Internet Marketing - Affiliate Marketing - Adsense untuk Indonesia

Players With Money (PWM) Review - Bagian 1

2008-04-10T09:53:00.001+07:00

Kemarin (tepatnya Rabu, tanggal 9 April 2008), Alex Goad baru saja membuat "launching" info product terbarunya, Players With Money (PWM). Salah satu studi kasus yang menarik pada sales letter-nya adalah kesuksesan Brian ketika ia menerapkan blueprints yang dibeberkan oleh Alex.

Brian mengaku bahwa ia berhasil menerima komisi affiliate sebesar $6643 dalam jangka waktu 7 hari, tanpa membayar iklan, tanpa memiliki list dan tanpa uang (No Ads, No List, No Money), begitu akunya.

Sekilas setelah membaca sales letter Players With Money (PWM), saya berkesimpulan bahwa info product ini adalah untuk kalangan "Advanced" Marketers. Beberapa hari sebelumnya Alex Goad juga meminta saya untuk menyaksikan video bikinannya. Setelah saya saksikan, ternyata isi video ini adalah secuplik "bukti" bahwa strategi atau blueprints yang dia ungkapkan di PWM ini benar-benar ampuh untuk menghasilkan uang di internet.

Kesimpulannya, setelah melihat video tersebut dan membaca sales page PWM beberapa jam setelah "launching", saya semakin yakin bahwa produknya ini adalah merupakan tingkat "Lanjutan" atau lebih cocok untuk "Advanced" Marketers yang sudah menguasai berbagai strategi dasar dalam Internet Marketing secara umum, maupun Affiliate Marketing.

Saya lihat harganya... $67. Nggak terlalu mahal.

OK, saya putuskan untuk membelinya. Setelah meenyempurnakan Order yang pertama, ternyata saya dibawa kepada OTO (One Time Offer) Sales Page. Seperti yang banyak dilakukan oleh Internet Marketer lainnya, Alex menawarkan paket VIP-nya dengan harga $37.

Satu hal yang membuat saya agak terkejut sebelum menyelesaikan Order pertama adalah ternyata Alex men-charge $67 itu SETIAP BULAN. Oh, berarti ini merupakan membership? Itu yang terbersit dalam hati saya. Kok rasanya saya tidak membaca keterangan itu di sales page-nya?

Ok lah tidak apa-apa. Karena saya ingin tahu SEMUA blueprints yang Alex berikan dan dengan Money Back Guarantee yang dia janjikan, saya akhirnya membeli juga paket VIP ($37 setiap bulan) yang dia tawarkan.

Ada Apa Di Dalam Players with Money (PWM)?

Setelah Order saya komplit, saya diarahkan ke Download Page. Di sana saya lihat ada 8 Blueprints yang bisa saya download, 2 Video, 2 Interview dan 1 Modul VIP yang bleum bisa didownload, alias masih "Coming Soon".

Di bagian bawah Download Page ada juga beberapa link menuju "Source" milik marketer lain dianggap oleh Alex berguna dan berkaitan. Oh ya, dan termasuk yang terpenting adalah saya juga diberikan link untuk bergabung dalam forum eksklusif PWM, dimana kita menyebut satu sama lain sebagai "The Players"...

Penilaian Terhadap Blueprints PWM

Hingga posting ini ditulis, saya baru membaca 4 Blueprints Players With Money (dari 8). Video dan Interview-nya belum sempat saya pelajari. Nah, untuk sementara ini (dan ini BELUM FINAL), pendapat saya terhadap info product ini adalah sebagai berikut:

1. Isi blueprints-nya tidak terlalu "Advanced" bagi saya.

2. Walaupun demikian, saya masih bisa mengambil BEBERAPA poin penting dari setiap blueprints tersebut dan mencatatnya untuk dipelajari lebih lanjut. Ini menandakan bahwa memang tidak satu topik pun yang ternyata bisa Anda kuasai secara TOTALITAS...

3. Yang sangat menarik bagi saya adalah blueprint mengenai Buzz Marketing (terbukti bahwa sejauh ini catatan pribadi saya untuk topik ini SANGAT panjang!)

4. Ada kesan SEMENTARA bahwa Players With Money ini kurang sistematis dalam penyajiannya.

5. Kok Studi Kasus si Brian nggak ada di bagian Download Page?

6. Saya masih menunggu akses ke VIP Only Section.

Kesimpulan: Players With Money sepertinya cocok untuk:

1. Anda yang memiliki modal besar untuk MEMULAI sebagai Newbie.
2. Anda yang sudah berhasil dalam Internet Marketing dan ingin memperdalam atau menambah wawasan untuk meningkatkan penghasilan Anda.

Bagi Anda yang baru ingin memulai mencari uang lewat internet dengan modal yang terbatas, saya rasa produk ini tidak cocok untuk Anda. Apalagi jika Anda berharap bisa CEPAT melihat hasil, sepertinya memang Anda tidak akan memperolehnya.

CATATAN: Studi Kasus Brian yang berhasil memperoleh $6643 tanpa iklan, list dan uang belum bisa diakses. Alex Goad berjanji akan melengkapinya dalam minggu-minggu ini. Jika sudah saya baca, insya Allah akan saya ulas di sini apakah memang cocok bagi Anda dengan modal terbatas dan ingin hasil yang RELATIF cepat.

Akhir kata, secara keseluruhan, sebagai strategi untuk memperoleh penghasilan besar via internet dalam jumlah yang lumayan dan relatif cepat, saya lebih yakin untuk merekomendasikan Free Google Ads. Stategi dalam Free Google Ads menurut saya lebih brilian dan sangat mudah diaplikasikan, selain juga Anda tidak perlu membayar tiap bulan untuk memperolehnya, harganya pun termasuk sangat murah.

Tunggu review saya selanjutnya tentang Players With Money...

Affiliate Program - Bagaimana dan Di Mana Bisa Memperoleh Merchant?

2008-04-07T10:22:00.000+07:00

Jika Anda sudah tertarik dengan konsep Affiliate Marketing, maka langkah selanjutnya adalah:

1. Mencari Affiliate Program yang sangat menguntungkan
2. Mencari niche yang berhubungan dan menguntungkan
3. Membuat situs mini untuk pre-selling

Untuk sebagian orang, mereka memilih langkah 2 sebelum langkah 1 (dulu pun saya begitu), tapi belakangan ini saya menyadari bahwa setiap affiliate seharusnya mencari dulu Affiliate Program yang menguntungkan, baru mencari niche yang berkaitan.

Mengapa demikian?

Jawabannya sederhana.
Mungkin kasus ini pernah atau bahkan sering Anda alami...

Anda mencari niche dengan menggunakan Keyword Tool favorit Anda. Terus Anda gali berbagai kemungkinan untuk mencari niche dengan demand terbanyak dan competition paling sedikit. Setelah akhirnya Anda berhasil menemukannya... TOTONG!

Ternyata TIDAK ADA satu pun Affiliate Program yang cocok. Entah komisinya terlalu kecil, produknya kurang bagus sehingga Anda merasa malu mempromosikannya, sales letter-nya payah, atau kalau pun ada produk bagus, ternyata Anda tidak bisa mengikuti programnya hanya karena Anda orang Indonesia!

Sebagai contoh untuk poin yang terakhir... Anda pasti tahu Clickbank kan? Sebagai salah satu Affiliate Merchant terbesar di dunia yang memberikan komisi SANGAT BESAR bagi afiliasinya, Clickbank tentu saja paling banyak diminati oleh para Affiliate Marketers seluruh dunia. Namun, sampai saat posting ini ditulis, dia masih TIDAK MENERIMA Affiliates dari Indonesia...

Kabar Terbaru:
Sekarang ada strategi legal yang bisa Anda tempuh untuk menjadi Affiliate-nya Clickbank. Coba saja pelajari caranya di Clickbank Indonesia.

Nah, kembali kepada pokok permasalahannya... bayangkan saja jika Anda sudah menghabiskan berhari-hari untuk menggali niche potensial dan ternyata Anda tidak berhasil mendapatkan Affiliate Program yang berkaitan! Kan waktu dan uang Anda akan terbuang percuma...

Oleh karena itu, sebaiknya langkah 1 Anda adalah mencari Affiliate Program yang menguntungkan. Apa yang seharusnya Anda cari dan di mana memperoleh informasinya?

Berikut beberapa tips:

1. Pilih Affiliate Program yang memberikan komisi minimal 30%
2. Pilih Affiliate Program yang memberikan dukungan lengkap kepada Affiliate-nya
3. Pilih produk yang memiliki sales letter ampuh
4. Pilih Affiliate Program yang membayar Affiliate-nya dengan cara yang cepat dan praktis
5. Pilih Affiliate Program yang menawarkan lifetime/recurring commission

Sebagai tempat memulai, Anda bisa pergi saja ke Google dan ketik "Affiliate Program" tanpa tanda kutip. Insya Allah banyak sumber informasi yang menyediakannya...

.

Format Warna dan Letak Adsense Anda Sudah Betul?

2008-04-07T09:53:00.000+07:00

Kebanyakan pertanyaan seputar Adsense berkaitan dengan format iklan yang digunakan. Mari kita lihat jawaban dari setiap FAQ (Frequently Asked Question) seputar format iklan Adsense:

1. Iklan apa yang paling baik performanya?

Berdasarkan pengalaman pribadi dan masukan dari komunitas Adsense di seluruh dunia ketiga format ini paling banyak di-klik oleh pengunjung situs:

Large Rectangle (336x280)
Medium Rectangle (300x250)
Text Link (728x15_4)

2. Posisi iklan Adsense yang paling baik di mana?

Di paling atas, kalau bisa tepat di bawah image header situs Anda. Pojok kiri atas juga merupakan "daerah panas" menurut Google. Yang penting, usahakan letak Adsense Anda berada "above the fold", artinya pengunjung tidak perlu meng-scroll ke bawah untuk menemukannya.

3. Apa warna link yang paling baik performanya?

Walaupun pada intinya warna link Adsense Anda harus sesuai dengan warna situs Anda, namun menurut Maryan Marzaan dari Adsense Wealth Empire, warna merah lebih banyak diklik oleh pengunjung situsnya.

Catatan:
Kesimpulan ini memang diambil dari pengalaman banyak situs dari banyak afiliasi Adsense, namun tetap saja ada kemungkinan halnya akan berbeda untuk situs Anda. Lalu, bagaimana Anda bisa mengetahuinya?

Terapkan strategi di atas dan TES - TES - TES, kemudian evaluasi hasilnya pada situs Anda!
Selamat mencoba :-)

.

Apakah Situs Adsense Anda Termasuk "Webspam"?

2008-04-06T20:24:00.000+07:00

OK, sebagai lanjutan dari posting saya tentang Thin Affiliates, sekarang mari kita evaluasi situs Adsense Anda... apakah situs Anda ternacam dikategorikan sebagai webspam oleh Google?

1. Jika situs Adsense Anda mengkopi konten dari sumber seperti Wikipedia, DMOZ dan RSS News Feeds lalu menempelkan iklan Adsense begitu saja...

"The important thing to remember, is that if the scraped (copied) content is removed and all that remains is ads, it is Spam", says Google.

Intinya, jika konten jiplakan tersebut diambil dan yang tersisa pada halaman web Anda hanya iklan Adsense, berarti Google akan menganggapnya sebagai webspam. Titik.

2. Jika situs Anda memiliki sub-domain dengan BANYAK hypen...

Seperti misalnya > http://ini-bohong-bohongan-aja.SitusAnda.com/index.html

Konon Google akan menganggapnya sebagai webspam juga. Makanya hindari penggunaan hypen yang berlebihan, termasuk untuk memberi nama halam web. Usahakan janga lebih dari 2 hypen.

3. Jika situs Anda merupakan blog palsu, message board palsu, direktori palsu, parked domains, sneaky redirects, atau mempraktekkan keyword stuffing, hidden text dan hidden links...

Google juga akan mengetahuinya dan WHAM!
Situs Anda akan hilang diban oleh the big "G"....

Awas, Jangan Jadi "Thin Affiliate" Kalau Tidak Mau Di"Ban" oleh Google!

2008-04-06T19:51:00.000+07:00

Kalau Anda masih ingat, pada tahun 2005 dulu Google pernah mengeluarkan ancaman keras kepada para Thin Affiliates. Apa dan siapa itu yang termasuk Thin Affiliates? Menurut Google, Thin Affiliates adalah para pemilik situs yang memenuhi situs-situsnya dengan link-link produk afiliasi mereka tanpa memberikan konten yang berguna bagi pengunjung situs.

Nah, pada intinya Google menganggap Thin Affiliates itu adalah para pembuat onar di dunia maya dan situs-situs mereka dianggap "mengotori".

Untuk membersihkan halaman hasil pencarian pada search engine mereka (SERP's) dari situs-situs seperti ini, Google mempekerjakan Quality Raters yang tugasnya memeriksa secara manual berbagai situs yang ada dan sekaligus memberikan penilaian.

Berikut kategori yang mereka tetapkan:

Vital
Useful
Relevant
Not Relevant
Off-Topic
Not Spam
Maybe Spam
Spam

Di dalam peraturan terbaru setebal 45 halaman yang dikeluarkan oleh Google, ternyata kita para pemiliki situs harus hati-hati, jangan sampai situs kita tergolong sebagai webspam. Lalu, bagaimana caranya?

Menurut laporan bocoran dari pihak Google, mereka tidak akan menganggap suatu situs sebagai webspam jika tergolong:

Situs yang me-review produk
Situs yang melakukan perbandingan harga berbagai produk sejenis
Situs yang memuat resep-resep makanan
Situs yang memuat berbagai lirik dan kutipan-kutipan
Situs yang memuat alamat fisik, termasuk nomor telepon
Situs yang memberikan info seputar penawaran diskon, kupon, dsb

Jika situs Adsense atau Affiliate Marketing Anda memuat salah satu atau beberapa poin di atas, maka kemungkinan besar situs tersebut tidak akan dianggap sebagai Thin Affiliates.

Sebagian besar Affiliate Marketer mengatakan, "Coba saja hilangkan semua link-link afiliasi dan iklan Google Adsense dari halaman web situs Anda... kalau ternyata setelah semuanya hilang, pengunjung tidak menemukan informasi bermanfaat pada halaman tersebut, berarti situs tersebut termasuk Thin Affiliates!"

Ingat, Anda kan ingin membangun situs-situs yang akan bertahan lama menempati posisi top di search engine, jadi janganlah menjadi Thin Affiliates... berbahaya!

Business To Start From Home

2007-05-24T11:17:00.000+07:00

Hi there,

Like usual, I always share every new things around Internet Marketing. This time I'd like to share you a new blog on the block, called business to start from home. The first article is concise and a step-by-step kind that is very easy to understand AND apply.

They also offer a free STRAIGHT download to a very interesting HOT TOPIC report. Once again, it's a STRAIGHT download, meaning you don't have to give your name and email address.

I'm planning to put the report on this blog, so my blog readers can benefit from it. Let's see what I can do.

Weblo Virtual World - Fun Way to Make Money Online

2007-03-24T11:33:00.000+07:00

I came accross a very interesting community site, Weblo.com. At Weblo.com, you can build your own virtual world. Just choose among building YOUR OWN favorite city, becoming your favorite mayor or celebrity, owning your favorite domain names, you name it!

And the best part is...

You'll GET PAID doing something you've already been doing for fun!

You also can add video, pictures, blogs, news, etc.

Register NOW for FREE at Weblo.com

or learn more at:

Weblo.com

Blogging? The Sooner You Know This The Better

2006-06-09T13:03:00.000+07:00

Weblog... web log, or simply called blog is a type of online journal or diary, frequently including individual comments, links and pictures. Most people keep a blog as a sort of personal creative exercise.

This is fine. BUT, you can actually use blogs for more mind-blowing purposes. You could actually make money with blogs.

Doesn’t matter whether you want extra income, steady income that is huge enough to quit your daily job (yes, many ordinary people has accomplished this!), or you own a company and want to boost your sales… blog can be a perfect tool for these.

If you are a company owner, blog can aslo be a great and inexpensive way to contact more customers. The great thing about blogs, is that people read them for fun. Your customers will cheerfully read a blog that has some interesting things to say. Many top companies are aware of this trend and they have started delivering better and more personal messages to their customers using blogs.

If you are an individual, I’m telling you that you TOO can start making money with blogs, even if you don’t have any products.

You can join Affiliate Programs and make your blog as your Presell Page to your merchants’ official sales page. Now, I don’t intend to discuss all of the basic things here, so if you are new to affiliate marketing, please read these articles to know more on Affiliate Marketing.
Believe me, there are people out there that do earn up to thousands of dollars a month by selling other people’s products using blogs…

This is the shocking fact that is still hidden from most bloggers. There are so many articles, tutorials, courses, forums, etc that discuss the “techie” side of blogging. They are so busy discussing the HTML codes to put on their blogs so those blogs can look awesome (at least for them..), BUT so few are actually able to use blogs to pay for rent!

Among those people who recognize the power of blogs, so few can get started on the right track. Many bloggers still don’t know the importance of:

o Blog theme
o Choosing the right blog name
o Picking the right blog title and description
o The art of writing a blog
o Promoting a blog (yes, you need to promote your blog!)
o What readers want
o Generating massive traffic to a blog
o Building benefits of a blog
o and many many more…

Unless.. they have finished reading the Free Course on How to Make (more) Money with Blogs…

I recommend this course for anyone who wants to make money with blogs but can’t get started. This course is easy to understand, explained step-by step and …it’s FREE! You can find surprising strategies and tricks revealed boldly in this course…

Grab the Free "Blogging Hidden Profits" Course ...

----------------------------------------------------
Tags: Weblog Blogging Blog Blogs Computers and Internet Internet Weblogs

Google Adsense Strategy - Using Channels

2006-03-27T17:08:00.000+07:00

Google Adsense recommends a free feature you can use to track your Adsense ads performance.
It’s called Channels.

With this free feature, you can track which webpages contribute most of your Adsense revenue. You can also track your ads performance based on their types, colours, placements, keywords and on all the categories you specify.

Here’s how to do it…

First of all, Google Adsense offers 2 kinds of Channels:

1. URL Channels
2. Custom Channels

URL Channels

You can use this to track the performance of your webpages. All you have to do is type in your URLs in the Adsense code and Google will track the performance of those specific pages.

If you type in http://yourdomain.com then they will track all of the pages on that domain.

You might want to see the performance of:

http://yourdomain.com/index.html
http://yourdomain.com/articles.html

and so on…

Custom Channels

This is what I like most.

Custom Channels lets you track your Adsense ads with all the criterias you specify.

Let’s make it easier with examples…

Say you want to know which is best to put on your Homepage.
First you want to put on as a test and see what will happen:

Text Link (4 Links – 728) - Title Colour = blue
Large Rectangle (336 x 280) - Title Colour = green (blend with your site)
Banner (468 x 60) - Title Colour = green

You might want to put the Text Link at the very top, Banner right above your first article and Large Rectangle below the article.

Then you should create these Custom Channels for them:

homepage-textlink4-728-blue-top
homepage-larec336-green-bottom
homepage-banner468-green-top

Duplicate these steps for all of your most visited pages, because the results can vary for each pages. What’s working wonderful on your Homepage can be awful for your other pages…

Good luck with your Adsense empire!

The Sensible Way To Earn Money With Google AdSense!

2006-03-20T16:29:00.000+07:00

Dear friends,

Google AdSense has rapidly gained a status of anindependent online business model. Many averagepeople with a little knowledge of HTML are earninga fortune with AdSense.

The AdSense comes under the category of "pay per clickaffiliate" programs. This means you get paid whensomeone click on the ad which resides on your website.

There are many reason for the success of the AdSenseprogram. The very first reason is it is launchedby Google, the leaders of Search Engines. Afterestablishing themselves in the crowd of Search Enginesthey had a crown of credibility with them.

The second reason for the popularity lies in the fact thatGoogle is not concerned about the amount of traffic youare getting to your website.

They are more concerned about content. If the contentis really good your site will generate visitors over aperiod of time. This is unlike many other pay per clickaffiliate programs, which have a condition on the numberof visitors you are getting per day, before your applicationgets approved.

This creates an interesting situation for onlineentrepreneurs. The more the traffic they generate totheir site, the more is the possibility to get theAdSense ad clicked and they get paid.

Now Google also benefits from this. Since AdSense ads arenothing but the same ads from the Google AdWords accountholders, Google charges the AdWords account holder ofthat particular ad which is being clicked and paysa small portion to the webmaster on whose website theAdSense ad resides.

The amount which Google charges the AdWords accountholder and pays the AdSense account holder is determined entirely by the online popularity of the given "keyword"for which the ad was written by the AdWords account holder.

This is where the real opportunity has come up for onlinenewcomers. Most people put a lot of energy in finding"high paying" keywords or simply purchase a databaseof "high paying keywords", create a small website aroundthe keyword, put AdSense code in it and start generatingtraffic which might click on the ad and expect to get paidhigh.

But here is the real kicker! The amount which you getpaid is dependent of 5 different factors. Some of thefactors are out of the control of the webmaster (you).

For example if a keyword phrase pays something around$14 to $15 per click. Most people think that even if theyget a 1% click through rate, that is 1 person clicks out of 100 visiting their website, Google will put $14 in my account.Yes it's true, but not always!

The amount which you get paid, depends on which ad gets shownon your website. The ad which gets shown on your websiteis dependent upon the relevancy and lot more otherfactors.

The true success with AdSense lies not on targeting only"high paying" keywords, but with focusing on creatinghighly informative content and getting repeat visitors.Google loves content. If you provide it on your websiteyou will automatically get more visitors and increasethe possibility of high click through rate which leadsto more income to you and Google.

So, learn to build traffic first and then fine tune yourwebsite with AdSense script to start earning immediately.The true success with AdSense is with generating contentrich pages and attracting traffic. "High paying keywords"is a secondary factor with AdSense

Copyright 2005 Shrinivas Vaidya

AdSense is the registered trademark of Google Inc.
Want to attract free traffic through search engines? Visit Shrinivas Vaidya's blog on how to suggest link and skyrocket your rank at the search engines, 100% automatically!

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

When Should You Send Out Your Newsletter?

2006-03-03T12:56:00.000+07:00

This is one of the most frequently asked questions among publishers. If you have a list, then the answer certainly would appeal to you, right?

Well, the right answer to this question is to TEST, TEST and TEST it yourself!

The result varies.
What good for other people is not always good for you.
What works for other people doesn't always work for you...

But, this time I'd like to share some statistics that could help you with your homework. These are Newsletter Statistics for Best Open, Click-Thru and Delivery Rates published by Aweber, one of the leading, pioneer Autoresponder service in the net.

Let's see..

AWeber Delivery Results:
12,561 subscribers in an average customer opt-in newsletter list.

4 minutes and 24 seconds is the average amount of time between when a customer queues a newsletter and when AWeber completes delivery.

94% of newsletter broadcasts are finished sending within 5 minutes of when they are scheduled.

98.4% of newsletter broadcasts are finished sending within 30 minutes of when they are scheduled.

99.34% of all email was delivered successfully in the last 30 days.

0.66% of all email was undeliverable in the last 30 days. (mailbox closed, non-existent user, etc.)

Open Rates:

Average open rate of HTML and Text/HTML newsletters is 29.7% over the past 30 days.

Sunday generates the highest average open rate of 41.1%, followed by Saturday at 36.7% for newsletter sent date.

Average Open Rate by Sent Date: (higher is better) Sunday 41.1%
Saturday 36.7%
Wednesday 34.0%
Friday 32.8%
Tuesday 29.6%
Thursday 24.6%
Monday 23.2%

Sunday generates the fewest undeliverable bounces at 0.36% for newsletters sent on that date.
Average Undeliverable Rate by Sent Date: (lower is better) Sunday 0.36%
Saturday 0.45%
Friday 0.47%
Thursday 0.56%
Wednesday 0.77%
Tuesday 0.83%
Monday 0.88%

Monday is the most popular day of the week for customers to send their newsletters with 17.1% of newsletters being sent.
Percent of newsletters being sent by customers weekly: Monday 17.1%
Tuesday 17.0%
Thursday 16.2%
Wednesday 15.8%
Friday 14.5%
Saturday 10.3%
Sunday 9.0%

An 8:00 AM EST send time generates the highest open rate of 50.6%. Interestingly sending at 9:00 AM EST has a significantly lower open rate of 33.7% with the worst time to send being 3-4 AM at only 19% open rate.

Plain text messages are the most popular format of sending newsletters with 65.9% of all newsletters sent. Mime format Text/HTML messages follow at 23.8% and a remaining 10.2% of customers still send HTML only messages even though it is strongly recommended to always include a plain text version.

Plain text messages generate the fewest undeliverable bounces at 0.46%. Mime format Text/HTML follows at 0.56% and HTML only messages have a whopping 1.09% undeliverable rate. This is a significant reason behind our recommendation to always send a plain text alternative with HTML formatted messages.

Subject line personalization using the date generated an average open rate of 51.4% compared to personalization using the subscriber's first name generating 40.9% open rate. Newsletters sent without personalization of any type in the subject line generated average open rates of 28.9%.

17% of customer newsletter subject lines sent in the last 30 days contained date personalization while 19% used the subscriber's first name. 56.3% of subject lines did not contain any type of personalization. Interestingly, using the subscriber's full name or last name generated lower average open rates at 20%.

Statistics issued by Aweber Communication.

Avoid These Common 4 Affiliate Mistakes!

2006-02-12T16:14:00.000+07:00

Myths concerning affiliate marketing are appealing and attractive. People who do not know the entire system the wrong way round are prone to believing that it is something capable of giving them great fortune overnight. Stories concerning affiliates who earn tremendous amounts of money swim in their heads, and while these stories are as true as they can be, there are those who believe that they are going to have the same fortune once they indulge in this particular business.

It is true enough that affiliate marketing is financially rewarding. People who have gone through everything to be able to succeed in this business are reaping the seeds that they untiringly sowed. Many of them enjoy the kind of existence that was not possible for them to have had under ordinary circumstances. Having gone through the A-Z of affiliate marketing, however, these people are the ones who know that while such business is lucrative, there is absolutely no easy money in it.

Ignorance of this fact is one of the main reasons why there are people who fail miserably in the internet business. There are those who believe in myths concerning the easy money involved in systems such as affiliate marketing. They do not know that there are those who have wasted time, effort and too many resources in trying to pursue the life of ease that they believe this business will give them. And so they go into affiliate marketing armed with nothing but myths and fantastical notions of wealth swimming in their consciousness, never realizing that they bound to make mistakes that would prove to be their downfall.

What may be the reason why in businesses such as affiliate marketing, many are called but few are chosen? Perhaps the answer lies on the fact that many affiliates make mistakes that result from their ignorance of facts concerning how the entire business runs. Affiliate marketing is not as simple as an affiliate promoting a merchant’s wares through his website and getting paid for it. It is also about knowing the market and the customers at hand.

Discovering what the most common mistakes affiliates make can perhaps dispel the gloom about myths surrounding affiliate marketing by correcting some wrong notions about it. It might also be able to make those concerned understand that like any other business, there are dos and donts involved in this one if they want to make each of their steps count. The first common mistake affiliates make is their lack of knowledge concerning principles involved in their business. This refers to the affiliate’s knowledge of search engines in particular.

Affiliate marketing involves advertising, and advertising through the internet could not have been better without the existence of search engines. What every affiliate has to do is to make these search engines his best friend through studying search engine optimization closely. This way, he is able to know what to do in connection with building a better website to ultimately use for his business.

The second is that affiliates make the mistake of stuffing their sites with banners that do not provide enough information about the product at hand. The best way to battle this mistake is to provide good content hand-in-hand with such banners. It is important for customers to know and understand the features of a product, and good content will be able to help them realize this goal.

The third is that there are affiliates who make the mistake of promoting only one product. Consequently, customers are not given enough options to choose from. There is also the risk of generating fewer sales as compared to having more options for customers ponder about. It is always better to give them a few better alternatives than to give them only one.

The fourth is that there are affiliates who make the mistake of promoting too many products. As a result, customers are confused and end up beyond making a choice. It is perhaps good to give them only the best choices. This is because it is ultimately up to them to judge which one is the best for them to patronize.

All in all, affiliates that are doomed to fail in this business are those who do not exert enough effort to understand everything involved in the industry that they are in. Knowing their path step by careful step will prove to be beneficial to them, as there is no other way to succeed than to go through any path slowly but surely.

3 Easiest Ways For Newbies To Start Affiliate Marketing

2006-02-03T19:53:00.000+07:00

With the aid of the Internet, you can almost have everything right at your fingertips. With just a few clicks you get access to thousands and even millions of pieces of information and data on virtually any field of interest. As years pass by, the Internet continuous to effect radical changes in many facets of human endeavors, including commerce. Experts say that the information space, commonly known as the "world wide web," grows by over a million pages everyday as more and more people utilize the Internet for information, education, entertainment, business and other personal reasons. It doesn’t take a business-oriented individual to realize that this phenomenon can bring about sky-high financial gains. The Internet’s fast-growing popularity in the recent years is surely an opportunity for business that any entrepreneur would not want to miss.

You might be thinking only businessmen can make much money out of the Internet, don’t you? Think again. You too can earn big bucks through the Internet even if you don’t have products to sell and high-profile and established company. How? That is through affiliate marketing. You might have come across these words over the net while surfing. Affiliate marketing is a revenue sharing between a merchant and an affiliate who gets paid for referring or promoting the merchants’ products and services. It is one of the burgeoning industries nowadays because it is proven to be cost-efficient and quantifiable means of attaining great profit both for the merchant and the affiliate and other players in the affiliate program, such as the affiliate network or affiliate solution provider.

Affiliate marketing works effectively for the merchant and the affiliate. To the first, he gains opportunities to advertise his products to a larger market, which increases his chances to earn. The more affiliate websites or hard-working affiliates he gets, the more sales he can expect. By getting affiliates to market his products and services, he is saving himself time, effort and money in looking for possible markets and customers. When a client clicks on the link in the affiliate website, purchases the product, recommends it to others who look for the same item or buys it again, the merchant multiplies his chances of earning. On the other hand, the affiliate marketer benefits from each customer who clicks on the link in his website and who actually purchases the product or avails of the service provided by the merchant. In most cases, the affiliate gets commision per sale, which can be fixed percentage or fixed amount.

If you want to be an affiliate marketer and make fortunes out of the Internet, you may follow the following three most basic and easiest ways to start an effective affiliate marketing program. First is to identify a particular thing you are interested in or passionate about so you won’t be bored and forced to develop your affiliate web site later on. Focusing on a specific area you know very well will help you bring out your best without much risks and effort. You can add a personal touch to your site and give your visitors who are possible buyers an impression that you are an expert in your field. In this way, you gain their trust and eventually encourage them to buy the products you endorse. Next is to look for good paying merchants and products or services related to your interest and create now a website. In choosing the products, you must also consider its conversion rate—the number of visitors-turned-buyers. There are various affiliate networks and affiliate solution providers that can give you info on the most profitable products and best paying merchants. The key here is, be wise enough to choose the right one.

Now that you have decided where to concentrate, have chosen the products to endorse and the merchant you are supporting and have created your own web site with top level domain name and reliable hosting, you are ready to promote. This is a crucial task, since it is through this that you would be able to increase traffic to the business website, sales and of course, profit. In affiliate marketing, it is possible to earn large sums of money in a short span of time especially when you’re endorsing high-priced items. Expensive products are hard to sell; however, with the right marketing strategies and sales techniques, you can draw visitors to the merchant’s site and make them buy the products. How to promote the products, though, would need a separate discussion. Continue to educate yourself by reading books or other articles online about the best advertising techniques.

Keep in mind, there is no facile and quick path towards success. Affiliate marketing may seem very tempting due to numerous encouraging testimonies of merchants and affiliate marketers alike who have benefited from it, but it entails great deal of hard work and persistence. Likewise, you need to be creative, flexible and willing to embrace new ideas to market your partners’ products until you find the perfect strategy that works for a specific market that you are targeting. Neither signing up for an affiliate program nor copying ads and leading others towards the merchants’ site doesn’t guarantee success yet. Many affiliate marketers fail to understand this, so when they don’t make sales, they quit, look for other programs and repeat the same mistake. In the end, they conclude that affiliate marketing is just one of those scams in the Internet. Even as you sleep, you can work your way to great financial success if you employ the right strategies in affiliate marketing. Be creative, be smart and surely, you’ll achieve your goals.

Cheap Internet Hosting

2006-01-30T18:05:00.000+07:00

In this age of extreme competition, any company that wants to do well needs a strong presence on the World Wide Web. There are many Internet hosting firms all over the world, however, depending on your business and traffic you anticipate, you can find an efficient Internet service provider.

Before deciding in the Internet Hosting firm, it is important to determine the space web space you require. Most sites don’t need more than 100MB of space to carry on their day-to-day operations. Usually, you can get 1MB of space at around $0.10.

And check out your bandwidth requirements. Bandwidth is the speed at which data or graphics are transferred from your website to the user’s computer. Avoid a higher bandwidth unless you plan to transfer huge files like audio and video, or high-resolution images. The bandwidth is expressed in terms of Giga Bytes (GB) and ideally, one GB of bandwidth should not cost you more than $3 for an average website.

The server of the Internet Hosting Firm, where your website is located, should always be available. Opting for low cost hosting does not mean that you can afford your host server to be down most of the time! Visit websites on the host server for a while to check for availability. The uptime for a good Internet hosting server is at least 99%.

Apart from the technical aspects, look at the support from the Internet Hosting firm. You can estimate the level of support only after having dealt with the firm for sometime. So, avoid long-term contracts. Go for short-term contracts, say a month or so, and determine the quality of support. A short-term contract will also protect you if the host firm shuts down unexpectedly.
Keep these simple guidelines in mind so your experience with cheap Internet hosting can be effective as well as economical.

Cheap Internet Hosting provides detailed information about cheap internet hosting, dedicated internet hosting, and more. Cheap Internet Hosting is affiliated with PPC Search Advertising.

Few Great Tips On Domain Names

2006-01-30T17:57:00.000+07:00

If you are looking for making some extra money, you should look into the domain names field as reselling domain names can be a very good opportunity for improving for financial status. But under one condition: to plan your every step very well.

Nowadays, domain names registrars are everywhere. This is a good thing are more domain names registrars bring better services and stronger competition, but it also means lower domain name fees. And lower domain prices represent an easy way of getting into this business.
So, if you are already involved into an Internet-based business, you have to sell domain names too. Why? Because everyone is doing it: Web design firms, hosting companies and programming companies also sell domain names or domain name management services in order to improve their business offer.

But before jumping to this business opportunity, you should first be aware of the fact that the most important thing to do is to choose a domain name registrar. And if you want to be guaranteed with success, than you should decide on a registrar which has been approved by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The reason is simple: these companies have been legally authorized to create and sell domain names on a direct way basis. Otherwise, you would be reselling the domain names of another reseller, which means a more expensive registration process and a very unpleasant step back for your business.

And even after your have decided on a domain name registrar, there are some aspect that you should take into consideration.The first one regards volume discounts. You can make a lot of profit if you jump into the volume-based registration services opportunity but only if you have a very strong pricing and marketing strategy. This is a very profitable aspect of this business as the price for a domain decreases as the volume of sales goes up. But this has a negative side too: resellers have to sell a big amount of domain names before actually making a profit.Another important aspect is advertisement. This domain names reseller business may be inexpensive, but it is a very difficult job if you don’t have an active marketing strategy. You have to draw attention to your offer using all the advertisement tricks you can think of.

Upselling has to be taken into consideration too. You have to make sure you are keeping your entire customers close, as this is the trick to have recurring revenue. One method of achieving this is to persuade your customers into securing their domain names for more years instead of paying for them every year. The positive strategy of this move is the fact that you don’t have to worry about selling those domain names and you get money every year for sure. And there is also an advantage for the customers: they don’t have to renew the domain names every year. They do it once, for a longer period. But this approach comes with a catch: customers aren’t jumping into this deal because the price is rising as the period of the ownership is longer. If you want to outweigh this downside, keep you multi-year prices low.

Or you can go for the value-added services and partnerships opportunity. You can close partnership deals with other Internet service companies to offer some other services that will bring you more customers. The trick here is to diversify your business offer.

These are only some basic rules you should keep in mind when going into the domain names business. Remember that running a successful business in this field requires strategy, high-quality services and lot of work. And don’t forget that creativity will make you look different and more attractive to customers! So be active and creative!

For an established site to facilitate the buying and selling of domain names, cheap domain names, search domain names just visit us.

Making Money Online in 2006 - Part 1

2006-01-04T11:04:00.000+07:00

Dear Internet Friends,

So how's your holiday? Was it exciting?
Mine's great!

You know what...many people could not enjoy their vacations because they are stuck thinking about their businesses at home. That's why I love making money on the net soo much. It gives me freedom to choose my working hours, when to take a rest...and I think most of my days are just holidays!

And once you start and build your internet business correctly from the beginning, automate everything possible, you really could be making money while you're on vacations - or sleeping, and I'm not kidding!

So, what could be your way to earn high income through the internet?

You could:

1. Buy items from wholesalers and sell them online
2. Create your own product and sell them online
3. Sell and promote someone else's products and earn commissions

Option No.1 is more likely for big companies, unless you really have great Unique Selling Prepositions. Otherwise, this is not for you, believe me. If you are interested in this type of income generator, then you could use eBay to sell any items online.

If you are serious though, this type of internet marketing still could be your goldmine.

I know a regular guy from Nebraska that earns US$8 Million a year...selling everyday items on eBay. Wow!

What amazed me more is that he's done this succesfully without a website and a ton of start-up capital. He's not a computer techie either...

Well, if you want to learn more about his techniques, I suggest you read the complete report on:

Insider Secrets of an eBay Millionaire.

And for the two other options of making money on the net I mentioned above, just wait for my next posts..soon.

Building a Subscriber List with Articles

2005-11-29T12:51:00.000+07:00

Websites generate sales. That's the whole reason they exist for many people. And mailing lists also generate sales. Targeted mailing lists, especially, are valuable; the audience they are directed at have been identified as interested in a niche item, and are likely to have a higher per-piece sale ratio than an audience on a list generated from the phone book.

Did you know you could leverage the power of the targeted mailing list for your website sales? It's not spam; you will be asking people to express interest in you mailing them things before you send them anything. And it's a great way to get a list of people you can advertise to as well. What you're doing is building a subscriber list – a group of people who like what you offer on your web site so much they're willing to have their email box filled with more information from the site. And the primary tool you're going to use to do it is the excellent original article.

Generating the Interest

The first step in this unique method of creating a pool of targeted customers is to generate enough interest in your web site to make the customers want to get more. The best way to do this is by putting content-rich informative articles on your website.

Whether you write them, you hire someone to write them for you, or you get them from article broker like www.YourOwnArticles.com these articles should whet your customer's thirst for knowledge enough to get them to take the second step: signing up for a newsletter.

You can set the signup area as a form that emails the customer information back to you, where you'll be responsible for signing the customer up for the newsletter.

You can also set up an automated system using some freely-available software utilities – in essence, your customer's emails will bounce to the program sitting on your server, and the program itself will process the customer's request to be included on your email list.

No matter how you do it, ensure that the signup process is as simple, unobtrusive, and quick as possible. Customers asked to fill out lengthy forms or to jump through multiple email hoops aren't likely to finish the signup process.

Generating the Subscriber List

The list of emails you now have is your subscriber list. And those emails are really all you need to run your newsletter well, provided you have the content to insert into it. You will need to maintain the list, pruning out dead emails from time to time, and you should be responsive to any customer requests to be removed from the list as well.

How you maintain the list and email out the newsletter is up to you. You can create a group section on Yahoo Groups if you wish; this is one of the simplest methods of creating your group, but it also requires that your group emails include a Yahoo advertisement on each.

You can also create a group email distribution list in your home or online email as well, and send out your newsletter by hand when a new issue is ready. The newsletter doesn't have to be fancier than plain text, though you'll see a few corporate email newsletters done in HTML; the important part of the email is that you include good solid content that the subscribers crave.

Leveraging the Subscriber List

Now that you have a subscriber list, you can do all kinds of nifty things with it. You can offer subscriber-only sales and deals; this drives fresh sales to your site, while also making your subscribers feel special because they've been singled out to participate in the sale.

You can give them special discount coupons as well. Or you can sell ad space on your newsletter to other vendors. Never sell anything inappropriate for your website; for instance, if you sell sports equipment, gym shoes or tickets to sporting events would be appropriate, while information about lawnmowers would not be appropriate and would probably result in some annoyance among your customers.

Though you can sell advertising within your newsletter itself, you should never sell your subscriber's email list. Web consumers are pretty smart, and it's not hard to figure out that you've been selling their information to someone without their consent. This is more likely to drive customers away than to make them more loyal.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Cody Moya writes about Article Marketing in his free 50 partscourse on Article Marketing. You can sign up for his freeArticle Marketing Course and get additional information at his website: http://www.articlemarketingcourse.com

Which ONE Traffic/Sales Building Strategy Should You Choose?

2005-10-16T13:43:00.000+07:00

OK, so you have finally managed to get your business setup online. You have the three major components in place...

1. A product or service of your own (help with this step)
2. A website that converts visitors into buyers (more help)
3. A follow-up system that steadily grows your opt-in list (recommended system)

Now you want to start growing the traffic to your website, so you can steadily increase sales of your product or service.

But if you're like most small business owners, you have limited time and money for promotion. With that in mind, here is the one question you must answer...

Which ONE of the following traffic/sales building strategies should you focus the majority of your efforts on?

Getting good search engines ranking?
Setting up and maintaining a Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising campaign?
Setting up a blog and RSS feed?
Starting a viral article marketing campaign?
Utilizing traffic exchange networks?
Starting an affiliate program and seeking out JV partners?

You'll find the correct answer below this important announcement.

I've used all of the above strategies and had different levels of success with each one of them. And I do think that using each one will help grow your business. So today I'll speak briefly about each strategy.

Then I'll share how and why one strategy works FAR better than all the rest combined.

Getting good search engines rankings works well but is very difficult. Sure, the free traffic that good rankings can generate is certainly an attractive lure, but unless you are in a small niche, you can end up spending oodles of time and or money getting your site near the top of the major search engine results. And what can you do when search engines change their algorithms and your site drops? Nothing. The fact is, search engines have nearly all the control when you use this strategy and relying on search engines for the majority of your traffic is a mistake.

Setting up and maintaining a Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising campaign can bring immediate traffic to any website. But do you have any idea how much money you will need to spend if you are in a busy niche? Sure, Google Adwords is one of the best places to BUY traffic on the Internet, but small businesses need to focus on ways to get traffic without paying for it!

Setting up a blog and RSS feed is a solid strategy, and you'll find a myriad of books about "blog and ping" and rss as the future technology you cannot pass up. But the fact is, they are not the answer to high traffic and sales. They are merely technological tools developed for the purpose of distributing information. These technologies are not the Holy Grail of marketing, as many have professed.

Starting a viral article marketing campaign is a great way to get traffic for free. And it is one of my personal favorites. But let's face it, this strategy can be a lot of work. Sure, tools such as ArticleAnnouncer can speed the process and ease the learning curve, but many business owners simply do not have the time to dedicate to faithfully writing/acquiring articles and distributing them to websites and editors on a regular basis.

Utilizing viral traffic networks such as TrafficSwarm can bring lots of traffic to any site. In fact, I get literally thousands of visitors a month from TrafficSwarm so naturally I recommend it to me readers. That's because free traffic should always be utilized in small business, whenever possible. But the fact is, traffic from ANY such "traffic network" is commonly known to convert into sales at a lower percentage than traffic that comes from sources such as search engines, articles or personal recommendations.

Which leads me to the final strategy, a strategy that will work forever and works better than all the previous strategies combined -- if you know what you're doing...

Starting an affiliate program and seeking out JV partners is the most effective, longest lasting strategy for growing traffic and sales at your website.

I've started using this strategy more and more this year and the results have been phenomenal.

Getting started...

Setting up an affiliate program is pretty simple these days. I use my webbusinesswizard.com pro account to handle my own affiliate program but you can find dozens of low cost solutions by searching google.com for affiliate management solutions. The key is to choose a simple solution that you can get working in a day or two.

Once you have your affiliate program in place, you decide what percentage you want to pay affiliates (I suggest 30% as a minimum in this highly competitive environment) and then post a link for your website visitors to join. Once they join make sure they get access to lots of marketing tools such as banners, solo emails and sponsor ads. Also make sure you system follows up with them regularly to assist them in their efforts.

The real key is to get proactive with your affiliate recruitment.

Every day you should contact at least 3 or 4 owners of websites in niches similar to yours. Spend a little time at their site and if you like their product or service, tell them you want to promote it for them.

That's right!

Tell them you want to promote THEIR product? It's called Synergy.Dictionary.com defines "synergy" as: "The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects"

And that says it all, really.

You see, you should not be out there "pitching" potential super-affiliates. You know that tired ol' bit... "I have a new product and I'll give you X% of the profits if you'll promote it."

Frankly, webmasters are tiring of those pitches. In fact, I receive literally dozens of them every week now. I don't have time to even look at all those offers.

HOWEVER... (And this is the real twist that makes it effective)

When someone comes to me and says, "Hey Jim, I think I can sell lots of copies of your new software..." then I sit up and take notice. And that folks, is the #1 job of any JV offer.

So that's what you should be doing in your own efforts.

Of course, at the same time, you will also "introduce" a product of yours that would fit in well with their niche. Here's a sample letter you can use to make the first contact...

Subject: I'd like to promote your site

Hi {NAME},

My name is {NAME} and I own {WEBSITE}. I just found your site today and I believe many of my website visitors would find your {PRODUCT NAME} quite useful. Would you be interested in a little cross-promoting?

I'm confident I could bring you lots of fresh sales, and I'll pay you handsomely for any sales you generate of my product. Of course I'd be happy to send my product to you so that you can review it first. Just say the word and I'll get it right out.

Sincerely,
{YOUR NAME}

What you will find resulting time and time again is a JV-JV, or double joint venture, where you promote their product and they promote yours. Synergy. Increased sales. Call it what you want, it is very effective and profitable for both parties involved.

Here are a few tips to consider before you start using this strategy.

Tip #1: Make sure you have a top-notch product, service or opportunity to present BEFORE you start using this strategy. You'll need testimonials in place and you should also be willing to offer a complimentary review of your offering.

Tip #2: Stick to businesses that are NOT directly competing with you, but whose offerings are in the same niche. For example, if your site offers discount search engine submissions, don't try to hook up with another search engine submission site. Instead, try domain name registrars, web hosting companies, or similar sites.

Tip #3: Try to find other businesses whose traffic and subscriber lists are comparable to yours. A handy tool for determining this can be found at alexa.com. Remember, you'll want to show that you can make a comparable number of sales for them, and then back up that claim. So don't aim too high, but don't aim too low.

Again, this is a strategy that will work forever. It is not subject to being blocked by technology or becoming less effective over time, like many strategies. So if you are not yet using an affiliate program at your site, and actively seeking out potential partners on a regular basis, I suggest you start today.

* Article used with permission from Jim Daniels. Jim's free guide to website marketing and his website promotion help site show you how to get low-cost website traffic and make money online.

Autoreponders - Creative and Profitable Ways to Use Them

2005-09-24T17:36:00.000+07:00

An interested visitor who has been strolling through your site has finally come to just what she is looking for and is about to make a purchase. It's a sunny afternoon, and her cat, who happens to be sitting on the moss under the visitor's large fifty-year-old snow-rose bonsai tree, suddenly jumps down, and the priceless tree topples over.

In the blink of an eye, your visitor exits your site, and your sale is dust - unless you have had the foresight to utilize an autoresponder that has captured her email address. If you have installed an autoresponder, you can then follow-up with her, and in all probability, make the sale when the poor woman has finished repotting her precious bonsai.

Autoresponders are remarkable, versatile programs that do so much more than just automatically answer your email.

Here are a few ideas that will help you to creatively and productively use your autoresponder to transform the casual visitor into a profitable customer. Use your autoresponder to:

1. Publish a newsletter. Certain quality autoresponders will manage subscriptions and follow-up with interested prospects. Your newsletter can keep your visitors informed about your services or products, while building your reputation as a credible expert in your particular business.

2. Publish a newsletter only for your affiliates. Inform them of current sales you are running and of promotional material that your affiliates can use themselves to increase their commissions. Include tips, advice, and techniques that your affiliates can use to successfully go out and promote your business.

3. Write reviews. Cover books, software, music, e-books, movies, etc., and put each review in an autoresponder. Review your affiliate programs, using a link to your affiliate's page in your autoresponder.

4. Distribute your articles. Writing and distributing targeted articles is a powerful tool to build your business credibility, bring traffic to your site, and increase your sales potential. If your articles contain valuable information, many editors will print what is known as a resource box for you. A resource box contains your bio and a brief description of your service or product. It can also contain your autoresponder address. Let's say you've written fifty articles. Put them on separate autoresponder accounts and create a master list that contains the titles of each article, the autoresponder address, and a brief abstract. Then promote your master list. Additionally, include your publishing guidelines so your affiliates can add their articles to your list, increasing the number of writers who are represented in your article list.

5. Create mailing lists. Inform subscribers to your articles when you've written new ones that they may want to publish in their own newsletter or website.

6. Automate your sales process. Use an ad to insure repeated exposure of your message, which has been proven to effectively increase sales. In your ad, put your autoresponder address where a visitor will be exposed to numerous marketing materials. This multiplies the chances of converting visitors into customers. For example, if you're selling a particular product, put testimonials about how spectacular it is on your autoresponder, and add a detailed, enticing description of your product.

7. Distribute advertising. Let's say you sell advertising on your website or in your newsletter or e-zine. Set your autoresponder to send the information about rates and how to place an ad automatically to all prospects' email addresses. Then have your autoresponder follow-up. It can also send notification of any special deals you are currently offering.

8. Distribute an email course. Each day, have your autoresponder send out another lesson. Just be sure that each lesson has quality content - not a sales pitch. Your content will do the selling for you, and will do it much more effectively. You can include tips centered on a different topic for each lesson, illustrating how your product will benefit the reader. Include the tangible benefits the visitor will reap by purchasing your product. Make sure to include a paragraph or two at the end of each lesson enticing your prospect to consider making a purchase.

9. Automate a reminder about your service or product after a visitor has completed your course. This will increase the possibility of sales from visitors who have taken your course but are dragging their feet about actually making a purchase. You can also use these reminders to promote new products or services, and the products and services of your affiliate programs.

10. Distribute free reports. This gives your visitor an idea of the type of information you can provide and the quality of your product or service. Make sure these reports are not sales letters or you will more than likely lose a potential customer than gain a sale.

11. Create trivia quizzes on your site and place the answers in an autoresponder. Your visitor will then be motivated to request your autoresponder, and you will have a record of the visitors' email addresses who took your quiz. Or create a contest and have any visitors that enter send their responses to your autoresponder. Your autoresponder can be set-up to send them a confirmation of their entry.

12. Offer a trial version of your product. Give your prospects a sample of your ebook, course, software, membership, etc. People who are exposed to a little taste often end up wanting the whole pie. You can also capture their email addresses when you offer them a free trial from your website. Set up your autoresponder to give instructions on how to obtain their free trial, and then make sure to follow-up to try and close the sale.

13. Link to hidden pages on your autoresponder. For example, a hidden page could be your affiliate page that contains graphics, promotional articles, and text links that interested affiliates can make use of. Inform visitors that they may have free access to your affiliate page by simply requesting your autoresponder. You will then gather a list of visitors who may be interested in becoming your affiliates.

14. Use an autoresponder on your order page. Post a request form for visitors to be notified of special offers or discounts in the future. This creates a very effective mailing list that contains the names of people who are already your customers.

15. Put your links page on your autoresponder. It should contain up to fifty links that would be of particular interest to your visitors. Make sure to add your own promotional copy at the top or bottom of this page.

Now that you have proof that autoresponders can be used creatively, see if you can come up with some brilliant ideas of your own!

Introduction to Autoresponders

2005-09-22T17:35:00.000+07:00

If you've reached the point of exhaustion trying to keep up with answering the mountain of emails that threatens to bury you alive every single day, you're ready to learn about autoresponders.

The bad news is that people expect prompt replies to their email inquiries. However, unless you can figure out how to work continual twenty-four hour shifts, or hire enough people to constantly monitor incoming emails (while they're eating up your revenue), you have a problem. The good news is an autoresponder is an inexpensive - or even free - method of quickly responding to emails. What these programs do is automatically respond to incoming emails as soon as they are received.

Emails are essential to your business for many different reasons. Most importantly, these invisible email voices give you their feedback about your website - for free!

However, if you spend all your working hours answering these emails, how are you supposed to run your business?

The answer is simple: use autoresponders. Autoresponders are programs that automatically respond to your emails without you so much as having to click on your mouse.

There are a number of good reasons why you need an autoresponder besides just answering your email. For example, autoresponders can be used if you need a way to send information about your services or products, price lists, or if there are repeated questions asked across large numbers of emails. Maybe you want to offer your site visitors a special bonus of some kind, such as advice or relevant articles. All of this can be handled by an autoresponder. Additionally, you can advertise your business and then build stable relationships with your customers by using autoresponders.

Autoresponder programs vary from software that runs with your email program to a specialized script that runs on your web hosting company's server. This kind of script may use a web page form or simply operate with your email account. This kind of script is programmed to send out a standardized message whenever an email is received. The message is sent to a particular script or email address.

Some autoresponders can do more than simply send out standardized messages. They can send out an unlimited number of follow-up messages sent at predetermined interval of time. For example, you can set your autoresponder to send out a new message every day for as long a period as you desire.

There are numerous companies who offer autoresponders free of charge. Your website hosting company often provides autoresponders as a free service. If this is not the case with your web hosting company, there are numerous companies who offer this service for a small fee, or free of charge, providing you attach an advertisement for their company to your emails.

To personalize your autoresponder messages, you can attach a signature. Signatures in this case are much like business cards. You can include your name, company, all your contact numbers and addresses, and a brief message.

It's a good idea to attach a signature to every email that is sent out. This works as a repeated reminder of your business identity every time a customer sees it. The more they look at your signature, the more likely your company will spring to mind when your particular service or product is needed.

You can create a standardized signature that every employee in your business uses, or you can go wild, and let every staff member create their own personal signature. Of course, like everything in life, there are some rules and guidelines to creating a personal signature.

Keep the length of your signature between four to six lines of text, with no more than 70 characters in a single line. Make sure that your email program does not cut off your text! The content should include your name, your company name, your email address, fax number, and any other contact details, such as 800 numbers. Lastly, always include a short personal message about your company. It should be a subtle sell of your services or your products, and possibly your company's reliability and longevity.

Another specialized use of autoresponders is to create courses that you can then offer your site visitors for free. You must choose a topic in which you are an expert and that precisely targets your potential customers.

Once you have carefully chosen your subject, divide it into a number of different sub-topics. Then offer your site visitor a free 10 or 15 day course, each day offering a different sub-topic. The first topic should always be a welcome message to your site visitor and an explanation about what is to follow. Your explanation should be enticing, getting the point across that you are offering free, quality information that your target audience will find of great value.

With every lesson, include the number of the lesson, the topic title, information about your company and its services or products. At the end, include a few blurbs about the next lesson to entice the subscriber to continue on.

Make sure each topic is packed with essential and valuable information, and leaves the visitor lusting to know more. Otherwise, you may lose them in the very beginning.

Of course, you have to write up your course before you can offer it. Once you have done this, and gone over the material carefully, employing a professional writer or editor if necessary, you must transfer your text to your autoresponder.

There are a number of free autoresponders you can use. Try http:/www.getresponse.com, or http://www.fastfacts.net. Or go onto Google and you will find a long list of free autoresponder companies. Then sign-up for your chosen autoresponder. Once you do, you will receive instructions as to how to set it up and transfer your text.

Email is an excellent marketing tool; it is inexpensive and it is fast. Use it to advertise your business by choosing your email address carefully. Your website should contain different email addresses for different contact requests. For example, use info@yourdomain.com for information requests, or sales@yourdomain.com for questions about sales. It's a good idea to set up one for the owner, such as president@yourdomain.com. This presents your company in a personal, approachable light and insures that direct contact is provided.

Autoresponders are an effective and powerful marketing tool, allowing you to make contact with thousands of potential customers. This is an invaluable asset considering how many potential customers you usually have contact with before you make an actual sale.

Essentially, an autoresponser allows you to automate part of your marketing campaign.

Pay Per Click Advertising

2005-09-20T16:40:00.000+07:00

Advertising your services or products on the Internet is both extremely effective and extremely competitive. There are several ways to go about attracting traffic to your website; Pay-Per-Click is one of the options you can choose from, along with developing an SEO, or search engine optimization campaign. Both pay-per-click and SEO are targeted to get your website placed as close to the top of search engine results as possible. One of the differences is that it takes minutes to set up a pay-per-click campaign versus months for a good SEO campaign.

Pay-Per-Click is a simple type of paid advertising that most search engines, including some of the largest ones, now offer. It requires a bid for a "per-click" basis, which translates to your company paying the bid amount every time the search engine directs a visitor to your site. There is the added bonus that when a per-click site sends your website traffic, your site often appears in the results of other prevalent search engines.

As with all marketing campaigns, there are advantages and disadvantages. If you understand the process and monitor your pay-per-click campaign frequently, it can be very effective. One of the greatest advantages is that you never have to tweak your web pages to change your position in search engine results, as you must do in a typical SEO campaign. What you do have to do in a pay-per-click campaign is pay a fee.

Another advantage is the simplicity of the pay-per-click process. You just bid and you're up and running. It doesn't demand any specific technical knowledge, though the more you know about search engines and keywords, the easier - and more effective - the process will be.

The downside is that pay-per-click is essentially a bidding war. A higher bid than yours will lower your position on search engine results. This means that you will have to raise your bid to regain your position - which can obviously become quite expensive, especially if you are bidding on a popular keyword.

In order to determine if pay-per-click is a cost effective form of marketing for your business, you must do some computing to figure out how much each visitor to your site is worth. You can compute this value by dividing the profit you make on your website over a given period of time by the total number of visitors for that same time period. For example, if your site made $5,000 in profits and there were 2,5000 hits, each visitor would be theoretically worth 50 cents. The basic formula is profits divided by visitors.

The figure of 50 cents per visitor is the point at which your business breaks even. The idea, of course, is to show a profit, not to merely cover your costs. Therefore, you are aiming at a figure less than 50 cents per click.

Be aware that the most popular keywords often cost considerably more than 50 cents a click. The only way around this is to bid less for these phrases or you will be paying too much for each individual hit.

The key (pun intended) to success is to learn everything you can about search engine keyword research. The good news is there isn't a limit to the amount of keywords you can add to your bid because additional keywords do not add additional cost. This translates into a lot less hassle for you because there is no need to optimize your site to index a particular set of keywords.

Obviously, some keywords are much more effective than others are, but they will not cost you anything except time to set-up your account in your pay-per-click bid. Of the popular search engines that offer pay-per-click, one called Overture provides an online tool that will give you the data on how often particular keywords are entered into their search engine. They also offer suggestions for keywords after you enter a description of your site. In pay-per-click, this written description is crucial. You must understand that the object of your description is not to generally attract visitors, but to be as specific as possible so that only those visitors who are likely to buy our service or product go to your site. You must use expert marketing copy to guarantee that your description is both precise and enticing to attract the most ideal candidates to your site. This description is your most powerful tool to insure that your bid is profitable.

Another essential element of pay-per-click advertising is that you constantly monitor your bid. It is very important that you bear in mind that the results of the top search engines providing pay-per-click advertising, which are Overture and Adwords Select, usually appear on other popular search engines. Because of this, the competition for top ranking is intense, and very often you will find that the bidding price balloons too high for pay-per-click to yield a profit.

If this happens, it is advisable to withdraw your bid on that particular keyword and try another one. Remember: when you pay too much per click to make a profit, you are in essence losing the bidding war.

Since losing is not acceptable, you must have a plan in place to closely track the effectiveness of your keyword. It is advisable to monitor your keywords on at least a monthly basis.

Not only is careful monitoring important, but the analysis of visitor behavior can produce invaluable knowledge about consumer motivation, habits, and trends. Expert monitoring and consumer analysis is essential to your overall business needs, and will also insure that your pay-per-click campaign is a success.

Search Engine Rankings - Protect Yours!

2005-09-19T16:34:00.000+07:00

Your website's ranking on search engines is a vital element of your overall marketing campaign, and there are ways to improve your link popularity through legitimate methods.

Unfortunately, the Internet is populated by bands of dishonest webmasters seeking to improve their link popularity by faking out search engines.

The good news is that search engines have figured this out, and are now on guard for "spam" pages and sites that have increased their rankings by artificial methods. When a search engines tracks down such a site, that site is demoted in ranking or completely removed from the search engine's index.

The bad news is that some high quality, completely above-board sites are being mistaken for these web page criminals. Your page may be in danger of being caught up in the "spam" net and tossed from a search engine's index, even though you have done nothing to deserve such harsh treatment. But there are things you can do - and things you should be sure NOT to do - which will prevent this kind of misperception.

Link popularity is mostly based on the quality of sites you are linked to. Google pioneered this criteria for assigning website ranking, and virtually all search engines on the Internet now use it. There are legitimate ways to go about increasing your link popularity, but at the same time, you must be scrupulously careful about which sites you choose to link to. Google frequently imposes penalties on sites that have linked to other sites solely for the purpose of artificially boosting their link popularity. They have actually labeled these links "bad neighborhoods."

You can raise a toast to the fact that you cannot be penalized when a bad neighborhood links to your site; penalty happens only when you are the one sending out the link to a bad neighborhood. But you must check, and double-check, all the links that are active on your links page to make sure you haven't linked to a bad neighborhood.

The first thing to check out is whether or not the pages you have linked to have been penalized. The most direct way to do this is to download the Google toolbar at http://toolbar.google.com. You will then see that most pages are given a "Pagerank" which is represented by a sliding green scale on the Google toolbar.

Do not link to any site that shows no green at all on the scale. This is especially important when the scale is completely gray. It is more than likely that these pages have been penalized. If you are linked to these pages, you may catch their penalty, and like the flu, it may be difficult to recover from the infection.

There is no need to be afraid of linking to sites whose scale shows only a tiny sliver of green on their scale.

These sites have not been penalized, and their links may grow in value and popularity. However, do make sure that you closely monitor these kind of links to ascertain that at some point they do not sustain a penalty once you have linked up to them from your links page.

Another evil trick that illicit webmasters use to artificially boost their link popularity is the use of hidden text. Search engines usually use the words on web pages as a factor in forming their rankings, which means that if the text on your page contains your keywords, you have more of an opportunity to increase your search engine ranking than a page that does not contain text inclusive of keywords.

Some webmasters have gotten around this formula by hiding their keywords in such a way so that they are invisible to any visitors to their site. For example, they have used the keywords but made them the same color as the background color of the page, such as a plethora of white keywords on a white background. You cannot see these words with the human eye - but the eye of search engine spider can spot them easily! A spider is the program search engines use to index web pages, and when it sees these invisible words, it goes back and boosts that page's link ranking.

Webmasters may be brilliant and sometimes devious, but search engines have figured these tricks out. As soon as a search engine perceive the use of hidden text - splat! the page is penalized.

The downside of this is that sometimes the spider is a bit overzealous and will penalize a page by mistake. For example, if the background color of your page is gray, and you have placed gray text inside a black box, the spider will only take note of the gray text and assume you are employing hidden text. To avoid any risk of false penalty, simply direct your webmaster not to assign the same color to text as the background color of the page - ever!

Another potential problem that can result in a penalty is called "keyword stuffing." It is important to have your keywords appear in the text on your page, but sometimes you can go a little overboard in your enthusiasm to please those spiders. A search engine uses what is called "Keyphrase Density" to determine if a site is trying to artificially boost their ranking. This is the ratio of keywords to the rest of the words on the page. Search engines assign a limit to the number of times you can use a keyword before it decides you have overdone it and penalizes your site.

This ratio is quite high, so it is difficult to surpass without sounding as if you are stuttering - unless your keyword is part of your company name. If this is the case, it is easy for keyword density to soar. So, if your keyword is "renters insurance," be sure you don't use this phrase in every sentence. Carefully edit the text on your site so that the copy flows naturally and the keyword is not repeated incessantly. A good rule of thumb is your keyword should never appear in more than half the sentences on the page.

The final potential risk factor is known as "cloaking." To those of you who are diligent Trekkies, this concept should be easy to understand. For the rest of you cloaking is when the server directs a visitor to one page and a search engine spider to a different page. The page the spider sees is "cloaked" because it is invisible to regular traffic, and deliberately set-up to raise the site's search engine ranking. A cloaked page tries to feed the spider everything it needs to rocket that page's ranking to the top of the list.

It is natural that search engines have responded to this act of deception with extreme enmity, imposing steep penalties on these sites. The problem on your end is that sometimes pages are cloaked for legitimate reasons, such as prevention against the theft of code, often referred to as "pagejacking." This kind of shielding is unnecessary these days due to the use of "off page" elements, such as link popularity, that cannot be stolen.

To be on the safe side, be sure that your webmaster is aware that absolutely no cloaking is acceptable. Make sure the webmaster understands that cloaking of any kind will put your website at great risk.

Just as you must be diligent in increasing your link popularity and your ranking, you must be equally diligent to avoid being unfairly penalized. So be sure to monitor your site closely and avoid any appearance of artificially boosting your rankings.

Monitoring Search Engine Positions

2005-09-17T16:28:00.000+07:00

Since search engines are the first stop for people on the Internet looking for goods or services, the position your website appears in search results is an important factor.

If your URL shows up far down the results list, the chances of the consumer never finding you increase incrementally.

Once you achieve a high search engine position, it is essential that you make sure you maintain the high ranking you have worked so hard to achieve.

This means you must come up with a strategy to monitor your search engines positions. This strategy is crucial to the success of any marketing campaign. Think of your search engine positions as your online portfolio. Would you let your stock portfolio be ruled by chance and market fluctuations, or would you keep close tabs on your stocks so you could buy and sell when the time is right? This is the way you must consider your search engines positions.

Be aware that at first, after you have launched your search engine campaign and done all the right things to increase your rankings, you will most likely see a continual upward climb. What you need to be on the lookout for is the moment that upward climb reaches a plateau. When this happens, your search engine position campaign moves into stage two, the monitoring and protecting stage.

In stage two, do not be concerned about the short-term fluctuations in your positions. These are similar to the subtle rising and falling of stocks in a portfolio.

Short-term movement is an integral part of the whole process. It's the long-term changes that you must watch for and prepare to act on immediately.

Analyzing the long-term trends of search engines positions is imperative. The way in which search engines rank websites may change at the drop of hat. If you are unaware of these changes - many of which are subtle yet can be deadly to your ranking - your position may drop to the bottom of the list before you can get your bearings. To prevent this kind of precipitous drop, you must create a system to monitor your positions on a monthly basis. Devise a chart to keep tabs on your top ranking positions or your top pages, and make sure to watch "the market" closely.

Each search engine uses a formula to compute website rankings. When a search engine changes this formula in any way, it may raise or lower your ranking. Some search engines use a number of different formulas, rotating them so that a formula doesn't become overused or outdated.

Depending on which formula is being applied, your search engine position may suddenly drop or rise in rank significantly. Therefore, you must check your positions frequently in order to catch when a search engine changes formulas and what effect it has on your positions.

You must also deal with your competition - a crucial factor you must always be vigilant about. Your competitor's position may suddenly rise, automatically lowering your position. Or their position may drop, pushing your position higher. Each month, expect position changes due to the continual changes that are occurring in your competitor's position, and be prepared to adjust your marketing strategy to compensate for decreased rankings. Monitoring these fluctuations will also give you vital information about how to improve your website to increase your position in search results.

Of course, you must discern what the most popular search engines are in order for your monitoring efforts to be effective. Right now, there are ten popular search engines that direct most of Internet traffic to your sites. The challenge you face is that these top ten may change from month to month.

This means that your must not only monitor your search engine positions, but you must also keep track of the ranking popularity of the search engines you are monitoring. Find out which search engines people use most frequently every month and be sure to live in the present!

People are fickle about their favorite search engines, and it takes constant vigilance to follow their dalliances. The search engines they loved when you first launched your campaign may be old news in the next few months. You must adjust your list of engines according to the whims of the Internet users.

Check out http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/netratings.html for a current list of website favorites.

Another factor to monitor carefully is a sudden drop of your positions in all search engines. This is not the same as monthly fluctuations - this is a neon red warning sign!

It could mean a number of different things. It all your search engine positions have plummeted, it may indicate that search engines spiders - those sneaky programs that seek out your site and rank their positions - have found some type of problem with your website.

If you have recently changed the code, for instance, the spider may become utterly confused and consequently drop your positions disastrously. If a spider creeps up on your website when it is down for adjustments or changes, you may actually disappear from a search engine index entirely. Or a search engine may drastically change its formula, and suddenly all of your website come up as irrelevant. If that search engine is a current favorite, it may create a domino effect, causing all of your position to drop in all search engines.

Some search engines rely on the results from other search engines, and it is vital that you know which engines these are and keep track of all the engines they influence. The biggest problem here is that search engines will sometimes change affiliations, and this can create a major shift in the geography of the Internet. For example, recently Yahoo decided to display only results gleaned from Google. So you must not only monitor your own positions, but you must keep abreast of seismic shifts in the landscape of the Internet as a whole.

Finally, pay attention to your keywords. Keywords are the foundation bricks of the entire search engine system, and they demand individual scrutiny in your monitoring efforts. If you have found that a number of your positions have plummeted, it may mean that a page of your website has become invisible or inaccessible to search engine spiders.

Or the competition for that particular keyword or phrase has recently rocketed into outer space. In either case, you must act quickly and efficiently to regain lost ground.

Your search engine marketing campaign is an investment. If costs you time and money on a continual basis. Protect this investment as diligently as you would your financial portfolio. In the same way, track your positions from an objective perspective, and monitor your positions on a regular basis. Make sure your time and effort reap rewards by keeping your eye on the big picture - your long-term marketing campaign.

Search Engine Optimization Company - How to Choose the Right One

2005-09-16T16:22:00.000+07:00

A Search Engine Optimization Company can be an invaluable asset in your Internet marketing campaign. They specialize in knowing how to raise your search engine positions, monitoring those positions on the regular basis, and adjusting their strategies to account for undesirable results in any given month. Since this takes a lot of time, effort, and specialized knowledge, it can be in your best interest to go to an outside source rather than try to maintain high search engine positions on your own.

However, like every business, there are good companies and there are lemons. Knowing the right questions to ask and the criteria to look for will help you in choosing an affordable, effective search engine optimization company.

When looking at different companies, begin by considering the approach they employ to raise your search engine positions. Steer clear of companies that use cloaked, doorway, or bridge pages to raise your positions. These techniques violate most search engine policy, and in the worst case scenario, will only get your website severely penalized, if not removed entirely from a search engine's index.

A cloaked page is a page that is created which is invisible to the regular visitor to your website. The cloaked page is coded to detect a search engine spider and divert them to this special page, which is set-up to artificially boost your search engine position. Doorway or bridge pages utilize the same concept, but often reside on an entirely different server. Google, one of the largest and most important search engine on the Internet, will remove your website from their index if they detect you have cloaked pages. Never, never employ any company that uses this technique!

Another important element is to get a guarantee that the company you hire will not work with your competitors while they are working for you. Obviously, this would seriously compromise the effectiveness of the search engine optimization campaign. Be aware that some companies will use the success they achieve for your website to sell their services to your competitors. So get your guarantee in writing, and make sure it is legally binding.

Of course, one of the most important factors you want to check out is the company's track record of results.

However, don't take the company's word for it. They will undoubtedly be slanting their results in order to sell their services to you. To go beyond their simple statement of success, ask them a few pertinent questions, and verify their answers.

Ask them which engines they have achieved the best results on. The ones that are important are the most popular engines, and these are the ones you want to see good results on. Since the popularity of search engines can change with the landscape of the overall Internet, check out the Nielsen Netratings page at Search Engine Watch. You can access this at http://www.searchenginewatch.com/article.php/2156451.

Next, find out what keywords and phrases they are claiming great results with. It's easy to get high rankings with unpopular words. For instance, the keyword "cat leashes" will get high popularity ranking because no one else would think of using it. What you are looking for is good results using popular keywords. Check out the software Wordtracker, available at www.wordtracker.com. You can order a free trial, or a subscription ranging from 1 day to 1 year. This software rates the popularity of keywords and phrases based on actual search engine use.

Next, look for good results over an entire site that the company claims to have successfully worked for. You want to see a wide range of positions over a number of different search engines using different keywords or phrases for the entire site. Request a report for any client the company claims to have done well for. This report should show good positions on a number of the most popular search engines for a variety of different, popular keywords and phrases.

When you are checking out search engine optimization companies, make sure they have actually done the work they are claiming to have done. Some companies will use other company's results in order to get you to sign on with them.

If you are in doubt, call the company they are showing you results for, and ask for the name of their search engine optimization company.

It's important to keep in mind that a successful search engine optimization campaign will result in maximum exposure across a wide range of popular search engines using a variety of keywords and phrases. This is the formula for a successful campaign, and you should keep it always in the forefront of your marketing strategy.

Ask the search engine optimization company you are considering for a report that shows you rankings across a number of popular search engines for a period of at least six months. Remember: search engine marketing is a process that is continual, and you need a company that not only understands this, but keeps constant tabs on your search engine positions. That company must also be able to adjust its strategy in the event that search engine rankings drop.

Since search engine marketing is an on-going process, your positions must be constantly monitored. If you want your search engine optimization company to do this for you, request a sample of a monthly report. It is essential that this report should show rankings for the most popular search engines. Don't be impressed by a report that only shows great results for a limited number of small search engines. These are fairly easy results to acquire.

Also confirm that the popular search engine results they are showing you are indeed the popular search engines currently.

Be sure the sample report the company shows you is in a format that you can easily understand. For example, it could be in the form of a chart that covers a period of at least six months and presents data such as the top 50 positions broken down on a monthly basis or the top 5 pages each month. Then, ascertain that the company you re considering actually monitors these positions or pages every month, and that the sample report they show you includes findings and recommendations for the specific site. This insures that the company will actively monitor and make adjustments to their strategy on a continual basis rather than simply gather statistics on your positions.

You need a company that is actively participant in your search engine marketing campaign, not just an information gatherer.

Obviously, your finances have to figure into your choice of company, but bear in mind that a search engine optimization company is crucial the success of your marketing campaign. It is not just a casual accessory. If you cannot afford a company that will do a thorough and reliable job for your website, you might consider waiting until you do have the finances in place.

If you have to find a company and can't wait for your finances to catch up, you may be able to find an affordable company that will also be able to supply quality, reliable work, such as a fairly new company. Just remember that there are risks involved with using a company without a proven track record - and that risk is your money! Don't take that leap unless the company can supply you with a least a few references.

References are the most reliable indicator of a good company. Don't use a company that won't show your references because of any reason, confidentiality included.

Remember - even doctors will provide references! The firm you choose should provide you with a minimum of two references, one that is from the past, and one that is current.

When you contact these references, be prepared to ask precise, specific questions so that neither of your time is wasted. Ask them what their experience was like with the company, such as their availability to answer questions and deal with problems and their ability to meet deadlines. Ask the reference to rate the overall performance of the company.

Find out if the company requested that the reference make significant changes to their web pages that affected the visitors coming to their site. You are looking for a search engine optimization company that can balance the needs of both search engines and site visitors without compromising either.

The most essential question to ask is whether the work of the search engine optimization company resulted in higher profits for the reference. Without profits, it doesn't matter whether your positions are at the top of the list or not.

Search Engine Keywords Selection

2005-09-15T16:16:00.000+07:00

Search engines are the vehicles that drive potential customers to your websites. But in order for visitors to reach their destination - your website - you need to provide them with specific and effective signs that will direct them right to your site. You do this by creating carefully chosen keywords.

Think of the right keywords as the Open Sesame! of the Internet. Find the exactly right words or phrases, and presto! hoards of traffic will be pulling up to your front door. But if your keywords are too general or too over-used, the possibility of visitors actually making it all the way to your site - or of seeing any real profits from the visitors that do arrive - decreases dramatically.

Your keywords serve as the foundation of your marketing strategy. If they are not chosen with great precision, no matter how aggressive your marketing campaign may be, the right people may never get the chance to find out about it.

So your first step in plotting your strategy is to gather and evaluate keywords and phrases.

You probably think you already know EXACTLY the right words for your search phrases. Unfortunately, if you haven't followed certain specific steps, you are probably WRONG.

It's hard to be objective when you are right in the center of your business network, which is the reason that you may not be able to choose the most efficient keywords from the inside. You need to be able to think like your customers.

And since you are a business owner and not the consumer, your best bet is to go directly to the source. Instead of plunging in and scribbling down a list of potential search words and phrases yourself, ask for words from as many potential customers as you can. You will most likely find out that your understanding of your business and your customers' understanding is significantly different.

The consumer is an invaluable resource. You will find the words you accumulate from them are words and phrases you probably never would have considered from deep inside the trenches of your business.

Only after you have gathered as many words and phrases from outside resources should you add your own keyword to the list. Once you have this list in hand, you are ready for the next step: evaluation.

The aim of evaluation is to narrow down your list to a small number of words and phrases that will direct the highest number of quality visitors to your website. By "quality visitors" I mean those consumers who are most likely to make a purchase rather than just cruise around your site and take off for greener pastures. In evaluating the effectiveness of keywords, bear in mind three elements: popularity, specificity, and motivation.

Popularity is the easiest to evaluate because it is an objective quality. The more popular your keyword is, the more likely the chances are that it will be typed into a search engine which will then bring up your URL.

You can now purchase software that will rate the popularity of keywords and phrases by giving words a number rating based on real search engine activity. Software such as WordTracker will even suggest variations of your words and phrases. The higher the number this software assigns to a given keyword, the more traffic you can logically expect to be directed to your site. The only fallacy with this concept is the more popular the keyword is, the greater the search engine position you will need to obtain. If you are down at the bottom of the search results, the consumer will probably never scroll down to find you.

Popularity isn't enough to declare a keyword a good choice. You must move on to the next criteria, which is specificity. The more specific your keyword is, the greater the likelihood that the consumer who is ready to purchase your goods or services will find you.

Let's look at a hypothetical example. Imagine that you have obtained popularity rankings for the keyword "automobile companies." However, you company specializes in bodywork only. The keyword "automobile body shops" would rank lower on the popularity scale than "automobile companies," but it would nevertheless serve you much better. Instead of getting a slew of people interested in everything from buying a car to changing their oil filters, you will get only those consumers with trashed front ends or crumpled fenders being directed to your site. In other words, consumers ready to buy your services are the ones who will immediately find you. Not only that, but the greater the specificity of your keyword is, the less competition you will face.

The third factor is consumer motivation. Once again, this requires putting yourself inside the mind of the customer rather than the seller to figure out what motivation prompts a person looking for a service or product to type in a particular word or phrase.

Let's look at another example, such as a consumer who is searching for a job as an IT manager in a new city. If you have to choose between "Seattle job listings" and "Seattle IT recruiters" which do you think will benefit the consumer more? If you were looking for this type of specific job, which keyword would you type in? The second one, of course! Using the second keyword targets people who have decided on their career, have the necessary experience, and are ready to enlist you as their recruiter, rather than someone just out of school who is casually trying to figure out what to do with his or her life in between beer parties. You want to find people who are ready to act or make a purchase, and this requires subtle tinkering of your keywords until your find the most specific and directly targeted phrases to bring the most motivated traffic to you site.

Once you have chosen your keywords, your work is not done. You must continually evaluate performance across a variety of search engines, bearing in mind that times and trends change, as does popular lingo. You cannot rely on your log traffic analysis alone because it will not tell you how many of your visitors actually made a purchase.

Luckily, some new tools have been invented to help you judge the effectiveness of your keywords in individual search engines. There is now software available that analyzes consumer behavior in relation to consumer traffic.

This allows you to discern which keywords are bringing you the most valuable customers.

This is an essential concept: numbers alone do not make a good keyword; profits per visitor do. You need to find keywords that direct consumers to your site who actually buy your product, fill out your forms, or download your product. This is the most important factor in evaluating the efficacy of a keyword or phrase, and should be the sword you wield when discarding and replacing ineffective or inefficient keywords with keywords that bring in better profits.

Ongoing analysis of tested keywords is the formula for search engine success. This may sound like a lot of work - and it is! But the amount of informed effort you put into your keyword campaign is what will ultimately generate your business' rewards.

Paid URL Inclusion

2005-09-14T14:13:00.000+07:00

There are many ways to promote your website and one of the most efficient ways is to use search engines. Search engines are the first stop for most people trying to find information, services, and products online. Because of this, it is essential that your website appears quickly in search results.

The Internet contains numerous search engines, some of which offer what is known as "paid inclusion." This means that you pay the specific search engine an annual fee for your web page to be included in their index.

Of course, every search engine already has an automated program commonly called a "spider" that indexes all the web pages it locates online, and it does this for free. So whether you pay or not, your web page will eventually be indexed by all Internet search engines, as long as the spider can follow a link to your page. The major issue is, then, how quickly your page is indexed.

A search engine that offers a paid URL inclusion uses an extra spider that is programmed to index the particular pages that have been paid for. The difference between the spider that indexes pages for free and the spider that indexes only pages for a fee is speed. If you have paid for inclusion, the additional search engine spider will index your page immediately.

The debate over paid URL inclusion centers around the annual fee. Since the regular spider of these search engines would eventually get around to indexing your web page anyway, why is a renewal fee necessary? The fee is necessary to keep your pages in the search engine's index.

If you go the route of paid inclusion, you should be aware that at the end of the pay period, on some search engines, your page will be removed from their index for a certain amount of time.

It's easy to get confused about whether you would benefit from paid inclusion since the spider of any search engine will eventually index your page without the additional cost. There are both advantages and disadvantages to paid URL inclusion, and it is only by weighing your pros and cons that you will be able to decide whether to spring for the extra cash or not.

The advantages are obvious: rapid inclusion and rapid re-indexing. Paid inclusion means that your pages will be indexed quickly and added to search results in a very short time after you have paid the fee. The time difference between when the regular spider will index your pages and when the paid spider will is a matter of months. The spider for paid inclusion usually indexes your pages in a day or two. Be aware that if you have no incoming links to your pages, the regular spider will never locate them at all.

Additionally, paid inclusion spiders will go back to your pages often, sometimes even daily. The advantage of this is that you can update your pages constantly to improve the ranking in which they appear in search engines, and the paid URL inclusion spider will show that result in a matter of days.

First and foremost, the disadvantage is the cost. For a ten page website, the costs of paid URL inclusion range from $170 for Fast/Lycos to $600 for Altavista, and you have to pay each engine their annual fee. How relevant the cost factor is will depend on your company.

Another, and perhaps more important, disadvantage is the limited reach of paid URL inclusions. The largest search engines, Google, Yahoo, and AOL, do not offer paid URL inclusion. That means that the search engines you choose to pay an inclusion fee will amount to a small fraction of the traffic to your site on a daily basis.

Google usually updates its index every month, and there is no way you can speed up this process. You will have to wait for the Google spider to index your new pages no matter how many other search engines you have paid to update their index daily. Be aware that it is only after Google updates their index that your pages will show up in Google, Yahoo, or AOL results.

One way to figure out whether paid URL inclusion is a good deal for your company is to consider some common factors.

First, find out if search engines have already indexed your pages. To do this, you may have to enter a number of different keywords, but the quickest way to find out is to enter your URL address in quotes. If your pages appear when you enter the URL address but do not appear when you enter keywords, using paid inclusion will not be beneficial. This is because your pages have already been indexed and ranked by the regular spider. If this is the case, your money would be better spent by updating your pages to improve your ranking in search results.

Once you accomplish this, you can then consider using paid inclusion if you want to speed up the time it will take for the regular spider to revisit your pages.

The most important factor in deciding whether to use paid URL inclusion is to decide if it's a good investment. To figure this out, you have to look at the overall picture: what kind of product or service are you selling and how much traffic are you dependent on to see a profit?

If your company sells an inexpensive product that requires a large volume of traffic to your site, paid inclusion may not be the best investment for you; the biggest search engines do not offer it, and they are the engines that will bring you the majority of hits. On the other hand, if you have a business that offers an expensive service or product and requires a certain quality of traffic to your site, a paid URL inclusion is most likely an excellent investment.

Another factor is whether or not your pages are updated frequently. If the content changes on a daily or weekly basis, paid inclusion will insure that your new pages are indexed often and quickly. The new content is indexed by the paid spider and then appears when new relevant keywords are entered in the search engines. Using paid inclusion in this case will guarantee that your pages are being indexed in a timely manner.

You should also base your decision on whether or not your pages are dynamically generated. These types of pages are often difficult for regular spiders to locate and index. Paying to include the most important pages of a dynamically generated website will insure that the paid spider will index them.

Sometimes a regular spider will drop pages from its search engine, although these pages usually reappear in a few months. There are a number of reasons why this can happen, but by using paid URL inclusion, you will avoid the possibility. Paid URL inclusion guarantees that your pages are indexed, and if they are inadvertently dropped, the search engine will be on the lookout to locate them immediately.

As you can see, there are numerous factors to consider when it comes to paid URL inclusion. It can be a valuable investment depending on your situation. Evaluate your business needs and your website to determine if paid URL inclusion is a wise investment for your business goals.

Increasing Link Popularity

2005-09-13T14:08:00.000+07:00

Search engines are the gateway to the Internet; they are the first tool that potential customers use to find the products and services they need. This is why link popularity is so imperative. If the customers do not find your website, you have no possibilities of making any sales.

You're probably wondering what the blazes is popular about a link! Well, in a word - plenty! Link popularity refers to the ranking assigned to your website by the search engines, and it determines the ranking your page gets when keywords are entered into a search engine. So, you're probably wondering, how do I make my link popular?

Search engines are discretionary, giving status and ranking to sites that have links to their pages from related, quality sites. It's a simple formula, but a very important one. Google created the system, and now virtually all the most popular search engines employ it to rank your web pages in their indexes.

The more commonly used your keyword is, the harder it will be to achieve link popularity, but without achieving this step, it is almost certain your site will never rank highly on any search engine. But don't be discouraged; there are tried and true ways of achieving link popularity using the most competitive keywords.

There are a few things you should be aware of. The first is that just linking up with a large number of other websites will not achieve link popularity. In fact, it may have quite the opposite effect. This is particularly true when pertaining to websites that are nothing more than "link farms" - pages containing line after line of indiscriminate links. Search engines may aggressively discriminate against your website if you are associated with a link farm, so steer clear of them!

The next thing to bear in mind is the quality of the site you are linking to. Never link to a page you have reservations about your visitors seeing. The last thing you want your website to appear as is indiscriminate and cheap.

Linking to sites of poor quality will only lessen your link popularity, if not completely destroy it.

So let's get to what you need to do to achieve supreme link popularity and improve your rankings to stellar status on all the popular search engines.

The first step, and the fastest way to get your foot in the door, is to get a listing in a popular directory, such as Open Directory Project and Yahoo. If your site is business-related, you will want to be listed on Yahoo, and despite the fact that it will cost you around $300 a year, it will be money well spent. If your site is non-commercial, the listing will be free, but it will take time and follow-up to actually get it listed. Open Directory is gives you a free listing whether you are business-related or non-commercial, but be prepared to make a lot of follow-up inquiries before you see your site listed.

You are aiming to get listed in the highest level of appropriate category, and this just takes some common sense. For example, if your company ships Alpaca wool from an Alpaca farm located in the middle of Nowhere, Tiny State, do NOT submit your listing to "Retailers from Nowhere, Tiny State." BIG MISTAKE! All you have to do is look a little deeper - and submit your listing to the "Fine Alpaca Wool" category. You will not only associate yourself with culture and quality, but you will be listed in a national category.

The next step after you have attained directory listings is to locate other quality sites that will increase your link popularity. Try to find sites that are in some way related to yours, so not only will your link popularity increase, but your customer base may also be expanded. You want to avoid your competitors and look for sites that are useful to your site's visitors. Let's look at the Alpaca Wool site example. Linking up to a site that sells knitting supplies would be helpful to your visitors, and the chances of the knitting supply site wanting to link up to your site are also greater. By linking to a related site that will be relevant to your website's traffic, you are increasing both of your site's business prospects - and both of your sites' link popularity.

Not all sites want to link to other sites, so you will have to do some research when you are looking for possible linking partners. Google is an excellent starting place for your search. Make sure you enter keywords that you think quality customers will also enter to find your own site. Remember, your criteria are quality, highly ranked, non-competing websites that have a links or resources page.

Go to these sites and objectively assess them. Look at the quality of the product, the graphics, and the ease of use. Then check out the other sites they are linked to, and determine if your own site would fit in with the crowd. When you decide you have found a good prospect, you must set out to woo them. The first thing to do is to add a link on your own links page to their site. This is an essential first step; it shows good faith, and ups your chances significantly of their reciprocity. After you have added their link, you must contact the webmaster of their site.

Since this is almost always done by email, you want to make sure it is immediately clear that your message is not junk mail. This requires that you tell them right off the bat that you have added a link to their page on your site. A hook like this almost always insures the reader will read on.

Next, be sure to be flattering and let them know how much you appreciate their website. Make sure you emphasize that you have actually visited their site, and that their site is not just a random pick. Give them the address of your links page, and ask them to check out the link for themselves. It's a good idea to mention that they will not only benefit from the increased traffic your website will direct their way, but you will also increase their link popularity. Briefly, explain why link popularity is so essential, but do this in a sentence or two so you don't sound like a professor! Finally, tell them you would greatly appreciate if they would reciprocally add a link on their own links page to your website.

Go through this process with as many appropriate sites as you can find, bearing in mind the criteria of quality and non-competitiveness. After you have emailed all relevant sites, be sure to check these website frequently to see if they have added a link to your page. Give it about a month, and if no link appears, try another charming email. Then give it another month, and if your site is still absent from their links page, it's time to remove their link from your own links page. The only time you want to pursue a link further than this is if you believe a site is crucial to your link popularity and your business needs. Just remember to keep all your communications complimentary and cordial.

Then set up a schedule to check your ranking in search engines frequently to see if your link popularity has improved. This is not achievable in the blink of an eye. It will take some time and a good deal of work. There is no way around the labor-intensive quality of improving your link popularity, which is why search engines regard it with such importance.

By the way - make sure you have a beautiful, streamlined site or you will never persuade anyone to link up to you.

Be prepared to keep plugging away at this process, as long as it takes, until you achieve link popularity stardom!

Search Engine Ranking - How to Increase Yours

2005-09-12T14:00:00.000+07:00

The methods employed to increase your search engine rankings may seem like rocket science to you, so you have probably avoided dealing with this issue. I am here to tell you - the time has come to face your website! A high search engine ranking for your website is so essential that if you have the slightest desire to actually succeed in your business, there is no way you can continue to avoid this issue.

At least 85% of people looking for goods and services on the Internet find websites through search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The idea of optimizing your pages for high search engine rankings is to attract targeted customers to your site who will be more than likely to make a purchase. The higher your page comes up in search engine results, the greater the traffic that is directed to your website. That's what search engine optimization is about.

You can immerse yourself in all the technical information available online to figure out how to optimize your web pages to achieve higher rankings. Or you can look at a few simple items on your pages, make some small adjustments, and most likely see improved rankings quite rapidly. The first item you should examine is the title bar on your homepage.

The title bar is the colored bar at the top of the page. Look at the words that appear there when you access your home page. To increase search engine rankings, the words on your homepage's title bar should include the most important keywords or phrases, one of which would include your company name.

Then click on all your links and examine the title bars on the pages you access. Each title bar on every single page of your site should contain the most important keywords and phrases taken from the page itself. However, avoid very long strings of keywords, keeping them to six words or less. Avoid repeating keywords more than once in the title bars, and make sure that identical words are not next to each other.

The next item to put under your microscope is your website content. Search engines generally list sites that contain quality content rather than scintillating graphics. The text on your site must contain the most important keywords - the words that potential customers will be typing into search engines to find your site.

Aim to have around 250 words on each page, but if this is not desirable due to your design, aim for at least 100 carefully chosen words. If you want to achieve a high ranking on search engines, this text is essential. However, the search engines must be able to read the text, meaning that the text must be in HTML and not graphic format.

To find out if your text is in HTML format, take your cursor and try to highlight a word or two. If you are able to do this, the text is HTML. If the text will not highlight, it is probably in graphic form. In this case, ask your webmaster to change the text into HTML format in order to increase your search engine rankings.

Next we come to what is called meta tags. I know this sounds like something out of science fiction, but it is really just simple code. Many people believe that meta tags are the key to high search engine rankings, but in reality, they only have a limited effect. Still, it's worth adding them in the event that a search engine will use meta tags in their ranking formula.

To find out if your page is set up with meta tags, you must access the code. To do this, click the "view" button on the browser menu bar, and select "source." This will pull up a window revealing the underlying code that created the page.

If there are meta tags, they usually appear near the top of the window. For example, a meta tag would read: meta name="keywords" content=. If you do not find code that reads like this, ask your webmaster to put them in. This may not do much for your search engine rankings, but any little boost helps.

Lastly, we come to the issue of link popularity. This is a factor that is extremely important in terms of search engine rankings. Almost all search engines use link popularity to rank your website. Link popularity is based on the quality of the sites you have linked to from your links page.

If you type in "free link popularity check" in a popular search engine, the search engine will then show you what sites are linked to your site. In the case that there aren't many sites linked up to yours, or that the sites that are linked up have low search engine rankings, consider launching a link popularity campaign. Essentially, this entails contacting quality sites and requesting that they exchange links with your site. Of course, this requires checking out the rankings of the websites you want to link up with. Linking to popular, quality sites not only boosts your search engine ranking, but it also directs more quality traffic to your website.

Search engine rankings are extremely important for a successful Internet marketing campaign. Before you go out and hire a search engine optimization company, try taking some of the simple steps listed above, and see if you can't boost your rankings yourself. Don't ever ignore this all-important factor in Internet marketing. Remember, the higher your search engine ranking, the more quality customers will be directed your way.

Web Site Performance - Evaluate Yours!

2005-09-11T13:51:00.000+07:00

Setting up a website is the very first step of an Internet marketing campaign, and the success or failure of your site depends greatly on how specifically you have defined your website goals. If you don't know what you want your site to accomplish, it will most likely fail to accomplish anything. Without goals to guide you in developing and monitoring your website, all your site will be is an online announcement that you are in business.

If you expect your site to stimulate some form of action, whether it is visitors filling out a form so a representative can contact them, or purchasing a product, there are steps you can take to insure that your website is functioning at peak efficiency. One of the first indicators of how well your site is working for you is finding out the number of visitors in a given period of time. A good baseline measurement is a month in which you haven't been doing any unusual offline promotional activities.

However, just because hoards of people have passed through your gates does not mean your site is successful. Usually, you want those visitors to actually do something there. It is equally important to monitor the number of visitors to your site who made a purchase. This figure is called the site conversion rate, and it is an essential element of the efficacy of your website.

To find the site conversion rate, take the number of visitors per month and figure out the percentage of them that actually performed the action your site is set up for. For example, if you had 2,000 hits to your site, but only 25 of them purchased your product, your site conversion rate equals 1.25%. To get this figure, take your number of visitors and divide that figure by the number of visitors who made a purchase. Then divide that result by 100.

If your website is set-up to get visitors to fill out a form, make sure to then figure out what the difference is between your site conversion rate and your sales conversion rate. This is because not everyone who fills out your form will actually become your customer. However, whether your site is set-up to sell a service or product, or to get the visitor to fill out a form, the site conversion rate will measure the success or failure of your website whenever you make changes to the site.

You may find that you need to implement some additional marketing strategies if you find that traffic to your site is extremely low. There are several effective methods to improve the flow of traffic to your website, particularly launching a search engine optimization campaign. This campaign is targeted at increasing your position in search engine results so that consumers can find your pages faster and easier. You can either research the steps you need to take to improve your search engine rankings, or employ a search engine optimization company to do the work for you.

In either case, after your have improved your search engine positions, make sure you keep on top of them by regular monitoring and adjusting of your efforts to maintain high positions.

Another factor to examine is how easy it is for a visitor to your website to accomplish the action the site is set-up for. For example, if your goal is for the visitor to fill out a form, is this form easily accessible, or does the visitor have to go through four levels to get to it? If it's too difficult to get to, the customer may just throw in the towel and move on to another site. Make sure your buttons are highly visible, and the path to your form or ordering page quickly accessible.

Finally, have a professional evaluate the copy on your website. The goal is, of course, to get your visitor to make a purchase or fill out your form. Website copy must be specifically geared to your online campaign and not just a cut and paste job from your company brochure. The right copy can make the difference between profit and loss in your online campaign.

Affiliate Marketing Mastery Can Be Yours By Attending James Martell's BOOTCAMP In White Rock, B.C. CANADA

2005-09-10T06:57:00.000+07:00

Its been said that the very BEST way to learn anything is to study with a master.

And the reason is simply this: we learn so much more through personal interaction than from books or tapes.

With that in mind James Martell has decided to launch a series of 3-day BootCamp -- intensive, live workshops using animated screenshots of EVERYTHING James does to be successful on the Net -- to "mentor" his students on the essentials of running a first class publishing business to profit from "affiliate programs".

Many know of James' Affiliate Marketers Handbook -- 2005, which was first published in May of 2002, but not everyone knows that James originally started teaching his "secrets" to a small group of lucky locals in 2001-2002.

At that time he got out of "live trainings" because it took precious time and energy away from his growing affiliate business.

And although his "downloadable" training provided EVERYTHING someone needed to know to make excellent income from a home-based operation on the Net -- many over the years have asked if he planned to teach a live class again.

Although he entertained the idea from time to time, he never saw the need, especially since so MANY were reporting mind boggling incomes themselves when applying the principles taught in the Handbook, his Google Mastery audio report and his twice-a-month audio newsletter, know affectionately as "the buzz".

But the demand was still there from those who felt they either needed a "kick-start" -- or some advanced training about how to take their operations to the next level by modeling James more closely and putting a small staff in place as he has done.

And because he now has people trained to do much of the "grunt" work he and his wife Arlene used to do -- he has determined that putting together another live class might not only be profitable for himself -- but could also be quite profitable in the long run for those attending.

And, of course, James loves to teach so it seemed like a good decision to launch another live training -- and one that promises to be "light years" ahead of anything done by either himself or others in this fascinating, emerging industry that offers so much lifestyle and income rewards to those who master the techniques involved.

More can be learned about this BootCamp here.

Analyzing Website Traffic

2005-09-09T13:43:00.000+07:00

Analyzing your web traffic statistics can be an invaluable tool for a number of different reasons. But before you can make full use of this tool, you need to understand how to interpret the data.

Most web hosting companies will provide you with basic web traffic information that you then have to interpret and make pertinent use of. However, the data you receive from your host company can be overwhelming if you don't understand how to apply it to your particular business and website. Let's start by examining the most basic data - the average visitors to your site on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

These figures are the most accurate measure of your website's activity. It would appear on the surface that the more traffic you see recorded, the better you can assume your website is doing, but this is an inaccurate perception. You must also look at the behavior of your visitors once they come to your website to accurately gauge the effectiveness of your site.

There is often a great misconception about what is commonly known as "hits" and what is really effective, quality traffic to your site. Hits simply means the number of information requests received by the server. If you think about the fact that a hit can simply equate to the number of graphics per page, you will get an idea of how overblown the concept of hits can be. For example, if your homepage has 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits, when in reality we are talking about a single visitor checking out a single page on your site. As you can see, hits are not useful in analyzing your website traffic.

The more visitors that come to your website, the more accurate your interpretation will become. The greater the traffic is to your website, the more precise your analysis will be of overall trends in visitor behavior. The smaller the number of visitors, the more a few anomalous visitors can distort the analysis.

The aim is to use the web traffic statistics to figure out how well or how poorly your site is working for your visitors. One way to determine this is to find out how long on average your visitors spend on your site. If the time spent is relatively brief, it usually indicates an underlying problem. Then the challenge is to figure out what that problem is.

It could be that your keywords are directing the wrong type of visitors to your website, or that your graphics are confusing or intimidating, causing the visitor to exit rapidly. Use the knowledge of how much time visitors are spending on your site to pinpoint specific problems, and after you fix those problems, continue to use time spent as a gauge of how effective your fix has been.

Additionally, web traffic stats can help you determine effective and ineffective areas of your website. If you have a page that you believe is important, but visitors are exiting it rapidly, that page needs attention. You could, for example, consider improving the link to this page by making the link more noticeable and enticing, or you could improve the look of the page or the ease that your visitors can access the necessary information on that page.

If, on the other hand, you notice that visitors are spending a lot of time on pages that you think are less important, you might consider moving some of your sales copy and marketing focus to that particular page.

As you can see, these statistics will reveal vital information about the effectiveness of individual pages, and visitor habits and motivation. This is essential information to any successful Internet marketing campaign.

Your website undoubtedly has exit pages, such as a final order or contact form. This is a page you can expect your visitor to exit rapidly. However, not every visitor to your site is going to find exactly what he or she is looking for, so statistics may show you a number of different exit pages. This is normal unless you notice a exit trend on a particular page that is not intended as an exit page. In the case that a significant percentage of visitors are exiting your website on a page not designed for that purpose, you must closely examine that particular page to discern what the problem is. Once you pinpoint potential weaknesses on that page, minor modifications in content or graphic may have a significant impact on the keeping visitors moving through your site instead of exiting at the wrong page.

After you have analyzed your visitor statistics, it's time to turn to your keywords and phrases. Notice if particular keywords are directing a specific type of visitor to your site. The more targeted the visitor - meaning that they find what they are looking for on your site, and even better, fill out your contact form or make a purchase - the
more valuable that keyword is.

However, if you find a large number of visitors are being directed - or should I say misdirected - to your site by a particular keyword or phrase, that keyword demands adjustment. Keywords are vital to bringing quality visitors to your site who are ready to do business with you. Close analysis of the keywords your visitors are using to find your site will give you a vital understanding of your visitor's needs and motivations.

Finally, if you notice that users are finding your website by typing in your company name, celebrate! It means you have achieved a significant level of brand recognition, and this is a sure sign of burgeoning success.

eBook Publishing Success - Follow These Steps...

2005-09-08T12:49:00.000+07:00

Even if your best friend owns a top publishing company, giving you an immediate "in," this does not guarantee publishing success.

First, you have to write a quality book that has a clear target audience. And your book must answer a common problem or need that audience shares. Then you have to develop a marketing plan, and stick to it for at least two years.

Let's begin with the process that should commence before you write your first word. Begin by reading A LOT. Read both books you passionately love and books you can't seem to make it past page five. Then figure out what the author did in the book you loved, and what was wrong with in the book you couldn't finish.

Write down these points so they are crystal clear to you. Read other people's books for inspiration and to discover what you should avoid as a writer.

The next step is to plan out your book. Narrow down your subject, and then divide it into chapters. Each chapter should address a specific aspect of the problem your book is going to solve. In each chapter, break the specific aspect down into several parts.

This will help your readers take in your information a bit at a time instead of overwhelming them with every bit of information clogging up the pages until they feel like they're about to go blind. It's not quite spoon-feeding the information to your readers, but it's close.

The next two steps are obvious. Write your book and then revise it. And then revise it again. And perhaps again. Of course, writing is extremely hard, and writing a book can seem like an impossible task. There are many books out there that give you guidelines to help you become familiar - and even love - the process of writing and revision. Find a number of books about writing. Better yet, find a number of books about writing the specific type of book you aspire to write.

These can serve as roadmaps on your writing journey. Once you've written your ebook and revised it at least twice, show it to someone else whose opinion you respect. If you're lucky enough to know a good editor, see if you have something to barter for him or her to go through your manuscript. Or join a writing group and let the other members critique your work.

Then take all these ideas from other people, and revise your manuscript one last time. And then stop! Put down that pen! Get your hands off the keyboard!

One of the most important steps to actually producing a book is to know when to stop writing and tinkering with it.

You've finally written your ebook! Pop open the bubbly! Give yourself a night out on the town!

Okay, now that this necessary celebration is out of your system, what do you do next?

How to Turn Your eBook into Profits

Ebooks are a revolutionary way to publish your book without incurring the costs of print production. All you need is a relevant and targeted subject and some inexpensive software, and you can transform your manuscript into a book.

The problem, in terms of actually seeing any profits from your ebook, is that the market is overwhelmed with ebooks, and many of them are not worth the time it takes to download them. Just because the ability exists to easily produce an ebook, doesn't make it good writing.

Make sure your book does not simply rehash old material. You will injure your credibility as an author by claiming to offer valuable new insights and disappointing your audience with material they've read a zillion times before. So spend enough time writing and revising your book to make sure it's of the highest quality and presents the most current information. A good book will eventually sell itself; false claims about your book will make it extremely difficult to sell any future books you may write.

Assuming you have determined that you do indeed have a quality product that answers some question or need of your target audience with NEW information, how do you know how much to charge for it? Rule number 1: Set a price for your book equal to its value. An under-priced book will only give the impression that your book isn't worth very much.

To figure out a fair price, estimate how much time you put into creating it and how difficult it was to transform the necessary information into understandable and engaging writing. Figure out how much your time and effort is worth, and then price it accordingly. The goal is for you to be adequately compensated for your talent, your time, and your effort.

Once you've figured out a price that is high enough to convey the value of the book, but not so high as to be out of the reach of your target audience's mean budget, then it's time to offer it for sale on your website. To attract sales, you will need to develop a promotional campaign, particularly if you are an unknown author.

There are multitudes of books about self-promotion that will guide you in your efforts. Choose a plan that is both creative and professional. Learn how to write a catchy yet informative press release, and send copies of your ebook to sites that specialize in ebook reviews.

Learn how to write powerful sales copy, or hire someone to write it for you. This is an essential. You absolutely need excellent sales copy to sell your book. Make sure the copy includes all the reasons your target audience needs your book, and the benefits they will derive from buying it.

Use graphics in your promotional materials. Beautiful graphics have the power to instantly convey the quality and value of your ebook. Graphics can also convey the amount of valuable information the book contains, and your careful attention to detail.

Professional graphics sell professional books. They reassure the customer that the product is what it claims to be.

Consider excerpting chapters for articles. You can offer these tidbits for free on your website as a sort of demo of your book. Include an order form for your ebook at the end of the excerpted articles.

Finally, when you set-up your download link, make sure to simplify the process. It's a good idea to offer a few bonuses that make your book even more enticing to purchase, but make sure the bonuses are valuable and high quality. Too many bonuses that are basically a load of useless stuff will compromise the impression your audience has of your ebook. The goal is to convey to your audience that they are getting a quality product for a good deal. That means applying restraint, especially when it comes to adding bonus items. Too much free stuff offered diminishes your credibility.

Make sure your book is a quality product. Make sure it is relevant and current. Develop an effective marketing plan that includes excellent sales copy and excerpted articles. Then offer your book for sale, and wait for your audience to discover you!

eBook - How to Price Yours and Sell It

2005-09-07T18:38:00.000+07:00

You've written and compiled an ebook. Now you have to decide how much to charge for it.

Finding the right price is essential to the success of your product. If you charge too little, people will think it's oflittle value, and they won't purchase it, or even it they do buy your book, you will have to sell thousands of copies to get to the point where you can begin to see a profit. If you price it too high when compared with your competition, you will find yourself steadily lowering the price, which will cause you all kinds of new problems in the future. For example, if you sell your ebook at first for $39.99, and later reduce it to $24.95, don't you think the people who bought it for $39.99 are going to be PISSED?

Choosing the right price for your ebook is one of the most critical parts of the marketing process. The first rule of pricing ebooks is to never underprice.

Determine the highest price your audience can afford, and then if you find your book isn't selling, you canalways reduce the price. Before you take that step, make sure you are promoting your book like crazy on the Internet and on websites. The price should be aimed at bringing in profits, but you should never forget that price is one of the factors that people use in judging the value of your ebook before they buy it. So always start with the highest price, and then launch a mega-marketing campaign.

Pricing an ebook is particularly difficult because ebooks are a fairly new commodity. Since they are digital, the value of an ebook is as confusing as the understanding of what digital actually is to the average layperson. This means that we must look at ebooks in a different light in order to determine their actual worth in this brave, new cyber world.

Let's look at the difference between a book in print and an ebook. A printed book is an object you can holdin your hand, store on your bookshelf, even hand down to the next generation. It is priced on factors such as paper stock, design and production costs, and marketing.

But the fact that unites ebooks and print books is that they are composed of ideas. It is the ideas in these books that have the ability to change, or possibly transform, people's lives.

What do you think an idea is worth when evaluated against the cost of paper and ink?

It is the IDEAS that are valuable! That is how you determine the cost of your ebook.

What should I charge for my ideas?

There are all different formulas and methods for determining the correct price for your ebook. Let's begin with honing in on your ultimate goals.

Decide if your goal is to get wide distribution and maximum exposure. This goal is aimed at drawing customers to your business or service, or to establishing the credibility of your reputation. If this is your main goal, you should aim to keep your price on the low side. Some authors have even priced their ebooks at a profit loss to draw a high number of new customers. The key is to find a price that maximizes your profits and the number of books you sell.

This is an excellent pricing strategy if you are looking to acquire long-term customers. Long-term customers are extremely likely to buy from you again and again as long as the first ebook they buy is of exceptional quality and beneficial to the customer.

However, if your book contains valuable and more importantly NEW information, references, or techniquesthen you should aim to price it on the high end.

After you figure out your goal, you must figure out what your audience's need is for your ebook. For example, does your book solve a particular problem? If it does, and solves it in a way that hasn't been written about in one hundred other ebooks, you will be able to achieve high sales at a high price. If your book solves a problem or answers questions in a new and unique way, you should price your book as high as you can go. You will achieve larger profits this way, but bring in fewer customers. Just make sure the question or problem that your book solves is one that is important and relevant to the majority of your market audience. If your ideas are not common knowledge, or you are presenting a brand new technique, you will be able to sell books at a highprice. Just be prepared for your competition to undercut you on price as soon as they hear about yourbook.

Keep in mind that the above pricing strategy is temporary. Eventually, you will cease to sell books at this high price. So figure out in advance how long you plan to offer your ebook at this high price, and when that time is up, change your pricing strategy.

If you want to see large profits over customer draw, aim for an audience that is looking for easy solutions to their problems at a low price. If your book is aimed at solving one particular problem rather than general advice, then you can charge more. Start at the highest price the market will bear to bring in the largest profits, and plan to discount the book a number of times throughout the year.

Marketing Strategies

The key that unlocks the sales potential of your ebook is to find a single sentence that becomes your sellinghandle. This sentence states what question or problem your book answers and the benefits your ebook canprovide. Then be sure to use that sentence in every piece of sales and promotional material, and every time anyone asks you about your ebook.

Besides promoting your books assiduously online, there are several other strategies that can help you sellmore books.

One is to give something away for free with your book, such as a valuable bonus item. Or bundle severalebooks under one price, which lowers the price for each ebook if they were sold separately.

An effective technique for figuring out a price is to send out a survey to your current customers. If thesecustomers have already bought an ebook from you, ask for their opinion in terms of price. Do this by creating a sales page for the new book, but don't include a price on that page. Instead, add a number of links to survey questions that ask pointed questions to aid you in assigning a price to your ebook.

Another strategy is to test out prices by creating a number of duplicate sales pages with different prices on each page. Make sure your sales copy is exactly the same on every page, and includes your selling-handle sentence.

Then figure out for each page the conversion ratio between visitors to your site and sales of your book. This will tell you what your optimum price is.

Ultimately, if you've written a book that solves a problem or presents a new technique, your book will bring in both traffic and profits. So be sure to write that selling-handle sentence that sums up what problem your book solves and what the benefits of your book will be to the customers who purchase it. And then watch your market come to you!

Rating eBook Compilers

2005-09-06T13:31:00.000+07:00

Now that you've finished writing your eBook and have a basic understanding of what an eBook compiler does, you may be feeling overwhelmed by the number of compilers on the market. To help you make your decision, I have tested and reviewed the best-rated eBook compilers currently available.

E-ditor

This software has a demo version that you can download to try out before purchasing. You can't actually use the demo to create an eBook, but you can run the software and test it out thoroughly to see if it does what you need it to do for your particular eBook.

This eBook compiler is one of the easiest to use. The software has a very user-friendly help menu that provides instructions for and explanations of every field on every screen. The program also includes video tutorials demonstrating every step of this compiler with clear explanations of all fields that need to be filled out. There are 7 screens that you use to choose your eBook options.

This compiler requires your files to be in HTML format. You follow simple directions, and the compiler loads your files. If you decide to edit your eBook after it has been compiled, make any changes in your original files and click on "Compile you eBook" and your changes will appear in your compiled eBook.

E-editor allows for some customization of your eBook. You can create a special page that appears when the eBook is opened; create customized icons that appear on the desktop after downloading; use your own logo on the task bar of your eBook; customize the task bar's buttons, where the task bar appears in your eBook, and choose the task bar's colors. Additionally, you can choose to have the eBook open to the last page read, which many of your buyers will appreciate.

An excellent and unique feature of E-ditor is the capability to choose a standard Microsoft window or to create your own design for a window to personalize your eBook. The program provides some sample window designs, but you can use any .bmp (bit map skin) graphic you have stored on your hard drive.

E-ditor is a good choice if you are new at producing eBooks because it is easy to use and allows you to customize the appearance of your eBook.

Desktop Author

This compiler does not require a browser, nor do you have to download software or plug-ins. The program converts exe. files into pages that look like a standard book. You can create and produce eBook pages scaled to fit on your computer screen without any scrolling. Additional features include WYSIWGY (what you see is what you get) page editing and creation, the ability to manipulate internal images, cut and paste functions, hotlinks to pages, email, website, or other files. It is an excellent compiler to use for a marketing tools, such as creating brochures and manuals in addition to eBooks.

EBook Edit Pro

This compiler provides a demo version, which allows you to test out its features. The software uses a Wizard that leads you step-by-step through the set-up and creation of your eBook. Customization includes text editing that appears on the pop-up starting message window; the ability to allow or prevent resizing of your book and the mouse-click pop-up menu; enabling or disabling the navigation bar and choosing the buttons you want to appear; and customizing the eBook's desktop icon and the logo that appears on the navigation bar.

Ebook Edit Pro is loaded with excellent features that allow you to create multi-media Ebooks, and includes a Wizard that is customized for beginners and for advanced users. The software uses HTML files, downloading them from the directory where they are saved. Edit and resave your files in the original software used to create those files, and then with a single click you can re-compile your Ebook.

Features include customization of icons, toolbars, and the "about box." This compiler has a particularly useful feature called the Rebrander feature. This permits you to enter customized code into your Ebook pages and distribute the Rebrander software to your affiliates or distributors. They can then customize the links included in the Ebook, but they can not alter any link or information that you have not entered a customized code for.

The software includes "eBrand-It" software that allows custom fields for your customer's name, affiliate ID or URL. This feature is a powerful marketing tool because affiliates are much happier giving away your Ebook from their own site when they can customize it.

Ebook Compiler

This compiler offers a demo version that allows you to compile 10 files. If you don't include graphics, you can create a 10 page Ebook that allows printing and copying of the Ebook. The catch is that you can't sell any Ebook you create in the demo version.

The purchased software is user-friendly with easy-to-follow help files that not only guide you through the steps of compiling your Ebook, but also explains what an Ebook compiler does. The software provides detailed instructions on how to create source files from Microsoft Word 2000 and 1997, PowerPoint 2000 and 1997, and HTML documents. It contains less detailed instructions for creating source files from other programs.

This compiler allows for password protection of your entire Ebook or for selected pages. Additionally, you can set a time limit on your Ebook. When the runs out, the customer no longer has access unless they pay for it. In other words, it allows you to create a demo version of your Ebook for marketing purposes.

You can set a single password or multiple passwords. Using multiple passwords assigns each user their own specific password. Online help files guide you through setting up your passwords. You can also create a Sales
and Thank-you page for selling a password protected Ebook. This is a good choice for the novice, particularly since it includes basic features for password protection and distribution.

Activ Ebook Compiler

This is an easy to use compiler that provides excellent features. This software can support HTML, JPEG, GIF, and all active plug-ins. Features includes password protection, branding, internet linking, icon customization, assigning unique serial numbers, splash screen, file compression, and start-up messages. It also provides free lifetime upgrades. Additionally, it includes a preprocessor, re-brander, active script, and detailed instructions for using HTML, Power Point, and Microsoft Word files.

There are several other excellent Ebook compilers on the market that are worth looking into.

Ebook Generator features splash screens, password protection, branding, icon customization, and compression control. Additionally, it includes virus prevention that alerts the user to any modifications made to your Ebook and offers usage statistics so you can track your Ebook's use. With all these advanced features, this is an excellent compiler for the beginner because it is exceptionally easy to run.

Ebook Creator is another excellent compiler, supporting HTML, JPEG, GIF, and PNG graphics, and Javascript, VB script, and Java applets. It also supports all Internet Explorer plug-ins. Standard features include unique serial numbers, direct linking to a form or a page on your website, disabled right clicking, and search functions. The software allows for expiration after a set number of days or usages, which allows you to create demo versions. You can create up to 1000 different passwords; every time the Ebook is downloaded, a unique password is required to access protected pages. The software provides user-friendly menus and buttons that allow the beginner to the advanced user to easily create their Ebook.

Obviously, there are some excellent compilers out there. So figure out EVERYTHING you need in terms of features, and then compare prices and options. Do take advantage of demo versions if they are offered before purchasing. And then, have fun creating your Ebook!

eBook Compiler - How to Choose One

2005-09-05T18:23:00.000+07:00

What is an eBook compiler?

You've written and revised your ebook, hired an artist who has produced outstanding graphics, and now you're ready to actually put together your ebook. What you need to make an ebook is software called an ebook Compiler.

There are many different compilers to chose from, but first, you need to know exactly what an ebook Compiler does. Here is the simple explanation:

An ebook compiler is a software program that converts either text pages or HTML text into a single executable file or an ebook.

If you or someone you hired has created a file with graphics in HTML, you will need an HTML ebook Compiler. This type of compiler requires a working knowledge of the HTML tag language. You can also use software to do this for you, such as Microsoft FrontPage or Macromedia Dreamweaver.

How do you choose an eBook Compiler?

There are a large number of ebook Compilers available on the market, all with glowing sales copy and tekkie language. It can get very confusing and overwhelming very fast without some simple guidelines to help you figure out which compiler is right for you.

Choosing an ebook Compiler depends on a number of factors:

1. How did you create your pages? Did you use HTML or PDF format? There are many more compilers available for HTML, but you can find some very good compilers that will covert your PDF files into an ebook.

2. Consider how easy the program is to use and the thoroughness of the software's instruction manual. It is absolutely necessary that the compiler you buy have an instructional manual, documentation, or online "wizards." If it doesn't, your chances of figuring out how to correctly use the program are compromised and the time required doing so is going to be significant.

Many manufacturers of compilers offer a free trial version so you can play around with it and see if it suits your needs. Download the trial version and ascertain that it actually does what it claims to do.

3. Security features. If you plan to sell your ebook, check out the security features of the compiler software carefully. Security features should include: prevention of the reader from modifying text, access only to the pages you assign or by entering a password, different ways of generating passwords such as secure passwords, user-friendly, and open passwords.

4. Supported scripting. Find out what scripts the software supports. Scripting allows you to create special effects, customize menus, and create and modify other user interactivity. Choose a compiler that permits you to include graphics, search windows, hyperlinks, forms, surveys, etc.

5. Pricing. This is a factor that is not always easy to gauge. The highest priced compilers are not automatically your best choice. Choose your compiler based on the necessary requirements for your Ebook.

That means you need to know exactly how you plan to use your Ebook and what functions you require. Let's look at some of these factors in more detail.

First of all, make sure you have the correct browser to run the compiler. The majority of HTML compilers use Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape. Check out the version that the compiler supports. Compilers that require a browser will not run on a computer that does not have the required browser installed. However, there are ebook HTML compilers that don't require you to have any browser installed on your computer. These compilers run on any Windows system.

If you choose a compiler that requires a browser, check to ascertain that the browser is installed correctly and that it is properly configured to the specifications of the compiler. Check to see if certain functions are turned off or on, and make any adjustments according to the compiler instructions.

Security is an essential element of any compiler, regardless of whether you plan to sell or give away your ebook. One of the main reasons for using a compiler is to prevent the reader from modifying the contents. A secure compiler allows access only to the pages you want the user to access unless they enter a correct password.

To find out how secure an ebook HTML compiler is, open an ebook on it. While it is open, check the temporary directory of your computer. This can usually be accessed by typing in C:\Windows\temp. If you see a bunch of files when your ebook is open or running, it means that your computer is decompressing the secure data from your ebook before showing the ebook to the viewer. This method is not secure! It means that anyone with the knowledge of how to access these temporary files can steal the secure data and then they can fiddle with your ebook to their evil heart's desire. Remember, one of the main purposes of buying and using an HTML compiler is to protect your property.

Next, let's discuss passwords. When trying to choose an ebook Compiler, check out the type of passwords that the compiler supports. Almost all compilers offer some kind of password protection that insures that the user can only access the contents they have purchased from you. However, the best compilers offer varied ways to generate different types of passwords. Choosea compiler that gives you the options of secure, user-friendly, and open password generation.

Another important factor when it comes to passwords is how the compiler generates them. A compiler that has internal password protection generation built into the software is more secure than compilers that link to live Internet password control systems.

Find out if the compiler generates passwords online. If it has this option, it allows you to choose any payment processing system you want or to do the payment processing yourself.

Next, look into the size of ebook the compiler supports. The best compilers can create ebooks up to 2 GB in size without decompressing the HTML pages or images to your hard disk. Usually, ebooks that are 2 GB in size can easily support 6 GB of compressed data.

The catch here is that only text files will generally be compressible.

You do not want a compiler that decompresses this amount of data when the user attempts to open your ebook. This would mean that anyone who purchases your ebook will have to wait for all the data to decompress before they can access your ebook right after downloading it. So look for compilers that only decompress temporarily files that are NOT HTML to the local hardisk. Non-HTML files include Flash, Word, and Acrobat files. This type of compiler is more secure and certainly faster.

Make sure the compiler you choose is compatible with your system software. Check out what version of Windows it requires, and make sure you have that version before buying your compiler.

Support issues are extremely important. Choose a compiler that includes an installation program. This program allows your user to choose a number of different places on their computer to install the ebook, to place a shortcut on their desktop, and to add the ebook, if they choose, to the Start Programs menu.

You also want excellent and accessible vendor support. Make sure you can access quick technical support! At three o'clock in the morning, this factor will be VERY important. Also, check to see the terms of free technical support offered. Unlimited technical support is obviously the best option.

Check to see if the company that puts out the compiler software offers a service level agreement. This agreement is to assure you of their quality response to your questions or problems.

A good thing to consider is how long the compiler has been on the market. Usually, the version number will give you an idea. The longer the program is on the market, the higher the version number, the more bugs have been worked out.

When choosing an ebook compiler, do not be swayed by incredible promises and dazzling sales copy. Do your homework first, and then consider all the above issues and factors before choosing an ebook compiler.

Overcoming Writer's Block

2005-09-04T13:19:00.000+07:00

What is writer's block?

Well, I just can't think of a single darn thing to say. Oh well, I'm outta here!

Sound familiar? No! Oh, get real! We've all experienced this phenomenon when we absolutely have to write something, particularly on deadline. I'm talking about. . . . .uh, I can't think of what the word is . . . oh, yes, it's on the tip of my tongue . . . it's:

WRITER'S BLOCK!!!!

Whew! I feel better just getting that out of my head and onto the page!

Writer's block is the patron demon of the blank page. You may think you know EXACTLY what you're going to write, but as soon as that evil white screen appears before you, your mind suddenly goes completely blank.

I'm not talking about Zen meditation stare-at-the-wall-until-enlightenment-hits kind of blank.

I'm talking about sweat trickling down the back of your neck, anguish and panic and suffering kind of blank. The tighter the deadline, the worse the anguish of writer's block gets.

Having said that, let me say it again. "The tighter the deadline, the worse the anguish of writer's block gets." Now, can you figure out what might possibly be causing this horrible plunge into speechlessness?

The answer is obvious: FEAR! You are terrified of that blank page. You are terrified you have absolutely nothing of value to say. You are afraid of the fear of writer's block itself!

It doesn't necessarily matter if you've done a decade of research and all you have to do is string sentences you can repeat in your sleep together into coherent paragraphs. Writer's block can strike anyone at any time. Based in fear, it raises our doubts about our own self-worth, but it's sneaky. It's writer's block, after all, so it doesn't just come and let you know that. No, it makes you feel like an idiot who just had your frontal lobes removed through your sinuses. If you dared to put forth words into the greater world, they would surely come out as gibberish!

Let's try and be rational with this irrational demon. Let's make a list of what might possibly be beneath this terrible and terrifying condition.

1. Perfectionism. You must absolutely produce a masterpiece of literature straight off in the first draft. Otherwise, you qualify as a complete failure.

2. Editing instead of composing. There's your monkey-mind sitting on your shoulder, yelling as soon as you type "I was born..," no, not that, that's wrong! That's stupid! Correct correct correct correct?

3. Self-consciousness. How can you think, let alone write, when all you can manage to do is pry the fingers of writer's block away from your throat enough so you can gasp in a few shallow breaths? You're not focusing on what you're trying to write, your focusing on those gnarly fingers around your windpipe.

4. Can't get started. It's always the first sentence that's the hardest. As writers, we all know how EXTREMELY important the first sentence is. It must be brilliant! It must be unique! It must hook your reader's from the start! There's no way we can get into writing the piece until we get past this impossible first sentence.

5. Shattered concentration. You're cat is sick. You suspect your mate is cheating on you. Your electricity might be turned off any second. You have a crush on the local UPS deliveryman. You have a dinner party planned for your in-laws. You . . . Need I say more. How can you possibly concentrate with all this mental clutter?

6. Procrastination. It's your favorite hobby. It's your soul mate. It's the reason you've knitted 60 argyle sweaters or made 300 bookcases in your garage workshop. It's the reason you never run out of Brie. FACE IT, IT'S ONE OF THE REASONS YOU HAVE WRITER'S BLOCK!

How to Overcome Writer's Block

Okay. I can hear that herd of you running away from this article as fast as you can. Absurd! you huff. Never in a million years, you fume. Writer's block is absolutely, undeniably, scientifically proven to be impossible to overcome.

Oh, just get over it! Well, I guess it's not that easy. So try to sit down for just a few minutes and listen. All you have to do is listen, you don't have to actually write a single word.

Ah, there you all are again. I am beginning to make you out now that the cloud of dust is settling. I am here to tell you that WRITER'S BLOCK CAN BE OVERCOME.

Please, remain seated.

There are ways to trick this nasty demon. Pick one, pick several, and give them a try. Soon, before you even have a chance for your heartbeat to accelerate, guess what? You're writing.

Here are some tried and true methods of overcoming writer's block:

1. Be prepared. The only thing to fear is fear itself.(I know, that's a cliche but as soon as you start writing, feel free to improve on it.) If you spend some time mulling over your project before you actually sit down to write, you may be able to circumvent the worst of the crippling panic.

2. Forget perfectionism. No one ever writes a masterpiece in the first draft. Don't put any expectations on your writing at all! In fact, tell yourself you're going to write absolute garbage, and then give yourself permission to happily stink up your writing room.

3. Compose instead of editing. Never, never write your first draft with your monkey-mind sitting on your shoulder making snide editorial comments. Composing is a magical process. It surpasses the conscious mind by galaxies. It's even incomprehensible to the conscious, editorial, monkey-mind. So prepare an ambush. Sit down at your computer or your desk. Take a deep breath and blow out all your thoughts. Let your finger hover over your keyboard or pick up your pen. And then pull a fake: appear to be about to begin to write, but instead, using your thumb and index finger of your dominant hand, flick that little annoying ugly monkey back into the barrel of laughs it came from. Then jump in, quickly! Write, scribble, scream, howl, let everything loose, as long as you do it with a pen or your computer keyboard.

4. Forget the first sentence. You can sweat over that all-important one-liner when you've finished your piece. Skip it! Go for the middle or even the end. Start wherever you can. Chances are, when you read it over, the first line will be blinking its little neon lights right at you from the depths of your composition.

5. Concentration. This is a hard one. Life throws us so many curve balls. How about thinking about your writing time as a little vacation from all those annoying worries. Banish them! Create a space, perhaps even a physical one, where nothing exists except the single present moment. If one of those irritating worries gets by you, stomp on it like you would an ugly bug!

6. Stop procrastinating. Write an outline. Keep your research notes within sight. Use someone else's writing to get going. Babble incoherently on paper or on the computer if you have to.

Just do it! (I know, I stole that line from somewhere). Tack up anything that could possibly help you to get going: notes, outlines, pictures of your grandmother. Put the cookie you will be allowed to eat when you finish your first draft within sight but out of reach. Then pick up the same type of writing that you need to write, and read it. Then read it again. Soon, trust me, the fear will slowly fade away.

As soon as it does, grab your keyboard, and get writing!

How to Write an Ebook

2005-09-03T18:57:00.000+07:00

The hardest part of writing is the first sentence.

When you look at the whole project, it seems like an impossible task. That's why you have to break it down into manageable tasks. Think of climbing a mountain. You are standing at the foot of it and looking up at its summit vanishing into the clouds. How can you possibly scale such an immense and dangerous mountain? There is only one way to climb a mountain, step by step.

Now think of writing your ebook in the same light. You must create it step by step, and one day, you will take that last step and find yourself standing on the summit with your head in the clouds. The first thing you have to do, as if you actually were a mountain climber, is to get organized. Instead of climbing gear, however, you must organize your thoughts. There are some steps you should take before you begin. Once you've gone through the following list, you will be ready to actually begin writing your ebook.

Beginning Steps to Writing an ebook

First, figure out your ebook's working title. Jot down a few different titles, and eventually, you'll find that one that will grow on you. Titles help you to focus your writing on your topic; they guide you in anticipating and answering your reader's queries. Many non-fiction books also have subtitles. Aim for clarity in your titles, but cleverness always helps to sell books as long as it's not too cute. For example, Remedies for Insomnia: twenty different ways to count sheep. Or: Get off that couch: fifteen exercise plans to whip you into shape.

Next, write out a thesis statement. Your thesis is a sentence or two stating exactly what problem you are addressing and how your book will solve that problem. All chapters spring forth from your thesis statement. Once you've got your thesis statement fine-tuned, you've built your foundation. From that foundation, your book will grow, chapter by chapter.

Your thesis will keep you focused while you write your ebook. Remember: all chapters must support your thesis statement. If they don't, they don't belong in your book. For example, your thesis statement could read:

We've all experienced insomnia at times in our lives, but there are twenty proven techniques and methods to give you back a good night's sleep.

Once you have your thesis, before you start to write, make sure there is a good reason to write your book. Ask yourself some questions:

o Does your book present useful information and is that information currently relevant?
o Will you book positively affect the lives of your readers?
o Is your book dynamic and will it keep the reader's attention?
o Does you book answer questions that are meaningful and significant?

If you can answer yes to these questions, you can feel confident about the potential of your ebook. Another important step is to figure out who your target audience is. It is this group of people you will be writing to, and this group will dictate many elements of your book, such as style, tone, diction, and even length. Figure out the age range of your readers, their general gender, what they are most interested in, and even the socio-economic group they primarily come from. Are they people who read fashion magazines or book reviews? Do they write letters in longhand or spend hours every day online. The more you can pin down your target audience, the easier it will be to write your book for them.

Next, make a list of the reasons you are writing your ebook. Do you want to promote your business? Do you want to bring quality traffic to your website? Do you want to enhance your reputation? Then write down your goals in terms of publishing. Do you want to sell it as a product on your website, or do you want to offer it as a free gift for filling out a survey or for ordering a product? Do you want to use the chapters to create an e-course, or use your ebook to attract affiliates around the world? The more you know upfront, the easier the actual writing will be.

Decide on the format of your chapters. In non-fiction, keep the format from chapter to chapter fairly consistent. Perhaps you plan to use an introduction to your chapter topic, and then divide it into four subhead topics. Or you may plan to divide it into five parts, each one beginning with a relevant anecdote.

How to Make Your eBook "User Friendly"

You must figure out how to keep your writing engaging. Often anecdotes, testimonials, little stories, photos, graphs, advice, and tips will keep the reader turning the pages. Sidebars are useful for quick, accessible information, and they break up the density of the page.

Write with a casual, conversational tone rather than a formal tone such as textbook diction. Reader's respond to the feeling that you are having a conversation with them. Break up the length and structure of your sentences so you don't hypnotize your readers into sleep. Sentences that are all the same length and structure tend to be a good aid for insomnia!

Good writing takes practice. It takes lots and lots of practice. Make a schedule to write at least a page a day. Read books and magazines about the process of writing, and jot down tips that jump out at you. The art of writing is a lifetime process; the more you write (and read), the better your writing will become.

The better your writing becomes, the bigger your sales figures. In an ebook that is read on the screen, be aware that you must give your reader's eye a break. You can do this by utilizing white space. In art classes, white space is usually referred to as "negative space." Reader's eyes need to rest in the cool white oasises you create on your page. If your page is too dense, your reader will quit out of it as soon as their eyes begin to tear.

Make use of lists, both bulleted and numbered. This makes your information easy to absorb, and gives the reader a mental break from dissecting your paragraphs one after the other.

Finally, decide on an easy-to-read design. Find a font that's easy on the eyes, and stick to that font family. Using dozens of fonts will only tire your readers out before they've gotten past your introduction. Use at least one and a half line spacing, and text large enough to be read easily on the screen, but small enough so that the whole page
can be seen on a computer screen. You will have to experiment with this to find the right combination.

Of course, don't forget to run a spell and grammar check. You are judged by something as minor as correct punctuation, so don't mess up a great book by tossing out semicolons randomly, or stringing sentences together with commas. (By the way, that's called a "comma splice.")

Last of all, create an index and a bibliography.

That's it! You've written a book! Now all you have to do is publish your ebook online, and wait for download request from your website visitors.

eBooks are Promotional Powerhouses

2005-09-02T18:32:00.000+07:00

Ebooks are part of the new frontier of cyberspace.They are an entirely new medium for sharing marketing information, ideas, techniques, and expert knowledge.

Each day the number of people accessing the Internet grows, causing the exposure of your ebook to increase incrementally. It's obvious why electronicself-publishing has become so popular so quickly.

The publishing industry, I hope, does not intend toforever banish the printed word to the dustbin of history. Books in print have their own special qualities and merits, and the world would be diminished by their disappearance.

Having said that, let's look at what makes ebooks so important and so unique. Ebooks have certain abilities and qualities that other mediums do not possess.

For example, ebooks are fairly easy to produce, and their production cost is inexpensive. Just think about it: you don't need a publisher, an agent, a printing press, offset film, ink, paper, or even a distributor.

You just need a great concept, the ability to write it or to hire a writer, and the right software.

Additionally, ebooks are easily and rapidly distributed online. They are also easily updated; they do not require a second print run. All you need is to go into your original creation and modify the text or graphics. Because of this flexibility, ebooks can change and grow as fast as you can type.

Ebooks are also immediately obtainable. You don't have to go to a bookstore or search through endless titles at an online bookstore. All you have to do is download it from a website, and presto! It's on your computer, ready to be read.

Ebooks are interactive. This is one of the most unique and specific qualities that ebooks offer. You can add surveys that need to be filled out, order forms for customers to purchase your products or goods, sound and video that draw your reader into the virtual world of your ebook, even direct links to relevant sites that will expand your ebook outward. The potential is virtually limitless.

Ebooks have a particular kind of permanence that other mediums do not possess. Television shows and radio shows air once, and then may rerun a few times. Ebooks remain on your computer for as long as your choose, and they can be read and reread whenever you choose to. They can even be printed out and stored on the shelves of your traditional home library.

Another wonderful quality is that ebooks have no barriers in terms of publishing. You don't need to go through the endless process of submitting your manuscript over and over again, and then once you land an agent, having the agent submit your manuscript over and over again. Nor do you have to shell out thousands of dollars for printing a self-published book. All ebooks require is a writer and appropriate software.

Figure out your market, write your book, post it on your website, and with the right business savvy, your audience will come to you.

Finally, you have creative control over your ebook. You don?t have to compromise with an editor or the publishing trends of the time. You don't have to haggle with a designer or wait for copyedited galleys to arrive by snail mail. You are in complete control of the design and the text.

How to Use ebooks for Marketing and Promotion

There are innumerable ways to use ebooks to promote your business and drive quality traffic to your website. Once posted on your site, you can turn them into a daily course, which brings your customer back to read the next chapter. You can use them as a free gift for making a purchase or for filling out a survey. Put your ebook on a disc, and you will have an innovative brochure. Blow your competition away by inserting the disc into your sales packages.

The most effective marketing products are those that are unique. Copyright your ebook, and immediately, you have a powerful tool that you, and you alone, can offer to the public. People will have to visit your site to acquire your ebook, which increases the flow of quality traffic and the potential of sales and affiliate contacts.

Make sure that you keep your ebook current. Update it frequently as the market and trends change. Add new advice and techniques to show your prospects how your goods or services can enrich their lives. By constantly keeping abreast of new trends and techniques, you can continue to see profits from your ebook for years after your original creation.

Another phenomenal advantage of ebooks is that you can test their marketing potential without putting out hardly any cash at all. You can even produce an ebook one copy at a time, each time you receive an order, eliminating the need for storage and inventory. By this method, you can gauge the saleablity of your ebook, and make adjustments as necessary until the orders start pouring in. Ebooks allow you to learn about your market and customer habits and motivation over a period of time, without risking your precious financial resources. They also provide you with an invaluable way to gather marketing information, which you can use in many different facets of your business.

Use your ebook to discover what the specific goals and problems are in your specific industry. Then figure out how to solve these problems, and publish an ebook with this invaluable information. This will increase the value of your business, upgrade your reputation, and get you known as an expert in your field.

You can extend the value of single ebook by breaking the book down into chapters for a serial course, into special reports available on your website, or into audio or visual tapes. Ebooks can be broken down into several different promotional materials by excepting some of the articles and using them to promote your
product. You can include a catalog in your ebook to promote all the products or services you sell. You can include a thank-you note for reading your book and an invitation to download a trial version of your product. Or you can include a form for your audience to contact you for further information or with questions, thereby building your business relationships and your mailing list.

Using ebooks in this manner helps to cut the cost of individually producing separate promotional materials.

You can use a single ebook to entice new prospects and to sell new products to your current customers. No other medium has this kind of flexibility and ability for expansion. Think of your ebook like a spider spinning a beautiful and intricate web. Now go and create that web, and see how many customers and prospects you can catch!

Why Write an eBook?

2005-09-01T12:37:00.000+07:00

It's not true that everything that has been said has already been written. Since that unfortunate axiom came into use, the whole universe has changed.

Technology has changed, ideas have changed, and the mindsets of entire nations have changed.

The fact is that this is the perfect time to write an ebook. What the publishing industry needs are people who can tap into the world as it is today - innovative thinkers who can make the leap into the new millennium and figure out how to solve old problems in a new way.

Ebooks are a new and powerful tool for original thinkers with fresh ideas to disseminate information to the millions of people who are struggling to figure out how to do a plethora of different things.

Let's say you already have a brilliant idea, and the knowledge to back it up that will enable you to write an exceptional ebook. You may be sitting at your computer staring at a blank screen wondering, "Why?

Why should I go through all the trouble of writing my ebook when it's so impossible to get anything published these days?

Well, let me assure you that publishing an ebook is entirely different than publishing a book in print.

Let's look at the specifics of how the print and cyber publishing industry differ, and the many reasons why you should take the plunge and get your fingers tapping across those keyboards!

Submitting a print book to conventional publishing houses or to agents is similar to wearing a hair shirt 24/7. No matter how good your book actually is, or how many critique services and mentor writers have told you that "you've got what it takes," your submitted manuscript keeps coming back to you as if it is a boomerang instead of a valuable mine of information.

Perhaps, in desperation, you've checked out self-publishing and found out just how expensive a venture it can be. Most "vanity presses" require minimal print runs of at least 500 copies, and even that amount will cost you thousands of dollars. Some presses' minimal run starts at 1,000 to 2,000 copies.

And that's just for the printing and binding. Add in distribution, shipping, and promotional costs and - well, you do the math. Even if you wanted to go this route, you may not have that kind of money to risk.

Let's say you already have an Internet business with a quality website and a quality product. An ebook is one of the most powerful ways to promote your business while educating people with the knowledge you already possess as a business owner of a specific product or service.

For example, let's say that you've spent the last twenty-five years growing and training bonsai trees, and now you're ready to share your knowledge and experience. An ebook is the perfect way to reach the largest audience of bonsai enthusiasts.

Ebooks will not only promote your business - they will help you make a name for yourself and your company, and establish you as an expert in your field. You may even find that you have enough to say to warrant a series of ebooks. Specific businesses are complicated and often require the different aspects to be divided in order for the reader to get the full story.

Perhaps your goals are more finely tuned in terms of the ebook scene. You may want to build a whole business around writing and publishing ebooks.

Essentially, you want to start an e-business. You are thinking of setting up a website to promote and market your ebooks. Maybe you're even thinking of producing an ezine.

One of the most prevalent reasons people read ebooks is to find information about how to turn their Internet businesses into a profit-making machine. And these people are looking to the writers of ebooks to provide them with new ideas and strategies because writers of ebooks are usually people who understand the new cyberspace world we now live in. Ebook writers are experts in Internet marketing campaigns and the strategies of promoting and distributing ebooks. The cyberspace community needs its ebooks to be successful so that more and more ebooks will be written.

You may want to create affiliate programs that will also market your ebook. Affiliates can be people or businesses worldwide that will all be working to sell your ebooks. Think about this? Do you see a formula for success here?

Figure out what your subject matter is, and then narrow it down. Your goal is to aim for specificity. Research what's out there already, and try to find a void that your ebook might fill.

What about an ebook about a wedding cake business? Or an ebook about caring for elderly pets? How about the fine points of collecting ancient pottery?

You don't have to have three masters degrees to write about your subject. People need advice that is easy to read and easily understood. Parents need advice for dealing with their teenagers. College students need to learn good study skills - quickly. The possibilities are endless.

After You've Writtten Your eBook

Getting your ebook out is going to be your focus once you've finished writing it, just as it is with print books. People will hesitate to buy any book from an author they've never heard of. Wouldn't you?

The answer is simple: give it away! You will see profits in the form of promoting your own business and getting your name out. You will find affiliates who will ask you to place their links within your ebook, and these affiliates will in turn go out and make your name known. Almost every single famous ebook author has started out this way.

Another powerful tool to attract people to your ebook is to make it interactive. Invent something for them to do within the book rather than just producing pages that contain static text. Let your readers fill out questionnaires, forms, even crossword puzzles geared to testing their knowledge on a particular subject.

Have your readers hit a link that will allow them to recommend your book to their friends and associates. Or include an actual order form so at the end of their reading journey, they can eagerly buy your product.

When people interact with books, they become a part of the world of that book. The fact is just as true for books in print as it is for ebooks.

That's why ebooks are so essential. Not only do they provide a forum for people to learn and make sense of their own thoughts, but they can also serve to promote your business at the same time.

Real World Newsletter Statistics

2005-08-10T06:49:00.000+07:00

12,561 subscribers in an average customer opt-in newsletter list.

4 minutes and 24 seconds is the average amount of time between when a
customer queues a newsletter and when AWeber completes delivery.

94% of newsletter broadcasts are finished sending within 5 minutes of
when they are scheduled.

98.4% of newsletter broadcasts are finished sending within 30 minutes
of when they are scheduled.

99.34% of all email was delivered successfully in the last 30 days.

0.66% of all email was undeliverable in the last 30 days. (mailbox
closed, non-existent user, etc.)

Average open rate of HTML and Text/HTML newsletters is 29.7% over the
past 30 days.

Sunday generates the highest average open rate of 41.1%, followed by
Saturday at 36.7% for newsletter sent date.

Average Open Rate by Sent Date: (higher is better)

Sunday 41.1%
Saturday 36.7%
Wednesday 34.0%
Friday 32.8%
Tuesday 29.6%
Thursday 24.6%
Monday 23.2%

Sunday generates the fewest undeliverable bounces at 0.36% for
newsletters sent on that date.

Average Undeliverable Rate by Sent Date: (lower is better)

Sunday 0.36%
Saturday 0.45%
Friday 0.47%
Thursday 0.56%
Wednesday 0.77%
Tuesday 0.83%
Monday 0.88%

Monday is the most popular day of the week for customers to send
their newsletters with 17.1% of newsletters being sent.

Percent of newsletters being sent by customers weekly:

Monday 17.1%
Tuesday 17.0%
Thursday 16.2%
Wednesday 15.8%
Friday 14.5%
Saturday 10.3%
Sunday 9.0%

An 8:00 AM EST send time generates the highest open rate of 50.6%.
Interestingly sending at 9:00 AM EST has a significantly lower open
rate of 33.7% with the worst time to send being 3-4 AM at only 19%
open rate.

Plain text messages are the most popular format of sending newsletters
with 65.9% of all newsletters sent. Mime format Text/HTML messages
follow at 23.8% and a remaining 10.2% of customers still send HTML
only messages even though it is strongly recommended to always include
a plain text version.

Plain text messages generate the fewest undeliverable bounces at
0.46%. Mime format Text/HTML follows at 0.56% and HTML only messages
have a whopping 1.09% undeliverable rate. This is a significant reason
behind our recommendation to always send a plain text alternative with
HTML formatted messages.

Subject line personalization using the date generated an average open
rate of 51.4% compared to personalization using the subscriber's first
name generating 40.9% open rate. Newsletters sent without
personalization of any type in the subject line generated average open
rates of 28.9%.

17% of customer newsletter subject lines sent in the last 30 days
contained date personalization while 19% used the subscriber's first
name. 56.3% of subject lines did not contain any type of
personalization. Interestingly, using the subscriber's full name or
last name generated lower average open rates at 20%.

Sincerely,

Tom Kulzer
CEO & Founder
AWeber Communications
http://www.aweber.com

A Comprehensive Review Of James Martell's "Revisited" Affiliate Marketers Handbook - 2005

2005-07-23T13:04:00.000+07:00

by Kellie Fowler

As someone who regularly reviews written works, it is rare that I stumble across published materials that I believe are truly well written and offer extreme value to the reader. After reading James Martell’s Affiliate Marketers Handbook, this previously justified view has changed, and so have I!

Martell’s Handbook is a must for anyone working to better understand affiliate marketing and even how the Internet works in general, making it as beneficial to the amateur Internet entrepreneur as it is for the already successful Web-based businessperson. What’s more, it is clear, concise and easy to understand, making it as refreshing as it is valuable!

Without a doubt, this is the affiliate marketer’s guide you want if you are looking for success in this field and for straight-talk that serves as a catalyst for a quick, high ROI (Return on Investment).

Martell is a surprisingly good writer who sorts through all the hype and provides readers with thoroughly explained tips, techniques and proven facts. And, because he shares with readers exactly how he has used affiliate marketing to carve out a very successful business and an enviable lifestyle, paired with the simple fact that he continues to practice what he preaches in this handbook every day, provides an up-to-date guide that enables anyone to achieve his high level of success, all from the comfort of their own home, by using a computer that accesses the Internet (and his handbook, of course).

In short, there is not a better resource to affiliate marketing available anywhere (online or off) and there is not a more credible, reliable source in this field than James Martell.

The handbook starts with a brief, interesting look at Martell and how he got into affiliate marketing. Reading the introduction, you are sure to be impressed with Martell’s insight and how he took what was in the beginning just a hunch, and turned it into a very successful affiliate marketing business.

Martell has proven once gain to be ahead of the curve, relying on his past entrepreneurial experiences and successes to lead him through what was once a confusing maze (at least years ago when he first ventured into the great World Wide Web and affiliate marketing). And, taking notes every step of the way, penning what worked and what didn’t, he was able to take his five-year journey and develop a guide that is detailed roadmap for anyone looking to navigate through this too-oft confusing field (which took Martell six months to write, simply because his standards are so high and he was committed to crafting a guide that is uniquely comprehensive and leaves no question unanswered).

And, recognizing that technology continues to evolve almost daily, Martell posts up-to-date changes and revisions to an easily-accessible 'Updates' page that purchasers of the Affiliate Handbook can readily access, making sure everyone who has read the handbook remains on top of the ever-climbing Martell information curve and is equipped to utilize and make the most of every Web tool available.

If that’s not enough, as I read through this training manual, I was pleasantly surprised to find that he also offers a unique audio newsletter, appropriately entitled “James Martell’s Affiliate Buzz,” every two weeks. Martell uses the Affiliate Buzz to deliver insightful 30-minute conversations with associate Charles Johnston to discuss expanding the affiliate marketing business and how to successfully publish revenue-generating websites, proving that despite his unparalleled success, he remains accessible, hands-on and committed to sharing information, further setting him and his work away from the ever-growing pack.

In fact, the updated version of the Affiliate Marketers Handbook boasts two and a half years of updates and reflects Martell’s commitment to sharing the same knowledge that made him a success years ago, and the same knowledge that continues to make him a success today (and undoubtedly well into the future)!

Almost 350 pages, Martell’s Affiliate Handbook is broken down into smart, well thought out chapters that makes the material a dependable and extremely quick reference guide for any topic or question the reader may need as he or she ventures down the affiliate marketers path, even well after the initial read (or, as Martell says, if and when you “get off track”).

Particularly interesting are the chapters on keyword density, which detail, among many things, how to use Wordtracker software tracking tools. For, no matter how much I have read about these topics in the past, I have come away confused or with more questions than I feel I can ever have answered. With this handbook, this is not the case.

For instance, when Martell explains exactly how to develop a keyword list using Wordtracker, he includes everything; and I do mean EVERYTHING! As he says in the handbook, “ This was an eye opener for many who hadn’t realized this data was available – OR that there were so many different ways that people searched the Net. for the same thing.” And, he couldn’t be more right.

Of course, the original section that details Wordtracker information is still quite valuable for those who’ve never built a keyword list (even I understand it), but this previously published information has been added to and expanded upon in this revised edition. Now, it includes everything from details on the numerical totals (count), which represent a fractional amount and not a true count (or, in other words, each list shows the comparative results) to knowing that the actual amount doesn’t really matter (because, as Martell expertly points out, if any keyword was searched 6088 times, you can be sure it was ACTUALLY searched many times more! Simple enough, but who knew, right?

Knowing this, and the other pertinent information Martell shares in this book enables successful affiliate marketer wanta-bes to finally understand that the keyword list is the very backbone of a successful site, especially if the goal is to have the pages located and accessed through “natural search” (meaning surfers find your pages naturally in the FREE listings).

Considering this, did you know that, as a rule of thumb it should take about 5 to 10 hours to comprise a thoroughly researched keyword list? Probably not. Learning from Martell, widely considered the master of affiliate marketing, provides you insight into this area and many, many more. The result: a realistic plan to carving out your affiliate marketing success.

And, as he cautions, affiliate marketers need to remember their purpose if they desire such success. And, according to him, this purpose is simple: each keyword selected by you eventually becomes the Primary Keyword for a different page of your site. And search engines rank “pages” not sites. This said, a keyword list of 300 phrases becomes a website with 300 pages and each page has a shot at a ranking! This point is further emphasized in Martell’s audio report, entitled “Google Mastery,” that Martell prepared exclusively for readers of his handbook.

Martell’s Handbook even shows exactly how to develop keyword rich text and points you toward reputable, affordable authors in the event you (like most) experience writer’s block or just don’t have the time or know-how to regularly craft the necessary copy. And, he shares with readers one of his golden rules, which is to ensure site visitors are able to quickly and easily get the information they want/need, for this ensures an affiliate marketer’s success.

And, if you use Martell’s measuring stick of online success which is somewhere near 30,000 pages of online content, you’re sure to see that measuring up is going to take some time, but with the tools and know how he graciously shares in his manual, readers are sure to make promising protégés.

Take his notes on Keyword Density. As he shows us, his original formula still works. Even so, in this revised edition, he shares with readers new-found ways to increase his Google rankings by as much as 30% with some adjustment to the original formula. These new rules include: optimizing each page for keyword density by including “Primary and Tier-1 Secondary Keywords” in the following ways: Primary Keyword: use once in the headline and again, just once, in the first paragraph. Now, do not use this keyword again anywhere else on the page. For “Tier-1 Secondary Keywords: use once in the first or second paragraph, then nowhere else on the page.”

Martell follows this with proven solutions and use of keyword variations (individual words that are based on your Primary and Secondary Keywords) all written in a manner that translates into a thorough understanding, which lends itself to strong results.

Take Martell’s advice on a simple 300-word article. In his Affiliate Marketer’s Handbook, he explains that keywords should be used repeatedly in the following density: no less than 24 times; no more than 36 times. Martell advises to “extrapolate the above ratio on longer articles and to randomly included Tier-2 Secondary Keywords throughout the text in no particular density, but added only as they would naturally appear editorially. This is followed by very intuitive clarifications, advice and tips that further demonstrate why Martell remains a cut above the rest.

He also takes a look at the latest technology, including Google’s new “stemming” technology and makes even this cyber-jibber make perfectly good sense.

Martell’s Affiliate Marketer’s Handbook also boasts a wealth of information on website design, including buying website templates (complete with links to simple, effective templates designed specifically for affiliate marketers) from which you can easily and economically build from in a flash.

Martell de-myths Internal Linking (I previously thought this was some sort of inner-office dating service) and makes backlinking (which I though was something even less desirable than internal linking) as understandable as it is important in this highly specialized Web arena.

And speaking of Web arenas and cyberspace, I’d be remiss not to point out that Martell’s explanation and use of “Artificial Intelligence” is cosmic, to say the least!

As for site submission, the horrors once associated with this are a thing of the past, thanks to Martell’s documented trials and errors. He expertly (yes, again) explains how to submit each of your sites to all the major search engines through a fantastic service called SelfPromotion.com. Once submitted, the search engines will spider your sites automatically each month looking for additional content – a real bonus!

But to find out Martell’s even better way to submit, you’ll have to read his Affiliate Marketer’s handbook. However, I’ll go ahead and give you a clue. It includes leaving a certain box unchecked and the results this little step yields are remarkable!

Now, as you read the handbook, you’re sure to agree that Martell is as resourceful as he is smart. Unfortunately, most of us lack his intuitiveness and the sheer genius with which he approaches and breaks downs affiliate marketing. Fear not. Martell shares his best secrets for creating a more resourceful you and even shows you how to search for potential merchants at CJ.com. In fact, he walks you through this process step-by-step. And, as he says, “With the knowledge of how to do this you can now go to another commission network and get their ad copy (even though they might have different protocols), and do a Google search if you want other options; for instance, if you’d like to see if you could get a better commission with an independent merchant. Cha-ching!

About this time, Martell starts talking about “wiggle room,” something we all need more of. Anyway, he shares some of the best information available today on simplifying web design and understanding publishing tools, showing exactly what he deems “resourceful” and what he terms “wiggle room.”

Perhaps one of the highlights of the handbook is the section on Revenue Links, after all, this is the name of the game, right?

And while I could go on and on about the meat and potatoes of Martell’s Affiliate Marketer’s Handbook, suffice it to say it is a feast, one I will gorge on over and over again as I make my own way through each succulent course (and build each of my new sites), savouring every bite of the rich information, looking forward to the next tip or technique, mouth watering as I devour every chapter, every appendix, every workbook page, topped off with a dessert of the richest kind – luscious, sought-after updates and ongoing support information that rounds out one of the few truly perfect meals.

So pull up a chair and get ready for a life-changing experience. Trust me, your future never looked so good. And, if you don’t believe me, just ask your taste buds! You’ll be feeding them very well on the income you can make with Martell’s Affiliate Handbook, your own persistence and what I hope is a strong desire to succeed.

See you on the World Wide Web...

For more information, see work-at-home-net-guides.com.

About Kellie Fowler

Kellie is an award-winning copywriter, editor and reviewer who crafts copy for Associated Press, PR Newswire, the BusinessWire, Fortne 500 companies, national business and healthcare magazines, well-known corporate newsletters and publications, countless high-traffic Websites and more. She spends her free time in the home she shares with her boyfriend of six years and their family of six rescue animals on the Rideau in Eastern Ontario, where she enjoys kayaking, fly fishing, gardening, cooking, reading in her hammock and, of course, writing. Kellie, a native of the Southern U.S., is the owner of Write Solutions, a full service writing and editing company.

New Strategy to Increase Adsense CTR

2005-07-22T16:16:00.000+07:00

One said this strategy had increased his Adsense click-through CTR up to 700%!

What is it?

Put pictures next to your Adsense ads.

This strategy is proven to be effective in driving visitors to click on the ads. Pictures do draw people's attention...

Adsense say that it's OK to perform this strategy, as long as you put decent pictures and graphs and those pictures are not blatantly saying "Click this, click this!" to your sites' visitors.

The best way to do this is by placing 4 pictures above a borderless 728 x 90 leaderboard.
Wanna try...?

Low Cost Affiliate Website Templates – Is there Anything Better?

2005-07-19T14:06:00.000+07:00

by Bill Schnarr

If any of you reading this have plans to be or are interested in affiliate marketing (and let’s face it, why wouldn’t you be?) then sooner or later you are going have to start looking for some good template sites to boost your productivity.

Let’s face it; as with any job you work from home, time means money, and why waste precious hours developing your own web sites when you easily purchase website templates designed specifically for affiliate marketers that you can simply drop your text and graphics into for instant professional looking websites.

If you are looking for just such a template for your affiliate business, then you need to know what to look for in the low cost template market.

Professional looking templates need clean design, easy navigation and downloading, ease of use, and simple, straightforward support such as online help and tutorials to get you moving.

Clean Templates are Happy Templates

Nobody likes trying to navigate confusing or overloaded websites. Let’s face it; most of us don’t like reading on a computer screen as much as we’d like to think. Trying to manoeuvre around messy, flashy websites is a headache that most people would prefer to avoid.

Their discomfort means lost sales for affiliate marketers!

Online shoppers would rather close a website window than try to work their way through sloppy design. It reeks of amateur, and people who might want to shop online have no confidence in amateurs. When they have no confidence, they are definitely not going to give up their credit card numbers to buy goods or services.

Keep it clean! Keep your text to the point and error-free, and make sure nothing overlaps or looks out of place. Remember, great websites are like special effects in action movies; the less you notice them the better off you’ll be overall.

Easy Navigation: Finding Your Way to Success!

Easy navigation is a must for any affiliate marketer intent on driving up sales, and good low cost templates must be easy to navigate if they are going to do their jobs properly.

Consider this: the second a potential customer gets lost in your website and has to start pounding the “back” button, you are pretty much assured that you have already lost them. Again, this is a confidence thing; anyone unsure of where they are on your website is less likely to start checking out your links and buying stuff.

Would you shop at a store regularly if the only way you could find it was to drive around aimlessly until you stumbled across it? Why would you expect online shoppers to be any different?

Support Troops Win the War

Just like you always need to be on the ball with your own levels of support and help for your customers, so too should any web template and website design company worth its salt be on the ball when it comes to helping you.

Remember, for the affiliate marketer, time is money. Use it, as a mantra, so you’ll never forget it. The more time you spend with a confusing issue with regards to your website templates, the less time your sites will be out there earning you all the money you deserve for cashing in on the Internet’s fastest growing business industry.

Online tutorials, on-the-spot web help such as email or online chat help can be a great benefit to getting yourself organized and ready to start working on your sites. The last thing you want to do is be stuck wrestling with complicated code issues or other template-related problems.

Support troops win the war, not just the front line guys. Keep that in mind when you are shopping for a good low cost web template company, and you should have no problems with your affiliate marketing business.

Getting Started with Low Cost Templates

A great place to start looking for low cost web templates for affiliate marketing would be www.goldenpinecone.com. These guys are good enough to attract the attention of James Martell, a professional affiliate marketer and the author of the Affiliate Marketers Handbook. In fact, Martell uses this company regularly to get his long line of great professional looking affiliate sites off the ground.

Things like their Ready-2-Go website templates that come preloaded with all kinds of goodies such as SSI (Server Side Includes) and come as Microsoft Front Page for Beginners + files for beginners and Dreamweaver files for advanced and professional users.

All you have to do is drop in your text, add a title, and you’re all ready to go! No muss, no fuss!

Golden Pinecone is a business that specifically targets affiliate marketers in their business dealings. They know about web search optimization, “spider-food”, and a host of other things affiliate marketers need to carefully consider before they build a website.

They’ll work with you to implement everything you need to make your website a success, because they firmly believe that when your site looks good, Golden Pinecone looks great.”

Affiliate marketing is a great way to augment your income, or it can be an exciting career all on its own. Being prepared with the right tools for the job can go a long way in helping you step out of the mire of unsuccessful affiliate marketers and into the ring where the real winners are. Keep an eye on the bottom line, and you’ll be amazed at how successful you can be.

For more information, see www.goldenpinecone.com

About The Author

Bill Schnarr is a single parent and freelance writer who works from his home in Calgary, Alberta. As well as writing about making money with web-based affiliate programs and having dozens of online and print publishing credits, you can also look for him in the upcoming "Chicken Soup for the Single Parents Soul" due out in February 2005.

Affiliate Marketing Training – Learn to Crawl Before You Enter the Race!

2005-06-24T18:49:00.000+07:00

The growth of the affiliate marketing industry has been astounding as of late, and that means that many new people are making the plunge every day. This has also lead to an increase in the amount of affiliate marketing training materials permeating the market.

So what gives?

Affiliate marketing is simply redirecting traffic, isn’t it? Isn’t that what makes it so easy to do and easy to be successful at?

In a word: No!

There is a lot more to affiliate marketing then just setting up an affiliate account, dropping your website into cyberspace, and sitting back as the cash rolls in. Yes, it can be easy, and it is definitely creative and fun, but it is a business, like any other, and you need to be qualified for the position and have a good handle on what you’re doing in order to survive.

There are many affiliate marketers out there who simply aren’t making the grade, and the reason is that they don’t have the proper training to be successful at their jobs. Anyone who is absolutely serious about being a success has three options: training, training, and more training!

But where to begin? Well, there are several ways to receive this kind of training. First of all, trial and error may be one way to go, as many affiliate marketers are self taught.

That is a time consuming affair though, with no guarantee of success. A better way to go would be through the use of affiliate marketing manuals, online tutorials, affiliate marketing training courses, and of course, the great affiliate conferences held every year in different parts of the world.

Read a Book!

One of the best and easiest ways to retain the basic fundamental principles of affiliate marketing is to go down to your bookstore and grab up a couple books on the subject. Many affiliate marketers have found a way to subsidize their income as instructors and novelists, since they are spending a lot of time writing articles for their websites anyway.

There is little in the way of professional training in affiliate marketing, for example, you can’t go to university to become an expert on it, but many of these authors have run the self-taught method explained above and achieved a certain level of success.

Learn from their successes and mistakes! Read their books and take notes. See how they have found success in some areas and how they relate to the other books you have. Cross referencing is a great way to get a feel for the fundamentals of affiliate marketing, as you will start to see specific patterns emerge in the training methods of each book.

Also, you will be able to trim away the extra fat that may be part of each authors affiliate style, and come up with your own goals and direction based on the knowledge they have imparted to you.
If reading a book isn’t getting you anywhere or you’d like to see more, there is always the online tutorial route for affiliate marketing training.

Getting Extra Help through Cyberspace

Another great way to get he affiliate marketing training you need is to go through an online tutorial. In much the same way as a book will help you learn the basics and get the information you really need, online tutorials can show you how real affiliate marketing can be successful in a dynamic web presence complete with working models and examples.

In addition, many of these tutorials will offer links to great savings and deals on important affiliate products such as web site hosting, template design, and domain name registration to get the eager affiliate marketing student up and running.

Many of these affiliate marketing online tutorials are designed and kept up by successful affiliate marketers (some of whom may have written books that you should already be reading!) and you can learn from their mistakes and successes. Also, since web copy is generally simpler than book formats, expect the information you gather from an online tutorial to be brisk, to the point, and perfect for taking notes.

Back to School, Affiliate Marketing Style!

If you feel that you haven’t learned enough from reading books and checking out online tutorials, then you are in exactly the right frame of mind for being an affiliate marketing success. It is time to move on to where real success begins: the classroom.

Now, this classroom can be in a real class, as some successful affiliate marketers hold actual marketing lessons for their students, and, depending where you live, this may or may not be an option for you.

On the other hand, there are plenty of marketers out there who offer their affiliate marketing training courses as downloadable e-courses, something you can do at home in your spare time just like distance learning for many universities!

One fine example of this type of downloadable course is available through one of Affiliate Marketing’s shining stars James Martell, a man who has made his fortune several times over by becoming first successful as an affiliate marketer, and then as both a teacher and student of the art of affiliate marketing and the astounding growth of the industry.

This course has been a huge success and is wildly popular not only because it is a fully comprehensive strategy that includes all of the great secrets to success James Martell has learned over the years, but also because James Martell will be there with you every step of the way to make sure you get everything out of his course that you put into it.

Martell also provides updates and online help for his students, and anyone serious about becoming a successful affiliate marketer really needs to take a look at what James Martell has to offer.

In fact, not only has James Martell written a book on the subject, he has also provided online tutorials with his training course, covering just about every area of learning in the world of affiliate marketing training.

Finally, after all of the hard work and effort you have put into your education, and you feel you can’t possibly learn any more without going into the world of affiliate marketing yourself, it’s time to relax, have some fun, and really get down to business: it’s time to attend and affiliate marketing event.

The Summit of the Affiliate Marketers

Once you are ready to become an affiliate marketer, you may be tempted to just plunge in and start getting to work. But you’ll be a lot better off – and so will your marketing strategy – if you make a point to attend an affiliate marketing event, such as Affiliate Summit 2005 being held Las Vegas, Nevada and Commission Junction University being held in Santa Barbara, California in September.

Affiliate summits and conferences are places for industry professionals to get together, share a few laughs, eat, drink, and introduce themselves to other parts of the affiliate marketing industry.

This means that web designers, hosting companies, and businesses looking to expand their affiliate marketing presence are all mingling with affiliate marketers themselves, shaking hands and making friendships that will be beneficial to all involved.

Affiliate marketers can also learn about changes to laws and policies, new technologies, and better strategies for tackling affiliate marketing problems. They will be exposed to the same people who they will be in contact with when they start their affiliate marketing strategies, and this in turn can improve their relationships and business prospects across the board.

Plus, it is a chance to become a member of an exciting and dynamic close-knit group of people who have come together and formed an environment of support in an industry that leaves many untrained victims by the wayside.

These are people that you want to get to know, not because it will help your business but because their friendships will enrich your life in ways you can’t begin to imagine.

Affiliate marketing training. If you are really serious about getting into the race, take some time and learn to crawl first.

For more information, see www.work-at-home-net-guides.com.

About The Author

Bill Schnarr is a single parent and freelance writer who works from his home in Calgary, Alberta. As well as having dozens of online and print publishing credits, you can also look for him in the upcoming "Chicken Soup for the Single Parents Soul" due out in February 2005.

Make a Full-Time Income Online - 4 Ways to Do So

2005-06-13T18:24:00.000+07:00

Many people earn good livings through the internet. Can YOU? Here are some ideas of how you could make a full-time income online...

First thing you could do is to find unique products in your local markets. Look for handicrafts, antiques, or any original products from your country and then sell them online. If you take a visit to eBay.com, you will see that people sell almost everything there.

Sometimes you could find home industries that create good quality products but just don't know how to market. Instead of registering those products on eBay, why don't you try to get rights to sell it? The next step you should do is to build your own promotional web site for the products.

Very few people are doing this, but once you have the formula, you could make a full-time income just by finding unique products and sell them online!

The second thing you could do is creating your own products. If you are an expert in a certain area and you know that your knowledge could solve others' problems, why don't you write a book about it and sell it over the internet? Or, instead of writing a book, you could make a tutorial video and market it in a form of CD. Several surveys stated that the most selling products on the internet are books, softwares and services.

One thing very important is that you must run a thorough research BEFORE creating your own product. Find out first whether people would buy the product or not. Many people skip this crucial step and end up with products they can't sell!

Another good alternative to make a full-time income through the internet is by becoming an Affiliate. The main concept is to sell others' products and receive commissions on every sales made. It's called Affiliate Marketing. Some merchants even pay you for clicks and leads to their promotional web sites, although not many offer this kind of deal nowadays.

Unlike the first two alternatives I mentioned before, in Affiliate Marketing, you don't have to worry about shipping the products, you don't have to take credit card orders from your web site and you don't have to deal with customers' complaints. Still, you can NOT keep most of the profit!

Many marketers earn full-time income through Affiliate Marketing only. Some experienced others create their own products, keep the most of the profits and promote back-end products as Affiliates.

If you are a beginner with a small amount of money, Affiliate Marketing is a good place to start with. This way you could reduce the risk of losing big bucks and get a good grip on Internet Marketing first. While running those Affiliate programs, you could jot down some ideas along the way to then create your own products that WILL sell!

Another way to make money online is through Network Marketing. In this type of marketing, you must build your downlines to increase your income. Building includes training, mentoring and motivating. Some people prefer Affiliate Marketing to Network Marketing and some others are just the opposite. Any kind you choose, just make sure you pick only solid businesses...

So, here's a recap of how you can make a full-time income online:

o Find unique products and get the rights to sell them
o Create your own product and spread it over the internet
o Join solid Affiliate programs
o Join a solid Network Marketing company

Happy hunting...!

Corey Rudl Died in A Car Accident...(1970-2005)

2005-06-05T18:16:00.000+07:00

I was shocked to hear it...

Corey was the first man who introduces Affiliate Marketing back in 1996. His Internet Marketing tips, strategies and courses were read by a great big number of people.

Here is the article from NBC news about the accident...

Two Killed In Crash At California Speedway

POSTED: 3:23 pm PDT June 2, 2005
UPDATED: 11:05 am PDT June 3, 2005

FONTANA, Calif. -- Two San Diego County men were killed when their Porsche crashed and burned at the California Speedway, authorities said.

The 2005 Porsche Carrera GT went out of control, left the inside track and careened onto the grass, hit a barrier and caught fire at 10:40 a.m. Thursday, San Bernardino County officials said.

The passenger, Corey Nicholas Rudl, 34, died at the scene. The driver, Benjamin Miles Keaton, 39, was airlifted to Loma Linda University Hospital, where he died about an hour later, according to the county coroner's office.

The La Jolla men were not burned but died of crash injuries, Supervising Deputy Coroner Randy Emon said.

Both men were wearing helmets and safety belts but the car was doing more than 100 mph when it crashed, authorities said.

"The driver's side was in good shape, but the passenger side was obliterated," Emon said.

The accident occurred while the track was being rented by the San Diego chapter of the Ferrari Owners Club, speedway spokesman Dennis Bickmeier said.

Clubs commonly use the speedway when professional races aren't going on, he said.

The men are the fourth and fifth fatalities at California Speedway since it opened in 1997.

Fontana is 55 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

Earning Extra Income With Affiliate Marketing – Having Your Cake and Eating it Too!

2005-06-03T18:27:00.000+07:00

By Bill Schnarr

Affiliate marketing is the single fastest growth industry on the Internet. Yet many people go into it without a solid recipe for success. Indeed, many look to earn extra income with affiliate marketing with no real plan, and that can severely hamper their efforts at becoming successful at it.

Make no mistake, although affiliate marketing can be an easy and fun way to earn additional income, it is work, and just like any other job, requires effort, perseverance, and above all, a clear line of sight from start to finish line.

Things like setting up your home office properly, getting some know-how, setting realistic goals, making connections, and investing in your business will not only ensure that you have a leg-up on your competition, but it will also ensure you are firmly standing head and shoulders above them.

Setting Up Your Home Base

Perhaps the most important first step you can take to becoming a professional affiliate marketer is to set up your home base – that little home office you’ve always dreamed about!

There are many good articles on the internet about ergonomic design, and with good reason. Anyone who is going to be spending a large amount of time on their computers needs a space that promotes good posture, positive environments, and takes care of safety issues revolving around the office workspace.

The best place to start might be to head down to your local Home Depot and touch base with a professional sales representative. They are trained to show you how to set up a first-rate ergonomic office while saving you some serious cash.

Ergonomics is the science behind preventing office workplace injuries, and office designers now make tables, chairs, and desktop accessories that reduce stress on your back, limbs, wrists, and tendons, and reduce stress injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome which can occur from long hours of doing small repetitive tasks.

You’ll want to start with an ergonomically designed desk that puts everything within easy reach, a good computer with a screen that won’t hurt your eyes, non-glaring lamps placed far enough away that your eyes won’t be soaking in light while you are trying to work on the computer screen, and a chair that is comfortable and promotes circulation to your legs and rest of your body.

Of course, having the greatest home office in the world won’t matter if you don’t take the next step to becoming a successful affiliate marketer: getting some good, professional training.

Learning the Trade

Nobody goes onto a worksite cold. You can’t walk into a restaurant and expect to become the head chef just because you dressed like one that morning. And no construction company in the world is going to put you in charge just because you want the extra money but lack any real training.

The trick, then, is getting some professional training and learning how to become a professional affiliate marketer.

The first step in this road to success is to find a professional affiliate marketer and see what they can do to help you get on your feet and get moving. Thankfully, there are a few affiliate marketing pros out there who supplement their income by fulfilling another dream for many of them: being able to teach their trade to other enthusiastic marketers and passing their collective knowledge on to others.

In fact, simply typing “Affiliate Marketing Training” (in quotation marks) into www.yahoo.com, www.google.com or some other search engine will find dozens and dozens of sites promoting quality affiliate marketing conferences that you can attend.

One of affiliate marketing’s brightest stars and biggest success stories is James Martell, and chances are pretty good that if you’ve looked into affiliate marketing at all you’ve seen his name pop up more than once. His downloadable home-study course and twice monthly audio newsletter for students of his program make him the good place to start looking for a great course and learning the inner workings of affiliate marketing.

Become a student of the business. Start by setting some realistic income goals and working to achieve them.

Setting Reachable Goals

One problem with some affiliate marketers is that many tend to overshoot both their skills and their plans by setting unrealistic income goals and becoming disenchanted when they are unable to attain them.

Certainly a goal of $5,000 a month is attainable, but the first time affiliate marketer is most likely not going to make that kind of money when they step into the ring for the first time.

Make no mistake; $5,000 dollars a month is a goal that can be achieved through affiliate marketing, but beginners should look for something more modest. Start small. Start with, “I’m going to earn an extra $50-$100 a day, by learning how to create my own great looking websites, that get free traffic from the search engines, by taking the time to learn how to do it, from someone who already does the same thing.”

As an income goal, it’s certainly achievable, and you would be doing yourself a favour by setting aside the extra time you will need to learn how to do things right, the first time. Like any skill, it takes time and experience before you really get good at what you are doing.

Set goals and get used to setting them often. Set up daily goals for little things. Set up weekly and monthly goals to work toward even larger goals. Get used to writing your wants and needs on paper, and then actively working toward those goals. You’ll be glad you did, and you’ll be amazed at how much something as simple as a “to do” list can help you focus your energy and become better at your craft.

There’s a great book out about goal setting called “Goals: Setting and Achieving Them on Schedule” by Zig Ziglar. Take a look at it if you feel you could use some extra help in this department. In fact, set a goal to purchase the book and read it if you have to!

Another important goal for you to set: if you are really looking to augment your earnings with affiliate programs, or plan on becoming a full-time marketer, you have to get out there and make connections.

Making Connections to Your Future

By all accounts, the professional affiliate marketing community is a tight-knit group of people who are constantly in contact with one another.

There is a large amount of information sharing, helping one another as a support group, and a general belief that by pitching in and helping out everyone can be successful in their new role as an affiliate marketer and learn from each others mistakes.

It would be extremely shallow to suggest getting out there and making friends simply to help your business along, and people tend to not look kindly upon those who do (and we all know someone like that, don’t we?). Instead, get out there and introduce yourself. Start by seeing where you can help others with their business, and in return people will be more inclined to help you when you need it.

Get out there and enjoy yourself, and get to know these people personally. You won’t only be better off from a business standpoint, but your life will be far richer for making good friends who can relate to the trials and tribulations of your business woes and successes.

Just being able to relate to like-minded people will relieve tons of work stress. You will always be able to discuss your new career and problems you are facing with people who understand what you’re talking bout and don’t simply see your job as “foolin’ around on the ‘puter”.

Of course, they’ll have no choice but to take you a little more seriously when you invest a little money and a lot of effort in your own affiliate marketing business and really make your image shine.

Investing in Your Business is Believing in Yourself!

It’s a well known truism that states, “It takes money to make money.” These words couldn’t be truer in the world of affiliate marketing.

Although affiliate marketing is relatively cheap to set up as a home business, there are still some costs involved in getting up and running smoothly. Things like home office accessories (remember that trip to Home Depot?) Can set you back large sums of money depending on how far you are willing to go at once.

There are also costs involved within the industry itself. For example, finding affordable web space ($8-$15 per month) and registering your own domain names ($10-15 per year) does add up.

You will also need to look at web site template options if you hope to save time by having your websites “pre-planned”. Low-cost website templates, such as those found at www.affiliate-marketing-templates.com can greatly affect the way others view your site. Is it professional? Is it clean? A good web development company selling low cost FrontPage website templates will be able to accomplish all of this and more.

You are also going to want to invest both time and effort into setting yourself up with quality content. Writing for the web is a skill that takes practice and patience, like any other, and must be clean and easy to read while still fulfilling the needs of your affiliate site.

You can always go out and find professional writers to do this for you, but remember that they can be costly and deserve to be well-paid for their services. After all, they are going to make or break your web site!

Investing in your affiliate marketing business is more than just covering costs, though. It is really about you stepping up to the plate and making a commitment to become a success. It is an investment in your own success, as well as an investment in your future.

Hopefully, this article has given you some ideas about the direction you need to take in order to earn extra income as a successful affiliate marketer. Remember that it takes time to become succeed at anything. Rome wasn’t built in a day. You’re affiliate marketing business isn’t going to be built in a day either.

Just keep at it, and before long you’ll have people coming to you for advice on how to get started.

For more information, see www.work-at-home-net-guides.com.

About The Author

Bill Schnarr is a single parent and freelance writer who works from his home in Calgary, Alberta. As well as having dozens of online and print publishing credits, you can also look for him in the upcoming "Chicken Soup for the Single Parents Soul" due out in February 2005.

Big Advertising Mistake - Don't Do This and It Will Save Your Advertising Budget!

2005-05-24T14:51:00.000+07:00

Advertising plays an important role in your business (every business, actually!). But, there is one BIG mistake advertisers frequently do and this mistake could cost you a bundle!

What is it?

The fact that you don't analyze what type of advertising is working for you and which are not doing so well!

Analyzing the results of your advertising campaigns will help you determine where your money should go. If you skip this task, then you'd probably spending too much money on a lousy campaign! Of course you don't want that to happen do you?

I know that this task is very time consuming and boring, that's why most advertisers always neglect this one. The fact is, it becomes time consuming and boring if you don't create a system for that. This system should inform you the performance of all of your advertising campaigns.

This is what makes online advertising so great. Many online advertising services give you ad campaign reports on a regular basis. They inform you which ads are working and which ones are not. Although not every type of online advertisings have this feature, one of them who does is Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising.

But what if you advertise in ezines (lots of ezines) and ad classifieds? What if you put several banners and text links here and there? How to monitor their performances?

Well, in case you didn't know, there are some services in the internet which really could track your ads and make your job a lot easier. To learn more about this service, you can go to HyperTracker

Once you know exactly the performance of all of your ad campaigns, here are some steps that can save a lot of your advertising budget:

o Determine Your Target Market

Who would be interested in your products? What problems do your products solve? Believe me, reaching untargeted market would only hurt your advetising budget. Don't go for quantity, but go for quality! Many people love blasting ads to a huge community and ended up with no sales at all? Why? Because they are simply reaching the WRONG people.

o Set Up a Realistic Budget

How much money could you put aside for advertising? Remember, don't waste all of your advertising budget on a single campaign! You have to test what type of advertising that will work best for you.

o A Great Sales Copy

Make people want to click through your URL. Your target here is to make them click, not to sell! Let your site do the selling for you.

o Test Several Ads

Test several ads at the same time. Tweak your sales copy. You'll be amazed at how a little difference you add to an ad could result in a HUGE difference in the response. This part is a lot easier if you use the good old HyperTracker

o Analyze and Re-invest

Analyze your ads performance. Stick to the ones that give you best results. Now that you know what works and what doesn't, you could re-invest your advertising budget ONLY on the best type of advertising.

Internet Marketing Tool - Web Business Builder Review

2005-05-24T13:00:00.000+07:00

Many Internet Marketing tools and softwares emerge nowadays, supporting Internet Marketers to complete their tasks faster and easier. New ideas, inventions and secret strategies-revealed contribute to the quick success af many new Internet Marketers.

Still, you have to be very careful when it comes to purchasing the right products or tools that could really solve your problems and of course...increase your income!

Some parties offer free tools and trainings in exchange for your participation in their businesses or Network Marketing organizations. Others offer end products which are very helpful in starting and building an internet business, or even growing an existing one.

A very interesting tool (just released in 2005) I found in the internet for this purpose is Ez Web Business Builder. It comes in a form of CD. You just plug it into your PC and the CD will start the step-by-step tutorial video on starting and building an internet business from scratch.

The tutorial video is divided into 3 sections with a total of 18 chapters/themes. The most interesting part of this Ez Web Business Builder is that you will be asked to perform several given tasks once you finish watching each of those chapters. It's the first "View It and Do It" video on the matter.

This way, you are "forced" to execute every steps needed to build your internet business, even if you start with nothing.

To give you a clearer picture of what this tool is all about, so you can decide whether it's going to help you
a lot or not, here are some descriptions of every chapter:

Video 1. Jot down some ideas, look up for Affiliate programs

Video 2. Find out certain demands on the internet

Video 3. Narrow your niche

Video 4. Unique Selling Preposition

Video 5. What products to sell

Video 6. Domain name

Video 7. Free web design template

Video 8. Select free/paid web design template

Video 9. Customized web site, write your sales copy

Video 10. Search Engine Optimization

Video 11. Web hosting

Video 12. Credit card orders for your site, web site statistics

Video 13. Linking

Video 14. Opt-in email

Video 15. Submit URL and Pay Per Click Advertising

Video 16. Build content

Video 17. Start your own Affiliate program

Video 18. Joint Venture

Followed by 18 related tasks to perform and several useful references.

Although it is less needed by the pro Internet Marketers, this tool is extremely helpful for you if you are thinking of starting and building a profitable internet business. The step-by-step strategies given could also be an eye-opener for those of you who already have your own business but still couldn't figure out how to increase your sales. You can benefit also from this tool if you are interested in adding up new internet businesses.

Do Your Potential Customers Forget About You?

2005-05-12T12:41:00.000+07:00

by Tom Kulzer

Your web business probably gets product inquiries from potential customers around the globe. Inquiries come via e-mail and your web site, and you try to send information to each hot prospect as quickly as you can. You know that you can drastically increase the likelihood of making a sale by satisfying each person's need for information quickly!

But, after you've delivered that first bit of information to your prospect, do you send him any further information?

If you are like most Internet marketers, you don't.

When you don't follow that initial message with additional information later on, you let a valuable prospect slip from your grasp! This is a potential customer who may have been very interested in your products, but who lost your contact information, or was too busy to make a purchase when your first message reached him. Often, a prospect will purposely put off making a purchase, to see if you find him important enough to follow up with later. When he doesn't receive a follow up message from you, he will take his business elsewhere.

Are you losing profits due to inconsistent and ineffective follow up?

Following up with leads is more than just a process - it's an art. In order to be effective, you need to design a follow up system, and stick to it, EVERY DAY! If you don't follow up with your prospects consistently, INDIVIDUALLY, and in a timely fashion, then you might as well forget the whole follow up process.

Consistent follow up gets results!

When I first started marketing and following up with prospects, I used a follow up method that I now call the "List Technique." I had a large database containing the names and e-mail addresses of people who had specifically requested information about my products and services. These prospects had already received my first letter by the time they requested more information, so I used the company's latest news as a follow up piece. I would write follow up newsletters every now and then, and send them, in one mass mailing, to everyone who had previously requested information from me. While this probably did help me win a few additional orders, it wasn't a very good follow up method. Why isn't the "List Technique" very effective?

The List Technique isn't consistent. Proponents of the List Technique tend to only send out follow up messages when their companies have "big news".
List Technique messages don't give the potential customer any additional information about the product or service in question. He can't make a more informed buying decision after receiving a newsletter! If someone is wondering whether your company sells the best knick-knacks, what does he care that you've just moved your headquarters?
List Technique messages convey a "big list" mentality to your potential customers. When I used to write follow up messages using the List Technique, I was writing news bulletins to everyone I knew! I should have been sending a personal message to each individual who wanted to know more about my products.

What follow up method really works?

Following up with each lead individually, multiple times, but at set intervals, and with pre-written messages, will dramatically increase sales! Others who use this same technique confirm that they have all at least doubled the sales of various products! In order to set this system up, though, you need to do some planning.

First, you'll need to develop your follow up messages. If you've been marketing on the Internet for any length of time, then you should already have a first informative letter. Your second letter marks the beginning of the follow up process, and should go into more detail than the first letter. Fill this letter with details that you didn't have the space to add to the first letter. Stress the BENEFITS of your products or services!

Your next 2-3 follow up messages should be rather short. Include lists of the benefits and potential uses of your products and services. Write each letter so that your prospects can skim the contents, and still see the full force of your message.

The next couple of follow up messages should create a sense of urgency in your prospect's mind. Make a special offer, giving him a reason to order NOW instead of waiting any longer. After reading these follow up messages, your prospect should want to order immediately!

Phrase each of your final 1 or 2 follow up messages in the form of a question. Ask your prospect why he hasn't yet placed an order? Try to get him to actually respond. Ask if the price is to high, the product isn't the right color or doesn't have the right features, or if he is looking for something else entirely. (By this time, it's unlikely that this person will order from you. However, his feedback can help you modify your follow up letters or products, so that other prospects will order from you.)

The timing of your follow up letters is just as important as their content. You don't want one prospect to receive a follow up the day after he gets your initial informative letter, while another prospect waits weeks for a follow up!

Always send an initial, informative letter as soon as it is requested, and send the first follow up 24 hours afterwards. You want your hot prospects to have information quickly, so that they can make informed buying decisions!

Send the next 2-3 follow up messages between 1 and 3 days apart. Your prospect is still hot, and is probably still shopping around! Tell him about the benefits of your products and services, as opposed to your competitors'. You will make the sale!

Send the final follow up messages later on. You certainly don't want to annoy your prospect! Make sure that these last letters are at least 4 days apart.

Following up effectively seems complicated, but it doesn't have to be! So many potential customers are lost because of poor follow up - don't you want to be one of the few to get it right?

Tom Kulzer is the President and CEO of AWeber Communications. Less Work - More Sales.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - Fix Your OffPage!

2005-05-07T14:44:00.000+07:00

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is something you should be aware of before creating a site. Make sure you've done careful researches on the best keywords to use. Using the wrong keywords would eliminate your site from search engines forever!

Besides Onpage Optimization, to rank well in search engines you must optimize your OffPage factors too. What you have to do is basically creating many links pointing to your site and getting links from different IP Addresses.

When you have many links pointing to your site, that means you have many votes. The more votes you get, the more popular you are to the search engines.

To create many links pointing to your site, the first thing you can do is exchanging links with other sites. But, make sure you are linking to good websites! There is a free service in the net that will make this task easier. Simply go to:

http://www.LinkMetro.com

Here, you can exchange links with related-content sites and you will be notified when a certain website is no longer exist.

Another way to get those links is by buying text links. Or, if you want the free technique, you can always post some articles and comments in online forums containing your site's URL in the signature.

Improve your OffPage and the search engines will love you!

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - Fix Your OnPage!

2005-05-07T14:41:00.000+07:00

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is something you should be aware of before creating a site. Make sure you've done careful researches on the best keywords to use. Using the wrong keywords would eliminate your site from search engines forever!

This keyword-tweaking game for a site is often called OnPage Optimization. In order to rank high in search engines, make sure you execute these tasks:

Include your keywords in the domain name
Include them also in the page title
Use "h1" and "h2" header tags
Type some keywords in bold, italic and underline
Put your keywords at the beginning and end of your webpage
Named all the images or graphics after your keywords

A wrong thing to do is performing unnecessary keyword-filling! This could make your site banned by search engines. An example of unnecessary keyword-filling is by putting hidden texts all over your webpage. Did it cross in your mind? Well don't do that silly thing!

Also don't fill your meta tag, alt image tag, or title tag with keywords. You will get caught and your site will be banned for this!

Page Rank - A Quick Overview for Beginners...

2005-05-07T10:28:00.000+07:00

Page Rank (PR) is a specific value for a website page given by Google. It is Google's measure of the importance of a certain site page. The scale is between 1-10. Google gives your website high PR if it is popular. It's based on the number of votes other websites give for your website.

Those websites give votes to your site by putting a link to it on their websites. When you link your site to another website, that means you vote for it.

From this information, if you want your site to have a high PR, then you have to get as many votes as possible from other websites. In other words, make as many links as possible to your site and you will have higher PR!

This is important because PR is one of the many factors that Google takes into account when ranking websites.

If you want to find out your site's PR (and others' too), you must download and install Google's Toolbar to your browser. Go here to download the toolbar for free:

http://toolbar.Google.com

After installation, then you will see a small white and green bar. That is the Page Rank indicator. If you run your mouse pointer over it, you can see the PR of the current page you are opening. A PR of 6 is considered good for a website.

Affiliate Programs - How to Pick the Solid Ones

2005-05-06T14:30:00.000+07:00

If you've surfed the internet long enough, you must've found so many merchants offering Affiliate Programs. But the tricky thing is to choose the solid ones for your niche.

This is very important, because your reputation is on stake here! Joining the wrong affiliate programs will only hurt your online business.

First of all, it is almost impossible for you to collect adequate informations on those merchant companies. You certainly can't investigate them thoroughly. Hence, you will never be able to predict their successes or failures.

That's why you must not stress on one single merchant only within your niche.

Pick a couple of the best quality products to promote. Still, you can do some critical researches to reduce risk.

OK, now let's see how we can pick the goods from the bads. Here are some factors that influences the dependability of an affiliate program. The more of these factors are present in a certain program, the more reasons you get to sign up to the program.

Let's see...

Great quality products. This is a must. How could you promote something you are not proud of?
Good affiliate sites.
Good comissions. Normally, solid merchants offer more than 25% of comissions.
Free to join.
Great Supports. Solid merchants usually train their affiliates through training calls, newsletters and other mediums. They also shows your real-time stats and earnings, send you an email whenever a sale is made.
Long-term cookie to lock on the visitors to your site. This way you still can make sales if your visitors return to your site months later.
Monthly payment with realistic minimum.
2-tier comissions. Some merchants give you comissions on your referrals' sales. Meaning..if you refer someone to become an affiiate, you can earn comission everytime he makes a sale.

So do some researches before you sign up!

Writing Ezine Articles - 4 Reasons Why You Should Do It

2005-05-05T15:59:00.000+07:00

One of the best ways to promote your website in the internet is to write articles in Ezines. You don't have to be a Master or Guru to start writing articles!

Anyone who's been in a business for 2 or 3 months certainly has a lot of information that he or she can share with others, especially newbies. So why don't you take advantage of it?

Here are the 4 reasons why YOU too should start writing articles in Ezines to attract more visitors to your website:

1. It's FREE!

Do you know that most of Ezine publishers don't write their own articles? Most of them are always searching for good articles to be published in their Ezines! That means, you can submit your articles for FREE.

2. You can reach TARGETED people

It's easy to attract as many people as possible to your website. The problem is, eventhough you have thousands of visitors (or even more), you still can't increase your profit! Why? Because no one purchase your products/ services. Why? Because they are simply not interested in your business offer! Why? Because you don't have targeted visitors! So, end your effort to bring just as many people as possible to your website. Instead, concentrate on how to bring targeted visitors! By writing articles in ezines, you will certainly reach targeted people. For instance, submit articles to Health Ezines in order to expect new members to your health therapy class.

3. The more articles you write, the more credibility you gain

Yes, people would think of you as an expert in your field! Think of the positive effect of this phsycological factor. This would certainly make them 'comfortable' to make business deals with you!

4. The more articles you write, the bigger the opportunity for you to get well posted on search engines

So, start writing articles! Choose the topics that you master. Remember to always make archives of your articles. Who knows, maybe later on you could make an eBook from those articles!

Google AdSense - A Quick Overview for Beginners...

2005-05-04T17:16:00.000+07:00

Google AdSense is the syndication of Google Adwords. Before we continue, you must understand the outline of Google AdWords first. You haven't? Read my AdWords article.

In Google AdWords, the advertisers' links show up when someone types a certain keyword to Google search engine's box and enters it. The links will show up on the right hand side of the results page.

In Google AdSense, the advertisers' links show up on the third party's page if the rich content of the page is relevant to those ads. Take a look at an example of Google AdSense in this blog. I put it on the top of my page. You see, because my blog's content is about Internet Marketing, the ads that appear are related to Internet Marketing.

If your rich-content site is about "making money online" and you sign up for Google AdSense, then Google will decide that the proper ads for your page are about "making money opportunity".

To make the right decision which ads should be shown on the third party's web pages, Google applies its Page Ranking technology, which is called content-targeting.

The third party will earn shares with Google
everytime visitors click on the ads.

So, if you have a rich content site, signing up for Google AdSense could be fun. If you are accepted by Google (yes, many sites are rejected by Google!), you will be given a code. All you have to do is just paste the code to your HTML page, you decide the location and settings.

Everytime your visitors click on the ads, Google will charge the advertisers for the clicks and share them with you.

Google AdWords - A Quick Overview for Beginners...

2005-05-03T14:52:00.000+07:00

Have you heard about Google AdWords?

OK, this time I'm going to explain a bit about it.

First of all, you know as well that Google is still the #1 Search Engine in the net, leaving Overture at the second place. If you type a word or a phrase in Google's search box and press "enter", a large number of links will appear in front of you, related to the subject you've typed earlier.

Take a look at the right hand side of the main page. There should be another group of links complete with their descriptions, right? Only, these ones are much smaller than those main link results. What is the difference?

Do you see the subtitle.. Sponsored Links..? Those link results on the right hand side is called Google AdWords. People bid a certain price to Google to put their links on there everytime visitors search for related keywords. Those advertisers are only paying for the numbers of click-throughs to their links. This kind of advertising is called the Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising.

In order to reach a higher position in the link results, Google has set up a unique formula. Let's say you want to put your link in Google AdWords and you bid for "flowers" as your main keyword. You are not the only one who bid for that keyword. There are lots of people who also bid for it, since they also want to promote their "flowers" sites!

The unique formula of Google AdWords is that you can't reach the #1 position only by increasing your bidding price. Google also considers your Click Through Rate (CTR). CTR is a value that represents how many click-throughs (clicks on your ad) you get among your ad's impressions. Too many difficult words..?

OK, let's try it this way... Impressions is the frequency of your ad's appearance in the search engine's result page. If your ad appears 500 times, than your ad's impression is 500. But, of course you don't get a click everytime your ad shows up. From those 500 impressions, perhaps you only get 1 click. This makes your CTR = 1/500 = 0.002 = 0.2%

The better the CTR you have for an ad, the lower you have to bid for the same position.

That means, Google also rewards the good content of your ad. When your ad gets a lot of click-throughs, that means you have a good ad and Google rewards you for that! Your ad is good according to Google if your ad is relevant with the content of your site.

In Google AdWords, the rich ones don't always win... the smart ones do!

Of course there are still a lot of things we haven't touch regarding Google AdWords, but we have to do it later. After all, this is a quick overview for beginners, right?

Affiliate Marketing - A Quick Overview for Beginners...

2005-05-02T07:51:00.000+07:00

So what is this creature called Affiliate Marketing?

It's simply a kind of marketing in the internet where marketers sell products/services of certain merchants. Those Internet Marketers earn commissions on sales. Most of the merchants even also pay them for clicks and leads to their promotional websites.

If you are looking for an extra income stream and haven't started your Affiliate Marketing journey, then you better do! Why?

Here are some reasons why...

With Affiliate Marketing,

You don't need your own products to sell. Your merchant does the part for you.
You don't have to process any payment. Your merchant will do that for you.
You don't have to take care of any of shipment. Your merchant will do the job for you.
You don't have to take care of those customers' complaints. Your merchant will also take care of it. (though, you have to be very careful in determining which merchants should be your partners. Never pick lousy ones. So how do you take out the goods from the bads? To save your time, just submit your name and email address into that box on the top to receive my Free lessons on "How to Make Money Online with Your Hobby")

Plus...

Most of those affiliate programs are free to join.
You will have your own promotional site of the product.
You can sell several products from several merchants.
With smart strategies, you can generate up to thousands of sales when you are asleep!

Stuck in Neutral? One Single Step Will Change Your Life Forever...

2005-05-01T08:42:00.000+07:00

By Jim Daniels

As most of my subscribers realize, I teach folks how to start and grow a business on the Internet. My books and software streamline and simplify all the tasks necessary to earn a steadily increasing income online.

But there is a step I rarely discuss -- a single step everyone must take before they can earn serious profits from any business. I like to call it shifting into First Gear. And today I'm going to show you exactly what this means, and why you must take this step.

We all know that every successful Internet venture requires things like a website, email marketing and search engine optimization. But before all those important steps can be put into place, something has to happen INSIDE OF YOU first.

In some people it just happens. You transform from a person who is programmed to work hard, in most cases as an employee -- into a person who works smart -- inspired to be creative, and self-employed.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is First Gear. Once you've achieved it, you're on your way.

Stay with me for a moment, this is very important...

Unfortunately, most folks never get out of neutral. Yes, some people are more than happy to stay there indefinitely. That's because neutral can be comfortable. After all, there are very few risks or changes when you're not moving forward.

Here's what Neutral feel like...

1. Getting up early every morning in most cases, with the aid of an alarm clock.

2. Going through your morning routine, striving to get to work on time.

3. Stopping for a cup of coffee on the way to work and thinking about, or in many cases, dreading your upcoming day.

4. Doing what you're told or what's expected of you for eight or so hours until the clock hits quitting time.

5. Going home and settling in for some TV time before you go to sleep, so you can wake up and do it all over again.

Sounds a bit mundane, perhaps even boring, eh?

Believe me, it can be if you let it. I know, because I was stuck in neutral until the ripe old age of 32. Neutral was all I knew. That is, until I answered a classified ad from a magazine and was introduced to the world of self-employment. Although the ad did not turn out to be my answer, my action was. Yes, that day something woke up in me and I shifted into first gear.

Here's what first gear felt like to me...

1. Getting up early every morning and writing down an idea or two about how to become self-employed.

2. Recording my new ideas on my audio cassette recorder on the way to work.

3. Putting in maximum effort at work until the clock hit quitting time, just to test my ambition and drive.

4. Recording more ideas and chapter headings for my first how-to book all the way home.

5. Trading my nightly TV time for 3-4 hours on the computer researching niches, entering my ideas and creating my projects.

Now, wouldn't you agree that's not too different than neutral? I mean, I did not quit my job (at least not until my new income source surpassed that of my 9-5) and I still had lots of time to do what I wanted. I simply motivated my brain to be more creative and use my time more wisely.

A better way to look at it like this...

I took a step in the right direction. I had no idea it would lead me to an income of more than $200,000 a year and hours shorter than a banker.

Actually, today I like to think of my current gear as "still upshifting", but now I'm in 3rd or 4th gear. I get up without the help of an alarm clock. I see the kids off to school. Weather permitting, I take a bike ride with my wife. (As a matter of fact, I just came back from a ride as I write this.) Then I take an hour or so and work on a thing or two in my new home in the country. Finally, when I feel like it I work a few hours on the computer. Then have lunch with my son when he comes home from kindergarten. I do a few more hours of work in the afternoon then horse around in the yard with my kids.

It's a lifestyle I never dreamed I'd achieve when I was stuck in neutral. But it happened because IN ONE MOMENT I made the conscious decision to shift out of neutral into first gear.

And that folks, is the step that most people never take.

So today I want you to answer just one question... are you stuck in neutral?

If you think the answer might be yes, I have two resources that can help you get into first gear quickly and painlessly. After all, sometimes all you need is a little nudge.

I've made arrangements with two friends of mine who are a couple of the world's most prominent "helpers" to help get you into first gear starting today. I call them helpers because "guru, coach and expert" are words that make people envision spending money. But my friends are waiving the cost of their help today, just for my valued subscribers. All you have to do is go and get it...

1. The first bit of help comes from Robert Imbriale. He makes his living creating millionaires from scratch.

Robert just released a new CD called, "How to Think, Act, and Become a Millionaire" and it's reasonably priced at $97. However, for my readers the $97 has been waived today. All you have to do is pick up the shipping and handling and you get the CD free. I just listened to the CD myself and can tell you that it WILL change the lives of more than a few of you reading this right now.

Grab Robert's valuable CD right now!

2. The second helper is a fellow named Mike Litman.

Perhaps you've heard his high-energy style over the radio airways. In short, Mike is a leader in motivating people to greatness. In fact, he's just developed a new system called Unleash Your Greatness that reveals the #1 common characteristic of all self-made millionaires - quite revealing and interesting information that WILL help you 'get out of neutral.'

Grab Mike's valuable information!

OK, let's wrap today's lesson up...

No matter which guy you choose to listen to, or both, the main thing is that you take that first step in the right direction -- first gear.

That's the key to success - taking the first step and getting started. So choose a link above and do it today.

I wish you lots of success and see a relaxing, rewarding lifestyle in your future.

To your online marketing success,

Jim Daniels - JDD Publishing

Creator of ezWebBusinessBuilder.com - the world's first View it and Do It software for profiting from the web.

Introduction

2005-04-30T14:12:00.000+07:00

At last...

I've been planning to create this blog for some time and I finally made it. Of course I can't complete all of the features all the way by now, but I'm going to and it will shock you!

For a great beginning, let me introduce you to my friend Jim Daniels in the first posting. This article is just perfect to motivate newbies and beginners. I took it from his famous Gazette and have his permission to post it. Thanks Jim!