Internet Marketing Services - Marketing On The Internet

May 18, 2008

Smart Ways To Use The Internet

The Internet is an extremely over-hyped area of opportunity but I can suggest several tested, proven, practical and almost universally valuable uses.

To begin, you need to create a website for your business, not so much as a means of acquiring customers via cyberspace, but a customer service, education, and information center. For example, your website could offer answers to all the commonly asked questions, diagrams, etc. accessible free, 24 hours a day. You could even make a portion of your site "access restricted," for customers, clients, subscribers, or "members" only, adding mystique to your marketing, and adding perceived value for your clientele!

This technique would work whether you have a brick and mortar or internet based business. For example, a restaurant could do this with "secret recipes" and special VIP offers; a clothing retailer with etiquette and fashion tips and special offers, and so on. Of course, you'll also want a promotional area on your website designed for new customers and you'll then want to add your website address to video brochures, audio recordings and infomercials for your advertising and marketing materials.

Second, begin collecting and organizing the email addresses of your customers and collecting the email address of visitors to your site.

With the list, you can do virtually free "push button marketing" anytime you like, as often as you like. You can send out an email newsletter to your customers, or other information like tip sheets.

Let's say you have a rather ordinary business; kitchen and bath business, for example. Here are a few of the things you might transmit by email to your customer list:

1. Resources to upgrade your counter tops to granite or marble
2. Cabinet grade tips and suggestions
3. Special offers for new plumbing fixtures
4. Tips on determining the grade of cabinet materials
5. New product information

Keep in mind, regardless of your business or product you can use the above techniques for creating and marketing your website and business.

Third, in seeking publicity from the media, being able to fax, email or mail very brief, provocative news releases that refer the recipients to your website for more information is very useful.

Everybody in the media is online. And, some are lazy, so if they can research a story without leaving their chair, believe me, that's the way they're going to do it. If you go the route of writing articles for publication in your industry journals or article forums, you can even post a whole collection of them on your site, and invite any publication to download and use whatever they like.

In summary of my advice to most business owners about the Internet: do Not be seduced, do Not buy into the hype and expect miracles or invest inordinate amounts of time or money. Do Not let the Internet take away from your commitment to more reliable, predictable, results-measurable advertising and marketing media. But DO get involved. At whatever pace is comfortable for you, begin learning about the Internet, getting your business on the Net, and experimenting with practical applications like those I just described. Proceed calmly, deliberately, strategically.

Above all else, Just Do It!

Posted by billenross at 02:04 PM | Comments (0)

May 08, 2008

eMail Marketing

How To Double Promotional Email and Ecommerce Revenue

Most newcomers to email marketing think that they can send a promotional email to a list of subscribers and then sit back and watch the money flow in. If only email marketing was that easy. That said, email marketing does have the potential to generate a lot of revenue from promotional email campaigns and ecommerce, but it requires some ingenuity.

If you want to be successful in ecommerce, you will have to work harder than just shooting off a newsletter. With just a little bit of effort, you can double the revenue generated from an ecommerce website All it takes is some effort, careful analysis, testing different methods, and then refining them. Make sure you concentrate on building your email list, creating outstanding content for your emails, managing your list, dividing your list into categories and testing.

A good home page does not necessarily translate to revenue generation. You should get traffic that converts. You have to get new subscribers who visit your website regularly to check out new products or services. This can be done by list building, which in turn is only possible if you expand your current list. Make sure your website has an opt-in subscription form on practically every webpage.

Your chances of getting new subscribers will increase if you offer some kind of incentive. An incentive can be anything from an offer for free shipping to giving $20 off on the first order. You can easily get a new customer's email address through the shopping cart form. Make sure you add a link to the subscription form in the transaction confirmation email. This opportunity can be also used to get further details like gender, likes and product interests.

A Pay-Per-Click (PPC) program, if used effectively, can generate a lot of traffic. One of the most used methods to look for products is to search for them online, and a PPC program will definitely help you here. However, make sure that you have an easy sign-up process, whether the visitor buys a product or not. In addition, concentrate on search engine optimization to get targeted traffic to your website.

If you have a physical location of your business, then offer sign-up forms to your customers at the cash register. This way you get their subscription while the customers are present and you can then send them in-house promotional offer through email. Whenever you send a newsletter, make sure it has an eye-catching subject line,which will compel readers to open the email.

On your website, products should be divided into categories, so that visitors can find it easy to locate what they want. Give your subscribers enough options to select what is appropriate for them. You should not forget to personalize your emails by using the customer's first name. Adding a "send-to-a-friend" option in all your newsletters will help to generate new subscribers, provided your content is good.

If your email message has a great content and design, you can be sure to get a good open a click-through rate. Finally, keep checking your email program so that you can eliminate any issues before the mail is sent out.

Posted by billenross at 07:30 PM | Comments (0)

May 04, 2008

How To Get Free Website Traffic

An online business is only successful if you have traffic coming into it. In fact, traffic generation could be the most important part of your online business promotion. Without traffic your business is dead in the water. So what are some free and easy ways to get traffic to your website?

The first one is Blogging

Chances are, you probably have a blog or have at least have heard of blogging. But do you know how important it is to develop an informative blog that people are going to follow?

To have a successful blog it should be updated daily and it should have only quality information on it. A great way to keep people coming back to your blog is to frequently give away free stuff that is related to your business. It could be a free e-book that you have written or a free template that will be beneficial to the people that are reading your blog.

The reason that blogs are mentioned first in this article is because search engines love them and they will crawl all over them when new content is added. If you have a blog that is updated on a daily basis the chances of your blog getting ranked high in the search engines is very good. Two of the more popular blogging sites are Blogger.com, which is very user friendly and Wordpress.com, which is a little more advanced. both of these are free to use.

Next are online forums.

This is another free way to get traffic. All you have to do is start posting on forums. Do a quick search in your favorite search engine and find a few active forums that are related to your business topic. Sign up for the forum and then read through a few of the posts to get a feel for the way that things are done. Find out what people are talking about. Find out what questions they're asking. Once you get familiar with how the forum operates then simply start posting.

One important point to remember when posting to online forums is not to spam the forum. It is considered spam when you jump right in and start posting all about your business and products with a bunch of links to your website. In most cases doing this can get you promptly removed from the forum. This is easily avoided by just posting relevant information that will help solve some of the problems that the people on the forum are talking about. Just make sure that each time you post it has value to it and you'll never be accused of spam.

Something to remember with both of these traffic generation methods is that they are all about building up your reputation. If you spend some time and develop a reputation on your blog or an online forum as someone who is an expert and as someone who is willing to help other people with their problems, then people will actively seek out your posts and comments to see what you have to say next.

Then in your signature line or on your about me page, you can insert a link to your website or favorite affiliate program. If you have a good reputation and people value your opinion, they will click on your links almost every time to see what else you may have to offer. Both of these methods of traffic generation are free, easy and have the extra added benefit of getting targeted traffic.

So there you have it, two free ways that you can drive traffic to your Website. There are many more ways, but these two are simple and you can start using them right away.

Posted by billenross at 09:50 PM | Comments (0)

May 01, 2008

How To Build A List Of Eager Subscribers

Every online business provides great service to generate satisfaction among their customers. As each and every customer receives satisfaction over their products or the services they get, there is a great chance that they will become a return customer and buy again. Better yet, they will recommend you to other people that could generate more business for you and your site.

As more traffic is driven to your site, you can entice many of them to subscribe to your mailing list or opt-in list. This is a list where in website visitors agree to be sent promotional materials such as newsletters, catalogs and such that could keep them updated about your site or the niche of your site. These promotional materials are sent via e-mail to the members of the list in different time intervals.

When using e-mail as the media of your marketing and advertisements, you eliminate the need for high costs. Email is free and if you can manage to make your own promotional advertisements you can also save a bundle there. With an opt-in subscribers list, you are pretty sure that what you are sending out is received, viewed and read by the subscribers and not simply being deleted. They have signed up for service and have consented in receiving it.

This means that there are constant reminders to your subscribers about all your products, new products and services as well as any promotions and special deals you are having. There is also the chance that they can be forwarded to other potential customers as they tell their friends and families about you and your site.

Of course you should be also aware that a subscriber may unsubscribe when they feel that they are not getting what they want or expected. Make sure that they are satisfied with your opt-in marketing strategies and keep them excited in receiving your newsletters and catalogs. Here are some tips that can help you build a list of eager subscribers.

Make your promotional materials interesting and fun. Try to use a little creativity but not too over artsy. Build around what your product or service is about. For example; if you are selling car parts, put some pictures of what is new in the auto parts world, a new wing door possibly that can fit any car and make it look like a Lamborghini.

Try to research what people are looking for, these way, you stay one step ahead of them all the time and you will be their bearer of new tidings. They will be eager to receive what you are sending them because they new you always have fresh and new things to share with them.

Write good articles that can be very informational but light at the same time. If your subscribers enjoy your articles, they will go to your site by clicking the links that you will be putting on your newsletter to read some more. You can provide articles that can connect to many people. Be diverse in your articles. Put something humorous, then put something informational, then put something that has both.

Are you wary about this because you don’t like writing? No problem, there are many professional and experienced article writers that can do the job for you for minimal fees. They know what they are doing and can provide the need that you have for your newsletters, the money that you pay for your articles are going to be met by the many sign-ups and the potential profit from the sales that you will get.

Create and send an E-book to your customers about anything that is related to your business or site. Use your knowledge and expertise in the field you have chosen to help other people who are similarly interested. Offer this e-book for free. You can write about anything informational and helpful to your subscribers. For example; you can do manuals and guides in so many things. This e-book could be used as a reference for many people.

Share this e-book with everyone, even other sites; just make sure that they don’t change the links in the e-book that will lead people to your site. If you want, you can always get some people to write it for you just like your articles. Your investment once again will be covered by the great marketing this will generate.

Add e-coupons in your newsletters that will help them avail to special discounts. Put a control number in your e-coupon so that they can only be used once. When people get discounts that can be found in your newsletters, they will be eager to receive your newsletter in anticipation of what you are promoting next.

If your subscribers can get benefits from your newsletters, they will be very eager to receive them. Just don’t flood your mailing list with mails so that you don’t annoy your subscribers.

Posted by billenross at 06:55 PM | Comments (0)

April 28, 2008

3 Reasons To Buy An Existing Domain Name

When the time comes to set up your own internet business one of your first thoughts is to buy a domain name to establish a web site for your new business. You may spend a lot of time dreaming up possible names and testing their availability but there is another option you should consider -- buying an existing domain name.

Obviously you do not want to buy an existing web site for your new business as you wish to create a web site that accurately reflects your business vision, but there are a number of advantages to buying an existing domain name and if you do not yet have your heart set on a new domain name you will likely find an existing domain name available at a price not much greater than you will pay for a fresh name and an existing domain name brings a number of advantages.

One of the primary advantages of an existing domain name is that it already has traffic flowing toward it. Obviously the amount of traffic will vary greatly depending on what the current owner has done for promotion but any traffic is more than the zero visitors a fresh name will deliver.

Another advantage is from search engine optimization. Many domainers will have at least put in a small amount of time optimizing their domain name portfolio for search engines. Others put in a great deal of time and effort targeting key words and making sure the domain name is listed. It takes time for various domain names to work their way into search engine listings and if someone has already done that work for you then you are ready to capitalize on their groundwork as soon as you take over the name.

A third advantage is that the wild frontier of short, targeted, key word domain names is over. It is not impossible but very difficult to find an unregistered domain name in a short, catchy phrase and even more so if you have a specific key word in mind. However, many of the domainers who registered these domain names did so as an investment rather than a long-term project of their own and so are willing to sell. The only way to acquire many of these great domain names is by purchasing an existing domain name. You will not be able to find one to register fresh.

Choosing the right domain name for your internet business enterprise can be an exciting and challenging time but if you take the time to learn more about the available domain names you can buy then you just might find the bargain of a lifetime and start off your business with a bang.

Posted by billenross at 08:12 AM | Comments (0)

April 25, 2008

Lead Generation

Lead Generation is generally regarded as necessary to run a business. Whether you have a Fortune 500 company or a small home-based operation, people who are interested in what you have to offer are essential if that business is to be viable and you are to make a profit.

Of course, word of mouth benefits all sorts or businesses - and there are ways of stimulating this - but getting started in a small business, or growing an already existing operation, requires more proactive steps.

A common approach is to buy leads. However, very often buyers will simply lose their money doing this, especially if you buy generic leads or those who've shown only a marginal interest in your business.

One of the worst strategies would be buying a list of email addresses for generic leads, especially those sold to multiple users. When someone receives an email and doesn't know who you are, forget about selling to that person. You can send out many thousands of emails and the response will be negligible - except for hostile, abusive replies!

Safer, and more profitable, is developing an automatic lead generation system that is either free or else costs very little to set up and maintain. In particular, you require the exact steps that will put your lead generation on auto-pilot - techniques that come with step-by-step instructions. The yellow brick road will then be paved with gold.

If your business requires phone numbers, this can be taken into account when you set up your free lead generation system. Design it so that your leads are not only pre-qualified but you are able to obtain telephone numbers at this time.

Postal leads are another solution - meaning the snail-mail variety. This is also risky, as well as being expensive. For instance, a common mistake is to mail a full package to unqualified leads. A better, and cheaper, approach is to first send a post card so that you aren't incurring costs on people who simply aren't interested or who may have already joined your program.

However, it isn't easy to even recover costs with postcards. Many find it really hard.

It isn't all just doom and gloom, though. You still need leads and there are methods which enable you to set up an automatic lead generation system, put them into an autoresponder for a series of emails, and send them a postcard later! However, to just buy leads and mail postcards has been a huge money loser for thousands of people.

The secret is to pre-qualify. The essential ingredient in building a lead generation system is to be sure you pre-qualify them for your offer! Fortunately, there are free and low-cost methods for doing this. Some of them will be mentioned briefly here. You should follow-up with a fuller, in-depth study of each.

Method 1. Viral List Builders. Techniques that encourage users to pass the product onto others, such as ebooks, jokes, cartoons, pictures, and important information.

Method 2. Ad Co-Op Publishing. Co-operative ventures with others who agree to place your advertising on their web pages in exchange for you doing the same with their ads.

Method 3. Forum Tricks. There are thousands of forums covering just about every topic. These provide opportunities to become known and to introduce readers to your informal advertising, as with your forum signature.

Method 4. Article Marketing Strategies. Articles are valuable as sources of content and information, as well as providing back links to your web site and pages.

Method 5. Special Bonuses. There are many ways incentives can be used to join your email list and to convert visitors to buyers.

Method 6. Reverse Marketing. Join every offer you can find that is related to your market and contact the person making that offer. They have already demonstrated an interest in your particular niche and are likely to require more quality information.

Method 7. Joint Ventures. Contact others who have shown a similar interest and invite them to JV with you. They provide leads and you just close the sales, offering a discount to their list.

Many of the costly lead generation approaches are costly failures for Internet marketers wanting a profitable online business. However, it is possible to set up a successful low cost system that will automatically capture leads and build a long-term, profitable relationship with them.

Posted by billenross at 07:47 PM | Comments (0)

April 20, 2008

How To Make Money Online

A Few Tips on How to Make Money Online

The 21st century is a great place to be if you're looking for a way to make money. The Internet is filled with a great many ways for you to earn some cash. All you need to do is be resourceful and be prepared to roll up your sleeves a little. For instance, you can earn money by posting on forums; for each post that you make, you earn commissions. You can also earn money by posting on a blog: you can earn money directly by being paid for each post, or indirectly, through advertisements on your blog. And of course, you can sell products and services online.

Selling products and services can be fulfilling but difficult. Unlike a brick-and-mortar store, where you can interact with your customers and show them actual products, an Internet store will limit you to a few kilobytes of space for pictures and text. You need to make the most of this space, and you can't go beyond a few kilobytes, or people with slow Internet connections will never get to view your website. That said, you may need to put up a website for your online store, and you will need to ask for help regarding security and website content. Aside from that, here are a few more tips on how you can get started with making money online.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Sure, you will earn a lot of money from selling products and services, but that shouldn't stop you from blogging, or putting ads on your website so that people can click on them and give you commissions. In fact, that shouldn't stop you from posting on forums, earning money through other means, and keeping your day job! You need money, but you don't need to have it all from one place, especially if you're just starting out.

Update your website content constantly. Whenever your visitors arrive at your website, they expect just to see photos of your products or services, along with a description and prices. What they don't expect is for you to help them out with their lives and offer them some entertaining and informative content. So why not surprise them? Have articles each month on something related to your products and services. For instance, if you are selling pet foods, have articles on how to take care of your pets, how to choose a pet groomer, how to ask a veterinarian important questions, or even how to decorate your fish tank on a budget. Such articles will help your customers and website visitors, and you can certainly expect them to keep on coming back, bringing their friends along with them.

Don't be afraid to ask for client feedback. You need to constantly make your product and service line better, and you need to have new products and services from time to time. Ask your customers for suggestions, and if you come across good ones, reward your customers with incentives like, discounts on their purchases at your website, or free stuff bearing your company name or logo. That way, whenever they carry that umbrella or bag or pen around, they are acting as your own personal advertising billboards!

Don't keep yourself online. This is especially true for advertising: try brick-and-mortar companies and approach them with solicitation letters. Allow them to advertise on your website for a fee. Sponsor conferences or symposia, or get-togethers, or even speed dating! Get your name out in the brick-and-mortar world. Remember, not everyone spends their entire working day online, so why should you confine yourself there?

Make your website secure and pretty. There are hackers out there who are after information that should be secure and confidential. Ask your web designer or developer to keep your website secure, especially for future purchases. Moreover, have a simple, well-designed website that is easy on the eyes and easy to navigate. This will help your clients go through your website more easily and appreciate your efforts to keep them relaxed and satisfied with their surfing habits.

These are only a few tips that you may want to follow when you are working online and trying to earn a living on the World Wide Web. As long as you are honest and love what you are doing and as long as you take the right steps toward success, you will not go wrong.

Posted by billenross at 04:29 PM | Comments (0)

April 17, 2008

Make Money Online Business

More Things You Never Knew About Making Money with Online Businesses

Starting an online business can be a nerve-wracking process, particularly if trade is unfamiliar ground to you. Some people often think that just because they've never sold a thing in their life, they would be in a strange land if they so much as make a sales pitch. Which is really too bad, considering that there are plenty of opportunities that could have provided them with extra income or a way to use their skills and talents, if only they took the chance. These days, though, more and more people make money online with their own businesses and if they've enjoyed some measure of success, why shouldn't you?

So what's it like to make money online?

To show you what it's like to start a business making money online, let's outline the things that you can expect in this type of venture:

Business processes are streamlined.

Believe it or not, starting a money-making business online will allow you to run a retail business all by yourself. It's like manning a shop without any assistants or extra staff. Since many of the resources you'll need are available online, there's no need to purchase or install physical equipment. Inventory can be kept low and communication between buyers and suppliers is faster.

Since feedback from customers is also faster, improving the business is also a lot easier. In the past, customer complaints brought about by a defective product often took weeks or months before they were resolved.

A flatter organization is encouraged.

It's not that there is something wrong with traditional organizational hierarchies but flatter organizations mean that it is easier for someone in the organization to take command responsibility. Jobs are also easily assigned thanks to a simpler business process.

Best of all, customers are more likely to get in direct contact with the business owner. It's like being able to get an appointment with the company CEO without going through four secretaries and three executive assistants.

The turnover of products in exchange for cash is faster.

Given that you have the right business model and products to go with it, a money-making online business can provide you with a means to sell and earn, sometimes literally within a matter of minutes. If you've tried posting an item up for auction on a popular website, for example, you probably have noticed this phenomenon.

You can let competition bother you or improve you.

Make money online businesses are not well-kept secrets. By now, almost anyone who has access to a computer knows that there's cash to be made on the Internet. As such, expect some tough competition out there. In some industries, for example, there's already some serious market saturation, where people may still make money but only in trickles.

However, there's hope. Experienced internet marketers continue to create innovative ways and means to provide other online entrepreneurs a way with which to earn. Expect these new opportunities to emerge in order to meet new demands. One of these opportunities, for example, is Big Ticket to Wealth, a network marketing program that follows the established formula of MLM and yet, effectively came up with a unique way of allowing its members to earn more with its matching override scheme. Through this scheme, sponsors are able to earn more commissions from businesses brought in by their members. It's programs like this that you should watch out for, where efforts are well rewarded.

Sometimes, it truly is about you.

Sometimes, all it takes to make money with an online business is a skill or a talent, literally. Since all the traditional requirements often needed to run a business offline is no longer required online, anyone with the right set of skills or marketable talents can use these qualities and turn them into a saleable product or service.

Think about it: if you're a graphic designer, for example, all you truly need in order to turn your skill and experience into a money-making online business are a computer, software for graphics creation and editing, an Internet connection and a website from which to advertise your skills and attract clients. Plus, it's a one-man operation; you offer your own services and get to pocket every penny you earn. No need to pay the middleman, your manager or your staff. When you can run an online business that lets you make money you can claim as 100% yours, what could be better than that?

Posted by billenross at 11:39 PM | Comments (0)

April 15, 2008

Earn Cash Make Money Online

Why Should You Earn Cash and Make Money Online?

Despite all the bad things leveled against it, believe it or not, the World Wide Web is not an entirely dangerous place. True, there may be scammers and thieves hiding in the corners of the Internet, but thanks to the web savvy of computer technicians, the Internet can actually be a good place to be if you want to meet people, learn new things, and even make money. Yes, the Internet can be your cash cow if you know how to manage it. But the question is why? Why should you even try to earn cash and make money online?

There are many different reasons why you should try to earn cash but one thing that you should not do (at least not yet) is to leave your day job. Internet-based businesses may earn a lot in the long run, but now that a lot of people are making money online, it might be difficult for you to break into the market and earn your gazillions immediately. In any case, here are a few reasons why you should start thinking about making that mouse work and getting yourself some bucks online.

It can be easy, and it oftentimes requires no big effort from you. There are many ways that you can make money online, and not all of them require you to be chained to a desk, writing down everything on a sheet of paper, or marking out graphs and curves with a highlighter. Take, for instance, affiliate marketing. In affiliate marketing, people online who have blogs or websites ally themselves with marketers. These blogs and websites need money to survive and these blogs and websites have an audience that can buy things online. So what do affiliate marketers do? They post advertisements on their clients blogs and websites. Every time a visitor clicks on an advertisement, money goes to the blog or website owner. In fact, if this same visitor buys something on the new website, the blog or website owner gets commissions.

As you can see, the effort will be on the part of the website visitor to click; and once the click is made, a few cents go into the blog or website owners account. Of course, the payment is only a few cents, but those cents pile up eventually into dollars; and those dollars become hundreds; and those hundreds can be thousands. So what does a website or blog owner have to do to earn more? Make the website better and better every time, of course! All that the website or blog owner needs to do is to constantly provide content, and to update content and make it fresh for new visitors. This brings us to the next point.

Earning money online can allow you to help people get jobs. But wait, how do you earn money by giving it away? Simple: you don't write your website content yourself. You hire people to do it for you. If you balance your payments for your writers with your own profits from the advertisement clickings of your frequent visitors and if you constantly advertise your site on popular sites, mailing lists, or forums, then you will have visitors flocking to your site constantly. And if you have a great site, your own customers and visitors will do your advertising for you!

Earning money online can be easy! There are many programs out there that allow you to create a dummy site so that you can get started on your earnings journey. If you want to put up a blog, then there are many websites out there that have ready-made blog software for you to use, and all you need is a bit of practice. Of course, the bit of practice might take longer if you aren't comfortable with computers, but at least you have full control of your would-be business at the onset.

There are many options for you to earn money online. There are actually money-earning programs available where you can consult with experts on how to set up your business. There are even profit sharing schemes where you can advertise popular blogs or websites on your site in return for commissions. There are even residual income sources that you can use for more income, such as answering surveys online, participating in forum discussions for a fee, and even writing reviews!

These are only a few reasons why you should earn money online. But the main reason might simply be this: you need money for a better tomorrow, a good education for your children, a good retirement fund, a source of investment, and a way to enjoy your weekends. Your reasons will be different, but we all need money, and if the World Wide Web can give you a chance to earn money honestly, then why not take the chance?

Posted by billenross at 10:38 PM | Comments (0)

April 09, 2008

Creating eBooks To Make Money Online

How to Make Money Online By Creating E-books

If you have the talent of writing, without a doubt, you can earn legitimate money online by selling your own e-books. Nowadays, people read e-books because they are easy to find and much cheaper than the books sold in bookstores. You can take advantage of this trend too. Creating an e-book should be easy for you especially if you are used to posting good content for your website. However, writing an e-book does not restrict anyone. As long as you enjoy writing and providing people with information, an e-book business may well work for you. Whether your e-books focus on different subject areas or provide information on a specific line of subject, you generate money if people purchase them. Selling your e-books online requires minimum effort and is very affordable too. Here are effective ways to sell your e-books:

Selling your e-books on eBay

EBay is a very popular site. A lot of people use eBay to look for items unavailable to where they currently reside. Auction your e-books and be sure to follow the sites policies. When someone matches their search on any of your e-books, you'll evidently be generating your sales in the days to come.

Offer you e-books on your website

This applies if you've got your own website. Offer your customers with e-books at discounted prices or make them absolutely free when they purchase other products and/or services advertised on your site. When a certain customer purchases your promoted product, you can provide him/her with the e-books and then he/she can freely download any of them at any time. Provide your customers with a brief description for each e-book so they won't have a hard time picking out their choice of topic.

Protecting your e-books

If there are people who are interested in reading your e-books, some might download them without you knowing what's happening. To protect your e-books from being stolen by the others, you should name the files so only you should know or that the others can't simply decipher immediately.

Create e-books on a regular basis

Majority of the people who use the Internet look for information on several topics. To cater to their needs, add new batches of useful and informative e-books on a regular basis. Always keep updated with the latest searches on the Internet and write about them. Note that the Internet is a widely used tool for providing information. Aside from being able to generate sales out of selling your e-books, you can also help those who need your knowledge on certain things.

How To Make Big Money Online

Posted by billenross at 10:03 PM | Comments (0)

April 06, 2008

Creating And Selling A Product

From Product Creation to Selling: How to Take an Idea and Turn It Into Tangible Merchandise

If you take a look at every product you've ever used or heard about, you're actually looking at the manifestation of an idea. Once upon a time, it was an idea that spawned its creation from mobile phones to video games to sneakers, even the food we eat and the movies we watch. Some of the biggest and most respected companies today began their business by creating and then selling an idea that later became a product. That little seed of genius that floats around in your head may just be your ticket to fortune, fame and a dream come true. Here's how:

Creating the product

There are several ways you can create a product. One is to create it from an original idea, another to rehash an idea that's already there and modify it and still another is to find the market first and then create an idea that will either meet a need or create one.

Design your product

You could keep your product as an idea in your head but it's best if you put it down on paper. This will help give you a different perspective on how you want it to be. Ask yourself questions: What will your product be? What will be its purpose or value? What will it look like? Will its design compete with what's already out on the market or will it affect its marketability?

Don't underestimate design. According to Apple's Steve Jobs, it's so much more than just veneer; it's actually interior decor. That means it is integral to the identity and function of the product itself. For the latest iMac model, for example, Jobs fought not to have a fan installed on the equipment. This resulted to a more intensive engineering design but a far more superior machine in terms of thermal management.

Research the market

Having a product is one thing while having a market to sell it to is another. Determine who will buy your product. Is there a real market for it out there? Will it sell easily or will it have to rely heavily on a lot of promotions and advertising?

If you don't have a clear idea what your product will be, it will help if you look at the industry you're interested in and see if there is a need that you can fill.

Selling the product

The very first thing you should consider when selling your product is strategy. There is so much more to selling a product you have created than just pushing it at someone. Look at your product from all angles and determine how it will compete.

Decide on your product sales route

How and where you will sell your product will affect your pricing and even its production and handling. Will you be selling it exclusively online or offline as well? Will you be using an affiliate program or direct retail? If you use an affiliate program, will your pricing cover for the commissions? If you will be selling in bulk, can you give discounts off the original price? Can the selling method sustain your business and help it grow?

Set your pricing

The next concern you should have when selling your product is pricing. Pricing has been the downfall of many would-be entrepreneurs and even more established ones, so if you're not careful, it could ruin your chances of success.

Make pricing part of your strategy. Determine the cost of production including overhead expenses and then put a reasonable markup on the product. Pricing should cover everything from the creation of the product to its sales. It should also be priced in a way that makes it attractive and yet promote its value at the same time.

Supply and demand

Another consideration is supply and demand. How long you will be selling your product will depend on how long you can continue producing it. Where will the materials be sourced and are there factors that will affect how the product will be produced in the future? Is there real demand for the product or do you have to create it?

If your product has been created as a result of another product or to accessorize and supplement it, do you foresee any modifications that might adversely affect your product sales? If you sell customized leather casings for iPods, for example, you could face some serious production concerns once it changes its size or design in a major way.

Your competitors

When selling your product, you need to keep your eye on your competitors. What they sell, how they sell it, to whom they sell it and for how much will greatly impact your business.

Ready to learn how to make money online?

Posted by billenross at 05:49 PM | Comments (0)

April 05, 2008

Buying And Selling Domains

Buying and Selling Domains: How the Business of Names Can Help You Earn Profits

Who would have thought that money could be made from names? With the advent of the Internet, industry regulars slowly realized the gold mine sitting literally under their fingertips in the form of domain names. These days, buying and selling domains has become a real business, with some highly sought-after names selling for five-digit figures. The domain name ClearDay.com, for example, reportedly sold for $60,000 while Mercury.com made a lot more -- $700,000. Think there's a market out there for your domain name? Here's how you, too, can make money from a name:

Find domains that you can sell later on.

Generally, people who buy or 'grab' domain names don't really have industry-specific monikers in mind. If you like jewelry, for example, you don't have to stick to buying domains such as PreciousGems4U.com or SparklingJewelries.net. You can pretty much pick any name that strikes your fancy and then buy it.

However, paying for names that won't sell later will considerably drill a hole in your pocket if you're not careful. You could buy dozens of names for a small fee but if you're not going to use them or can't sell them later, what's the point of grabbing them, right?

Do a search on domains that have a potential or those that have shown some sort of following in the past few months. Use the Alexa toolbar to find out which domains or sites are these. Look for names that have registered a minimum of 1,500 to 2,000 hits 30 to 60 days prior to your search. If you're willing to pay more, look for domains that have registered five-figure hits because that's an assurance that these domains already have a strong following. You can either sell the domains back to their former owners or have interested parties bid on them. Either way, you'll profit from your efforts.

Automatically bid on domains.

You can't always spend hours online searching for domains to buy. Try online grabbing systems that let you automatically bid on domains you're interested in. Sites such as Pool.com and Snapnames.com are just two of these sites. You'll pay them a fee if they successfully grab the name on your behalf.

Get your domain name listed.

Before you can sell your domain, you have to be registered. That's how you can be 'legally' recognized. Getting the name registered also bestows upon you the right to claim it and if you so wish, sell it later.

Registering a domain name may be done for a limited period of time, usually as short as 12 months to as long as 10 years. Beyond the chosen period, the registration expires and you can choose to renew it and continue to claim ownership over it. Or, you can choose not to; at which point the domain name will be made available to another buyer. This is where you can sell the domain.

Register a potentially valuable domain.

Many people scour popular shows and events to try to find out which personalities, events or gadgets are developing a following. If you've been watching shows such as American Idol, for example, and you check out sites that register domains, you'll find a few that are familiar. This is because some people will try to register a name of some rising star who will potentially become famous enough to want to build his own website someday. Since his name is already registered, he will want to buy it back and thus earn the investor a nice profit.

If you don't mind speculating, this may be a good route to take. Just remember, though that it can go either way in which the domain name gets sold or it gets ignored.

Build traffic to your domain.

If you want to take this route and build your domain from scratch, prepare to work. If you have a domain name that you created by yourself or bought, you need to make it valuable to potential investors. Offer high quality content, build a reputation, link up with quality sites, allow your visitors to interact using your website. Once you start appearing on major search engines' radar and gain a good following, you raise the value of your website and your domain. When the time is ripe, you can then sell that domain for a nice, fat profit.

Want to make big money online?

Posted by billenross at 10:27 AM | Comments (0)

April 04, 2008

5 Easy Ways To Make Money Online

Five Great and Easy Ways to Make Extra Money Online

Everyone wants to make some extra cash. Perhaps you want to buy new set of clothes, a new pair of shoes or the latest gizmos available on the market or simply, your current job isn't enough to satisfy your financial expenses. If one or more of the mentioned reasons apply to you, then you're not alone. People who ventured to making money online have these reasons too. Here are five easy ways to make extra income using the Internet.

1. Become a member of an affiliate program

By joining an affiliate program, you make commissions when you generate sales through the affiliate link. To do this, you promote other peoples products and/or services on your web site. When customers purchase any of these products through your link, then that's how you earn money. Most affiliate programs are free therefore, you don't need a big investment for this type of business.

2. Start blogging

Blogs nowadays are one of the most popular ways to generate money online. To start your own blog, select a particular subject to discuss and provide people with useful information and encourage them to comment on your posts. This is how you drive traffic to your blog site. Keep your site updated by adding new articles on a regular basis.

3. Make use of Google AdSense

Another easy way of making money is to rely on the use of Google AdSense. Provided that you keep a regular flow of traffic on your web site, a percentage of visitors would likely click on the ads that interest them. Just be sure never to break any of the rules the Google has implemented upon using Adsense.

4. Join Internet auction sites

There are things that are no longer useful to you yet they may be a treasure to other people. Sites such as eBay allows you to sell your items by posting your items condition, price, etc. You can just imagine the number of people who visit these sites when they are looking for items unavailable to where they reside. Lots of people have made great success by simply selling their used products.

5. Provide people with product reviews

There are sites on the Internet who pay you for every product review you send. Note that prospective customers would like to be given feedback before they purchase an item. The Internet is the most widely used tool when it comes to information. Aside from earning money, you provide people with information that may be very helpful to them.

Ready to learn how to make money online?

Posted by billenross at 10:45 PM | Comments (0)

March 29, 2008

Internet Income Solution

If you want to achieve financial independence then the Internet is the best place to make it happen. You just need to know how the Internet can give you financial independence.

A lot of people are getting online every day looking for a home business that they can do because they want to achieve financial independence that they have heard others have accomplished. Anyone can use the Internet to make themselves financially independent. However there are some things that you will have to have if you want to be a success online no matter what Internet business you start.

When it comes to how the Internet can give you financial independence, too many people think that all they have to do is start their business and wait for the money to come to them. This is not how it works at all. You have to do certain things if the Internet is going to make you financially free.

One: It is very important that you have the motivation needed for your home business. If you don't work your business every day then you will not see results right away. You have to do a little something every day on your business because if you don't then you will never have financial independence.

Two: You have to want financial independence more than anything in the world. You are the only one that can make it happen; but how bad do you want it? It will not be easy to make your business a success. So you have to be prepared to do what ever it takes to make it a success. You also have to be willing to put in the time and effort to build your business because no matter what you have heard, it will take time and lots of patience. Adopt the attitude, I will not quit no matter what until I have achieved my financial goals.

Three: Multiple streams of income. You can sell only one or a couple products online but when you do you will have a very hard time achieving financial success. You will need to have over time, multiple streams of income every month. Everyone that is a success with their home business has multiple income streams.

These are not all of the things that you will have to do in order to achieve financial independence. However, they are the most important ones and the ones that you don't hear about all on the Internet. There is a lot more involved when it comes to how to make money online but the above ones are imperative because without even one of those, you will never have the financial success that you desire.

Posted by billenross at 09:29 AM | Comments (0)

March 24, 2008

Ways To Make Money Online

Social sites have become the latest craze on the Internet. Social Marketing can also be seen as the next wave of Internet marketing. Everyone has heard about social sites and benefits from such sites. Social sites provide a lot of freedom and interactivity to the user. Such sites are powered by the latest technologies like AJAX and allow users to personalize page backgrounds,style,post their music, post videos, store documents, share their favorites and connect with people. Users can also post their pictures, share them with friends and even invite or search for new friends.

But how exactly do these sites help your site and its rankings? By sending huge amounts of traffic and getting you a good ranking on search engines.

There are two types of social sites. One is social networking and the other type is social bookmarking. Social networking sites provide you an easy way to connect with people who share similar interests like you. Sites like MySpace, Orkut, Bebo, Facebook, Hi5, Friendster are popular among users. These sites have a huge user base and provide an excellent opportunity for advertising your site. There are also specialized social networking sites like 43Things, MomJunction, Mothersclick which cater to specific interests.

Some social networking sites group people with common interests, but some sites are "traditional networking sites" and allow you to search for friends based on your interests. In any case you will always have a larger audience for showcasing your site. Sites like Facebook and MySpace allow you to post your advertisements and promote your products, provided you are not spamming. If you have a really good site, you will surely find a large visitor base just by showcasing your site on your profile.

Social bookmarking sites provide you easy way to store, organize, manage your bookmarks as well as share them with your friends. You can bookmark any URL or page you liked and even mark them for public or private viewing. Social bookmarking sites also provide you with the option of tagging your bookmarks. Some of the bookmarking sites link directly to your URL’s thus helping your site in getting valuable back links and quick indexing. Sites like Stumbleupon, Digg, Delicious are known to send huge traffic to your site. If you manage to get on the front page of these sites, you should be prepared to handle a huge number of visitors to your site.

Search engines spiders love social sites and usually follow links on these sites. This means if you have your site link on social networking and bookmarking sites, your site will be indexed quickly.

If you happen to be using Wordpress for your blog, you should use some good plugins like Socialmarker, Socializer and Addthis. These plugins provide your site visitors a quick option to bookmark your site. Getting bookmarked from different users and different bookmarking sites will definitely help your site rank better on search engines. Some plugins like Onlywire automatically bookmark your post to 20 different bookmarking sites as soon as you publish your post.

It is a known fact that the video and photo sharing sites like Youtube and Flickr are visited by millions of people everyday. If you think out of the box and use your creativity, your published video will get your site the traffic you've always wanted. Some video sharing sites like Metacafe also pay you a part of their revenue just for publishing your video.

Like it or not, social sites have become an integral part of the internet. You need to help you make money online.

Posted by billenross at 08:16 PM | Comments (0)

How To Make Money Online

If you want to achieve financial independence then the Internet is the best place to make it happen. You just need to know how the Internet can give you financial independence.

A lot of people are getting online every day looking for a home business that they can do because they want to achieve financial independence that they have heard others have accomplished. Anyone can use the internet to make themselves financially independent. However there are some things that you will have to have if you want to be a success online no matter what internet business you start.

When it comes to how making money online can give you financial independence, too many people think that all they have to do is start their business and wait for the money to come to them. This is not how it works at all. You have to do certain things if the Internet is going to make you financially free.

One: It is very important that you have the motivation needed for your home business. If you don't work your business every day then you will not see results right away. You have to do a little something every day on your business because if you don't then you will never have financial independence.

Two: You have to want financial independence more than anything in the world. You are the only one that can make it happen; but how bad do you want it? It will not be easy to make your business a success. So you have to be prepared to do what ever it takes to make it a success. You also have to be willing to put in the time and effort to build your business because no matter what you have heard, it will take time and lots of patience. Adopt the attitude, I will not quit no matter what until I have achieved my financial goals.

Three: Multiple streams of income. You can sell only one or a couple products online but when you do you will have a very hard time achieving financial success. You will need to have over time, multiple streams of income every month. Everyone that is a success with their home business has multiple income streams.

These are not all of the things that you will have to do in order to achieve financial independence. However, they are the most important ones and the ones that you don't hear about all on the Internet. There is a lot more involved when it comes to how the Internet can give you financial independence but the above ones are imperative because without even one of those, you will never have the financial success that you desire.

Posted by billenross at 07:58 AM | Comments (0)

March 19, 2008

Your Fight Against Spam

Spam e-mails are known to be the modern day version of junk mails. Usually e-mails from individuals or companies advertising their product or services, they are relatively harmless. However, the increasing use of networks have made spammers smarter. With losses of about $20 billion in productivity and expenses, several IT companies saw the increasing demand for spam solutions.

Here are some of the features that could be helpful in choosing the “ideal” spam filtering subscription.

There are two important things to look for in evaluating a particular spam filtering subscription. This would be - accuracy and false-positive rating. Accuracy refers to the percentage of legitimate e-mails that make it to the user’s inbox after being filtered. The accuracy of several spam filtering subscriptions are tested by “passing through” thousands of e-mails. Some of these e-mails are legitimate while some are spam. The satisfactory rating for accuracy is 80% though some subscriptions have ratings as high as 98%.

False-positive rating refers to the percentage of legitimate e-mails that have been wrongly identified as spam. The satisfactory rating for a false-positive is 1%.

Usually, spam filter providers use quarantine features in order to avoid important e-mails from being disposed. The user may then sort the important e-mails from the spam. Different computer publications such as PCWorld and PCMagazine offers reports on the accuracy and false-positive ratings of different spam filtering subscriptions.

Most internet service providers (ISP) and e-mail programs such as MSN Hotmail, Microsoft Outlook and Yahoo! Mail provide a certain type of spam solution. If looking for a separate spam filter, try to know first if it works with several e-mail programs. A particular spam filter may work with Microsoft Outlook but not with Mozilla’s Thunderbird.

The cost of spam-filtering subscriptions has to be guaged with the services it provides. A certain subscription may be expensive but may be worth paying for with its features, speed and control. Sometimes choosing a lower cost provider may mean paying more due to lost time and frustration from poor output performance.

A good spam filter should fit the specific needs of the subscriber. It should allow a great deal of control by offering a wide range of flexibility in configuration according to his/her policies. It would also be helpful if it provides automatic updates.

These are the main things to consider in fighting spam. Depending on the complexity of your situation more time could be spent in evaluating and comparing your options.

Posted by billenross at 10:11 PM | Comments (0)

March 01, 2008

Dare to be Different Online

There are plenty of people offering their "secrets" to help you make more money online. The only problem is that as you trawl around the web searching out these secrets you soon discover they aren't secrets after all.

What you will learn is good, old-fashioned business common sense. These "secrets" will teach that some kind of a promotion is necessary to attract people to your web site. Once attracted, you need to entice people further with more offerings in exchange for their contact information (email address). As the saying goes, the money is in the list. You cannot run any kind of business online, or offline unless you have a list of potential customers.

So, the "secrets" that you are searching for online have been there ever since business began. Find something people want, entice them to connect with you, get their details and sell, sell, sell to them over a period of time to convert them from interested parties to confirmed customers.

But the one secret that is often missing from much of the information online has been around offline for centuries as well - be different. Don't try to be the same as your competitors. Stand out from the crowd. Do something different that gets you remembered.

For example, take the cab driver who gets the name and address of every passenger. Each Christmas they get a card from him. And guess what, people remember him and recommend him. He gets most of his fares from referral business, rather than having to wait around. Have you ever met a cab driver who sends all his passengers cards at Christmas?

Yet online, everyone seems to be the same. New online businesses follow the "rules" set by the experts and gurus. The result is that almost all web sites trying to sell something are starting to look the same. They all do the same thing - have a great offer and a box to fill in your details. Many of them even use the same templates. If you follow the "rules" that are part of the "secrets" you will end up following the pack and you won't be noticed. If you truly want to make it online, you have to be different.

So stand out from the crowd by being different - not just visually, but in the way you approach your readers. Do whacky things perhaps. You will be noticed and remembered - and online that's nine tenths of the battle.

Posted by billenross at 08:45 PM | Comments (0)

February 23, 2008

eMail Marketing

We all like to look at our email stats, especially when we have good open rates and our list size is increasing. What should be done, then, if you notice that your list is growing smaller or your open rates have gone down? It's time to get some answers and do something about it.

When subscribers to your list don't open your emails anymore it's known as list fatigue. They're not exactly unsubscribing and yet they're not opening your emails. Why is this happening? Without taking into account the bounces, here are some probable causes:

1. Perhaps they are no longer interested in the subject of your emails. They may have new interests, and there's not a whole lot you can do about that.

2. Are the spam filters catching your emails? Make sure you're not using words that the filters think are spam. Do a search for the current list of spam words and find other ways to say the same thing.

3. Sometimes subscribers opt-in with an email address that they don't check very often, if at all. What you need to do from the beginning is encourage them to sign up with their primary email address.

4. You might be sending them too many emails and they're getting tired of you. If this is happening, slow yourself down and don't send so many, especially the promotional kind.

5. You've given them helpful information in the past and they stay on hoping you'll send them something else they need. So far, your email subject lines have been boring. Take a good look at the content of your emails. Are you sending valuable information or just promotions? Also look hard at your email subject lines. They need to be intriguing and catchy. Start a swipe file of your favorite lines.

The best bet is to try to prevent inactive subscribers before they happen. Here are some ways to engage your subscribers:

1. Give high quality content. People will rush to open your emails if you always over-deliver.

2. Survey your list and find out what information they want from you. This shows you care about them and their needs. It also gets your emails opened.

3. Hold a contest that's relevant to your niche and get your readers to respond.

4. Give people a call to action and be specific. Ask them to respond to an email you sent or leave a comment on your blog. Ask them about their successes or ask them what their opinion is on such-and-such product.

5. Drop tantalizing hints about what the next email is going to be about. Leave them wondering and wanting to read your next email.

List fatigue happens, but you can take active measures to minimize it. Always remember that you're writing your email to real people and when you have something good to say, they'll want to read it.

Posted by billenross at 04:20 PM | Comments (0)

January 26, 2008

Article Marketing for Affiliate Profits

If you have a small advertising budget, but you want a proven way to spread the word about your affiliate products or services, article marketing is the perfect solution. By offering informative, easy-to-read content that appeals to the search engines, you can drive significant traffic to your web pages for affiliate profits.

The key to effective article marketing is to offer useful and interesting content that is optimized for the search engines.

To start the article, choose a topic that pertains to your affiliate offerings and find the best keywords related to the topic. You can use a free resource such as Keyword Playground to research the popularity of certain words and use Google to research the competitiveness of the keywords.

Informative, well-written content with a keyword density of three to five percent is a good step to getting your article ranked in the search engines. Do not, however, overuse keywords or else your articles will be ranked lower due to the spam flag.

Make sure to research the topic you are writing about through Google searches, encyclopedias and/or library research so you offer meaningful content.

Choose an attention-grabbing title to raise interest, such as posing a question or a challenge to your readers. As you write the article, check your spelling and grammar so your writing has a professional appearance.

If you find the process difficult, you may choose to invest in a program such as Fat Content that guides you through SEO writing step-by-step and includes an optimized search engine browser for outstanding research.

Unique articles providing outstanding information will bring the most traffic to your affiliate pages. Once you prepare an original, well-written article, proofread your work or ask someone else to read your article so you know it makes sense.

Once the article is perfect, it's time to submit it to article directories such as Ezine Articles, Article City and Go Articles. You can also feature your article on blogs, forums and newsletters. Make sure, however, that your bio box includes the link to your affiliate website before you submit to the directories.

Although it can be time-consuming, writing great articles is an affordable way to boost your affiliate profits even if you have a small advertising budget. And if you're able to to write an over-the-top article that goes viral, you'll be amazed at the traffic it will bring you.

Posted by billenross at 03:20 PM | Comments (0)

January 16, 2008

Autoresponders Can Be Harmful To Your Wealth

It is an indisputable fact that the hard working autoresponder has been and most likely will remain an integral tool in any marketer’s toolbox. However, just as with any "power tool," this one needs to be used with caution. This is especially true in today's Spam conscious marketplace.

Autoresponders exist in a number of different forms with various levels of product options. In it's most basic form it can be found in the cPanel. Here it really only performs the basic function of responding to a received email. One can easily set it to respond, or send a return message automatically to any incoming email. Even in this most basic form this can be a very useful tool.

More complex versions can be found in what are referred to as paid third party autoresponder companies. These companies provide very complex systems that perform many more functions than just responding. They are able to store data to compile extensive mailing lists. Provide form code software to allow the placement of opt in forms on websites. Allow the choice of single or double opt in registration to various lists.

They offer the ability to send any number of delayed follow up messages to an entire list or to portions of any given list in either text or html or both. Allow a given list to be achieved or activated at will. All these and many more features are available today with any good autoresponder company.

A third version of autoresponders is in the form of various software programs that can be purchased outright and installed on a domain. With this system one can operate a fully owned and controlled autoresponder.

The last form of autoresponder is a type that is provided by some hosting companies as a part of their hosting packages. These have traditionally been full-featured autoresponders capable of performing very advanced functions.

It is in the latter two types of autoresponders where the most potential of harm to your wealth as mentioned in the article title lies. It is not necessary to go into the major problems that have arisen in the past several years because of Spam issues. You are most likely aware that a single flame or Spam complaint against you can get your ISP, (internet service provider), or your hosting account instantly cancelled. You are guilty until proven innocent and in most cases the burden of proof lies with the individual.

Hosting companies and ISPs have zero tolerance for Spam complaints. This is necessary from a business standpoint for these companies because a complaint to an individual automatically affects many others. How can this be?

The general public is not aware that at these companies these accounts are hosted on servers. Servers are the computers that "serve" up the websites that you "browse" for from your computer or laptop. There are normally many hundreds of accounts on any given server. These servers have a dedicated IP address. A single complaint from any one account can block the IP for that server thereby effectively shutting down the server and blocking all associated accounts.

When this occurs it becomes the burden of the company to have their staff contact the proper authorities and assure them that the offending account has been removed so that the server IP can then be unblocked. This can be a time consuming and expensive activity.

In addition, unknown to the general public, many ISPs will block any emails coming from companies with IP addresses suspected of sending out large amounts of email. If your autoresponder account is on one of these IP addresses you may think your emails are being delivered when in fact they are simply bouncing. This is a tremendous loss to your business.

However the third party paid autoresponder companies mentioned above exist solely to provide a consistent and trouble free environment for your email lists. Their staff is highly trained to quickly and professionally respond to complaints and get them cleared as fast as possible. Because their only purpose is providing autoresponder services they are very good at making sure that your emails are delivered on time and with the highest rate of successful delivery.

When using these services, if the worse case scenario were to occur and you were to receive a complaint of a nature where your account would be suspended, then you would only lose your autoresponder account and not your more valuable ISP or hosting account.

The moral here is to give consideration to the loss of revenue caused to your business by using the wrong tools. In most cases if you will do the math you will come to the conclusion that the peace of mind, low monthly cost and increased delivery of your email will cause you to investigate the available paid autoresponder services.

Posted by billenross at 10:18 PM | Comments (0)

November 12, 2007

Internet Marketing Focus

Internet marketing is a complicated business. There is so much to learn. Building websites, learning search engine optimization, emails, autoresponders and that is just some of it. Then you have to find your niche, research your market, dream up your product and on and on it goes. Then just as you think you have figured out your blueprint along comes another indispensable tool or system. So you make a few adjustments and read another 150 pages of instructions and watch another 20 hours of high powered video. Phew! You take a deep breath and rewrite your blueprint. You turn on the computer and check your emails. There are 65 emails all heralding the latest and greatest in internet marketing. Spy on your opposition, buy these private label rights and do not forget to listen in to the latest over hyped teleconference with two or three self proclaimed gurus thinly disguising mutual backslapping for selling some over priced "how to" book which is probably just another rehash of what you learned two or three months ago.

Have you ever wondered if this is a cleverly orchestrated plan by the successful operators to confuse the would be marketers out there. Maybe not but it does sow the seeds of utter confusion into the minds of the unfocused.

The fact is your email inbox is a major distraction to actually getting on and achieving success in Internet marketing.The answer here is to limit severely the amount of email you read. Go through the list of emails you receive and unsubscribe from most of them. Be thoroughly ruthless and just retain one or two of your very best newsletters. It is probably going to be painful because you enjoy receiving them and will spend hours reading them and the things they promote. But that is the point, they have actually distracted you and robbed hours of your time.

Now it is time to focus and select that aspect of Internet marketing that you enjoy. Go for one thing and get it going properly and then expand into the next thing in a natural progression that will best compliment your first interest. Follow your prepared blueprint and focus on that. Do not be totally deaf to what is going on in the internet marketing world but limit the destructively distracting nature of so much of it.

So concentrate and focus on achieving your goals and making some money. Join a good mentoring program if you really need to but stop hopping from one thing to the other. Be single minded and maintain that focus. When you have achieved your initial goals and have things running on some sort of auto pilot then you can look around for ways to improve and fine tune your business.

Posted by billenross at 12:33 PM | Comments (0)

November 05, 2007

Internet Business Reality Check

The siren call of starting a business on the Internet is hard to resist. Work when you want, do it from home, make lots of money (even when you're asleep) - what's not to like, right? You'd be a fool not to jump in and start building that website or writing a blog!

Not so fast. There are more Internet millionaire "wanna-bes" than you might think. And many have spent more than a few years and more than a few thousand dollars in a vain effort to start a profitable Internet business.

It may seem that "everybody" is making money online, but that's simply not the case. And not many people will admit their frustration, partly because no one hates admitting failure but also because perception is everything online. If you are perceived as a failure, no one will buy from you, which makes you fail even faster.

So what are the disadvantages and roadblocks that potential Internet entrepreneurs encounter?

The first is the learning curve - it's steeper than you might think, and there's no single "how-to" process to follow.

Succeeding at an online business requires mastery of several key abilities, not all of which directly correlate to doing business offline. For example, you not only have to build a user-friendly and relevant website or blog, you have to drive traffic to it, all without making any mistakes that cause you to lose credibility in your prospect's mind and cause them to click away from your site.

Not easy!

And though there are countless experts, books, and how-to courses on how to start a business online, it's hard for a beginner to know who to believe, and there are multiple online business models to choose from as well.

The second issue, which was mentioned above but which warrants more attention, is the problem of driving traffic to your website. Novice Internet marketers know they want their site to be found in the search engines, but often vastly underestimate the amount of competition they have for the keywords and search phrases they desire.

The Internet reality is that top-ten rankings for most popular keywords is extraordinarily difficult to achieve - which means that the novice "Interpreneur" will need to master the art of advertising online, which can become quite costly.

The third and final obstacle mentioned here is that it's very easy to become distracted when building an Internet business.

If you subscribe to Internet ezines or visit Internet discussion forums, which are recommended methods to build knowledge and connect with potential customers or partners, you're bombarded almost daily with new ways to make money. New advertising strategies to try. New top-secret, never-before-revealed-to-the-public ways to get more targeted website visitors than you've ever imagined. And so on.

And while some of these strategies may be an excellent fit for a particular online business, many will not. Since inexperienced Internet marketers find it difficult to make that distinction, they waste time and money delving into new income models before mastering the income method they're using now.

Hopefully, if you're considering starting an Internet business, this article will serve as a "reality check" for you. It's certainly possible to make a substantial secondary or primary income online - but it's much more likely if you have a good grasp of the obstacles you'll probably encounter along the way.

Posted by billenross at 09:39 AM | Comments (0)

October 22, 2007

VoIP Explained

Who would ever imagine that Graham Bell's invention would one day be on computers networked all over the world. VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol as the name suggests, uses the Internet to call anyone of your friends in any part of the world.

What makes this technology appealing is the cost. VoIP is a cheap alternative to complex phone systems that you have never really fully understood. How many times have you looked at your phone bill and just shrugged off the number of calls charged to you. VoIP is a good alternative for small businesses and offices that want the most out of one kind of savings.

So what do you need to look out for when applying for a VoIP service especially for those who are not technologically savvy? Here are some helpful tips that you can consider when looking for a provider that offers a cheap but reliable service.

Compare the price range from various providers first. There is nothing like doing your preliminary homework. Make sure that you are choosing from trustworthy and tested providers.

Always look carefully into the inclusion of hidden charges and if there is a payment for termination of service and/or activation of service.

Ask if they offer e911 emergency service and find out how you can apply for the service.

Do not sign up for a provider that requires you to have an entirely new phone system. The reason for getting VoIP in the first place is to save some money.

Check online about the VoIP company background and business tenure. Check if they’ve had complaints about their service.

Try using service providers that have already established a mass appeal.

You should look closely at what you need for yourself and your family. If you are the kind of person that makes a lot of calls to other countries, then you should look for a package that offers really cheap international rates. If you get the bulk of your personal calls from just one city, look for a package that will provide you with your own phone number that people can call you with also at local rates.

When you have finished making your checklist and have looked into all the factors, you will suddenly realize that you managed to find the cheapest and most appropriate VoIP provider who can offer you the maximum number of services at the minimum rates that you want.

Posted by billenross at 08:50 AM | Comments (0)

September 30, 2007

Bad Spelling Makes Money

Remember back in school when you learned how to spell? It almost went hand in hand with the "Don't color outside of the lines!" attitude. It was something you were expected to do - color within the lines and spell correctly.

You lost points for bad grammar, incorrect spelling, and oh yes, coloring outside the line.

If you consider words as a business commodity, correct spelling is usually put up for sale and purchased by those of us who are eager to devour it through magazines, novels, books, newspapers, membership sites, and all kinds of downloadable online content. To name but a few outlets.

So, what happens to all the incorrect spelling? Where does it go?

You would think that most of it gets stomped upon and eradicated in the classroom, or by the magazine or book editor, or even the newspaper editor. And, for the most part this ib, oops, is true.

Yet, with the dawn of text messaging, instant chat rooms, email, and a host of other "who cares how I spell" applications, incurrect speling is becuming the informal norm.

So, who cares if you spell incorrectly?

Well, despite what your teacher told you, there are people who actually want you to misspell - in fact, they're counting on it!

Entrepreneurs like Kevin Ham from Vancouver get excited when you absent-mindedly type in prpsi.com instead of pepsi.com. Try it. The 'r' key is so close to the 'e' key on the keyboard that people mistakenly type the 'r' key instead.

So, how much money can you make from spelling errors?

According to the June 2007 issue of Business 2.0 magazine, Ham's business is worth over $300million, with much of it coming from owning misspelled domain names that people type directly into their Internet browser address windows.

In 2004, Yun Ye sold his portfolio of 100,000 domain names for $164million.

Mark Schilling owns over 320,000 domain names and still works out of his home in the Cayman Islands.

In 2006 Ham hashed out a deal with the government of Cameroon in Africa - who have the '.cm' country code (U.S.A. has .us, Canada has .ca, and the U.K. has .uk). Why? Many people who intend to type ".com" as part of a web address end up missing the 'o' of com and type .cm instead.

Surfers who make this mistake end up on the Cameroon servers where the name is checked to see if it is registered there. If not, the surfer is redirected to agoga.com, which Ham claims to have upwards of 8 million unique hits per month.

So, how is the money made?

For the most part, these sites contain simple "park" pages containing money-generating pay-per-click ad links that relate somewhat to the keywords used by the searcher. Each time the visitor to the page clicks on a link, the site owner makes money from that click (pay per click).

Other ways these "domainers" make money is from buying popular names like greeting.com and adding a park page to it.

Other than joining this bandwagon, one way you can profit from this with your site is to consider different, or even incorrect spellings people would use to access your site. Then figure what the most common mistakes would be and register those sites, and have those sites redirect to you main site.

So, next time someone corrects your spelling you can tell them about Kevin Ham.

Happy domain naming!

Posted by billenross at 09:53 PM | Comments (0)

September 16, 2007

Podcasting Basics and Benefits

The top word for the year 2005 was "podcasting," as selected by the New Oxford American Dictionary. According to one dictionary, podcasting is "the web-based broadcast which works with software that automatically detects new files and is accessed by subscription."

There are two explanations of the etymology of the word, "podcasting." One explanation is that it is a combination of the words "iPod" and "broadcasting," because early listeners generally downloaded audio broadcasts to their Apple iPod mp3 devices. The other explanation is that the root of the word comes from the acronym for "personal on demand," which would be pod. Personal on demand broadcasting becomes podcasting.

Podcasting began as a means to distribute music files, but soon website owners realized that podcasting the spoken word was an important way to increase the amount of useful content on their website. For example, all of the major news agencies which distribute countless pages of written information now also offer their subscribers portable audio content as well.

Podcasting is produced from two separate actions. The first action is to design, create, and record an audio show that is to be broadcast later. An audio file is created and is made available on the podcaster's website in order for listeners to download the file directly to their listening device or to listen to the file as it streams from the website. Additionally, the smart podcaster will make the audio file available through a subscription based feed. The subscrition is generally free, but some podcasters charge a small fee for the subscription. The web feed stores the audio file so that a listener can have access to the file at any time they choose.

The second action is for the listener to periodically check for new content from their favorite shows. The listener can either search for new content and download it to their digital audio device or they can enlist the help of a podcatcher or feedreader. The feedreader will search for new content from the listener's favorite shows and notify the listener when new content is available. The obvious advantage to this system is that the listener will receive new content without ever having to search for it themselves.

Audio podcasting is an important way for a website owner to distribute their content to their audience. Many people would rather listen to audio content than to read the same content. With the use of portable audio devices, the website content can be enjoyed at a time and place that is convenient to the listener. The website owner will be able to increase the amount of visitors to their website by being able to offer podcasts as an additional source of information.

Posted by billenross at 08:46 AM | Comments (0)

September 11, 2007

Don't Fall into the Pixel or Wiki Page Trap

The million dollar homepage was a novel idea. Advertisers flocked to purchase pixels and the creator collected more than a million dollar. Now there is a gold rush to buy wiki pages. However, today the Alexa ranking of million dollar homepage stands at 48,000. It will continue to decline. The same fate awaits the paid wiki pages.

These type of web sites lack in sustained traffic for a long time. Why do you visit a web site? You go to a web site for getting information or accomplishing some tasks, interacting with your online network or sharing your feelings, having some fun or making a purchase. You do not visit a web site to stare at a page full of pixel ads or read a random wiki page.

The Wikipedia has more than two million english language articles. It is full of comprehensive information on any imaginable topics. It is the largest information repository known to human race.

Ask a 12 year old kid her favorite information source and her answer will be Wikipedia. There are niche wikis on "how to", travel, politics, space, etc. There is no reason for a web surfer to visit a paid wiki site for anything.

The paid wiki sites are not even wikis. A wiki is a collaborative tool for adding, editing, and sharing information by a large number of people in a single space. Similar topics are linked together for easy navigation. The crowd intelligence makes it possible to record information accurately and completely.

However, credit goes to the paid wiki developers for portraying free Geocities, not even MySpace, type pages as wiki pages. Advertisers fall into the trap and moron reporters tout it the greatest invention since sliced bread.

Look at a paid wiki page. It is full of logos, banners, menus, color scheme, etc. of the site it resides on. Even MySpace allows you to customize your pages.

A better option for advertisers is to start creating Squiddo lenses or pages on any topic for free. Squiddo provides you all the free pages you need to create contents on any topics you wish. You can also make money from Squiddo if your lenses are popular.

Another option is to get a 10 year lease on a domain and redirect Google Blogger pages to the domain. You collect money using AdSense.

If you pay for website pages, evaluate the system based on the following four criteria.

1. Customization: You should be able to fully customize your pages, removing all logos, banners, menus, and color scheme of the site.

2. Traffic Model: The site should have a web model to attract visitors for a long time.

3. Page Promotion: You should have complete control of when and how your pages are linked on the homepage of the site. It should not be random.

4. The site should not monetize by placing ads on any pages.

Use these four filters to evaluate a site that sells you pages for traffic and fun.

Posted by billenross at 05:38 PM | Comments (0)

September 08, 2007

Understanding Home Broadband Bandwidth

Your home broadband, typically ADSL or cable modem access, usually has a different speed for downloading and uploading respectively. Typically you will have a downlink speed in the range of 512 kbit/s up to 8 Mbit/s and an uplink speed substantially lower than that, often 128 kbit/s to 1 Mbit/s. However, even when downloading things from the Internet, traffic flows in both directions, because the protocol that is used to transfer the data uses acknowledgments to make sure that the data has been transferred properly. Since your download speed is substantially higher than your upload speed, in a lot of cases you will not be able to use your full download speed if you are uploading data at the same time.

Your Internet service provider will often quote the speed of your home broadband as being "up to" a certain speed. There is a reason for that. Let's say you have a home broadband connection of up to 2 Mbit/s in download speed and up to 512 kbit/s in upload speed. Does this mean that you are always guaranteed to get that bandwidth for your transfers?

Definitely not! In fact, all Internet service providers sell much more bandwidth than they can actually deliver. If all the customers of a service provider would try to use their connection to download at the same time, the average bandwidth would be much lower than the maximum value given. In fact, it is not uncommon to sell 50 times more bandwidth than they can actually deliver.

Does this mean that they are tricking you? It certainly sounds so, but this is a practice that has been used a long time, even in telephony networks or cell phone networks. If everyone in the world tried to use their telephone at the same time, it simply would not work. But that just doesn't happen, most people only use the telephone occasionally.

The same thing applies to your home broadband. Most customers in your service providers network only use their home broadband occasionally. Some users fill up their broadband all the time, and there are those that rarely use it at all. But on average, the usage is quite low compared to the maximum possible. For instance, when you're surfing on a web site, you spend most of the time reading the pages. Also, most people only spend a fraction of their day in front of their computer at home.

If the service provider was going to guarantee that you could always get your maximum bandwidth, your home broadband would be much more expensive. The service provider would have to make sure that you had dedicated bandwidth for your usage only. This would be a waste, and cost much more than most people are willing to pay.

Instead, service providers carefully monitor the bandwidth usage in a network, to make sure that connections are not overloaded. Some low quality service providers will overload their connections more, and give you a lower average bandwidth.

Service providers also use the same over provisioning for business customers, but the "over provisioning factor" tends to be much lower. This is not surprising, because a business connection is used by many people so on average these connections will be more utilized than a home broadband connection. Furthermore, a business customer generally pays more for the same bandwidth, so the service provider can afford to give a higher quality to these customers.

Posted by billenross at 09:19 AM | Comments (0)

September 06, 2007

Keep Your Computer Virus-free!

Somewhere out there in cyberspace are malicious vandals hard at work dreaming up new computer viruses. Eugene Kaspersky, (of Kaspersky Lab Virus Research), in a November 23, 2005 article posted in Security News, said, "The number of new viruses and Trojans is now increasing every day by a few hundred. (Our) virus lab receives between 200 and 300 new samples a day." That is Not a misprint. He said 200-300 per DAY!

The worst ones we hear about. The large majority are quiet and anonymous like termites, often doing much damage before they are detected. Like human viruses, their effects run the spectrum from mostly benign to potentially fatal to their unwilling and unwitting hosts. Also as in human viruses, there are two different approaches to dealing with them: Prevention and Cure.

Preventing virus infection begins with guarding the portals of contact. Do not open suspicious e-mails or attachments without scanning them first. Most anti-virus programs have a right-click option to scan a selected file for viruses, which makes scanning easy. Similarly, when you download software, eBooks or whatever, always save to a file, then scan the file before opening. If you bring in data or software by floppy disk, CD or other portable media, the same rule applies; scan it first!

A good firewall can help somewhat in keeping viruses at bay, but there are too many ways to hide them in regular data or software transfers for a firewall to catch them all. A firewall (like chicken soup for human flu) can help, but don't rely on that alone.

As Benjamin Franklin said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." However, sooner or later, some viruses are going to get through your defenses somehow, and you will need to turn to cures.

If you should get hit by a really bad virus, you could lose most of your files before you know that there is a problem! The first step to enable cures is to prepare well in advance, positioning and backing up your files for easy recovery. Set up your computer with a small hard drive (4-10giga) for your C: drive and a much larger hard drive for all your data. Use your C: drive for programs only. Keep copies of your software purchase receipts, registration and activation codes and setup info in a file on your data drive. You can always download them again, if you can give the seller your purchase info to show that you already bought.

Almost all virus infections will be in the program section of the C: drive, so scan it daily. This won't take much time since you have arranged for it to be relatively small. Then scan your (larger)data drive once or twice a month.

You should still back up your data files frequently. If you cannot backup everything, at least backup the crucial information that would be difficult or impossible to replace. CD and DVD burners are a good way to do this backup, as are removable hard drives.

Finally, you will need good anti-virus programs to go after the viruses and either quarantine or (preferably) destroy them. There are many anti-virus solutions being touted and hyped out there. Some are good, most are not. Here is how to find the good ones:

1. Look for programs that offer both active and passive protection. Active protection means that part of the program remains memory-resident, actively watching for potential incoming viruses. When they detect a virus they can sound an alarm and give you a series of options for dealing with it. Passive or on-demand protection will let you ask for a scan of specified areas when you want it, but it waits for you to ask.

2. Select your anti-virus software based on the recommendations of independent testing agencies. Checkmark (by westcoastlabs.org), AV-test.org and PC World magazine are among the most respected independent testers of anti-virus software. For ratings of anti-trojan software, check with Anti-trojan - Forum. Use more than one anti-virus and anti-trojan program. Very few detect all problems, but what one program misses, another may find and defeat.

3. Keep your anti-virus programs up to date. There is a running gun battle going on between virus writer-disseminators and virus catch-and-destroy experts. New viruses are found; new anti-virus program patches to find and destroy them are usually ready within hours or days. Until your software is updated, you are still vulnerable to the new viruses.

In addition to using anti-virus software on your personal computer, consider using an Internet Service Provider or e-mail service that includes server-side anti-virus and spam e-mail filtering as a third layer of protection.

In summary, be careful, get good software, run it often and update it frequently... and stay alert to new developments! This struggle between new viruses and better anti-virus software is ongoing, and developing rapidly.

Posted by billenross at 08:43 AM | Comments (0)

September 02, 2007

How To Avoid Online Mistakes

It's amazing and unfortunate that many website owners inadvertently put up barriers that discourage site visitors from actually doing business with them. This is especially true for people with brick-and-mortar businesses who are trying to build an online presence and who do not yet understand the differences between online and offline marketing.

If someone walks into your local storefront, especially if they've had to drive to get to it and drop a few coins in the parking meter, they're at least partly committed to spending some time in the store. Either they want something specifically, in which case you're nearly guaranteed to make a sale, or they think your store probably offers what they want, so they're willing to spend the time to look around.

In either case, your friendly staff, attractive promotional displays and compelling sale prices can influence someone to make a purchase, even if it wasn't what they originally came for.

This seldom happens online. Your nearest competitor is only a quick Google search away, a new website visitor may have little or no solid reason to look around your site, and it often happens that you lose a would-be customer in the click of a mouse.

That's why it's important for website owners to remember that you need to put the most important, most compelling, most commonly-requested information right up front, preferably on the home page.

This is the exact opposite of a physical storefront, where you can put your sale items in the back of the store and count on people walking past the new merchandise to get to the clearance racks. Online, a visitor to your website will not spend any time looking around unless they can tell immediately that you probably have what they're looking for, whether that's information or designer handbags.

You must also consider the fact that website visitors need more overt assurance as to your company's legitimacy and trustworthiness than visitors to a physical storefront.

Someone who walks into a local store is subtly and sub-consciously bombarded with all sorts of sensory and intellectual cues that reassure them (or not) that it's safe to do business with this particular merchant. A store that is clean, well-lit, intelligently laid out, with merchandise that fits the price being asked and helpful salespeople is more likely to be profitable than one which is not.

These factors are less visible online. Most would-be website owners realize that a site with blinking fonts and inconsistent navigation is a visitor turn-off, but still miss the mark by failing to reassure potential buyers. They neglect to include information on shipping, returns, privacy, guarantees and other store policies in a prominent location, which makes the customer uneasy and less likely to make a purchase.

One last tip for the storefront-owner-turned-website-owner, and that's to remember where and when site visitors come to your website. Many of your site visitors log on from work, or late at night, or when the kids are napping - and their first panicked impulse is to click away from your site if they're immediately greeting by loud music or an audio message from the company president. Those site add-ons can add value, but should be optional.

These differences between online and offline storefronts are among the most ignored. Paying attention to them right from the start can help make sure your website is as profitable as you dreamed it could be.

Posted by billenross at 11:13 AM | Comments (0)

August 24, 2007

Squeeze Pages

Squeeze pages should be an integral part of your on line business! It's a technique that works to build your 'opt-in' list. A squeeze page is really a 'trading' page - you are trading something of value to your visitor and they in turn give you information about themselves.

No matter how great your site is people get distracted and your visitor can be gone before you know it. Not only that, if they become distracted they may not remember what site they were on or why they had navigated there in the first place.

I have book marked many a site then forgot about it for one reason or another.

Now had the visited site used, or been, a squeeze page not only would they capture the visitors information but their follow up email(s) would remind the visitor of the site and the purpose of their visit.

This is why using a squeeze page and getting permission to follow up with your visitors can be so powerful. Caution: you want to make sure the visitor understand how you plan to use the information they give you.

What goes into creating a good squeeze page? Not a great deal is really needed.

Layout:

Keep the layout simple and to the point. Capture only the minimum amount of information needed for the follow up - name; email address is all you really need. Asking for state, country or phone should only be done if it is important to the follow up.

People are often reluctant to give up a phone number - especially on the first contact. They fear being put on lists or being called at all hours of the day or night. It is important the visitor understand his/her information will be kept confidential.

Remember that you can, and should, acquire more information as you develop the relationship between you and your customer.

Make a template with your HTML editor, which you can use over again just by making minor changes to the information, depending on your present offer.

There are also a number of places on the Internet where you can find ready-made templates - both for free and at no cost.

Graphics:

Graphics can project the image you want to have. Do you want to display only the product? Do you want to display the product and your logo for branding purposes? Though squeeze pages aren't really used for branding - that should be an objective of your main site(s).

The offer:

You need a quality offer to entice the visitor to hand over her/his information. Preferably, this will be something of a free nature and should be something that solves a problem for the visitor. Free reports are great items for squeeze pages. And these items need not be your product but can be products for which you are an affiliate.

Remember that by using a squeeze page of your own, you acquire the customer information rather than the affiliate site capturing them first.

And that is the goal of your squeeze page - to help you build your customer list!

Posted by billenross at 07:46 PM | Comments (0)

August 23, 2007

List Building

If you are into Internet marketing most people say you don't even have a business if you don't have a list. By building a list you have a sustainable business model not dependent on outside sources for traffic or income.

Building a list is collecting email addresses of people who want to be contacted by you. The benefit of building a large list is you have contact with hundreds to thousands of people whenever you have a message to get out.

If you don't collect names from people who are visiting your website you are missing out on repeat traffic. Odds are most people who visit your website only do so once. By collecting email addresses you are recycling the traffic you worked so hard to get in the first place.

Also, by building a list you might even be able to afford to pay for traffic since each visitor becomes more valuable. Each visitor can be contacted repeatedly with your message to buy your products or services.

The easiest way to build a list is to put newsletter sign up forms on your most visited pages. It is important to put it near the top of the page so people can see it. Giving away a free e-book is another great incentive for people to sign up to your list.

Pop up forms are also a good device many Internet marketers use to collect names. The good thing about this is you don't have to change any of your pages to include a pop up form because this goes over your page.

These days with the amount of spam people receive it is best to have a double opt-in list. What double opt-in means is that people who enter their contact information into your sign-up form is that they must then also confirm they want to be a part of your list by confirming this with a reply email as well. This way if someone goes around entering someone else’s email address they can easily opt out of receiving any more messages from you.

By building a quality double-opt in list you will have a more responsive list to your offers. A lot of people find that building a double-opt in list harder to build, but in the end it saves everyone a lot of hassle. You are not sending spam to people who don't want your emails, and people who are receiving your emails will be more likely to respond to them.

Posted by billenross at 08:15 AM | Comments (0)

August 22, 2007

Listing Your Website In a Web Directory

When looking to start or grow an existing Internet business or even offline business there is one fact you cannot get away from. That simple fact is without traffic your business is going nowhere. This simple truth is universal to all Internet businesses and is tantamount to building a Wal-Mart on the moon it could be the biggest and best-stocked store ever but if no one can get there it is dead before it starts.

One of the best ways of promoting an online business and enhancing an offline business is with the use of web business directories. There are a few key benefits to this for your online and offline business and in this article we will look at some of those key benefits. Among these is the main lifeblood of business and that is traffic, directories can help generate this in a few key ways.

The first benefit to both on and offline businesses are web business directories. These are among some of the highest trafficked websites on the Internet with some of the highest Alexa rankings there are. The largest of these directories and probably the best known would be Yahoo.com another large directory would be DMOZ (The Open Directory Project).

Alexa is a division of Amazon.com and it runs a web traffic rating service that ranks a website's traffic with the ideal ranking being number one. Some of the websites with high (actually the lower the number the better) traffic rankings are Yahoo #1, Ebay, MySpace, YouTube and Google.

The reason this number is important to potential web business directories you are looking at is traffic, these sites get lots of it. This is good for you as many people look to directories to find what they are looking for over search engines for the key difference between them. Based on human editors almost no web directory databases use robots as where search engines employ robots called bots, which use mathematical algorithms to index websites.

Many people consider the human element of a web directory to equate to a higher quality of listing as a human can notice simple subtleties that a computer just cannot notice. This human factor is what also gives the sites a higher authority ranking expressed through the high Page Ranks most established web business directories enjoy. Why is this Page Rank factor important to you and your business? Simply put Google gives greater credibility to sites through higher Page Ranks expressed on a scale of PR0 to PR10 with ten being the highest you can achieve.

When you list your site in a directory with a high PR some of that Page Rank passes on to your site and in essence it boosts your Page Rank which helps improve your results in the SERP's (search engine results page). This brings it all full circle as the higher your score in the SERP's the more traffic your website will get. The number of incoming links you have to your site (back links) directly relates to your position in the SERP’s. Simply put the more one-way links you have the better your websites traffic will be.

What benefit is this to your offline business you may ask? Simple. As the world embraces the technology of the Internet and more and more people turn to it for solutions to problems the more your business presence on the web becomes increasingly crucial. Many people use web business directories as the modern day Yellow Pages. These directories can have advanced listings capabilities which can be anything from a few lines to extremely detailed business information such as business phone, address, product listings, photos of the business, etc.

This is an affordable way for an offline business of getting an online presence without actually having to build their own website. It can give the offline business a quick and simple way to