Free Advertising Tips, Advice, Strategies & Solutions

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 05:54:00 +0000

Starting tips for a new website

You’ve just got a new website and it looks beautiful, but unless you take some active steps to promote it,your efforts will be futile and useless.If you are not sure where to begin, here are some steps that are bound to prove useful.

1)Tell Your Associates: There is no need to reach the unknown millions of people out there surfing the Internet,instead it would be wise if we contact our friends and associates.Look at your e-mail address book and get the word out, tell your business contacts, friends, relatives and tel them to tell their friends too. Channelise them in a proper way.

2)Link to Your Own Site: If you already have one website, make sure that this site is linking to your new site. A website without any incoming links to it will have a very low page ranking in the all-important Google search engine and will face an uphill battle to be seen in Google search results, especially if you are in a very competitive category.Even when your site is in the construction stage you, or even your web designer can link to the new site from another already well-established site, mentioning that the new site is under construction. If you already have several sites, then link them to your infant site. It will help the new site to be seen in competitive search engine listings even in its debut period.

3)Get a paid inclusion in one of the big search engines: It takes 4-6 weeks to get listed in Google, and other search engines are equally slow. However there are a few fairly important search engines that have inexpensive express inclusion programs. If you join these programs, then your site will be listed in 48 hours. Inktomi, which provides results for MSN and 100 other search services, has an inclusion program which costs $39 for the first URL that you submit, and subsequent ones cost $25. The value of the Inktomi submission is that they revisit your URL every 48 hours and if you make changes on the page you can see the results in the MSN listings very quickly. Thus, you can tweak your pages and see how it affects your position.

4)Add your site to the Open Web Directory and the major search engines: Quality is more important than quantity when it comes to search engine submission. Forget about the sales hype that tells you to add your URL to 300, 000 search engines. Only a few search engines and directories provide the lion’s share of Internet traffic. If your site is in good shape, no longer under construction, then go to ODP - Open Directory Project. This is the Open Web Directory. Find the category where your site fits, and make a submission. If you are accepted here your site will appear in the many search engines and local directories that use the results from the Open Web Directory. Inclusion in this directory usually takes time but it will help you a lot. Similarly submit your site to Google, Alta Vista and All The Web, these are the remaining giants where you can submit for free.

5. Start a reciprocal links campaign – Once you have given yourself a link from your other sites or from your designer’s page, you can go out and ask other complementary sites for links.Always try exchanging links with sites that have a good page rank for it indicates that the site has good hits and is often visited.By having a trackback link chances of your site having hits is enhanced.

6.Write an article about your product or service – If you have a website the chances are that you are an expert in the field that your site is all about. Write an article about your product or service, or write an article related to the subject matter of your site. Submit the article online to various websites and e-mail lists dealing with your topic. The publication of your article in a big e-zine, or on a popular web site can get your new site off to a roaring start.

7)Promote Your Site Off-line – Now that you have a site, put the URL brochures, business cards, TV advertising, and circulars.The cafepress.com has a program enabling you to put your URL on these items and even sell them online.

Last but not the least be unique and be promotionally inclined initially for traffic generation.

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 05:51:00 +0000

These Tips Will Make Your Business A Success

Have you ever desired to work full time from the comfort of your own home? If you are considering this employment option, realize that if you work smart and work hard, you can earn a living doing Internet work from home.

If you wish to do Internet work from home, there are several things you need to think about. First, you must create a business plan. Ask yourself: What type of Internet work from home do you want to do? Will you provide your customers with a particular service, such as marketing or public relations? Or will you sell a product?

Doing Internet work from home will more often than not require you to make an investment – whether it is large or small. For example, if you are interested in starting a company that provides web site design services, you will need to own the latest and greatest programs to design web sites with. On the other hand, if you want to sell goods, you will need to purchase them from someplace or purchase the materials to make them. Remember, improper budget allocation and management can result in your Internet business’s failure. If you plan to do Internet work from home, you must know how to manage your money. Your Internet business must be able to run within the boundaries of the money you have invested in it.

When considering Internet work from home, you should also think about whether or not you need employees to help you run your business. If your workload becomes too large for one person, you need to figure out how many people you can afford to hire. You also need to plan where these employees will help you do Internet work from home. Do you have a quiet area in your home that will allow them to concentrate on their work?

Doing Internet work from home also requires that you have a plan for slow and busy times, so that you can manage to live on the income you earn. This basically means that you need to be a good manager of money. If you are not, you may want to consider hiring someone – even if it is on a part time basis – to help you sort out your finances.

Finally, advertising is also key to successfully doing Internet work from home. By advertising in local newspapers, magazines, or even on the large search engines such as Yahoo and Google, customers will be able to learn about your business. When figuring out your finances, it is a good idea to set aside money for an advertising campaign. Also consider if you will do the advertising work yourself, or hire someone to do it. It is important that you think about all of these things before you decide to do Internet work from home. By having a good plan in place, your company will have the best chance to be a success!

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 05:48:00 +0000

56 Fresh Tips On Getting More Traffic To Your Website

56 Fresh Tips On Getting More Traffic To Your Website

1. Write and submit articles to the article directories.

2. Leave comments on other people’s blogs with a backlink to your site.

3. Answer people’s questions on www.answers.yahoo.com.

4. Post in forums and have a link to your site in your signature.

5. Write a press release and submit it to PRWeb::The Online Visibility Company.

6. Advertise your website in the appropriate category on 302 Found.

7. Give an unbiased testimonial on a product/service that you have used in exchange for a backlink to your site.

8. Start a blog and submit it to the 100’s of free blog directories.

9. Manually submit your website to the major search engines.

10. Optimize each page of your website for a particular keyword or search phrase.

11. Add a link in your email signature to your website. It’s a free and easy way to get a little more traffic.

12. Make a custom 404 error page for your website redirecting people to your home page.

13. Use PPC search engine advertising.

14. Add a “bookmark this site” link to your webpages.

15. Have a tell-a-friend form on your site.

16. Send articles to ezine publishers that includes a link to your website.

17. Hold a crazy content and make it go viral.

18. Give away a freebie (ebook, report, e-course) to keep people coming back to your site.

19. Add an RSS feed to your blog.

20. Submit your site to any related niche directories on the net.

21. Participate in a banner or link exchange program.

22. Create a software program and give it away for free.

23. Purchase the misspellings or variations of your domain name, or those of your competitors.

24. Buy a domain name related to your niche that is already receiving traffic and forward it to your site.

25. Pass out business cards with your domain on them everywhere you go.

26. Start and affiliate program and let your affiliates send you visitors.

27. Start a page on social bookmarking sites such as www.MySpace.com.

28. Submit a viral video to www.YouTube.com

29. Conduct and publish surveys to your website.

30. Find joint venture partners that will send you traffic.

31. Start your own newsletter or ezine.

32. Use a autoresponder or email campaign to keep people coming back to your site.

33. Purchase ads on other sites.

34. Send a free copy of your product to other site owners in exchange for a product review.

35. Sell or place classified ads on eBay - New & used electronics, cars, apparel, collectibles, sporting goods & more at low prices with a link to your site.

36. Post free classified ads on any of the sites that allow them with a link to your site.

37. Exchange reciprocal links with other related websites.

38. Network with other people at seminars or other live events.

39. Purchase advertising in popular newsletters or ezines.

40. Advertise on other product’s “thank you” pages.

41. Create a free ebook and list in on the “free ebook” sites.

42. Buy and use a memorable domain name.

43. Do something controversial.

44. Create an Amazon profile and submit reviews for books and other products that you have read.

45. Start a lens on Squidoo Homepage.

46. Use a traffic exchange (low quality traffic, but can sometimes be worthwhile).

47. Get referrals form similar but non-competing sites.

48. Create and sell a product with resell or giveaway rights and include a link to your site in it o others pass it around for you.

49. Email your list. If you don’t have one, get one.

50. Buy a pair of sandals; get your website engraved on the bottom and walk on the beach, stomp in the mud or play in the snow.

51. Get T-Shirts with your URL printed on it. Wear it everywhere.

52. Tattoo the url or your site on your face. That would bring in a few visitors. Must be in permanent ink to get the best results.

53. Find a crazy woman on eBay who is willing to sell space on her body for money. Make some bids. These type of auctions usually get CRAZY amounts of traffic.

54. Rent out one of those moving advertising billboard vehicles. Get your site URL on it and drive to the most busiest part of the city. Start honking the horn.

55. Buy a month of space on one of those giant bilboards in town, create a good advertisement for your site and host it for a month. People have a hard time missing these since they're so big.
can try this two links too

56. Upload video's related to your site on www.youtube.com or a other video site and add your link in the description.

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 04:48:00 +0000

7 Ways to Make Money from a Blog

Blogs aren’t just mainstream any more; they’re ubiquitous. In Why Should My Business Have a Blog? I talk about how a blog can be a valuable adjunct to your existing business. But what about the flipside? What if you have a blog and want to turn it into a business, using your blog to make a profit?

Making money from a blog is possible and isn’t even particularly difficult any more. You don’t have to be famous or even have huge traffic (although how much money you make from your blog will depend on both of these factors to some extent). The seven ideas below will get you started. To make money from your blog you can:

Use advertising programs.

These are more advertising program options for bloggers than ever before.Here are just five of the ever-expanding possibilities for making money from your blog by putting ads on your pages:
1.Google’s Adsense
2.BlogAds
3.Chitika eMiniMalls
4.Text Link Ads
5.AdGenta

Use affiliate programs.

With affiliate marketing, a company agrees to pay you a commission for helping to sell their products. Visitors see the company’s ad on your Web pages and, if they click through to the company’s Web site and do a particular thing, you’ll get paid. The particular thing the visitor has to do varies; some affiliate programs pay per click while others pay per lead or even per sale. These are four of the biggest (and most established) affiliate programs on the 'Net:

1.Amazon
2.Linkshare
3.ClickBank
4.Commisison Junction

Get sponsored by a company.

Get hired by a company.

Sign on to be a blogger.

Hubs or networks of blogs appear to be springing up all over the ‘Net, some of which are looking for people to write blogs and are willing to pay for it. Payment models vary. At Creative Weblogging, for instance, bloggers have the option of choosing either a fixed monthly payment in exchange for 10 posts a week, or a percentage share of the ad revenues. Two more examples of blog networks looking for bloggers at the time of writing are:

1.Weblogs.Inc.
2.AllBusiness.com’s Business Blogs

Create a blog to advertise a specific product/service.

Sell other intellectual property, such as ebooks, telecourses or consulting services, through your blog.

So the answer is, yes, you can make money from your blog. And with blogging becoming increasingly popular, there will be even more opportunities for making money from your blog coming – ideas that haven’t even been thought of yet. For the moment, for maximum income, you will need to focus on multiple income streams and perhaps even multiple blogs.

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 03:05:00 +0000

5 Best Ways to Promote Your

Website!!!

My friends are asking me two questions almost each day:

1. “Should I use autosubmission software?”
2. “What’s the best way to promote my website?”

Here is the answer to the first question:

NO! You should never use autosubmission software/services for getting your website indexed by search engines! Why? The search engines and directories will see that You used this kind of software and Your site will get banned. Don’t even use manual submission. The best way to get indexed by thousands of search engines in minimum time is to submit Your link on high PR (popular) websites. Put a link on your Facebook profile, YouTube profile etc. Your site will get indexed by SEs in less than a week and…Search engines will love Your website because it has links to it on highly popular websites.

And the answer to the second question is LINK BUILDING! But, what’s the best way to build links to Your website?

Well, there are several great ways:

1) Forum marketing - posting usefull posts to popular forums is great! Why? You can add your signature to these posts! This way, Your ad will be seen by hundreds or even thousands of people. You will start generating traffic immediately, You will start building Your reputation and increase Your link popularity…All at the same time!

2) Article marketing - You can’t write articles!? Of course You can! Write simple 500-1000 word articles, add a small resource box at the bottom and submit them to popular websites and article directories. You will see great results - even better than with forums!

3) Craigslist and other popular classified sites - Classified sites get massive traffic. Write a 150-200 word classified ad and submit it on major classified sites. This will help You increase your websites link popularity and people reading through the ads will also notice Your ad and check it out. Yahoo has classified ads, Myspace and other social networking sites all have their form of classified ads, so You can use these to.

4) Social bookmarking sites - putting Your articles on your websites and posting these articles to social bookmarking sites can give You massive traffic! Not only does “digging” Your articles bring You traffic due to the clickthroughs, but it also gives You another great link to your website.

5) Submitting movies on YouTube - You can start making funny or educational videos with Your mobile phone, add a simple advertisement to these movies and post them on YouTube and similar sites. If Your movies are good enough, they could get millions of views!

Using these 5 free traffic generating methods could bring You massive traffic in minimum time. Don’t limit yourself to just these 5 ways because there are plenty of others, but.. These are the best!

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 04:15:00 +0000

Tips for advertising,
internet marketing,
home business, business

New business individuals are always on the search for useful tips that they can use for their home-based business in advertising, internet, marketing, home business, business. More and more individuals now are interested in creating a advertising, internet, marketing, home business, business because of the endless opportunities available on-line, even unknowledgeable individuals.

Through the internet, any individual can become an entrepreneur. An online advertising, internet, marketing, home business, business requires less capital investment and so many individuals think that they can easily make a fortune out of it. But you see, even an online advertising, internet, marketing, home business, business requires careful thought and consideration. You have to put in a lot of effort and time to make it a success.

Some of the advertising, internet, marketing, home business, business opportunities online include affiliate marketing, blogging, copywriting, and many others. If you take your time in researching online, you can find high-profit earning business opportunities.

For those individuals who are busy taking care of their families and for those that don't have a professional career, an entrepreneur home-based business may be the answer to their financial needs. Managing an online advertising, internet, marketing, home business, business does not evolve mainly on the desire to earn income. It takes more than that.

Here are some helpful tips that you can use in Managing your home-based business:

1. You're the boss of your business but that doesn't mean that you will not need any support. You have to learn more about your target market so that you can address its needs accordingly. You can contact professional organizations if you like. Through research, you can learn a lot.

2. Only God is omniscient. Man has limitations and so you will not know everything that's happening all at once. You need to get the proper training in Managing your advertising, internet, marketing, home business, business. You need to familiarize yourself with record keeping, tax deductions, and basic accounting procedures. Through series of trainings, you will know more about Managing your online business especially if you're a beginner in the field.

3. Never start a business that you hardly know about. Training and experience are the keys to success. To run your home-based business smoothly, you need to be an expert. Continue to learn as much as possible.

4. Never lose hope. Always have self confidence so that you can pass all the trainings and become a professional entrepreneur. You must always be patient and don't give up easily especially if you're encountering certain difficulties and problems. By working hard, you can get the exact results that you want. Huge results don't come in an instant. You must always trust your training, your business plans, and most especially, yourself.

These are some tips that you can make use it making your advertising, internet, marketing, home business, business a success. There are many tips that you can find on the internet but these four tips are among the best and most effective. Many expert entrepreneurs can attest to that. If you want, you can join entrepreneur workshops so that you can meet famous entrepreneurs and learn more about their lives.

As the number of entrepreneur home-based businesses increases, you must be able to compete with other businesses. This is the only way to be successful. Incorporate these helpful tips in starting your online business and soon enough, you can prove if it's effective or not. You can earn huge profits if you start your business right.

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 04:08:00 +0000

Traffic exchange advertising tips?

When using traffic exchanges, it is imperative that one use a URL tracker. I learned this the hard way, please don't make my mistake.

Tracking is important because:

One can save an enormous amount of time by checking a tracker account to see what te's are providing the best traffic as well as which accounts need to be replenished with credits.

Tracking can also keep you from getting your credits robbed by unscrupulous owners (there are a few out there, most are honest and very helpful).

Take my friend, Carol, for example. By using a link tracker she discovered that she only received 8 hits in an entire week at one exchange--nearly 200 hits had been removed from her account at that te! Even more alarming was the fact that her te account showed that she had received those hits when her tracker account said different.

One may assume that the tracking device was in error, that is not entirely impossible, but it is quite unlikely when her tracker stats for all the other te's matched with her account stats in each other te.

Tracking is important! Do it!

My second tip for today is optimize your traffic. Traffic Exchanges are great for building email lists, referral bases and networking in general. With this in mind, you can begin optimizing your traffic, saving yourself a ton of time and effort in the future once you take the time to set up.

Decide what your most important goal is. Are you trying to build a downline of referrals? Are you promoting a product? Are you trying to collect optins and/or leads? Whatever your goal, you will need to decide what pages & banners are best suited for each exchange.

Some banners may get more clicks to the exact same program in one te, while a different banner linked to that same page gets almost none at that te and rocks socks in clicks at other te's. Once you figure out which banners, splash pages, sales pages, and lead capture pages are getting the most traffic in te's, then you know which pages to use when you are ready to start paying for advertising. Why spend money on trial and error when you can use literally hundreds of te's free of charge to perform your trial and error work?

My third tip for the day concerning traffic exchanges and advertising is NEVER EVER limit your advertising to te's. Use any kind of advertising you come across--but use the tracker, if the advertising you find isn't bringing you traffic, then don't waste time there, move on. The object of the "game" is to get seen--make sure YOU get seen while your promotions are getting seen.

Brand yourself! That is my final tip for the day.

Many te's provide the option of uploading your photo and often adding your own banner and/or textlink to their in-house splash pages. Doing this allows you to build referrals to allow you to earn more credits/page views while letting people become familiarized with you.

Many people turn to online marketing because they hate--yes, that's a strong word, but it's true--dealing with the public or being on the phone...most of all, people tend to hate selling. Guess what? Any program that says there's no selling or advertising involved for you to make money is LYING. Brand yourself and don't be afraid to network and talk to people.

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 03:54:00 +0000

10 Sure Fire Tips for Effective eZine Advertising

You are trying to advertise online. Your budget is tight. Every penny has to count so you need a lot of bang for your buck. Well, if you are considering ezine advertising then congratulations. Provided it is done correctly, it can bring in major sales. If done INcorrectly, however, ezine advertising can cost you a bundle and bring in little to NO cash flow. Don't get burned! Follow these ten surefire guidelines for effective Ezine advertising and be on your way to successful online marketing.

1) Choose an ezine with an appropriate target audience. If your business sells base ball caps, you'll want a sports-minded audience. For example, you would want to stay away from "Gourmet Grandmas" ezine but definitely want to consider the "Amateur Athletes Anonymous" ezine.

2) Get to know the ezine. First, subscribe to the ezine, not only to get a better feel for it, but also so you can watch for your ad when it is scheduled to run. If for some reason it does NOT run, you'll be able to contact the publisher and let them know. In such a case it is appropriate to ask that your ad run again free of charge or get a refund.

3) Call the ezine publisher and establish contact before submitting an ad. This will help solidify or eliminate any doubts you may have had bout the legitimacy or the appropriateness of the ezine you're considering. You'll also be establishing a relationship with the publisher, which can be useful for future ad campaigns.

4) Choose the proper type of ad. Stay away from classifieds, middle, and bottom ads. Most readers skim right over these and you'll get little exposure. What you're looking for is a top ad, or better yet, a solo ad. Solo ads are also known as featured or exclusive mailings. These are emailed separately to the entire subscription base for maximum exposure. It's like borrowing their list (yes, the coveted "list") and advertising to them directly.

5) Avoid publications that abuse their list. Make sure the ezine does not publish more than 2 solo ads per week to avoid irritating and numbing the subscribers.

6) Check the archive. This is another way to verify the legitimacy of the ezine and see which ads have run in the past.

7) Check out your ad options. For example, ask if you can personalize each ad with the reader's first name, add clickable links, add color, and use html.

8) Ask for an endorsement from the publisher. The subscribers already have a relationship with the publisher. They trust the publisher and the information he or she provides. Having an endorsement from the publisher could boost sales for you BIG time.

9) Try to get your first ad for free! Explain to the publisher that if your ad brings in results that you will be back again and again to purchase more advertising and that you will also refer your team members for future advertising. The worst they can say is no.

10) Be genuine in your advertising. Create an ad that you would want to send to your best friend. Remember that your ad will be seen one person at a time, so it's best to write it to individuals rather than to masses.

There you have it. Ten sure fire tips for effective ezine advertising. Follow these guidelines and watch your sales go crazy!!

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 03:46:00 +0000

How To Make Word of Mouth

Advertising Work For You

When was the last time you told a friend about a good movie? You may not have realized it at the time, but you were providing the best possible advertising for the movie studio..."Word-Of-Mouth" advertising.

No other type of advertising is more powerful than word of mouth. Your friend may have dismissed all the typical Hollywood hype but they know you as a friend and respect your judgment.

If you say it's a good movie they will probably go see it. The other consideration with this analogy is you must have a good product or service for word-of-mouth to work in a positive way.

If it's a bad movie the negative word will spread even faster than the positive. For every three people willing to spread the positive word there are thirty-three who will spread the negative.

You probably won't see "word-of-mouth" as one of the common types of advertising listed in any business or marketing plan because most people don't know exactly how to do it or explain it.

Setting Word-Of-Mouth Goals In A Small Town or Small Market:

In your marketing plan, you will want to set certain goals for your advertising to accomplish. Perhaps you are introducing a new product, or a new service or increasing traffic flow at your business.

To attain these goals, you may use newspapers, radio, TV, direct mail or some combination of each. What's missing? Word-of-mouth. Let's look at how to add word-of-mouth to the advertising mix.

First, list the objectives you want your word-of-mouth advertising to accomplish. You might say, "I want everyone talking positively about my business." That's great, but it's too vague.

Marketing goals and objectives must always be specific. They should have time limits and detailed methods for accomplishment. For example, "I want to cut our returns by 50% in the first quarter to improve customer perception of our products and customer service." "I will accomplish this goal by having each employee go over every purchase, in detail, with the customer before the product leaves the store." "I will follow-up with every customer within seven days of purchase." "Each month I will record and analyze the reasons for returns." If I do these things two things should happen. First, my return rate should go down. Second, the number of satisfied customers should go up.

The number one word-of-mouth problem...Handling Customer Complaints.

We all hate confrontations. We know, if we are unhappy with a product or service, we are going to have to "go to guns" to get satisfaction. We are going to have to prove our case to a store clerk, manager or owner to get satisfaction. If we don't get satisfaction, we will make it our lifes' work to destroy the reputation of that store.

There is a much overused word to describe the complaint handling process and that word is...ATTITUDE. Keeping your cool under pressure. We've all heard the familiar phrase from customers, "Hey! Why don't you lose the attitude!"

More business is lost due to simple misunderstandings and rigid company policies than any other single reason. So, what's the best way to handle customer complaints? Welcome them. Make it as easy as possible for customers to complain to you. Follow-up with satisfaction cards or phone calls. Stop customer problems before they get out of hand.

Train your employees to follow the rules, but they should never argue or defend a policy to a customer unless they have the power to override that policy. If they don't have that authority they should immediately put the customer in front of someone who does.

Each time the customer has to explain themselves to another link in the management food chain their anger increases and the problem escalates. This should never happen but it does...every day. Successful word-of-mouth means satisfied customers telling your story to others. If they are treated fairly and courteously, they will.

Word-Of-Mouth and Employees:

Every time I'm in a hurry to make at purchase and leave a store I seem to get the employee who just started working there. They aren't exactly sure how to work the cash register, or the credit card machine. They aren't quite up to speed on all the store policies and procedures. They usually have to find someone to help them complete the transaction.

Many employers believe this is the best type of training. Learn under fire. Learn from your mistakes. It may be effective training but how many customers are driven to the competition because of a poor first impression of your business.

Please make sure employees are properly trained before letting them represent your business to a customer. We don't compare one carpet store to another when it comes to customer service. We are human beings, we don't work that way. We compare the service we get at the carpet store with the service we get at a restaurant. It makes no sense but it's how humans operate.

When it comes to customer service, you are competing against every other type of business. Customer service is a "feeling" the customer experiences, not a thing they can see, touch or smell. They know it when they feel it. Customers respond to confidence, fear, a genuine smile, gestures, voice inflection, body language, eye contact, and or course, attitude.

If you expect customers to spread the word about your business, everything that happens to them in your business must be a positive experience. The products, the service, the personnel and the follow-up must all be first rate.

Nothing can kill a small town business more quickly than negative word-of-mouth. How does your word-of-mouth stack up?

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 03:42:00 +0000

Advertising:
Learn From The Mistakes of Others

When it comes to the competition, one of the principles we teach is not to obsess about them but be aware of what they are doing...or NOT doing. When was the last time you really looked at the advertising messages of your competitors? I mean really looked?

Not just at what they have on sale, but what is the real message of their ads? Chances are there isn't one. The reason there isn't one is because the ad was created or generated by someone who didn't really know what the vision and direction of the company is.

Most ads simply report information (mostly sales) without really grabbing the customers attention or interest.

Advertising has two and only two functions. One, to inform the consumer and/or two, a call to action. What do you see when you look at your competitors ads? Is there anything to inspire the customer to act? Is there a real call to action? In most cases you will probably go right past their ad without a second thought.

Did you ever notice how many tire ads there are in the paper when you need tires. You hardly notice them when you don't. Shouldn't the ad make you get up, go out to the garage, and look at your tires? Shouldn't the ad make you think about the product or service before the fact?

Here are some common mistakes your competitors are probably making. Learn from them.

* Don't try to do too much with too little. Business owners often tell me they can't wait for the day they don't have to advertise so much. Let me tell you that day will never come. You can't be all things to all people, so don't advertise everywhere. Focus your efforts where your target market is located and ignore the rest.

* Advertising based only on cost. Where is the lowest price place for me to advertise? Advertising reps will tell you "cost per thousand" is the most important consideration. It's not "cost per thousand" it's "cost per customer" that you should be considering. If your advertising is working, the cost is free. The increase in customer traffic and sales will more than offset the cost of advertising.

* Advertising infrequently. New businesses often run one or two ads and declare, "Advertising just doesn't work for us, we've tried it." Research says we need to see an ad at least 9 times in order for the company to be creditable in our eyes. The problem is we usually miss every third ad. To reach the average person 9 times, we actually have to run the ad a minimum of 27 times for it to be seen at least 9 times.

* Size doesn't always count. In the Yellow Pages, the larger the ad the more it pulls. In other types of advertising that isn't always the case. Consistent messages in size and content usually do better over time than big then small.

* Do you want your ad to sell product or win awards? Naturally you want the best possible ad you can afford. But, don't let the messenger overpower the message. The message is the reason for the ad.

* Don't imitate your competitor. Don't be a "me too" business to your customer. Your job is to set yourself apart from the competition not imitate them. Use positioning to separate yourself from your competitors.

* Failing to capitalize on strengths of the business. You should know the demographics of your target market. What product strengths can you match to them. Use your strong points to overcome competitive disadvantages.

* No advertising measurement. How effective is your advertising? How do you measure what your ads produce? You must develop procedures to measure if the ad is doing the job. One way is to "key" your ads. You need some signal that will alert you to where the customer came from. For example: If the customer call and asks for their free copy of "10 Things You Should Know Before You Buy Tires" you would know that's from your newspaper ad.

On radio you may tell the customer to call and "Ask For Joe". On TV it's "Ask for Steve" In magazines, it's "Ask for Pete". Put codes on all coupon ads to tell you what papers they came from. A code such as (BC210/98) might mean the Bozeman Chronicle (BC) the second week (2) of October 1998 (10/98). The number of coupons you redeem will tell you how effective the ad is. You can't evaluate the coupon unless you know which media they came from.

* Advertising is not a cure-all. If you have a lousy business, poor customer service or bad products, all the great ads in the world won't help you. Advertising can't overcome business weaknesses. Fix the business before you waste your advertising dollars putting out the wrong message to the right people.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you that advertising is expensive enough when it works and even worse when it doesn't. If you use these tips, you can save yourself some valuable ad dollars and improve your advertising efforts.

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 03:38:00 +0000

Six Types of Advertising And How To Use Them

Mistakes in advertising can be costly to small business. For this reason many business decide either not to advertise at all or to be very conservative with their ads. However, using the right "type" of advertising, with the right message, can cut the cost of advertising by making it more effective.

Not every business will use all six types of advertising. Which type you use will depend on what your message is and the end result you wish to accomplish.

The six types of advertising are:

Company Image

Which is more important, the company or its products or individuals? In a small town or market, this can be a very important question. For example, your insurance agent might be a personal friend. You will buy your insurance from him/her regardless of the company they represent. In another example, you may purchase a lot of goods at your local Wal-Mart, instead of local merchants, because of their low-price advertising message.

If you are a new company you may want to begin by establishing the company name first and the products and services later. This also works for company name changes. In the 1980's I worked with a video chain in San Diego, California called Video Library. Our advertising strategy was to promote the company name rather than promote the movies we rented. We placed small box ads (about 1.05"x 1.5") throughout the San Diego daily paper that simply said, "Video Library - xx Locations" We started in 1980 with four stores and by 1985 we had 43. Video Library was the most recognized name in video in San Diego at that time.

Name Brands

If there is one company in operation today that understands the importance of brand names, it has to be Procter and Gamble®. Tide® laundry detergent is far and away a number one best seller and has been for several years. When the dishwasher appeared on the scene they could have very easily created "Tide For Dishes." Capitalizing on a winning product name. But as we all know, that thinking doesn't work.

Instead of using the established name "Tide®", they created a new name that became just as strong in dish washing, "Cascade®." Ivory Soap®. When you hear the name alone, you know the product. Kraft®, on the other hand, has a bunch of products, but only one true winner. Philadelphia Cream Cheese® has about 70% of that market. Also notice, the Kraft name is hardly noticeable on the package. Their Velvetta® brand of cheese might be another winner. Kraft makes jams and jellies, Smuckers is number one. Kraft makes their own brand of mayonnaise, but Hellman's® is number one. Are you starting to get the picture? Kraft also makes another successful brand name, "Miracle Whip®."

A brand name creates a perception in the customers mind that becomes very strong. It's that strong perception every advertiser strives for. Would you buy Pennzoil® Cake Mix? Why not? They're a good company aren't they?

Do you see how ridiculous that sounds? It flies in the face of our perception of Pennzoil® as an oil product. It's dramatically out of place as a cake mix. There is nothing stronger than a good brand name. If you develop one, put is everywhere you can afford to.

Advertising A Service Instead Of A Product

Advertising services is one of the most difficult type of advertising. You don't have a tangible product you can put in someone's hand. They can't touch it, feel it, see it or smell it. It must often be explained as well as demonstrated.

One of the best examples of service advertising is carpet cleaners. They come in, run some machinery over your carpets and leave. Nothing tangible is left behind. Except clean carpets.

Service advertising is most often emotional advertising. Carpet cleaners don't sell clean carpets. They sell health to the infant crawling on the floor. They sell pride that people can visit a beautiful clean home.

Business To Business Advertising

Many businesses never have the need to deal with the public at all. For these businesses, advertising in the newspaper, radio or TV would be a waste of time and money. You will find these companies using direct mail or placing ads in trade magazines.

For a complete listing of trade magazines ask for the "Encyclopedia or Periodicals" at your local library. Also ask to see the "Standard Rates and Data Service" directory. These will have listings and rates of trade and industry publications you can advertise in.

Co-Op Advertising

Co-Op advertising in one of the best ways for the small business owner to get the message out. In this type of advertising the manufacturer absorbs a portion of the cost and can also supply all the artwork for the ads.

Their are some pitfalls to be careful of when dealing with co-op advertising. Every company wants their business portrayed in the best possible light. To that end, they will be very strict about how and where you place your advertising. Before the ok the co-op money, they will want to approve all ad copy, pictures, size, placement and use of logos. If you place an ad without approval you run the risk of violating one of the guidelines and absorbing the entire cost of the ad.

The media you choose will want payment for the ad within a month at the most. You may not receive your co-op money for several months. Make sure you get reimbursement procedures in writing and can live with them.

An alternative to teaming up with a manufacturer is to team up with another local business. You can share production costs for brochures or other printed materials and put each others coupons in your respective businesses. Pizza parlors and video stores are naturals to work together.

Public Service Advertising (PSA's)

If your company can sponsor a charity event, PSA's are a great way to promote your company in a positive light. Most media are required by licensing agreements to provide a certain amount of time or space for the good of their local communities.

Some of the downsides of PSA's. Don't expect to see your ad on "er" or some other prime time show. PSA's are often placed in off times. I don't want to paint everyone with a broad brush here. Some media are better than others. Just because you request a PSA, doesn't mean you'll get it. Media has a limited amount of space or time for PSA's.

You might get a break if you are currently advertising in the media of choice. It might also help if your organization buys a small amount of time or space to run with your PSA's.

The Last Word On Types Of Advertising

The type of message and your target market will often dictate which type of advertising to use. Some companies will use more than one. Some will use several depending on the situation. Let's also keep in mind the pros and cons of advertising.

There are two basic advantages to advertising. One, it's the best way to get a message out about a new or existing product or service. Two, it can actually lower the cost of a product to the consumer by increasing sales which can result in reduced production costs.

The bad side of advertising is that it can create an artificial need for unnecessary products and services. Every Christmas the media creates the toy of the season. One year it's "Tickle Me, Elmo®" the next it's the "Furbee®." Don't even get me started on "Star Wars®."

The point is to keep an eye on the message you want your target market to receive. If you can, test some of the six types of advertising with various offers and messages. Find the type that works for you and work it

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 03:26:00 +0000

How To Plan Your Advertising Budget Strategy

Advertising. It's probably the toughest part of any business. How much to spend, where to place the ads, how often, what message to send, and to who? It's not possible to answer all these questions in one article so I'm going to deal with the budget creation. For tips on low-cost advertising strategies,

How much to spend?

The most common answer to this question is, "How much have you got?" Advertising has a way of depleting your bank account very quickly. If you asked 100 businesses that question, the most common answer would be, "a percentage of gross sales." This not only works for advertising but most other budgets too. Here's how it works.

Percentage of Sales Method

Take your total last years gross sales or (if you don't have a last year) use average industry standards. A specific percentage of that amount is allocated for advertising. Depending on the business this amount may be a daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly expense. The percentage amount will also vary depending on your profit margins, industry, location and market size. Most business operate with an advertising budget of 2-5 percent of their previous years gross sales. If you are new in business, you can obtain industry standards from associations or trade magazines devoted to your type of business. Check your local library for these resources.

One of the main reasons most businesses like this form of budgeting is the safety factor. Rather than having to "predict" the future and adjust, they are always dealing with a "known" amount.

The down side is an opportunity to capitalize on changing events or customer trends are often lost due to the restrictions of the budget which is tied to a set amount, not the current business climate.

Sales objectives method

Using this method, advertising managers will set sales objectives they feel are attainable in the current business climate. Advertising and promotion is then used as needed to help realize the sales goals regardless of what happened in previous years.

The up side is that if the advertising is done correctly it becomes an investment, not an expense and can fuel more advertising at later dates. The company grows and expands at a faster rate than it would with the percentage of sales method.

The down side is that advertising based on a bad promotion or incorrect advertising can be very costly. Suddenly future advertising becomes an expense not an investment. Costs like this cannot always be recouped quickly and may start a downhill slide that can destroy a company.

Save money by unadvertised testing

Ever go to a store and find an "unadvertised special?" This is the store's way of testing the waters for a specific product or service. If the product tests well, the store can run future ads promoting the product.

Another advantage: Several products can be tested against each other and the winners are promoted later with a greater expectation of success. Service businesses can test additional services at a discount to customers when the primary service is purchased at full price.

How to budget for an individual ad

Now that you know two methods for budgeting your advertising it's time to look at putting them to work. Advertising is like eating an elephant. It's done in small bites not one big one. You will run several ads over a period of time rather than one large ad. How much the ad will cost depends on the answers to the following questions.

* All advertising must accomplish a specific definable goal. What will this ad do for your business? What is the short-term benefit to the company for running this ad? The long-term benefit?

* Is this ad financed by the percentage of sales method or a sales objective percentage method? What is the dollar amount allocated to this ad? Co-Op funds available? What is the expected revenue this ad will produce?

* Are comparable ads being run for competitive products? What size ads do they use? Can you run similar size ads?

* What is the specific time period for achieving the advertising goal?

* What form of evaluation will be used to assure that the ad is working or not working?

How to evaluate your ad results

Advertising that doesn't work is like an employee that doesn't work...it's costly. You must be able to track whether the ad is working or not and why.

Create a "tracking sheet" for each and every ad you produce in each type of media. This sheet will be filed with a copy of each print ad and the script for each radio or TV ad. Each sheet will contain two major tracking areas.

First tracking area. The history of the ad. When was it run? What media? What days? What was the cost of each run? What was the cost for the entire run of this ad? What amount was paid by co-op advertising, if any? Art and design charges?

Second tracking area. The goal of the ad. Who was the ad directed toward? New customers? Regulars? Were projected sales met? If so, why? Adequate inventory? Proper staffing? Weather? Other events that drew traffic to your area?

If projected sales were not met, why? Competing sales by competitors? Better promotions or products available elsewhere? Conflicting civic events? Other events that drew traffic out of your area? Error in the ad? Weather?

When the time comes to run this promotion again, the history of both the costs and results of the ad will be readily available.

Some ways to prepare customers in advance for upcoming promotions

Some products require education of the customer. Offering educational information to the customer does two things.

First, it alerts you to the customers who have at least some interest in your products.

Second, it shows them you are an authority on this product or service.

Offer free information about your business in your ad such as, "Ten Common Mistakes Home Buyers Make." Make the information specific to your own business, not generic to your industry. Make sure you use the information to separate yourself from your competitors.

For example: Let's assume you have a furniture restoration business. If your competitor uses XYZ glue, and you know it is cheaper and inferior, you might say, "We use ABC glue exclusively because it's the best." Do not "bad-mouth" XYZ glue, just plant the seed of doubt in the customers mind that anything less than ABC glue is questionable.

Send out the information and follow-up with a letter or call in a few days volunteering more information. Invite the customer to see your business first hand. Show testimonial letters and past successes.

The final customer questions

Keep an eye out for red flags when talking to your customers. Customers will use certain phrases to disguise problems they have had with other businesses. Learn the phrases for your industry and make sure everyone who comes in contact with your customers knows them. Make sure you address the common ones in your ads.

Some final thoughts

Advertising doesn't have to be hard. But, it does require study, testing and planning. The most important lesson in advertising that almost everyone misses is, tracking customer response and income produced by advertising. Does it pay to advertise in the media you've chosen?

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 03:17:00 +0000

Target Market Advertising:

Visible and Invisible Ads

This very simple advertising guide simply means, 40% of your success will be determined by how well you define your target market. The second 40% depends on how that target market perceives your product and your business. The final 20% is the package which consists of the offer and the presentation of that offer. The art, color, paper, copy and message of your advertising.

The invisible advertising messages

We are bombarded by so many advertising messages every day, it's impossible to take each one seriously. In fact, there are so many that our minds must act as "filters." Only letting in what is truly important to us and eliminating all the rest. That's why the paper seems to be filled with tire ads whenever we need tires. We never noticed the ads when we didn't need tires. It's as though they were invisible except when our minds tell us to notice them.

The message becomes visible only to the target market

Customers become your target market as a need for your product arises. Sometimes, after you fill your customers needs, they fall out of your target market until your product or service is needed again. Your message will now be invisible to them. In most cases, they will ignore it. They no longer need your product or service.

So, with people jumping in and out of the market, how can you define who they are and how to reach them?

Reverse marketing to the new target market

This example creates a reverse marketing situation. In traditional marketing you would define your customers and send your advertising message to them by the most direct and economical route available. Your target market analysis has shown you who they are and how to reach them.

However, a segment of new customers are entering your market each day who have suddenly developed a need for your product. They may not fit your target market analysis. You don't know who they are or why they have entered your market, but you still need to reach them. With reverse marketing you have to help them find you.

How do they find you now?

One of the problems most businesses have with marketing and advertising is they do it because "they are supposed to." Not because they have done the proper research for the advertising media. Someone "sold" them advertising. "You should be in our newspaper." "You should be on our radio station."

In truth, you should only "be" where your target market is in large enough numbers to justify the expense of the ads. If you have ads that are producing more income for your business than they are costing then by all means you should be advertising there. If on the other hand the opposite is true then you need a change of plan.

Consider the new market segment - a secondary market.

If the current advertising is working, keep it in place. The next order of business is becoming visible to the secondary market. The new customers. If you were a gas station, for instance, this secondary market would be new drivers. People who just turned 16 and have a new drivers license. Another segment would be new folks in town who have to find a gas station. A third segment might be unsatisfied customers from your competitors.

As you can see, with a little thought, you can identify some of these customers and start to become visible to them by "being" in the right place. Let's go back to our gas station example for a minute.

How would you reach new 16 year old drivers? Usually, the radio. A rock station perhaps? How would you reach new people in town? Welcome wagon coupons. Church bulletins. Chamber of Commerce flyers. Unsatisfied customers? A special offer for new customers. The point here isn't expensive advertising but being in the right place to become visible to other markets your competitors may be missing.

The last word in visibility

There are obvious markets that anyone could see. There is also a lot of business that surfaces in small markets that many businesses miss. Don't be one of them. Remember the question you are taught to ask every customer, "How did you find us?" Maybe what we should be asking is, "How did we find YOU?"

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 03:04:00 +0000

Here's Why Your Advertising Isn't Working

What do you want your advertising to accomplish?

You started your business because you studied and learned your craft or skill and wanted to offer it to others. I would never dream of coming into your place of business and telling you how to run it. I don't have the expertise you do. When it comes to marketing and advertising, many small business owners don't have the expertise to do it correctly or profitably.

I will never understand why business owners take advice from unqualified strangers before they trust their own instincts or consult an informed reputable source. I have overheard business people ask complete strangers in movie lines if they should advertise on the screen between movies. Forget demographics, target market and product positioning. I guess if the stranger said yes, the business owner would make the deal with the manager after the movie.

Advertising generates traffic to your business. You need to generate a certain amount of income to keep your doors open. How many customers does it take to do that each day? How much must each spend? Who are they and how do you reach them?

Make a choice

So, you have two choices to make. One, hire an advertising and/or marketing company, if one is available and you can afford it. Or, if that is cost prohibitive, do it yourself. At this site we deal with a lot do-it-yourselfers from all over the world.

Where do I start?

When you started your business, hopefully, you constructed a business plan. If you don't have one...get one. Your business plan should have outlined why you think you have a viable business and who your customers are and how you intend to reach them.

If you are a new business you don't really have a customer base to analyze. One place you can look for help is trade magazines. Look for success stories of people in your industry and call them up. Ask them how they advertise and where? What promotions work? Who is their ideal customer?

Let's look at some advertising basics and how they work and don't work.

The "Fab Four" of advertising

No, I'm not referring to the Beatles. Advertising was originally designed to accomplish four things.

1. To provide information about your company to your customers.
2. To create an image of the company for your customers.
3. To provide sales leads to the company or sales force.
4. And most important of all...to sell.

Advertising is usually sold at a "cost per thousand" readers/listeners that the advertising reaches. As you have read here before, I prefer to buy advertising at a "cost per customer." If I spend $50.00 on an ad and it produces three customers who spend $10.00 each, what happened? I just lost $20.00. My advertising stops being an investment, and becomes an expense.

Track your ads to save money. Where are people coming from? How did they find you? What made them find you?

As I go through each of the four types of ads the question to keep in mind is, "What do I want my advertising to accomplish?"

Let's look at each one of the "Fab Four" and the mistakes most businesses make when they take on the job of in-house advertising manager.

Information Advertising

This is the most common type of advertising and the most often abused. Companies buy ad space and fill it with, "me", "me", "me." The customer isn't interested in you. The customer is interested in what benefits them. There is nothing wrong with showing off your company in a positive light. Just be sure you are talking with the customer's needs in mind.

Image Advertising

This is another passive form of advertising. There is nothing wrong with keeping your name in front of potential customers or creating an image. Most common mistake here is big headline, too much text and no room left to display the logo, company name, phone or web site at a readable size. The message overpowers the purpose. If you are really out to build a name, run several small ads with just the logo or company name and the phone. Put as many as you can in sections you know your target market reads.

Lead Generation Ads

Many companies produce an image ad or an information ad and expect it to act as a lead generation ad. In most cases, they are very disappointed. What's usually missing? A "Call To Action." Something that motivates the customer to act. Make a call, return a coupon, enter a contest, get valuable information, visit the web site or physically come to the store. Make them act now! Fear of loss is more powerful than expectation of gain.

Ads That Sell

This is where copywriters really earn their keep with big companies. You and I are not big companies. Writing ads that sell is an art. Can you write one? Sure you can.

What's missing from most? The company never asks for the order. The biggest single reason people don't buy is because no one asks them. I know that sounds ridiculous but it's true. Make sure your ad asks the customer to take action and buy your product.

The last word on advertising mistakes

In order to make your advertising pay for itself, you must know your objectives. What do you want your advertising to accomplish? Design ads that match your company objectives. Ads should produce customers. Track your advertising. Ask every customer how they found you. Keep track of where customers live, how much they spend, what products they buy, how often they buy and most important...why they don't buy. Follow up and ask them.

Advertising done right is very exciting. It pays for itself. The more of it you do (correctly) the more profit it produces and the more ads you can place. That makes a strong and profitable business which is what we all want.

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 03:02:00 +0000

What Makes A Great Ad?

1. We all like surprises.

Can you state an ordinary message in an unusual way? Not comedy, but differently. Commercials done this way are the ones we talk about at work the next day.

2. Keep It Simple.

Don't let the design overpower the message. The idea is the most important part of the message.

3. Get me involved.

Shock me, make me mad, make me happy, make me cry, but don't bore me and leave me cold.

4. Make me curious.

Isn't the real purpose of an ad to make me want more information? Grab my attention and hold it.

5. Great ads command answers.

They demand that you respond to the ad. They are like an unanswered question that must be resolved.

6. Draw your own conclusion.

Isn't the strongest conclusion the one we draw ourselves? An ad that brings me to a conclusion is powerful indeed.

7. The headline and the image tell the story.

The headline should never tell you what is in the picture. Only what you don't see. The headline and picture together create the story.

8. They never brag.

Yellowstone Harley-Davidson® in Belgrade, Montana, population 3,000-4,000, has a billboard on the edge of town proclaiming, "The largest Harley-Davidson® dealer in Belgrade!" They are not only the largest, and only dealer in Belgrade, they are the only dealer in over a hundred miles. Just a fact, not a brag.

9. They're always well executed.

They have good design that doesn't overpower the message. They have sharp photos, good typefaces, etc.

10. They Sell.

An ad can look great and still not sell anything.In advertising, what you say is as important as how you say it.What good is an ad that wins award after award if it doesn't sell?

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 02:52:00 +0000

25 Low Cost Advertising Tips

If there is one mistake small town businesses make more often than any other it's, "What ever is left over, we'll use for advertising." Marketing and advertising is an investment, not an expense. I know it sure seems like an expense to me when I'm writing the check, but trust me it's not. Without enough money put aside for advertising your sales can go down and you suddenly have less and less for promotion.

When do you advertise the most? For most businesses it's the first day of business. Don't you have a Grand Opening, balloons, flyers, ads, on-site radio stations, contests, and prizes? Did the income from sales pay for that? No, it didn't. You advertise most when you need business. You advertise more when you don't.

An average cost of advertising is usually 1 to 5% of gross sales, which can vary according to location, local advertising rates, and industry. Car dealers need more advertising than funeral homes.

Before we get to the 25 tips let's look at the basic strategies of successful advertising.

* In order to be successful, your advertising must provide a consumer benefit or solve a
problem.

* That benefit or solution must be wanted by the consumer.

* The product or service you are offering must be tied directly to that benefit or solution.

* The benefit or solution must be distinctly communicated through medial advertising. In other
words, be clear, forget the advertising glitz and make sure the message isn't lost in the ad.

A small-budget advertiser doesn't have the ''deep pockets" to develop big advertising campaigns. Some time you need to break the rules to be noticed. Avis did it by admitting they were "Number 2" in the car rental business and that campaign took them from 6th place to second place. When they stopped that campaign they dropped back to 6th again. In the past year they have gone back to it.

Budget conscious advertisers must achieve top results for their advertising dollar. Expand your dollars by adopting some creative techniques.

Here's 25 tips I hope will help you.

* Radio, newspapers and magazine specialists will frequently give free help in developing an advertising strategy. Things like demographic information, money-saving ways to produce your ads etc.

* Place your ads in off hours or in unusual locations for less. Many times you can still reach your target market with these spots.

* Instead of a one-time big splash ad, be consistent with frequent small ads that work.

* Monthly magazines sometimes have unsold ad space at the end of the month they will sell at a discount.

* If you have an 800 number, put it in every ad for immediate response and feedback.

* Try advertising consistently in the classifieds. These ads may draw more customers than more expensive display ads.

* Can you barter for the cost of ad production? Maybe the newspaper needs painting in exchange for an ad about your paint store.

* Piggyback advertising are the ads you receive with your Mastercard bill. Is there someone in your town that sends out a lot of bills? Can you put a small flyer in with their bills and split the postage? Or pay a small fee?

* Split advertising costs with the people who sell to you. Vendors and manufactures are always looking for exposure. Let people know you carry their products and have the vendor pick up part of the ad cost.

* Are there up front advertising discounts for cash?

* Consider advertising in regional issues of national magazines. The costs are lower and you can still reach your target market. TV Guide is a good choice. It stays around for at least a week. Time, Newsweek, and US News and World Report may stay in local doctors offices for years.

* Share ad costs with neighbor business. Video stores and Pizza parlors are natural partners. Have coupons to each others stores or share the cost of flyers.

* Try reducing the size of your ad (not in the Yellow Pages) or length of your radio spots. A 60 second spot is not twice as much as a 30 second spot but you won't get twice as many customers for a 60 over a 30. Going with small ads or shorter spots will allow you to do more ads which normally pulls more customers. It's better to be there every day with small ads than every month with one big one.

* Develop tight production controls to minimize the need to reject finished ads. The message is more important than the messenger. Don't try to produce ads that win awards, produce ads that sell.

* Who are your very best customers? Aim your ads to talk directly to people like them.

* What will suppliers give you in the way of point-of-purchase materials. Posters, stand ups, handouts, etc. Some have excellent display racks you can use.

* Some national chains like Coke and Pepsi provide outdoor signs for businesses. There are also indoor lighted signs you write on with special markers to advertise your special offers.

* Can you sponsor a community event? A fun-run, golf tournament, or other event that will be well publicized in the community. Your name may not be prominently displayed but sometimes the positive exposure in the community will bring in new customers.

* Small businesses can seldom afford saturation advertising. You must be selective in the media that reaches your customers. Pin your ad reps down and make them show you exactly how their media reaches your target audience.

* Exploit the media you choose to the fullest. If your message is verbal, you don't need TV. Use radio, billboards and newspapers to the fullest.

* Consider direct mail. A letter and brochure before customer contact can increase business. An IBM study concluded that selling time can be reduced from 9.3 to 1.3 total hours with direct mail advertising. A Sales and Marketing Executives International Study showed salespeople went from eight orders per 100 cold calls to 38 orders per 100 when direct mail was used.

* Try an editorial style ad. These are ads that look like actual stories in the newspaper. They will have "advertisement" at the top of the article. Develop a good headline, and 50% more people will read the article than would read an ad of the same size.

* You can't match larger competitors dollar-for-dollar but, you can use unusual approaches (like the Avis idea above), color, music, slogans, humor (be careful here), or media selection to win your market away from the big guys.

* Due to the high costs of conventional advertising on, radio, TV, newspapers, many cost conscious business have been forced to look for lower cost methods. Can you advertise on parking meters, taxi boards, balloons, blimps, and grocery shopping carts. Community bulletin boards, movie ads, and weekly newspaper shoppers.

* Key your ads. Put something in the ad that will let you know which media it came from. On coupons, put a code that will record the paper and date of the ad. In radio or TV, have them mention the ad to get the discount. Ask every customer how they found you.

* Plan for a rainy day. During the year put a small amount aside each month for emergencies. You never know when you'll need to react quickly to whatever the competition is doing. You must be able to capitalize on breaking national events or news regarding your industry. If negative things happen in your industry you may need to respond quickly to make sure the right message is presented.

* Always give the customer more than you promised and more than they expected. This is tip number 26 of the 25 we advertised. Maybe this last one is the one you needed.

I hope these tips will help your business grow. Not all may be relevant to your particular situation. Hopefully, they will illustrate the importance to plan and control your advertising budget.

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 02:47:00 +0000

Quick Tip : PROCRASTINATION POINTERS

Procrastination is one of the biggest enemies we have to our Personal Productivity. Thinking about doing something and planning to do it are fine, but what if we fail to move ahead?

Procrastinating the unimportant items in our day is a useful talent. The problem for many, however, is that we are procrastinating the important and crucial items in our day, reducing our personal productivity and increasing our stress levels.

Here are five pointers to help you to better overcome procrastination. (You can implement them now or perhaps tomorrow…or better yet, next week.)

1. Daily planning the night before.

"People don’t plan to fail but they sometimes fail to plan". Without a plan of action in place before you arrive for work it is real easy to get caught up in "stuff". The phone rings, someone drops by and you direct your time responding to the loudest voices demanding your attention rather than to the most important priorities on your plate. A plan of action, prepared the night before is like a roadmap for the next day. You know what your next step ought to be to get you into productive action and away from procrastination.

2. Work with a clean desk.

"Out of sight, out of mind." The reverse of that is just as true. When it’s in sight, it’s in mind and most of us cannot help but be distracted and our time is then directed to the less important and easier tasks causing us to put off the more important tasks. Working with a clean desk or clean work environment permits us to have only the most important task before us so that we can focus all of our attention on that task without other visual distractions.

3. Reduce large projects to bite-sized pieces.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Tomorrow you plan to work on a three-hour project. The problem is, many of us do not get three hours to work on any one item. We have to contend with interruptions, meetings, etc. (I don’t know that I even have an attention span that lasts for three hours!) And we often wind up procrastinating working on this task because "there’s not enough time to get this done". So, instead of scheduling the entire three-hour project for tomorrow, schedule a small bite, a step or two that might take 20 or 30 minutes. Then put the next step on the next day’s To Do list and the next step after that on that next day’s list, etc. It may take several days, but you will get that elephant eaten up, one bite at a time.

4. Plan around interruptions.

Interruptions tend to occur in identifiable patterns. I get most of my interruptions early in the day versus later in the day. I get most of my interruptions early in the week versus later in the week. So, if I plan a big project first thing Monday morning, I’m creating stress because as soon as I begin, interruptions arrive and re-focus my attention causing me to procrastinate what I really wanted to do. It is so much easier swimming downstream with the current rather than bucking the tide. Therefore, I plan those larger projects for later in the day and later in the week when I tend to get fewer interruptions.

5. Assign deadlines.

Have you ever failed to achieve a New Year’s resolution? If so, that probably happened because you did not set a deadline. Deadlines move us to action. Without a deadline, things wind up in our "as soon as possible" pile, a "Never Never Land" where items will get attended to "someday", "when I get the time". Create a deadline and you will be moved to action.

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 02:32:00 +0000

Web Traffic Terrorism

I'm about to reveal how you can start getting lots of free traffic to your website or affiliate link. I am going to uncover the hidden tactic that has been used and still being used by the select few who are in the know. The simplicity borders on the ridiculous because you have thousands of people online trying to figure out how to generate enough traffic to make those 6 and 7 figure sales. I really shouldn't do this but I am. All the e books you see being sold on how to make affiliate cash windfalls using adwords, posting on classified ad sites etc, are all a smoke screen.

That's not how it's done. In fact, I don't know one person online who has made millions of dollars and used those methods ever. These guys I'm talking about use no paid methods of advertising, no ezines, and no pay-per-click. If you're reading this you will be able to copy exactly what they've used to gain subscribers into the hundred thousand range, potential sales into the 7 figure range, an army of affiliates like you've never seen before. I'm talking into the 100,000 subscriber range. That's how to become a super affiliate.

Your first traffic model will be Mark Joyner's usage of viral marketing using the leverage of others to gain lots of subscribers and sales. One site in particular he used was called Start Blaze. The basic idea behind Start Blaze is a type of traffic-generating system that I call a "Browser Based Referral System." There are several similar systems on the net. The way the system was designed, you only needed to open your browser once a day for your credits to add up. So this was a free service (traffic exchange) based on you adding a page to your start page and everytime you opened your browser you could accumulate credits and also by referring the service one could also gain even more traffic credits.

The maker of Start Blaze (Mark Joyner) was certainly the biggest beneficiary of this system, as he should be. However, here lies the secret? The creator of a system such as StartBlaze (example) is in the position to gain many subscribers from leveraging his members. You see, Mark was using a form of mind control to get his members to radically refer more and more new subscribers who would in turn do the same thing by giving them credits for traffic to their sites. Pure genius in action...

The more traffic you can drive to your site the more sales you will make and the more subscribers you will gain! So the secret is in a viral system or script which utilizes the promise of traffic to get members to refer more people to your site thereby you build yourself a huge targeted list of marketers, make sales, and get lots of free web traffic. After this is accomplished you no longer will have to rely on paid methods of advertising ever again. You will command a push button income virtually on demand.

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 02:13:00 +0000

STRATEGIES FOR MAKING THE MOST OF FREE ADVERTISING

I gleefully fired up my expensive classified ad submission software and posted hundreds of free ads. What an opportunity! By using this software I was able to post ads automatically - I just started up the software, gave it the ad I wanted to post, and it did all the rest.

Faithfully I repeated this process every day for over a month. After all, the advertising was FREE - and what netrepreneur wouldn't love some free advertising?

Hah. The reward for my frenzied efforts was this: I ended up on every spammers list in the universe. I was bombarded with offers to make $10,000 in one week, to lose 50 pounds with no dieting or exercise, to get in on the "ground- floor" of every MLM in existence ... To make it even worse, I didn't make a single penny in sales.

Free classifieds, Free-For-All (FFA) sites, free link exchanges, free banner exchanges ... There are countless free resources available to all the hopeful netrepreneurs trying to make a buck online.

But the unfortunate truth of the matter is that some of these free resources appeal more to netrepreneurs than they do to potential customers. How often do you visit FFA sites to search for a product, service, or opportunity?

This isn't to say all free advertising is bad. To the contrary, there are several excellent methods that can yield great results:

Link Exchanges with Other Webmasters

Try negotiating a link exchange with another webmaster. All this means is that you place a link to their site, and in return, they place a link to your site. That way you both have the potential of getting extra visitors.

Look for someone who has about the same amount of traffic as you (or more), and whose business *complements* yours rather than directly competes with it.

TIP: Try visiting HitBox, http://www.hitbox.com/ . Search for websites that cater to the same target audience as yours, and contact those that interest you. But please be professional: approach the other webmaster with a reasonable and fair proposal.

Start Your Own Opt-In Email Newsletter

There's nothing like your own newsletter to develop a relationship with your visitors. Make it your goal to provide honest opinions and quality information. *Listen* to your subscriber's comments, good or bad, and then take steps to improve what you offer. Your readers will come to trust you ... so when you recommend a particular resource, they're more likely to consider it.

TIP: Ezine Tactics is the ultimate guide to starting and profiting from your own newsletter. Very comprehensive and easy to follow. Visit them at http://www.buildyourhomebiz.com/tactics.html.

Search Engines and Major Indexes

These are probably THE best method for free advertising. Some search engines, such as GoTo.com, are already charging for listings. So while the major search engines are still free you should be taking advantage of them.

It does take time and effort to learn how to properly use the search engines. You need to learn how they work (what they look for on your web page) and how to improve your ranking. For example, if you want people who are searching for "wholesale directories" to find YOUR website, then you need to be ranked within the first 30 (preferably first 10) listings. It's no good to be listing #138475 out of 1437593 others; no one will ever find you.

That being said, search engines can bring in a HUGE amount of traffic - and all for free! Because people are looking for something specific when they use search engines, those that click through to your website already have an interest in what you have to offer. This is free, targeted advertising at its best.

TIP: The bestselling eBook, 'Make Your Site Sell!' has comprehensive, step-by-step instructions on how to get traffic from search engines. Read more at http://www.buildyourhomebiz.com/myss.html .

Ezine Advertising

Next to search engines and major indexes, I've found ezine advertising to be the best method for generating traffic and sales.

Ezine advertising is so effective because you can advertise in those that cater specifically to your target audience. So if you're selling pet accessories, you would find an ezine that caters to pet lovers, who are naturally more receptive to your product.

Keep in mind that the placement of your ad plays a big part in what kind of response you get. If you place an ad that's crammed in with 50 others in a "classifieds" section at the end of the ezine, people are most likely to skip that section entirely.

But if you place an ad by itself at the top of an ezine, there is a much greater likelihood that people will read it.

TIP 1: : There are a number of ezines that offer free ads. Visit The Free Directory of Ezines to find them, http://www.freezineweb.com/ .

TIP 2: Track your advertising campaign! You'll never know which ezines work best for your target audience, or what ads pull best, unless you track each campaign. An ad tracker is included free with the Ezine Tactics guide to starting and profiting from your own newsletter. You can find them at http://www.buildyourhomebiz.com/tactics.html.

TIP 3: You can get excellent exposure in an ezine by submitting content-rich, targeted articles to ezine publishers. At the end of the article, simply add a small resource box with your URL and email address. Use the Free Directory of Ezines (Tip 1) to find ezines that accept articles.

Ad Swaps with Ezine Publishers

For those of you with your own newsletters, ask to swap ads with another ezine publisher with the appropriate target audience. You don't even have to necessarily look for an ezine with the same number of subscribers. If your ezine has 1000 subscribers and the other ezine only has 500, you can propose to run their ad in one issue of your ezine. In return, the other publisher runs your ad in two issues of their ezine.

TIP 1: To find other publishers who will swap ads, once again you can visit The Free Directory of Ezines at http://www.freezineweb.com/ .

TIP 2: If you don't have an ezine of your own, you can still swap ads. Try swapping an ad or a link on your website in exchange for an ad published in an ezine.

-
In summary, not all free advertising is created equal. The methods that tend to be far less effective than others include:

>> Free-For-All (FFA) sites (spammers love these!)

>> Most free classified ad sites (again, spammers like to
use these to harvest your email address)

>> Free banner exchanges (banners are often ignored)

>> Free link exchanges (can sometimes work okay, but is
usually not targeted enough)

Concentrate on learning to make the most of the free methods that will yield results, such as:

>> Negotiate personal link exchanges with other webmasters

>> Develop your own opt-in email newsletter

>> Learn about the major search engines, a huge source of
targeted traffic

>> Form an ezine advertising campaign that provides you with
the best possible exposure.

The beauty of the Internet is that it allows you to run a business with very little money. The "secret" is knowing which of the available free resources are worth your time!

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:33:00 +0000

7 Warning Signs of an Unprofitable Web Site

7 general mistakes which you should avoid to make your web business successful and not Unprofitable.

1. Selling To Everyone Means You Sell to No One
If you do not target your offer, it will confuse your customers. People are not patient. In a recent survey, 73% of people claimed to be "insanely busy". If you do not develop a target customer profile and appeal directly to them, you will lose customers. And they will never come back to your site again.

2. Web Flea Market: Buy a Web Site or Get a Grocery Coupon
People are selling Web Sites, classified advertising, pre-paid legal services, long distance phone cards, and reminder services via affiliate programs...All on the same Web Page!

Think about that the next time you go to your grocery store. Do they offer to sell you a Web Site with your pickles? Flea markets diminish the value of what you are selling. Most people who own these sites tell me they depend on selling a high volume of low price items. How do I know this is a doomed approach? Visit their sites and see if there is any life there

3. Huge graphics that make your site take 30 seconds to open, which is all the time you have to sell your customer on staying.
The worst thing about computers is that they enable us to do things we just should not be doing. Graphic design is a skill; most people get some Paint program and have absolutely no sense of size, or what the graphic makes them look like. If you want to SCREAM AT YOUR AUDIENCE AND BE OBNOXIOUS, then use big graphics.

4. This site has xxxx number of visitors (How many bought?)
Does it really matter to anyone how many people visit your store? The sure sign that a store is visited often is the success and profits of the owner. All the rest is empty bragging.

5. Explaining what technology you use, frames, etc.
To this day it amazes me how people explain the technical design of their Web Page. If you use any reference to technology, you are distracting your customer. Keep it simple.

6. Download the following plug-ins to get this site working.
No one will spend ten minutes downloading the plug-in to see your cutesy message. Avoid plug-ins, with the possible exception of Real Audio.

7. No place to send an email, or gain a free report.
After spending all this time to create a site, most people forget to ask for inquiries. They just think people will work hard to contact them. Assume that a person will visit your site once, and never return unless you remind them to via email.

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:31:00 +0000

7 Steps To Effectively Take Control Of Your Inbox And Reduce Spam

Everbody hates spam! I am sure spammers hate getting spam too, but they still continue to dish it out. Why? Because it is still effective. Believe it or not, many of us still click on the links or follow-up with the spam message. As long as we continue to do this, spam will exist. If everybody understood this and paid no attention to spam, the spammers will eventually give up because it costs them realy money to send out emails. It is hard to quantify what the cost of sending out one, two or fifty emails is, but 1 million or 5 million emails certainly has a cost that is not negligible. When the payback starts to get so small that the spammers cannot make a decent living, they will find something else to do. This day will come and I cannot wait for it to arrive.

In the meantime, what can we do about it. Well, I am not going to tell you that there is a perfect solution that will stop all spam, but what I will tell you is that there is a way to reduce the problem and manage it effectively using the 7 steps outlined below.

Step #1: Get Your Own Domain Name

Fighting spam effectively starts with getting your own domain name. For example if your name is Andy Williams, you would purchase a domain name called andywilliams.com, which is of course already owned by the famous singer. This has some unique advantages over using an ISP given domain name or a webmail service such as Hotmail or Gmail. It also has some minor disadvantages. Let's examine these.

One major advantage is that you control the entire email address. You could create emails addresses like andy@andywilliams.com, info@andywilliams.com, sales@andywilliams.com and so on. This is in stark contract to an ISP assigned name like andywilliams@comcast.net. If you wanted another one, you'd have to open up another account or pay extra for each additional ISP assigned address. If you ever decided to switch ISP's, you would lose that email address and have to start over using a new one, and inform everyone you communicated with about it - a very messy proposition.

Many get around this problem by getting a Hotmail, Yahoo Mail or Gmail account which you can access from anywhere as long as you have internet access. These types of email accounts definitely have a place in your email toolchest, but do not suffice as your primary personal email address. One reason is that you do not have access to your email messages and address books when you are not online, like during a long flight. Anotehr drawback is that they do not allow you to export the online address books making portability very tedious.

I prefer owning my own domain name which I call my permanent email address. I will always have this email address as long as I renew this domain name every year. The cost of registering a domain name varies from $4 to $8 per year for most common ones. This is a small price to pay for the advantages it brings you.

The one minor disadvantage of owning your own domain name is that you need to manage it yourself, or have someone do it for you. This in my opinion is far outweighed by the advantages mentioned above.

Step #2: Create Private Email Adresses

A private email address is one that nobody but your inner circle knows about. Every person that you give your personal email address to is someone that you trust and want to receive email from.

Setup one private email address for every person who is going to need to receive messages. This could be you and 5 other members of your family or 12 employees that work for you. This part is quite straightforward, you simply login to your email control panel and create new accounts for each email address that is going to be used to receive email.

Step #3: Create Public Email Addresses As Aliases

A public email address is generally known to the public. It can be specific like andyw@andywilliams.com or generic like receptionist@andywilliams.com.

A public email address is created as an email alias. An email alias is not a real email address, but an address that gets redirected to a real email address. For example, you setup receptionist@andywilliams.com as an alias that redirects to mary@andywilliams.com. Whenever some sends an email to receptionist@andywilliams.com, it will end up in Mary's inbox. If you change receptionists, you simple modify the redirect for a very elegant solution. You can then publish this public email address on a website, in a brochure, on print advertising, business cards etc. without giving away your personal email address and without having to make much changes if Mary leaves and a new receptionist is hired. This is a huge benefit and maintains your privacy as well as those of others you have created email adresses for.

How does this help with spam, you ask? By using email aliases in a smart fashion, you could very easily shut down any spam that starts coming in. Let's examine how this can be done.

Step #4: Setup the Default or Catch-all Email Address

Your email control panel will have something called a "default address" or it is also sometimes called a "catch-all address". This is a valid email address that all unresolved emails go to. If you set this up to be your personal email address for example, then you will receive all emails that are addressed to "anything"@andywilliams.com, this includes sales@andywilliams.com, joe@andywilliams.com, andrew@andywilliams.com etc. Herein lies the secret to combat spam.

Step #5: Create Specific Named Public Email Addresses As And When Required

When you are forced to register on a website where you want to get some information from, you are usually asked for a valid email address. Well guess what, you now have an unlimited supply of valid email adresses. I usually use a specific format when registering at websites - it is "websitename"@andywilliams.com. So if I am registering at a website called www.get-rich-quick.com, I would use the address get-rich-quick@andywilliams.com as my valid email address. When the site sends me an email, it gets redirected to my personal email or whatever the default or catch-all address is.

Step #6: Send Spam Back To Where It Came From, If Possible

Here comes the real bonus, if you subsequently start receiving spam addressed to none other than get-rich-quick@andywilliams.com, you simple create an email alias for get-rich-quick@andywilliams.com and redirect the email back to exactly where it came from, for example georg-bush@get-rick-quick.com. You will then never get another email from anyone using that email address ever again. This is cool and is my favourite part. Bear in mind that spammers usually send email from an address that is not their own, so if you see an address like noreply@get-rick-quick.com, then you would redirect it somewhere else, for example a Hotmail address that you setup just for redirection purposes. Please exercise some discretion here because spammers often use the email addresses of real people and we don't want these innocent people getting redirected email.

Step #7: Be Diligent In The Ongoing Management Of Your Domain

If you do this diligently for each website where you register by identifying the website name, you will very quickly know which websites are selling email addresses and which ones honor their promise not to share your information. ALl this while, nobody by your personal inner circle knows your private email address.

A real-life example in my case: I use a specific email alias for my Paypal account which nobody but Paypal knows. I have never ever received spam on this address, but I have received hundreds of spam messages on other email aliases that I have created. All of these emails supposedly come from Paypal and address me as "Dear Valued Paypal Member" or something similar, warning me that my account is going to be closed or suspended unless I click on their link and update my credit card information.

I hope that I have given you some food for thought on how to manage the ever growing spam problem by protecting yourself by taking some initiative and getting your own domain name. The added benefit is that you now have a permanent email address no matter where you choose to live or which ISP you use to connect to the internet.

There are many other ways to fight spam which I will perhaps address future articles.

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:28:00 +0000

5 Zero Cost Solutions to Spam

Spam is a daily nuisance for all of us. It doesn't matter whether you're employed or unemployed. It doesn't matter if you're a CEO of a multinational or if you're a work at home parent - spam affects us all.

There are dozens of porgams available for fighting spam. The major problem is that most of these programs cost money.

What I'm going to do is show you 5 different ways of combating spam - all free.

1. Don't give out your personal email address.
This is stating the obvious but it's the first big mistake people make. DO NOT use your personal email address for sign up forms, competitions, surveys or any other nonsense that may result in you being spammed. It's much easier to prevent spam, by never giving out your personal email address, than it is to cure the problem once you're on 100's of junk email lists.

2. Use a free email account
Set yourself up with a Hotmail, Yahoo or any other free email account and use it as a spam holder account i.e. use it on all those popups or sign up forms that you *suspect* may try to spam you. You can then periodically check your free email account for both legitimate and spam email and
delete the rubbish you don't want. This single step can save you countless spam related headaches.

3. Use a disposable email address
You could also try a disposable e-mail address from www.spamgourmet.com. This is a brilliant idea. Once you've registered your forwarding email address (your personal
email address) with them you can then create
self-destructing email addresses that stop working after receiving a specific number of emails.

4. Use a free spam filter.
Unfortunately even when you follow all the correct steps you can still wind up getting junk email. There's only solution at that point - install a spam filter on your PC.
The best free spam filter I've come across so far is Mailwasher. An excellent
program that won't cost you a penny.

5. Newsgroups and forums
Spammers love newsgroups and forums. They especially love the way people post their personal email addresses there. It doesn't matter if it's a paid, private or free forum spammers have their harvester programs hunting for email addresses every minute of every day. If you have to post
your email address then use the following format:

username AT domain.com. If that doesn't make sense then what I mean is instead of posting as test@spam-site.com you'd
post as test AT spam-site.com.

Spammers can harvest 35,000 email addresses per hour from newsgroups and forums - don't let your email address become one of those.

There you have 5 simple, free solutions to drastically reduce the amount of spam you receive every single day. If you want to learn more about fighting spam then
drop by spam-site.com.

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:26:00 +0000

5 Ways To Drive Visitors Away From Your Website

There are tons of resources available that will teach you how to make money on the internet. Heck, I've written tutorials like that myself. But, perhaps it's easier to demonstrate what to do, with a lesson on what not to do. This article will teach you how to drive visitors away from your website screaming "Get me outta here!" If you prefer being alone with your website and don't want all those pesky visitors bothering you, then follow the guidelines below and you'll get rid of them quick as a blink.

1. Don't state on your website what you do or what you sell. Make it a complete mystery why you decided to build your website in the first place. It's like a secret club -- your visitors are left in the dark. Have you been to sites like this where you show up and think "What the heck is this site about?" If you're not presenting a clear statement about why your visitors should spend their money (or at least come back again), then you're on your way to hermit-land.

2. Overwhelm visitors with lots of information. Almost as bad as the "What the heck is this site about?" problem is the "Oh my Goodness! Oh my Gracious!" sites. As a visitor, you know the sites I'm talking about. The page opens and your jaw drops. There is a sea of banners, with links everywhere and articles galore. Where do you go? What do you do? I'll tell you what I do. Click the little "x' in the upper right-hand corner to get the heck outta there!

3. Make the ordering process really complicated. There's nothing I love more than putting items into my shopping cart and then spending 20 minutes trying to figure out how to set up an account and pay. Guess what? I sure don't click the 'contact us' button. I click the "x" instead. You've succeeded in getting rid of yet another pesky customer who wanted to spend money.

4. Fill your site with outdated information and broken links. Pfshew. You dodged a visitor with that one. They clicked on a link that was broken -- and off they went.

5. Make sure there's no way for an interested customer or business partner to contact you. Heaven forbid, you might get some spam if you have your contact information on your site.

Thank Goodness you don't have those gosh-darned customers emailing you while you're trying to read up on Brad Pitt's love life.

Obviously, I'm being silly, but you do know that these examples are true. You've seen sites that seem like they are trying to drive you away. If you are spending time and energy putting up a website to make money, then, make some money. You CAN do it!

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:24:00 +0000

5 Tips for Online Shopping

Shopping online has become more and more popular in America as we are all looking to save a little time and money. E-commerce sales are growing at astronomical numbers ranging from 20-25% per year. And according to Forrester Research, 40% of households are using coupons in their web shopping. The huge increases are obvious: the online savings and discounts are impossible to match by traditional stores constrained by the overhead costs of employees, rent, and insurance. By using some of the tips and tricks mentioned below, you’ll be able to take further advantage of a new American pastime: saving with online shopping!

Tip 1:
Don’t buy Ebay. We all know online auctions seem like such a great deal, and it’s easy to get caught up in the emotion of auction. Thing is, auction sites like Ebay and Ubid have become saturated with buyers AND sellers, so virtually any discount found is quickly sought by re-distributors who then add their own markups to your purchase. The online marketplace has enough people out there that you can end up spending hundreds of extra dollars for the same things found in your local mall! Don’t let your emotions get involved – these are not the right places for the aware shopper.

Tip 2:
Never pay retail. Take this scenario: You find something you want to buy, maybe the latest craze or fad such as the Ipod. Should you really pay the price that Apple is offering? No! You can find many deals and coupons for the same purchase just by typing, for example, “ipod coupons” into Google. Spend a little time searching through the top ten to twenty results, you’re sure to find the same product for a significant discount. Sometimes, by filling out a survey or signing up for an email list, you’ll get additional savings and many times you can even get your product for free!

Tip 3:
Get over your instant gratification desire. Just admit it, buying something always gives you a good feeling and you can’t wait to take pleasure in that new purchase. Anything you’re buying at the mall for that same good feeling can usually be found for a huge discount online. You just have to be willing to wait for the short 2-5 days that it takes for shipping. It’s definitely worth the savings to able to control your emotions and hold off until it arrives via UPS!

Tip 4:
Watch out for excessive shipping charges. Many times retailers slash their costs to get the sale but then charge more for shipping. Make sure to check the final cost to ensure you didn’t receive any unwarranted charges. You should also find a free shipping deal at any of the online coupon sites. Sometimes the shipping can cost more than your purchase!

Tip 5:
Online coupons: Were you aware of online coupon websites that have discount and promotion codes to nearly all internet stores? These types of websites always have up to date discount offers arranged by category or store, so you can always find something on sale. It’s not only a way to get a good deal but you can also find some of the free shipping offers listed in tip 4. Just be careful to check for a coupon code before making any internet purchase. It’s a simple way to find extra savings.

cara.goodman@yahoo.com (Cara Goodman) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:21:00 +0000

5 Linking Strategies that Work

One of the most effective ways to promote your business online, especially if you use search engine optimization to build traffic, is linking.

However, as a certified Web CEO professional, and someone who also uses only "white hat" optimization strategies, I see people make a lot of mistakes when using this technique.

Below are some of the strategies that I use to make linking more effective, as well as raise my rankings in the search engines.

1. Do your homework first.
You're probably wondering what "white hat" techniques are.

"White hat" techniques are techniques that will always work with the search engines, like writing articles, blogs, and press releases, and optimizing individual pages for the search engines.

These are the primary techniques I use in addition to linking because they work.

Just ask Tinu Abayomi-Paul, the owner of http://www.freetraffictip.com. Tinu is an expert when it comes to using search engines to build traffic to her sites.

She wrote me the other day to thank me for "inspiring her". I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I do know that she uses a lot of the same techniques I do to promote my sites. She now has over 90,000 relevant entries in Google, more than a lot of the top "gurus" on the internet.

The fact is, the more pages you have listed in the search engines, and the more links you have pointing back to your site, the more likely you are to be found.

Although writing articles, blogs, press releases, and optimizing pages definitely works, you still have to do your homework. This means actually doing a search in the search engines to find out how sites get to the top, i.e. what keywords they use, how their pages are optimized, etc.

I use Alexa, http://www.alexa.com, for this because it allows me to look at traffic stats, as well as see what sites are linked to eachother.

To get started, search for the keywords you are targeting. Take a good look at the sites at the top. This includes studying the keywords, titles, and descriptions they use in their headers. Also, read the text of the pages. It's not that hard to optimize your page(s). Just write search engine friendly content that repeats your keywords. Make your content easy for your readers to read and understand though.

Now this may sound juvenile, but again, it works. Tools like Keyword Density Analyzer, http://www.keyworddensityanalzyzer.com, and Web CEO, http://www.smallbusinesshowto.com/ht/search.html, can tell you if you are on the right track.

You can also read Linking Matters, http://www.linkingmatters.com. This short, and free ebook in PDF, will give you more tips on linking.

2. Link to complementary sites.
I get link requests all the time, and I have to reject about half of them. The reason why is that I won't link to sites that have nothing to do with mine.

I offer small business, internet marketing, and search engine optimization and submission products and services. Links to quote sites, joke sites, and shoe sites don't fit with this.

The key here is to understand that not only does Google, the most important of all the search engines, look at how many links are pointing back to your site, but they also look at the relevance of the links.

Sites that are similar, or complementary to yours, give you more credibility and higher page rank than having tons of sites pointing back to you that have nothing to do with your site.

Make the links pointing back to your site relevant.

3. Choose relevant, highly searched for, low competition keywords for your anchor text.
This tip relates to tip four. Before you start sending out link requests to other webmasters, make sure that you're targeting the right keywords. Not only are a lot of relevant links important, but your keywords should be keywords that will get you traffic.

4. Change your anchor text.
Recently Google decided that links with the same text between your {{a href=""}} and {{/a}} text should be different. Too many links pointing back to your site that had the same text "looks" like spam. This doesn't mean it is spam, and sometimes, you don't have control over how others link back to your site.

However, if you decide to exchange links with others, vary your anchor text.

5. Try other alternatives to software.
Although there are many software programs out there you can use to help you automate this process, I caution you to be careful when using this kind of software. Although it may speed things up for you, you may also end up with a lot of links pointing back to you that have no relevance. Also, these programs really won't help you as much as you think if you don't change your anchor text once in awhile.

If you do choose to use software to automate the process, make sure that you personalize your emails. Again, do your homework and make sure that you are actually sending out email to sites that complement yours. No one likes to receive emails that say "Dear Webmaster".

Using a directory script on your site can help you because others can visit your site and add their links. Just make sure that you check your directory once in awhile to see who is linking to you. Also, make sure that you set up your script in such a way that others have to have a link pointing back to you first before your script will accept their site.

Link Management Assistant - http://www.dirfile.com/link_management_assistant.htm

You can also find reciprocal link exchange sites like Link Metro, http://www.linkmetro.com. Sites like this will allow you to choose your partners, search for new partners, and exchange links without being bombarded with email or generic requests.

Regardless of how you develop a linking strategy for your site, you need to develop one if you want high rankings in the search engines.