Posts Tagged ‘search engines’
Internet Tip of the Week: Reality Check
Every time you turn around it seems you see another affiliate program which promises you vast riches. They give you all the sales material you need, and even throw in a free web page. How can I loose, one might think. Everything is all set up for me, and all I need is get a bigger PO Box to handle all the checks that will roll in. Your web site will be carried by the search engines, you have the “pre-written” ads ready to go – how can you lose?
A few ads are placed here and there, and the responses “trickle in” but there are few, if any sales. Time for a reality check. If you have seen one affiliate web site for a particular product, service or opportunity, you have seen them all. There are a number of affiliate programs, which have thousands of people who have bit. Why should a person go to your site when they know from the URL (address of your web page) what it is already?
They won’t. Am I saying that affiliate programs don’t work? No – I am saying that the tools they provide “don’t cut the mustard”. It is a proven marketing fact that it takes 5-7 exposures to your ad before someone might purchase from you. If you have a “canned” web site, what are the odds of them coming back to you to buy? Slim to none.
So how does a person who is serious about marketing an affiliate program get you to buy from them? First, they “deep six” the affiliate web site as their primary web contact, and create their own. On their web site they provide content which is interesting for anyone who stops by. They also change the content on a regular basis to keep them coming back, and let them know when it does change. They also provide a link to their affiliate web site.
The next step is to try to get a listing on the search engines. Now, think about this. There are most likely several thousand people who have an identical web site to the one you get as an affiliate. What do you think the odds are of someone “stumbling across” your site when surfing the web? Again – slim to none. But if you have your own site, your chances take a giant leap forward. The link to your affiliate site is a minor part of your web site, even though it is where you want them to eventually wind up.
Now – can you use a site that is not your own domain? While not the preferred route to take, it is “head and shoulders” above the link you get from the affiliate program. Most ISP’s give you web space free. Learn a little HTML code and you’re in business. Or, if push comes to shove, hire someone to do it for you. Let’s face it, if I see a URL that I recognize as an affiliate program, and I’ve been there before, I will simply “click away”.
The old saying, that if “salespeople sell themselves first, the sale of their product or service, follows shortly thereafter” is certainly true. Establish yourself on the web and in the newsletters/ezines as someone who can be trusted, and is knowledgeable in their field. If people get to know and trust you, your recommendation to join your affiliate program will carry a lot more weight.
Now that you have control over your web page, you should have a guest book that visitors can sign. Now you have their email address. Folks, these are literally worth their weight in gold. You can now send them email about upcoming events on your web site, and not be accused of spamming.
Run a contest on your web site – the prizes don’t have to be off the wall. An ebook (and there are a number available for free) can be your prize – and again more email addresses. Write a free newsletter/ezine and publish it on a regular basis – even more email addresses. As long as there is content of interest, they won’t mind a gentle reminder to visit your web site.
Consider a “non-competing” partner to help you with the site or to write articles for the ezine. It makes no difference to you if there is another link to another affiliate program on your site. If they are willing to share the work in return for the link, it is to your advantage. The key here is “non-competing”.
So – are affiliate programs a sure thing? If you simply join and sit back waiting for the money to flow, no. If you are a “take charge” type of person and are willing to work a little, it can be a great opportunity.
Did you know that subscribers to Bob Osgoodby’s Free Ezine the “Tip of the Day” get a Free Ad for their Business at his Web Site? Great Business and Computer Tips ? Monday. Wednesday. and Friday. Instructions on how to place an ad are in the Newsletter.
Subscribe at: http://adv-marketing.com/business/subscribe2.htm.
How To Start An Internet Business ? Site Layout
The fourth step of how to start an Internet business involves the layout of your site. When organizing it, two audiences must be considered. Obviously, visitors to the site are the first audience. You must also keep in mind the second audience, search engine robots. Both audiences are extremely important and, fortunately, both want the same thing.
Lean, Mean Layout
Your site needs to be clean and quick if you want to be successful. Slow, cluttered sites inevitably fail because visitors and spiders get distracted and leave before taking the action you want. Let’s take a closer look.
Visitors
The layout of your site should allow visitors to quickly find information and solutions. To achieve this, every page should be no more than two clicks from the home page. Have you ever been on a site where you have to hunt to find a particular page? Poor layouts are aggravating and hurt conversion rates.
Make things as easy as possible by interlinking between the site pages. Every page should have links to primary pages and as many other pages as possible. If you look at good site, links to primary pages are listed across the top and bottom of each page. Links to specific services or products are always listed on each page. It may sound like overkill, but make it as easy as possible for your clients to move around.
Spiders
Search engines use programs called “spiders” to surf the net and index sites. When a spider finds a page, it reads the code from top to bottom and left to right. If the code is clean, the spider will index the page and follow the links to the other pages of the site.
If the code isn’t clean, spiders stop indexing pages. If pages aren’t indexed, they do not appear in search engine results. What stops spiders? Following are the most common problems:
1. Bottlenecks ? Make sure each page of your site links to every primary page at a minimum. You do not want a spider to get stuck on a page and miss others.
2. Dynamic Pages ? Your pages need to be static or carefully designed. If dynamic, spiders often will not index them because they aren’t sure of the content.
3. Frames ? Don’t use this antiquated design technique.
4. Poor URLs ? A huge mistake is to put database parameters in the URL. The URL should contain only the domain name and keywords for the page. A good URL reads: http://www.marketingtitan.com/internet_marketing_services. A poor URL with parameters would read: http://www.marketingtitan.com/id#us57486&095783
5. Images ? Don’t overuse images and don’t put text in images. Images slow down your site, so make them small and optimized. Robots do not read text inside of images, thus text needs to go outside of the images or ALT tags need to be used.
Evaluating The Layout
Once the site is designed, TEST IT! Surf the pages and see if you are able to flow through the site. Add internal links wherever possible. Finally, test the load times of your site on a 56k dial-up modem. If the site loads in under 20 seconds, you are headed in the correct direction.
Your site layout is important. Make sure it caters to the needs of the visitors, whether human or spider.
Halstatt Pires is with http://www.marketingtitan.com – an Internet marketing and advertising company comprised of a search engine optimization specialist providing meta tag optimization services and Internet marketing consultant providing internet marketing solutions through integrated design and programming services.
Good Domain Names Make Your Dreams Memorable
“What was the name of that website? It was good. It has something to do with…”
Is your web site like many others?
Domain names always on the tip of a visitor’s tongue, but not quite memorable enough?
Your choice of domain name needs to be easy to remember, as well as focused enough that your visitor will know right away what your site is about.
A Few Rules
Some rules do apply when deciding on a domain name:
Choosing A Domain Name
Choosing good domain names is almost as important as choosing your actual business (see our Startup Ideas page).
There are many different schools of thought when it comes to picking good domain names.
Some say to choose a short, concise name.
Some like numbers in the name, some don’t.
Hyphens and underscores — as opposed to words all running together — are another debated topic. It’s mostly a matter of easier reading for your human visitors. Which do you find easier to read?
myhomebasedbusinessadvisor
my_home_based_business_advisor
my-home-based-business-advisor
Generally, the hyphens between words make domain names easier to read for most people.
While search engines don’t rank domain names, a keyword-rich name will let your visitors know what your web site is about before they get there. This makes them more comfortable because they know what they’re getting in advance.
Also, when you get other sites to link to yours, that link is usually based on your domain name. This means that your main keyphrase (which you used as your domain name) will be the actual anchor text and search engines do give additional ranking for that.
Domain names play a major role in making your dream memorable to the world.
Take the time to do it right and your dream of a home-based business will be seen all over the world!
For a more detailed explanation of domain names and domain registration, and more great advice for your home-based business, please visit My Home-Based Business Advisor.
Terry Nicholls
My Home-Based Business Advisor
my-home-based-business-advisor.com
Copyright © by Terry Nicholls. All Rights Reserved.
Terry Nicholls writes from his own experience as someone who wanted to start his own home-based business. Now that he has, visit My Home-Based Business Advisor – Helping YOUR Home Business Start and Succeed for free help for YOUR home business, including ideas, startup, and expansion advice.
Small / Medium Business Blog Process Outsourcing as a Website Traffic Building Service
You are a small or a medium business owner. You have a well designed business website. It is a Search Engine Optimized (SEO) website for a limited set of keywords. However, with changing rules of SEO and new competitors entering the market, your select keywords stand a slim chance of surviving the onslaught. What are the chances that your website will remain on the top when a potential customer searches those special keywords on a search engine? To make matters worse, Search engines change their algorithms without any notice and suddenly your site is no longer in top 10 results. So what is the solution?
How about hiring a Blog Outsourcing company to add a Business Blog to your website? (If you are not familiar with Business Blogs, read my earlier article here: http://ezinearticles.com/?id=50041 ).
A business blog can do the SEO magic when it is embedded to your business website. Business blogging needs discipline to write every other day to bring potential customers to your business website. If you have the time and inclination, you may write the business blog yourself. However, if you feel, you should concentrate on your business; you can outsource this task to a Blog Outsourcing Company. Here is a link to first such company: http://www.ideologicllc.com.
What are the benefits of a Business Blog?
1. Improves searchability of your business website, thus increasing the chances of prospective clients visiting your business website.
2. A Business Blog provides instantaneous Customer feedback with comments.
3. A Business Blog has a potential to become centralized knowledgebase with articles containing tips and tutorials about correct usage of the products or services.
4. You can use a Business Blog to share product development status, thus passively achieving pre-launch marketing of the product.
5. The Business Blogs can help in branding a product online.
6. Your Business blog can help in building your business reputation.
7. Believe it or not, a business blog can project you as an expert in your niche business area.
8. Business blog lets you do your own “press release” on the website.
What happens when a business blog is outsourced?
A blogger from the Business Blog Outsourcing Company meets with the business owner or representative once every month and strategically selects few topics which are of interest to the company’s current and prospective clients and prepares keyword rich articles to be published on the company’s blog either every other day or once in a week, depending on the plan selected by the company. Results can be phenomenal. Instead of select keywords for the website, each blog posting has separate keywords which are used by the potential customers searching the internet for specific products or services.
What is the justification for outsourcing a Business Blog?
It is said a business person must concentrate on expanding and improving the business. If he/she tries to do everything, then nothing gets done. So, if a task can be done by secretary, it must be done by a secretary and if a task is difficult or there is lack of time, hiring outside help maybe the best way to get that task done. Business blogging is same way. Writing is a time consuming task, so it is better left to a professional blogger or writer who can better construct the article, intersperse it with business-specific keywords keeping search engine criteria in mind.
Can a professional writer or a blogger do justice to the task of writing about a business, product or service, where he/she has no expertise? The answer is yes. This is no different from a situation where a professional writer writes articles in a magazine about various businesses, products and services. Knowledge can always be gained and then combined with the skills of a professional writer. End result is an article that captivates reader’s attention till very end and has a potential of converting a prospect to a loyal customer.
Harish Keshwani is a Strategic Blogging Consultant, Software Developer, Blogger and an Entrepreneur. He is focused on consulting and guiding small and medium businesses in setting up their blogs and managing it for them as an outsourced process.
He guides corporations of small and medium size to realize the potential of blogging for their business. With appropriate content, he helps companies to keep their customers satisfied and in close touch. He promotes blogging as a marketing and customer response tool to the companies.
His contact information is: Email: businessorati-at-gmail-dot-com Company: Ideologic L.L.C.-A Small/Medium Business Blog Process Outsourcing Company. Website: http://www.ideologicllc.com Blog: http://www.ideologicllc.com/wp
WhyYouNeedThatPerfectName.com!
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose,
By any other name would smell as sweet”
-Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
A rose perhaps but not your domain name!
Welcome to the dotcom bubble! Here, any successful e-tailer should tell you that there’s more to a name than just the name itself. This article serves precisely that purpose ?against the backdrop of quality domain naming strategies and styles, auctions, speculators and court conflicts, to convince you why your online endeavor needs that perfect domain name.
There’s no point in coming up with that absolutely fabulous idea for online selling plus a perfect site to launch from, as long as you don’t have ‘the’ name you need. Choosing a name that will eventually contribute to your brand equity, profits, internet marketing and above all -your online credibility, shouldn’t be done haphazardly. Especially, since it’s so easily purchased (for a low startup capital), easily maintained and one that, if you choose, may be disposed off at a substantial amount. Intentionally or otherwise, your domain name becomes your de facto brand name, a location or an experience your visitors relate to in the long run. Even if you plan to sell it later on to prospective buyers, it is only an asset! Your challenge is to come up with that one name to funnel visitors through.
Brandmeisters today seem to understand the significance of site names, especially since the emergence of a number of me-too sites. Like a Washington Post reporter put it ? “feature for feature, service for service, discount for discount, even annoyance for annoyance”, a number of sites may turn out to be a close match to yours. Quoting Rebecca Saunders, author of the Big Shot series, “Names have to sound fresh and new even if the site duplicates one already on the net. Names should stir the imagination or otherwise gain the surfer’s attention. Further site name should be as simple as possible, they should be believable, and they should be easy to pronounce, pleasing to the ear, easy to spell and therefore easy to look up on a search engine.” Here’s more on building your handle.
The ‘aha’ name
Domain name consultants will serve you innumerable dos and don’ts on internet domain naming ? a feat that could leave you grumbling with limited choices. Personally, your domain naming methodology need not be absolutely conventional, as long as your imagination is not slave to impractical logic and common sense.
Begin with a paper, pencil and loads of patience. Consider seeking the advice of kith and kin, while you scramble ideas in your brain. Follow closely on what you ought to and ought not to consider. For example, consider characteristics, features, advantages and possibly anything that relates to your products and services. Now try to come up with a domain name that either addresses that one fundamental concept of the site, or that weds two or more key concepts in a single name. All the while, keep in mind, your site’s goals, the image you wish to portray and your target audience. Don’t compromise on your image-how you want your company to be perceived and it’s relation to your core business memorability. Jot down your list of ideas. Then narrow it down to those names you think are most reflective of your products/services. Most importantly, determine if the domain name you like is available and that it doesn’t violate any existing trademarks or copyrights. The last thing you’d want is your hard thought idea of that domain name accidentally offending a fellow netizen. Make sure that it doesn’t mean something entirely different in another language and that you don’t spare chance for the public to associate anything negative with it (easier said than done!). Care for the ins and outs of classic and non classic approaches in domain naming? Read on.
Unless you are a domain name squatter or a start-up capitalizing on domain names – save those tongue-twisters, masqueraded phrases and unpronounceable names.
Your creativity levels, thought and effort should be directed towards one that’s short and sweet. Though, a long name, embedded with your major keywords, can get your site a high search engine ranking, there is no reason you should take advantage of the 67 character limit provided for domain names. Besides, you are too late now. The record of the longest domain name has been set by a Welsh village, with its registration of llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.com.
Concentrate on your visitors comfort levels. Leave them no scope for confusion and no loophole to err. Give them a name they can easily guess (without having to quip over the spelling and the location of hyphens) and hopefully, they’ll reciprocate with more clicks.
You could always rely on those prefixes (e, i, net, web, the, my) and suffixes (world, business, company, store). The power of vowels unleashed, you’d generate a potential brand name. E.g. ebay.com, ivillage.com, pcworld.com, smallbusiness.com
Lucky the business if it’s creator has that perfect proper noun to lend his site a name. Atkins.com named after Dr. Atkins and Dell.com after its founder and CEO Michael Dell. A traditional business moving online could capitalize on it’s established brand name. Even acronyms could yield quick domain names. Microsoft is an acronym for MICROcomputer SOFTware and so is Yahoo for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.
Targeting search engine rankings ? e.g. Yahoo that follows alphabetic classification of websites ? consider site names beginning with the digit 1 or the letter ‘a’. Jeff Bezos, the creator of Amazon.com, cites this as one of his reasons for the name’s choice.
But for those of you driven by the age old myth ? that search engines have a liking for words that are separated by dashes- wake up! Today, when search engines focus on the site content, hyphenated names have no influence. Domain names with or without hyphens is in itself a topic for a forum. A good idea is to register both options if possible and redirect visitors to one site. Walmart.com never let go off it’s original registration (wal-mart.com), even after it changed name. Now both names take you to the same site.
Think of it on a broader angle. A few dollars spend to secure all possible variants of your name (with alternate extensions) will secure your visitors, otherwise likely to contribute to competitor site traffic. More – register possible names your visitors are likely to associate to your domain. The retailer Buy.com registered the domains: “10percentoffamazon.com,” “10percentoffreel.com,” and “10percentoffegghead.com”. Proctor & Gamble is an extreme case of this blanket approach. It registered hundreds of generic domain names relating to all aspects of personal hygiene and healthcare: pimples.com, badbreath.com, underarm.com, diarrhea.com etc. They advertise only one, but use the others to bring traffic, and point all the domain names to one site.
Though generic names can’t be trademarked, are sources of controversy and usually unavailable (if not, costly), your prospective domain name could sound of the genre of women.com, Hotels.com, Furniture.com, Art.com and shoes.com. Nonetheless, the loss of uniqueness in generic names is a serious reason for their unpopularity among namers. Now guess why Amazon was’nt named book.com and ebay not auction.com.
So, if the dictionary lets you down, do not fret to think of words that are arbitrary, previously unheard of and totally unrelated. Yahoo, Google and BlueTooth.com don’t owe their origins to the thesaurus. Sometimes it pays to be whimsy!
allthegoodnamesaretaken.com
In just around 2 years, the number of website names registered has grown from 200 to a voluminous 125,000 per month. And as yet, already over 1.6 million domains have been registered, including the subtitle above! Chances of you finding a 3 character .com domain name unregistered (not on sale!), are thin? very thin.
Here’s the good news. Everyday, around 20,000 domain names expire and get deleted. In addition to the generic domain extensions such as .com, .net, etc. there are approximately 250 different international domains each with their own two-letter country code extension. Speculations of new TLD (Top Level Domain) names include .firm, .store, .arts, .info, .nom, .biz, .pro, .aero, .coop, .museum and .name.
So, don’t settle for the first domain name you think of! Although the supply of domain names is diminishing daily, it’s better to expend more thought at the beginning and save money later. Don’t let the gold rush skate your decision (and later leave you to regret over an unmarketable name). Then again, don’t sit just hatching ideas. Even as you read this, someone halfway across the globe might be beating you to your choice!
Some are just registered by entrepreneurial opportunists hoping to make a fast buck by selling it on. If your choice is taken, the easiest, cheapest and most reliable solution would be to register another name. Did you know that the auction site eBay.com was the second choice of it’s creator after his initial pick EchoBay.com was taken? A good name is a legal name!
Nonetheless, if you own a successful site, that just can’t do without that colonized ideal name, you better ensure your pockets are deep because the owner at the other end knows that there’s nothing quite like the commercial value of a domain name. The highest publicly known sale of domain name was the sale of Business.com for $7,500,000 to eCompanies, a business incubator.
Domain names have been turned into a marketing bargain with its parking capability. A business can register or buy a name for later use. And there are sites that do nothing but park potential names mostly sold for fire-sale prices later on! A Belgian doctor, Dr. Lieven P. Van Neste owns well over 200,000 domain names. It’s a fine pursuit, if you care to keep your distance from brand infringement. In the past, speculators have faced legal charges on trademark violations from the bigwigs (including Microsoft) for having registered microsoftwindows.com, microsoftoffice.com, AirborneExpress.com, CitibankMasterCard.com, HewlettPackardss.com, and Wall-Mart.com. Domain name conflicts that grabbed headlines – Yahoo vs. “yahooka.com” (a marijuana site), Nissan Motors vs. Nissan Computer Corporation. One that caught my personal appeal – Archie Comics company’s trademark driven domain dispute with Veronica.org, a website set up by a loving dad in honor of his 2-year-old daughter Veronica!
From McDonalds to MTV, a lot of press on online brand infringement ( the hijack of popular brand names) has filled the air. Even as I write this, Google Inc. is being challenged the right to use the name “Froogle” for its online shopping service (a New York based carpenter owns Froogles.com – web shopping site).
Each year, about 250,000 cases are decided by the US federal courts. If you have no time to sort it out the good old fashion, you should consider devising a strategic approach for domain naming, reflected in sound corporate policy and executed with effective management. Toady it’s a topic of senior boardroom meetings where competent professionals are assigned to conduct name searches (a less costly venture compared to the possible consequences of dealing with a complaint of infringement.) Take lessons from corporate folklore on the long term effects of a carelessly chosen domain name. People who learnt things the hard way include Art-U-Frame.com that paid $450,000 to acquire the name art.com.
The crux
Your domain name is more than a ubiquity. You have no other billboard or bypass to your site. Statistics prove that direct navigation or guessed URLs account for majority of the traffic to a site (64.43%), much more than the search engines can bring (35.55%). Eat, drink and sleep on your idea before you move to register that killer name. Don’t hassle, thinking there are nodomainnamesleft.com (that’s taken too!). Your share of homework should save you a lot of misery down the road.
Besides, if you can’t trademark your design scheme, product idea and marketing strategy, here’s something you can. Your domain name is perhaps the only thing that you can own on the Internet. Remember, there’s always more to a name than just the name itself! Happy naming!
Liji is a PostGraduate in Software Science, with a flair for writing on anything under the sun. She puts her dexterity to work, writing technical articles in her areas of interest which include Internet programming, web design and development, ecommerce and other related issues.
How Bloggers Are Making Thousands of Dollars From the Google Adsense Affiliate Program
There is no doubt that the Google Adsense program for publishers and site owners is one of the most successful affiliate programs anywhere. There is increasing evidence that many bloggers have managed to find the right formula to make thousands of dollars every month from little more than a handful of blogs with carefully created and compiled content.
Unfortunately this has also led some unscrupulous bloggers to try and steal other writers work and post them at their blogs like it was their own. Alas there will always be some bad apples in most baskets.
So what are these successful Adsense bloggers really doing to rake in a couple of thousand dollars on a monthly basis? What’s their secret?
Cashing In On The Blog Advantage for The Adsense Affiliate Program
When it comes to attracting traffic, blogs have a definite advantage over web sites. It is amazing how quickly a decent blog can attract quality links to itself. These links usually bring in lots of traffic very quickly. Bloggers carrying Adsense ads in their blogs are taking full advantage of this fact.
What this means is that a blogger can set up brand new blog now and within the next few hours will be drawing in traffic. If they already have another handful of blogs with some reasonable traffic, then by simply setting up a few relevant links to the new blog, traffic will take off in a hurry. And of the new blog is able o attract some high-paying Google Adsense PPC (pay-per-click ads) then the impact on their affiliate program income will be almost immediate.
The other advantage is that search engines love blogs so much that they will always tend to rank them higher than websites in any search. The fact that blogs are updated regularly and the rapid growth in links they enjoy are some of the reasons for this. This higher ranking means higher traffic.
When I was starting out in Internet marketing my first site took ages to attract search engine traffic. A new blog I started attracted a couple of serach engine hits within a day or so, even before I had done any serious search engine optimization.
No doubt, in making their decision to actively promote Adsense amongst blogs, smart Google executives must have been fully aware of this fact.
This advanatage that blogs enjoy over web sites is one of the key factors that many bloggers are using to draw the sort of monthly income that other folk need several months and in some cases a whole year to bring in.
Carefully Research Keywords For The Adsense Affiliate Program
While traffic is important in making money from the Adsense affiliate program, keywords are much more critical. Most keywords will attract the sort of ads that pay only a few cents for every click that happens at your blog. A few keywords will draw in ads that pay a couple of dollars. A single click can sometimes pay $100.
Bloggers who are making big money with the Adsense affiliate program are spending a lot of time researching Adsense keywords. What makes this task even more difficult is that keyword prices are constantly fluctuating as different advertisers bid differently for their ads. The clicks ads receive also have an impact on the bid price. With the new Google system, advertisers have an option of raising their bid price.
So if you want to join the ranks of Adsense bloggers earning serious money, there are really no two ways about it, you will need to be an Adsense keyword specialist. This is not as difficult as it may sound at first because there are tons of information available online for free that cover this subject.
Set Up Several Blogs For Your Adsense Affiliate Program
Adsense money is not easy money, at least not initially. One of the things that leading Adsense bloggers have done is to set up several blogs catering for different niches and then linking them to each other to maximize on the traffic received.
Christopher Kyalo makes money writing online and also writes content for some clients who make money from Adsense ads posted at their blogs. Read the rest of this article at his blog http://webcontentprovider.blogspot.com He can be reached at strongwallafrica at yahoo.com
Affiliate + Blogs = Money
I’ve been an affiliate for a long time, trying different ways and many different sites to make money. When I first started there were many things I didn’t know and it seemed like I was banging my head against the wall just to make a few dollars… and sometimes just a few cents… but over time I learned a few tips and tricks.
1. One website isn’t enough. When I first became an affiliate, I had one website; a site for women that featured recipes, articles, a shopping section, and more. I put affiliate ads on every page, but the shopping section was exclusively affiliate advertising. I spent more than a year submitting this site EVERYWHERE, constantly. I never made more than 20 dollars a month. To profit from affiliate advertising, you need many websites. Do you think having multiple sites is too much to maintain? Once you get them set up and get the hang of it, you will only spend a few hours a day on them, especially if you use BLOGS instead of the standard html sites, as mentioned below in the next tip.
2. BLOG! There are some advantages to having blogs and using them for your affilate advertising. You don’t have to know html. Blogging has been made so easy that you just click here, copy and paste there, and you’re done. Blogging can be FREE. Many sites such as blogger.com offer you a free blog. Blog articles get picked up VERY quickly at Google and other search engines, especially if you allow people to comment to your posts. If you get a blog, add to it every day, and put your affiliate advertising right into your article. The more blogs you have the better. I have a blog for coupons and savings, one for personal articles, one for news articles, one for just jewelry, one for coupons, one with a punk theme, one for poker, and one for internet chat logs, and I’m always trying to think of new blog ideas. They all link to each other and they all have affiliate advertising on them. In fact, my friends and I are working on building a blog empire!
3. One affiliate company isn’t enough. In the beginning I was only signed up at linkshare.com. Sure, I was an affiliate at 100s of online stores through LinkShare, but I didn’t realize how much I was limiting myself. You need to also sign up at Commission Junction (cj.com) and ShareaSale.com, and maybe one or two more. Many merchants only use one affiliate site. For instance, if you want to be a Macy’s affiliate you’ll need to be a member of Linkshare, but if you want commissions from Liz Clayborne, it’s Commision Junction you’ll need. Don’t limit yourself!
4. Coupons and Sales. Many merchants offer coupon and promotional codes to their affiliates. Look for them and take advantage of them. Advertise the sales, too! People love saving money! Have you ever shopped online and then at the checkout you saw a box for coupon or promo code? Did you then open another browser and go try to find a coupon code for that site? I’ve done that a few times, as many people have. If you have a blog article entitled “Perfume.com coupon code” and then list the code as an affiliate link in the article with “click here to redeem”, someone shopping at perfume.com WILL find it. When they see the box at the checkout for coupon code, many people will go to Google, type in “perfume.com coupon code,” and find your article listed near the top. Like I said earlier, blog articles get into the search engines very quickly. Of course, my coupon blog, percentsavings.com, is filled with nothing but coupon codes and sales from 100s of online stores, and it’s all affilate advertising.
5. Don’t just add a link. Tell a little about the store/company and what they offer. If they were proudly founded in 1930, say so! If your link goes to their apparel section but they also offer bedding and kitchenware and dog collars, say so in your post! When you become an affiliate, you become a salesman. If you want commissions, make the merchant sound great!
6. Submitting isn’t just for search engines. In addition to the search engines, submit your blog to forums sites that list blogs. Every incoming link helps, no matter where it is! For the sites that list blogs (bloggerinity.com, technorati.com, bloglines.com, etc.) you’ll be required to link back to them, but that’s a good thing! You should spend at least an hour a day just finding new places to submit to.
7. Consider Pay-Per-Click. Not to your site, but to the merchant’s site, with your affiliate link as the URL. For instance, I use Google AdWords to advertise single sites I’m affiliated with, or even single products. Because of the Terms of Service I agreed to, I can’t use the word “ZALES” as one of my keywords. But when I was notified by the affiliate company that ZALES was having a sale on children’s jewelry, and I was given an affiliate link that landed on the sale page, I started a Google pay-per-click ad for it. I used the URL they gave me as the landing page so that it would have my affiliate tracking link in it, but I used “Zales.com” as the URL that shows up in the results, so that when it’s clicked on in Google it goes to Zales but I still get a commission if they purchase. My search terms were Children’s Jewelry, and Children’s Jewelry Sale. I set it to 5 cents per click, and my entire Adwords campaign stops each day after I’ve spent $1. I kept this ad running for the duration of the sale. With the small number of clicks the ad got, I only spent about $6, but one purchase of an expensive item of jewelry gave me a commission of $34. Keep in mind, I’m using affiliate advertising, in this case, without ever having the link on any of my websites or blogs.
8. RSS. RSS feeds are becoming more and more popular. I subscribe to several blogs’ RSS feeds, myself. It’s just so much easier to get new articles to all my favorite blogs all in one place (I use Mozilla Thunderbird), and I know people who subscribe to RSS feeds appreciate seeing an RSS button on my site. It’s very easy to implement, too. Just add a link on your blog to “http://yourdomain.com/?feed=rss2″ and then anyone with an aggregator can subscribe to it. If you want to give them the option to subscribe to your blog’s comments as well, the url is “http://yourdomain.com/?feed=comments-rss2.” If you have a blog similar to my coupon site, RSS can really help you by sending your new items directly to a subscriber’s aggregator, without you having to do anything at all!
9. Email signatures. For your email signature, use links to all your sites that have affiliate advertising on them. Family, friends, clients… anyone can be enticed to click on your ads!
10. Don’t give up, and POST POST POST! It can become frustrating but NEVER give up! It takes time! Just keep working at it and you WILL start seeing some commissions eventually. My first blog was online for a few months and being added to daily before I started seeing commissions. Just be sure to post articles to your blogs constantly! Never miss a day!
Melody Ralls
http://percentsavings.com
Shopping Cart Usability
Usable Shopping Carts Increase Sales
E-commerce has been around since 1993 under many different names, but one thing remains constant; shoppers want usable web sites. Without a usable shopping cart the sites typically fail from poor performance. To succeed in the world of e-commerce and on the Internet web sites must be developed to be usable by patrons as well as search engines.
The most successful sites have been turning to web analytic software to tell them how people use their site. When they notice a break in their site they go in to determine the problem. Marketers tend to think the words on the site are the breaking points; while this may, in part be true, it is more often how the site operates and makes shopping easier for the customer.
Elements of a Usable Shopping Cart
Before a usable shopping cart can be developed several elements must be realized and controlled. Not all things can be overcome, but all things can be controlled. Understanding human nature and how people use new tools can help in controlling the most challenging situations.
Site Navigation
Site navigation must be as easy as possible. Without making the navigation as easy as possible customers will become confused and frustrated which encourages them to leave without purchasing.
Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs are the links found in web sites that show the hierarchical path of the page. Not everyone enters a site through the front page and breadcrumbs make it much easier to reach related products without having to dig around the site.
Adding Items to the Cart
Shoppers want to see some visual confirmation that the action they take works. Sites that fail to provide visual cues lose customers due to confusion and the thought that the site doesn’t work.
JavaScript
JavaScript requires the browser to support JavaScript. Without the ability to support JavaScript or with JavaScript turned off, functions that require JavaScript can’t work. Vital shopping cart functions should not be developed in such a way that JavaScript is required.
Flash
Flash requires the shopper to support the version of Flash being used. People that support Flash 4 can’t support Flash MX without upgrading. Customers will leave for another store if they are required to upgrade their plug-ins. At the very least, it will require that they have to download the plug-in and start the shopping experience from the very beginning.
Checkout Process
The checkout process should be as short as possible. The faster a person can checkout the faster the customer can be on their way to other things.
Checkout Progress
Each step of the checkout progress should indicate the current step and the total number of steps. This helps the customer know where they are in the process and the number of steps remaining.
Ask for Information in the Proper Order
Credit card information should never be asked for until after all the charges have been calculated and presented to the customer. Asking for this information prior to disclosing the full charges will cause the shopper to abandon the cart.
Advantages of Usable Shopping Carts
Usable shopping carts open the market to the consumer. By making a shopping cart usable to the consumer the process of shopping online is less threatening and actually becomes more inviting. NetIQ, the developers of WebTrends, has developed a successful system that helps web site owners, marketing specialists and web development teams make more usable and helpful web sites.
Understanding how shoppers use one’s site and shopping cart can help turn more visitors into purchasing customers. The national average for shopping cart conversion is two percent; however that conversion rate can be increased through having more usable web sites and shopping carts. Multiple paths to the products and easier checkout processes can help greatly.
About The Author
Lee Roberts is the President/CEO of Rose Rock Design, Inc. and owner of the Apple Pie Shopping Cart.
How Blogs Can Be An Excellent Promotional Tool
Blogs as an online promotional strategy if done right could save you huge dollars in reaching out to people. This is also a medium where you need have absolutely no dependence whatsoever on any professional help and you can do everything yourself. That is money saved right from the beginning.
So what is a blog and how does it work? Blog is simply a web log or a diary which you maintain online posting various comments every day or even several times a day. In all aspects it is like a web page. With small differences. No more the fancy html pages, page links, graphics etc.
While you can have all these, the purpose is not show design excellence but to provide juicy information, news, and happenings from your specific industry. Each posting is like a web page technically atleast as the the Search Engines looks at it as a separate page. We will see more on search engines later. The posts also carry links to other similar pages where you can direct people who visit your blog. Your visitors too can post comments and you have the option of editing it or even deleting it.
How does one use a blog as an online promotional tool?
You are a specialist in the area of your business. You also have people working for you with specialized domain knowledge of that particular area. You make hundreds of observations during the course of a week, you come across useful news and articles, websites, all which if collected in one place could act as the source of information for your customers, your public and even the trade and competition.
All you need to do is write a couple of lines in a conversational tone as if you are speaking to someone close about what you feel and think about anything you come across and provide the links for more details.
There you got a web page rich in key words! Key words to put it simply are a lot of specific words about your trade which is how the search engines find you and list you.
Blogs offer features like linking, pinging, RSS feeds etc. which are very simple features about which you can learn as you build your blog. However the idea is not to get technical. Remember we are here to talk about promotional strategies that could save you money and explode your sales.
Blogs are a comparatively recent phenomenon. There are an estimated 5 million blogs growing by the thousands every hour. Donâ??t despair. 5 million is nothing compared to billions of web pages and website available on the www. You are still far ahead of your competition. And in your area of business or profession you may be the first. That means you just occupy the top slot in search engines.
So get in right away and post all the rants, ravings and all that you ever wanted to say but couldnâ??t.
How does a blog help you earn revenues or improve your sales?
Now let us say you have set up your blog. Ask yourself as a person of the trade or as a customer what all you would like to know everyday. Whatever is your answer is what you post every day. You also come across news or websites which you think might be useful to your customers. Simply make a mention of it with a link to the news or website. The idea is to make people come to your blogs every day seeking information. So you become famous as a specialist in that area. All your visitor are in a way interacting with you everyday and begin to accept your words and your recommendations if they see the benefits. But be sure to be very honest and transparent. It is like your personal or social relationships where any dishonesty would make people shy away from you.
You can always put in a few posts about your work, your employee who got a promotion or birth of a daughter or anything which also makes it a little warm and personal. You can post about your launches, your predictions, products which are running out, and even promote products not moving well but you feel can benefit the customer.
What you blog can reach millions globally within hours. As an illustration take the example of the recent Tsunami which hit parts of Asia. I am from the southern part of India which is one of the worst affected areas. While the conventional media was struggling to reach their reporters all over within the hour bloggers flashed the news including the details of the people lost and found, mobilized resources for the affected and the world wide web was abuzz with all the bloggers picking up and linking and connecting everything and everyone. This is an illustration of a social cause for which blog was put to good use.
Similarly there have been many instances when business news have been picked up by the industry and consumers through the RSS feeds.
The possibilities of using a blog is endless. The key to building a successful blog is listed below.
Remember to be focused on a topic that relates to your area of work.
Your entries must be in a conversational tone speaking directly to them as if you are sitting across with a friend in a restaurant or playing golf to add personalization to your marketing effort.
Post entries or comments which would benefit people.
Post as often or frequently and keep the blog updated.
Encourage visitor participation. Ask for comments and feedbacks.
Create a huge web of outside resources and other similar blogs to help you achieve both outgoing as well as incoming links to enhance search engine popularity. This also shows your customers that you are widely knowledgeable and clued in on your field of expertise.
While it may be a good idea to post a few photographs to break the monotony keep the blog simple and straight without too many graphics and photos.
Content is the key to making your blog successful and encourage repeat visits. In the beginning you may not have many visitors but as the content improves there would be a lot of traffic as well as inbound links.
This is truly a gorilla marketing tool that can make a huge difference to your total marketing efforts.
R.G. Srinivasan is a Certified Trainer, Writer and author of eBooks with more than two decades of managerial experience. He is featured as an expert author by leading content syndication sites. You can view his home-business resources blog at http://www.home-businessresources.blogspot.com for online marketing tips, resources, opportunities and online promotional strategies.
Five Profitable Ways To Use Your Follow Up Autoresponder
What? You are not using a Follow up Autoresponder? Then better be. If you are SERIOUS about increasing your subscriber database, you need Follow up autoresponders.
Web site promotion should start with search engines. Next comes your opt-in list. To maintain your opt-in list you need a mailing list manager or an autoresponder. You can publish your ezine or offer a free email course through your autoresponders.
What are Follow up autoresponders?
Follow up autoresponders send a series of emails to your prospects that goes at specified intervals. You have complete control on this interval period.
Some of the Follow up Autoresponders: (These are follow up autoresponders with mailing list manager features like broadcast emails)
http://www.autoresponseplus.com/
http://www.scripts4webmasters.com/arpproadv/index.shtml
What you can do with your Follow up autoresponder:
1. Offer free email courses:
Load your autoresponder with a series of emails as a free course. Name it as ‘Mini course that doubles Your profits in 7 days’ or something like that. User should really get temptation to subscribe for your course.
Once they subscribe, emails will go at the set up intervals.
Remember these tips before offering an email course: =Name your email course something attractive =Don’t keep too much gap between your emails =If possible refresh the previous topic in every next email =Keep short URLs =Try to use short courses like 7 – 10 days. It would be interesting for your reader. They should’t feel like a classroom =Check the URLs before loading them in to your autoresponder
2. Follow up your customer:
After your buyer purchase your product they will be landed on your subscription form. They will enter their name and email address. They will be redirected to your download page. You can set a follow up emails at an interval of 15 or 30 days. Offer some discount in this follow up emails on your other products. Selling a product to your present customer is easier than searching for a new prospect. In this method, you have to keep one form for each of your product.
3. Conduct quizzes, polls:
Yes. You can fill your follow up autoresponder with 10 quizz questions and can set up to send it one per day. People that answer all questions correct will get a discount on your product or free product or free membership etc. DON’T forget to keep your product links in each of your emails. This is a kind of advertisement for you.
4. Benefit from your Ezine articles:
You write ezine articles. Don’t you? Good…
Then load your Follow up autoresponder with 5 – 10 ezine articles and put a subscribe link on your web pages or in your signature file. Send the link to publishers who are willing to receive your articles. Your articles will be delivered to the subscribers and publishers at an interval of 30 days or what ever time you set up there.
I like to send the articles every 1 – 2 months to my publishers list. Good publishers always file articles they receive. So if you send them too frequently, it will be little annoying. So better to keep minimum interval of one month.
5. You can also use your follow up autoresponder to send:
About The Author
Radhika Venkata – Subscribe to ‘EbookBiz Magazine’ which is completely focused on ebook business and Internet Marketing. Receive FREE Ebooks with Resale rights every month!
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