Marketing and Promoting Your Website or Blog

Wordpress Themes and Widgets

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 01:20:00 +0000

As WordPress and blogging become more and more popular, the list of customization options continues to grow. One can attribute that to each user wanting his or her blog to be unique or very much personalized. Who knows, one day a theme can be just as unique as the blog’s author! The following is an overview of the latest developments on WordPress themes.

WordPress Widgets

The blog software developer has recently come up with an edition of this plug-in for the full-version WordPress. A Widget here refers to those tools you can use to modify your site—its sidebar, design, or general layout—without having to know and use HTML codes. About a hundred Widgets are featured in the WordPress Widgets blog, and they are classified in categories such as photography, music, discussion, video, income, and links, among others. It is a fun and easy way of customizing your site, so that it features everything you care about, and nothing you don’t.

Not all themes are ready for these Widgets, however, and some modifications need to be done to include this fun feature in the sites that make use of such themes. http://Automattic.com gives full instructions on how to go about making your WordPress site Widget-friendly. WordPress is continuously adding to their already-vast selection of Widgets to suit their user’s whims and personalities.

Canvas Plugin

This blogger-friendly plugin has recently allowed blog users to create their very own theme for their WordPress blog. The good news is that this plugin allows users a pretty good level of customization without them having to study and use codes. The result: a site that looks very professional built within the range of a few minutes to a couple of hours. Even better news is that this plugin comes for free.

This stand-alone plugin opens up to a bare starting point, with a selection of blocks that you can include in your layout by drag-and-drop method. Among the many features of Canvas are Banner, RSS, Static Text, Feature, Digg, Flickr, Random Tagline, Comment, Category List, Asides, Archive, Description, Calendar, Search, Post, and Navigation functions. Meanwhile, an Ink tab gives the user the freedom to determine the styles to be used on the page, sans the need to check the actual stylesheet. This tab proves to be quite useful for beginners, because it features help links that corresponds to each theme component, the style of which you may be about to identify. These links load the template with an indication of the part in question, to give the user a clear idea of what effect the change will have.

“Being Moderated” Notification

It does not come as a surprise that some comments are being moderated by the recipient blog’s owner or moderator. However, it would be nice for you to let your eager comment writers know that you have received their comment, when the system is programmed to delay posting of comments on your blog until it has been read and approved by you. Without this notification activated, some of your readers may think that their comment just got lost and they’ll have to write their comment all over again, when in fact your blog has secured it and it’s only waiting for your approval. However, the blog author may need to be familiar with code to activate this feature. Nevertheless, it is one way to deter comment spammers from infiltrating your blog. Your may also word the notification in your liking. Here’s an example: “Thank you for your comment. It may take a while before your comment may be published. Please check back later.”

More Themes to Match Content

While it is all up to the blog author to decide, it would be quite useful to have a theme that will give first-time readers of your blog a pretty good idea of what to expect by simply looking at the design in use. For this reason, WordPress theme designers are coming up with more specific themes to match a variety of specific types of content. Experts say that the first several seconds spent by a visitor on your blog determine the impression they get of your site. So if your site fails to capture attention right away, then it’s most likely that you’re losing potential repeat readers or site visits.

When designing your site or choosing the appropriate theme, keep in mind that the first concern of a site visitor is whether or not the site has the kind of information needed by him or her. The visual elements, being much faster to grasp than the textual, will help in a big way. If the theme you choose does not correspond to the general content of your site, then attracting more followers will need more effort. Whether we like it or not, looks matter for a lot of people, as this is how beliefs and opinions are initially formed.

WordPress Theme Contests

To ensure your steady stream of new themes, WordPress and certain partners have organized theme contests to discover and recognize the best themes that have cropped up lately. Last year even saw several competitions that attracted theme creators and users alike. This year, however, the WordPress camp has witnessed a slowing down in the production of themes, perhaps due to the fading novelty of it all, not discounting the fact that a lot of those who submitted themes before did it for free.

Nevertheless, customization of WordPress blogs still holds quite a lot of promise, with the arrival of new customization features, such as the Canvas and Widgets plugins. It also promises more highly-customizable themes in the future. For now, you would already be missing out on a lot if you are not already trying out the latest WordPress customization plugins. You can also try modifying some basic features, such as whether your front page should show excerpts or the full blog entries, or changing the number of posts that will show up on your blog index, or both. Whatever you choose, there are hundreds of themes available and other options for you to use, to get as close as ever to your most desired look for your blog.

How To Control WordPress Blog Comments and Spam

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:29:00 +0000

One of the most serious problems with any blogging system, including WordPress, is that the comments area is wide open to that scourge of the Internet, spammers. In this case, it's comment spam.

Comment spam is created by people seeking to boost their Google rankings by having lots of links pointing to their own websites. This causes a wide variety of problems:

• When Google detects content spam, they will often block the site it's coming from because it messes up their ranking system.

• It takes up your valuable time and bandwidth to eliminate these posts.

• If the onslaught of spam is heavy enough, it may result in a denial-of-service attack, intended or not, which is a situation in which the server tries so hard to post bad information and/or deliver notification emails to you that it denies service to the legitimate requests. In at least one case, a blogger received over two thousand email notifications of comments that needed approval; as he dealt with these, he continued getting more, ultimately crashing his mail server.

As you can see, even if you have your comments set to post only upon approval, this can be a serious problem. One solution is the Akismet plugin for WordPress.

Akismet Plugin and Other Plugin Options for WordPress

Akismet is designed to help you filter out those nasty spammers, and it's not hard to get it installed into your WordPress system. Download the plugin, and upload it to the blog directory on your server in the plugins subdirectory under wp-content. Activate from the WordPress plugins menu. If you have a notice that you need the Akismet API, go to the WordPress website and look or ask for one.

Here's the magic: the only instruction in Akismet is "forget that spam was ever a problem." You don't have to do anything else at all – the spam will simply be bounced. You will not receive a notification, nor will you have to go out and delete spam.

Another plugin for eliminating spam from bots is the "Did You Pass Math" plugin. This one makes the user perform a simple math problem before submitting a comment. As most humans can handle this and most spambots can't, it's pretty likely that a comment posted through this is a legitimate comment. You should add a note of caution that your comments will be deleted if you answer the math wrong, though; a wise commenter will use an offline composition tool, not post directly to the comments area.

If This Still Doesn't Work

If you still can't eliminate spammers with these plugins, you can eliminate them by denying them access to your comments area. This does not mean you have to disable your comments section, only that you need to set up a filter.

It's not usually as simple as just blocking their IPs. Serious spammers use random IPs, while blocking IPs may get rid of them for a short time, it will ultimately prevent legitimate comments from being posted. Spammers are also notorious for hijacking other people's IP addresses. But as a short-term emergency solution, you can try it. The IP address is included in the information packet for the comment; it's similar to a traceable phone number. Look for clear patterns in your IP numbers.

Use the .htaccess file to block unwanted IPs from even seeing your blog. For instance, these lines can be added:

order allow,deny
deny from 123.123.123.123
deny from 456.456.456.*
deny from 789.789.*.*
allow from all

IPs are four-part numbers, such as 192.168.0.1. Typically, if you see a pattern with the first two sections being identical, you can block all IPs of that type by simply listing them as 192.168.*.*, as you see above. This screens out all these IP numbers. Blocked IPs will get a 403 error page; customize yours so that your contact details are listed in case you're blocking out a legitimate user. Don't use your regular email; a spammer can harvest that too, for a whole new set of problems. Instead, encode your email so that it's not automatically readable.

When you think you have your problems addressed, you can remove the block from your .htaccess file. If it still doesn't work, or if you don't see an IP pattern, it's likely that spambots are hijacking someone else's machine to attack your site. In this case, do not use the IP block.

Again, if you don't have an IP pattern of attack, this may not be worth doing. Remember, too, that with IP addresses, the first numbers affect the largest number of computers, like a reverse address: USA, California, Sacramento, X Building, Ste. 101, Joe Schmo. An IP follows roughly the same pattern, with the last of the four sections referring to the specific computer it is attached to.

Google's Nofollow Attribute

Of course, if it's a waste of their time to spam you, spammers may just skip you altogether. For this reason, you can use the Google Nofollow attribute for links: . This attribute is embedded automatically by modern versions of WordPress.

It does not eliminate links, which is what spammers are working on adding to your site. Instead, it makes those links irrelevant to Google. The end result is that it doesn't hurt your rank in Google, and it doesn't help a spammer to send data to your site. It also marks you, for spambots looking for an easy target, as a waste of time.

This is not an immediate fix. But it is a way to make your blog resistant to spammers in the future. If you're already a target, you'll have to work with it slowly, incorporating all these fixes. If you aren't a target, the very least you should do is turn on the nofollow option in your WordPress system; this will deter any hungry spambots. Upgrade your version, or look for one of the plugins that provides this service for you.

Using Private Label Rights For Search Engine Optimization

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 03:39:00 +0000

If you are thinking of getting into marketing products on the Internet, PLR (public label rights) are one of the easiest ways to make money. However downloadable informational products are even more in demand offer you the most profit for the least amount of investment. There are currently thousands of internet sites selling all kinds of PLR products including e-courses, e-books, individual articles or series of articles, graphics, website templates or scripts and programming source code so you have plenty of products to choose from. Selling how to make money tends to make more money than selling actual physcial products at times.

The easiest most clear cut way to make money selling PLR content is to find stuff in the Public Domain and simply compile it and sell it as an online e-book. However remember that to make money your e-book it must contain unique or niche content that people are willing to pay for. This means that your PLR material must be unlike any information found for free on the Internet. Nobody is willing to pay for information that they can get for free because it has fallen into the Public Domain. You also need some kind of security when you sell it so others don’t copy your PLR idea.

Selling PLR content as an e-book is simple. You create the e-book and format it in a way that is easy to download but difficult to copy and paste, such as a locked PDF file. You then write your PLR sales letter and post it on a site with it’s own unique URL. You can accept payment for the product directly through Paypal or ClickBank so you don’t even have to have your own merchant account. You then market your site URL using Google Adwords so that people know where to find your information. This is one of the easiest ways that you can simply make a living using search engine optimization techniques to sell something that is already free!

How To Use An FTP Program

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:12:00 +0000

If you want to upload a large amount of information to a third party website you will want to use an FTP program.   Say for instance you have 10,000 products you want to upload too google product search or oodle you do not want to list these one by one.   This would be very time consuming.

You may either create or download a datafeed from your website then upload these products to third party sites following specific paramaters they set.   One such program you can use is fillezilla but their are many more free ftp programs out there you can use.   For this purpose we will show you how to use filezilla but most work in a similiar fashion.

You can download filezilla for free at http://filezilla-project.org

Set up your ftp connection to your server.   For example googles product feed ftp address is ftp://uploads.google.com   Next you will be prompted to enter a user name and password that you set up during registration for the particular site you are uploading to.

Find the file you want to upload on your hard drive. Drag your file to your server or double click upload.

All done. You will see a message about the progress at the bottom of the window.

How To Promote Your Website with Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

1. Go to Twitter

2. Find and upload a picture of choice to twitter settings. Pick something catchy.

3. Find and change the twitter background. You can find a lot of good free backgrounds at free twitter backgrounds

4. Find related followers in the search friends box. Search by name, niche, or interests. You are allowed to add 200 followers a day. After you reach 2000 followers on twitter you can only follow 10% more friends compared to how many that follow. Be careful not to spam and be cautious about automatic software out there!

5. Start to send messages with informative, funny, or helpful information. Put links ot relevant pages on the net and do overdo the affiliate links. Again, dont spam! If you have a good site with informative and helpful infomation followers with come. It is better to have quality followers than people just signing up so you will follow under them.

6. Then use socialoomph to schedule tweets. You can also use feedburner to automatically publish your latest blog entries on twitter.

How To Set Up An Article Marketing Campaign

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 01:00:00 +0000

1. Set up an account with Ezines

2. Create an article with your keywords in the title, every paragraph and the last line of your article

3. Make a good author box and include links to your blog or the website you want to promote.

4. When the article is approved use a paid to click service to get into the top 15 most viewed in your chosen category.

5. Remember to social bookmark on twitter, and facebook.

19 Secrets To eBay Success

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Gaining success through the eBay selling business may not be as complicated as you think. You only have to know where to find free eBay secrets that count. Once you get hold of free eBay secrets, start applying them in order for you to put up a successful eBay selling business. No need to look high and low for free eBay secrets, we’ve got them compiled here for you. You can use these free eBay secrets to create a booming business on eBay. Once you decide to become an eBay seller, choose the user ID you will have to use, carefully. Choose a User ID that represents your business or the items you sell. Your User ID automatically becomes your eBay identity to potential buyers. Look up the “How to Sell” Tour and watch the eBay selling demonstration video. Then learn of free eBay secrets in starting up at the eBay Learning Center. Get your ID verified by using the ID Verify option when setting up a Seller's Account. This gives you an ID Verify icon in your feedback profile thereby giving the eBay community more confidence to buy from you. Don’t let this free eBay secret go unheeded. Make sure to get computer backup disks in order for you to store up valuable data. A free eBay secret of using accounting software will help you know how your business is doing so you can make it more profitable. Look for a good place where you can put your inventory and shipping materials. It’s a free eBay secret that they need to be in a safe, dry place nearby. Writing a daily To-Do List will help you organize your schedule. It is also the free eBay secret for you to manage your time on normal tasks and follow up on opportunities that aren't part of them. Taking eBay’s fees into account may be the free eBay secret you need that’ll guided the pricing of your items. Find the best category where to list your products under. This free eBay secret is probably known by everyone. From eBay's home page, click the Buy button, and browse the categories to find categories that apply to your items. Another free eBay secret that’s necessary for your products’ success is checking where competing items have been placed. It's a good idea to choose two categories for your listings to reach more buyers. Even if you have to pay additional fee, spotlighting your title is a practically free eBay secret that’s guaranteed to grab buyers' attention when they search for listings. Hiring a Trading Assistant can free up the time you need to let you focus on the more important aspects of your eBay business. Constantly monitor My eBay for your listings performance and other activities on the site. Keep track of your eBay correspondence by using My Messages. Surely, this free eBay secret will be a great help. Attending trade shows is not only a free eBay secret advice it is also a great opportunity where you can get product trends preview and connect with manufacturers and discuss the opportunity of selling their products on eBay. Make sure to bring your business cards and be ready for discussions/ Protect yourself from potential fraud. Be wary for unusual buyer requests and consider it as a fraudulent sign if such requests come to light. eBay consultants are available for advice and even free eBay secret tip offs. Once you know how to sell on eBay and checked out the eBay Community, your head will be buzzing with new business ideas. Subscribing Chatter may get you not only feature articles, tips, helpful links and member interviews but maybe also free eBay secrets to success. Signing up for the PowerUp Newsletter can get you advanced notice of upcoming events and promotions. You'll get to know free listing days, feature discounts, seller sweepstakes and more. There’s nothing wrong in promoting your eBay store. In fact it is another free eBay secret that you design marketing materials to promote your store. Once you made a final sale price, donate part of it to a Nonprofit Organization of your choice. Remember that the ultimate free eBay secret to success is passing on the blessings and knowledge you acquire!

eBay Listing Tips

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:19:00 +0000

Believe it or not, the success or failure of your eBay Store comes right down to your listing practices. Listing your items for sale seems like tedious work, however you must take your time and do it correctly to maximize your sales potential. By using these strategies, you will be able to get a larger audience to your eBay Auctions and the potential to gain more sales and higher ending bids! Consider multiple auctions for spelling variations - If you have multiple quantities of the same items for sale, consider having two or more listings with different spelling variations of the product in the title. For instance you could either be selling "tshirts" or "t-shirts". Include only keywords in your title - Never waste your space by including the words like "LOOK" or "WOW". No one searches for those terms and you are just using up space instead of your valuable search phrases. Make sure you keep your title using the major searchable keyword phrases only. Include keywords in your description - A lot of people search by description too so make sure you repeat your keyword phrases in your description as well. However make it easily readable and not just a bunch of random words lumped together. Include lots of details in your description - People want to know exactly what it is you have for sale. Include "too much" information just to be sure, otherwise you could lose a potential bid! Even things like dimensions, wattage, color, and details like that are very important! Don't make the seller chase you down by having to ask a question, it's very frustrating to them. Learn to use HTML or an HTML editor - Listers who lump all of their text into one paragraph sell 30% less than people who break their paragraphs up and make it more readable. Also avoid using all capital letters and just make it all around easy on the eye. Talk to your potential bidders as a friend - These people are bidding on an item from a total stranger. Don't talk to them with "business talk" in the description, talk as if you were chatting with a friend. It builds up trust. Add color and graphics - Don't go overboard with too many things that takes the listing too long to load, but adding some color and graphics will enhance the listing and make it more appealing. By using these very simple techniques, you will have a better eBay Auction. You will get more bids, thus driving your sales higher and you will have a higher chance of success in your eBay Auction Business!

Submitting Your Blog To RSS and Blog Directories

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:52:00 +0000

There is an advantage to blogging over having your own website: it’s far simpler to submit a blog to both blog directories and RSS feeds than it is to submit a website to website directories.

Because the web directories have free features which let you submit your blog’s fresh content without having to fill in any forms. This system, which works for RDD feeds as well, is called “pinging” and is available from sites like http://pingoat.com and http://kping.com.

All you need do is ping your blog and an updated version of to will be sent to each of the major blog directories, which now number around forty. Think of it: just type in your blog’s url and title, hit submit, and your updated blog will be available on over forty directories!

You should, in order to maximize you blog’s chance of generating traffic from the directories and RSS feeds, put a lot of thought into your choice of a blog title. It should contain your most targeted keyword, because you want that included in the backlinks you get when you submit the blog to the directories and feeds.

When you submit your blog to the directories and RSS feeds, you will also benefit by having it placed on the first page of a number of them. This placement may result in a momentary surge in your blog’s traffic from people who want to see what blog content has been updated most recently.

After you have submitted your updated blog to the RSS feeds and blog directories which offer the ping feature, you can then submit it the old fashioned way to the directories and RSS feeds which do not offer it.

We have compiled a list of blog submission links here for your reference:
Add blog to our directory.

Top Stories Add blog to our directory.

You can strategize your blog submissions to these directories most effectively by submitting first to those directories which offer enticements like first page positioning, or which have higher PR, which will be reflected in your blog’s PR.

Most of the RSS directories cannot accept submissions via ping, so you’ll have to rely on manual submissions to get you in to the majority of them.

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 01:33:00 +0000

Before we begin, we would like to stress the fact that you always need to do some research before starting selling products on ebay. You should take the time to find out which products are the most in demand so you can focus your time on the proper products. If you decide to sell a product with a very low demand, then you will most likely end up not selling your product.

This is why we recommend the following 2 simple programs which you can easily download to your computer. It will help you find the hottest products on ebay AND it will help you find the most in demand products.

1. Find the hottest items beeing sold on ebay in minutes

2. Find out which products are the most in demand

3. How to market a website with Google Adwords

For those interested in optimizing their website ranking with search engines, we recommend the following FREE EBOOK.

Advertising a website can be very expensive and this is why it's important to do it right.

This free ebook will teach you how to market your website using google adwords very effectively.

Simply click on the image for your FREE copy.

TIP #1 - Choosing the right products to sell

So you want to start an online business! Since most people don't know anything about ecommerce and building websites and such, most folks will start out by selling products on eBay, then pay someone to build a website once the money starts coming in. The big question is: what is the hot product to sell on eBay to make money fast?

While it's true that selling products on eBay can be a quick, low cost way to launch an online business, following the herd by selling the "hot product" of the moment, is not a great idea. To the contrary, chances are you will be stomped in the ground by the herd and left lying in the dust with your unsold inventory in hand.

The most successful eBay sellers are those who understand that success on eBay relies on many of the same factors as success in a brick and mortar business.

Smart sellers research the marketplace and the competition to determine the salability and profitability of the product.
Smart sellers test the market with one or two before committing to a product line and tying up their cash reserves in inventory that may never sell.
Smart sellers adjust their product offerings until they find a product or product line that sells consistently.

The last point is perhaps the most important. Long term eBay success does not come from "one off" sales. The key to real eBay success is to find a product that sells well and sell that product over and over and over again.

There are several websites where you can find excellent products that can ship products directly to your customers once you sell their products. These companies are often called Dropship companies.

www.theplacetoshop4everything.com will offer you the best service of all since they will gather products from several manufacturers all in one place PLUS they will offer their dropshipping services to all theirs members at no extra cost.

There are other websites that offer you the wholesale sources only, which means that you will need to work with the manufacturers directly in order to buy and sell the products on ebay.

TIP #2 - Preparing To Sell

Using online auctions is a relatively inexpensive way to promote your products or services. On the downside, they can be very time-consuming to post to - especially if you're only making a few dollars profit per sale. Several steps are involved before you can post your auction on major sites such as; eBay or Yahoo! Shopping Auctions. If you're new to selling via online auctions, the following steps will make listing your item a smooth and easy process.

1). Plan your item title and description. Give some thought to naming and describing your item. What will buyers most want to know about it? What are its most appealing characteristics? What words might buyers use to search for your item?

2). Write your HTML code. If you plan to include HTML, complete and test your code before you get started with the listing process. Learn more about HTML.

3). Have a good picture of your item in an appropriate digital format. JPEG (.jpg) is recommended. If you host your own photos, have your photos uploaded to your service. In some cases, you'll need your photos stored on your computer's hard drive.

4). Have the item on hand. Keep the item close by in case you think of other things you want to add to your description. In addition, you'll want to ship the item to the buyer ASAP.

5). Plan your pricing. You may want to do a little research into the selling prices of other items similar to yours. This will help you set your starting price.

6). Registration. This usually will require your credit/ debit card and bank account information. It is recommended you write down your registration information (username and password) or save it in a place you will remember in the future.

You're now prepared to sell your item!

A few things to keep in mind after you've made the sell:

1 Communicate With The Buyer. Some auction sites offer a checkout service in which you must verify before receiving payment. Contact the buyer directly if you have not heard from the buyer within three days of your listing's end.

2 Receive Payment eBay and Yahoo! offer their own payment solutions. Another popular method used by auctioneers is PayPal. If the buyer hasn't already made payment, send them a letter explaining how they should proceed.

3 Ship Your Order Immediately You don't want your buyer to get angry. Many auctions provide buyer and seller feedback systems. It's hard to sell products with a bad rating and several negative buyer comments.

TIP #3 - When is the Best Time to List Your Items?

You may think that you should list your items on Saturday mornings because that is when you have the most free time or on Monday nights after 10:00 because the family is in bed and you finally have total concentration. You need to ask yourself just how many possible buyers will be at their computers at closing time. Especially when 10:00 p.m. on the West Coast is 1:00 a.m. on the East Coast. There are lots of possible buyers shopping at lunchtime during the week. But, because of the enormous amount of traffic at that time, you really cut down on the possibility of last-minute bidding if the bids are all in an internet traffic jam and can't get through at all.

The amount of bidders a viable at closing time is of utmost importance to your auction. Most of the bidding on any auction will occur in the first 24 hours (when it is listed as new) and on the last day (when is listed as ending today), with most people only looking at one of these two times. And, the bulk of the serious bidding will be in the last 5 minutes! An auction is truly at its best when two or more people fight over your item, and they may not be awake to do so at 1:00 in the morning.

When to list your items is best decided on actual sales histories of your particular items. Hardware and tools may get more male bidders who are looking on Saturday afternoon, and pokemon cards may get more attention from kids right after school. Etc. So, check the sales of completed items. You should be able to see a definite pattern for each type of item you plan to list. This is the first step.

If your item sells best on a weekday evening, now you need to see if there is also a second pattern. It sold best on Tuesday one week and Thursday the next week. Why? One big factor in evening sales now is "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" There are almost no bidders at their computers when this show is on television. This show happens to be moved around from week to week. On top of that, if it is on at 8:00 p.m., that means 8:00 p.m. on both coasts so West Coast seller has to work around 5:00 p.m. through 8:00 p.m., and the East Coast seller has to work around 8:00 p.m. through 11:00 p.m.

There are many more factors that come into play. Watch the weather forecasts for all parts of the country. If the East Coast is due for heavy rains, more possible bidders will be available at their computers instead of outside enjoying the spring or summer weather - and vice versa. If an area is in the middle of a terrible heat wave, they may be hiding inside at their computer instead of doing anything outside. Great weather is bad for sales. You may not want to have items close on Thanksgiving afternoon when most of the country is sitting down to a great meal - or in the evening on the day of a Presidential election. Contrary to this logic, Christmas morning may be a good time to have items close because many people don't have family with whom to share their day or they are not of a Christian faith. Those people would see this as a great time to sneak in a few bids. Other people may go shopping on Christmas afternoon to try to buy what they didn't receive for a gift!

Selling at the busiest time of the day will make your photos load slower. At any time, using a dial-up connection puts your auctions at risk since they will take longer to load. And, since most dial-up connections get lost often, there is always the chance that your photos will not load at all. When either happens, you will lose buyers. Some could bookmark your auction to try again later, but last-minute shoppers don't have time to come back. Cable modem or DSL will make everything you do on the internet at least 10 times faster - without disconnects. You only need to be have your photos not load during the last half hour of an auction once to know how important your internet connection is.

The real answer to when to list your items is it is totally relative….relative to as many factors as you can think of. You will need to do research on the past and try to foresee the future. Good luck on the latter.

TIP #4 - How To Get FREE Shipping Supplies

The United States Post Office is still "pushing" their Priority Mail services. You can order all the shipping supplies you want through the USPS - order in minutes on line - and have them delivered to your door. When you make your first order, the USPS will mail you a postcard to sign and mail back to them. The "payment" for this deal is simply agreeing to (and signing to prove it) use these supplies only for their intended purpose. Anyone caught turning Priority Mail boxes inside out to use a cheaper mail service will be in big trouble. We haven't done this so we don't know if you get a large fine, jail time, or just lose the privilege to ever receive any more supplies. So, this is not for you if you prefer to send your packages by UPS or using the Book Rate.

Just what kind of supplies does the USPS offer? Small boxes, larger boxes, flat boxes, larger flat boxes, small flat boxes, flat mailers, "Priority Mail" tape, and labels. You can't have it all, ! you have to buy your own bubblewrap! The only real catch is that you must order the minimum, which can be a case of boxes. Since the boxes come flat, this is not as bad as it sounds.

For those that don't want to use Priority Mail or the USPS in general, there are still places to get boxes for free.

Your local supermarket gets deliveries at least once a week. Just ask one of their employees on what day and at what time their deliveries arrive. They won't usually save boxes for you, but you can walk in and get as many as you like before they cut them down for recycling.
Office Depot has great boxes for larger items. They receive their reams of paper in sturdy boxes with lids, and these are always clean. Our local Office Depot receives paper deliveries twice a week. The store manager even agreed to hold the boxes for a few hours. We just need to go in on the correct day. Since these are such handy boxes, you may have to be the first to get to the store to beat others with the same idea.
Check the free ads in the Recycler. Companies go out of business all the time, and they would usually prefer to give their supply of boxes away than to pay someone to haul them away. We found a vitamin store that was closing down and got hundreds of small and tiny boxes. These are not only great for mailing small items, but they are perfect for double boxing a set of smaller breakables.
Liquor stores have the sturdiest boxes since bottles of liquor and wine are so heavy. If you sell bottles, these may even come with cardboard slots in them already to keep bottles from hitting each other when you send out several to one buyer.
Dumpsters behind stores sometimes have good empty boxes. Sometimes you are lucky enough to find the boxes piled outside the dumpster. Either way, you should check them to be sure that they are clean and dry (a box will be weakened forever once it gets wet).
Get inventive, you may find even more good suppliers of boxes.

TIP #5 - How To Get The Highest PRICE For Your Item

LIST YOUR ITEM CORRECTLY TO GET THE BEST PRICE

Put your item in the correct category. There are shoppers who only shop by checking the category list over and over, limiting the number of possible buyers if your collectible salt and pepper set is listed under porcelain dinnerware. Some people think that the most general category possible will get their item the most views, but this is not true on ebay. If you are listing sixteen items, take a few seconds to double check your listing details so you don't put items in the wrong category accidentally.

RESEARCH YOUR ITEM FIRST

Not researching the item you are selling is a common fault. You call the pattern Blue Onion when it is actually Delft. First, the Blue Onion collectors go away unhappy, then the Delft collectors never came at all. Besides knowing what to call your item, you should research its value. There could be six of the exact same item listed for $2.99 each but your price is $12.00. It doesn't take a genius to see that your auction is the last of these auctions to even get a look, let alone a

A GOOD PHOTO BRINGS A HIGHER AUCTION PRICE

Take a good clear picture of your item, as close up as you can to get the entire item into the picture. Before you click the shutter, see if there is anything ugly or unnecessary in the immediate background. You could move the background distraction or put your item in another location to take the picture. Then, your picture must be optimized. With the help of a photo program, crop the picture to include the item only. No cares about your living room, and it is maddening to wait forever for a photo to load only to find out that your time was wasted because the seller couldn't take a minute to crop their picture. Tweak the color of your item until it matches as much as possible. Most collectors specialize, and the color does make a difference to them. If they are forced to guess on the color of your item, they just might pass altogether. Next, shrink your picture down to 72 dpi (which is the most that monitors see anyway) to make your picture load fa! ster. If your starting picture is small, you can shrink the dpi without shrinking the size of the picture that people will see. If your picture fills the entire screen, you can probably make it much smaller so it loads faster and makes for more comfortable viewing. When a special feature should be highlighted, make a copy of your large picture before shrinking it, then crop out a "close-up" view of that feature only as a second photo. Try sharpening your photo - sometimes this helps and sometimes sharpening makes the picture look worse, but you can always click on undo.

When you take pictures without enough light, you have problems. The color will never come out correct, even with good photo software. A white item will look dirty and gray, and lightening the picture doesn't help much. And, shadows can look like flaws to buyers. It always makes for a better photo if you adjust your camera to match the lighting you are using.

ADVERTISE WITH YOUR PICTURE

If you are not using ebay's picture services, you could simply write your photos into your written description. But, unless one of your photos goes in the space "Enter the Web site address of your hosted picture," you won't get the little camera icon letting buyers know that you do have one or more photos. Some buyers will pass your auction right by if they think you don't have any photos.

A cheap (25 cents) way to get a lot of advertising is to put your photo into the gallery. Some people shop through the pictures of the gallery only. And, the gallery picture now also goes on the general listing page. Lots of buyers get a little sidetracked at looking at all the photos that they pass right over some of the auctions without this extra photo.

LACK OF PHOTOS HURT AUCTION SALES

Be honest with your photos. You might put into your written description that the item has a "small" defect in the back. Showing a photo of the perfect side only would be deceptive on your part, and it makes a lot of buyers not trust you. If a buyer's idea of a small defect is much different than yours, you will end up with a very unhappy customer and possibly have to issue a refund to keep your reputation. You don't have to put a large close-up of the flaw, since this makes the problem look worse than it really is, but do show both sides of the item at the same size if one side has a problem. Buyers may decide that the flaw is not enough to bother them.

NO PHOTO IS AN AUCTION KILLER

Collectors are very picky. They may have twenty items that look the same to a casual viewer (or an under informed seller), but all twenty have some little difference in the collector's eye. If you don't offer any photo at all, they will assume that yours is not Number 21 for their collection. Not researching the item you are selling is a common fault. You call the pattern Blue Onion when it is actually Delft. First, the Blue Onion collectors go away unhappy, and the Delft collectors never came at all - an excellent reason to add a photo. Years ago, people could say "I don't have a digital camera." They did start out pretty expensive. Not any longer. If you plan to sell more than one or two items, you can't afford to not get a digital camera. Even an inexpensive digital camera can produce a good picture if you follow the directions. If you only plan to sell one or two items, you could scan in a photo from a regular camera, have someone else take some ! photos for you, or borrow someone's camera.

INCORRECTLY PRICED AUCTION ITEMS MAY NOT SELL

There are two items exactly the same listed at the same time. Basically, everything about both auctions matches except the opening price. The item is expected to sell for about $28.00. One starts the auction at $14.99 (Auction A). The other starts the auction at $28.00 (Auction B). When both auctions close, Auction B has received NO bids at all. Sure, the item is worth $28.00, but people don't want to pay what an item is worth. They want a deal at an auction. Auction A received 10 bids and sold for $28.00 The first few buyers were trying for to get a great deal. Then the competition began, and some went back and put in another bid. Competition simply works with auctions. Even after several bids got the price up and up, people could still see that the starting price was very low - so they will check out your other auctions.

RESERVE AUCTIONS

Reserve auctions can may both sides happy. The seller in Auction B does not have to sell the item for less than $28.00 if the reserve price is $28.00 ($27.99 is even better). But, if that seller makes the opening price $9.99, the buyers will still think DEAL even after seeing that there is a reserve. This brings competition without the risk. The most common reason for using a reserve is in case ebay has an outage so the buyers can't get in and bid, and it is good insurance in a questionable economy.

THE WRITTEN DESCRIPTION DOES COUNT

Some sellers think that they can say about six words about an item since they put in a photo. No. People with older computers, on a bad ISP, or that just highly value their time do a lot of their shopping without photos. They "turn off" the photos in their browser and search by written descriptions alone. At least put a real description of what the item is. This is also highly valuable when people do searches. A search can't find a 3" Goofy in a karate outfit if the description only says "No damage, shipping is extra." Added to all of that is the title of "Goofy Toy," and you can see how difficult it would be for this item to be found. Few Goofy collectors want to do a search for "goofy" just to find one special one - there are thousands of Goofy items listed, including Goofy Grape and someone who tells you he got the item from his goofy brother.

Write your description in an effort to answer any question buyers might have. You could get ma! ny, many buyers looking during the last five minutes, and that simply not enough time to ask a question and get the answer. Getting a question answered was much quicker before ebay made themselves mediators. In fact, it is to your benefit to put your email address in your description for last-minute questions. Anyone who ever goes anywhere on the internet will have their email address added to "spam" email lists. It is just the price we pay for the privilege of talking to anyone in the world for free (no stamp, no phone bill). Hitting the delete key is not hard to do. If you have kids and worry about the possibility of receiving adult-type email, don't let the kids use email until you check the mail. Anyway, if a buyer doesn't have enough time to get their questions answered, they will most likely not bid. In the event that someone has a question in the last hour or two, or even the last 24 hours (when your item is in the "ending today" category), do your best to be availab! le. Check your email often.

The more people that fin! d your auction through a search, the more bids you could get - theoretically, depending on all other factors also. Include your item name in the description. Adding the color (although it seems obvious by the photo) may double your amount of visitors. People search in different ways, and they don't all spell the same or use the same terms. For example, using "eye glasses," "eyeglasses" and "spectacles" in your description will bring in three times the number of visitors as any one of these alone. Add the maker's name also if you know it.

NOTICES, WARNINGS

If you have had trouble in the past with an auction or two and would like to prevent the same problem in the future, you are allowed to put some sort of notice or warning in your description. But, be aware that bad auction dealings are such a minority, as are bad auction people. Try to make your words sound businesslike and polite instead of threatening or belittling. Otherwise, you may get your wish and not get have any more bad auctions simply because you will send all potential buyers away in fear or disgust. They may not want to take a chance on being your next "victim."

THE AUCTION TITLE

margin-left:0in">Titles with funny characters (*** @@@ ^^^ " ") in them do not attract more bidders. While searching through a list quickly, these characters actually get in the way and prevent the eye from seeing that one word or phrase you are looking for.

Doesn't it seem obvious that what the item is should be included in the title? There are many, many auction titles that give no clue as to what the item is. "Large China!" That's quite a title. It is for a marble - a valuable type of marble. Someone doing a search for marbles won't find it. The description also does not contain the word marble. (This is an actual auction listed at this very moment!) The auction is in the marbles section, but only a small percentage of buyers shop through the category. If you ran an auction this way and then accidentally listed it in the wrong category, absolutely no buyers would find it. The word "jerk" suddenly comes to mind! Why would that be? Enough said.

EXASPERATING EXTRAS

Unless you are a real professional, don't use a background on your auction page. Most of the backgrounds used are way too large. In fact, most backgrounds can be found in the pages that take forever to load - then you find out that the item wasn't even worth the wait. That is a quick way to lose customers. Even if you are a professional and can make your background small enough that it loads instantly, why? Why bother? Backgrounds do not add anything worthwhile to an auction, they sometimes get in the way of the picture, and they are annoying. Even worse adjectives could be used for music on an auction page! As mentioned in a section above, photos that take up the entire screen and photos that are absolutely huge but are 90 percent junk and 10 percent item are a waste of bandwidth and time.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Getting good prices for your items starts with common sense. Give your visitors every reason to come back to see your auctions next time and to see your other auctions now, and get rid of everything that is not essential or takes up their valuable time. If there are six other auctions for the same item that you want to sell, look at the one that is getting the most bids and the ones that is getting the least (or no) bids and see what the differences are. If you are new to selling, do a lot of browsing first. See how other auctions look. If you don't have a photo editing program, you absolutely need to find one if you are going to list more than one auction ever - and even then if you want to get a good price for your item.

SIX STEPS TOWARDS SUCCESSFUL BUYING ON ONLINE AUCTIONS

Buying on eBay can be very rewarding, either in terms of being able to pick up items cheaply or for hunting for hard to find items. Although generally the experience is good, there are instances where things can go badly wrong. These tips, based on experience over the last seven years, should help to avoid some of the potential pitfalls.

Make use of the various tools provided on eBay to ascertain the target price of items you are interested in. A simple way to do this is to 'search' for completed items.
Always check that there are no hidden costs associated with your potential bargain. These may may include unspecified unspecified postage costs, or paypal fees chargeable to the buyers. If in doubt e-mail the buyer and if you don't get a response then don't bid. Remember that when buying from overseas postage costs can be significant compared to the price of the item and also for more expensive items you may be liable to customs fees.
Check out the seller's feedback. You should be aiming to buy from sellers with feedback of at least 98 per cent - if it is less and you are interested in an item read the feedback comments to satisfy yourself that the buyer provides a good service. In particular, read the neutral and negative feedback posts to try to work out what may have gone wrong with previous transactions.
Don't get carried away and end up bidding more than need or want to. Some items appear very frequently on eBay and it may be worth setting yourself a limit and waiting for the next one to come along.
If you find you are often being outbid at the last moment, consider using a sniping software which you can use to automatically submit a bid in the last few seconds of the auctions.
Where possible, use Paypal to pay for items on eBay. The sellers get their payment quickly, and there is a degree of protection for buyers if things go wrong. eBay (via My eBay) provides a number of tools for monitoring progress on your transaction.

What Is the Best Prodcut To Sell Online?

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:25:00 +0000

One of the most commons questions out there in the resell world is "what is the best product to sell online?" There is no one right answer, because you need to sell what is right for you not someone else. One popular option for a lot of sellers is a simple one - information products.

As more and more entrepreneurs move to the Internet seeking their fortunes, "What's the best product to sell online," has become the number one business question of the decade.
The next question is always: "Why sell information, why not an ipod?" Again, the answer is simple: because no other type of product is easier to create, faster to bring to market, easier to distribute, and potentially more profitable.

Many info products net as much as 75% to 95% profit on the initial sale after all costs have been deducted. And residual sales to established customers can offer 100% profit.
Informational products come in many forms. An info product can be a digital book (e-book" is the accepted term), a digital report or white paper, a piece of software, a website, a newsletter, etc. Any product that is informational or informative in nature can be considered an info product.

Here's why information is the best product to sell online:

Fast to create, fast to market

You can easily create your own information products just by writing what you know - much like writing a blog. You may also buy or get free or low plr (private label rights) products to sell or obtain ebooks.

No inventory to stock

Forget filling your garage with boxes of cheap watches and cases of mega vitamins that you will never sell (hey that is fun though!) . When you sell information there is no inventory to stock. Your product is digital and requires no space in your garage, just a little space on your computer.

Low startup costs

When you sell information you can literally create a product for next to nothing. If your product is an e-book the only investment required will be in the time it takes to put words to digital paper. If you become an affiliate marketer of someone else's info product your investment can be zero.

You can automate the sales and delivery process.

Thanks to internet technology you can sell info products 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and never lift a finger. In fact, you don't even have to be awake or at home to make money with an info product. I know many successful info entrepreneurs who are getting rich despite the fact that they work as little as an hour a day.

They check the website and their email, then go play golf or hang with the kids for the rest of the day. You can completely automate the sales and delivery process so your website does everything for you.
An automated website can give a potential customer your sales pitch, take the order and process the payment, deliver the product by email, and even follow up in a few days to make sure the customer is satisfied and offer to sell them additional products.

You can offer immediate access or delivery

Online consumers are an inpatient lot. They want things NOW! These are people who stand in front of the microwave impatiently tapping their foot and frowning at their watch. Selling information is the best way to give your customers immediate satisfaction. As mentioned earlier, an automated website can process the order and payment, then immediately email the download link for the product to your customer.

There's no shipping and handling

One of the things I never liked about selling hard goods was the manual process of taking the order, running the credit card, placing the order with a dropshipper or filling the order of my stock. I hated finding a box and packing peanuts and printing the label and taping it all up and lugging it to the post office. Every minute I spent filling orders was time that I was not being compensated for, therefore, my profit grew less and less with every minute spent on shipping and handling. Informational products require no shipping and handling. Most are delivered by email. In the time it takes you to click your mouse, you can deliver an info product.
What if you don't have your own info product to sell?

This is one of the most appealing aspects of selling information. If you don't have an info product, creating or finding one is much easier than you think. Don't expect to get rich quick doing this it will take some time to master all the marketing techniques to be a digital guru. However, if you are looking for some quick cash by posting on help forums, message boards, ebay, online classifieds, or adding them to supplement your own website then then selling digital products might be right for you.

To get an idea of how you might make this work we recommend checking out The Warrior Forum

Links for 2012-01-23 [Digg]

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:00:00 PST

Wholesale Dropshipper - Wholesale Products and Sources - Free Dropshipping

What IS RSS and How To Use It

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:56:00 +0000

Blogs are making it possible for all of the world’s information to be accessible. RSS informs you when blogs have added new content. You can get the latest headlines and blog entries be they text, audio files, photographs or video in one screen as soon as they are published

What is RSS?

You must have noticed the little orange buttons with the icons XML, RSS, Subscribe, and Syndicate This Site when you visit blogs. Clicking on the button, all you will see is a heap of computer codes. This is an RSS feed.
RSS stands for RDF Site Summary, Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. The latter is the most popular descriptive definition. RSS is a feed format that allows blog publishers to share and distribute content to other blogs or individual web surfers. Bloggers use RSS to provide updates in the form of blog posts. If a blog publishes RSS content commonly known as RSS feed, this feed will include summaries of all the entries posted on that blog. RSS is written in the Internet coding language XML, thus some buttons are labeled as such.

The first part of an RSS feed is a descriptive detail about the “channel” or the source that is publishing the content. The “channel” may include the title of the source, a short description, its blog address, date the information was last updated, name and e-mail address of the blog author. The second part is the list of items. Each “item” represents one published piece of content. Each “item” includes the headline of the entry (title), a two to three sentence summary of the entry (description) and the URL address to read the full entry.

RSS feeds are meant to be read by a software or web-based application known as a feed reader. Feed readers understand the data contained in RSS feeds and translates these data and make available to Internet users or customized blogs,
Subscribing to RSS Feeds
To receive updates or view RSS feeds, you will need a feed reader. A feed reader is an application that allows you to subscribe (add a feed) to a blog and receive quick summaries when that blog is updated. This application is also referred to as RSS reader, news aggregator, news reader or feed aggregator. When you subscribe to RSS feeds, the feed reader collect from different blogs and organize them in a convenient place for you to read rather than you visiting individual blogs looking for new content. Whenever new content is posted from one of the feeds you are subscribed to, the feed reader displays the new headlines. You can go over the headlines and if one is particularly interesting, you can click the headline and you will be brought to the original source where you can read the entire content.

There are primarily two versions of feed readers – web-based and stand-alone applications. Web-based or online feed readers provide a quick start for RSS subscriptions. They let you read your RSS feeds from any computer. Some of these readers are free while others with advanced features are offered at a cost. Some examples of web-based feed readers are Google Reader, My Yahoo and Bloglines. Stand-alone or downloadable feed readers are applications that you install on your main computer just like the Microsoft Outlook e-mail program. These feed readers are usually run in the background. A sound or pop-up window notifies you of any updates. SharpReader is a free feed reader for Windows. For Mac users, a preferred feed reader is NetNewsWire.

Once you have a feed reader, you can choose what you want to receive in your feed reader. You can also add feeds through the RSS buttons of your favorite blogs. Clicking on the RSS orange icon, you can subscribe to the feed by dragging the URL of the RSS feed into your feed reader or by cutting and pasting the same URL into a new feed in your feed reader. Most blogs offer RSS feeds using the orange RSS, XML button. Conversely, you can also create your own RSS feed.
Creating an RSS Feed

You can also create you own feeds. It is a pretty easy task. The hard part is creating the content itself. The feed part is usually just using the standard RSS format that notifies the feed reader which sections of your blog entry relates to the RSS title, description, date, link and other pertinent data. This is done using XML format, the standard method of surrounding the significant parts of the content with tags that the feed reader understands. Once content has been set up with an RSS feed, then it is ready for the reading public.
Publishing an RSS Feed

You can add RSS syndication as a publishing option in your blog. In some cases, this is done automatically, without you having to set up anything. If you are using a blogging tool software like Blogger, TypePad or WordPress, publishing a feed is one of their built-in features plus some other feed-related options. Other types of feed readers may require programming skills to add RSS syndication. Once you have created an RSS feed with your blogging software, pipe it through your feed reader and voila, a whole stream of benefits awaits you.
Benefiting from RSS

The most compelling use of RSS is that it lets you take hold of information you are interested in and have it updated for you in one place where you can read it within the shortest possible time. RSS has been embraced by individual users, blog publishers and businesses as well.

For individual users, RSS feeds keep them updated on news, information and blog posts. There is no need to visit numerous blogs. There is no deluge of e-mail newsletters that clutter the mailbox. Unlike e-mail, there is no spam. Opting out can be done anytime and there is no need to give any contact information to subscribe to a feed. An individual user can also customize content that comes to him and ignore blog entries that are of no interest to him. There is absolutely no need to check back for new postings as the feed reader delivers content to him.

For blog publishers, RSS permits quick distribution of new blog entries to individual users in a convenient way. RSS feeds when incorporated into a blog offers a more personalized and interactive user experience, strengthening blog presence and maximizing revenue opportunities.
For businesses, RSS feeds enable them to do without regularly checking blogs for important updates or plowing through a pile of e-mail distribution lists. RSS provides businesses with much-needed fresh information. RSS feeds are extremely helpful for brand marketing, customer service, internal and external communications and competitive awareness.

In a summary, if you want to be informed of the latest news and happenings around the world and is having a hard time managing information overload, RSS is the answer.
Hopefully, these basics can help you get started with RSS. It may be difficult to understand at first, but once you get the gist of it, surfing the web will be effortless with RSS.

AutoResponders 101

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:34:00 +0000

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.

Good luck in your email marketing campaign!

How To Use Your Ebay About Me Page

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:25:00 +0000

One way to promote your eBay store is to use your eBay About Me Page. Your About Me Page is one of the best ways to promote yourself on eBay. It allows you much more freedom than other eBay pages and there is a link to it beside your eBay User ID so every time you buy an item, place a bid etc, people may click on it. You also have the benefit to link back to your own webpage. So if you are selling products on eBay this is the only place you can link to gain off site sale. This is particually helpful if you have one of our online stores and want to gain more sales off eBay.

1) Describe yourself and your Business:- At the top of the page you should describe yourself and your ebook business. Say a little about yourself, how you got into selling on eBay, and what you sell. Also say why people should buy from you instead of the competition. Examples could be that your eBay store is updated every week, your prices are low etc. Some people like to add a photo for that personal touch to gain buyer security.

2) Link to your Feedback:- To prove that you are a trusted seller you should link to your feedback rating from your About Me page. Just include a simple sentence like "Click Here to view my feedback."

3) Provide a Contact Address:- Buyers viewing your About Me page may want to ask more questions so it is only logical that you provide a contact address. Make it clickable for maximum ease to the customer. For example "You can contact me at any time at: sales@yourwebsite.com. Buyers get nervous and you can loose a sale if they can't easily connect with you.

4) Provide a direct link back to your eBay Store:- Not all the visitors to your About Me page will have found it through your eBay store. Some may not even be aware that you own an eBay store. The only way to make sure that everyone viewing your About Me page knows that you have an eBay store is to provide a clickable link to it. For example "Click Here to visit my eBay store."

5) Other Links:- If you have a specific auction which you want to promote, or a specific page you want to link to then do it here. For example "Be Sure To Check Out Our Other Items For Sale."

If you follow the steps in this article then you should be well on your way to maximizing the effectiveness of your eBay About Me page. Many customers will use your About Me page to assess whether to buy from you so it's essential that yours is effective. Good luck with your sales.

How To Embed A YouTube Video In Your Blog or Website

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 01:28:00 +0000

It is no secret graphics and video sell a customer on your site. Design is almost nearly as important as content. When you visit a website do your read word for word or do you skim to parts that capture your attention. Would you rather read step by step directions or see a nice diagrams nealty summing up what you need to do so you can get it done? Or perhaps a step by step video?

It is quite simple to add your you tube videos to a website or blog to increase your viewship and gain loyal followers or customers.

1. Go sign into your youtube account

2. Go to the video with content relevant to your post or what you are marketing. It could be yours to increase your click through or simply use someone else that helps illustrate your key points.

3. Click the "Share" Button under the video and you will get a new popup and link code.

4. Here you will find easy link codes to copy and use to share through email or social networking sites. However, we want to take this a step further so click on "Embed"

5. There are 4 default sizes you can choose from to depending on what fits your site best. Alternately, you can create your own custom width and height as well.

6. Simply copy the code into your website and your set. Rich video embedded right on your own webpage. If you are posting this code into blogger make sure that you first switch to "HTML" rather than "Compose" when you paste this code.

Tips For Optimizing Traffic To Your Blog

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:42:00 +0000

So here you are. You have yourself a blog. Now what?

If you are like most people you probably want to get the word out about your blog as much as possible. Contrary to popular belief, you dont just post something or put a product up for sale, do nothing, and watch the masses flock to your site. There are millions of blogs and websites out there in todays world and the odds someone will find yours is like finding a needle in a haystack.

So what are some easy ways to get your blog out there without costly advertising and marketing options?

First, create keyword rich content. If you are writing on parenting use relevant keywords in your posts and labels. This will make it easier for a search engine to index you. Do not spam your keywords creating nonsense sentences just to gave rank in google.

Utilize social bookmarking sites like facebook, google plus, digg.com. You can use tools like AddThis
or grab a cool widget for blogger.

How To Blog & Ping

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 17:37:00 +0000

Blogs and ping are the most frequently used words in the IT sector today. These two words are on everyone's lips today. So why are blogs and pinging getting so much importance today? Blogs and pinging can get you very good profits in the long run. So what exactly are blogs and pinging?

A blog is a website where members can discuss online their views on a particular topic. There are some blogs that are general in nature where people can discuss anything and there are blogs on which you can discuss only on a particular topic. However it is advisable that when you start a blog it should not be generalized but it should be opened on a particular topic. For example instead of starting a blog on the Information Technology you can start a blog
only on Microsoft Technologies. There are a lot of blog softwares that you can use on your server and then run it independently.

Blogs are increasingly used for SEO marketing. Through blogs you can advertise your internet site on the blogs. Blog and ping is a process through which you can post a snippet of information from your site to a blog to increase your SEO. When you post snippets of your website information on the blog, search engine sites like Google and Yahoo will find it more easily. The search engine will be able to track your site more easily due to spidering and indexing. You can blog and ping only very important information from your site and not all information. You can also rent links to your site which makes the work of spidering easier for search engines.

There were many aggressive marketers before who used to blog and ping all their web pages and that also repeatedly. As a result the search sites termed the individuals spammers and then banned their websites from ranking.

So how is blog and ping done successfully? The tasks can be easily done with the help of softwares like Wordpress and RSS to Blog. Using these softwares you can submit your links to over 50 blog directories at a click of a button. You can download Wordpress and RSS to Blog and then install them on your computer. Once you have installed the programs on your computer you should them customize them according to your needs. Then you should create a list of links from your site that will use in the blog sites. You can do this automatically using RSS to Blog. You can save these links for future use also so that you don’t have to enter the list of links all over again. You also have the ability to add more data to RSS to Blog from external sources. The list of blog entries are automatically modified when you make more entries.

Hence we see that blog and ping are one of the best methods to make your website more famous in the search engines. You can use them and also modify their configuration according to your needs.

Autoresponders From Aweber

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 04:03:00 +0000

Open your wordpress dashboard. Sign up for www.aweber.com. Create a new list, with confirmation email, welcome email, and sign up form. Grab the sign up form code. In your wordpress dashboard go to appearance and widgets. Drag the text widget to the side bar and paste the sign up form code. Now go to your blog and test out the form. Simple as that!

Why Blogging Will Boost Your Business

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:31:00 +0000

Building your business can be a difficult task. You can put hundreds of hours of effort into the business, but if you still don’t have important components, you will not be successful.

Today business owners are realizing that blogging boosts business. Blogs are typically only seen as personal places to express yourself and your views. The truth is however the blogs are also great places to reach people about your business or your products. There are several ways to do this type of blogging.

The best way a business can use blogging to boost their business is by taking part in the blogs of others. You can easily create quality posts with your business in mind without needing to set up a blog of your own. Try finding blogs that pertain to the area of business you are in. This will help you get started. With millions of blogs out there, you should be able to find some with no problem.

Choose to post on all of them, or choose the few that get the most activity. Then begin posting. When you do, you will see positive results come in. If you are still curious about how this can boost your business, check out these three reasons blogging boosts business.

Quick Name Recognition

The fastest way to get your business’s name out in the public is to make it known to your targeted marketing group. If you want to get your company’s name out to men who like fishing, then you can find a blog that is about just that. When you find the blogs pertaining to this marketing group, post useful and intelligent information about topics that pertain to your company. You might not want to sound like an advertisement. Think about responding to another comment and simply tagging your signature with your company’s website. This is a subtle way to get their attention. The more you post on blogs, the more widely known your company’s name will become with the select marketing group. When they tell their friends and family about the site then your consumer group will have grown even more. This is a fast way to get started. You will have to invest some time however. At least an hour a day can be used for this type of task.

Consumer Testimonies

Your company might even think about hiring professionals to blog for your company. You can offer these employees products to try and give them the task of finding blogs where they can appropriately “praise” the product. By paying these people to do the task, you will be getting the work done that you need without having to devote much time. Consumer testimonials go a long way with other consumers. If these bloggers are productive enough, you will see an increase due to it.

Building Relationships

Smart business owners know that they can go further with the help of others. A great way to connect and build relationships with other businesses is via their blog. If you are a regular poster who values their business, they will be more likely to work with you. Working together with advertising is a great idea. You can swap ad space for no fee if you like. These are great things for business owners and are easy to get into when you blog regularly.

As you can see, blogging can be a great way to do business. It may seem like tricky advertising, and it is in some ways. However, it is free advertising that does the same thing as a commercial on television does. It reaches a targeted marketing group and lets them know your company’s name, products, and sometimes offers an endorsement. Overall, it is an effective way to get your business out there. When people have no idea who you are, they are not going to feel comfortable working with you. The better your reputation is, the more likely they will trust you. When you have no reputation at all, they will not trust you either. So, even if you just want to use blogging to build your company’s reputation, it will be worth your while. Give it a try and see what type of results you can get using these tips.

Feel free to comment and post a link to your own blog and get it out there :)

Powerful Ways To Profit From Your Blog

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:26:00 +0000

Cyberspace has a NEW marketing tool, even though they've been around for quite some time, yet, ONLY recently have been recognized as a Powerful communication tool for Internet marketers.

If you've been following the latest Internet marketing trends, then you've definitely heard of them.
What's this new marketing tool I'm taking about that every Serious marketer should have in place?
BLOGS!

Now, just for those of you who aren't quite sure what a BLOG is (but hey you've landed on this blog - so you probably do :) , here's a quick definition:

A BLOG(A.K.A. Web-Log) is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating(usually on a daily to weekly basis) a blog is called "Blogging" and someone who keeps a Blog is a "Blogger".

There you have it, quick and to the point. If you didn't know this...you must have been in hiding somewhere :)

So now for the million dollar question - how can i PROFIT from having this blog?!

Profit Tactic #1. Writing "Articles"

Writing "Articles" are a very Powerful way to profit from your Blog.

There are many reasons why "Articles" are valuable to your Blog, but, for the purpose of this article I'm going to give you the most important part, and that's your "Resource Box" at the end of your article.

Your "Resource Box" is like a classified ad and holds critical information about You, your websites and what you have to offer them after they've read your article. The links within your "Resource Box" could lead to your own Product or Service you have to offer, or they could lead to a Affiliate Product related to the content of your article.

This is a great way to give them something of "Value", which is the information within the article, and a great way to get them to take action by way of getting them to click on one of the links within your "Resource Box".

Profit Tactic #2. Writing "Product Reviews"

Writing "Product Reviews" is a great way to profit from your Blog simply because they allow you to Soft-Sell your potential customer by way of giving them your personal opinion on the product you are recommending and then providing them with a link if they wish to look into it further, instead of throwing a Sales Pitch at them.

Nobody likes to be sold, but, offering them your insight on a Product and/or Service that could help solve the problem they're dealing with is yet another great way to profit from your Blog.

Profit Tactic #3. "Text Ad" Programs.

"Text Ad Programs" like Affiliate Power Ads or Google Adsense are yet Another great way to profit from your Blog.

I've listed these two "Text Ad" programs for a reason, One is a Pay-Per-Click(Google Adsense) and shows related ads to the content on that particular webpage and the other one(Affiliate Power Ads) makes You up to $60 to $100 dollars in commissions on a single click (with high powered keywords) For most of you might pull in anywhere from 10-50 cents a click on average..but who can complain right? It all adds up!

Visit Google Adsense to sign up for an account. After you sign up you will be given code to generate ad units similiar to the ones shown on this blog. Everytime someone clicks on an ad you earn a revenue share. Say advertiser #1 pays google $1 per click..they advertise their content/ad on your site and you earn a portion of the pot. If you are using blogger then you can easily and effortlessly impliment this into your site.

You may also want to check out Affiliate Power Ads --

They are both FREE to join and only take you minutes to set-up depending on your experience.

Best of luck!

How To Get A Blog with WordPress

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:32:00 +0000

Mind you we use blogger :)

Go to your hostgator account.

Create a subdomain or use your main domain for your blog.

Use Fantastico de Luxe to install the wordpress blog.

Chose new installation and pick the domain to install Wordpress

Chose a nich related Admin name and put in a good SEO rich description.

Now you can log in to your WordPress dash board and start posting.

How To Get Hosting From Hostgator

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:25:00 +0000

Go to www.hostgator.com

In in this example we have signed up for the the 3 year account. Choice what works best for you.

Use your domain from godaddy.com or register a new domain.

Make your payment

Login to your hostgator account and manage your files.

To get to your account use www.yourdomain.com/cpanel

How To Get A Domain Name From GoDaddy

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:15:00 +0000

Go to www.godaddy.com

Sign up for a free account.

Find a relevant domain name (be sure to use good SEO rich title)

Proceed with the payments

And your all set. Just login to your account manager and manage your domain. Follow all our tips on this blog to get up and running!

Paypal As A Payment Processor

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Getting a merchant account is not easy for all. It is an expensive proposition, in terms of initial set up costs and possible future chargebacks and complications if you don't know what you are doing. You want to offer you customer security in their transaction, but at the same time you don't want to loose your shirt just to capture a sale.

PayPal is often easy solution to both. PayPal, has more than 85 million active accounts and presence in more than 55 countries. It is a fast, easy, cost effective, trusted and globally preferred method for on line shopping. It is practically having a merchant account, credit card processor and payment gateway all rolled in one. No recurring fees, free anti fraud tools, no set up or gateway fees, free merchant and eBay tools and with transaction fees starting from zero, for small merchants PayPal does offer a virtual merchant account at a fraction of the cost. Though for small customers, its rates may seem higher, but for high volumes customers, it can be cheaper by about 10% than merchant account.

For example, for a merchant with turnover of $1 million thru PayPal (don't we all wish we had that!), while its standard merchant fees could be $29,520, including various annual charges, PayPal charges would be $26,550.

PayPal - A Good Solution for Small and Medium Businessmen and Professionals

With PayPal, you need not have any web site, payments can be received using email account, and even your customers need not have a PayPal account.

If you are auctioning some thing on line, PayPal can take care of automatically notifying the winning buyer of ending of listing with back link to listed item. PayPal also takes care of your shipping needs. It offers you tools to calculate shipping costs, create shipping labels, track delivery, pay for insurance for shipped items etc.

You can even create links on paypal that you can link to your blogger page and sell items through your blog!

PayPal also helps you fight unjust charge backs by buyers.

Restrictions to Accept PayPal

PayPal has some restrictions on items that can be traded using it as the sale of counterfeit items, gambling activities, child pornography etc.

Paypal is ideal for buyers too.

Sending Money

Sending money trough PayPal is easy. Money can be sent, free of cost, to recipient in 55 countries, where PayPal is being accepted in US / Canadian / Australian dollar, Pound sterling, Yen or Euro.

Safety Measures

Working with more than 1000 employees, and using encryption and CVV2 checks, PayPal has strong protection system to prevent identity theft and it claims 100% protection against unauthorized payments. Should you enter a dispute with seller regarding quality or content of goods, you can approach dispute resolution specialists with PayPal.

PayPal has Its Critics Too

Though, PayPal has loss rate of less than 0.5% which is remarkably down when compared with Master Card or Visa, PayPal has good number of critics as well. Major reason for the grouse is that with PayPal you lose your rights under consumer protection laws. PayPal would not allow you to issue charge back in case any unauthorized activity happens from your credit card or PayPal account. They also complain that PayPal has inserted a term to take funds form your bank account to ensure a recovery against you.

Worst charge against it is that if someone pays you with a stolen credit card, your account is immediately flagged as being "criminal behavior" and any money in that account is confiscated!

Allegations and critics notwithstanding, it is a fact that PayPal has become a global leader in online payment solutions worldwide. With its renewed focus on customer satisfaction, it should be able to regain its lost ground.

How To Find Products To Sell

noreply@blogger.com (How To Make Money with Your Website or Blog) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:53:00 +0000

Finding products to sell is fundamental to those who have Internet stores, auction sites, or sell through stores such as Amazon or Ebay. However, it may be difficult to determine where you will find those products to sell.

There are a number of different ways to find products to sell as well as many scam artists who like nothing more than to prey upon unsuspecting but well-meaning storeowners. Whether selling online or in your hometown, you need to check out every wholesale company or drop shipper with the Better Business Bureau and Rip Off Report to make sure you are only dealing with reputable companies.

Drop shippers are invaluable to those who sell products over the Internet. Drop shippers are companies that store product inventory and then mail them to your customers, without you needing to first purchase and store the products.
To make sure that the drop shipping company you are dealing with is legitimate, sends products on time, and hasn’t been accused of unscrupulous tactics, double check their record with the BBB. Many times, dropshipping companies will charge a yearly fee before allowing you access to their products. You can find dropshipping companies that won’t charge you this fee, but you must be diligent in your search. Also, you should never have to pay for a list of drop shipping or wholesale companies. You can find them on your own and not pay anyone a dime. Check out www.wholesalecentral.com or www.toptenwholesale.com

One way to find dropshipping and wholesale companies is to check in your local area. Having contact with a company that you can talk to in person can bring great peace to your online business. Look in your local yellow pages for various wholesale companies and contact them about their dropshipping practices. You can also purchase items from them at wholesale costs and ship them yourself, bypassing the need for a dropshipper completely. However, if you feel that your company is best served by a dropshipper, then you should find a reputable company that distributes the products you are interested in selling and then inquire about a dropshipping program.