno pizza for 12¢.

Get it Free, Swap, Rent

5. The Freecycle Network
Think of Freecycle.org as the nation’s biggest swap meet – where no money ever exchanges hands. It’s organized into local groups in many communities in the U.S., and members trade items within their communities. Want to find someone to come and pick up items you can no longer use and just want to get rid of? This is the place. The best thing about Freecycle: It keeps furniture, toys, appliances and many other goods out of landfills and gets them to places where they can be used and enjoyed. Go to Freecycle.org and join the group in your area.

6. Paperbackswap
If you’re a book lover, you’re going to love PaperBackSwap.com. Here’s how it works: First you join the club online. Registration is easy and currently free. Next, post the books you want to swap with other members. When you find a book you want, just click the “Order This Book” button. The books you receive are free and yours to keep. When another member requests one of your books, you accept the request and pay the postage to mail the book; they return the favor when they mail a book to you. Print mailing labels right from the website (typically, the postage is $2.23 to send a book under 1 pound). Credits are the unit of exchange at PaperBackSwap. When your book is received you get a credit, which you can then use to order another book for yourself.

7. Zilok
Rent just about anything that you might need to use only once: space in a garage, Guitar Hero for a weekend party, a power tool, a pickup truck. Or maybe you have things in your garage you’d like to rent out to make a few bucks. If so, Zilok.com is the website to join. Zilok is a community-driven platform that allows anyone to rent or offer for rent any kind of goods. Recently rented on Zilok: Sony camcorder, $10/day; patio heater, $20/day; pressure cooker, $6/day.

Learn Stuff

8. USA
Bookmark this one! Usa.gov is the official information and services site for the U.S. government – an exhaustive index of government agencies, services and activities. It’s simple to navigate: Just search by agency or topic (how to get grants, health updates in case of flu outbreak, and more). It’s a great place to get tax information, register to vote, renew your driver’s license, get student financial aid, sign up for unemployment online…and on and on.

9. FindHow
Wish you knew how to cut your between haircuts so you could save $15 to $25 per trim without looking all hacked up? Or how about changing your car’s oil? Well, head on over to FindHow.com. Clear, concise instructions for all types of projects are just a search away. Learn everything from how to repair scratches on your car to install a kitchen sink to how to draw a cartoon. There’s no wading through off-base blog posts or irrelevant articles. The information is from reputable companies, colleges and universities.

10. Starfall
This one’s just too good to be true. Made possible through the vision of the Polis-Schutz family, who created the electronic greeting card company BlueMountain.com, the Starfall reading program is designed to be fun, exciting and confidence-building for your young children as they learn to read. Similar to early-reading software you install on your computer (which can cost $15 to $30), the free program helps teach literacy through games. The graphics, sounds and content at Starfall.com are so outstanding you really need to check it out – even if you don’t have any kids around.

11. The Consumerist
Prepare to be entertained and educated about the top consumer issues of the day. At Consumerist.com, a subsidiary of Consumers Union, you’ll find blogs that bring you up to date on the latest scams, ripoffs and hot deals (you’ll even find a few freebies now and then). Readers are encouraged to give feedback about their everyday experiences as consumers. This is the place to complain about things like warranty repairs that never seem to be covered, health insurance claims that are denied and anything else consumer-related.

12. Lynda
Need software training (Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver)? Chances are you’ll find it at Lynda.com. For $25 a month you’ll have access to more than 40,000 video tutorials with more than 600 online courses on a huge variety of software and design topics. Sure beats the $99 to $299 you’ll pay for a single online training class at other sites, or attending a semester of night classes at a community college.

Do It Yourself

13. Big Huge Labs
Imagine having full access to a custom photo lab where you can create photo calendars, jigsaw puzzles, mosaics, trading cards and more – all from your digital photos. That’s exactly what you’ll find at BigHugeLabs.com. Access to this very cool photo lab is completely free, as are custom photo calendars, which is a lot cheaper than the $20 or more you’ll pay at your local copy store.

14. Dafont
If you love fonts but don’t like having to pay at least $29 per fond set, go to Dafont.com instead. You’ll find fun fonts, unique fonts and handwriting. And you’ll love to preview feature that lets you see the entire character set or your unique text without having to download first. Many of the fonts (over 9,000!) are free.

15. Fid-It Club
These days it seems that more of us are looking for ways to repair rather than replace our appliances, cars, furniture and electronic gadgets. FixItClub.com shows you how to do ordinary household and other kinds of repairs. You’ll find hundreds of free online guides for fixing everything you can imagine, from sewing machines to fishing poles.

Manage You Money

16. BudgetSimple
Here’s an easy-to-use online budget that will help you figure out how to get your spending on track. BudgetSimple.com is free, the site has no ads, and you don’t need to give any information that will identify you personally. The software was designed to help people get out of debt and encourage saving. “The satisfaction I get in hearing stories from users who have gotten their finances in order has made it more than worth any time, money and effort I’ve put into the program,” says Phil Anderson, the creator/owner.

17. Annual Credit Report
This is the only place you can get truly free copies of your credit reports – one a year from each of the big three credit reporting agencies. Though your reports will come from the agencies themselves (either online or through the mail, your choice), you must enter at AnnualCreditReport.com to make sure you get out of paying a fee. Stagger your reports so you get one every four months. Then check each one carefully and dispute any information that seems inaccurate.

18. Dinkytown
Find more than 350 free financial calculators at Dinkytown.net. Do the math on mortgages, retirement savings and planning, insurance, credit cards and more.

19. Bloomberg
The Budget calculators at Bloomberg.com/invest/calculators/budget.html may seem old-fashioned because you enter your information manually as you would on a paper spreadsheet. But what’s remarkable are the resulting easy-to-read charts that categorize your expenses and break down your spending so you can see what’s up with your finances.

Travel

20. Discover America
Linked to tourism info for all 50 states, DiscoverAmerica.com offers a wealth of information in one place. An activity finder lists more than 4,000 experiences, attractions and events such as museums, parks and festivals. Without a doubt, there’s something for everyone here.

21. Mouse Savers
Any website that contains tons of great information, is run by one woman, and gets a lot of visitors (1 million a month) is a site that gets my attention. Now throw in the name Disney, and like magic you have a website that holds the keys to “the happiest place on earth!” MouseSavers.com (not associated in any way with the Disney organization) is a really exhaustive collection of tips, tricks and secrets for how to get discounts on every aspect of the trip to Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Resorts…in short, all things Disney.

I hope you found this article useful. I have used several of the above websites to save me both time and money in the online world.

To Your Success,

Chad Timothy

http://www.chadtimothy.com/

http://www.softwarebillionsclub.com/

Chad Timothy's 500K Instant Cash Flow System