Online Business Ideas

How To Get Traffic To Your Website or Blog

2009-07-17T11:21:00.000-07:00

Google Traffic Strategy
This is a FREE Traffic Strategy that will drive a super-highway of traffic predominantly from Google ... Yes, Google! In fact ... this is far more than a Traffic Strategy, this is an AUTOMATED TRAFFIC SYSTEM. You simply need the key to unlock it's massive potential.

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Google Paying Millions
No games, tricks, or schemes. This resource will help you make an excellent monthly income on the internet with the help of Google and Clickbank. You will be exposed to an Amazing Secret that is making people thousands of dollars every month on the internet with Google and Clickbank. This is not a scam. I will personally work with you and help you receive an appreciable monthly income that you will be convinced it is worth it having tried this product.

Website: http://offto.net/fuqjdz/

Twitter Rockstar with Tons of Traffic
This resource brings to you high traffic more than you expect. The truth is that Twitter can be just about anything you want it to be. If you want to make friends or socialize, then Twitter will make that extremely easy for you. However, if you are like most business owners, then you already have enough to do without adding yet another social tool to skyrocket your website traffic.

Website: http://offto.net/0e8gde/

Get Millions of Traffic Free
Do you know you can really get over 1,000,000 Visitors Every Month For FREE? Absolutely! By creating your own Adsvert Account in less than 3 Minutes and then watching your Traffic Explode. Visit the #1 Free Traffic Site on the Internet!

Website: http://offto.net/0pg2v9/

Blogging Made Easy

2009-07-17T11:17:00.000-07:00

Wordpress Goldmine
Wordpress Goldmine has the solution. How much MORE WEB SITE TRAFFIC and MORE MONEY would YOU make if you knew the Secrets of the Super Bloggers?
Right this very moment, Internet Marketers are Branding Themselves Better, Attracting a Bigger Following, Building their Web Site Traffic, Increasing their Sales and MAKING MORE MONEY ONLINE through the magic of the newest technology in creating Blogs.

If you are interested, you may visit: http://offto.net/6ehzx7/

Learn How To Blog
Blogging Made Easy. Through this wonderful resource, you'll learn:
- The Keys To Being Successful With Blog Creation
- What Are Niche Blogs
- Advantages of Niche Blogs
- How You Can Make Money With Niche Blogs
- How To Create Your Profit Pulling Niche Blogs
- How You Can Create Content Without Writing
- How To Create Niche Products For Your Niche Blogs
- And More!

For more information, please visit: http://offto.net/4ejbd2/

Get Paid For Your Opinions

2009-07-17T10:37:00.000-07:00

Surveys 4 Checks
Would You Like to Make Easy Money Working from Home Just for Giving Your Opinion? Take surveys for pay and earn cash when you fill online surveys and quizzes. It does not feel like real work. You will get paid real money for sharing your experience about products you already use everyday.

If interested, you may visit: http://offto.net/1v0ymw/

Paid Surveys
Make money from taking online surveys. You get paid for each survey, the longer the survey the more you get paid. Fortune 500 companies need you. They need your opinion on your satisfaction from using their products. And they will pay you for telling them.

For more information, please visit: http://offto.net/ik7i2r/

Survey Scout
Everyday, companies are ready and willing to pay big bucks to people like you and me just to know what we are thinking? It's true! Get paid to complete online surveys. Earn extra money just for sharing your opinion on the internet. Get paid $10-$45 to complete easy 15 to 30 minute surveys. Start now.

You may check this out at: http://offto.net/0dq1na/

Brand New Paid Survey Site
Get Paid For Your Opinion. Get paid to take online surveys. We pay you $5 - $150 per survey. Participate in online focus groups. Try new products. Keep the products and get paid too. You will also get paid to preview movie trailers.

If your are interested, visit: http://offto.net/qxx4ej/

Recession Proof Income
Description - Very few people know that you can make a nice living online. All you need is a computer and internet access. Get paid to answer customer satisfaction surveys. Get paid to be in focus groups. Get paid to shop and eat, complete offers, surf the web and read mails. Get paid to drive your own car.

Website: http://offto.net/cns0c2/

Legitimate Make Money Online Ways

2009-07-17T09:53:00.000-07:00

Legitimate Online Jobs
Would you like to be your own boss and make money from home? If so, you can start immediately. Get access to the most legitimate money making opportunities available anywhere on the web all in one place. Learn how you can make money typing ads for companies from home. Don't just make a few cents reading emails. Start earning some real money from home today!

To know more, you may visit: http://offto.net/cpf054/

Dish Network
Discover How To Succeed in Your Own Online Home Business. This product is fully based on time-tested proven tactics that deliver amazing job-killing results.

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You may check it out here: http://offto.net/br41f2/

Profit Lance
This has the Amazing Profit Formula. Discover easy ways to get started making money online without investing a lot of time or money. This is step-by-step guide to show you the entire process of starting and profiting from an internet based business. This system covers everything from researching and surveying your target market, to other key steps you need to take to make huge profit online.

If interested, visit: http://offto.net/kv8705/

Automated Cash Formula
Learn how to totally eliminate the hard work to making money online. This does not involve Pay Per Click, Adsense, Selling Stuff As An Affiliate, Ezine Ads, Free Ads, Spam, Search Engine Optimization, Blogs, Writing Articles, Ebay, Gambling, Direct Mail, MLM or any advertising or marketing whatsoever…

For more information, you may visit: http://offto.net/ag6uri/

Instant Profit
Do you want to make more money in your life? It's Easy To Make Money Everyday From Home With This Software...Even If You're Starting From Scratch With Zero Knowledge, Experience Or Budget! You will be Shown Exactly How.

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The Mini Site Formula
This shows easy ways to get started making money online without investing a lot of time or money. You don't have to be a computer expert or some kind of internet marketing genius. If you can follow step-by-step instructions, that's all you need to make money with the Mini-Site Formula.

The details can be found at: http://offto.net/60ua0l/

Pro 2 Income System
With this, you will be able to Unlock the Niche Code with this system. Niches are not magical, newly discovered entities. They are simply markets within markets. Hungry and eager to buy.

This is step-by-step system will show you the entire process of starting and profiting from an internet based niche-targeted business. It covers everything from researching and surveying your target market, to creating and selling your final product.

Please, visit: http://offto.net/5r8egl/

Retired Millionaire
This resource contains secrets that have been tested, picked apart, and re-written so many times that they are finally considered to be the PERFECT money-making methods. Discover the most devastating Adwords techniques that most Gurus don’t even know. Discover the marketing tricks that many 6 figure marketers are using right now, in step-by-step detail.

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The Auto Cash System
Discover How To Succeed in Your Own Online Home Business. Have you ever spent your last dollar on the next big thing, the product that promised to make you thousands but when it was all said and done it left you broke? Well, break out of the trend that so many people are caught in every day and start making some real money online.

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Google Adwords - How to increase your ROI

2009-07-14T17:31:00.000-07:00

Google AdWords service has brought success to many businesses by providing them with a large amount of highly targeted traffic from as little as 1 cent per visitor. However, there is probably an equal number of webmasters who have paid for AdWords and seen little benefit or have indeed made substantial losses. If the latter applies to you, then the following may be useful to you.

The problem with Google AdWords is that it has become very difficult to find keywords at a reasonable price. Bidding on keywords like "make money online" or something in that range will kill your advertising budget in no time.

In most cases, a good market will be between 40,000 to 100,000 searches for that particular month. Less than that may be a weak market, and more than that could be too competitive. To find out for sure, you can use the Overture bidding tool for a particular word or phrase, and look at the third bid, it should be at least .30 up to $2.00. Again, less than .30 could be weak and more than $2.00 could be too competitive. You know, Overture is similar to Google AdWords, just it shows you the bid list.

Since the space in the Google Sponsored Links area is limited (about 10 slots per page), and the number of people using PPC to advertise their products is fairly large, there has to be a way of controlling who gets what placement (also called Adrank) in the Sponsored Links hierarchy.

Google controls this placement by 3 mechanisms:

1. Keywords/keyphrases
2. Bid price
3. Quality Score

The goal is to get your ad in the Sponsored Links section of the first page (or at most the second page) of the returned Google search results. That means your ad can be anywhere in the Sponsored Links position from 1-10, or 1-20 if you take into account the second page. People don't normally search beyond the first couple of pages of returned search results, so having your ad appear on the third page (or beyond) diminishes your chances of the ad being seen.

To get your ad in the first or second page of Google's Sponsored Links, and to maximize the number of quality clicks, you need 3 things:

1. Good Keywords/keyphrases
2. Bid in an active bid range
3. Good Quality Score

Using Good Keywords/Keyphrases
Keywords (or keyphrases) are the words that people type into Google when they run a search. You need to select the keywords that relate to your product so Google will know when to display your ad. From your perspective (the online Marketer), good keywords are the words that relate to your product. For example, if you run a Google PPC ad campaign and you're selling a course on how to train dogs, then a good keyword list might consist of:

dog
"Dog training"
"Train my dog"
"Training for dogs"
"dog obedience"
"dog growling"

Note: using quotes instructs Google to show your ad only when the searched keywords appear in that particular order.

The above keyword list is then applied to your Google PPC campaign. Now, every time a user runs a search for any of these keywords on Google, your ad COULD be returned in the 'Sponsored Links' section of the returned search results in Google.

As we mentioned previously, the keywords are not the only determining factor governing which ads appear in Google. Keep in mind, there are likely many other people running their own PPC campaigns that have the same keywords as you. And since there are only about 10 slots to place the sponsored ads in Google's first page, the ads that get a position in one of those 10 slots are the ads that are willing to pay the most for each click and the ads that have the higher Quality Score.

A good way to find keywords for your product is to use the Google Adwords Keyword Finder at: https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox

Bidding in an Active Bid Range
All popular (and many not so popular) keywords have an active bid range. The active bid range is the cost per click (CPC) range that results in your ad appearing in a preferred position within Google's Sponsored Links area (usually position 1-20). Obviously, the higher your ad is in the position, the more active (more clicks) will likely result.

So how much should you pay for each click to make sure your ad is in the active bid range? You should first find out what the going rate is for that particular keyword. You can get a good idea of what people are willing to pay for a given keyword by using Overture's Bid Tool.

You should keep in mind that your goal is to get a position anywhere on the first page of the Google search result, or second page at most. Hence, you to make sure you have the highest bid. In fact, you can even make more money by bidding much lower than the highest bid. For example, say you're bidding on the “dog training” key phrase and you find that the 1st position for that key phrase is going for $1.50 per click. You may very well find that the 4th or 5th position is going for $0.30 - $0.40 per click. In this case, I would opt for the 4th or 5th position. The cost savings is quite significant.

Getting High Quality Score
The Quality Score is derived from the keywords Click Through Rate (CTR), relevance of the text in the ad to the keyword, how well the keywords has performed in the past, and other things that Google has kindly decided not to share. Since there are some unknown factors here, it's best to focus on what you can do to increase your Quality Score.

One thing you can do is aim for a high Click Through Rate (CTR). A CTR is a percentage that is calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of times your ad appeared. For example, say your ad appeared 100 times, and out of those 100 times, 1 person clicked on your ad. Your CTR for that ad would then be 1/100=1%.

Another thing you can do is make sure your ad's text is relevant to the keyword. For example, if you were advertising a dog training course and your keyword was “cars”, then the relevancy of the keyword to the ad is low.

Not a new variant but a not very well-known version of affiliate marketing is the promotion of affiliate product links/websites via Google AdWords. It helps if you have years of experience in playing the chess game of targeted marketing through Google AdWords and other reliable online channels. The surge in popularity of Google's Adwords is very evident as you can see many sites that have adopted this marketing strategy. There has never been a direct marketing tool that is as effective and profitable as Google Adwords.

How to use Keywords to your advantage in Google Adwords

2009-07-14T16:47:00.000-07:00

Google adwords have provided results that are better-than-expected by the advertisers and their clients, paving the way for a new system of online advertising. The online advertising experts have developed smart techniques, which can prove to be cost efficient, as also be an effective means of increasing the traffic of your website. It needs a bit of experience to get the knack of how Google operates, as you never know what kind of move will be helpful in the long run. It has been a mystery for a large number of advertisers, as to why the keywords are blocked within a short span of time once they are launched. The reason for this can be quite a few, including, the activities of the hackers or the similarity of the keywords used by other competitors.

As you probably know, Google Adwords is a pay-per-click solution offered by Google. As with other PPCs, you are given the ability to place your small advertisement on various platforms controlled by Google. While the platform provides you with a large audience, you must manipulate your keywords to generate success.

Matching Options
When running an Adwords campaign, you can and should define when your keywords will appear in search results. To do this, you can select matching options for each of your keywords to either reach a broad audience or target a niche.

The Google Adwords platform allows you to select four matching options:

Broad Match
Broad match is the default setting for an Adwords campaign. Broad match means your ad will appear in search results when any combination of the words in your keyword phrase search. Many an advertiser has learned expensive lessons using this setting. Let's look at an example.

Assume I am selling travel writing diaries and using “travel journals” as my keyword phrase. Any time a person enters any combination of “travel” and “journals” in a search, my ad will appear. The ad will also appear for plurals and relevant variations. While this may sound great at first glance, a broad match setting can result in low quality hits and poor conversion rates. A person searching for travel journal stories is going to see my link. While a decent percentage will click my link, they are far less likely to buy because they are just browsing. Using broad match, my costs go up and my conversions go down.

Broad match isn't necessarily a bad option. If your product makes a popular Christmas gift, you definitely want to use the broad match option in November and December. You prospective clients will be motivated to buy. Even the “browsing” surfers will convert well.

Phrase Match
Phrase match is a matching option that gives you a bit more control over your ads. Phrase match tells the Adwords platform to only show your ad when a search is conducted for the particular order of your keyword phrase. Using the phrase match option for “travel journals”, my ad would appear when someone search for a phrase with “travel journals” in it, but not “journals travel”. To use phrase match for keyword phrases, you simply place quotation marks around them.

Exact Match
Exact match is exact match. It is the most targeted option. You should use it only if you want your ad to appear in searches for the exact keyword phrase as written. For instance, if I want my ad to appear in searches for “travel journals” and nothing else, I will use the exact match. To select the exact match option, simply place brackets (“[]”) around the keyword phrase.

Negative Match
No, the negative match option doesn't involve cussing, insults or adult sites. Instead, it allows you to designate which keyword phrase search results you do not want your ad to appear in. For example, I may not want my travel journal product to appear in search results for “Amazon travel journals”. I would simply list the keyword phrase with a dash (-) in front of it and my ad will not appear. The negative match option is a tremendous option for eliminating junk traffic from your Adwords campaign.

The Google Adwords platform is a tremendous advertising platform. Effectively manipulate your keywords and it can be a highly profitable one as well. You save a substantial amount on marketing costs once people start coming to your website. You can save both time and money on each click that your website receives. But one thing that you need to remember above all is that Google adwords is not about who can afford, but about who is more tech savvy and understands the world of online traffic and visitor-interests that keep on changing from time to time.

Google Adwords - How to make more profit with The Landing Page

2009-07-14T16:42:00.000-07:00

In creating a Google AdWords campaign, advertisers often spend most of their time creating their ads and researching their keywords. There is often little or no thought to where the surfer will be sent when the ad does its job and generates a click. Often advertisers send the surfer to the home page of their website, hoping the website will do the rest of the work. These advertisers are neglecting a very important part of their AdWords campaign: the landing page. A good landing page is just as important as a good ad, good keywords and strategic bidding. By creating an effective landing page advertisers can increase conversions, which will make their campaigns more competitive and profitable.

When creating your landing page remember to make it specific to the ad that is sending the traffic. As with everything else, the landing page must be highly targeted. If a surfer clicked an ad expecting to find gold plated doorknobs, then you better make sure the corresponding landing page has just that. There is nothing worse than having a customer who is ready to buy but can't.

The role of your ad is to get clicks. The role of your landing page is to convert those clicks into leads or sales. Make sure you can convert the surfer within 3 clicks or less. If the surfer has to click more than 3 times to buy your product you will probably lose the sale. Ideally you want the surfer to click only twice, once on your ad, and once on your landing page to get to your order page. That's it. The more clicks you have, the less sales you make.

Remember that surfers are impatient. You need to give them what they want with as little effort as possible on their part. Therefore, it is important to always keep your original objective (conversions) in mind, as well as to refer to the specific keywords and calls to action in your ad, when creating your landing page.

Can Adword clicks be sent to a Home page?
Yes. But what if you walked into a five-story department store with no sales people-- You're looking for a very specific sweatshirt with a Penn State Logo that you saw at a football game. You know the sports shop out in the mall will have it, but you've got a store credit card so you'd like to get it here. You're also holding onto two toddlers who are losing their cuteness very quickly because they want the Happy Meals you promised on the way home.

So there you are in an endless sea of perfume counters. You want a sweatshirt. Maybe it's in the men's section...but where is that? Or maybe it's in Active wear... would that be with the men's stuff? And where are the escalators?!

"Forget it," you think, and walk out to the sports shop in the mall, buy your sweatshirt and are on your way to Micky D's in less than 10 minutes.

Your homepage is the department store. It doesn't matter if you're selling a product, service, or giving away free information. You have sections and categories which are probably very well marked and labeled.

However, your Google Ad or Sponsored listing was specific. It advertised a precise thing in about 70 characters or less. People don't care about your home page. They expect to see what they were searching for as soon as they click. Don't you?

So let's say your ads lead to specific destination pages of your site. What's on those pages?

Destination Page Overview
For Pay Per Click, your destination pages are absolutely critical. They are the second half of the sales pitch. Just having the adword or PPC land on the product page is not enough. First, you have to get someone to your site.

Remember the number of hits you get on a PPC or Google Adword is an ever-increasing expense if you don't turn that click into a sale and the only sales person you have is the page at the end of that click.

You've got to convince someone quickly, "at a glance quickly," why they should buy from you and not the ad above or below you. Think of your own web searches. You have seconds to entice that viewer to read more, or lose them.

Build the page around a SINGLE goal incorporating:

1. Well written content describing in clear detail what you are offering

2. Organization to make a fast read or "scan" of the page convey as much information to the viewer as possible. Use bullet points and straightforward language to make reading as easy as possible

3. Show the benefits to the potential customer. Details that the viewer can relate to on a personal, even emotional level are what makes this page have a much better chance of getting a lead, conversion or sale. It must show all the properties that make you better than the rest. Don't be arrogant, but make the reader feel they will be secure, better and confident if they buy, fill out a form, or perform the action you're after.

4. KISS- "Keep it simple, stupid" applies here too. If you don't need a country and a phone number in your form, keep them off. Make it easy and simple for your viewer.

Remember, when you land on a page, you ask "WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME?"

Destination Page Construct

1. The first step is to provide the viewer with what he's looking for immediately. Next, show him the features of the product.

2. Most importantly, what is the benefit to the potential customer? Why should he buy from you? What will he gain by buying from you?

3. If you're selling a product that is very similar to other competing products, you need to focus your sales message on what makes your product unique. What are the unique benefits for your customer?

4. Anything that can steal focus from your objective risks losing a conversion. This includes other products, details not related to the main idea, and even the navigation system you use throughout your site. Don't give the viewer the option to go anywhere else but to a form, buy button or call to action.

5. Each destination page should have a single, obvious goal that gently tells the customer what to do. Don't try to cross sell or sign up for a newsletter and send an e-card. Stick to one goal.

6. Some people might be looking for the specific product and buy from you. But for those that are questioning and/or first time buyers, don't give them a chance to question your credibility.

7. The phone number and email address should appear (not obnoxiously)enough times that they're always visible when the page is scrolled. It's a proven fact, if someone has to search for how to contact you, you lose some potentials.

How To Create Landing Pages For Google Adwords

2009-07-14T16:28:00.000-07:00

Google Adwords, Yahoo (formerly called Overture Sponsored listings) and other Pay Per Click (PPC) companies give you the chance to get your ad or search listing at the top of the pack, right up front and perfectly matched to the searcher's query. With a clever and catchy, attention grabbing ad or headline you can win the viewer in that critical split second he has to decide to click.

He clicks, you score! Right? WRONG! If you can get that click on a focused, targeted keyphrase and ad headline, you should feel very good. You're halfway there. But, where does he land? On your home page? On the specific product page if you have an online store?

The page where the viewer lands is called a "landing page" or "destination page." It is equally as important as your ad headline and copy, if not more. Most sales, conversions, or leads that cost hard cash to Adwords or Yahoo are often lost because of poor, or non existent landing pages.

The landing page is where you will use all your copywriting skills to complete the sale. As I said before, the goal of your ad is to get the click, and the goal of your landing page is to get the sale. It is in your landing page where you have all the room you need to explain all the benefits and features of your product or service. It is important to remember that your landing page is your sales page.

Your ad did its job by generating enough interest in the surfer to click through to your landing page. Now you should continue to hook and draw the prospect into your copy to complete the sale. The best way to do this is through a good headline. This headline should hook the prospect by appealing to her self-interest. What's in it for her? How will your product or service benefit her?

Continue to expand on your headline in your copy with more benefits for the prospect, and support these benefits with the features of your product or service. Do this throughout your copy and with subheadings. Make sure you keep the prospect interested and try to build some excitement in your product or service.

Use plenty of bullets and lists in your copy to show your benefits and features. Bullets are essentially mini headlines. Bullets can be used to summarize all benefits the prospect will gain from your product or service. They can also summarize all the problems your prospect is experiencing and that your product or service can solve.

Headlines, subheadings and bullets are very important aspects of your landing page. Surfers are impatient and impulsive. They tend to be in a hurry and want instant gratification. As a result, they often only scan the page. If a surfer is scanning your page, they will only read your headline, subheadings, and bullets. It is important that you get all the benefits to the prospect included in your headlines, subheadings, and bullets, for this reason. Of course there are also surfers who will read your whole page, so you will need to have good copy, which provides greater detail and all the information the prospect needs to make a decision.

Pictures are usually very effective, especially if you are selling a product. In this case make sure the surfer gets a good, clear look at the product. Since the surfer cannot touch the product it is important that they get as much visual information as they need. Your copy should support your pictures and your pictures should support your copy. The important thing is that the landing page is focused on what the prospect wants. So if the prospect is looking for gold plated doorknobs, then when they click your ad they should go to a landing page where they only see pictures of gold plated doorknobs, and only read text that describes the features and benefits of gold plated doorknobs.

Finally, at some point you will need to ask for the sale. This all needs to be done on your landing page. Do not ask the surfer to click through to another page and try to close the sale there. You must close the sale on your landing page. The surfer should only have to click through to your order page to provide their credit card information. If you are only looking to generate leads, have the form they need to fill out on the landing page as well.

The landing page is a very important aspect of a Google AdWords campaign. You should spend the same amount of time, if not more, creating your landing page as you do creating your ad and generating your keywords. By creating effective landing pages you can improve the overall profitability of your campaigns. Improving the profitability of your campaign can allow you to bid more per keyword and generate more traffic. In end, the landing page is an integral part of your search engine marketing and should not be neglected.

A concept developed in 1961 still holds merit today and is a great check for the underlying tone of your landing page. That is the "Unique Selling Proposition" by Rosser Reeves. The concept explains how every company should strive to show how it differs and surpasses its competition.

It consists of three concepts that should be applied to your advertisement (or adword) and your destination page.

1. Tell the consumer what benefits you will be giving him. ? "Buy this product, and you will get this specific benefit."

2. The benefits have to be unique to your product. Something that separates you from what the competition has to offer. If your products are sold by competitors too, find something that distinguishes YOUR company.

3. The proposition must be so strong and convincing that it can move the millions (attract new customers).

To be successful, you'll need to research and build a campaign, then watch and modify, test and retest different changes, words, prices, etc.

The same testing, observing, tracking and revising apply to landing pages as they do to ads and headlines themselves. It can save you a lot of money. If you're not careful you can run up thousands of dollars in PPC and adwords with insignificant sales or leads.

Google Adwords - How it works

2009-07-14T16:24:00.000-07:00

Google, in the present internet world, is one of the most successful and fastest growing companies. This is also in part due to the particular service which Google offers to its users - that of a search engine. Thus, people turn towards it as a reliable source of information. So, Google found itself in a unique position of bringing marketers and consumers closer to each other. The result of this was the creation of the Google Adwords advertising process. This service is Google's own improvement on the Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising model.

Google Adwords is the most sophisticated and popular pay-per-click advertising system on the internet. Unlike regular search engine listings, which are listed for free according to "relevance," as defined by the particular search engine involved, Adwords are small text ads which usually appear to the right of the unpaid listings. Advertisers bid on specific "keywords", which determines where the ad is displayed. However, unlike other search engines, where placement is completely determined by the amount of the bid, Google uses a complex calculation which also takes into the account the popularity of the ad as well. Thus, an ad which gets clicked on a lot can end up in a better position than one with a higher bid. That's how Google rewards the ad for relevancy, so it pays to create an ad that will invite clicks.

We all know how a Google search works. You type in your query and Google displays the top ten results on the page. Google Adwords takes the advantage of this fact of a captive audience - the researcher - and displays a list of unobtrusive advertisements on the right side of the web page. These ads link directly to your website, immediately guaranteeing a focused audience. Also, Google offers the same facility for many of its partner sites like AOL and Earthlink etc. Recently, Google has started another service - Adsense. This service enables you to display your advertisements on a website relating to the product or service you are selling.

There are a few guidelines on how to optimize Google Adwords to work profitably for you. While choosing keywords (on whose searches your advertisement will appear) be very careful, otherwise you will just be wasting your money on some very general keywords. Also, since Google allows you to bid for the keywords you want, decide beforehand how much you are able to pay for a link. One of the crucial advantages of Google Adwords is that this is a Pay-Per-Click model. This means that you only need to pay money to Google when a searcher actually clicks on the link to your website and ends up visiting it.

Also, Google offers you a number of customization tools to help you reach your favored section of the consumer population. For example, you can choose the countries to which you want your advertisement to reach. Google offers a list of more than 250 countries for you to choose from. Along with this, you can decide from over 14 languages in which your advertisement would be displayed. Google also has a novel Discounter program. This software automatically calculates the lowest you need to offer to stay ahead of the competition and immediately informs you of the same.

A plus point for Google Adwords over others is that Google Adwords maintains the position of your ad through not only Pay Per Click but also Click Through Rate. This is essentially important because this way even the small fish have the chance to stay alive. The company with the bigger bank balance does not win hands down; each company must strive to stay at the top. If your content is good, and your CTR is good then you can keep your place on the search results page easily.

Adwords Campaign - Bringing you great exposure

2009-07-14T16:08:00.000-07:00

Google's Adwords is a keyword targeted advertising program. The original Google Adwords program was discontinued because its basic idea was to pay per impression which did not guarantee traffic to the advertiser and was not so popular. With the overhauling that the Google Adwords received in 2002 changed all of that. Google's Adwords is advertising model that works on the principle of pay per click advertising. It is keyword targeted which means that when a user searches for certain keywords that are related or present on your site then Google Adwords automatically display your site along with the results of the search in a column right next to the search results.

With Google Adwords, you choose which keywords you choose to advertise and hence when your ad is displayed on the search page it will display what you feel is your most relevant content. This way you are guaranteed a click if your domain name or the content appears relevant to the user. It is PPC advertising which means that you only pay if the user clicks on your domain name and hence visits your site. Adwords also makes sure that your ad stays at its position on the search engine page because the program Discounter reduces the price you pay per click to one above your competitor which also means that you are not required to constantly check on the position of your advert, Google Adwords does that for you.

Advertising with Adwords has many advantages:

1. First, the ad is displayed immediately, as opposed to waiting for sites to show up in regular listings, which can take months.

2. Second, they can be highly targeted, meaning you can make sure you're only paying for clicks by customers who are sincerely interested.

3. Third, Adwords allows you to run several ad campaigns simultaneously, so you can test the results and experiment on the fly to constantly improve the quality of the ads. You can even track the "conversion rate," or the actual number of sales generated by a given ad. This is extremely precise marketing.

The first step is to come up with the best possible list of keywords. This is extremely important, because if you bid on the same ones everyone else is bidding on, you will end up with very expensive clicks. You can use any of the many keyword search tools available (wordtracker.com has a popular one) to determine which keywords have lots of searches but not too much competition. If you bid on enough low-cost keywords, you can do as well or better than if you had placed an expensive bid on a popular term. You can also place a limit on your budget, so that you can control how much your total expenditure is per month. You can also specify certain words you do not want included, so that you don't attract a lot of clicks from people looking for something related that you don't offer.

The ad itself consists of four lines: a title of no more than 25 characters, a description with two lines of up to 35 characters each, and a line for your url, also limited to 35 characters. The title is what really attracts attention. It should include the keyword you're targeting, and should be as striking as possible so as to stand out from the crowd. If it's truly attention-getting, it could end up getting more clicks than other, duller ads higher up on the page. Some suggest that it should be in all caps, and include a price if possible.

The description should include the major selling point of your product, and also include enough information to discourage clicks by unqualified customers. Make sure they know what you're selling and what to expect, as well as what sets you apart from the competition.

Finally, make sure the URL listed takes them to the most relevant page in your site for what they're looking for. Make sure the link is up to date and functioning correctly.

Blogs And Blogging To Profit

2009-06-29T14:11:00.001-07:00

'Blogs' or 'Blogging' have existed for several years and there are still many people who don't know what one is and how important it is to making you money.

A blog is a web log. It's used to add contents of a diary or news by the owner (blogger). For example, I may want to blog about the latest affiliate programs there are and ones that have good commissions as soon as I know about them. People can visit my website and see new contents on my website regularly.

A blog should contain information about a similar topic. For example, cars, computers, stamps etc... The good thing about blogs is that you can write whatever you want on it. Your visitors can even comment on what they think about a particular blog. With a blog you do not need to have any programming experience. You can update a blog easily by just typing what you want just like with a word processor. What an easy way to update a website.

So now we know what a blog is, what's so good about a blog? Why are so many talking about it?

Owners have found that updating fresh content to their websites has been made easier by using blogging software. Before blogs were popular, people had to create the content, get it transferred into HTML by the programmer, and then uploaded to the website. All this hassle is gone with blogging.

Perhaps, the most important thing about having a blog is that the search engines love them. Yes, search engines love new content. It means a website is not static, therefore search engines will visit that website often and get them indexed. If you have a blog, search engines will have your website in their listings quickly.

Blogging should be done regularly by your business. The customers should have the feeling that your blog will be updated regularly so that they will feel the need to visit often. If your blog is stagnant, then people will not go back. This is not how blogs are used.

What a lot of people don't know about blogging is that it can also help make you money. Yes - blogs can be profitable too.

Everybody has picked up the trend of blogging. And blogging has picked up the money-making scheme. If you have a blog and have not used that to make money online, then you are being left behind by the others who are already making some good profits from blogs.

How do they do that?

Selling advertising though blogs.

This is the most common ways of making blogs produce income. The process is simple. If your blog is one of those more famous and well-read, you can it to sell ad space all by yourself. But for those not so famous blogs, there are services that can be used to set up an ad program. The widely used one is Adsense.

Adsense lets you choose some ads that are somewhat related to what your site is about. You are then paid based on the number of the readers that clicked on the ads to check them out. Why people opt for Adsense is because they can get it for free.

Blogs as an affiliate program.

This is another one of those click-through opportunities. This allows blogs to serve as a medium between the affiliate sites and the readers. When a visitor became interested on something that you have promoted on your blogs, they can click on the link that you have provided that will lead directly to the affiliate site.

Once the customer has decided to buy or avail of what is offered, you will get a commission based on the sale made.

Soliciting though blogs.

As opposed to the first two mentioned, you are not offering something to your readers. On the contrary, you are counting on their kindness and seeking out their help. You can ask for contributions, whether money or goods, for a certain cause.

If your readers are taken or is moved by what you have written, there is a likely possibility that they will be more than willing to help you.

Blogging to market.

Blogs are a way of generating new businesses and getting potential customers. If you already have a product or service being offered, you can try and offer more and new things though blogs.

They can be your own or in reference to other site or business that you want to offer your readers.

Other ways you can also profit from blogs is to provide valuable content to them, and keep them regularly informed. Once you have created that relationship with them, you can place affiliate links within your blogs. These have to be products or services that you recommend to your readers to use. Good commission comes with using this idea.

You can even ask your readers to donate money to maintain your blog. Stress that your blog is a free service and you hope that they will support you etc...

Once you have a lot of visitors to your blogging website, you can use Google's Adsense which shows Google's ads on your blogs. When your visitors click on those ads, you'll get a percentage of the payment for each click. With a lot of visitors, this will add up to a nice check every month.

You can even have an advertising space at the top of your blog. Advertise this space. You can charge people weekly to advertise what they want. You may even have more than one space for advertisements. The more popular and more visitors your blog gets, the more you can charge for these advertising spaces.

With the publicity that blogs are getting nowadays, there is no doubt that it has become one of the most effective income generating tool online today.

How To Blog For Profit

2009-06-29T14:10:00.002-07:00

A weblog, which is usually shortened to blog, is a website where regular entries are made (such as in a journal or diary) and presented in reverse chronological order. Blogs often offer commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. Most blogs are primarily textual although many focus on photographs, videos or audio. The word blog can also be used as a verb, meaning adding an entry to a blog.

Many companies and individuals who wish to promote the sale of their products online offer affiliate programs. That is, if you (a weblog owner) sign up for an affiliate program, you will be given a unique affiliate ID. This affiliate ID is then used to identify the referrer of the sale. If there are successful sales of products using your affiliate ID, you will then receive appropriate renumeration as stated in the affiliate agreement.

In the several instance that you have browsed the net you have probably come across a blog or two. Blogs refers to online journals where people express their feeling through writing. They represent personal opinions of authors about certain topics. Blogs allows people to share their ideas and interest with other people around the globe.

Blogs have become popular nowadays for a number of reasons. First, they are search engine friendly. As long as you are making posts regularly, search engines spider them and index them often. Search engines loves blogs because of the regularly updated, fresh content they present. Second, it's the quickest way to build a website. People who want to build a website but do not know HTML and how to create a website can use blogs instead. You do not really need to create websites or any programming language. And third, blogging increase marketing reach dramatically.

Even if you are not much of a writer you can always try blogs. When you become consistent with your blogging you will soon realize why it is important for internet marketers. But setting up a blog does not mean that you will have a one hundred percent boost in your income. A blog won't give you any new ways to make money except with the following ways:

1. Selling advertising space. You can sell text links or banners on your blog. If your blog have a high page rank then this strategy might work for you.

2. Offer affiliate ads. You can offer visitors links or banners to your affiliate products or services just like with a website.

3. The simplest way to get money through your blogs is by having Adsense or any other ads in your blog. Once people click on this ads, that the time you make money.

Keep in mind that your competitors are probably using blogs so you must use one as well. If your competitors are blogging then they are perhaps reaching customers easily and effectively. When you have a blog you can publish information about your business quickly while keeping pace with the growth in the market.

Simply put, blogs are useful social and communication tools. The market is getting smarter and more organized. People would want to talk to you and want to participate in the development of your products. Blogs can allow this because readers can submit their comments to the authot's post if the author allows it.

Blogs will be around for the years to come so it may be a smart decision to start blogging now.

How To Effectively Market With Video On The Web

2009-06-29T14:10:00.001-07:00

Online video publishing has indeed taken the Internet by storm in recent years, making the use of video for marketing, promotion, news and PR online a true key strategic component and a key business differentiator for internet marketers who want to communicate effectively about their product profile and benefits within the shortest possible of time.

Internet is full of information and the average attention span of a web user today is measured in seconds. When web users search for their information at a search engine, they will get thousands of search results; when they visit your website, they may only spend a few seconds and little efforts to scan through what you are selling or proposing and decide whether your content, style, look and approach are a good fit for what they were actually looking for. These first few seconds are crucial and if you can delivery clear and targeted message by offering a fast, highly visual way to get their further attention and engage their interest, you have done bingo.

Does this mean that you just need to simply put up 10-min video tutorial on your website or just slamming some video contents up on your web pages, you will instantly sell more products or services? If this is your way of marketing with video on the web and hoping to get high conversion rate of traffic-to-sales, you will more toward getting disappointments than good news.

In order to make your video to effectively market your products/services online and convey your product/service key traits and characteristics within a very short amount of time in a unique, memorable way. These are a few rules of thumb to follow:

1. Get Your Video Seen

If you want your video to be your effective marketing tool, it must be able to see by as many web users as possible. Hence, don't just keep and tight your video inside your web site borders. Let your video content be free and distributed to the majors video sharing websites such as YouTube and Google video so that not only others can watch and talk about it, but they can easily download it, redistribute it, if not even publish it directly on their own sites.

2. Small File; Load Fast

Statistics show that average web users spend their time waiting for a page to load is about 7 seconds. Web pages that take longer than 7 seconds to load, their visitors normally are on the verge of clicking away and visit other website. Hence, you need to make sure your video file is small enough, ideally less than 1 megabyte and load almost in real time to keep the interest your visitors. AVI is the most common video format, the file size can easily exist 10 megabytes for a short 2-3 minutes video; hence if you share your video in this format, you most probably will get "click away" from you visitors because of long loading time of your video file. Hence, you must get a video format conversion tool to convert your video to a more internet friendly format such as SWF format.

3. Let Them Know It's A Video, A Short Video

If the web users do not know that it is a video, they won't click it and play it; hence your video will get watch. So, you must let the web users know that the "box" is a video; the best way is to make it look like a video / VCR-like by having a play and stop button where the web users can click to play the video and stop it whenever they want to stop it.

Let the web users know also this is a short video. No one wants to sit through a 30 minute presentation on the history of your company; be focused on your products/services and deliver your messages preferable within 2 minutes.

Effectively market with video on the web is not just slamming some video content up on your web pages. It is more towards effective video communication through video publishing and sharing on the web.

Video File Types To Put Video On Your Website

2009-06-29T14:07:00.002-07:00

There are many types of files to put video on your website. If you want to put video on your website you must have a good knowledge of the basic video file types. What video file type to use? what are the pros and cons of each file type? These are just some of the questions you should ask yourself before proceeding with video implementation on your webpages.

There are three basic video file types on the internet. Mpeg, AVI and Quicktime. I believe the Quicktime file type is the most popular since a lot of huge entertainment and news sites use it exclusively on their web pages.

AVI is the oldest of the three main file types. It is a windows oriented video format but it's not the most popular because of the sound and video compatibility and synchronizing problems. Because the Quicktime format can be used on either a windows or a macintosh computer, the AVI video file type loses it's popularity every day.

The mpeg format is a popular video file type that uses it's high output quality to increase it's popularity over the Quicktime format. Mpeg is used on video games, cd-roms and other media that require high output quality. One disadvantage of mpeg is that it sacrifices file size to gain in digital quality. The mpeg video files are usually large.

Another disadvantage of the mpeg format is that you really need time and sophisticated hardware and software to convert plain video into mpeg. And let's not forget that the mpeg format is not supported by apple and macintosh meaning that if you put mpeg video on your website, those users with macintosh will not be able to see it.

Quicktime is by far the most popular video file type developed by apple for macintosh users, but is also compatible with the IBM-compatible machines and the windows operating systems. The hardware and software you need to digitize video into the Quicktime format is very inexpensive, compared to the mpeg format. So its much easier and cheaper to create video and put it on your website using the Quicktime format.

Free and Legal MP3 - How To Download Them

2009-06-29T14:07:00.001-07:00

Free music download is possible. Everybody who has ever surfed the Net knows that music can be downloaded freely. Although there are many questionable sites that offer free music, you do not have to do anything illegal to find good music on the Web.

So, where can you download free and legal MP3? Below are some great sites where you can download good music without having to break the law.

Download Free and Legal MP3s at Amazon.com

Amazon.com may be best known for its books, but the site also features a Free Music Downloads section where you can download free and legal MP3s. The site offers music from different genres, including Alternative, Indie, Punk, Blues, Broadway, Children's Music, Christian, Classical, Country, Dance, Folk, International, Jazz, Latin, New Age, Opera, Pop, Rap, Hip Hop, Rock, R&B, Soundtracks, and more. If you're a musician or an artist, you can also upload your own MP3s here for free and let music lovers discover and experience your own brand of music.

Download Free and Legal MP3s at eMusic.com

Perhaps one of the best places to look for and purchase MP3s online is eMusic.com. This is because the site offers files that are not copy-protected, thus letting you download an unlimited number of songs to satisfy your music needs. The music may not come for free but for every new sign up, the site offers up to 50 files completely without charge.

Download Free and Legal MP3s at GarageBand.com

GarageBand is where you can find the best Independent music from the most talented Indie artists. The site has recently partnered itself with MSN music to realize the Internet's true potential in providing a means for both artists and music fans to connect and transform the music business.

Download Free and Legal MP3s at IUMA.com

IUMA is where you can find and download free and legal MP3s from famous, not-so-famous, and unsigned artists all over the world. If you're into Indie music then this is the place for you. IUMA is mainly dedicated to bringing you music from undiscovered artists whom you should know about.

Download Free and Legal MP3s at Download.com

CNET's Download.com is one of the premier places where you can download free and legal MP3s. The site has one of the largest music archives on the Web so you can have your choice of music to suit your taste. At this site, you do not only hear the artist's music, but you can also take a closer look on how their music came to be by reading artist's bios and stories.

Download Free and Legal MP3s at AmpCast.com

Ampcast is another music site where you can download free and legal MP3s. Search through their entire archive for Independent artists or music from popular rock/pop groups. And if you don't like to download anything, you also have the choice to feeds from the Ampcast Surreal Radio. The site also offers great music videos which you can watch through video streaming and community features such as forums and chatroom where you can talk with other music lovers or Ampcast artists about your favorite topic - music.

As you can see, there are plenty of sources of free and legal MP3 music on the Internet, you just have to know where to look.

Video Website - How To Build A Funny One

2009-06-29T14:06:00.000-07:00

Early on, there were only comic books and video tapes that people brooded over to have a good laugh, but today there are so many websites available for the same. These websites are filled with funny crazy pictures, funny video clips and allow the user to surf through and watch any video they wish to. They can either watch the top rated ones or specify a search keyword and look for that one particular video. However, building a funny video website is not as easy as it seems. If an individual wants to create a website, they need to go through a rigorous process. And so, you can imagine the amount of details involved for a company to launch a website. Their main content would be based on humor and interactive flash games only.

Once a company decided to get into the funny video website category, they will need to assess the other websites already existing in the market and what they can offer that isn't already there. As they discuss these issues with their team, they will also have to touch base with a good web hosting company to figure out if they can use their domain for the upcoming website. A funny videos website consumes a lot of bandwidth, so a dedicated server is usually required for hosting. The one thing to keep in mind is that every step of the way takes a lot of effort, so one must have a clear cut budget before delving into this pool.

A website needs bright appealing colors, simple easy to use layout and most importantly content that will catch the eye of the person browsing through the site. If they find it interesting, they will stop and spend couple of more minutes, else will move on to other websites. A good PHP or ASP programmer can do the customized coding and put in all the necessary links, but it is difficult to find someone who will understand your needs and create a site that satisfies your dreams. The funny images and videos that you put in your site should be unique and be humorous. Some also have the html code for the video to be embedded in other websites, like MySpace or Blogs. This will help your site stand out among the crowd and get people to notice it. Finding interested people to contribute to the funny crazy pictures, flash animation videos will take time for a start up venture.

Will there be categories to sort the videos into? For example, if a person wants to upload videos about his dogs, will your sites have a category labeled “Dog Videos”? This will come in handy when a new visitor is looking for funny videos related to dogs. This makes it easier for them to navigate through your site and find what interests them, making them stick around longer to browse the other features on your site.

Some of the crazy pictures and funny video clips on other sites have the option for the viewer to rate the video, and post a comment. These are added features that allow the user to feel important making them come back to the site. The company should therefore think through their plan and get their facts together before putting their site out to the public. And if it is not interesting, or the pictures aren't funny enough, you will have lost a prospective member. It is therefore advisable for the company to spend time in doing their research to try and come up with an idea to outdo the other funny video websites.

Article Rejection - What Are The Causes

2009-06-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

Article marketing has become a huge trend in Internet marketing today. Many marketers are using articles as their primary, and even sole, form of traffic generation and search engine optimization. However some marketers lament that article marketing doesn't seem to work for them, especially as their article submissions are often rejected.

To make sure that more of your articles get published, follow these simple guidelines and you will have a better chance of seeing your articles online.

1. Subject line is all CAPS. You should only capitalize the first letter of each word. All caps signifies shouting.

2. Misspelled words and incorrect grammar. Ensure that you read and re-read your article before submitting it and check for spelling errors.

3. Article is too short or too long. Most article web sites prefer articles in the 500 to 700 word range.

4. Article is improperly formatted. Different word processors treat characters differently. Sometimes a dash or an apostrophe display as question marks. Using a text editor is better than a word processor.

5. Subject spamming. If I receive a number of articles on the same subject and by the same author with similar titles and summaries then I will suspect article spamming. Rather than sort out which articles might offer quality unique content I simply reject them all.

6. Too many links. Most article sites allow links in the author's resource box but having more than one or two will get your article declined.

7. Links in the articles. Not many article sites allow links in the text of the article. It is best to just have them in the author's resource box.

8. Improper bolding. It is understandable if sub-paragraphs are being bold or an occasional word bolded for emphasis but you should not bold your links.

9. The article was not submitted to the right category. If I'm in a nice mood or I'm really interested in the article then I might recategorize it. If I recognize an author who regularly delivers quality content I might recategorize it. If it is in the right broad category I might move it to a more specific subcategory. However if it was submitted with no apparent thought or effort then I will most likely reject it. If the author can't be bothered to select the right category then why should I take the time?

10. Incorrect HTML. Ensure that your HTML - especially your links - are formatted properly. I have seen many errors that make your link ineffective. The most common errors are using an apostrophe instead of a quotation mark at the beginning and end of the link and not closing the link properly.

11. Articles don't make sense. This is usually caused by writers using some sort of a rotator or thesaurus to change the positioning of sentences or words so that when using an auto submitter, the articles are different at all the various article web sites. I understand the reasoning to have unique articles but some of these programs don't work as well as you would like.

12. The article does not belong in this directory. Usually this is true of a large percentage of my niche directory rejections. If the directory is about Internet promotion don't submit your articles about breast augmentation!

13. Submitting ads instead of articles. It is best to write an article related to your product or web site instead of blatantly advertising whatever it is you are trying to sell.

This is not an all-inclusive list and reflects only one man's observations. But, I do have about 10 different article sites and also some blogs that accept articles automatically. I screen the articles daily and these are the guidelines I use to accept or reject articles.

Article Submission and Google PR

2009-06-29T13:59:00.000-07:00

Article submission can help to make more web site sales, generate more traffic, increase your Google PR and even boost your Alexa rating. If done frequently and correctly, article submissions can help you to gain higher rankings on Google, Yahoo, and MSN. That will help drive more targeted visitors to your web site. Article Submission is a powerful search engine optimization tactic of gaining quality one way links to your sites. While there is some debate among SEO experts, most agree that article submission is among the best free methods of building free one way links.

Article submission can save hours of your time in getting one way links to your web site. Article submission is one proven link building strategy. Articles usually shouldn't have more than two links in the Author Bio section and html is not allowed in the body, for the best approval results. Article writing and submission can give you high quality one way links and can result in a higher page rank in comparison to other SEO techniques.

These links will often help to increase your Google PR and move up your relevance in the search engine results. As you are probably aware, the PR of a web site that is pointing to yours plays a role in determining the value of your own web site in Google PR calculations, there by increasing your chances of gaining ground in the Search Engine Ranking Pages. The smaller directories with low page rank can also help to improve your Google PR. Articles are usually crawled very quickly and in most cases can be found in the SE's in just a few days.

With submission software, you have to manage the submissions based on a list in the software, which may need to be updated occasionally. A good rule is to put the more comprehensive writing on your own web site and make a shorter version for submissions to other websites. Article submission software is one of the best internet marketing tools. There are many software solutions out there that can help to cut down the time for article submissions.

Viral Marketing and Article Submission

One of the most important aspects of having success online is to use your limited marketing and time resources in the most effective way possible. In other words, you need to get as much return on your investment as you can by spending the smallest amount of resources (which could be monetary or time-related). For Internet marketing, there is one excellent strategy that answers all of the requirements from above - it's called viral marketing.

Through viral marketing you initiate an action and then allow it to propagate, much like water ripples would do in a pond if you threw a rock in the water. The whole concept uses the “word of mouth” idea, but is ads the speed and efficiency of virtual communication.

On the Internet, a viral marketing campaign may bring your website a huge amount of traffic for an initial investment that is almost negligible.

One of the most important, effective and easy to use tools of viral marketing is the process of submitting articles to directories - let's have a look at how this works and why it's so effective in Internet Marketing.

How does it work?
The process is simple and you don't need any programming skills to initiate a viral marketing campaign. Simply write a high quality article, or commission someone else to do it for you. Choose a topic that is related to your website, but make sure it addresses issues that are of general interest in the target audience.

For example, if you own a site on dog training or dog products, you might want to write a more general article on this topic, as that has a better chance of spreading around. Add a “resource box” at the end of the article, writing about yourself in the 3rd person and describing your website.

If you are already submitting articles, but you're looking for an easier and faster method, you might want to try an automatic article submitter. It will submit your article to over 30 directories in half an hour.

Two-Tier Affiliate Programs - The Benefits

2009-06-29T13:58:00.000-07:00

Two-tier affiliate programs are a great source of income. To those who are not familiar with affiliate marketing, two-tier could be a new term to you but to those who are involved in this kind of money-making experience; it could mean a stream of income. Two-tier is an enticing feature of a particular affiliate program wherein, affiliates are allowed to sign-up additional affiliates below them. So that when the sub-affiliates otherwise known as second tier affiliates, earns a commission, the affiliate above receives a commission too.

In two-tier system, the first tier of commission is just like in the usual affiliate program. The sole difference is that it has an additional tier/s or sub-affiliates, whereby marketers also gain a commission once the people that the additional tiers referred to the program generate sales. Theoretically, affiliate programs can have multi-tier program with infinite number of tiers, however, there are practical limitations. As tiers increase, the affiliate program draws more webmasters who are mostly interested in gaining profit from other's work and effort.

Two-Tier affiliate program is also recognized as Multi-Level Marketing. When you sign-up for an affiliate program, you are identified as the first tier and the person that you have recruited or encouraged to sign up is the second tier. If there are additional tiers, then the system can now be regarded as multi-level marketing (MLM). But today, MLM isn't as effective and successful as it was several years ago. It is because at present, affiliates can freely select from thousands of affiliate programs and they can quickly switch from one program to another.

You could probably go wrong if you're thinking that you can depend on your second tier to do the job for you. So if you want to use two-tier affiliate program to your advantage and generate more income by encouraging sub-affiliates to sign-up below you, make sure that you carefully choose your affiliate merchant. Pick those merchants who generate stable stream of high quality products, give high or just commissions, offers real time tracking, furnishes you with a proven and tested advertising arsenal and treat their affiliates very well. You can also sign-up for the merchant who gives high visitors-to-sales conversion rate.

It is also advisable if you engage yourself with a web merchant that has a user-friendly website which you can access anytime so that you can monitor your statistics including visits and sales. And if possible, choose the one with powerful marketing tools which you can use in promoting their products.

You're just wasting much of your time and effort and worse, damaging your integrity once you promote poor affiliate program because your visitor will surely presume that the product or service you are reselling must be dreadful too. That's the reason why it is important to pick first-rate affiliate programs. Through these, you can not only build up a good relationship with your visitor, but also, you can easily get more tiers to sign-up under you. You should also be cautious of some affiliate programs that give more importance on the profits to be earned in taking on other affiliates than on the income from sales, because you'll just eventually find out that someone has already close those sales without informing you. Usually, this kind of affiliate program offers a very low first-tier payment but a sky-scraping second-tier commission.

If you want to start an affiliate program of your own, you surely have to decide whether it will be a single tier or two-tier affiliate program. Who am I to say which of these two programs are better? But let me tell you the benefits you could get out of two-tier affiliate program.

First, your profit will increase due to increased sales from the customers that your second tier has referred. Second, you have a much broader customer base to which you can sell your products and services. Then, you gain more and stable income because the customers referred by your affiliate and sub-affiliates could probably develop a lifetime loyalty on your site and your products. Plus, you have an army of sub-affiliates who will promote and resell your products and services to their visitors and subscribers.

Two-tier program has been a proven winner and should be the number one choice for the budding affiliates as well as for the affiliate program managers. When you start gaining profits from your site as well as your tiers, this is now the right time to say that you have used two-tier affiliate program to your advantage.

Types Of Affiliate Marketing

2009-06-29T13:57:00.000-07:00

Affiliate marketing programs has never been as popular before as it is today. Why? There can be a number of reasons. The most probable reason, however, could be the fact that the benefits of affiliate marketing have become clearer to a lot of people now than they were before.

Today, both the merchants and the affiliates can see clearly that affiliate marketing can work for both of them. The merchant sees affiliate marketing today as the chance to advertise their products at a lower cost. The affiliates, on the other hand, sees affiliate marketing as an easy way of earning profits online by doing what they like most, and that is by creating websites.

Just as the popularity of affiliate marketing has shifted into greater heights, so has the people's outlook about it changed. No longer is affiliate marketing considered today as an alternative method for the merchant to advertise his products, or as a source of additional income for the affiliates. For merchants and affiliates alike, affiliate marketing is now considered as a main source of profits and revenues.

So the question now is what type of affiliate marketing will work best for you? Are all affiliate marketing programs the same? Are the benefits the same? Or are there affiliate marketing programs that work better than the others?

There are actually different types or classes of affiliate marketing, and the number of types will depend on how one will classify them. The most basic affiliate marketing programs, however, falls under two categories: pay-per-click (PPC), and pay-per-performance (PPP).

1. Pay Per Click (PPC)

PPC is the most popular type of affiliate marketing for affiliates with small websites, and probably the easiest way for them to earn money. In this affiliate marketing type, the merchant pays his affiliate whenever a visitor is referred to his site, that is whenever someone clicks through the merchant's banner or text ads. The affiliate gets paid a certain amount even if the visitor he referred does not purchase anything from the merchant's site. However, typical fees for PPC affiliate programs are small, usually not exceeding a dollar for every click.

2. Pay Per Performance (PPP)

PPP affiliate marketing is the most popular among merchant and is also the most lucrative type for the affiliates. In this type of affiliate program, the merchant only pays the affiliate whenever his referral translates into an action—that is whenever the visitor he has referred actually buys something from the merchant's site or when the visitor becomes a lead. This means a lot of savings for the merchant. On the other hand, it becomes the most lucrative type for the dedicated affiliate, for commissions in PPP affiliate marketing usually comes in the range of 15% to 20% of the actual product sales.

Pay-per-performance affiliate marketing can be further classified into two popular types: pay-per-sales (PPS) and pay-per-lead (PPL).

3. Pay Per Sale (PPS)

In a pay-per-sale type of affiliate marketing, the merchants pay the affiliate a certain fee whenever the visitor he has referred to the merchant's site actually buys something from the merchant's site. Affiliates are often paid on commission basis, although other merchants would opt to pay a fixed fee. But no matter what the basis of the fee is, it is generally higher than the fee paid to affiliates in a pay-per-click affiliate program.

4. Pay Per Lead (PPL)

The pay-per-lead type of affiliate marketing is a slight variation of the PPS type and is often used by insurance and finance companies and other companies who rely on leads for their company to grow. In this type of affiliate marketing, the affiliate is paid whenever the visitor he referred to the merchant's site fills up an application form or any similar form related to the business of the company. Compensation for this type of affiliate marketing is based on a fixed fee whose rates approximate that of the fixed fee in the PPS type.

Aside from these three specific types of affiliate marketing, a lot of other affiliate marketing types exist. If the classification is based on the depth of the affiliate network, it can be classified as single-tier, two-tier, and multi-tier affiliate marketing. There is also another type of affiliate marketing that pays the affiliate each time the customer he has referred purchases something from the merchant's site.

5. Single-Tier, Two-Tier, and Multi-Tier Affiliate Marketing

These types of affiliate marketing are based on the different levels or tiers in the affiliate network by which payments are made. In a single-tier affiliate marketing program, the affiliates are only paid based on the direct sales or traffic he has referred to the merchant. All the previously mentioned affiliate marketing types (i.e. PPS< PPL, and PPC) fall under the single-tier classification.

6. In two-tier affiliate marketing programs, the affiliate is not only paid for the direct traffic or sales that he refers to the merchant's site, but also on every traffic or sales referred by various other affiliates who joined the affiliate program through his recommendation. Multi-tier affiliate marketing works the same way, although the affiliate gets additional commission for a wider number of affiliates in different tiers in the affiliate network.

7. Residual Income Affiliate Marketing

In residual income affiliate marketing, the affiliate gets paid not only once for every customer he has referred to the merchant's site. Rather, the affiliate is also paid whenever the customer he has referred returns to the site and purchase another product. Compensation for such type of affiliate marketing is based on either sales percentage commission or fixed fee basis.

The different affiliate marketing types would virtually work differently for merchants and affiliates alike, and each would generally have their own list of benefits. Which type of affiliate marketing will work best for you? It is not really for me to tell. Rather, it is for you to choose which type of affiliate marketing program will suit your needs and characteristics best.

Affiliate Marketing - What Are The Benefits

2009-06-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

Affiliate marketing is an employment opportunity. There are so many benefits to affiliate marketing and creating a strong affiliate program. Doing this means you pay for results, rather than advertising that may or may not target your market. When you include an affiliate marketing program as part of your advertising plan you are sure to receive directed advertising that works, and if it does not work then you don't pay for it. That is what affiliate advertising is all about, paying for effective advertising. The great thing also is that you decide what type of advertising is effective and reaches your market and what does not. You can choose between an email lead, actual sale, a new subscriber to your newsletter, or even a download of a particular product. All of these are measurable ways to determine how your affiliate plan is working and what type of advertising is resulting as a consequence. You only pay your affiliates for advertising that is measurable and successful.

Paying your affiliates is up to you as well, or at least how you pay them. You might choose to pay your affiliates a percentage of the sale or a fee for finding a new client, the way you pay your affiliates is up to you and should work. Remember, however, your affiliates are working for results and do not get paid unless they obtain the results you are looking for. Because of this your affiliates will work harder to make their commissions! Also, you don't mind paying your affiliates for their hard work when you are receiving truly direct advertising with results so the affiliate marketing program is the best way to advertise because it is successful and you only pay for what works not to mention as your affiliates grow you receive more advertising and increased sales.

With an affiliate marketing program you also develop a network of individuals working solely to promote your product. This network grows and grows and becomes larger and more powerful each day. Each new affiliate adds a link to your website, which simply increases your target market . So, each new affiliate allows your targeted market to grow larger in an exponential manner and reach unlimited amounts of individuals all over the web and the globe. Also, with each new link your website will rank higher in search engines so you not only increase your market, but you also increase your search engine results. The amount of websites linking to your site as a result of your affiliates means exposure and the more exposure you have the more results your targeted marketing and advertising plan will receive. An affiliate program truly is the perfect answer to your advertising needs and is affordable as well.

Nobody wants to pay for a service or product they are not receiving, even when advertising is concerned. You would not expect to go to the grocery store and pay for food items you did not receive and as such you should not use advertising that does not deliver results. For too long advertisers have sold their services without providing true results to clients, however with an affiliate marketing program you will not have this problem. Affiliate marketing has changed the world of advertising and it makes sense. You pay for the advertising your receive, and if you don't receive any advertising then you don't pay anything at all. It really is as simple as that and because of this affiliate marketing programs are cropping up all over the Internet because people want to pay for results, and affiliates want to get results in order to get paid, so everybody wins! Finally, the affiliate marketing program provides the right answer for web advertising needs.

Another great benefit as well is that with the affiliate marketing programs you don't receive results just one time, but potentially forever. The reason for this is because affiliates provide your link on their website in order to send traffic your way and to make money. As a direct result of this your affiliates will keep your link on their site in order to make as much money through referrals as possible. The only way an affiliate will remove your link from their site is if they decide to close their site down for whatever reason. Consequently, you receive long term marketing and exposure from every affiliate and when they send traffic that results in a measurable sale, you pay your affiliate and the process continues. It requires little effort on the part of the affiliate with big returns, so you can rest assured your affiliates will keep advertising for you indefinitely.

The relationships you build with your affiliates results in several benefits for your marketing campaign that include only paying for measurable results and fostering advertising relationships that have no definite end. So, each day and every new affiliate simply results in a larger audience being exposed to your products and services. This does not decrease because your affiliates will stay with you in order to earn their commissions and you will pay the commissions for all the actual results of the marketing campaign. There is no reason to focus all of your efforts advertising other ways when you can start an affiliate program and grow exponentially. The best way to advertise is through an affiliate marketing program, so get yours started today. There are plenty of directions and tips to get started on the Internet that will help you get your affiliate marketing program moving and start increasing your sales and improving your search rankings almost immediately.

Important Tools for Affiliate Marketing Success

2009-06-29T13:52:00.000-07:00

Success is not an impossibility. Do you know what does it takes to become a successful Affiliate Marketer? Could you tell me the essential ingredients of an affiliate marketing success story? Is there a shortcut to Affiliate Marketing glory?. All these of these questions play around in the minds of affiliate marketers who want to make it big in this business.

If you are anything like I was when I started out; excited and all set to make my fortune as an affiliate marketer and yet not knowing where to start you may have to say what I said, "I don't have a clue!" If you are new to affiliate marketing can I tell you something? There are some essentials that you must know or you will waste an incredible amount of time and money.

Although affiliate marketing is touted as one of the easiest and most effective ways to earn money online, it is not as easy as it sounds. The wise affiliate marketer plans every action and executes it the best way he can. He should also maximize the potential to earn by utilizing the right tools necessary for a successful Affiliate Marketing business. We have consulted some of the most successful affiliate marketers in the business and below are the top three necessary tools for a successful affiliate marketing business.

1. Your Own Website

The most important and indispensable tool in Affiliate Marketing is your own website. The first step in any successful affiliate marketing business is building a good, credible and professional looking website. Your website is the jump off point of all your marketing efforts. Thus, you must first build a user-friendly website, which will appeal to your prospects and encourage them to click on the links to the products and service you are promoting and make a purchase. Therefore, you must first concentrate your efforts in building a website that will cater to what your prospects need.

2. Quality Content

One of the most powerful tools for building quality content for your website is writing relevant and informative articles. Consider this, almost all web users go online to look for information, not necessarily to go and buy something. Above all else, make your website full of original, relevant and useful content. People will love articles that are appealing and helpful. Keep in mind that, on the Internet, content is still king and good quality content will not only build your credibility, it can also help you achieve a higher search engine ranking. By posting relevant and useful articles, you establish yourself as a credible expert in the field, making you a more-trustworthy endorser of the product or service you promote. Establishing a good reputation on the net is a good step in building loyal customers and articles help establish credibility.

3. Incentives

Competition is extremely tight in the Internet world. You must always be one-step ahead of your rivals to ensure that you capture a significant share of your target market. Therefore, you must use every possible means to encourage people not only to visit your site but also to click and proceed to the websites of the products and services you are promoting. Building an opt-in email list is one of the best ways to gather prospects. Offer a newsletter or an e-zine. Better yet, offer incentives to your prospects to encourage them to subscribe to your newsletters. You can present free software, access to exclusive services and other freebies that will be helpful to your prospects.

4. Link Popularity

The importance of driving highly targeted traffic to your website cannot be emphasized enough. The all-important web traffic is at the top of the list of the most important success vehicles in the affiliate marketing world. Attracting people to your site should be the first step you should carry out. Do what is necessary to achieve a high search engine ranking. Link Popularity is one of the factors that search engines use to determine search engine rankings. Therefore, to enhance your link popularity, you must have an aggressive link building campaign.

One of the best ways to do this - at no cost at all - is by submitting articles as mentioned above, with your website's link in the resource box. Submit to related e-zines and free article sites. You will not only gain exposure, you will also have the opportunity to advertise for free, just include a link back to your site. The more sites you submit your articles to, the better your link popularity is. Make your articles original, relevant and useful so that more websites will pick them up and post them.

These are but four of the many tools that an affiliate marketer can use to maximize earning potential. The possibilities are endless and are limited only by your imagination, creativity, resourcefulness and determination. You can always explore other ideas and adapt other strategies, which you think might help you become an affiliate marketing success.

Website Building

2009-06-09T12:56:00.002-07:00

Website building and online business. So you want to get your online business up and running but there's one little problem - you need a website! For any business, big or small, a professional website is important if you want to attract potential clients or customers and create a solid foundation for continued success. But many people have no idea how to go about the process. Luckily, it's actually quite easy to get a functional, well designed and user-friendly website online in a reasonable amount of time. And depending on your particular situation and budget, there are several options available to make your business goals a reality.

The first option is to hire a designer. If you are willing to invest a good sum of money into the initial stages of developing your business, hiring a professional website designer or web design company should be something to seriously consider. The job will cost you thousands of dollars (if you hire a reputable designer) but all the pressure and work will be on someone else's shoulders. Spending a lot of money right at the beginning of your venture may seem a little risky, but compared to other business endeavors the cost - and risk - are minimal. And the amount of money you have the potential to make after your site goes live will far outweigh the amount of money initially invested in its construction. Also, if you expect a professional job, hiring a professional is the best way to attain that objective.

A designer will consult with you regarding what you need in a website - a simple basic website, flash-based design, and ecommerce sites are the most common. You will also discuss form, functionality, color scheme, graphics, and other important points. Sometimes content can be obtained through your web designer as well, or you can fulfill your content needs after the basic website design is completed. In the end, hiring a web designer offers you a lot of flexibility and gives you the ability to fully customize your website in all aspects of its design.

Go it Alone
If you don't have the money to spend on a good web designer or feel it's unnecessary for your purposes, there's no reason why you can't create the website yourself. And this option applies to everyone - even if you know nothing about HTML or web design. Of course, if you do know a little bit of HTML - or are willing to put your nose to the grindstone and scour the Internet and your local library to learn HTML - you can certainly build a website from scratch. But nowadays there are other ways to make your own business website without struggling with HTML or a costly designer.

Website templates, for example, combine the professional design talents of an experienced web designer with the cost-effectiveness of going it alone. Templates are ready-made web pages that a designer or design company sells for a small sum - the cost is so low simply because the template can be resold over and over again. In addition, if you purchase a website template that won't be resold after you buy it the cost will rise but still ends up being much more affordable than working with a designer one-on-one. The cost is kept relatively low because, although the template cannot be sold to another person, the design was already created and the buyer agrees to purchase it “as is.”

When you visit a website selling templates you are given the freedom to browse through a wide selection of different styles of website designs. Once you find the perfect match for your business you simply purchase and download. All that's left is to edit it using a simple HTML editor to add content, graphics - you name it. One such website template company I found that offers quality, reasonably priced templates is TemplateDogma (see the link in Resource Box).

The final option is to use an online website builder to do the job. This type of program holds your hand every step of the way so that you can build a website without knowing anything about computer languages or design techniques. Even if you use a WYSIWYG editor it is possible to get lost along the way, and as mentioned above, templates do require editing after you make the purchase. A website builder is the only option that essentially automates the entire process. You might not be able to customize every aspect of the site, as templates are usually part of the procedure, but adding content, pictures, charts and tables to the site is made entirely hassle-free.

As you can see, there are many different ways to build a website from the ground up. In the end, choose the option you think will lead you down the path toward online success and you'll be happy with the results.

The Graphic Designer

2009-06-09T12:56:00.001-07:00

The graphic designer could be necessary. To stay technologically ahead, one has to be innovative. To be innovative, one has to have passion, an enduring desire to improve that which others think to be good enough. With the growth of the Internet, more and more companies are taking their business online. The Internet offers an additional opportunity for income that requires little overhead costs. That is why it has become attractive for companies to put their business in the virtual market.

Although some companies opt to hire a full time graphic designer, there are times when their service is unnecessary. For this reason, you can always to choose to hire a designer only when you need them. That way they can give you the attention that you need when you need it and save money from not having to pay a regular employee. You only have to spend money in paying a graphic designer when you solicit their service.

You would probably ask yourself, why hire a graphic designer when you can do the job yourself? Good question, but if you are really thinking of making a good impression to your customers and you do not have so much artistic talent in yourself, a professional can help you come up with designs for you to choose from. Remember that it is not always about the money. Sometimes it is worth spending a little cash when you can expect bigger returns. And you will be amazed with the difference a graphic designer can make with the idea that you have.

Say for instance, you want to create a logo for your company and you want to make your logo look really attractive and catchy so you told your designer that you want different fonts and colors in your logo. But your designer said that what you are thinking can indeed make your business look catchy but at the same time give people bad signals. So he created different designs for you to choose from but keeping with the theme that you have in mind. You will be surprised to see that he has developed designs that made your idea look beautiful and impressive.

You see in these circumstances that a professional designer can help make your idea develop into a remarkable design. Remember that you are building a public image for your business so you would not want to sacrifice the quality of your logo for the price. After all, a well designed logo or any other promotional material can be your ticket to a successful business ahead of you.

Importance Of The Font In Web Design

2009-06-09T12:54:00.000-07:00

Web design and font style are very important in order to be successful online. Do you operate a website, send out electronic newsletters or e-mail campaigns? Have you ever experimented with the different fonts (typefaces) available? If you have, you probably discovered there are numerous fonts available on your computer - in some cases 100-200 or more. How then do you decide which font to use?

This article will give you a brief overview of choosing fonts for the internet, so that the next electronic piece of information you send achieves the desired effect.

Where the Font Do We Start?
First, even though there are thousands of fonts available to us, each computer usually only has a hundred or so installed for use. Different operating systems, and various other files or programs you obtain can install various fonts on your computer and add to that number. Those fonts are usually compatible across programs, meaning you will be able to use all of your system fonts in any program. Let's say your computer came pre-installed with 150 fonts. Then you bought a common software program that added 50 more fonts to your computer. You now have 200 fonts you will be able to use in any program that is designed to allow font selection.

Isn't that great? You instantly have more fonts to choose from. If you're working in print materials or graphics, then you actually do have the freedom to choose whatever fonts you want. However, if you are not printing the final version but instead delivering your material via the internet, whether it be on a website, by email, or any other type of electronic media, you don't actually have as much freedom as you may think. There are several factors to take into consideration that could influence your choice, including perception, usability and availability.

Perception.
The typeface that you select needs to accurately reflect the mood of your message. Do you want the tone conveyed to your reader to be formal or informal, friendly or serious, professional or playful? If the message is of a professional and formal nature, then your font should accurately portray that. But if the message is to a group of friends inviting them to a party, you can have a little fun and take a more informal approach with your fonts. Always consider the audience for which the piece is intended, and then choose a font that achieves the perception you desire.

Usability.
After you have established the intended audience for your message, make sure they can actually read it! Many fonts are hard to read simply because they are so small in size (like 8 point or 10 point). Cursive and italic fonts can be hard on the eyes and are strongly discouraged for the purposes of main bodies of text. Italics should only be used for emphasis or as graphical elements. You also don't want your font too large, as this can make it difficult for the eyes to scan across a large body of text. There are many fonts available intended specifically for headings and logo text that would be inappropriate for the main body of a message. To maximize usability, make sure to choose a font that is legible and easy on the eyes.

Availability.
This is the most easily overlooked aspect of font selection and can result in completely unexpected results. To insure the recipient sees the same message style you created, the fonts you use must be available on their computer. When you create a website for example, the HTML code will “call” the font that is supposed to be displayed. This tells your browser program what font it should display on that particular page. Even though you may have 200 fonts installed on your computer and you see your fonts fine and dandy, that doesn't mean that the person on the other end viewing your website has the exact same fonts as you. In a case where he doesn't, his browser will substitute a different font of its own choosing, which could completely change their perception of your intended message. At the very least, they may think you were sloppy in putting your material together. Email programs, and electronic newsletters, all work the same way. So bottom line, you need to use fonts that you are positive your entire web audience will have available on their computer. We call these “Web-Safe” fonts.

With thousands of fonts out there, you're probably thinking, “No big deal, there are still plenty of choices”. Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there are only 9. Yes, you read that correctly, there are only NINE web-safe fonts that you can be assured are on every single computer out there! Those fonts are Arial, Arial Black, Courier New, Comic Sans, Georgia, Impact, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Trebuchet, and Verdana. Let's take a couple of minutes to understand the differences in these fonts.

There are two basic types of fonts; serif or sans serif. Serif by definition has a fine line finishing off the main strokes of a letter, or letters may end with a rounded tip. And “sans” is a French term meaning “without”, so in the case of sans serif it would be without those fine lines. The most common serif font is Times New Roman and the most common sans serif font is Arial, both of which are web-safe fonts. Of the nine web-safe fonts there are only 3 serif fonts; Courier New, Georgia and Times New Roman. Serif fonts in very small text sizes can be hard to read, therefore caution should be used when selecting those for small print.

Arial (properly pronounced "are-ree-al")
Arial was introduced as the default typeface for Windows 3.1 when it was released by Microsoft in the early 1990s. It is not difficult to read unless used in very small sizes, and it is the most popular sans serif font today. It is however quite plain, and people tend to get bored of Arial because they see it every where. But, since it's so widely available, easy to read, and the default for Microsoft products, it is a great font to use for main content areas of your marketing materials, newsletters, websites, etc.

Arial Black
Arial Black is one of many versions of Arial, released with Internet Explorer 3. It is a bolder font than Arial and is great for headings and short sections of text that require emphasis.

Courier New
Courier New, a serif font, was primarily a font used in old typewriters. Not normally used as main bodies of text, it is still used to display code in documents or when the writer wants the old-fashioned typewriter look in their document.

Comic Sans
Comic Sans started shipping with Windows 95 as a preinstalled font. Designed to look like comic book lettering, the font was created for informal copy. Regarded today as unprofessional, this sans serif font is not recommended for materials of a professional nature. Comic Sans became a more popular font when it started being used as the text inside the tags on Beanie Babies!

Georgia
Georgia, a serif font, was created for Microsoft in 1993 to provide a clean font for use on the web that would display well even in small sizes. Georgia font letters are taller than most other web-safe fonts, making them easier to read when used in smaller sizes. Georgia is a great alternative when you're tired of traditional Times New Roman, but still want a serif font.

Impact
Impact is a very bold sans serif font. By it's name, it was designed to impact the reader, and is therefore recommended only for headings, small blocks of text, areas on the page that you want to grab the readers eye. Because of it's thick block style, Impact looks best when there is plenty of space around it otherwise it looks cluttered.

Tahoma
Tahoma, a very close cousin of Verdana, was designed in 1999 for Microsoft. It is so similar to Verdana that many don't see the difference in the fonts. Mainly, Tahoma keeps its lettering tighter so that text does not spread out as far as Verdana does. Tahoma is a great font option for those needing a sans serif font but who are getting bored of Arial.

Times New Roman
Times New Roman is the most widely used serif font, developed in 1931 for use by The Times newspaper in London. It has remained a very popular font for setting type in books, magazines, newspapers, etc. The U.S. State Department has been using Times New Roman 14 point on all diplomatic documents since 1994, replacing their old font of choice Courier New 12 point.

Trebuchet (properly pronounced "treb-u-shet”
Trebuchet was designed in 1996 for Microsoft and is a popular sans serif font for those bored with the plain appearance of Arial. Having a definite style all it's own, Trebuchet is easy to read for large or small type and works well for main bodies of text. Due to its unique styling though, it can be seen as a feminine font and if your audience is all men they may not relate well to that font.

Verdana
Verdana, designed for Microsoft in 1996 is probably the most easy to read web-safe sans serif font available. With its taller lettering, and more evenly spaced letters it can be easily read in larger sizes as well as small sizes. It does extend the width of text on a page, so it's great for filling design that have a lot of space with a small amount of copy.

What Font do YOU Want?
Now that you understand the differences between the 9 web-safe fonts, which one will you choose for your internet communications? If you're looking for a serif font, then Georgia is our recommendation. It is the clearest serif font on the web, since it was designed for just that purpose. If you are looking for a sans serif font, Verdana is the clearest on screen font for readability and is our number one recommendation, with good old Arial pulling up a close second.