As a business owner, you already know that people buy for emotional reasons. No matter how great your product or service is, apathetic consumers will simply dismiss it. You need to tap into their emotions if you're going to convince them that they need your product.

By manipulating the pleasure and pain triggers in your prospect, you will be catching their attention, and encouraging them to act (either to rid themselves of the pain, or to retain feelings of pleasure.)

Here are some tips for injecting pain and pleasure into your marketing messages:

Tell stories- people immediately connect with stories. If your story relates to an experience your prospect has had, they will immediately be reminded of the feelings they are fighting to avoid, or the feelings they'd love to feel again.

Make your prospect imagine- the mind is a powerful tool. Asking your prospect to visualize sets a stage for you to present painful / pleasurable situations. Tap into past experiences, or create hypothetical ones. When it comes to emotion, your prospect's brain will not make a distinction between fact and fiction.

Be confident in your product- when talking about your product or service, don't say what it might or could do for them. Explain what it will do. (Remember, your prospect needs to get rid of their pain or acquire pleasure as soon as possible. They need a guaranteed solution!)

Use the right words- make your message vibrant by using active verbs (example: Jane runs instead of Jane is running.) Also, use words associated with pleasure (babies, soft, relaxing etc.) or pain (dentist, suffering, trauma).

One last point: once you draw out the pain or pleasure, let your audience revel in it. Don't be too quick to move past the emotion. It's the emotion that moves people to action. If you can successfully incorporate emotional stimulation in your marketing messages, you will be transporting your prospect to a buying state!

I think it is crazy when I come across a Twitter account that doesn’t have a bio section filled in or even a URL in the domain section. How can you forget to put your website domain in your profile? Here are some ways to really keep your SEO elements moving in the right direction with your Twitter account.


Here are some of the top must do Twitter SEO tips to consider:

URL: Probably the most important thing. Don’t forget to have your URL visible in your profile. It only takes a few seconds to type in.

User Name: Your user name is also going to be listed in your domain so chose one wisely. If you pick something to cutesy you will have no chance of ranking in search results for your targeted keywords.

Description: Your description is used as the meta tag information for your profile so you can see where this would come in very handy to have optimized for your targeted keywords. Are you starting to see the overall goal of optimizing your profile?


Background: Take advantage of using your background to get more of your messaging across. You are allowed to upload your own background image so use it to either further your business brand or you can use the right hand side of the background to list some information about your services or your business.



Personality: Don’t let your profile seem like just a business even though you might be there to generate new leads. Try adding some personality to your profile. Ask your followers questions, have a contest show your audience that there is a human being behind that Twitter profile.



Hash Tags: This one is often overlooked by many people. If you drop a “#” before a word like SEO or any other keyword you might be targeting this will allow your tweet to show up in search results for when others search for that keyword.



Whenever dealing with any online social network or even a business profile optimization and SEO elements are very important. It doesn’t mean that it will rank all the time but if you are spending the time to create a profile you might as well make it 100% efficient in order to increase the possibilities of that profile ranking in search results.

Are you used to doing things a certain way and can’t seem to break the habit? Old habits are hard to break which is why internet marketing can be tough if you do not evolve with the rest of the industry. You might have started doing things a certain way years ago, and found that they just don’t seem to work the same way they once did. That is not a coincidence that is actually the industry moving past you while you fail to evolve.
Consider changing things up in order to grow and evolve:


Approach: If something works online than great, but if it doesn’t work than you need to fix it. Marketing your business online is not the same as it was 3 years ago. Things change and you need to evolve with your approach otherwise you run the risk of cutting your audience short.

Brand: Is your online brand stale? Have you not rebranded your business since the day you started it? Branding online in today’s marketplace is very important. Customers really focus on brand recognition before they make purchases online and a stale non branded marketing approach online could work against any new potential sales.

Website: Consult a professional about your website if you haven’t touched it in five years. You might think it’s the cat’s bag but your audience might be seriously turned off by your website. Don’t outdate yourself by not updating your website. Design is very subjective but good design with strong conversion aspects is always going to be important. Don’t be stubborn about your website design and consult with someone who understands good business web design. It is more than just making things look appealing for your audience. It is all about leading your audience down a path. That path could be the messaging of your brand or leading them down the path to a website conversion.

The internet marketing space is not an area where you can get comfortable and set in your ways. Failure to evolve will result in brand death and in today’s marketplace you have to do everything you can in order to really stand out.

Everything online revolves around trust. It is not talked about that often but trust works on both sides of the spectrum. Your website visitors need trust in order to make any sort of contact with your business website and the search engines need to trust you in order to label you as an authority figure in the search engines. There are many ways to develop trust but it truly takes time. There is no cutting corners when developing your trust factor it just sort of happens over time as a business owner.

Age: As you spend a great deal of time in the search engines you can naturally start to build up your trust factor in the eyes of your audience and the search engines. Age shows stability in the eyes of the search engines.


Linking: When industry leading resources start to quote and link to your website you start to develop trust in the eyes of the audience reading that resource and also the search engines. If you are not a worthy business an industry leading resource will not use you to quote on their website.

Branding: This could work both ways but more so for your audience. Position yourself as a strong brand and over time people will look at you as an industry leading brand. A brand instantly builds trust in the eyes of your audience and customer. A fly by night will not spend the time to really build a brand online so make an effort to build up your appearance online.

Under Promise Over Deliver: This is a very old business slogan but when done correctly utilizing this mind set will increase your trust factor. Don’t over promise and not follow through because for the long term this will not help you in building and growing your online trust.

Build Relationships: Relationship building and trust go hand in hand. Try building relationships in almost any situation you find yourself in. A relationship with the right client or person of interest could lead to significant online activities. When others in your industry start to recommend you or your services in the online space you naturally build up your trust in many ways.

Trust has become a very important attribute to strive for as a business. Trust is what gets other people inquiring and wanting to learn more about your business. It allows for a much smoother sales cycle and process. It is something that is very important for businesses to want to achieve for their own business in order to make things that much more efficient.

Have you ever heard the saying, "I know that I waste half of my advertising budget. The problem is I don't know which half!" It is this very philosophy that is prompting me to strongly inform you... advertising doesn't work! Let me show you why:

• There is no way to track effectiveness (or ineffectiveness)
• It's impersonal
• The target audience is too large
• It's costly to redo or improve
• There is no call to action

• You can track response rates
• You can quickly change campaigns that aren't working
• You can specifically target your audience
• It leads prospects to an immediate sell

Here are the 7 things you must know about your customers:

1. Their Name- Nothing speaks to an individual faster than their first name. Use it to build your relationship with your customer.

2. What They've Purchased- If you know what your customers purchased in the past, you have a good idea what they will buy again. (And won't waste your time promoting products of little to no interest.)

3. How Often They Purchase- Individuals who buy rarely from you may need additional encouragement‌more marketing. Whereas, consistent customers may not need extra sales pitches, but might benefit from a newsletter or coupon.

4. How Much They Spend (on average)- Why spend precious time pitching products to customers that they can't afford? It might embarrass your customer, shows your lack of personal interest, and may cause customers to lose interest.

5. The Last Time They Purchased- Have you lost a customer without even knowing it? Who's still loyal? Who has strayed (and needs to be brought back)?

6. Each Interaction You've Had With Them- Documentation is important for obvious reasons. But being able to "recall" previous conversations will make your customer feel important and appreciated.

7. How They Feel About Your Business- Feedback from your customers is the best way to improve your products/services, meet your customers needs, and attract more customers.

Note: Remembering each of your customers and all of these details about them is impossible. Be sure to keep an accurate database that can easily store and retrieve this information for you--and make you look like a star to your customers!

• Write down all the reasons you love your products or services
  
• Tell others the story of why you became an entrepreneur
  
• Imagine what you want your business to look like in 5 years (even if it's unrealistic... perhaps especially if it's unrealistic!)
  
• Read inspirational books, blogs, and articles about small business ownership
  
• Take time to rejuvenate

Creating Your First PHP Function

<?php
function myCompanyMotto(){
}
?>

<?php
function myCompanyMotto(){
    echo "We deliver quantity, not quality!<br />";
}
?>

Using Your PHP Function

<?php
echo "Welcome to Tizag.com <br />";
echo "Well, thanks for stopping by! <br />";
echo "and remember... <br />";
?>

<?php
function myCompanyMotto(){
    echo "We deliver quantity, not quality!<br />";
}
echo "Welcome to Tizag.com <br />";
myCompanyMotto();
echo "Well, thanks for stopping by! <br />";
echo "and remember... <br />";

myCompanyMotto();
?>

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• Always start your function with the keyword function
• Remember that your function's code must be between the "{" and the "}"
• When you are using your function, be sure you spell the function name correctly
• Don't give up!

PHP Functions - Parameters

<?php
function myGreeting($firstName){
    echo "Hello there ". $firstName . "!<br />";
}
?>

<?php
function myGreeting($firstName){
    echo "Hello there ". $firstName . "!<br />";
}
myGreeting("Jack");
myGreeting("Ahmed");
myGreeting("Julie");
myGreeting("Charles");
?>

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<?php
function myGreeting($firstName, $lastName){
    echo "Hello there ". $firstName ." ". $lastName ."!<br />";
}
myGreeting("Jack", "Black");
myGreeting("Ahmed", "Zewail");
myGreeting("Julie", "Roberts");
myGreeting("Charles", "Schwab");
?>

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PHP Functions - Returning Values

• $myVar = somefunction();

<?php
function mySum($numX, $numY){
    $total = $numX + $numY;
    return $total; 
}
$myNumber = 0;

echo "Before the function, myNumber = ". $myNumber ."<br />";
$myNumber = mySum(3, 4); // Store the result of mySum in $myNumber
echo "After the function, myNumber = " . $myNumber ."<br />";
?>

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Imagine we are an art supply store thatsells brushes, paint, and erasers. To gather order information from our prospective customers we will have to make a page with an HTML form to gather the customer's order.

Note: This is an oversimplified example to educate you how to use PHP to process HTML form information. This example is not intended nor advised to be used on a real business website.

Creating the HTML Form

<html><body>
<h4>Tizag Art Supply Order Form</h4>
<form> 
<select> 
<option>Paint</option>

<option>Brushes</option>
<option>Erasers</option>
</select>
Quantity: <input type="text" /> 
<input type="submit" />
</form>

</body></html>

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<html><body>

<h4>Tizag Art Supply Order Form</h4>
<form action="process.php" method="post"> 
<select name="item"> 
<option>Paint</option>
<option>Brushes</option>

<option>Erasers</option>
</select>
Quantity: <input name="quantity" type="text" /> 
<input type="submit" />
</form>
</body></html>

PHP Form Processor

<html><body>
<?php
$quantity = $_POST['quantity'];
$item = $_POST['item'];

echo "You ordered ". $quantity . " " . $item . ".<br />";
echo "Thank you for ordering from Tizag Art Supplies!";

?>
</body></html>

You ordered 6 brushes.
Thank you for ordering from Tizag Art Supplies!

PHP & HTML Form Review

1. We first created an HTML form "order.html" that had two input fields
   specified, "item" and "quantity".
2. We added two attributes to the form tag to point to "process.php" and
   set the method to "post".
3. We had "process.php" get the information that was posted
   by setting new variables equal to the values in the $_POST associative array.
4. We used the PHP echo function to output the customers order.

For example we might have a variable that stores travel destinations and you want
to pack according to this destination variable. In this example you might have
20 different locations that you would have to check with a nasty long block
of If/ElseIf/ElseIf/ElseIf/... statements. This doesn't sound like much fun to code,
let's see if we can do something different.

PHP Switch Statement: Speedy Checking

PHP Switch Statement Example

$destination = "Tokyo";
echo "Traveling to $destination<br />";
switch ($destination){
 case "Las Vegas":
  echo "Bring an extra $500";
  break;
 case "Amsterdam":
  echo "Bring an open mind";
  break; 
 case "Egypt":
  echo "Bring 15 bottles of SPF 50 Sunscreen";
  break; 
 case "Tokyo":
  echo "Bring lots of money";
  break;
 case "Caribbean Islands":
  echo "Bring a swimsuit";
  break; 
}

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PHP Switch Statement: Default Case

$destination = "New York";
echo "Traveling to $destination<br />";
switch ($destination){
 case "Las Vegas":
  echo "Bring an extra $500";
  break;
 case "Amsterdam":
  echo "Bring an open mind";
  break;
 case "Egypt":
  echo "Bring 15 bottles of SPF 50 Sunscreen";
  break; 
 case "Tokyo":
  echo "Bring lots of money";
  break; 
 case "Caribbean Islands":
  echo "Bring a swimsuit";
  break;  
 default:
  echo "Bring lots of underwear!";
  break;

}

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PHP - Elseif

An if/else statement is great if you only need to check for one condition. However,
what would you do if you wanted to check if your $employee variable was the company owner
Bob, the Vice President Ms. Tanner, or a regular employee? To check for these different conditions
you would need the elseif statement

PHP - Elseif What is it?

An if statement is made up of the keyword "if" and a conditional statement (i.e. $name == "Ted").
Just like an if statement, an elseif statement also contains a conditional statement, but it must be preceded
by an if statement. You cannot have an elseif statement without first having an if statement.

When PHP evaluates your If...elseif...else statement it will first see if the If statement is true. If that
tests comes out false it will then check the first elseif statement. If that is false it will either check the next
elseif statement, or if there are no more elseif statements, it will evaluate the else segment, if one exists (I don't
think I've ever used the word "if" so much in my entire life!). Let's take a look at a real world example.

PHP - Using Elseif with If...Else

Let's start out with the base case. Imagine we have a simpler version of the problem described above.
We simply want
to find out if the employee is the Vice President Ms. Tanner. We only need an if else statement for
this part of the example.

$employee = "Bob";
if($employee == "Ms. Tanner"){
 echo "Hello Ma'am";
} else {
 echo "Morning";
}

Now, if we wanted to also check to see if the big boss Bob was the employee we need
to insert an elseif clause.

$employee = "Bob";
if($employee == "Ms. Tanner"){
 echo "Hello Ma'am";
} elseif($employee == "Bob"){
 echo "Good Morning Sir!";
}else {
 echo "Morning";
}

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PHP first checked to see if $employee was equal to "Ms. Tanner", which evaluated to
false. Next, PHP checked the first elseif statement. $employee did in
fact equal "Bob" so the phrase "Good Morning Sir!" was printed out. If we wanted
to check for more employee names we could insert more elseif statements!

Remember that an elseif statement cannot be used unless it is preceded
by an if statement!

The PHP If Statement

If Statement Example

$my_name = "someguy";

if ( $my_name == "someguy" ) {
 echo "Your name is someguy!<br />";
}
echo "Welcome to my homepage!";

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• We first set the variable $my_name equal to "someguy".
• We next used a PHP if statement to check if the value contained in the
  variable $my_name was equal to "someguy"
• The comparison between $my_name and "someguy" was done with a double equal
  sign "==", not a single equals"="! A single equals is for assigning a value
  to a variable, while a double equals is for checking if things are equal.
• Translated into english the PHP statement ( $my_name == "someguy" ) is ( $my_name
  is equal to "someguy" ).
• $my_name is indeed equal to "someguy" so the echo statement is executed.

A False If Statement

$my_name = "anotherguy";

if ( $my_name == "someguy" ) {
 echo "Your name is someguy!<br />";
}
echo "Welcome to my homepage!";

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If/Else an Example

$number_three = 3;

if ( $number_three == 3 ) {
 echo "The if statement evaluated to true";
} else {
 echo "The if statement evaluated to false";
}

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• We first made a PHP variable called $number_three and set it equal to 3.
• In this example we compared a variable to
  an integer value. To do such a comparison we use "==", which in English means "Is Equal To".
• $number_three is indeed Equal To 3 and so this statement will evaluate to true.
• All code that is contained between the opening curly brace "{" that follows the if
  statement and the closing curly brace "}" will be executed when the if statement is true.
• The code contained within the else segment will not used.

Execute Else Code with False

$number_three = 421;

if ( $number_three == 3 ) {
 echo "The if statement evaluated to true";
} else {
 echo "The if statement evaluated to false";
}

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PHP Include

An Include Example

<html>
<body>
<a href="http://www.example.com/index.php">Home</a> - 
<a href="http://www.example.com/about.php">About Us</a> - 
<a href="http://www.example.com/links.php">Links</a> - 

<a href="http://www.example.com/contact.php">Contact Us</a> <br />

<?php include("menu.php"); ?>

<p>This is my home page that uses a common menu to save me time when I add
new pages to my website!</p>
</body>
</html>

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What do Visitors See?

<html>

<body>
<a href="index.php">Home</a> - 
<a href="about.php">About Us</a> - 
<a href="links.php">Links</a> - 

<a href="contact.php">Contact Us</a> <br />
<p>This is my home page that uses a common menu to save me time when I add
new pages to my website!</p>
</body>
</html>

Include Recap

Require vs Include

<?php
include("noFileExistsHere.php");
echo "Hello World!";
?>

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<?php
require("noFileExistsHere.php");
echo "Hello World!";
?>

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PHP - Operators

• Assignment Operators
• Arithmetic Operators
• Comparison Operators
• String Operators
• Combination Arithmetic & Assignment Operators

Assignment Operators

• $my_var = 4;
• $another_var = $my_var;

Arithmetic Operators

$addition = 2 + 4; 
$subtraction = 6 - 2; 
$multiplication = 5 * 3; 
$division = 15 / 3; 
$modulus = 5 % 2; 
echo "Perform addition: 2 + 4 = ".$addition."<br />"; 
echo "Perform subtraction: 6 - 2 = ".$subtraction."<br />"; 
echo "Perform multiplication:  5 * 3 = ".$multiplication."<br />"; 
echo "Perform division: 15 / 3 = ".$division."<br />"; 
echo "Perform modulus: 5 % 2 = " . $modulus 
 . ". Modulus is the remainder after the division operation has been performed.  
 In this case it was 5 / 2, which has a remainder of 1.";

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Comparison Operators

String Operators

$a_string = "Hello";
$another_string = " Billy";
$new_string = $a_string . $another_string;
echo $new_string . "!";

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Combination Arithmetic & Assignment Operators

• $counter = $counter + 1;

• $counter += 1;

Pre/Post-Increment & Pre/Post-Decrement

• $x++; Which is equivalent to $x += 1; or $x = $x + 1;

• $x--; Which is equivalent to $x -= 1; or $x = $x - 1;

$x = 4;
echo "The value of x with post-plusplus = " . $x++;
echo "<br /> The value of x after the post-plusplus is " . $x;
$x = 4;
echo "<br />The value of x with with pre-plusplus = " . ++$x;
echo "<br /> The value of x after the pre-plusplus is " . $x;

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PHP - String Creation

Before you can use a string you have to create it! A string can be used directly
in a function or it can be stored in a variable. Below we create the exact same string twice: first
storing it into a variable and in the second case we send the string directly to echo.

$my_string = "Tizag - Unlock your potential!";
echo "Tizag - Unlock your potential!";
echo $my_string;

In the above example the first string will be stored into the variable $my_string,
while the second string will be used in the echo and not be stored. Remember to
save your strings into variables if you plan on using them more than once! Below is the output from
our example code. They look identical just as we thought.

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PHP - String Creation Single Quotes

Thus far we have created strings using double-quotes, but it is just as correct
to create a string using single-quotes, otherwise known as apostrophes.

$my_string = 'Tizag - Unlock your potential!';
echo 'Tizag - Unlock your potential!';
echo $my_string;

If you want to use a single-quote within the string you have to escape the single-quote
with a backslash \ . Like this: \' !

echo 'Tizag - It\'s Neat!';

PHP - String Creation Double-Quotes

We have used double-quotes and will continue to use them as the
primary method for forming strings. Double-quotes allow for many special escaped characters
to be used that you cannot do with a single-quote string. Once again, a backslash is used to escape a character.

$newline = "A newline is \n";
$return = "A carriage return is \r";
$tab = "A tab is \t";
$dollar = "A dollar sign is \$";
$doublequote = "A double-quote is \"";

Note: If you try to escape a character that doesn't need to be, such as an apostrophe, then
the backslash will show up when you output the string.

These escaped characters are not very useful for outputting to a web page because HTML ignore extra white space.
A tab, newline, and carriage return are all examples of extra (ignorable) white space. However, when writing to a file that
may be read by human eyes these escaped characters are a valuable tool!

PHP - String Creation Heredoc

The two methods above are the traditional way to create strings in most
programming languages. PHP introduces a more robust string creation tool called
heredoc that lets the programmer create multi-line strings without using
quotations. However, creating a string using heredoc is more difficult and can lead to
problems if you do not properly code your string! Here's how to do it:

$my_string = <<<TEST
Tizag.com
Webmaster Tutorials
Unlock your potential!
TEST;

echo $my_string;

There are a few very important things to remember when using heredoc.

• Use <<< and some identifier that you choose to begin the heredoc. In this example we chose TEST as our
  identifier.
• Repeat the identifier followed by a semicolon to end the heredoc string creation. In this example that was
  TEST;
• The closing sequence TEST; must occur on a line by itself and cannot be indented!

Another thing to note is that when you output this multi-line string to a web page, it will not span multiple lines
because we did not have any <br /> tags contained inside our string! Here is the output made from the code above.

PHP's syntax and semantics are similar to most other programming languages (C, Java, Perl)
with the addition that all PHP code is contained with a tag, of sorts. All
PHP code must be contained within the following...

<?php
?>

or the shorthand PHP tag that requires shorthand support to be enabled
on your server...

<?
?>

How to Save Your PHP Pages

Example Simple HTML & PHP Page

<html>
<head>
<title>My First PHP Page</title>

</head>
<body>
<?php
echo "Hello World!";
?>
</body>
</html>

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The Semicolon!

<html>
<head>
<title>My First PHP Page</title>

</head>
<body>
<?php
echo "Hello World! ";
echo "Hello World! ";
echo "Hello World! ";
echo "Hello World! ";
echo "Hello World! ";
?>
</body>
</html>

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White Space

<html>
<head>
<title>My First PHP Page</title>
</head>
<body>

<?php
echo "Hello World!";        



 echo "Hello World!";


?>
</body>
</html>

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virtualinfocom way

• $variable_name = Value;

A Quick Variable Example

<?php
$hello = "Hello World!";
$a_number = 4;
$anotherNumber = 8;
?>

PHP Variable Naming Conventions

• PHP variables must start with a letter or underscore "_".
• PHP variables may only be comprised of alpha-numeric characters and underscores. a-z, A-Z, 0-9, or _ .
• Variables with more than one word should be separated with underscores. $my_variable
• Variables with more than one word can also be distinguished with capitalization. $myVariable

Outputting a String

<?php
$myString = "Hello!";
echo $myString;
echo "<h5>I love using PHP!</h5>";
?>

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Careful When Echoing Quotes!

• Don't use quotes inside your string
• Escape your quotes that are within the string with a backslash. To escape a quote
  just place a backslash directly before the quotation mark, i.e. \"
• Use single quotes (apostrophes) for quotes inside your string.

<?php
// This won't work because of the quotes around specialH5!
echo "<h5 class="specialH5">I love using PHP!</h5>";  

// OK because we escaped the quotes!
echo "<h5 class=\"specialH5\">I love using PHP!</h5>";  

// OK because we used an apostrophe '
echo "<h5 class='specialH5'>I love using PHP!</h5>";  
?>

Echoing Variables

<?php
$my_string = "Hello Bob.  My name is: ";
$my_number = 4;
$my_letter = a;
echo $my_string;
echo $my_number;
echo $my_letter;
?>

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Echoing Variables and Text Strings

<?php
$my_string = "Hello Bob.  My name is: ";
echo "$my_string Bobettta <br />";
echo "Hi, I'm Bob.  Who are you? $my_string <br />";
echo "Hi, I'm Bob.  Who are you? $my_string Bobetta";
?>

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To run MySQL on Windows, you need the following:

As we mentioned before, MySQL is not a requirement to use PHP, however they often go hand in hand.

virtualinfocom will help you how to install MySQL

shell> groupadd mysql
shell> useradd -g mysql mysql
shell> cd /usr/local
shell> gunzip < /path/to/mysql-VERSION-OS.tar.gz | tar xvf -

shell> ln -s full-path-to-mysql-VERSION-OS mysql
shell> cd mysql
shell> chown -R mysql .
shell> chgrp -R mysql .

shell> scripts/mysql_install_db --user=mysql
shell> chown -R root .
shell> chown -R mysql data
shell> bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &

shell> bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &