Make Money Online | RickiOgston.com

How To Become Powerful In This Industry

2008-05-29T04:02:00.000-07:00

So power goes a long way in affiliate marketing, and in any industry for that matter. But for the sake of this blog, we�??re going to stick with affiliate marketing. Why does power go such a long way?

a) Connections. If you�??re powerful, you�??ll have good connections that can hook you up when you need something. Get you a white label direct with a major advertiser, set you up with a programming genius, etc.

b) Connections with affiliate networks. Having power means having networks want you, bad. Exclusive offers, exclusive payouts, white labels, tracking, you name it.

c) Control. Build a following in an industry, tell it how it is, and band together to beat the man.

How do we attain such power?

Start a blog. One way to start a solid following is through a blog�?�true story. Affiliate networks know I�??m powerful because of this blog and my loyal readers. I�??ll be honest about anything that happens to me, and if something is very sour I�??ll be sure to let you guys know so the same doesn�??t happen to you.
Create a very useful product or service. It may be something like a subscription based affiliate tool or consulting business. Either will give you more power in this industry, because you�??re controlling part of an affiliate user base. You�??re creating a crowd that will listen to what you have to say and take your advice�?�that�??s a powerful thing.
Become a super affiliate. This one�??s pretty simple and not as easy as it sounds. There�??s PLENTY of millionaire affiliates out there who have no blog or product, and they�??re powerful as hell. Do major volume with networks and you�??ll have major power.
Cut margins. Cutting margins means bidding more, seeing higher revenue but a lower profit margin. This will cut away at your profits, but may quadruple your revenue with the affiliate network. You�??ll become more powerful and receive more benefits. Is it worth it? Well it depends on the situation, it�??s a risk. Sometimes you�??ll be better just sitting with the nice ROI, but sometimes it�??s better to get the power, and then use those benefits to make even more profit.
Attend events. Going to events like Affiliate Summit means meeting people, networking, and establishing connections. You can stumble upon some connections in high places and gain more power as a result. You don�??t even have to be a super affiliate, you can make yourself seem like one without saying a word about it; just by how you act and talk to other people.
Talk your way to the top. One way people get power is just by literally talking their way to the top. They can be some horrible affiliate that tells people they make $200k/month on their own private built offers that they�??re �??secretive�?? about, and people will think they�??re powerful. This is a pretty retarded way to do business and I wouldn�??t advice it, but trust me there�??s a lot of bullshitters out there.

Alright enough of this jazz, go out there and be the king baby.

Visit UberAffiliate for more articles like this.

Ratio of Clicks to Conversions

2008-05-29T03:51:00.000-07:00

Now this can be a hard thing to judge. In fact, I don�??t really measure my clicks vs conversions as a standard. Instead, I measure my cost spent vs. my cost earned. The key is to set a goal and to stick to it.

When I test a campaign I try and set my goal to 100 clicks. If, in 100 clicks I get no conversions I will try switching out the offer. (Ideally the offer would be rotating from the beginning). Sometimes polls will run that are complete duds from the beginning, and sometimes a poll will struggle to get 100 clicks let alone 100 impressions!

If you�??re having a hard time getting impressions, check out your ad-groups. Are they tightly grouped? What about the keywords your using�?� Are they outdated? Many times when we run those popular �??recent news�?? polls the topic gets blown through really fast, therefore, yesterday we might have had great keywords and today�?� yeah they can suck. There is always new �??hot�?? news everyday.

Now, if you�??re getting the getting the impressions but not the clicks�?� yeah that�??s an ad copy problem. We�??ll go over ad copy later.

Okay back to the topic at hand.

If I�??m getting clicks and one or two conversions then things are still going good for us. We may meet our goal of 100 clicks, spend around $15, and make about $4, then that is okay. This is something that we can work with.

We need to make sure we are getting people from our page to our offer. The first thing you want to do to check this out is to load the report from your CPA network and see if they show any clicks to the offer. Remember�?� Not all networks have real time tracking. AND some offers have to be uploaded by the advertiser.

Read the rest of the article at Cash Tactics!

Top Ways To Make Money Online

2008-05-28T05:04:00.000-07:00

After taking my Speech Power class, I dashed to my desktop and read my emails. Suddenly, an email subscriber caught me online and instant messaged me on gTalk. He needed help he said, we conversed for bout 10 minutes.

I won�??t paste his exact words here but he surely needs to make a quick buck right away. The guy has no experience online whatsoever, just a stinky ol�?? job with a minimum salary.

Although I don�??t really promote the �??Make money now�?? model because internet marketing should be treated as a business and most of these techniques require a whole lotta work - there are just times where we need to start making money now.

So for bout an hour, I hunted for ways to make money online now, researched them thoroughly and collected useful links to support it.

Click here to read the rest of the article at Carlocab.com.

Three tips for submitting articles

2008-04-04T04:41:00.000-07:00

Article distribution is a powerful way to promote your business. You can not only promote your business but also yourself as an expert in your field. However, in order to make this marketing method effective it is important to do it right. Here are three steps to follow:.

1. Your bio box: Be sure to include a compelling bio box that will encourage readers to click through to your website. This is just like an expanded version of your email signature file. It should not be more than 5-6 lines. It should include your name with one to two lines about who you are and what you do. Try to include a free gift like your newsletter and a list of your website URL�??s.

2. Content: Make your articles interesting and informative. Readers should be drawn into them and enjoy the article so much that they want to know more and will click through to your website. You can include in your articles information about your product or service, product reviews, in the news topics about your industry. Helpful tips and instructions about how to use a piece of software that you are selling, and even some humorous antidotes and stories relating to your product, service and industry.

3. Use a service or software that includes article directories as well as lists. Both lists and directories will give you traffic but directories will give you valuable back links. These links will help to raise your Page Rank in Google and improve your position in the search engines.

You can also take advantage of free content from http://www.moreniche.com. This is a free website offering many tools and weekly free content. You can just modify these articles and submit them. This will save you a lot of time when you submit your articles.

Make Money Online While You Sleep

2008-03-25T17:52:00.000-07:00

Ok, first of all, I would just like to say that I am not affiliated with the author of this book I am about to recommend. I am recommending it because I believe it is an excellent book for any beginner in Internet Marketing and anyone who wants to make money online. The book is called 'How to Make Money While You Sleep' by Brett McFall.

Anyway, you can read a free chapter of this book over at Brett's official website: http://www.brettmcfall.com/chapter.html

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Google PPC to CPA Intro

2008-03-08T22:58:00.000-08:00

This post is from CashTactics.net

I am going to assume you know how or already have a Google Adwords account. If you dont know how to set one up then please refer to the Adwords Learning Center. You should really read that anyway. It will take you quite awhile but this is your livelyhood of your Adwords business for years to come we are talking about. I think a week out of your life is well worth it.
There are 3 ways I use Adwords to drive traffic to CPA offers. I use Keyword Targeted Campaigns on Google Search, Keyword Targeted Campaigns on the Content Network and Placement Targeted campaigns for site/page placements that has Google Adsense published on them.
For starters if you have a new account you can expect a somewhat tough beginning. This is just the way of the land. This is also why I recommend a MCC (My Client Center) account. Google allows you to have unlimited accounts using this feature. You had better damn well take advantage of it too. Account history is a very unspoken thing among Adwords but from my own personal testing and experience there are things that effect you from the beginning. Get a few accounts and start establishing right now. Bite the bullet now and get it over with.
This is a preview of CPA Marketing Series - Google PPC To CPA Introduction.

Read the full post here and check out the entire CPA Marketing Series over at CashTactics.net.

Hot Hotel Finder. My new website.

2008-03-05T01:52:00.000-08:00

OK guys and girls. This is just a quick post to let you all know that I have just finished builing my new site HotHotelFinder.com and I need people to test it out for me. So if you can, please check it out, add it to your favourites, tell your family and friends about it, and also let me know what you think of it.

Thanks in advance.

11 Tips to Improve Your Landing Page

2008-03-04T01:52:00.000-08:00

Define Your Conversion

Before you start to design your landing page, define that page�??s conversion activity. For a newsletter landing page, the conversion activity is entering an email address into a form and clicking �??Accept.�??
Do a Little Research

A little demographic research goes a long way. Figure out what your visitor is looking for and what offers work. Build a profile of your ideal visitor. Keep this person in mind when creating your landing page. Do not construct the page for anyone else�??generic and broad pages are proven to fail�??and keep everything �??on target.�?? Your ad campaign already funnels traffic to your landing page, so visitors are expecting a very targeted message. Tailor the pages to them.
Eliminate unneeded Elements

Distractions kill conversions. Strip any unneeded elements from the page. This is not your home page. Anyone who comes to your landing page has already been screened by your ad. They expect a very specific message.
Match the Creative

The landing page and creative should match. The easiest way to clue visitors in that they have arrived at the right place is to use the heading from your ad creative.
Remove Navigation

If you can, remove the navigation bar. Of course, don�??t remove it if it is essential to the conversion process. Remember your message, and if a link has nothing to with it�??chuck it!
Stay Focused

Avoid the urge to promote or link to other areas of your site. The point of the landing page is to prevent your visitor from wandering. You want them converting, not clicking around to other parts of your site and marveling at your Flash animations. Imagine if GAP encouraged shoppers entering their stores to leave and walk around the mall. Once they stop thinking about your offer, you�??ve lost them.
Important Elements Above the �??Fold�??

Pay attention to the virtual fold (the bottom of the screen before scrolling). Place enough content above the fold to allow your visitor to make a decision about continuing on the site. If a visitor has to click or scroll to figure out what your site is about, the only thing they�??ll click is the back button.
Provide Conversion Exits

Make it easy for your visitor to convert. Place conversion exits above the fold and at every scroll-and-a-half of screen space.
Lead the Eye

Use typography and color to your advantage. Lead the eye along the page towards the conversion exit. Thoughtful use of whitespace, large copy and graphics can make a long page seem much shorter than it really is. Be careful though�??a great image will demand a lot of eye time and if misplaced can ruin the flow of your message.

Place the important stuff (whether it�??s your copy or your image) close to the middle, and never distract your user from that focal point. Avoid putting interesting material in sidebars. This pulls the eye away from the main body. If it�??s interesting and valuable, keep it close to the center and use it to direct the eye.
Fix Forms

Optimize your forms. Make the input cursor hop to the next field after a user finishes the current field. Allow the user to tab around fields. Auto-populate any fields you can.

Remove all unneeded fields. Don't ask for city/state/province if you ask for a Zip or postal code. Focus on the essentials.

If you�??re asking users to register for a newsletter, ask for only an email address. You don�??t need their name now. Get rid of the reset button. It�??s dangerous for both the user and you.
Test, Test, Test

After you have finished the design of your landing page, test it with a small user group. Go over a checklist with your design team:
- Is the whole page focused?
- Does the message match the advertisement?
- Have you reduced all distractions?
- Is critical information above the fold?
- Are there enough conversion exits?
- Does the page enhance your brand?

Read the entire article here.

SEO or PPC

2008-03-03T15:37:00.000-08:00

The online community is definitely a large market place that you cannot ignore, especially if you have an internet business. There are thousands if not millions of consumers that you can tap in the internet.

At the same time, the internet also poses a quite different challenge. The easy access that internet provides also gives you as much competition as you can imagine. It is too crowded and congested.

Having a website is not enough to make your business running and able to compete. You must take other alternatives to give way for the online community to access your website at any rate or chance possible.

You have to expose your website. Make it known. It has to be visible. It has to be frequently targeted by consumers and surfers.

Invest in marketing your internet site. There are basically two options available to you, the SEO and PPC. These two are probably the most desirable alternatives you can get for your internet business as strategy for search engine marketing.

1. SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Some researches indicate that 60% - 70% of internet surfers and users actually resort to using the Google search engine to find and locate web sites and pages, for any topic they desire. SEO is the process taken to make sure that the internet uses will find your website when ranked among the top results of a search. This way you can make sure that you will be visible and can clearly stand out from the rest.

To get a search engine optimization, you will have to build on your own internet site frequently hit internet links to web site pages. The process will involve IBLN or Independent Back-Linking Network, wherein hundreds or even thousands of pages will be utilized to promote a particular website of a client.

In SEO, there is no need for you to pay for the clicks although it will require you to spend time doing research to get a favorable combination of ads and target audience. The SEO process is a long term one. It requires months, 6 months at the least, before the proper outcome is fully achieved, but once the goal is accomplished, you will definitely get a steady source of profit.

2. PPC

PPC means Pay Per Click. It gives way advertising on a search engine. These are sponsored listings that you see whenever you make a search. There will be a charge whenever a visitor or web surfer clicks on any of your ads. There will first be a bidding process. The highest bidder for the price per click will definitely get the chance to be first listed in the search engine.

With this kind of advertising, you can still basically control your campaign as you get to create your own ad. You will also manage the target audience and still stay within the bounds of your budget. Most of the providers of PPC advertising will allow you to specify the target market, either by topic, industry or geographical location. You can also very well check if your ad gets to be shown at all and if it is competitive with the rest.

There are some guaranteed benefits when you get to maximize the PPC strategy.

* PPC lets you advertise to the whole of the online community. It is also relatively easy to set up.

* At first glance, PPC advertising may seem very expensive. Could it possibly happen that someone out there will go on clicking on your ad? This will definitely give you a large bill without the expected profit on your part. If this provides a lot of worries, be rest assured that there is a protection for you. Networks are able to recognize fraudulent clicks.

* You can also set a budget for a certain period. The moment your budget has been used up by the target number of clicks, your ads will no longer be displayed until the next period you want it again displayed.

* You will also be able to adjust well to changes in market demands and trends.

In deciding which of the two strategies will work right for you, think of your goals and of your resources. They definitely offer benefits and advantages that will work for your good. The better way to approach this two is to evaluate according to your short term and long term plans. Take the PPC course for your short term goals and choose SEO if you have long term ones.

There world is out there for you now. Just make sure you do what will work best for your entrepreneurial endeavors and visions. The secret to success lies in your hands. Just study your options well and you�??ll get exactly what you want.

AffSpy has now launched Beta

2008-02-29T15:30:00.000-08:00

AffSpy has now launched it's Beta membership site to selected people on their mailing list. I happen to have been chosen and I must say, AffSpy is very impressive. For those of you that don't know what AffSpy is, it is a type of search engine that allows you to browse the various affiliate offers that are available through different affiliate programs.

If you haven't joined the mailing list or checked out AffSpy before, do it now. Click here to visit the official AffSpy website.

Make $100 a Day

2008-02-28T18:39:00.000-08:00

I just realized something! This entire blog is filled with ideas on how to help your sites make more money and receive more traffic, but I don�??t have a single post that says, HEY! HERE IS HOW YOU MAKE MONEY. I want a post that tells you exactly how to reach your goals. A comment in another post (I do read them and get inspired by them) reminded me of this. So I perused through some old projects of mine and grabbed one thats very easy, very automated, reciprocal (consistantly makes money forever), and makes about a $100/day. Most of all it requires very minimal time and investment. So here ya go! Follow the instructions carefully and do as I did.

Read the entire article here.

Improve Website Conversion Rates with Talking Avatars

2008-02-26T15:17:00.000-08:00

Conversion Matters

As a small business trying to increase the revenue from the site, individuals are faced with investing a significant portion of their budget on advertising to drive site traffic. Whether you are looking at time or money, it is too expensive to let visitors walk away without trying to engage them to become your customers. That's where conversion rate comes in. The conversion rate of your website is the percentage of website visitors that take a desirable action while visiting, such as signing up for an e-mail newsletter or making a purchase. The higher your conversion rate is, the more efficient your website is and so is your marketing spend. If you are not paying much attention to your website conversion rate, you are leaving the money on the table.

A case study �?? A Talking Avatar increased the site conversion by 144% in an AB test

However, raising your site conversion rate is not as easy as it sounds. There are many tools out there, but some of them are too expensive or complicated for a small business. Anita Campbell, CEO of Small Business Trends.com and a renowned small business exports, says that a use of talking characters (avatars) can be a great solution.

Anita Campbell recently conducted an A/B test on her website to see the effectiveness of a talking avatar on the site conversion rate. She had heard about some buzz about avatars for site conversions, but she was not fully convinced and wanted to test it herself.

Small Business Trends.com is a website that provides content and other insightful information of interest to the small business community, and Anita wanted to increase the rate of sign-ups to its e-mail newsletter, as that is where 90% of lead generation for their consulting services originated. As the website and its service were focused around the persona of Anita, she had been using a still photograph of herself on the homepage to add authenticity and personalization to the site.

A 50/50 test was conducted as follows: half of the people visiting Small Business Trends were shown the main page with Anita's still photograph and a graphic call to action button called "Subscribe to Newsletters" next to it. The other 50% were shown the same version of the page but with a speaking character of Anita instead of a still photograph. Anita used SitePal to make her speaking character. Google Optimizer, a tool that measures landing page conversion rates, was used to track the newsletter sign ups from both pages. With a statistically significant sample size of over 11,000 people, the results were clear: the website version with the talking avatar saw a 144% higher conversion rate than the version without it. In other words, the SitePal talking avatar helped to drive more than double the newsletter sign ups.

"The avatar focused the attention of visitors on the newsletter and was successful in convincing visitors to take the extra steps to subscribe. The SitePal avatar exceeded my expectations," Ms. Campbell says.

Tips from Anita Campbell

After seeing such great results from the use of a SitePal talking avatar, Anita Campbell provided some best practices for making the most out of speaking characters. They follow.

1. Use Persuasive and Brief Messages to Drive Conversions: By using a persuasive and brief message with your talking avatar, including a call to action, visitors are directed to specific sections of your webpage where they can act and respond to your call to action, whether it be the purchase of a product or signing up for a newsletter.

2. Personalization is important: The test showed that people view talking avatars as more personal than a photograph. This helps to create a rapport with website visitors, keeping your site at the top of their minds. Including the tip of using one's own voice.

3. Differentiation is Key: You must find a way to stand out in the overcrowded world that is the Internet. With websites being built every single day, it is important to create a lasting impression in your visitor's mind. Interactive features, especially speaking avatars, are very helpful in giving visitors something unique to remember about your site. They are also a great way to present potential customers with a distinctive call to action.

To see the full case study, visit www.SitePal.com

Why People Fail in Affiliate Marketing

2008-02-25T17:57:00.001-08:00

Affiliate marketing looks easy to do, but in reality it is a little trickier than people realize. One of the main reasons for failure to make profits in Affiliate marketing is lack of dedication and work. Affiliate marketing is like any other business. It takes hard work and dedication to make a successful business.

One of the most common reasons for failure is lack of knowledge about promoting. Affiliate marketing depends on getting a lot of targeted traffic to your website. Only then can you hope to achieve a substantial click through and sales conversion. Many new affiliates are not aware of the amount of work they will have to put in to drive this traffic to their websites.

The other mistake is not to have your own website. This prevents you from doing your own website promotions and does not allow you to capture the email addresses of your visitors. When you do this you will only be building your sponsor�??s business and not your own. You will also be decreasing your sales conversions.

Not knowing how to advertise and where you should be doing your direct marketing is also another mistake. Advertising must be towards your targeted market and not in unrelated publications and websites.

Selling, not pre selling: Too many affiliates try to sell their sponsor�??s products instead of getting the click through. If you try to sell to your visitors and then send them through to your sponsor�??s sales page they are in effect being double sold and will not be very inclined to buy.

If you pre sell to your visitors and warm them for the sale they will be ready for your sponsor�??s sales page and be inclined to buy. This will increase sales conversions and your commission.

Make Money Online with your Autoresponder

2008-02-24T17:48:00.000-08:00

This is a follow up to my previous post "Introduction to Auto Responders". Enjoy.

An interested visitor who has been strolling through your site has finally come to just what she is looking for and is about to make a purchase. It's a sunny afternoon, and her cat, who happens to be sitting on the moss under the visitor's large fifty-year-old snow-rose bonsai tree, suddenly jumps down, and the priceless tree topples over.

In the blink of an eye, your visitor exits your site, and your sale is dust - unless you have had the foresight to utilize an autoresponder that has captured her email address. If you have installed an autoresponder, you can then follow-up with her, and in all probability, make the sale when the poor woman has finished repotting her precious bonsai.

Autoresponders are remarkable, versatile programs that do so much more than just automatically answer your email. Here are a few ideas that will help you to creatively and
productively use your autoresponder to transform the casual visitor into a profitable customer.

Use your autoresponder to:

1. Publish a newsletter. Certain quality autoresponders will manage subscriptions and follow-up with interested prospects. Your newsletter can keep your visitors informed about your services or products, while building your reputation as a credible expert in your particular business.

2. Publish a newsletter only for your affiliates. Inform them of current sales you are running and of promotional material that your affiliates can use themselves to increase their commissions. Include tips, advice, and techniques that your affiliates can use to successfully go out and promote your business.

3. Write reviews. Cover books, software, music, e-books, movies, etc., and put each review in an autoresponder. Review your affiliate programs, using a link to your affiliate's page in your autoresponder.

4. Distribute your articles. Writing and distributing targeted articles is a powerful tool to build your business credibility, bring traffic to your site, and increase your sales potential. If your articles contain valuable information, many editors will print what is known as a resource box for you. A resource box contains your bio and a brief description of your service or product. It can also contain your autoresponder address. Let's say you've written fifty articles. Put them on separate autoresponder accounts and create a master list that contains the titles of each article, the autoresponder address, and a brief abstract. Then promote your master list. Additionally,
include your publishing guidelines so your affiliates can add their articles to your list, increasing the number of writers who are represented in your article list.

5. Create mailing lists. Inform subscribers to your articles when you've written new ones that they may want to publish in their own newsletter or website.

6. Automate your sales process. Use an ad to insure repeated exposure of your message, which has been proven to effectively increase sales. In your ad, put your autoresponder address where a visitor will be exposed to numerous marketing materials. This multiplies the chances of converting visitors into customers. For example, if you're selling a particular product, put testimonials about how spectacular it is on your autoresponder, and add a detailed, enticing description of your product.

7. Distribute advertising. Let's say you sell advertising on your website or in your newsletter or e-zine. Set your autoresponder to send the information about rates and how to place an ad automatically to all prospects' email addresses. Then have your autoresponder follow-up. It can
also send notification of any special deals you are currently offering.

8. Distribute an email course. Each day, have your autoresponder send out another lesson. Just be sure that each lesson has quality content - not a sales pitch. Your content will do the selling for you, and will do it much more effectively. You can include tips centered on a different topic for each lesson, illustrating how your product will benefit the reader. Include the tangible
benefits the visitor will reap by purchasing your product. Make sure to include a paragraph or two at the end of each lesson enticing your prospect to consider making a purchase.

9. Automate a reminder about your service or product after a visitor has completed your course. This will increase the possibility of sales from visitors who have taken your course but are dragging their feet about actually making a purchase. You can also use these reminders to promote new products or services, and the products and services of your affiliate programs.

10. Distribute free reports. This gives your visitor an idea of the type of information you can provide and the quality of your product or service. Make sure these reports are not sales letters or you will more than likely lose a potential customer than gain a sale.

11. Create trivia quizzes on your site and place the answers in an autoresponder. Your visitor will then be motivated to request your autoresponder, and you will have a record of the visitors' email addresses who took your quiz. Or create a contest and have any visitors that enter
send their responses to your autoresponder. Your autoresponder can be set-up to send them a confirmation of their entry.

12. Offer a trial version of your product. Give your prospects a sample of your ebook, course, software, membership, etc. People who are exposed to a little taste often end up wanting the whole pie. You can also capture their email addresses when you offer them a free trial from
your website. Set up your autoresponder to give instructions on how to obtain their free trial, and then make sure to follow-up to try and close the sale.

13. Link to hidden pages on your autoresponder. For example, a hidden page could be your affiliate page that contains graphics, promotional articles, and text links that interested affiliates can make use of. Inform visitors that they may have free access to your affiliate page by simply requesting your autoresponder. You will then gather a list of visitors who may be interested in becoming your affiliates.

14. Use an autoresponder on your order page. Post a request form for visitors to be notified of special offers or discounts in the future. This creates a very effective mailing list that contains the names of people who are already your customers.

15. Put your links page on your autoresponder. It should contain up to fifty links that would be of particular interest to your visitors. Make sure to add your own promotional copy at the top or bottom of this page.

Now that you have proof that autoresponders can be used creatively, see if you can come up with some brilliant ideas of your own!

32 Things Learnt in Internet Marketing

2008-02-24T04:49:00.000-08:00

This is a small snippet of a blog post from Carl Ocab. He is the 14 year old "kidblogger" who runs carlocab.com. Click Here to read the full post.

1. WIIFM or What�??s In It For Me
The first question that pops out to all of us everytime.

Let�??s have a little question and answer here just to prove it to you:

Why do you work? - To make money.

Why do you want to make money? - To buy the coolest car.

Why do you want to buy the coolest car? - To impress my neighbor.

Ask yourself, you�??ll always find out that you do all things that give you a benefit.

Here�??s a totally different scenario where you want to help people in need. You try to do it anonymously as you can.

But what�??s in it for you? - you feel happy on the inside helping people and seeing them happy.

People need benefits. You can�??t just ask someone�??s shirt if it wouldn�??t benefit them, and you can�??t sell a product without giving a reason why the customer need your product. Show the benefits.

You won�??t be reading this article if you didn�??t have YOUR benefit right? Ask yourself.

Introduction to Autoresponders

2008-02-21T14:59:00.000-08:00

If you've reached the point of exhaustion trying to keep up with answering the mountain of emails that threatens to bury you alive every single day, you're ready to learn about autoresponders.

The bad news is that people expect prompt replies to their email inquiries. However, unless you can figure out how to work continual twenty-four hour shifts, or hire enough people to constantly monitor incoming emails (while they're eating up your revenue), you have a problem. The good news is an autoresponder is an inexpensive - or even free - method of quickly responding to emails. What these programs do is automatically respond to incoming emails as soon as
they are received.

Emails are essential to your business for many different reasons. Most importantly, these invisible email voices give you their feedback about your website - for free! However, if you spend all your working hours answering these emails, how are you supposed to run your business? The answer is simple: use autoresponders. Autoresponders are programs that automatically respond to your emails without you so much as having to click on your mouse.

There are a number of good reasons why you need an autoresponder besides just answering your email. For example, autoresponders can be used if you need a way to send information about your services or products, price lists, or if there are repeated questions asked across
large numbers of emails. Maybe you want to offer your site visitors a special bonus of some kind, such as advice or relevant articles. All of this can be handled by an autoresponder. Additionally, you can advertise your business and then build stable relationships with your customers by using autoresponders.

Autoresponder programs vary from software that runs with your email program to a specialized script that runs on your web hosting company's server. This kind of script may use a web page form or simply operate with your email account. This kind of script is programmed to send out a
standardized message whenever an email is received. The message is sent to a particular script or email address.

Some autoresponders can do more than simply send out standardized messages. They can send out an unlimited number of follow-up messages sent at predetermined interval of time. For example, you can set your autoresponder to send out a new message every day for as long a period as you desire.

There are numerous companies who offer autoresponders free of charge. Your website hosting company often provides autoresponders as a free service. If this is not the case with your web hosting company, there are numerous companies who offer this service for a small fee, or free of charge, providing you attach an advertisement for their company to your emails.

To personalize your autoresponder messages, you can attach a signature. Signatures in this case are much like business cards. You can include your name, company, all your contact numbers and addresses, and a brief message.

It's a good idea to attach a signature to every email that is sent out. This works as a repeated reminder of your business identity every time a customer sees it. The more they look at your signature, the more likely your company will spring to mind when your particular service or product is needed.

You can create a standardized signature that every employee in your business uses, or you can go wild, and let every staff member create their own personal signature. Of course, like everything in life, there are some rules and guidelines to creating a personal signature.

Keep the length of your signature between four to six lines of text, with no more than 70 characters in a single line. Make sure that your email program does not cut off your text! The content should include your name, your company name, your email address, fax number, and any other contact details, such as 800 numbers. Lastly, always include a short personal message about your company. It should be a subtle sell of your services or your products, and possibly
your company's reliability and longevity.

Another specialized use of autoresponders is to create courses that you can then offer your site visitors for free. You must choose a topic in which you are an expert and that precisely targets your potential customers.

Once you have carefully chosen your subject, divide it into a number of different sub-topics. Then offer your site visitor a free 10 or 15 day course, each day offering a different sub-topic. The first topic should always be a welcome message to your site visitor and an explanation
about what is to follow. Your explanation should be enticing, getting the point across that you are offering free, quality information that your target audience will find of great value.

With every lesson, include the number of the lesson, the topic title, information about your company and its services or products. At the end, include a few blurbs about the next lesson to entice the subscriber to continue on.

Make sure each topic is packed with essential and valuable information, and leaves the visitor lusting to know more. Otherwise, you may lose them in the very beginning.

Of course, you have to write up your course before you can offer it. Once you have done this, and gone over the material carefully, employing a professional writer or editor if necessary, you must transfer your text to your autoresponder.

There are a number of free autoresponders you can use. Try http:/www.getresponse.com, or http://www.fastfacts.net. Or go onto Google and you will find a long list of free autoresponder companies. Then sign-up for your chosen autoresponder. Once you do, you will receive instructions as to how to set it up and transfer your text.

Email is an excellent marketing tool; it is inexpensive and it is fast. Use it to advertise your business by choosing your email address carefully. Your website should contain different email addresses for different contact requests. For example, use info@yourdomain.com for information requests, or sales@yourdomain.com for questions about sales. It's a good idea to set up one for the owner, such as president@yourdomain.com. This presents your company in a personal, approachable light and insures that direct contact is provided.

Autoresponders are an effective and powerful marketing tool, allowing you to make contact with thousands of potential customers. This is an invaluable asset considering how many potential customers you usually have contact with before you make an actual sale. Essentially, an autoresponser allows you to automate part of your marketing campaign.

The most important tip about working online

2008-02-20T22:37:00.000-08:00

That�??s easy. 4 words.

Love what you do.

The following is sparked by the dozens of emails, IM�??s and Pm�??s I receive weekly. What is the single most important thing I would tell someone that wanted to get started making money online?

You have probably heard this a time or to. Matter of fact, you may be tired of hearing it. If that�??s the case then I really fell sorry for you. I cannot imagine someone trying to make money online and NOT liking it. I am not speaking just about success here either. I am speaking in terms in failure. What?

Continue reading at Ruck's blog Cash Tactics. It is an amazing post.

Analyzing Your Website Traffic

2008-02-19T19:52:00.000-08:00

Analyzing your web traffic statistics can be an invaluable tool for a number of different reasons. But before you can make full use of this tool, you need to understand how to interpret the data.

Most web hosting companies will provide you with basic web traffic information that you then have to interpret and make pertinent use of. However, the data you receive from your host company can be overwhelming if you don't understand how to apply it to your particular business and website. Let's start by examining the most basic data - the average visitors to your site on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

These figures are the most accurate measure of your website's activity. It would appear on the surface that the more traffic you see recorded, the better you can assume your website is doing, but this is an inaccurate perception. You must also look at the behavior of your visitors once they come to your website to accurately gauge the effectiveness of your site.

There is often a great misconception about what is commonly known as "hits" and what is really effective, quality traffic to your site. Hits simply means the number of information requests received by the server. If you think about the fact that a hit can simply equate to the number
of graphics per page, you will get an idea of how overblown the concept of hits can be. For example, if your homepage has 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits, when in reality we are talking about a single visitor checking out a single page on your site. As you can see, hits are not useful in analyzing your website traffic.

The more visitors that come to your website, the more accurate your interpretation will become. The greater the traffic is to your website, the more precise your analysis will be of overall trends in visitor behavior. The smaller the number of visitors, the more a few anomalous visitors can distort the analysis.

The aim is to use the web traffic statistics to figure out how well or how poorly your site is working for your visitors. One way to determine this is to find out how long on average your visitors spend on your site. If the time spent is relatively brief, it usually indicates an underlying problem. Then the challenge is to figure out what that problem is.

It could be that your keywords are directing the wrong type of visitors to your website, or that your graphics are confusing or intimidating, causing the visitor to exit rapidly. Use the knowledge of how much time visitors are spending on your site to pinpoint specific problems, and
after you fix those problems, continue to use time spent as a gauge of how effective your fix has been.

Additionally, web traffic stats can help you determine effective and ineffective areas of your website. If you have a page that you believe is important, but visitors are exiting it rapidly, that page needs attention. You could, for example, consider improving the link to this page by making the link more noticeable and enticing, or you could improve the look of the page or the ease that your visitors can access the necessary information on that page.

If, on the other hand, you notice that visitors are spending a lot of time on pages that you think are less important, you might consider moving some of your sales copy and marketing focus to that particular page.

As you can see, these statistics will reveal vital information about the effectiveness of individual pages, and visitor habits and motivation. This is essential information to any successful Internet marketing campaign.

Your website undoubtedly has exit pages, such as a final order or contact form. This is a page you can expect your visitor to exit rapidly. However, not every visitor to your site is going to find exactly what he or she is looking for, so statistics may show you a number of different exit pages. This is normal unless you notice a exit trend on a particular page that is not intended as an exit page. In the case that a significant percentage of visitors are exiting your website on a page not designed for that purpose, you must closely examine that particular page to discern what the problem is. Once you pinpoint potential weaknesses on that page, minor modifications in content or graphic may have a significant impact on the keeping visitors moving through your site instead of exiting at the wrong page.

After you have analyzed your visitor statistics, it's time to turn to your keywords and phrases. Notice if particular keywords are directing a specific type of visitor to your site. The more targeted the visitor - meaning that they find what they are looking for on your site, and even
better, fill out your contact form or make a purchase - the more valuable that keyword is.

However, if you find a large number of visitors are being directed - or should I say misdirected - to your site by a particular keyword or phrase, that keyword demands adjustment. Keywords are vital to bringing quality visitors to your site who are ready to do business with you. Close
analysis of the keywords your visitors are using to find your site will give you a vital understanding of your visitor's needs and motivations.

Finally, if you notice that users are finding your website by typing in your company name, break open the champagne! It means you have achieved a significant level of brand recognition, and this is a sure sign of burgeoning success.

I use ClickTale to analyze all of my website traffics. You can sign up for a FREE account here.

MoreNiche Affiliate Marketing Program: Review

2008-02-18T17:00:00.000-08:00

MoreNiche is the first affiliate marketing program that I joined and actually took seriously.

If you are new to internet or affiliate marketing then MoreNiche is definitely the site for you to join. MoreNiche not only have some of the best products with the some of the highest commissions on the internet, they also have the best affiliate support team anywhere. This ensures that you make alot of sales and continue to do so with little effort. Like all good affiliate programs, MoreNiche is 100% FREE to join.

Some of the benefits you will enjoy as a MoreNiche member are:

Up to $175US per sale with excellent conversion rates
24/7 Support Team via e-mail, phone, instant messaging, and forums
Credit on Every Sale - online, mail, phone, fax, return visits and up-sells
FREE user guides to help you make massive amounts of money
FREE web design, graphic design, programming, SEO and PPC support & advice
Bi-monthly payments through e-passporte, money wire, cheque, or moneybookers

World Class Products

The products that MoreNiche have on offer are truly world class and top of the range. They offer products ranging from webmaster tools, web design, online casinos, male enhancement, sexual advice, to wealth creation and much more. All products are of the highest quality and are guaranteed to make you some nice cash.

Superb Tracking, Integration, and Notification Service

Among the many other high quality features, MoreNiche boasts: Highly accurate keyword and link tracking - keeping you on top of all your marketing campaigns; Official integration with Yahoo Overture and Google Adsense PPC platforms; SMS and e-mail sales notifications; Real-time statistics - follow all unique hits within just seconds of them being made.

My Top Rated Affiliate Program

MoreNiche is easily the best affiliate program that I have tested. They have an unrivaled reputation within the industry and provide their affiliates with first class support, promotional tools, and other resources that no other affiliate programs dare to offer.

Join MoreNiche Today. It is 100% FREE.

Maximize Your Earnings with MoreNiche and Making You Richer

Double, or even Triple your earnings with MoreNiche by also joining Making You Richer - the leading internet marketing educational website. For more information on Making You Richer visit the official site.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

2008-02-17T16:45:00.000-08:00

Affiliate marketing has many descriptions, yet all have the same meaning. Affiliate marketing is a huge business piece on the Internet. It is a cooperative effort between merchants and an affiliate�??s website. For many years now, affiliate marketing has proved to be a cost-efficient, measurable method of delivering long-tern results. It has become famous for Internet sites who are trying to make some extra or additional income for their site. Every day, people get interested to affiliate marketing and want to make money out of it. But in many cases, these new affiliates do not fully understand the affiliate world and make costly mistakes. In other words, affiliate marketing has often been misunderstood.

One of the common misconceptions that are being associated about affiliate marketing is �??selling�??, though selling is an important activity of affiliate marketing and the central function of a business operation. Another is that affiliate marketing is commonly linked with �??advertising�??. While the importance of advertising in marketing a certain product is not to be underestimated, the fact of the matter is, advertising like selling, is merely a part of the many functions of marketing.

In affiliate marketing, an affiliate is compensated for every visitor, subscriber and/or customer provided through his efforts. The said compensation may be made based on a certain value for each visit. The most attractive aspect of affiliate marketing from the merchant�??s viewpoint is that no payment is due to an affiliate until results are appreciated.

Affiliate marketing is typically being run by affiliate networks and this affiliate networks are composed of two functional bodies, the group affiliates and the group merchants. Each has their special function and role when it comes to affiliate marketing. The affiliate network acts as a third party between the merchant and the associated affiliates. The network provides the technology to deliver the merchant�??s campaigns and offers. The affiliate network also collects commission fees from the merchant and then pays the affiliates which are part of the program.

The merchant is any web site owner that wants or desires to take advantage of performance based marketing. The benefits to the merchant are many. First, the merchant maintains and operates the affiliate program. If it would be extracted, the merchant needs to do their part by researching interested affiliate websites to ensure that they are a good fit for that particular website. Finding a fit for their merchandise would be the key to more generated income. The merchant has access to markets and customers without him spending valuable time searching out. Banner ads on affiliate sites are not distracting to the site user. It might produce interest for that product and drive the consumer to the merchants�?? website. It is also the merchant who decides how much he is willing to pay for each sale that results from a visitor sent from an affiliate.

The affiliate or the affiliate marketer also sees a lot of benefits. The affiliate is a web site owner that promotes one or more merchants and their affiliate programs. Affiliate marketing can generate a full-time income for the affiliate. But this is not an easy task to accomplish. The affiliate needs to have a better understanding with the merchant what the commission will be, expected payment method and time involved in the contract. The affiliate has also the responsibility to stand for the merchandise their user based would be most interested in. For example, if the site has a user base of mainly stay-at-home mothers, then on-line job openings such as surveys would be a good match for them. This group would also appreciate direct links to children�??s products and informational sites. Merchandisers often provide targeted, best-seller items and personal support to their affiliate. They often offer sales promotions that will benefit the merchandiser as well as the affiliate.

Affiliate marketing is a great situation for both the marketer and the affiliate. If they would work together, they can be an advantage to both. Plus the fact that it seems to make sense, it is easy and inexpensive way to start, and you can be up and running within a few days. But there is one thing to consider, it is how to get traffic and make your offer different than all others.

Pay Per Click for Beginners

2008-02-17T01:01:00.000-08:00

Pay-Per-click advertising is a great way to make money with affiliate programs. Unfortunately not every Pay-Per-Click engine is really effective. Sometimes you can get a lot of traffic but very few buyers. The best PPC advertising is Google Adwords. If you prepare your campaign properly you will get targeted visitors within hours coming to your site.

There are 2 sources that Google uses for these ads. Their search engine and different related websites (content). The most targeted is their search engine. From content you will get a lot of traffic but not as many actual buyers. Whether you include content or not, bear this in mind and consider your targeted market.

Steps for starting a Google Adwords campaign:

1. Make your account and watch for the confirmation link needed to activate it.
2. Start a new campaign by clicking the link �??Keyword-Targeted�?? campaign.
3. Name the campaign
4. Name your ad group
5. Name the area, country, territory, regions, cities, or customized
6. Make your ad �?? it needs to have a high CTR (click through ratio). Take care to do this well.

Tips to improve your campaign:

1. Monitor your campaigns well and carefully
2. Join high paying affiliate programs to offset costs and make this campaign really effective
3. Use as many keywords as you can to attract all the people in your market

Mistakes to avoid:

1. Do not use mirror sites - for Google campaigns it is good to have a landing page for your program if possible.
2. No Pop ups or Pop under are allowed by Google
3. Do not bid too high - although Google will often adjust this and lower your bid

Google Adwords is very cost effective. It only takes 5 minutes to start off your campaign. Read the entire tutorial that Google provides very carefully before you begin. Start with low bids and work up. Understand that some keywords will have high bids and others low ones. You will need to watch your campaign very well to ensure it is not going over your budget.

Make Money Online with Kaboodle

2008-02-16T22:33:00.000-08:00

Ruck over at CashTactics.net has posted some interesting articles on how to make money online with Kaboodle.

You can check out the first post here, and check out the rest at CashTactics.net.

I highly recommend adding Ruck's blog to your favourites. He also has an excellent internet marketing forum that you can join.

Make Money Writing an E-Book

2008-02-16T00:42:00.000-08:00

The hardest part of writing is the first sentence. When you look at the whole project, it seems like an impossible task. That's why you have to break it down into manageable tasks. Think of climbing a mountain. You are standing at the foot of it and looking up at its summit vanishing into the clouds. How can you possibly scale such an immense and dangerous mountain?

There is only one way to climb a mountain. Step by step.

Now think of writing your ebook in the same light. You must create it step by step, and one day, you will take that last step and find yourself standing on the summit with your head in the clouds.

The first thing you have to do, as if you actually were a mountain climber, is to get organized. Instead of climbing gear, however, you must organize your thoughts. There are some steps you should take before you begin. Once you've gone through the following list, you will be ready to actually begin writing yourebook.

Beginning Steps to Writing an ebook

First, figure out your ebook's working title. Jot down a few different titles, and eventually, you'll find that one that will grow on you. Titles help you to focus your writing on your topic; they guide you in anticipating and answering your reader's queries. Many non-fiction books also have subtitles. Aim for clarity in your titles, but cleverness always helps to sell books, as long as it's not too cute. For example, Remedies for Insomnia: twenty different ways to count sheep. Or: Get off that couch: fifteen exercise plans to whip you into shape.

Next, write out a thesis statement. Your thesis is a sentence or two stating exactly what problem you are addressing and how your book will solve that problem. All chapters spring forth from your thesis statement. Once you've got your thesis statement fine-tuned, you've built your foundation. From that foundation, your book will grow, chapter by chapter.

Your thesis will keep you focused while you write your ebook. Remember: all chapters must support your thesis statement. If they don't, they don't belong in your book. For example, your thesis statement could read: We've all experienced insomnia at times in our lives, but there are twenty proven techniques and methods togive you back a good night's sleep.

Once you have your thesis, before you start to write, make sure there is a good reason to write your book. Ask yourself some questions:

* Does your book present useful information and is that information currently relevant?
* Will you book positively affect the lives of your readers?
* Is your book dynamic and will it keep the reader's attention?
* Does you book answer questions that are meaningful and significant?

If you can answer yes to these questions, you can feel confident about the potential of your ebook.

Another important step is to figure out who your target audience is. It is this group of people you will be writing to, and this group will dictate many elements of your book, such as style, tone, diction, and even length. Figure out the age range of your readers, their general gender, what they are most interested in, and even the socio-economic group they primarily come from. Are they people who read fashion magazines or book reviews? Do they write letters in longhand or spend hours every day online. The more you can pin down your target audience, the easier it will be to write your book for them.

Next, make a list of the reasons you are writing your ebook. Do you want to promote your business? Do you want to bring quality traffic to your website? Do you want to enhance your reputation?

Then write down your goals in terms of publishing. Do you want to sell it as a product on your website, or do you want to offer it as a free gift for filling out a survey or for ordering a product? Do you want to use the chapters to create an e-course, or use your ebook to attract affiliates around the world? The more you know upfront, the easier the actual writing will be.

Decide on the format of your chapters. In non-fiction, keep the format from chapter to chapter fairly consistent. Perhaps you plan to use an introduction to your chapter topic, and then divide it into four subhead topics. Or you may plan to divide it into five parts, each one beginning with a relevant anecdote.

How to make your ebook "user friendly"

You must figure out how to keep your writing engaging. Often anecdotes, testimonials, little stories, photos, graphs, advice, and tips will keep the reader turning the pages. Sidebars are useful for quick, accessible information, and they break up the density of thepage.

Write with a casual, conversational tone rather than a formal tone such as textbook diction. Reader's respond to the feeling that you are having a conversation with them. Break up the length and structure of your sentences so you don't hypnotize your readers into sleep. Sentences that are all the same length and structure tend to be a good aid for insomnia!

Good writing takes practice. It takes lots and lots of practice. Make a schedule to write at least a page a day. Read books and magazines about the process of writing, and jot down tips that jump out at you. The art of writing is a lifetime process; the more you write (and read), the better your writing will become. The better your writing becomes, the bigger your salesfigures.

In an ebook that is read on the screen, be aware that you must give your reader's eye a break. You can do this by utilizing white space. In art classes, whitespace is usually referred to as "negative space". Reader's eyes need to rest in the cool white oasises you create on your page. If your page is too dense, your reader will quit out of it as soon as their eyes begin to tear.

Make use of lists, both bulleted and numbered. This makes your information easy to absorb, and gives the reader a mental break from dissecting your paragraphs one after the other.

Finally, decide on an easy-to-read design. Find a font that's easy on the eyes, and stick to that font family. Using dozens of fonts will only tire your readers out before they've gotten past your introduction. Use at least one and a half line spacing, and text large enough to be read easily on the screen, but small enough so that the whole page can be seen on a computer screen. You will have to experiment with this to find the right combination.

Of course, don't forget to run a spell and grammar check. You are judged by something as minor as correct punctuation, so don't mess up a great book by tossing out semicolons randomly, or stringing sentences together with commas. (By the way, that's called a"comma splice.")

Last of all, create an index and a bibliography. That's it! You've written a book! Now all you have todo is publish your ebook online, and wait for download request from your website visitors.

Protecting Your Search Engine Rankings

2008-02-14T00:32:00.000-08:00

Your website's ranking on search engines is a vital elementof your overall marketing campaign, and there are ways to improve your link popularity through legitimate methods. Unfortunately, the Internet is populated by bands of dishonest webmasters seeking to improve their linkpopularity by faking out search engines.

The good news is that search engines have figured this out,and are now on guard for "spam" pages and sites that haveincreased their rankings by artificial methods. When asearch engines tracks down such a site, that site is demoted in ranking or completely removed from the search engine's index.

The bad news is that some high quality, completelyabove-board sites are being mistaken for these web page criminals. Your page may be in danger of being caught up inthe "spam" net and tossed from a search engine's index,even though you have done nothing to deserve such harsh treatment. But there are things you can do - and things you should be sure NOT to do - which will prevent this kind of misperception.

Link popularity is mostly based on the quality of sites you are linked to. Google pioneered this criteria for assigning website ranking, and virtually all search engines on the Internet now use it. There are legitimate ways to go about increasing your link popularity, but at the same time, you must be scrupulously careful about which sites you choose to link to. Google frequently imposes penalties on sites that have linked to other sites solely for the purpose of artificially boosting their link popularity. They have actually labeled these links "bad neighborhoods."

You can raise a toast to the fact that you cannot be penalized when a bad neighborhood links to your site;penalty happens only when you are the one sending out thelink to a bad neighborhood. But you must check, and double-check, all the links that are active on your links page to make sure you haven't linked to a bad neighborhood.

The first thing to check out is whether or not the pages you have linked to have been penalized. The most direct wayto do this is to download the Google toolbar at http://toolbar.google.com/. You will then see that most pages are given a "Pagerank" which is represented by a sliding green scale on the Google toolbar.

Do not link to any site that shows no green at all on the scale. This is especially important when the scale is completely gray. It is more than likely that these pages have been penalized. If you are linked to these pages, you may catch their penalty, and like the flu, it may be difficult to recover from the infection.

There is no need to be afraid of linking to sites whose scale shows only a tiny sliver of green on their scale. These sites have not been penalized, and their links may grow in value and popularity. However, do make sure that you closely monitor these kind of links to ascertain thatat some point they do not sustain a penalty once you have linked up to them from your links page.

Another evil trick that illicit webmasters use to artificially boost their link popularity is the use of hidden text. Search engines usually use the words on webpages as a factor in forming their rankings, which means that if the text on your page contains your keywords, you have more of an opportunity to increase your search engineranking than a page that does not contain text inclusive ofkeywords.

Some webmasters have gotten around this formula by hiding their keywords in such a way so that they are invisible toany visitors to their site. For example, they have used thekeywords but made them the same color as the background color of the page, such as a plethora of white keywords on a white background. You cannot see these words with the human eye - but the eye of search engine spider can spot them easily! A spider is the program search engines use to index web pages, and when it sees these invisible words, it goes back and boosts that page's link ranking.

Webmasters may be brilliant and sometimes devious, but search engines have figured these tricks out. As soon as asearch engine perceive the use of hidden text - splat! the page is penalized.

The downside of this is that sometimes the spider is a bit overzealous and will penalize a page by mistake. For example, if the background color of your page is gray, and you have placed gray text inside a black box, the spider will only take note of the gray text and assume you are employing hidden text. To avoid any risk of false penalty, simply direct your webmaster not to assign the same color to text as the background color of the page - ever!

Another potential problem that can result in a penalty is called "keyword stuffing." It is important to have your keywords appear in the text on your page, but sometimes you can go a little overboard in your enthusiasm to please those spiders. A search engine uses what is called"Keyphrase Density" to determine if a site is trying to artificially boost their ranking. This is the ratio of keywords to the rest of the words on the page. Search engines assign a limit to the number of times you can use a keyword before it decides you have overdone it and penalizes your site.

This ratio is quite high, so it is difficult to surpass without sounding as if you are stuttering - unless your keyword is part of your company name. If this is the case, it is easy for keyword density to soar. So, if your keyword is "renters insurance," be sure you don't use this phrase in every sentence. Carefully edit the text on your site so that the copy flows naturally and the keyword is not repeated incessantly. A good rule of thumb is your keyword should never appear in more than half the sentences on the page.

The final potential risk factor is known as "cloaking." To those of you who are diligent Trekkies, this concept should be easy to understand. For the rest of you cloaking is when the server directs a visitor to one page and a search engine spider to a different page. The page the spider sees is "cloaked" because it is invisible to regular traffic,and deliberately set-up to raise the site's search engine ranking. A cloaked page tries to feed the spider everything it needs to rocket that page's ranking to the top of the list.

It is natural that search engines have responded to this act of deception with extreme enmity, imposing steep penalties on these sites. The problem on your end is that sometimes pages are cloaked for legitimate reasons, such as prevention against the theft of code, often referred to as"pagejacking." This kind of shielding is unnecessary these days due to the use of "off page" elements, such as link popularity, that cannot be stolen.

To be on the safe side, be sure that your webmaster is aware that absolutely no cloaking is acceptable. Make sure the webmaster understands that cloaking of any kind will put your website at great risk.

Just as you must be diligent in increasing your link popularity and your ranking, you must be equally diligent to avoid being unfairly penalized. So be sure to monitor your site closely and avoid any appearance of artificially boosting your rankings.

Make Money Online with Ebay, part 1

2008-02-13T20:52:00.000-08:00

The very first way that I made any money online was with Ebay. Ebay is one of the easiest places on the internet to make money and I will tell you how to get started.

Make Money on Ebay by selling "junk"

The fastest and easiest way to make money on ebay is to sell stuff that you have lying around your house that is no longer of any use to you, hence the name "junk". Now, we don't want to sell things if they really are junk, we want to make money here.

The best places to look for things you want to sell are; the garage, the shed, old cupboards, etc. You will be amazed at the ammount of "junk" you could make money from. You can sell anything from old comic books to antique furniture. Whatever you have lying around and no longer need can all go.

So, once you have found the things that you would like to sell, clean them up, take a few nice photos of them and away you go.

Go to Ebay and start selling now.

I will be posting more articles on how to make money with ebay over the next few weeks. These articles will cover everything from ebooks, to dropshipping, wholesale, and much more.