Website Buy/Sell Articles Blog

Leverage Your Sales Through Affiliate Programs

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

What could be better than exceeding your personal sales goals for a given month or year? How about doubling, tripling or even, your sales goal for the month? This is exactly what having a team of affiliates can do for you. The amount of growth potential through affiliates is unlimited; the more affiliates you have the more money you can make, after all, if Sam Walton tried to run every Wal-Mart store, he obviously wouldn't be very successful. You must realize that to maximize growth you cannot do it alone. Think of the success of companies such as Avon or Home Interiors. Their success is based on two things; a great product and excellent affiliate programs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Michael Cheney

Author of The Website Marketing BibleTM

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

Why Some Experts Are Completely Wrong About Linking

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Website Marketing Necessary For Commerce

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About The Author

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

Website Marketing Necessary For Commerce

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

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

Copyright 2006 Ezilon.com

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

How To Use Your Web Site To Make Money

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About The Author

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

3 Reasons Your Website Might Fail To Attract Enough Customers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do they offer guarantees of any kind on their results?

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

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

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

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

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

Podcasts Are Giving People A Voice: Future Internet

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

I may seem a little bit slow but not all of us make it onto the 'boat of innovation' as fast as others. When I think about it, I have been missing the boat most of my life, but there's a new phenomenon that's come to town and I don't think I'm the last to hear about it. Podcasts, what are they? Well today I finally got my act together and brought my head out of the pit of ignorance where it had been dwelling in relative bliss. I have now experienced podcasts and I think I have an idea as to why and how this new form of Internet communication can bring a whole new level of intimacy to our human community.

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

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

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

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

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

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

About The Author

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

The Webmaster\'s Assistant

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

There are many tools available to a webmaster to analyse website traffic allowing them to monitor the number of visitors, see what pages have been accessed and even the length of time each visitors spends accessing the website.

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

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

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

With an online survey webmasters can find out:-

How often do people visit the website?

How did they arrive at the website?

Are they accessing the website for business or pleasure?

Did they find the information they were looking for?

How easy did they find navigating the website?

Would they recommend the website to others?

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

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

About The Author

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

martin.day@surveygalaxy.com

Promote, Promote, Promote

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Manual submissions:

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

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

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

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

6. Safe list

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

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

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

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

About The Author

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

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

Top 10 Ways To Make Your Website Sell 24/7

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

I've spent more hours that I care to count attending networking functions, and I continue to be amazed at all the people I meet who don't have a website. Many entrepreneurs love what they do but hate marketing and selling themselves. A well-written website is one of the most effective tools at your disposal that will sell for you 24/7, provided you have written compelling copy for the site.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About The Author

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

Ten Volcanic Ways To Erupt Your Website Sales

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Attack Of The Killer Google Zombies!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Michael slaps head..]

**In Search Of The Holy Google Grail

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

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

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

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

Michael Cheney.

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

Superb Website Promotion Tips For Free

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

If you own a website, this article is a must read. I will give you some quality free tips to help you to gain a higher search engine position, a higher page rank and of course an increase in overall traffic.

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

1. Pay per click advertising.

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

2. Writing articles.

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

3. Obtaining backward links.

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

4. Always include your domain address in advertising.

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

Stephen Hill has a number of websites including:

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

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

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

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

Before You Register A Domain Name For Your New Online Business

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3 Reasons Your Website Might Fail To Attract Enough Customers

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

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

Do they offer guarantees of any kind on their results?

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

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

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

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

Top 10 Ways To Make Your Website Sell 24/7

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

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

About The Author

Your Website Is Beautiful - But Where Are The Profits?

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

Most new e-business owners realize they need a website that looks professional. But how elaborate do you need to be? How much energy, creativity and money should you invest so that visitors gasp, "Wow – what a beautiful website?"

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

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

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

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

(1) Emphasize your marketing message.

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

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

(2) Use graphics sparingly.

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

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

(3) Use meaningful graphics.

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

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

(4) Skip flash and frames (usually).

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

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

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

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

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

(5) Create a great headline for each page.

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

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

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

About The Author

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

Web Development: In Layman\'s Terms

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

Website development doesn't have to be a costly process. Many start-up online businesses end up paying big dollars for flashy page designs, when in reality, software packages and a solid knowledge of HTML can easily substitute.

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

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

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

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

About The Author

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

Battle Of The Hostings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One Simple Action To Increase Search Engine Optimization

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have fun while practicing SEO with your website.

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

Seven Necessities To Do Well In Google

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

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

Use Meta Tags

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

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

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

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

Use Properly Formed HTML

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

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

Close All of Your Tags

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

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

Use ALT Tags on Images

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

Avoid Excessive JavaScript

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

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

Avoid Dynamic URL's

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

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

Don't "Over-Optimize"

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

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

Keep Content Fresh

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

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

Don't Rely on SEO

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

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

Provide A Value-Added Service To Appease The Google Gods

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

Every once in a while I stumble across some very interesting information. This happened to me this week and I thought that I would share with you what I have found. If you are interested in improving your google search engine rankings and your page rank you must make sure that you are doing exactly what Google wants you to do. As you probably know already, Google is the largest search engine on the Internet. To receive a high ranking from Google means that you will generate huge amounts of traffic to your website. People are always searching for ways to improve their search engine rankings and ways to appease the Google Gods.

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

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

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

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

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

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

About The Author

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

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