Internet Marketing Strategies - Austin Dallas Houston Boston Minneapolis and Nationwide

Internet Marketing - High Tech Direct

2005-01-24T13:02:00.000-08:00

Mal Keenan

Copyright 2004 Mal Keenan

Almost everyone has received unsolicited offers in the mail. These are what many call "junk mail", and more often than not, end up in the "circular file", more commonly known as the trash can. But anyone who is considering Internet marketing as either a part-time or full-time business may want to at least give a moment's pause before the big toss. Better still would be to study and reflect on the material you've received, and in some cases, store it in a real file for future use. The reason is because Internet marketing today is, in reality and when done properly, a high-tech enhancement and expansion of old-fashioned direct mail.

Those sales letters that arrive in your mailbox aren't randomly sent there, nor are they sent to everyone in your country or state. Instead, successful direct mail operators rent carefully selected mailing lists. These lists may be buyers of a particular product, people who've expressed interest in topics and products through surveys and registration forms, magazine subscribers, people who live in a certain postal code, and so on. The underlying principle is that the direct mailers target a select audience to receive their offer, and a certain percentage of the recipients, known as the response rate, will then accept that offer. Then through continual testing and refinement of the sales letter, pricing, terms, colors, and other variables, direct marketers work to improve their response rates over time.

Marketing on the Internet is much the same. The bottom line is that marketers need to find a "group" of people with similar tastes and interests, find out what they want, then sell it to them, just as the direct mail marketers do.

In direct mail, as on the Internet, it's certainly possible, and in fact probable, that some marketing campaigns will fail. But, once you've sent out direct mail pieces, that postage is lost forever. On the Internet however, you can quickly assess and halt losing campaigns until you make adjustments. Or, as Robert G. Allen puts it, "On the Internet, you can fail fast for free!"

Internet technology has now made it possible to reach a new, worldwide audience, at much lower costs than direct mail postage allows. Your prospects are online, surfing, searching, reading, and hopefully shopping, around the clock. And the Internet itself has created new markets, such as the need for broadband connections, networking equipment, instructional material, and yes, even Internet marketing information products!

Perhaps the most important new capability the Internet offers marketers is the sheer speed at which marketing campaigns can be launched, tested, revised, and tested again, until maximum response rate is achieved. Web sites can be very fast and easy to set up, and through pay-per-click search engines, visitors (known as traffic) can be directed towards your marketing site literally within minutes. Software allows for instantaneous tracking of clicks, visitor "paths" through a web site, time spent on each page, and hundreds of other factors. Software can help marketers follow up with their leads (through autoresponders), and can, through email lists and RSS syndication, also foster relationship marketing, much more so than mailed catalogs and letters in the past.

For marketers, the Internet is the still-new frontier where high-tech, old fashioned marketing, low costs, and a worldwide audience converge to create new opportunities for those willing to look for them.

Mal Keenan is editor and publisher of Home Business Tips Newsletter: http://www.home-business-tips-newsletter.com/
For an affordable home business you CAN believe in click below:
http://www.workathomebiz.info/pluginprofitsite.html

This article is reprinted with permission from www.WritingCareer.com

How to NOT go into big debt while building your online business!

2005-01-24T11:59:00.000-08:00

Copyright 2004 Tal Fighel

Credit cards can be a great thing for the new online independent business owners who have just started their online venture. They are convenient, easy to use, and are very useful when it comes to taking those small baby steps that a newbie needs to start online.

Here are 5 basic and very important tools that any new person needs to start with:
1. Web hosting
2. Website name registration
3. Auto responder
4. Leads
5. Joining an affiliate program

Once everything is set up and completed, the excitement starts to build and they think about doing some advertising and making some money.

A few days pass. They reach for their credit card and start spending money on all those tempting juicy ads that promises them ‘sales soaring through the roof’ results, without having any idea what they are spending on. They have no plan in place. They never thought about setting a budget.

Once they max out 1 credit card, they are tempted to try other marketing things, which brings them to the point of applying for more cards or using their other cards that they posses.

How do I know this? Well, my story began 2 years ago, when I first started my online business venture. I would listen to everyone on how I should promote my current website of http://www.talfighel.com and the affiliate programs that I was and still am in. I went out and spent lots of money without planning my endeavor.

Solo ads, pay per click, buying leads, membership to this and that. The list goes on.....

To make a long story short, I have maxed out a few credit cards because I was stupid enough to spend money on advertisements without planning my budget. My biggest mistake was that I had no plan in place. I made that mistake, and I am very happy about it because now I can teach you not to make the same heart breaking mistakes.

So, don't spend money that isn't really yours. It is important to spend money that is yours and is within your budget.

You need to plan a monthly budget so that you know what your plan is and you don’t go over it. Remember, if you don’t draw yourself a monthly game plan, you can get tempted to spend on many things which can cause you to go into a hugh and never ending debt.

The problem with overspending your credit card or cards is that once you get behind, it can take so long to catch up. Knowing that you spent lots of money and you got into more debts, this can be very scary, frustrating, and can make you feel like quitting very fast.

Many people set a budget and stick to it. But somehow others don’t because they find it hard to ignore those juicy advertising words that lets them think that it will bring their efforts excellent or any results.

Now, I am not saying that a credit card is bad for you. You MUST know how to use it the smart way. If you use it the wrong way as I described above, it can mean the difference between success and failure.

So here are 4 easy steps that you can use right now so that you do go in the right direction with your online business, and you don’t go into BIG debts.

1. Here is a quote I use on a daily basis. “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. In other words, you should plan what you will be doing and what you are planning to spend each month. If you don’t have a plan, then you can lose a lot of money.

2. Know when to just say ‘NO’. It is tempting and easy to grab a credit card, enter your card number, and click on the “Pay Here” button. I know all about it. So set a monthly budget and stick to it. Period.

3. If your plan of action in advertising does not bring you the results that you were expecting, then revise or change that plan, but stick to your budget.

4. And finally, give your business time to grow and never give up no matter what.

Tal Fighel is the editor and publisher of Home Business Tips Newsletter: http://www.talfighel.com/ For more comprehensive and useful strategies to make money online, visit here:
http://www.talfighel.com/30daystosuccess.exe

This article is reprinted with permission from www.WritingCareer.com

Webmaster Tools and Resources

2005-01-24T11:57:00.000-08:00

Copyright 2005 Sharon Housley

With new technologies, algorithms and sources emerging on a daily basis, webmasters are constantly struggling to stay informed. The quality of content on the web and the number of products available to webmasters can seem overwhelming. The goal of creating a site that can be quickly found can be a struggle. Unless webmasters have a well-established brand, a great domain name and a huge marketing budget, it is important that they appear in search engines via specific keywords. With this in mind, we have compiled a list of resources and products that will benefit webmasters in their efforts to be found.

1.) Webmaster Articles & Tutorials -The Internet is rich with resources for webmasters who are developing and optimizing web content. The web hosts a vast variety of web design tutorials and articles. For the novice, sifting through these resources can be daunting and overwhelming.

Site Point - New Articles, Fresh Thinking for Web Developers and Designers - With a vast variety of web design tutorials and articles coupled with a vibrant and well informed community, SitePoint is the natural place to go to grow your online business.
http://www.sitepoint.com/

WebProNews - WebProNews is an article portal for Internet and Technology professionals and has thousands of articles on web design and development. The articles are from iEntry's network of expert writers through hundreds of relationships with authors around the world.
http://www.webpronews.com/

2.) Webmaster Forums - Not only can participating in various forums and posting your various views and ideas potentially bring new growth and life to your online business, it can help you stay informed about industry news or changes. This is particularly important when working in a new, quickly advancing industry like web design and search engine optimization. The following forums are great places for webmasters to participate and monitor.

ThreadWatch - ThreadWatch is a nifty tool. The concept of Threadwatch is very simple: finding the signal amongst the noise of internet marketing media takes too much of what we all value most, time. Threadwatch.org cuts through the chatter and produces a clear signal for the time-starved professional Internet marketer. http://www.threadwatch.org

Webmaster-Talk - The WebmasterTalk forum covers material related to Web Design, PHP Help, Coding, Hosting, Domain Names, graphic optimization and related webmaster topics. The forum is extremely popular and generally, posts will receive almost instant responses from knowledgeable professionals. Of course, like any forum, there are bound to be opposing views ensuring that all sides of every issue are raised. http://www.webmaster-talk.com

3.) Website Submission Tools - According to research more then 90% of Internet traffic is generated by search engines. Submitting your website to all major search engines is the most effective way of promoting your website on the Internet. In order for web surfers to locate your site you must be included in all the major search engines. There are a number of tools available to assist with the submission process.

Internet Business Promoter - Internet Business Promoter is a suite of 10 professional web promotion tools in one software application. All of the tools are designed to assist web developers with all aspects of web site promotion and search engine optimization. We found that IBP's strength was in the website submission options. Once a site is created it must be submitted to search engines and directories. IBP streamlines and simplifies the submission process, saving significant amounts of time. http://www.axandra.com/ibp

FreeWebSubmission.com - Free Web Submission is the source for free search engine submission. They provide webmasters and site owners with free manual and auto submission to the highest-rated, free internet search engines and directories.
http://www.freewebsubmission.com/

AddMe - AddMe is a leading resource for webmasters and small-business owners specialized in website submission and promotion in the search engines. AddMe offers free online website submission to 14 major search engines in exchange for a reciprocal link. AddMe is well known and respected in the industry. http://www.addme.com/

Many of the online submissions require an e-mail address. In order to limit excessive unwanted e-mail many webmasters will use a "throw-away" e-mail address that would allow them to initially receive notification that the site is submitted but is ultimately an e-mail account they can discontinue after the submission process. This practice is suggested for anyone using a free service for site submissions.

4.) Online Tools - A number of resource sites are available on the web to assist webmasters. The resources are generally free and contain useful analytical tools.

DigitalPoint - The DigitalPoint site contains a variety of tools specifically for webmasters. The tools are a collection of useful online tools, from a Google AdSense Sandbox that shows which Google AdSense ads will be displayed for any webpage on the Internet, to web ranking tools that track Yahoo's web rank.
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/

SEO Survey - Tools to help SEO specialists and webmasters automate some of the important tasks involved in the routine of optimization.
http://www.socengine.com/seo/tools.html

5.) Webmaster Software - The aim of many applications is to save time, money or productivity. Webmsters can often use software to replace a task they do manually, freeing up their time to pursue other tasks.

FeedForAll - FeedForAll creates, edits, manages and publishes RSS feeds. As webmasters realize the benefits to RSS, software related to RSS is becoming an instrumental tool in their arsenal. http://www.feedforall.com

TNT Screen Capture - TNT captures everything with only 3 simple capture modes, from application windows to controls, to menus and popup windows. Many integrated unique features like shadow options, transparency, quick scaling and individual shapes make it quick and simple to create stunning screenshots at a mouse-click.
http://www.ec-software.com/tnt.htm

6.) Free Content - Free content comes in all shapes and sizes. Understanding who your target customer is and what appeals to them will go a long way in finding content that will increase your site's value.

GoArticles - Providing a fresh stream of content-specific articles is a great way to encourage visitors to return to your website on a regular basis. GoArticles is a directory of quality articles that is searchable based on keywords.
http://www.goarticles.com

Small Business Software - Collection of small business and marketing-related articles available for republishing.
Articles - http://www.small-business-software/free-website-content.htm

FreeSticky - FreeSticky provides a directory of content available to webmasters free of charge. The available content is a variety of items including syndicated cartoons, games, horoscopes, photographs, forums and articles. The supplemental content is designed to encourage visitors to return to your website.
http://www.freesticky.com/stickyweb/

RSS - RSS stands for really simple syndication, RSS feeds generally contain content available for syndication. Meaning that you can often publish content contained in an RSS feeds to provide fresh website content. FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com/free-php-script.htm has a free PHP script available to display RSS feeds. Additional resources to learn more about using RSS as web content can be found at http://www.rss-specifications.com and http://www.rss-syndication.com

7.) Alerts - Using web alerts is becoming increasingly useful to webmasters interested in tracking their search engine position, trademarked terms, to monitor competitors and stay abreast of online occurrences.

Google Alerts - Google Alerts is a solution for monitoring your professional interests online. Track the entire web for your personalized topics and receive new results by daily e-mail. There are two companies doing this: Google Alerts, http://www.googlealert.com and http://www.google.com/alerts

PubSub - PubSub is a matching service that instantly notifies you when new content is created that matches your subscription. Using a proprietary Matching Engine, PubSub is able to read millions of data sources on your behalf and notify you instantly whenever a match is made. http://www.pubsub.com

Tools for Online Tracking Alerts - Article detailing additional tools available for online tracking and alerts.
http://www.small-business-software.net/tools-for-online-tracking.htm

8.) Blacklist Checkers - E-mail delivery problems often occur when an IP address or domain is black-listed. The following tools will ensure that your IP address and domain will not have delivery issues.

DNS Stuff - DNSstuff: Free fast, advanced and comprehensive web-based DNS tools, going beyond just ping, tracert/traceroute, WHOIS and DNS lookups.
http://www.dnsstuff.com/

SpamNews - spamNEWS is a concise aggregation of vital information relevant to professionals in the anti-spam sector: Up-to-the-minute press coverage and topical editorials about e-mail abuse, related online security matters, legal and political issues, as well as articles on Internet marketing and privacy.
http://www.spamnews.com/

9.) Keyword Tools - Keywords to improve search engine placement and ranking. Finding top Internet marketing keywords is critical in the quest to be found. Choosing the right Internet marketing keywords will help your search engine placement and ranking. A little keyword research goes a long way in the search to be found.

WordTracker - WordTracker helps you choose the right Internet marketing keywords that will help your search engine placement and ranking. Use WordTracker for keyword research. Web marketing is all about search engine ranking, and that starts with the proper Internet marketing keywords. Get a free keyword report and web site promotion information!
http://www.wordtracker.com

10.) Newsletters - Email newsletters continue to be one of the most important ways to communicate and find information on the Internet. The following e-mail newsletters contain great information for webmasters.

SitePronews - A free newsletter and webmaster resource site for Webmasters focusing on web site promotion, submission, positioning, design and marketing. The newsletters and websites contain articles by noted web experts. The SiteProNews site was the first of more than 12 web sites that focused on niche areas of particular interest to webmasters, marketers, newsletter publishers, authors and entrepreneurs.
http://www.sitepronews.com/

iEntry - The iEntry network has a really great collection of useful newsletters. iEntry publishes over 50 targeted e-mail newsletters that cover various aspects of the IT and Business industries. http://www.ientry.com/

Like most of the copious amounts of information on the Internet, it is a matter of sifting through to find relevant, accurate, helpful information. Occasionally we stumble across some little-known gems. As a result, we have compiled these webmaster tools.

Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing and publishing RSS feeds and NotePage http://www.notepage.net a wireless text messaging software.

This article is reprinted with permission from www.WritingCareer.com

How to Become A Top Internet Marketer

2005-01-24T11:55:00.000-08:00

Copyright 2005 Willie Crawford

A recent thread at The Internet Marketing Warriors member-only discussion forum examined what it is that separates the big Internet marketing successes from the "also rans." There was no argument that one key to being an online success is learning to write great copy. Great copy is what gets your site's visitors stirred up enough to actually take action... often a monumental challenge.

The discussion also asked why big online successes would bother with learning to write copy when they could hire someone else. The answer was that it's fun trying to see if you can create, or improve upon, a winning sales letter.

Many of the top copywriters are also so busy writing copy for their own projects that if you could afford the ten to fifteen thousand dollars they'd charge you, you'd also have to get on their waiting lists. So clearly, learning to improve your own web copy is a worthwhile investment.

The fact is, anyone can get a web hosting account, throw together a hastily written web page, and say that they are in business on the Internet. In-fact, that's what far too many people do. That's one of the reasons why most netrepreneurs never earn a respectable income. They never bother to learn what it is about good copywriting that makes it work. They never learn enough about human behavior to understand what makes us behave the way that we do.

Human behavior and motivation hasn't changed in thousand of years. As Jay Abraham is fond on saying, "Human nature, is human nature, is human nature." How and why we react to environmental stimuli LITERALLY hasn't changed since the beginning of recorded history. Understanding the causes and effects of human behavior is the secret to great copywriting.

As complex as we like to believe we are, we're all really creatures of habit. Humans are not really that complex. We're lots of emotions and chemical reactions sprinkled with a little reason :-)

Copywriters understand that we're lots of "hot buttons" that can be ethically exploited.

Great copywriters have discovered what these hot buttons are and the correct way to push them. They've discovered through trial and error how to whip the prospect into a "white-hot buying frenzy." They've discovered how to get a prospect to reach an emotionally charged decision and then logically justify it.

All of the discoveries made by great copywriters, which are often well-documented, makes it incredibly easy for you to become a world-class copywriter (which is your key to becoming a top Internet marketer). All you have to do is study what they have written. All you have to do is model their successful sales pieces. You don't even have to fully understand WHY they worked - you just need to know which ones worked. That's the one big danger I see in modeling others' sales pieces. You don't always KNOW which ones worked.

Great copywriters test everything, and as a result, always know which elements made the difference in their advertising pieces. It's not guesswork - it's science. Some share their scientific findings with you in their courses and books. Aspiring copywriters should have a library of these courses and books.

Here's an astonishing fact... many of the top Internet marketers today did not struggle for years before becoming successful. They understood... perhaps even stumbled upon the real key which is effective copywriting. This enabled them to reach six and even seven-figure incomes in months rather than years!

Let me give you an example. My friend Yanik Silver only came on the Internet scene in 2000. I started in 1996! Within a year of coming on the scene Yanik was already a household name. Within 2 years, he was one of the "gurus." What is Yanik's secret? He's an incredible copywriter.

Like many world-class copywriters, Yanik actually spent a lot of time studying copywriting. He was introduced to the works of Jay Abraham and Dan Kennedy as a kid. He discovered the power of good copywriting early. As a teenager, he was already writing direct response copy so good that it sold medical equipment, for his dad, to hard-noised, very discriminating doctors. He wrote ads that caused doctors to mail or fax in orders for expensive medical machinery... site unseen, while he was still a teenager.

Yanik, and every great copywriter that I've ever talked to, became that way through study and practice. They studied everything that they could that was written on the topic by famous, proven copywriters. They built huge "swipe file" of documented-successful sales pieces. Then they spent a lot of time practicing writing similar sales pieces. They practiced until they were able to model their teachers.

Being one of the Internet marketing top-earners is really very simple. You study "million-dollars salespieces." You sit down and write them out, over and over again. You study each element of those successful salespieces. Through practice and repetition you develop a feel for the flow. Your nervous system becomes "trained." You develop an arsenal of thoughts, of headlines, guarantees, closes, proof, sub-headings, power word... and eventually you reach a point where the powerful, effective copy just flows from you effortlessly.

I used Yanik as an example above for two reasons. One is that he has produced a "home-study" copywriter’s course that I've gone through. I refer to my materials from this course any time that I'm working on any email, autoresponder series, direct mail piece, or webpage. You can check out Yanik's course at: http://www.ultimateonlinecopymanual.com

The second reason I used Yanik as an example of how good copywriting can make you a fast-rising Internet marketing superstar is that Yanik consistently sets the standard that I aspire to. Yanik conducts workshop - his "protege program" that costs $14,497 to be a part of. That's not the incredible part though - the incredible part is that he has a HUGE waiting list for participating in his protege program.

So there you have THE big secret of how to become a top Internet marketer. Since I've been trained to over-deliver, I'll also share with you a second secret. That secret is, another key to rising to the top in ANY field is associating with those who have already risen to the top. Yanik not only studied Dan Kennedy, he also attended his workshops. Yanik demonstrated to Dan that he was a serious student, and so impressed Dan that Dan had Yanik teaching at "last-ever" copywriting workshop.

How can you capitalize on that second success secret. Check out this "underground" event that only those "in the know" will be at:
http://www.profitautomation.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=118679
This event is where you can brainstorm ideas with me and a lot of the TOP Internet marketers. It's also where you'll find a lot of future Yanik Silver's.

Now that you know the keys, only inaction can keep you from becoming one of the top Internet marketers. I've just revealed those keys to you and lots of aspiring Internet marketers. Only a handful will use that knowledge thought. That's why there will always only be a few at the top!

By the way... if you'd like to become a members of The Internet Marketing Warriors, and brainstorm marketing ideas with some of the best and the brightest, you can join the club at: http://www.warriorpro.com/cgi-bin/w.cgi?2602

Willie Crawford is a corporate president, published author, seminar speaker and host, tele-seminar speaker and host, retired military officer, karate black belt, master network marketing trainer, and lifetime student of marketing. He shows people how to actually generate substantial income on-line using very simple, easily modeled systems. An example of such a system that you can study and duplicate is at:
http://www.vemmabuilder.com/1681647

This article is reprinted with permission from www.WritingCareer.com

Free Targeted Traffic Tips

2005-01-24T11:53:00.001-08:00

by Rachel Phillips

Free Targeted Traffic Tips
If you have been on the internet for even a couple of days, you have already seen at least one site, if not several, that wants to entice you to sign up for their newsletter in exchange for information and a give away of some kind.
New subscribers to your newsletter are gold nuggets waiting to be mined.
Usually ranged from an email series of hard to find information, to a report or even full ebooks. When people first arrive on the scene, an ebook in exchange for simply signing up to a newsletter seems like a great deal!
But if you have been around awhile you know two things for sure:
1) Most of these offers are for books and reports you can find elsewhere, or that have little true value. 2) Now that giving away an ebook to get subscribers has been a successful method of list building for years, it has become common place and not as effective as it used to be.
And through my research I have found that software, above all else, is better than anything else I have used to attract subscribers and new customers.
People love software solutions. Especially when those solutions involve doing something in minutes that would normally take hours or days to do, thus simplifying their lives immensely.
More downloads meant more money to me, since I branded that software with my own affiliate links. A LOT more money. Just in hosting alone, with just one email to my list, I added $210 a month to my income. And new accounts come in daily.
Most people online cannot be, nor will they ever become good web designers. Let alone have the marketing savvy to pull off a really great selling affiliate system out of the gate. This presents a huge opportunity in a market that people have been cashing in on for a long time. Providing a 24 hour solution to a 1 to 2 year learning curve is a very big deal.
And to provide that solution for zero cost is an even bigger enticement, as my statistics are showing me.
To see an example of the software I am having great success with, see this site: http://www.Real-Work-At-Home.com/pips.html
This software helps beginners and intermediate level people build the kind of site it took me a year to learn to build when I was starting out. It has professional features galore, including a reciprocal linking solution which is a hot topic these days and a sticking point for most beginners.
In short, it is amazing and the download statistics are showing that it is something literally hundreds of people on my list alone were very interested in. Give it a try, it’s free and you have nothing to waste except time.

Rachel Phillips is an internet marketing professional and stay at home mom. You can sign up for her newsletter which is dedicated to supporting everyday people just like YOU! She offers top rated home business opportunities, the latest time saving tools and helpful support from a friend in the business.

Rachel is offering a Free Business Start-Up Kit and Free Website for her next 1000 visitors.

Visit http://www.real-work-at-home.com to get your website and browse the articles section.

Read her blog at http://real-work-at-home.blogspot.com

This article is reprinted with permission from www.WritingCareer.com

How to increase your profits without spending a dime!

2005-01-24T11:53:00.000-08:00

Copyright 2005 John Taylor

Whatever the purpose of your web site you have to pay for certain services. As a bare minimum you will need to pay for hosting, for traffic and for an autoresponder account. The costs of these services are fixed irrespective of the number of sales that you can make.

lets say that your total fixed costs for these services are $500 a year and that you sell 50 eBooks a year at $27. That means that your income is $1350 and, after paying your fixed costs you are making $850 profit each year. So your profit represents about 63% of your sales income.

Now, lets say your current conversion rate of unique visitors to sales is about average at 2%. So to get 50 sales you need 2,500 unique visitors.

To boost their sales income, most people will try to increase the traffic to their web site by spending money on Pay Per Click campaigns, advertising in ezines or by investing in banner adverts. If you don't want to spend your hard earned cash, then you will need to invest a lot of time on article writing and other "do it yourself" promotional activities.

What if you could nearly double your profit in a few easy steps?

It is very easy. You simply have to closely examine your web site and look for ways of improving the impact that you are having on your customer.
Look at your headline, does it really grab the attention of your visitors?
Do the first few paragraphs of your sales copy draw in your visitor and encourage them to read further?
Are your testimonials conveying a strong and powerful endorsement of your product?
Are you making good use of text colour to emphasise the important trigger words in your copy?

Did you know that there are over 21 critical elements within a typical sales letter page?

When I first launched my web site (http://www.Test-and-Track.com) my conversion rate was less than 1%. Since then, I have tested and tweaked every key element of the entire sales process and my conversion rate is now over 3.5%. Oh, by the way, I am still working on it!

Let's look at the bottom line. If you can implement a few simple improvements to your web site and increase your sales conversion rate to just 3%, you will make an additional 25 sales without increasing your costs. 25 sales at $27 will put an additional $675 in your pocket. Your fixed costs are still the same so it is all pure profit!

Can you afford to leave that money on the table?

John Taylor is the author of "Learn over Twenty ways To Improve Your Conversion Rate and Multiply Your Profits" - A Special Report that contains a wealth of information on professional testing and tracking techniques that can boost your conversion rate and generate increased profits. To learn how testing and tracking can boost your profits click this link now: http://www.test-and-track.com

This article is reprinted with permission from www.WritingCareer.com

How To Save BIG In Your Online Business

2005-01-24T11:48:00.000-08:00

Copyright 2005 Willie Crawford

When you're first starting an online business, it can be a struggle finding the money to invest in the things that will grow your business most. Only later do you discover things all the guru's know that could have saved you a small fortune. Here are a few things that will help you save on Internet marketing business necessities.

In order to be in business on the Internet you DO need a website. Hosting that website doesn't need to cost you an arm and a leg. Here are two ways to save:

1) Don't register your domain through your web host. Instead go to a discount registrar. Your web host will charge you up to $40 or more (per year) just to conveniently handle your domain name registration. You can register or renew your domain name yourself for as little as $8 per year. I've set up a service for my subscribers and clients to do just that at:
http://WillieCrawford.com/domains/

How am I able to offer you such a bargain? I have a domain name reseller account at Wild West Domains. For around $100 per year, practically anyone can become a domain name reseller. You are charged a wholesale price for domain name registrations (and other services offered on my site above). You decide how much you want to mark up your prices above that. I have practically no markup because I enjoy helping beginners get off to a good start. I know that you'll be back for other products and services that I offer - after you're a big success :-)

2) Consider getting a web hosting account here:
http://www.profitautomation.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=119107

I have an account that lets me host up to 50 domains for only $109 per month. That equates to about $2 per domain, per month. The $109 package that I have gives me 4400 meg of disk space and 100 gigabytes of monthly bandwidth to spread among my 50 domains in that account any way that I want to.

The account above is intended for people who want to open their own web-hosting business. Basically, you can get one of these accounts and then charge your online or local customers whatever price you choose. Find 50 local customers and charge them $100 each and you've just turned $109 into $5000. That's a nice monthly revenue stream and it's also in-line with what offline businesses expect to pay.

The above account isn't for everyone. It doesn't come with a lot of free tech support. You have to go through some online tutorials and then you're the tech support. If you need help, you can get it through an online forum or through a trouble ticket system (where you pay by the minute). When one of your customers needs help, their trouble tickets go to you. If you pass them along to the parent company, you are billed by the minute.

I use the above account to host many of my own domains. I have numerous very simple sites that are only a few pages. Some are only a one-page sales letter. I save a bundle by paying only $2 per month to host these. When you're paying only $2 per month for hosting you don't need to make a lot of sale for a site to be profitable.

Another necessity is basic Internet access. For that I use my local cable company but I also have a backup dialup connection. That account, which offer decent service cost me less than $10 per month. Because I transfer many 30 meg or larger files back and forth regularly, this account probably isn’t robust enough to be my primary. However, my local cable company does sometimes have outages for various reasons. That's when I use this dialup account most. I also use it sometimes while I'm traveling. You can checkout the company I use at:
http://47928.yourdialupservice.com/
They offer thousands of local access numbers in the U.S. and Canada.

I have not located a comparable resource for outside the U.S. and Canada, but will pass it along when I do.

Another way to save big is to get your own merchant account. When you use Paypal or Clickbank, your initial investment may be less. However you pay much higher processing fees, and your less professional appearance DOES cost you sales. Savvy customers who understand Clickbank and Paypal will recognize that you're not processing enough volume to consider a merchant account worthwhile. They may consider you an amateur that they don't want to risk major purchases with.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't use Paypal or Clickbank when you first start out and you're not confident that your product will even sell. I AM saying that "when you're ready to run with the big dogs, you need to look like one of them." Top marketers that I know who are processing tens of thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of dollars per month in credit card transactions use: http://WarriorProcessing.com
Take a look at the site and you'll see why it's who we use.

As you get your online business rolling, the other thing you'll need is traffic. When you first get started, the fastest way to get it is from the pay-per-clicks. I use Google AdWords to drive initial traffic to all of my sites when I need that traffic fast. That allows me to quickly get enough traffic to test and improve my conversion rate. None of the other pay-per-clicks usually deliver the volume of traffic that I want quickly enough.

After I refine things using Google AdWords, I do set up accounts at some of the other pay-per-clicks. I use Google AdWords at first because I place a very high value on my time and I don't want to spend months just getting enough traffic to refine the sales process on a single site.

Unless you have lots of free time, I wouldn't waste time on any other traffic source initially EXCEPT for the one I am using right here. Writing and submitting articles to ezines and article directories has proven the single best source of free traffic for me. It works so well that I've written over 300 articles on various aspect of Internet marketing. To prove that this works, just enter my name at any search engine. You'll see millions of returns and most of them are simply from my article writing activities.

The other thing that will save you time is studying and practicing copywriting. Minor improvement in your web copy can easily increase your conversion rate by 100 times. Not learning copywriting is practicing false economy for most of us. If only 1 out of every 200 visitors to your site buys and just by changing a headline you can change that to 1 in 20, that shows just how important copywriting is. There have been countless documented cases of people getting improvements this dramatic from minor but important improvement in their web copy.

To learn copywriting, I went through and highly recommend Yanik Silver's Ultimate At-Home Internet Copywriting Workshop. This will be your largest initial expense, but it's a necessary one. Words sell, and if you're not willing to learn to use words properly in your marketing, then you probably shouldn't waste time setting up a website.

You can get all of the details on this course at:
http://www.ultimateonlinecopymanual.com

We've just gone over a number of way that you can dramatically cut the expenses associate with operating your online business. I'm willing to bet that I've just told you things that NO ONE else has told you. They aren't all trying to take advantage of you. However, they are hoping that out of ignorance you'll spend more on the same items through them. Save that money and plow it back into growing your business.

This article is excerpted from Willie Crawford's Revised, Free 20-lesson Internet Business Success Course. To sign up for the entire course today, simply visit: http://WillieCrawford.com

This article is reprinted with permission from www.WritingCareer.com

Beneath the surface of Internet Marketing

2005-01-24T11:38:00.000-08:00

Copyright 2005 Michael Morris

To most people Internet Marketing looks like a good way to make money from home, which is possibly the main reason while people start. The shame is that people like this don't realize that they are only scratching the surface.

The aim of this article is to make sure you don’t become one of them and miss out on what lies beneath the surface of Internet Marketing.

As you read on think about your job or most traditional businesses. Comparing what you know against the information here. It will become abundantly clear that your job or traditional business can't give you what being an Internet marketer can.

To setup most ordinary businesses requires capital, your own (or a bank’s) money to invest before you do anything. I guess these days $10,000 is possibly a conservative figure for start up costs, dependant of course on what you choose to do.

As an internet marketer joining affiliate programs lets you start making money without the outlay. Many affiliate programs are free and you can market with free ads. To be fair even getting your own site up could be done for a not too many dollars.

When you’ve got going, building your business on a budget is not unrealistic. Obviously the less you spend the longer it takes, but; remember a normal business doesn’t have that choice. You will have some expenditure like hosting fees and merchant accounts. However, in today’s online business even merchant accounts are not vital, there are several good facilitators providing the same service at a lower cost.

As your costs are low, each sale means more of the money is yours! By selling electronically delivered products such as e-books, you won’t pay for shipping either.

Here’s a real gem, you don’t even need your own product! Yes it’s true; there are many affiliate programs from which you can sell some great products. My web site listed in the resource box at the end of this article has some ideas to start with.

You may know this; you can market on the internet for little or no money. Online you can submit free ads, do ad swaps with your ezine, use pay per click search engines, etc. Check the costs of offline advertising. Just think how much it costs to mail 1,000 letters, compared to e-mailing a 100,000 for free.

Time is yours to use as you wish. You can build slow or fast or at whatever speed you like. You might to want put just one a day a week in or all seven. You might be the type that when all is quiet at night puts a couple of hours in then. It’s entirely up to you.

Remember as an employee in the real world job security is a thing of the past. Many millions of people depend on a paycheck for 40 or more years as an employee. Even if you took five years to take your business from part to full time, you would be still miles ahead of the many.

Your business is open all hours 24/7 for 365 days a year. Your business is not limited to a locality, it’s worldwide! A web site works while you sleep as does all your advertising and articles such as the one you are now reading. The BIG SECRET is that the older your online business gets, the less work it takes to make more money.

As an employee, the company you work for gets to keep most of the money that your hard work produces. However, the opposite is true of your online business; you’re the owner not the employee, the bigger your business grows the bigger your paycheck!

There are plenty of other people who have been in online business a while. They have created the business plans so you don’t have to. Learn how to do it from those who have done it before. Follow their lead and you’ll get the same results.

Resources to help your business grow can be cheap and free in lots of cases. Subscribing to ezines can give you access to many free tips and articles to help your business grow. You can buy information on how to build your business from as little as $10. It stands to reason though the dearer it is the more valuable it is, and it will help you to build faster. You must remember that you can find plenty of great support that costs little.

As an online marketer you are part of the online marketing community. In my experience online marketers are good people who have no problem helping each other. They are only an e-mail away if you need help and support. They can offer plenty of guidance on what to do and more importantly what not to do!

I save what I believe is the best till last, the TAXMAN! Before you all go diving for cover, I mean all the allowances you can claim for against your business.

Here are just a few when you are running a home based business:
Office supplies including your computer and its peripherals
Related tools such as hosting fees, journals, magazines.
Advertising
Your phone
and much, much more

What other business has these benefits? Network marketing is probably the closest but not close enough, only if you are using internet marketing to build it.

Mike Morris publishes “Make your home business work”, a fresh and informative newsletter dedicated to supporting people like you! To find out the best in online business opportunities, plus free business tools, Visit http:// www.r-u-making-a-profit.com

This article is reprinted with permission from www.WritingCareer.com

Top 7 Small Business Sites for 2005

2005-01-24T11:37:00.000-08:00

Jinger Jarrett

Copyright 2005 Jinger Jarrett

If you want to start a business in 2005, and start making money almost immediately, the sites listed below are some of the best I have found. I've chosen each site because it is absolutely outstanding in providing the tools you need to get started, as well as taking you through the steps you need to get started immediately.

My1stBusiness.com - http://www.my1stbusiness.com - This site is owned by Ben Botes, who is currently working on a doctoral degree in business. Ben will take you through every phase of creating your business, and it doesn't matter how large or small it is. You'll find all of the information you need right here.

Teleclasses are currently free, and you'll find a wide variety of top notch business coaches to help you build your business.

This site is scheduled to go to a paid model soon, but it will definitely be worth the price tag. If you're looking for a one stop solution to constantly update your business knowledge, and stay ahead of your competition, this is it.

Ron Olinger - http://ronolinger.ws - Everyone needs a little motivation, and Ron is the guy to help you with that.

He offers a newsletter called "Winning Attitudes" that is absolutely dynamite. You'll find lots of quality tips and information. Definitely a must read if you are struggling to get started.

Not your run of the mill newsletter, it will help you achieve what you want to achieve in both your persona and professional life.

Ultimate Marketing Center - http://www.ultimatemarketingcenter.com - Hands down, this is the best web host on the Internet.

However, the reason I selected this site as a business site is this: it is a complete and total solution for starting your business.

You'll get a complete web hosting account with all of the bells and whistles, as well as 1000s of dollars in software and ebooks to teach you everything you need to know about building a business.

What makes this site better than any other online is that it's a complete solution. It includes affiliate program management software, unlimited autoresponders, custom made scripts the owner sells for $35 each on his other sites, unlimited email accounts, and a generous sized web hosting account.

There's nothing else like it on the Internet, and it's the only place where you can run your entire business for only $19.95 per month. The support is excellent.

Website.ws - http://www.website.ws - For the newcomer to the Internet, this is the site you need to start your business.

You'll get a domain name, a generous mult-tier affiliate program to help you build a backend income, and a website builder that is so easy to use, a child can build a web site.

There are also videos to teach you web site building, as well as a nice 20 page ebook to show you how to market this opportunity and make money from it.

It's the easiest solution I know of to starting a business on the Internet, and you don't need to know HTML. You can also use your web site account to build your primary business and generate another source of income.

Coachville.com - http://www.coachville.com - Thinking of starting a service business?

Even if you aren't interested in starting any type of coaching business, this site is definitely for you.

They offer a wide variety of free and paid courses, and you can even earn your certification as a coach. This site will cut your learning curve dramatically, and you'll be up and running in no time.

Alexa - http://www.alexa.com - When it comes to smoking the competition, this is the site you want to use.

You'll get detailed stats, contact information, site rankings, sites that are linked to a particular web site, and a whole lot more.

No other site will offer you more comprehensive information on what's hot and what's not on the Internet. They also offer a toolbar, and it's free to use the site.

Automate Internet Marketing - http://www.automateinternetmarketing.com/ - Internet marketer Patric Chan offers you a free marketing membership with plenty of excellent information. What blew my mind when I saw this is that Patric is giving it away.

If you're new to the Internet, and new to Internet marketing, start here. Patric knows how to explain marketing in a way that is easy to understand.

Whether you've started a business and want to increase your profits, or you want to start a business, now is the time. These seven resources are not to be overlooked.

Jinger Jarrett is a small business coach and Internet Marketer living in Alpharetta, Georgia. She teaches small business owners how to build a fulltime passive residual income and how to do it for only $10 per month. http://www.jingerjarrett.ws

This article is reprinted with permission from www.WritingCareer.com

Effective Ways to Promote Your Website For Free Online

2005-01-18T09:38:00.000-08:00

1. Generate Targeted Traffic from Online Discussion Forums.

Online discussion forums provide an excellent way to promote your website without paying any money. Nowadays, you don't even have to lurk around before you begin to post. Just browse the messages and you can start posting. There are basically three different ways to participate. You can ask questions, respond to requests for help or just post any useful information that fits with the general topic of that discussion forum. To promote your site in online discussion forums, all you have to do is enter your website address or ad in your signature line at the bottom of each message. Every time you post or respond to questions your ad will be displayed. If you post good content, people who read your threads will also check out your website. This is an excellent way to drive targeted traffic to your website at no cost to you. You can take this type of site promotion a step further by identifying the active members in each forum and contacting them for joint venture arrangements.

2. Write Articles or Free reports for other webmasters to publish.

Another effective way to promote your website is to write articles or free reports for ezine publishers and webmasters to use. If you write good content, your articles will be published and many readers who like your article will go on to visit your website. You can also write simple research based articles and allow others to publish these freely on their websites. The traffic from these free articles will come from your byline. The `byline' is the short paragraph that goes at the bottom of each article and describes who the author is and what they do. The good thing about writing this type of content is that it establishes you as the expert and therefore increases the chances of people visiting your website and signing up for whatever you're offering.

3. Do Joint Ventures with List owners and Webmasters.

If done correctly, joint venture marketing is one of the most effective ways to promote a product or service. A Joint venture can take many forms but it's generally an agreement for some kind of partnership between one or more parties working together to their mutual benefit. It allows you to leverage highly targeted lists or traffic with no risk. Joint ventures are excellent for new product or service announcements because they allow you to reach a wide customer base very quickly.

4. Leverage the power of your email Signature.

One of the quickest and effective ways to start driving traffic to your website at no extra cost is to add your ad or website address to your email signature. This way, every time you send an email, you'll be advertising your website. You can take this a step further by asking your friends and associates to put your website address in their email signature. Most people don't use their email signature facility in their email program so you can easily get 10 or more people to agree to do this. If you and your 10 friends each send out 10 emails per day, that's 110 exposures of your ad every day without any extra effort on your part.

5. Exchange Links with Other Webmasters.

This is another effective strategy for generating targeted traffic to your website for free. It involves contacting other webmasters for a possible link exchange partnership. All you have to do is locate websites that are related to yours but that are not in direct competition and contact the webmaster to swap links. There are various free ebooks and articles available online on this topic.

About the Author

© Copyright. Ben Chapi owns Venister Home business and Affiliate Program Classifieds at http://www.venister.org/. He is also webmaster for http://www.best-debt-consolidation-loan.co.uk/ and http://www.home-equity-loan.org.uk/

Reprinted from Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information

How To Get Higher Clickthrough Rates (CTR) On Your Google Adwords Campaigns

2005-01-18T09:37:00.000-08:00

There are a number of ways to improve your clickthrough rates (CTR) for ads on Google Adwords. Here are some tips to help you get started.

1. Target your ads to the right Audience. You do this by selecting keywords and phrases which are relevant to your product or service. Avoid keywords that are too general because although they generate a large number of impressions, they often generate very few clicks. To improve your CTR, use more descriptive phrases so that your ads will only appear to prospective customers searching for what you have to offer.

2. Use the correct keyword matching option(s). Google offers four different methods of targeting your ads by keywords: Broad Match, Phrase Match, Exact Match and Negative keyword. By applying the most focused matching options to your keywords, you can reach more targeted prospects, improve your CTR, reduce your cost-per-click and increase your return on investment.

3. Target your ads by location and language. When creating your adwords campaign target your ads by location so that you maximise your sales and improve your CTR. Target the right audience by selecting the language and countries that you want to reach.

4. Use your main keywords in the Title or Body Text of your ad. By using your keywords in the title or ad body text of your ad, it will stand out from your competitors and grab the eye of your prospective customers.

5. Create different Ad Groups for different search phrases/keywords. This will allow you to refine your ads and test them for relevance and therefore maximise your clickthrough rates. For example, if your service offers loans, you can create different ad groups for home equity loans (and all other phrases that incorporate this phrase), consolidation loans, student loans and so on.

6. Calculate what you can afford to pay for each clickthrough. You will find that more focused keywords and search phrases have a higher conversion ratio than other more general keywords. It's a good strategy to pay more for clicks from keywords or phrases with a high conversion ratio than from the more general keyword groups.

7. Use highly targeted Keywords and search phrases. Be specific when selecting keywords and search phrases for your campaign. General keywords will be more expensive and will result in lower clickthrough rates. If you're bidding on general keywords that are relevant to your site consider using the Exact match and the Phrase match keyword matching options in order to increase your CTR.

8. Test and monitor your ads to get the best clickthrough rates. Refine and fine-tune your ad to maximise click throughs. With Google you can do this in real time. You can do this by creating different ads for each ad group and then checking which ads have the best clickthrough rates.

9. Give Google users a compelling reason to click on your ad link. The easiest way to do this is to provide something of value for free. You can also achieve this if you tailor each keyword to your offer and use relevant terms/ words in both the title and the ad body. Use a different ad for each keyword group or search term. This increases relevance and the likelihood that Google users will click on it.

About the Author

© Copyright. Ben Chapi owns Venister Home Business and Affiliate Program Classifieds at http://www.venister.org/. He is also webmaster for http://www.best-debt-consolidation-loan.co.uk/ and http://www.home-equity-loan.org.uk/

Reprinted from Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information

Is Someone Hijacking YOUR Visitors?

2005-01-18T09:36:00.000-08:00

Recently while reviewing some text changes on one of my web pages I noticed something that nearly knocked me off of my chair.

I found several new links on all the pages of my website. I had not created them. No one had paid me anything for the links on my pages. Moreover, many were leading my visitors to my competitor's websites. Someone was web-jacking my hard earned visitors.

These new links have a heavy yellow underline. When the mouse hovers over them, they show a bright yellow background, much more noticeable than any of the other hyperlinks on my pages. You can see an example of these links on the following page.

>> http://www.smithfam.com/smartag.html

I thought it might be a virus so I visited Symantec. I wanted to see if there was a newer virus data file or a virus warning that would explain these links.

On the Symantec site, where I found the words "virus protection." I found a link to Symantec's rival, McAfee.com Corp. Same results.

Something is badly wrong here

I went to work to find the source of these mystery links.

I discovered that after deleting all my cache files in Microsoft's Internet Explorer, the links went away, but every time I restarted IE, the links came back. They also appeared in ebooks compiled to use IE for display.

These links didn't show up when viewed in Netscape.

Microsoft Smart Links Technology

Smart Tags, according to Microsoft, are "... a feature of Internet Explorer that add smart links to pages you view. Smart Tags enable real-time, dynamic recognition of content on web pages and offer you relevant options as you work. By hovering and clicking on these smart links, you can get access to additional information or perform convenient web tasks."

Many Internet marketers, fearing Smart Links could be used to hijack visitors by using their content to divert traffic to another website without permission or compensation, complained loudly to Microsoft.

Microsoft's received a so much negative feedback from webmasters about the damage Smart Tags technology poses to developers and businesses on the Internet that a month ago, it announced they had backed off of plans to ad "Smart Tags" to its Windows XP operating system.

"Smart-Tag" Technology is like a scalpel. In the hands of a doctor, it can restore health, but in the hands of a killer it can cause only pain and suffering.

Disabling Smart Tags on a Web Page

If you are a Web author, you can disable Smart Tag recognition in Internet Explorer within a Web page by adding a Meta tag to that Web page.

After adding this tag, any Smart Tags that the author has added to the page will continue to work, but Internet Explorer will not dynamically add new tags when users view the page.

More Info: >> http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/preview/smarttags/>

On The downside, while this may disable Smart Tags by Microsoft it does nothing to disable browser pluggins.

What makes this work?

To make a long story short I discovered the source of these links was a browser pluggin my son had installed as part of a file-sharing program similar to Napster.

KaZaa is the fourth most downloaded PC program on Cnet Network's Download.Com site. It has been downloaded 4.9 million times since July 11.

KaZaA makes it possible for people to download licensed software and music without paying the owners anything. When KaZaA is downloaded a copy of a special Internet Explorer pluggin is installed.

The pluggin adds hyper-links to keywords purchased by advertisers on every page the user views with Internet Explorer ANYWHERE on the Internet.

The Source of The Pluggin

The pluggin is named TOPtext. It's provided by eZula.com. It's listed in the KaZaA installer as:

" TOPtext, a browser plugin to give Internet Explorer relevant quick links"

I contacted several of the advertisers the links sent me to and in every case they claimed they had had complaints, but had no actual knowledge of where the links were coming from. Even after I supplied them with information about the source of the links, they all have remained active.

"Contextual Advertising Theory"

EZula supporters say "contextual advertising has promise because it is far less obtrusive than other forms of online and offline advertising while delivering only what a consumer wants."

The purpose of my website is to deliver value-added content on the subject of Internet Marketing and Home Based Business. I have spent over five years developing this site, and I maintain well over 5,000 pages of valuable free content.

This content works much like a TV program. It provides a vehicle for delivering highly targeted traffic and builds trust and sales over time. In the case of TV, programming content is possible because advertisers pay for commercials. No third party is allowed supply different commercials in place of the paid commercials. If third parties were allowed to hijack TV programming where would the money to develop the programming come from?

It's exactly the same on the web

Now I have learned that in less than 20 days, over four million potential customers visiting my website may see links appearing on my pages to products I don't sell and would not recommend.

I maintain that my website content belongs to me and your content belongs to you. I can only assume all content developers would feel the same way. No one has the right to hijack our hard earned traffic by adding links to the words we use.

Vote With Your Feet

We can't put the genie back in the bottle. If advertisers and the buying public are willing to fund this type of advertising, this technology may be the killer blow for small content rich web developers.

Small businesses such as myself can't afford to sue the corporations that dream this stuff up. The best we can do is to not support the advertisers. We can also let them know that we don't support this form of advertising and will not buy their products.

The Bottom Line

Microsoft's Smart Tags technology and browser pluggins like TOPtext pose a substantial threat to content driven marketing. Shawn Collins has launched an online petition to protest against Smart Tags. You can sign the "No More Smart Tags" petition here:

>> http://www.PetitionOnline.com/nmst2001/

If you feel this form of advertising is a violation of the copyright laws that protect your content, you may also want to register your thoughts with eZula.com, the company that owns the TOPtext pluggins in use today.

If this technology is allowed to develop, I am concerned that soon the whole concept of developing free content for the Internet will be threatened. If content developers can't earn income indirectly through content development, we soon may be required to pay for every scrap of information we now get free.

Have your sales dropped off lately? In just the last 20 days over 4 million web surfers are viewing links on your website you didn't put there. These links are taking your customers elsewhere, the really scary part is unless you have TOPtext installed on your browser you won't even know it's happening.

Robert Smith (C) all rights reserved

ROBERT SMITH helps thousands successfully market their Internet based home business. You'll find tons of free marketing tools & resources on his Internet Marketing web site at: .

The Master's WebKit CD Package

You can reach him by phone at: (541) 689-1847 PST, and by email at.

Reprinted from Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information

A Simple Strategy For Traffic Optimization

2005-01-18T09:35:00.000-08:00

The average webpage only attracts 1 or two unique visitors a day from the search engines, and most surfers click away in less than 60 seconds. The average page is takes about 30-40 seconds to load. It's difficult to sell something to the one or two visitors that see your website for only a few seconds.

Most webmasters invest most or all of their promotional efforts on the main entrance page assuming that the main page will drive the traffic to the other pages.

This approach may work somewhat on one or two page mini-sites selling a single product but this strategy leaves out the most important reason people use the Internet in the first place, to find free and useful information on a subject of interest.

A better Approach - Give Then Ask

When surfers type a keyword into a search engine, they are in essence asking a question. Each page's content should answer that previously identified potential question within your defined market segment.

Your page's title, description and keywords from your Meta tags are displayed in the search engine results pages. Unless your individual page stands out to attract the click you will not get any visitors, so the first task is to strategize to attract that first click. This is easiest done in choosing compelling and highly targeted content for the webpage.

If you sell more than one product your main index page by definition usually will not have the narrow focus required to attract the traffic you need. The philosophy I use is to give first - then ask for the sale. Only after you have satisfied a need or desire have you earned the right to ask for something in return.

Like it or not, the Internet is first and foremost an information medium. People use the Internet to find information and the most specific information will attract more clicks. Each individual webpage should have a specific purpose, a defined goal, and unique content focusing as narrowly on a targeted visitor's need or desire for information.

Marketing By Attraction

There is an old saying that entertainers have employed for years. "Leave them wanting more" Using free and compelling content you can gain your visitor's trust and earn credibility before you offer to sell something. The advantage of employing content-based marketing is you can address a much bigger percentage of a narrower market segment.

You don't want to confuse or mislead your prospects, so make sure you give them the information that attracted them in the first place. Rather than putting the sales pitch directly into your page's content, I prefer to link directly to the sales letter separating the content from the sales pitch.

In addition, because content driven websites are able to attract more targeted traffic they are natural places to sell advertising or place banner ads. I have found that as long as the advertising is distinctly separated from the content it is usually well received.

Link it Up With A Template

If you promote several individual pages that are linked to your main page you will attract more traffic than you would by just promoting your main page alone.

Each page should offer links to all your more important pages. This improves your visibility and credibility and demonstrates you are willing to serve as well as receive. People crave support and naturally want to support their sources.

Developing a common webpage template helps establish your brand. Your template also makes navigation easier. Adding a site search engine helps as the your website grows bigger.

Using The Efforts Of Others

You don't have to develop all the content on your own. You can co-operate with others in your niche by offering to publish the content of others in your niche on your website and including a resource box and links back to their websites. Better yet, you can trade your own compelling content with others.

Publishing the content of others and trading content is a win-win proposition. You earn more credibility, offer better solutions and become both a better resource and a destination in the process.

Trading resource links with others in your niche helps boost your "link popularity" over time earning higher placements in the search engines for all of your website and especially for the main pages linked on all your content pages.

Success Rarely happens Overnight

Using content-based marketing over time, you can drive highly targeted traffic to your main page and to each product or service you offer. Most likely they will bookmark your pages and will want to return for more information or in the future. If you offer a newsletter or opt-in mailing list you will also earn more subscribers.

It follows that if you can build many doorways into your site. Each page generates a few highly targeted visitors every day. You end up getting many times more traffic than you otherwise might have attracted to your main index page. This technique will also work to drive traffic to your one or two page mini-sites.

Each page will attract more traffic and will earn higher placements in the search engines because of the narrower focus.

Using this strategy, in five years I have grown from a couple of visitors a day to averaging well over 5,000 visitors a day, and the quality of the traffic generated gets better as time goes on.

You can see an example of template driven content on Internet marketing at the following URL. >> http://smithfam.com/search.html

Best Wishes

Bob

ROBERT SMITH helps thousands successfully market their Internet based home business. You'll find tons of free marketing tools & resources on his Internet Marketing web site at: .

The Master's WebKit CD Package

You can reach him by phone at: (541) 689-1847 PST, and by email at.

Reprinted from Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information

Shortcuts To Building Developing Targeted Traffic

2005-01-18T09:34:00.000-08:00

Perhaps my "do everything yourself" approach is not the best approach for every business, especially for existing off-line businesses that are already profitable.

I still prefer a more "hands on" approach for most small and home-based businesses.

When a conventional off-line business starts makes the transition into selling on-line I would consider the following integrated approach. This approach requires more money and less time to accomplish

It's a more aggressive approach that is more suitable if you have access to a proven product that sells.

Purchase Keywords By The Click

One of the first, purchases I would make would be a Real-Name >From Alta-Vista. A "real-name" is a keyword that is unique to your business. Words like your company name can be registered so when someone types it in the Alta-Vista your listing comes up first, above all the other listings. You can use this "real-name" in advertising, it's especially when your domain name is too long or difficult to remember.

For a demonstration try typing "IBM" in Alta-Vista >> http://www.altavista.com/

The real-name keyword "IBM" is first of 2,557,355 pages found it's hard to find a better advertising bargain

Alta-Vista maintains the biggest index of web pages worldwide so gaining a guaranteed number one position in Alta-Vista for a hundred dollars a year is one of the best values available on-line.

More On "Real-Names" >> http://www.altavista.com/cgi-bin/query?rnsp=0&realname=realname

I would also suggest setting up an account with Go-To.com. They allow you to bid on keywords. The highest bidder gets the highest position. This and other pay for position search engines are growing their user bases and are a good way to buy targeted traffic by the click. >> http://www.goto.com click on the "Manage Accounts" link.

A newer search engine that may be useful is SearchHound >> http://www.searchhound.com/

Buying clicks is especially powerful if your products fit in a specific niche where you can identify a few unique keywords. I suggest working with Go-To.com first because they have a great system in place for identifying great specific keywords. You might be able to bid as low1 cent per click if your best keywords are not too popular yet.

I understand that AOL also sells keywords, I don't know the details but I have heard that can be profitable but not always affordable. It's outside of my price range. >> http://www.goto.com

Obtain A Good Yahoo Listing

Yahoo usually takes from 3 weeks to forever to list your site. Yahoo can bring you a lot of traffic. I get about 1500 visitors a day from Yahoo as well as about a 1000 from Google.com which is supplies the database engine that delivers search results go along with Yahoo's directory results.

Sometimes the best way to get listed in Yahoo is to get listed in Google. Getting listed in Google is very easy. >> http://www.google.com/

Yahoo has very specific requirements for inclusion in their directory. You can get a quick review but no guarantee for about $200; otherwise it can be difficult to get reviewed at all. >> http://www.yahoo.com/

Software Solutions

There are two software programs that work well. WebPosition Gold guides you through the process of developing high positions in the search engines. Most placement companies use this software. >> http://www.smithfam.com/wpg/index.htm

I also offer a submission program that I couldn't do without. It makes the actual submissions for you and requires very little time or effort. >> http://www.smithfam.com/spider/

Advertising In Newsletters And Ezines

Ads in ezines and newsletters can be a real bargain. The key to placing effective ads is to make every word count. A compelling headline is a MUST. The reader is not interested in reading your ad so your ad must be compelling.

In order for paid ads to pay off you need to be selling a product with enough profit to pay for the ad as well as deliver a profit. If you can start out earning any profit at all you can usually fine-tune the ad in order to at least double or triple your initial results.

The most common mistake is trying to tell the whole story in a one classified ad. You can't do it anyway, so don't even try. Keep your ads as brief as possible.

Don't even bother to trying to sell something directly from your ad, instead target your ad to generate interest and produce leads instead of sales. A good ad leaves them wanting to know more. >> http://www.smithfam.com/aweber.html

Include Programmable Autoresponders

In order to establish credibility and build a relationship with your customers start out offering a series of informational auto-responders. Most sales are made on the 4th through 7th exposure.

You are buying access to your ideal target market. The best way to do that is to choose publications carefully and test every word in your ad.

Please see today's feature article by Harry Fassett, it contains a complete list of ezine publication directories.

Writing Articles

If you are already writing content for your website and for your ezine or newsletter, why not offer it to other publications in order to get more free exposure. Submit your articles to other publications that offer to consider publishing them. You will find some places to submit your original articles in the list of ezine directories included in our feature article below.

I review articles also for this newsletter and for my on-line ezine where I publish about 30 articles a month, send them to . >> http://www.smithfam.com/news/current.html

Search Engine Strategies

You must be listed in the search engines in order to be successful. The following are the most common reasons that off-line businesses make when taking their conventional business on-line.

Don't Use Frames

The most common problem I see in corporate websites is the use of frames in design. You won't get as much traffic from the search engines when using frames for the following reasons.

1) When using frames your entire website's traffic would depend on the positioning of the main page.

2) Normally when I use frames I maintain all the other pages as stand alone pages leading to the main page on each stand alone page I would have links to all the other pages.

Dump The Flashy Splash Pages

People visit your website mostly for information. They are not impressed with flashy design especially if they have to wait longer for them to load.

All of the studies I have seen show that flashy main pages or splash pages turn off at least 80% of visitors before they fully load. They are slow, not interactive, and can be really annoying. The same is generally true for adding sound to your pages. I can't tell you how many times I have been blasted with someone's background music and couldn't click away soon enough

To see if this is true with your site analyze your server logs. If you find that most of your hits are to your main page and very few visits to your other pages you should suspect that your main page is not working as well as it could.

Look at the total unique visitor count. Then look at the total number of pages displayed. A "sticky" website should deliver several page visited per visitor on average. For example I average 5 pages loaded for each visitor on my site. I am always dreaming up ways to increase that number.

Set Up Doorway Pages

A doorway page is a stand-alone page which is usually not part of the website as a whole. These are most important if you use frames in your design because the pages in your site

A doorway page should focus on answering a single question or respond to a specific keyword phrase. Each doorway page should consist of one to 4 paragraphs of useful information specific to a search term or keyword phrase.

The doorway page should include links to all of the important pages in your website

Start by creating a template like your main page. The content for each page and the list of keywords you choose can be optimized to get better placement in the search engines. This approach is a long-term strategy but still worth doing as almost as 80% of your visitors still visit your pages from a query in a search engine.

Most search engine placement experts charge $30 to $60 dollars an hour for placement services. Even at $100 a page positioning services can be a real bargain should your business be able to afford the cost.

I hope you are able to use some of these strategies in your business.

Best Wishes

Bob

ROBERT SMITH helps thousands successfully market their Internet based home business. You'll find tons of free marketing tools & resources on his Internet Marketing web site at: .

The Master's WebKit CD Package

You can reach him by phone at: (541) 689-1847 PST, and by email at.

Reprinted from Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information

Developing Compelling Content On Purpose

2005-01-18T09:33:00.000-08:00

I'm going to give you the benefit of what took me years to figure out on my own. This is one path to success in the information age. Every known media uses it to sell virtually anything. I can boil it down to one word.

"Content"

Gold is valuable because it's scarce. Content is information that has a high value to a targeted niche. Your content is information in which you have a special expertise. Its value comes from the fact that you know it and others don't.

The Internet is a pull medium; you "attract" people to your website by offering them your valuable information.

Give First, Then Ask.

Good content has the power to set you above the crowd as an expert. Communicating your passion through your content is your own personal key to attracting targeted traffic to your web site.

Compelling content is evidence of what you have to give - not what you want to get! You can't buy the kind of traffic that free content will attract to your site, not at any price.

If money is water, then content is the pump.

Ninety percent of a commercial website's content should be free, with about 10% directed to revenue generation. The good news is you don't have to come up with all of the content yourself.

Communicate Your Purpose

Nothing attracts traffic better than a clearly communicated mission statement. You should be able to define your mission in a sentence or less. Understanding your mission helps you stay focused.

Developing content supporting your mission is the magic that attracts everything else. Boil your mission down - then communicate it up-front.

Everything you do should support your passion. As you develop content for your website, choose products that serve your niche. If your current content doesn't promote your mission, dump it and develop content that does.

Developing Compelling Content

You do have an opt-in email list don't you? If you don't, that's the first place to start. Offer to update your visitors with information or resources within your special expertise. They will want to be on your mailing list because it was your expertise that attracted them in the first place.

You can write original articles or reports. Start by regularly emailing them to your house list. However, don't stop there, spend time reaching out to others within your niche. Allow them to reprint your work in order to add value their content. Include a little about yourself and your mission at the bottom of each article. If you maintain a website, newsletter or special reports, include appropriate links within a resource box at the bottom.

You can find sources of great content all over the Internet, in newsgroups, forums and on other websites. Negotiate WIN-WIN trades of content with your "so-called" competitors. Empower your content with your own passion, simply by putting it into your own words.

Additional Sources Of Valuable Content

* Give and get testimonials for products you value * Ask others to link to your website's content pages * Offer commissions or discounts to your competitors * Become a re-seller to profit from your off-site links. * Exchange advertising, articles, and reports with others. * nstall scripts to interact with your visitors. * Offer downloads of freeware, shareware and demos. * Video clips, photos, graphics and sound can all be used.

Develop A Portal

A Portal is a website that offers a variety of specific information within a narrow defined niche. Portals offer "added value" to your content by linking your visitors to similar resources.

You can attract traffic using the synergy of a Portal. You can leverage the efforts of others as well by sharing their content. In addition, you can create diversity and additional revenue streams by offering external resources or by selling advertising.

The disadvantage of a Portal strategy is risking sending your valuable traffic elsewhere. You can mitigate this risk by forming web-rings and link exchanges with similar websites. In theory, web-rings and exchanges return at least as many visitors as they cost, with a big advantage going to the better websites

Content Is King

Marketing without content is like offering commercials without the programming. No one is interested. Websites without compelling content simply do not attract or retain visitors. Without a steady stream of return visitors, you will get very few sales.

Content is king, not only on-line but everywhere. It has always has been the key. To attracting targeted customers in virtually all media forms. Use your valuable targeted content to establish your expertise, build relationships, and attract more customers.

Best Wishes

Bob

ROBERT SMITH helps thousands successfully market their Internet based home business. You'll find tons of free marketing tools & resources on his Internet Marketing web site at: .

The Master's WebKit CD Package

You can reach him by phone at: (541) 689-1847 PST, and by email at.

Reprinted from Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information

How Many Keywords?

2005-01-18T09:32:00.000-08:00

QUESTION: Bob, I've read your keyword info, but can't find the answer to the following.

How many of the same word can I include in my keywords.

ANSWER: Unfortunately there is no right number. With at least 100,000, ( up from 30,000 last year) new websites going on-line every day, it's no wonder that it's difficult to get a top ten placement.

The search engines don't follow any rules, THEY MAKE THE RULES. They are independent and in every case they will list sites according to their needs not yours. They don't publish their priorities so it's up to us to figure it out.

Most search engines allow you to use the same word in combination with other words as long as the words you use accurately reflect the actual content on the page itself. In most but not all search-engines you can usually get by with up to 7 instances of the same keyword. Just don't use the same keywords over and over anywhere on your pages.

Search engine placement professionals often understand ranking formulas. They are selling their time, often for hundreds an hour to corporations. They can't really guarantee they can get you the ranking you need.

The keywords should reflect the content of the specific page NOT the content of the website.

You want to actually USE the important keywords in the page itself as well as the Meta code. I would suggest choosing one word phrase to concentrate on for each page. If you use 10 keywords your keyword density will actually be reduced overall with each additional word.

In order of importance, use your keyword phrase in combination with your most important keyword several times. FOR EXAMPLE:

TITLE: Use your keyword phrase as the first word in the title; use it twice in the title in combination if possible. The longer the title is the less effective your keyword will be. Several search engines look to your title to establish your keyword density. Your title can range from a single word up to 12 words is OK depending on the specific search engine.

DESCRIPTION: Again use your most Important keyword early in the page description. Keep your description short, 25 words is good 20 words is better. Use nouns (person, Place or thing) as keywords if possible, nouns usually carry the most weight. The search engines don't want to waste the user's time reading listings, they want to send you as directly as possible to the information you seek.

KEYWORDS: Using your keywords in your keyword Meta tag is not as important as it once was. For example you will find that many top sites in Alta-Vista don't use Meta tags, they index the entire page and determine ranking. Be careful not to use keywords that are NOT to be found on your page. Use your main keyword in 3-6 phrases. The search engines will remove pages that overuse a keyword. You may use several spellings and in combination in other phrases.

Use keyword phrases someone might actually type in. Sometimes a common misspelling of a keyword will get you more traffic than the correct spelling because there are fewer people that spell a word incorrectly, Incorrect spelling has been very helpful to me. Use common incorrect spellings in the keyword section and use as many derivatives of the same word as possible. You may also use connecting words like "how-to" that may be typed in the search engines, however don't over-do it as many search engines ignore many common words, "a, the, and, etc.

HEADLINE: Your headlines, especially your first headline and your biggest headlines are usually an accurate description of your page's content. Use your important keywords in the headlines.

BODY TEXT: When you proofread your page look for opportunities to work in your keyword or phrase. The first paragraph is the most important place on the page to include your keywords. The first paragraph may be a more important in ranking than the Meta tags.

IMAGE ALT TAGS: You can use your keyword phrases in your image's alt="tags". This technique is often overlooked however the results can be very helpful.

COMMENTS: Putting your keywords in HTML comments on your page still works but only in a few search engines.

INVISIBLE TEXT: Placing keyword phrases in the same color as the page background is considered spamming (keyword stuffing) by most search engines, some people get around this by changing the color VERY slightly from the actual background color in your page. I list it last because it's the least effective. In fact it may result in the search engine's dropping your pages, even banishment. If you use this technique be very selective in your choice of search engines. The comment must fit the content.

YAHOO

Yahoo is the number one search engine used. This is partly because Yahoo's editors review each website in person. People have become accustomed to finding quality content using Yahoo searches. Submitting to Yahoo may seem difficult, and you MUST read and follow their submission guidelines to the letter in order to get listed. It usually requires several weeks to get your site reviewed.

Only submit your main index.html file to Yahoo and don't submit it over and over, Yahoo will remove pages that are submitted too often, they want you to edit your existing listing rather than resubmit it. It's a good idea to start your title with a number or a word that starts with "a" as their listing results are listed alphabetically.

A good Yahoo listing is worth all the effort. Almost 50% of my traffic comes from one single Yahoo listing. Needless to say I don't change anything with my Yahoo listing.

YAHOO TIP

Recently Yahoo changed the engine they use to list results not already indexed in their directory. They are using Google's engine because they have a huge index based on "Link Density". A good strategy is to submit your pages to Google because you stand a better chance of getting found in Yahoo's results.

Google, Alta-Vista and several others are moving to a rankig criteria based on link density. Link density is a placement strategy based on the theory that the more pages that link to you the more likely the site contains good content. Content still rules on the Internet. The more content and the more popular your content is the higher you ranking will be.

KEYWORD STRATEGY IN A NUTSHELL

1) Start at goto.com to determine which keywords to use. You don't want to use the very most popular keywords. Use keywords that rank in the top ten not the top two. >> http://inventory.go2.com/inventory/Search_Suggestion.jhtml

Type in a prospective keyword and you'll get back several keyword combinations and the number of times they have been used recently. For example if I type in "Internet Marketing" in goto.com I get the following results.

6008 internet marketing 357 internet marketing strategy 170 internet marketing consultant 155 internet marketing course 148 marketing on the internet

I would use all the combinations except "Internet Marketing." as Internet Marketing is too popular to achive a good listing.

Jim Tools also has a great tool for finding additional actual keyword phrases >> http://www.jimtools.com/

MORE RESOURCES WebPosition.com is an excellent web-page positioning software program. The free demo will work on several important search engines. I got a great listing in Alta-Vista using the demo. The software requires going through a learning curve, however anyone can master the software and achieve great placements.

WebPosition.com also publishes an excellent newsletter. They stay on top of current trends and update their software often. Positioning strategy by its nature changes all the time. Remember there are only ten top ten positions, if it was easy everyone would have top listings. >> http://www.smithfam.com/wpg/index.htm

Traffic Seeker Pro is automated submission software. It can automatically extract information from your web pages. Traffic Seeker Pro includes a program to create your Meta tags as well as a tool to spider your entire website and automatically fill out the submission forms saving me hundreds of hours.

Traffic Seeker also submits to about 8,900 Free 4 All and free classified sites. Whenever these free 4 all and free classified sites get indexed the search engines your link density ratings will go up resulting in higher search engine placements. >> http://www.smithfam.com/ts/

I have developed an archive of articles about search engine positioning strategies. >> http://www.smithfam.com/1search.html

A good positioning strategy requires a significant investment of time. Its going to take time to develop a strategy, more time to implement the strategy and it requires more time to keep up to date on the leading edge strategies.

I believe that a good search engine placement strategy is by far the LEAST COSTLY METHOD to develop highly targeted traffic. Using the automated tools I still invest at least 20% of my time developing traffic through the search engines.

The reason why you will hear different experts suggesting conflicting strategies is actually simple. Positioning strategy changes all the time. A strategy that works well for one business might not work at all for another. This is because the search engines change their ranking strategies in order to deliver most accurate results possible.

It makes sense to research the search engines BEFORE you attempt to market any product of service on-line. I choose products that lend themselves to developing traffic via the search engines. If you don't think that is important try typing "free", "MLM" or "Home Business Opportunity" in any search engine and look at the number of search results returned.

Staying on top of the search engines is a lot like surfing, if you move to far in one direction and you lose the wave, too far the other way and the wave swallows you. The trick is to develop YOUR OWN long-term search engine strategy. Find tools and techniques that work; use them until they don't work as well then re-develop your strategy.

Best Wishes

Bob

ROBERT SMITH helps thousands successfully market their Internet based home business. You'll find tons of free marketing tools & resources on his Internet Marketing web site at: .

Reprinted from Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information

How To Get Your Site Reviewed For Free . . . and win customers as you do it!

2005-01-18T09:31:00.000-08:00

What is the most vital part of your online business ?

Where should you spend the most effort ?

It has to be your web site . . . your shop front to the outside world.

The design and content of your site is so critical that it's worth getting outside help and opinions.

Now you could pay a big fee to a consultant to advise you - but here's a better idea.

Ask the people who really matter.

Your visitors !

Just add this to your site:

Thanks for visiting.
We'd love to hear your opinion on our site - what did you like - what don't you like - how can we improve it

All your comments will be welcome

Then sit back and get lots of advice - for Free.

But here is how to get super added value from this idea:

1) Make it as simple as possible for your readers to submit their comments. Don't let them have to hunt around for an Email address, use 'Click here' with a 'mailto' format.

2) Thank each contributor individually rather than send a standard automated message. Then you will see how this invariably leads to further exchanges and new promising contacts.

3) Never lose the opportunity to promote your business. In your thank you letter remind the reader - who has already been to your site - about a particular feature such as a free newsletter.

And now ... here's how you can multiply your response dramatically.

4) Some people love to offer their advice, others need that little extra inducement such as a free gift.

There are many free E-books available on the Net.

So just replace that last line with, for example,

All your comments will be welcome and as a thank you we will send you for free a great book about Internet Marketing filled with fascinating tips.
When you want to send the book you just simply say: "Get your Free gift at www.somewhere.com"

But we can still improve on that !

As we saw in tip (3) always take the opportunity to promote your site, so you can say "Get your Free gift at www.yoursite.com/freegift"

When your reader visits this page, at your own site, he will find the link to the book but you will have surrounded it with your best promotions.

And to make certain he reads them just add "target=new" in the link to the book: this ensures he is returned to your page.

Don't miss Harvey's FREE book
Guru Magic: the Internet marketing book with a UNIQUE twist

And there's more great articles, ideas and tips at the SuperTips website http://www.supertips.com

Reprinted from Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information

Why you should NOT link to an affiliate site

2005-01-18T09:30:00.000-08:00

When you act as an affiliate or agent for another company, which means that you receive commission for getting customer orders to the company,you will often be provided with your own personalised web site.

So does this mean that in your ads you can simply refer to that site ?

It does - but here's a better idea.

You should link instead to a page on your OWN site so that

You can provide your own introduction to the product. This can include

additional detail not available in the advert

your own personal experience

a review of the benefits

You can provide links to your own particular business

Your own site traffic statistics will indicate the response to your ad in addition to any stats provided for you by the company

You can submit the page to search engines.

And there's one final advantage: should the affiliate operation be discontinued you can inform and divert visitors at your own web site, rather than have them visit a non-existent page.
Don't miss Harvey's FREE book
Guru Magic: the Internet marketing book with a UNIQUE twist

And there's more great articles, ideas and tips at the SuperTips website http://www.supertips.com

Reprinted from Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information

How to transfer to a Domain site

2005-01-18T09:29:00.000-08:00

There are great benefits in having a web site with a domain name, such as

Portability - you are free to move to a different web host or ISP and leave the name unchanged.

A professional image for your company

Once you decide to make the move from a non-domain site to a domain site, typically with a new provider, you will be faced with the problem of retaining traffic currently visiting your old site.

Such traffic is coming from, for example

Other sites linking to yours

Existing articles or sales letters submitted to newsgroups or forums

Existing ads at other web sites

Here are the steps to take:

Change the individual pages on your old site to point to the new site.

For example,

"We have now moved to another site. Click here to visit new site".

You can find which sites are linking to you, if they are registered in a given search engine, by searching for "link:old address".

You will then need to make contact with these sites and inform them of the new name.

It is likely however that there will still be unidentified sources conveying visitors to your site. What you can do is to ask the visitor where he heard about your site prior to redirecting him. A free gift may provide the incentive which provides this information.

Ideally you should have counters to tell you how many times your old pages are being accessed. Once you feel that no more traffic is reaching your old site or that it does not justify the cost of maintaining it you can cancel the original site.

A final tip - depending on your relationship with your old provider there is no need to announce your intention to move until you are ready.

Don't miss Harvey's FREE book
Guru Magic: the Internet marketing book with a UNIQUE twist

And there's more great articles, ideas and tips at the SuperTips website http://www.supertips.com

Reprinted from Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information

Writing Right for Your Website

2005-01-12T13:00:00.000-08:00

Back to basics. Forget funky design, good writing is the key to a clear and intuitive website.
By Glenn Murray*

Are you losing business because of your website? More and more customers are logging on to the Web to decide where to spend their money because it is quick and convenient, and they can jump from site to site instead of walking from store to store.

Web savvy customers don't need to be patient, studies have shown that you need to engage a potential customer very quickly by giving them easy, fast access to the information they need. Otherwise they will simply move on to the next site.

Appealing design and speedy functionality are important but they don't ensure that your site is well structured (intuitive) or well written (clear). If clear and intuitive is what you want, there are two golden rules:

* Write first, build later.

* Be brief and clear.

Write First

The real message on most websites is in the writing, and so it makes sense that the writing should determine the structure. Unfortunately, this is not the usual case. Most businesses choose the structure and design of their site first and then try and fit the writing around that structure. This flies in the face of commonsense. When you speak to someone, you structure your speech around your message, you don't decide on a structure then change the message to suit. So you need to plan what you want to say before you create the site. Maybe even write the whole thing first and then use the message to determine the structure.

When deciding what to write, think about what your customer wants to know rather than what you want to say. It's a subtle difference, but it is the key to engaging a potential customer.

Most customers will want to know the basics:

* What do you do?

* What benefit can you offer them?

* Why should they choose your service or product?

* What does it cost?

* How can they contact you?

* Where are you located?

Brevity & Clarity

Your website has to communicate a lot of information and to make matters worse, you are going to have limited space. Ideally, your customer won't have to scroll on any page (all your information will fit in a single window) and that single view will need to contain more than just words. The design and navigation elements take up about a third of a window, and you should leave a bit of room for white space (you don't want to overwhelm the customer). As a rule of thumb you should expect to have about half the window free for text.

How you are going to fit all your information in such a confined space? This is where writing skills come in - choose your words very carefully.

Websites can be an extremely powerful piece of marketing collateral. You can reach millions of potential customers for as little as a few hundred dollars. Unfortunately, your competitors are all doing the same thing - it's a level playing field but there are a lot of players.

It is important that your message is structured and well thought out, otherwise your site will be a mess and no-one will bother to read about your business. If your message is clear, your site will be simple and easy to use. It's all in the words.

* Glenn Murray heads copywriting agency Divine Write. He can be contacted on (02)43346222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit www.divinewrite.com for further details.

Reprinted from Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information

How To Integrate Keywords Into Your Web Site Copy

2005-01-12T11:59:00.000-08:00

If you're reading this and your web site doesn't contain any body text on the home page, give yourself a good smack and go to your room without supper. When you're ready to behave and design your site with the search engines in mind, come back out and read this article.

The simple truth is this: search engines read text and not much else. You absolutely, positively need to use text on the pages of your site that you want indexed and ranked highly. Not graphical text that you created in your fancy design software, but actual, visible body text. Not sure if your site uses graphical or body text? A good rule of thumb that I learnt from search engine guru Danny Sullivan is to try and highlight the text with your mouse. If you can drag your mouse over the text when viewing it in a browser, chances are this is body text and the search engines can read it.

Ok, so you've created your body copy and your site pages are loaded with good old-fashioned text. But your job's not over! Now you need to get targeted. Search engines aren't going to rank your web site about socks highly if your body copy talks about foot sizes. You need to get specific. If you sell socks, then for heaven's sake, make sure your site copy has plenty of references to the word socks! At the risk of sounding like Dr Seuss, if you want to be found for, big socks, small socks, cotton socks and wool socks, then mention them all. Better still, sort your copy into categories based on your products and services. If you sell blue socks AND red socks, then have a page dedicated to each kind. This allows you to target niche keywords within your copy and meet the relevancy guidelines for logical search queries.

It sounds so obvious, but I'm constantly amused by the number of web sites I see selling particular items without once making reference to those items in their body copy. For example, there are thousands of sites on the Internet promoting web site design services right? Next time you see one, take a look at their body copy. You'll be surprised how often you'll see flashy looking sites without a single mention of the phrase "web site design" in their page copy. Instead they'll use fancy all graphic pages or Flash movies. Or if they do use body text, it might include cryptic jargonised language like "Internet Solutions" or "online brand building".

What the heck does this tell a search engine about their business? Absolutely nothing. Are these sites going to be considered a relevant match for search queries about "web site design"? No way! The creators of these sites might think they're being clever, but they are really missing the boat entirely. What's the point of having a web site if you are going to sabotage its ability to be found?

Anyway, back to you and your web site. So now you've added plenty of text to your pages and the copy flows well for the reader. You've researched your keywords and phrases using WordTracker or something similar and now you're faced with the dilemma of integrating the keywords into your carefully written copy. So how do you satisfy the search engine's craving for keywords without interrupting the copy flow for the reader? The answer is: very carefully.

Let's take a look at a practical example. We have a client that specializes in luxury adventure travel. Before I optimized their site, part of the home page copy read like this:

"We specialise in providing vacations for people who want a personal service. We bring to our efforts a fanatical obsession with quality and exclusivity. We also bring a freshness, an outward-going passion for discovery which justifies our growing reputation as one of the world's top travel providers. We can put together packages that include all adventure activities, accommodation, transport and food".

Extensive WordTracker keyword research for the client had determined that the home page should target the following key phrases:

· adventure travel · best adventure vacations · tailored travel · overseas adventure travel · luxury travel packages

So taking our original home page text, the challenge was to integrate these keywords carefully and naturally so as not to disturb the logical flow of the copy and lose the interest of the visitor. Here's how I did it:

"We specialize in providing the best adventure vacations for people who want a personal and tailored travel service. We bring to our efforts a fanatical obsession with quality and exclusivity. We also bring a freshness, an outward-going passion for discovery which justifies our growing reputation as one of the world's top overseas adventure travel providers. We can put together luxury travel packages that include all adventure activities, accommodation, transport and food".

Note that the key phrase "overseas adventure travel" accommodates the phrase "adventure travel" too. Voila! The search engines are happy because the site contains text content relevant to related search queries, the client is happy because we were able to integrate the keywords without distracting the visitor and I'm happy because I know the site is going to rank highly for the client's target search terms.

Now go and apply the same principles to your own site...

Copyright © Kalena Jordan 2002

About the Author: Article by Kalena Jordan, CEO of Web Rank. Kalena was one of thefirst search engine optimization experts in Australasia and is well known and respected in the industry worldwide. For more of her articles on search engine ranking and online marketing, please visit http://www.high-search-engine-ranking.com

Reprinted from Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information

The Secrets of The Shriekers

2005-01-12T11:57:00.000-08:00

I am constantly bombarded with all sorts of advertisements, single-page sites, and sites offering very little real content but some wonderful new "product" or "service" for sale that purports to make its customers wealthy beyond their wildest dreams.

For the purposes of this article, let's refer to Amazing Formula (http://www.amazingformula.com) as an example of such a site. (Note: I have never purchased this product and can make no claim, verification or guarantee one way or the other as to its effectiveness. The sole purpose of my mentioning this site is as a study of the ad copy within.)

There isn't very much in terms of "content"; the marketing of the "bribes" is confined to a single page, with a hyperlink to "testimonials" which may or may not be legitimate. Yet, this site has been around in some form for nearly four years, according to The Internet Wayback Machine (http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.amazingformula.com), with the same basic "content" and no significant updates. Why? Because it works.

What makes this website and others like it profitable, even without a significant content update in 4 years? The sales copy. The sales copy of this page uses simple, but effective techniques to trigger the user into buying the product, in this case a CD-ROM indicating how to sell anything to anyone at any time. Let's look at some of these techniques now.

That's right, I, Adam Senour, am going to give away millions of dollars' worth of secrets to you and I'm going to do it WITHOUT CHARGING YOU A SINGLE RED CENT!!! No e-books to download, No expensive CD-ROMs to purchase, No courses to subscribe to, NOTHING! You too will be a website copy writing genius, able to sell your goods and services at will!

Short paragraphs. Users traditionally don't wish to read long blocks of text. They like information concise, simple, and to the point.

"You" words/second-person perspective. This is arguably the most misunderstood and underrated aspect of copy writing. When reading sales copy, users are looking not for general information on the product. They want the answer to one simple question: "What's in it for me?" Using words such as "you", "your", and "yourself", while being generic in nature, go a long way toward establishing a website rapport with your customers.

Bold, Underline, Italics. Highlighting important phrases with bold, underline, and italics allows your customer to quickly scan and decipher the nature of your copy and the key elements of it. Bold, underline, and italics can be used in conjunction with colour to further distinguish vital elements of your marketing message. However, it is strongly advised that you use bold, underline, and italics sparingly in order to ensure that only your most important points are receiving the full attention of your customers.

The colour coding of important words, and the selection of those colours. "Cool" colours such as Blues and greens are traditionally used to relax the user and put him/her in a positive mood conducive to sales; and "hot" colours such as reds, yellows and oranges are meant to incite the user into making a purchasing decision.

Headings and subheadings. Headings and subheadings should be used to break up long blocks of text into shorter and easier-to-read sections. In the case of the Amazing Formula website, graphic headings are used to break up the content; however, for search engine reasons, you may wish to consider text-based headings to split up your content into sections.

Bullet lists. These lists can be numbered, as this one is, or they can be unordered, as the Amazing Formula ones are. There doesn’t seem to be much difference in either event, as long as the copy for each bullet remains concise and to the point as in point 2; although the unordered list bullets can be stylized with graphics, as the Amazing Formula website has done.

A call to action. What do you want your customer to do? Where would you like them to go next? Give your customer at least one clear and understandable path to follow to make the appropriate action. In the case of the Amazing Formula site, there are not one, but 2 "Click to order via our secure server!" buttons as well as an order hyperlink in the menu on the top of the page. The garden path, albeit a very short one in this case, is clearly laid out for the customer to follow.

These are the seven secrets of The Shriekers. Implementing them on your website should lead to a significant increase in sales and profits.

Adam Senour is the owner of ADAM Web Design, a leading web design and development company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Reprinted from Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information

Internet Marketing Is One Huge Oxymoron

2005-01-12T11:52:00.000-08:00

You give away something for free and suddenly you have a bunch of leads for your business opportunity,a ton of sales for your web store and a successful online business. That is what internet marketing is all about.

The internet giants like Yahoo,Google and Microsoft are living proof of this philosophy. Millions of people visit these web sites everyday . These web sites provide free content which in turn equals tons of sales.

Yahoo started out as a hobby web site and is now the number one most visited web site on the world wide web. Microsoft created hotmail which currently allows thousands of internet users to create a free e-mail account. Google is one of the best search engines on the internet providing highly relevant results.

Here are some examples of free content provided by these highly successful web sites.

1.News

2.Sports

3.Business

4.Technology

5.Entertainment

6.e-mail

7.Directories

8.Tool bars

9.Limited Trials

10.Chat Rooms

If you currently have a web site producing small results, you may be trying too hard to sell your products, services, or business opportunity.

Your web site will become successful when you realize that the large majority of people surfing the internet are looking for information. Become a provider of information and you will create viral traffic to your web site plus build long term relationships with clients.

Tips to promote your web site:

- Give away a free course or report in exchange for an email address.

- Have a trial for a limited time for some of your products and services.

- Write articles to promote your web site and create a resource box in the bottom of your article.

- Give away an e-book in exchange for an e-mail address.

- Create a categorized links directory.

- Start your own e-zine.

- Give away free greeting cards.

- Offer a free gift or certificate to repeat customers.

With a little bit of thought and creativity you can implement any of these strategies into your marketing plan. Keep in mind that the whole purpose of giving away something for free is to receive something in exchange.

You want to create hundreds of prospects and collect their contact information. Build a relationship with these prospects and you will earn their trust which in turn will lead into hundreds of sales.

Finding content:

- Search any search engine for hundreds of free content and articles. Look for content that matches the theme of your web site.

If you have not started, start today. Remember this oxymoron: Giving away free Content yields lots in return: Long term relationships, repeat customers,Sales,Traffic,links and in conclusion,a successful online business.

Article by Benjamin Scott. Ben's main focus is to search the world wide web to find genuine and quality programs that allow individuals to conduct business online. Visit his website at http://www.1-marketingstrategies.com for internet marketing tips and a free email marketing course.

Reprinted from Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information

Effectively Asking For a Link Exchange

2005-01-12T11:49:00.000-08:00

Webmasters generally make a larger deal of this then it is. What you must remember, is we're all people, we're all webmasters, we'd like to think we're all professionals, and we're all doing the same thing. So the question remains, how does one ask for a link exchange?

Well, let me ask you first, this. How would you ask for anything that would bring you personal gain? How would you ask for a girl's or guy's number in a night club? Or a prospective clients details? See, all you're doing is selling yourself, only to a much more polite audience then you're used to.

Focus

The focus of a link request is the other person and their site. Be honest, real, specific and explain how it will benefit them. Start off talking about their site, and end talking about their site.

Personalize Find their information in the website. Address them by their real name, or whatever part of it was avaible to you. Actually look at their website (Yes, I know, a novel idea), and make comments based on specific areas and features you liked, and why you believe it will be a good resource for your visitors.

Sell Sell your idea. Show them the benefits of linking to you. Maybe giving their users a real resource, or sending them traffic or PageRank.

Incentive Offer an incentive. Do you offer products and services on your site for a fee? If it's something intangible (an e-book, or access to your members area), maybe you can offer them this for free. If they are significantly larger then you, you could offer to bold their anchor text, or put their link near the top. Again, sell yourself.

Flexibility Be flexible. These days, Webmasters are extremely interested in adding certain keywords to anchor text. Let them know the way you have their link now can be changed, and you're more then willing to comply to any requests they have.

It's easier then you think. Be polite. Calm down. Have fun. Yes it takes time, yes it's tedious, but it's a must.

Reprinted from Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information

What Organic SEO Entails and WHY It Is Preferred by Some

2005-01-12T11:46:00.000-08:00

If you're going to sell any type of product or service online, you're eventually going to have to optimize your Web site for the Search Engines, in order to boost traffic and sales.

Many years ago, it was quite easy to draw effective traffic, as a good content-driven site, with good products, was enough to get a Web site ranked highly in the Search Engines. The competition has increased one thousand times over since then, with billions of Web sites existing online now, making for some very stiff competition in the area of Search Engine placement and rankings.

This increase in competition has given rise to many different styles, and many different methods of Web site optimization. Optimization is simply the method of making a Web site "Search Engine friendly", by using methods of enhancement that will increase rankings and placement by placing the Web site higher in the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages).

Everything from software to increase rankings and placement, to Search Engine Management and Marketing Firms exist, with many online merchants becoming confused about what or "whom" to use and how to effectively use the various services to increase rankings and placement.

The real battle seems to exist between those that favor "Organic SEO" as opposed to those that prefer "Non-Organic SEO". The term "organic" itself is defined by Webster's Dictionary as: instrumental; acting as instruments of nature or of art to a certain destined function or end (Webster's: 1913: 3).

"Organic SEO", also called "Natural SEO", is the most time consuming, and the most tedious method of optimization for placement and rankings. However, it is prone to longevity of results, as it has a focus on content, meta-tag enhancement using proper descriptions, keyword enhanced copy within the appropriate specified densities of the Search Engines, and link exchanges. In addition, keyword dense reports, articles, and other content materials are usually added in a routine fashion to a site to maintain the densities necessary and increase rankings and placement.

"Organic SEO", if done properly in a step-by-step approach, can literally promote increased traffic and rankings for years. It can also contain overall marketing costs, as the use of PPC (Pay Per Click), is not needed as much with this method. The main drawbacks with this type of SEO, however, are the length of time it takes to properly implement all the steps necessary, and the length of time it takes the Search Engines to thoroughly spider and index a site that has implemented "Organic SEO".

"Non-Organic SEO", also called "Artificial SEO", can take many forms, and can use some "Organic SEO" coupled with other techniques. These techniques can include software generated keyword enhanced pages, some methods of re-directs, whereby traffic is shunted off from other sites, with their permissions, and software generated doorway pages and meta-tag descriptions. There are many different techniques that can be employed including rather controversial ones such as hidden text loaded with keywords, and tiny text.

Overall, "Non-Organic" SEO methods are quite popular, as it is a much quicker means to rankings and placement. Links might be purchased from "link farms" which are simply services that specialize in the promotion of links to others.

Although "Non-Organic SEO" can speed up rankings and placement initially, care needs to be given when using any of these methods. If keyword dense pages are automatically generated en masse, the Search Engines might view large sites, with large numbers of such pages as "Search Engine Spammers" and a risk of being banned does exist. In addition, pages may initially place very high, only to drop lower rather quickly, as the Search Engines still place a great emphasis on good content, which is not usually the focus of the "Non-Organic" type of SEO.

All in all, it really depends upon the overall purpose of a site, and the longevity of results desired by a Web master/site owner. It also depends upon how quickly results and sales are needed. For some seasonal sites, such as holiday-theme sites that only remain up for a few weeks or months, then the quicker method of "Non-Organic SEO" can be quite effective. On the other hand, if a Web master/site owner promotes a product or service to which they are committed for years, or perhaps a lifetime, then "Organic SEO" would definitely be the better choice of optimization method.

No matter which type of SEO methods are chosen or implemented, an ongoing campaign of optimization does need to exist, as the parameters that are used for the rankings and placement by the Search Engines, change frequently, and research into current methods needs to be done routinely.

As the old saying goes, "Different strokes for different folks", really applies to Search Engine Optimization and rankings and placement. The whole Search Engine Optimization process is really more "art than science", and continues to change daily.

- Vishal P. Rao is the editor of http://www.home-based-business-opportunities.com - A website dedicated to opportunities, ideas and resources for starting a home based business. He is also the owner of the http://www.work-at-home-forum.com - an online community of folks who work at home. -

Reprinted from Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information