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July 30, 2007
5 Tips To Great Web Design
If you're building your very own Website it will really serve you in the long run to pay special attention to Website design from the outset. Sure you can go back and fix things at a later date, but a lot of damage can already have been done to your online credibility by that point - and that credibility may take a very long time to build back up again, so why take the risk?
Here are five do's and don'ts to ensure that any Website you design lives up to a basic level of good usability from a visitor's perspective.
1) Splash pages are not a good idea
What's a splash page? It's the first page you see when you arrive at a Website. The specific ones that are bad are those that say something like 'Welcome!' and then have you waiting for several minutes while some audio or video presentation loads - not a good idea. Remember, your Website visitors will typically have a very short attention span. Your site is competing with millions of others and making your visitors wait around will only make them want to hit the back button in their browser and go visit somewhere else. The first page, the 'Home' page, of your Website should be a genuine content page with a fast load time, i.e. not excessive in the graphic department, where all of the other pages and sections of your site are easily accessible from.
2) Don't overdo it with the banner adverts
Excessive use of banner adverts will tend to give your Web pages a slow load time and, particularly if they flash and pulse in a kaleidoscope of color, will irritate and annoy your visitors rather more than they'll entertain them. But they'll make you money, I hear you say? Will they? Most experienced Webmasters will tell you that the days of successful banner advertising are pretty much in the past. Most Web surfers these days have learned that banners are advertising and obvious advertising tends to get tuned out. You can get away with one or two banners per page that look in context with the general look and feel of your Web pages but overdoing it will only make you look like an amateur. Banner farms are so old hat and don't impress anyone these days, if they ever did.
How many Websites have you found that left you completely bewildered when it came to finding your way around and locating the information that they appeared to promise and that you were looking for? Probably more than you care to remember, sadly. And how many of them did you choose to revisit after having been bamboozled first time around? Not many, right? Well, learn from your own experience here and make sure that you put a lot of time and effort into planning your site's navigation menu so that it is logical and easy to understand. It's a good idea to test it on a few friends to see if they can find what they're looking for without any help from you. If they can't, it's back to the drawing board.
4) Choose your Website color schemes wisely
If you give your visitors a headache when they're at your site they'll a) leave quickly and b) not come back. One of the best ways to achieve those two undesirable effects is to choose some sort of garish color scheme that even your Website's Mother would not be able to love. Pay particular attention in this regard to text. Make sure that your text is of a size that makes it comfortably readable and that it stands out clearly from its background. Sticking with normal black text on a white background best ensures this.
5) Get rid of that annoying muzak
You don't have cheesy 'tunes' playing in the background on your Website do you? If you do, please get rid of them. It really won't do you any favors, you'll just come across as a complete amateur who really doesn't care about annoying their visitors, and if you want a successful Website, that's not something you should be going out of your way to do. That's not to say that audio and, indeed, videos don’t have a place on a successful Website. With the ever-increasing use of broadband Internet connections it is perfectly possible to integrate informative and entertaining audio and video presentations into Web pages that might even be more acceptable to your target audience than plain old text on its own. Just make sure that the audio and video you provide can be turned on and off by your Website visitor and has easily adjustable volume.
It's really very tempting to just jump right in and start building your Website without much planning but it really is more sensible to spend a reasonable amount of time working things out on paper first. Doing this will almost certainly save you time in the long run by minimizing the number of mistakes you'll have to correct that jumping in with both feet without thinking will inevitable lead to.
Posted by billenross at 04:31 PM | Comments (0)
July 28, 2007
Blogging - some thoughts for the beginner
The derivation of the word blog comes from web logging, as it used to be known. It has changed a lot in its development and now blogging is a front line tool in the Internet promotion tool box. It is now used to promote products and services and presents another platform to to communicate with the visitor and develop a lasting relationship with them.
Having created the the business blog you can then monetize it as well as personalize it to your own requirements. Once created, you can make money out of the blog by syndicating it through RSS to your business website. If you have decided that you will set up a blog for business, below are a few tips on how to make it one of the more interesting and popular blogs.
1 - Your audience.
You are writing your blog post for your audience to read, so don't forget that what you write is of interest to them. They have searched for through a keyword, or keyword phrase, and arrived at your blog. So, make sure they are happy with what they find and even interested enough to look a little further into your blog, and maybe visit your website.
2 - Words fail - see sketch.
A large block of text can become very boring when reading, especially online. A picture or graphic or two placed within the text breaks up the strict framework of the post and keeps the reader interested through to the end. It is especially true if the picture is relevant to the subject of the post.
3 - The content needs to be relevant.
The posts made to your business blog need to be relevant to the subject of the blog. In other words the blog is set up around your niche market and with keywords and keyword phrases that are relevant to the subject. The intent is to draw traffic to your blog based on those keywords and keyword phrases. The business blog needs to create a special relationship with its visitors with the aim to sell products or services/ If you consistently write good quality posts to your blog the visitor will return for more of the "good stuff", and will eventually trust that you know what you are talking about and buy one of your recommended products or services.
5 - Make it interactive.
Audio and video are very good interactive methods, but all blogs come with a "comments" facility for each post made. Make sure that this feature is not turned off, and all comments must be approved before publishing them.
Before starting out with your blog you will need to do some pre-planning as to how you will personalize and monetize the blog, as well as how often you will post to it. An important fact to resolve is where will the content for each post come from. A good business blog needs a steady stream of interesting and relevant content in order to become a profitable venture - how will you complete this task? Remember that no plan is a plan to failure.
Posted by billenross at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)
July 25, 2007
How Small Businesses Waste Money
Most business owners subscribe to the thought that you "must spend money to make money". This can be true, but you also must know exactly where that money is going and the results it brings. A small business owner never has any money to waste.
Some ways that your business might waste money includes the following:
1. Manage your credit cards - If you have several cards, develop a computer program that will show you the exact balances, due dates, and the interest rate you are paying. Always be aware of other solicitations that save you money and possibly change your balances over to a new company. If you have any employee cards, see if you can set a limit on them. If not with the credit card company, make sure that the employees know their limits. Manage your credit cards wisely and never, ever miss a due date.
2. Develop an annual plan so you know where you will spend money. This helps you in several ways. The business person will be aware of what portion of the profits are going to advertising, towards incentives, towards accounting and other internal expenses, etc.
3. Do not over-purchase any products or services for a business. If you buy in bulk, the money is tied up and a place must be provided to keep the extras and that might be costing money not needed to be spent.
5. A small business owner will sometimes be under self-induced stress to manage all aspects of the business. Sometimes, leaving the control and decisions to others that are qualified is the best way to manage the business. Releasing control may be hard to do sometimes, but in a lot of businesses, money can be wasted because the owner cannot possibly be as efficient as the person who has studied or is knowledgeable about a particular field. For instance, if a business owner does not know accounting, many mistakes in reporting income and taxes can be made. A qualified accountant can possibly save more than the cost of their services in reduced taxes.
Take a hard look around your business and do not let anything be set in stone if saving money is the goal. Challenge everything that will cost money and see what can be done to change the situation. Any money that is saved, is money that can be put back into the business either in profits or in growth.
A business owner wants their business to be successful and will work hard to sustain growth. A business owner wants a way to continue making and growing money from a product or service that is interesting to them. After growing a business and being smart with cash flow, many business owners will sell their businesses only to start another business.
The reason is that business owners are independent types and challenges are rewarding when met and faced. Saving money through every day operations will help the business owner to meet their financial and emotional goals.
Posted by billenross at 08:37 PM | Comments (0)
July 20, 2007
Why Muti-tasking Sucks
When one thinks of great American businesses of the past names like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Sr., William Randolph Hearst and a myriad of others come to mind. The great robber barons of old built businesses on the backs of hardworking employees that toiled for long hours and most often on wages and work ethics, most today cannot understand.
This was a time of innocence and growth as a nation. The rules of business back then were simpler and in most cases made a lot more sense as shown through business practices that made sense to the common man. Somewhere along the journey, though this set of ideals was replaced by people lacking the common sense business practices of yesteryear with people who no longer owned the business but by employees managing employees.
With this we have seemed to turn business into this great game of which way is the wind blowing today. Many American businesses are no longer run for the good of its owners but rather for a select groups of individuals that are more concerned with the closing price of their stock options today rather than what is best for the long-term health and development of the company over the long-term.
While our Asian counter parts plan for ten, twenty and a hundred years from now American businesses are stuck worrying about the next fiscal quarter. Out of this short-term philosophy come poor business judgments and even more foolish business practices. One such currently popular business practice known as multi-tasking is a prime example of the lack of common sense.
On the surface, multi-tasking sounds like the golden formula to solve all our competitive problems, someone doing two or three tasks at once will be able to do so much more now. Sounds great on the surface, right? While in theory this may sound like a good way to get more done and be more responsive to the ever changing world with all its mishaps and fires that must be dealt with it is not the nirvana it is made out to be.
When in practice this has to be one of the most ill-advised practices of modern business there could be. Why you may ask? Although the thought of the human robot doing multiple task at once like a computer running multiple programs at once sounds great on the surface the sad fact is humans are not computers and all the managerial pressure in the world is not going to change this.
Humans work best at one task at a time with minimal interruption. Every time we have to change tasks to do, something else creates an interruption, which in turn takes time to switch gears from and come up to speed on the new task. It is rather like having to restart your computer every time you want to do a new document or a new program for a moment if you had to do this how much would your computer get done in the day?
If every restart took just three minutes, this would add up to hours every week. Why then is it that American business loves this so much, because it is busy work people look like they are so busy and getting so much done when in essence if they were left to one task at a time they would get almost an extra days worth of work done in the same amount of time. So, lose the multi-tasking super highway and let humans' function humanely again.
Posted by billenross at 04:17 PM | Comments (0)
July 13, 2007
Business Networking For Stronger Sales
Every business depends on networking between employees and other stakeholders in the company to accomplish the goals of management. To be effective in a small business, you have to take a look at the way a corporation builds its network of clients and recruits their employees. Effective networking practices assure the highest profitability for a business. This is why human resources is such a high priority in the corporate world. A corporation draws its strength from its client base and the reputation it builds by recruiting the best and brightest employees.
If you are a small business owner, you have probably thought of expanding your business. The way to increase sales is done through either leveraging capital or human resources. To leverage capital, you would borrow money and invest it in your means of production. This might be better equipment, more employees or anything that would increase your productivity.
Most small businesses choose to leverage human resources. A good example of this is an affiliate program. The idea behind running an affiliate program is to offer other companies or individuals a monetary incentive for acting as agents to sell your products to the public.
This is a good example of effective networking because you have a built-in loyal workforce once you have hired your affiliates. The benefits to the merchant are increased sales, market share and product visibility.
Another popular form of networking is direct sponsorship in a Multi-Level Marketing organization. In this type of marketing plan, an individual sponsors many other people into an organization. Then he trains this group of people on how to sponsor more people into the organization themselves. This method results in a very large base of marketers working to sell products for the company. The original sponsor gets paid for his efforts by the volume of sales his team produces. The profit trickles down through the organization based on the number of people each group leader has sponsored and the sales volume achieved by each member of the group for the sales period.
Affiliate programs and MLM are not for every company. There are costs of maintenance, and a payroll to meet every month. The biggest advantage of using these programs is that a non-employee of the company makes every sale. This way the company does not have to pay the worker's benefits and Social Security taxes. Each affiliate or network marketer is an independent taxable entity. They are not employees of the company from a legal standpoint.
Business owners must decide for themselves the best way to expand their business when it comes time to do so. It all comes down to a cost per sale analysis. Finding the best way to capitalize your business always includes market research and weighing the benefits of your available options.
If you decide to use one of the methods outlined above, it is best to discuss this move with a qualified marketing specialist. Also hire a qualified accountant for taxes and payroll purposes. You may want to talk to other business people who have successfully made this change for more information.
Update: Just heard about a new business network. Marzar is a social media platform for businesses it has been described as a facebook for businesses
Posted by billenross at 05:33 PM | Comments (0)
July 10, 2007
Business Cards
A business card may be the most overlooked advertising medium in the business world. But these simple rectangles of cardboard can be powerful tools to help any entrepreneur increase sales. Similarly, a poorly thought out or clumsily designed business card could be as much of a detriment for your sales as an "out of business" sign.
Business cards have actually been around for much longer than most people realize. The first ones, in the form of visiting cards or calling cards, were used in China about 600 years ago. They started being used in Europe approximately 200 years lager. When one aristocrat went out to visit another, the prospective guest's servant would deliver his master's calling card to the servant of the prospective host. An elaborate system of calling card etiquette developed and was followed by the gentry across England and France.
Today, anyone from North America or Europe who has gone on a business trip to Japan, China or other Asian countries knows there is very much a tradition of etiquette that must be followed when exchanging business cards in those countries.
But even if you are only going to be doing business in your hometown, you can help boost that business by following four tips before you have your next business cards printed.
2. Individualize. You are a unique individual, and your business card should reflect your unique personality. One easy way to do this is to put your photograph on your card. Of, if you are an artist, crafts person or photographer, why not put an image of one of your creations on the card? If you sell unique widgets, put an illustration of them on your card.
3. Proofread. Just as a wood worker should always measure twice before he cuts, every word should be double checked for proper spelling. Every telephone number should be dialed and every web address visited to make sure they are letter perfect before your card goes to press.
4. Use the back. Your business card has two sides, and you are missing a prime opportunity if you leave the back of your card blank. Instead, utilize that space to say what is most important about you, your business, product or service. It could be as simple as "bring this card in for a 10% discount." Or you could use the back of your card to show off testimonials from some of your satisfied customers.
There are several very good Internet business card companies that let you design your own cards online. In some cases, their shipping costs are less than it would cost you to drive to a local print shop and back.
Finally, if you only need a few cards, or if you want to experiment with different card designs, you can purchase perforated, blank business card stock at office supply stores and make your own cards using templates that come with many computer word processing software programs.
However your business cards are eventually printed, remember that they may leave a lasting impression of you and your business for many years to come.
Posted by billenross at 05:56 PM | Comments (0)
July 09, 2007
Small Business Marketing
Too many entrepreneurs and small businesses dive right into the thick of operations without following basic marketing principles. In business, as in most things, it pays to occasionally take a step back and evaluate the bigger picture. Drafting a very basic marketing plan can help you focus on the right activities, target the right customers and set the best prices.
Segmentation
Segmentation is simply a fancy way of saying that you need to identify your customer. Think of every possible customer. Now, start slicing that population into smaller, more defined segments (thus the name segmentation). It's best to start big here - for example: split individuals from businesses. Now, go into each segment and divide it further. You could split individuals further by sex, age, socio-economic status, geographic location, interests and hobbies and so on. At this point, try not to pigeon-hole yourself by prematurely selecting segments. Remember, you're trying to find meaningful groups of potential buyers that will exhibit similar buying behavior.
Your goal is to identify opportunities. Once you feel that you have subdivided the market finely enough, then you need to evaluate those segments. Try to quantify how large those segments are, how reachable they are and how unique they are from one another (i.e. is there considerable overlap from one to the next?).
Targeting
The segment you choose will have a profound effect on everything else you do. You need to carefully evaluate the most appropriate route for you business. When deciding between different market segments, you will want to try and identify the competition for that segment, the potential value of the segment (i.e. how large is it, how expensive will it be to reach it with advertising, etc.).
Positioning
You've segmented the market and you've chosen the segment that you are going to go after. The last part of your marketing plan will help you define how you are going to "position" your product or service to your selected target market. This is where you will invoke another handy acronym called the 4P's - Product, Price, Promotion, and Place.
Product
You need to focus your product towards your selected target. What do the people/firms in your segment want or need? If you are working with an existing product, you need to make sure it fits your intended target market. If it doesn't, can it be altered so that it does? It's critical to match the right product with the right customer.
Price
Pricing your offering is an art. You must consider many factors, such as the stigma different price points carry - for example, being too inexpensive sends a message that your product may be junk. It's also critical to consider the competition here. It makes little sense to target the same market with a similar product at the same price as your competitors. Entire books have been written on the subject of pricing. The important thing to keep in mind is that you can't lock yourself into a cost plus profit margin way of thinking. Instead, consider the price independently at first in terms of your competition and the value your offering brings to the customer.
Promotion
This is what most people think of when they hear the word marketing. As you can see though, it takes a fair amount of work before you get to this point. Promotion is simply how you intend to get the message to your customers about your offering. Will you use commercials, magazine advertisements, radio, the internet, mass mailings?
Place
Lastly, you need to think about how you will bring your product to market. This is sometimes referred to as marketing channels. That is to say, will you sell directly to the customer or will you sell to distributors or retailers who will then sell it to customers? Where geographically will you sell your product? Will you sell entirely on-line or in a traditional brick-and-mortar location?
Bringing it all together
You probably already have some or most of your marketing plan in your head. However, following this tried-and-true process can help you formalize your marketing strategy and can help you to identify holes in your business and it sometimes can help you identify opportunities that you might not have thought to exploit.
Posted by billenross at 06:10 AM | Comments (0)
July 05, 2007
Optimizing Your WordPress Blog
There are three key areas that you can enhance on your WordPress blog that will help you optimize it. The areas are adding additional ping service websites, using Feedburner, and using keyword-rich categories.
Ping Services
The first thing that you should do is add additional ping services to your WordPress blog. You must have administrative rights to your blog and be logged in to gain access the ping service option.
Once logged into your WordPress blog's backend, click on the "Option" tab and then click on the "Writing" tab and scroll down to the bottom of the page. You will see "Update Services" and a box under this title. There are a couple of ping services listed but you can add the following list by copying and pasting in the ping service list box. To complete the process, click on "Update Options".
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUdates
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
Feedburner
As a blog owner, being able to capture your blog traffic and generate reports is very important to knowing what you need to do to optimize your blog. One blog tool that works to help optimize your blog is Feedburner. Feedburner allows you to redirect your blog RSS feed through their service so that it can reach targeted blog visitors better.
* Analyze: you will be able to see real-time and accumulated statistics about your blog's visitor information. This will help you understand the traffic that is going in and out of your blog. This allows you to better target your optimization efforts to specific areas of your blog.
* Optimize: allows you to make your blog "browser friendly" so that subscribing to your blog is easy. SmartFeed(R) is an option that you can use to make sure that your blog is compatible for most blog readers. You can even build interactivity into each individual post by using FeedFlare(R) which allows you to add links at the end of each post such as "Email Post" or "Subscribe to Feed".
* Publicize: is another way for you to make sure that your blog attracts web visitors. A couple of the tools that you may use is "Email Subscriptions" and "BuzzBoost". Email Subscriptions will give your web visitors the opportunity to receive an email once a day alerting them that you have updated your blog. Then BuzzBoost(R) allows you to republish your feed as HTML so that you can add it as a Page on any of your other websites or WordPress blogs.
Using Categories as Keywords
The easiest way to optimize your blog with keywords is to use categories that not only define each post but also relate to other post on your blog. WordPress blog software uses categories as a way to "tag" search engines so they can be alerted that a new post has been added to your blog for a specific topic area.
Categories are also another way to organize easily the content on your blog. When you list the categories on the sidebar of your blog, it gives your blog visitors the opportunity to see all the content of your blog for a particular topic.
Posted by billenross at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)
July 04, 2007
Keyword Research
Keyword research is the process of determining which keyword phrases will describe your website's products and/or services and are actually used in web searches. It is insight into the needs of your customers or clients. Bottom line it is finding out what Internet surfers are actually searching for.
Choosing keywords or keyword phrases can be very confusing for new site owners. If you don't have keyword or keyword phrases optimized on your web site, you will not get the traffic you want and individuals will not stay on your site, read your information or buy you service or product.
Keyword research can be broken down into a three step process. The first step is the discovery phase. In this step you want to focus on identifying as many keywords or phrases as possible.
Initially you need to sit down and brainstorm a list of keyword/keyword phrases that address the topic of your web site. Have a dictionary and thesaurus handy. At this point include every word or phrase that you can think of.
There are several keyword tools that are available to help you generate a keyword list. Some of these tools are free (www.goodkeywords.com and Google Adwords Tool) while others (www.wordtracker.com) are fee based. With these tools you will be able to generate hundreds of keyword phrases.
The second step in the analyzing phase. This step involves analyzing the popularity and competition for the keyword phrases. The quickest way to perform the analysis is to use one of the fee based keyword tools like Wordtracker.
From Wordtracker you are able to export your keyword list along with the KEI, search and competitive site data. This information can then be entered into Excel spreadsheets. This will allow you to make comparisons between various keyword phrases and do away with any unrelated or undesireable keyword phrases.
The third step is the selection of keyword phrases. From your analysis phase, you should be able to identify a number of high quality keyword phases that can accurately describe the qualities of your website.
In your final selection of keyword phases you need to look for phrases that have a high level of search activity, while the level of competitiveness is relatively low. For making your final selection of 15-20 keyword phrases you will want to do a Google search on the keyword phrases and view the top web sites listed for each phrase. Are the sites professionally designed? Can you design a web page that can move up into the top ratings for this keyword phrase? These are all important questions to ask.
When starting a new web site it's highly recommended to target only one unique keyword phrase per page. With your newly researched keyword list you can write your content with a balanced use of unique phrases that will help generate traffic to your web pages.
Posted by billenross at 11:44 PM | Comments (0)
July 03, 2007
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing - what is it?
It is a very simple process where you as the affiliate sell or promote a merchant's product or service for which you will receive a commission . This process is probably the lowest cost business model when starting an Online Business, and as such is the most popular method with many newcomers to Internet Marketing.
This business model exists in many different forms and are commonly called Affiliate Programs. You join the affiliate program that the merchant is operating that is selling the particular product you are interested in promoting. The most common types of programs are as follows:
1 - Pay per click - each visitor you send to the merchant's site will earn you a commission.
2 - Pay per lead - each lead you send to the merchants site will earn you a commission.
3 - Pay per sale - commission will be paid by the merchant for each sale made at his website.
Each one of the above returns a certain payment for delivering the click, lead, or sale. By far the largest number of businesses utilizing this model work on a Pay per Sale system.
Many Internet Marketers will guide the beginner into Affiliate Marketing because it is considered to be the simplest business model to get started and develop. It is also considered to be the cheapest method of starting your Internet Business.
When starting your Internet Business through affiliate marketing there are five steps to follow:
1 - Find your niche market which shows enough demand as well as a reasonable supply, as well as one that would support future business growth.
2 - Find out what the market is searching for in terms of solutions to problems, or a product/service for which there is a shortage of supply or even a deficiency.
3 - Research the available affiliate products and services for something that will fill the deficiency or fix the problem.
4 - Promote the product by every means available to you.
5 - Although this is not necessarily essential, owning your own website can increase your methods of promotion, but more importantly it allows you to presell the product before redirecting them to the merchants sales page.
The final item regarding your own website needs serious consideration as it will be the way to go to develop and grow your business and to start creating an opt-in list of targeted potential customers.
Creating a trust between you and your customers, as well as your partners, is of prime importance to your business. This trust will serve you well as your customers will gradually consider you to be their expert in this niche and they will take your recommendations and buy. Do not think for one minute that without it you will be able to succeed. Affiliate Marketing, like any other business model, relies entirely upon the trust you painstakingly build over a period of time.
Posted by billenross at 10:49 AM | Comments (0)
July 02, 2007
Affiliate Programs
When choosing an affiliate program there are many things to consider. By carefully choosing which affiliate programs you want to promote you can earn money quicker and make more money over the long run.
One of the first things to consider when choosing an affiliate program is do you like their products. You need to ask yourself if you would spend your own money to buy the very products you are considering promoting.
This is one of the common mistakes of beginning affiliate marketers. The simply choose the affiliate program that pays the highest commission, not on whether or not they would use the product. If you really like the product and would use it yourself it will make your job of promoting the product much easier.
Another thing to consider is how much commission you will earn on each sale. By determining how much you will earn per sale you can figure out how much you can spend to market the item.
The other factor that will determine how much you can spend promoting an item besides the amount of commission per sale is the conversion rate.
The conversion rate is usually expressed as a percentage. Usually any product that converts greater than 1% is a great product. By looking at the conversion rate and the amount of commission paid you can quickly determine if you can afford to promote the product.
You may really like the product, but if you have to spend a lot of money to promote it per sale it doesn't make much sense to join that affiliate program.
When looking at the competition some people have differing viewpoints. Some people say you should look for small niches to promote products to because you could become a big fish in a small pond.
On the other hand some people say it is easier to make money in areas where people are already spending money. The choice is up to you, which is why you need to use your own skills and knowledge when choosing an affiliate program to promote.
Simply picking the latest and greatest affiliate program will not lead to long-term success. By considering these factors you will start earning commissions sooner.
Posted by billenross at 10:47 PM | Comments (0)
July 01, 2007
Niche Marketing
Niche marketing is being used allot by businesses to help them succeed in the over crowded internet marketplace. The Internet has allowed for business start up to be easy and makes running an online business almost automatic. This means there is even more competition than ever for customers.
Niche marketing solves that problem. It is a way to focus your attention on a single group of customers that is most likely to buy your product or service. This group is going to be the most loyal and they will make up your biggest profit base.
Once you have done your research and defined your target niche market you have to learn how to use it to your advantage to make your business successful. Here are four ways you can use niche marketing to boost your earning potential.
1. Advertise where your niche market is most likely to look. A niche market is going to be people with similar backgrounds, ideas and interests. It shouldn't be too hard to define some places where your niche market is most likely to frequent.
2. Say the right thing. You have to talk to your niche market the way that they talk. For example, if your niche market is teenager's, then use some teenage lingo and speak to them in a way that they will understand. Do not talk down to your niche market, but rather go to them on the same level and communicate with them. If you need help find someone in your target niche and ask them for their opinion.
4. Make sure the price is right. The whole point of finding your niche market is so that you can cater to their needs. One of the most important things you can do is to make sure that the price you set for your product is one that your niche can afford. If you are selling something to a niche market that is in a medium income bracket then you don't want to price your product for those that are in a higher income bracket or you will lose sales.
Making the most of your niche marketing efforts is essential. There is no point in using niche marketing if you are not going to take all the necessary steps to ensure you are using it right. Niche marketing can be very successful if you do everything you can to ensure you are taking full advantage of it. Once you find a hungry niche market you will discover that it was well worth all of your time and efforts.
Posted by billenross at 09:17 PM | Comments (0)
