Website Buy/Sell Articles Blog

Leverage Your Sales Through Affiliate Programs

2008-05-27T20:13:00.000-04:00

To attract affiliates to your company you should make it worth their time. Offering one percent of sales, is not an attractive offer, the higher the commission that you are able to offer your affiliates the more affiliates will be enticed to join your team. You should also provide your affiliates with the tools that they will need to successfully market your product such as banner ads, articles, and anything else that will help them to better market the product. You should provide the affiliates with updated product information through newsletters, new promotional campaigns and other things to motivate and inform the affiliates.

You can choose to run your affiliate program in a few different ways, both of which are beneficial to your business. A one-tier affiliate program allows you to generally offer a larger commission and pays on one level. The affiliate will receive a predetermined amount for each sale. Using a two-tier affiliate program, affiliates are paid on two different levels. This is done by allowing the affiliates to recruit others to sell under them. In this situation, the top level affiliate would receive a slightly larger commission than the recruit or second level affiliate. For example if the top level seller makes 20% of the sale, then she/he would make 15% giving the second level affiliate the 5%.

Setting up the affiliate program can also be done in two different ways. One way is to do it yourself through an affiliate tracking software. This software will provide you with a way to track affiliate sales as well as allow the affiliates to view their progress. The downside to this option is that you are responsible for making payments. You can also choose to hire an affiliate tracking company to do all the work for you. These companies will allow the use of credit cards and completely run the affiliate program from billing customers, paying affiliates, and also pay you. This is a great option for the busy business owner or the beginning business owner and it is affordable as most affiliate tracking companies charge a small one time fee. However you choose to run your affiliate program it is sure to increase profits for your business.

Mike Tansey has been online since early 2004. He can help YOU start your own profitable business on the Internet within the next 24 hours…

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Using This One Simple Word Helped Treble My Site\'s Profits

2008-05-26T12:00:00.000-04:00

This article is very important. In fact, the chances are it will give you more sales from your website. Now I'm not suggesting you're low on sales but we could all do with more sales right? I first started using this word on my website about a year ago. Using the word changed the whole focus of my website, my business and my life! Sounds unbelievable doesn't it? But it's not, it's entirely true and I want to share it with you. You want to know what this word is don't you? Okay then - no more messing around then. This word is the reason you are reading this article and the reason you carried on reading after the first paragraph.

Have you guessed it already? The single most important word you need to use on your homepage is "YOU"!. You. You. You. Using 'YOU' Brings Success Using the word 'you' on your homepage can have dramatic effects on how effective your website is at converting visitors into enquiries and sales. Using the word 'YOU' gets across your business' message in the only way that truly works - from the customer's point of view. Now you might be thinking this is all obvious stuff.

And it is! But just remember to look at the next few homepages you visit and see how many site owners are not following this simplest but most effective of rules. Most businesses fall into the trap of wording things in this way: "We provide such and such a product. We are industry-leaders.. We are based in .." What you should be doing is changing the entire angle and 'voice' of your website around from an anonymous corporate 'brochure-type-speak' into a more personal YOU-focused angle. Take a look at my homepage and you'll see what I mean - http://www.websitemarketingbible.com/ .

Now take a look at your homepage - how many 'YOU's have you got on your page? So Why Is Using 'YOU' So Important? Because YOU are the most important thing in YOUR universe. You don't want to hear about me, my company, what we do or what our strengths are - you want to hear what's in it for YOU. Studies show that you should have around 70% of all sales and marketing literature comprised of words like 'YOU', 'YOUR', 'YOURS' etc. This might seem like an uphill struggle at first and your initial attempts might not read too well but you will soon get the hang of it. Can You Play YOU-Gymnastics? You can actually start treating it like a game. It takes time but eventually you will master the skill of turning any sentence around from a 'WE', 'US' or 'OUR' statement into a 'YOU' or 'YOUR' statement.

I urge you to revamp your homepage and get rid of any 'WE's or 'OUR's that you have and reword everything to put the customer at the heart of the matter. Now we're just talking about the homepage here but really you should be applying this principle to your entire website. How The Word "YOU" Changed My Life When I first learned of this golden rule it changed my website totally. I went from talking about my business and products on the site to talking directly to my customers and putting things across in a way which meant most to THEM. It also made me take a step back and re-draft all my corporate literature adopting this same YOU principle. But the story doesn't end there.. I realised that putting 'YOU' at the heart of my business communications and my business as a whole was actually the starting point for something far deeper.

Ask any successful person and they will tell you that 'givers gain' - that is, if you give first and receive second you will achieve more than the person who takes first and thinks of giving afterwards. It was then that I realised that I needed to start putting the 'YOU' at the centre of my whole life. I realised that to every other single person in the world - they were the most important thing that existed. I listened more and made better relationships. I empathised more and made more sales. I gave more and felt more rewarded. I could go on but feel that YOU need to go off now and start implementing this powerful technique for YOUR website! I wish YOU great success! Michael Cheney Author of The Website Marketing BibleTM.

Michael Cheney

Author of The Website Marketing BibleTM

Download Your FREE Sampler Of The Website Marketing BibleTM Now And Get FREE Bonuses Worth £159 ($288) - http://www.websitemarketingbible.com/

Why Some Experts Are Completely Wrong About Linking

2008-05-25T15:00:00.000-04:00

If you have read some information about reciprocal linking and other linking tactics in order to better promote your website, you have probably found some seriously differing opinions as to what the purpose of linking is. There are a wide range of articles and books about linking that come from polar opposite views as to why and how you should conduct a linking promotion campaign. Most people, to this day, think that linking is solely for search engine results and link popularity as it is defined by Google. In fact, that is the sole reason thousands and thousands of webmasters exchange links. They think it is for "pagerank" and link popularity as a boost to search engine rankings. One of the biggest misconceptions about my own courses, Power Linking and Power Linking 2: Evolution, is that what I teach is for the purpose of manipulating search engines. Not at all! I have said many times over the years that search engine positioning and traffic come as an added benefit to a solid linking campaign.
Although I teach what you can expect from a good linking campaign with regard to the search engines, there is no reason to go out of your way to get good rankings - they are automatic if your site is basically optimized and has good content. What isn't automatic is the spread of your URL across the web on thousands and thousands of real websites. (Not FFA pages or junk "neighborhoods") Hard working webmasters and business owners are missing the boat due in large part to the misinformation and misguidance of hobby experts who think they know what the real power of advanced linking tactics are all about. Someone wrote to me today and said "If you are the linking expert, why don't you have a lot more backlinks? I just checked Google and they only show…" This is the problem with so many people expecting that the world revolves around that search engine.

I love Google and the traffic I get from them. I think they are the best search engine hands down right now. But judging my success through them and what they deem as important is a big mistake. Here's Why Google only counts links that have a certain pagerank. Everything else, even if it is MORE relevant and sends me MORE traffic than the links Google chooses to show you when you check backlinks, is left out. Well, that's because Google wants to show stats that way. It's their search engine and they can do what they want.

But from a Power Linking perspective, the stats you get when checking backlinks at Google are totally irrelevant. I never use them to check how many people are REALLY linking to me because I am not playing the "linking for ranking" game the majority of other website promoters are. I am interested in links from sites where my target market surfs and will likely SEE my link and visit. This was the original intent of linking since the beginning of the internet. And it will be no matter what any search engine deems important or not important in the future. I try not to link with sites that hide their partner directories. You can see my explanation of this at one of my new partner directories here: http://www.jackhumphrey.com/marketing-resources/index.html Linking is the only constant in website promotion.

It was the first form of promotion and it will always and forever be the core of any successful website promotion campaign. I have a piece of software I use to find ALL the links to my sites regardless of their pagerank. For one of my sites Google shows only 243 links - this software shows all 3900. It shows ALL the people who are linking to me, which is so incredibly more important than just the links with a pagerank of 4! You can download the software for free here and see for yourself with your own site: http://jackhumphrey.com/linkcheckersoftware/LPC.exe The software above will not only tell you exactly how many links you really have pointing to your site(s), but it has very valuable and useful SEO and linking resources. Chances are you never knew just how many people were already linking to you, even if your site has been only marginally visible on the web for 6 months or more. Now you can clearly see why there is a glaring lapse in lo
gic in the argument that a site is not important if only so many backlinks show up in Google. My stats are showing me that, on my Power Linking site, I got traffic from over 3000 referrers last month. Google was ONE of them. If Google goes down, a LOT of people are going to be out of business until they come back up. Not me.

Not ever. People who practice Power Linking using way more than just reciprocal linking directories never have to be slaves to the search engines or be fearful of changing algorithms and search engine updates. I don't pretend to be a search engine expert by any stretch. I dabble in SEO tactics. I have business associates I trust who know way more than I would ever care to about search engines. My principle purpose in promoting my site is to get visitors (and send visitors) to and from my linking partners and from non-reciprocal links I place all over the net every month. In many peoples' search for the "holy grail" they have completely skipped over the basics of website promotion and usually they end up nowhere. You cannot grasp the higher end stuff if you have no concept of the basics. Linking, even in advanced tactics, is far safer, more stable, yet far easier for the layman to understand and implement.

And it takes you less time to learn than trying to constantly reverse engineer search engines trying to "break in" to the top ten. Lots of people found out what a waste of time that was when the Florida update came around. All the work thousands of sites put into their rankings vanished in the blink of an eye. Because they didn't have any backup source of traffic. Because they only did search engine marketing and optimization. My site, surprisingly, stayed right where it was through the whole thing. It didn't move up, but it didn't go down in rankings either.

(Not that it would have mattered terribly much since most of my traffic comes from other sites anyway!) I don't pretend to understand why my sites all pulled through that big update and I don't much care. A visit to a few of the top SEO forums had me more confused than ever. No one ever seems to agree what's going on, nor can they accurately predict what will happen with the search engines. Many of them carry titles of "SEO Expert" yet the experts are all fighting each other over how to get high rankings. I just leave them to their arguments and keep Power Linking. Links are and always will be the lifeblood of any website. Sticking to a well-planned and constantly implemented linking campaign grounded in proven results, time and again, will always get your business through the massive changes that seem to come and go with the search engines. Search engine companies have a job to do which is provide results people are looking for.

That is not our job. Ours is to provide visitors with good content and products and get as many "avenues" of traffic coming in from as many different static, relevant sources around the net as possible. If you do your job properly, the search engines will reward you with traffic by default. If, in fact, your site is one of the most relevant to a particular search phrase, you WILL show up. You don't have to understand intimately all the workings of the algorithms and programs that make it happen. That's not your job. You just have to know that your site should have good content, be basically optimized, and have as many links as you can find pointing to it, and all the other great things will follow. Only working on the parts of linking that affect the search engines is leaving out a free traffic bonanza and putting you in a position of depending solely on the search engines for traffic. Lots of people take that risk.

I have sites I risk with just engine traffic too. But I knew the risks going in and for those sites, if I lose my rankings because of a new shift in policy in a big engine, I am able to take the loss because they are not part of my core business. Plus all of the sites I have that fall into that category are being developed to be power linked so that they evolve into solid sites that don't continue to rely just on search engine traffic. Many search engine experts are more comfortable in the lopsided focus on search engines marketing. But they are experts and know what to do to roll with the punches. Most people are not experts and should focus on a well-rounded promotion campaign so that you are never at the whim of a single or just a few traffic sources. It seems like common sense when you look at it that way, but it is so easy to get caught up in the allure of search engine marketing and leave your other responsibilities on the sidelines while you focus all your attention on understanding and playing the
search engine game. That is not something, especially if you have a board of directors, that would be approved of in most businesses. You owe your business more than that.

Being responsible and covering all the website promotion bases is what gives your business stability and provides growth in the long term. For further insight you can navigate to my marketing web log and check out a telling statistical study I did on one of my sites to see where my traffic comes from. You might be surprised at the results! See the report here: http://snipurl.com/8omn

Jack Humphrey is a linking and website promotion specialist and author of Power Linking, now in its third year and 4th update.

http://power-linking-profits.com/

Website Marketing Necessary For Commerce

2008-05-24T16:39:00.000-04:00

Advertising is the key to any successful business. Website marketing is tricky business in some cases. With the vast amount of websites, many of which offer the same products, the competition is fierce to drive traffic to one site or another. Webmasters must now think creatively in order to get the customers to build a long-standing base of consumers who wish to purchase their products. For a company that is just now breaking into the online venues it becomes even harder, but far from impossible. The first thing that any website needs to determine is what the target customer base is. This has to do with the products that they offer, what age group the products are designed for, and what financial bracket their customers need to be in for purchases. If you are selling women's socks for instance, it would not do you any good to target men.

Determine which sex is most likely to buy the products and make that your first target. If the products you sell are unisex, determine which way the products will lean, thereby you can market to both, but one heavier in importance than the other. The age group is second in importance. Certain areas of commerce lean towards different age groups. If you happen to be selling video games then you should remain in the teen and younger age bracket. While not only teens and their friends are the only ones to buy video games, they are more likely to be a wider audience than middle-aged family men.

You will find that most of your sales stay within the target you choose if you have targeted correctly. There will be a few exceptions, but not many. Finally, you should determine what financial group would most likely buy your products. The higher the price, the higher the bracket. This is often called financial bracket formula. Targeting senior citizens on fixed income to sell Rolex watches is hardly intelligent. For direct marketing resources, you should find a market that sells advertising to a variety of sites over the wide expanse that is the Internet.

Several large companies are now offering revolving ads that are paid when someone clicks on the link. This helps the website to draw visitors and at the same time allows the webmaster to see what kind of return of investment (ROI) he is getting from any one ad campaign. Banner exchange programs are also popular among websites. This includes exchanging banner ads with another website so that both are receiving equal amounts of advertising based on the number of visitors to each site. Check with your favorite search engine to determine all website marketing techniques available to you.

Charles Hopkins is a developer and senior editor for Ezilon Web Directory and Search Engine. Website: http://search.ezilon.com/ - North American Directory (Submit your website and search The United States and Canadian Websites).

10 Things You Can Do To Sell (A Lot Of) Ads On Your Website

2008-05-23T14:39:00.000-04:00

Here are (10) easy to implement ideas to increase ad sales on your website:

1. Offer discounts to advertisers who spend more money or purchase a larger volume of ads.

2. Offer your advertisers a free incentive or bonus if they renew their ads. It might be something like "purchase 11 months and get the 12th free. You could also offer them a copy of a product you might be selling if they renew their current contract term.

3. You just don't have to sell add space at the top or bottom of your pages or even in the left/right hand columns, you can sell space right smack dab in the middle of the page and have your page text "wrap around" the ad.

4. You can sell a lot more ads if you re-write some of the content of your pages to reference their particular product.

5. Offer potential ad customers free or additional listings on other parts of your site when they purchase regular ad space.

6. You can offer an honest endorsement of your advertisers product, if they would be willing to supply you a copy to try out.

7. In addition to #6, offer to place your personal review or testimonial near their advertisement. This always acts like a magnet to draw visitors to the actual ad.

8. Dust off the P.T. Barnum in you and try offer special deals like "pay for two months upfront and get a third month at no charge" or "buy one get one free" or something similar to that. Use you creative mind!

9. If you website sells products that would be of interest to your potential advertisers, offer them (your product) as "signing" bonuses for signing on as an advertiser on your site.

10. Give advertisers your personal guarantee that if they don't receive a certain amount of exposures, clicks etc., that you will give them another months worth of ad space for free.

About The Author

When not on his soapbox, Andrew Wroblewski is doing battle with the thousands of spyware programs that can affect you via his ant-spyware and spyware removal website: http://spyware.pcwash.com where you can get a free spyware scan of your computer system.

Website Marketing Necessary For Commerce

2008-05-22T13:13:00.000-04:00

Website marketing is imperative to those who own websites that provide products or services. Without it, the chances of potential customers finding the site are slim. This will cause any business to fail quickly. Marketing your website is just like advertising a physical business. If customers do not know where you are and what products or services you offer than the chance of succeeding is non-existent. Advertising is the key to any successful business. Website marketing is tricky business in some cases. With the vast amount of websites, many of which offer the same products, the competition is fierce to drive traffic to one site or another. Webmasters must now think creatively in order to get the customers to build a long-standing base of consumers who wish to purchase their products. For a company that is just now breaking into the online venues it becomes even harder, but far from impossible. The first thing that any website needs to determine is what the target customer base is. This has to
do with the products that they offer, what age group the products are designed for, and what financial bracket their customers need to be in for purchases. If you are selling women's socks for instance, it would not do you any good to target men.

Copyright 2006 Ezilon.com

Charles Hopkins is a developer and senior editor for Ezilon Web Directory and Search Engine. Website: http://search.ezilon.com/ - North American Directory (Submit your website and search The United States and Canadian Websites).

How To Use Your Web Site To Make Money

2008-05-21T14:39:00.000-04:00

If you consider your web site a money pit, you are not alone. Quite a few business owners have told me that they have web sites because "everyone else has a web site", but they haven't gotten any business from their web site. None. Zero. Nada. Zip. Many of them have paid thousands of dollars to web designers to create the web sites for them, and than the web sites just sit there, gathering the proverbial Internet dust, and getting enormous traffic consisting of three to five unique visitors a month.

Your web site should not be languishing in one of the rarely visited corners of the Net. Instead, it should be working 24 hours, 7 days a week, 365 days a year getting leads and clients for your business. It should serve as marketing brochure and as your best salesperson (who incidentally never sleeps, and doesn't require either salary or commissions).

So how do you turn your dust collector into a lean, mean sales machine? First, you need to lay down the infrastructure for your online business. Here are three guidelines your web site should adhere to before its initial debut:

- Your web site must be easy to navigate, understand and use. When a web surfer comes to a web site and doesn't understand what the web site is about in the first few minutes, the surfer moves on to the next web site (trust me, there lots of them out there. Approximately 2.7 billion at last count, give or take a few billion).

If the purpose and intent of your web site is not blatantly obvious, a surfer will move on. If your web site is difficult to navigate, a surfer will move on. If your web site is hard to use (for example, it is not obvious how to contact you or hire you) a surfer will move on.

- Your web site must discuss what you do AND how what you do will benefit your customers. Let's say Sue and Jane are both weight loss coaches. Sue's web site says that Sue is a weight loss coach. Jane's web site says that Jane is a weight loss coach who helps women look and feel better by losing 30 pounds in 3 months.

Which coach sounds more appealing? The one who not only states what she does, but also shows what is in it for the customer. The site must answer a fundamental question: Why should I hire you?

- Have a newsletter sign up box on your web site. The majority of your web site visitors will not contact you about your services after visiting your web site, but they will subscribe for a free newsletter. By subscribing, they give you permission to send them your information-packed newsletter, which will also serve as a reminder about your business.

Without a newsletter, many people will visit your web site once and promptly forget about it 10 minutes after leaving it. By having a newsletter, you are able to capture these visitors, and tell them about your business again and again.

Take action today! Take a critical look at your web site and make sure that it conforms to the guidelines outlined above. A website that follows these forms a solid foundation for having a marketable web site for your business.

About The Author

Biana Babinsky teaches business owners how to make more money online. Learn how to get your web site to make money by getting Biana's FREE special report, "Top 5 Ways to Increase your Online Sales" at http://avocadoconsulting.com/free_newsletter.html .

3 Reasons Your Website Might Fail To Attract Enough Customers

2008-05-20T12:39:00.000-04:00

Virtually all website owners concentrate their efforts and energy into getting more visitors. With business owners this effort is spent on getting more and more new customers. What many people forget - with both their website and their business - is that getting new customers (or visitors) is only a small part of the equation for success…

Reason For Failure No. 1 - The 'I am God'-Syndrome

God got his name from being able to do anything and everything and be everywhere at once. Despite what we are taught from an early age many people still insist on believing they themselves are God.

Ever found yourself answering the phone, making a sale, running a sales meeting, welcoming customers and doing your company's accounts all in one day? Sure you have. You're trying to be God and do everything and be in more than one place at one time. You will fail. People do this with their website too. Rather than just stopping at providing content (which is where you should stop and hand everything else over to the professionals) some people think that despite no professional training or education in the subject they are experts in web design, website marketing, graphic design and business consultancy.

Remember - stick to what you know, leave everything else to the experts. Your job is to run your business - not to run around like a headless chicken trying to create a website, market a website, do the books, answer the phones and make the tea.

Reason For Failure No. 2 - 'Build It And They Will Come'

Ah yes. The halcyon days of the early 1990s when anything seemed possible and merely owning a domain name or funky web address meant certain success and riches beyond your wildest dreams.

"Build it and they will come" is what they said. They were wrong. Disaster after high profile disaster came crashing down into a pile of dotcom carnage as the millions poured into the idea pit were consumed by fast-spending entrepreneurs who possessed more pairs of trainers than they did explanations for where the profit was going to come from. Just remember - there are more web pages in the world than there are people so if you really think that just building a website is enough it's time for a serious re-think. You've spent the money on graphic design, content, domain names, hosting, web design and testing and your site has just gone live.

Congratulations - you have just completed step 1 of 1000,001 in having a site that generates business for you. You now need to market the site - just as you need to market your business when it first starts - advertising, fliers, yellow pages, referrals, networking, cold calls, direct marketing, mail shots, radio slots, events, conventions, product launches, press coverage etc. A website is exactly the same. Don't forget the new statement for the new age of new technology: Build it and they will say - 'I can't find it!' Reason For Failure No. 3 - You Choose The Wrong Website Marketing Company It's difficult isn't it? There are so many to choose from how do you know where to start? Well word of mouth recommendation is always a good indication.

Failing that you can look at the key areas that are likely to indicate the quality of their service. For example, ask these questions;

Do they offer guarantees of any kind on their results?

Do they proudly display testimonials from satisfied customers on their website?

What is their profile on the web like, can you find them easily?

Do they have detailed case studies explaining how they have helped other businesses?

Do they have a long-standing track record in the industry and wide client-base?

There is no real way to avoid making the wrong decision but if you keep learning more and more about website marketing you will be arming yourself with enough information to at least reduce the risk of choosing the wrong company.

Podcasts Are Giving People A Voice: Future Internet

2008-05-19T20:13:00.000-04:00

Podcasts are like blogs in the sense that they give any individual or group a means to express their ideas to the wider society. The difference is that you can now listen to the actual person's voice as well as to whatever information they have recorded for their visitors, like music or samples from other media sources. The force that grabs me is the power of connection one feels when you realize that you are hearing an individual person's thoughts. Some podcasts seem to be stream-of-consciousness dialogue, so you really feel like you are getting to know the essence of a so-called 'stranger' that you may never actually meet in the flesh. Other podcasts are set up so you can read the blog on the computer screen while at the same time getting to hear the voice of the author, which adds a whole new dimension to expressing oneself.

I typed 'podcasts' into www.google.com and found this site, which has a list of many podcasts deemed to be the 'freshest in the known Universe': http://audio.weblogs.com/ . I listened to a few on the list, including one called http://podchef.libsyn.com/ . This is an average guy who happens to be a chef. He usually talks about all things gastronomical, but also shares his views on life in general. As I sat listening to this guy chatting away I couldn't help picturing him in his house, where he says he lives on an island on the coast of the USA. I had to wonder, what makes someone sit down at his or her computer at home and attempt to talk to the world? Does he know someone will be listening or is he just taking a chance that someone will? If there is someone hearing his thoughts, why does he want us to hear what he's saying anyway?

I think the answers lie deep within our bloodlines, within our tribal instincts, which so much of the time lie dormant in the wine cellars of our minds. In our present planetary society of approximately 6 billion human souls, one can often feel that they are alone, that no one else knows they even exist. We get to hear the perspectives of the major billion-dollar media corporations about what life is supposed to mean to us, about what is 'important' to us. Many of us are feeling left out of the circle. We feel empty and strange because others don't mention the things that are relevant to us. This can often lead us to thinking that we are insignificant, disconnected, and that we don't 'fit in'.

We have now reached a new era in our species' history. People are figuratively screaming out into the dark emptiness, pleading to be heard by someone that will understand them, and connect with them in a social relationship. A great society will be the one where individuals (people who have decided to interpret life for themselves through their own experience) reach out and realize the power of the people around them. Like a giant tribe, or a hive, we will learn to appreciate the skills, attributes, and voices of the whole team. This may result in all of us working together for the collective good of all, where we all feel that we are an imperative, important part of the group.

I checked out a few other podcasts that were interesting in their own right like http://www.twistedlittlegnome.com/ Here two brothers that live on opposite sides of their country have conversations about 'geeky' ideas on-line. It's pretty cool, two people talking to each other, while we can listen and comment on their perspectives. http://dreammaker.libsyn.com/ is a very simple podcast that shows how you can use this medium to play music, showing others what you've made, or letting them know what you like to listen to. http://wichitarutherford.libsyn.com/ is a good example of how to incorporate photos or pictures to enhance the listening experience. http://oldtymeradioman.libsyn.com/ is a podcast dedicated to listening to old-style radio shows of the past. It's ironic that the construct of these old shows is bein
g relived in this futuristic context, as many people are incorporating music and sound effects within their dialogue. It exemplifies the cyclic course that much of humanity's creativity travels over time.

Like blogs and now vlogs (video blogs), podcasts are a sign that individual people need to connect with others in the community and are starting to speak out to the world. Listen to the voices of your fellow human beings and you might just come to realize that there are others like yourself, and that the way you see life in the Universe is a valid one. One day soon you too may decide to share your mind with the rest of us. You never know whom you may meet through the process. You also could find out more about yourself, when you hear your own voice speak its mind out loud.

About The Author

Jesse S. Somer http://www.m6.net

The Webmaster\'s Assistant

2008-05-18T12:00:00.000-04:00

However, despite the considerable data available what is missing is anything to tell the webmaster what the visitor was thinking. Did they like or dislike the site? Was the layout easy to understand or just plain confusing? Did they find it easy to navigate and maybe the most important thing, did they find the information they wanted?

A website may be generating sales but why are some people that visit the website not buying anything? Was it because they didn't like what was being offered or they couldn't find what they wanted?

Website surveys provide webmasters with an excellent and accurate method of answering these types of questions. Direct feedback from the website visitors cuts to the chase, no need to guess, just ask the visitors themselves how they found the site and if they found what they were looking for.

With an online survey webmasters can find out:-

How often do people visit the website?

How did they arrive at the website?

Are they accessing the website for business or pleasure?

Did they find the information they were looking for?

How easy did they find navigating the website?

Would they recommend the website to others?

A good website survey will be brief and will gather information that once analysed will provide valuable information to help improve the website.

Another alternative to a traditional survey is to embed one or two survey questions within the website after specific procedures. For example at the end of the registration process the visitor can be asked if they found the procedure quick and easy

About The Author

Martin Day is a Director of Survey Galaxy a web site that allows anyone to create, design and publish online surveys. For more information please visit http://www.surveygalaxy.com/ .

martin.day@surveygalaxy.com

Promote, Promote, Promote

2008-05-17T09:00:00.000-04:00

Website promoting is easy, all it takes is doing a little of it every day. You should have a plan, however, so you can tackle the wide assortment of places you can promote your site to a few of each at a time. Nothing beats the use of 'submitters' and other types of tools for getting your message out to as many with in as little time as you can, such as to 'networked' sites. Not all submitters are the same, nor do they send your article to the same places to be seen. For this reason, you may want to get a couple of them. As the web is world wide, then why not one based in the United States and another from Europe?

You will still find yourself doing a lot of manual submissions as there are many very good sites to place your message that are not on submitters or tools, yet they are well worth the efforts.

1. These include 'classified' sites, which will allow you to post your message up to 30 days for no charge. You will have to watch your desire to post across the categories with many of them as you will be quickly banned from any postings if you do so. I am so tired of seeing the same advertisement in every category from someone that by doing so, appears to be very desperate. I would never consider even checking out what they are touting for this reason. IF they were getting good results, they would not have to spam the site in the first place. By spamming the site, they show me the product is non-productive and they are desperate to make a buck, or they either don't care or don't know what they are doing. Why would I spend good money on some program where the person representing it is so un-ethical?

For example: I was doing some promotions for one of my clients that is a service company. When I posted them under the 'services' category, I noticed that there were many advertisements there for things like Casino's, home business opps, and things of that same nature. Let's face it, if I were to go to a classified site and were looking for a business services company, which one would I click on anyway? This also makes me wonder if the owner of the classified site even pays attention or if they are running it like an FFA type of site and that is for the e-mail captures. Yes, some still think others will really read what they have sent to their 'junk' e-mail box. Are classified sites 'dead' then. NO, not yet, but if this trend continues they will soon go the route of the FFA's. That will be sad, indeed, as the abuse by the posting parties will ruin another still great place to post your url's.

2. Even if you use a submitter, you will want to go to the mail box you have entered in the submission to check for 'validated' responses. These are the ones that require you to 'confirm' your posting by clicking on a hyperlink text and then re-entering your e-mail address that you used for the posting. I love these as they tell me that MY advertisement will not be competing with a thousand 'spam' postings. After awhile, you will know which ones they are.

For example: Submit to 'scrub the web' and you will have to go thru this routine. 'Scrubby' is great because they will also tell you the status of any previous submission. If you use a submitter that allows you to select the engines to submit to and if you know your current with some like 'Scrubby' then you can take it off the list. Exactseek and Websquash are a couple of others that come to mind also.

3. Manual submissions:

Some engines will only take manual submissions, even if they are on the list of engines of the submitter you are using. Again, you will, after a period of time, know which these are and if you are smart, will save them as a 'favorite' on your browser, in a separate folder, for when time or your url changes content. Guess what? Even MSN still has a manual free submission site, if you know where to find it. There are some other great engines that are out there and if you are doing your submissions every day, then you will find your 'favorites' also. I like http://searchwarp.com/ among others, because I can submit my url's there and my articles too.

4. Find places that offer you a wide choice of the types of sites to submit to. I have a few on my 'Free stuff' page that you can access at my site http://www.cpucash.net

As you go down the various listings of sites for submission, you will always find a few that are no longer valid or no longer take submissions, but have not notified the listing places or submitters. Take these with a grain of salt and keep moving on.

5. Word of mouth is always a good avenue to pursue. You should be proud and knowledgeable enough about what you are promoting to tell everyone you know about it in a causal manner, of course, with a good testimony about what it has done for you in return for your investment. If your product or service will not stand up to the light of day, then what makes you think others will take your offer?

6. Safe list

Safe list are great and many swear by them. Many make a very good living by using them only. The key to this is your 'headline' being able to get the attention of those that do look at the other's listings. Then you have to make your spiel for your offer, short and to the point but good enough to make them want to 'click' on your url for more information. Here, you can get submitters that only go to safe lists.

The only drawbacks are if the members are indeed reading the postings and if the owners are not spamming you with there 'solo ads'. Remember, many of the owners own more than one safe list and if they send you a daily 'solo ad', then you will get many repeats of the same thing. The ethical owners will only send you an admin message once a month or so and only put the 'solo ads' in the 'safe list' newsletter or up-date and keep the admin messages to reflect what you expect them to be, like new features etc. I made the mistake of belonging to a couple of safe list where the owners were ethical. When I assumed all were the same and actually gave them my personal e-mail as my 'contact' e-mail, was I ever sorry. Do not make this mistake and use a separate e-mail box as your contact box for these also. One good submitter that I use, but here use a different address for your contact e-mail is: http://thesubber.com/sub/index.php?userid=rnixon

I love to use the sites that have the listings for search engines, classifieds, and even FFA's in some sort of 'descending' order, so I can do all the 'A's' one one day, all the 'B's' on another and so on. I like to see the sites that are monitored like DMOZ and validated e-mail sites. IF you get your site 'rated' for viewing by the general public, especially kids, then more and more sites will accept your submission. This rating can be put in your meta tags and the spiders that look for this will be more than happy to include your url in the lisings.

Most of all, keep doing your submissions every day and your efforts will pay off. Work your programs and listen to the advice and training the better ones give you. Remember, they want you to achieve because as doing so not only do you make money, they do also by the residual income they get. Any associate program worth the investment today will give you commission on many tiers of your downline, or whatever they desire to call it.

About The Author

Robert has been active on the internet since it's start. Had a successfull shareware distribution business. Now dedicated to helping others with site improvement and avoiding scams.

View their website at: http://www.cpucash.net .

Top 10 Ways To Make Your Website Sell 24/7

2008-05-16T08:26:00.000-04:00

Here are ten ways to make your website your unpaid sales force:

1. Networking. A website permits you to pass out your business card to thousands of potential clients and lets them know how to reach you and what you sell. If, in your sales copy, you tell your story of why you're in your business, write a bio that accurately reflects your voice and style for your site, and upload your photo, your potential customers will begin to get to know you, without having to meet them one-on-one. Nothing is more amazing to me that to walk into a networking event and have total strangers come up and begin a conversation with me as though we were long-lost friends. They think we are. Why? Because they've visited my website or read my email newsletter or blog to the extent they have begun to get to know me, like me, and respect me.

2. Make Business Information Available. Help your customers find out more about you. What are your hours? What methods of payment do you accept? Where are you located? Being the "Internet snob" that I am, I go online first to check out a business before deciding to do business with them. Sometimes it's to check the menu, if it's a restaurant. Sometimes it's to see if they offer a discount coupon. Other times I just need to find their hours of operation or driving directions. If I can't find their website, I'm apt to find their competitor's site that contains precisely the info that I'm seeking.

3. Better Serve Your Customers. Make doing business with you as easy and effortless as possible. With an online presence, you could make forms available to pre-qualify clients for loans if you're a mortgage broker, enable your clients to upload their files for typesetting and printing if you're a professional printer, or allow your customer to see if the coat he wants is in stock if you're a clothing store. My sister is a "shoes horse" and desperately wanted a particular pair of shoes from a nationally-known department store in Houston. She checked their website to see if the shoes were in stock in her size at the store closest to her. She discovered they weren't, but was able to find another branch that did have them in stock and was able to swing by and pick them up. When your clients are over-committed and trying to squeeze another hour out of the day, how much more will they appreciate your online presence if you can help them save one of their most valuable assets — their time?

4. Release Time-Sensitive Materials. You may have a service business that relies on appointments to make your money, like a hair salon or a chiropractor's office. You walk in on Monday morning and discover that only about half of your appointments are taken for the week. Do you decide to take part of the week off? You could, if you needed a vacation. Or, you could email the customer list you've built through your website and let them know that you're taking appointments at a special discounted rate this week only, or on certain days of this week, or that they'll get a free widget if they book an appointment by a certain date or time. How quickly do you think your customers would take advantage of this time-sensitive offer?

5. Be Open All Night, 365 Days of the Year. Internet surfers don't go online to buy–they go online to find free information. However, we live in an immediate gratification society. If you have a product for sale that fulfills a need to a particular problem, you can add a shopping cart with credit card purchasing ability to your online product catalog and enable someone to buy something from you at 2 AM, for example, when most of us are in bed. If your shopping cart permits immediate delivery of an electronic item, like an ebook or audio file, all the better, as your customer can have the information he has ordered within minutes after purchase. How many sales are you losing because your prospective customer has to fax or phone in an order or wait for your office to open to talk to you? Your e-commerce-enabled website can be your 24-hour automated salesperson.

6. Make Pictures and Sound Files Available. What if your widget is great, but people want to see it in action? Your website permits you to add sound, static images, and video to better explain who you are and what you sell, or to demonstrate use of your product or service. No brochure will do that. Additionally, audio and video testimonials from enthusiastic customers are now becoming more commonplace on websites. If you hate to sell, have a happy customer tell your website visitors how wonderful you are and how well you solved his problem. People believe enthusiastic testimonials from others who've successfully used your product or service.

7. Answer FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions). Every business has questions that customers ask again and again. Do you have the staff, or want to dedicate staff time, to answering these questions? Instead, post the questions and answers to your website and remove another barrier to doing business with you. Or, if you have the staff to do so, install a "live help" program on your website so that your site visitors can click and log-in to ask their questions right away while the question is fresh on their mind.

8. Offer Special Membership Access for Current Customers. If you're selling a service on your site, you may want your current paying clients to have access to certain information that is generally not available to the public. With your website, you can create a password-protected, clients-only section, or special membership section, for certain groups of clients. And, as website visitors are always curious and will try to get into private areas for additional information, you can use the "authorization required" page as another opportunity to tell them about the benefits of your product and service and how their lives will be better and richer for purchasing it. And, upon purchase, they will then become a member of this "special clients" club and have all the information and privileges associated with that membership. American Express is right — membership has its privileges!

9. Open to National or International Markets. For most of my adult life, I've lived in parts of the country that have never recovered from the mid-1980's recession. Because I've had a virtual business with a website, I've never had to rely on the local economy to make a living. If you have a product or service that won't sell locally, or you have a brick and mortar operation and are trying to break into new markets, a website can help you open up a dialogue with nationwide or even international markets as easily as with the company across the street. Can you stand to make more money in your business?

10. Test-Market New Services and Products. Got an idea for another line of products for your business, or an additional service you'd like to add? Create a special page on your website and see how your current customers like the new offering. Ask them about price, appearance, and usability. They will let you know what they think faster and easier than any other market you may reach. Take their feedback, make necessary changes, and then roll it out to a larger market.

If you don't currently have a website for your business, get one! If your website only serves as a pretty brochure instead of bringing you qualified customers or sales, perhaps it's time to hire an expert to bring it to the next level. What difference would it make for you to get 95% of your clients online? I bet that would make your marketing efforts much more streamlined, and who doesn't want to make more profit in less time?

About The Author

Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps self-employed professionals make more profit in less time online. To sign up for more FREE tips like these and claim your FREE ebook, TurboCharge Your Productivity: 50 Tools To Help You Automate Your Business and Make More Profit in Less Time Online!, visit her site at http://www.OnlineBizCoachingCompany.com .

Ten Volcanic Ways To Erupt Your Website Sales

2008-05-15T21:39:00.000-04:00

Do you want to pump up sales at your website? If you answer, yes, today is your lucky day. Below are 10 web site marketing, volcanic secrets to erupt your sales starting now…

1. Save time and money using ad submitters. You will reach a larger part of your target audience far more quickly than by manually submitting your ad.

2. Create a good first impression. You will not be able to sell very many products if your visitors think your web site looks unprofessional.

3. Stop procrastinating and start finishing all your business tasks. Do one at a time. Do not get caught up thinking that you can never get them all done.

4. Develop a relationship with all your visitors and customers. Tell them how much you appreciate them visiting your web site or buying your product.

5. Hire a business coach to help improve yourself and business. They could help increase your sales, motivate you, balance your workload, etc.

6. Stay away from being too comfortable with your income or life. You should always be making new goals for yourself and developing new sales ideas.

7. Stay away from becoming a workaholic. Your mind needs time away from your business life. This will help your brain think clearly while working.

8. Create and follow short/long term goals for your business. The short goals can create early success and the long term goals can create future success.

9. Look for different ways to prove your business and products to your audience. You could collect testimonials, hold surveys, do scientific tests, etc.

10. Try new business ideas and strategies. Do not be afraid of changing what you're doing. You could try out technology, advertising, marketing, etc. May these website marketing secrets help you to make a lot of money.

I-key, a Millionaire CEO from New York City is the creator of "Mscsrrr: Millionaire Secret Cash System", (internet income opportunity) which has helped thousands of ordinary people from all over the world to attain financial security and shining success during the past 2 yrs.Mscsrrr Millionaire Secret Cash System helps you to generate $1,500 /Week for life, from home or office, part time or full time. No large investment or hassles. Win $1000-$2000 free "cash"… mscsrrr.com mscsrrr3@yahoo.com

Attack Of The Killer Google Zombies!

2008-05-14T17:13:00.000-04:00

I was walking along the beach front this week with the warm sunshine in my face. You would think I'd be happy right? Wrong! I was absolutely raging mad! Why? Because I can't stop thinking about people the world over who are turning into Killer Google Zombies! Don't forward this email onto people of a nervous disposition because I really can't restrain myself any longer. Picture the scene if you will…

[A conversation last week though it could be this week or the next - it happens all the time…]

Anon: "We want lots of people to find our website but it doesn't seem to be happening for some reason."

Michael: "Can you tell me some of the methods you've been using to market your website?"

Anon: "Well really we're just waiting for Google to update and then we'll be fine. Once that happens our problems will be over."

Michael: "What else are you doing to market your website?"

Anon: "There isn't anything else you can do is there?"

[Michael slaps head..]

**In Search Of The Holy Google Grail

Yes - it's the attack of the Killer Google Zombies. People that think Google IS the Internet. Google is not the Internet. Google is not the search engines. Google is one search engine. That's all. There are millions of Killer Google Zombies out there right now just staring at Google looking to see whether they are ranked on page 124 or 125. Wasting their energy, efforts and life in pursuit of the Holy Google Grail - The Number One Ranking…

**The Single Best Way To Get Customers To Your Website

If there is one single and most-important fact I have learned in the past 9 years about how to get customers to your website it is this: There is no one single way!!!! If you're looking for the 'magic bullet', the 'ultimate secret', the 'hidden treasure' or any other cheese-tastic analogy that you care to mention - forget it. Stop looking for that one "killer way to explode your website's traffic levels over night" - it doesn't exist. You need to start seeing the wider picture and leaving the Google Zombies to it.

You need to try other search engines, try links, try online advertising, try developing partnerships with other websites, try viral marketing techniques, try dispersing your message on other people's networks, try creating multiple websites for different niches, try an affiliate programme, try getting listed in directories, try launching an email marketing campaign and try tattooing your website address onto your forehead. Whatever you do please promise me you will try lots of different things and not turn into a Killer Google Zombie!

Michael Cheney.

Get hundreds more proven, practical and painless internet marketing tips and tricks plus FREE internet marketing products worth £159 ($288) here: http://www.magnet4web.com/

Superb Website Promotion Tips For Free

2008-05-13T19:39:00.000-04:00

In my opinion the following examples of website promotion are the best ways to obtain an increase in traffic to your website. I have a large number of websites and these free tips have helped me to make them a huge success. Out of all of the options that I mention by far the best is writing articles and this is likely to become a major form of website promotion in the future.

1. Pay per click advertising.

Pay per click advertising is becoming more and more popular with programs such as Google adwords reporting more and more people signing up to their service. I personally use pay per click however the costs are increasing each month as it like a form of auction. There are better ways of attracting visitors which are also free as you may read later. PPC is a way of getting your website on the right hand side of the search results in the sponsored results by you paying an advertising fee. You set the amount you are happy to pay per click and when somebody clicks on your ad, you have an extra visitor, however at a cost to you. It is important to remember not to spend more on the pay per click advertising than what you are likely to earn etc.

2. Writing articles.

Writing articles such as this one is a good way of promoting your website. There are a growing number of free content or article websites who are more than happy to receive your article. That is as long as it is a quality article and not just full of keywords. Other webmasters are able to use your articles on their website which gives you an extra backward link as you are able to add your website address at the bottom of the article. The article websites which accept your article also creates an extra link. These links are of huge value as they are what are called one way links. With the explosion and likely long term popularity of blogs, which of course require content, articles are the future for obtaining links. People who are reading the article on the article websites are also potential visitors.

3. Obtaining backward links.

If you are trying to gain extra traffic to your website, looking to increase your search engine position or hoping to increase your page rank, it is a must to increase the amount of backward links you have. This is not as easy as it seems as people are not always happy to add a link on their site to your homepage. It is worth making a large amount of phone calls or sending lots of e-mails and asking if the person would like to exchange links. This can be rather boring but will have a huge value in the long run. If you just do not have the time for this it might be worth joining a program such as linkmetro. Any links you obtain have a higher value if they are of a similar business to your own.

4. Always include your domain address in advertising.

Wherever you advertise it is important to include your website domain address, and also at the bottom of any e-mails you send.

Stephen Hill has a number of websites including:

http://www.impotence-male.co.uk/

http://www.diabetes-information-online.com/

http://www.lasik-laser-treatment.com/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_Hill

Before You Register A Domain Name For Your New Online Business

2008-05-12T18:26:00.000-04:00

Recently I made a mistake that may cost a great deal of traffic to my new web site. Let me explain… I studied so many books about Internet marketing over the last couple of years that I decided to start a new web site, and share my knowladge and experience with other fellow Internet marketers. Since I read lots of information about search engine optimization (SEO), I intended to optimize all of my web pages for search engines from the beginning on, expecting Google to be my number one source of traffic in the near future. I did an extensive keyword research using WordTraker, made a blueprint for my product and article pages, and the time has come to choose a great domain name for my new project.

I went to GoDaddy, the famous domain name registar, tried this and that, and finally came up with a beautiful domain name related to Internet marketing - netmarketingstrategies.com You probably know that Internet marketing is a very competitive niche, so I was glad that this domain name was still available. I registered it immediately. My site was up and running in 48 hours. Now I needed some fresh web content, and to get indexed by major search engines as soon as possible. So, I spent a week or two writing search engine optimized content for my new online business.

I usually don't submit my new web sites to search engines for indexing. I prefer when my sites are found on other web sites and get spidered automatically. One of the easiest ways to have a link to a web site from other sites is by writing and distributing high quality articles. So, I wrote an article about two-tier affiliate programs and submited it to major article directories. Within a couple of days I searched for my article title in Google and noticed that it did great.

Publishers liked my article and they were publishing it on their web sites and newsletters. I expected my home page to get indexed very fast. Time went. Each week I searched Google to see if my site has already got indexed. It didn't.

I decided to see if my domain has been spidered by other major search engines. Yes, both Yahoo and MSN got it. So, what went wrong? Why Google won't index my home page? Here's what I think went wrong: my further investigation showed that the domain name had already been used by another webmaster and had been expired half a year ago when I registered it. It seems that the previous domain name owner was using unfair search engine optimization strategies and his web site was banned by Google. I sent a request to Google explaining the situation and asking to lift the ban from my web site.

I am not sure if they will listen and help me. I am ready to register a new domain name in a few weeks time if I still cannot get my site indexed by Google. So, don't make the same mistake I did… If you intend to optimize your new web site in order to receive traffic from Google and other search engines, make sure to check out if a domain name you've selected for your online business is not banned by Google before registering it.

Gerardas Norkus has been marketing online since 1997. Take advantage of his battle tested Internet marketing strategies that could quietly make you huge profits every single month. Take 7-part e-mail course at: http://www.netmarketingstrategies.com/

3 Reasons Your Website Might Fail To Attract Enough Customers

2008-05-11T18:00:00.000-04:00

Failing that you can look at the key areas that are likely to indicate the quality of their service. For example, ask these questions;

Do they offer guarantees of any kind on their results?

Do they proudly display testimonials from satisfied customers on their website?

What is their profile on the web like, can you find them easily?

Do they have detailed case studies explaining how they have helped other businesses?

Do they have a long-standing track record in the industry and wide client-base?

Top 10 Ways To Make Your Website Sell 24/7

2008-05-10T08:26:00.000-04:00

Here are ten ways to make your website your unpaid sales force:

About The Author

Your Website Is Beautiful - But Where Are The Profits?

2008-05-09T09:26:00.000-04:00

Experienced business owners know: Your goal is to create a website that sells, not a site that wins the electronic version of Miss Universe. Most of the time you'll want to win sales contests – not beauty contests.

Remember the commercial about the beer and the dog? A man sends his dog into the kitchen to get him a beer. We hear sounds of a refrigerator opening and a can opener humming…and then we hear lapping sounds. Oh no! The dog is drinking the beer!

Great commercial, right? Except … can you remember the brand of beer?

And of course we've all seen that big pink battery-powered rabbit. But many viewers can't remember the sponsor's brand.

(1) Emphasize your marketing message.

Recently I heard a speaking professional say, "My speaking wardrobe is designed to avoid calling attention to me. When the audience is thinking, 'What a beautiful suit!' or 'What a mess!" they're not listening to my message."

Your website works the same way. Stay focused on the content.

(2) Use graphics sparingly.

Graphics take awhile to load. And what sells your product? Not graphics – copy.

Research shows visitors seek information. So use graphics to convey specific messages. A fitness site could show a before-and-after. And real estate sites can show examples of real houses.

(3) Use meaningful graphics.

One award-winning site featured a menu on an elaborately drawn 3-ring notebook. The words were hard to read and frankly I'm not sure I remember what the site was all about. A 3-ring binder could be a calendar, a student notebook, or …

But let's say you want to target a business audience. You'd show pinstripes and briefcases. Sure, your target market wears business casual and carries canvas. But they'll pick up the symbolism, especially if you're trying to differentiate yourself from a leisure or family market.

(4) Skip flash and frames (usually).

You probably know this already. Search engines don't like frames and your visitors will get impatient waiting for flash to load.

If you're a famous musician (like Coldplay) or author (like Lawrence Block) you can create an elaborate site and your fans will wait half an hour, if need be. They'll expect something out of the ordinary.

And if you're a web designer, you probably need to showcase some of your tricks.

But most of the time, I believe websites are like basketball games. Web copy is out on the court, putting points on the board. Readers look for smooth moves and sharp uniforms but they're mostly paying attention to the action.

Graphics remain on the side, cheering the team. But let's face it: most of us don't come to a game to watch the pep squad.

(5) Create a great headline for each page.

Research shows, over and over, that readers respond first to your headline. If they're intrigued, they'll go on to read your copy.

Readers look first for headlines that communicate, "I share your pain!" They've got problems and they're surfing for solutions. And they don't have much time.

Bottom line: Focus on creating and communicating a great marketing message. Frame your message so you come across as professional – but keep your website focused on learning how you can provide solutions to their challenges.

About The Author

Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D., is a published author, speaker, copywriter and business consultant. Are you a solo professional who needs to sell yourself but can't afford to sound sales-y? Get my Fr*e Report: 5 best-kept secrets of client-attracting websites http://www.copy-catcopywriting.com/subscribe.html

Web Development: In Layman\'s Terms

2008-05-08T17:26:00.000-04:00

Some online elements such as submission forms, can be downloaded from public sites. Most of these are included in software packages used to generate web sites. Users then 'customize' these versatile web elements (with titles, headings, etc) to create their own site content.

Simpler elements such as text styling and the grouping box borders known as 'tables' can be created by direct HTML commands. A basic knowledge of how these commands, or 'tags' work enables the user to post a decent collage of formatted text and image sequences on a linear web page quite easily. For non-linear pages, web designers must make use of more complex commands and codes.

Other popular elements of web design beyond the scope of simple one-line HTML include 'mapping', where a user can click through to different links by choosing specific areas of an image, and built-in animation, much of which is created by separate software programs. Web designers can flesh out their sites with complex coding using a range of high-tech programming languages for the net such as Java or VBScript. Alternately, other web design can be image-based, focusing on presentation rather than on a lot of complex code elements.

Web design seems to be a growing field, and 'graphic design' professionals are in demand. Knowing about how web pages are created and maintained is very useful for business owners and other individuals interested in getting content onto the internet.

About The Author

Mary Mosby can help YOU start your own profitable business on the Internet within the next 24 hours! To learn more, visit: http://hotshoturl.com/bx72

Battle Of The Hostings

2008-05-07T20:26:00.000-04:00

There are literally thousands of hosting solutions on the internet right now, from the free ones at www.geocities.com to the ones who charge you an arm and a leg. After filtering out the sharks, the copy cats & other crap, finally I have decided to review two of the best and most complete hostings package available on this planet. Please note that these are not the cheapest hostings around but these really give good value for your money, instead of asking you to upgrade later for an additional fee.

Here is why : Host 4 Profit is our first contender weighing at 300 Megabytes disk space and with a traffic limit of 10 Gigabytes per month. You might think that 300 megabytes is nothing compared to your hard disk but for doing business on the web, this should be more than sufficient.

Besides being a heavy weight, you are also going to be quick footed by getting unlimited pop e-mail accounts and e-mail aliases. You also get unlimited mailing lists / newsletters and autoresponders which means being able to utilize the best marketing tool ever, which is building your own opt-in list which is going to be your prospective customer base for current anf future product offers. Managing Your website is a cinch with the web based control panel. You can access the comprehensive online support, your account information, upload / update files via a web based interface, change your password, manage, add or access your pop3 e-mail, create mailing list / newsletter, setup MySQL database, view site statistics reports for your own analysis or if you use a third party analysis software just download the access logs, manage frontpage extensions, submit your site to several search engines automatically, setup a secure server, setup a web page counter, setup a shopping cart, setup a search engine for your h
omepage, access your instant profit sites, backup your website, schedule nightly events, view error logs for trouble shooting your site and you can even design your website from this control panel !! Most hosting companies usually just provide the space for your website and after that you are on your own but Host4Profit goes further than that by also providing instant plugin sales letter sites and the corresponding quality products for you to sell and keep 100% of the margin (Free Resell Rights). They also went to the point of providing free membership to one of the best marketing archives (The Warrior Group) containing tons of free reports, articles and e-books on how to succeed online.

If you have exhausted the archive (which is constantly updated), you can take part in the discussion in one of the best internet marketing forums (over 30.000 members) available "The Warrior Forum" which is also included in The Warrior Group Membership. Once they educate you on marketing online, then they also provide tools like Complete Ad Tracking Systems to monitor your marketing efforts, Affiliate Tracking Scripts for tracking your affiliates if you decide on setting up your own affiliate program and have thousands of affiliates selling for you and more. If you want to become an affiliate to this hosting package, you can become an affiliate and earn residual income of US$ 10 / Month for each signups and if you can reach the target of 500 signups within 6 months, you will get a fully paid vacation to the Grand Bahamas. How much does all this cost ? A measly US$ 24.95/Month and payable monthly which means you can stop anytime you want. WOW !! This means that besides providing your hosting needs, they pro
vide your own products to sell with free resale rights or their own proven product by becoming an affiliate, they teach you how to market them online or how to create your own unique products to sell, they get you updated on the latest marketing tactics in the forum, they give you tools to market, monitor your ads and everything else needed.

I am wordless….. I suggest that you take a look by yourselves to see whether the offer is still valid ?? However, the negative points compared to the next hosting package is that you have to add another US$ 30,-/year cost for each domain name registered with them and that they have no money back guarantee. This might be because their hosting package charges you monthly instead of yearly. Although their affiliate program is quite simple and straightforward, the affiliate promotion tools are not as comprehensive as the next hosting package reviewed below.

Our next contender is Site Build It! This hosting package is known for their principle of Overdelivering on their promise.

Registering your own domain name is free and already included in the package. Unlimited space and unlimited bandwidth is a huge plus for those planning on setting up sites with huge files like videos etc. Graphic Tools for designing your own website online is also available. What stands out among the crowd is the unique marketing tools available in the form of barinstorming and researching profitable topics for your site, publishing your own newsletter and spam checking it first before sending them out and even checking the rate of newsletters read or opened. Traffic stats and click analysis are also available.

Another notable aspect is the search engine optimization of your pages, giving sugestions on how to optimize your pages for getting the cheapest and biggest traffic of them all from search engines. Search engines submitting, tracking and ranking is also mighty useful for evaluating your sites effectiveness in getting traffic from the search engines. Pay per click research and mass bidding is perfect for those with an available budget to embark on this type of targeted traffic building campaign. Online help and the newsletter you get periodically also provides tips on how to market your site and succeed online. Special tools like link checking and Form building and autoresponder tools are also readily available, while accessing your e-mail via the web is also possible via the web based control panel, among other numerous services available.

A new service for exchanging links with similar themed sites will greatly increase your link popularity with the search engines. All in all, this hosting package really focuses on the needs on building the cheapest, largest, targeted traffic of them all from the search engines which are of course how to oversome the trickiest part of promoting your site to the search engines. How much do you have to part your hard earned money for this kind of service ? They currently have two options either you get 15 months hosting for US$ 395,- or get 8 months hosting for US$ 249,-. By the way, they do have a 30 days money back guarantee and will refund 100% of your money. The shocker is that after 30 days, you can still ask for a refund but will be refunded on a pro-rata basis meaning only for the remaining months balance.

Quite a guarantee if I might says so myself !! Click here to see for yourselves. For those of you who might be interested to become an affiliate and try to sell their products, they do not just sell hosting services, but also a multitude of Electronic Books and Tools like Make Your Site Sell 2002, Make Your Knowledge Sell, Make Your Price Sell etc. You can also buy these high quality products for your own usage. Once you join their 5 Pillar affiliate program which is completely free, then just browse through their amazingly thoughtful and useful tools for you to promote their products. You will find no other affiliate program managed as completely as this.

In conclusion, these two unique hosting packages have their own unique approach, strengths and also weaknesses. If you can overlook these weaknesses in exchange for its strengths, then one of these may be the right solution in taking your first step to realizing your home based business opportunity. Now go on and take your best shot !!

Salim Bunsiong publishes Home Business Tips, a fresh and Informative newsletter dedicated to supporting people Like YOU! If you are looking for the *best rated* Home business opportunities, the latest time saving Tools and helpful support from an honest friend in the Business, come and grab a F-R-E-E subscription Today at : http://www.bunsiong.com/ or Send a blank email to mailto:bunsiong@getresponse.com .

One Simple Action To Increase Search Engine Optimization

2008-05-06T12:26:00.000-04:00

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is big business. Many Internet companies proclaim that they can increased your web traffic and page ranking. Of course, they charge big bucks to help you improve your web site traffic. What you are really paying for is their so-called expertise or what some call intellectual capital. This leads to a simple question: If you could reallocate some of your limited marketing dollars through your own efforts and achieve your small business Internet marketing goals, how would that affect your business? During these last few months, this is precisely the action that I took.

First Lesson Learned: SEO is more about simplicity than complexity. The challenge is to understand the simplicity within the complexity of search engines, robots and key words.

To understand the simplicity of SEO begins by returning to why web sites exist. Originally, web sites were considered to be cyber space storefronts. As the Internet evolved, web sites evolved with incredible graphics and even more information including the ability to sell products and services through a "Shopping Cart."

Today, web sites are still evolving and objectives ever expanding. Some are used to demonstrate subject matter expertise while others are to share collective information within a company's internal and external customers. Each micro second trillions of bytes of data travel through this "Super Highway."

Returning to the highways of yesteryear, what do we remember? Possibly, the Burma Shave slogans on the numerous road signs come to mind? If you can recollect the Burma Shave signs, the product Burma Shave was always on the last sign. (You can visit www.fiftiesweb.com/burmal.htm for verification.)

Second Lesson Learned: SEO is about what you do, not who you are.

Advertising agencies understood the value of benefits and that people bought based upon benefits. For example, women did not want rough cheeks and men enjoyed driving cars "wide open." So what does this have to do with your web site you might ask?

Third Lesson Learned: I needed my own "Burma Signs."

Each web site has a page title or what I respectfully ask you to now consider them as your own "Burma Signs" on the Internet Super Highway. Your page title is one long uninterrupted road sign instead of several small ones. By using http://inventory.overture.com , you can determine what key words that you wish to place on your "Burma Signs."

When I began revising my website, I had a page title that began with ADVANCED SYSTEMS. In checking key word searches, I learned that ADVANCED SYSTEMS was searched less than 700 times during the previous month. However, when I keyed in the word "training," I received over 165,000 searches. Title selection just became quite simple. (Note: See second lesson learned.)

So if you wish to hit your target of increased web traffic, then simply begin with your page title. Use key words that describe what you do and not who you are. Remember to try to keep the title to 77 characters and include your location because this is the Internet highway and sometimes travelers do get lost.

Three Easy Steps To Improve The Search Engine Ranking Of Your Website

2008-05-05T10:39:00.000-04:00

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a buzzword that is around for a long time. There are as many misconceptions about SEO as there are webmasters. Some webmasters are afraid of SEO, thinking it is too complex and not worth the effort. Others believe that SEO will get your website banned from the search engines and there are the few that actively practice SEO. Fact #1: SEO can be complex if you want to compete with the big guys. SEO is all about outperforming your competitors.

That means the less competitors the better your success rate will be. Fact #2: SEO can ban your website from the search engines if you break the rules. I will not tell you the dark tricks of SEO that will ultimately get you on the blacklist of the search engines. This way you will not be able to break any rules and keeps you out of trouble. Fact #3: SEO can be simple and effective. I will show you a few easy steps to increase the ranking of your website. You will be amazed about its simplicity. Ok, here we go.

1. Choose your niche keyword phrase SEO is all about being a little bit better than your competition on a single keyword phrase. You need to focus your website on a single keyword phrase. 2 or 3 words in a keyword phrase work best. Make sure that people are actually searching these phrases as well. Wordtracker and Overture are just two methods out of many to check for usability. If you optimize your website for the wrong keyword phrases you're wasting your time.

2. Set your html tags right Your keyword phrase has to be in the –title tag. You can ignore the keyword and description meta tags for now. They are not as important anymore as they were a few years ago. Make sure to have an h1 tag with the keyword phrase. Avoid having an h2 tag with the keyword phrase. Take control over the look and feel via cascading style sheets (CSS). This way it is much easier to control your website's appearance and keeps the html code clutter free. Sprinkle your keyword phrase throughout the webpage. Place your keyword phrase 2-3 times closer to the top, once within the first 25 characters and once in the last 25 characters of your text. Change the style variation of the keyword phrase. Make sure you have at least one underlined, one bold and one italic variation of the keyword phrase.

3. Check for errors Spell checking is a must. Search engines don't honor spell errors on your webpage very well. Check for broken links as well. Nothing hurts your ranking more than broken hyperlinks. Well, here you have it.

The 5 minute drill to improve your website's search engine rankings. Ok, I admit it, it's not this easy. On-Page SEO is only half the battle, maybe only one third of the battle. To really dominate the search engines you need to practice a well planned and executed linking strategy. This is also called Off-Page SEO. Off-Page SEO is your most important task as a webmaster. The details of a successful Off-Page SEO strategy are too much for the content of this article. But here's a little example on how effective Off-Page SEO is: Logon to Google and type in the keyword 'click here'. To your surprise you will see that Adobe holds the #1 position for this keyword. Now analyze the Adobe page for a minute. There is no 'click here' anywhere on the page or within the html code.

How in the world can they be #1 for 'click here'? Millions of other web pages have a link to Adobe with the title 'click here' to download the Acrobat Reader. That's why. Nothing makes me happier than if you can improve the search engine ranking of your website by just a few positions by following my simple advice. 90% of all webmasters don't bother and that's the window of opportunity for you. Of course a short article cannot explain the total picture of SEO. However it is meant to give you some ideas on how to approach SEO.

Have fun while practicing SEO with your website.

Peter Dobler is an active real estate investor and successful internet business owner. Use the free tools at: http://www.online-business-idea.com/ to improve your website's search engine ranking.

Seven Necessities To Do Well In Google

2008-05-04T10:39:00.000-04:00

Search engine optimization is one of the most popular topics in Internet Marketing. The reasons are obvious. Search engines provide highly targeted traffic at a zero or very low cost. There are a lot of myths, debates, and disagreements over what is good Search Engine Optimization (SEO). We have decided to look at 7 principles that you should definitely follow when optimizing your site for search engines.

Use Meta Tags

You will certainly here a large number of people tell you that meta tags are not important and are useless.

There is some truth to this, however, it is largely untrue. Meta tags were first included in web pages primarily for search engines and directories. Meta tags are to be used as summaries as to what your website is about. Because they were good summaries and a logical way to identify and classify a website, search engines used meta tags in their ranking algorithms. This method was good in the early days of search engines and the Internet. Unfortunately, everyone else figured out that by "optimizing" their meta tags, they could better their rankings. This optimization quickly turned into spam.

Search engine technology developed and soon most search engines would remove meta tags from their ranking algorithms. However, meta tags are still extremely important in SEO. You want your site to be easy for search engines to crawl. Meta tags are still used by spiders to make a quick assessment as to the nature of a website. Meta tags are also used to identify the author, the company name, various rules for the spider to follow, and a general rating for the spider. An example of the meta tags that you should have are listed below: This describes what language and format the site is in.

This would be different for an XML document or other formats. Is this site up for only a short time? If so, let the engine know how long the information is good for. Do you only have regional content, or should the whole world be opened up to see you? Who owns the site, or who designed the site. This WILL help your rankings if someone does a direct search on your company name. Obvious important copyright information. This should be one or two sentences. Make them well-formed sentences…don't use sentence fragments. Use a few of your desired keywords, but do not spam the sentences with your keywords. Use anywhere between 6-15 keywords or phrases in this section. Tell the search engine robot to follow all of your pages. This doesn't mean that it will, it just gives them permission. How often do you change your content? Once a day, once a month? Let the robot know this information, but be truthful! Do you have an adult website? Make sure you indicate that here. If it is for the general public, then let
them know that as well. Meta tags, although not crucial to your ranking, are helpful for search engines. For this reason alone it is good to employ them on your website.

Use Properly Formed HTML

One of the biggest mistakes people fall into is that they use improper HTML on their sites. HTML is relatively easy to code. Well formed HTML is structured clearly and neatly. Poorly formed HTML includes open tags, closing tags out of order, minimal information when forming your tags, and errors that may not show up in a browser. When a search engine spider visits your website, its task is to ascertain the information on your website and give it a grade.

If you have poorly formed HTML on your website, you are making the task of the spider more difficult. Additionally, if you have poorly formed HTML on your website, the search engine may not consider your website to be the best candidate for your desired keywords as poorly formed HTML represents a lack of professionalism. You should always follow a few rules when forming your HTML: A.

Close All of Your Tags

Every HTML tag has an open and a close tag, with the exception of a line break (). Do not leave tags hanging. For example: This is my text The problem with this code is that the person forming the code did not close out the tag.

This means that it is still open. B. Close Your Tags In Order Although a minor issue, closing your tags in order creates better HTML. For example: This is my text These tags are closed out of order. You should always close the last open tag first. C.

Use ALT Tags on Images

A search engine does not know what an image looks like. Most spiders can figure a few things out about an image by its file name, but an ALT tag should tell a spider everything about that image. For example: Properly formed HTML will make it easier for search engines to know what your site is about. The faster they can digest your information, the more they will digest.

Avoid Excessive JavaScript

JavaScript is a great tool to have. It can make your site interactive and provide better, stronger interfaces for your users. However, it should be avoided at all costs when implementing content. JavaScript is different than most every other technology on the Internet as it is a client-side technology as opposed to server-side.

The difference is simple. When a person views your webpage, if there is JavaScript, the JavaScript will be downloaded to that person's computer and executed on their computer. If JavaScript were server-side, then the execution of the code would happen entirely on the server where the website is located. Because JavaScript is a client-side language, search engine spiders are not able to read what they output. So, if you are trying to update your content frequently using JavaScript, the search engine will never know the difference. JavaScript is still a great resource for forms, validation, and other parts of your page that are not crucial to the meaning of your page.

Avoid Dynamic URL's

A URL such as http://www.anydomain.com/program.php?id=456&p=4 is not search engine friendly. Search engines have come a long ways in their ability to spider URL's such as the one above.

In fact, you will probably be included in an index with that style of url, but it is not a friendly URL. With the introduction of mod_rewrite, you can easily make dynamic URL's into search engine friendly URLs. Mod_rewrite would give you the ability to make the above url into something that looked like this: http://www.anydomain.com/program-456-4.html Search engines will be more inclined to index this type of URL.

Don't "Over-Optimize"

There really is no such thing as over-optimization. Over-optimization is actually search engine spam. Search engines hate it when people spam them with keywords. A few examples of search engine spam.

If you make your site sound natural, but form it around a central topic, you should obtain the perfect balance of keyword density on that page. If you do not, then you should rethink what your website is really about. Spending all of your time making sure every Alt tag has your targeted keyword in it, or finding a way to include very small or close to invisible text so that you may spam a certain keyword, is a sure way to waste your time and ruin the appearance of your website.

Keep Content Fresh

Search engines LOVE fresh, new content. Constantly add new news to your website, new information, and change your front page. You do not need to change the look of your website, just the content on the front page. Search engines are always trying to provide searchers with the most relevant, up to date information possible. A page that hasn't changed since 2000 will not have as relevant content as a page recently published with updated information. There is also an issue of pride with the search engines.

Part of the search engine wars has been to see who can keep the freshest index. As a result, search engines such as Google take note of sites that change frequently. The more frequently your site changes, the more frequently they will come back and re-index your site.

Don't Rely on SEO

This article has focused on some basics of SEO, but if there is one rule to follow in developing your website it is this: do not rely solely on search engines. There are plenty of ways to develop a steady stream of traffic to your website outside of search engines. Link exchanges, purchasing links, advertising, participating in online communities are great ways to build your traffic.

Don't be afraid to purchase advertising. If you have a great website, people will refer others to your website. The lesson in all of this is that good search engine optimization stems from organized development, fresh content, and generally an attempt to develop a useful website for your visitors. If you do this, you will be surprised at how SEO really takes care of itself. Search engines are looking for well-developed, content-rich websites. Simply give them what they are looking for and let them worry about filtering out all the people who are attempting to "trick" them.

Provide A Value-Added Service To Appease The Google Gods

2008-05-03T10:00:00.000-04:00

One of the primary things that Google and its algorithms look at is whether or not you are providing a "value-added service". Now that we know this we need to figure out exactly what Google means by the term "value-added service". A value-added service is one that can stand on its own merits. By this I mean that the website is not simply a redirecting website. The website contains information that offers value to the reader. Many people use websites that are what Google refers to as a "sneaky redirect". That means that when a user goes to that site, he or she is simply sent elsewhere. A sneaky redirect is not a value-added service by Google standards. In fact, if you operated websites that are simply redirecting people to other sites, Google will actually deem your site as being "offensive".

Another way to determine if you are offering a value-added service according to Google is to ask yourself "Would this site remain a coherent whole if the pages leading to the affiliate were taken away?" This of course applies to those of you who are trying to generate revenue from sources such as Adsense, Overture, or similar affiliate linking programs. If Google decides that your website would not remain as a coherent whole, your site will again be deemed as "offensive". Google does not like for a website to be set up solely for the purpose of generating affiliate links. It is however ok to have affiliate links as long as the site offers something to the reader other than affiliates links. This is where unique content comes into play. Having unique content on your site that offers the reader some type of information, entertainment, etc. will help your website to remain a coherent whole after the affiliate links are removed. Google wants to differentiate between whether or not the affiliate linking is "cen
tral or incidental" to the sites existence. If it is central, then you are in trouble, if it is incidental then you should be fine according to Google.

This is where the concept of a value-added service comes in again. Your website needs to be able to stand on its own two feet so to speak. Your website needs to offer something that other websites do not. Whether it is unique content, a specialized product, or a specialized service, your site needs to be able to stand alone without links.

There are many other things that Google will penalize websites for. One of these is irrelevant repetitive text. This used to work in the past, but Google and the other major search engines have come up with algorithms to deal with this. If you remember, a few years ago webmasters would simply put in keywords at the bottom of their web page over and over again. They would put in all the variations of the keywords in an attempt to get more hits. There would literally be hundreds of thousands of these keywords listed at the bottom of the web page, so that no matter what a person was searching for on the Internet they could get directed to these pages. This no longer works. Nowadays people are writing keyword-optimized articles and adhering to certain keyword densities in the articles, so that they do not get in trouble with the search engines.

Another issue that Google looks at when determining whether or not you are providing a value-added service is that your website has been designed for the users, not the search engines. This means that your website does not employ what Google calls "cloaking" techniques. Google defines cloaking as deceiving users by presenting different content to search engines than what you present to users. This will automatically result in an "offensive" designation from Google.

These are just some of the basic guidelines set forth by the Google Gods. You can read more about these guidelines at http://www.google.com/webmasters/ Always remember that creating unique content for your website is one of the best ways to be deemed as providing a value-added service by Google. I encourage you to read the information at the above link and to educate yourself so that you get the search engine results that you are looking to receive.

About The Author

Trey Pennewell is a writer for http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com .

"Links and Traffic" is a value-added service designed to help generate, of course, "links and traffic" for their clients. Using high quality content as the foundation, LATC will create high quality links to your website, AND they will Guarantee Their Results.

Getting Unlimited Traffic From Search Engines

2008-05-02T15:00:00.000-04:00

Search engines have become so intimidating lately - most people think that search engines are just out to get them - everyone's becoming afraid… They also think that getting #1 rankings is near impossible. Yes, if you're trying to trick search engines, THEN - they're out to get you - BIG TIME. BUT, if you're willing to work with them and help them, then they can seriously be your business's best friend. Here's how: Writing Articles for Search Engines Actually, you're writing articles for TWO people.

Search Engines

Your Potential Customers

Why for Search Engines? Because search engines love content, and it's that very content that let's you invite traffic from search engines. These articles help you optimize your website for search engine rankings (more on this in a bit). . Why for Potential Customers? Because these articles are what your prospects are looking for on search engines - they land on that page, find the information they need and then see your "recommendation" - aka affiliate link and they click, click BUY.

So, your articles eventually lead to sales and commission for you. So once again, the purpose of articles:

Provide content/information for:

Search Engines

Potential customers

Promoting traffic to your affiliate program

Optimizing your Articles with KeywordsWe don't want to make your head spin here, so we'll try to keep this AS simple as possible.There are certain places you want to insert your keywords when building an article webpage.Here they are:

The title of the page

The Description META Tag

The Keyword META Tag

In your Headline, use HTML Tag

Your first line of text

Once or twice per paragraph

Once/Twice in bold . In the text of a link

Some other tips:

In your graphics - use keyword in HTML ALT tag

Use a secondary keyword also - a few times

Some Cautions:

Don't Overkill - repeating your keyword an obsense number of times will not help you at all - it will hurt you.

Never hide keywords - never.

Nothing tricky - if it's tricky, don't do it.

Don't have a LONG keyword META tag

The above is how most search engines determine how relevant your webpage is to a specific keyword.This is NOT the only element involved in search engine optimization, however, it's one the most important. The next strategy we're going to discuss is also critical - for Google, especially.

You can learn a lot more about How to Dominate Search Engines and also get Step by Step Instructions to turn that traffic into $300.00, $600.00 or $900.00/month in residual income at http://www.whycity.net/dominatesearchengines.html

A Linking Strategy

Alright, now, we're going to discuss the one, quite possibly most important element to ranking well in Google - the # of incoming links. Google has been giving more and more importance to what they call their "PR" - short for Page Rank. The PR is based on a scale of 1-10 and the higher it is, the more incoming links you have. The PR is determined by the number of INCOMING and OUTGOING links you have.

You should have the maximum number of incoming links. See, Google's theory is that by having a site link to you, that website is basically "voting" for you - that site is telling Google "Hey, I like that website, it has good content, I feel comfortable sending MY visitors there, so should you…" The more sites that tell Google that, the more willing Google is to send it's traffic. So, bottom line, recruit incoming links. —– How?—– How did we know you're going to ask that million dollar question? Our answer is not that "great" - "Just ask…" Contact websites in your niche and ask them for a link exchange. How to find these websites?

Check the sites linking to your competition on Alexa.com

Do a search on Google.com for your keyword and contact all the relevant websites.

Send them an e-mail, call them, etc…and let them know what's in it for them - a reciprocal link to help THEM with search engine optimization as well.NOTE: A linking strategy is VERY important if you want any chance at making it to the Top 10 page on Google and then staying there…

Kusuma Widjaja is President of Yahoo Cyber Technology, CV., based in Surabaya. He has over 2 years experience in Internet Marketing Arena, Custom Web Site Design and Graphic Design Services. For more information go to http://www.whycity.net/ or you can reach us at 62-8315-638474. info@whycity.net

Non Reciprocal Links = Top Google Rankings

2008-05-01T09:52:00.000-04:00

When I left my day job four years ago I had four website's, today I have forty five sites and a while back I noticed that two of my sites have held their "Top Three" positions through all of the trends, fads, search engine updates, even the Florida update did not affect their top positions. To say the least I was perplexed, there was nothing really apparent that made these two sites different in fact I had did a terrible job of keeping them updated, you know too busy with the other site's greasing the squeaky wheels. They were not broken so I did not fix them.

So anyway I needed to figure out why these sites had did so well with so little attention. Now I am thinking if I can just figure out why then I can do the same to the rest of my sites. But like I said earlier I did very little to these sites, they never needed it. It just did not make sense until after days of hair pulling I decided to analyze them just like I would do one of my competitors. First the on page factors had nothing special just very basic SEO, second I looked at the list of inbound links nothing really jumped out at me, so I made a list of my reciprocal partners from my links page then eliminated those from the inbound link list, which left about three dozen links of which six were scraper site's so I eliminated those so now there are 30 links I did not know about, at first I thought no big deal these are just links from site's that wanted a reciprocal link and I never got back to them, like I said I had neglected these two sites. Analyzing the 30 links, six or seven probably were from recip
rocal link request that I had ignored, so I was left with 23 unexpected links to analyze and here's what I found

None of the links were on a links page.

All of the links were either in an article or review.

All of the links had text before and after the link text.

Almost all of the links had different text in the link.

Most of the pages linking to me only had 5 to 10 outbound links.

Some of the links were to my home page but the others were to interior pages.

Most of the pages linking to me were only one level deep. (1 click from the home page)

Apparently the handful of "quality non-reciprocal links" was behind the success of these two sites, which if you look at it from a search engine's point of view it makes perfect sense because an unbiased, non-reciprocal and natural occurring link is the only true vote for the quality of the content on your site. The search engines and especially Google are smart enough to spot reciprocal links and know that a reciprocal link has nothing to do with the quality of the content on your site, they know that its just a trade between two webmasters trying to get better rankings.

Back when Google first started counting inbound links as votes for a site in its algorithms they did not have to worry about whether the link was natural, reciprocal or paid because so few people knew about it, plus unlike today the technology did not exist back then to easily scan and spot reciprocal links. But as more people learned about the power of linking more and more abuse took place, forcing Google to adjust their algorithms.

Next we'll exam ways to get quality one way links to your site.

About The Author

Mark Dietzel is founder of Natural Linking at http://www.naturallinking.com a service that helps in getting one way links.

The \"Unethical SEO\" Myth

2008-04-30T10:26:00.000-04:00

"The use of black hat SEO techniques are completely unethical." Really? I completely disagree. Is it unethical because these techniques are attempts to give a webmaster an advantage over their competition? If this is the case, stop participating in SEO forums, stop using WordTracker, stop studying or engaging in SEO at all, because any of those things are ways to help get you a leg up on your competition. In fact, if it is your argument that this is unethical because it gives one person an advantage over another, stop building websites because there are plenty of businesses out there that don't have a website. You may be taking advantage of a medium some people don't have access to. Is it unethical because it violates Google's Webmaster Guidelines ( http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html )? If this is the case, again, abstain from any SEO whatsoever, because those guidelines state 'Another useful test is to ask, "Does this
help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"' If you are building sites for your users and disregarding search engines, things like "SEO", "keyword density", "SERPs", etc.

hold no interest for you. By even considering what effect your actions have on your SERPs you are violating Google's guidelines. Dictionary.com 's primary definition for "unethical" is based on "approved standards". Who sets these standards? Google? Google is a company. Google's primary focus is on generating profits, as any company their size has to be.

Do you have any doubt that they are willing to take advantage of nearly any legal opportunity to gain an advantage over Yahoo or any of their other competitors? Why do people in this industry choose to set their "moral compasses" by a company's guidelines? Google sets these guidelines because it makes it easier for them to produce search results superior to their competitors'; they don't want to have to expend resources on excluding sites that game their algo. I like Google, they have a fantastic product and they are one of those companies that I find easy to admire, but I certainly don't believe they created those guidelines in an attempt to create this utopian internet where everything is "fair"; they didn't and never claimed to. Most of the world's economies are based on capitalism and free trade. Google has a cash cow and her name is AdSense/AdWords. Webmasters compete against each other with their cold hard cash to see who can be #1.

Is it unethical to squash your competition by outbidding them? Even if it was an unemployed guy with two ex-wives, three kids, a mortgage, $5 to his name, and a mammoth drug habit? Nearly everyone in this industry would say, "No it's business." If you are an SEO professional and you are optimizing sites, is it unethical to use "black hat" techniques on clients' sites? I certainly don't think so, as long as you make very clear to the client what risks are involved beforehand. Now if you don't tell them they will get banned if caught; I would certainly call that unethical. Ammon Johns, known as Black_Knight at his site, the Cre8asite forums at http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/ who, in a post, said "To my philosophy, the SEO who refuses to properly inform their clients of all available techniques and the costs risks and benefits is not ethical. Whether that is failure to tell them of risks, or failure to tell them of strengths. It is the clients role to make the ch
oice, and a truly ethical SEO will enable the client to make a fully informed choice, not just one that meets what the search engines say is okay for all." So is cloaking, creating doorway pages, search engine spamming, or other similar "black hat" techniques illegal? I know of no law that forbids this stuff as long as you aren't violating someone's copyrights by duplicating their text, stealing their bandwidth, etc.

I would be the first to label such techniques "unethical", frustrating, illegal, deplorable, name your word. The remaining unanswered question is, "Who decides what is 'unethical', who sets 'the standard'?" You and I as internet professionals do. Some people choose to draw the "unethical" line just beyond what they do to improve their own SERPs; anything past that is "unethical". In relation to this subject, I draw this line pretty close to what the American government calls "illegal". I would call almost anything done with a primary intent to damage another website/company "unethical"; and most anything done under those circumstances is also illegal.

Having said all that, to my knowledge, I'm not doing anything on any of my (or my clients') sites that any major SE would consider banning me for; I'm certainly aggressive with the "white hat" stuff. I have dabbled with some of the more risky techniques in the past, but I have put way too much work into my sites (the ones that are worth trying to achieve high rankings for, anyway) that I'm just not willing to risk getting them banned; the risk isn't worth it to me. So while I don't participate in any "black hat" (or what I prefer to call "risky") activities, I just don't like the idea of those who do being labeled "unethical". This is certainly an issue where people who have an opinion are passionate about it, but I invite you to examine your own motives for calling aggressive search engine optimization techniques "unethical"..

Damian owns a small website development business dedicated to providing affordable websites to small businesses. You can visit his website at http://www.divergentlines.com/ or contact him at dsmith@divergentlines.com

Dealing With Search Engine Stress In A Home-Based Business

2008-04-29T09:13:00.000-04:00

As a member of several search engine optimization forums, I have recently noticed (especially since Yahoo recently decided to try their hand at competing with Google) that the stress level of many webmasters has gone way up. This applies not only to webmasters involved in Internet-based home businesses, but to webmasters in general. Additionally, it seems that many people that are in the business of search engine optimization (SEO) are, with good reason, going completely bonkers. As Google came on the scene in 1998 and quickly dominated the search business, website optimization became largely a game of shooting at a single target, namely, pleasing Google…for all intents and purposes, Google became the "800 pound gorilla" of the search engine business. Since the advent of search engines (particularly Google) spawned the whole SEO business, I guess its only fair that the search engine industry can once again turn the SEO business on its ear, and it seems now to be sort of a cat and mouse (n
ot desktop) relationship that can get really interesting as we move forward.

Not only are there now several viable players (most notably Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask Jeeves) in the search engine business, but they are all adopting different and frequently changing algorithms for determining the ranking positions for websites. The current game is that webmasters are trying to figure out how the various search engines perform the rankings and, on the flip side, the search engines are striving to be unpredictable to those webmasters and SEO firms. For those people using websites to promote home-based businesses, it can be stressful constantly trying to determine "what the search engines want" and agonizing over every downward fluctuation in rankings that their website may experience. Looking forward in time, I think we can expect that rankings will fluctuate frequently and will not be at all consistent from one search engine to another. It will be quite common that for a particular search term a website might suffer a drop in position ranking for search engine "A" and an increase
position ranking for search engine "B" at essentially the same point in time.

Kirk Bannerman operates a successful home based business and resides in California. For more details, visit his website at http://business-at-home.us

Rather than stressing out over every position ranking "wiggle", a better approach might be to just focus on "what do visitors to my site want?". The search engines are striving to give their users a quality (relevant) search experience and if you are focused in giving visitors to your website what they are looking for, these paths will meet somewhere down the road. You can save yourself alot of consternation by focusing upon the needs of the website visitors you are seeking to attract, rather than chasing the frequently changing ranking algorithms of several search engines. Focus on a single target instead of chasing several moving targets at the same time. This article pertains to natural searches only, as paid search engine advertising is a completely different situation.

Adwords, Adsense, SEO? Common Denominator, Keywords

2008-04-28T15:52:00.000-04:00

If you have just put up a website, you probably all ready have heard words like: keywords, Google Adwords,GoogleAdsense, SEO. Adwords, Adsense, SEO have one thing in common – Keywords. How important are keywords? Very Important.

Google Adwords

Adwords, be it through Google, Miva, or any pay-per-click search engines, you need keywords. With Adwords, you create a three-line ad – 25 word title, with two 35 word lines of ad copy – then you create your keywords. To get the hits, you have to brainstorm for different keywords, that are different but relevant to your target audience. Sound easy? It's not. It takes time, patience, constant tweaking, and hoping that the product you are selling is not already saturated — to much competition, makes it a little more difficult for the novice to make a profit.

Google Adsense

Google Adsense is an advertising program created by Google, and which is beginning to be explored by other search engines, such as Yahoo and MSN – that allows you to put targeted ads on your website. If someone clicks on the ad, you earn a small amount of money. These ads are keyword driven and are relevant to your webpage or website.

Sounds simple? Well, not really. There is more too it than just putting an ad on your website and expecting someone to click on it. What's involved? Let's see – color, position, style, to name just a few.

SEO

Search engine optimization – this for me has been a time-consuming process – since I am still learning. SEO is keyword driven – the search engines pull the keywords from your web copy – not, to my surprise, from the meta keywords tag. Granted, I still use the meta keywords tag, but maybe in the near future, I will slowly eliminate the tag from my webpages…

The search engines do, however, pull information from Meta Description, Meta Title, and the content of your webpages. Thus, content does reign supreme. Since content reigns supreme, each page should contain useful content and most importantly, your most relevant keywords that you want to emphasize. Secondly, it is best to try and base your keywords around a central theme. I have found that when the keywords diverts away from the main theme – that sends a red flag to search engines. So, if you want to look at your keywords and the density of the keywords on your webpage or webpages – You can get a quick rundown at: http://www.ranks.nl/tools/spider.html . It's a free tool, and very helpful.

To conclude, keywords is one of the main ingredients that leads people to your website, product, service and/or ad. …AND, keywords based around your quality content will help with your positioning on your website.
About The Author

Vickie J Scanlon has a BBA degree in Administrative Management and Marketing. Visit her site at: http://www.myaffiliateplace.biz for free tools, articles related to affiliate marketing, ebooks, how to info, affiliate opportunities – all aimed toward the affiliate marketer and the marketing process.

Website For Sale - How To Sell A Website Fast

2008-04-27T20:39:00.000-04:00

If you have an existing website or domain name you no longer need and wish to sell it to an interested buyer for a one-time profit, or if you're a speculator looking to build a steady source of revenue by buying and reselling valuable domain names, this helpful guide will explain the steps you need to take to ensure a quick, easy, profitable sale.

Step 1 – Establish a Reasonable Price for Your Site

How Much Can I Get?

Before you sell, it's a good idea to know how much the domain is worth. Market prices for domain names can run from a few dollars to thousands of dollars for premium names. The domain name "Loans.com", for example, sold for $3,000,000 just a few years ago. The key to deciding whether or not to sell a domain name you own is to determine its worth to you if kept and, alternatively, how much a buyer is willing to pay. You may have heard 'rags to riches' type stories of cheap domain names resold for hundreds of thousands of dollars. During the good old days of the Internet boom this was possible. However, things have slowed down considerably since then and there it is very rare to hear of a domain name sold for more than $10,000. However, while big deal domain sales do occur less often in today's domain market, selling domain names can still be very profitable. Short, catchy, top level domain names are selling for upwards of $5,000 on the domain aftermarket. Other longer, but still usable, names may be worth h
undreds of dollars.

Pricing is relative. Relative to your desire to sell, the type and timeliness of bidder inquiries (individual or corporate) and how well the sale price is negotiated. Don't try to fit your domain name into some 'proprietary pricing model'. Every domain name is applicable to a different target market. Determine who your potential buyers are before determining your asking price so you don't over or under estimate that price. Most names (˜85%) sell for between 15%-40% of the asking price. Exceptions to this trend:

Fantastic names - Truly great names can command what a seller requests, unless that amount is unreasonable. High asking prices - Names that have ridiculous or greedy asking prices rarely sell. Important! Poor names - Names littered with hyphens, adult names, "4"s for the number "four", "2"s for the number "two", "U"s for the word "you", etc. Don't waste your time listing names like these. They rarely sell.

How Do I Determine My Site's Worth?

Selling virtual real estate is a lot like selling physical real estate. Just like with the housing market, website "homes" (also known as domain names) can be purchased for a low cost, remodeled and decorated to look very attractive to potential buyers, and sold for a considerable profit. To understand how this works, first consider that you were in fact selling an actual house built on land instead of an abstract entity on the web. It would be impossible to price your home without doing extensive research to determine its worth. You'd need to take many factors into consideration, such as: size, landscape, curb appeal, the value of other properties in the area, the current buying market, and – perhaps the biggest factor – location, location, location! You'd never dream of arbitrarily assigning a sale price to your home without having some idea of its worth and what buyers might be willing to pay. If you underprice your home, you could be missing out on a substantial profit opportunity. However,
if you overprice your home, you might not be able to sell it at all. That's why it's so important to have all the facts before putting your home on the market – and the same holds true for selling your virtual home on the web.

When determining your site's value, you may need to do some research online. It is often a good idea to compare different websites on the Internet and to see which sites catch your eye. You can make a mental note of the methods used on websites that were appealing to you; then you can use those ideas when creating or updating your own website. The design of a website is very important when you are trying to sell an existing site online. The design should be bold and colorful, but should not be too busy. You may want to use colors that relate to the theme of the site as well. For instance, if you are selling bottled water, it would be logical to use shades of blue on your website. However, no matter how brilliant the website design is, the purpose of the site must also be useful for the website to sell. A good website will revolve around an interesting idea or useful type of business. To reflect the purpose of your website, you should include clear, informative content that is easy to understand. A website
with a clear and interesting purpose is very likely to sell on the Internet.

What Makes a Site Valuable to Buyers?

These days most websites are valued by the number of visitors they attract. One common yard stick is your domain name is valued at $10 to $30 per hit per day. If 1,000 people land on your front page each day, your domain could be worth $10,000 to $30,000. Another optimistic way of looking at domain values is each unique visitor you get over the course of a month is worth $250. If the visitor clicks to a second page on your site, her presence is worth $500. By this measure, a site getting only 10 hits per day could go for $15,000. This strategy is a lot like the way traditional businesses have always been sold. The more customers a store has, the more it is worth to a buyer. That is a pretty solid way to value domains. It is a model that is likely to be around for a long time to come.

Here are some of the main questions a typical buyer will ask him or herself when considering whether or not a website is worth purchasing – and at what price: Is the site making any money? Is there proof? What is the potential for future profits? Does the site have traffic? Is there proof? Is the site attractive/well designed? Is it functional and user friendly? When was the domain name registered? How is the site ranked with the major search engines? What does is take to maintain the site? i.e. hosting fees, content addition, promotion, etc. Why does the owner want to sell the website?

If you've purchased a unique domain name with a great deal of potential value, it may not be necessary for you to have an existing website in order for you to sell your domain name for a profit. Typically, domain names will sell based on its performance in four key categories:

1. Commercial Development Potential – The ability of your domain name to be used as a brand, redirect, campaign address, etc.

2. Recognition – The relevance of your name to the market and how easy it is to remember.

3. Length – In most cases, shorter is better. However, a longer more obvious name can sometimes be more valuable than a short classified-ad contraction style domain.

4. Extension Value – This refers to the .COM part of your domain name. Currently .COM names still command the highest values followed by .NET, some national domains (such as .UK) and .ORG names.

How Can I Guarantee I've Priced My Site Correctly?

Unless you are a true domain name expert, we strongly recommend having your site professionally appraised. In fact, this is probably one of the most important steps you can take towards ensuring a successful sale of your site. Appraisers are professionals and experts in their field, and they have the means and methods to conclude what your domain name is worth. As we mentioned earlier, if you place an exaggerated price on your name, potential buyers will be scared away from making a reasonable offer. If you undervalue your name, you may end up kicking yourself when your newly sold name rakes in millions – for someone else. Furthermore, an appraisal is a very handy thing to have when buyers want "proof" that your name is as special as you claim. In the end, it is an exceptionally valuable asset, available for a very small price.

For information on UK Website for Sale's professional appraisal services, visit:

http://www.ukwebsiteforsale.co.uk/appraisal/. We offer a 20 page Website Appraisal that can dramatically increase the value of your website. No one on the Internet offers a more complete or cost effective Website Appraisal, and certainly no one offers all the extras we do that are included for FREE!

Step 2 - Prepare your Business Information for the Sale

After you have decided to sell your business for whatever reason and chosen an asking price that you can support (hopefully with some advice from research or, even better, through a professional appraisal service), you are now ready to talk to some potential buyers. Or are you?

Much like the asking price, the art of preparing your business for sale is not that easy. So, what do you need to successfully prepare the business and information? The list and needs vary greatly over business types, revenue sizes, verticals, and so on. For any business, the basic requirements for what you will need are quite similar. At the very least, you should have the following items:

1. Business Summary — what it is and why you are selling

2. Business Plan/Marketing Plan — if you have them

3. Asset List — both tangible and intangible

4. Search Engine Rankings

5. Website Traffic Reports

6. Any Technical details

7. Financials (previous years and Current YTD financials)

8. Most recent completed year's Profit & Loss or Income Statement report and Balance Sheet — if you have it

9. Sales Forecasts

10. Supporting documents for the Financials — Tax, Bank, and/or Merchant Statements

The previous items will give all potential buyers a good idea what is for sale and probably a good idea if they are interested in pursuing the sale or not. However, that is usually just the beginning, so be prepared for many, many, many more questions.

Also, please keep in mind that your materials, presentation, and responses will be graded as part of the business in a way. Why? Because, how can your business be successful if you are unorganized, not well presented, and not able to respond quickly and concisely? This is what the buyer will be thinking. And in my experience, this is pretty accurate.

Step 3 – Market Your Website/Domain Name

There are various methods of putting your domain name up for sale. Decide whether you would like to sell your domain by owner or simplify the process and significantly increase your chances of receiving the best offer in the shortest amount of time by listing your domain name with a third party, such as http://www.ukwebsiteforsale.co.uk.

What if I Want to Market My Site On My Own?

There are 101 different ways to promote your domain name. One way we don't recommend is blanketing companies with unsolicited email. Writing mail to 200 banks asking if they want to buy FasterInternetBanking.com is not likely to win you many friends, nor make you any deals. Your time would be better employed using the methods listed below:

a) Update the domain name registration information

Many potential buyers will look at the information in the WHOIS database as a first step when investigating a name that they are considering buying. So make it perfectly clear that the name is for sale. Update the owner's name to include (This name is for sale) after your own name. Make sure all your contact information is current and accurate. Contact your domain name registrar to update your WHOIS listing.

b) Put a promotional website up

The other obvious way for a potential buyer to find out if a domain name is for sale is to visit the website. Don't disappoint them. If you don't have an existing website, get some web space from a decent host provider and put a simple, one-page site up, showing that the name is for sale. Include a form or at least an email address so that interested parties can submit offers.

c) Get the Word Out

There are two different types of e-marketing strategies that may help increase your sales.

Direct Marketing: Identify and Address Your Audience. What types of businesses or individuals would be interested in your name? When you have identified your specific audience, you can take the next steps:

1. Visit newsgroups related to domain names and the nature of your name for sale. Post messages and begin discussions.

2. Subscribe to ezines related to the topic and find out where these people are on the web, and how you can contact them.

3. Once you have contacts, you can send out emails to potential customers.

Mass Marketing: Address Many. As opposed to direct marketing, mass marketing targets a large amount of people, hoping for a small response. Some ways to do this are:

4. Participate in domain forums, ask questions and seek out domain resellers or people who may be able to offer you more tips.

5. Use search engines. Although search engines differ in their methods of operation and website submission, you can often submit your site for no cost. To find out more information about different search engines and how they work, visit http://searchenginewatch.com/.

What are the Benefits to Registering My Site With a Third Party?

For a small fee, you can list your site with a reputable third party, such as http://www.ukwebsiteforsale.co.uk, and greatly enhance your site's exposure to qualified buyers and ultimate profit potential. Among the many benefits you'll receive by registering with ukwebsiteforsale are:

· High visibility – Reach 1000s of qualified buyers every month

· FREE 3-Month Featured Listing with purchase of professional appraisal

· Professionally written ads

· FREE email newsletter

· A professional appraisal to accurately determine your sites worth and increase your chances of selling – ready in three to five business days

· The security of working with a trusted, experienced and highly recommended company

· The opportunity to connect with a recommended site broker, who will further simplify the process by handling payment, escrow, and domain and registrar transfer.

Visit http:// http://www.ukwebsiteforsale.co.uk/exchange/sell-a-website.htm to learn more.

Step #4 - Make The Deal

You could get lucky, and receive an offer just days after listing your name. Typically, though, names are listed for months before any offers arrive. The key here is to be patient. Think about it - a party needs to come along who believes that the name is right, even essential, for their new Web site. The only other offers you will get will be from domain resellers, who will typically offer you 20-25% of a name's potential value. Unless you really need the money, turn down these offers, but note them anyway, as they are external confirmation that your name has resale value.

Once you have agreed a deal with the buyer, then you will have to complete the deal. They send you payment, and you transfer the name to them. It's best to use an escrow service here. It protects both parties, but adds to the cost, so make sure you have agreed beforehand who will pay for it. Normally the buyer pays, but sometimes the cost is shared. Please note: to sell a domain name by owner, through a private transaction rather than a trusted third party, is risky business unless you completely trust the buyer.

There will be some wait time as money switches hands and the domain name ownership is transferred. Unless you are selling your domain to your mother or selling it for a very low price, we recommend using an escrow service to take care of the money transaction.

Good luck!

Manny Avedissian

www.ukwebsiteforsale.co.uk

Manny Avedissian has earned his degree in Business Administration. Mr. Avedissian has over 20 years of professional business experience ranging from private corporations to governmental agencies. Mr. Avedissian has owned and operated previous internet businesses. Mr. Avedissisan is also a member in good standing with the prestigious International Webmasters Association ( IWA ).

Article Source: http:// EzineArticles.com/

What Is Link Trading And How Do You Trade?

2008-04-26T08:39:00.000-04:00

Link trading is the task of getting links to your site on other sites by trading.. umm.. links. This is done to get more traffic to you web site. Link trading creates more traffic in two main ways, increased search engine rankings and also from the traffic the links themselves generate from people clicking on them.

Link Trading and Search Engines

Trading links helps search engine rankings because the algorithms that determine rankings factor in the number of sites that link back to the site to be ranked. The logic is that sites that have many links pointing back to it must be relevant and good in some sense, and are therefore ranked higher in the engines.

How to Trade Links

Now that we know what link trading is, how is it done? There are many methodologies. Since link trading can involve many contacts, requests and link categorizations, it is best to use software to handle your link trading campaign.

Link Trading Software

The software you choose should allow you to create a link directory, ad links to that directory, send requests to have your link posted on other sites and a method for keeping track of responses.

Link Trading Process

The general process begins when the site owner identifies a site which he or she would like to trade links with. Generally, these sites should be relevant to the topic of your site, or at least have a section dedicated to the topic of your site. Trading links with huge numbers of unrelated sites will actually hurt your search engine rankings in most cases. Also, usually it is a good idea to look for well-ranked sites to trade links with. The importance of a well-ranked site's link to your site in search engine algorithms will be greater than those of not so well ranked sites.

After the site to trade links with is located, a link to that site is posted on your site. Sometimes the link would be posted on a different site than the site wishing to get a link back. This produces non-reciprocal links, which weigh heavier in search engines.

After the link is posted, a request is sent that a link back be posted, explaining that if a link back is not created, the original link to the prospects site is likely to be removed.

If a link is returned, then the trade is marked as successful and each of the link traders has one more site linking to it. Other wise a follow up is sent. If the follow up still does not result in a link back, often the link would be removed.

Link Trading Etiquette

Asking to trade links without posting a link to the site you are wishing to trade with is bad form. The prospect is likely to think "If this person has not already posted a link to my site, what will motivate them to do so when I post a link to their site?" Many people will not even respond to a link request whereas the link has not yet been posted.

This is of course only a brief introduction to link trading. In short, effective link trading requires organization, persistence and time, yet is often well worth the effort.

About The Author

Halstatt Pires is an Internet marketing consultant with http://www.marketingtitan.com/ - an Internet marketing firm in San Diego offering automated web site systems through http://www.businesscreatorpro.com .

Non Reciprocal Links = Top Google Rankings

2008-04-25T18:52:00.000-04:00

None of the links were on a links page.

All of the links were either in an article or review.

All of the links had text before and after the link text.

Almost all of the links had different text in the link.

Most of the pages linking to me only had 5 to 10 outbound links.

Some of the links were to my home page but the others were to interior pages.

Most of the pages linking to me were only one level deep. (1 click from the home page)

Next we'll exam ways to get quality one way links to your site.

About The Author

Mark Dietzel is founder of Natural Linking at http://www.naturallinking.com a service that helps in getting one way links.

Promote Your Website - Link Popularity

2008-04-24T19:39:00.000-04:00

What is link popularity? The quantity of links in different websites pointing to your sites is called link popularity of your website. The more popular is your site the more links you get from other websites and vice versa. Why is it so important? Links from high traffic websites furnish you with constant stream of visitors. Other website marketing efforts i.e. email marketing, might give good influx of visitors while the campaign lasts but the quantity diminishes once the campaign is over. Links are a different story! Once a link is installed, it might start bringing a steady flow of visitors all the time, depending on the website where the link was placed. Link popularity is also crucial to search engine ranking of your website.

Search engines, especially Google, claim that link popularity is one of the key factors that they consider in their search algorithm while indexing a website. What would be the rank of a website in a search result depend on its link popularity in a very big way. So, how can you conduct an effective link popularity development campaign and build traffic for your website? Content is the king Prior to start a link popularity campaign, you should seriously question yourself, what would be the reason for the other sites to post a link pointing to your website? Most high traffic sites are quite picky about putting links, and won't do it without any apparent reason. If your site boasts quality content that the visitors of other sites might find valuable, chances are there that those sites would be interested in posting a link of your site on their relevant web pages. High quality content that gets updated regularly will definitely help you getting more links and subsequently more visitors. If even you are just a
web store, you can still add much sought-after content to your site, such as, detail product information, articles related to the specific products, comparison tables, etc. If it is really difficult to get relevant content for your website, try getting a valuable tool that might be interesting for visitors and incorporate it to your website. You must have noticed that free search engine submission forms are common on Search Engine Optimization sites.

Giveaways like e-books, white papers, articles and other freebies are also good for creating interest to a website. Submit website to various directories When your new website is up and running, first thing you should do is to submit your site to many search directories such as, Yahoo!, DMOZ etc. available on the Internet. Not only, this will help you get quality backward links to your site, this is also the fastest method for your site to get crawled by search engines spiders and get indexed by them. Don't underestimate the value of the many regional and industry specific directories. Try submitting your site as many as possible relevant local directories. Examples of these directories are municipal business directory, local chamber of commerce directory etc. If you are a seller of, for example, metal related products; get your site enlisted in as many metal industry associated directories as you can manage. Get reciprocal links Since backward links are so important, building link popularity by exchanging
links with other websites should be a priority in your online marketing effort. Which are the websites that you should consider to get backward links to your website? Your objective should be – not just having any backward link from any site, the sites that you are getting reciprocal link has to be relevant to the content of your website as well.

First of all, if you get a link from a website which has nothing in common with your site, you, most probably, will not receive any traffic from that site. The second and most important issue is – the search engines, while calculating your website's rank in a specific keyword search result, consider, mainly, the backward links which are relevant to your site. Search engine Google uses a unique Page rank system to determine how relevant your website is. Your site's Page Rank depends on backward links to your site. However, if the page from where your website gets the backward link has more outbound links then incoming ones, the value of this link gets reduced. A link to your site will have the biggest impact on your Page rank: • If the page itself has a good page rank. • There are very few outbound links from the page. To check out your site's Page rank, download the Google Toolbar from http://toolbar.google.com/ and install.

After that, go to your website. On the tool bar, you will see the rank of your index page in a scale of 0 to 10. The rating is considered good if it is five or more. Make sure, while exchanging links you select the websites that have page rank no less than yours. How to find the websites that you should swap links with? The easiest way is to check out the backward links to the website of your most prominent Internet based competitor or industry leader of your field. Other option is to run a search based on the most relevant keywords to your website and check out backward links to the first ten websites. In the search box of Google, Altavista and AllTheWeb type link: and then the URL of the site to view all the sites that have backward links to this site. Visit these sites to find the best one to exchange links and then contact them with a nice email. I will also suggest you to check out the number of visitors the site receives before offering a link swap.

The tool that will help you figuring out the quantity of traffic a site gets, you can download from http://download.alexa.com/ by clicking on the button "Free Tool Bar". This is also a very good tool to analyze web traffic. The tool also shows which other similar sites people tend to visit alongside with the site that you are viewing now. If a site gets significantly less visitors than yours, what is the point of having a link form that site? While looking for websites to swap links, don't forget about your partners, suppliers and buyers. These sites are capable of bringing major traffic and are indeed relevant to your site's subject matter! Your link popularity campaign should also include the following methods. However, mind it, these techniques require tedious work from your side. Issue Press Releases Press releases are a good way of exposing your website to mass and increase your link popularity.

Whenever you are coming up with a new product or service, overhauling your website, adding new elements to your site or conducting a seminar, etc. you should issue a press release. It is also a very cost effective method of getting publicity for your site. To broadcast your press release you can use one of the free media release sites: http://www.prweb.com Write Articles If you are dedicated to popularize your website, you must have substantial knowledge of the subject related to your website. Why not, write articles on your subjects of expertise and circulate them on the Internet and post on your website? Apart from this will add good content to your website, if other websites and newsletters publish your articles, you will get free publicity and increase your link popularity. Build an Affiliate Program If you sell a product or service through your website, you should seriously consider developing an affiliate program for your site.

An affiliate program is when a visitor from your affiliate's site comes to your site using the link that you provided to the affiliate and buy something; the affiliate will get a commission from you. The affiliate program can expand your business substantially. Since your affiliates require posting your links on their sites, this increases your link popularity as well. Participate in Discussion Groups and Forums This is also a great way of increasing your link popularity. There are literally thousands of discussion groups and forums on every conceivable subject on the Internet. You should actively participate in some of them, those which are most relevant to your area of expertise.

The signature along with your website address that you post there while asking a question or answering to a question also boosts your link popularity. Link Exchange Programs You can also participate one of the link swap programs available on the Internet. Unfortunately, most of the automated link exchange offers that you receive through them are random and irrelevant to your site. But, however, I would suggest you to give them a try, as chances are there that you still might receive some good offers. You can also actively search for sites to swap links in their directories. Development of link popularity is an on going process. You have to work on this constantly.

But, the outcome that you might achieve from your endeavor also could be significant.

Nowshade Kabir, Ph.D., is the founder, primary developer and present CEO, of Rusbiz.com, a global business to business e-commerce portal with feature like storefronts, aggregated catalog, e-marketplace, trade leads, internal messaging system supply chain solutions, etc. With a doctorate in Information Technology, Dr. Kabir has worked an advisor to government projects and has over 12 years experience in International Trade. An author of many B2B and business related articles; he publishes a bi-weekly E-zine for online business community. You can subscribe to his newsletter free of charge from http://www.rusbiz.com.

5 Reasons Why Link Swapping Is Killing Your Website

2008-04-23T13:13:00.000-04:00

I created my first website in 1995 - it was so long ago I built it out of rock and wood, not HTML. Shortly after it went live I realised that nobody apart from me could see it and it started to dawn on me what this 'Internet thing' is all about. It is not about having a stand-alone website plonked somewhere that nobody will ever see - it is about being part of an INTERconnected NETwork of other websites. INTER-NET. The penny dropped - I needed to start getting connected to other websites. Much has changed since then (my hair got longer, shorter and has since started to recede further up my head for one thing) but it seems the desire and pressure you face as a website owner to exchange links shows no signs of fading. But link swapping is killing your website! Here's 5 Reasons why… Reason No.

1 - It's Addictive! It's true. You might not be that far down the link-swapping path yet but I promise you it will happen sooner or later. One day you'll find yourself laughing like a maniac as you run a report to see how many in-bound links you have and start rubbing your hands gleefully as you reach that magic milestone you set yourself six months ago. You'll start mainlining reciprocal links: "Just one more link. Please - all I need is one more link!" Take a deep breath, step back from the precipice and think for a moment.

Why do you want all these links pointing to your website? No, honestly - why do you REALLY want all these links pointing to your website? To improve link popularity? You're falling into the trap. Do you want it to boost that little green bar that Google assigns to your page? (see toolbar.google.com ) Wise up! Reason No. 2 - It Is Eating Away At Your Time Like A Hungry Hippo! Just take a look at the last time you went out looking for a link and got it. How long did it take you? Not long? Well, let me put this another way - how long did it take you to find the right type of websites, look through those and find ones that even have a links page, find the contact information for the websites you wanted to contact, create the email, send the email, respond to the email, place their link on your website, check that they reciprocated with you, email back and forth a few times more and so on…? If you add up all the minutes that each of these elements takes you could
be looking at half an hour per reciprocal link established - maybe even longer! And don't think you're cutting corners if you're using software. It might be quicker to find possible linking partners using software but it's a false economy as, to my knowledge, people are still cleverer than machines.

What I mean by this is I can tell if you email me using software rather than using your own fingers. If you go looking for reciprocal links using software you are FAR less likely to get a response so the whole process will probably take you as long in terms of time spent per link established. Reason No. 3 - You Are Spending More Time On Other People's Websites Than Your Own If you spend a lot of your time researching and creating reciprocal links you'd better make sure that your website is perfect. Remember - all that time you're spending developing reciprocal links could be spent adding new content to your website, sending out an up to date newsletter to your mailing list or even sitting down and writing out goals for your website. If you spend all the time on improving your website, adding great content, providing excellent service, keeping it up to date, testing different headlines and homepage layouts INSTEAD of spending the time building links guess what? You will magically find that more people link
to you anyway! In fact - your website will become such a great resource because of all the time you're dedicating to it that people will go OUT OF THEIR WAY to link to you! How ironic is that?! You go hunting for links and your site suffers and therefore hardly anybody links to you. You spend time on making your website THE BEST IT CAN BE and everyone starts linking to you as, shock horror, you have a brilliant website that is worth referring to.. Reason No.

4 - You Don't Have A Multi-Million Dollar Budget To Beat The Boffins Those white-cloaked geeks over at Google towers and the like have millions of dollars at their disposal to create the latest technology that can sniff out the merest whiff of dodginess when it comes to link swapping. If they think something is suspect you might get penalised. First you started to see sites that used the same phrase for their inbound links get penalised. Then it was sites that engaged with link farms. Who knows what's next? Ultimately you can bet your bottom dollar that the search engines will change their tack with reciprocal links and their importance - some of them are already starting to look at the words that appear before and after each link to make sure it is on a relevant page and not just created as part of a reciprocal linking deal. It's a risky game we're all playing and my money's on the guys with the white coats and millions of dollars.. Reason No.

5 - You Are The Weakest Link, Goodbye! When push comes to shove this whole 'game' of website marketing is about balance. Imagine you are a tightrope walker. Fifty metres beneath you is a huge vat of boiling hot lava. To help you across the rope from the podium of "website launch" to the podium of "website success" you get a balancing rod. Spending too much time and effort on reciprocal link building is like having a large sack on one end of the rod. This sack has an elephant in it.

The elephant is wearing boots. Made from concrete. Get the picture.

Michael Cheney

Author of The Website Marketing BibleTM

http://www.websitemarketingbible.com - Download your free Sampler of The Website Marketing BibleTM now and get free bonuses worth £159 ($288)

What Is Link Trading And How Do You Trade?

2008-04-22T21:13:00.000-04:00

Link Trading and Search Engines

How to Trade Links

Link Trading Software

The software you choose should allow you to create a link directory, ad links to that directory, send requests to have your link posted on other sites and a method for keeping track of responses.

Link Trading Process

After the link is posted, a request is sent that a link back be posted, explaining that if a link back is not created, the original link to the prospects site is likely to be removed.

Link Trading Etiquette

This is of course only a brief introduction to link trading. In short, effective link trading requires organization, persistence and time, yet is often well worth the effort.

About The Author

One Way Text Links For Dummies.

2008-04-21T13:00:00.000-04:00

What is a one way link(s) and how can it help your websites ranking, increase link popularity and help you climb up the search engine result pages.1 way link text links or incoming links are the links that points to your websites from another website. When you have a one way link(s), it means that you have a incoming link(s) pointed toward your website and on your website you do not have a outbound link pointed toward that website or web page which the link is coming from. Unless you are a skilled marketer or your website is very popular with a lot of people it will be hard to build one way links. Reason is that many webmaster don't want to just include your link to their site, they want you to link to their site(s) as well, and when that happens that link doesn't factor as strong with the search engines as well as it would if it was just a inbound link. That was just the basic introduction to 1 way link(s), but as long as you understand what we covered so far, you will be able to improve your w
ebsite page rank if you follow some or all of the six steps outlined below.

Note not all of them will be free, but if you believe in your website or what you are offering than you will do what you have to do to get visitors to your website. Remember sometimes it takes money to make money.

Step 1: Start searching on the net for FFA pages (Free For All pages) when you find them submit your site to the one that has to do with your website content, categories or which every one you thinks will bring you the most highly target traffic to your website. Also search for Classified ads websites or message boards and post your links on there as well. This will start to be very time consuming, but it will pay off in the end if done right.

Step 2: If you have two or more websites then you can link from one website to another, (incoming) but don't link to the other website( No outbound link). Or you can go to forums and ask to trade links.

But this won't be your usual link trade. There is more to gain when doing it this way.This is how you would write the Forum Post. Example.. Topic- Free 1 way text link to your website.Description: I have two websites and I am looking to increase my page ranking and link popularity. I will use one website to link to your website giving you a one way link, providing that you link your website to my other site thus giving me a one way link from you.

We will both benefit. If you are interested than email me here at your-email@.freehomebizresource.com.(http://www.freehomebizresource.com is our website, by the way). That's how you would write a simple post and believe me you will generated a lot of interest.

Step 3: Do search online for the top 3 keywords that best describe your website. Next email or call the top 10 websites that shows up in the page result and ask them how much will it cost for them to link to your site.

(note: this is where the money comes in,) Quick tip: if they agree. Before you pay them do a alexa ranking on them to see how much traffic they are getting. Also (IMPORTANT) the page that your link will be posted on, make sure it doesn't have more than 20 outbound links on it. Try to get a home page link if applicable. (it will cost you though.) we offer (home page) 1 way text links on our website: http://freehomebizresource.com

Step 4: Use a link broker.

Link brokers supply you with websites that are willing to link to your website for a fee. This is how to find a Link Broker, do a search online . Use the following keywords: text links, text link advertising, seo, text link ads, sell links, text link, link buying, buy links, links, optimization, search engine optimization, search engine placement, search engine marketing firm, search engine ranking, search engine marketing, search engine optimization services, internet marketing, seo, search engine optimization company, search engine optimization firm. Choose the top 5 or 10 (depending on how much time or research you are willing to do) from each keyword, research them, and then use their services to improve your link ranking and page rank. Remember make sure they offer the websites statistic of which you might be adding your link to.

Also do your own research make sure the site they offer fits your categories or niche market and will bring you the most highly targeted traffic. Also is in good taste.

Step 5: Write articles . Make sure to write articles about a subject that you know well. It is not hard to write an article, there are millions of articles out there on writing articles on the internet. Remember if your articles is well liked and get publish in Ezines, websites, or even Ebooks then you will receive a lot of 1 way text links coming towards you for free, thus sending your incoming links up and up. don't forget to add your site url. Tip don't make the article about your website, it won't get publish by people or websites. Trust me.

Step 6: Once you have websites linking to your site, make sure to get email them and get the link address of where your article is being publish or where the text link is displayed. When you get that url from them, submit it to search engines so that page link can be crawled and increase your link popularity. That's it for this beginners course, if you want for info on 1-way Links, S.E.O tips and more Home Business, or Home Based Business Opportunities then feel free to visit one of our two websites to view more articles.

We have more in depth articles and tips about this subject matter and many more available to for you to read, share or view on our websites.

This article was written by Amazan. Visit our Websites.

http://www.freehomebizresource.com http://www.homebusinessarchive.com

Do You Make These Terrible Internet Marketing Mistakes?

2008-04-20T22:00:00.000-04:00

Having been involved in Internet marketing since the world-wide-web began I consider myself to be an Internet marketing expert. From my experience helping clients build successful websites, I have learned what works and what does not work when selling on the Internet. To help you avoid costly mistakes, I have listed what I have found to be the biggest Internet marketing mistakes.

Mistake 1: Using too much Flash.

If your website is one big Flash presentation, you are making a huge mistake! Why? Because consumers go to your website to seek information, not to watch an "I'm so cool" Flash presentation. Ask yourself, when you go to a website, do you sit there and watch their ego-building Flash presentation or do you click the "skip flash" link to get to the real information? If you are like most people, you click the "skip flash intro" link as quickly as you can find it.Another major problem with Flash is that it is only "interesting" the first time a visitor goes to your website. If they actually return to your website, they will do everything they can to skip your Flash presentation so they can quickly get to the information they want. In my experience NOTHING kills Internet sales more than Flash. That is why you almost never see the world's top websites like Google, AOL, MSN, and Yahoo using Flash as the basis for their web pages. If you are making this mistake, get rid of the Flash immediately and make your website
a valuable source of information, because that is what consumers want.

Mistake 2: Letting your webmaster write the text for your website.

This is another huge mistake that companies make. On nearly a daily basis I get a call from a company that has spent a fortune building a website and they cannot understand why they are not generating any sales. My first question is, "who wrote the text for your website?" In nearly every case they tell me their webmaster wrote it.Why is it a mistake to have your webmaster write your website marketing text? Here is a hint: webmasters are programmers, NOT a professional marketing copywriter who know how to write text that sells. If you want your website to generate sales, you must hire a person who is an excellent copywriter and knows how to write words that make people want to buy! Would you hire your webmaster to write a display advertisement for you? Of course not! Then why on earth would you allow them to write the text for your website? By having your webmaster write the text for your website, you are ensuring your website will be a poor sales tool. To solve this problem, hire a professional marketing cop
ywriter to write the text for your website.

Mistake 3: Making your website hard to navigate.

Have you ever been to a website where you have to click on various generic graphics or parts of a flash picture to try and find a link to the information you are looking for? Why on earth do companies do this? It is not fun, it is not clever, it is STUPID AND ANNOYING! When designing your website's navigation (links to information) use the acronym K.I.S.S., which stands for KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID! Simple sells. Complex does not. If your webmaster tries to sell you on using parts of a Flash picture for links or some other complex navigation system, FIRE THEM IMMEDIATELY!

Mistake 4: Not having a telephone number on your website.

People rarely trust companies that do not have a telephone number. I certainly don't. If I am considering buying a product from a website and they do not have a telephone number, I don't buy. And I know others feel the same way. For example, I have had several clients hire to develop their marketing program because I had a telephone number on my website and the other marketing consultant websites they were looking at did not. Therefore, if you want customers to buy from you, make it easy for them to contact you by having a telephone number on your website. In fact, you should have your telephone number on EVERY page of your website. If you want to make sales on the Internet, make it easy for your customers to buy.

Peter Geisheker is President and CEO of The Geisheker Group, Inc., a no-nonsense marketing firm that specializes in developing results-driven marketing programs to help companies attract new customers and increase profits.

For more information, please visit http://www.geisheker.com/ or call (920) 884-9041. mailto:884-041.peter@geisheker.com

Important! How Site Speed Can Affect Your Sales!

2008-04-19T08:52:00.000-04:00

As important as the design and the way a websites work, another important issue can actually have negative results on not only your customers but your business. Site speed is a very important topic and should not be overlooked when having your website designed or re-designed. It can actually directly hurt your sales and cut into your profits as people do not have the time to sit there and wait for your website to load. This is something that good sites take advantage of only having very small load times and bad sites seem to ignore (because they seem to overlook download time without even thinking of site optimization).

If it takes forever to get into your website as well as click through it(meaning it takes forever to load each page) then people are going to leave your site. Remember this. Just think if it takes you 20 minutes to walk to a grocery store or 5 minutes to walk to the local market(where you can get everything you need) why would you walk that extra 15 minutes? Simple, you just wouldn't walk that extra 15 minutes and this is true for a website. If I can get what you are giving me somewhere else then I am going to go there. If visitors leave then they do not get a chance to view your products, but, more importantly they will not purchase your products!

Site speed can and will lead to either more sales or less sales. Which one it is will determine how successful your website will be but also how long it will be around. Also you have to monitor competitors sites to see what their loads time are and try to match them. Start giving their customers a reason to come to your website. Combine quick load times with great products as well as great prices and your sales will start to sky rocket.

Remember to stay away from heavy graphical sites and try to use more text for area(html text not graphic text that is). This will improve performance but also will increase the click through rate of people viewing your website. The more pages they view the better your sales will be. Save your visitors alot of download time and this will give them a reason to visit your website, look around and will help increase your sales!

About The Author

Anthony Jewell has over 6 Years experience in the Web & Graphics World. You can visit my business and join in conversation at http://www.logo2d.com & http://www.logo2d.com/forum

Product Marketing For Home Based Online Businesses

2008-04-18T10:26:00.000-04:00

Fortunately, this is an option for home based businesses, and all it takes is a little creativity combined with dedication. And for those home based businesses with advertising budgets, there are even more advertising options available. Here are some suggestions that should help your product marketing plan significantly.

One of the best ways to get your web page noticed is by writing and publishing articles. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of ezines and newsletters that are constantly looking for new content. First, you need to find some ezines and newsletters that target your niche market. You can search for them on your favorite search engine by searching for "ezine directories" or "newsletter directories". Then, write an article that can be submitted to a variety of these ezines and online newsletters, just make sure you retain the copyright. You may not think that you have the ability or creativity to write articles, but it can easily be done with a couple hours of effort and some commitment. The key part of marketing your home business is by creating a resource box at the end of your article that contains your URL and some brief information about you and your company. Doing this will get your web page out in the public quickly and will result in many hits and free product marketing.

Another way to market your products is to create a forum on your web page. By doing this, you are getting individuals to talk about products and services offered by your company as well as competitors and other relevant topics. This alone will help your product assuming you are offering top notch quality and customer service. If not, then a forum might not be the best idea for you. In addition, a forum will require a commitment of your time in reviewing the posts to make sure the discussions are kept within the rules. However, for those that are committed to their customers, forums generally create repeat traffic which is important to making sales. This is important because it has been proven that more than 70% of sales are made after the third, fourth or fifth contact. A forum keeps individuals coming back for more and more contact, which means you will sell more products.

Additionally, you should use banners on your own web page as well as others by exchanging links. You should also list your web page with search engines. All of these will help your web page get noticed which means your products and services will get noticed and your home based business will prosper. Remember that the most important factor in product marketing online is URL marketing. You might have the best product for the best price on earth, but if nobody knows how to get to your web site it doesn't matter. Therefore, be diligent about getting your URL out there.

Finally, market your product and URL offline. This will reach a different sector of individuals and will also increase web page traffic. Make sure your URL is printed on any correspondence from your company including checks, faxes, web pages, emails, and letters, envelopes, and any promotional items like key chains, mouse pads and the like. The more people that know your URL means more traffic to your site. This in itself is the best product marketing you can receive.

About The Author

Timothy Spaulding is the owner of the Work At Home Business Resource Center at http://www.workathome-awesomeopportunities.com and Home Made Profits at http://www.homemadeprofits.net providing opportunities to work at home and make money online with your own home business.

Five Proven Methods For Internet Marketing Success

2008-04-17T10:39:00.000-04:00

There are hundreds of ways that you can promote your online business or website, some more effective than others. These five proven methods will help you to generate traffic to your site and also to generate income into your wallet.

1. One thing that appeals to everyone is "free." If it is free people will take it. Think of the samples of cheese given away at grocery stores. Do you really want a small piece of cheese? Of course not! But you take it simply because it is free and someone is nice enough to offer it to you. The same principle applies with information or services offered from your website. You can send out free newsletters or offer a free trail period. One popular thing that is being given away now are free credit reports or free PC scans. These freebies are what we in the marketing field like to call teasers. After running the free credit report or PC scan we alert the customer if there is something found on their credit record or PC and then offer to show them what it is or repair the problem for a price. This can be an effective way to get information to your potential customers, create sales or to generate traffic to your site.

2. Your website contains information about a service or product that you are very knowledgeable about. You can use this knowledge to generate traffic to your site by writing articles in your area of expertise and having them published in an ezine or an article information site. The most effective way to use these articles is to write them for free and ask in return that the publisher allow you to include a byline. A byline is a very short summary of the author, their credentials and their website. Your byline is a way that readers will come to know you as an expert on the topic and will in turn come to trust your site as a source of credible information.

3. Some search engines will allow a website to purchase their ranking. This is an excellent Internet marketing technique in that it is effective and inexpensive. In the pay-per-click programs, website are only billed for those who actually visit the page, unlike banner ads which may be seen by millions but only used by a few. When using the pay-per-click program you are asked to choose keywords and when those are entered your site will appear and if the surfer chooses to view your site, you are billed for that click. Many pay-per-click programs will offer other benefits as well, such as updated lists of commonly used keywords.

4. You should remember that others are in the same boat as you. You can choose to network with those who have similar marketing ideas. When networking you will be able to share links and refer customers to each other. You should always be very cautious when choosing a networking partner as everything that you recommend is a reflection of yourself or your product and therefore, you should be certain that your networking partner is a reputable source of information.

5. Simply because your website is online, doesn't mean that all your advertising should be. Advertise in newspapers, TV, the radio or you can even send out a press release to get your information to thousands of people all over the country.

About The Author

Bibi Liew is the webmaster of http://www.ebusiness-insights.com .

Niche Marketing - The Way To Succeed Online

2008-04-16T14:00:00.000-04:00

A niche web site is one that is dedicated to a single topic where you promote one or more products or services that are devoted to solving a particular problem or filling a need.

According to the experts, the more you focus on one topic the better your chances of success.

You may think that a niche marketing approach will limit you; in actual fact, however, the reality is that by focussing on a tight niche that has high demand and little competition you will stand out in the search engines, obtain good rankings and attract non-stop traffic with relatively few pages.

Let's say you are interested in the health industry. Health is such a broad term that anyone would go bananas if they tried to capture people interested in just "health". But, what if you were to choose a topic under the general health theme that is of interest to you, has high demand and relatively low or no competition? For example, you could choose to build a site around the topic of hair thinning which is increasingly a concern to both men and women.

The good thing about having a site that is dedicated to educating your visitors and promoting a select product(s) offering is that your potential customers are already interested in what you are offering. If you do your homework and develop good content that pre-sells your visitors will become your customers.

You are marketing to a consumer that is already half-sold. This consumer is looking for a solution to his/her problem and bang! you are there with the goods!

Successful online marketers also agree that more is less when it comes to the number of products you offer. The rationale is that by offering fewer high quality products, you can provide better focus for your visitors. Just pick one or a few that you like, trust and know and offer them on your niche web site, one per page.

Supply and Demand Research

There are plenty of niche markets to choose from. What you have to do is to start with a broad topic and then brainstorm it until you find a segment in that market that is viable. In this process it is important to pay attention to:

1. Demand

2. Competition

You may think you have a great idea but if a lot of people are not searching for what you have in mind your web site will not prosper.

There are a few good tools to help you research your niche web site idea. These are: Overture keyword suggestion tool, Good Keywords, Google AdWords Keyword Tool, and Wordtracker.

Most of these tools are free and can help you find the perfect niche for your site-to-be. Try finding a niche that has at least a couple of thousand searches and low competition.

Wordtracker is quite comprehensive providing supply and demand data in addition to many low-competition alternatives. Overture, Google AdWords Keyword Tool and Good Keywords are also useful but provide demand data only. For a quick check you can also go to the search engines and type in your niche word "hair thinning" and see how many results you get. Even though the number you see does not exactly reflect your real competition (there are other factors to consider such as how each page of the site is constructed and optimized) it can give you a good guideline.

Niche marketing is the way to have a successful online business nowadays. Take your time to investigate a few topics, do your homework and in less time than you think you can have a popular web site ranking high in the search engines.

About The Author

Monica Villarreal Written by Monica Villarreal, co-owner of http://www.websitedesigngenius.com

How To Protect Your Ebooks And Software From Being Stolen!

2008-04-15T08:52:00.000-04:00

An "unbreakable" protection system simply does not, and will never exist. If someone really wants your information, they can get it, even if it takes years of work.

SO WHAT'S THE POINT? WHY USE ANY PROTECTION AT ALL?

There is no 100% security guarantee in anything, but that's no reason to totally ignore protecting your intellectual property — A thief can easily kick in your front door and rob your house, but you still lock the door. Locking the door is not 100% effective security, but we still do it. Why? Because it deters most potential theft and those who are more determined will have to work a bit to get in.

WHO SHOULD USE PROTECTION?

The big question here is, HOW VALUABLE IS YOUR INFORMATION TO YOU? Sensitive, proprietary or private information demands some sort of protection, otherwise transmitting over the net is not an option.

If your information is not free, then it's obviously of some importance. So, how much damage would it do to you if it were made freely available? What type of impact would it have on your sales and could you (or would you) absorb that without thinking twice?

Is a $14 Ebook worth paying for another service to protect it? Probably not, but it depends on the situation and target market. What about a $2,000 report? Does the price change the perspective?

Businesses protect their property. If you believe your information or software to be of a unique or proprietary nature, you should protect that information using some means, no matter how small.

Companies like Microsoft lose hundreds of millions of dollars due to software theft and fraud, yet they continue to implement protection measures in their software. I would guess that without any protection whatsoever the losses would be in the billions.

WHAT SHOULD YOU EXPECT?

Like I said, there is no 100% way to prevent every possible incident, but you can make it very difficult and less likely to happen. At best what you should hope is to provide just enough security to close obvious security flaws and discourage would-be thieves. But not so much security that it discourages honest users and customers.

PROTECTION OPTIONS

Here are some common protection schemes:

No Protection: Just distribute your information and hope for the best.

- Pros: No special process to access file which means less support issues.

- Cons: File can be passed around, copied, distributed and/or sold without authorization from the owner. Can't prevent access after chargeback or refund.

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General Password Protection: Simply requiring a predetermined password to install or register the file.

- Pros: Simple for customer or end user.

- Cons: File and password can be passed around, copied, distributed and/or sold without authorization from the owner. Can't prevent access after chargeback or refund.

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PC-Unique Password Protection: Generates a unique password based on the user's computer.

- Pros: Can't pass around the file since it is basically locked to one machine.

- Cons: Requires an extra step for registration; Customer cannot move file to another PC; If their PC crashes they will need another unique password; Can't prevent access after chargeback or refund.

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Delayed Registration: This requires a user to enter a second registration number a specific number of days after they first register the file. For example, after 90 days of use, they must enter a new registration number that they receive from you.

- Pros: It allows control over chargeback and refunds. The file will be disabled after the second registration period because you will not provide the second key to reactivate the file.

- Cons: Requires an extra step for registration; A user can request refund or chargeback AFTER the second registration period.

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Post-Purchase Activation: Requires activation by online server. After user purchases they are entered into an online customer database. They then install and register the file by entering their name/email or some data. The server confirms the purchase and then activates the software.This method is become more and more common with big name software.

- Pros: Can prevent unauthorized distribution of file since the file must be activated by the online server.

- Cons: User must be online to register file; Can't move file to a different PC; Can't prevent access after chargeback or refund.

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Active Password Protection: Each time user attempts to access file it checks an online server to confirm the usage rights and permissions for the user.

- Pros: Prevents distribution or copying of file; File Owner can revoke access to file after chargeback or refund; Access permissions can be changed and applied in real-time.

- Cons: must be connected to the net to register and/or access file; User may not be able to move file to another PC; User registration can be somewhat cumbersome and difficult for some customers.

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EVALUATING PROTECTION SERVICES

When looking to protect your digital information any protection system or service that you consider should have a few basic security bases covered.

For software and executables:

1. When opening the file, a protection system must not save or copy an unprotected version of the file to the windows TEMP directory or anywhere on your PC for that matter.

2. The system should automatically prevent password sharing and access by unauthorized parties. This will prevent the document from being passed around or distributed illegally since it can't be opened unless you are authorized.

3. It should have some method to revoke or cancel access for refunded or fraudulent users.

For PDF documents, providing adequate protection requires a bit more security as their are many more ways to obtain a protection free copy of the document.

Any PDF protection system must cover the three bases above, as well as:

* It must prevent emailing of file and exporting or extracting pages from file.

* It must prevent copying file and text to the clipboard

* It must prevent redistilling of the file and printing to PDF

* It must prevent unlimited, uncontrolled printing of file

* It must watermark all printed pages

* If using Adobe Reader, the company providing the protection service must be an authorized Adobe DRM provider.

WHAT ABOUT COST? IS IT WORTH IT?

Is $300 a year too much to protect your copyrights? Definitely not. Protection costs money, but if your business is making money then it's a cost of doing business.

Is it for you? I don't know. Selling a few low priced applications a month probably won't warrant any sort of protection, but if you generate a substantial income from your software or the information distributed is of a critical nature to your business, then you need to protect your intellectual "capital" at some level.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Personally, I believe that some level of protection should be implemented on any piece of software or document that is of any value to you. You should never mass distribute a file in an unprotected format. Otherwise you will be scrambling when you find someone misusing it… if you find them!

It's easy to listen to those that say "don't worry about it" (a common reply to the document protection topic) until someone is actually stealing from you. Then all you can do is worry about it, but it's too late really. The damage is done. You can't take something back once it's out there unprotected. No amount of legal threatening is going to phase someone in Prague who just doesn't care about your copyrights.

About The Author

Anthony Ellis

File Secure Pro allows authors to securely distribute, monitor and control usage of their intellectual property. If you distribute important information online, File Secure Pro can help you monitor and control use of your Intellectual Property. For more information, please see our site at http://www.protectyourfile.com/

Website Marketing Secret: Why Your Website Is Not Making Money And How To Turn It Around And Explode Your Sales

2008-04-14T20:26:00.000-04:00

The secrets on how to send a floodgate of traffics to your website and explode your sales.Why do hundreds of millions of people from all over the world have websites today which are not making any money for them?They have tried many different types of website marketing, internet promotions such as search engine optimization and promotion, banner ads, ffa ads, e-mail marketing, link exchanges, e-zine ads but failed.The one problem that all website owners or marketers and businesses have in common is the difficulty in locating the people who are interested in buying their products, programs and services.Many people who claim to be internet marketing gurus have succeeded in luring people to their seminars where they charge them $1000 or $2000 or even $5000 to disclose their secrets of internet marketing.

But after attending the seminars and trying to implement the so called secrets of success in website marketing, these people have learned a bitter lesson that those so called secrets of website marketing don't work. The truth is that there are jealously guarded secrets to succeed in promoting your website so as to explode your sales and get rich.But I am not going to charge you $1000 or $2000 or $5000 to disclose this secret.If you've been doing different types of website marketing but not generating traffics or sales, there may be a number of reasons why.First is that you've been probably marketing to the wrong customers. You need to learn how to find targeted customers who really need to buy what you're selling.When you market to the right customers who really need your products or services and who are MOTIVATED, you'll succeed in a big easy way.

The problem today is that most of the people who may need what you're selling may be difficult to reach through e-mail marketing or on the internet.Most of the people who really need what you're selling don't hang around on the internet. They may have filters on their e-mail addresses so your e-mail marketing may not reach them.They probably have very good paying jobs, where they spend 40-60 hrs weekly.When they come back from work, they are too tired to get on the internet to look for whatever they need, so they may not be able to find your website.But if they are motivated and do get on the internet to search for whatever they need, using a search engine like Google or yahoo or msn, they may get millions of websites in the search result.If they can't find you listed among the top ten or twenty websites, they may never know your website exists.If there are 1 million other people trying to sell the same product or service like you, it means that your chance of being listed among the top ten websites is 10
out of a million. You'll be competing with 999,990 other websites to be listed in the top 10.And even if you succeed in reaching the top ten ranking, you may not remain there too long because there are large companies out there who spend thousands of dollars monthly to be sure to remain listed among the top ten positions.

For the above reasons, 99% of the websites out there can't make money by depending on search engine marketing or e-mail marketing alone.Your website may be among the hundreds of millions in cyberspace not making any money for these reasons.Therefore you may have to do offline marketing in order to reach targeted people who really need what you're selling.This depends on what type of products, goods or services you're marketing.You must know the difference between marketing and selling.Selling is when you try to promote whatever you're selling to everybody, including those who need it and those who don't.This is what 99% of businesses try to do and why only 1% succeeds.Marketing is when you research your product or service in order to know who needs them, where to find them and how to reach them.Therefore to succeed in your website marketing, you must learn the secrets on how to locate a good mailing list for your product or service.You must learn the secret on how to use a broker to locate a responsive lis
t of buyers for your product.You must learn the secret on how to test the mailing list.You must learn the secret on how to make these prospects open your mails to read about what you're selling.You must learn the secret of making more money from your customers list by marketing backend products to them.You must learn the secret of database marketing which enables you to leverage your customers' list.

Are you not yet tired of having websites that are not making any money or tired of making nickels and dimes? Are you not yet tired of all the lousy website marketing secrets from the so called internet gurus (that don't work)? Do you have a website? Do you sell any product, program or service? Would you like to know the exact "secrets" on how to find hundreds of thousands and even millions of buyers for your products and services?Would you like to get your paws on the exact "secret" on how to market any product to hundreds of thousands and even millions of people who really need them?If you answer yes, I suggest you begin today to target your customers, and stop selling but instead begin marketing.Please feel free to copy and use this article at your website, e-zine or e-mail it to your friends and please retain the author's name and his resource box below.

Thank you.Warmly,

I-key Benney, CEO

To learn the "secrets" on how to locate the right mailing list to market whatever products or services you have, how to test the mailing list, and the secret on how to make your prospects open and read your letter, and the secret on how to market any products or services and get rich please visit http://www.maychic.com/vj and read more about "VJ's" "12-Month Millionaire course". VJ is a Little Known Guy Who Made 100 Million Dollars In 2 Yrs by the age Of 28 using these secrets. He has revealed all these Nitty Gritty, High Octane Marketing "Secrets" in his book, "12-Month Millionaire course", available to the public for a limited time. http://www.12-month-millionaire.com?a_aid=982e5bcfmscsrrr3@yahoo.com

Web Design Basics And Achieving Your Goals

2008-04-13T20:13:00.000-04:00

Many of us, in our early days of website building, encountered various studies and sites which helped to educate us in the art and science of building websites. These may have improved our knowledge base and abilities by giving us information with which to think about and approach the planning, design and building of more effective, usable, and ultimately successful websites.

I started out by revamping our first website in 1997; I didn't know how to do it, didn't know anyone who did, and had to get this done fast. It's tough: we are designing, we are writing ad copy, we are coding, we are facing search engines. I, too, ended up at the usual places where I benefited from the data, and so did our website.

Somewhere along the line, though, I realized that some of what I was reading or had read in the past was not true, or certainly not true in all cases. Being a marketer at heart as well as by profession, recognizing some of these inaccuracies was easy; for others — particularly those I had encountered early on — I simply had had no frame of reference against which to judge their accuracy, and yet there they were, in the foundation of my education.

And that is one of my points here: when you are entering a sphere for which you haven't much data, especially one as complex, confusing and technical as the Web, it is easy to adopt concepts without examining them in depth. Thereafter, you have unexamined concepts — "fixed ideas" if you will — in your skill and knowledge base.

A good example is the "you must get them to the page they're looking for within three clicks" rule. Did it sound good? Sure. No doubt it helped a lot of designers to reevaluate paths through websites. But who knows how many web designers followed this dictum for years, or repeated it to others, before new survey data emerged to disprove it. (Gotta make you wonder about that original survey, doesn't it?)

So, some time ago I realized that it was time: time to examine some of these basic ideas included in the foundation of my knowledge. Now, this doesn't mean that I suddenly concluded that everything I knew was invalid; our sites are generally successful, some wildly so, and all have increased the visibility and income of their owners. Nor was I advocating invalidating knowledge and experience out of hand; just simply that it was time to re-examine the basis of my knowledge, and particularly those items that had not been evaluated then, or lately. Keep what's good, toss what's not, etc.

And I come up with this: a thing is only true if it's true. And often, what is true may not always be true in a vacuum without considering the precise circumstances within which we're trying to apply a particular datum.

Planning projects and designing sites in the absence of fixed ideas and uninspected "shoulds" frees you to address the projects before you and to devise solutions unencumbered by "stuck" ideas. Armed with your knowledge and skill, you can more easily evaluate when to utilize concepts, when to break the rules, and when something else entirely might be needed.

Because the bottom line, and the one thing that all these "shoulds" is meant to solve, is that any website you build is being built for a purpose. It's just easier to do if you don't place uninspected roadblocks in your way.

How To Achieve E-commerce Success? You Gotta Plan!

2008-04-12T15:39:00.000-04:00

Before becoming a netpreneaur, I was an entrepreneur. First, I owned a successful child care center which grew to capacity in less than two years. When I sold that, I bought a little flower shop that had less than 300 customers and grew it to what it is today, one of the most successful, award winning companies in South Florida with more than 7,000 customers who purchase from us on a regular business. To better serve our customers, we took our business to the Internet. We still have a brick and mortar storefront, yet everyday we receive more and more customers via the Internet.

How about you? Do you or did you have a traditional business or professional practice? Is it successful? Unless you were born under the star called "LUCKY," you probably did lots of planning. A business plan, a marketing plan, maybe even a succession plan for what to do with your business when you were through. You may have heard the statistics that half of all small businesses fail in their first year and of those, only 25% make it through to five years. According to youngbiz.com it can be even less for e-businesses. Build it and they will come! Not! You can have a terrific site, with lots of bells and whistles and if people don't know you exist, you never get any visitors, let alone customers. Planning is the key to success in business.

Amazon.com had a plan, Bill Gates had a plan, eDiets had a plan, and I'll bet they still do. Once a business launches on the net, you will need a marketing plan to be successful. Your biggest challenge will be to find time to plan. However, if you don't find time now, you will find yourself with plenty of it (time, that is) later on, and no business to speak of. Unlike a business, generally created to get financial backing from investors, Netpreneurs create marketing plans for themselves. Where do you start? First you have to ask yourself these questions.

Where do you want to be in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years? How many customers do you want or better yet, how much money do you want to make? Who are your customers? Do you know what they want, need and expect? Can you give it to them? What are your competitors doing? What are you doing that is different? How will you promote your business? Now Create your Website marketing plan. Put it in writing! Not only do you have to plan, you have to write it down! Take a notebook or idea book and write the following: your vision, mission strategies, goals and the time frame you wish to accomplish these goals. Keep this notebook next to your computer to refer to. It will help you stay focused. What is your vision for your business? Your vision is what you want your web site to accomplish. Write your vision statement in your notebook.

The vision statement for my flower shop is to "Make a reasonable profit via the Internet by providing a quality product, delivering exceptional service, at a price my customers will pay." What are your goals? What do you believe you can accomplish that may be a bit of a stretch but doable? If the goals are too easy, you are not getting the most out of your planning process. And you could be losing money. Can make a profit of 20% in 3 months? Can double your customer base in 6 months? If so, write it in your notebook. What steps do you need to take to achieve your goals? How much do you have to sell to achieve your goals? You must first know your profit margin to determine this figure. Then you have to figure out how you are going to find the customers to make your goals come true. What are your marketing strategies? Start with those goals you know you can attain.

How will you reach your market? Are you going to use search engine optimization, email, newsletters, networking, advertising on related sites, advertising in trade magazines, or write an article to submit to online publications? Participate in online forums, message boards and newsgroups. Include your URL (Internet address) in your signature file. What is the time-frame for accomplishing your goals? Create a time-line for every goal in your notebook. Next to each goal, write down the starting and ending dates of when you plan to accomplish that goal as well as what type of marketing strategies you are using. Are you keeping track of your marketing results? If you are doing any advertising whether it is online or offline, track the results. You can track online advertising using ad tracking software such as adtrackz.com , to track all the links you place online.

Analyze web site statistics to find out how visits found you. For offline advertising, place codes or words in your advertising to keep track. Your online order forms should have a place to enter the code. To learn how customers found us, we use a numeric code on all advertising/marketing materials. What is your return on investment? How much money did the marketing strategy cost? How much money did you take in? Subtract the second figure from the first and that is your profit (or loss).

Keep track of those marketing campaigns that worked and those that didn't. Do more of the first. Reevaluate the second. Can you change one thing in the strategy and achieve different results? Try it! Add new strategies to the mix. Stay focused on your goals.

Nothing feels better than accomplishing a goal. Except maybe, all the money you are going to make when you do.

© 2004 - Heidi Richards is the author of The PMS Principles, Powerful Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business and 7 other books. She is also the Founder & CEO of the Women's ECommerce Association, International www.WECAI.org (pronounced wee-k ) – an Internet organization that "Helps Women Do Business on the WEB." She can be reached at http://www.heidirichards.com/

Different Models For Making Money On The Internet

2008-04-11T09:26:00.000-04:00

There are several strategies for making money on the net. Here are some possible options:

Strategy 1: Affiliate marketing

This is probably the quickest and easiest. You don't need to get your own products - you simply sell other people's products and services. You don't even need a merchant account, and it's possible to start out without even having your own website (but if you are serious about affiliate marketing you will have to build websites). For a list of top affiliate programs go to: http://www.profitpuppy.com/top-affiliates.htm .

If you don't know what affiliate programs are you can get a free course which explains what they are by sending a blank email to: tamsaffiliatemarketing@sitesell.net

Strategy 2: Writing an ebook or other type of information product, recording an information CD set or shooting a DVD/video series.

This is a great strategy because there are infinite possibilities for the type of product that you can create. There are so many niche markets that you can write about: It could be a course on Japanese gardens, How to start your own babysitting business, How to sell your paintings or artwork … there are thousands of possibilities and many that have not yet been touched by online marketers. Of course you don't have to write the information yourself, you can get a ghost writer or hire someone to produce the DVD. It is easy to find these people, for example you can go to http://www.profitpuppy.com/elance .

Strategy 3: Search Engine Optimization.

Learn how to get a site to the top of the search engines and make money on the site by promoting affiliate programs or by Google Adsense. I have included this as a business method because there are some people who focus just on Search Engine Optimization and do nothing else.

Strategy 4: Drop-shipping.

You can develop a relationship with a manufacturer so that you can get orders for their product on the Internet; you process their credit card and then just send their details to the manufacturer who sends the product directly to the customer's door.

Strategy 5: Joint Ventures.

Similar to affiliate marketing, but with this strategy you set up relationships with people who have products that they sell online.

Strategy 6: Lead Generation.

You create sites that generate leads for companies online. For example, you create leads for mortgage brokers; you give them the details of the people who are interested in getting a new mortgage and you get paid for each person. The mortgage broker will then call the lead and try to sell them on their particular mortgage offer.

Strategy 7: Email marketing.

Of course you need to stay away from spam, and new legislation makes it more difficult for legitimate opt in email marketers, but this is still a highly effective way to make money on the Internet. Don't try email marketing if you don't know what you are doing - don't even think about buying a list of emails and sending out a promotional message unless you know exactly what you are doing. You have to know that any emails you have are legit and 'opt in'.

Strategy 8: Selling software or software services.

Strategy 9: Selling services online.

For example you could start a site providing niche legal services or doing web design. This is ok, but it is not as highly leveraged and automated as other Internet businesses.

Strategy 10: Selling your own products online .

This is the option that 90% of businesses pursue online. It also has less leverage and is more difficult to automate than other Internet businesses.

Strategy 11: Domain name strategies.

You can make money buying and selling domain names (although this strategy is quite difficult nowadays). You can also buy expired domains with existing traffic, you can buy domains with misspellings in order to get free drive-by traffic.

Strategy 12: Buying websites.

You can buy websites that have good positions in the search engines but are not utilizing their positions very effectively, and you can improve the marketing and utilization of their site and make money. This is a very powerful strategy if you do it correctly.

Other strategies:

There are many other possibilities that you might not have thought of such starting an affiliate network. There are several other possibilities but most of them are a bit more towards the more difficult end of the spectrum. Have a think about which strategy you want to look at.

Each strategy has advantages and disadvantages and each strategy has a lot of stuff that you need to learn to be able to apply it effectively.

Rob Rawson

Site: http://www.profitpuppy.com/

email: info@profitpuppy.com

Work At Home–Ideas For Success

2008-04-10T12:26:00.000-04:00

Searching for success in your online home business? Always wanted to be your own boss? Need to make money at home while you stay with the kids? Retired, but need extra cash?

Home business opportunities and online work at home programs are proliferating at geometric proportions on the Internet these days. It's hard to figure out which sites to land on. This short article offers summaries of some of the work at home opportunities on the Internet today, the common and the not-so-common methods people just like you have found success online.

Take surveys online. Hundreds of thousands of companies need feedback from the public to tweak their businesses. They pay out big bucks in small packages for people to take their surveys. It's not easy to make a living taking surveys online, but you can pick up some extra money. Success in this online work at home opportunity comes from heavy-duty persistence on your part. It's easy and fun.

Get into online auctions. The mega-auction companies like eBay display such unassailable success because people just like yourself have figured out how to make money from home selling either their product or others' on their auction sites. Be prepared to invest a little, possibly earn a lot, and have tons of fun in the process.

Are you a good, pithy writer? Look into freelance writing. You can sell your work online for print and Internet magazines, anthologies, newsletters and blogs.

Are you the creative type? Selling ideas online requires little to no investment and inventory. Good ideas that really work are valuable commodities, and can be transferred digitally for free! Other online home business success stories for artisans include freelance digital photography, embroidering patches and other items and printing stationery, invitations and so on.

Consider affiliate marketing. This is the up-and-coming giant in online success. The partners who work affiliate marketing use the Internet to great advantage to make a little money from a ton of people. The advertising partner in affiliate marketing finds success by being compensated for publishing links to other websites. The merchant partner finds success by using the advertising partner to spread the word far and wide, across the entire globe.

Obviously, before you make your decision, you'll want to investigate a lot deeper than scanning these brief descriptions. Here's a hint from the big guys, the ones that consistently make tons of money online: Take your time in the research stage, and make your decisions from the head, not the heart or the gut.

An objective, reasonable approach will take you a long way down the road to success for your online business. Couple that with imagination and dedication, and you're likely to come up a winner!

About The Author

Paul Majestyck is a successful ezine publisher and online marketer , who not long ago didn't know ANYTHING about Internet marketing… However, within a very short time, launched his own website AND learned how to profit from an opt-in list, pull in sales with ezines, make money with Google Adwords and setup his own BLOG! Visit: http://www.makeafortuneonthenet.com/main.html .

Personal Freedom Through Internet Business

2008-04-09T19:13:00.001-04:00

It was obvious that my thoughts, concepts and dreams could not be fully expressed in the corporate world of honey bee (or should I say African killer Bee) like drones who could not between the lot of them come up with an original idea unless the boss asked them to. These people whose greatest desire was to go on vacation for two weeks a year when the boss said they could. Would not ever be able to understand who I was or what I was about. I don't know how I made it through 23 years of dealing with them and not go crazy

When he was told about the layoff unlike many others I was not angry, a sigh of relief came over me that I had not felt for years. With in two weeks I had lost the few (30) pounds that I gained during my stay and so many of the act and pains that I once had were gone. My next step was to find a way to make some money, and the internet seemed to be the perfect place for me.

Now whenever you take on any life changing endeavors you need support. I thought I had the support of my wife, but she had only known the years of stability that I had with the job. Who did I think I was trying to change direction in midstream? What sense did it make to give up my future for a dream? I wondered if what I was doing was the right thing for her. I had to show her that I could be successful and that I would still the person that she could depend on.

I created a few website trying my luck with affiliate programs and a bodybuilding website http://www.smart-bodybuilding.com but none of this made any money. This kind of discouraged me because I knew that I had to make it in the online business, I thought deep down inside that this was where I needed to be. I knew this was what I was born to do. But hey, for the first time in my life I was not making money. What gives?

After about a month of losing money in one get rich scam after another I began to wonder if I should not go back to corporate America and become a worker drone just like all my friends. Then the word of my father came into my head. "Troy, do what make you feel good and the money will come at that moment I dispelled any thought of not succeeding and continued to move I a positive direction.

One day, not so long ago I came across and advertisement while surfing for hits (this is a practice which is quite common among internet business people or at least I thought) this advertisement was colorful and eye catching and had everything that would turn me off from advertisements bright highlighted words at the top and unbelievable promises about how I could make money online. I had read it all before and I knew this one was no different, but for reason that I can't explain I read it.

I liked what the ad had to say, and heck the price was perfect for me (free) I just could not believe that what he was saying was true. Within a few days I had my own website http://pluginprofitsite.com/main-10664 up and running, and I was an affiliate with not one but 5 programs. With a perfect step by step program that explained everything that I need to know. I was finally seeing how this internet stuff worked.

It's been almost 4 month since I left my job and I have not become rich with what I am doing yet. But I do understand how to get things going and for the first time in these last few months my future looks much better.

Look being self-employed is not for everyone. Its hard work, a lot of hard work! You may have heard on the radio or saw on the TV stories of people making ungodly amounts of money working form themselves with ebay or in real-estate . But what you did not hear is they worked their tails off. Hey if you are going to work your tail off make it for yourself; your family; not for someone that has power to fire you and change your life at any time he/she feels.

So go after your dreams I can not express enough the power and freedom that you get form starting your own business. I feel it, and I know there are a lot of you reading this article right now that want that freedom also. My suggestion to you is if it's in your deepest most intimate feelings that you should start your own business then you should.

I can't promise you success, but if you do nothing, I surely can promise you failure.

About The Author

Troy Pearsall

Not long ago, I didn't know ANYTHING about Internet marketing… However, within just 2 weeks, I launched my own website AND learned how to profit from an opt-in list, pull in sales with ezines, make money with Google Adwords and setup my own BLOG! click here to find out how: http://www.PlugInProfitSite.com/main-10664

Web Design Basics And Achieving Your Goals

2008-04-08T19:13:00.000-04:00

How To Achieve E-commerce Success? You Gotta Plan!

2008-04-07T09:52:00.000-04:00

Nothing feels better than accomplishing a goal. Except maybe, all the money you are going to make when you do.

3 Important Steps For Success On The Internet

2008-04-06T09:00:00.001-04:00

Just throw up a web site, add a few affiliate links, post to some forums and presto - you're in the money!

But the reality is this. If you want to succeed in your own home based internet business, whether it's affiliate marketing or selling your own products, you will have to work at making it successful. You have to make it your job to succeed. You must treat it as your job, not as your hobby.

There are at least 3 important steps to a successful plan when working on the internet. These 3 steps can be applied to just about any plan, and when coupled with the right amount of determination and perseverance, will result in success! But remember, you must persevere through the dry spells and difficult times. Everyone has hard times and this is just a fact of life. The key is to keep working toward your goal and never give up.

Three Important Steps

1) Decide What You 'Really' Want

Determine your true inner desire and then do it! If you don't really desire to accomplish what it is you are currently doing, when the difficult times arrive you will simply quit. It's a fact of life! Thousands of dollars are lost by people who invest in ill-suited programs which they soon quit. The inner desire and "real" interest were not there in the first place.

Always remember…to be successful you must first determine your true inner desire. Identify what it is that you really want in your career and life. The answers to these questions will lead you to success.

2) Develop the Right Philosophy

The first point is to develop the right philosophy. How you approach your business (and life) will determine your success or failure. Try to always be growing and expanding your horizons in some way. You might want to think about continuing your education or contributing to your local community in some way. (Make sure to set-aside enough money for personal development.)

Most successful people do not blindly follow someone else. They learn, evaluate, and make the necessary adjustments in their approach to career and life. Excellence is the goal, and continuous training and instruction are a very important part of the process.

As you continue to grow and develop, be sure to find other individuals who can help in the process. Good mentors are hard to come by, but indispensible when it comes to personal growth.

3) Take Action

Do your homework, but by all means step out and do something. Not just anything, mind you…you can actually be busy and not accomplish anything.

Consistent action in the right direction will produce results. It is the law of sowing and reaping. You reap what you sow. In other words, you get what you deserve, not what you need. Plant enough seeds and you will find growth. Ask enough people and someone will join or buy what you are offering.

About The Author

Dan Evans is one of the country's foremost expert on entrepreneurial success, marketing expert and speaker, his work has helped millions of small business owners increase their success.

[Submitted by Home-Business-Watch.com - http://www.home-business-watch.com ]

How Do I Get Traffic To My Website

2008-04-05T14:13:00.000-04:00

Internet Marketing requires you to sale other people's products or services, or if you have decided to create your own product, sale your own. But whether you are selling your own or others, we all have one thing in common – getting traffic to our websites. But what is most important is not just getting traffic, but targeted traffic. Thus, How Do you or I get traffic to our sites?

In my early beginnings on the Internet, I tried many methods of getting traffic to my website. I was definitely a newbie in training – some of the software or services that I bought did me no good. I found, at times, that it was truly difficult to decipher which was a good deal and which was not – who was honest, and who was not – but I guess it goes with the Internet territory – and you must always do your due diligence.

However, I have found three methods of getting traffic to my site or affiliate product or service – Buying it – PPC, such as Google, Mamma, Overture, linking or the hard one Search Engine Optimization.

Pay-Per-Click

If you have the money to invest in Google or some of the other search engines pay-per-click programs you can make some money. Here you create an ad or ads relevant to your affiliate program, and place a bid on the keywords you select. This takes time, energy, persistence and money – and research. Also, I would advise that you read your affiliate programs rules, as well as, the rules of Google Adwords before jumping into the pay-per-click arena. You usually have to put "aff" after your ad or something similar to that – it's dependent upon the affiliate program you are in. The idea with pay-per-click is that you pay only when the individual clicks on your ad.

Linking

Linking can be by either paid or unpaid methods. The paid methods are paying for your link to be shown in Ezines, newsletters or on other peoples' sites. It can be costly, so the best suggestion that I can give you is to research the Ezines, newsletters and or other people sites that you want to link with before buying. In most cases, if ezines are accepting advertising, you know they must have at least 500 subscribers, or I should say, be sure that they have at least 500 subscribers before advertising in their ezine. Know what you are getting before you put your money down – and as they always say, be sure to read the fine print.

The unpaid method is through article creation. This requires hard work on your part, but the return will be seen in the long term. Keep in mind, your articles should be relevant and address the subject matter of your site and products. Content reigns king on the Internet – and if it is relevant to their needs – they will eventually come to read.

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization is basically the optimization of your web pages so that you can get a decent ranking by the search engines, and thus, to pull people to your website by it relevance. This is a difficult chore and needs to continually be worked at – and within the ethics of the Search Engines.

To conclude, getting targeted people to your site is really part of growing your business. And Internet marketing – well, it's not for the faint-hearted, but for the determined, persistent individual who wants to really make a living on-line. Thus, if you really want to make a living on-line – don't give up and promote.

About The Author

Vickie J Scanlon has a BBA degree in Administrative Management and Marketing. Visit her site at: http://www.myaffiliateplace.biz for free/and need to buy promotional tools, articles, ebooks, how to info, affiliate opportunities, services and products – to meet your budget and needs.

Explode Your Google Adsense And Affiliate Commissions Through Niche Blog Content Sites

2008-04-04T21:52:00.001-04:00

Content as we know it is the Life-Blood or FUEL, if you will, of the Internet.

That was and still is the Internets sole purpose, except only now it's commercialized, giving the online entrepreneur the world at their fingers tips.

And the facts are that usually when people first come online it's not to go purchase something, it's to look for Information that will answer a question they might have about a particular product they're interested in and/or to a problem they are dealing with and are searching for a solution.

Ask yourself this, "Why do I go online?"

Does it resemble anything like what I just stated?

Only you can answer that.

These are simply the facts with out a doubt… Period!

Now that you have an idea of WHY people come online, I'm now going to explain to you how you can…

"Explode Your Google Adsense and Affiliate Commissions Through Niche Blog Content Sites"

Did you notice the last two words within the quotations?

That's right, Content Sites.

What are Content Sites?

I think it's pretty self explanatory but the basic definition of a Content Site is this - it's a site that contains targeted content that targets a particular niche or many niches.(niche examples: cars, fitness, hobbies, etc.)

Not quite up to speed on what a blog is, here's a quick definition of a blog - a blog(A.K.A. Web-Log) is simply a place to go and post your personal thoughts that you can share with your subscribers and/or readership and receive feedback.

Now that you know the basic definitions of a Content Site and a Blog lets continue.

Content Sites can contain Hundreds-to-Thousands of pages of keyword rich content, which by the way is exactly what the Search Engines love and will come back for if New content is added on a frequent basis giving the owner of that site lots of opportunity to benefit from the Free traffic inwhich the content pages, or what I like to call Feeder Pages, generate.

So, now that you have an idea of what a Content Site and a Blog is it's now time to tell you how you can build your own Niche Blog Content Site Empire, no matter what your niche is, using Blogs, Google Adsense and ClickBank affiliate products.

Bare in mind that the steps outlined below are only going to be a summarization of the actual process involved.

So, with that said, here it is.

Step #1. Set up a Blog.

The first step is quite simple. All you have to do is set up a Blog either through…

Blogger.com - http://www.blogger.com

or…

Wordpress.org - http://www.wordpress.org

This blog your setting up is going to be the foundation of your Niche Blog Content Site and is where the rest of the pieces of the puzzle are going to be added to once you've set it up.

(Quick Tip: Make sure you use your Target Keywords within your URL of your niche blog and in the Title and Description. VERY Important!)

Once you have your niche blog set up move on to Step #2.

Step #2. Adding your Google Adsense code.

Depending on your experience with scripting and html, it's now time to add your Google Adsense code to your new niche blog in 3 strategic places.

Google allows you to add 3 Google Adsense blocks only to one page, no more than that, so I recommend one at the Top, one in the Right or Left sidebar depending on the template you choose and one at the Bottom of your blog.

By doing this your almost forcing your reader to click on a link within the Google Adsense block, which is of course, is exactly what you want and where your going to make the money.

The other great thing about Google Adsense is the ads are targeted to the content that you post, giving the reader even more reason to click through.

Here's a few resources for you that will show you how to add the Google Adsense code to your blog using the services I mentioned above if your not sure how to yourself.

Blogger.com: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=964

Wordpress.org: http://www.acmetech.com/blog/adsense-deluxe/

Simply follow the instructions and you'll have Google Adsense installed on your niche blog in no time.

Step #3. Find a related ClickBank product.

Now it's time to go shopping at ClickBank.com - http://www.clickbank.com - for a related information product that targets your niche.

Once there click on the link Earn Commissions at the bottom.

This will bring to to their directory where you'll find many products to choose from that will target any niche your blog is about.

(Quick Tip: The first 10 listed under each category are the TOP converting programs, meaning… their the ones making the most money.)

If you don't have a ClickBank.com nickname you'll have to sign up for one. It'll only take you a few minutes.

From there, once you've chosen a program to join your going to want to collect all the affiliate materials available, like Articles, Banners, Text Links, etc., because your going to place these on your NEW niche blog site with your affiliate link linked to them so when your reader clicks on them and decides to buy the related information, you get the commission.

Well… there you have it, 3 steps to "Explode Your Google Adsense and Affiliate Commissions Through Niche Blog Content Sites".

Now the only thing left for you to do is to start building an audience by promoting your Blog.

Here's a few resources for you to get started with.

Ping-O-Matic - http://pingomatic.com

RSS Top 55 - http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55

Remember this is just a summarized version and is only going to give you the basic steps, so good luck to you and your Niche Blog Content Site Empire.

About The Author/p>

Cory Threlfall is the Editor and Publisher of a online webmaster publication called… The Internet Wonders eZine, where you'll receive 'Daily' via the Web or RSS syndication Expert Articles, Product Reviews, HOT Tips, and More on how to Promote and Build your business online. Go NOW to ==> http://www.internetwondersezine.com

How To Use Web Directories To Boost Traffic To Your Site

2008-04-03T21:13:00.001-04:00

You just got your website online. Everything is setup and you're ready to go. Excitement is high and the time has come to open your virtual doors to the millions and millions of Internet users around the globe. You put out the cyber welcome mat and declare your site ready for action. But, instead of sitting and watching the users trample over one another to get to your site, you see little to no traffic.

Don't worry! This is something every webmaster goes through and is to be expected. (Well, webmasters in the late 90's expected to launch their site and be millionaires the next morning, but times have changed since those wonderful days!)

But there are some quick and easy things you can do to begin building your 'link network,' which will ultimately help drive traffic to your site. Since the Internet's conception, the notion has been that sites link to one another, while web surfers click from place to place. Thus, the challenge begins: Get your site linked to as many others as possible.

You can start contacting other websites offering to trade links (but be prepared to invest a lot of time); you can buy links (but be prepared to fork out some cash); you can join link-trading programs (but be prepared to get a lot of irrelevant sites linking to you); or you can start submitting your website to web directories.

What Is A Web Directory?

A web directory is a compilation of sites organized by category or topic. Most web directories have multiple levels of categories, progressing from general to highly specific. In addition, a web directory editor will likely have to approve your site, lending it at a certain degree of credibility. Being listed in a directory ensures that if a web surfer finds their way into a specific category, they don't just see your competitors, they see you! And, if they can see your link, they can click it, producing traffic to your site.

A Web Directory Listing Helps with SEO

If you have a website, you undoubtedly know the importance of ranking well in Google and other major search engines. These search engines count links from other sites as votes for your site, which helps determine your ranking, or position in the search results. There are a lot of other parts of the algorithm and this brief explanation doesn't do it justice. However, it serves the point that links improve your ranking, and that's something every website owner needs to know.

A link in a directory that is spidered by Google (and a lot are) will count as a vote for your site. This improves your ranking, and yet again helps drive traffic to your site. It's important to note that not all directories help with SEO. Sometimes, a web directory will link to your site through a special URL that is often a programming CGI script. If the URL is not a direct link to your site, then the search engines don't count it as a vote. Therefore, it's best to pick directories that offer a direct one-way link to your site. (This way, you get more bang for your buck: traffic from the directory and improved search engine ranking.)

Relevancy Matters

If you trade links with random sites, then you are theoretically building your 'link network,' but you are sacrificing the quality of that network. Web searchers who are looking for information on a particular topic often use resources that link to a variety of sites related to what they seek. This makes web directories the perfect destination.

Since directories are categorized by topics, a person can arrive in the directory and have one-click access to a variety of resources. You definitely want to be one of those resources! Plus, when the other search engines pick up your link, it will count for more since it is surrounded by relevant content, which is most likely filled with your important keywords.

As you build your link network, you'll continue to see increased traffic. And if you use web directories as your vehicle, you are essentially paving more paths to your site. Several good submissions in popular directories will help get you rolling. The best part is that many directories are free, so this jump start won't even hurt your bottom line.

Good luck and happy submitting!

About The Author

Robert Burko is president and founder of Eliteweb.cc ( www.eliteweb.cc ), an Internet portal featuring a best-of-the-web search engine and a comprehensive search-engine-friendly web directory ( www.eliteweb.cc/directory/ ).

5 Top Places To Maximize Your Traffic And Sales For Free!

2008-04-02T17:00:00.001-04:00

Do you want more traffic and sales to your site?

If so, do you want to know how to take full advantage of the internet to get your sales message out there without having to spend thousands of dollars?

There are thousands of high traffic sites on the Internet where you can market for free. The trick is finding these sites and using them effectively to market your business online.

Your best weapon in finding these sites is Alexa. You can use Alexa, http://www.alexa.com, to search by topic and compare stats on sites, as well as get the traffic ranking of a site.

The point of marketing on high traffic sites is that the more visitors a site has, the more likely you are to be seen. The more you are seen, the more likely someone will click through and visit your site.

Marketing on high traffic sites isn't enough though. The traffic has to be targeted. By targeting your market, and marketing on high traffic sites, you can quickly multiply your traffic and sales.

To get you started, I've included five of the top sites on the internet, with tips on how to market your site effectively so that you can increase your traffic and sales.

1. Yahoo - http://www.yahoo.com

2. MSN - http://www.msn.com

3. Google - http://www.google.com

According to Alexa, these are the top three sites respectively. Although you should make sure that you submit your site to their search engine spiders, which is free, there is a better way to market on these sites.

It's called Groups.

Yahoo Groups - http://www.yahoogroups.com

MSN Groups - http://groups.msn.com

Google Groups - http://groups.google.com

You'll find thousands of groups at these sites where you can post your articles, advertise your ezines, and submit free classfieds. You'll also find discussion groups on just about any topic you can imagine, and unlike forums, you can conveniently read and reply to messages in your email.

You can share information and build relationships with potential customers. The beauty of these sites is that they spider each other. Yahoo also uses RSS, which can give you an opportunity to become syndicated, especially if you write articles.

Your promotions can quickly become viral.

4. Ebay - http://www.ebay.com - If you sell products and services on Ebay, you can use your About Me page to offer a subscription to your ezine, as well as advertise your website.

You need to follow the instructions on Ebay when using this feature. Build a relationship with both your customers and fellow Ebay marketers. If you haven't considered marketing here, you definitely want to consider marketing it because this site gets over eight million hits a month.

5. Myspace.com - http://www.myspace.com - Although this site considers itself to be noncommercial, and it has strict rules about promoting your products and services, this is an excellent place to network.

You'll find blogs, groups, free classifieds, and forums. You can send and receive email and private messages. There's a search function that allows you to find others with your interests.

As long as you take the time to get to know the site and follow the rules, you can effectively promote your business here by networking with others. You'll need an account, but it's free. You won't be allowed to post for the first seven days, but this is to keep spammers out.

In fact, there are currently over 2,800 business groups here, some with thousands of members, and you can post quite a bit of information in your profile.

If you're on a shoestring marketing budget, you can use these high traffic sites to help you increase traffic and sales to your site.

Want even more high traffic sites to market on? Jinger Jarrett will show you how to market your business online to hundreds of high traffic sites for free. Grab a subscription to her premium ezine for just $5 per month. This is a limited time offer. http://www.smallbusinesshowto.com/Special-Offers.html

Benefits Of Starting A Forum Community On Your Website

2008-04-01T20:52:00.001-04:00

Forums and online communities are excellent additions to websites that make them interesting and informative. Forums provide a means for your website's visitors to interact with one another to discuss about anything they wish, or about products and services you are offering. With human activity on your forums, visitors are more inclined to stay and interact with other members. What your forum members post may be added content to your website as they bring with them unique knowledge and experiences which are added to your website, thus expanding your offerings. Other visitors who are reading these forums may find information useful and stay to learn more or join the forum in order to ask the other members of the forum.

The most successful forums turn a website 'sticky'. A sticky website is one in which surfers are interested in visiting over and over again. One reason for the stickiness of a website is the content available, and forums have information that is updated frequently if members are very active. Visitors transform from one-time browsers to residents and regulars of the website just to check out what is new and what others have to say. A "sticky" website also attracts more visitors as members of your forum grow with the community and spread your website's URL to friends and contacts. This word-of-mouth marketing is priceless and can very often generate a lot of traffic to your website with almost zero costs. These new visitors who become members then continue to spread the word about your forum community and very soon you would have a thriving community that supports and feeds your website with new traffic.

In addition to turning a website sticky so that visitors come back often to find new information and content, forums offer additional content that may improve your search engine ranking. As every webmaster knows, a tremendous amount of traffic can come from a first position ranking in the search engines such as Google, Yahoo or MSN. These 3 search engines account for almost 100% of the web-searches done by people on the net. Being ranked number one for the search term that your site is optimized for, such as the keyword "sports shoes" will almost ensure that everyone who searches for that keyword would click on the first returned result from the search engine and land on your website. If your website sells sports shoes, you can almost guarantee that that tremendous amount of traffic can be turned to huge sales and revenues. So by adding a forum where members can discuss sports shoes on your website, you are generating content related to "sports shoes". These content pages are then indexed by search engines
and increase the number of pages that your site has on the search engine. With such relevant content, other sites linking to your content and the content itself will aid in your climbing of the search engine rankings.

Dax Christopher maintains a two year old webmaster community at http://www.buildtolearn.com/ , a forum community that discusses web-hosting and webmaster related issues such as web-design, page coding, SEO and many others. Visit BuildtoLearn.com to learn more about developing and growing large communities.

How To Use Web Directories To Boost Traffic To Your Site

2008-03-31T07:13:00.001-04:00

What Is A Web Directory?

A Web Directory Listing Helps with SEO

Relevancy Matters

Good luck and happy submitting!

About The Author

How Do I Get Traffic To My Website

2008-03-30T11:00:00.001-04:00

Pay-Per-Click

Linking

Search Engine Optimization

Google Adwords Experiment: What Spelling Of \"Ebook\" Gets The Highest Response?

2008-03-29T18:13:00.001-04:00

And the higher up the page your ads are, the more traffic you're likely to see!

Ebooks also are hot property with many people making sizeable incomes from selling them, often using Google Adwords as a primary source of traffic.

So a critical question right now is what are the smart marketers doing to boost their Adwords ads for ebooks so dominating their market *without* spending a fortune?

I decided to test out an advert for my Ebook Sales Assistant product using the following advert:

Creating An Ebook? Learn how to build an ebook sales site. 100 page ebook tells all. www.ebooksalesassistant.com

Keeping the text of the advert identical, I split tested 3 version of the headline to test whether the spelling Ebook, ebook or eBook would get the highest response from users.

Over the course of the experiment the ad was shown an impressive 71,129 times so the results are highly significant.

The results:

Creating An Ebook?: 0.9% CTR Creating an ebook?: 0.9% CTR Creating An eBook?: 0.4% CTR

So the results show that I found no difference in response rates between the spelling Ebook or ebook but the spelling eBook had a very negative impact on my ad response rate, getting less than half as many clicks as the other two ads with identical text.

There are two morals to this story:

1) When using pay per click advertising, if your ad contains the work "ebook" never spell it as eBook

2) Also note how *huge* the difference in response rates are. Be aware that something as simple as changing which words have capital letters and where abouts in the word they are can have a massive effect on results. So get experimenting!

Lastly, when testing my most successful ads on just Google rather than associated content sites (those displaying Adsense ads) my clickthrough rates jumped to an average of 2.9%.

And that's without actually testing different ads, just changing the capitalization.

Copyright 2006 Richard Adams

Is This Business Right For You?

2008-03-28T20:13:00.001-04:00

Your dream is to have your own business and to tell the boss "Good-Bye". An excellent dream to have, a little exciting and a little scary at the same time. Before taking that big step, take a long hard realistic look at yourself and determine "Is this business right for me?"

What is your personality? Are you an extrovert or an introvert? Do you enjoy talking to everyone you see or are you the type that has trouble talking to a stranger? Do you love number crunching, administration, computers, researching, etc.? Are you a leader or a follower? A risk taker? These are important questions to ask yourself? You want your business to match your personality and talents. Look at your business idea, does it match your personality and talents? If it does not, you will struggle to make it a success. Find a business that is right for you.

Do you take criticism well? How well do you listen to others? If you don't know, ask a close family member or friend. You have heard the saying "the customer is always right". No matter what type of business you start, you will have customers. Can you listen constructively and respond without showing anger or a negative attitude? One disgruntled customer can keep many future customers away. One mad employee can destroy your business.

Have you been told "No" lately? Adults seldom are. As you start your business there will be those times that "No" is the answer you receive. Do not take it personally. Take it as another step in your venture to success. Use the "No" to move ahead. Do not allow yourself to lose your momentum.

When you begin your business you will wear many hats, starting with the janitor. How well can you perform all the duties that will be required of you? From planning to organizing to prioritizing, everything depends on you. If your business will have employees, can you interview and select the best applicant without emotions playing a role? Can you fire your sister, brother, daughter, son, best friend, or anyone else you need to fire? Important questions to ask, because there will come a time to let someone go.

Starting your business adds additional financial burdens on you and your family. How do you currently handle this responsibility? Do you pay your bills on time now? Your vendors will only take so many late payments before they classify you as a "cash only" customer. Review your current habits and learn to pay your bills early. Structure your bills so that everything does not come due at the same time. Always alert your vendors if you see that you are going to be late paying.

How soon will you see any income? Leaving the security of a "job" and depending on yourself for 100% of your income is a giant step. Do you have enough funds to get you through four to six months of living expenses? House payment, car payment, utilities, essentials, insurance, etc. Do not forget to factor in what the business will need during this time. Look back over the past six months to a year and average what you have been spending per month. Multiply that by six and add what your business will need. Do you have that much put aside? Make sure that you do. Some businesses will see income the first week, while others may take a few weeks or months to get a steady flow coming in.

Is this business right for you? Find the one that fits your personality and talents and you will enjoy having your own business. Go ahead and tell the boss "Good-Bye".

NOTE: You have full permission to reprint this article within your website or newsletter as long as you leave the article fully intact and include the "About The Author" resource box. Thanks! :-)

>About The Author

Nial Robbins owns the work at home directory website located at: http://www.NDR-HomeBiz.com

Work At Home–Ideas For Success

2008-03-27T13:13:00.001-04:00

Searching for success in your online home business? Always wanted to be your own boss? Need to make money at home while you stay with the kids? Retired, but need extra cash?

Are you a good, pithy writer? Look into freelance writing. You can sell your work online for print and Internet magazines, anthologies, newsletters and blogs.

An objective, reasonable approach will take you a long way down the road to success for your online business. Couple that with imagination and dedication, and you're likely to come up a winner!

About The Author

Email Marketing Advice: That FROM Field Can Really Sting You In The Butt

2008-03-26T15:00:00.001-04:00

You take the job seriously and get started early in the week. You want this email message to be really great. The company is counting on you! Your email marketing campaign is one of your employer's core marketing activities.

1. It is Wednesday. You take the afternoon and carefully craft the weekly company email message.

2. It is Thursday. You spell check the weekly company email message.

3. It is Friday. You ask your marketing buddy across the office to proof the weekly company email message. You don't want to embarrass yourself with grammatical errors or an article that does not make sense!

4. It is Saturday. You sleep on it and are confident the weekly company email message is ready to go.

5. It is Sunday. You take the day off and have a really great afternoon with your boyfriend. You are worry free! Your weekly company email message is all put to bed and ready to go.

6. You wake up early on Monday morning, get to the office and login into your Email List Management service and get your weekly company email message all queued up.

7. You press send and watch your weekly company email message go into cyberspace. "Oh, goody!" you exclaim. "Think of all the business I am going to bring into the company with this carefully crafted email marketing message!"

8. It is Monday, one second later. A subscriber receives the weekly company email message in their inbox.

9. It is Monday, two seconds later. Your subscriber looks at the FROM field.

10. It is Monday, three seconds later. Your subscriber seems perplexed. "Hmmm, who is Mary Franklin?" they think.

11. It is Monday, four seconds later. Your subscriber takes a deep breath, says, "Never heard of her," and presses the delete button.

12. It is Monday, five seconds later. You are in a meeting with your new boss. You yelp, grab your butt and scream, "I think I just got stung by a bee!"

You did. And you let it out and you painted the target on your hiney.

Your name might mean something to you but your email list subscribers probably have no idea who you are and will freak out when they see a strange email in their inbox from some gal named Mary Franklin.

If you are Anthony Robbins you can get away with it.

Since I assume you have:

-never walked on fire

-are not almost seven feet tall and

-have a huge toothy grin

You don't qualify to put your name in the From field of your weekly company email marketing messages.

Think about it from your subscriber's point of view.

-They subscribed to an email list from your company.

-They expect to receive a message from your company.

Instead they receive a message from someone named Mary Franklin. Someone they have never heard of, never met, never seen, and is not mentioned in any literature that belongs to the company.

I think the only logical reaction would be to press the delete button. Wouldn't you do the same thing?

Here are some suggestions for a FROM field that will mean something to your email list subscribers:

-Your company name and URL (Hey, you can put anything you want in here, so the clearer the better).

-The name of your periodic mailing (only if it is well- branded).

-Your company name AND the name of your periodic mailing.

Keep your name to yourself. I hate to bruise your ego, but no one cares if a message comes from you expect people who know you.

Feeling like you have a few swollen, red bumps on your rear?

Go check your FROM Field.

About The Author

Joan Pasay

Brought to you by the — Email Marketing Club: The only place on the Internet where Email Marketing is FUN!

Join now and receive a gift - guaranteed to increase your status with your friends, co-workers and boss. Click below: http://www.emailmarketingmadeeasy.com/email_marketing_club

Check out our popular ebook Email Marketing Made Easy & one on one expert Email Marketing coaching at http://www.EmailMarketingMadeEasy.com

Four Ways To Achieve Online Success With Email Autoresponders

2008-03-25T07:39:00.001-04:00

An email autoresponder should come as natural to every business. Web surfers stopped looking at ordinary websites years ago. Now every internet visitor wants a website that is caring and will build a positive relationship with its visitors. It is for this reason that online companies are investing huge millions into Customer Relationship Management programs. But if you are a start up businesses without the huge capital outlay to put into customer relations, you can use auto responders to deliver an amazing warm reception and interaction with their visitors.To conduct a successful online business, you may want to be guided by available research on customers.

Research has long established that, positive and timely responses are important ingredients that visitors use to judge how friendly websites are and how they would want to interact with them. And you may want to know that visitors are more likely to establish relationships with sites that provide excellent feedback and timely responses.Auto responders therefore positively answer the call of website owners seeking automated interaction with customers at all facets of their customer relations. An email autoresponder can securely perform 5 principal business boosting roles for every website which needs to get a high rating in customer relations and therefore enhance customer loyalty. Acknowledgement:Autoresponders can let people know you have received their emails and that you will soon respond to their enquiry. Even when you are not available to reply immediately, you will do so at some later time. You see, buyers are predominantly in a state of anxiety and it is a good marketing strategy to allay such anxie
ties.People buy with several reasons; one of their being an urgent need to do something.

So acknowledging their emails sets their minds at ease and then they are confident that a reply will be forth coming on their enquiry. If you have one thousand emails a day, there is no way you can efficiently reply to all these manually and that is where an auto responder comes in.Notices:Assuming you were out of the office for two days and a customer interested in bringing you a hundred thousand Dollar deal writes to you with the hope of receiving a response so business is transacted. It will be quite discouraging for him to wait and wait for no answer to come forth. If you have an email autoresponder installed, some preliminary email marketing messages can be sent to the sender; at least informing him of products/services available or explain your absence and when you will be back. If the sender wishes to wait, you can come back to respond appropriately and get the deal finalized. Confirmation: In this age of scam and fraud on the net, every buyer will want a confirmation of his purchase.

An autoresponder confirmation serves two purposes – it assures the buyer that the goods will be forthcoming and it relieves him of the thoughts that he had transacted with a fraudster. An auto responder performing this function will make your customers happy and buy from you always.Appreciation:Buyers do businesses a great favor by buying. Although you are giving away a product or service in return, customers need to be appreciated for buying from you. At least they had other several options but they chose to buy from you because they like you or how you conducted your business. You can use an email auto responder to send follow up messages to customers thanking them for their business and assuring them of continued support.Every business must make it a point to rely on an email auto responder to generate customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Chad Cook has been doing email marketing since 2000. You can learn more about his autoresponder Tips & Tricks at: http://www.aceresponse.com/AutoResponder_Tips.pdf

For more of Chad's Internet marketing tips, tools, news, articles, and resources, visit: http://www.aceresponse.com/ articles@ultra-webfusion.com

Should You Build Your Own Opt-in Email List?

2008-03-24T17:26:00.001-04:00

The easiest way to acquire an email list for your ezine or email marketing is just to buy one. They're not too expensive, and they provide you with a long list of names and email addresses. But if there is one thing I've learned as the owner of an ezine, it is that the easy road is not always the one that brings you the best results. The problem with buying an email list is that none of the people on that list know who you are. When they receive an email from you, most likely they will just delete it without bothering to open it.

That is why it is so beneficial to build your own opt-in email list. Yes, creating a list from scratch is the more difficult and time-consuming solution, but at least it is a solution. Email lists rarely bring the desired results, so the money you spend on them might as well be flushed down the toilet. Email marketing and ezine distribution isn't about blasting a bunch of strangers with sales pitches and information they don't want and didn't ask for. If you really want to achieve results with your email list, you need to build your own.

Here is a list of questions you need to ask yourself when building your email list:

Who is your target audience and what do you have to offer them?

What kind of relationship do you want with the recipients of your emailings?

What method or methods will you use to collect email addresses? Web forms, registration or subscription forms, trade shows, telephone contacts and sales calls are all viable ways to get the email addresses of people who will be interested in what you have to offer.

Will your emails come in the form of ads, newsletters, deals and specials, company announcements and press releases, or discussion lists?

Will you handle the creative aspects of your mailings, such as copywriting and editing, or will you need a little help?

Once you're ready to start building your list, use outside lists to help you get started. You can recruit opt-in list members by renting an opt-in list to send out an announcement. You could also try taking out an ad in a targeted email newsletter or discussion list.

Mohamed Rabea is the owner of one of the Internet's most popular home based business and marketing websites, available from http://www.bizpeak.com/ & http://www.bizpioneer.com/

Email Marketing Best Practices

2008-03-23T21:26:00.001-04:00

Permission-based Email Marketing is one of the most powerful ways to build your business. As a business owner you realize the importance of staying in front of your customers and prospects. By deploying a timely e-newsletter to touch base with your customers and prospects, you stay fresh in their minds, build credibility, and keep the communication channel open by eliciting product and/or service enquiries from your recipients. This will lead to repeat purchases and higher conversions. Below are a few pointers in ensuring that your permission-based email marketing campaign is a true asset to your company.

Building Your Lists

There are a number of ways to build your opt-in list of subscribers. Below I have compiled a list to help you get started.

If your business has a physical location ask visitors to fill out a card giving you permission to contact them via email with product/service updates.

Include a sign up form on your website. Most permission-based email marketing software programs will include a tool allowing you to create a sign up form. This allows you to easily capture the email addresses (and any additional information) from your website's visitors.

Always advertise your newsletter. For instance, include a short line on the back of your business card that reads "Receive Additional Tips and Industry News Each Month In Your Inbox. Sign up for our Newsletter at www.yourwebaddress.com ". This will lead people to your website and into becoming a subscriber to your newsletter.

The greatest way to build your list is by concentrating on the quality of your newsletter. By releasing an informative newsletter that people find valuable they will share this information and the source, further growing your list of subscribers.

Providing information about your e-newsletter

It is important to inform your potential subscribers on how often they can expect to receive emails from your company and what type of information they can expect from these emails.Quality Over QuantityBy writing quality content your recipients will look forward to receiving your e-newsletters and will look to them for knowledge in your industry. This will build further credibility for your company and encourage the recipients to forward the message to a friend. Sending your e-newsletters too frequently will annoy your subscribers and can lessen your credibility. From a design aspect, be sure that the newsletter is reader-friendly.

Do not use Flash, brightly colored text, extra large font, or all caps.

For an HTML based newsletter, create a header that coincides with your company's colors and/or message. Next, create a simple 1 or 2 pixel border along with a matching footer. As far as content, break down your message into nuggets of information. Remember, very few subscribers are going to read your newsletter if it is the length of a novel.

Break down your message into short paragraphs and use bulleted items to condense and stress important points.

Keeping your message out of the SPAM folder.

The following items are critical in preventing your message from being blocked by SPAM filters:

Try to use font sizes that are smaller than 2 or 3.

Bolded, red font will also add to the likelihood that your message could be considered SPAM.

Use a Permission-based email marketing software that allows the sending of multi-part MIME messages. Simply put, this will allow you to send out both an HTML and text-only version of your e-newsletter. The software will detect whether the email client can accept HTML based messages, if not, the email client will accept the text-only version.

Avoid using all caps; especially for words such as "FREE"

Do not type out any currency denominations in the millions. Example: $10,000,000.

Avoid using text such as "click below", "click here", "free money" etc…

Obviously, always be sure to include a Subject with your message as well. However, avoid using an exclamation mark or all caps in the subject.

Frequency of Sending

As a rule of thumb, always place yourself in your subscriber's shoes. Don't inundate them with so many newsletters that your message becomes "watered down" and loses all credibility. Again, always place quality over quantity.I hope these tips help you in your permission-based email marketing efforts. There is no more powerful way to convey your message as a company and build credibility than with permission-based email marketing.

Brandon Milford is the Director of Marketing for Broadwick Corporation, makers of IntelliContact Pro, an industry-leading permission based email marketing software. http://www.intellicontact.com/ . brandon@broadwick.com

Four Ways To Achieve Online Success With Email Autoresponders

2008-03-22T07:26:00.001-04:00

Should You Build Your Own Opt-in Email List?

2008-03-21T15:00:00.001-04:00

Here is a list of questions you need to ask yourself when building your email list:

Who is your target audience and what do you have to offer them?

What kind of relationship do you want with the recipients of your emailings?

What method or methods will you use to collect email addresses? Web forms, registration or subscription forms, trade shows, telephone contacts and sales calls are all viable ways to get the email addresses of people who will be interested in what you have to offer.

Will your emails come in the form of ads, newsletters, deals and specials, company announcements and press releases, or discussion lists?

Will you handle the creative aspects of your mailings, such as copywriting and editing, or will you need a little help?

Mohamed Rabea is the owner of one of the Internet's most popular home based business and marketing websites, available from http://www.bizpeak.com/ & http://www.bizpioneer.com/

Email Marketing Advice: That FROM Field Can Really Sting You In The Butt

2008-03-20T07:52:00.001-04:00