Monday, December 31, 2007

What Really Holds You Back in Business


A great read for anyone planning to take the plunge and launch their own business.

This may or may not surprise you, but I have learned that regardless of age, it usually isn't lack of skill, time or money that gets in the way of starting or growing your business.

Most of the entrepreneurs I work with are between 40 to 65 years young, and when they hit a wall or spin their wheels, it's rarely associated to lack of ability, desire, physical or monetary means.

Physically, they have what it takes, but mentally -- there's a lifetime of baggage blocking access to real progress.

Many have raised children, have been supervisors at work, devoted and hardworking employees, and creative geniuses, and despite their lifetime of accomplishments, something seems to come up when they begin the journey from employee to entrepreneur.

Some of it is tied to the transition into the business world, but much of it also comes from reaching a certain point in life where you can start putting your needs ahead of others. You have raised your children, supported your spouse in his or her career, served as a loyal employee to your boss and now, it's time to focus on following your dream.

The problem is the dream is clouded by old programming.

How many times in the past did you do or say things you didn't want to simply to please your parents, teachers, spouse, church leaders or children?

Did you take courses you didn't want to take or jobs you hated because someone told you it was best for you? Did you marry someone you shouldn't have because you were told it was the "right" thing to do?

How many times were you told you had dumb ideas, weren't smart, pretty or strong enough?

How many times were you told not to bother pursuing a professional sport, music or writing because you'd never make it -- only the exceptional few did?

If you're struggling to get clear on what you want or if you're not taking the right actions even though you know what must be done, look inside yourself and try to uncover what's really holding you back.

How much of other people's "stuff" are you allowing to influence how big you dream and the actions you do or do not take?

I recall a colleague of mine who today is a millionaire, but when he started his business he struggled to succeed. He had done well in corporate, but when he started to promote his new business, he couldn't attract clients.

It was only after he locked himself in his office for a full day and began looking at his marketing materials that he realized he had designed everything to appease his father and gain his approval. He wasn't communicating to his target audience at all.

He re-wrote his material, changed the way he promoted himself, and within months attracted numerous clients.

Another client realized in her late 50's that because she was allowing her father to make her feel guilty because he had helped her out when she was younger, every day was dictated by his mood and the demands he placed on her.

She couldn't grow her business because she allowed her father to determine the amount of time and activities she could focus on each day.

It took almost two years to release the guilt and feeling that she had to be at his beck and call, but when she did, doors began to open. She started receiving phone calls and orders from large organizations and she started meeting people with huge networks who loved her products and wanted to share her with all of their friends.

She became a vibrant, confident woman and started attracting other vibrant people into her life.

I share these stories not to encourage you to blame your parents or loved ones for the obstacles in your life, but to create awareness of the fact that what often holds us back is our belief that we must be responsible for everyone else's happiness and comfort.

One of my former clients works with people who struggle with what she calls People Pleasing Syndrome because it is more often than not the biggest obstacle to personal and professional growth.

If you're facing challenges in your business, take some time to look at the behaviors and beliefs you hold. What thoughts may be holding you back? What actions do you take that you know for a fact aren't moving you forward?

Make the effort to uncover the reasons behind your thoughts and actions. If this is too hard to do on your own, seek the assistance of a coach or trusted professional.

Your life, your business and your ultimate happiness depend on your ability to give yourself permission to follow your dream without guilt or embarrassment and if you need help to make that happen, give yourself that gift. You deserve it.

2007 © Laurie Hayes - The HBB Source

Laurie Hayes, founder of The HBB Source, and creator of The Complete 12-Step Guide To Starting A Home-Based Business, helps entrepreneurs build loyal client relationships and attract more quality referrals. Get her free ezine packed with helpful resources at http://www.thehbbsource.com and learn how to build your business through customer appreciation at http://www.hbbsourcecards.com

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Choosing Your Keywords


Everyone wants their site to be found easily in the search engines. The use of keywords, therefore, is important when designing the content on your site. The following offers some good advice on this.

These days, our needs for knowledge, information, everyday
necessities and novelty materials can be found just with one
single click on an internet website. It’s no surprise that
people prefer to surf the WWW rather than go to a library or
shopping center to look for or buy what they want. More and more
people use search engines like google to help them go directly
to the website that contains what they need.

This trend sparked a revolution in internet marketing
strategies. Web masters of vendor sites compete with each other
to place their websites in the top 10 search results of a user’s
searches. Various software utilities were created to boost the
chances of high SE rankings. Some of these utilities even
manage to cheat a high ranking out of a search engine even when
the website itself contains nothing of interest to the user.

As more and more web masters arm themselves with rank boosting
software, the effectiveness of their efforts begins to plummet so
much so that they find themselves back to where they started. A
new avenue for increasing their rankings became necessary.
One of these ideas is the saturation of keywords on a single
article. The entire philosophy of keywords hinged on their
relevance. In searching for a Ford truck, what search strings
would the customer use? How many of those search strings will
match the keywords? The more a search string matches your site
or article’s keywords, the higher you place on a search engine
result page. Keywords have gotten to be such a major concern
that private enterprises which offer search engine optimization
(SEO) services are now making a killing in the internet economy.

The first result that comes out of a search engine is usually
the website that contains the most similar number of keywords in
the exact same order as the search. For instance, if I used “DIY
Wi-Fi antenna” for my search string, the search engine will look
for the exact same words and word placement. Now, if I type the
word “ask” and perform my search using google, the common result
would be ask.com. Notice how the search engine immediately went
for the website with the domain name (ask.com) that matched my
query. On the other hand, if I type “asked”, google still comes
out with the ask.com webpage as its top search result. It’s all
about relevance.

To be able to fully utilize your website’s potential as a top
search result item, you need to orient your website towards the
product or idea you want to promote. If you cannot have the .com
name, you can rely on keyword optimization to help you with your
search engine rankings.

You do not need to consult a private enterprise to tell you
which keywords to use. All you have to do is think about your
product or idea and think of how you would look for it in the
internet using a search engine.

Keywords will not work for you if you keep them generic. Most
customers log onto the internet already knowing what they need
or want. Remember, these shoppers can’t hold or examine the
merchandise so they want to find out about them fist hand before
they actually buy. When they do decide to buy, they have a
specific idea in mind. They will use this idea as their search
string in search engines. Ergo, if you have multiple products,
you need to be able to generate a fair amount of literature
containing relevant keywords for each of your merchandise. If
you choose to limit your business to a certain area, be sure to
include the name of your chosen location into your keyword base.

You also need to take care of the literature or articles
you produce for your business. Make sure that they contain the
necessary keyword count. Do not sacrifice the quality of your
articles for the sake of keywords. Always present a detailed,
literate and informative article.

About the Author:

Len Hutton is an information publisher specializing in helping people start their own home based business. You can read up on how to create your own info products in one day without writing a single word by going to http://www.nicheresidualincomes.com/

How To Turn Other Peoples Hard Work Into A Part Time And Instant Internet Business

http://www.nicheresidualincomes.com/underground.htm

Friday, December 21, 2007

Reciprocal Links - Yes Or No?


A great article on the topic of link exchange and their relevance to search engine rankings.

Reciprocal Link Exchange is a very popular and valuable practice. This can be a valuable tool for information sharing and it helps establish communication among web developers and creates strong on line communities.

A reciprocal link simply means that two websites are linking to each other. Both sites generate traffic for each other simultaneously.

Building links is a very good way to improve how high you rank on a search engine index. Links consist of your hyperlink of your web site that is posted onto another web site. The more links of your web site that can be found throughout the internet on other sites, usually the higher you will rank in the search engines.

You can't just put your website on the net with right keywords and all the right touches and expect your traffic and ranking will remain constant. As the web is an ever changing landscape, you have to keep track of your own web results like what is happening with the competition and also the best and highest ranked sites.

Tips and recommendations for designing a Good Reciprocal Link Campaign

- Set a goal. Figure out how fast you can do it, then create a plan to increase and improve your Page Ranking. Start your own Marketing Linking Campaign;

- Choose your reciprocal links wisely. Connect only to websites that contain related information that readers will enjoy.

- Use your time collecting valuable information on your site, and then tell everyone you can! Offer a web site full of interesting details that similar sites' readers can't live without. The best way to gain readership is by offering a valuable resource! - If you want to improve your Page Ranking try to do not link to sites that are irrelevant to yours and avoid sites that have a "Links Page" that is hard to find.

- Write relevant articles and publish them for free. Make sure to include a Bio Box that includes a link to your site. Stipulate that the article may be reprinted for free as long as the Bio Box is included. This will instantaneously provide extra links to your page when people reprint your work.

- Email other webmasters and simply ask for a link and provide a pre-coded HTML link for them to cut and paste to their page.

- Do not link to sites with directories that are haphazardly arranged with no categorization and avoid sites that contain more than 40 - 50 links per page. Your link will be hard to find...

- The fastest and most powerful way to make your website known is to submit it to as many relevant web directories as you can. Directory submission is the BEST way to gain targeted traffic to your site. - Celebrate each small success and keep in mind every small step in the right direction is bringing you closer and closer to your main target.

Choose wisely! And be patient, be persistent, be creative! Even if you only acquire one third of the links you pursue, your efforts will be well-rewarded.

Copyright © Anne-Marie Ronsen You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print, in your ebook or on your web site, free of charge, as long as the author bylines are included.

About the Author:

Anne-Marie RONSEN is the author of many wealth and self development books. Download FREE eBooks from http://www.e-bestsellers.com, http://www.plrbestsellers.com or http://www.UniversalPublishingltd.com... You will learn about the best tips and recommendations to improve your health, weight and wealth.

Pressure To Rank High In The Search Engines


The following article discusses other ways to increase your traffic without relying solely on search engines.


The ultimate goal for any webmaster is getting quality traffic to their website and therefore customers. In the past web masters felt they had one choice and one choice only but to get placed in the top 10 position in order to get traffic. Times have changed. They are now given more than one method to generate traffic to their web site. The pressure to rank high in the search engines is lessened.

With the great uprise of social bookmarking, blog and article directory sites, more and more webmasters are turning to these alternatives to get traffic. These sites have come as a relief to those who have struggled to gain a piece of the pie of the search engines without success. These social media sites without bias make it possible for any web master great or small to get traffic in as little as 24 hours unlike the search engines which can take months.

There are blog sites for just about any subject, and you can be assured that there are some that relate to your products and/or services. The true origin of the word "blog" found on the Book of Joe web site shows that Dr. Seuss actually created blogs. At first people thought the word "blog" came from the word "web-log". Some blog sites provide commentary or news on a particular subject while others function as a personal diary. Blog sites are great for generating traffic to your web site because you can express yourself in an interesting way that gets people to respond to your blog. You can simply sign up with a site such as Word Press and begin blogging away. You can even have your own blog site!

Article writing is a great marketing method. Depending on who you talk to you might just hear that it is the best marketing method to generate traffic to your web site. One thing for sure is that if you can provide people with some great information, sharing valuable tips that they can use right away, you will get your article read. Article writing plays a very active role in getting out there and finding people who are interested in what you are saying. Search Engine listings on the other hand wait for people to search your keywords in order to find you. It's role is a passive one. You can get your article out there for thousands of people to see for free!

Social Bookmarking is another great method for generating traffic to your web site. Millions of people are using social bookmarking sites to find information. They have become so popular they are even considered to be a new type of search engine. If you are new to bookmarking sites, they allow you to store your bookmarks online and use tags to organize and remember your bookmarks. Tags are keywords chosen by you to remember the subject, name, category, etc. of an article or web site. In order to get social bookmarking to work for you, create quality content, tag it, and get other people to see your content and tag it themselves. This can do wonders of getting traffic to your web site.

Knowing that there are other methods of generating traffic to your web site other than being place in the top 10 of the search engines, have significantly lessen the pressure to rank high in the search engines.

About the Author:

Rosemarie Bryan is an experienced web marketer who helps small online businesses get the best web marketing services at a fraction of the cost. Visit her web site at: http://www.websitemarketing.friendlyfirm.com

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Web 2.0, Internet Marketing, The Easiest Way To Generate Massive Exposure


Many people feel that they are running in circles when trying to improve the traffic to their site. The following article looks at the many marketing opportunities that exist in today's Web 2.0 world.

If you’ve ever been involved in a small business, or possibly even a home-based business then you’ve most likely hit the brick wall, just as many people do. No, I’m not talking about start up capital, or operating expenses, because starting a home business is actually one of the most affordable ways for the average person to break into the world of business, and break out of the world of 9 to 5 slavery.

The brick wall that I’m referring to is that of creating exposure for your products and services, and generating traffic for your web sites, presentations, and business briefings. In fact, one can very quickly find themselves pulling out their hair with shear frustration and confusion.

What once was a world of duplication, manipulation, and old school marketing, has in a matter of a few short years been swept aside by those on the cutting edge of the Internet landscape. The cutting edge of what has become the world of web 2.0. Unfortunately, despite the trends, most people really do not know what web 2.0 really is.

Of course, it’s cutting edge, it’s now, it’s happening, but are you using it?

Don’t get me wrong, web 2.0 Internet Marketing is not rocket science, but you do need to be armed with the basics. Just putting a few video clips on your site, or tossing up an audio file or two that people can access or download does not make your site a web 2.0 experience. In fact this has been done for years, but what does make it web 2.0?

Here are a few things to consider before jumping head long into the world of web 2.0 Internet Marketing, and possibly a few suggestions that may make your transition into this world a bit easier.

Architecture of Participation

The first element of a well-designed web 2.0 experience is something called the Architecture of Participation. You might also hear things like RIA (Rich Internet Applications), or even SOA (Service Oriented Applications).

Despite the use of fancy buzzwords, this simply refers to the user experience. Is the site pleasing to the eye, easy to use, and most importantly does the site make it possible for visitors to participate in the content of the web site?

This could best be demonstrated by taking a look at sites such as YouTube.com, EzineArticles.com, as well as social networking sites like MySpace.com. Each of these examples has a very well planned Architecture of Participation.

Mash Ups & Integration

The next element of a true web 2.0 experience is often called the mash up, or content integration. This is actually quite simple. Again, going back to sites like MySpace.com, you’ll see that participants can implement many different sources of web content. You’ll not only see video and audio, but you’ll also see blogs, comments, and networks of friends. Many sites will also integrate content from multiple sources or sites onto a single, new web site that generates fresh content on the fly, ready for eager site visitors.

Mashing multiple streams of content onto a new web site is where the term Mash Ups actually came from, which here again, is not rocket science when you determine what content your visitors might like to see, hear, or read. It’s simply a matter of pulling the appropriate content and mashing it up into one convenient place.

Social Networking

Finally, social networking is a big part of web 2.0. Of course, it’s deeply routed in the Architecture of Participation, and it almost always implements the mash up to create unique content, but the unique factor in social networking is that it’s designed to bring like minded people together.

Networking is the key to building successful long-term business relationships, but if you’ve ever hit your friends and family up with a business opportunity, you’ve probably discovered that they’re not always as like-minded as you might have originally hoped.

Tapping into such social networks can put you, and your business or opportunity in front of literally millions of potential prospects and future business partners, and because you are networking with like-minded people, you’re not forced to go old school when it comes to pitching your opportunity or product.

Over all, web 2.0 is a major departure in traditional marketing, and is light years beyond the days of mass mailing and classified ad submission. It is a whole new mindset in terms of building relationships, by simply rethinking the design process of your next web site, and oh yeah, the best part is that web 2.0 will cost you absolutely nothing to implement into your business.

Basically, the key to web 2.0 Internet Marketing is in the user experience. Gone are the days of sit and stare web sites. With a little creativity, and a touch of web 2.0, it’s now possible to turn a one way experience into a two way stream of communication, which is the key to any business success.

About the Author:

Troy Berlin has been actively involved in the home-based business industry for nearly 15 years and has been a stay at home dady for the past 10 years thanks to his home business. He now helps others develop their own online home business incomes so that they can enjoy more time freedom as well. Learn more about the Prosperity Cast Network, and Troy Berlin at http://www.ProsperityHomeNetwork.com

Unleashing Web 2.0: From Concepts to Creativity


Unleashing Web 2.0: From Concepts to Creativityis a must read for anyone wanting to put the power of the internet into their business site. From the review:

The emergence of Web 2.0 is provoking challenging questions for developers: What products and services can our company provide to customers and employees using Rich Internet Applications, mash-ups, Web feeds or Ajax? Which business models are appropriate and how do we implement them? What are best practices and how do we apply them?

If you need answers to these and related questions, you need this booka comprehensive and reliable resource that guides you into the emerging and unstructured landscape that is Web 2.0.

Gottfried Vossen is a professor of Information Systems and Computer Science at the University of Muenster in Germany. He is the European Editor-in-Chief of Elseviers Information SystemsAn International Journal. Stephan Hagemann is a PhD. Student in Gottfrieds research group focused on Web technologies.

  • Presents a complete view of Web 2.0 including services and technologies
  • Discusses potential new products and services and the technology and programming ability needed to realize them
  • Offers how to basics presenting development frameworks and best practices
  • Compares and contrasts Web 2.0 with the Semantic Web


If you really want to understand what is happening on the web today, Unleashing Web 2.0: From Concepts to Creativityis a great place to start.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

How To Build An E-biz On A Budget


The following article describes how anyone can start up their own online business without piles of cash.

Many online sellers start their businesses from a position of necessity. They need a steady income, but they lack start-up funds, and have little-to-no retail experience or technical expertise. However, according to Shawna Fennell, president of http://1Choice4YourStore.com, those things aren’t mandatory for an Internet entrepreneur to succeed. Tells Fennell, “When I started my first E-Biz, I was a newly-single mom. I had nothing but my babies and the clothes we left the house with. Several years later, I’ve got seven or eight very profitable retail sites, and an E-Biz consulting practice. If I can do it, anybody can do it.”

Easy Entry

If you’re considering coming online, but know nothing about eCommerce and can’t afford to lose any money, Fennell shares several tips to help alleviate the stress in your transition into online sales:

• Consider starting out with a storefront on a reputable selling venue, such as Yahoo! or eBay. They’re easy to set up, even without a proficiency in coding. You can easily get started selling without hiring a web designer, programmer, or SEO consultant – much more easily than with an independent web site.

• Drop shipping is an ideal product sourcing model when you begin retailing online. Whenever your customers place their orders with you, you turn around and place those orders with your drop ship supplier. Your supplier then sends those products from their warehouse directly to your customers’ homes. You only pay your drop shipper when your customers pay you, so you don’t have to invest money you don’t have into inventory that might not sell.

• You may not have a great deal of money to spend on search engine optimization, but you can still do well in the natural rankings if you concentrate on giving the search engines what they really want: original, quality content. New E-Biz owners often make the mistake of posting the template product descriptions their suppliers provide. But if a hundred sellers use the same product description, the search engines will see a hundred identical listings and only bring back one of those stores in the results. That’s why each of your products needs its own unique copy. Even if you have hundreds of products, you can work on a set number a day until you’ve written a fresh, unique description for every item.

• While you wait for your SEO efforts to pay off, you may have to invest in some Pay Per Click ads to bring customers into your store. Fennell recommends advertising on a shopping search engine, rather than a traditional search engine. Typically, the cost is lower, and the conversion is higher. Your Google ad may bring in ten times more clicks per day than your ad on a shopping search engine, but you’re going to see about the same number of sales resulting from those clicks. And with the shopping engine, you’re only paying for one-tenth of the clicks.

Walking the Walk

Opening an E-Biz isn’t a magic bullet, or a quick fix for all your financial woes, but it is a low-risk, low-investment opportunity for anyone willing to do the work. The key is to set realistic goals and take practical steps to make them happen. As Fennell points out, “It takes consistency and it takes time, but it can be done. If someone is prepared to study, to apply the things they learn, and – most of all – to stick to it, they can build an online business and be very successful with it.”

About the Author:

Product Sourcing Radio is Created and Hosted by Chris Malta and Robin Cowie of http://WorldwideBrands.com, Home of OneSource: The Internet's Largest Source of Genuine, Factory-Direct Wholesalers for online sellers. Visit http://www.WorldwideBrands.com for more FREE E-Biz & Product Sourcing info!

Starting a Yahoo! Business For Dummies


I personally think that Yahoo! Stores is one of the best ecommerce solutions for anyone that plans or is currently doing business online. The stores are easy to design and build, products are easy to add and Yahoo! provides multiple tools to help you to promote it.

Starting a Yahoo! Business For Dummies (For Dummies (Business & Personal Finance))is an easy to follow guide that shows you how to take advantage of the many features available in Yahoo! Stores. From the back cover:



Turn browsers into buyers, boost traffic, and more

Build your store from scratch, or make the one you have more profitable

His online business has been paying his mortgage for years. Now Rob Snell is sharing his Yahoo! Store secrets for planning, building, and managing an online store that delivers the goods! Here's how to profit from keywords, handle credit-card payments, find out what's hot in other stores, maximize your marketing efforts, and much more.

Discover how to

  • Use the Yahoo! Store Editor and Manager
  • Plan effective store navigation
  • Use better images to sell more products
  • Build successful advertising strategies
  • Generate more traffic from search engines

About the Author:

Rob Snell began by moving his parents' pet store online and tripling its business. Now he has an online consulting service as well as a popular blog at http://ystore.blogs.com

Monday, December 17, 2007

How to Make Sure Your Website Won't Need a Do-Over


The following offers up some great tips in regards to effective web design.

It's recess time on the elementary school playground. A group of third graders is playing kick ball in teams on the grass. Suddenly, there's a big argument over whether the last point goes to the girls' team or the boys' team.

The argument rages on for what seems like forever — almost a whole minute of precious recess time has been wasted! In third grade, wasting recess is a crime! And it must be stopped before time runs out.

One of the girls realizes, stops arguing, looks around and declares, "Do-over". The boys accept this proposal, the last play is forgotten, and the game starts again.

The slate is wiped clean, but the play has to be repeated

When you were young, do-overs were an easy way to resolve an argument, fix unfairness or quickly change history.

Why wouldn't you want to be able to do this with your business website? Unlike the playground game, designing a website takes a lot of time, work and money — it's just not a task that you're going to want to start over from scratch again!

And, once you've launched one website, it's harder to get a do-over from your prospects and clients than it is to get the other team to agree to one in elementary school.

Avoiding a do-over sometimes leads to project paralysis

At this point, a lot of entrepreneurs get scared — they don't want to create a do-over, but they don't know where to start down the right path. So, they put their project off, and instead stress out about getting everything ready. Plus, avoiding starting means they won't make any mistakes. That works itself up into procrastination and full-scale project paralysis — and the website project winds up never getting completed.

The reason that people get paralyzed is because they don't know how to plan and create a website in a way that minimizes the chance that they'll have to re-do it. But, there are a few ways to ensure that your site will be as permanent as possible, without driving yourself crazy with all the considerations. Five Steps to Creating a Site That Will Stick

1. Decide what you want your website to do for your business. A website should be more than just something you have to create for your business. What's your site's purpose? What are its jobs? Who will be coming to the site? What do you most want them to do once they get there? What do your visitors most want to know?

If you create the site with the end goal in mind, then your site will be more successful. This is because you can create every piece of the site to encourage the viewer to take a certain path through the site or a particular action. Planning the experience that a visitor will have on your site can help get more visitors to meet your goal on the site.

2. The function of your website will determine the types of content you'll need. Look at the job you want your site to perform, and who the site is for. That will start to give you hints about the types of content you should include on it.

In planning your basic content, consider the pages you'll need to include on the site. Also think about any subscribe forms, shopping carts, audio, etc. that would help you communicate with your target audience. Lastly, think about which of these pieces you need immediately and which you can add in later. This will help ensure your website project won't take forever to complete.

3. Don't get hung up on writing the text. The next step is to gather your samples and write your text for the website. A lot of entrepreneurs get stuck in this phase of the project. This is because they're not comfortable writing, they don't have the time to write their text, or they find that it takes a while to get the testimonials they need.

This is the one part of your site that's easy to revise later on — so don't stress out about getting the text "just perfect" — just get the text put together and then plan on revising it shortly after the site is launched.

4. Design the site to look timeless. There's no way to know what design trends are coming next, and what effects would make your site look like it was designed in a particular year. Sites full of cutting-edge effects and technology this year may look passé next year.

How do you design a site to look timeless? If you create your design based on your own logo and Visual Vocabulary and keep the design generally clean, the likelihood that it will look dated is lessened. Stick close to your own brand designs and you'll have a website that you can keep for the long haul.

5. Code the site cleanly. In order to make sure that your site will work across multiple browsers and systems and will work on future versions of those browsers, make sure that your code is clean. To maximize your search engine optimization results, you'll want to code the site in HTML instead of in Flash so that Google and the other engines will be able to read it. Coding in HTML also makes your site easier to update in the future — you'll want to add to your site's text and make edits to what's already there.

Recreating your website isn't as easy as a do-over on the playground. By following the 5 steps here, you'll create a website that will serve your business well for a long while. And you'll be able to avoid having to start the site all over again!

About the Author:

Erin Ferree is a brand identity designer who creates big visibility for small businesses. Her workbook, "Design a Website That Works", will walk you through all of the questions that you need to answer in order to create the best possible website. Visit http://www.elf-design.com/ and http://www.elf-design.com/products-webWorkbook.html

The Principles of Beautiful Web Design


The Principles of Beautiful Web Designwalks you through the process of effective web design. This is essential for anyone that is currently or planning to do business online.

Tired of making web sites that work absolutely perfectly but just don't look nice?

If so, then The Principles of Beautiful Web Design is for you. A simple, easy-to-follow guide, illustrated with plenty of full-color examples, this book will lead you through the process of creating great designs from start to finish. Good design principles are not rocket science, and using the information contained in this book will help you create stunning web sites.

  • Understand the design process, from discovery to implementation
  • Understand what makes "good design"
  • Developing pleasing layouts using grids, the rule of thirds, balance and symmetry
  • Use color effectively, develop color schemes and create a palette
  • Use textures, lines, points, shapes, volumes and depth
  • Learn how good typography can make ordinary designs look great
  • Effective imagery: choosing, editing and placing images
  • And much more

Throughout the book, you'll follow an example design, from concept to completion, learning along the way.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Making Money with Adsense



If you currentlu use Google Adsense on your site or plan to do so, the following article provides some helpful information to help you tweak your ads.

If you are just starting online with your first website, you have quite a learning curve in front of you. I know that your learning curve is still long, because I have been making money online for years, and I am still learning new stuff everyday.

Every year, more people are coming online. And every year, people struggle to figure out how to tap into the economic engine powered by the Internet. The one thing that newcomers to the Internet frequently fail to realize is that those of us, who are making the most money online, spent years learning our trades.

The good news is that Internet newcomers have one major advantage that my mentors and myself did not have when we started our online enterprises. The newcomers have people like us who are willing to teach others what they have learned.

First And Most Important Lesson To Learn

There are three kinds of commercial websites on the Internet: product/service merchants, advertising providers, and non-profit websites.

Now, the Red Cross and the United Way are non-profit websites by choice and mission. But, the majority of non-profit websites on the Internet were designed to be for-profit websites, but the website owner will have been lucky to have earned enough to pay their web hosting costs.

By the end of this article, I hope that I will have provided you enough information to be able to turn any non-profit website into a profit generating machine.

Merchants sell services. They also sell products made by others or themselves. Some merchants produce their own informational books and e-books, on a wide variety of topics.

Many people make the mistake of assuming that they do not know anything of value that other people would want to know. But, that just isn't true. Call me an optimist if you will, but I believe everyone knows something that other people would be willing to pay a certain amount of money to learn.

Ii is a fact that some of the smartest online entrepreneurs I know make a lot of money by writing and selling books and e-books, on topics ranging from cryptograms (http://www.cryptogramsbylouise.com/), to how-to cure acid reflux (http://www.refluxgoneforever.com/), to finding the hero within (http://www.herosoul.com/), to how to be more successful with an online business.

I have bought many e-books and I have to say that some were better than others, but all of them helped me to learn what I needed to know in order to be successful with whatever endeavor I was undertaking.

Advertising Providers build websites with the intent of attracting a huge and loyal audience, so that advertisers will consider their website to be a good place to spend their advertising dollars.

In those dark days before Google Adsense (http://adsense.Google.com) and Yahoo's Publisher Network (http://publisher.yahoo.com/), we little guys were just tough out-of-luck if we wanted to sell our advertising space through a larger network of advertisers.

I remember having a website that was finally serving one thousand unique page views per day, or 30,000 page views per month. I remember thinking that it was time for me to see whom I could sell advertising space. So, I started doing my research.

I looked at one advertising network, and then another, and another. Without fail, most advertising networks required one million page views per month in order for a website to participate in their network. I was just poop out of luck.

So, I started advertising space on my site to my visitors. I sold some advertising, but I did not make a living doing it. The main issue here is that the people on my site are looking to learn about travel and other things, and advertisers generally spend their time on sites learning about doing business online.

Then in 2003, it all changed with the rollout of Google Adsense. Suddenly, all I needed to do was to apply to participate in Google's program. On approval, I could add one little piece of javascript code to my website, and I could start earning money from Google immediately, by making their client's advertising available on my own website.

Finally, my information website had a method for earning money that did not require for me to spend all of my waking hours chasing one sale after another.

Some Background

When I started my first online business, I had set up an Yahoo store (http://www.yahoo.com). I did very well with it, but after a couple years, I realized that I did not want to keep doing the same thing for the rest of my life.

Three rooms of my home were committed to storing merchandise that I was buying for resale. When I made a product purchase, I had to take photos and then sit down to my computer, upload the image and make an appropriate product description. Then I had to spend all of my spare time, making new listings at Yahoo and running to the post office to ship the merchandise I had sold.

One day I realized that the reason I had started my business is to provide my family a better standard of living. I had accomplished that goal, at the cost of time with my family. I was literally working from the moment I got out of bed, until I collapsed into my bed at the end of the day.

After parting ways with Yahoo, I researched other profit models and settled on a membership site. In order to be successful with a membership website, one must be willing and able to add new good quality content to the website at least three or four times per week. That is a job in itself.

While my membership site did well monetarily, I found myself in a position similar to when I had my Yahoo store. I was spending all of my spare time with my business and not my family.

Finally, I Wrapped My Head Around The Solution

What I needed for myself was a website where I could sell other people's products and services, then let the other person handle the entire process of collecting the money and delivering the product or service. I needed to build my business in such a way that I could build my website, when I wanted to invest the time, and I could collect my checks at the end of the month.

The advertising website is the best kind of site to have when your goals are the same as mine.

So, I embarked on building a website that had information on a wide variety of topics.

Three years after I started my current website, Google launched their Adsense program. I applied to Google's Adsense program and was accepted within just a few days. I then applied my Google Adsense code to my website.

Over the years, I have been building links to my website so that people could find me. The articles and directory links have produced good traffic results for me on a consistent basis, since I started the process of building them.

The Next Lesson Can Literally Double And Triple Your Income

When you undertake to design a website that will host advertising, don't be shy about it!

• Don't stick your advertising in a corner somewhere; • Don't design your advertising to look like something other than an advertisement; • Don't be afraid to test your advertising placement; • Don't be afraid to tell people that they can buy advertising on your website; • Don't be afraid to charge good money to advertisers to have a placement on your website.

Don't be afraid and don't be shy. Your reason for putting advertising on your website is to give YOU a way to make money from your work. But, in order to keep your advertisers happy, you need to make sure that they get a good return for their investment.

When you can help your advertisers make money, then you will by extension earn money from your website. It is a beautiful concept; when I help put money in my advertiser's pockets, they put money in my pocket.

Specific Tips To Maximize Your Advertising Click-Through Rates (CTRs)

The default link color on the Internet is blue; so make the links in your advertising blue.

The default text color on the Internet is black; so make the text in your advertisement black or whatever color is the default text color on your website.

Make your advertisement block stand out from the rest of the content on the page. Putting your ads directly in your visitor's face is good. Within a text block, I have found the 300x250 to be the most effective ad block size. To see an example of the 300x250 text block in action, view my blog here: http://www.clintondouglasiv.com

Other ad block sizes that we have seen good results include: the 728x90 leaderboard, 468x60 banner, and the160x600 wide skyscraper.

Be The Next Advertising Success Story

I advised a friend of mine to make these kinds of changes on his own website. He already had great traffic, but he was not making as much money as I thought he should be making.

On my suggestion, he changed his Google ads from the bottom of his left sidebar to the main part of his pages. He told me that his CTR increased from 0.8% to 2.4%. I told him to change his ads from the 468x15 link unit to the 468x60 banner ad. He told me that his CTR increased from 2.4% to 4.7%. Then I told him to change his links from black to blue. Within just a few weeks, he reported back to me that his click-through rates jumped again, this time from 4.7% to 7.8%. He even reported that on some individual days, his new layout generated as high as 11.4% CTRs.

On my friend's website, his CTR jumped from 0.8% where it had been for a couple years, since he started using Google Adsense, to 7.8% on average. While most webmasters will see an average increase of two- to three-times, my friend has experienced a nearly tenfold (+9.75%) increase in his advertising revenue through that website.

What could you do with ten times more advertising revenue from your website? You will never know until you implement these kinds of changes on your website to increase your own advertising revenue.

About the Author:

Clinton Douglas IV, writes E-Business articles. "In less than 7 Days" you could have your own Highly Profitable Website. Visit his site now; Read the insider secrets to Building an Online Empire ==> Learn how to make fast online money by visiting: http://online-empire.vasrue.com/

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Scam Alert- Domain Name Appraisal Scam


My purpose in writing on this blog is to share the many tips that I come across that relate to making money online. Unfortunately, there is a flip side which must be discussed as well and that is the topic of internet scams.

Scams have been around since the beginning of time, but the internet has bred a high tech, and often hard to recognize type of con game. Here is one of the latest that I read about this morning.

I recently received several e mails from domain sellers who had fallen victim to a domain appraisal scam. The scam starts with a mail the seller receives concerning a domain they own and the scammer showing interest in buying it.

The scammers find information about their targets on Ebay and on Whois.

In the first mail they tell you that they are a new player wanting to invest money in the domain market as a side business and inquire how much you want for the domain.

Next step is the mail in which they accept your asking price for the domain. The scammers tell you that they want you to get the domain appraised as they don’t want to make a bad investment. The scammers want the appraisal from a certain manual appraisal website which they believe to be a good one, ofcourse this appraisal website is part of the scam. This appraisal website gives a highly inflated appraisal value and asks a high fee for it ( up to over a hundred dollars) as they know you need the appraisal to sell the domain.

The end of this story is that once you have mailed your appraisal you never hear from your buyers again. leaving you one hundred dollars poorer and an absolutely useless appraisal richer. This is a very cunningly operated scam and to show you how such a scam mail looks i give you a real example of such an email below.

Email 1:

Hello,

We ‘ve found your domain name listed for sale..

If you are still interested in selling please send your quote and I will

consider it with my partners.

Main direction of our business is software development and technical

support.

Domain names is not our business but a new way to earn on reselling. We are

going to buy domains to resell them at higher prices since we have a large

database of clients interested in good domains.

Looking forward to do business with you.

Regards,


Email 2:

You want 13,500 USD. Ok.

Do you sell domain with a web site or just the name?

If it’s just the name it’s ok. A web site is not necessary.

Have you had your domains appraised already? Can you show me your valuation certificates? As far as I know it’s a common practice to show appraisal of domain name (even without traffic and web site) before doing business.

Without an appraisal I risk to overpay. In other words I won’t be able to make a profit on reselling this name. It’s very important for you and me to know the current market value of your domains.

Of course, we must be sure that you are engaging an appraisal company with REAL manual service. I heard many appraisal companies often made inaccurate auto-generated appraisals. I will only accept appraisals from independent sources I trust. To avoid mistakes I asked domain experts about reputable appraisal companies in a forum. (they now give you a link of a forum you have to check out)

Just check this posting.

If the appraisal comes higher you can adjust your asking price accordingly. I also hope you can give me 10 discount of the appraised value.

After I get an appraisal from you we’ll continue our negotiations.

How do you prefer to get paid: Escrow.com, PayPal.com check or wire?

Hope we can come to an agreement fast.

Looking forward to your reply.



So if you ever get an email like this, you know what to do. Scrap it. Just remember this wise saying that if something sounds too good to be true it probably is.

About the Author:

Brian Holland works as a moderator for GoogleGoogle.net and gets first hand information on new trends and scams on the web.

http://googlegoogle.net

Scams & Swindles: Phishing, Spoofing, ID Theft, Nigerian Advance Schemes Investment Frauds: How to Recognize And Avoid Rip-Offs In The Internet Age


Scams & Swindles: Phishing, Spoofing, ID Theft, Nigerian Advance Schemes Investment Frauds: How to Recognize And Avoid Rip-Offs In The Internet Ageis a good resource that covers just about every type of scam on the internet today. From the review:


Phishing. Spoofing. Spyware. Swoop and squat. Malicious spam. Chain letters. Ponzi schemes. ID theft. The Internet Era has created a whole class of frauds and schemes that separate people from their money. It's also given new life to older cons and scams. This book organizes various rip-offs by type and severity. Then it explains how each type of scam works -- and how an ordinary person can recognize it before getting taken in. Drawing on interviews with law enforcement experts, victims and even crooks, this book gives readers a state-of-the-art primer on financial crimes and the sleazy dealings that fall slightly short of illegal. It also uses real-life case studies of frauds, to show how they start and how they end -- all in a plain-English style that everyone can enjoy. And this book does more than just tell stories; it gives readers questions, checklists, worksheets and other tools to make sure they're not being scammed -- or to take the right actions if they have been.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Understanding Web Analytics- What You Should Know


Web analytics are an important tool for anyone with an online business presence. It is essential to know where your traffic is coming from and what they are looking at. Read on and discover how to put web analytics to work for you.

Then most difficult aspect of marketing a new product or web site is to find enough people that are interested in it so that they are ready to buy. Mastering Google AdWords will enable you to drive traffic to your web site and start making sales immediately. You can create a Google AdWord campaign in a matter of minutes and be making sales within 24 hours.

So you've launched your website and you're happy with the content, the design, and with its placement in cyberspace. Now, it's time to track your traffic. How many people visit your site each month? Where are they coming from? What do you need to know to be an informed analyzer so you can beef up your site traffic? And what tools can help you along the way? Ladies and gentlemen, sit back, relax, and enjoy the following answers to all these questions.

Why You Should Know Your Dinner Guests

Knowing where your visitors are coming from and knowing where they go on your site are the two most important pieces of acquisition arsenal you can obtain. This is because on one hand, knowing where people are coming from will help you focus your offsite advertising and marketing plans. On the other hand, and knowing how visitors navigate within your site will help you gauge what pages work and which ones need to be revamped. Maybe you have important content that would be most appealing to your visitors but it is difficult to get to due to poor design choices and hence no one is going to that page. You can use metrics to figure out what pages are most popular. That is the best way to understand what type of content and design works and will guide the future development plans for your site. The main goal is to reduce what are know as the dreaded "bottlenecks," pages of your site where visitors exit before they reach your purchase or sign up page.

Know the Ingredients

First, acquaint or reacquaint yourself- as the case may be- with the terminology so that you know what you are actually analyzing. If you know that unique visits is distinct from unique visitors, for instance, you will have a better grasp of what figures to use for reporting purposes, setting advertising rates, and a host of other options specific to your company's needs. Learn what an entry point means and where people travel to once on your site. Some tools, like Webalizer, allow you to see what URL people visited before coming to your site. This is an excellent way to learn more about your audience and perhaps point you towards potential advertising or link exchange opportunities.

Know the Recipe

Analytics tools can be tricky. The most important research you can do is to find out how each metrics system calculates its findings. For instance, the company I work for employs several reporting tools to track traffic to the site. When we first started using these tools, we were very confused. Google Analytics told us a very different figure for unique visitors than Webalizer did. In fact, Google's figures were just about half that of Webalizer! After further investigation, we learned that Webalizer was picking up on traffic behind our paywall where Google was unable to track. Some worthy reporting tools that you should check out include AWstats and WWWstats. AWstats presents their data in an easy-to-digest format and tells us things like usage by the hour and a breakdown of what countries our visitors are from. WWWstats presents the data in a pretty raw format, but allows you to track things like transfers by client domain and transfers by URL or section. Both of these services provide fairly reliable information.

Google Analytics is an extensive - and free! - program that can help you measure just about anything on your site. This includes conversion tracking, which allows you to follow a visitor from the point of entry on your site to each subsequent page that he/she visits. This is an outstanding way of gauging your site's navigability index and where work needs to be done to maximize the user experience (and attract more traffic to places on the site where you want visitors most). You can also track how your keywords are performing on the major search engines. Google's reporting tools, though respectable, can be confusing to use. It is not entirely clear how to access certain tools and, although they offer video instruction for some of their services, if you have specific problems or questions, an actual customer service person is difficult to nearly impossible to contact.

Crazyegg.com is another lesser known tool for tracking your traffic. Though there is a fee to participate, you can try their services for free. They offer a full service program for setting up, deploying and tracking tests, advice on how to properly track click-throughs, live reports, and easy-to-read results. Hey, you have nothing to lose so it's worth trying a free test. Be sure to also check out these other good sites that offer reporting and analysis for your traffic: Clicktracks.com, Fireclick.com, NetTracker.com, and WedTrends.com.

Taste the Results

Perhaps the best way to gauge your traffic more accurately is to look at several different reporting tools and make an educated guess. More likely than not, the actual number of visitors to your site- much like the truth between the claims made of two feuding parties- will lie somewhere in between.

Remember, the web is still in its infancy in many ways and there is no one, overarching, epistemologically respectable reporting tool currently available that beats out all the rest. The existing tools may change as our understanding of the web becomes more comprehensible or if sites become standardized or regulated in some way. But for now, use the tools I've recommended coupled with your best judgment and you will be on your way to making your site the best it can be.

By mastering Google Adwords Ads, you can confidently expand your marketing campaign to include other PPC advertising companies ie Overture, FindWhat and also try offline advertising.

About the author:

Download a Free AdTracking Guide and to learn how Adtrackz will improve your http://www.squidoo.com/AdTrackZ-Review/. Read my AdTrackz Review.

Home Based Web Business- Is it Legit?


Get Rich Quick! Make money while you sleep! No inventory needed! You see and hear these types of advertising everywhere. If only it were that easy. There are several things that you need to consider before jumping on the bandwagon of any internet home-based business opportunity. The following article provides some insight into some of the things that you should be on the lookout for.

There are so many opportunities on the internet offering to set people up in their own home based internet business that it can be difficult to separate the real, legitimate opportunities from the ones that only want your money. Knowing what to look for hidden within the offers can mean the difference between finding a legitimate business to operate and ending up helping someone else make money while losing your own.

With most fraudulent offers for in internet business there are four red flags that need to be thoroughly investigated before signing up to work for the website. Understand that not all of the companies that make these claims are out to take your money, but these are four things that many less than honest companies have in common:

1. Large upfront investment
2. The chance to make big money with little work
3. Do not clearly state what you will be selling
4. Lack of available contact information

While it is not uncommon for business to want a fee to become a representative for their business, you have to consider the amount demanded from you before you can start selling their product or service. You should also have a clear picture of what you will get in return for your investment. It is common for the term training to be listed, but many times the training consists of links to other sites where you are expected to learn about the company’s business model.

The training may also focus on how to recruit others into the business, offering to pay a “bounty” for bringing in new people. A company that focuses on bringing in more people instead of selling the product may be on the border of being illegal.

Anyone who has ever been involved in a business knows it takes work. One of the most common pitches is the promise of a big payday without having to work more than an hour or two a day…or even a week. There is no such thing as a free lunch and those who try to convince you otherwise and not being totally honest. That disclaimer about income may not a representative of the potential earnings, should beg the question about why even bother to list it.

If you have been reading an online based business opportunity for several minutes and have no idea about the product or service you are being asked to sell, it could be an indication of a scam. Many keep it a secret until you have spent your money and find out there is no way you can sell this to others with a clear conscious. Know what the product is, and how much it will cost, before considering the offer any further.

Look for contact information. If the only means of contacting the company is through an email address, it could be they don’t plan to be around long enough to answer any questions or complaints. Money back guarantees are also only about as good as the contact information. Email addresses and post office boxes are not good contacts.

About the Author:

Eric Baucom
Record-breaking growth has driven us to the top of Internet marketing businesses. You can build a profitable home-based business working part-time from your home computer! Training, support, Websites, and products all provided! Enroll FREE!
http://www.HomeFreeWealth.com

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Traffic Conversions In As Little As Hours With These Revealed Secrets



The following is a great article that looks at converting your online visitors to customers. I found it very helpful and easy to understand.

This is a list of website conversion tools that I use and recommend to my clients so that they can add "bells and whistles" quickly, easily, and inexpensively.

If you're a website owner who's unhappy with the business your Internet presence is generating, I wouldn't be surprised if you think your copy is the culprit, too. A lot of people think that if there's a problem with conversion that the sales copy must be at fault.

This is WRONG THINKING...and potentially fatal to your website's success.

The world's most brilliant sales letter for the world's most incredible product won't necessarily generate the through-the-roof results you might expect. The truth is that turning a casual site visitor into a "here's my credit card take whatever you want" buyer takes MUCH MORE than just effective copywriting.

Converting prospects into clients and customers takes more than a super headline... More than a list of "what's in it for you"... More than an ironclad guarantee and more than a page of testimonials from celebrities and authorities.

This isn't a war that will be won with words. You need more...much more.

If you think of your website as a high-powered sports car, your sales letter is the engine. But as any racer on the NASCAR circuit will tell you, without the right fuel and other essential components, an engine can't run smoothly and a car will never be first to the checkered flag.

I don't care if you have the most powerful "engine" in the world...the greatest sales letter ever written. If you're not taking advantage of technology and leveraging human psychology in your sales and marketing efforts, you're simply out of the race.

I usually wear my copywriter's "hat" when I do the rant and load you up with lots of ideas for creating great sales messages. The how's and why's...the do's and don'ts... the nuts and bolts.

But this time around, I don't want to focus on the engine. Instead, we're going to make a "pit stop" to look under the hood of "killer" websites and talk about everything that's working to power their success.

Conversion Secret #1 - Less Can Be More (Why the QUALITY of Your Traffic is More Important than the Quantity)

The number of people that visit your website is meaningless if they don't buy anything when they're there. You can have ten thousand people hitting your site a month, but if they're looking for camping equipment and you're selling baby strollers, you're not going to convert a single visitor.

And if you're paying per click, this will kill you. Your marketing dollars are going up in smoke.

On the other hand, you can have less traffic, but if they're targeted, you'll have a very high conversion rate. If your baby stroller site has a banner ad at a baby formula store, chances are the people who click through will be more likely to buy from you.

Here's something you MUST keep in mind: "more likely to buy" doesn't mean that they will buy. That's why tracking your traffic is so important. You have to know exactly where your traffic is coming from.

Are they from Per-Pay-Click? Are they from affiliates? Are they from offline marketing? What percentage is from what promotion? Unless you know the answers, you can't build on your success.

You can't improve something you can't measure." says W. Edwards Deming, a management expert.

A steady flow of QUALITY traffic and information about where it comes from will affect your conversion rate just as much as the quality of your sales message.

Conversion Secret #2 - Don't Let A Good Answer Get away (Exit Poll)

No one expects a 100% conversion rate, of course. You may dream about it, but, depending on what you're selling, if you're getting a 2-3% conversion, that's pretty damn good.

Okay, you're not converting 97% of the people that come to your site... But does that mean that their visit has to go into the "lost cause" column? No way!

If you paid to have those people visit, you can't just let them get away! You need to get some kind of return on your investment. Why not do an exit pop-up survey, asking them why they're not buying?

Want to really get a visitor's attention. Use an audio pop-up. When people leave your site you can have a pop-up with an audio portion like this:

"Wait, before you go, could you please help me out? I'm not trying to sell you anything, I just need some information. Could you tell me the single biggest reason that you're not giving us a try today? What's the ONE reason that's stopping you from purchasing (my product name)? Just fill out the box below and click on the submit button. Your opinion matters to me..."

Boom! You've just created your own "consumer feedback forum" and you haven't spent a penny on some high-priced focus groups. Once you get a bunch of responses to your exit poll, you'll be able to identify patterns in what people say. Use what you learn to make the changes that you know for certain will bump up your conversion rate.

Success and failure shouldn't be based on guesswork or assumptions. It doesn't matter what you think is the reason people aren't buying. It doesn't matter what I think is the reason people aren't buying.

The only thing that matters is what your customers think...that's the "pulse" of the marketplace and the lifeblood of your future business. And with an exit survey, your customers will tell you what you need to do in order to convince them to buy your product!

People consider me a marketing wizard because I'm so good at market research. Well, I may be a "wizard," but I'm not a genius, and I certainly didn't earn my Ph.D in marketing. That's because you don't have to be a marketing genius to get your finger on the pulse of your industry.

Here's the secret: I am not the marketing wizard. You're not the marketing wizard. Your CUSTOMER is the marketing wizard.

All you have to do to learn the "mysteries" of more sales is ASK your customers... And make sure you ask the people who decided not to be your customers, too.

Just ask and they'll tell you. Then take what you've learned, incorporate it into your sales message, and watch the "no sales" turn into "sales" so fast that you'll get a speeding ticket for all that fast-moving, fast-buying traffic!

Conversion Secret #3 - Take a Tip from the Tortoise (slow and steady wins the race)

Far too many Internet marketers try to close the sale with one step. Are you one of them?

Do you run an ad in some ezines, post a couple of Pay-Per-Click ads, then sit back, relax and wait to enjoy "the show"? Do you assume that people will notice the ad, read the ad, get excited by the ad, go to your site, read your sales pitch, pull out their credit cards and buy from you?

Do you expect to accomplish all that with ONE STEP? Give me a break. What are you thinking?

That's like you're trying to have sex on the first date.

You might get away with it. (You might get some sales and be profitable). But chances are, without a little coaxing from you at every step in the process, you'll be going home alone.

Take it slow, will ya?

Show some class. Have some manners. Get to know each other. Share some stories. Make a connection. Develop a relationship before you try to close the "deal". People buy from people they trust. So you'll make a lot more sales if you take the time to develop a solid relationship.

How do you convince website visitors that you're one of the "whit hats"? Start building that relationship. One way is by giving more than you get.

Give them a free report. Give them a free mini-course. Give them a free ebook. Give them a free chapter. (Are you getting the idea that "free" may be the most important word in relationship-building on the Internet?)

Bribe them and get them to give you their name and email so that you can follow up with them using an auto-responder. And don't forget to make it simple.

One easy-to-use option is a hover ad that drops down on your visitor's screen when they visit your site, inviting them to "opt-in" to your free offer. Why a hover ad? Testing shows hover ad gets more attention than traditional pop-ups.

A more advanced way...and to some a less "savory," but extremely effective way...to capture contact information is to make your home page an opt-in request.

Basically, a visitor can't get to the rest of your site without providing contact information. You qualify them before you let them read your sales pitch! That's pretty brilliant if you ask me!

The opt-in doesn't have to be fancy. And it definitely shouldn't be very long. Just a killer headline and some equally killer benefits. That'll do it.

Don't blow it! When you follow up with them, you don't just want to pitch them. You want to deliver value in your auto-responder messages. Educate them. Teach them something. Then just have a little plug at the end.

Remember I said that people buy from people they trust. If you're constantly selling things, then you're a salesperson...and your motives are immediately suspect.

But if you're constantly giving things away, sharing ideas, giving more than you're getting, you're a valuable resource...a good friend...a trusted adviser. (There's the secret password -- trust!)

And the beauty is...what you give away doesn't have to cost you a penny.

Let's say you're selling an ebook, you can actually take the first 3 chapters of your ebook and turn them into a series of auto-responder messages. This is a great way to give them a taste of what you're selling and to prove that you're the "real deal."

Conversion Secret #4 - Hear Ye, Hear Ye (Audio on the Internet)

When I talk about copywriting, I often talk about how important it is to engage the reader's senses. Make them see with word pictures... Make them feel with hot-button language. The more senses that are involved, the more likely it is that your prospect will be sold.

Using audio on your site is a sense-sation.

With audio, you appeal to a completely different sense than the average site. The web is full of visual appeal, but with audio, you suddenly connect with a visitors ears with a whole new component -- a verbal component.

Your spoken words will strike an emotional chord with visitors and connects on a "human" level in an otherwise electronic world.

And here's something that every website needs: excitement. Because it's rare, audio is unusual and attention-getting. It's brand new, instead of the "same old," same old."

(This won't be true forever, of course, but for now, you can take advantage of audio's scarcity.)

Don't let your fear of the unknown or a fear of failure hold you back. You don't have to be a techie to utilize and implement these technologies. If you've got the will, I'll show you the way:

Okay, now my secrets are your secrets. The same tricks and techniques that I've used to achieve astronomical traffic conversion levels are now at your disposal.

They've been tested and refined and re-tested. They've worked for me...and they've worked for my clients (who, by the way, paid me a fortune to implement them on their behalf).

I know they'll work for you. Let me know when they do. I'd like to add your success story to an upcoming issue of the Rant.

Stay Lok-ed and loaded for success.

About the Author:

Nickolie Greer

Download a Free AdTracking Guide and to learn how Adtrackz will improve your sales. Go to http://www.squidoo.com/AdTrackZ-Review/ and read my AdTrackz Review.

No Money Down Marketing (Audio CD)



No Money Down Marketingis a breakthrough program for virtually any business owner who has long thought that the only way to succeed is to have piles of money sitting around. From the review:


If you think the only way to market a product or service is using your own money, you re going to love what you hear in this powerful program!

Discover the steps you can take right now to find marketing opportunities that bring you thousands of sales without investing a single dime of your own money!

If money has been your excuse for not succeeding in business, you MUST listen to what top marketing expert Robert Imbriale has to say in this powerful, information- packed program!

You'll discover the most effective no money down marketing strategies he uses daily to build his business using none of his own money.

This double-CD set is one you'll refer back to again and again as it's filled with strategies and techniques for most any business type, and most can be used immediately.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

The Key To Online Branding


The importance of branding cannot be overlooked. In the ever increasing competitive business environment, you must find a way to stand out from your competitors. Read on to learn more.

Branding is the process of building a favorable image for your product or enterprise. It differentiates your identity from others in this increasingly competitive world and is a key component of most business’ strategy.

To build a strong brand presence, your communication needs to be global. Hence the internet is a vital facilitator in any branding exercise since it has the power to deepen the relationship between your enterprise and your customers worldwide.

In this piece we’ll talk about how you can integrate your website into your overall branding strategy.

The ultimate goal is to ensure that the name of your product, service or website finds a special place in the mind of your customers. How will you achieve this?

Have an attractive storefront: If you sell online, use images to your advantage. Employ an innovative website model with a focus on display backed by a description of your product. Visitors to your site are more likely to remember your product if they see pictures.

Choose a catchy domain name: This point needs your attention. Visitors recognize you by this name, hence choose a unique name that is easy to remember. It need not necessarily relate to the products that you sell, but must leave an impression. For example, Amazon doesn’t relate to books or any other products that they sell, but it sure conveys a certain image. Incidentally, if your company has a long name, consider shortening it for use as the name of the website. Remember that many successful brands are three-letter acronyms such as IBM, CNN and BBC.

Design a memorable logo: By this we don’t mean that you have to commission a complex work of art at great cost. Think of eBay, Google or Yahoo. All these companies have distinctive logos that most people are able to describe from memory. A logo creates a lasting impression in the mind of your consumers and brings worldwide recognition. Display your logo at all important locations on your site to enhance brand recall. A tagline as part of the logo may be a good idea, provided it reflects your business. Think of Wal-Mart’s tagline "Always low prices. Always."

Consider the following values before actually developing or refining the website.

Be consistent: A complete branding exercise requires targeting customers through various channels (radio, newspaper ads, event management, etc). Your message should be consistent across all channels. Only then will your identity be established uniformly in the minds of the audience.

Be creative: Branding is all about originality. So, you need to come up with new ideas to become a favorite. Think of ways in which you can differentiate yourself from your competitors. Can you be novel, without being wacky?

Reflect your qualities: The product or service that you offer is the real hero, and the website must reflect its personality. Sometimes the website has little resemblance to the other important business elements and this only serves to confuse the customer. Projecting the qualities of the product, service or company in a consistent manner will help people remember them.

Talk about yourself: The About Us section must also be an integral part of the branding effort. Think of what information will interest visitors, and compose this section accordingly. Generally, a brief description of origin, founders, size and important business milestones is appropriate.

Include a copyright statement: Your exclusive rights to your brands, trademarks and other intellectual property must be stated on the website. Not only does that give you legal protection but also another opportunity to remind the customers about who owns the brand. This is particularly important in cases where product brands are much better known than the company they belong to, and are often used in a generic sense.

A brand is quite often the most valuable property that a company may have. An online branding strategy goes a long way in cashing in on that value.

About the Author:

Hi, I am Akhil Shahani, a serial entrepreneur who wants to help you succeed. Over the years I have run many successful businesses & made many mistakes on the way. I have created http://www.aykya.com to help you benefit from all I've learned on my journey. Please visit us & download our special 'Freebie of the Month' as a thank you for your visit.

Designing Brand Identity: A Complete Guide to Creating, Building, and Maintaining Strong Brands


Designing Brand Identity: A Complete Guide to Creating, Building, and Maintaining Strong Brandsis a must read for those of you that wish to know more about the process of creating a brand identity. Large corporations spends millions on this process attesting to the importance of creating brand identity with consumers. From the review:

From translating the vision of a CEO and conducting research, through designing a sustainable identity program and building online branding tools, Designing Brand Identity helps companies create stronger brands by offering real substance. With an easy-to-follow style, step-by-step considerations, and a proven, universal five-phase process for creating and implementing effective brand identity, the book offers the tools you need, whether a brand manager, marketer, or designer, when creating or managing a brand. This edition includes a wealth of full-color examples and updated case studies for world-class brands such as BP, Unilever, Citi, Tazo Tea, and Mini Cooper.