My Devotional – Show Your Gratitude

The Psalmist writes, “Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord, for his goodness.” Notice the word “would.” A thankful attitude is a choice you make regardless of the situation. You choose your attitude just like you choose the food you eat and the clothes you wear each day. And there’s plenty to be thankful for. You say, “Yeah, but there’s plenty to complain about too.” The point exactly – so you have a choice to make!

Robinson Crusoe spent twenty-seven years shipwrecked on an island. Here’s part of journal entry (paraphrased). Let’s call his lists “the Gripe list” and “the Gratitude list.”

Gripe: “I’m stuck on this desert island without hope.”
Gratitude: “I wasn’t drowned like the rest of my ship’s company.”

Gripe: “I’ve no clothes.”
Gratitude: “I’m in a hot climate, if I had clothes I couldn’t wear them.”

Gripe: “I’ve no way to protect myself from man or beast.”
Gratitude: “I see no wild beast here to hurt me as I saw on the coast of Africa. What if I’d been shipwrecked there?”

Gripe: “I’ve nobody to talk to.”
Gratitude: “God sent sent the ship in near enough to the shore that I’ve gotten out so many necessary things as will enable me to supply myself as long as I live.”

That’s powerful stuff! If you can grasp it and put it into practice, it’ll keep you from becoming a member of the Old Testament wilderness club known as “the murmurs.” Your attitude is simply the decision you make about how you’re going to approach things. It isn’t Disney-World thinking to focus on the good things of life, it’s wisdom!

Visit, “Like”  & join our new “Faith-Based” Facebook group. It’s called “FAITHVIEW.”  (Click the image)

Affiliate Marketing Tip #2

                                           Be Trustworthy & Helpful

Readers are savvy. They know an affiliate link when they see one. If you break their trust by promoting a product you don’t believe in or take advantage of their visit with too many ads, they will leave and never come back.

It is your repeat visitors that will drive traffic. They are the ones who will give you link-backs, spread the word, and recommend your site as the go-to place for valuable content. You need to build a relationship based on genuine content.

If your visitors don’t think you’re being honest, they won’t read anything else you have to say.

Think of affiliate ads as additional resources that complement your content. Give value to your content by making it helpful, useful, and informative.

Don’t just put up a list of your links, books or whatever, hoping people will click on the affiliate link, purchase the offer (just because you listed them), so you can cash in on a sale. Take some time to write a detailed review or better yet, buy, use or subscribe to the product or offer and then use affiliate ads/links to point them in the right direction.

If you’ve actually tried the product or service and can attest to it’s effectiveness, then by all means promote them. That’s what affiliate ads are for.

For example, if you write a great review recommending a book or purchase/subscribe to a product and readers buy the book or subscribe to the product/service because of it, you should get something for that.

But just throwing out links to products and services with no rhyme or reason will result in a quick exit by visitors.

Affiliate Marketing Tip #1

Know Your Audience

The most successful way to use affiliate programs is to anticipate and meet the needs of your readers. Consider why they are coming to your site. What are you providing that they are looking for? Make sure the affiliate products you are promoting provide a solution to your audience’s problems.

If you are writing about sports, don’t put up affiliate ads for printer toner just because everyone has a printer and those programs have a high payout. The people who are coming to read commentary or get stats for their favorite teams aren’t thinking about those things when they’re on your site.

The more relevant the ads are to your readers, the more likely they will use them.

Be Trustworthy

Readers are savvy. They know an affiliate link when they see one. If you break their trust by promoting a product you don’t believe in or take advantage of their visit with too many ads, they will leave and never come back.

It is your repeat visitors that will drive traffic. They are the ones who will give you link-backs, spread the word, and recommend your site as the go-to place for valuable content. You need to build a relationship based on genuine content.

If your visitors don’t think you’re being honest, they won’t read anything else you have to say.

Your Business Name

 

I know it doesn’t sound like it should take much too just slap a name to our Business and go with it. Well there is a lot more to this than just slapping a name on a business card and going with it.

Your Business Name

Why should you have a business name? If for nothing else it will give you self-gratification. Have you ever dreamed of owning your own business and thinking of what it would be called? Now is your opportunity to make that dream come true.


What Does My business name mean?

Start by deciding what you want your name to communicate. To be most effective, your company name should reinforce the key elements of your business. Does your name really have to be meaningful? My answer to this is yes. You do not want to spend an unlimited amount of time explaining your business name to everyone that hears it. You want your name to communicate to your consumers what your business is all about. Be careful not to name your business a name that will limit your niche or your geographic location.

 

Your name needs to allow growth. If you have any desire to grow or expand your business as you go. You do not want your name to be specific niche orientated. If you were to start up a gardening business and you wanted to grow into landscaping in the future, you would not want to have a business name like Lorraine’s Petunias. Without a lot of thought you might come up with Lorraine’s Outdoor Garden center.

 

Now I know you can be a little more creative than what I just did there but can you see where the one limits your business to selling petunias, or maybe expanding into annual flowers. But would you expect a name like that to have vegetable plants or even landscape products?

 

Make sure your name does not limit you to a specific niche unless you know for sure that you will never go any further.

 

Make sure it does not limit you to a specific geographical location. We wouldn’t want to add Michigan into Lorraine’s Outdoor garden center because that would limit it to whom would actually pay your site a visit. This would be especially true if you are online.

 

Make your name easy for people to pronounce.
If you want to only sell to a specific location then by all means use your town or state or even your country in your business name. Would you click on my links if it took you to Michigan Internet Marketing services? Well you might if you were in Michigan. But my business reaches worldwide, and I just put a limit on who I might reach with my online business.

 

Make it easy to spell especially for people doing searches online for your business. You don’t want them to end up on someone else’s sight. Make sure your name fits your objectives. Make sure your name describes your company that you have in mind. Make sure you like your business name. Make sure that your name is your name and that it is not already in use.


Secure your domain name

Once you come up with a name you may go through the disappointment ofndiscovering that someone else has already beat you to it. This is especially true in the .com market today. There are over 50 million .com names registered and it is getting hard to get that special name you desire. But don’t let it get you down. Keep going and you will find that special name. To find out if your name is available you can use places like 1AND1 (http://www.1and1.at.your-daily-income.com )

 

This can help you find out if there are other businesses using your chosen name already or similar names that are close to the name you have chosen that could be associated with your name. Sites like these can also help you narrow down your choices. They will also give you alternative names to the name you have chosen if it is taken. If you can’t have your top choice of a business name as a .com domain, you might want to consider alternative spellings, choices or other top domains (i.e., “.net” or “.us”).

 

Let’s say that your business is going to be reselling electronics products. You decide you want to be recognized as the boss of the resell market. So we type in a name such as the “electronic resell boss” and click search. To your frustration you may find that the ultimate name you have chosen has been taken as is the name we are using as an example. ELECTRONICRESELLBOSS.COM is already taken. Alternative: You can use a Domain Buy Agent to get this name. Sometimes a business name can be off the charts and will break all the rules mentioned here, but those are far and few between. So stick with the basics.

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