The way you do this is you create an attractive sales page, and include the newsletter sign up code, (given to you by your newsletter program) and create a thank you page which will allow the person who signed up to receive their free download.  You’ll put the link to that sales page in your newsletter program according to their instructions so create the sales page, and the thank you page first, then get the code for the newsletter.

If you  use a service like Aweber they have tutorials and videos that show you exactly how to accomplish this. It’s pretty easy to set up and once you have it done it is free to run other than your monthly fee for Aweber.  If you aren’t sure how to do it you can hire a virtual assistant, as well as a ghostwriter. The ghostwriter can create your downloadable product, and the VA can set up the newsletter service for you. It shouldn’t take very long for either one.

You can probably get the eBook created for 15 dollars a page or so and you can hire a VA for about 20 to 45 dollars an hour. Remember cheaper doesn’t mean better, hire someone who truly knows what you want so that you and your clients will be satisfied, remember this is the first thing they will “see” when getting to know you. So, put your best foot forward when creating your first product, even if you’re giving it away free.

Create more than one sales page so that you can properly test out different sales pages to see which one works best, then keep the one that works the best. Each sales page should only be very slightly different so that you can know what part of the sales page works best. If you change too much you won’t really know what is working better.

Once you get this set up, you can use either Google Adwords or Facebook, and even LinkedIn to place your pay per click advertisements and you can start for less than 50 dollars. If you sign up first for Google Places you will likely receive a coupon in the mail that you can use to get started on Google Adwords.

You can use Facebook to get more “likes” on your business page, as well as newsletter signups for your website. You can also link directly to a product you are selling. Facebook prefers physical products to downloads so be careful when using this to sell any type of download. Perhaps offer a free download first to the people who sign up for your newsletter, then selling the people who sign up your digital product, to be on the safe side.

Facebook allows you to choose between pay per click ads and a certain number of views with unlimited clicks, you’ll have to experiment to see which type works best for you and your business. It’s really quite simple to get started.

Have a small picture ready and the copy you want on your advertisement. Then, on Facebook, just click on Ads and Pages, at the time of this writing it is located under your picture on the left side of the screen. Then click “create an ad” then follow all the prompts and fill in each area.

Give the ad a name you’ll recognize, and then choose special targeted audience. On Facebook you can zero in on your target to age, sex, education, state, city and group involvement. So you can really make sure you reach your target on Facebook, which is excellent since you really want to be able to reach certain people. Over 600 million people are active users of Facebook so this is a place you  most definitely want to be advertising now that they allow it.

Getting an advertisement approved on Facebook is not easy. Your advertisement must not lead directly to a download page, or a get quick rich scheme, pornographic site, or anything they deem a scam. They will check. Do not be discouraged if you are turned down for an advertisement, just read their reasons and try to fix it if possible, then resubmit.

The size of your ad on Facebook is very small and limited. Choose a great picture, and a headline that speaks to your target market. Then choose your words carefully. You want them to click on the advertisement but you do not want to be misleading either because then you’ll pay for that click, and it will not translate into a sale or newsletter sign up.

If you have a WordPress website or blog it is even easier to automate this process with the use of plugins, which are little apps or programs to help your website have more functionality. If you have another type of website you can likely also use various codes provided by the various social network services that can help you automate some of your interactions.

You can get a plugin that will send updates to your Facebook network each time you put up a new blog post. You can also connect Facebook and Twitter so that when you update Facebook, the app automatically notifies your followers on Twitter too! This is really useful because now you can just do each item once, and your entire network is notified automatically. You can also use a service called Networked Blogs and incorporate that into Facebook and it will automatically update your friends on new blog posts on your networked blogs.

Another thing you can automate are your blog posts. You  might not think of a blog as social media but it is. A blog is a very interactive tool that you have or should have on your website. The continuously updated content enables search engines to find you, and therefore people to find you and your information. If you want to be on top of search engines you must have continuous new content, even when you’re on vacation or you get busy with other things. WordPress has a function that allows you to schedule blogs as far in advance as you want to. You can either write your own blog posts or you can outsource and let someone else do this, putting your blog on ultimate auto pilot.

Of course, this does not mean you should not still interact with your followers on Twitter and your friends on Facebook, but you will be able to focus on true interaction now instead of spending all your time updating them about new blog posts. In addition, there is nothing wrong with writing a brand new blog post at the time it comes to you, but using the scheduling function can really help keep the content flowing naturally if you get busy or go on vacation.

Micro blogging is a great resource but you have to use it for it to be truly useful. Many people set up profiles on all the networks, but never use it, then wonder what others see  in it since it doesn’t work for them.

Put up a picture — putting a real picture of yourself, creative if you wish, is very important because people trust people more if they can see your face. If your picture is scary, or weird, people will ignore you.

Send useful Tweets — make sure all your tweets are useful, and not always selling something, if ever selling directly. If every tweet you send is an advertisement, people will un-follow you.

Be a re-tweeter – if someone who you are following sends an informative and useful tweet, re-tweet it, and make sure they know you did. This will pay off when you send something useful too.

Send direct messages – send direct messages when you can but do not send canned direct messages with a product, everyone is already on to this practice and it’s not effective. Say thank you in public, ask questions privately.

Read Tweets — automation is okay for many things, but not for reading. Read the tweets yourself and communicate and respond where appropriate. If everything you do is automated it will appear robotic and not natural, and you want to be perceived as real.

Recommend people — it’s always nice to recommend other people to follow. If you’ve been following someone who sends useful tweets recommend them to others. Say why this person is worth following and do it more than once.

Check your DM’s — Don’t forget that you will receive direct messages too, some people use this method as their main communication method, so you don’t want to miss out. You might miss out on a very important connection if you don’t check your DMs.

Avoid this – do not send tweets about when you’re using the toilet, or when your child used the toilet (unless it’s the very first time, then it’s a celebration), and no one cares if you have gas. Really.

Don’t SPAM — Even if you think the information you  have is great, to some it might become spam if you send it over and over again, and you never converse with or participate with tweeting interactively.

Facebook — You can create a Facebook Page for your business and you can market via this page in many ways. You can create a newsletter sign up, a message board, network your blogs to post updates automatically to your Facebook Page and more.

Twitter — You can also update your Twitter followers about your blog posts, your new discussions, have contests and more, all in 140 characters or less. Tip: Don’t follow the people who are doing exactly what you are, follow and be followed by people who do something else and could be possible clients.

LinkedIn –  A professional social network that is free to join. The good thing about LinkedIn is you cannot connect with complete strangers without their permission and vice versa.  You must be introduced in some way or part of the same group or company to connect. LinkedIn is much more professional in nature than many sites. Put your best professional foot forward here.

Forums — There are many message boards and forums that you can participate in on the Internet. Find groups of like minded people, as well as those in corresponding businesses as yours to network with. For instance if you own a golf court, go to where golfers hang out. If you are a real-estate agent, find out where house seekers and property seekers are and go there. Participate in a helpful non spammy way. By that I mean, don’t just seek to sell people, seek to get to know people, and help people, and the sales will happen.

Blogs — Some people do not think of blogs as social media but they are, because at their core, blogs are interactive features on your website where you can have a full discussion about any topic. You might as well open up discussions on your blog so that people can praise your product and ask questions openly about your products and services.

When you choose to participate in online social media you make a huge impact both positive and negative regarding your business. Make sure you make it a positive experience by being helpful, honest, and your real self online. People appreciate honesty and they buy things from people they trust.

Backing up — Your website host, unless you’re buying premium hosting, does not provide automatic backups for your website. Therefore, you must make sure that you are backing up your site often, at least as often as you update the site, if not daily. This update should be stored off site, meaning not on your computer and sometimes in multiple places depending on how important and essential your website is.

Security — All the virus and security software must be kept continuously updated on your website or else you are vulnerable to hackers breaking into your website and getting private information of your clients, or yourself, or just mucking up your website for you. This is dependent upon you to do, and not usually your host, unless you are paying for premium services. It is not included in the cheap plan.

Updating platform — Every platform that you use to build your site with such as WordPress, for instance, needs continuous updating to patch security problems, bugs, and just to add new functionality. This must be done correctly, so as not to lose your website, backups being performed first, and then the update being accomplished appropriately by someone who knows what they are doing.

Updating content — Content should be updated two to three times a week at least, daily if possible for the ultimate search engine love and to keep your potential and current clients engaged. You can do this yourself or you can hire someone to do it for you. This essentially means keeping updated blog posts but it could also mean changing out your graphics depending on the time of year.

Adding products — If you have a shopping cart, someone will need to delete and update products on a regular basis. You can hire someone to do this or you can do it yourself, it’s completely up to you but it’s very important to make sure that it’s done correctly since you will be dealing with private information from vendors as well as clients.

Obviously some of these maintenance tasks are technical in nature, some you can learn to do, some it makes more financial sense to assign these tasks to experts. While a business owner should know enough about these tasks to make sure the person hired is doing the job correctly, it is also important as a business owner to know when to delegate responsibilities to others.

Big business does this well, with outsourcing their inefficiencies and doing things they are efficient at, in house. This is how you should look upon you job as a business owner. If you are not earning money at a task, perhaps you might consider allowing someone else to do what they do best so you can maximize your efficiencies.

Now follow all the directions and fill out your profile so that you can “claim” your business listing on Google. You’ll be able to be found by locals who are searching for a business like yours.  Additionally, you can offer coupons, announce sells and more all on your local business listing from Google.  The greatest thing is that it is free. You can upgrade and pay for advertisements and a higher ranking listing but it is not required.

You can put up  photos, your address, your logo, your business hours, announcements, articles and more on your Google Places listing.  Make sure you really jazz it up with professional photographs and your actual business logo. You want your listing to look as professional as possible. Remember that even if this is free, it is a type of advertisement for your business so put your best business face forward. You can link to your website, your blog, and tell people about your Facebook and Twitter via your Google Places Listing. It’s not hard to do, in fact you can even find a video that tells you and shows you exactly how to do it.

Alternatively, if you do not want to do it yourself, you can ask your web developer, or your virtual assistant to create a listing for you. It will take less than thirty minutes to accomplish, and before you know it you’ll be getting local calls for your products and services without paying for an advertisement! Google Places has analytics so you can know how many page views your listing has and even see if people are clicking on your listing,  so you can know if the words and pictures you’re using are attracting clicks. If not, you can change things up to see if a change improves your click through rate.

Even if you are an individual contractor running a home business you can use Google Places, just do not list your physical address other than your City, State and zip code and adjust your office hours to say by appointment only and make sure to list a business line or cell phone as your business number. Using every avenue at your fingertips is a good idea when you’re marketing a small business.

Website –You do not have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to have an effective website that attracts online visitors to buy from your offline store. But you do need a dynamic, continuously updated, and attractive working website that visitors will find, and actually read and then choose to buy your products due to what they read.

Facebook Page — Create a Facebook page for your business linking to your website. A Facebook page is different from your personal page on Facebook and is allowed to be used to promote your business as long as you do not spam your visitors and the people who “like” your page. You can also run an advertisement to promote your page rather inexpensively.

LinkedIn — LinkedIn is a professional network of people that you should join. You can join as an individual and as a business. I suggest that you do both. Connect to people you know and before you know it your connections will grow.  You can also spend some time daily answering questions within your expertise to get added attention.

Blog — Your website should have a blog and you should seek to put up a new blog post three to five days a week. These blog posts can be a way to educate your potential customers on your products, use of your products, and to invite comment on your products. Blogs are interactive so allow your visitors to comment. You can even have a contest. Speaking of commenting you can comment on other blogs too, choose complementary blogs offering services that your clients would like but that you do not offer. Make useful comments, do not spam.

Your email signature — You email a lot of people and every single signature should carry a signature that states what you do, how to find out more, and how to connect with you. You can put special code in your signature that allows them to find you on Facebook, Linked in and Twitter.

Text — The text on your site is part of SEO and having the proper text on your site is one of the most important things that you can do.   You should know who your target market is, and exactly what they will search for online to find you. You can do this by doing keyword research within your niche or having someone else do that for you.

Design — Even the design on your sight is part of SEO. If you have a poorly designed website that does not take into account how someone finds your website via a search engine, and how search engines index your website then you cannot get the amount of traffic you would ordinarily get. If your site is optimized you will get more traffic than you thought possible, not only that, they’ll stay to look at it.

Delivery — The technology that delivers your words and the design of your site to its visitors is also part of SEO. If the technology is poor, or the code is badly written, you might not receive the number of visitors you might if the equipment worked properly. But, if it works well, and the code is clean you will get more traffic and keep more traffic.

Graphics — Your graphics, if used right can also be SEO. Your graphics have what is called an “alt” tag. This is a tag that tells people what the graphic is, assuming they hover their mouse pointer over it, or the graphic cannot load. It also informs blind or handicapped people what is showing so make full use of these tags for maximum results.

As you see everything about your website is really SEO even Article Marketing is another way to optimize the search engine results to find your website by providing one way links to your website. If you realize that from start to finish there are important factors involved in creating a search engine optimized website you’ll make sure that you choose someone who knows how to do this as part of the entire creation process.

Organic search results enable users to find you by simply typing in a keyword, or keyword phrase into a search engine, then hitting enter.  Your website, hopefully pops up upon a search on the first page. The problem is, it takes a little research to make sure you’re using the right keywords. Thankfully there are many tools, both free and fee based that you can use to do your research.

Keyword research is easy to do with a free tool that is provided by Google called Google Keyword Research Tool that is available via Google AdWords. This tool enables you to either put in your own search terms, hit enter, and you’ll get back a list of keyword tools as well as how many people will use that word or phrase. You can also put in your website, or even a competitors website that is coming up on the front page, and find out what keywords they are using to get traffic.

Another great way to research keywords is to use a program such as Wordtracker. http://www.wordtracker.com/affiliate . This program provides an education in keyword research that can’t be beat, as well as providing new and updated research as the algorithms change so does Wordtracker. Many users have seen their traffic and sales double and quadruple.

You can use these methods and others in which to learn what words you should use within the context of your website to bring targeted audience or you can experiment with various words and phrases. Some tips to help are:

Spell out acronyms — You should use acronyms on your site because people within your niche will use them, but it also helps to spell them out the first time you use them within each new article or post.

Keywords in titles — Use keywords within the first three words of your title for every article and blog post. This makes it easier for people to find your information because of the keywords in the title.

Don’t be too creative — In the old days newspapers were often very creative using puns and other words for their titles but online it is best to be direct, as well as use simple words that most people would use to find you.

By learning about keywords, and which keywords will bring you the most targeted visitors you can create a list of hundreds or thousands of keywords appropriate for your niche, this will keep you busy for a long time creating content around the keyword terms and bring you untold success.