Tim McLendon's Blog

(Don't Get Ripped Off)

2008-04-27T10:50:00.000-07:00

(Don't Get Ripped Off)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
BandOMarketing.com
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(For the most part, affiliate programs are a nice, easy way to
make money online. However, like many other online
opportunities, you need to be on the lookout for scams.
Internet scams are all over the place, as they are increasing in
popularity. Unfortunately, there are also scammers who are
using affiliate programs as fronts. Although it is hard to
associate good news with internet scams, there is good news.
That good news is that there are ways to make sure that you join
an affiliate program, make sales, and actually get paid for
those sales.

As previously mentioned, a large number of scammers are starting
to use affiliate programs as fronts for their scams. These scams
can take on a number of different sizes, shapes, and styles.
One of the most popular affiliate program scams involves
affiliate programs that do not pay. These programs are selling
real, legitimate products. The only problem is that many of
these affiliate programs do not pay. Essentially, you end up
doing a bunch of work for nothing. Another common affiliate
program scam involves selling a product that doesn’t even exist.
Not only will you not get paid for your hard work, but you will
also be participating in a scam that involves ripping off
consumers, by taking their money without giving them what they
paid for.

As it was mentioned above, there are a number of different ways
that you can prevent yourself from joining an affiliate program
that doesn’t pay. One of those ways involves choosing a
well-known affiliate program. If you need assistance choosing
an affiliate program, you can seek it online. There are a large
number of online websites that give accurate and updated
information on a wide variety of affiliate programs. There are
also programs, which are regularly referred to as affiliate
directories. These directories are actually in charge of
running a company’s affiliate program. Many of these programs,
which include LinkShare, come highly rated and recommend, as do
the affiliate programs they have listed in their directories.

In conjunction with researching an affiliate program, you can
also research the product that is being sold. A large number of
customers write product reviews. Many of these product reviews,
which can be both positive and negative, can be found online.
You will also want to check out websites that are known as scam
websites. Scam websites allow internet users, just like you, to
post ways that they have been scammed and by whom. You can find
information on poor quality products, individuals, companies,
and even affiliate programs that are not considered legitimate.
When researching an affiliate program or even a product, it is
important to remember that nothing and no one is perfect. While
it isn’t uncommon to find one or two negative reviews, you need
to be cautious of numerous negative reviews.

Since it is relatively easy to avoid an affiliate program scam,
you are advised to do so. If anything appears out of the
ordinary or if you suspicions are raised, you are advised to use
your common sense. In the long run, you will be glad with your
decision to do so. Not only can avoiding an affiliate program
scam ensure that you get paid, but it will also help you save
your own reputation. The last thing you want to be associated
with is an affiliate program that doesn’t deliver the products
that they promise. In fact, your name or your company’s name
could literally be drudged through the mud. While you may think
that this won’t have a long lasting impact, it might just,
especially if you plan on selling your own products in the near
future. Even if your products are quality products, many
consumers might remember you as the person who scammed them
before.

Although it is relatively easy to spot an affiliate program
scam, there are a few that might “fall threw the cracks.” If
you later determine that you are involved in an affiliate
program scam, or even just a program that is selling poor
quality products, you are advised to get out as soon as
possible. Severing your ties will help to ensure you get paid,
as well as build a good name for yourself.

P.S. Affiliate program scams do exist, but you don’t have to
live in fear of them. Just use your common sense, when it comes
to choosing an affiliate program. Common sense goes a lot
further than many imagine.)

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(Page Length For Search Engines)

2008-04-20T12:55:00.000-07:00

(Page Length For Search Engines)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
BandOMarketing.com
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(You’ve decided to create content for your web pages, but aren’t
sure how many words each page should have to ensure that search
engines and visitors come back often. It’s a dilemma that many
web site owners face. They don’t want to have too little words,
but they don’t want to have too many words, either. It’s a
delicate balance that every web site owner has to know in order
to have a site that is search engine optimized and visitor
friendly. In this newsletter, we will discuss the appropriate
length for pages, and the reason why your pages should adhere to
this length requirement.

What is a good length for pages?

Ideally, each page should have at least 700 words, but no more
than 1500 words. Anything less than 700 words and search engine
spiders might just skip over your site entirely; anything more
than 1500 and spiders won’t take the time to search through the
content for keywords.

When I write the content, what should I strive to do?

You should strive to write content that is entertaining and easy
to read. Don’t drone on and on just to meet the 700 word
requirement. Find things to talk about that are relevant to your
site and come up with ways to say them in a concise manner.
Remember that search engine bots aren’t the only thing to come
to your site—people are also coming to your site and they will
want to read content that makes them want to visit again. Aim to
please them first, then the search engine bots.

How do I please search engine bots?

Pleasing search engine bots is as simple as having 700+ words of
content and some keywords sprinkled into your content. Keywords
are words that the search engine bots immediately spot and use
to figure out how to rank your site. In a document of 700 words,
you’ll want to have at least 7 keywords, but preferably around
21, throughout your content. When using keywords, make sure to
sprinkle them naturally throughout the document so that you do
not distract your reader from what the content is about.

Why should I have pages with content between 700 and 1500 words?

The reasons for this are simple. Having pages with content of
700-1500 words will please visitors and search engine spiders.
Pleasing both will help your site attract more traffic and
become successful.

Visitors who come to your site want to see useful content. If
your content is short, chances are, it’s not very useful to
visitors. Good content is content that is worthwhile to read and
tells the visitor something they don’t already know. It must be
packed with information and details. Few can accomplish this in
less than 700 words, which is why it is often necessary to use
that many words.

However, it is also important not to be too wordy with your
content. People want to be able to quickly get the content they
need. They don’t want to read through hundreds of words of fluff
in order to get what they came for. So be concise and try to
make sure your content doesn’t go over 1500 words.

Spiders who come to your site want to have a good amount of
content to “chew” on. That is, they want to have enough content
to report back to the search engine database. Less than 700
words really isn’t enough content for a spider to bring back to
a search engine database, so spiders tend to ignore pages with
under 700 words.

Spiders, much like human visitors, also don’t like pages with
excessive amounts of words. Pages with 1500 words are usually a
big turnoff to spiders, and even if a spider does visit the
page, chances are they won’t report the contents of the page
back to the search engine database for which they work. That is
why you must strive to be concise not just for human visitors,
but for the robot(spider) visitors as well.

If you are able to limit your pages to between 700 and 1500
words, you will do well with human visitors and search engine
spiders. That’s the goal of every web site owner and should be
your goal as well.

P.S. Writing content between 700-1500 words is easy as long as
you come up with good content to write about and try to be as
concise as possible. It’s just that easy!)

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(Meta Tags, Titles & Their Uses)

2008-04-06T08:20:00.000-07:00

(Meta Tags, Titles & Their Uses)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
BandOMarketing.com
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(Title and Meta Tags can be quite helpful—and effective—to
gaining more visitors to your site. However, they are only as
effective as you make them. Proper use of meta and title tags is
absolutely essential to making them a good thing for your site.
In this newsletter, we will go over the basics of title & meta
tags—using proper keywords, writing good meta tag descriptions,
and using the title tag effectively.

The basics to creating good meta tags

It is best to plot out how you’ll use meta tags on a particular
page before even writing the content for the page. Lots of
people will write the content of the page and then try to
sprinkle in keywords in the meta tags. This is an ineffective
way of doing things, as it usually makes your page confusing to
visitors.

Before writing content, take a minute to pick out 3-4 primary
keywords. Then take another minute to write phrases from those
words. Once you’ve done that, you can begin writing your content
around the keywords.

How do I select proper keywords to enter into the meta tags?

This is an excellent question. Really, there are two main rules
of thumb for selecting proper keywords.

#1: Base your keywords off of the content of your site.

For instance, if you are running a digital photography site,
your keywords could be digital, photographs, photography etc.
You’ll want to steer clear of silly keywords that don’t relate
to your site. These would include keywords completely irrelevant
to your site.

#2: Make sure your keywords can flow naturally throughout the
content of your site.

Try to pick words that you can easily incorporate into the
content of your site and that make sense. You must remember that
actual people are reading your site—the content(and keywords)
MUST make sense to not only search engines, but also to the
people who visit your site. Thus, the keywords you choose must
fit the content of your site perfectly.

How do I write a good description tag?

What description tags essentially do is briefly inform the
search bot/web crawler what a site is about. Therefore, to write
a good description tag, you must be able to write a good, brief
description of what your site is about. It is important to note
that you are limited to 200 characters or less in the
description tag so be as concise as possible.

Let’s use the photography example again. Your site is based on
digital photography. So your description tag should say that
your site is related to digital photography.

Example description tag: “Digital photography site, digital
photos, buy digital photos, print digital photos”.

The search engine bot/web crawler will see this and will place
the site in relevant search results. So if someone searches for
digital photos, they should see your site somewhere on the list.

The same principle can be applied to any and every site. Good
description tags are as simple as a good, concise description of
what your site is about.

How to use the Title tag Effectively.

There are some misconceptions about Title tags. People have said
in the past(and some still do today) that a good, effective
Title tag consists of keywords. However, this is just not true.
Every good title tag consists of two things—the name of the site
and a brief description of what is on the site.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Title tag is also the
title of your listing in any search engine. Why would you want
your title listing to consist of keywords? It won’t help your
site at all—it will actually hurt it because people are less
likely to take the site seriously due to silly keywords. Another
thing worth noting is that the Title tag should never be more
than 80 characters. Generally speaking, the briefer the Title
tag is, the better. So strive to be concise!

So what is a good, effective Title tag? Well, a good, effective
Title tag should first have the name of your web site (so if
it’s www.digitalphotography.com, it should be “Digital
Photography”) and then a short description of the site. In this
example, you could put “Digital Photography – Buy and Print
Digital Photos Here”. This is both an accurate and effective
Title tag for this particular site. Apply this principle to your
site and you will have a good and effective Title tag.

P.S. Meta tags and titles are incredibly useful to your site.
Master the above techniques and you will be able to create
effective meta tags and titles that will help your site earn a
higher search engine ranking and more visitors!)

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(Direct Advantages of Email Marketing)

2008-03-09T09:00:00.000-07:00

(Direct Advantages of Email Marketing)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
BandOMarketing.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Email marketing is a wonderful way to reach large amounts of
customers in a short amount of time. This is a very inexpensive
marketing method that is effective. It will result in getting
more traffic to your website thus generating more sales. Email
marketing can be used by any type of business regardless of the
products or services they have to offer.

One huge advantage of email marketing is it can be effective for
both large and small businesses. When it comes to regular
commerce, the larger company can afford to print up colorful
fliers and ads. This is much harder for smaller businesses due
to the expense. Email marketing can be done using software so
that even small businesses can create effective and professional
looking email marketing campaigns on a small budget. This will
hopefully help them increase their sales.

Email marketing is an effective way to deliver the information
you want to get to consumers in the method they enjoy using.
Most everyone has email these days and it is common to log on
and check for messages several times each day. It also allows
you the opportunity to reach consumers around the globe. There
are no boundaries when it comes to location with this method of
marketing.

On average email marketing costs 78% less than other types of
marketing. This savings is after the cost of research, testing,
and sending the emails. It also takes the cost of consulting
into consideration. Email marketing consulting is often less
expensive than other marketing consultants. This means you can
choose to save money or maybe invest more but reach more people.
In addition to saving money, you save valuable time. Your emails
can be scheduled to go out at times when you are out of the
office or working on other projects.

To appeal to your consumers, email marketing allows you to use
graphics, games, music, videos, and other types of materials to
gain their interest. This is something most other marketing
concepts don’t allow. Sure, they offer one or two choices but it
seems like everything is possible with email marketing concepts.
Since you have the name and purchasing history of the
individual, you can personalize the email. This makes the
customer feel more trusting towards you as well as more loyal to
the company. It is much better than getting a piece of mail at
home that says dear customer. You will be able to create
marketing lists that allow you to send a marketing campaign only
to a target market. This is a very effective way of sending
different campaigns to different customers.

The process of email marketing gives you tools for measuring the
successful of the marketing campaign. You can measure the click
through rate, conversion rate, find out how a person linked to
your website, and many more ways of analyzing data.

Customers can choose to opt out by clicking the link in your
email marketing campaign. This saves you money by knowing who
isn’t interested in receiving your information. There is no way
to know that with other types of marketing campaigns. For those
who are interested in your email marketing campaign, you will
see the responses quickly. This is a great way of knowing what
is effective for future marketing endeavors.

P.S.
Email marketing is one of the most common as well as most
successful marketing methods available. With the volumes of
consumers on the internet everyday it only makes sense to use it
from a business point of view. Email marketing is a great way to
reach a volume of people quickly and inexpensively. Email
marketing is a great opportunity to communicate with your
customers. This is an effective way to be able to analyze your
marketing tools so you will know what is working and what areas
you need to continue improving.)

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(The Truth About Trackbacks)

2008-02-23T12:18:00.000-08:00

(The Truth About Trackbacks)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
BandOMarketing.com
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(If you’re a blogger, chances are you’ve heard of trackbacks.
Most likely, you probably don’t know what these are and what
they have to do with your blog. That’s alright, as most people
don’t quite understand how trackbacks work and why they are
useful for a blog. In this newsletter, we’re going to go over
trackbacks—what they are, how they work, why they are important
to blog traffic, and how to get more trackbacks. After you’ve
read this, you’ll know practically everything there is to know
about trackbacks.

What are trackbacks?

The concept of trackbacks is a bit hard to explain. So we’ll use
an example to explain it in the best way possible.

OK, say you see a great blog post on another person’s blog and
want to link to it on your blog. You could do this the
old-fashioned way by manually putting a link on your site to
that blog. However, if you do it this way, the person whose blog
post you are linking to won’t know that you are linking to them
unless you tell them.

This is where trackbacks come in. A trackback is a program which
will notify the owner of a blog when one of their posts has been
linked to at another blog.

How do they work?

A blog that has a trackback system set up will have a link at
the bottom of every blog post. This link will say something like
“Blog This!” Anyone who clicks the link can then put a link to
that blog post on their site. The person who posted the original
blog will then be notified via email that their blog posting has
been linked to. Additionally, the link that was clicked(“Blog
This!”) will change to “Trackbacks”. From that point forward,
the “Trackbacks” link will keep track of how many people have
chosen to blog about that particular post. So after the first
trackback, it will say “Trackbacks: 1”. The number of trackbacks
recorded will be updated as they occur.

Why are trackbacks important to blog traffic?

The easy answer is that trackbacks are important because they
increase awareness of your blog. Trackbacks also make a blog
seem more credible. After all, people have to think your posts
are good enough to be trackbacked.

Anytime a person makes a trackback on your blog, they make a
post on their own blog about your blog. This, in turn, lets
their readers know about your blog. Chances are, their readers
will want to visit your blog to see what the big deal is. If
they see something on your blog that they like, they’ll keep
coming back for more, which means you’ll have a whole new
fanbase of readers. That means more traffic for your blog.

Can you imagine what would happen if 5 different bloggers
trackbacked a post on your blog? Depending on how popular their
blog is, that’s potentially as much as hundreds of new readers
for your blog! Pretty incredible, right?

Also, every trackback made, assuming it is a legitimate one(and
some trackbacks are spam, especially if they are there only to
link to another site) adds credibility to your blog. Blogs with
high amounts of trackbacks look credible because lots of people
like the posts enough to trackback them.

How can I increase the number of trackbacks I get?

The easiest and best way to increase trackbacks is to frequently
post. If you post frequently (2-3 times a week), people will
have quite a few posts that they can trackback. However, it is
important to make sure that your posts are of a good quality.
Quality blog posts are those that people can relate to and are
easy to read. If you post a long boring rant, people probably
won’t want to trackback that. But if you post a decent sized
rant that is entertaining (and that people are likely to agree
with), you’ll get trackbacked.

The number of trackbacks you get is totally dependent on the
number of visitors your blog receives and how frequently you are
able to make quality posts. If you’ve got a good amount of
visitors and write good blog posts, you’ll get trackbacks.

P.S. Trackbacks are a wonderful thing for every blog. You are
able to know when your blog posting has been posted about at
another blog, plus you potentially gain more visitors. It’s a
win-win situation for you!)

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(Marketing Via Video)

2008-02-17T09:47:00.000-08:00

(Marketing Via Video)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
BandOMarketing.com
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(Using streaming videos in the internet as a form of marketing
is a relatively new approach. Currently, most marketing
brochures and newsletters are using text and pictures in
combination to attract a consumer’s attention. Some pictures are
a combination of still and animated objects to better the
chances of attracting a prospective customer. But, if there is
anything advertisers and consumers have learned about marketing,
television advertisements are still the best way to attract
attention for a product and keep it in the consumer’s memory.

To fully understand why internet streaming videos are the next
step in online marketing, we need to be able to grasp the
objective of advertisers and the effects of the different
methods of advertising.

To begin with, online advertising began mainly with newsletters
in the form of emails or pop-up screens containing pure text and
some inanimate pictures. As internet users became more and more
accustomed to surfing the WWW, these newsletters and pop-up
advertisements gradually turned into annoyances. Marketing
newsletters started to look like junk mail and pop-up screens
became similar to billboard advertisements that you see
everyday. Also, pop-up screens disturbs the rhythm of internet
surfing. There you are browsing away when you see a link or
article which you decide to follow or read. Just as you are
about to click on it or just as you are in the middle of reading
it, the pop-up appears and displaces your current browser window
behind it.

In short, these common forms of advertising soon became major
annoyances in most cases that anti virus software developers
soon added anti pop-up features in their products thereby
drastically reducing the number of consumers that these pop-ups
were able to reach. To add emphasis to the drive against pop-up
advertising windows, Mozilla developed a built-in anti-pop up
utility into their web browser, Firefox. Just as the pop-window
is about to open, Firefox immediately denies the opening of this
new browser window. Nowadays, I rarely see pop-up screens on my
computer when I browse the WWW.

As far as email newsletters and advertisements are concerned, a
similar phenomenon is occurring where they have suddenly evolved
into what is known as junk mail or spam mail in internet
language. Again, anti-virus protection software creators
incorporated spam mail protection within their software while
numerous sites in the internet make available free, downloadable
anti-spam software. The biggest blow to spam mail marketing was
when e-mail providers decided to add anti-spam or spam blocking
utilities in their website. As a result of these measures
against pop-ups and spam messaging, an avenue in internet
marketing is about to close.

This is where streaming video comes in. It is undisputed that
television commercials are still the best way to attract
attention. The advertiser needs to make the product look good in
TV, but their primary objective is to attract the consumer’s
attention. Their second goal is to make the video memorable
enough so that the customer remembers the brand name when they
have need of the product. The most famous brand names like
Marlboro succeeded in their advertising campaign videos so much
so that people still remember the Marlboro man. In this
advertisement, the first thing you see are wild horses running.
This is quite an attention drawer since lots of people like
horses even when they haven’t seen one in person.

The main advantage of videos is their ability to instill
curiosity in a person. An apt demonstration of this ability is
when people are seen stopping at display windows of stores that
have television displays in them. When you see a moving picture,
you are immediately interested in what it is all about and what
will happen next. Even if you don’t stop in front of the
display, you will spare a glance or two. The uncanny part is
this, in the instant that you see people gathered in front of
something you haven’t seen yet, you will take time to look to
satisfy your curiosity. However, if that display happens to be
in your own neighborhood, you will gradually get accustomed to
it and begin to ignore it.

This is the strength of internet marketing through streaming
videos. It immediately grabs attention. The only thing that you
as an advertiser have to do is to make the video interesting
enough that it maintains or improves on that initial level of
interest. When the video is old enough to become common place,
you replace it with a new one. Unlike pop-ups or spam messages
or newsletters, they cannot become an annoyance because the
first thing it does is to grab the consumer’s attention and
curiosity.

With the use of videos, the consumer gets a clear picture of
what your product or idea is all about. This is an added bonus
to the attention grabbing feature of using videos for your
marketing or advertising campaigns. When a consumer knows what
you and your product are all about, they can begin to trust you.
After all, having the trust of your customer’s is better than
the bottom line. A trusting customer is one who will patronize
all your product lines. As good as your advertising video is, it
is still the quality of your product that matters in the end.

P.S. To make a video interesting enough, try to place some humor
and social relevance into them. You also need to make your
customers feel a need or craving for your product. This is
especially true for entrepreneurs who wish to create a niche for
their product line. A good video advertisement will pull in
people more than newsletters, pop-up windows or spam messages
will.)

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(Article Directories For Profit)

2008-02-09T09:57:00.000-08:00

(Article Directories For Profit)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
BandOMarketing.com
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(Are you looking to increase the amount of traffic that your
website sees? If you rely on your website for income, there is a
good chance that you are. If you are unfamiliar with internet
marketing, you may have done a little bit of online research.
While researching internet marketing, there is a good chance
that you came across article directories. Article directories
are essentially online websites that display content, often with
links. These links should link readers directly to your website,
whether it be an online store or a content site. When it comes
to article directories, one of the most common questions asked
is “is it worth the time?” In all honesty, it depends.

Submitting articles to article directories is a great way to
increase traffic to your website, but it all depends on the
approach that you take. If you are looking to benefit from
submitting articles to article directories, there are a number
of important factors that you will want to take into
consideration. These factors, which are outlined below, may have
a significant impact on the amount of traffic that your website
sees from article distribution.

As it was mentioned above, article directories are essentially
websites that display a collection of content. That content,
which is accompanied by links, is often placed into specific
categories, such as parenting, money, business, and so on. As
article distribution has increased in popularity, so have
article directories. This means that it is possible to find
hundred of article directories that are willing to accept your
articles and have them displayed on their site. While your
first impulse may be to submit your articles to every article
directory that you can find, you may want to reexamine your
decision to do so, as it can be time consuming. In fact, it may
be a good idea to research article directories, find, and submit
articles to the directories that are considered the most popular
or those that come highly rated and recommend.

It is also important that you examine how often you submit
content. As with your website, you are urged to update it often
or at least add new content to it. After all, it is a known
fact that internet users like to see new, refreshed content.
The same can be said for the articles that you submit to article
directories. You will want to develop a schedule. Submitting
new articles to article directories a couple of times a week is
a good goal to have. In fact, the more you can submit, the
better the results are likely to be. The more articles that you
have distributed across the internet, the more links you will
have. This, in turn, will increase your chances of seeing your
website’s traffic increase.

Although producing and disturbing a large number of articles is
your best chance of success with article directories, you also
want to examine the content that you are submitting. It is
extremely important that your content is interesting, readable,
and presentable. That is why it is important that you do not
rush when creating articles. In fact, it may be a good idea to
proofread your articles multiple times, before distributing them
online. It is also advised that you view your articles, once
they have been published online. Most article directories will
allow you to post links to your websites at the end of your
article page. For article directories to work to your benefit,
you need to make sure that readers make it to the end of your
article. This is why interesting and readable articles are
vital to your success.

As long as you keep the above mentioned points in mind, you
should be able to benefit from submitting to article
directories. To get you started, you may want to examine Ezine
Articles - http://www.ezinearticles.com/, Isnare Articles -
http://www.isnare.com/, and Article Alley -
http://www.articlealley.com; they are considered three of the
most highly rated and recommended article directories online.

P.S. Article directories are a great way to increase your
website’s traffic, but they are also a great way to get your
name, as an author, out into the internet community.)

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(Pointers on PPC Position)

2008-02-03T12:10:00.000-08:00

(Pointers on PPC Position)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
BandOMarketing.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(A number of pay per click advertising programs, such as Google
Adwords, allow you to choose where you would like your
advertisements to appear on a webpage. This is often referred
to as position preference. Though important to your success,
position preference may also have an impact on the cost of pay
per click advertising.

If this is your first time participating in a pay per click
advertising program, like Google Adwords, you may be unfamiliar
with position preference, the positions in particular. When you
sign up for an affiliate program, you should be given access to
a map. That map should outline a number of different positions;
positions where advertisements are often displayed. In most
cases, these positions are numbered. The number scale used by
Google is 1 to 10+. As you may have already assumed, one is the
best position; it is often right at the top of a webpage. As
for positions 10+, they can usually be found towards the bottom
of a webpage. The actual positions and their numbers will all
depend on the pay per click program in question.

With online advertisements, it is known that those shown above
the fold are often the most successful; the ones that receive
the most clicks. The phrase “above the fold,” is used to
describe the part of a website that can be seen right away.
Below the fold is used to describe the part of a website that
internet users must scroll down to see. Since many internet
users do not scroll down to examine a whole webpage, most
advertisers try and get their ads placed above the fold. This
is typically where positions one, positions two, and positions
three are located. Before automatically trying to get into one
of these highly sought after position slots, you should examine
whether it is worth it. To do this, you will want to examine
the pros and cons of trying to obtain a first, second, or third
position.

As it was mentioned above, the biggest advantage to scoring a
first, second, or third place advertising position is placement.
These advertisements are ones that are likely to be seen
immediately, no scrolling down is required. It is a known fact
that advertisements located on the top or in the upper left-hand
or right-hand sides of a webpage are more likely to be clicked.
As an advertiser, this may result in your ads being clicked. If
your advertisements are being targeted to the right website,
websites that are related to the products that you are selling,
this click may end up resulting in a sale.

Although good placement alone is enough to make many advertisers
want a first, second or third advertising position, there are
also a number of disadvantages to seeking those positions. As
it was stated above, these positions are the ones that are most
sought after. Pay per click programs know this; therefore, they
charge more money for those positions. The amount of money that
you will have to pay will depend on your maximum bid. What is
nice about many pay per click programs, including Google
Adwords, is that you are able to set yourself a daily budget.
This means that you can ask to have your advertisements
displayed in the first, second, or third place positions, even
if you are on a budget. Once your daily spending limit has been
reached, another advertisement will take over your top position.
In a way, this is nice because it allows you to experiment with
position preference, without having to spend too much money.

Although position preference may have an impact on the amount of
traffic that your online store sees or the amount of sales that
you make, it is important that you do not rely on it. It is
important to remember the name, position preference,
particularly the preference part. In no way are your
advertisements guaranteed to appear in the first, second, or
third positions, but your pay per click program representatives
will try their best to ensure that they are.

P.S. Position preference is a popular feature that is used by
many pay per click advertisers, including those that use Google
Adwords.)

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(Product Belief)

2008-02-02T15:37:00.001-08:00

(Product Belief)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
BandOMarketing.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(When it comes to an affiliate program, one of the most common
mistakes a program participant makes is choosing to sell a
product that they do not believe in or fully stand behind, one
hundred percent. Although you may be making money, you may also
be creating a bad name for yourself. That is why it is
important that you promote or sell products that you believe in.

When it comes to promoting a product that you believe in, one of
the most commonly asked questions is “how?” The best way to
promote a product that you believe in is to actually try out the
product. For instance, if you are promoting an e-book, you may
want to think about reading the e-book in question. In fact, if
you ask, you may be given the e-book to review for free or for a
discounted price. If you are interested in joining an affiliate
program set up by a retailer, you will earn commission for all
sales, not just a particular product. To test the waters, you
may want to think about placing an order, even just a small one.
This will give you a first hand look at the affiliate program
that you will be promoting on your own site.

Perhaps, the greatest reason why you should test out a product
is because if you don’t like it, there is a good chance that
your customers won’t like it as well. In a way, you can look at
it as providing a service to the general public, at least
internet users. By not agreeing to sell a poor quality product,
you will be saving other consumers, just like you, money. In
fact, you should be proud of yourself for refusing to do
business with an affiliate program that doesn’t live up to par.

Another reason why you should avoid doing business with an
affiliate program that sells a poor quality product is because
of your reputation. Although you are only directing customers
to the site where they can buy the product in question, you may
still be remembered for your part in the sale. Do you really
want to be remembered as the guy or the woman who recommended a
product that wasn’t even worth the money spent?

As it was mentioned above, you may be making money with an
affiliate program, even if the product being sold isn’t as good
as it could have been. Although you may be making money will
probably not last forever. In fact, you may soon find your sales
decreasing, if the decrease hasn’t already started. You need to
remember that customers talk. If a customer was not satisfied
with the product that they purchased, they will likely talk to
their friends, family members, and coworkers. They may even
write negative reviews online. These negative reviews may cause
other consumers to avoid purchasing the product that you are
selling, as well as your whole website in general.

The money that you can make, right away, may seem nice, at the
time, but you need to remember to think long-term. Do you know
what you want to do in the future, whether it is now or in a few
years? If you are like many people, there is a good chance
that you have no idea. What if you want to create your own
products to sell online? As it was mentioned above, what you do
online now can come back to haunt you. That is why it is
important that you think about your future, in the business
sense, and it what it may entail. If your dream is to one day
start your own online business, you will want to refrain from
bad publicity; bad publicity that may come in the form of a
poorly run affiliate program.

Although it was advised that you actually test out the products
that you will be promoting, through an affiliate program,
testing isn’t your only option. You can also research a product
online. Reading customer reviews, both good and bad, may give
you insight into the product you may have to sell. Better yet,
it may help you decide whether or not it is a product that you
want to be associated with.

P.S. Promoting affiliate products that you will believe in will
not only make you feel better about yourself, but it may also
help to increase your sales!)

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(Sales Letters for eBooks)

2008-01-27T11:52:00.000-08:00

(Sales Letters for eBooks)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
BandOMarketing.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(How many times have you searched the internet looking for
something and ended up coming across a website that advertised
an e-book for sale? If you have, you are not alone; a lot of
internet users come across these types of web pages. These
types of web pages are known as sale sites. What it nice about
many of these e-book sale sites is that many are successful;
many clicks end up turning into e-book sales. That is why if
you are looking to create and sell an e-book or sell an e-book
that you already created, you are advised to make your own sales
site.

Although there is a good chance that you have come across an
e-book sales site, there is also a chance that you haven’t. If
that is the case, you will want to take the time to familiarize
yourself with e-book sale sites. As you might assume, e-book
sale sites are websites that are used to sell an e-book. Many
times, that is the only point of an e-book sales site. In fact,
that is one of the many reasons why e-book sale sites are so
popular, because they work! Focusing only on one product,
instead of multiple ones, will increase your chances of
successfully making sales.

When it comes to creating a sales page for your e-book, do you
know what you should include? While you can include just about
anything you want, there are certain things that should
definitely be included on an e-book sales site, especially if
you want your sales site to work to your advantage. One of the
many things that you should include on your sales page is small
portions of text from your e-book. Showing small portions of
your e-book is a great way to increase your chances of making
sales. It is a known fact that customers prefer knowing exactly
what they are about to buy.

Customer testimonials or e-book reviews are other important
components of an e-book sales site. As it was mentioned above,
customers like to know what they are about to purchase. They
also want to know that your product, in this case your e-book,
is worth their money. Aside from showing small portions of your
e-book, customer testimonials are the next best approach.
Consumers are more likely to purchase products that come highly
rated and recommended. To spice up your customer testimonials,
you may want to think about including video. If you can, have
some of your readers make a quick video praising your e-book.
This video can be as short as a few seconds or as long as a few
minutes, either way it may help to improve the overall quality
of your e-book sales site.

Now that you know exactly what an e-book sales site is, as well
as what they include, you may be wondering exactly why you
should create a sales page or site for your e-book. As it was
mentioned above, e-book sales pages or sites, tend to focus
solely on one product. Not having any competition will increase
your chances of making a sale. It is also important to note
that e-book sales sites look professional and they tend to rank
highly among search engines. What does this mean for you? It
means that your sales site has a good chance of being found by
internet users who are just surfing for interesting sites.
Wouldn’t it be neat if an internet user who wasn’t even looking
for your product found it and made a purchase?

Another reason why you should think about making an e-book sales
site or at least an e-book sales page is because it is easy to
do. If you are unfamiliar with web design, you can easily make
a sales page by hiring the services of a professional web
designer or by using site builders, which provide you with free
webpage templates.

P.S. If you want to capitalize on your e-book, as much as
possible, you are urged to make yourself an e-book sales page or
site.)

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(Remote Blog or Self Hosted Blog?)

2008-01-13T06:11:00.000-08:00

(Remote Blog or Self Hosted Blog?)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
BandOMarketing.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(So you’ve decided to blog, but aren’t sure whether you should
host the blog yourself or sign up for a free service like
blogger.com. It’s a dilemma that many bloggers face. There are
pros and cons to both, which makes the decision difficult for
many. Neither is perfect, and neither is for everyone.
Fortunately, you should be able to make the best decision for
you if you are armed with adequate knowledge of both. In this
newsletter, we’ll go over services like blogger.com and others,
plus software that allows you to host your own blog. We’ll also
go over the pros and cons of each. After reading this, you will
know which is best for you.

Who offers free blog hosting?

Many sites offer free blog hosting. Among them are Forumer,
Blogger, BlogEasy, Aeonity, BlogThing and Blogates. A quick
search for “free blog” on Google reveals many possibilities.

What software can I use to host my own blog?

Like free blog hosting, there are many possibilities for
software that makes hosting your own blog easy. Most of them are
free to use. These include:

WordPress(the most popular software)
Apache Roller
Blosxom
Geeklog
Textpattern
LifeType

There is also blog software which you can purchase for use on
your site. These include:

Community Server
Movable Type
Radio UserLand

One negative about using software and hosting your own blog is
that the process can often times be complicated. You have to
download the software and install it to your server, which
doesn’t always go easily. It’s particularly hard for those who
don’t have a lot of experience installing things on servers.

Why should I remotely host my blog at a place like Blogger?

Places like Blogger allow you to host your blog there. It’s a
good option for many people.

The Pros

• It’s easy to set up and maintain a blog. You don’t have to go
through the trouble of installing software and configuring it to
work on your server. All you have to do is sign up for an
account and start posting.
• It’s friendly for beginning bloggers. Sites that host blogs
offer good tutorials on how to make your blog postings, so that
even someone who is completely new to the concept of blogging
can do it easily.
• Most blog hosting sites are completely free to use. There is
no need to pay for things like a domain name and hosting.
• Monetizing your blog is easy. Rather than having to manually
put HTML/Javascript codes on your blog to manually set up things
like AdSense and Pay Per Click advertising, you can select an
option on most blog hosting sites that does much of the work for
you.

The Cons

• You don’t have as many options to customize your blog.
Remotely hosted blogs are admittedly somewhat limited in terms
of what you can actually do on them. You have to stick with what
is provided to you in terms of look and features.
• The URL you get is always yourname.BLOGSITE.com. You don’t get
to have a custom domain name like YOURNAME.com. This can
possibly hurt traffic to your blog.
• Blogs hosted on free blog sites don’t look as professional as
self hosted blogs.

Why should I self-host my blog?

The Pros

• You have more options and more flexibility. You are able to
tweak the blog to your liking.
• Your URL is your address for your blog. Rather than having go
to where your blog is hosted to read it, they can read it right
from your site.
• The ability to make your blog look professional. Blogs that
are hosted on sites of their own tend to look a lot better than
those hosted on free sites.
• More space for your blog. Free blog sites usually place a
restriction on how much space you have for things like photos
and music. By hosting your own blog, you are able to use as much
space as you need.
The Cons

• There are sometimes problems with setting up blog software to
run on your site and server. If you aren’t experienced when it
comes to working with mySQL, the process will be hard.
• Updates aren’t as easy to post.
• You have to manually set up programs to monetize your blog.
However, if you are good with HTML/Javascript, this shouldn’t be
too hard.
• You have to pay for your own hosting and domain

As you can see, there are pros and cons to both. Which should
you choose? Well, it depends on who you are and what you intend
to use your blog for. If you intend to use it for business, then
a self-hosted blog is the best idea. If it’s a personal blog,
then a free hosted blog will probably be fine for you.

P.S. Closely examine all of the pros and cons mentioned above.
That way, you’ll be able to make the best decision for you!)

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(Value Perception (Bonus Secret))

2007-12-29T18:24:00.000-08:00

(Value Perception (Bonus Secret))
Copyright © Tim McLendon
BandOMarketing.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(E-books are rapidly increasing in popularity. That popularity
has lead to a surge in the number of e-books that are now
available for sale. If you want to make a profit with your
e-book, you need to set your e-book apart from all of the rest.
A good e-book can sell, but you may need to add a little bit
more. Whether you are preparing to sell a new e-book or if you
have had trouble selling one that you already wrote, you may
want to think about bonuses. Bonuses are a great way to
increase your sales. It is no secret that consumers like free
things; free things that are often referred to as bonuses.

As it was mentioned above, bonuses are often used to describe
things that are being offered for free or at a discounted price.
If properly executed, you may be able to attract a large number
of e-book buyers, just for offering additional bonsuses. To
make the most out of offering a bonus, you are urged to choose
that bonus wisely. Bonuses that may be worth your time include
free product samples, coupons, discount codes, printable charts
or other resource guides, or additional e-book features, like
more content or extra chapters.

In addition to having a wide variety of bonuses to choose from,
when offering them with an e-book purchase, you can also decide
where those bonuses will come from. There are many e-book
authors who like to offer their own bonuses. These types of
bonuses often include additional e-book content or printable
resources, such as charts. For instance, if you are writing an
e-book that outlines getting out of debt, you may want to
include a number of extra, but free printable resources. These
guides could include monthly budget charts, a debt total tally
sheet, or a chart that can be used to track spending habits.
What is nice about offering these types of bonuses is that they
are relatively easy to offer and they are bonuses that many will
use.

If you are interested in offering a different type of bonus,
like free product samples or coupons, you may need outside
assistance. For this example, let’s say that you were trying to
sell an e-book that outlines caring for your exotic pet. You
may be able to partner with an exotic pet store, online or
offline. In most cases, you will find that most businesses
would be more than willing to provide you with coupons or
discount codes to give to your buyers. Coupons for items such
as exotic pet food and other supplies may be needed and put to
good use by your e-book buyers. It is also important to note
that the company which you partner with may also be able to
benefit; they too will likely see an increase in sales, as many
consumers shop where they can save money. Those first-time
sales may even create long-term customers; therefore, everything
works out for everyone involved.

When it comes to adding bonuses to e-books to increase value or
increase the chances of a sale, there are many e-book authors
who wonder exactly how far they should take it. In all honesty,
it is your decision to make. If you are able to create your own
low-cost bonuses, like printable resource guides, you may want
to think about giving these bonuses away to all buyers. If you
are partnering with another business, to offer free product
samples or coupons, it might be best to set a time frame or
limit the number of buyers who qualify for the bonuses.
Advertising that bonuses are available for the first one hundred
buyers will likely cause a temporary spike in sales, but it may
be just enough to generate interest or create a “buzz.”

Adding a bonus or bonuses to your e-book is something that is
completely optional; you don’t have to do it if you don’t want
to. However, e-book bonuses have a fairly high success rate,
especially when marketed the proper way. If you decide to offer
e-book bonuses, consider advertising them, along side your
e-book on your e-book sales page, in online classified ads, and
in any press releases that you may decide to create.

P.S. From a consumer standpoint, do you like getting free
things? There is a good chance that you do and so do millions
of other consumers.)

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(Keyword Intelligence)

2007-12-24T16:47:00.001-08:00

(Keyword Intelligence)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
BandOMarketing.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Keywords are important part of pay per click advertising
programs, whether you are a program affiliate or an advertiser.
Essentially, with pay per click advertising programs, you are
relying on keywords to bring you success. That is why you
should carefully choose your keywords. In addition to carefully
choosing your keywords, you should also make sure that the
keywords you chose are successful or living up to your
standards. You can do this by testing and tracking all of your
keywords.

Before examining how both affiliates and advertisers can go
about testing and tracking their keywords, it is important that
you understand why testing and tracking is important. Pay per
click advertising costs money, granted it only costs when one of
your ads has been clicked, but it is still money. Any good
business owner wants to know exactly where their money is going,
as they should. The testing and tracking of keywords will not
only help to ensure that you are not wasting money, but it will
also let you know if you are making any. Keyword tracking and
testing will also let you know if you are wasting your time.

Now that you know why it is important to test and track your
keywords, you can better understand how to do so. As it was
mentioned above, both advertisers and affiliates are urged to
test and track their keywords. Affiliates need to test and
track because it will help them determine exactly how much money
they are making, as well as how much money they are not making
or could be making. Affiliates rely on their website’s content
to show relevant advertisements. For that reason, if you are an
affiliate, your content needs to contain popular keywords,
keywords that would likely be associated with pay per click
advertisements. Google Adsense gives affiliates updated
tracking information; information that you can use to determine
your success with particular keywords.

In addition to using the information that is supplied to you by
your pay per click program, you can also perform your own test.
You can do so by visiting your online website. Take a look at
the advertisements that are appearing on your page. When doing
so, it is important that you look, don’t click. You can easily
get an idea as to what keywords are associated with those
advertisements. To see how much money you may be making, you
will want to use Overture’s keyword worth tool, which can be
found at
http://uv.bidtool.overture.com/d/USm/search/tools/bidtool/. The
higher the maximum bids are, the more money you are likely to
make.

If you are an advertiser, not an affiliate, you can still
benefit from testing and tracking your keywords. Unlike
affiliates, who rely on content keywords, your keywords will
essentially be attached to your advertisements. That is how pay
per click programs decide which websites your advertisements
will appear on. As for tracking, your pay per click program
should also provide you with information, such as information on
which one of your ads was clicked. If you are using multiple
keywords for multiple advertisements, you can compare them to
see which one is the better money-maker.

As for testing your keywords, you will want to perform a
standard internet search, preferably with the keywords or
keywords phrases that you selected. You will want to examine
popular, high ranking web pages. To determine if your chosen
keywords are being used to the best of their ability, you should
be able to find a few of your advertisements displayed on
affiliate pages. If you are unable to do so, it might be a sign
that you need to reexamine your pay per click advertising
keywords.

Whether you are an advertiser or an affiliate, you are urged to
track and test your keywords to see if they are producing
results. By taking the above mentioned approaches, keyword
tracking and testing should only take a few minutes of your
time, but it will be time well spent.

P.S. Keyword tracking and testing is a great way to checkup on
yourself, to see if you are benefiting from pay per click
advertising.)

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(What's Hot?)

2007-12-16T09:28:00.000-08:00

(What's Hot?)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
http://www.BandOMarketing.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Are you an article writer? If so, you likely know exactly how
important it is to write fun, interesting, and easy to read
articles. Unfortunately, there are many writers who fail to
realize that not everyone has the same interests as they do. Of
course, you are urged to write articles on subjects that you
enjoy or are familiar with, but you are also urged to broaden
your horizons. You may want to think about writing articles
that cover “hot topics,” even if those topics are outside of
your comfort zone.

When it comes to writing articles that are outside of your
comfort zone, you may be like most other writers. Many
automatically wonder how they get started. There are a number of
different approaches that you can take. Your first step should
include brainstorming. Brainstorming is how many writers, just
like you, come up with their article ideas. Unfortunately,
there are many individuals who believe that brainstorm involves
using your brain and that alone. In reality, your mind isn’t
the only tool that you can use to make brainstorming worth its
while. You can also use the internet. In fact, when it comes to
writing articles that you are unfamiliar with, you will likely
find that the internet is your best source of information.

As it was stated above, to reach the most readers, you want to
write articles that focus on subjects that are considered “hot
topics.” This can include a number of different things. For
instance, a “hot topic,” can be considered a recent new report,
gossip concerning a popular celebrity, a highly debated issue,
or even a popular product or service that is available to the
public. The decision as to which “hot topic,” you would like to
cover is yours to make; however, you should know that many
internet users enjoy reading articles that focus on popular
products or services. These types of articles are often
referred to as product reviews.

If you are interested in writing an article that is centered on
a specific product or one that serves as a product review, you
will want to examine popular shopping websites. Two of the most
popular websites include eBay and Amazon. What is nice about
eBay and Amazon is that they often list popular, big ticket
items right on their home pages. These items are often the ones
that the most purchased or at least researched. Writing an
article that is focused on popular items; items that internet
users are buying is one of the best ways to create fun,
interesting, and needed articles; ones that will actually be
read. The same can be said for a commonly offered services or a
popular news story.

Once you decide exactly what you would like to write about,
which is done during brainstorming, you will next need to decide
exactly what you will write. Perhaps, the best way to do this
is to create an outline for yourself. When making your outline,
it is important that you first thoroughly research or examine
the topic that you plan on covering in your article. For
instance, if you are looking to write an article on a popular
name brand shower cleaner, it is advised that you familiarize
yourself with the cleaner, as much as you can. The best product
review articles are produced by writers who have actually used
the product in question, but use isn’t required. You can easily
find online product reviews; in fact, you can do this right at
the Amazon website.

When writing on a subject, particularly a popular item or
service, your best chance of success involves using a shopping
website like Amazon or eBay; however, you do have other options.
Those other options involve standard internet searches and
keyword research tools. A standard internet search will allow
you to determine which topics are already used as articles; thus
giving you an idea of your competition. Keyword research tools
often tell you exactly what keywords internet users are
searching with and how those searches are being performed.

Whatever you choose to write about, whether it is covering a
product, service, or a news story, you are sure to find success,
as long as you cover something that is popular at the moment or
in need. This approach is one of the easiest and quickest ways
to get your name and your articles distributed over the
internet.)

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(Easy Affiliate Profit Increasers)

2007-12-06T13:46:00.000-08:00

(Easy Affiliate Profit Increasers)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
http://www.BandOMarketing.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(In today’s society, everyone is searching for easy ways to make
money. In a way, affiliate programs can be considered one of
those opportunities. If you have a website that receives a high
amount of traffic, you may be able to make money with affiliate
programs, with little or no work. Despite the possibility of
making money with little effort, you may want to think about
putting forth some effort. There are a number of relatively
easy ways that you can go about increasing your commissions.

If you are already in an affiliate program, you likely know
exactly what affiliate program commissions are. If this is your
first time joining an affiliate program, you may want to learn a
little bit more. Affiliate program commissions are just like
the commissions that many retail stores offer their employees
for making large sales. If and when you join an affiliate
program, you will be notified of your commission rate ahead of
time. Say, that rate is five percent. Every sale that you help
to generate, you will receive five percent of that sale in
commissions. Many times, all you need to do is place a link or
a banner on your website. That is why affiliate programs are
often considered on the easiest ways to make legitimate money
online.

One of the easiest ways to increase the amount of commission you
make with affiliate programs to choose your programs wisely.
When it comes to affiliate commissions, different programs offer
affiliates different commission rates. Typically, a common
commission percentage is three to five percent. There are a
select number of affiliate programs that have a ten or even a
fifteen percent commission rate for affiliates. Joining an
affiliate program that has a relatively high commission
percentage is one of the easiest ways that you can increase the
amount of money you make.

Another one of the many ways that you can go about increasing
your commission is to be successful. Although this is often
easier said than done, it can help you immensely. Most
affiliate programs reward their highest performing affiliates.
For instance, once you reach a high level of earning, like one
thousand dollars in sales, you may be promoted to a higher
commission level. Many affiliate programs do this as a way to
motivate their affiliates. If you can successfully make sales,
you can see an increase in the amount of commission you make.

In addition to choosing your affiliate programs wisely and
performing better, you can also increase your commissions
through experimentation. There are a large number of different
ways that you can go about increasing your affiliate program
commissions. The only thing is that not all of these ways work
for everyone. The best thing that you can do is experiment.
You will need to take the time to see what works for you and
what doesn’t. When experimenting, you may want to try writing
affiliate product reviews or recommendations, sending out
monthly newsletters, optimizing your website for search engines,
or submitting articles to article directories.

It is also important that you give it time. Increasing your
affiliate commissions is not something that will happen
overnight. The only way that you can increase your commissions
right off the bat is by signing up with a high paying affiliate
program. However, even with those programs, you are not
guaranteed to make any sales right away. If you are interested
in using search engine optimization on your site, sending out
newsletters, or submitting to article directories, you need to
give these methods time to work. Although you may want to see
results right away, it doesn’t matter if it helps one week from
now or two months from now, at least you will be able to see an
increase in your commissions.

By keeping the above mentioned points in mind, you should be
able to see an increase in the amount of money you make with
affiliate programs. After time, you may very well end up making
a full-time income just with affiliate programs.)

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(No Competition On These Keywords?)

2007-11-18T07:31:00.000-08:00

(No Competition On These Keywords?)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
http://www.BandOMarketing.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(If you have been looking into pay per click advertising
programs, you may have heard about the importance of keywords.
You are often advised to choose high costing, related keywords.
After all, they tend to be the most successful ones. While this
is true, you may be concerned with the cost of advertising,
particular with popular keywords. What would you say if there
was a way that you could still use pay per click advertising to
your advantage, but without having to pay more than you could
afford? There is and that way involves using semi-related
keywords.

Before examining how semi-related keywords can help you use pay
per click advertising at a lower cost, it is first important
that you know what semi-related keywords are. When signing up
with a pay per click program, you need to choose keyword that
you would like your advertisements to be associated with. For
the largest success, you are urged to choose keywords that have
a direct relationship to your business or the products that you
sell. For instance, if you were running a business that sold
nursery supplies, a popular keyword phrase would be that of
“crib bedding.” Since crib bedding is a highly searched
keyword, it costs a relatively decent amount of money. Choosing
a semi-rated keyword phrase, such as “crib sheets,” is likely to
reduce the amount of competition that you have, but still
produce results.

If you are interested in finding semi-related keywords or
keyword phrases, you will want to research them just like you
would research popular keyword phrases. You will want to use
keyword research tools or keyword suggestion tools, like the one
that can be found at
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/. Keeping with the
above mentioned example, of nursery supplies, you may want to
perform a keyword search with the word “crib.” When using the
above mentioned tool, you will see that the most searched phrase
is “crib bedding.” Your search results will start with the most
popular keywords and then descend from there. You will want to
start choosing keywords or keyword phrases from the middle of
the list. These are keywords that are not as popular, but they
can still be considered related keywords, semi-related keywords.

Although you might assume that using semi-related keywords, with
pay per click advertising, will have a negative impact on your
advertisements, namely their results, this isn’t the case. In
fact, using semi-related keywords may improve your overall
results. This is due to the lack of competition. Many business
owners assume that they need to choose the most popular, most
successful, and highest costing keywords. While this will bring
success, it also brings a large amount of competition. Having a
lack of competition may increase the number of websites that
your advertisements are shown on. This will, in turn, increase
your chances of receiving a click through, which is when
internet users actually click on your advertisements, instead of
just glancing at them.

As you may have already assumed, keywords that are considered
semi-related or non-competition keywords cost less money. The
cost of semi-related, no competition keywords are just one of
the many reasons why you should consider using them, even if it
is just on a trial basis. In fact, using these low competition
keywords is a great way to “test the waters.” If you are unsure
as to whether or not you should join a pay per click program,
this is a great way to experiment. You can see if you get the
results that you were hoping for, without having to go broke
paying for them.

Although using no competition keywords and semi-related keywords
is a great way to save money with pay per click advertising, it
isn’t your only option. Most pay per click programs allow you
to set a daily limit for yourself. This means that you can
actively participate in a pay per click program, without
exceeding your advertising budget.

P.S. Despite what you believe, you do not have to choose popular
or high paying keywords to benefit from pay per click
advertising.)

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(Attract High Quality Traffic)

2007-11-12T08:13:00.000-08:00

(Attract High Quality Traffic)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
http://www.BandOMarketing.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Do you participate in a program such as Google Adsense or Yahoo
Publisher’s Network? If so, you are essentially known as an
affiliate. As an affiliate, you hope that visitors will click on
the advertisements that are displayed on your website. If and
when this happens, you get paid. As nice as that sounds,
internet users must first make it to your website, before they
can click on one of your advertisements. With an unlimited
number of websites to choose from, getting traffic may seem like
an overwhelming process. While it can be, there are a number of
ways that you can successfully increase your traffic, and, in
turn, the amount of money that you can make as an affiliate.

As an affiliate, your goal is to receive website traffic. While
any traffic is better than no traffic at all, you may want to
aim for high quality traffic. High quality traffic includes
internet users who are looking for something that you have,
whether it is information on working from home or caring for a
sick pet. High quality traffic also includes internet users who
are likely to click on your advertisements. This, in a way,
relates to you and your website having what they want.

One of the best ways to get high quality visitors to your
website is to have high quality content. With website content,
many of us only associate content with search engine rankings.
While high quality content is an important part of search engine
optimization, SEO, it can and should be used for more. The
majority of internet users actually read the information that
they find online; therefore, there is a good chance that your
website content will actually be read. Having interesting and
easy to read content will ensure that your visitors don’t take
one look at your site and then leave. It is also important to
note that high quality content is likely to attract better
advertisements.

The design of your website is also important. In fact, it may be
just as important as your content. You want your website to
look professional, attractive, and appealing. Unfortunately,
there are many webmaster who mistakenly believe that their
websites need to be flashy, literally. Although flash intros
are neat, you might be surprised to hear that many internet
users don’t like them. In fact, a large number of internet
users are known to avoid these sites, especially if they do not
have a “skip intro,” button. You will want to go with plain,
simple, yet professional. If you need assistance with the design
of your website, you may want to think about hiring the services
of a professional web designer.

In conjunction with the design of your website, it is also
important to examine your ad placement. Where your
advertisements are displayed will have an impact on how often
they are clicked. If you are a Google Adsense member, you
should have access to what is known as a “Google Heat Map.”
This helpful map gives you suggestions on where you should place
your advertisements. Following this outline or a similar one
will increase your chances of clicks. If you choose not to use
Google’s map, you will at least want to remember to keep all of
your advertisements above the fold. Your site visitors should be
able to click on your advertisements right a way; they shouldn’t
have to scroll down to do so. In fact, if you have poor content
on your site or if your site’s layout is unprofessional, your
visitors may never even scroll down to see your ads.

As it was mentioned above, all traffic is better than no traffic
at all. However, as you can see, it is relatively easy to aim
for high quality traffic. That is why you are urged to target
those that may help you generate income.)

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(Affiliate Traffic Tricks)

2007-11-07T11:20:00.000-08:00

(Affiliate Traffic Tricks)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
http://www.BandOMarketing.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(With affiliate programs, you can easily sell products without
even having to have the product in your hand. As nice as it
sounds, you still need to have you own website; it is a
requirement for many affiliate programs. Having a website is
ideal, but to really make money with affiliate programs, you
need to have a website that receives a relatively high amount of
traffic. If you would like to increase the amount of traffic
that your website sees, you should examine newsletters. They are
a great way to increase website traffic.

Before examining how newsletters can help you increase your
websites traffic, it is best that you first understand
newsletters. When it comes to understanding newsletters, there
tends to be a little bit of confusion. Newsletters come in a
number of different shapes, sizes, and styles; they are all used
for different purposes. Newsletters are essentially emails that
are sent to those who have requested to receive them. Some use
newsletters solely to update their customers and other uses them
just as means of regular communication. Despite a variation in
purposes, one the most common uses of a newsletter is to
increase traffic.

One of the most common questions asked, concerning email
newsletters is “why?” A large number of individuals, namely
affiliate program participants, wonder why they should even
bother writing and then distributing a newsletter. In all
honesty, there are an unlimited number of reasons why you should
write and distribute newsletters to those who are interested in
receiving them. The number one reason is because you can do it
as little or as often as you want. Many webmasters only send
out newsletters as often as their time allows them to do so. It
is also important to note that your newsletter content can be
whatever you want it to be. In fact, you may even want to think
about tying in your affiliate program or the products that you
are selling.

In conjunction with an affiliate program or an affiliate product
tie in, you can not only use newsletters to increase your
website traffic, but also to promote your affiliate products;
products that you are responsible to help sell. You can do this
by writing a quick review or recommendation of the products or
products that you are helping to sell. If you haven’t tried the
product yourself, you may want to try and find other internet
users who have. Most of the time, you will find that many
internet users are more than willing to write a quick review,
just for the sake of helping others.

If you are an article writer or if you enjoy writing, you may
want to write your own newsletters. If you are not an article
writer or if you are, but you just don’t have the time to
produce you own newsletters, you don’t have to. There are a
number of alternatives for you to choose from. One of the
easiest alternatives is to pay a professional to write your
newsletter for you. If you are looking for a free way to make a
newsletter, you are urged to examine article directories. Many
article directories give out free usage rights for their
articles. This means that you can easily find newsletter
content, that you didn’t write, without having to spend a dime!
When using article directories, it is advised that you use
articles that are, in one way or another, related to your
website or the affiliate products that you are helping to sell.

As you can see, there are a number of reasons why you should at
least think about writing and disturbing a newsletter. In
addition to those reasons, there are also an unlimited number of
benefits to using newsletters to your advantage. Whether you
make the decision to write your own newsletters, hire a
professional, or use free content from article directories, you
are urged to give newsletters a chance. In the end, you might
be surprised just how effective they are.)

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(Inside Search Engine Rankings)

2007-10-26T18:06:00.000-07:00

(Inside Search Engine Rankings)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
http://www.BandOMarketing.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(A problem that search engines encounter often is the design of
websites that purely use advanced programming such as C++,
JavaScript or CGI. If the navigation links within your site are
powered by these advanced scripts alone, the search engine will
not be able to fully browse your site. You need to provide links
done in basic HTML so that the engine can read your website.

It takes months for a website with a new domain name (.com,
.org or .edu) to show up on search engines. Google has imposed
an ageing delay on new websites so that it doesn’t waste time on
indexing websites that don’t last long. If you want to change
your domain name, I suggest you rethink your plan and use what
you have instead. A cosmetic facelift of your existing web pages
along with several good quality SEO articles will serve you
better in the long run. After all, you will be working with what
you already have. If you know all the insides and outs of your
website, then it would be so much easier to revise than replace
because of familiarity.

Some internet marketers make the mistake of placing keyword
density requirements above that of article quality. At first
glance, it does make sense to optimize an article for your
keywords rather than be concerned with artistic considerations
or honest, from the heart writing. However, bear in mind that
not everyone will buy your product or idea. You know that what
you sell is sellable only to a certain target market. If you
prioritize keyword optimization in your article rather than
writing the article for the sake of the product you want to sell
and for the information of your target audience, chances are you
will attract buyers of another commodity that you do not have.

The keyword here is relevance. A person searching the internet
for something he needs will filter out the search results by
using the relevance criterion. My suggestion is, write the
article for the sake of your product and for your target
customers’ information. Place the priority of keywords as a
secondary consideration. It’s all about relevance. I know that
it would be a plus for you if you manage to pull in lots of
traffic even though they don’t want anything to do with your
site. Believe me, misleading a person in the internet is a risky
business. That person you mislead can hit back by starting-up an
email brigade against your website.

Be specific with your keywords. Don’t generalize. The biggest
disadvantage of internet shopping is that customers are not able
to scrutinize the product personally. What they usually do is
find out from other sources what the product is all about, how
it works, etc... When they decide to finally buy, they know what
they’re looking for and will mostly likely use a specific name
brand as part of their search strings. Your keywords need to be
able to match those strings in terms of number of words matched
and how the order of those words match. Others will search for
stuff by using its sub-categories. For example, when looking for
bras, women need to spell out their torso and cup size.

So, the bra size can be a 36 B or a 36 C. Then there are colors to
choose from like red, burgundy and black. A bit more specific is
the bra classification. Is it a half-cup or a push-up, or is it
a sport bra? With these factors in mind, you can conclude that a
woman looking for a bra in the internet can type in “black
push-up bra 36-C”. Do you have key phrases to match those search
strings? Are the words in your key phrases arranged in the same
order? The final consideration is the literature where those
keywords are embedded. If the article is just a jumble of words
full of keywords, the search engine will most likely discard
your website in favor of another. This will decrease the ranking
of your website in the search results page. In worst case
scenarios, they may actually ban your website from showing up in
search results

P.S. A lot of SEO experts claim that it isn’t the keyword, but
the article that brings you success. Based on what is written
above, I tend to agree. Do you?)

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(Free Search Engine Traffic)

2007-10-21T08:39:00.000-07:00

(Free Search Engine Traffic)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
http://www.BandOMarketing.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(If you would like to make money selling e-books, you must first
create yourself an e-book. After your e-book has been created,
you will then need to sell it. Many e-book authors, when
selling their creations, use an e-book sales page. An e-book
sales page is a page that outlines the e-book available for
sale, as well as its price. Although an e-book sales page is a
great way to advertise your e-book it won’t help you get sales
alone. You also need traffic. If your e-book sale page isn’t
seen, no one will know that you have an e-book available for
sale.

When it comes to generating traffic, to your e-book sales page,
you have a number of different options. For the best success,
you are urged to take an “organic,” approach. An organic
approach is one that is considered all natural, versus ones that
are forced or made up. An example of a non-organic marketing
approach is participating in a pay-per-click program. One of
the most popular types of organic internet marketing approaches
involves the use of articles, namely distributing them to
article directories. The use of an organic traffic increasing
tactic, like the use of articles, will not only help to increase
your traffic, but it will also keep you, your e-book, or your
business name in good standing. This is important because many
online sellers have started turning to back-hand marketing
techniques.

As it was mentioned above, the best ways to use articles to
generate organic traffic is by distributing them to article
directories. Article directories are websites that host a large
collection of articles. In exchange for allowing an article
directory to display your article on their site free of charge,
you will be rewarded with a link. That link is often referred to
as a back-link. If properly set up, readers who find your
articles in article directories will be able to make it to your
website. If you choose the right link, they can be directed
right to your e-book sales page! Essentially, this means that
you will not only increase your website traffic, but you may
also increase your e-book sales.

Although your best bet is to create articles and distribute them
to article directories, you may also want to think about
including content, or articles, on your own website. Whether
you have a whole e-book sales site or even just one simple web
page, you can get a large amount of traffic from internet search
engines, but only if your site is optimized for them. Search
engine optimization, which is often referred to as SEO,
encompasses a number of different things, but you may want to
focus on content, as it is one of the easiest methods. You will
want to have content on your website; content that search
engines will pick up.

When writing articles, whether you plan on using them for your
own e-book sales page or article directories, you are urged to
examine programs that are known as keyword research tools.
Keyword research tool programs allow you to determine what
keywords or keyword phrases internet users are searching with.
If any of these keywords apply to the subject of your e-book,
you are urged to use them. Using applicable keywords or keyword
phrases will not only generate organic traffic, but it may also
help to increase your sales, by brining in customers who are
interested in what you have to sell.

In short, articles, whether they are displayed on your own
e-books sales page or distributed to article directories, can
help you generate organic traffic. As previously mentioned,
organic traffic is more likely to result in a high number of
e-book sales. Organic traffic is all natural; therefore,
website visitors actually want to come to your e-book sales
page, not just because they are being paid to do so.

P.S. Articles are a relatively easy, fun, and creative way to
increase your e-book sales site traffic and maybe even your
sales!)

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(Easy Brainstorming)

2007-10-17T10:34:00.000-07:00

(Easy Brainstorming)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
http://www.BandOMarketing.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Are you an article writer? If so, how do you write your
articles? Do you brainstorm? If not, you may want to think
about doing so. After a close examination, you will see exactly
how brainstorming can help you, when it comes to writing
articles.

Before examining the benefit of using brainstorming to write
articles, it is important that you first understand exactly what
brainstorming is. Brainstorming is a technique that is used in
many different situations, not just article writing. In most
cases, brainstorming is used in problem solving. When it comes
to article writing, that problem may be exactly what to write or
even how to write it. The most effective way to brainstorm is
to write down all of your ideas as they come to you. Whether or
not you use those ideas will be completely up to you, but at
least you will have them recorded on paper.

One of the hardest parts of brainstorming is coming up with
ideas. If you are an article writer, you are urged to have a
pen and paper handy at all times. This will be very helpful to
you, as many writers develop ideas at some of the most
inconvenient times. In addition to sitting down and recording
ideas that you, yourself, have thought of, you can also do a
little bit of research. The easiest way to do this research is
online. Search engines and article directories can be your best
sources of information. You should perform standard internet
searches on topics that interest you or topics that you are
willing to write about. Searching the internet is one of the
best ways to get ideas for your articles. You can take those
ideas and then brainstorm from there. In fact, you next step
may want to be creating an outline for yourself. Outlines are
just as beneficial to article writers as brainstorming is.

Now that you know exactly what brainstorming is, what it
entails, and how to get brainstorming ideas, you may be
wondering exactly why you should do it. The most obvious reason
why you should use brainstorming to your advantage is to come up
with ideas. There are many article writers who claim that they
easily run out of ideas for new articles. With an unlimited
number of topics at your fingertips, this should never happen.
As an article writer, you should always have something to write
about. This is where brainstorming can come in. For instance,
do you know that you could take an article topic that you
already used to create a brand new article? Say that you wrote
an article on giving gift baskets as a wedding gift. When
sitting down and thinking, or brainstorming, you may be able to
get other gift basket article ideas, such as gift baskets for
Christmas or even how to make your own gift baskets.

Another one of the many benefits to brainstorming is that the
ideas often just keep on flowing. As it was mentioned above, if
you wrote an article on gift baskets making great wedding gifts,
you need to disassociate yourself from wedding gifts and just
focus on gift baskets. Once you do so, it is likely that your
mind will be filled with ideas. Making brainstorming as easy
and as simple as it can be is one of the best ways to come up
with the most ideas. And, as previously mentioned, you don’t
have to come up with ideas on your own. You can use your local
library, search engines, article directories, and online forums
to help you brainstorm and generate ideas for your articles. In
fact, the more tools that you use, the better results your
brainstorming sessions may produce.

As you can see, there are a number of benefits to taking the
time to brainstorm. To make brainstorming as effective as can
be, you are urged to brainstorm in an area that you feel
comfortable in. Whether this area is in front of your computer
or outside basking in the sunshine; comfort is the key to a
successful brainstorming session.

P.S. Although you may feel as if you have run out of articles to
write, you are advised against going with your first impulse.
When brainstorming, you are almost always guaranteed to come up
with a whole collection of new ideas. )

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(Make Money, No Product Required!)

2007-10-01T13:42:00.000-07:00

(Make Money, No Product Required!)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
http://www.BandOMarketing.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Would you like to make money by selling products online? If so,
do you already have a collection of products to sell? If not,
do you have the money needed to obtain them? If you are like
many others, who want to make money online, there is a good
chance that you do not have the funds needed. After all, if you
did, you likely would not be looking for ways to make money
online. While you might automatically assume that it is
impossible for you to make money online, especially if you don’t
have any products to sell, it isn’t. There is good news. That
good news is that you can make money, a substantial amount of
money, even if you don’t actually have a product to sell.

As it was stated above, there are a large number of individuals
who want to make money online; however, many think that it is
impossible to do because they don’t already have a collection of
products or they don’t have the money needed to make the
purchases. Unfortunately, when this occurs, a large number of
individuals just give up. You are advised against doing this.
As previously mentioned, it is possible to make money online,
even if you don’t have any products to sell. You can do so with
affiliate programs.

Affiliate programs are programs that create a partnership with
business owners and webmasters. If you are already a webmaster
this is great, but if not you can easily become one. As you
likely already know, a webmaster is an individual who owns and
operates their own online website. Once you have a website and
you find another business, which is running an affiliate
program, you can enter into a partnership with them. This
partnership is unique because you can both benefit from it.
Affiliate programs work to help business owners increase their
sales, but they also help webmasters generate extra income.

Although affiliate programs sound nice, you may be looking for
more information. After all, with internet scams at an all time
high, you can never be too cautious. While some affiliate
programs are operated in different ways, they tend to be
operated in similar matters. This matter involves the business
owner creating links or banners for webmasters, just like you,
to display on their website. Special tracking software, which
is often referred to as affiliate tracking software, is used.
That software will enable a business owner to determine exactly
when you helped them generate a sale and how much that sale was.
This sale will, in turn, generate additional income for you by
way of commissions. The amount of money that you make will all
depend on the affiliate program that you choose to join, but
your commission is often a percentage of your sale. In some
instances, can also be a flat rate amount.

When it comes to affiliate programs, one of the questions most
commonly asked is “why?” As previously mentioned, affiliate
programs allow you to make money selling a product that isn’t
even yours. This means that you do not have to deal with any
inventory. You also don’t have to ship any products to the
buyers. In fact, you shouldn’t even have to communicate with
your customers. Your affiliate partner, the one who is selling
the product, will do all of the work for you. What could be
easier than that?

If you are interested in making money online, without having to
have your own products to sell, you are urged to further examine
affiliate programs, namely the programs that are available for
you to join. You can find these programs by examining large
affiliate hosting programs, such as LinkShare. You can also
find affiliate programs to join by examining the online websites
of various online retail stores. Typically towards the bottom
of the main homepage, a business will outline whether or not
they have an affiliate program that you can apply to. If you
are really looking to make money online, you are urged to find a
product, a service, or a company that you can fully stand
behind, one hundred percent.

P.S. Isn’t it amazing that you can make money selling products,
without having to handle your own inventory? The quicker you
sign for an affiliate program, the quicker you can start making
money!)

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(Three Traffic Triggers)

2007-09-16T11:33:00.000-07:00

(Three Traffic Triggers)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
http://www.BandOMarketing.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Have you heard of a squeeze page before? If you are like many
other internet users, you haven’t. If you are trying to make
money, through selling an affiliate product or service, you are
advised to examine squeeze pages. After giving it a close
examination, you will see that there are a number of different
ways that squeeze pages can help you.

When it comes to squeeze pages, you will find that they have a
number of different definitions. In fact, it is sometimes
difficult to pin down the exact meaning of a squeeze page.
Although there are some variations, all squeeze pages, no matter
how they are defined, have the same goal. That goal it to help
you get the names and email address of internet users; internet
users that you can then send emails or newsletters to. If
properly executed, a squeeze page, which allows you to create an
email list, will not only increase the amount of traffic that
your website sees, but it may also increase the amount of
affiliate sales you make.

As it was stated above, there are a number of different
definitions for a squeeze page. There are many professional who
believe that squeeze pages are simply a page where you have a
small form that your visitors can fill out. Many times, the
only information asked for is a first name and an email address.
Once an internet user provides you with that information, you
can then send regular emails or newsletters, whichever you
prefer.

While many squeeze pages have nothing on them, there are many
professionals who feel that you should provide a little bit of
information. This is fine to do, but you want to be carefully
with providing too much information or making your information
appears as if it spam. For instance, if you are running a
website that is centered on caring for your pets and the
affiliate products that you are selling are pet related, you may
want to write a little bit of information on pet care. However,
when doing so, you do not want to promote your products now.
Providing too much information may not only make it so your
visitors don’t need to signup for your email alerts, but it may
also discourage them from doing so.

There are also many professional who feel that you need to give
visitors a reason to sign up for your newsletters or email
alerts, like an incentive. The decision as to whether or not
you want to offer an incentive is yours to make, but it is
important to note that incentive have a positive track record.
As an incentive, you may want to give you customers something
free, such as en e-book. Keeping with example mentioned above,
you may want to offer visitors are free e-book on pets, just for
providing you with their name and email address. In most cases,
this approach works wonders. It is a known fact that everyone
loves free stuff, especially if it is something that they could
use.

Now that you know exactly what squeeze pages are or what they
can be considered, you may be wondering exactly why you should
have one. As previously mentioned, internet users provide you
with their names and email addresses on squeeze pages. Sending
unsolicited emails can be considered spam and you may also be
reprimanded by your web hosting company, your email provider, or
even your affiliate programs. When an internet user actually
provides you with their contact information, your email contact
is no longer considered spam. In fact, you can send emails or
newsletters to the individuals in question, as often as you
would like. This is when you could then take the opportunity to
promote the affiliate products that you are helping to sell.

Developing a squeeze page is relatively easy to do, especially
if you have some web design experience. If you are unfamiliar
with web design, you should still be able to create your own
squeeze page, with assistance from a site building program or a
professional web designer. If you would like to be able to
promote your websites and your affiliate products as often as
you would like, you are urged to create yourself a squeeze page
today.

P.S. A squeeze page can take only a few minutes to set up, but
you may be reaping the benefits for years to come.

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For a Home Business You can Believe in PLUS All the Info to Make it Succeed Visit:
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http://www.bandomarketing.com/newsletter-signup.html

(Choosing Profitable Keywords)

2007-09-11T07:54:00.000-07:00

(Choosing Profitable Keywords)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
http://www.BandOMarketing.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Are you looking to increase your website traffic or increase the
number of sales that you make online? If so, you are urged to
examine pay per click advertising. Pay per click advertising,
if properly implemented, can give you exactly what you need; an
increase in website traffic and an increase in sales.

As it was mentioned above, for a pay per click advertising
program to work to your advantage, you need to use it the proper
way. Pay per click advertising may seem tricky and a little bit
overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. In fact, depending on
the pay per click advertising program that you choose to join,
you should be given a detailed, step-by-step guide. Speaking of
choosing a pay per click advertising program, the program you
choose may have a huge impact on your success. Two programs
that you may want to examine include Goggle Adwords and Yahoo
Search Marketing; both come highly rated and recommended. In
fact, they are both known to produce results; positive results.

In addition to choosing a pay per click advertising program, you
also need to examine your keywords. If this is your first time
using a pay per click advertising program, you may be unfamiliar
with keywords and their purpose. Pay per click programs use
keywords to make sure that your ads appear on relevant pages.
Having your ads appear on relevant, related pages is known to
improve the chances of a click and later a sale. In fact, the
keywords that you choose can ultimately decide whether you can
successfully benefit and profit from joining a pay per click
advertising program. That is why it is extremely important that
you choose your keywords wisely.

Speaking of choosing your keywords carefully, you don’t just
want to choose them; you also want to research them.
Unfortunately, there are a many online business owners that do
not realize there are tools online that can help them research
and examine keywords. To be completely honest, these online
business owners are often the ones who end up finding pay per
click advertising programs unsuccessful, a waste of money, or a
waste of their time. The reality is that pay per click
advertising programs are anything but that, but you need to know
how to use them and other helpful online tools. As it was
mentioned above, you should research and examine keywords. You
can do this research with tools that are known as keyword
research tools.

Online, you can find a number of keyword research tools, which
are also commonly referred to as keyword suggestion tools.
These helpful resources can be found online, easily with a
standard internet search. Despite the fact that there are
multiple keyword research tools out there, you may want to
examine the keyword suggestion tool that is hosted by Digital
Point at www.digitalpoint.com/tolls/suggestion. To get started,
you need to enter in a keyword or a keyword phrase. For the most
results, try one word, instead of a phrase. You will then need
to enter in a security verification code; this is needed to keep
the service free. You will then be provided with two lists, one
from Overture and one from WordTracker. These lists contain
keywords or keyword phrases that internet users searched with,
through search engines, and how often those searches were
performed.

As you likely already knew or assumed, you will want to select
keywords that are related, in one way or another, to your online
business or the products that you will be selling. For instance,
if you run an online store that sells bedding, you will want to
use a few of these popular keywords “crib bedding,” “bedding,”
“baby bedding,” and so forth. Your pay per click advertising
company will use the keywords that you choose to determine where
your ads should appear and on what websites.

As you can see, the keywords that you choose are extremely
important, when it comes to successfully using a pay per click
advertising program. Not only will the right keywords help to
increase your sales, but they will also help to save you money.
While you are only charged when one of your advertisements are
clicked, it can get quite costly when your ads are being clicked
with no purchases made. Related keywords ensure that the right
market is targeted; thus increasing your sale numbers.

P.S. Perhaps, keywords are the most important aspect of pay per
click programs. For the ultimate chance of success, choose your
keywords wisely.)

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For a Home Business You can Believe in PLUS All the Info to Make it Succeed Visit:
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(Content For Visitors and Search Engines)

2007-09-08T07:02:00.001-07:00

(Content For Visitors and Search Engines)
Copyright © Tim McLendon
http://www.BandOMarketing.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(It’s often times a difficult balance for web site owners. How do
you please both visitors and search engines? Well, it’s not
easy, but if you follow certain steps, it isn’t that difficult,
either.

So which is more important, to please the visitors or the search
engine spiders? The unequivocal answer is to please the
visitors. What good is a site that attracts spiders but not
actual people? And what good is a site that only attracts some
visitors but not search engine spiders? In this newsletter, we
will go over writing content that interests and pleases both
your readers and the spiders.

So how do I write content that pleases a visitor?

First, stick to writing content that is relevant to your site.
That means that if your site is about Rock music, you should not
have any content about dogs, as that only makes your site look
bad and repels visitors.

Second, write content in an easy to understand, conversational
format. Do not use big, fancy words just for the sake of looking
smart or pleasing search engine bots. I can’t count the number
of times I’ve visited a site with content that is so hard to
comprehend that I do not wish to ever come back to that site
again. You want to make a good first impression on anyone who
takes the time to look at your site, so make sure your content
is easy to understand.

Third, never ever write content that is long, dull, and boring.
If the point you are trying to get across can be said more
concisely in 500 words, than why waste another 300 words droning
on and on about the topic? This is a huge turnoff to potential
visitors.

Fourth, make sure that all of your content is grammatically
correct. I know, this is hard because we live in the instant
messenger world, where sentences like “how r u?”, are thought to
be acceptable. However, anyone who is well-educated will
appreciate good grammar. Make your site shine in this
department.

Fifth, don’t overuse keywords and keyword phrases. In other
words, don’t make it blatantly obvious to the reader that you
are trying to attract search engine spiders to your site. Make
an effort to make sure that your keywords and keyword phrases
flow into the content of the article. This is easier said than
done, but can be accomplished with a little fine tuning.

But what about search engine spiders? How do I please them?

Search engine spiders are actually very easy to please, much
easier than actual human beings. This is because search engine
spiders aren’t subjective—they don’t care what the subject is
about; they just care about the number keywords and keyword
phrases.

The only way you can possibly displease a search engine spider
is by overusing a keyword/keyword phrase and making your site
smell like spam. Search engine spiders are now more advanced
than ever, and so they are better able to ignore sites that are
full of spam. Too many keywords or keyword phrases that are
blatantly there will hinder your site from being crawled by
spiders.

As is mentioned in another of our newsletters, a keyword density
of 1-3% is generally considered to be good. Any less than 1% is
bad and will make it harder for your site to get listed on
search engines; any more than 4% makes your site look like spam.
If you haven’t checked out our other newsletter, keyword density
is basically the number of keywords or keyword phrases in a
piece of content divided by the total number of words.

Before you write your article, take some time to make up a short
list of keywords that are relevant to the topic at hand. Then
try to naturally sprinkle them into your content, so that your
content will please both the search engine bots and your
readers. If you are able to do that, you will have a successful
site in no time. Not only will the search bots love you, but
actual people will, too!

P.S. Writing content that is good for both people and search
engines is an absolute essential to making your site a
powerhouse. So follow the rules above and you will be able to
write excellent, pleasing content!)

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