Grow With Network Marketing

Using Forums to Identify Your Market

2007-05-21T23:54:00.000-07:00

We have often heard that you can earn greater profit by concentrating on niche markets. Broader markets are normally populated with big, established players against whom it will be difficult to compete. Small business owners are well advised to get footholds in smaller, niche markets and expand from there. There you have less competition and you are able to reach your prospective customers easily.

Identifying your niche markets is an important step, but not enough to succeed as a marketer. You still need to know what your customers really want. The people may be looking for solutions to their problems; something which they think will improve their lives. As a marketer you would like to find out the unsatisfied demand. You would like to know what people are craving for. After you identified what people really want you can create a suitable product or market existing products as an affiliate.

To achieve greater success you will need to provide one more important element. When you offer your product your customers will be skeptical initially. There may be other products in the market which will satisfy their requirements equally well. Why should they prefer your product over other available products? Quite likely, your customers have been duped several times in the past. In this case their suspicion will be quite justified.

Your customers want further assurance that your product is genuine and the person selling the product is genuine. That’s right – your credebility counts a lot in the internet market.
We have identified two of the most important elements for success in internet marketing – understanding what your customer wants and establishing yourself as a trustworthy person. You can attain both these objectives and much more by visiting forums related to your niche market.

Forums can help you to reach most targeted people who may be interested in your offers. If used properly, forums can by themselves give you all the marketing you need.
Another big advantage of forums is that you get to learn a lot just by hanging around them.
The forums help you to promote yourself along with your site. By regularly visiting and posting in the forums you establish your credentials, earn trust of other members and get a steady stream of interested visitors to your site.

The forums related with your niche market will indicate the concerns of the people, the latest trends and thinking, any new developments in your area of interest and many more information. You have to observe closely to understand your niche. By visiting the forms regularly you can in a way get to know the pulse of your market. You will come to know your market as much as the market will come to know you. You have the opportunity to establish yourself as an expert and grow your following.

There are so many forums and you have limited time to visit them. Should you visit as many forums as your time permits or should you concentrate on just a few of them?

Both approaches have their merits and demerits. My observation is that by visiting few selected forums you have a better chance of getting noticed. If you post your messages frequently the regular visitors of the forums will remember you and will come to know you better. You have better chance of growing personal relationship with other visitors of the forums.

One of the biggest advantages of forums is that you learn a lot from other people. You learn directly from the messages posted by other people. In case you are looking for any specific information you can simply put up your questions.

Forums are invaluable resources for internet marketing as well as for increasing your knowledge.

Network Marketing Resource Page

2005-07-08T12:07:00.000-07:00

A new page has been added to the website http://www.sanjay-j.com . This is network marketing resource page where some full network marketing packages are listed. These packages are made by internet Gurus and can help anyone in starting and successfully running network marketing business / small business / home based business.

Come and have a look at this page:
http://www.sanjay-j.com/networkmarketingresources.html

Sanjay Johari

How To Use Pay Per Click Ads Without Ruining Yourself

2005-04-03T10:02:00.000-07:00

Note from Sanjay Johari - Every time I read about pay per click, I find something new. This article is no exception. PPC remains the most target-oriented promotional method. Quite often it is the starting point for bigger promotional campaign because it is one of the most inexpensive testing tool to find out what really stirs people - headlines, keywords, benefits, punch lines and so on. Enjoy this article.....

How To Use Pay Per Click Ads Without Ruining Yourself

Copyright © 2005 Torgeir Sunnarvik
Every Pleasures
http://www.everypleasures.com/

Pay Per Click Ads may seem to be a very expensive way of selling
your products. But if it's done the right way, it can be a money
making machine on auto-pilot.

Let's say that you have bought one of the many ebooks with
reprint rights that you can find online. Then you use the tools
that you receive with the ebook to set up your own web page on
your own domain. It's very easy and often done in just one hour
or two.

After your sales page is online and you have checked that
everything is working fine, you should go to Overture and open an
account. Then you start to make your keyword list. For that you
can use Overture's own keyword tool. It's quite good because you
can see how many times each keyword have been searched for the
previous month. That gives you a clue of how popular the keyword
is, and it predicts how many clicks you can get for that keyword.

When you search for keywords you should first look at your sales
page, for words that are relevant for the product that you are
promoting. Write all the words down or save them in a txt file.
You can also put in spelling mistakes in these keywords. There
are always a lot of searches with spelling mistakes. And these
keywords have often no bids. This site offer a tool to find
spelling mistakes.
http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/keyword-typo-generator/

Now it's time to put all the words into Overture's keyword tool.
If you use the tools that are available when signing up for an
account, you should be able to see how high the bids are for each
keyword.

The words that have the highest number of searches are most
likely to have the highest bids, too. I have seen keywords that
have bids for $40 and even higher for each click. What you want
to find are the keywords that have high searches and low bids.
If you are lucky you can find words that have no bids on them
yet. Then you have the opportunity to have your ad on the first
position for only $0,10 per click. This is the lowest bid on
Overture. The minimum bid per click can vary among the company's
that offer pay per click ads.

By the way, that amount is what you should bid on all your
keywords. Try to find as many keywords as possible. It's better
to have 5000 keywords that you have low bids on, than to have a
few keywords with higher bids. That way, you will have a better
chance to earn money.

Remember that you get 1000 visitors for $100 if you bid only
$0,10 per click. So, if you are selling a product that costs $25,
and you sell around one unit per 100 visitors, you will have
earned $250 after getting 1000 visitors to your website. You
will have earned $250 for every $100 spent on your keyword ad
campaign.

You should also think about saving money when you write your ad.
Don't try to lure people into click your ad by writing about free
offers or any hype of that kind. You might get a lot of visitors
that way, but they will leave your site when they see that they
have to pay for your product. They are only using up your money
without helping you to make a single sale.

Instead you should write exactly what you are offering, and what
price you are asking for the product. That way you are getting
targeted visitors that know they have to pay the price you set
in the ad in order to get the product you are offering. To top
it off, you can offer them a test drive. If it's an ebook you can
put one chapter of it onto a auto responder in 5-7 emails. Then
send the messages once a day to the people that sign up for the
test drive.

Now you can sit back and see what results you get. Let the ad go
for a month and see how many clicks it takes before anyone buys
from you. If it's not bringing back enough money, you should try
to figure out what's wrong. Is it the ad or is it your web page?
Anyway, try to fix it and let the ad go for another month. When
you have a reasonable return of investment(ROI), it's time to let
the ad continue its run, without any more work on your part. Now,
your ad is running on auto pilot. Just remember to check it once
a month to see if the ROI is dropping. If it's not bringing in
enough money, you can then find another product, and do the same
thing all over again.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Torgeir Sunnarvik, Norway
mailto:webmaster@everypleasures.com

Torgeir Sunnarvik is the owner and webmaster of
http://www.everypleasures.com/
His site offer free ebooks, ebooks with
reprint rights and marketing articles.

=======================================================
Would you rather hop around
like a rabbit, or soar like an eagle?
Stop hopping around and learn how to fly!
http://www.gfn1.com/members/sjohari/

How to Turn Your Blog into an Income Generator

2005-03-30T09:40:00.000-08:00

In this article there are some ideas on how blogs can be used for generating income. See how much you agree with the author....

How to Turn Your Blog into an Income Generator
By Ina Bliss

This is a simple Sequence for Success with Your Blog:

Choose a Hot Topic for your Blog that is not only closely related to your own utmost interest, but can be updated daily, even hourly.

Set up your blog with a place such as squarespace.com, blogger.com, etc. Blogger even permits you to ftp your pages to your own domain.

The easiest way to add content is downloading the Google beta toolbar, selecting the BLOG IT option, visiting a site carrying a message on your theme and instantly posting the highlighted text unto your Blog pages.

Write about your theme into depth, and research items that make your audience's life easier. Before you mention a link to the items in your posts, sign up for the affiliate program with the best and most progressive site that carries that item.

The keywords you use make or break your presence in the search engines and directories. However, top keywords are hot property. So, instead of just using CAR PURCHASE, mention favorite sports car for less, 4-door Chevy suitable for camping... Narrow it down.

Here is a way I have used to keep up with RSS feeds:

---Download FeedReader

---Sign up with MyYahoo

---Add Content to your page. Choose as many topics you would qualify for your subject and peripherals

---Go to every one you have added to your MyYahoo page and enter each feed URL in your FeedReader.

---Now the FeedReader gets you all that news directly to your desktop. You don't even have to leave home...

These RSS feeds are meant to support your choice in blogs, or topics for your existing blog.

In order to turn the traffic to your site into bucks, you enter code by Google adsense, clickbank ads and amazon ads into your post pages, avoiding them on your index page.

Submit your blog RSS feed url to as many Blog Directories as you can. If you write about a specific topic, it will eventually find its readers. To short-cut this, you search for feeds in certain subjects. If you discover that the search returns an insufficient amount of relevant answers, just fill the gaps with your fresh and specialized content.

In order to establish yourself in your niche, you submit articles, help people with their challenges in forums and newsgroups and post a fine-tuned message about your subject that applies to a specific different audience, with your link itself containing all your major keywords, to other blogs.

In order to stay in touch with the individuals that subscribe to your feeds in an additional manner, you subscribe to the RSS Autopublisher at rssautopublsher.com. This uses new RSS technology, giving you an edge over the antiquated use of email and its challenges.

Unique combination of applied inspired authentic Christian prophecy wisdom, entrepreneurial skill and Internet savvy for your life and business: http://macromiracle.net/viralmoneyblog/

The Most Critical Strategy to Your Survival, and Prosperity, Online

2005-03-21T00:46:00.000-08:00

Note from Sanjay Johari - Even in this age of automation and progress in technology, the personal relationship still counts. Building your business is synonymous with building relationship with your existing and prospective customers. This issue is dealt with in this article - see how much you agree with the author's viewpoint.

The Most Critical Strategy to Your Survival, and Prosperity, Online

Laurence Baker

For the sake of your long term survival and your short term
profitability online, you've got to think of your business
as more than just one or more products or services. Getting
customers is the hard part, so the best strategy is almost
always to gain their business long term.

Ask yourself or find out from your subscribers what wants
and needs they have in common. It's commonly known that the
online environment is especially suited to this because it
costs you nothing to keep in touch with them. When done
correctly, these contacts can be very profitable to you for
a long time.

What's not as well understood is that for this very same
reason, your survival may easily depend on how well you
execute this strategy. When online businesses get more out
of their traffic by doing this, they're willing to pay more
for the traffic and so the cost of traffic increases
overall.

And it doesn't matter whether the traffic is free or not.
Because when it's free, there will be more businesses out
there willing to put in the time to get this free traffic,
which leaves less of it for you, at least for the time you
put in. All other things being equal, if were to continue to
get the same amount of traffic, you would have to put in
more time.

And on-line businesses WILL be doing more of this as word
gets around that this kind of strategy is the way to go. So
your survival online will increasingly depend on how well
you do this.

For those reasons, opt-in marketing done correctly - where
relationships with your prospects and customers are a top
priority - becomes more important every day. These
relationships are not much different than any other. They
require time. They require the trust of your opt-ins. And
they require that the opt-ins see more value in what you
send them than most other things they run into online or in
their inbox.

That last part can be pretty tricky without the personal
element. As an individual, even if you do have people
working for you, you're able to use this to your extreme
advantage. When you throw this into the mix, everything you
do carries more value - both to you and your subscribers and
customers. It becomes easier for you to develop trust and
establish credibility this way. These are important because
as a marketer, the highest level you can attain is that of a
trusted advisor.

You personally become be most important element in your
marketing when your subscribers rely on you for your
recommendations and your guidance.

All of a sudden, the role you take on with your list allows
you to take on a whole new perspective in your daily life
because if you're tuned in, many things in your work or life
outside of that could be informative or serve to illustrate
a point to your subscribers. This is stuff your readers just
can't get anywhere else!

When the sight of your email in your subscribers' inbox
triggers the idea of you as a person in their minds, you'll
naturally get more of your emails read. which translates
directly to more sales. This happens naturally. Your
messages will have more of an impact because the readers
aren't putting up their defenses as they normally would. The
message can be taken at face value.

You might think you have to be an expert to attain this kind
of position. You really don't. You can still bring value
without overstepping the bounds of your knowledge. Anyone
can use these elements to build these highly profitable
relationships in their list.

================================================
I cover these things in more depth in my ebook "How to Win
More Customers That Buy More Product More Often," which is
completely FREE. Laurence Baker is the author of "How To Win More Customers
That Buy More Product More Often," presenting a solution to
the biggest obstacle in making more sales on the internet -a
lack of trust. To download a FREE copy, visit http://www.netmarkhome.com
================================================
Learn and earn from one of the oldest and fastest growing networking organization:
http://www.sanjay-j.com/empowerism.com

A Blog I would Visit often - http://kathleengage.blogspot.com/

2005-03-21T00:30:00.000-08:00

Did you like the last posting on this blog? I'm sure you did. If you haven't seen it, go see it now. The author of the article maintains a blog - http://kathleengage.blogspot.com/. I visited this blog and was amazed to see that quality of information posted there. Moreover, the postings there related to business promotion, the same general theme which I follow in this blog. If you are interested in this subject you will do yourself a favour by visiting that blog.

Happy blogging.

Sanjay Johari
=========================================================
Learn and earn from one of the oldest and fastest growing networking organization:

http://www.sanjay-j.com/empowerism.com

Reap Incredible Profit with This Simple Strategy

2005-03-17T21:47:00.000-08:00

Note from Sanjay Johari - Here in this article there are some simple but powerful tricks for promoting your website and ultimately promoting yourself. Enjy this article........

Reap Incredible Profit with This Simple Strategy

Author: Kathleen Gage

Why is it some people are incredibly successful at utilizing the
power of the Internet in their marketing while others can't seem
to figure out the winning formula?

How often do entrepreneurs and salespeople look for that next magic
formula to build their business and increasing revenues, never quite
making any of it work? Many people make it much more difficult to
succeed than it need be while others know exactly what to do .
and they do it.

Ask anyone who has effectively integrated the use of the Internet
into their overall marketing strategy and they will tell you success
in building your business, both online and off, is about systems.
Simple as that.

Developing and utilizing systems is nothing new. Yet, the great
search for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and getting rich
quick continues.

The place you'll find more gold than virtually anywhere else is
in doing something many people just don't find appealing. It is in
developing and maintaining a solid database. Unfortunately, many
people don't find database management sexy enough. So they
continually buy into that next secret formula.

Fact is, with a well-groomed database you can increase your revenues
and decrease your marketing costs. You can build customer relations
and keep your name fresh in the minds of your market by keeping in
touch. This establishes excellent position within your market.

Most people would be amazed at how simple it is to build an
incredibly profitable database by applying a few simple strategies.
Remember, simple is not always easy. It will take time, commitment
and focus.

Bigger is not necessarily better when it comes to your database.
Depending on your industry and what you sell you may be well served
to focus on the few dozen or few hundred who want to buy from you
rather than thousands who don't care about what you offer.

On the other hand, there will be situations where building a massive
list is exactly what you need to do. Especially if you have mass
quantity products you are selling at a very low price. Then you may
want to go for the numbers.

Driving traffic to your site is an ongoing process as is building and
maintaining your database. If you are serious about using the
Internet in your marketing you need to lay the groundwork to optimize
your opportunities.

-Develop a fully operational web site

-Have a way to capture contact information such as a sign up form

-Give people a reason for leaving their contact information such as
an Ezine, free report or ebook, an article of interest to your target
market or anything that is of benefit to the reader

-Develop a series of content driven messages that address your
customers' needs

-Keep your name in front of your market consistently without being
annoying

-Write and distribute articles to various online resources that are
pertinent to your market

-Create a byline that contains your web address

-Do not make the articles a hard sell. Rather, provide information
that positions you as a resource before you are a vendor

-Develop a list of forums and discussion groups you can participate in
-Commit to the long-term.

By focusing on developing a solid database and providing incredible
value to your market you can and will achieve success in your
business. Guaranteed!

-- Kathleen Gage is an award winning keynote speaker, author and
business advisor specializing in marketing and promotions. Join
Kathleen for a FREE live seminar Secrets to Making Money on the
Internet - Success Strategies to Using the Internet to Gain Position,
Visibility and Profits for your Business on March 14th
http://www.turningpointpresents.com/quickstartfreetraining.htm

==============================================================
Learn and earn from one of the oldest and fastest growing networking organization:

http://www.sanjay-j.com/empowerism.com

Search Engine Optimization for RSS Feeds

2005-03-16T09:46:00.000-08:00

Note from Sanjay Johari - RSS is said to be one of the biggest traffic generators. Enjoy this excellent article. You will find several eqally informative articles by the same author on my website - http://www.sanjay-j.com/
Go to articles page: http://www.sanjay-j.com/articles.com

Search Engine Optimization for RSS Feeds

By S. Housley

Tips for Helping Your RSS Feed Perform!
In some ways RSS is very similar to HTML, the language
commonly used to create websites. Just as with HTML,
webmasters using traditional search engine optimization
tactics when creating an RSS feed will find that their RSS
feed receives additional exposure and interest.

Simple steps to optimize an RSS feed for search engines:

1.) The title should contain important search terms.
To state the obvious, the title should be relevant and not
misleading, while still emphasizing keywords. Ultimately,
the title should entice the reader to read on, not mislead
them.

2.) Display RSS feeds.
Most webmasters display their feeds as content on their
website. When displaying a feed be sure to use PHP, ASP or
HTML so that search engines will spider the contents of the
feed displayed. If using a template to display feeds, use
header tags to define the appearance of the Channel Title
and Item Titles. Many search engines weight header tags with
more importance. See Displaying RSS Feeds for additional
information -
http://www.small-business-software.net/display-rss.htm

3.) Internal & external Links.
Within a feed you should always use the full path of any
links, keeping in mind that other sites may syndicate the
contents of the RSS feed. Links that are not local to the
site should launch a new browser. While this is not specific
to search engines it will help keep visitors on your site.

4.) Link text should emphasize keywords.
It is no longer a deep, dark secret that the text used for
incoming links will help a site contextually define the
keywords that the site appears for in the search engines.
Keeping that in mind, be sure to use keywords in any link
text that points back to your website.

5.) My.Yahoo and My.MSN.
This is surprisingly simple to do but often overlooked by
publishers and webmasters. The fastest way to have an RSS
feed spidered by Yahoo or MSN is to include the feed on a
personal my.yahoo or my.msn home page. Simply create an
account on the respective search engines and customize the
home page to include your RSS feed. This is done by adding
content and listing the URL to the RSS feed. Typically,
within 24-48 hours the feed's contents will be spidered and
indexed by Yahoo and MSN.

6.) Theme feeds.
Feeds should be themed. This will help with themed links
back to a publisher's website from anyone syndicating the
feed's content.

7. ) Link popularity.
Increase link popularity by submitting the RSS feed, blog or
podcast to the appropriate directories. The following
directories allow submissions of specific kinds of RSS
feeds. Be sure to follow the guidelines of each site and
choose categories wisely.

Submit Podcasts -
http://www.podcasting-tools.com/submit-podcasts.htm
Submit RSS feeds -
http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm
Submit Blogs -
http://www.blog-connection.com/submit-blogs.htm

8.) RSS feed descriptions.
RSS feed descriptions are generally summaries or
introductions to other content. Often, feed creators will
provide additional information on an HTML site, enticing the
reader to click through for the full information if it is a
topic that is of interest to them. Provide enough teaser
copy that the reader can easily discern if the contents are
something that is important to them.

9.) Subscribe to feeds.
This might seem obvious, but a surprisingly large number of
publishers do not subscribe to their own feed. This is a
great way to visualize what your customers see, and
experiment with formatting and integrating HTML into feeds.

10.) Image ads.
Add your corporate logo to your RSS feed. Create a brand and
enforce that brand by including the image in the RSS feed.
The image will enhance your corporate identity and dress up
the look of your feed by adding your corporate logo.

11.) Alphabetical rank.
Many feed readers list feeds alphabetically in the reader.
Feed channels that begin with A will naturally appear in the
top of the feed list in most feed readers. If you wish to
appear in the top of list of feeds that a reader has
subscribed to, keep this tip in mind.

12.) Meaningful Links
Each item in your feed should contain a unique URL
associated with it. This will direct users to associated
information. Many find using target URLs with the "#" symbol
in the link to identify specific content useful.

Most marketers have a love-hate relationship with search
engines. Search engines have the abilitiy to make even the
most confident webmaster feel powerless . Letâ€™s face it -
all of us have felt the wrath of the search engine
powers-that-be at one time or another, and while it may be
difficult to know what line was crossed or how we fell out
of favor, following some basic guidelines will be helpful in
optomizing feeds for search engines.

About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll
http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing,
publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon
manages marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.net a
wireless text messaging software company.

=====================================
Learn and earn from one of the oldest and fastest growing networking organization:
http://www.sanjay-j.com/empowerism.com

How to Increase Your Adsense Revenue

2005-02-17T11:21:00.000-08:00

By Tim Ong

If you're a webmaster, you've probably heard about Google's Adsense. Perhaps you're even earning from it already. This article will show you a method to increase your Adsense revenue dramatically.

Google's Adsense allows webmasters to place links from Google's Adwords advertisers on their webpages by inserting a special code. When a visitor clicked on a link, the webmaster gets a cut of the profit Google made from the advertiser. The unique feature about Adsense is that the links it generates on your webpage are relevant to your page content. Thus, your keywords and topics become very important determinant for the type of links that will appear on your webpage.

There are only two factors that determine how much a webmaster can make from Adsense. The first factor is the number of visitors who click on the links. The more people who clicked on the links, the more you make. Naturally, this means that the more targetted traffic to the website, the more you'll make. This is where most webmasters focus their efforts on.

The second factor is the value of the links they clicked on. Here's where you can make a great difference to your earnings from Adsense and is our focus in this article.

Let's take a look at how this works:

Suppose you have 1000 visitors to your website and you get 2% conversion, that is 20 people clicked on your Adsense links. Let's assume that your Adsense links pay you only 50 cents per click. So you earn $10 dollars.

Now let's see how much this same traffic will make for you if your Adsense links pay you $5 per click. For the same number of clicks, you make $100 dollars. That's a ten-fold increased in revenue!

Well, that makes sense, you said, but how am going to determine what type of links appear on my webpages?

Good questions!

Here's where you'll need to do a little research and here's a tool to help you do just that.

Go over to http://www.pixelfast.com/overture/ and you'll get a tool that shows you how much each keyword is worth. While this tool is for Overture's keywords, we can safely assume that this reflects the keyword values for Googles Adwords as well. Once you've found the keywords with high monetary values, you can optimize your webpages for them. This will increase your chances of having these high value keyword links appearing on your webpages.

Some people have actually made extensive researches on Google's top paying keywords and found that one or two keywords are worth almost $100! However, generally most keywords are valued at between 50 cents and $5 dollars. Some keywords like "internet marketing" may fetch up to $7 dollars and "mortgage" pays up to $10 dollars.

These values may change from time to time but they generally hover around these levels. Naturally, this information is priceless and you'll have to pay to get it. I feel it is worth every cent you paid for it. You can check it out at http://theselfimprovementsite.com/links/top-paying-keywords.html.

And there you have it! A single factor that can radically increase your Adsense revenue!

Tim Ong is the author of "The Book of Transformation" and the "Build From Within" ezine. You can find more personal transformational and success articles at his website at The Self Improvement Site

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

A Webmaster's Dream Come True - "Secret Money Generator"

2005-02-15T10:54:00.000-08:00

Copyright © 2005 Willie Crawford
Profit Magician
http://ProfitMagician.com

You look at your beautiful website, getting a steady flow of visitors, and wonder how you can squeeze more money out of it. Maybe you're even getting a few sales, but you want an easy way to generate even more. You want a "secret money generator" if you will.

I was in the same predicament 3 years ago. I had my site at Chitterlings.com which was (and still is) selling a cookbook that I wrote. I had days when I was getting tens of thousands of visitors... mostly looking for seasonal recipes. My challenge was to find something to offer my visitors who didn't purchase my cookbook. My challenge was to find something else to offer my visitors who DID purchase my cookbook :-)

Somehow I came across a magazine jobber. He offered to allow me to sell magazines to my site visitors. This sounded perfect. There were literally hundreds of different titles that I could offer, and the profit margin was VERY high.

So I downloaded hundreds of images from a resource site, and set about building webpages describing all of these magazine. I logged into my affiliate program, and set up hundreds of order links. It took me almost 2 weeks, but I though that the webpages I created were true works of art.

I linked to those pages, and notified members of my recipe exchange list of this new site feature. I also posted teaser copy strategically throughout my website. Then the orders started coming in.

Then the headaches began! Two to three times a week I received an email from the jobber telling me that prices, or magazine availability, had changed. So I had to go change ALL of the affected pages. When I received an order, I had to manually forward the order to the jobber in a very specific format. He forwarded the orders to the publishers, and 4-8 weeks later, my customers' subscriptions started. In the interim, I'd get dozens of emails asking for an update on their subscriptions. It just wasn't worth it... so I stopped selling magazines :-)

Fast-forward 3 years, and it took me less than 30 minutes to set up another magazine shop on my website. It now takes me about 5 minutes to update the ENTIRE site which features over 1200 titles.

Why am I telling you this and why do you care? Well, YOU can now quickly and easily add a "store" to any of your websites... plugging in literally millions of affiliate products. Most major affiliate program managers offering more than a handful of products now offer webmasters data feeds. These are generally provided as Comma Separate Values (CSV) files... spreadsheet files. The webmasters uses various tools to extract this data and display it on their webpages.

Countless brick and mortar companies now have affiliate program. Everyone from Office Depot, to furniture stores, to clothing manufacturers, will now allow you to sign up for their affiliate program and offer their product to your website visitors. No matter what the topic of your website, there are affiliate products that are ideal for your visitors, and there's a good chance that there are also data feeds available for these affiliate programs.

The tool that I use to get data feeds onto my website is actually called "Secret Money Generator." Secret Money Generator is a program you install on your website. You design a few basic templates using either the built in capabilities of the software, or use your favorite html editor.

Next, with the click of a button... the software: 1) Uploads your templates to your server. 2) Uploads your entire database to your server. 3) Builds static html pages featuring the individual products.

The static html webpages are actually built right on the server by the software. You can see one of hundreds of such sites I own and profit handsomely from at: http://Chitterlings.com/mags/

After I designed the templates, which took me about 20 minutes to get them looking the way that I wanted them to, I uploaded them to my server. Then with the click of a button, the software built 1843 pages on my site in 14 seconds.

Site maintenance merely involves getting updates from the respective affiliate program manager, and then uploading the updated csv file at whatever frequency you desire. Then with the click of a button all 1843 pages are automatically updated...it takes about 10 seconds.

To update the look of your entire site, you just make changes to your templates, upload these, and... again, with the click of a button update thousands of pages in mere seconds!

You can plug "a store" like this into any of your sites, or dozens of your sites, in very little time. I spend a few hours on many of my sites getting them just the way that I want them. Once things are set up it's largely on autopilot. Since I now use affiliate programs I don't have the tracking or order fulfillment headaches I had years ago with that first magazine site. The magazine affiliate program that I showed you is even 2-tier, so I'm earning lifetime commissions on both my customers and those of other webmasters I set up with a magazine site... or any of a dozen other 2-tier programs I promote.

You don't have to market inexpensive products from your sites though. There are affiliate programs offering products selling for thousands of dollars EACH, and they provide data feeds too. When you get Secret Money Generator, you also get a list of lots of places that offer you huge data feeds. There are data feeds that feature over 1 million products :-)
Take a look at "Secret Money Generator" now at: http://www.profitautomation.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=121605

It comes with a step-by-step video tutorial. The tutorials are very nicely done in Camtasia. The software developers also periodically conducts hands-on training workshops. I attended one in Orlando, Florida, January 28th - 30th,2005. There are others planned in Orlando and Las Vegas. The workshops aren't required, but they are an excellent way to see how other Secret Money Generator users are creating some awesome sites. It's a great way to get to know this powerful software inside-out.

Whether your site is on... training your gold fish, carpet cleaning, or raising perfect children, you can plug in a Secret Money Generator" profit stream very easily.

After you get your secret money generators up and running you only need to point your website visitors to them. You can also plug in lots of powerful site content and this will send you droves of organic search engine traffic. For example, the site I showed you above now gets as many as 27,000 unique visitors on a good day... all from free search engine listings. It literally is a veritable money machine.

I've just shown you "a webmaster's dream come true." Now you have absolutely no excuse not to turn your websiteinto "a secret money generator."

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Willie Crawford is a corporate president, published author,seminar speaker and host, tele-seminar speaker and host,retired military officer, karate black belt, master networkmarketing trainer, and lifetime student of marketing. He showspeople how to actually generate substantial income on-lineusing very simple, easily modeled systems. An example ofsuch a system that you can study and duplicate is at:http://ProfitMagician.com

--- END ARTICLE ---
Distribution Date and Time: Thu Feb 3 03:21:20 EST 2005
For more articles by this author, please visit:
http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/d/index.shtml#Willie_Crawford

3 Overlooked Ways to Get Hundreds of Links and Prospects to Your Blog

2005-02-14T18:47:00.000-08:00

By Tinu Abayomi-Paul

Did you know that there are free ways that you can get links back to your blog overnight? That after a few days they can number in the hundreds?

No matter what you market on the internet at some point you'll face the issue of increasing the number of visitors to your site. What most people don't know is that there are literally hundreds of ways to get free traffic. Here we'll focus on three overlooked ways to get additional traffic to your site using a blog.

The third most overlooked way to bring traffic to your site with a blog is to read and comment on other blogs.

Now, maybe you've done this before but stopped, because you'rebecoming concerned about being considered a link-spammer. Inthat case, leave a link to your site after your comments, instead of in the comment form that hot links it.

In the near future, blogmasters will be able to use special code to prevent spam in their comments section, so this will become less of a concern.

Besides, getting clicks from people who read comments, or visits from search engine spiders through your comments, isn't necessarily your direct objective, though it’s definitely a plus.

What you want to do via commenting is to enter the blog community that corresponds to your target market. Get to know who the players are and make agreements with them to cycle traffic between you.

Or lurk to find out where your target market typically hangs out when they're online – you’d be surprised at how many inexpensive and targeted advertising sources you can find through this method.

(If you're looking to get linked, there's another way that we'll go over next.)

This tip alone has earned me a few dozen links from prominent blogs in the past four days alone.

These links are worth ten times a reciprocal link because they send targeted traffic from established sources, and come from experts with records of proven results.

You can be sure these kinds of people will check you out before they linked to you, since they may be judged by the quality of the information they share.

The second method to more blog traffic is the most confusing for newer people, and this is probably the reason its benefits remain overlooked.

In the simplest of terms, Trackback is kind of a remote commenting system that incorporates linking. It allows the reader to follow a topic around the web to see other bloggers remark on the same subject. It enables the publisher to remotely cite references to the issue on which they've written.

Once you've made yourself familiar with the blogging community you have entered, you can often pick up the pulse of conversations within your site's theme. Then, when you see issues that you want to expound on, you can send the other site a notification to let them know you cited them on your blog. That link will appear on their site, and often draws visitors to you.Bloggers who use Trackback often enjoy greater control overthis function in their blogs than they do over linking, as they have the option to reject your reference - so there is a lesser incidence of fraudulent linking. That also gives your link a greater chance of being displayed.

So why don't more people use Trackback?

One reason is that what is arguably the most popular free blog system, Blogger, doesn’t have Trackback. However, Haloscan.com can remedy this with their free service – it’s a cut and paste away.

Many new bloggers don't get what it is and how it differs from commenting. And of course, the dynamics of it are a little more complex than I've stated. But learn to use Trackback properly, and you won't need to beg for links to your site ever again.

It's harder to estimate an exact number of visitors that come as a result of trackback links. But if you posted five days out of seven, and was able to get a trackback link to your site three times a week, by the end of the year you'd have almost 150 topical links back to your site, which are more valued by search engines than a typical link trade with an unrelated site.

The most overlooked source of traffic for a blog is through article submission. To start with, turn your longer posts into articles and submitting them to ezines or directories. Look especially for directories that ask for the direct link to the article on your own site, and input the permanent link to the post on your blog.

Make sure that your Auto-Discovery tag is in place and it can mean hundreds more prospects, links and subscribers.

It's a shame this is the one of the least used traffic methods for most sites, let alone for blogs. In four days, this method generated just over 1000 visitors. 157 newsletter leads, 98 new feed subscribers, and 206 links to my site. You may not get these same results right away, but using these simple strategies can still get you more exposure than you have now.

These aren't normally the highest quality links, as they rarely make sure of anchor text. However, bloggers are citing me using Trackback, sometimes in lieu of linking to the site where they originally found the article.

To see this in action, do a search on "Can A Ping Really Help Your Blog Get Top Search Engine Rankings", the title of an article I submitted earlier this week.

That article was published within a week of this one- the results speak for themselves. Many of these sites aren't the ones where my articles are normally published.

There are, of course, plenty of other ways you can leverage the content in your blog or RSS feed to increase the traffic to your site. The methods outlined here may be a bit outside the norm, but, as you’ll soon find, that’s part of the reason they are so effective.

Copyright © 2005 Tinu AbayomiPaul

Still not blogging yet? Don't quite get RSS? Take the freecourse on RSS and blogging at
http://www.freetraffictip.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

RSS Tools

2005-02-10T18:57:00.000-08:00

Copyright 2005 Sharon Housley
Considering the ever-increasing support for RSS in onlinecommunities, we have compiled a list of resources andproducts that will benefit webmasters, web surfers andpublishers in their quest to understand the power of RSS.RSS has rapidly become an alternative communication venue.In order to understand the full benefits, considerutilizing some of the following tools and resources.

1.) RSS Tools - RSS feeds bring automatically updatedinformation straight to your desktop. You can monitor orpromote news, job listings, personals, and classifiedsusing RSS. The following tools assist webmasters in usingRSS to maximize their time.

RSS Readers - RSS readers are designed as tools to view RSSfeeds, making it easier for users to view and manage thecontent of a feed. Feed readers make it easy to mark feedsas read or flag items that are important. The following aresome of our favorite RSS readers:

FeedDemon - FeedDemon is a client that can retrieve andorganize RSS feeds from the Internet. It comespre-configured with several news feeds, and you can easilyadd your own by adding the URL for an RSS feed of yourchoice. FeedDemon offers an attractive and easy-to-useinterface with integrated web browsing. http://www.feeddemon.com
FeedScout - Feed Scout is a RSS/ATOM/RDF reader that can beused directly from Internet Explorer. Feed Scout enablesyou to view RSS/ATOM feeds from different sites directly inInternet Explorer. You can even set your Home Page to showyour favorite feeds. http://www.feedscout.com

2.) RSS Creation Tools - As RSS feeds have increased inpopularity and breadth publishers and webmasters havestruggled to find a solution to create RSS feeds. Thefollowing tools will assist webmasters in creating RSSfeeds:
FeedForAll - Desktop software used to create, edit, manageand publish RSS feeds. New RSS feeds can be quickly andeasily created with FeedForAll. Advanced features enableyou to create professional-looking RSS feeds quickly.Existing RSS feeds can be repaired and enhanced withFeedForAll. RSS feeds generated by other means can beautomatically repaired, so that they conform to the RSS 2.0specification. Existing feeds can be enhanced to containadvanced feed properties, and give them a more professionallook. http://www.feedforall.com

3.) RSS Articles and Tutorials - Articles and tutorialsbased on RSS and designed to demystify Really SimpleSyndication for users and publishers. RSS Specifications -RSS Specifications contains a collection of articlesrelated to RSS and news feeds that assist both publishersand users in deciphering Really Simple Syndication.
RSS Specifications - RSS Specifications contains acollection of articles related to RSS and news feeds thatassist both publishers and users in deciphering reallysimple syndication.http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-articles.htm or the articles can be read in an RSS feed.http://www.rss-specifications.com/article-feed.xml
Make RSS Feeds - Step by step instructional tutorialdetailing how to manually create an RSS feed.http://www.make-rss-feeds.com

4.) Ebay Monitoring Using RSS - Monitor online auctions forspecific items of interest. As eBay has grown it has becomedifficult to discern and locate specific auction items. Byusing RSS tools users can easily recieve instantnotification when a specific item is being auctioned.
Free Bidding Tools - FMonitor online auctions for specificitems of interest. As eBay has grown it has becomedifficult to discern and locate specific auction items. Byusing RSS tools users can easily receive instantnotification when a specific item is being auctioned.http://www.freebiddingtools.com/

5.) Web Monitoring - Monitor the Internet for specific newsitems or blog topics of interest. A number of free onlineRSS tools make web monitoring very easy.
PubSub - Monitor the Internet for specific news items orblog topics of interest. A number of free online RSS toolsmake web monitoring very easy. PubSub - Every day, PubSub'smatching engine performs billions of matches of new itemsagainst user subscriptions. The instant a match is made,PubSub alerts the user via RSS. PubSub monitors more than6.5 million blogs, as well as 50,000 USENET newsgroups, allSEC/EDGAR filings, press releases from major wire services,and FAA airport delay alerts.http://www.pubsub.com
Google News Monitoring Using RSS - This free online toolturns a Google news search into an RSS feed.http://www.justinpfister.com/gnewsfeed.php

6.) Other RSS Tools - Alternative tools for creativewebmasters.
RSS2Wap - The RSS2Wap site is meant for online conversionsof RSS feeds into WML for access on WAP devices (RSS2WML,RSS WAP or RSS-to-WAP). It's free and you can make a linkon your web site.http://www.rss2wap.com

7.) RSS Graphic Tool - Websites that have RSS feedsavailable use colorful graphics as flags to indicate to websurfers that RSS feeds are available for specific content.
RSS Graphic Tool - Websites that have RSS feeds availableuse colorful graphics as flags to indicate to web surfersthat RSS feeds are available for specific content. RSSGraphic Tool - Customize RSS buttons. If you have limitedtime and lack artistic abilities, use this free online RSSgraphic tool to create an RSS button. The button's colorand text can be customized to suit the look and feel ofyour website.http://www.feedforall.com/public/rss-graphic-tool.htm

8.) Displaying RSS - Many webmasters display the contentsof RSS feeds on their web pages as a fresh source ofcontent and information that changes on a regular basis.
Java Options - Using Java to display RSS feeds is a veryeasy way to provide dynamic content with very littleeffort. Unfortunately, when you use Java to display RSSfeeds, search engines do not see the feed's content, so thecontent is not spidered and ultimately will not help withsearch engine optimization.
Quick RSS Feeds - Free online tool that allows you tosimply enter the URL of the RSS feed, define the number ofitems you would like displayed, and the Java script will beautomatically generated. http://www.quickrssfeeds.com
FeedRoll -A free service for syndicating popular RSS andATOM news feeds on your website or blog. Select a feed,customize the design, then copy and paste the code providedonto your page. http://www.feedroll.com/rssviewer/

RSS to Javascript - RSS-to-JavaScript.com was designed toeasily convert any valid RSS, RDF or ATOM feed intoeasy-to-implement Javascript. No XML or programmingexperience is necessary. http://www.rss-to-javascript.com
PHP Options - The benefit to using a PHP script to displayRSS on a website is that the content dynamically updatesbut search engines see the content as static.

FeedForAll's rss2html.php - If you are technically savvyand wish to host the script yourself, check out FeedForAll,as they have a free PHP script available that will displayRSS feeds on a website.http://www.feedforall.com/free-php-script.htm

FeedRoll Pro - A fee-based professional service that tracksstatistical information for publishers displaying feeds.FeedRoll Pro incorporates a number of display options forpublishers wishing to syndicate their content, giving usersthe choice of PHP or Javascript. http://www.feedrollpro.com
RSS2HTML - Display RSS feeds by selecting layouts and colorschemes on this free resource.http://www.rss2html.com

9.) RSS BlogsStay informed about the latest RSS industry news bymonitoring RSS blogs. Daily posts bring readers currentnews, industry announcements and general RSS information.

RSS Specifications - Everything you need to know about RSS.The RSS Specifications blog contains daily posts and RSStidbits. http://www.rss-specifications.com/blog.htm
KbCafe - Daily posts and editorials related to RSS and newRSS products that have emerged.http://www.kbcafe.com/rss/

10.) Publishing List / RSS NewsgroupsNew RSS-Publishing List for publishers. The list is focusedon marketing/publishing/operational issues rather thanhardcore technical details of RSS, meaning that codingissues and disputes over the merits of RSS vs. Atom are notthe focus. If you wish to participate in the list andreceive e-mails of posts, simply subscribe by sending ande-mail to: rsspublishing-subscribe@topica.com
RSS Syndication - Collection of RSS related news feedsdisplayed in an easy-to-read format.http://www.rss-syndication.com/rss-news.htm

11.) RSS Related Forums - Forums can be a useful for anyonedoing business online, both in terms of reading the contentand actively participating in the discussions. If you wantto learn more about RSS consider participating in thefollowing online RSS communities:
2RSS - RSS forum for feed and related RSS discussions. http://forum.2rss.com/
FeedForAll Forum - RSS forum for RSS and feedcreation-related discussions. http://www.feedforall.com/forum
German RSS Forum - German RSS forum for feed discussions. http://www.rss-forum.de/

12.) Locate RSS Feeds -
Syndic8 - RSS and Atom news feeds on a wide variety oftopics. Designed with a directory structure and searchfunctionality. Syndic8 also tracks statistical informationrelated to RSS feeds.http://www.syndic8.com
Feedster's FeedFinder - Use Feedfinder to search by keywordor by URL or a combination of the two in order to findfeeds on that topic or by that organization. .http://feedfinder.feedster.com/
RSS Discovery - The websites you already read may have anRSS feed. Use the BlogStreet's RSS Discovery tool and enterin a website. If there is a feed available BlogStreet willprovide the URL. http://www.blogstreet.com/rssdiscovery.html
RSS Locator - Directory and search engine for RSS contentincluding weblogs, newsfeeds, forum feeds and relatedcontent feeds. Locate topic-specific RSS feeds forsyndication. RSS Locator displays feed content in an HTMLformat so users can preview the feed's content.http://www.rss-locator.com

12.) Submit RSS Feeds - As more and more people getinvolved with the Internet and as more Web sites, blogs,news services and other online resources continue to growin number and variety, it becomes increasingly important tomaintain high visibility and exposure for the content beinggenerated by closely following the major distributionmedia. As a rapidly increasing number of content sources,new and old, migrate or add RSS as a key distributionchannel, and as more people utilize RSS newsreaders andaggregators to keep themselves informed, the ability tomaintain high exposure and visibility is gradually shiftedfrom complete attention to major search engines and contentoptimization techniques to an increasing awareness of RSSfeed directories and search tools.
RSS Submit - Save time and automate RSS submissions withRSS Submit from K-Soft.http://www.dummysoftware.com/rsssubmit.html
RSS Specifications - Submit RSS files to the large list ofRSS directories and expedite your RSS content syndication.http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm
RSS Submission Service - A fee-based blog submissionservice that will submit your blog or RSS feed to more than70 blog directories. Submissions are done manually, andthis service is primarily designed for blog feeds.http://rss-submission-service.notrivia.com/
RSS Top 55 - Top websites for RSS submissions. Premiumservice is available for a nominal fee that will prioritizethe RSS site submissions in the order of importance.http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/
Using RSS tools, publishers and webmasters can increaseproductivity and efficiency. RSS monitoring can oftenautomate many of the procedures that are time-consuming andmonotonous, freeing up time.

About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAllhttp://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editingand publishing RSS feeds and NotePage, Inc.http://www.notepage.net a wireless messaging softwarecompany.

WINNING WORDS FOR THE WEB

2005-02-08T10:38:00.000-08:00

By Oscar Bruce

Give Your Web Site The Verbal Advantage

Have you ever sat down to create that winning ad, publicity release
or newsletter and couldn't come up with the right words or phrases?
You will never make your fortune until you cure this dialog dilemma.
You must enlarge your powers of expression, acquire precision and
persuasion. You need a powerhouse of color, flavor and tone to
highlight your message. This applies to personal conversations,
writing promotional material or creating a productive web site.

The Internet Is A Money Maker

In many ways the Web is the ultimate medium, but only for those who
can deliver their message persuasively and convincingly. In the end
it will be your site's ability to create desire and compel action
that will bring real wealth. Those not possessing the necessary
verbal skills will experience perpetual disappointment. They can not
create the success they desire, socially or financially.

Winning Words

How do you make your web site dazzle, charm and seduce? For your
site to be truly distinctive and compelling it will rely on
successful semantics. Words and phrases carefully selected, then
orchestrated to create feeling, then desire, and finally "action."
In the end, the success of your site rests entirely on your
visitor's decision to purchase and do it "now." Great graphics can't
get that decision. Dazzling colors will not. Only moving and
inspiring words can accomplish that mission.

You may have magical powers when you are there in person...Think you
can charm a dog off a meat wagon in person...Then on the other hand,
perhaps not. In either case, your words and phrases must carry your
message without benefit of your presence. You can't rely on your
great smile or your winning body language. Only the site's words
will tell the world who you are, what you do and what you stand for.

So, expand your inventory of words and phrases, and then choose them
with precision. You will be amazed at the difference it will make.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oscar Bruce is considered the ultimate personal communications guru.
His dynamic books are considered the ultimate field manuals for
mastering conversation and confrontations. His website offers
several verbal strategies that can ad power to your conversations at
no cost.

HIS FREE NEWSLETTER and other products are available at
http:///www.oscarbruce.com

Website Add-Ons That Can Catapult Your Web Traffic!

2005-02-06T11:17:00.000-08:00

By Andrew Cantrell

1. Add a message board to your web site. People will visit your web site to ask questions and answer other people's questions.

2. Add a directory of web site links to your web site. People will visit your web site to find related web site links for the topic they're interested in.

3. Add an article section to your web site. People will visit your web site to read and learn new info related to their interests.

4. Add an archive of past e-zine issues to your web site. People will visit your web site to read past issues of your e-zine that they've missed.

5. Add a free ebook directory to your web site. People will visit your site to download, study and read new information.

6. Add a free classified ad section. People will visit your web site to place their own free classified ad and to read other offers.

7. Add a free link page to your web site. People will visit your web site to place their own link and to look at other people's links.

8. Add an "about us" page to your web site. People will visit your web site to read about your business and yourself.

9. Add a guest book to your web site. People will visit your web site to leave their opinions about your business and to list their signature file.

10. Add a free software download page to your web site. People will visit your web site to find new software that will make their life easier.

Warm regards,

Andrew Cantrell
http://www.zipzoombiz.com

Andrew Cantrell, the owner of zipzoombiz.com has helped thousands of ordinary people succeed with their online business. Let him help you! Visit his website and sign up for his free newsletter on how to make residual income!

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Visit my website for more articles, press release, e-books, business opportunities and more
Http://www.sanjay-j.com

<>SANJAY JOHARI

Search Engine Optimization and Other Scary Things

2005-02-05T11:40:00.000-08:00

by Francisco Aloy

Being a relative newcomer to the Web I decided to foray into
Search Engine Optimization to gain first hand experience and any
insights I could. My assumption was that it would have a basis
built on rational thinking and logical facts.

I pre-supposed a certain degree of agreement and transparency
from many of the established sources and opinion makers. My
starting viewpoint supported by my association of Search Engine
Optimization and the Web as natural extensions of common sense,
logical thinking.

In hindsight, I must confess I'm not more knowledgeable about the
subject than when I first started. I found very few opinions and
practices based on fact. What I did find - and it came as an
unexpected revelation - was general confusion and disagreement.

I found secret potion SEO, lurking-in-the-shadows SEO, ignorance
as dogma SEO, Voodoo SEO, witch doctor SEO, magical chicken bones
SEO, the 10 blind men and the elephant SEO, fancy and hearsay as
SEO!
In the minority, I found but a handful of opinions based on
cold hard facts and logic. How in the world can Search Engine
Optimization mean all those things?

OK, perhaps I did overdo the above paragraph, but the point I'm
making is this: With the infinite number of opinions, incorrect
assumptions and dead wrong practices; how do you know what to
believe? Imagine you're a small business looking for SE
optimization; how would you go about it?

The Search Engines, of course, won't reveal more than general
guidelines for optimization; other than that, they don't say
much. I realize they do things in that manner because they can't
explain much about their inner workings. If folks had the skinny
on the formulas and algorithms, nothing short of SE pandemonium
would ensue.

I'm sure you've seen the ads that guarantee a dominant position
for your choice of keywords. How can that be so? I think some
keyword phrases are so competitive, very few have the resources
it would take to acquire dominance. The cost of many of the
keywords and phrases are completely out of reach for most small
home based businesses.

Furthermore, I'm sure you've heard about websites getting banned
after hiring a SEO expert. I had this experience:

I remember reading about a well known SEO business and I wrote
them an email inquiring about why they didn't appear in the
search results dealing with their subject matter: search engine
optimization or search engine ranking. I received a short and
cryptic reply that didn't say much.

As time went by, I came onto an article that stated the
particular SEO outfit had been banned by the SE's during that
time frame. That explains the nature of the return email;
meaning: I don't want to talk about it!

The paragraph above implies that if they'll do it to their own
website, they'll do it to yours! Look before you leap should more
than suffice as the motto for your business decision.

I think SEO experts that are on the level won't guarantee you
dominance for ANY keyword phrase. Think about your competition
and see if it's feasible. For example, would you have the
resources to dominate for the word "business?" I did a search on
Google and came up with 695,000,000 results!

Before you make a decision and commit time and money, check out
any offer. Phone past customers and ask them about their
experiences; would they hire the same expert again? Ask for
quantifiable results and look for a positive track record; I
imagine SEO experts are not a dime a dozen. Investigate and get
answers to all your questions before you put money on the table.

(C)2005 Francisco Aloy

=============================================

About the Author

Francisco Aloy is the Editor of The
Newbie Business Guide. Constructive
and clear information to start your
Internet Business. For more articles
by Mr. Aloy, visit:
http://www.newbie-business-guide.com

=============================================

Visit my website for more articles, press release, e-books, business opportunities and more
Http://www.sanjay-j.com

Getting a Google Page Rank 3 in Six Months

2005-02-03T17:08:00.000-08:00

by Geraldine Jensen

I entered the world of website ownership in July of 2004. I did a Google search for “websites for sale” and found that e-Bay was a big seller. I had learned some web programming as the acting webmaster for a non-profit organization. My training consisted of reading, Learning Web Design: A Beginners Guide to HTML, Graphics and Beyond by Jennifer Neiderst.

Many websites are for sale on e-Bay. After watching the ads for a couple of weeks I decided to buy three sites: a diet site (www.atkinsdiethelper.com), a travel site (www.epictravels.com), and a web tools reseller site (www.webmastersprofitpak.net).

My choice was based on the domain names, the product being sold, and the sense they were good products to sell. I had read an article that said search engines were more likely to index and rank a website where the product or topic was part of the domain name. My total investment was less than $300. The diet site was a drop-shipping business and required the most time. The travel site was an affiliate so no web programming was needed, only advertising. The web tools site required some web programing. I decided that a few additional web tools to sell would be good, so back to e-Bay I went to purchase more software to sell.

Next came submitting the sites to search engines. I found www.addme.com where you can submit sites for free---this definitely fit my budget. I also hand-submitted the sites to Dmoz, Yahoo (free), AltaVista and any other directories I could find. I found www.directoryarchives.com, a directory of directories and submitted the sites to as many of the directories as possible. I also began to do searches based on the keywords of my websites and did add the url, or submit site, or exchange links to those who offered it. I figured that people searching for my product were likely to find the same sites I found.

Within about 3 months, my sites were listed on Google, Ask Jeeves, Excite and several others when the exact website name was entered--- a big step forward. I still had made only a few sales and noone had found my sites by using the search engines. I decided to focus my attention on only one site, www.webmastersprofitpak.net, because it was the only site that had any sales and the profit margin was highest on that site.

I began to experiment with advertising. I opened Overture, Google Adwords , Mamma, and Kanoodle accounts. I signed up for Adsense. I bought ezine ads, and visitors from Traffic Taxi, did a popunder ad and newsletter ad with bravenet.com. I signed up with companies that pay people to visit your site, I tried an adblast---all with little or no results. I found site-reference.com and bought ads for the software site in the newsletter. Finally, I began to make some sales..

But to stay in business long-term and to reduce advertising costs, I needed to be able to make sales based on search engine results. I bought some site submission software which I now sell and began to submit my sites page by page. I also signed up with Microsoft bcentral.com and began to optimize my website pages.

Now, after six months, one of my sites has a great Google page rank. www.webmastersprofitpak.net ranks 3. Website traffic is about a 2,000 hits/week. I have high hopes for 2005! I have learned a lot in the past six months especially about search engine submission, optimization, directories, and links. See http://www.webmastersprofitpak.net for Reseller Tips.

About the Author
Geraldine Jensen is the owner of several ecommerce websites. She is the publisher and editor of http;//www.familiesonlinemagazine.com, which was chosen as Hotsite by USA Today in October 2004 due to it diverse opinions and good content. She was Webmaster for a nonprofit organization for 10 years. Her newest project is Today's Family Forum.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Visit my website to see many more useful articles for the benefit of home-based and small business owners :
http://www.sanjay-j.com

Sanjay Johari

How To Submit Articles For Massive Traffic

2005-02-02T22:17:00.000-08:00

Copyright 2005 Steve Shaw

As you perhaps already know, article submissions can drivea huge amount of traffic to your web site for months if notyears. The first step is obviously to get a good articlewritten, with a suitable resource box at the end containinga link to your site to drive traffic to your site. Butwithout submitting your article effectively, all this hardwork will be of little benefit.

In this article, you're going to find out exactly how tosubmit your articles in exactly the same way as people likeTerry Dean, Joe Vitale, and Jim Edwards have done beforeyou.
And there's no reason why you can't achieve a similar levelof success with your own article submissions.

There are three main distribution channels for yourarticles that you should concentrate on:

1. Ezine Editors
You need to find editors who publish ezines in the same'category' as your article - for example, if yourexpertise, and your web site, focuses on gardening, youshould be submitting your articles to editors of ezines inthe same genre (of course, only if they accept articlesubmissions).

To build up your list, you need to scour ezine directories(see the list at http://www.submityourarticle.com/course/ezinedirectories.php) for ezines within your genre, check each ezine to see ifthey accept article submissions, and then double check witheach editor to confirm that their details are correct, andthat they still accept article submissions - you willunfortunately find many of the listings are out of date,and some ezines are no longer published at all for whateverreason.

2. Announcement Lists
Another way to contact hundreds, if not thousands, ofpotential publishers, is through what we call articleannouncement lists.

An article announcement list is a type of mailing list thatconcentrates on article submissions. The subscribers of themailing list are either publishers looking for content,providers of that content (i.e. article writers such asyourself), or possibly both.

Every article you submit to these lists get sent to all ofthe subscribers of that list - by submitting to multiplelists, you're effectively sending out your article tothousands of potential publishers.
You can find a listing of suitable article announcementlists at
http://www.submityourarticle.com/course/announce.php.

3. Article Directories
There are numerous such article directories on the web thatallow you to submit your articles, and allow subsequentretrieval by publishers. I've located several of them, aslisted at http://www.submityourarticle.com/course/articledirectories.php

After submitting an article to some of these, I'm oftenamazed at the amount of instant traffic and sales it canbring, often because many of the directories display a'Recent Articles'-type listing which dramatically improvesthe profile of your article for a short period after yoursubmission.

I've now shown you exactly how to go about submitting yourarticle all over the Internet, exactly the same methodsused by people who are now considered to be 'gurus' on theInternet. Yes, it can be hard work - but who said successwas easy?

About the Author:
Steve Shaw develops systems and software to help yousucceed in your online business. The article above has beenextracted and condensed from his e-course on how to publisharticles to promote your web site - to receive the fulle-course direct to your mail box, and also discover a muchquicker, highly efficient way to submit your articles, signup now at:http://www.takanomi.com/publish-articles.php.

The Right Tool for Your Marketing Job

2005-02-01T23:14:00.000-08:00

Copyright 2005 Foreman Enterprises
by Scott Foreman Build-Passive-Income.com

Time is money; undoubtedly one of the oldest clichés in
existence. Have you ever thought about what it really means
though? Is bending over to pick up a penny worth your time?
Maybe, but would it still be worth it to cross the street
for the same penny. Maybe not.

Your time has value. You can choose to use every minute of
every day in any way you wish. It goes without saying that
most of us would like to spend more time making money or at
least have our "money making" time be more profitable.

For those of you who do any type of mass marketing, you
already know about Ad Trackers, Autoresponders, and Shopping
Carts. You may or may not know that you can combine all
three (and more) into one service. This week we start our
first of a three part series on the many uses of a so called
`complete marketing tool' (we'll call it the Tool).

Every Tool has different functions, but there are a few that
are fairly universal and very necessary. This week, we'll
focus on the function often called Ad Tracking. Within a
Tool, an Ad Tracker allows the marketer to set up a tracking
protocol for any link on the marketer's web site.

What a tracking protocol tells you is exactly how many
people clicked on your link. If the link goes to a desired
location on your website, you can track your conversion rate
as well. In either case, it's invaluable information.

Here are two examples.

1) Let's say that you are promoting XYZ Shoe Polish on your
website. In the middle of one of your product comparison
pages, you put a hyperlink to XYZ's home page.
www.xyz-shoe-polish.com (for example). You can look at your
web logs to find out how many visitors that page received.
Then you can go to your Tool's Ad Tracker to find out how
many of your visitors clicked on your link to XYZ. You can
easily see how important that information is from a
marketing perspective.

2) Let's say you've just written an ebook on raising Tulips.
You website is all about flower maintenance and in one of
your spring articles, you put a link to your ebook sales
page. Because of your Ad Tracker, you know exactly how many
people got to your sales page through your article. And you
know how many of your ebook customers were as a result of
your well written article.

Just the Ad Tracking function alone is worth the monthly fee
paid to a Complete Marketing Tool service. With the
incredibly useful aspects of the Ad Tracker, you've already
saved time and marketing dollars. Nevertheless, there are a
ton of other functions that the Tool service provides. Next
week, we'll talk about the Complete Marketing Tool's ability
to track your mailing list as well as your affiliates.

In the meantime, if you can't wait to check out the other
Tool features for yourself, please feel free to check out
the very same Marketing Tool we rely on everyday. See for
yourself, how many of the great features could make your
business easier and more efficient.

http://www.build-passive-income.com/cmp.php?ad=120452

Remember, be good to yourself and never underestimate the
power associated with the intensity of your passion.

Scott Foreman

mailto:scott@build-passive-income.com

===========================================================
Wayne and Scott Foreman are co-owners of
http://www.build-passive-income.com

This Secret Book Made Terry Dean Rich!
You Can Get it Free IF you click below now
(you won't believe the simple techniques it
reveals that ANYONE can use)
http://www.Build-Passive-Income.com/secret
===========================================================

Setting your Business Up for Success! Six Essentials you MUST have in place for your online business

2005-02-01T23:05:00.000-08:00

Copyright © 2005 Charles & Susan Truett
Partners In Success
http://www.partnersinsuccess.net

There is a common misconception that an "online business"
requires no investment...that you can make money online
without spending any.

When we hear this from people who are disparately trying to
build a successful online business it makes us angry!

We believe the misconception is primarily due to all of the
hype and false promises that arrive daily in our inboxes.
Emails promising us that we can make millions of dollars
with no financial output while we sit at home and do
nothing. It's insane and it's not the truth.

The truth is that you must treat an online business just as
you would a business in the conventional world. You must
plan on investing time, money and effort to ensure your
success. The good news is that your investment in an online
business will be MUCH, MUCH less than that of a business in
the conventional world.

With an online business, there are essentials that you must
have in order for your business to run smoothly and become
successful. You can literally run an effective online
business for $100-$200 a month. Later in this article, we
will show you how you can access many of these essentials
in one place for less that $10.00 a month!

But first...

Here are six essentials that you MUST have to run your
online business.

1. Your Own Website

This includes a domain name and web hosting for your site.
You must have a central place to send your customers, even
if you are selling multiple products or services.

2. A Professional Autoresponder

An absolute MUST for any online business. If you're not
using an autoresponder, you're losing money! That's the
bottom line. Your autoresponder should have the ability to
create subscriptions via email and web form and should be a
professional one with no ads! Fr~e autoresponders look
unprofessional and they are not reliable.

3. Ad Tracker

This is probably the most underused tool that we know of.
Consider this - most people who are NOT making money on the
Net have never used an Ad Tracker. Yet, ALL of the people
that we know who ARE making money on the Net - use one
daily. It makes no sense to spend money and time on
advertising if you're not going to be able to determine
which ads are producing and which ones are not. An Ad
Tracker will solve this problem and save you time and money
in the long run.

4. Products or Services

You must have something to sell! This can be a service such
as web or graphic design, an mlm/affiliate program or
products, tangible or digital. If you don't have a specific
product or service in mind, there are thousands of
profitable digital products that come with resell rights.
This means you can resell them and keep 100% of the profit!

5. You must know HOW and WHERE to advertise to bring
targeted prospects to your Website!

You can save yourself a tremendous amount of time, money
and frustration by learning the effective advertising
methods that are available online. There are countless
worthless ones that are simply a waste of time. If you're
new online, you won't know this unless you find someone who
is successful online and follow their lead. Find a mentor
or a membership site that offers step by step Tutorials on
online promotion. Make sure that the tutorials are updated
frequently to keep up with the changing times of the
Internet!

6. Leads

The lifeline of any online business! Just because you have
a website and products to sell, that doesn't mean you're
going to make money! To make money, you must drive targeted
visitors to your website. There are THOUSANDS of companies
on the web that sell Leads but if you just pick one out of
the blue, it's trial and error. Do some research and find a
good source for leads. Again, you can achieve this by
finding someone who is succcessful and following their
lead. Or join a membership site that includes Leads as a
part of their package.

We promised we'd tell you about a membership site that
includes many of these essential items in one place. Have a
look at http://www.viralprofits.com With your membership,
you get a professional autoresponder, ad tracking, Leads,
Digital Products with resell rights, step by step training
tutorials AND you can earn money by referring others to the
site. The tutorials are updated frequently and NEW products
are added each month so that you always have something new
to offer your customers!

So there you have it. With these six essentials, you've got
the foundation for a successful online business. Without
them, it's going to be a tough road ahead. Use them as a
"checklist" and make sure your online business is armed for
success!

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Charles & Susan Truett are experienced internet marketers
who have built a successful online business and are now
teaching others how to achieve the same success. For money
making ideas and their simple system for success visit:
http://www.partnersinsuccess.net
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Managing an Elevator Cash Flow

2005-01-30T10:45:00.000-08:00

By Catherine Franz

Jannice K., a past Virginia resident, now California
resident, worked in Burger King for ten years. Back when I
was a junk food addict, she passed me the bag and drink
through the drive through window. Occasionally, I would go
inside to eat. We became friends and soon had regular times
together early afternoons during her break. It wasn't long
before I discovered Jannice's real buried passion was
grooming dogs. She sparkled whenever the topic came up.

Later Jannice and I worked together to write articles and
other materials on her passion. Now, Jannice lives in
California, owns three grooming parlors, and is quite, quite
well off. During a recent phone conversation she shared how
no matter how far she's come in just the few years, she says
she's never gotten used to living with a fluctuating cash
flow.

This is an experience shared by many self-employed
individuals.

After living on predictable cash flow, having a variable
cash flow can be nerve racking. Even over time, as you grow
maturely philosophical about money, knowing that it can be
here today and gone tomorrow requires being on your toes.
And, in order to transition from toes to flat foot you must
learn to integrate a prosperity consciousness in order to
survive emotionally. A prosperity transfer means shifting
from the perception of scarcity, to being in abundance.

The secret to handling this elevator ride is to get to the
point of contentment with who you are and what you are
doing, and not have an emotional response to money. This
platform, of course, takes discipline and experience. Over
time, as you learn and become comfortable with a new way of
thinking, you also learn to stay focused, know what "really"
matters, stop wasting time, and relax into a set of
processes and systems that become the rhythm for your
business. This calm approach always accelerates prosperity
and, in turn, allows the cash flow elevator to slow down and
stop on various floors.

During the fast elevator days, tips always help to remind us
to punch the button in order to stop at the next floor.
Here are a few tips to help you push the right buttons:

1. Where you focus is what you will attract. If you focus
on your surplus, the surplus will grow. If you focus on
lack, the lack will grow. Hence, it's common sense to focus
on surplus, wouldn't you say. Learn to see abundance in all
that you do, say, and feel. This doesn't mean giving away
your services if you are business owner. It means in being
in balance with it. Be abundant with your gestures, open
the door for a person, it doesn't matter on gender.

When someone takes you to lunch, see that as surplus, the
money didn't come out of your pocket. It's abundance from
their life to yours. Yes, the good ole, attitude of
gratitude, philosophy is what I'm talking about. It
actually is a secret weapon of the wealthy. Again, of
course, in balance. This same attitude is available to
everyone, including you and I. If it takes fewer muscles to
smile, then of course, it takes less energy to be nice.

2. Know what you're worth and be consistent about it. If
you take a long lunchtime or spend time browsing the book
aisles or Net, associate your hourly rate to this. When you
associate time to money consistently in your thinking
process, cash flow will follow. With a focus on what
"really" matters and you follow that up with massive action,
it all begins to sink in. This internal awareness will, of
course, again, be attractive.

3. Some is better than none. Partial payments are better
than no payments if you can't meet your obligations. Even
the telephone and utility companies can cope with partial
payments. Send what you can with an explanatory note.

We both know that bill collectors aren't the most
compassionate souls. If you deal with them, try not to be
defensive nor try to ignore them. Silence isn't golden in
this instance. However, you can't let them intimate you or
make you feel guilty either -- and they surely will try too.
Bring no emotional attachment to their call, conversation,
or even after you hang up. This will affect your energy and
zap your progress.

Just imagine having one of these a day, and if you do, it's
a-no-wonder why you're feeling drained, unattractive, and
not making any money. This spiral emotional ride puts you
on the fast elevator ride to the basement.

4. Maintain a list of emergency money generators. These
are items that you can use that require little or no
planning, either because you have it done or it just doesn't
need it, that deliver short-term cash. This is an insurance
cash flow list for your business. Everyone needs this
whether running a business or not, even if it means
unloading boxes at your brother-in-laws warehouse.

If you list a temporary agency, who are they, have you gone
over there already and established a relationship. Set up
the groundwork so that it's easy to jump into when "you"
need it. Being mindful of all your options, and not
mindless, adds to your confidence and ability to manage your
cash flow during shortage.

5. Separate emotions from money and separate thoughts of
debt that is an investment and debt that is due to
irresponsibility. If you are going to operate a business,
be accountable, especially if you have employees. People
say to me that one of their number goals is to be debt free.
If you have a habit of creating irresponsible debt then even
when you become debt free it will not last because the
mindset and habits didn't change.

Change your attitude and remove the emotions. Separate
investment debt from the other. Why wait to be happy, live
your life with a debt free mentality now. Most children
grow up without understanding money and base their knowledge
on emotional expressions they hear from others. Then as
adults they are thrust into the world and told, "You're
suppose to know better."

Take a class on money management, stop reading the books if
they aren't helping. If you already taken a class, hire a
money coach. Keep debt manageable and be an responsible
adult and business owner. There aren't any excuses for poor
money management.

6. Don't spend yourself poor with feast or famine. Don't
be tempted to pay off all your old bills and leave yourself
impoverished all over again. Your mental health will be
stronger if you set aside some money and watch it
accumulate. Just knowing you have even the smallest of
funds stashed away will lighten your walk and smooth your
sleep.

7. Get smart about your money. I mean, SMART. Get
Specific, Measure it, be Accountable, make them achievable,
Realistic and the Time is now. Our beliefs today have no
resemblance to the beliefs of money our parents have, nor
will the next generation have with yours. Challenge all the
early assumptions you have about money. Challenge them
every day until. Do it until you learn to manage it. Do it
until it works for you.

Get off the elevator cash flow ride, have less paper, scotch
tape, and paper clips around, and put some money away for
that rainy day. I don't think either of our grandmothers
where wrong on that philosophy.

**** RESOURCE BOX MUST BE INCLUDED ***

Catherine Franz, a Business Coach, specializes in writing,
marketing and product development. Newsletters and
additional articles: http://www.abundancecenter.com
blog: http://abundance.blogs.com

Google's Giant Sandbox

2005-01-30T10:40:00.000-08:00

By Mark Daoust

What is the Sandbox?

Before we get too far into an explanation as to what Google's sandbox
is, it must be noted that not everyone even agrees that the sandbox
exists. The sandbox is actually nothing more than a theory developed
to explain what many different SEO experts have witnessed with their
listings. Whether or not the sandbox really exists is actually
irrelevant when we know that the effects of the sandbox exist.

Google's sandbox is a relatively new filter that appeared to be put
in place back in March of 2004. This happened after the widely
publicized updates of Austin and Florida, and the implementation of
what is known as the Austin update. If you are not sure what those
are, there is no need to worry as those updates are now for the most
part in the past. The sandbox filter seems to affect nearly all new
websites placing them on an initial "probation" status. The effect
of this is that new websites may get into Google's SERP's (search
engine results pages) relatively quickly and may even perform well
for a couple of weeks. When the filter is applied to the new website
it is referred to as being put in the "sandbox". The new website
will still show in the result pages, but it will not rank well
regardless of how much original, well optimized content and
regardless of how many quality inbound links the site may have. The
filter restrains new websites from having immediate success in the
search engine result pages.

The sandbox filter seems to affect almost all new websites, with very
few exceptions. It is important to note that the filter is not a
punishment for anything the webmaster did with their new website.
The filter is merely an initiation period for new websites.

The sandbox filter also affects more competitive keyword driven sites
more than sites that key in on less competitive keywords. If your
website focuses on very competitive keywords, you are likely to
remain in the sandbox for a longer period of time than if you focus
on keywords that are relatively non-competitive keywords.

Why Does the Sandbox Exist?

There is a lot of debate as to whether the sandbox filter is a good
thing for Google to implement or not. Obviously webmasters who are
trying to get their sites well positioned in Google do not like the
sandbox filter as it prevents them from receiving the huge levels of
traffic that a top listing in Google can bring. The filter was not
implemented at random, however, and there is some good reasoning for
the filter existing.

As the SEO community figured out the basic elements of Google's
ranking algorithm, inbound links, original content rich with
keywords, and the proper use of anchor text, search engine spammers
began to take advantage of these elements. Search engine spammers
would setup websites that were in clear violation of Google's
policies with the knowledge that eventually their website would be
banned from the listings. This, however, did not matter. If a
search engine spammer could get their website to rank well in Google
for even one month, the profits they could make from that one month
would justify the cost of building the site in the first place. All
they needed to do in the future was to rebuild their spam websites
with different domains and slightly different content.
The idea for spammers was a simple one. Capitalize off of Google's
traffic for as long as they can (before they get banned), then do it
all over again with a new website. The method was extremely
effective and easy to implement.

What made this all the more easy to accomplish was Google's extremely
fast indexing. While other search engines would take several months
to index a new website, Google could index a website in as little as
one month (they are now indexing sites within a few days). Search
engine spammers were living large off of Google's generosity.

To solve this problem, Google determined that it would compromise.
They would still index websites quickly, attempting to get as much
new, fresh content out to the general public as possible, but they
would not trust new websites implicitly as they had in the past. All
new websites that were launched would be put on probation. As time
passed, and as the sites continued to pass any spam filters they ran,
the website will not be held back from performing well in the
rankings. Eventually, after quite a bit of time had passed, a site
would be allowed to "leave" the sandbox and join the rest of the
established websites.

How Does This Affect My Website?

If you have a new website, there is a good chance that you will be
placed in the sandbox. This should be expected, but it should not
change the way you build your website or market it. You should use
the sandbox filter to your advantage.

Google still ranks websites in much the same way that they had in the
past. Websites are judged on the quality of their inbound links and
the quality of their content. Google will continue to change how
they evaluate inbound links and content, but the basic elements of
their rankings will remain the same.

While your website is in the sandbox, you should use this time to
build your traffic using regular traffic building methods such as
writing articles, building a strong community of visitors, and
partnering with websites that offer some synergy to your visitors.
During your time on probation, you have an excellent opportunity to
build all the elements that cause websites to perform well in the
search engines. When you finally do leave the sandbox, your website
should be very well positioned within Google.

Is My Website in the Sandbox?

When webmasters learn about the sandbox filter, their first question
is always whether or not their website has been placed in it.
Determining whether or not you are in the sandbox is a relatively
easy task to do.

First, being placed in the sandbox is different than having your
website banned. If you do a search for your domain in Google and
they return zero results for your website (and you had been
previously listed in Google), there is a chance that you have been
banned. One of the best ways to determine if you have been banned is
to look at your log files to see if Google is visiting your website.
Banned websites typically do not see Google visit their websites,
regardless of who is linking to them.

If you have not been banned, but do not rank well with Google, you
should look at the quality of your content and the quality of your
inbound links. You should also see if you rank well for non-
competitive keywords. Remember how the filter affects competitive
keywords more than less competitive keywords? Well, you can use this
to determine if you have been sandboxed. Finally, if you rank well
in all the other major search engines, but do not show up at all in
Google's rankings, you have probably been sandboxed.

Is There A Way to Get Out of the Sandbox?

The quick answer to this is yes, there is a way out of the sandbox,
but you will not like the answer. The answer is to simply wait. The
sandbox filter is not a permanent filter and is only intended to
reduce search engine spam. It is not intended to hold people back
from succeeding. So eventually, if you continue to build your site
as it should be built, you will leave the sandbox and join the other
established websites.

Again, if your website has been placed in the sandbox you should use
this time to your advantage. It is a great opportunity to build your
traffic sources outside of the search engines. If you have a website
that does well in the search engines, you may be tempted to ignore
other proven methods of traffic building such as building a
community, or building strong inbound links through partnerships.
However, if you establish traffic sources outside of search engines,
when you finally leave the sandbox, you will see a welcome increase
in your traffic levels.

Conclusion

Google has been going to great lengths to cut out on search engine
spam. Some have faulted them on the lengths that they are going to
claiming that it is effecting legitimate sites as well as the spam
websites. While this is probably the case, as an owner of a website
you need to place yourself in the position of Google and ask yourself
what they are really looking for in a website. Google is looking for
websites that offer quality content. Google still relies on the
natural voting system that was first used to establish pagerank.
They may change the way that they qualify content or inbound links,
but the basic elements of a quality website will always remain the
same.

No website owner in their right mind will "like" Google's sandbox.
However, a smart website owner will use the sandbox as an opportunity
to build a website that Google simply cannot refuse.

Resource Box:
Mark Daoust is the owner of Site-Reference.com, articles that focus
on http://www.site-reference.com/">Internet Marketing,
Website Development, and Search Engines. This article was
originally published at

http://www.site-reference.com/Search-Engines/5147/index.html

Discuss this article at http://forums.site-reference.com

Is Pay Per Click your Best Marketing Bet?

2005-01-30T10:21:00.000-08:00

Judy Cullins ©2005 All Rights Reserved.

You may already have heard of this method to get people to your web site.
From my point of view and experience it turns out to be expensive and you have to
write the ads yourself, pay for them, and change and maintain them to be the
correct ones to work and be the right price in competition with many others.

When people search for a particular topic like healing a headache or other
malady, they will see in the column to the right an ad that when clicked on
takes the person to their web site selling the book or service on healing
headaches.

Advertisers pay a set amount for every time the ad is clicked by a prospect.
This is referred to as a click through rate or ctr.

Yes, there are benefits: The opportunity to place your ad directly in front
of a prospect at the exact moment they are searching for your product or
service is good.

More benefits include your control over the keywords that best represent your
product. The PPC model allows you to decide how much you are willing to pay
per customer. You only pay for the click throughs, and these are your targeted
audience seeking your solutions.

After using Overture and being disappointed, while doing a Google search
recently, I noticed the small sponsored ads on the right hand side of the page
were a type of pay per click called Google Adwords. I do know people who are
successful with this company.

While this search generates targeted website traffic, the downside? You have
to study what key words work best, and the best ones are much more expensive
than other ones.
The popularity and growth of pay per click had also made it expensive.

The Horror Stories of Pay Per Click

Story One. One submitter got hooked because it was fast, exciting and easy.

Within days of learning about pay per click, she was generating 1,000 clicks
per day to her various campaigns. She thought she was seeing success in pay
per click.

In the early days of ppc, that may have been true because bids on popular
keywords were just pennies a click. When her popular keywords were around $1
dollar per click, she actually lost $100’s of dollars per day. Along with that,
her keys words got disabled and were disapproved.

Where were the sales? At the end of the first week, her adwords produced only
$75 from over 5000 adwords. Count the loss!

You can shorten your learning curve if you like by taking a course in
adwords, but you can just as well take a teleclass from a respected internet
marketing coach who knows all of the ins and outs and do what’s already tried and true—
as in this book. If you want to be more successful, go to
Adwords-Hints.com/pay-per-click. Find tools for keyword analyzing, lowering costs and increasing
click throughs. http://tinyurl.com/5nb46

Story two. One web-savvy friend used ppc ads in Google for a set of how to
video for building a motorcycle, then a race car. Her sales were affiliate ones.
At first, she invested $4000 and got back $7000 one month, but when more
competition entered the field, her sales were not high enough for her efforts.

Story three One health author put a short ad in Google for a diet to heal a
specific disease and her solutions. She said she sold 4,000 books within
months that only cost her $400 in ads. Her ad led straight to her book’s sales
letter.

This success story shows that if your book is narrow enough in its focus, you
may want to try ads because there won’t be any competition, but if you have a
general personal growth or business book, you will have to pay too much per
key word to make any real money.

Story four. Although I already was successful with internet promotion, I
thought I should try the Overture pay per click program. My web master helped me
and charged me about $350. She did take care of the changes for a while, but
then I had to do it myself. Using www.goodkeywords.com helped a bit. The less
expensive key words didn’t work, and the more expensive cost too much. After
losing around $800 I let go.

You may want to learn the lesson yourself, or you may want to invest far less
money in ongoing internet promotion that is already tried and true over many
years.

----------------------------------------------------
Judy Cullins: 20-year author, speaker, book coach
Helps you manifest your book and web dreams
eBk: "Create your Web Site with Marketing Pizzazz"
FRE.E "The Book Coach Says..." or Business Tip of the Month
www.bookcoaching.com/opt-in.shtml

mailto:Judy@bookcoaching.com
Orders: 866/200-9743 -- Ph: 619/466-0622
------------------------------------------------------

An SEO Strategy Your Competitors May Not Want You to Know

2005-01-30T10:18:00.000-08:00

by Danny Shepherd

The Internet has dramatically changed society and the manner in
which business and individuals communicate. Innovations such as
search engines, computer networking, the Web, e-mail, and blogs
have transformed business as we know it.

Search engines have become an integral part of daily life and
have influenced marketing and technology across the globe.

Take a step into the future: What if live search engine results
could be placed directly on any Web site?

Did you know that it is now possible to place MSN search engine
result pages directly on any Web site, blog, or forum using one
of the newest Internet innovations, RSS (Really Simple
Syndication)? RSS is used for distributing Web content and is a
format based on XML.

The benefit of RSS technology is that it enables Web sites to add
content that is constantly changed or updated by the RSS feed
generator. In this case, MSN Search Engine (beta) is the feed
generator, and they are providing Web sites a direct connection
to their search engines results pages. Now Web sites can display
live MSN search engine results directly on their Web pages
exactly as the results appear on MSN.com.

A spokesman for MSN stated that their RSS technology it is still
under development and is subject to further experimentation and
change.

Yahoo News also recently developed a tool that uses a similar
technique to allow users to gain access to Yahoo's news database
using RSS. Although users can currently do an RSS search query
only on the news section of Yahoo's search engine, this
capability is certainly a good start.

Up until this point, no search engine has offered their results
in such an open formatted manner. Web sites now have the power of
these two search engines at their disposal. Properly integrating
these search engine results into a Web site can yield powerful
results for both companies and individuals.

How does a Web site gain access to these feeds? It is actually
not overly complicated. For example, if you wanted to generate an
RSS feed for the term, "Big Screen TV" you would add
"&format=rss" to the end of the URL in your MSN search engine
query, so the URL would look like this:

http://beta.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=Big+Screen+TV&format
=rss

Now let's take a look at Yahoo News. It is slightly more
complicated than MSN's method but still involves the same
attributes. To add an RSS feed for the keyword "Big Screen TV,"
you would enter the following code at the end of your Yahoo News
search URL:

rss?p=Big+Screen+TV&ei=UTF-8&fl=0&x=wrt

The URL with the code would look like this:

http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/rss?p=Big+Screen+TV&ei=UTF-
8&fl=0&x=wrt

After entering these parameters into your browser, MSN and Yahoo
will automatically generate an RSS feed for Web site use. Once
the Web site has the feed code, it is inserted into the Web
site's RSS reader. If you don't already have an RSS reader and
you want to use one at no charge, some popular free RSS readers
include NetNewsWire, Radio Userland, and AmphetaDesk.

So what about Google? Once this knowledge becomes public, it will
only be a matter of time before they implement a similar tool.
MSN may take a lot of heat for their highly competitive and
aggressive market tactics, but when it breads innovation like
this, everybody wins.

Companies often use search engine marketing firms to help promote
Web sites on the Internet. It will be interesting to see how
search engine marketing companies will use this new innovation to
help promote online marketing and advertising.

Will RSS feed be one of MSN's new mediums for supplying pay-per-
click advertisements across the Web? Market penetration from RSS
feeds could easily outdo Google's popular Adsense advertising
medium. MSN, Google, and Yahoo had better buckle their seat
belts, because the competition is going to get fierce.

So in a nutshell, why is all of this important to you?

RSS feeds provide fresh content to a Web page. The search engines
love fresh content, and they'll spider a Web site much faster if
they're fed fresh content. Use the power of this discovery to
your advantage before your competitors get the jump on you!

Danny Shepherd represents Titan SEO, Inc. an Escondido,
California, based Search Engine Optimization company.

(http://www.titan-seo.com)

To subscribe to their e-mail newsletter, visit
http://www.Titan-SEO.com/index-4.html.

Titan SEO's search engine
marketing technicians are certified by Search Engine Workshops
(http://www.searchengineworkshops.com).

Top Ten Strategies For Becoming Uncommonly Successful

2005-01-29T11:00:00.000-08:00

Copyright © 2004-2005 Stacey Mayo, MCC
Center for Balanced Living

http://www.balancedliving.com/

Here are 10 of 26 proven strategies gleaned from interviews with
highly successful people who have overcome obstacles to
accomplish such feats as climbing Mt. Everest, winning a Grammy,
becoming a multi-millionaire, becoming an established author and
humorist, a professional pitcher in the Major Leagues, an
internet entrepreneur who earns millions and more. Regardless of
your career or industry, when applied, these success principles
can shorten your learning curve and be a catalyst for your
success.

These principles were excerpted from the book, " I Can't Believe
I Get Paid To Do This!" Remarkable People Reveal 26 Proven
Strategies For Making Your Dreams a Reality by Stacey Mayo

1) Create Wealth in Alignment With Your Passions

It is important to focus on what you are passionate about first
and then find a way to make money at it. Get in touch with your
heart first, otherwise, the left side of your brain will rule out
perfectly good ideas without having explored them.

"Money allows us the freedom to pursue the things that are
important to us. Money is not an end it itself." Stacy Allison,
first American woman to successfully climb Mt. Everest

2) Honor Numero Uno: Design Your Life Around Your Priorities

Many people try to fit their dreams into their life and complain
there are not enough hours in the day to make it happen. If you
want your dream to become a reality, make it a priority.
Otherwise, it will never be more than a pipedream.

3) Visualize Every Step of Your Dream and Watch the Magic Unfold

The muscle movement that helps us physically take action in our
lives begins in the mind. That is why all great golfers, tennis
players, basketball players, etc. visualize themselves making a
shot beforehand. An experiment conducted by Alan Richardson, an
Australian psychologist, found 23% performance improvement among
subjects who visualized every day for 20 days. In his paper
published in Research Quarterly, Richardson wrote that the most
effective visualization occurs when the visualizer feels and sees
what he is doing.

"I really visualized it, too, even as a child watching those
programs. I could visualize myself walking up the stage, up the
stairs. For me, visualizing those dreams happening was pertinent
to making that happen, because I could see it. I pictured it in
my head" Mary Youngblood, welfare mom turned Grammy Award Winner

4) Easy Does It: Inspired Action Always Trumps Forced Action

Inspired action is joyful action that is in alignment with your
dream. It is action you want to take and the idea of it brings a
smile to your face. When you take inspired action, you are
aligned with what you are doing and things flow naturally.

Contrast this to action that you are forcing yourself to take
regardless of whether you feel like doing it. Maybe you are in a
bad mood or have a headache but decide you have to take this
action and keep trudging forward. The likelihood is that if you
take action from this place it will take you twice as long to
accomplish your task or goal or there will be obstacles that come
up along the way. It's like swimming against strong currents.

5) Laser in On One Idea, Business or Income Stream at a Time

One of the mistakes people make is diversifying too quickly. This
is true whether you are trying to build multiple streams of
income or are just working on several different ideas at one
time. The key is getting the first stream or idea up and running,
producing good revenue, and having systems in place so it will
keep running without you before going on to the next unrelated
stream.

"Several things going on at one time is a distraction to cash."
Loral Langemeier, single mom, financial literacy coach and
millionaire

6) Strengthen Your Relationships: Your Financial Independence is
Dependent on Your Connections With Others

Many people think of the day when they will be financially
independent as "freedom day." And, while financial independence
is a worthwhile goal, it does not mean that you are free of your
dependence on other people. As a matter of fact, in order to
create financial independence, you just might need a lot more
people in your life than you have right now.

7) Develop Your Resilience Muscle: Bounce Back From Setbacks

The truth is that you will have setbacks along the way. This is
just inevitable. The sooner you accept that, the better. Many of
these setbacks will take the form of circumstances that come up
and block your way. If you look closely, you may find these
setbacks are directly correlated with your innermost thoughts,
fears, and limiting beliefs. This is because we create what we
focus on including those things we don't want.

Don't get stopped by these bumps in the road; learn from them. As
you work through the setbacks that come up, you will become the
person you need to be to live out your dreams.

8) Streamline Your Efforts; Align Your Natural Talents With Your
Goal

Success comes easier and more quickly when you enhance your
strengths and delegate in areas where you are weak. Your natural
talents are those things you do so easily and naturally that you
think they are no big deal. Many of my clients were overlooking
their natural talents when they first came to me. They thought if
it is this easy for them, it must be this easy for everyone. This
is rarely the case.

The key is to take your natural talents and abilities and
strengthen them through education and experience. You are not
born an expert at anything. It is something you develop.

9) Disarm That Sneaky Inner Saboteur

Even when we know what we need to do, we often don't do it out of
fear of experiencing the emotions and other things that may come
up as a result. Fear of failure and fear of success are the two
biggest internal fears that people often face. Most other fears
such as fear of rejection fall underneath one of these major
categories. As human beings, we will go to great lengths to avoid
our fears. That is why so many ideas never get beyond being a
great idea, or projects are started and never finished. It is
easy to find reasons, excuses, other diversions or projects,
create chaos, and sometimes to even create emergencies to avoid
these negative feelings or outcomes.

One of the most important things you can do is allow it to be
okay to have these feelings. Then step back and notice what it is
you do to get in your own way. When you have identified what you
do, you can make a conscious decision to do it differently.

10) Shorten Your Learning Curve by Learning From The Best

You can learn from the people who are barely getting by, from
those who are doing fairly well or from those at the top of the
heap. Talk to people who are already successful and find out how
they did it. That's what the book, "I Can't Believe I Get Paid To
Do This!" is about. Its purpose is to provide success principles
and philosophies from those who have excelled. They've already
been down the road and you can learn from their experience. Why
reinvent the wheel when someone else already did a great job of
creating it?

-----------------------------------------------------------------
These principles were excerpted from the book, " I Can't Believe
I Get Paid To Do This! : Remarkable People Reveal 26 Proven
Strategies For Making Your Dreams a Reality by Stacey Mayo,
"The Dream Queen" available at http://amazon.com Stacey is the
director of The Center for Balanced Living. She and her team of
coaches have assisted thousands of people in living out their
dreams with ease and abundance. More information is available at
http://www.balancedliving.com and http://www.igetpaidtodothis.com

Should You be Using RSS Feeds and Blogs?

2005-01-29T10:46:00.002-08:00

Copyright © 2005 Craig Desorcy
Effective-Info
http://www.effective-info.com/blogs-rss.html

Today's marketplace is extremely competitive. The Wal-Marts
of the world are squeezing the life out of small business
enterprises. Meanwhile the World Wide Web is inviting small
marketers with open arms. Rather than having an amazing amount
of resources available, the Internet requires savvy and alert
marketing methods. Blogs and RSS Feeds will blow your mind with
the virtually free growth potential they offer small and large
marketers alike.

Why not level the playing field to give your small or new web
business a boost? Blogs were once used as a personal online
"diary" where people could express their thoughts and feelings,
but today they offer a quick and efficient way to get your
website indexed really fast! Forget about spending months to
build a small clientele. A few minutes each day, spent writing
about the market you're involved in will bring your site to the
attention of search engines fast and we all love free traffic.
Incorporate your blog into a RSS feeds and your site will be
broadcasted across the world in no time at all bring even more
free traffic.

Alicia was the typical homemaker who spent her days raising kids,
sewing, cleaning, and of course folding piles of laundry. She
did have one pastime - surfing the web. Early in her experience
she knew absolutely nothing about web terms. In fact, the
mention of a spider would have sent her running. As her
knowledge grew, she began to get a wild dream of becoming a
virtual entrepreneur. Could she do it?

She thought of what her family would think about her attempt.
Their number one reaction she imagined would be surprise. This
made the decision - she would keep her business attempt a secret,
and if all went well she'd have a really great surprise in store
for them. Alicia went through the normal first steps of setting
up a website, and readying her product - a mother's personal
organizer. Next she researched all of the marketing plans she
could find.

Day after day, after the kids went off to school Alicia spent a
few minutes blogging about everyday events in the life of a
mother. She incorporated RSS feeds into her plan, and included a
great number of links to other sites of interest (all affiliate
links.) Day by day she watched her web traffic increase and her
bank account grow. By Christmas time she had the most amazing
surprise to present to her family - a bank statement that proved
she had earned more than $30,000 in her spare time of a few
minutes each day.

How could such a simple marketing plan work for an obvious
newbie? Simply! Alicia just found a plan that involved a little
technological knowledge and implemented it. She happened to have
found a way to get her site indexed and listed on search results
almost immediately. Spiders love updated content and long lists
of related links. Alicia, like most mothers, knew that if you
feed something what it likes, it'll pretty much do what you want
it to! For Alicia, a little mother's insight paid off.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
For A Complete Step By Step informational
guide on how to blog and use rss feeds
Click here>http://www.effective-info.com/blogs-rss.html

This article is copyright© 2005 Craig Desorcy
Anyone may use this article as long as this
resource boxis not removed.

Craig@effective-info.com

The Three Primary Strengths Of Network Marketing

2005-01-29T10:46:00.000-08:00

By Kirk Bannerman

Network Marketing, 'MLM', and Multi Level Marketing are all terms
that refer to the same type of business model. This industry has
had more than it's share of scumbag crooks and con artists that
have used and abused the concept. However, if you do your
homework and get involved with a legitimate network marketing
organization, this business model has exceptional income
potential.

Network Marketing can produce outstanding results if you know a
few simple concepts, the understanding of which is critical to
your success.

Network Marketing, MLM, and Multilevel Marketing are unlike
franchises or conventional businesses in that they take advantage
of all three of the important, yet misunderstood principles of:

1) Leverage (of Time and Money)
2) Residual Income
3) Geometric Growth Through Duplication

Unfortunately these principles are not well understood by many of
the people that undertake network marketing. And that's just one
of many reasons why so many fail at network marketing. There are
lots of other reasons, and it would take volumes to cover them
all. But this is one of the more common ones. Because if you
don't comprehend and believe in these principles, it's impossible
to help others fully understand and appreciate them.

First, lets look at LEVERAGE:

Every successful person or business takes advantage of leverage.
There are only 24 hours in a day and no matter how talented you
are or how much you get paid per hour, if you don't take
advantage of leverage you're limited by the number of hours in a
day. As a side note, I have heard of cases where an occasional
lawyer was billing more than 24 hours per day...but, I guess
that's another story. By learning to leverage your time, you can
also benefit from a percentage of other people's efforts, and
dramatically increase your income while creating more free time
for yourself.

The unique and wonderful thing about the Network Marketing
business model is that everyone has the same opportunity to
become the 'owner' of his or her own business - with a fraction
of the investment of time and money of a franchise or traditional
business.

In network marketing the people at the top definitely have a
vested interest in helping others on their team succeed.

Would you rather receive 100% of one person's efforts, or 5% of
the efforts of 100 people?

Obviously 100% of one is always only ONE. But 5% of 100 is FIVE.

Not only will the total result with leverage almost always be
amplified, but your income is not dependent on only one person.
If your income is produced by the activities of many, it is much
more dependable. Even if something unexpected or negative happens
to one or more of those people, it only has a minor effect on the
TOTAL production.

It's great to get paid while you're sleeping or away on vacation.
That's one of the many advantages of leveraging your time.

Now, lets consider RESIDUAL INCOME:

When someone mentions residual income many people automatically
think of actors or musicians.

Residual income is recurring income that you continue to receive
long after the work you've done to produce it has ended. There
are lots of ways to produce residual income. However, many
people don't understand it, and still others have never thought
about or been exposed to it.

A very simple example of residual income is interest earned on
money in the bank or investments. You continue to receive this
income without having to invest any more time to produce it.

Suppose you had the choice of doing a job and earning $1,000
once, or getting paid $50/month for the rest of your life...which
would you choose? If you chose the $50/month you obviously "get"
the concept of residual income.

Clearly, $50/month will surpass a single payment of $1,000
relatively quickly. And if it lasts for a few years, or better
yet - the rest of your life - it will really be a blessing.

Residual income is certainly not about "getting rich quickly",
even though with the right opportunity it's possible to produce a
substantial residual income stream in a relatively short time.

Most people who fail at network marketing either choose the wrong
network organization or just give up too soon and quit because
they expect overnight results. It is important to recognize that
the real beauty of residual income is on the back end, not the
front, and that once you build it you have the financial security
and time flexibility to do just about anything you desire for the
rest of your life!

Last, but not least, lets address GEOMETRIC GROWTH (DUPLICATION):

The classic illustration of geometric growth is the frequently
used penny-a-day example.If you save one penny on the first day,
and double it every successive day, (day two you have 2 pennies
and day three you have 4 pennies, and so on) how much will you
have at the end of 30 days?

The answer, to the astonishment of many, is $5,368,708! Amazing,
but true.

That's a simple and dramatic illustration of how networking can
work. If I can teach you, I've doubled myself. If we each teach
someone else, we've doubled again. As this duplication or
geometric growth process goes on and on, it can produce some
amazing results in a relatively short period of time, just like
the penny example above.

So there you have it, understand and apply these three principles
1) Leverage (of Time and Money)
2) Residual Income
3) Geometric Growth Through Duplication

and, given sufficient time and effort, you should enjoy a
successful and financially rewarding network marketing
experience.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Kirk Bannerman operates his own successful home based business
and also coaches others seeking to start their own home based
business. For more information visit his website at
http://www.home-based-business-team.com>
Proven Work At Home Business for more details.
----------------------------------------------------------------

Understanding Web Logs and Why it Matters

2005-01-29T10:42:00.000-08:00

Copyright 2005 Sharon Housley

General web statistics give pertinent information about
website visitors. Webmasters analyzing these statistics
have a better understanding of who their website visitors
are and how they perceive the website. A lot can be learned
by evaluating navigation patterns, most-viewed pages and
exit pages. Deciphering web logs could easily become a
full-time job. The information that can be gleaned from
close log scrutiny is extremely valuable.

When a visitor comes to a website, the site has just a few
seconds to grab the visitor's interest. Slow-loading pages
or broken graphics will send visitors and potential
customers looking elsewhere. In order to make sense of web
statistics, consider using a log analysis program. These
programs tend to format the information in an
easy-to-understand way, often providing graphs or visual
representations that make understanding and seeing patterns
that much easier. The downside to using software for web
log analysis is that webmasters can easily be confused
about what the actual results mean and which results matter
the most. The information contained in the log file should
be analyzed in conjunction with other information.

Let's take a look at some of the critical areas. How many
unique visitors visit the site each day? This statistic, by
itself, is not terribly important, but when compared to a
previous week's or month's logs, patterns will generally
emerge. Sudden declines in site visitors might be
indicative of downtime or dropped links, while sudden
increases might be indicative of a successful ad campaign
or improved search engine ranking. This assumption can only
be made if sales for the corresponding time period have
increased as well. Traffic alone is not the goal; qualified
website traffic that converts a visitor into a buyer is
generally the goal of most webmasters. Web statistics on
their own do not always paint a true picture. Webmasters
need to use logs to validate advertising campaigns and
track where traffic is coming from. While details in a log
file alone are not conclusive proof of an ad campaignâ€™s
success or failure, general assumptions can be made based
on the patterns. General statistics will help determine who
your visitors are and what habits they have.

Specific areas to take a close look at:

How long are users staying on the website or a specific
page?
This question addresses a website's "stickiness".
Stickiness gives webmasters an indication of how important
their content is. If users return on a regular basis or
remain on a specific page for an extended period of time,
generally the content is considered valuable.

Site entry pages?
What pages in a website are visitors coming into? Is a
specific page on the site drawing an unusually high amount
of traffic? Do users come back to the website? Is there a
reason for a visitor to come back to the website?
Generally, content that is refreshed often will attract
return visitors. What specific areas on the site are of
interest to web visitors, and can those content sections be
expanded to increase the overall value of the website?

Site exit pages?
What pages in a website are visitors leaving from? If a
specific page has a large number of visitors leaving the
site, perhaps the content needs updating. It is critical
that you consider the source of the traffic. Are visitors
coming to the website through a pay-per-click campaign with
a landing page that does not relate to the initial search
terms? Directing visitors to content-specific landing pages
will help reduce quick site exits.

Who is making the referral?
What kind of website is sending traffic to your website?
Assumptions can be made based on the quality of the
referral source. Letâ€™s face it, if a crack site is the
leading referral generator to a software site, it is
unlikely that the bulk of visitors will be interested in
purchasing.

Bad requests?
Are visitors attempting to access pages on your website
that are no longer active? Be sure to check logs for any
pages or graphics that are generating errors for visitors.

Number of unique visitors?
Don't get too hung up on the number of "hits" a website
has, as this can be interpreted differently. Sometimes logs
interpret graphic access as a hit. A more accurate
reflection of traffic can be seen by tracking unique
visitors.

There are a number of inexpensive yet quality log analysis
applications available for download from:
http://www.monitoring-software.net/ and
http://www.monitoring-tools.net

By evaluating web logs webmasters can continuously improve
their site and measure their success. Online or off,
tracking results is critical to achieving success. If you
don't track, you don't know what works. How can you improve
what you don't measure?

About the Author:

Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll
http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing,
publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon
manages marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.net a
wireless text messaging software company.

20 Successful Tips for creating a Powerful Web Site

2005-01-29T10:39:00.000-08:00

By: Steven Boaze
Copyright © 2005

Design is a crucial element of any web page. This is truly
where the little things mean a lot. Hits are not enough,
although driving traffic to your site is very important.
Good web page design turns a browser into a customer, a
business prospect into a client, and a proposal into a deal.

Stick to the Basics- Always keep your pages simple and to
the point. This does not mean boring. Incredible graphics
and introductions, and poorly designed graphics can cause
long load times. The 8-second rule works great. If a
visitor to your site cannot load your page in this time
they will move on. At the most, a page should never take
more than 20 seconds to load. Using all connection speeds
to check it will help determine the load process.

Have a Well Designed Page Layout- Do not cram too much on a
page. All the pages should be neat, organized and easy to
navigate. Like a regular paper document, there should be
enough "white space" so that a browser can properly read
the content and locate navigation buttons and menus. When a
visitor searches for a specific topic to find you, and they
arrive at your page to find that topic, they will leave if
there are no means to navigate.

Incorporate a Theme- Settle on a visual theme and stick to
it. Graphics, fonts, content, colors, and borders should
all be within a theme that provides an identifier for your
business. If your company's logo incorporates a flag and
the colors are red, white and blue, your web page should
not have graphics that use orange, green or black.

The 3 Clicks Rule- If you incorporate navigation buttons
into your page design, a visitor should never be more than
3 clicks away from his/her goal. When designing a web page,
always keep the visitor's needs a priority and your goals
second. Although you would like to lead the visitor through
several different web pages while taking them to their
navigation result, more than 3 clicks will cause frustation,
and the visitor will go elsewhere. By keeping this priority
structure in mind, you can incorporate your goals while
providing for the needs of your visitor.

Take the easy Road Home- Every web page should have a
button or link to take your visitor to the home page while
visiting other pages throughout the entire site.

Content Publishing Know How- Remember that all content on
your pages must fit within the popular internet medium.
Something on a paper document must be edited and formatted
for publishing on the web. Web pages must be condensed and
to the point. Web site visitors do not want to scroll
endlessly to read a rambling editorial or sales
presentation.

Go Professional- If you are designing a web site for your
business and can afford it, hire or contract Professional
writers, editors and a page designer. Professional editors
will ensure that your information is timely, correct and
appropriate for your audience. Professional writers will
provide reader friendly content, industry contacts and will
keep your pages up to date on the latest trends with news.
Professional web page designers are worth every penny spent
and more importantly worth the investment.

Your World Wide Audience- If your business has global
dealings, shoudn't you have your content in several
languages? This will allow all of your prospects to feel
confortable. Your audience may be disabled. This is why it
is important to incorporate audio, visual and video options
so that a variety of people can access your content. People
who are color blind have a particularly rough time with web
pages, and this condition is more prevalent than many
realize.

Be careful not to Offend- Color is important in the success
of any web page. However, colors mean different things to
different cultures. If your business deals with several
different cultures, be sure to research the importance of
colors and their meanings. This includes the colors of
fonts, graphics and borders.

Give the page a Sting Affect- A web page that has nothing
of value for free. Example; content, resources or expert
opinion is nothing more than a sales flyer. Most of these
type are discarded without a second glance. A good rule for
layout and design is that 50 percent of your content should
only offer free news, resources, or opinion in your
business industry. This can give a stingy teaser affect
causing your visitors into becoming clients and later
buying from you.

The Domain Name Game- Spend the money to register your own
domain name. To do otherwise is like answering the phone in
your office by another business's name. Identify your
business by registering your own domain name.

Only One Choice of Purchasing- If your web page offers
products or services, always offer secure credit card
ordering using more than one method to purchase. If your
visitor finds only one way to purchase, there's a 50%
chance to leave without clicking further. Supplying this
option makes your visitor feel comfortable and most
importantly secure when performing money transactions.

Old News, No Changes- It is amazing how many web sites do
not update their information regularly. Why should a
customer return to your page to find no change or an update
has been made? Smart designers provide content areas that
visitors know will be updated regularly for news and
information. Some designers place rotating content code so
when the page is re-loaded there will be new content
displayed keeping regular customers coming back.

Being Unavailable- Many web pages forget to include
something as simple as contact information. Visitors should
always be able to easily find the same information that
would be on your business card for following up with you.
Contact forms work the best along with contact name,
mailing address and phone numbers. This will also gain the
visitors trust in your site.

Ignoring Marketing Opportunities- Not offering a free email
newsletter with news and updates is a huge mistake. Putting
a simple subscription form on your pages can build a
database of prospective business clients and contacts. This
allows you to build a relationship with your subscribers
and include specials or latest product or service
information.

Not Doing Research- Before you design your pages you should
research your prospective clients. Know their needs, wants
and what would attract them to your page over and over
again. If you have a page dedicated to automobiles, offer
links to other sites, videos and profiles of various
automobile classics, editorial featuring the larger or more
sophisticated models etc.. Offer links to anyone you
partner with, updates on the latest trends and news,
magazines, content from relevant associations.

Spelling and Grammar mistakes- Presentation is the key.
And, nothing is more unprofessional than finding a page
with these errors.

Incorrect Information- This is why there are so many
disclaimers found on the web. It is higly recommended not
to publish information on your site that are not positive.
Doing so could result in creating a lack of trust from
visitors or a lawsuit from a company or person that feels
maligned.

Technical Difficulties- Make sure every link you design
actually takes you where it says it will. Also ensure that
all of your navigation links and buttons work correctly.
Visitors can become lost and frustrated with a web page
that doesn't keep it's promises.

Being Too Creative- There is a fine line between creativity
and chaos. Personal web page design can incorporate the fun
to the funky colors, graphics and special images. However,
businesses must remember that perception is everything.
Graphics should be appropriate and in moderation. Stick to
no more than three colors; your best bet is those
identified with your business.

Following these tips, your web pages will be informative,
Professional and well organized. Not only will you and your
business have a web presence in the marketplace, you will
be represented in a manner that will attract and retain
your target audience.

About The Author

Steven Boaze, Chairman, is The Owner of Boaze.com
Corporate Web Solutions. Steven is the Author of
two successful Books, thousands of articles featured
in radio, magazines newspapers and trade journals.
Steven has 25 years experience in journalism, copywriting,
certified Web Developer. http://www.copywriteplus.com
http://www.boaze.com Copyright © 1998-2005 Boaze.com

Four Things You Have To Do To Get Free Publicity for Your Business

2005-01-29T10:32:00.000-08:00

Copyright © 2005 Paul Hartunian
Hartunian.com
http://www.hartunian.com/

It's true about any profession. The "old pros" somehow always
seem to get everything done much quicker and more effectively.
They've made their mistakes and are sensitive to the pulse rate
of the industry.

Most professions take years of experience or education to master,
getting free publicity doesn't. It's much more an issue of
finding out the little "insider secrets" that work, and learning
how to apply them to your publicity campaigns.

Above all others, there are 4 cardinal rules you can't afford to
ignore if you hope to be successful. Not following them is a sure
fire way to start depending entirely on luck instead of skill for
your progress.

These rules that should be spray painted across the wall in the
front office of every business are:

1. Be Organized.

It's fun and definitely rewarding, but becoming a publicist isn't
a game. You need to have a good idea where you're headed and how
you plan on getting there. Success doesn't come from a single
"flash in the pan" encounter with the press. You become
successful when you start developing a steady flow of income.
This only happens when you're

organized. Carefully plan your campaign before you get started.
Have your press release, bio sheet and Q&A ready to go before you
start any publicity campaign.

2. Be Different.

Remember you're in the news business. By definition, something
isn't news unless it's unique. Being different isn't that bad a
business strategy, either. If you offer the same product
everybody else does, packaged in exactly the same package, then
you really have very little other than price to negotiate. If you
can find ways to fill niches nobody else is, then you start
building loyalty, and developing seeds for a powerful news
stories.

3. Be Consistent.

The old adage about all news being good news is wrong. Just
because your name appeared on the front page of the paper doesn't
mean you've made it. Yes, it offers momentum, but you need to be
sure you're rolling in the right direction. Earning the
reputation of being self seeking and ruthless won't help much if
you then try to open a series of homeless shelters. Chart your
end goals and then move towards them, in a consistent, steady
pace.

4. Be Persistent. Don't give up. It's all a numbers game.

Actors and salesmen understand this. The fact that someone kicks
them out of an office doesn't mean they're failures or "bad
people". It just means that person had some other agenda's going.

You might send out press releases and get absolutely no response.
That's not a reason to give up.

Try tweaking it a bit. Change the headline. Make sure your format
is correct.

You can get plenty of free advice on the exact format to use at
my site, located at http://www.PressReleasesMadeEasy.com.

You might need to frame your story differently. Is it practical?
Would the average person stop in their tracks to take a second
look at your headline? Does the content of your story constitute
a news item or an ad for your product?

It's about hanging in there, not giving up, when others might.

Try averaging your failures. Instead of feeling you've failed 19
times for every victory you've logged in, try thinking of it as a
package. It takes 20 tries to get a victory. If a "victory" means
you make a $100 profit, then every one of those 20 calls makes
you $5, even if the answer is no.

Edison was once asked how he felt about failing more than 10,000
times while trying to find the correct filament to use in the
light bulb. He looked back curiously and answered that he hadn't
failed once. It was just a 10,000+ step process. Hang in there.
The only person in the world who can decide when you've failed it
you.

As long as you're still in the ring, the fight isn't over.

Being prepared before you launch your publicity campaign and
systematically sending out your press releases every week or two
will go a long way toward leaving a lasting impression about you
in the minds of reporters. That, in turn, will increase your
chances of getting call from reporters to do interviews and
promote your business.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Hartunian is the world's leading authority on publicity
and self-promotion. At his website - http://www.Hartunian.com
- you'll find lots of information about how you can get free
publicity for any product, service or business you're involved
with. Get information about his complete publicity kit at
http://www.Hartunian.com/prkit . Sign up for his free publicity
ezine at http://www.Hartunian.com/subscribe . You can reach Paul
at (973)857-4142. Or by email at mailto:PaulHartunian@Hotmail.com

How to Become A Top Internet Marketer

2005-01-26T01:26:00.000-08:00

Copyright © 2005 Willie Crawford
Profit Magician
http://profitmagician.com/

A recent thread at The Internet Marketing Warriors member-only
discussion forum examined what it is that separates the big
Internet marketing successes from the "also rans." There was
no argument that one key to being an online success is
learning to write great copy. Great copy is what gets your
site's visitors stirred up enough to actually take action...
often a monumental challenge.

The discussion also asked why big online successes would bother
with learning to write copy when they could hire someone else.
The answer was that it's fun trying to see if you can create, or
improve upon, a winning sales letter.

Many of the top copywriters are also so busy writing copy for
their own projects that if you could afford the ten to fifteen
thousand dollars they'd charge you, you'd also have to get on
their waiting lists. So clearly, learning to improve your own
web copy is a worthwhile investment.

The fact is, anyone can get a web hosting account, throw together
a hastily written web page, and say that they are in business on
the Internet. In-fact, that's what far too many people do. That's
one of the reasons why most netrepreneurs never earn a respectable
income. They never bother to learn what it is about good
copywriting that makes it work. They never learn enough about human
behavior to understand what makes us behave the way that we do.

Human behavior and motivation hasn't changed in thousand of years.
As Jay Abraham is fond on saying, "Human nature, is human nature,
is human nature." How and why we react to environmental stimuli
LITERALLY hasn't changed since the beginning of recorded history.
Understanding the causes and effects of human behavior is the
secret to great copywriting.

As complex as we like to believe we are, we're all really creatures
of habit. Humans are not really that complex. We're lots of
emotions and chemical reactions sprinkled with a little reason :-)

Copywriters understand that we're lots of "hot buttons" that can be
ethically exploited.

Great copywriters have discovered what these hot buttons are and
the correct way to push them. They've discovered through trial
and error how to whip the prospect into a "white-hot buying frenzy."
They've discovered how to get a prospect to reach an emotionally
charged decision and then logically justify it.

All of the discoveries made by great copywriters, which are often
well-documented, makes it incredibly easy for you to become a
world-class copywriter (which is your key to becoming a top
Internet marketer). All you have to do is study what they have
written. All you have to do is model their successful sales
pieces. You don't even have to fully understand WHY they worked -
you just need to know which ones worked. That's the one big
danger I see in modeling others' sales pieces. You don't always
KNOW which ones worked.

Great copywriters test everything, and as a result, always know
which elements made the difference in their advertising pieces.
It's not guesswork - it's science. Some share their scientific
findings with you in their courses and books. Aspiring
copywriters should have a library of these courses and books.

Here's an astonishing fact... many of the top Internet marketers
today did not struggle for years before becoming successful. They
understood... perhaps even stumbled upon the real key which is
effective copywriting. This enabled them to reach six and even
seven-figure incomes in months rather than years!

Let me give you an example. My friend Yanik Silver only came on
the Internet scene in 2000. I started in 1996! Within a year
of coming on the scene Yanik was already a household name.
Within 2 years, he was one of the "gurus." What is Yanik's
secret? He's an incredible copywriter.

Like many world-class copywriters, Yanik actually spent a lot of
time studying copywriting. He was introduced to the works of
Jay Abraham and Dan Kennedy as a kid. He discovered the power
of good copywriting early. As a teenager, he was already writing
direct response copy so good that it sold medical equipment, for
his dad, to hard-noised, very discriminating doctors. He wrote
ads that caused doctors to mail or fax in orders for expensive
medical machinery... site unseen, while he was still a teenager.

Yanik, and every great copywriter that I've ever talked to,
became that way through study and practice. They studied
everything that they could that was written on the topic by
famous, proven copywriters. They built huge "swipe file" of
documented-successful sales pieces. Then they spent a lot of
time practicing writing similar sales pieces. They practiced
until they were able to model their teachers.

Being one of the Internet marketing top-earners is really
very simple. You study "million-dollars salespieces." You
sit down and write them out, over and over again. You study
each element of those successful salespieces. Through practice
and repetition you develop a feel for the flow. Your nervous
system becomes "trained." You develop an arsenal of thoughts,
of headlines, guarantees, closes, proof, sub-headings, power
word... and eventually you reach a point where the powerful,
effective copy just flows from you effortlessly.

I used Yanik as an example above for two reasons. One is
that he has produced a "home-study" copywriter's course that
I've gone through. I refer to my materials from this course
any time that I'm working on any email, autoresponder
series, direct mail piece, or webpage. You can check out
Yanik's course at: http://www.ultimateonlinecopymanual.com

The second reason I used Yanik as an example of how good
copywriting can make you a fast-rising Internet marketing
superstar is that Yanik consistently sets the standard that
I aspire to. Yanik conducts workshop - his "protege program"
that costs $14,497 to be a part of. That's not the
incredible part though - the incredible part is that he has
a HUGE waiting list for participating in his protege program.

So there you have THE big secret of how to become a top
Internet marketer. Since I've been trained to over-deliver,
I'll also share with you a second secret. That secret is,
another key to rising to the top in ANY field is associating
with those who have already risen to the top. Yanik not only
studied Dan Kennedy, he also attended his workshops. Yanik
demonstrated to Dan that he was a serious student, and so
impressed Dan that Dan had Yanik teaching at "last-ever"
copywriting workshop.

How can you capitalize on that second success secret. Check
out this "underground" event that only those "in the know"
will be at:
http://www.profitautomation.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=118679
This event is where you can brainstorm ideas with me and a
lot of the TOP Internet marketers. It's also where you'll find
a lot of future Yanik Silver's.

Now that you know the keys, only inaction can keep you
from becoming one of the top Internet marketers. I've
just revealed those keys to you and lots of aspiring Internet
marketers. Only a handful will use that knowledge thought.
That's why there will always only be a few at the top!

By the way... if you'd like to become a members of The
Internet Marketing Warriors, and brainstorm marketing ideas
with some of the best and the brightest, you can join the
club at: http://www.warriorpro.com/cgi-bin/w.cgi?2602

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Willie Crawford is a corporate president, published author,
seminar speaker and host, tele-seminar speaker and host,
retired military officer, karate black belt, master network
marketing trainer, and lifetime student of marketing. He shows
people how to actually generate substantial income on-line
using very simple, easily modeled systems. An example of
such a system that you can study and duplicate is at:
http://www.vemmabuilder.com/1681647

Creative Marketing Tips ... "Simple Things You Can Use In Your Business To Attract More Clients"

2005-01-13T17:10:00.000-08:00

Copyright © 2004-2005 Troy White
Small Business Copywriter.com
http://www.smallbusinesscopywriter.com/

The single most important activity you can do in your small
business is create a unique marketing strategy and plan. When
was the last time you saw a company marketing themselves in an
outrageous way? In this day and age it looks like everyone has
read the same book on marketing - and sorry to say - that book
doesn't work!

What does work - is a little creativity, a little personality
and a lot of effort to make yourself so different from your
competition - that there is no real competition.

1. What crazy stunts could you do to get free media publicity?
What type of outrageous challenge could you post to the
public (ie give me 30 days and we will change your life,
your business, your appearance, etc.) Alternatively, go get
a Guinness Book Of Records... find something that is remotely
related to your business... and design a new record you are
going to create - the media will love you.

2. What's your stadium pitch? Imagine this...you have been given
the chance to do a 60 second presentation to 50,000 people in
a stadium. Just as you walk out to start the presentation...
they announce that people don't have to stay if they don't
want. What could you say in 15 seconds to get them to stay?
What could you say in 60 seconds to convince them that your
company is the only alternative and they'd be crazy not to
build a relationship with you?

3. Think about the lifetime value of your clients. When they are
first introduced to you they are buying into a relationship
with you... they are NOT buying a product. It is up to you
to nurture that relationship. Are you? If you treat them
right and make them feel like family... your clients will
come back... buy more... and buy more often. In today's cold
impersonal business world, be the one that treats them like
family.

4. Find a way to build a recurring payment plan around your
business. If you have a one-time purchase of your product...
what could you offer to your clients to have them come back
more often? Could you do a tune-up or clean up or re-design
once a year? Rather than waiting for them to come in...
offer them a reminder service and a monthly enticement to
come back in. Bill them monthly, quarterly or yearly. Up to
50% (sometimes more) of your clients will take this option...
what would that add to your bottom line?

5. Create joint ventures with other related businesses... anyone
that deals with the same target market that you do. Explain
to them that you will send them extra business if they give
your clients an incentive to buy (coupons, discounts, bonuses
etc). Create a booklet that you will give out to your clients
with all these discounts. For every discount coupon they use
- that supplier is to pay you $xx dollars for the new client
you brought them

6. Send out a weekly (even bi-weekly) email newsletter with
some tips, some humor, some specials of the week. On the days
when it is going to rain - send out an urgent bulletin - rainy
day special! Offer them a deal to come down, brave the rain
and get a deal on lunch.

7. Make doing business with you more exclusive. Make it on a
referral-only basis. There is a dentist I know of that locks
his door. You are not allowed in unless one of his present
clients has recommended you... even then you need to pass
the approval process. And he has 3 times more profit (and
much happier clients) than any other dentist in his city.

8. Test all of your crazy ideas. No matter how crazy they sound
- try it out. Find out which ones work. Then optimize how
effective they are. Test all variations of that idea. Find
out which variation works best.

9. Use risk reversal in your offer. Make it so your clients come
out so far ahead by dealing with you they would be silly not
to. Even if they decide that your product is not for them and
they return it - they still come out of the deal with the
refund and many bonuses that they never had before dealing
with you. The stronger the risk reversal and the longer the
guarantee... the fewer number of returns and complaints -
it's a fact.

Think differently, be different, make sure people notice you are
different - and you will be very profitable. To your success!

-----------------------------------------------------------------
By Troy White of http://www.SmallBusinessCopywriter.com "Turning
Words Into Wealth" ...Helping entrepreneurs jump start their
business success and profit growth through uncommon, yet highly
profitable, marketing techniques. http://www.MarketingESP.com
- 3 step forumla to Miraculous Marketing Results.

SmallBusinessCopywriter.com - sign up for our *Free* newsletter.
1-403-259-4566 or email mailto:troy@smallbusinesscopywriter.com
© Small Business Copywriter.com 2005

Search Engines Can Be The Online Writer's Best Friend

2005-01-11T10:19:00.000-08:00

By Cherie' Davidson
Copyright 2005

The Internet has opened up an incredible amount of
opportunity and resource for writers. It has even inspired a
whole new breed ... those who write exclusively for online
markets. As the Internet grows, so does content demand,
and accordingly, the need for writers.

It's an exciting time for online writers, with a wide array of
options. With desire and well-directed effort, a good writer
can end up with a variety of work. However, as we know,
there is much more to the writing biz than the meat and
potatoes of the actual writing. Research, record-keeping,
finding markets, composing and sending queries, dealing
with rejections and self-promotion all factor in, and it all
takes up a great deal of time. But the actual money, and
the greatest satisfaction, comes from the writing itself
and seeing your by-line posted on some well-trafficked site.

So, the question becomes, "How do I make more time for
writing and spend less time on the `other stuff'?" That
"other stuff" is vital to being a successful writer, so the
trick is to find the easiest and most simplified ways to
accomplish the "not writng stuff."

I have given it much thought-and spent a great deal
of time-and as a cyber-writing veteran I have discovered
there is timesaving value in search engines. Eight years
ago I would not have believed that the time-consuming
search engine could be my friend. But now I know better!

The trick is to be selective, precise, and not allow yourself
to get distracted. Another trick is to get to know the
particular benefits and shortcuts of your favorite search
engines and directories, because they all have different
aspects to them, some more than others. Use their
strengths and avoid their weaknesses.

RELEVANT SEARCHES

The greatest weakness is irrelevant search results, so for
general or topical searches stick with those sites that
make an effort to give relevant results. A tip from my
own experiences: use either specialty search directories
dedicated to the particular field you are researching, or a
major engine that uses popularity results.

One drawback to large search portals is they usually bring
back a huge amount of results (often in the thousands and
hundreds of thousands), so I don't go any deeper than the
first three to five pages of results. If I can not find what I
am looking for in those results, my search term/keywords
are getting derivative results and this translates to losing
valuable time. So I do a new search using different and
more specific keywords or phrases to get better results faster.

REFERENCE HELP

When you are working online, why take the time to pull a
dictionary, thesaurus, or other reference book from your
shelf, when you can type what you want and have it pop
up on your screen? As you may have discovered, the major
search engines don't really offer reference information,
except to give you lists of sites that specialize. By using a
reference-specific directory you have access to a list of
helpful tools at your mouse-tip.

TOOT YOUR OWN HORN, AKA List Your Writing Site

The third best way search sites can be a very good friend is
when you list your writing site with them. More and more
off and online writers are finding an advantage to having
their own online presence, a site for posting their virtual
portfolio, links to their published online work, "clips" available
for download or reading on site, references, bios, even
resumes or client/publishing lists. You can have a site for
little or no money by using a free site service like Geocities
(http://www.geocities.com), or my personal favorite,
QuickSites (http://quicksites.pixelmation.com). Now more
than ever, it is important - actually, it is essential - for
today's writers to have a Website or at least a blog.
Someplace where editors, publishers and potential
contacts (and even fans!) can visit and learn more about
the writer, their work and who they are.

Once you have a site, you obviously want people to find it,
and listing with search engines and directories is one of the
ways to do this. You can pay to have a service list your site,
or you can take the time to do it yourself. How far you want
to take it depends on your needs, but for the shoestring-budget
writer, I have found the best way is to go to the search engine
and directory sites, and fill out the (usually) short forms found
on their "Add a Site" or "Submit URL" pages on your own.

There are some free services that claim to "mass submit"
your site address to hundreds of search engines, but you
may pay for these with your time, because your e-mail
inbox will be flooded with "Make Money" and promotional
offers, so be careful and know what you are getting into.
One notable and outstanding exception is SelfPromotion.com
(http://selfpromotion.com/?CF=piteditor). I have used that site
for a few years and I never get spammed or bothered. I
always begin my client site promotions at SelfPromotion.com.

When submitting your site, use the search directories that
do not charge a listing fee. This will not give you thousands
of visitors your first month (and neither will paying for being
listed!), but it will cost you very little time, no money, and
get you a good start. Then you can include your site address
in the signature of all your e-mails, add it to business cards,
stationary, your yellow pages ad or anywhere you put your
name or business name.

Search engine and directory sites are very helpful tools with
great potential for benefit when used efficiently. With a little
practice, and being aware of the positive features available
at your favorite portals, you will be able to spend more time
on the real issue at hand-getting that article or story written
and published.

~~~~~~~~~~ Resource Box ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cherie' Davidson is a working freelance writer who has
specialized in Website content, marketing and information
articles since 1999. She has finally caved in and started a blog
for helpful and humorous comments and articles. You are
invited to visit her blog at http://suitablewords.blogspot.com

Increase Traffic, Sales, And Overall Profits With This One Easy Technique!

2004-12-08T10:24:00.000-08:00

Author : Grady Smith.

It's an explosive chain reaction...

To make sales, you need traffic. And to get traffic ... well, that's a tough
challenge for many online marketers. But there truly is an under used way to
literally have visitors flocking to your web site with very little expense.
And this technique even increases the chances of you making money off your
visitors as opposed to traditional sales techniques used online.

The real question to ask yourself is, would you like to have traffic being
pumped to your web site while getting the chance to offer various products to
your visitors over and over again while making repeat sales on a shoe-string
budget and with dead-eye accuracy? Then keep reading...

Let's start with traffic. However you go about getting it, you usually have to
use either a lot of time, money, or both just to get a little spurt of
traffic. So the real "fire" behind marketing your MLM program, ebook, or
affiliate programs is to use your advertising as a tap for turning on a flood
of new visitors. And the easiest way to do this is by offering them something
absolutely free.

Free? Won't that cost a fortune giving out something for free?

Not at all. In fact, it's free for you too. With the age of digital
publishing, handing out ebooks or reports doesn't cost you a dime more whether
you're giving out 10 free reports or thousands.

And as a result of offering these free premiums to those visiting your web
site, you're going to have a lot more people coming to get the free stuff. And
in the process, you can use a free offering to build a strong list of targeted
prospects -- and market various products to them at your will.

First step is creating your free report or ebook. I like reports in most
cases, as they can be very informative without having to be huge. And with the
right title, you can send out a beacon that calls all of your perfect
customers right on over to your web site.

So, create a free report on a subject that would interest your perfect
customer. Who are you selling to? What do they want? What kind of report can
you create that they'll find irresistible?

Once you create your free report, create a web page that does nothing more
than sell people on downloading your free report. Just like writing a sales
letter for an online product you're charging for, you want to hit all of the
"buttons" that will make more people request your report. And in exchange for
giving them this free report, you're able to collect their email and name to
start building your own list of interested prospects.

Next, set your free report to run with an autoresponder. One that I recommend
is GetResponse.com which allows you to send broadcast messages to everyone on
your entire mailing list. This means you can collect information, and then
later market to this group of prospects over and over again.

First message of your autoresponder should be your free report. From there,
you can create additional autoresponder messages that are sent to prospects
every couple of days to sell them on various products. Each email message
inside of your autoresponder can sell them on visiting and buying a different
product, meaning you can sell multiple products through one autoresponder and
make a whole heck of a lot more money by doing so.

But here's the real keys to making everything work like a rapid-fire machine
gun...

1) Announce that you're offering a free report in all classified ads you
create. Check out my signature file at the bottom of this article to see an
example of a free product I'm offering, and how I announce it. The same
technique can be used for creating your classified ads.

2) Don't use reports or ebooks that others have created. Instead, create your
own or hire someone to write one for you. This way, you're able to have an
exclusive report that no one else can offer. And that's a powerful thing when
you have a highly desired report and your web site is the only place to get it.

And as a final note, don't simply run the messages in your autoresponder and
then let the prospects slip away. Instead, keep offering new products either
that you create, buy, or sell through an affiliate program. Just creating new
email messages and "broadcasting" them to your list can be a quick and easy
way to bring in big profits quick.

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How To Add Fresh Content To Your Website

2004-12-07T09:57:00.000-08:00

Copyright © 2004 Jeff Schuman

Team-Schuman.Com

http://www.team-schuman.com/

I've read over and over that when it comes to building a website
and getting a lot of traffic to it "Content Is King." If you do
a search for any topic you will find the websites that come up
in the Top 10 all have a lot of content on their websites.

When somone does a search they are looking for information and
the search engines job is to provide it to them. For your
website to increase in popularity you have to constantly be
adding fresh content. This will increase your ranking for the
keywords on your site and ultimately increase your traffic and
repeat traffic.

Here are a few simple things you can do to add fresh content.

1. Do you publish and ezine? If so add a file to your index for
each issue and archive it online. This will bring all kinds of
keyword rich content to your website on a constant basis.

2. Start and article page. Add new articles to it. If you write
put your articles on your website. Subscribe to a few ezines
that are industry related. If you come across an article you
like add it to your page.

3. Add Free Syndicated Content Feeds to your article page. This
is really easy to do. All you do is copy a few lines of code
into the HTML of your web page and you have a constant stream of
new articles for your readers. Here are 2 of my favorite sources:

http://www.submityourarticle.com/syndicate/

http://www.web-source.net/syndicator.htm

4. Add Pay Per Click Advertising to your site. Most people think
of PPC advertising as a way to promote their site. I have found
it very easy to build new web pages around different keywords
relating to the the theme of my site and actually get paid for
the click. One of my favorite pay per click advertising sources
is SearchFeed. This is very easy to work with and provides a
nice income boost every month as well.

http://www.team-schuman.com/searchfeed

Here is an example of a page I built around the SearchFeed
advertising model. Notice that I have made the look of their
box compliment my own page. Also a key here is that as the
advertisers with SearchFeed change so does the content on my
site and I never have to do anything except add some easy code
one time.

http://www.team-schuman.com/make-money/homebasedbusiness

I have an article on the page and I change that periodically
as well.

5. Start a Link Exchange Program. This is a little harder to set
up and is time consuming, but I have found it to be worth the
effort. In a future article I will go into detail on how to
properly do link exchanges. For now just let me say that linking
is a great way to constantly be adding new content to your site
as you link with new websites that compliment yours.

One company who does a great job if you don't want to spend much
time linking is LinksManager. They manage reciprocal links, and
help increase your website traffic through linking with other
like-minded quality sites. Check them out here:

http://www.linksmanager.com/

6. Think outside the box. It is worthwhile to continue to think
of new and easy ways to keep adding fresh content to your
website. Go to Google and do a search for "Fresh Content For My
Website" without the Quotation marks. Currently there are Over
1.9 million results that come up. Everything from cut and paste
charts, to RSS feeds and a whole lot more.

In conclusion "Content Really Is King. I have found my position
with the search engines improve dramatically when I really
started building more web pages and adding more fresh content.

It is time consuming at first, but the payoff in the long run is
worth the effort when the search engines reward your effort and
your traffic and income grow proportionally as well.

Resource Box:
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Jeff Schuman is the creator of several websites. His
Sites-Plus.Com website is a small business website that contains
the best of everything you need to start and run your own small
business. Visit it here today: http://www.sites-plus.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Use Collaborative Approach - and Get Leveraged Earnings

2004-12-06T08:19:00.000-08:00

Copyright@2004 Sanjay Johari

By helping others to grow their business you ensure growth of your own business. I have seen this theory work even while dealing with competitors. This confirms one of the golden rules - you get what you give to others.

I have been involved in building and running factories to generate profit and credibility - right from constructing foundations for machines and buildings up to the point of developing customers and retaining them. In the process I have had to deal with many agencies - suppliers, customers, consultants, government officials, licensing firms and many others.

Whenever I negotiate a deal with these agencies, I always have two considerations at the back of my mind. One of them is cost reduction and the other one is the prospect of entering into long-term relationship. It is often possible to resort to arm-twisting to get a deal which appears better for you. But there is a better approach - the collaborative approach.

Collaborative Approach - Let us take the case of a supplier or a vendor. While it is possible to force a deal in your favor, collaborative approach makes that unnecessary. In this approach you actually work with the vendor as a consultant to help him to reduce his cost of sale, and then get the savings passed on to you. This creates a win-win situation, good relationship develops and long-term source of supply is ensured.

Similar approach works with customers also. Customers can be helped in growing their business, in solving their technical problems and other issues. This may not give immediate monetary benefit, but there are longer-term advantages. One obvious benefit is that loyal customers are developed. Another equally important benefit is that customers actually advertise for your products. This is a no-cost advertisement endorsed by actual user of your product.

Network marketing uses a collaborative approach that makes it really appealing. It is unfortunate that network marketing or multi-level marketing is not really considered as respectable as it deserves to be. This may be because many network organizations have disappeared because of faulty systems or un-ethical practices. Many programs did not have any products to sell; their business was only recruiting down line members. Such programs and associated legal issues should be totally avoided.

PERSISTENCE PAYS - One of the reasons why new affiliates give up too early and too easily is that they were probably lured by some get-rich-quick scheme to join the program which did not materialize as they were led to believe. In any good network marketing program it is important to realize that results will be forthcoming only thru persistence. Building any business which can yield returns sufficient to support a family takes time.

Good Affiliate Programs - While many organizations have disappeared in thin air, there are also organizations that are growing and growing. Many programs offer unlimited earning potential. It is important to join only good programs with proven track record. New affiliates are often new to the Internet business and join with the hope of making some extra cash working part-time or working from home. They need support from the organizations operating the programs by way of training, sales promotion material, discussion forums etc. Many programs provide such support to their affiliates.

Personal Guidance - While all these material can help a new affiliate, there is no substitute for personal guidance. Apart from other benefits it can provide, it at least assures the new affiliate that she is being taken care of and is not left alone. This is where collaborative approach comes into play. Generally the person who sponsors the new affiliate works as a guide. The guide has more experience in this field and helps the new affiliate to grow her business.

Leveraged Earnings - The programs that have a system of providing leveraged earning to its members particularly take advantage of this situation. In leveraged earning, a member earns from the efforts of the down-line members. Suppose you have members in your down-line just below you, and these members have their own down-line members. Like this there are several layers of members below you. Depending upon the program you have joined, you can earn leveraged earning when your down-line members in several layers below you earn their commission.

In this situation it will be to your advantage to help other down-line members earn commission for themselves. They are also happy to earn for themselves with your help. This collaborative approach works out a winner for all concerned.

Apart from monetary benefits, there are other issues involved in the collaborative approach. In my opinion the most important aspect is that the new affiliate does not feel neglected. There are now plenty of free information available in the Internet, most of which can be obtained by visiting websites or thru autoresponders. All the secrets of running successful business are out there. Yet only a few people are able to succeed and earn back their investment. With so much of often-conflicting information people get more confused than educated. If there is a person to guide you it will at least give you a sense of relief.

There are awards also for those who guide others to realize their dreams. This is the sense of satisfaction they get in helping others and earning their life-long gratitude. Other bonus gift is opportunity of building your credibility and gain trust of your business partners.

The sense of belonging, which develops in collaborating with others for overall growth of all, is the real beauty of
leveraged earning.

============================================
Sanjay Johari helps in operating on-line small business.
Experience the power of leveraged earning.
For top business opportunity, information, e-books, articles and more, visit
Http://www.Sanjay-J.com

Subscribe to Home Business Tips newsletter with hundreds of tricks and tips for Home Business. Send a blank e-mail to
sanjay-j@getresponse.com

===========================================

Knocking The Mythology Out of Affiliate Network Marketing

2004-12-05T23:36:00.000-08:00

Copyright 2004 Isaiah Hull

If you have worked as an Internet marketer for any amount of time, you have probably heard repeatedly that affiliate network marketing opportunities are the most lucrative, cleanest, quickest way to make an income on the Internet. And if you have actually tried affiliate network marketing for any amount of time, you more than likely ended up brokeor never achieved more than modest, fluctuating success. ..like almost everyone else who goes into the field.

So what prevents you and 97% of all other affiliatemarketers from succeeding while 3% continually rakes in 70% of the profits? Are they smarter than you are? Do they work harder and longer than you do? Do they know a bunch of obscure secrets that you do not?--No, but they do have atotally different mindset.

In order to become successful in affiliate network marketing, you must destroy the mythological mindset that most people bring to the business. You must stay firmly grounded in reality if you ever want to succeed.

How many times have you heard about some little old lady that only spends 3 hours a week on her computer and somehow earns $50,000 a month? And how many times have you read an ad that tells you how you can make $10,000 in one month from now if you sign up right away?

We have all seen these ads and we have all responded to them at one time or another. Chances are, if you're in an affiliate program now, you were hooked by a line like that.But what separates the "gurus" from the people who makelittle or no money is that the gurus understand what this really is: mythology. These stories, while they might be true, promote mythological thinking that tricks people into trying every opportunity that looks good at the moment,rather than focusing on a single opportunity.

These "opportunities" not only prevent you from succeeding, but they have an even nastier byproduct : they promote the mythology that you either succeed on the Internet in 15 minutes or you will never succeed at all.

This is simply not true, yet it is the reason why almost no one succeeds with affiliate marketing: they can never stay with one opportunity more than a couple months. If they do not have instant success, they give up and move on--restarting the same building process they abandoned. They never reap the profit of cumulative efforts. They build a foundation, they leave before starting the actual building--and then they move to another company, start the foundation, and then leave once again.

Without exception, every successful Internet marketer has spent an enormous amount of time both researching and experimenting with online business. Most have failed miserably a number of times and most have spent a significant amount of time working their way to the top and achieving profit. It really is pretty hard to earn an income on the Internet, but it is entirely doable if youare following a proven plan and if you are willing to abandon lofty mythology for a plan rooted in reality.

Affiliate marketing is one of the best places to start making a profit online. In fact, almost every successful Internet marketer I know started her career selling affiliate products. Many of them still do. What made them successful is that they found a legitimate opportunity tomake money (whether or not it was the best one available),they found replicable processes that got them visitors and profit, and then they repeated those processes and reinvested those profits until they got to where they are now.

Most people cannot accept that making money with affiliate programs is this simple. I have found that most affiliate marketers who do not earn an income online either a) do not want to do actual work or b) have developed a mythological mindset from reading affiliate program advertisements--and can only think in terms of making money on the Internet through magic, rather than results-oriented action.

In closing, I will summarize and then dispel all of the popular Internet affiliate marketing myths, so you can skip the learning curve and start building your empire today:

Myth #1: There is an affiliate program out there that will do all of the work for you and make you rich without requiring effort on your part.

Truth: You have a much better chance of earning an income on the Internet if you work on the affiliate program you are in currently in (as long as it is a legitimate opportunity) than if you search the entire Internet for a better opportunity. There is definitely a lot to be said for having a responsive, successful upline, but ultimately, your success will depend on your actions. You can sell anything on the Internet; you just have to spend enough time in the building and learning process.

Myth #2: You must spend an exorbitant amount of money on advertising to make money on the Internet.

Truth: Every single successful Internet marketer puts heavy testing, good design, and reliable follow-up over heavy spending. They minimize costs and they make sure what they are actually spending produces empirically-acceptable results.

If you ignore this you will fail. A lot of real life corporations spend thousands of dollars monthly on PPC campaigns and end up making no money at all because they don't start small and test their results. They just throw money at the problem and hope for sales. You don't have thousands of dollars to throw away, so don't do this.

Myth #3: You will succeed or fail on the Internet or on any Internet money-making venture within month.

Truth: Most Internet marketers have spent time building an enormous empire with big mailing lists and regular website visitors. They worked to become successful. You must also.

If you want to find an affiliate program that makes you rich instantly without putting in any work, then continue spending money. Send me an email when you find it because I have personally looked at hundreds--and while some are better than others--none offer success without action.

The Internet is riddled with mythology. If you want to succeed, you must reject this mythology and look for clear,work-for-results solutions. You must create plans and put them into action immediately. You must build and cultivate a base of subscribers and visitors. And above all, you must accept that you can only achieve profit through sweat, notluck.

About the Author:

Isaiah Hull is the CEO of an Internet business, a publisherof two business newsletters, PTL of several affiliate programs, and a business trainer for his affiliates. On 11/10/04, he released a brand-new free Internet income course to address the major changes in Internet marketing: http://www.workathomerightnow.net/