Make Money at Home

Adobe Dreamwweaver CS3 Review

2008-02-19T09:58:00.000-08:00

Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 Review

I've been designing and developing web sites for quite some time now. I started out using Frontpage Express, which is a WYSIWYG editor, back in 1997. It was free and it provided me with a way to build web sites quickly and cheaply. Frontpage Express is a scaled down version of Frontpage and came as a free application that shipped with some new computers as preinstalled software. The problem with Frontpage Express is that it gives you little control of navigation development or basic organization of your web site. Unless you have knowledge of designing templates in html and using cascading style sheets you had to structure your navigation and site design manually. In effect this turned out to be a very inefficient labor intensive way to work and I ended up with many inconsistencies in style, navigation and link accuracy. And if I needed to make changes to the navigation I had to make those changes to each and every page the navigation was on. This was very time consuming.

There were other web site editors available at the time. Some were stand alone applications and others were web based and made available along with certain hosting services. Even Microsoft Word gives you the ability to utilize HTML and build web sites. But I needed something that would automate style, design consistency and navigation development. The one application, at that time, that could give me those abilities affordably and without an extensive learning curve was Frontpage 98. Frontpage 98 gave me all of the capabilities I needed. (Microsoft now offers a product called Web Expression. I have no experience with it.) What I was not pleased with was the fact that the template designs that shipped with the program were limited. Frontpage 98 just didn't have the design punch that I wanted and had seen on many web sites of the time. From what I read today in many forums comparing Frontpage with some of the better WYSIWYG HTML editors this issue still exists.

I began to examine the use of templates that could be purchased online and found quite a few good ones online specifically for Frontpage. But templates can be expensive. Especially the better designs. And if you find well designed templates, whether they're for Frontpage, Dreamweaver or any other web development program you are still limited with the design you buy. Manipulating a pre-designed template can sometimes cause problems with it.

Dreamweaver Creative Suite 3. Design, develop, and maintain standard-based websites. Order Now!

Premiere Pro Creative Suite 3. Capture, edit, and deliver video to disk, web, and mobile devices. Order Now!

I needed a way to make my own custom templates. I knew if I could make my own I would be able to save money for my clients and have no restrictions on how I want to design a site. I tried Adobe GoLive and Dreamweaver but it was Dreamweaver that I finally settled with. the Adobe Creative CS3 Suite Web Premium that includes Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 Creative Suite 3 Web Premium. Redefine the extraordinary in web design and development. Order Now!

I have to say that the learning curve for Dreamweaver and the entire suite was a bit steep, but the end result was much more than worth it. Visit our portfolio to see some of our work.

All but 6 of the sites on our portfolio page were designed with Dreamweaver MX and Dreamweaver MX 2004.

With Dreamweaver I can design templates and customize them to the specifications of my clients. And Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 has some excellent features for those of you who want to take on the development of dynamic webs and applications. Once you have learned how to use Dreamweaver to make your own templates it's very easy to use Dreamweaver's CSS capability to keep consistency of the look and feel of your web sites with HTML and dynamic file types. If you need to make a change to a template, including the navigation, it changes each and every page universally that that template was used to make. This is a huge time saver. And with CSS you have control over the use of HTML characteristics site wide.

Now just because I like developing my own templates doesn't mean you have to. There are thousands of Dreamweavver templates available on line. Just go to your favorite search engine and type in Dreamweaver templates and see what comes up.

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Get Qualified Traffic

2008-02-14T16:09:00.001-08:00

Three Cheap and Effective Ways to Drive Tons of Highly Targeted Traffic to Your Web Site

Get Qualified Traffic

It’s been a long time since I talked about a couple of my favorite Internet marketing strategies: Pay-Per-Click (PPC) search engines and Affiliate Programs. These are two of the best tools you can use to bring hordes of people who are interested in buying your product or service to your web site—with little or no risk to your pocketbook.

PPC search engines are great because once you’ve done your homework and chosen the keywords people will use to find you in the search engines (I’m going to show you how to do this), it’s easy to attract visitors who are interested in what you have to offer, often for just a few pennies.

And Affiliate Programs are one of the best ways to get tons of interested visitors to your site by having other people do the legwork, promoting your web site for you. And the best part is that there’s absolutely no risk to you because you don’t pay a dime unless visitors referred by your affiliates buy your product or service—so you don’t pay out commissions unless you already have cash in hand!

And last but not least, after we take a closer look at these strategies, I want to show you a really cool way to combine these two techniques that I’d bet my left shoe you’ve never thought of... ;-)

1. Using PPC Search Engines to Get Cheap Targeted Traffic

As many of you may know, I’ve been a strong advocate of PPC search engines for years. They remain one of the most effective tools you can use to bring quick, cheap, targeted traffic to your site.

True to their name, with pay-per-click search engines you pay a premium every time a visitor clicks on your link—anything from a few cents to a few dollars.

For example, let’s say you have a web site that sells woolen mittens. And you want to rank #1 in the search engines for the term “woolen mittens.”

To get a top-ten position in the free search engines, you’d probably be looking at a few months (at least) of arduous effort.

But in the pay-per-clicks, you can grab the #1 spot in just minutes! That’s because all you have to do is see how much the person who has the #1 position is paying per click, and simply outbid them by paying one penny more!

Then, when your potential customer searches for the term “woolen mittens,” your link will show up as the first listing on the search results page. And each time searchers click on your link, you’ll pay however much you have bid for that #1 position.

Determine your keyword bidding strategy

There are three advantages to bidding on keywords in the pay-per-clicks:

1. You get effective advertising, because you only pay when someone actually clicks through to your web site.

2. Your listing will get posted within a couple of hours to a couple of days at the most, meaning you can start profiting from increased traffic and sales almost immediately.

3. In order to rank in the #1 position, all you have to do is outbid your competitors, which is usually only a matter of a few pennies per click.

Done right, pay-per-click advertising can be very profitable; however, you can lose a lot of money with your PPC advertising if you’re not careful. Here are some tips to help you ensure your campaigns are profitable:

· Avoid keywords that are too general. More general keywords will attract a lot of traffic, driving up the cost of your PPC campaign and converting few visitors to sales because general search terms are not specific enough to attract the right audience.

· Ensure that the sales process on your web site is converting visitors to buyers before you launch a full-scale PPC campaign. You don’t want to be spending money on getting the traffic if your web site can’t produce sales.

· And finally, make sure you calculate how much you can afford to bid on keywords to guarantee that you still turn a profit.

To determine how much you can afford to bid on your keywords, you will need to understand the value of each visitor to your site. You can do this by determining the number of sales you will get, the profit you will earn per sale, and the number of unique visitors your site will receive during a set period of time. It’s generally easiest to calculate these numbers on a monthly basis.

Here are three easy steps that will help you determine the value of each individual visitor to your site:

1. To determine your visitor conversion rate (i.e., the percentage of visitors who buy from you), calculate:

number of unique visitors ÷ number of sales = visitor conversion rate

2. To calculate your net profit per sale, calculate:

(gross revenue – total expenses) ÷ number of sales = net profit per sale

3. To determine the value of each of visitor to your site, calculate:

net profit per sale ÷ visitor conversion rate = individual visitor value

Once you understand the value of your visitors, you will be able to set your maximum bid for keywords. For example, you may determine that each individual visitor to your site is worth 50 cents in pure profit. This means you can afford to bid a maximum of 49 cents per click to guarantee that you will generate profits.

The value of your visitors may also help you determine which PPC search engines you will use, as the minimum bid on keywords in some search engines may be higher than in others.

Choose a pay-per-click search engine to use

Overture.com is the largest and most far-reaching PPC search engine, but its popularity has driven up the cost of advertising with the company. The beauty of bidding on keywords in Overture is that your web site will be listed not only on Overture, but also at Yahoo!, MSN, AltaVista, CNN.com, and InfoSpace, provided your bid is in the top three for a particular keyword.

Other good, cheap PPC search engines worth exploring include Findwhat, 7Search, and Kanoodle.

Get listed on the first page of Google

Google Adwords is also an excellent option, though technically it’s not really a pay-per-click search engine. Instead, it’s a “pay-per-position” advertising model that is the only way to get listed on the first page of Google without fighting your way through the free listings.

Google Adwords listings show up in colored boxes on the right-hand side of Google’s free search results, giving you tons of great exposure.

With Google Adwords, you bid on keywords for placement; however, Google Adwords also lists ads by popularity (how many clicks they get). You may be paying for placement, but unless your link receives more click-throughs than your competition’s links, your listing may not appear in the top spots of the search results.

Find the keywords that your market is searching for

Start by checking your web logs to see what keywords your visitors searched for to arrive at your site (check with your web host if you don’t have access to these statistics). These will provide a good indication of what kinds of terms your potential customers think of when they’re looking for a product or service like yours.

You may also want to consider using a service such as WordTracker, which allows you to easily see which keywords are frequently searched by your target market in the major search engines—but are not being used by your competition.

All you have to do is enter your keyword, and WordTracker will check its massive database to see how often people are looking for that term, how many competing sites are using that particular keyword, and how much they are bidding in the PPC search engines.

A tool like this will help you choose excellent keywords to bid on. It will also allow you to view the bid price of each keyword in separate PPC search engines, which will help you decide whether the cost of bidding on the keyword is in your ballpark or not.

For example, WordTracker might display the following results for the keywords “Atkins Diet” in Overture.com:

Keyword:

Atkins Diet

Bid Rank		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Bid Price		$0.48	$0.38	$0.37	$0.35	$0.31	$0.30	$0.29	$0.28

As you can see, if you wanted to be ranked #1 in the search engine results for the keyword “Atkins Diet” in Overture, you’d need to bid 49 cents. You would also need a great sales process—because at over 24,000 clicks in the last 30 days alone, this term would cost you almost $12,000 a month to keep a top listing at 49 cents a click!

A free trial version of WordTracker is available at: http://affiliate.wordtracker.com/r/699/a/120732/l/hp4kv6. There is also a much more robust paid version as well.

Now let’s shift our focus to an even more powerful tool that I’ve used to grow my own business, and that I strongly recommend as one of the key strategies you can use to direct massive amounts of qualified traffic to your site... without spending a dime up front!

2. Using Affiliate Programs to Get Loads of Qualified Traffic

An Affiliate Program (also referred to as a “Reseller” or “Associate” Program) is a way to get other people to promote your product or service. For every customer (not visitor) that your “affiliates” send to your web site, you pay them a commission.

Your affiliates send visitors to your web site using banner ads, text links, letters of referral, etc... and you track these visitors using special software. For every visitor who decides to buy, you pay your affiliate a commission—a percentage of the profits you make.

It’s an extremely powerful, profitable way to grow your business because:

a. It’s a win-win partnership, so enlisting an army of affiliates to promote your product is extremely easy. Your affiliates get paid when they refer a paying customer to your web site.

b. There are no up-front advertising costs, because you only pay your affiliates for advertising that gets you sales. Whether they send 10 visitors a day to your site or 10,000, you only pay them for the sale of your product or service.

c. It’s extremely low-risk. Setting up your own affiliate program doesn’t cost much at all if you’re prepared to do some work yourself.

d. You can literally explode your online sales by enlisting an army of affiliates to promote your product or service for you.

Since you know your product or service better than anyone else, you’ll probably have an idea of how you want to promote it. Providing your affiliates with banners, product images, text links, etc. will allow them to get started promoting your product or service faster and more effectively.

One of the best strategies for motivating your affiliates to promote your product or service is to pay them well for their efforts. If the commissions you offer aren’t attractive enough, your affiliates just won’t be motivated.

Additional incentives, such as bonuses for a certain number of sales, will motivate your best affiliates to actively promote your site, putting in as much effort as possible to refer sales on your behalf.

Set up and manage your affiliate program

In order to run a successful affiliate program, you need to be able to:

1. Create a separate account for each new affiliate

2. Track each of their referred sales on each of your products that they are promoting

3. Calculate commissions based on referred sales

A few years ago, there was no special software to do all this. It was a complicated and time-consuming process to track affiliate sales.

But today, you can use software to automatically keep track of which affiliate made which sale and exactly how much you owe each affiliate. Tracking 10,000 affiliates is just as easy as tracking one!

A number of software programs are available to manage your affiliate program, but you’ll want to check out a few to see how easy they are to set up and use.

All-in-one affiliate tracking software like AssocTRAC (www.assoctrac.com) will cost a few hundred dollars and will give you an easy and functional way to automate your affiliate program. Remember that cheaper programs may be appealing at first, but may lack the functionality of tried and tested software.

3. How You Can Combine These Two Strategies for Even BIGGER Profits!

Now that you’ve had a “refresher course” on the power of PPC search engines and affiliate programs, I want to show you an extremely effective way to combine the two strategies and boost the flow of targeted visitors to your site!

Here’s all you do: Encourage your affiliates to try bidding on your keywords to market your product or service in the PPC search engines.

You might think that this would drive up bidding costs, and that you’ll wind up actually competing for pay-per-click placement against people who are supposed to be working for you. But the fact is, encouraging your affiliates to bid on your keywords can help to get you a LOT more exposure in the search results!

Think about this: Typically, when searchers enter their search term and your site appears in the results, your link will be listed alongside links to other web sites... your competitors’ web sites.

Now imagine you have a handful of affiliates using the same keywords as you. People enter their search term and your site appears in the results. But instead of being surrounded by links to your competitors’ sites, you are surrounded by more links to your OWN web site!

By using this strategy, you are taking up valuable search engine “real estate.” Picture the search engines as a strip mall, and the web site links as the storefronts in the mall (also known as real estate). The more of these storefronts you occupy with your product, the less space there will be left for your competitors’ product—and the more likely it is that a shopper is going to see your product and buy it.

You may feel that some keywords should be yours and yours alone—like your company name—and wish to include a clause in the contract between you and your affiliate, restricting them from using those keywords. It’s up to you if you want to do this, but note that your affiliate does not need your permission to bid on your company name unless you’ve specifically asked them not to.

That said, it really doesn’t hurt to let your affiliates bid on your company name in the pay-per-click search engines. Whatever your affiliates are doing to get qualified traffic to your site can only benefit you.

So there’s no need to worry that your affiliates could outbid you, or drive up the costs of your PPC advertising...

Because the most important thing to remember about your affiliates is that they are your teammates or business partners, working with you to market your product or service. Competing with them for the top spot is counterproductive, especially since the goal is to occupy as much of the search engine results page as you can with links to your site.

If your affiliates are taking the initiative to advertise on your behalf in the pay-per-clicks, don’t waste your money outbidding them. Instead, check to see how much your competitors are bidding on keywords and spend your time and money keeping ahead of them. Your campaign should be aimed at outbidding your competition, not your affiliates, for top placement in the PPC search engine results.

You may want to consider actively encouraging your affiliates to try PPC advertising! If you decide to do this, you might want to provide them with a few tips and strategies on how they can use the PPCs to their advantage—because, in the end, this will be to your advantage, too.

4. Final Thoughts

By themselves, both PPC search engines and affiliate programs are hugely effective ways to draw a paying crowd to your site. They are two of the most powerful traffic-generation techniques on the Internet today, and the real beauty of them both is that they will cost you next to nothing.

Once your affiliate program is up and running—and automated with software like AssocTRAC—you won’t have to spend any time or money at all. As your affiliates promote your products for you, your software tracks their sales for you, and it makes sure they are only scheduled to be paid after a sale is made.

It’s one of the smartest marketing strategies you can use.

And I feel just as strongly about using pay-per-click search engines—particularly if you are a small business owner going after a niche market on the ‘Net. Pay-per-clicks are the fastest way to get your product in front of your exact target audience so you can see immediate results. And, by keeping a close eye on your return on investment for each keyword you bid on, you can ensure that your pay-per-click campaigns are always enormously profitable.

By combining these two powerful strategies to maximize your coverage in the pay-per-click listings, you can dominate your market space swiftly and effectively. Having your affiliates join you in the pay-per-clicks is really only a natural extension of both affiliate programs and PPC advertising, but it’s a technique that doesn’t get taken advantage of often enough.

There are lots of online resources to help you get started with your affiliate program or PPC campaign. One of the best is the “Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet—Version 2004” course, where you’ll find detailed descriptions of how you can profit with these proven strategies.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Internet marketing expert Derek Gehl specializes in teaching real people how to successfully start, build, and grow their own profitable online businesses on small budgets. To get instant access to the step-by-step strategies, tools, and resources he’s used to grow just $25 into over $60 Million in online sales, visit: http://www.marketingtips.com/t.cgi/4012

What to sell online in 2008

2008-02-13T02:20:00.000-08:00

by Dwain Jeworski

Every week, we get dozens of emails asking the exact same question: "Help! What should I sell online?"

Now, at IMC we're not going to tell you exactly what product you should sell to make great money on the Internet.

(After all, if we told the thousands of you who read this blog to start selling "Product X," then you'd be facing quite a lot of competition, wouldn't you???)

But what we will do is tell you exactly what TYPE of product you should be selling, if you want to reap the greatest profits from all your online efforts.

And that type of product is...?

INFORMATION.

Yes, you read that right. Information is by far the most profitable kind of product you can sell online.

Why?

Think about it for a moment... What do the vast majority of Internet users go online to search for?

That's right. Information. Which means that by selling highly sought-after information on your website, you're giving people exactly what they're looking for!

And that's a recipe for online success.

Here are some more reasons why information is the best type of product to sell on the Internet...

When you sell "hard" products that require physical delivery, you have to deal with the cost and hassle of manufacturing, stocking, and packaging -- not to mention shipping your product. And all those things take a serious bite out of your profit margin.

However, when you sell information -- in the form of an electronic "eBook," for example -- once you've created your master copy, you can make countless duplications of it, at NO additional cost. Your manufacturing, stocking, and packaging expenses are non-existent!

And because you can deliver your electronic eBook instantly to your customers, your shipping costs are zero, as well.

That means your profit margin is 100%!

Your customers will be especially attracted by the promise of instant gratification. They won't have to wait days (or even weeks!) for their product to arrive -- it'll get downloaded to their desktop in just a minute or two, which means they can start accessing that information right away.

And once your website is up and running, you can automate your entire business so it takes just an hour or two a week to run! You can set up your order form and "shopping cart" system to automatically process the order, put the money in your bank account, and electronically deliver your product to the customer. It's the perfect "hands-free" business!

... And you don't even have to be a writer!

To create a best-selling eBook, you don't even have to be a professional writer! You can hire someone else to do the writing for you. Simply tell them what topics you want your eBook to cover, and then let them go to it.

(A great place to hire writers who won't charge you an arm and a leg is www.elance.com.)

Or, if you're just starting out and don't have any extra money to invest in product development, you could create an "interview compilation" book. All you have to do is interview various leaders in your industry then type up the interviews and put them all together in your eBook.

For example, if you want to sell a book on how to house-train a puppy, interview three or four well-known dog trainers in your area. Then type up the transcripts of the interviews and put them together in an eBook.

You could even consider compiling articles written by other people that focus on a particular topic of interest to your customers. Maybe there are already a bunch of articles online that talk in detail about the different ways to house-train a puppy.

All you have to do is get permission from the original authors to reuse their content, put all the articles together into an eBook, and ta-da! You've got a product on your hands.

How do you get permission from the authors?

Simply explain to them that your eBook will provide great publicity for them and let them know you are planning to widely distribute the final product. Make sure they understand they'll receive full credit for their work and that their contact information will be made available to readers (along with mention of other products and services they might offer).

Once you have compiled all of the contributors' work, you should have a highly valuable publication on your hands. And you didn't have to write any of it yourself!

The FASTEST way to be making good money online

You can write a profit-generating eBook -- and build the site to sell it -- in as little as 2-3 weeks. There's no faster way to make a solid income selling your very own product online.

And once your site is up and running, you can get feedback from your visitors and customers and start testing new ways to sell to them, so you can perfect your product and your sales process so it's making maximum profits in the minimum amount of time.

But that's not all... Once your eBook business is truly booming, you can start adding more products on to the back end, which you can then sell to your customers and boost your profits still higher!

So that's my best possible answer to the never-ending question of, "What do I sell online?"

If you have ever experienced any challenges -- or successes! -- setting up a site that sells an eBook, go to our blog and leave us a comment telling us about them.

Click on:
http://blog.marketingtips.com/wp/ebook-success/featured-articles

... And leave us your comment at the end of the article.

We're eager to hear your stories!

Note: Dwain Jeworski is IMC's VP of Marketing.

Maximize Sales

2008-02-12T13:24:00.000-08:00

Maximize Your Sales by Offering
a Number of Payment Options...
And Discover New Technology That Your Competitors Don't Know About!

One of the most common questions I’m asked by customers and subscribers like you who are interested in starting online businesses is "How do I start accepting payments from my customers over the Internet?"

The logistics of setting up your web site to accept online payments can seem like a big hurdle for new business owners. But the fact is, if you want your business to be successful, you MUST offer convenient and easy ways for your customers to pay.

Credit cards are currently the 900 lb. gorilla of the online payment world. In fact, over 90% of all the orders I receive are placed with credit cards, and no online business can survive without offering this payment option.The good news is that setting yourself up to accept credit cards on your web site is way easier than you think, and in this article I’ll show you how to do it in as little as 48 hours.

However, just because credit cards are the most popular way to pay for goods and services online, it doesn’t mean that you can sit back and relax just because you’re already accepting them.

If you’re serious about maximizing your sales, you’ve got to think about offering other online payment methods, including:

· PayPal, which has recently improved its service -- making it even easier for your customers to use, and

· Debit cards, which are poised to become the online fundraising vehicle of the future.

Plus, it’s still important to provide traditional offline payment techniques such as 1-800 numbers, and order forms that can be printed out and faxed or mailed.

It’s all about giving your customers choices -- and about capturing every sale you can. Web-based businesses that don’t offer payment alternatives to credit cards are shutting out millions of consumers who either don’t own credit cards or are nervous about using them online.

According to a study by CyberSource Corp., web sites providing four or more payment methods other than credit cards have a sales conversion rate that is 12% higher than those offering just one payment option in addition to credit cards.

But before I get ahead of myself, let’s take a step back and let me tell you how accepting credit cards will dramatically increase your sales.

Capture 85% more sales by accepting credit cards online

The simple truth is that you must accept credit cards on your web site if you expect to stay in business. It’s been repeatedly proven that if you do NOT accept credit cards on your site, you will capture only about 15% of your potential sales.

You have to make it easy for visitors to your web site to buy your products. Internet users expect instant access to information, goods, or services, and online customers can be very impatient.

If dial-up users have to log off of the Internet to clear up the phone line in order to call in their order, you can forget about doing a large volume of sales. This is too much work for most of your customers, who would be far more likely to find one of your competitors that accepts credit cards online.

Accepting credit cards will also...

· Give your business a degree of credibility,

· Allow you to capture the sales of impulse buyers, and

· Provide you with a fully-automated payment and tracking system.

But before you can start accepting credit cards at your web site, there are two important things you’ll have to do:

· Establish a secure server to process credit card transactions, and

· Set up a merchant account.

At this point you may be thinking, "How I am I going to do this? I don’t even know what secure servers or merchant accounts are!" Don’t worry -- the concepts are really simple. With just a little effort and patience, you’ll soon be accepting credit card payments on your web site and reaping huge rewards.

1) Online ordering via a secure server

For your site to be as professional as your customers expect it to be, it must feature a secure server that protects your customers’ confidential information and gives them the confidence to safely enter their credit card numbers.

A secure server is simply a computer server that can accept and transmit confidential information such as credit card numbers without the risk of someone intercepting the transmission and "stealing" the information. The data is kept secure through encryption, which only the oldest web browsers don’t support.

You can find out more about secure servers by contacting merchant account providers, which is the next step in getting your site ready to accept credit card payments.

2) Setting up your merchant account

You have a few different options when getting a merchant account. You can...

Get your own merchant credit card accounts with a local bank

If you have a good relationship with your bank -- and they don’t require a large security deposit -- it’s best to get your merchant credit card accounts through them.

You may, however, have to go through two different banks to process the major cards -- Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover -- because some banks deal with only two out of the four.

Another problem with local banks is that they often charge a very high "discount rate" or require a very large security deposit (between $5,000 and $10,000).

For those of you who don’t know what a discount rate is, it’s not really a "discount" at all! It’s the percentage you pay on each transaction for the privilege of using credit card services, and it varies according to your credit rating, business history, and the amount of business your site is doing.

For example, if you have a discount rate of 2.5% and you make a credit card sale for $100, you’ll only receive $97.50. The remaining $2.50 goes to the credit card company.
Get merchant credit card accounts through a broker

Getting your merchant credit card accounts through a broker is my personal preference for a number of reasons:

a)	They are web-based specialists in getting credit card accounts for online businesses, and, as should be expected, you can apply over the Internet.
b)	They have a higher approval rate than banks and should be able to get you a discount rate of 2% to 3% -- even if you’ve been bankrupt.
c)	They are affordable and can often have you accepting credit card payments on your web site in as little as 48 hours.

Finding a broker is not difficult. Besides searching online, you can find plenty of brokers in the back of DM (Direct Mail) magazine. But do some research, and make sure that the broker you choose has a good track record.

There are lots of shady operators out there, so be careful of who you choose. Check out the broker we currently recommend at http://www.marketingtips.com/creditcards
Hire a fulfillment house and use their credit card accounts

If your company is doing only a few thousand dollars of business each month, a fulfillment house may be a good option for you.

A fulfillment house is a company that will...

a) Take your orders through a 1-800 number with live operators,

b) Process credit cards,

c) Provide some customer service,

d) Ship orders, and

e) Maintain your customer database.

These companies will also let you use their merchant credit card accounts to process your orders for a fee. The downside is that the fee is usually a 5% discount rate instead of the 2% or 3% you would pay if you had your own accounts.

Because of the high discount rate charged by fulfillment houses, I’d recommend that once your business grows larger, you get your own merchant accounts and save some money.

A great place to find nearly 100 fulfillment houses is is Yahoo!’s Fulfillment Services Directory. To get there, just click on "Directory" at Yahoo!'s homepage and then search for "fulfillment houses."
Use a "third party" merchant account provider

Like fulfillment houses, companies such as iBill let you use their merchant accounts. The upside of third party providers is that they can get you up and running quickly, set up your order forms, and process your orders.

The downside is that they charge you a processing fee of 11% to 15% of the selling price -- depending on the volume of business you are doing.

While the discount rate offered by these companies is substantially higher than the other options I’ve been talking about, most do not require any setup fees, software, or security deposits, which make them a simple and convenient option for some.

In addition to iBill, you could also check out:

a) CC Bill,

b) Authorize.Net, or

c) CyberSource.

How using PayPal can expand your customer base and increase your sales

PayPal is an increasingly popular way to accept payments online. Founded in 1998, it enables any individual or business with an e-mail address to send and receive payments over the Internet affordably, securely, and quickly.

First of all, I’d like you to know that PayPal has recently improved its service -- making it an even better payment alternative for your online business. One of PayPal’s biggest limitations used to be that customers needed to set up a PayPal account before making payments...but not anymore!

For new users, signing up for a PayPal account is now optional. This means your customers can complete their payments and then decide whether or not to create an account.

The need for an account used to drive people away, but by eliminating that requirement, PayPal has dramatically increased your potential customer base and made buying your product easier -- which always translates into higher sales and growth for your business.

And in addition to reaching an already established network of over 64 million accounts in 45 countries, PayPal has tons of other benefits for you:

· It’s secure. After setting up an account, customers don’t have to give out credit card details to each individual company. And you know you’re dealing with verified buyers.

· There is no need for a merchant account to accept credit card orders, which is convenient and cheap if you’re just starting out.

· Your customers can choose to pay by credit card, bank account, or PayPal balance.

· It supports payments in US Dollars, Canadian Dollars, Euros, Pounds Sterling, and Japanese Yen, making cross-border sales easier than ever.

· It’s FREE for customers and affordable for small businesses.

· Set-up is fast, and you can get started in minutes.

PayPal charges you 1.9% to 2.9% of the transaction plus 30 cents per order, depending on your company’s sales volume. The best part is that fees are only applied when you accept a payment, and there are no setup or monthly charges.

To get started using PayPal, just go to their web site and click the "Sign Up Now" button. The
rest is easy.

How debit cards are poised to take the world of online payments by storm

If you want to get the edge on your competitors, you may want to look into setting up your web site to accept debit card payments online. Here’s why:

Debit card use is becoming hugely popular. In fact, according to AllBusiness.com, credit card purchases have been expanding by about 15% for the last five years, but debit card purchases have been growing even faster at more than 50% per year.

And by the end of 2005, credit and debit cards are expected to account for 43% of all purchases in North America -- proving that you can no longer ignore customers who want to pay by debit card over the Internet.

But before I tell you how accepting debit cards online will help your business grow, it’s important that you understand how debit cards work, as well as the different types that are currently in use.

When a payment is made using a debit card, the funds are immediately withdrawn from the purchaser’s bank account. There’s no "pay later" option with a debit card. With a debit card, you pay now.

There are basically two types of debit cards:

· The first is a signature-based debit card that has a Visa or MasterCard logo on it. You can use these cards anywhere VISA and MasterCard are accepted. If you’re already accepting credit card payments online, you should be able to accept this form of payment as well. Just check with your merchant account provider.

· The second type is a personal identification number (PIN-based) debit card. I’m sure that most of you have at least seen this type of card used at offline stores -- you swipe your card through a small reader and enter your PIN number, making this type of debit card impossible to use over the Internet... until now.

A company called UseMyBank has developed software that allows purchasers to access their own bank accounts and pay for goods and services in real time. The process is nearly identical to paying bills online with your bank, and the money is immediately taken from your account -- just like when using a debit card.

Here’s how it works. If your customer decides to use this service to purchase a product, they will be asked to select their bank, as well as which account they want to pay from. You are then immediately notified of their payment and can start your delivery process.

One of the best features of this service is that your customers don’t have to give up any of their credit or banking information to you, making this one of the most secure options available.

And in addition to providing another payment option for people who don’t like to use credit cards for online purchases, this method also targets teens, who represent a huge market, but who often don’t have access to credit cards.

UseMyBank is currently available only in Canada, but the company is launching its service internationally in the second quarter of this year. That’s why I’m giving you this information now -- so you can stay ahead of your competitors by providing your customers with the newest and easiest ways to pay online.

For more information about how you can offer your customers this payment option, just go to UseMyBank’s web site and have a look around. Signing up is straightforward, and the site should be able to answer all of your questions.

Don’t forget to include offline payment options

In addition to providing the online payment alternatives I've been talking about, it's still very important that you give your customers the option of ordering and paying offline to ensure you capture the maximim number of sales.

Many people are still nervous about giving out their credit card information over the Internet, despite secure servers, and some customers will always want to speak with a live person. Giving your customers the option of speaking with a "real" person adds credibility AND a human element to your online business.

Another benefit is that the person taking the call can answer customers’ questions as well as help "close" the sale by encouraging customers and giving them the final "push" to buy.

To make sure you are able to capture the orders of these customers, you should also...

· Have a 1-800 number available 24/7, and

· Offer an order form customers can print out and fax or mail.

Final thoughts

If you’re not already accepting credit cards directly from a secure order form on your web site, you are missing out on a HUGE number of sales. With 90% of all online purchases being made with credit cards, you literally can’t afford not to offer this payment option on your website.

However, even if you are set up to process credit cards online, you can’t leave your site off limits to the millions of people who do not have or want to use credit cards.To tap into this lucrative market, you’ve got to provide some of the alternative payment methods I have been talking about.

But don't forget that in addition to PayPal and debit cards, there are still lots of other online payment methods, including e-checks, e-wallets, person-to-person e-mail payments, etc., that you may want to explore.

Making it easy for your potential customers to do business with you is essential to your online success. That doesn’t mean you need to provide all of the payment methods available, but if you’re serious about maximizing your sales, it’s good to know what’s out there so you can make sure you're taking advantage of the options that best suit your type of business and customers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Internet marketing expert Derek Gehl specializes in teaching real people how to successfully start, build, and grow their own profitable online businesses on small budgets. To get instant access to the step-by-step strategies, tools, and resources he's used to grow just $25 into over $60 Million in online sales, visit: http://www.marketingtips.com/t.cgi/4012

Search Engine Keyword Ranking

2008-02-12T12:28:00.000-08:00

Finally, You Can Know Exactly Which Keywords Will
Bring Your Site Maximum Traffic Using This
Hot New FREE Service!

You will find that any discussion of search engine positioning eventually comes back to keywords and key phrases. Why? Because it doesn't matter if you've used the most cutting-edge techniques to submit your web site to the search engines. If you've (a) optimized your site using the wrong keywords, or (b) chosen keywords that are too general or highly competitive (i.e. words like "business," "Internet," or "software")...

Your target market will never find your web site!

Your keywords are what the search engines look for in your title tags, your meta tags, and the body of your text when ranking your web site. They're also what the search engines will ultimately use to categorize your web site! So it is absolutely critical that you choose your keywords and phrases wisely. You need to…

	1)	Find the keywords that your target market is using in the search engines…
But...
	2)	Be careful that you don't choose words that are highly competitive because this will make it extremely difficult to get a top spot!

Obviously, without the right information and tools, finding this balance could be really difficult. So to make walking this fine line a little easier for you, I've put together this list of rules and resources that you can use to choose keywords that will drive high volumes of targeted traffic to your web site… with as little sweat, strain, and expense as possible!

10 Easy Rules For Targeted Keywords:

Sit down with a pen and paper… and brainstorm! I know this might not seem like a very high tech idea, but you know your business best! Picture your perfect client and imagine what keywords they might type into the search engines.
Ask family, friends, and associates what terms they would use to search for your product type.
Be specific and general. For example, if you were selling cocker spaniel puppies, you might use the following keywords: dogs, dog, puppy, puppies, cocker spaniel, cocker spaniels, cocker spaniel puppies, pets, etc….
Include misspelled words! This is a trick that many site owners neglect -- and that's too bad! Using misspelled words is a great way to target traffic that you - and your competitors -might otherwise miss! Research common misspellings of your top keywords and include them in your list.
Include your region if applicable. For example, if you owned a hotel in California, you would include “California” in your list of keywords.
Include the long and short form of words. Using the puppy example, you would include “pups” and “pup” along with “puppies”.
Use as many variations of your keywords as you can think of. For example, the keyword "diet" could be "diet", "diets", "dieting"…
Remember that some search engines are case sensitive when it comes to keywords and phrases, so “Run” and “run” would be considered two separate keywords.
Be sure to include your company name… but do NOT use trademark names other than your own!

If you get caught using trademark names like Wal-Mart, Yahoo!, Amazon, etc… to draw traffic to your site, you could not only find yourself banned from the search engines, you could also find yourself slapped with a lawsuit!
Check what keywords your competitors have featured on their web sites, in their titles, and in their META tags. You can easily do this by going to your competitor's web site, clicking on the “View” menu of your browser, and choosing “Source.”

Keep track of what you learn as you make your way through their keywords. You will find that the same sites and pages keep popping up. Be sure that you pay close attention to their strategies.

Warning: There are two things I want to mention here. First, I am not suggesting that you blatantly copy your competition's keywords… or code! Rather, use the information you gather to expand your own keyword list and improve your web site design.

Second, keep in mind that web sites with top ranking positions in highly competitive industries may be using more complex tactics to hide their source code from their competitors. In fact, you should know that some sites even put up "decoy" source code to try and throw you off track.

So if you come across a web site that has a top ranking in a number of the major search engines, but their source code seems "off" or different from others in top positions, this is probably why. Don't worry about it. Just move on.

A Free Service That Makes It Easy:

Surfing the web and checking competitors' web sites to see what keywords they're using is becoming a less effective way to create your own keyword list. Site owners are getting wise to this after being bumped down the ranks by their competitors, and we're starting to see more and more "decoy" tricks and techniques being used.

That's why this really powerful free service I recently discovered can be a huge asset. It's called Wordtracker, and it literally gives you the power to know exactly which keywords will skyrocket your traffic and boost your ranking in the search engines!

This is how it works…

Basically, Wordtracker keeps record of how many times a particular keyword or phrase was searched during the past 60 days on the two largest metacrawlers on the Web, Metacrawler and Dogpile.

It then allows you to search its database of over 350 million queries to see how many times YOUR particular keywords and phrases were searched for, organizing all of this detailed information into useful reports that you can use to estimate how much traffic your site could expect to get in a 24-hour period if you were ranked in a top position under those keywords.

Plus, with Wordtracker you can simply type in a keyword and it will brainstorm a list of related keywords and phrases for you. This is a really useful feature because it will often produce keyword combinations that you may not have thought of!

As you can see, this is all extremely powerful information! Not only will you know which keywords people are actively searching, you can also know how much traffic each keyword will bring your web site!

Once you know this, it's easy to decide if it's worth the effort to optimize your site using that particular keyword! Wordtracker allows you to accurately rank your keywords in order of importance -- instead of guessing -- and be sure that the ones that are searched most frequently get the most attention.

It will even tell you exactly which misspellings are drawing traffic! No more guessing! You can include these keywords in your list, and guarantee your site an *extra* boost of traffic that your competition may be neglecting!

Pretty impressive, right? Well, it gets even better! I haven't told you about the feature that is my personal favorite yet. Get this. Wordtracker has also been designed to tell you exactly how many web sites are competing under a keyword in a particular search engine!

So if, for example, you have a web site dedicated to ferrets and ferret related products, you would type "ferret" into Wordtracker to find out how many other web sites are competing under this particular keyword.

If you did this, you would discover that in AltaVista, there are 115,205 sites competing under "ferret"! Yipe! Obviously, it would be tough to get a top ranking in this category. There's just too much competition. However, because Wordtracker also gives you a list of related keywords, you discover that another popular search term is "ferret care" and that there are only 45 sites competing under this particular keyword in AltaVista!

Perfect! You have just discovered a keyword that you can use to optimize your ranking in the search engines and start grabbing traffic that very few sites are competing for!

Using Wordtracker, it's extremely easy to discover which keywords are popular with your target market… but not being used by your competitors! This is really powerful! I literally couldn't believe it when I came across this tool. It's an absolutely brilliant idea that gives e-business owners like you and me a competitive edge… for FREE or little cost depending on which level of service you choose.

With Wordtracker's free trial version, you can do keyword searches that will return 15 related keywords and phrases, and get traffic estimates and competition comparisons on as many as 30 keywords in AltaVista. It's a pretty good place to start if you're short on cash and need to start building your keyword list.

However, the paid version is quite a bit more comprehensive. You can do keyword searches that will return up to 300 related keywords, and get traffic estimates and competition comparisons on as many as 500 keywords in 18 major search engines. Common misspellings are also included with the paid version, along with multiple search features, project reports, and the option to e-mail the lists to clients. You have a choice of one day, one week, one month, three month, or yearly subscriptions.

A week is certainly more than enough time to build a comprehensive keyword list using this service. Wordtracker's interface is extremely easy-to-use, and building huge, detailed reports with the exact information you need literally takes just minutes.

However, if you're planning on optimizing your web site regularly to keep yourself well-ranked in the search engines, a yearly subscription might be a more economical choice. The time you save and the accuracy of their estimations really make this service invaluable!

Anyway, rather than go on and on about how impressed I am by it, I suggest that you click here to go check out Wordtracker for yourself. I think you'll have fun playing around with the free trial version... and it will definitely give you a taste of what it can do for your business.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Internet marketing expert Derek Gehl specializes in teaching real people how to successfully start, build, and grow their own profitable online businesses on small budgets. To get instant access to the step-by-step strategies, tools, and resources he's used to grow just $25 into over $60 Million in online sales, visit: http://www.marketingtips.com/t.cgi/4012

Free Internet Product Ideas

2008-02-12T10:14:00.000-08:00

Start Your Own Internet Business
With These Free Product Ideas, Yours For The Taking!

I had to chuckle when I recently came across this great quote by Ken Hakuta ("Dr. Fad", creator of the 1980's "Wacky Wallwalker" craze, and founder of AllHerb.com)…

"Lack of money is no obstacle. Lack of an idea is an obstacle."

How incredibly true! Here at the Internet Marketing Center, we get calls and e-mail every day from people who are eager to grab their share of the e-business pie, but who are lacking that one key ingredient…

A hot selling, in-demand product or service *idea*!

I'm always telling people that you don't need a million-dollar advertising budget to be successful on the Internet. The truth is, you can easily get started and begin earning a serious income with a budget of less than a few hundred dollars if you're prepared to do a lot of the work yourself.

But how can you get started without that first spark of an idea? Good question!

If you are…

A) Interested in starting your very own, profitable Internet business, but at a loss for product ideas…

B) An online business owner looking to expand your product base…

… then LISTEN UP! I'm about to give you 5 powerful strategies for easily finding in-demand product and service ideas.

However, before we get to that, it's critical that you take a moment to seriously consider the following questions. If you don't want to do this, don't bother reading the rest of this article. It will be a waste of your time.

I want you to stop for a moment and think…

1) What are you interested in?
2) What are you passionate about?
3) What subject or topic do you have a lot of knowledge about?
4) What are people always coming to you for advice about?

It's extremely important that you consider these questions very carefully.

If there is one key lesson that I've learned, it's that the greatest success comes when you're pursuing something that you're passionate about.

So the product or service that you develop should be related to something that you really enjoy or have a sincere interest in. (Plus, this way, whatever you're doing will feel less like work, and more like fun!)

And don't worry if your area of expertise seems too obscure or specialized! The beauty of the Internet is that it is the perfect medium for niche marketing!

(For those of you who are unfamiliar with the phrase "niche market," I am referring to a specific, targeted group of individuals who need or want what you have to offer.)

Here is a little secret that you may not know…

Most successful entrepreneurs get their ideas for their businesses by: (1) Studying niche markets and then (2) Developing a product or service that meets their needs or solves common problems!

It makes sense, doesn't it?!

Not only are you guaranteeing the success of your product or service -- people are already actively looking for what you are about to develop -- you will also be able to…

Efficiently focus both your time and money on marketing to
those people most likely to buy from you!

Once you know where your niche market is and what they want, all you need to do is put yourself in their line of fire and your profits will explode! Seriously!

So choose your area of interest or expertise… and let's move on to the good stuff!

Hot Product Idea #1:

Research potential competitors in your area of interest to find out what their best-selling product is… and find ways to improve on it!

What is their angle? What kind of solutions are they offering? Are they successful? Can you find some way to improve on their solutions? Are they missing something?

Why reinvent the wheel if you can find a way to significantly improve on it? Think of all the industries that make millions of dollars simply by improving on existing products…

Video Games
Tooth Brushes
Running Shoes (Boing!)
Shampoo
Cars
Gasoline
Cell phones
Software (Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, ME, NT … where's it going to end?)

… I could literally go on for pages and pages, but I'm sure that you get the picture.

Your competitors may be your greatest source of inspiration. So once you have chosen your area of interest, start doing some market research.

Get to know your competitor's products inside out, and then improve on them to develop a strong Unique Selling Proposition (USP) that appeals to your target market.

Make it faster, shinier, louder, quieter, safer, more cost efficient… whatever it takes to make customers want your product or service over your competition's!

Hot Product Idea #2:

Check out the newsgroups, discussion boards, and chat rooms where your target market hangs out. Sit back and listen, and you'll discover what they like, what they don't like, and what they're looking for.

People regularly visit these areas seeking advice, and by monitoring these discussions you will begin to notice that certain questions appear again and again.

This is a great way to locate potential product or service ideas! I guarantee that if you see the same questions repeated in a forum or discussion group, there are hundreds, possibly thousands, of other people out there wondering the exact same thing!

You see, only a small percentage of the online community participates in forums and discussion groups. So if the question is popular among these people, you can be sure that there are many others surfing the web, searching for the same thing!

Some good places to start looking for discussion boards and newsgroups related to your area of interest include…

http://www.deja.com
http://www.talkcity.com
http://www.insidetheweb.com
http://www.theglobe.com
http://www.forumone.com

… but a quick search in any major search engine should also produce good boards and chat rooms to check out.

Hot Product Idea #3:

If you already have an existing customer base, do an e-mail survey!

Surveys are not only a great way to improve on any existing product or service you may offer (so that you can start closing even more sales!), they are also a great way to discover fresh product or service ideas.

Once you've sold something to people once, it is extremely easy to
sell to them over and over again.

In fact, statistics have shown that your current client base is a gold mine… and that as many as 36% of the people who have bought something from you previously will buy again if you have something similar to offer.

Think of the potential here. This is how you can start earning a much larger income… very quickly!

So take advantage of this highly profitable relationship, and find out what your previous customers are asking for with an e-mail survey.

Think about it -- an e-mail survey isn't going to cost you anything but your time!

Hot Product Idea #4:

Check out consumer review web sites to find out what people like and dislike about your competitor's products.

People go to these sites to either rave or complain, and that makes them great places to learn exactly what the public thinks about your competitors -- or even you!

Some good sites to check out include:

http://www.consumerreview.com
http://www.consumersearch.com
http://www.consumersdigest.com

Hot Product Idea #5:

Join an Associate Program and promote someone else's product for a referral fee.

(Just to clarify, Associate Programs are also called Affiliate Programs, Re-seller Programs, Commission or Pay-Per-Sale, Pay-Per-Click and Click-Through Programs.)

Joining an Associate Program is a great way to start earning a nice income on the Internet… without many of the hassles that come with running your own business.

All you do is refer someone else's product or service, and then get paid a "referral fee" for every sale that is made. (You are assigned a special URL that tracks all of the visitors you send to their web site -- and all of the sales that you generate!)

It's extremely easy to do! You just post a link, a banner, or a short recommendation letter on your web site… or perhaps recommend the product or service in your newsletter or e-zine… and then collect a percentage of the profits when a sale is made!

You don't ever worry about…

Collecting the money
Packaging the product
Shipping the product
Customer service

… or anything else for that matter! You just do the promotion and collect your referral fee from the resulting sales!

It's extremely easy to set up… there is really very little work involved… and once the link is there, you are guaranteeing yourself an extremely easy source of income for years to come! These "Pay-Per-Sale" programs are usually really easy to join. Just make sure you pay attention and read the terms and conditions, because they can vary from program to program.

I should also mention that there are a number of Associate Programs out there that don't actually "pay-per-sale" but actually "pay-per-lead" or "per-click".

In a pay-per-lead program, you are paid every time your customer fills out a survey, asks for more information, or gets a quote on a product (in other words, you are paid for giving the company a "lead"). You may even get paid every time your customer downloads trial or demo software.

Pay-Per-Click is very similar. Basically, you get paid every time someone "clicks" through the link from your site to the Associate Program owner's web site (whether it be a text link or graphic link).

On that note, make sure that you do business with a reputable company. I know many people who have worked really hard, made a lot of sales for a company, and then have never been paid for the sales they generated (or have been forced to wait months and months to get their money).

These companies often don't take their Associate Program seriously, aren't using the proper software, and are wasting time and money doing tedious chores by hand when they need to get automated. So while there ARE some really fantastic Associate Programs out there that can earn you a sizeable income, you need to do your homework.

Our own Associates tell us that there are only a handful of reputable Associate Programs like ours that offer "the full meal deal"! In fact, the Internet Marketing Center has been consistently rated as one of the TOP Associate Programs online by major authorities on the subject, including AssociatePrograms.com… so it shows that we know what we are talking about.

We work very, very hard to make our Program the BEST, which is why we have thousands and thousands of very happy associates! (If you'd like to learn how you can join our associate program and start profiting from products that are earning current associates thousands of dollars every month, click here.)

Anyway, if you are interested in starting your very own Internet business, but want to avoid developing your own product or service, then joining an Associate Program may be a great option for you.

Two really good sites to visit to find high quality Associate Programs that pay excellent referral fees are:

http://www.associateprograms.com
http://www.refer-it.com

In my opinion, if you want to avoid the heartache and frustration of the scams and frauds out there, peddling their "Get Rich Quick" Associate Programs, you should only deal with the Associate Programs which these two sites rate high or recommend.

Final Note:

Just in case you have not yet read the "Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet" course, I wanted to let you know that it contains an entire section devoted to hot selling product ideas.

And I'm not just talking about places where you can find ideas… I'm talking about exact ideas that absolutely anyone can use to start their very own Internet business. (Some of the ideas are so easy to start, you could be up and running by the end of next week!)

Anyway, it's a great resource if you are interested in starting an Internet business, but don't have a product or service to offer yet. Click here now if you would like more information.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Internet marketing expert Derek Gehl specializes in teaching real people how to successfully start, build, and grow their own profitable online businesses on small budgets. To get instant access to the step-by-step strategies, tools, and resources he's used to grow just $25 into over $60 Million in online sales, visit: http://www.marketingtips.com/t.cgi/4012

Small Business

2008-02-12T09:28:00.000-08:00

Why the Best Internet Marketing Strategies Are Flat-out Useless Without This Unsung Hero of the Business World

Even if you master each and every one of the best Internet marketing strategies out there -- sales copywriting, search engine optimization, email marketing, and the rest -- they're not worth a dime if you forget about customer service.

It's a strategy that every truly successful business knows about and pays careful attention to... because the one thing ALL successful businesses have in common is customers. Satisfied customers.

Today, I want to show you how to make every one of your customers a satisfied customer -- so happy that they'll return again and again, AND send new customers your way.

I'll look at several proven ways you can do this, including:

Reducing the risk for your customers to get more
Going that extra mile to get more repeat business and more referrals from delighted customer
Providing great after-sales support to keep customers coming back
Personalizing your offers to make your customers remember you
Listening to your customers to keep them loyal to your business

So let's take a look at some great examples of customer service from across the spectrum -- online, offline, retail, service, hospitality... anywhere the customer is Number One!

Why good customer service is ESSENTIAL for online success

There's an old saying in business: A happy customer will tell one or two people, an unhappy one will tell 10!

So it pays to keep your customers happy -- and never more so than when doing business online.

In the Internet age, a seriously ticked-off customer might not only tell 10 people, they might also write a lengthy rant on their blog, post comments on other people's blogs, write a negative review of your site on a shopping web site, or criticize you on forums and message boards. Or all of the above!

In extreme cases, some unhappy customers even start web sites or blogs devoted to airing their grievances about a particular company. Microsoft, UPS, and Wal-Mart are all among the -- mostly corporate -- targets of customers with a grudge.

While small businesses are unlikely to be targeted in such a way, the viral nature of the Internet means that a negative comment about your company can spread faster than a fire in a matchbox.

And worse, once something has been written about you online, it's very difficult to get it removed. This means that any prospective customer who decides to "Google" your business name could come across it.

So, while good customer service might cost some time and money, bad customer service costs you prospective customers and their lifetime value. Think how much losing even just 10 sales would cost you, and compare it to the extra sales you'll gain from making your customers happy.

And case study after case study shows that building good customer service into a business also increases efficiency, as well as sales.

The stronger your guarantee, the more sales you'll generate -- guaranteed!

The guarantee offered by mail-order retailer Lands' End, simply says, "Guaranteed. Period." Shoppers can return their items anytime and for any reason.

It's a customer service strategy that serves them well. In fact, they market their company on the back of it, calling it, "The most watertight guarantee in the business."

And just in case you think Lands' End is a big corporation whose strategies don't apply to you, I should mention this has been one of the foundations of their business since they were a three-man operation doing mail order out of their store basement.

Most importantly, Lands' End stands by that guarantee... to the extent that one of their catalogs featured the story of a man who returned an antique car he'd purchased... several years after he bought it!

First of all, the company sells clothes, not cars -- he'd bought the car through a special promotion. And second, he'd been driving around in it for a while. But, by honoring the guarantee in such a way, they turned the story of a returned car into a marketing vehicle for their excellent customer service.

And it worked. Here you are reading about it!

You can be sure that the goodwill and word-of-mouth publicity generated by accepting such an "unusual" return more than offset the cost of refunding the car buyer.

That's the lesson here: A strong, well-written guarantee -- one you stand by unconditionally -- is not only good customer service, but it is proven to actually increase sales by.

Removing any risk on the part of the buyer and giving them the confidence to buy from you.
Boosting your credibility as a trustworthy seller who believes in your product, and who's willing to back up your belief in it.

Now, some people worry about being ripped off by unscrupulous buyers who purchase an item, get everything they want from it, and then return it to take advantage of the guarantee. It happens, but not often -- as long as you offer an excellent product!

At IMC, we've been offering a one-year refund on our Insider Secrets course for years -- and only very rarely does anyone take us up on the guarantee.

Our tests show that you'll receive fewer returns with a one year guarantee than with a six-month guarantee, and a six-month guarantee will bring in fewer returns than a 30-day guarantee.

Bottom line... the stronger your guarantee, the more sales you'll generate -- and the fewer returns you'll actually get.

Keep your customers coming back by providing MORE services than they expect

Why not go that extra mile and provide EXTRA services that add value to your offer? These are often known as "loss leaders" because, while they may cost you a little extra up front, the payoff comes in the form of more referrals and more repeat business.

Or you can even use your excellent customer service as part of your offer and charge a little more, knowing that your customers will be willing to pay the extra for all the services you provide. (This is something well worth testing.)

Take the example of a dry cleaner I read about recently who offers the best customer service possible to keep people coming back to him... and it turns out that his customers are more than willing to pay a little more for the many extra services he offers.Instead of just taking dirty clothes from customers and returning them spick-and-span, this dry cleaner decided to offer his customers much more, including:

Free pick-up and delivery

Folding or hanging cleaned clothes according to preference

Wrapping shirts in plastic with a piece of cardboard to help maintain their shape

Providing a sturdy laundry bag (with his logo on it, of course!)

This guy understands that his customers are busy, and anything he can do to make their lives easier will be appreciated -- and be worth paying more for.

So he not only cleans clothes, he provides convenience and turns a tedious chore into a pleasant and painless experience.

And does providing great, value-added customer service like this work in terms of retaining customers and attracting new ones? You bet... I found this story through a happy customer's blog!

The other interesting thing about this story is that the dry cleaner advertises some of his extra services, but not others, meaning that his new customers are often very pleasantly surprised by the extra services they receive.

And ALL customers love to be surprised with a little extra bonus they didn't expect!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Internet marketing expert Derek Gehl specializes in teaching real people how to successfully start, build, and grow their own profitable online businesses on small budgets. To get instant access to the step-by-step strategies, tools, and resources he's used to grow just $25 into over $60 Million in online sales, visit:

http://www.marketingtips.com/t.cgi/4012

The Search engine marketing software that meets the best industry standards

2008-02-07T07:17:00.000-08:00

The Search engine marketing software that meets the best industry standards

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I think Web CEO is "the" SEO/SEM tool to use that far out runs any of the competition around today or, in my opinion, anything that could be dreamed up in the future, as you guys have created a sensational, professional and substantial piece of marketing genius that was profoundly necessary for the professional SEO Marketer like me.”

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Shared Memories Gifts Australia

http://www.sharedmemories.com.au/

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2007-03-25T13:05:00.000-07:00

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