ANFE - Articles & News For Entrepreneurs

Real Estate - Ways to Make Sure the Price Is Right

2007-07-03T20:24:00.000-07:00

By - Kris Koonar
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Price is one of the most critical factors in the world of sales, as it can make or mar the deal between a seller and a prospective buyer. It is essential to set a genuine price for your real estate property, so that it simplifies the selling process. The price should be congruent to the present condition of the house because this is the key to sell it within a reasonable period of time. The set price should neither appear as blown up nor set too low because it will deter buyers, eventually making your house seem undesirable for purchase. It is necessary to determine probable profit while buying a property. Always try to buy low and sell at high price.

There are certain tips that will help you set the right price for your real estate property. They are as follows:

Understand the property value: It is important to research and understand the actual worth of neighborhood property. It is one of the most critical steps that often benefit you. You should visit the property you wish to purchase and compare it with other neighborhood properties. Always maintain a detailed record of neighborhood selling prices for run down and better property. You can obtain information from local real estate brokers, tax assessor office, county clerk office and real estate appraisers. The process of gathering and analyzing information is known as a comparative market analysis.

Estimate the project cost: The next most important step, after gathering information on property value is to start estimating the expense and expected profit. There are a number of costs that need to be considered, such as acquisition costs, which include the taxes, purchase price and origination fees. Try to get estimates from many lenders and compare them. Besides, it will also include repair costs, which involves everything that goes into improving the condition of the property. This is one of the main benefits of visiting the property. You tend to get a better idea about the repairs required. In addition, there are other costs like inspection fee, survey cost and title-search fee, fee for certificate of occupancy, utility costs and other unexpected repair costs.

Determine the feasibility of the project: After understanding the property values in the neighborhood, it is important to evaluate the feasibility of your project. You can begin with the current value of the unimproved property. Add the renovation project costs and estimated interest in order to get a complete project cost. Then you can add your minimum profit to the total cost. If the total cost amounts to more than what you can get from an improved home sale in that particular neighborhood, then the project is not considered feasible.

Calculate the maximum purchase price: It is advisable to figure out the maximum amount one should pay for the property. You can begin with the final selling price you can get in your neighborhood. Then deduct the renovation costs, profit margin along with selling costs and other project costs. The amount that you figure out will be the maximum amount you will be required to pay.

About The Author
Real Estate Investments are now easy with Realnet USA’s step by step Real Estate Investing process. We help you find your Real Estate Investment, to view live inventory please visit http://www.realnetusa.com/.

Finding IRS Real Estate Auctions

2007-07-02T10:28:00.000-07:00

By - Barry Waxler
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Among the many opportunities that can be found to purchase investment Real Estate under market value, Government auctions of seized property is one of best. Finding IRS Real Estate auctions has gotten a big boost from the advent of the Internet.

When the Internal Revenue Service seizes property from a tax payer for non-payment of tax obligations, it sells this property through a public auction. The proceeds of the sale are applied to the tax debt. The Internal Revenue Service is not in the Real Estate business and they sell the property at auction using sealed bids in order to move it as quickly as possible. They are not concerned with the fair market value, but only with getting whatever they can get as quickly as they can get it.

This is bad news for the poor homeowner who has lost his property and most likely will not even have his tax debt reduced close to what it should have been. It is good news for a potential investor. The basic principle of Real Estate investing is buy low and sell high. The IRS Real Estate auction gives the investor the opportunity to do just this. The sealed bid method of sale requires some skill and a bit of luck. The bid amount must be carefully determined to attempt to be the highest without going over the good investment limit.

How do you go about finding IRS Real Estate Auctions? The internet and the personal computer have made this process fairly simple. The Government has websites that list all auctions Nationwide. These sites give a great deal of information concerning the type of property including pictures and legal descriptions. The location is given so that personal inspections of the property are possible before a bid is submitted.

The auction listing generally has a minimum bid amount. This gives you a good starting point for the establishment of your own bid amount. Any encumbrances on the property will be given as well as the methods and terms of payment. Of course, the time and date of the sale is given as well. There is also a contact person listed for further information regarding the property or the sale.

The Internal Revenue is not the only Government agency that auctions seized property. These auctions represent a good potential source of investment property as prices far below market value. The computer and the websites have made finding them extremely easy and accessible to the investor. What is required is a bit of savvy at determining the best price to bid and a bit of luck. The good thing is that there is not a lot of trouble or expense involved in the bidding process, so you have much to gain and very little to lose in the process.

About The Author
Barry Waxler provides real estate IRA solutions through UFCAmerica.com.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Barry_Waxler

Review of the International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs

2007-06-29T09:14:00.000-07:00

By - Suzanne Morrison
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I have been a member of the IAHBE (International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs for 3 years now and have found it to be an invaluable resource for the latest home business related news, tutorials, tips sofware and books, as well as a great way to get your hands on a number of great books, audios and software for free!

The International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs was launched back in January 2002 and has thousands of members from all round the globe.

I've put together a brief FAQ style review of the IAHBE so you can decide whether or not it is the right online business resource for you and your home business.

What are the benefits of an IAHBE membership?

The main benefit of the IAHBE is the massive wealth of information and resources for your home business. Your membership includes the following:

1) An Intropak worth over $1000
Everyone who joins the IAHBE receives a pack of gifts, valuable discounts and information worth over $1000. At the time of writing this includes:

- A free book "The Home Business Revolution's Greatest Entrepreneurs"
- A free subscription to the Home Business Connection magazine
- A free audio cassette "Underpaid and Overtaxed?"
- Free 30 day trial of Affiliate Mastery
- 15 Free Leads
- Five books by the Fortune Now author and world renowned business speaker and trainer, Tom "Big Al" Schreiter for the price of one
- Generous Discounts on various other books, advertising, business cards and more

2) Access to the IAHBE Learning Center
This is a huge password protected collection of articles, audio tutorials, seminars, business E-Books, software for both PCs and Macs, marketing courses and various other resources to help you with your home business. The IAHBE includes both US specific information and international information.

3) Freebies each month
The IAHBE membership also includes physical freebies each month. For example, this month the membership included a book worth $26 "The New Culture of Desire" by Melinda Davis and a year's subscription to the magazine "PC Magazine" worth $131!

Are there any disadvantages?

Although the majority of the resources in the IAHBE website can be used by anyone regardless of where they live, the free magazine subscriptions are generally only available to those who live in the USA and the free books do have a higher shipping charge for those who are not based in the US. Despite this, there is still lots of useful resources for international members to make their membership worthwhile.

What is the cost?

The cost of the IAHBE membership is US$29.95 per month. If you are a member of SFI this will also qualify you as an Executive Affiliate (EA) for the lifetime of your membership, which will allow you to earn extra commission.

Are there any guarantees?

There is a 30 day money back guarantee. If you dislike the IAHBE you can just cancel your membership within 30 days, no questions asked and you will receive a full refund.

How do I sign up?

Just visit the IAHBE website or become a member of SFI and purchase the IAHBE through the affiliate store.

About The Author
Suzanne Morrison works full time from home and is the webmaster of Home Business Ideas. You can find out more about the IAHBE here.

What is Preconstruction Real Estate Investing?

2007-06-28T09:38:00.000-07:00

By - Karen Kusumakar
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Investing in pre-construction real estate is one of the most profitable investing opportunities available in the market today. Even though it’s a fairly old strategy, very few investors have a good understanding of it. Preconstruction real estate investing can be best explained with an example:

A developer is planning to build a 100 unit condominium development in a very popular location. The developer has already worked out the numbers and thinks that the project will make a handsome profit. Since he doesn’t have the required amount of capital to complete a project of such magnitude, he approaches banks to request financing.

But before banks lend out millions of dollars to the developer, they want to know that the project has the potential to sell after completion. Since there is no way to know the future and banks like to reduce risk as much as possible, they require the developer to pre-sell a certain number of the units (usually 25%-50%) before they will lend money. In this example a bank agrees to finance the developer if 40% of the units are sold before construction begins.

There are very few home buyers who are going to commit to buying something without actually seeing it with their naked eyes. So the developer has no choice but to approach real estate investors who understand the risk and reward of such ventures. In order to reward these investors for their risk, the developer gives them a 10% discount off the appraised value (after construction value) of the condos if they sign a purchase agreement (contract).

This creates a win-win situation where the developer is able to secure financing and the investors are able to get built-in equity by getting the property below appraised value. The investors who buy these condos before the construction is completed are called pre-construction investors, and this investment strategy is called preconstruction investing.

In this example it was a development from the ground up, but the term “pre-construction investing” can be used for any purchase made before the actual completion of a real estate development. The development may be from ground up or just a renovation project i.e. A condo conversion project where preconstruction investors buy before the renovation is complete is also an example of pre construction investing.

In general, pre construction pricing is 5% - 15% lower than the market value of the finished property. Sometimes the developer may offer other financial incentives instead of a price discount. Some examples include cash back after closing, closing cost credit, free upgrades, rental guarantee or lease back, paid property taxes, waive assessments waived, management fees waived, etc. However, in most cases the developer will offer a combination of a price discount and other financial incentives in order make the deal sweeter for preconstruction investors.

After the construction or renovation is complete, pre construction investors’ have two options to exit. Either they sell their property and make a quick profit, or they can hold the property as a long term investment and build equity. Sometimes investors can also profit by assigning the contract to a fellow investor for a small profit even before assuming title to the property.

Below is summary of the process of preconstruction investing:

The pre construction investor buys a house, condo or townhouse from a reputed developer in the preconstruction phase at a price discount and/or other financial incentives.

The pre-construction investor waits for the construction or renovations to be completed.

After completion of the construction or renovation, the preconstruction investor sells the property immediately for a profit. Or the pre construction investor holds the property to build additional equity due to appreciation and by paying off principal using the rental income. In some cases, exit by assignments is also possible.

About The Author
Karen Kusumakar is the co-founder of Preconstructionfind.com and is an expert at bringing profitable pre construction projects to real estate investors. For a current list of preconstruction condo & home opportunities please visit http://www.preconstructionfind.com

7 Steps Of Mega Adsense Earners

2007-06-26T09:46:00.000-07:00

By - Andrew Daum
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The Google AdSense program is like finding money in the street.

Kids in High School are making thousands of dollars a month with Adsense... Housewives, Retiree's, Mom and Pop's who've never made a dime on the Internet have created full time incomes by simply placing AdSense Ads on their web site or blog.

Then you have the "Super AdSense" earners. We have all heard of them... the Elite few who are on track to make half a million dollars a year or more promoting AdSense sites.

Do not be mistaken though... these people are not building like your Mom and Pop's do. They have systems in place that create sites for them... people who build sites for them... they have outsourced and automated many of the tedious tasks such as posting to blogs and searching for keywords.

While most people cannot emulate everything these Super AdSense earners do... many of them you can.

Here are 7 Required Steps you can implement today to copy their success.

1) Starting today... treat your AdSense business like it is a REAL business and track what you do.

Begin tracking what you are doing that works... as well as what you are doing that does not work. This will keep you from making the same mistakes over and over, and you can repeat the steps that have worked in the past. As simple as this step seems... most people do not know the reason(s) to their success or failure.

2) Utilize the latest tools and software available.

The Super AdSense earners are not any smarter than your average person. I know many people think they are... but for the most part, they are regular non techie people.

They are smarter in one respect though... they use the latest tools available to them to automate most of the tasks involved with researching and creating sites. They use the latest keyword, site creation and search engine optimization tools available. The tools they use are their secret weapons.

3) Quit chasing the Mega Dollar keywords.

You cannot compete with the search engine experts who create sites for the $80 payout keywords. You may get lucky every now and then... but in the long run, you are better off building sites for the low to mid range payout keywords. The competition is less, and your chance of success is much higher over the long term.

4) Choose broad niches and break it down.

Choose a broad subject as your main theme (lets use computers for an example). From there... break it down into as many sub niches as possible.

Using Computers as the example... you could build sub niches/sites like laptop computers, computer hard drives, computer keyboards, etc, etc. You could literally build hundreds of sites around one major theme and stay totally focused. Once you have exhausted every possible sub niche of that major theme... choose another main theme and repeat the process.

5) KISS

Keep your sites easy to navigate and forget the fancy graphics that distract your visitors attention. Unless you are just building AdSense sites for the fun of it and to impress your friends... the purpose of having the site is to have people click on one of the ads, right? Then keep the site layout simple... dump the scrolling banners, dancing chickens and colored scroll bars... they are distractions.

6) What is the purpose of your web site?

Your web site cannot be everything to everybody. If you have a full fledged ecommerce site, with products for sale... links to other products, it is not a good site for AdSense. If the primary focus of the site is to sell products... let it do that.

Do not distract or confuse your visitor with to many options or choices. The best AdSense sites are AdSense only content sites that sell nothing. They are sites that "Tell"... not "Sell."

7) Be consistent.

This is not one of those deals where you build one site and you are done. Refer back to Step #4. You must continuously build in order to be successful.

Think of it as planting a crop that you will harvest in a month or two, and the sites you build are seeds. Once the seeds have grown and matured... you will reap the harvest. The more seeds you plant... the larger the harvest.

To sum it up... utilize the tools available to automate as much of the process of building sites - doing research and building keyword lists as you can. This alone will help keep you organized and on track. Be consistent in building... treat it like the business it is and you will reap the rewards of your harvest.

About The Author
Andrew Daum is the Publisher of the New Traffic Tools Newsletter. You can subscribe by visiting his web site at; http://www.newtraffictools.com/ and receive updates when the latest to be released traffic building software is available.

The Art Of Building Your Downline – How Numbers Add Up

2007-06-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

By - Alan Johnson
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First of all, I’m not going to waste your time (or mine, for that matter) by illustrating the history of MLM, or by insisting on other general aspects.

If you have no idea what MLM represents, if you are unaware as to the meaning of the terms “upline”, “downline”, “referrer” or “referral”, then you need to be doing some serious reading (I suggest bookmarking this article, and documenting yourself on MLM in general before reading further).

OK, you know what MLM is all about, and want to start earning some money.

You see headline after headline, promise after promise: “earn thousands of dollars monthly by simply referring your friends”/”achieve financial freedom by joining our program”.

Before joining any MLM, you need to stop fooling yourself into thinking you will become rich overnight and understand what exactly you are getting yourself into.

After all, you can’t win at a game without knowing the rules, can you?

Are high earnings possible with MLM programs? Yes.

But, things look a lot easier on paper than they are in practice.

A 4-figure income is possible, even 5-figures are not out of reach, but don’t think you will ever even get close to such earnings just by inviting a couple of friends to join under you and leaving things at that.

As you know, MLM stands for “MultiLevelMarketing”. What does the term “MultiLevel” suggest?

Exactly, the fact that you earn not just from people you invite directly, but also from the ones your referrals invite, and so forth (the actual number of “levels” is different from program to program).

The name of the game is having a healthy downline, in other words, having active referrals (referrals capable of promoting/ referring).

Do you think you can succeed by simply inviting a couple of people to join under you and leaving it at that?

Think twice, you have about the same changes of “getting lucky” as you do at winning the lottery.

The bottom line is that very few members of your downline, if any, will actually prove to be active promoters, and just standing by will not do you any good.

If you want a solid downline, you cannot expect things to work themselves out, because they simply won’t, and your earnings will reflect that attitude.

“Passive income”, doesn’t mean that you earn money for doing absolutely nothing, it means that, if you do your job right, at a certain point, your downline will naturally increase, without you actively participating in the process.

Note the wording: “at a certain point”

It’s reaching that “certain point” that separates winners from losers.

And what exactly is your job, as the referrer, you ask?

It most certainly isn’t inviting people to join your downline and leaving things at that.

Your job is training your downline, offering them all the tools and support they need to become active promoters. Don’t assume your referrals are born promoters, assume the contrary and train them to become such, the results will be well worth your efforts.

How to train them?

First of all, they need your full support. By e-mail, by phone, by video conference, by whatever means necessary. Don’t turn your back on them, answer all of their concerns calmly, patiently and don’t keep them waiting too long. Fast, quality support can and will get you far.

Secondly, set yourself as an example. Show them how it’s done, explain your techniques, share your results. Nothing encourages referrals to be active more than having their upline as an example.

Also, add a community “feel” to your downline, make your referrals feel right at home. Set up a special forum for them to interact with another, and, of course, with you, hold conference calls, anything you can think of that could encourage them to stay in contact with you, aswell as with their own referrals.

Another important aspect: not all of your referrals are expert web-designers, in fact, you will find that a lot of them would like to promote their referral link online, yet have problems with starting a website. As you imagine, if you provide them with the tools, you have another active member as a part of your team.

Be supportive, be unique (you have to, if you want people to choose you as their upline over another person), be understanding and calm, and your odds at success are looking better and better.

About the Author: This articles has been brought to you by Alan Johnson, experienced web marketer and owner of AglocoVIP – build your downline with the leading agloco promotion team

Increase Links Naturally with Link Popularity Building (LPB)

2007-06-23T17:48:00.000-07:00

By - Wendy Suto
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Businesses can gain a competitive edge with Google and other significant search engines through relevant link building strategies. The search engines track links in ranking algorithms while crawling the Web. It is advantageous to grow the number of incoming links to your company’s site alongside effective search engine optimization techniques.

There are numerous link building solutions.

1. Free and paid link directories
Link directories all provide either one-way or reciprocal links. Some are free, while others are paid only. Link directories are beneficial because Websites that place your link on their site without requesting a link back to their site are considered more valuable than reciprocal or link exchanges, in the eyes of major search engines. There are many reputable directory sites that are well trafficked by potential buyers for your product. You will find one-way and reciprocal link directories by typing into any search engine search box, keywords like “submit a link”, “add a URL”, or “add link”.

Some small business owners will only link to sites that link back to their site. This creates reciprocal links pages and triangular link patterns. Reciprocal links do not improve a Website’s rankings, and should only be done to give value to site visitors. This is not a savvy SEO tactic or a wise link building practice. Stay clear of SEO companies who use these link exchange strategies; they are not considered real SEOs by other professionals in the field.

2. Corporate Blogging
This is an ever growing Internet trend gaining in popularity with businesses – corporate blogs. Blogging started as personal spaces for individuals to share their thoughts and the events around them, like an online diary. Corporate blogging is then defined as another way to publish business-related content and gain more visibility for your company on the Web. By offering information and sharing knowledge, a company can quickly establish itself as a leading industry expert, get information to customers quickly, increase sales, attract journalists seeking news releases, and attract new customers looking for relevant information.

3. Article Directory Submissions
Article directories are sites that house free reprint articles, allowing authors (people like you) to become known as experts in a field or industry. These sites help authors gain one-way link popularity because others seeking free articles to reprint on their newsletters, Websites, blogs and in print can find them here. Reprint articles can only be used elsewhere if providing a link back to the author’s Website. You also receive free advertising and promotion.

4. Press releases
Submit your company’s news releases to sites like PRWeb.com and PRNewswire.com to allow journalists and bloggers to find important information about your company, its products and services. These releases also build links coming to your site, and attract attention from prospective buyers.

5. MySpace.com
This is a tremendous opportunity for free publicity, through networking with prospects from around the world. Place your business profile, your company logo and business pictures, commercials and videos, write comments on other myspace.com profiles, receive email, instant message, and search for prospective clients. MySpace.com also has a business section that is cost effective and a great way to share your business with people searching for a certain product or service. This is another way to increase your link popularity.

6. Yahoo! Answers
This site is relatively new, and lets people in all industries become an expert in their fields. Answer questions in categories related to your expertise. Choose a subject from an extensive list of categories. Create a profile on Yahoo!, and you get to list up to 3 other one-way links. Yahoo! Geocities offers free a Website template and tools to build a simple Website. All these avenues add a host of easy ways to increase Internet visibility for your business.

7. One-Way Links on other Business Sites
Even with these link building strategies, having one-way links are considered much more valuable than link exchanges, also called reciprocal links. One way links from other related business sites or blogs with pertinent subject matter to the Website is an excellent way to drive traffic to your site. Although it is time consuming asking other sites to link to your site, these methods will assist in building stronger link popularity interest among the major search engines.

8. Business Networking Sites
FastPitchMedia.com and LinkedIn.com are two business networking sites that give professionals and business executives many resources under one place. These one-stop shops give professionals a lot of excellent exposure for free, by housing a database of business owners linked to each other’s online networks. Try something new! Create a profile through these sites, and you will reach other decision makers, stay in touch with others in your network, fill a key position, and keep contact information current.

About the Author
Wendy Suto is president and CEO of Search Circus, Inc., an ethical SEO firm specializing in website link popularity and organic search engine optimization, blog marketing, Web site copywriting and article marketing solutions. As a certified search engine optimization consultant, she teaches SEO seminars in Cleveland, Ohio.wendy@searchcircus.com

7 Search Engine Optimization Strategies That Work!

2007-06-22T11:03:00.000-07:00

By - Michael Fleischner
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Although the concept of SEO can be somewhat complex, there are a number of basic search engine optimization practices you should note before starting any SEO related activity. These basic principles are essential for any web page or website for which you are attempting to optimize. Keep in mind that these are just some of the fundamental SEO practices you should consider.

1. MetaTags

Metatags are simple lines of code at the top of your page (source code) that tell the search engines about your page. I recommend that you be sure to include the following meta tags: title (no more than 7 words and unique for each page), keywords, description, author, and robots tag. The robots tag instructs the search engines to read all or some of your website.

2. Create or update your sitemap

Developing a site map is a simple yet highly effective way of giving search engines the information they need to crawl your entire website. This ensures that the engine has an up-to-date record of your pages and content. The key to improving search engine results is making it easy for your website pages to be located and crawled. There is free software on the web (like www.xml-sitemaps.com) that helps you generate a sitemap. Once you create a sitemap for your website, submit to Google and Yahoo. Additionally, place a link to the site map on your home page.

3. Ensure that all navigation is in HTML

Too often I see navigation in the form of java script or images. Even though the navigation technically still works in this format, it’s not optimized. The benefit of creating your navigation in HTML is that you consistently build internal links throughout your website by keeping the navigation constant and easily identified by search engines.

4. Check that all images include ALT text

Your image alt text is spidered by search engines. If you’re not including your keywords in your alt text, your missing out on a huge opportunity for improved search engine result placement. Be sure to label your images appropriately and they may even show up as the number one result on Google. Additionally, Google has a database of images (Google Image Search) that indexes pictures as well.

5. Use Flash content sparingly

As mentioned earlier, content generated through java script or flash is a big no-no. Some webmasters like to use flash because of the presentation. It’s okay to use sparingly, but only after your site has been properly optimized with basic SEO in mind.

6. Make sure that important page elements are HTML

Keep in mind when optimizing a web page crawlers are basically only looking at your source code. Anything you've put together using an image or other multimedia component is likely to be invisible to search engines. Therefore, the most important elements of your page, where the heart of your content is presented, should be presented in W3C optimized HTML source code.

7. Place keywords in your page content the right way

I’m sure you’ve heard the importance of placing the right keywords or keyword phrases in your content. To show the search engines that your article is focused on a particular keyword or keyword phrase, be sure to sprinkle it throughout the content. Additionally, include your keyword in headers and sub-heads. That is to say that your keyword should be contained in an h1, h2, or h3 tag.

Learning to optimize your website for search engines takes time and most of all, patience. Start with the basic principles I’ve outline here and you’re off to a good start. If you’re new to SEO, or even a well seasoned veteran, begin by prioritizing which pages are most important for you to optimize. Sometimes people think that they need to optimize all their pages right away and the task becomes too overwhelming. Start small, begin with your primary and/or secondary pages, and go from there.

About the Author
Michael Fleischner is an Marketing Expert and Search Eninge Optimization Specialist. He has more than 12 years of marketing experience and has appeared on The TODAY Show, Bloomberg Radio, and other major media. Read his blog at http://marketing-expert.blogspot.com.

Sell Like an eBay Powerseller

2007-06-22T09:28:00.000-07:00

By - Michael Ellis
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There isn't a week that goes by without someone asking me how to sell products on eBay. It's a great question! And I enjoy talking about the topic quite a bit, but my answer is always the same - sell like a Powerseller! Here's what I mean...

An eBay Powerseller is someone that generates $1000 or more in sales for three consecutive months. You don't have look too far on eBay to realize that the place is literally crawling with Powersellers.

I've spent over 5 years studying eBay, as well as, buying and selling products under several eBay IDs. I noticed that there are two types of eBay Powersellers:

1. Niche Powersellers

2. On-Demand Powersellers

The Niche Powersellers specialize in a particular area - like antiques, coins, dolls, etc. This particular area is a hobby to these people and they are very good at finding products at a low enough cost within this market to sell for a nice profit. These Powersellers are hard to imitate.

One the other hand, the On-Demand Powersellers are not very familiar with the products they sell, but they are very familiar with what the eBay community wants and how they can go about getting it. I call them On-Demand Powersellers because they seek out products to sell based on the level of demand inthe eBay community. These are the Powersellers that you should try to follow.

A common misconception that new eBay users have is thinking that all Powersellers are large retail outlet doing business on eBay. This simply isn't true. The majority of the Powersellers that I know typically run their business out of a basement or garage. Ebay has a great way of leveling the playing field in this respect. For example, a student can open an account and create ads that are just as enticing as any large company that happens to be selling the same products on ebay.

So how can you do business like On-Demand Powersellers?

That's actually an easy question to answer; obtain a seller's permit, find a demand for a particular product, and then find a wholesale supplier for that particular product.

A seller's permit will allow you to purchase products for wholesale from wholesale venders. This is the first thing any legitimate wholesale company will ask for, and if you don't have one, they could very likely not do business with you.

You can obtain a sellers permit at http://www.businessnameusa.com

You can find the demand for numerous products on eBay by using the eBay 'Hot Items' resource (in link below). This resource consists of (among other things) a 40+ page pdf document that lists which items are hot sellers in the numerous categories. The data is usually for the previous 2 months.

Find out 'What's Hot' on eBay at http://pages.ebay.com/sellercentral/whatshot.html

After you've identified which items were hot sellers, go to eBay's Advance Search and conduct a search for those products to make sure they're still hot sellers (have plenty of bids). Also do a search for the same product with the 'Completed Items' option in the Advanced Search checked. This will show you which auctions sold and how much they sold for.

Once you have a product in mind, do a search on Google for the manufacture of the product. When you get to the website, look for a contact number, or a 'Dealer inquiry' number. This information is also usually on the box of the product itself, so it may take a run to your local store if you don't have any luck on the web.

Give them a call. Inform them that you run a business and are interested in becoming a dealer of the product. Most are very helpful in getting you setup. However, be aware, some may have a minimum purchase order. Never the less, if you did your eBay research correctly, you'll know how much these items have recently sold for, and how much they are currently selling for, thus, you can be pretty confident that the money will be made back.

I recently came across two Powersellers that are extremely successful doing with this process. One Powerseller had sold over $100,000 worth of those little robotic-vacuuming-Frisbee thingies in 60 days! The other Powerseller does extremely well selling dog chews. Both Powersellers simply identified the demand for these products, then sought out the manufactures and became dealers… the rest is history.

Sincerely,

Michael Ellis

About the Author
Michael Ellis is an Internet technology expert that specializes in marketing products and services online. Be sure to visit Michael's website http://www.victorykey.com/ for FREE Internet Marketing articles, tips and discussion forums.

Adwords Tactics: Restructure Your Ads Groups Today!

2007-06-21T10:47:00.000-07:00

By - Kirt Christensen
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Google's Adwords program is a fantastic resource for generating traffic to your website, high-quality and very targeted to boot, but it does take time to learn the "ins and outs" of the program.

...And that's pretty daunting when it's your own time and money on the line!

So, here's a quick tip from a 10-year veteran of the PPC marketing game, and an easy way to up the ROI you get from Adwords:

An important measure of your Adwords account is how effectively you have your Adgroups arranged.

Don't fall prey to the "rookie" mistake of only creating one or two adgroups per campaign and then stuffing them with hundreds, or thousands, of keywords.

Don't do this, it's begging for trouble!

Trouble in that you'll end up paying way more per click, suffer from lower CTR's due to poor relevance of your ads, and most likely be nailed with poor quality scores.

Always remember, "relevance" is key on Adwords!

And since it's impossible to write ads that are targeted, specific and "relevant" for hundreds of different keywords all in the same adgroup, you need to "break out" keywords into their own adgroups.

For keywords with a lot of clicks, this might mean one keyword (with it's three different match-types) per adgroup, and that's all!

Never have no more than 15 to 21 keywords per adgroup, even for low traffic keywords!

After you spend some time "breaking out" the keywords into fresh adgroups, notice how much easier it is to write extremely focused ads, including the keyword as much as possible in the ads.

Your click-through rates and ROI will increase almost without fail, along with lowering your per click cost!

About The Author
Kirt Christensen delivers highly-profitable pay per click management, tracking over half a million dollars of yearly spending for clients that rave about him! http://www.managemypayperclick.com/

Finding A Legit MLM Program

2007-06-20T10:05:00.000-07:00

By - Keith Londrie II
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Almost any MLM program you run into is a legitimate business opportunity. There are, though, as with any business, people out there scamming. If you are dealing with a legal and proper MLM program, they will sell products to the public minus extras or hidden costs. They will also allow you to simply buy, and not force people to become distributors. These proper programs will pay commissions to those who sell actual product, not just for recruiting. Just be aware of the program you are joining and that it does not emphasize the recruitment of new members too highly. These are illegal and immoral and can land you into plenty of trouble.

One particular illegal MLM program to watch for is the pyramid scheme. This is a setup where you will likely be promised amazing profits by investing in the program they are promoting. Any money made is done so through the drawing of new recruits into the “business” rather than from retail sales. In fact, many of the pyramid schemes you encounter will indeed pretend to sell products, but reality it is a ruse. One sign to look for if you suspect you are being drawn into an illegal MLM program is that you will not see any real products. Pyrimid schemes are illegal and are surely no way to make any real money. The only people in these programs that are making any money are at the top level of the pyrimid.

There are some other signs you can look for to know if an MLM program is a scam. Watch for plans that seem more interested in drawing in new recruits than in actually selling product. Another thing to look for are companies that make you invest a lot in inventory before you even get started. If you keep an eye out for such signs, then you can avoid illegal MLM programs. There are MLM programs that are n ot only illegal, but immoral as well. Steer clear of any program that sounds "to good to be true".

Most MLM programs are good ones and they are legit. You can, though, find yourself in scams in a hurry. To avoid such scams, simply watch for warning signs and trust your instincts. Find a legitimate MLM program, though, and you will have your own business in no time. Owning your own legitimate business is one of the best feelings you can get.

About The Author
Keith Londrie II is a well known author. For more information on Identity Theft, please visit MLM Information for a wealth of information. You may also want to visit keith's own web site at keithlondrie.com/

Losing Money On PPC? Write Articles!

2007-06-19T18:29:00.000-07:00

By - Teri Trantanella
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There is another way to promote your business other than pay per click. I made the serious mistake of using PPC to get more traffic to my sites and almost went bankrupt over it! PPC is great if you are already making a fortune on the web, but most of us are still struggling and only wasting our money on PPC. Until you learn how to truly position yourself with PPC to the point of profitable conversions, my suggestion is to write articles about your Internet business. Doing this will increase your traffic remarkably. Plus, the articles provide many other benefits for the site.

Some of the benefits of article writing are higher ranking in search results of keywords pertaining to your site. Articles also increase confidence and trust of customers to our site. The best advantage of writing articles about your site is the linking to your site from the article site or newsletter you submit your article to. If readers enjoy your article they will tell their friends, co-workers, and family about it, providing an even larger volume of traffic.

Internet marketers know that articles are very important to a website. The larger volume of traffic, the greater the sales. Your traffic trusts and believes in you because your articles prove you know what you are doing or talking about and the better your sales will be.

So ok, we have established that articles are very important to a site and to business. Articles are crucial and to keep ahead in the game, a site must have an article, it is imperative. There is one dilemma though, not many people like writing articles.

Many website owners would rather spend their time on something else, and unless you’re a big time company, you don’t have the necessary resources to use on a pool of article writers. Plagiarism or copying of other articles is frowned upon and could easily get you into trouble, worst case scenario; a hefty fine and jail time.

So what are the other options?

Well, for starters if you hate writing articles and you can’t afford to hire people to write for you then don’t. Get free articles. The first place to look at for free articles is the public domain. Here you won’t have problems with copyright infringement and the following penalties and fines if you get caught for plagiarism.

Public domain articles are articles freely given to the public for public use. You can do whatever you want with it. You can place it on your site, name it as yours, put it in a newsletter, it’s your decision. Always remember though that you will have to choose articles that are very relevant to your site.

The downside to public domain articles is that since it is free for everybody, many of your competitors may have access to them as well. Since every site needs to be original and unique even though you have the same niche, this could be a predicament. You may also have to edit them a bit to place more keywords and keyword phrases to make them better.

Another way to get free articles is to allow other sites which have the same subject or topic as yours to submit articles to your site. This would be only to augment your existing content or else all your articles would be leading to other sites since these articles would have resource boxes with them that could link or direct the readers to their site. That’s why it is important to have your own articles; you could use them to link your site to other sites as well.

But, to truly feel the impact of what a good article means to you, go for original ones. There are many article writers who do part time and freelance article writing jobs that charges only minimal fees. You can get good articles that have all the keywords and keyword phrases you need and people are looking for.

The investment you made for these articles would be worthwhile because you could use them for all the benefits you could offer. You hold copyrights to them and you will be able to use them anyway you want. As your articles help you in building your business and your site, you will have more articles to write and maybe then you won’t be having second thoughts about articles.

Teri Trantanella is an Online Business owner, wife, mother and Grandmother of 8. She also works full-time as Controller for a manufacturing company, as well as part-time as Accounting Manager at a Smoky Mountain resort on the weekends. This 7 day a week workaholic spends her spare time in the evenings online, building and marketing her online businesses www.reflectionsofmedolls.com, www.gtcenterprise.com, www.toyoursuccessonline.com, www.itsallaboutsports.com, www.thebestbabysite.com, and others.

About The Author
Teri Trantanella is an Online Business owner, wife, mother and Grandmother of 8. She also works full-time as Controller for a manufacturing company, as well as part-time as Accounting Manager at a Smoky Mountain resort on the weekends. This 7 day a week workaholic spends her spare time in the evenings online, building and marketing her online businesses http://www.reflectionsofmedolls.com/, http://www.gtcenterprise.com/, http://www.toyoursuccessonline.com/, http://www.itsallaboutsports.com/, http://www.thebestbabysite.com/, and others.

How to Generate Free Traffic to Your Website!

2007-06-18T13:11:00.000-07:00

By - Willem Steyn
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If you put your mind to it and are prepared to work for long hours every day, you can make money. Are you going to do it the right way? This article is going to try and cover some of the requirements that are needed to generate, the traffic that you need to your website to become successful.

With any business, whether it is online or offline that business need to have a regular flow of traffic in order to convert the traffic into customers. It is common sense that without customers no business can survive. This is why in all forms of business it is imperative to find methods of how to generating traffic.

Promoting your business through the media is a method that many overlook or completely forget about when it comes to advertising their business. For many people, reading an advertisement in the newspaper or a magazine is a more trustworthy way to respond to an advert.

If your business is strictly online, there are some free paths that can be followed, that are more readily available than one may think. Some of these paths are traffic exchanges, forums, article writing and free classified ads that will make your website search engine friendly.

Traffic Exchanges

Traffic exchanges are systems where a business will advertise its URL with a short text ad throughout the system that other members will see therefore generating free traffic. The idea here is to make your ad compelling enough that other members will not just click on your link but will also take time to look at your site, sales page, blog, newsletter sign-up form and any other products that you are promoting.

Forums

Become involved in several forums that fit into the theme of your business model. These forums are communities that are made up of business people that exchange ideas and techniques that have made them successful and things that have not worked so well. When you join a forum make sure that your first action is that of reading and understanding the rules of the forum.

Article Marketing

Start writing informative articles in your field of expertise and post them on your blog, website and submit them to several high ranked article directories. Many of these respected article directories do not allow links in the body of an article; make sure that you understand the article submitting guidelines of the directories. Article writing is very useful way to generate traffic to your website.

Free Classified Ads

There are numerous sites that allow free classified text ads and some even allow graphics. These ads may be directly linked to a sales page, sign-up page or to your website which ever way you choose to advertise and which works best for your individual business.

There are a phenomenal amount of different ways of how to promote your business to generate free traffic that was not covered. Start to explore these different avenues of promoting your business.

To summarize this article you can generate huge amounts of traffic to your website, if you are prepared to learn and willing to work hard at it. Set some goals and follow them. Goal setting has given thousands of people all over the world a successful way to financial freedom.

About The Author
Willem Steyn is a retired asset manager, started a home business to still stay productive and motivated and plays an active part in his local society. For more information, on how you can start your own
internet home business opportunity and to find out how you can achieve this work from home business goal he invites you to visit www.profit-online247.com

Keyword Tracking

2007-06-16T17:48:00.000-07:00

By - Halstatt Pires
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Keyword tracking is the name of the game. Identify the ads that work and get rid of those that don't!

Keyword tracking allows a site owner to know what keyword searches are resulting in sales. Search term information can be logged into a database and presented to web site owners in a meaningful format. This data can be used to see which keywords are producing the most sales per search and to determine where to focus web marketing.

What Search Engine or Web Site
Knowing what search engine a sale has originated from allows site owners and marketers to know where their efforts are paying off the most. Good tracking and analysis software will also show what web site referred visitors. Knowing what sites are sending the most visitors allows site owners to give special attention to ensuring this traffic continues and increases. Knowing what referrers are generating the most sales further allows a site owner to hone his or her marketing efforts toward site referrals that result in the most sales.

What Keyword Was Searched For
Knowing what keyword searches are resulting in sales on a site allows the owner to focus more on those words. Perhaps you are marketing your site for two main keywords, "air hook widgets" and "air hooks." Using keyword tracking that traces keywords down to the sale ensures that you will know if searches for "air hook widgets" convert into sales more often than visits resulting from searches for "air hooks."

Sales Conversion Ratio of Keywords and Return on Investment
Tracking keyword searches through to sales allows site owners to determine the return on investment. If a web master spends $100.00 on the pay-per-click keyword "air hook widgets" and sells $1000 worth of product, his or her return on investment is likely very good. If the same web site owner spends $100.00 on the keyword "air hooks" and sells $200 worth of product, it is likely that the return on investment was not as great. Of course, if the markup or profit on one product is greater than on another, this must be taken into account.

Cost of Keyword
If a web marketer is using pay-per-click engines, knowing exactly what has been spent on a keyword, and what the return was, allows money to be put where it will do the most. Keyword searches, unlike many advertising mediums, are targeted by the viewer. For this reason, in addition to the accurate return on investment feedback, keyword marketing can be very worth the cost.

Added Benefit of Branding
Marketing your site by keyword in pay-per-click engines means that you will only be charged if a person clicks through your ad to your site. Pay-per-click ads and organic search listings have the often overlooked added value of showing the ad or listing many times over in addition to the clicks the ad or listing receives. Only a small percentage of people are likely to click on a keyword ad or search result listing, yet your ad or listing will be visible time and time again to people searching for terms you have bid on or marketed, increasing your site branding. Nonetheless, care should be taken to generate a compelling key word ad or page description, since in most cases you will want to receive as many clicks as possible.

Conclusion
In conclusion, if you are spending money on search engine marketing, it is often well worth the effort to track your keywords through to sales. Without tracking your keywords, you will not know where your efforts are paying off. By tracking your keywords, you are able to put your efforts where they are paying off the most.

About The Author
Halstatt Pires is an Internet marketing consultant with http://www.marketingtitan.com/ - an Internet marketing firm in San Diego offering automated web site systems through http://www.businesscreatorpro.com/.

Your Online Home Business Is Broken Without Keyword Rich Content

2007-06-15T10:38:00.000-07:00

By - Angelo Tzortzakis

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No information on affiliate marketing websites is complete without talking about the importance of keywords. One of the best ways to bring that traffic to your site is through keyword rich content in the form of articles or reviews on your website. These actions help because they can improve your credibility and build trust with your visitors and customers, and these two factors are crucial with any online home business.

Choosing The Right Keywords

It is a fact that keywords generate traffic to your affiliate marketing website. This is why it is so important to choose the right keywords for your own website. When you choose keywords, don't just choose words at random, you should choose keywords that best describe your content and are 100% relevant to it.

Your online home business needs the right keywords. They help by getting you the kind of targeted traffic your business needs to succeed, not volumes that just browse through without taking action. We often browse the Internet searching for something, only to find ourselves on a totally unrelated website that is irrelevant to what we want. Avoid this happening to your affiliate marketing site, so pick some relevant keywords.

Real reviews for authentic products with the effective keywords are a great way to provide excellent content for your affiliate marketing online home business. This will also establish you as an authority on this information and your customers will come back for more. Also, it ensures new and up-dated content for your web site.

There are many affiliate marketing websites that feature product and service reviews for products promoted or sold by them, making it easy for the visitor to choose and buy. Ever notice how they use keywords? Another way in which keywords help is by getting the search engines to find your content quickly, especially if you update the information often. The more good content you update your site with, the quicker the search engines will find your online home business.

Since you are most likely to promote a product you believe in, your keyword rich content can express your personal convictions. Research the product as well as the company thoroughly and try them out, this way you'll know all about the product you are promoting. In fact, it is a good idea to let the company know that you are promoting their product in your affiliate marketing site, because most companies will be happy enough to help you with additional resources to do this. Many companies offer plenty of selling tips and advertising materials that help affiliates promote their product more efficiently. After the reviews are ready, send the company the link, and watch the response pour in! So, in closing, keywords and relevant content are essential for your online home business success. These are things that will get the right visitors to you affiliate marketing website. With the right visitors, it is much easier for you to make those sales.

About The Author
Angelo Tzortzakis loves affiliate marketing; he drinks, eats, and sleeps affiliate marketing. Angelo started a very helpful website so others can learn to become successful also. Learn how to become a super affiliate at http://www.gainmoney123.com

Increase Sales and Make Money Using Google's Adwords

2007-06-14T18:28:00.000-07:00

By - Paul Coulter
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Most Internet users use Google and other search engines on a regular basis to find information, products, services and more. Most website owners will find that Google directs 2 to 3 times as much traffic to their website than Yahoo and MSN combined.

Therefore, it may be a good idea to pay Google to send focused traffic to your website. This can be accomplished by registering for Google’s advertising service – Adwords.

You may already be familiar with this service and don’t even know it. Adwords are the paid advertisements that show up on the right side of Google’s search results under "Sponsored Links.". Adwords also appear on many commercial and personal pages as a way for the website owner to make a little money from their website. These advertisements usually carry the caption, “Ads by Goooooogle” at the top. The service is termed a pay-for-click service because Google will charge you each time an Internet User clicks on your advertisement and visits your website.

Adwords is a terrific complement to any existing advertising campaign, but probably should not be used as the sole marketing channel for your website. This program allows you to control your advertising budget by giving you the ability to set the maximum price that you’re willing to pay, per click, and also a maximum allowable daily advertising budget. You choose the keywords that you would like to target, bid on the maximum per click price you’d like to pay, and Google will send focused traffic to your website. According to Google, Adwords text advertisements boast a standard click-through rate four to five times higher than traditional banner ads.

Because you are paying Google per click, you need to ensure that your traffic is highly targeted for your website. It doesn’t make sense to pay a lot of money for a lot of click-troughs and not generate any revenue for your business. It is important that you follow a few guidelines to ensure that you don’t waste your precious advertising dollars:

Choose Specific KeywordsIt is smart to avoid choosing keywords that are too vague or general. To generate highly qualified prospects you have to choose very specific keywords. This way, competition for the keyword will be lower, and it will cost less per click, and you won’t be throwing money away on expensive, unqualified leads. For example, if you only sell Green Widgets, don’t bid on the term “Widgets” it is too broad and you’ll pay for clicks from people searching for “Red Widgets”Use Geographical TargetingIt is smart to start small by limiting your advertisement’s reach to a selected area. This way you can see the effect it will have on sales without spending a lot of money. Later on, you can expand to other regions; go national, or even global. If your business only caters to the local community, then you should only advertise in your city and surrounding localities.

Use Proper Grammar and SpellingThis tip may sound like a no-brainer, but it sometimes goes neglected. Whether they want to admit it or not, a lot of people are terrible spellers and possess poor writing skills. But, a text advertisement that has misspelled words or doesn’t read clearly is not going to get clicked, and it reflects poorly upon your company. Make sure that you check your ads for both spelling and grammar errors. Have a friend, co-worker or employee proof read your ad before submitting it.

Look at the CompetitionNo matter what kind of product or service you are promoting, chances are, someone else is doing something similar using Adwords. Search for the terms you are likely to use in order to size-up the competition. Pay attention to their ad’s wording, titles, or incentives they use. You don’t won’t to make your ad exactly like the competition, but it’s smart to know what their doing to ensure that your advertisement is going to be effective.

Stick to Your BudgetCreate a budget and stick to it. In marketing, there is a saying, “I waste half my advertising dollars, but, the problem is, I don’t know which half”. It’s difficult to know how effective the Adwords program will be if you’re also utilizing other marketing channels (as you should be). When checking out, give your customers the option to let you know how they found your website. If you find Adwords is paying off, then it may be smart to increase your budget. It also may not be very cost efficient to bid for the #1 spot for every keyword. The #2 position may be almost as effective, but cost only half as much.

If your website doesn’t sell or promote anything, then it doesn’t make sense to pay for traffic. If this is the case, Google will actually pay you to display Adwords advertisements on their websites. To find out more information regarding the Adwords program, Visit Google’s Advertising Programs.

About The Author
Paul Coulter owns and operates a full service custom web design company in Windsor, Ontario. Contact Paul by visiting his website at Windsor Web Design

Selling Niche Items on Ebay

2007-06-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

By - Stephan Miller
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A website is great to have for residual income, for presence, to have a place called home on the internet. I admit I love it. Instead of hunting for sites to host my pictures and software for free, I have a place and it is all mine. But nothing beats eBay for instant, in your face sales.

Its like having a mall with millions of visitors a day built just for you. I mean, you could sell used vacuum cleaner bags and walk away with a bag full of money a week later if only you knew how to list your auctions with the right title, right ad, and right type of features or even no features.
Free eBay Seller's Guide

No features? Yes, you can make a consistent weekly income by listing auctions with no features. I have done it. You just have to find a niche and your customers will hunt for you. No extras will be necessary.

What type of products would qualify as a niche item? Lets say your hobby is scrapbooking and you have just written the perfect ebook on the subject. You know it will sell, but how do you go about selling it. You could put up a website, spend weeks submitting it to search engines, and then, maybe months later watch sales start coming in. That's great for the long term. In fact its something you should do.

But, if you want to start getting sales sooner, list it on eBay. It takes some work to do it right though. You will need to figure out what search terms your customer will be using to find your auction. Then search both the current and completed auctions to find out what your competitors are doing to get their bids.

Okay, what if the search terms you entered comes up with few searches or none. Well, this is a sign that hell just froze over. But if it does happen, can you spell "jackpot." You will need to find closely related search terms that actually will come up and use them along with your rare terms. Think about what other items your ideal customers will also be buying and mention them in the body of your ad. Don't spam though. Write your ad like you are speaking face to face to your customers and you can't go wrong.

Check out your competitors features. Did they highlight? Did they choose Bold? Did they spend the extra money and category feature the auction? I did this once on a niche product that I was selling and actually made less money than when I didn't choose to feature the item. But you will have to test your results. Why spend extra money that you don't have to?

Also, study the title of the auction and the ad itself. Remember that the default search on eBay is title only, so make sure you pack your title with keywords that you know people will be using. But don't go overboard. You can always tell when a seller is trying to spam the search engine instead of providing a descriptive title provides their customers with the information they need.
The days when you could put up a text ad and sell are over. Well, maybe not. But at least put in the extra effort and design an HTML ad. It lets your customer know that you are actually running a business and that the image your products present matter to you. Turbo Lister is great if you are just starting out.

Learn some ad writing techniques. If you are selling an info product or software, the mini-site model works great. It will provide your customer with all the information he or she needs to make a buying decision. Also learn hypnotic writing and NLP. I am not saying that you have to do all of this at once. Just pick up as you go along.

Just to get started, do your marketing research and list your ad and wait for sales. Yes, it will become addictive, especially after you get that first bid. You will set your homepage to your "My Ebay" page and check it every few minutes. I did.

About The Author
Stephan Miller is a ebay seller, freelance programmer, writer, and webmaster at http://www.profit-ware.com/

Performing Keyword Research Before SEO

2007-06-11T23:33:00.000-07:00

By - KC Tan
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Before you start trying to optimize your website, you should need to do a bit of research. This may sounds odd to a lot of web publishers, but before you do anything you need to do some keyword research. There are many different resources that you can go to and all you have to do is type in a subject and you can be given a list of the most commonly searched phrases relating to this topic. Why is this important? The reason is because that when you are optimizing your website you are not just optimizing for the search engine spiders, you are also optimizing for the web surfer that uses the search engines. For instance, if you have a website that is about golf you may find that the typical web surfer does not just type in golf but types in golf club or golf and then the city or state that they are interested in golfing in.

The phrasing is important because you can target your audience by incorporating the most common phrases. You would not want to simply use the keyword “golf” because there are millions of other websites that are also using the term golf and your website will literally get lost in the crowd. Instead, you will want to choose more of the specific keywords that your visitors will be likely to type into the search engine. When you have done this research, you will know which keywords that you should try to focus on and associate with your website.

Keyword research will not take you a lot of time; in fact it can take just minutes to perform. It may take you a bit longer to actually integrate these keywords in healthy amounts into your website. You do not just want to write up a bunch of fluff that will use the keywords as this is not how you can improve your pagerank and be seen. You want to improve your pagerank and then provide consumers with the service, product, or information that they are looking for when they visit your website.

Now you can probably see why many web publishers have a hard time actually optimizing their website! Optimization is something that happens slowly over time. Those that try to rush the process usually end up doing more damage than good, simply creating more work than was necessary. Keyword research is a significant task in order to optimize any site.

About The Author
KC TAN is a SEO consultant with several years of related experiences. He recommends Files Host for uploading and fast file sharing and WeBlogPost for Free Blog Hosting. KC also visits EasyTurnKeySites for Turnkey websites, prebuilt websites.

Quickly add $20,000 or more to your balance sheet

2007-06-11T20:14:00.000-07:00

By - Jeff Beaubien

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This is such a fast and easy way to add $20,000 to your balance sheet, I'm surprised it's not being done by every free person in this great country of ours. Since you're probably skeptical, I am going to use a real-world example of how I accomplished this recently.

Note: This technique requires that you be pre-qualified for a mortgage.

I received a phone call from one of my Realtors, Cindy. She told me that an agent in her office had listed a home that morning and that the sellers were about to be foreclosed upon. Within 30 minutes of her phone call, Cindy and I went out to see it.

It wasn't anything fancy, a 3-bedroom, 1-bath ranch with a 2 car attached garage. The sellers were asking $89,000 - about $5,000 less than what the home was actually worth.

I made an offer on the house that looked like this: $85,000 with $1,640 back at close for improvements (that I will actually use to help offset the down payment on the home). The sellers accepted my offer so we arranged for a closing date in three weeks.

While I waited for the closing date to arrive, I ran a classified ad in my local newspaper that read, "Don't Rent. Why Rent? Rent-to-Own! $4,995 down and $995 per month." When the ad came out I had over forty calls on the house.

I couldn't possibly find the time to show the home to all these people on such short notice so I let them drive by and peek in the windows. I got a phone call from a potential tenant/buyer who said that she wanted the house (without even seeing the inside). She agreed to my terms which looked like this: $4,995 down ($4,000 option deposit + $995 for first month's rent), $100 per month rent credit, a sales price of $119,900 and a term of 1 year. I pre qualified her and she was an acceptable risk so we closed the deal.

Remember, when you are offering such a tremendous value, you are entitled to receive a premium price for what you are offering. Since my tenant/buyer was receiving a tremendous value (a fast rate of equity accumulation and a very small down payment to buy a home), she was more than happy to agree to my high sales price. Also remember that there are many different reasons that make potential buyers not qualify for a conventional mortgage which makes a lease purchase deal very appealing to them.

I closed on the purchase of the home and used the $4,995 my tenant/buyer gave me plus the $1,640 to help offset the down payment on the home. I then gave the keys to my new tenant/buyer - deal done.

Let's look at the numbers; I paid $83,360 ($85,000 - $1,640) for the home and my total monthly payments are $845. I am receiving $995/month in rent for a positive monthly cash flow of $150 and I have a written sales agreement to sell the house to my tenant/buyer for $119,900 in 1 year.

And that is how I added over $20,000 to my balance sheet quickly and easily.

UPDATE: My tenant buyer called me recently. She is approved for a mortgage and would now like to close on the purchase of the home - just two months into our agreement. Yes!!!

About The Author
Jeff Beaubien, www.Lease2Purchase.com is the President and founder of Beaubien Investment Company in Howell, Michigan. He specializes in creative real estate techniques, but focuses on the most powerful technique of them all; the lease purchase contract.
As a result of his success in real estate, Mr. Beaubien is the author of his real estate course, The Lease Purchase Handbook.

Collateral Benefits of Search Engine Marketing

2007-06-11T20:03:00.000-07:00

By - Paul Bliss

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Many times a client only looks at the bottom line when it comes to the performance they are getting for their investment into Search Engine Marketing.

They often only look at the selected keyword phrases that they are paying for, without fully realizing what other residual effects they are receiving.

When a site gets properly optimized, (SEO) it is being transformed into a thought-out navigational pattern to information. This is the same pattern a search engine spider looks for. Don't forget, the easier you make it for a spider to index your site, the better your chances are for getting your site a higher placement in the search engine results page (SERP's).

While W3C validation is something all sites should strive for, it is not required for better rankings. Does it help? Probably. Yahoo engineers have stated that whether a site is W3C compliant or not makes no difference to how it ranks. If it has relevant content, it will get ranked.

Another element when optimizing a site is that through proper naming of page titles, file names and placement of content make the site all the more relevant to the spider. Although Google places less value on Meta Tags, they are still used as part of the algorithm, and should not be overlooked.

After the site has coded properly, the game then goes up to the next level. Search Engine Marketing is used to drive traffic to the site through various means. Press releases, articles, blogs, RSS/XML feeds, Directory Submissions and User Groups all can bring targeted traffic to a site.

Here is where the collateral benefits of SEM begin to appear. Let's say that you have been doing a series of press releases where once a week, you talk about a new color of widget. In each press release you also list the other colors of widgets that you have for sale. Even after only the first release gets sent, you've already created a valuable In-Bound Link to your site for your Red Widget, but since you included the other colors of the widgets as well, they all pick up IBL's as well.

An even greater demonstration of a collateral benefit is ranking for keywords and phrases that you aren't targeting. Keeping to our widget example, if your site copy talks about the different uses of widgets, the available colors that they come in and the best way to preserve your widget, you've just created a multitude of various phrases that your site can get ranked on.

Example site copy:

We sell the highest-quality widget available. Our color selection ranges from red to purple, black to white and can be used in your home or for industrial needs. The widget is the most versatile tool on the market. Pick one up today!

From this one paragraph, here are the possible phrases your site could get ranked on:
high quality widget
red widget
purple widget
black widget
white widget
home widget
industrial widget
widget tool
widget
This is only a tiny sampling of the potential your site has. Remember, each page gets ranked on it's own, so that's why it is so important to make sure every page you have on your site is optimized.

Even your contact/about page is critical because if you have a brick-and-mortar business, by listing your street address, you help the search engines geo target your site. Most search engines are already trying to focus your search results regionally. While it's not a major factor yet, it is something to be aware of.

In conclusion, the next time you start checking Google to see where your site ranks for it's keyword phrases, don't forget about all of the hidden keywords/phrases that are embedded in your site's copy. You would be surprised at how many of those forgotten about terms end up at the top of the pile....

-To your online success!

About The Author
Paul Bliss
www.SEOforGoogle.com

Ten Ways To Sell On eBay

2007-06-10T16:58:00.000-07:00

By - Barbara Snyder

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Hearing that there are more than 1.2 million registered eBay users, that more than 25,000 members make five figure income as full time eBay entrepreneurs, and that more than 250,000 part timers make several thousand dollars a year of supplementary income from eBay enterprises would make anyone comment in disbelief with, “No Way”.

But the correct response to this is, “Yes, way.” In fact, it has also been reported that the number one eBay entrepreneur makes over a million dollars a year. As Austin Powers would say, “Yeah, Baby.” Or should we say, “E-Baby.”

So what’s the deal with eBay, anyway? There is a lot more to it than one would think. It can be simple for an occasional buyer, but it gets increasing complex as users/sellers become more entrenched at deeper levels of use. Here are 10 key ideas or themes for sellers to consider about this phenomenon called “eBay”.

1. What‘s for sale? While some sellers are out scavengering the garage sales and their own garages, others are purchasing quantities of items wholesale to put up for auction. One would think that the right product is of paramount consideration, and most sellers agree that the unusual or the hard to find is the best bet. However, this is not always true either. Timing, meaning the right person at the right time seeing your item, is where it is at. You have to be visible and be out there with a clear message or product that seems like a steal, or at least reasonably priced. With the thousands and thousands of items for sale, there is no shortage of competition. However, the good thing is that there are a lot of buyers out there that should enable the sale of just about anything.

2. Communication and descriptive details about your product is a key in getting noticed. The description of your item and the pictures to display it will get the buyer’s attention. If a person is a serious seller, having an adequate digital camera is a must. Again, photos are extremely important.

3. The well written detailed description to accompany the item is of great benefit. Being open and honest about the item will demonstrate integrity as a seller and will keep people coming back. Being available to answer questions for prospective buyers and remembering to be courteous and helpful follows along with the never-to-be forgotten premise of “the customer is always right.”

4. With customer feedback being a key element in the ratings statistics that will promote you or haunt you during your eBay career, it is important for a seller to be professional and kindly in all business dealings. People like and appreciate personal attention. Take the time to give it. Being positive, accommodating and helpful is a winning combination for good customer relations.

5. Shipping information and how you present it can win over a customer because they notice when a buyer is tying to take advantage and ask an unreasonable amount for shipping. Of course, a seller must take into account time spent, the handling charge, when pricing the shipping. Time is money, and a seller should be compensated for all aspects of the service that is provided.

6. Some advice about setting up your auction items would be to consider having your item run seven days with an end of bidding time somewhere between 7 PM and 9 PM on a Sunday night. That seems to be the consensus amongst the top sellers. There has been much dialog on just how to increase the amount and number of bids, but there are too many variables to consider. Suffice to say, it really does depend on the product itself (and what the condition and competition is our there).

7. Some of the most unique aspects of selling have to do with the seasonal items that permeate the auction block at certain times of the year. If a seller wants to work year-round, he or she will have to broaden the horizon by finding seasonal items for all seasons. Yes, you can sell Christmas items and move right into Valentines Day and Easter and so on. Why not? These are what people are looking for.

8. One controversial topic is drop shipping. If a seller is getting a product from a third party, drop shipping is a convenient way for the seller to deliver the product. It keeps them out of it. However, that means that a back ordered item could result in a poor rating for the seller because the item was delayed. Most buyers picture the item in the hands of the seller and expect to receive it within a few days. The pros and cons of this arrangement need to be carefully considered.

9. Now to the fun part. How do you get the money? More and more people are using PayPal. It is quick, efficient and simple. A seller can make other arrangements and accept a check or money order, but the wave of the future is setting up an account with PayPal. In addition, setting up an online account with the United States Postal Service will also save countless hours in the lines at the post office. Work smarter, not harder, etc., etc.

10. A seller can look at other things to sell besides a physical product or item. Many are getting into self publishing or offering a service. Some expanding entrepreneurs are opening up a consignment shop situation, which helps those who want to sell but “don’t do computers.” The possibilities are unlimited.

Selling products and services from a home-based business can be an exciting, and hopefully profitable, situation. Go into it with a solid plan based on accurate information and with the knowledge that it is going to be hard work, just like any other job.

About the Author
Barbara Snyder is a retired California Distinguished School Principal and Coordinator For Human Resources. She has a master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction. She holds elementary education, secondary, community college, and administrative credentials. She is currently the publisher of http://EducationResourcesNetwork.com, and co-publisher of Strictly Business Magazine.

Internet Marketing Basics From The SEO Expert

2007-06-09T09:49:00.000-07:00

By - P Laboon
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The first place to start is with keyword phrase research before you publish your website. Think about researching for the keywords which are best suited to your website. Keywords are the words that the visitors input into the search engines in order to find the information they are looking for. You must try to find out a keyword phrase that has good search volume and at the same time that has least competition. There are online tools available such as http://inventory.overture.com which will help you find effective keywords.

Once you have chosen the keywords and created the website, you can now publish it. After publishing the website, there are few more steps that you need to pursue in order to improve the visibility of your website in all the major search engines such as Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc...

You should try to use your keywords several times on each page, this is called keyword density. This is the best way to show search engines that your webpage should be in the search results for that specific keyword phrase.

Next, you should now consider adding a HTML Sitemap as well as XML Sitemap. A sitemap helps your visitors to get an idea about the structure of your website as well as it provides search engine spiders a pathway to all the inner relevant web pages of the website to get indexed. The sitemap also provides information to search engine spiders about new content and date of the modification to the webpage. A sitemap can be integrated in two versions, the HTML version for the visitors, and the XML version for the search engine spider.

Once you have uploaded the sitemaps, you should check your website against valid HTML and CSS. Validation is very important for a quality website that wants to rank fr the long haul.

Once your site is up and running, apart from updating new content frequently (at least 3 times a week), it’s important to check for dead or broken links. If you find a dead or broken link, remove those links immediately or correct the file path. These links will reduce the credibility of your website to visitors and search engines.

You will also want to check for backlinks. Backlinks are incoming links to a website or web page. The number of backlinks is a sign of the popularity or importance of that website or page. Backlinks are also called as incoming links, inbound links, inlinks, and inward links. Search engines frequently use the number of backlinks that a website has as one of the factors for determining that website's search engine ranking.

One of the advantages of internet marketing is that it is very easy to test your marketing results. This is very essential – you should use tracking software to keep track of which ads, keywords, etc are bringing you sales and traffic. We recommend using Google Analytics because it gives quality feedback and is free to use.

Remember, focus on the most effective methods, and keep testing – you can continually refine your marketing and improve your presence on the internet.A website which is carefully created with chosen keywords, pertinent original content which is updated often has a chance to perform well in major search engines while generating high traffic.

About The Author
Phil Laboon is an internet marketing expert that is the owner /creator of Eyeflow- a well known Pittsburgh SEO company. Phil is continually offering free advice to anyone who wants to learn and has had hundreds of free education articles published on the internet over the last 6 years he’s been in business. For more information on Phil Laboon, search engine optimization, or web design just click the links in this bio.

Press Release Power

2007-06-08T10:25:00.000-07:00

By - Paul Bliss

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I'm sure by now you've heard about how Press Releases can help your marketing campaigns on the Internet. But besides from people telling you, do you have any quantitative evidence that it's worth the time to craft a newsworthy release?

From a search marketing perspective, this is one of the best ways of killing two birds with one stone. Besides getting exposure for your site, you are also creating web saturation. By having the possibility of your release getting picked up by multiple media outlets, you quickly and cheaply get eyeballs looking at your product or service, and ultimately, traffic to your site.

Being that the Internet has grown to being a social environment with the ultimate goal of personalization for each user, how can anyone get their message out?

With blogs, RSS readers and news aggregators becoming more popular, the user is becoming more selective to what they want to see. This is something every marketer should embrace.

Now, instead of spending thousands to blast an add that may only be relevant to 10 percent of your audience, you can now selectively target your audience and deliver your message.

Since the majority of us do not have Google's bankroll, we are left to find less expensive ways to drive visitors to your site. This is where one can get onto a level playing field with the big spenders.

To demonstrate the power of the press release, take a moment to review some stats on a campaign that was conducted in early December.

PR Service: PRWeb.com

Price: $80.00 USD
(Note: - you can submit free press releases, but you won't have access to any tracking stats, and you lose some services.)

For the above mentioned fee, the $80.00 includes:

Properly Optimized, RSS/XML Feed, Next Day Distribution, ability to attach files, featured, listing appears on: Google News, Overture, eMediaWire, Yahoo News, Excite News, DogPile, MetaCrawler, Inktomi, MSN News, Lycos News, AskJeeves News, Feedster and Topix News

Quite the bang for your buck, eh?

The Press Release in question was for a free service, and it was geared for Christmas use, so keep that in mind as you review the information.

Reads: 88,380

(This number indicates how many times the press release was accessed from the PRWeb site and other distribution points where they have the ability to measure a click through. This number does not include the number of journalists that have received the release through email.)

Estimated Pickup: 3,908

(This number estimates the number of times the press release was picked up by a media outlet. This does not indicate how many times the story appeared in the media. It simply attempts to estimate media interest in the release.)

Now how many places on the Internet can give you those type of numbers for getting traffic to your site?

To try and get an accurate number for a "typical" Press Release, another release was submitted in March of 2005, for a new paid-for service.

Reads: 80,375

Estimated Pickup: 1,362

Still pretty impressive, even if it's just to get some traffic, or brand name exposure.

If you're serious about your business, $80.00 is easily worth the investment for this type of return.

-To your online success!

About The Author
Paul Bliss
www.SEOforGoogle.com

Dramatically Increase The Credibility Of Your Affiliate Website With Customer Reviews

2007-06-07T21:48:00.000-07:00

By - Stephen Carter
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Affiliate marketing was a six billion dollar business in 2006, and shows no sign of tapering off any time soon. But as good as business has been for the top affiliate marketers, it could be a lot better for the majority. A real obstacle to achieving the sales goals of many affiliates involves their credibility. If I say a product is great, and I am being paid to convince you to buy it, why should you believe me?

The fact is, most affiliate sites on the web today are poorly constructed, and this beggars any authority the owner of the site hopes to convert into sales. Often these sites are thin conduits designed to ferry traffic from search engines to the sites of merchants who have neither the resources nor the time to figure out how to find the customers they need to ensure their business success. Despite this, and because the web is growing more and more congested, the value of a *quality* affiliate marketer nonetheless continues to increase. Unfortunately this simple fact is not at all recognized by the buying public who often begrudge affiliate marketers and view them as interlopers who put themselves between the customer and the merchants they are searching for. In short, the affiliate marketer has long suffered, and continues to suffer, from an image problem.

This image problem is not confined just to the public. Google, which derives huge advertising revenues from affiliate marketers, nevertheless regards affiliate marketing sites with complete disdain. Of course, affiliate marketers themselves have contributed to this problem because their websites very often contain little in the way of new or unique content, which is what Google values and believes its customers (web searchers) value. It is no surprise therefore, to find that some of the top affiliate marketers differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack in precisely this area. They offer not only critical assessment of the products they promote, but also take the time to blog and build a comraderie with the visitors to their sites. By offering unique, and regularly updated content, they appease the Gods of Google, and are rewarded with organic (non pay-per-click) traffic that very much contributes to the bottom line. In other words, the top affiliate marketers know how to project a good image--to their visitors, to Google, and to other search engines that might bring in prospects.

Blogging is a great way to produce unique content. But it is time consuming, there is a limit to how much daily content you can produce as an affiliate, and not everyone finds the task of writing content easy work. What if instead you could have the content create itself automatically? Well, actually you can. If you offer customer reviews of the products you promote you accomplish this and more. Not only is the subject matter on target, but the reviews themselves promote the products for you (supposing you have carefully chosen only the best products to promote, which is what any *good* affiliate marketer knows to do). Even better, you no longer have to worry about that credibility problem. If ten people come onto your site and say "Buy product XYZ, it rocks!" that recommendation is a heck of a lot more convincing than anything that you might say, no matter how truthful your utterances.

So, all you have to do as an affiliate marketer, to get people to "click through" to a merchant site in a buying mood is to promote good products and let people express their opinions about those products on your site. If the products are great, the reviews will reflect that. If instead it turns out that the reviews are consistently bad for one of the products you promote, then drop it! Replace it with another.

"But collecting reviews is really difficult!" I hear you object. "I simply do not have time for that. Do I?"

There is nothing inherently difficult about putting customer reviews on your site today. It does take a little time to set things up, but low-cost commercial quality reviewing applications are available to do the bulk of the work (see the one mentioned in the resource box below if you want to get a jump start on implementing customer reviews on your website). Not only does a customer review section on your site substantially increase your overall credibility, but search engines will love the content--especially if the review pages have been optimized for the search engines (as all good reviewing engines will certainly do).

There is another benefit to collecting customer reviews. Some review engines allow you to publish the reviews as RSS feeds. What this means is increased traffic. You can submit your feeds to the RSS directories. Moreover, if the reviewing application also allows you to create RSS feeds compatible with Google Base (as does the application mentioned below) you can upload your entire review database (or the first N characters of each review) to Google Base and make your reviews accessible to the various Google marketing avenues.

Given the clear benefits to implementing customer reviews on affiliate marketing sites it is surprising that so very few marketers have actually adopted this strategy to date. But as the web continues to mature, and affiliate marketing grows more professional, it is to be expected that this strategy will become more and more common on the sites of top affiliate marketers.

About The Author
Stephen Carter is the developer of Red Queen, powerful customer review software that allows webmasters to take advantage of the preselling potential of customer reviews. To learn more, see: How To Put Customer Reviews On Your Affiliate Website.

12 Killer Rules for Choosing an Affiliate Product That Really Sells

2007-06-07T21:36:00.000-07:00

By: Ari Krizsan

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The internet is flooded with affiliate programs that promise you high earnings with little effort. But is it really so? Can you really earn huge commissions regardless which affiliate products you choose to promote? Obviously, not. There are programs that can earn you fat checks every month and there are programs that won't even get you a little pocket money. So what makes the difference between affiliate programs and products that secure you a steady income and those that are merely a waste of time?

Here is a list of the key factors that will help you in how to choose the right affiliate product to promote.

1. Site related product:
It goes without saying that you should choose products or services that match your website's or blog's theme.

2. Commission rate:
Some vendors offer very high rates compared to other affiliate programs. If it is above 20 % then you should give it a try.

3. Price:
Of course you should also know what the commission base is. If you promote a $19.95 ebook and get 75% you earn $14.96 for each book you sold. But if you promote a $156.00 software with 40% commission, you put $62.40 into your pocket after each sale.

4. Vendor's website:
Take a look at the vendor's website, sales letter and other promotional stuff there. If you were a potential customer would you want to buy what he is about to sell? Is the sales letter convincing? Does the layout of the website look professional, or is it cheap and amateurish? You should consider all these questions before you send visitors to a vendor's site because if you are not satisfied with what awaits you at the landing page, then how can you expect it from your visitors?

5. Reliability of the product:
If you have no personal experience with the product, go to message boards and read reviews or opinions of the product from people who have used it already. To locate related message boards search for 'message board' and 'the product's name' in search engines.

6. Reliability of payment:
With reputable affiliate networks reliability is not really an issue. Payment methods and periods are set in the general terms of service. With affiliate programs run by individual companies or with less known affiliate networks it can happen that they don't pay. Before joining any of these affiliate programs do your home work! Ask around on affiliate marketing message boards and find out about other webmasters' experiences with the company.

7. Demand for the product:
Do people buy this product? Is it a 'hot' niche? It is much more profitable to go for popular products than goods for which the target group is too narrow.

8. Two-tier and multi-tier affiliate programs:
Some vendors offer you to pay for sales that were made by you indirectly. That means if another webmaster signs up to the program through your affiliate link, you will be entitled to a commission after this person's sales, too. While some internet gurus advise you to choose two-tier (or multi-tier) programs if possible, experience shows that you won't earn much through these indirect sales. Unless you have a huge opt-in list and are considered a 'guru' or expert yourself in the subject area you operate in. Why is that? The problem with two-tier programs is that affiliates – especially newbies – will promote the program instead of the product. They will hope to make money through their 'sub-affiliates' and neglect to promote the product itself. And those who sign up through him will think similarly. So while there will be a long line of sub-affiliates, no one will really make a sale and no one will make money!

9. The lifetime of cookies:
The operating of affiliate programs are based on cookies. Cookies are simple scripts that track the visitor's path. They help in identifying through which affiliate ID a visitor came to a vendor's site and which affiliate should be paid a commission for after the visitor's purchase. At some sites cookies are set for 24 hours. This means the visitor has to make a purchase within 1 day starting from the moment he arrived at the vendor's website through your affiliate link. If he buys something 2 days later you lose commission for that sale. The longer period cookies are set for, the better. Some programs offer 30-day tracking periods, some a whole year, and there are even lifetime commission affiliate programs. That means if a visitor came through your affiliate link and bought a product or service at the vendor's site, this customer is yours forever. If he makes new purchases in the future, you will be paid after these sales, too.

10. Pay out minimum:
Usually there is a threshold that affiliates have to reach to be paid. (In most cases it is $100, but it's not a general rule.) If you don't reach this limit within a payment period, the sum will be held back and carried over to the next payment period as long as you don't earn the said amount.

11. Payment periods:
Affiliates are paid periodically. This can vary from a quarter to biweekly periods. The shorter the time span of payment is, the better for your cash flow. (People are happier if they get their earnings as soon as possible.)

12. Exclusivity:
Some vendors require exclusivity. It means if you decide to join their affiliate program and promote their products you are not allowed to advertise the competition's products. This severely limits your income opportunities.

About The Author
To discover more secrets about how to start and successfully operate a home based business or internet business, go to HomebizHerald and read the free online tutorials: www.homebizherald.com Download free web page templates and free banner templates at www.webtemplatemall.com

The Art of Effective Copywriting

2007-06-06T18:59:00.000-07:00

By - Shelley Lowery
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If you're selling a product or service on the Internet, your words are the most important factor in determining your success. High-tech web sites with fancy images won't make sales; however, many Internet entrepreneurs spend much more time designing a professional looking web site than writing effective sales copy. A professional looking web site is a very important part of making sales; however, without effective sales copy your web site will be useless.

The art of effective copywriting is simply learning how to write persuasive words specifically written for your targeted customer. You must feel your customers needs and write your copy with passion, excitement and benefit.

If you've ever developed a new product then you know that there is a certain time when your emotions are riding high and you're full of excitement and anticipation. This is the best time to do your copywriting. Your excitement will flow through your words. Take this time to sit down and write an outline for your sales message.

Creating A Headline

The first part of your outline will be your headline. This is the most important part of your entire sales copy. You must write a headline that demands attention and forces your visitor to read on. Most of your visitors will only read your headline. If it doesn't instantly grab their attention, they'll move on and never return.

Writing an Introduction

Once you've captured your visitor's attention, you'll now need to direct their attention to your introduction. Keep your introduction brief and to the point. Let them know exactly what you have to offer them.

Use Plenty of Subheadings

Your next step in creating your outline is to add subheadings. Subheadings are basically just smaller headlines used to break up your text blocks. They also provide your readers with important highlights of your paragraphs. Use plenty of subheadings throughout your copy, as not all of your visitors will read your copy word for word. They'll simply scan it and only read what catches their attention.

Remove the Risk

You must provide a solid, no risk, money back guarantee. Provide a limited time free trial or download that will completely remove the risk. This will build your potential customers confidence and put their mind at ease. Display your guarantee in bold text and even mention it in your sales message and on your order page.

Call for Action

Ask for the order and provide an easy ordering process. Continue to reassure your potential customer and lead them to your order page.

Use a P.S.

When your visitor scans your sales message, chances are they'll read your headline, subheadlines and your PostScript message. Place your most important benefits within your P.S. message. It will get read.

Writing Your Copy

Now, you're ready to begin filling in the spaces. When you begin writing your paragraphs, get straight to the point, avoid negativity and hype, and write in small sections. Vary the paragraph sizes and limit each paragraph to four or five lines max. If you feel that your paragraph will be longer than four or five lines, try to use bullets to display important points. Write in an everyday language that everyone can understand.

Make sure you use plenty of white space. White space is the empty space between your paragraphs and around your text. You don't want to overwhelm your visitors with a solid page of black text. Nothing will make them click away any faster.

Pack your sales copy with benefits from your headline straight through to your order form. Make sure you don't confuse features with benefits. Features don't sell... Benefits sell. Your visitor wants to know exactly what your product or service can do for them.

Provide Testimonials

Testimonials provide another great way to reassure your visitors. Blend your testimonials in with your sales message. Avoid making your visitors have to click to another page to view your testimonials; chances are, they won't. By blending your testimonials in with your sales message you can ensure they will be read.

Selecting Fonts

Avoid using fancy fonts. Fancy fonts make text difficult to read. In addition, your visitor may not have that font on their computer. Select a font that is easy to read and use black text on a light background.

Long Copy Vs. Short Copy

It is a proven fact that long sales copy out-sells short sales copy, but some visitors do prefer a short sales letter. You can give your visitors both. For those who prefer a short sales letter you can provide opportunities to click through to your order page prior to ending your sales letter.

Try to keep your sales letter all on one page. Your visitor would much rather have to scroll through your letter than click through and load another page. With each additional click, you'll lose a percentage of your potential customers.

Your words should seamlessly flow together from your headline through to your order page. Keep it simple, to the point and pack it with all of the benefits your product has to offer.

Learning the art of effective copywriting can mean the difference between success and failure. The simple, well-designed web sites with killer sales copy make the sales.

Copyright © Shelley Lowery

About the Author
Shelley Lowery is the author of the acclaimed web design course, Web Design Mastery. http://www.webdesignmastery.com/ And, Ebook Starter - Give Your Ebooks the look and feel of a REAL book. http://www.ebookstarter.com Visit Web-Source.net to sign up for a complimentary subscription to Etips and receive a copy of the acclaimed ebook, "Killer Internet Marketing Strategies." http://www.web-source.net/

How to Create, Sell and Distribute Your Own Ebook

2007-06-05T20:53:00.000-07:00

By - Shelley Lowery
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With the rising popularity of the Internet, there is absolutely no better time than right now to create your own ebook. Not only is there no better time, but it has never been any easier for anyone to develop and sell their own products.

Information is the number one best-selling product on the Internet. There are literally hundreds of Internet entrepreneurs quietly making a fortune simply by selling information.
The first step in creating your product is to decide upon a subject. Select a subject in which you have a great deal of knowledge. The knowledge you have within your own mind is extremely valuable. Simply write about what you know and teach others how to do the same thing. It's that simple.

Creating an Outline

The easiest way to begin writing is to create an outline. Begin your outline with an opening statement or Introduction followed by a Foreword. Your opening statement might tell your readers a little bit about what they are going to learn or may be a statement in regard to the subject matter. Your Foreword might include information in regard to who you are, your credentials, copyrights, and what you want your readers to learn.

Your next step will be to either create a Table of Contents or go directly into creating your Chapter Titles. If you're writing your information in the form of a how-to manual, you may want to use a Table of Contents. This will enable your readers to quickly locate important information. If you're writing your information in the form of a book, then you can leave out the Table of Contents and simply use Chapter Titles.

Whether you're using a Table of Contents or Chapter Titles, write your titles so that when they're read, they tell the story. In other words, when you scan your titles they will give you a step by step description of what your information is all about.

Finally, at the bottom of your outline, wrap everything up by including a closing statement.
Once you've completed your outline you can begin filling in the spaces. Write your text in small blocks and leave a space between your paragraphs. Select a font that is easy to read and use black text on a white background. In addition, write in an everyday language that everyone can understand.

Delivering Your Information

In order to deliver your information to your customers, you'll need to compress it into a downloadable file, better known as an ebook. There are different types of compilation methods however, for this example we will focus on HTML compiled ebooks.

Ebooks or electronic books are self-contained "executable" files of HTML. This HTML may be a web site you've created or HTML you've specifically prepared to be compiled into a downloadable .exe file for distribution. When downloaded, this file will self install on your clients desktop.

Your first step in creating your ebook will be to turn your text into HTML. Simply divide your text into sections such as, Introduction, Table of Contents, Chapters, etc., and create a web page for each. Make sure you include good navigational links to and from each page you create.
You can include graphics, live links, and almost everything that HTML 4.0 supports.

Once you've created your ebook and you're ready to upload it to your server, simply create a new directory where you store your HTML files. You can name the directory "Ebooks" or whatever you'd like. Upload your ebook in binary mode.

To create a download link on your website, most servers will allow you to simply link to the address:
http://www.yourdomain.com/ebooks/ebook.exe

If this method of linking doesn't work for you, contact your server administrator for assistance.

Taking Orders

In order for you to begin taking orders for your ebook, you'll need to have the ability to accept credit cards. Unless you'd like to get your own merchant account, the best way to accept credit cards is to use an online service. The best service I've found is ClickBank. This company will enable you to accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Eurocard, and Visa-Debit, MasterCard-Debit, and Novus cards.

They charge a one-time $49.95 activation fee, and a $1 + 7.5% fee per sale. There are no monthly fees. The great thing about this company is that over 60,000 affiliates can choose to sell your products for you. ClickBank enables any web seller to automatically pay sales commissions to affiliates. Clickbank will bill your customers, pay you, and pay your affiliates a commission. In other words, they'll run your entire affiliate program for you.

http://hop.clickbank.net/?wsnet

There is absolutely no reason why you can't create your own ebook. Think about it... Think about some special talent you may have or knowledge you could share and write about. Creating your own product will be one of the best business decisions you'll ever make.

Copyright © Shelley Lowery

About the Author
Shelley Lowery is the author of the acclaimed web design course, Web Design Mastery. http://www.webdesignmastery.com/ And, Ebook Starter - Give Your Ebooks the look and feel of a REAL book. http://www.ebookstarter.com/click.php?lid=1&af=order7 Visit Web-Source.net to sign up for a complimentary subscription to Etips and receive a copy of the acclaimed ebook, "Killer Internet Marketing Strategies." http://www.web-source.net/

Search Engine Optimization & Visitors - The One Thing You Can't Forget

2007-06-05T12:19:00.000-07:00

By - Cathie Streck
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You've built a website or a blog and worked hard to create a web presence. You've probably worked hard to optimize your site so that the search engines reward your efforts with good placement and traffic. Job complete? Not if you haven't thought about your visitors.

We've all heard "content is king" and about the importance of search engine optimization but what some people don't realize is that your visitor, or traffic, is actually king. Content is Queen for sure and SEO is the redheaded step-child that is constantly changing, evolving and annoying us. They should all work hand-in-hand for the benefit of the kingdom, your web site or blog.

The importance of the experience your visitors have on your site is often overlooked. With so much emphasis on search engine optimization, it's easy to forget that it's people that visit your site, bookmark it, Digg it and recommend it to their friends and family. It's your visitors that return to your site and make you money. Sure, the search engines send those people to you but if they don't want to stay, return, bookmark or recommend your site to a friend it's kind of meaningless. Those visitors are like a mother-in-law that only finds fault in how you keep your house and raise your children. Sometimes mother-in-laws are right. It's best to optimise your site for your visitors as well as the search engines. Make your visitors comfortable, clean the house before they come and make it a pleasant stay. They'll want to come back.

When people say "traffic" or "heavy traffic" in the non-cyber world it's usually considered an annoyance or hindrance and has a negative connotation. It's a bad thing. In the cyber world, heavy traffic is a good thing, something you look forward to, something you invite with open arms. But when you consider the people visiting your website "traffic" it becomes very impersonal. That's why I have always preferred to refer to the people that visit my sites as visitors, not traffic. It's more personal and keeps me on track where it concerns my site's friendliness to my visitors. It never lets me forget to optimize my site for my visitors.

In the cyber world, being hospitable to your visitors means quality content, quality link structure, continuity and eye appeal. We've all seen ad riddled web sites, sites that are disorganized and sites with poor link structure. The kind of sites that get you clicking the back button in your browser before the page even finishes loading the second image. When that happens did that site receive traffic? Yes, but the way I look at it, it didn't receive a visitor.

Page Structure

Your page's structure, how the page is laid out, is very important. I have always preferred an image or text title in the header, a side bar for links on the left hand side of the page, content in the center and site navigation repeated in the footer for convenience. Maybe it's because that's how web pages were generally structured years ago and I got used to it, I don't know, but it's the way I prefer to read a web page. It's a structure I'm comfortable with and I immediately know, without much or any thought, how to navigate the site. It's like reading a book. First you look down the page and then from left to right. Most visitors will do the same. Title, navigation and then content. It's a winning page layout in my opinion.

Navigation on the right side seem awkward to me and too much linkage in the header just pushes the content, the meat of the page, down.

Link Structure

This can be a determining factor when deciding whether or not I like a site. Link structure allows your visitor to become comfortable while navigating your site. I can't tell you how many times I've left a site because navigating it was either difficult or annoying. Along with layout it's the skeleton of your web site and what keeps it from collapsing. It's your site's foundation and getting it right the first time can save you headaches later on.

A simple example of bad link structure would be no link back to the homepage or a link back to the homepage that's not easily located. I've always made the link back to my index page the first link in my site navigation and it should be repeated on every page of your site. You should be able to navigate to any page on you site from any other page. It's a good, basic rule that works well.

Continuity

Your site's link structure, page structure and look (theme) should also have good continuity. I think that is why it has become so popular. Besides allowing webmasters to make changes easily and saving them time, it also makes changes to site navigation and structure easier to implement site-wide, eliminating most, if not all continuity mistakes.

In closing I just want to say that search engine optimization is very important so that you get visitors but optimizing your site for your visitors will get them to return and refer your site. Free visitors, does any webmaster have a problem with that? I don't think so.

Good luck to you all!

About The Author
By - Cathie Streck Please be sure to visit Anfe - Articles and News For Entrepreneurs at http://moneymymoney.blogspot.com/ for articles and news on search engine optimization, affiliate programs, home based business, AdSense, AdWords, eBay and much more. Feel free to re-publish this article as long as the "About The Author" information is included and the links work. Thank you.

Promote Your Site Every Day

2007-06-04T13:23:00.000-07:00

By - Steve Nash

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You want traffic at your site, but with so many new websites added every day it isn't easy. The only solution is to promote your site, each and every day...

Here are 7 promotion methods for you to try, one for each day of the week:

Day 1 - Submit Your Site To A Search Engine
No big surprises with this promotion method. Just submit your site to a new search engine, or blast your website address to hundreds of directories and Free For All (FFA) sites. (Take care with your e-mail address with the FFA sites!) Try to keep a log of just when and where you submit your site.

Link: http://jimtools.com/submit.html

Day 2 - Post A Newsgroup Discussion
There are newsgroups, bulletin boards or forums on just about every subject imaginable. A good place to start is http://www.deja.com/usenet which allows you to search all of the Usenet newsgroups for a particular term or phrase.

Post a message online, via Deja.com, or offline using Outlook Express (or similar). Follow the forum or newsgroup guidelines, when you start a discussion or answer someone's query. It *is* okay to mention your website in a 2-line signature, though.

Day 3 - Swap Links With Other Sites
Links make the World Wide Web go around; they also improve your search-engine ranking! One way of achieving lots of links to your site is to swap links with other sites. There is an excellent article on link-swapping at http://www.bannertips.com/howto.shtml but basically:

Identify sites with similar content to yours
Request a reciprocal link (be polite, and use webmaster's name)
Create a "Links" section on your site and put the links there.
Day 4 - Write A Testimonial
Writing favourable comments, testimonials, about another website could make you an instant online friend (we all respond well to flattery after all!). This could lead to a link-swap or even a possible joint venture (see Day 6).

Just review their website (or product), and write about the benefits you gain from the site in specific terms (so it sounds like you're actually talking about *their* site). Just be honest and tell them what you like.

Day 5 - Be An Expert, Have An Opinion
Believe it or not people are interested in what you have to say! Several websites are even willing to pay you for your opinion! And we all have an opinion, don't we! Remember, it's good to talk (especially if your listeners then visit your website!).

If you *really know your stuff*, you can become an 'expert' at several sites. You may have to write articles on your subject of expertise, or just answer questions from site-visitors. Either way *you* gain more exposure, and your site gains more exposure too.

Opinion site: http://www.epinions.com
Expert site: http://www.askanexpert.com/

Day 6 - Start A Joint Venture
A joint venture can be as simple as joining an affiliate program. But basically you sponsor another's product and take a share in the profits. Joint ventures can also improve 'site-stickiness'.

You need to:
CONTACT webmasters who market similar products/services and ask them if they would be interested in offering yours. Share the profits, and it's a win-win situation.
PROMOTE another webmasters' product or service (something you believe in) to your subscribers or customers.
Day 7 - Follow Up!
No new websites to visit here. No new methods of promotion. Just an opportunity to measure the success (or otherwise) of the previous 6-days' efforts. This is a time to follow-up and perhaps plan for the next 6-days.

And If All Goes Well...
If all goes well then just take a break, but if you're really keen, however, you *could* take a look at some of these other promotion methods too:

Encourage visitors to bookmark your site
Join a banner-exchange program
Write a press release
Run a competition
Create great content, and allow others to use it
Create an online community
Good luck!

About The Author
This article is a summary; the full-length article(s) can be viewed online at http://www.shoptour.co.uk/promote_your_site/ Steve Nash is webmaster of Shop Tour UK: "A unique, fun way tobrowse over 900 secure UK shopping sites" http://shoptour.co.uk

eBay About Me Page

2007-06-04T13:02:00.000-07:00

By - John W. Howe

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If you are going to sell on eBay, you should take advantage of the About Me page. This is a webpage that eBay will let you set up to tell your customers about yourself. It also can be used to drive traffic to your website from eBay.

The About Me page on eBay is a very powerful tool for improving your auction traffic and for taking advantage of the tremendous traffic that looks at eBay auctions everyday. One of the best features of the About Me page - it is free. You can use it as a giant billboard on the Internet to direct traffic to your site or you can include a sign up form for your newsletter or mailing list.

My friend and mentor, Jim Cockrum, developed the concept of using eBay for more than an auction site. In his bestselling ebook, The Silent Sales Machine Hiding on eBay, Jim discusses in detail how to perfect the use of the About Me page. The fact that he has developed a mailing list of over 100,000 names is proof that using the About Me page correctly really works.

The easiest way to set up an about me page is to sign on to your eBay account and click the HELP link at the top of the page. This will open the Search Help page. Enter "About Me Page" in the search box and click the "Search Help" button. This will present a page with the information that you should read about the About Me page.

Read the About Me Guidelines so you know the rules. eBay does have rules about how to use it and you must be careful not to violate those rules. If you do not play by eBay rules, eBay justice is swift and absolute.

When you have finished the rules and registrations, click on the About Me Page - Overview. This will open a page with additional information about the About Me page and finally at the bottom of that page will be a link, "Go to the Create About Me Page". Click that link and the "Edit About Me Page" will open. Click "Edit Your Page". The next page will give you the option of using the eBay Step by Step Process or loading your own HTML. If you do not know HTML, use the eBay process.

To get the most out of the About Me page, you need to use the HTML features. To add audio or video (yes, you can do that) you will need to load your own HTML. You can also have a data collection form on the About Me page to get people to sign up for a mailing list.

When you have set up the About Me page, a small blue and red icon "ME" will appear to the right of your eBay name at the top of each auction. When the visitor clicks on this link, they will be taken to you About Me Page.

For an example of what can be done on an eBay About Me page, you can view our "About Me" page at http://members.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=e--boomer. It has audio so turn on your speakers (or turn them off as wish).

In summary, the eBay About Me page is a very powerful (free) tool that you can use to drive traffic to your website or to sign up visitors on your mailing list. Be sure to take advantage of it to build your Internet business.

Copyright 2006 John Howe, Inc.

About The Author
John V. W. Howe is an entrepreneur, author, inventor, patent holder, husband, father, and grandfather. He has been involved in entrepreneurial activities for over 40 years. He founded www.boomer-ezine.com and www.retirement-jobs-online.com to help Boomers (baby boomers) become entrepreneurs when they retire.

Google Adsense Tips - What, How, Who, Why, When and Where!

2007-06-03T13:19:00.000-07:00

By - Kanaga Siva

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The Amazing Google Adsense Program is today towering like a Colossus in the Internet. Given below are the Asense Tips, What, How, Who, Why, When and Where of Google Adsense in a nut shell.

It has helped some smart Internet Marketers to make huge amounts of money, while at the same time it is interesting to note that many new Internet Marketers and Internet Home-Based Business Entrepreneurs are receiving their first pay check from Google Adsense rather than the main affiliate program.

Given below are the Asense Tips, What, How, Who, Why, When and Where of Google Adsense in a nut shell.

Adsense Tip: What is Google Adsense:

Google Adsense is a program designed by Google that can generate advertising revenue for your website. Relevant Text and Image ads. targeted to your website content are delivered by Google. Additionally if you place a Google Search Box in your website, relevant text ads. are displayed when a search request is made by a website visitor. Google will pay you for all valid clicks. made by your website visitors on the ads. or search results pages. Another new addition is the Google Adsense Referrals Feature , whereby you can generate additional income by displaying Google’s Referral Buttons on your web pages.

Adsense Tip: How to get started with Google Adsense:

You have to apply to Google Adsense by completing an online application form at https://www.google.com/adsense. Once the application is approved, you will be able to participate. You then have to copy and paste a HTML code that is provided by Google Adsense into your web pages. The code creates relevant ads. to the content of the page. When a visitor clicks on it Google pays you.

Adsense Tip: Who can participate in Google Adsense:

Anyone who has a website can join the Adsense program but not adult and hate sites. You have to comply with Google's program policies. It is Free to join. Google has a massive advertiser base and they have ads. on the ready for all categories of businesses. They also have ads. ready to match different types of content sites, from a pet store site to that of a highly sophisticated technological site.
Google Adsense can be used in many languages. It is also targeted geographically and hence Global business can take advantage of this and webmasters living in any part of the world can participate.

Adsense Tip: Why Participate in Google Adsense:

The obvious answer is to make money from home. It does not cost you anything if you have a website, so why miss the opportunity to make money from home! Google pays you monthly if your earnings reach $100.The Google Adsense checks are a blessing to a large number of newbies with low budgets eager to make money from home. Some webmasters feel that Adsense ads. can lead their visitors away from their site. This possibility is there but if you have a website with good content they will always come back.

Adsense Tip: When to Participate in Google Adsense:

The Adsense program is Web related and hence you must have a website to participate. Once your website is ready and the contents optimized, you can submit your application. The Adsense program is not restricted only to high page rank sites as some seem to think.
Google approves most of the sites but ensures that they are of acceptable standard. Normally they are approved within 2-3 days. Once approved you can immediately participate in the Adsense program by logging into your account.

Adsense Tip: Where to place Google Adsense ads. in your Website.

The Adsense ads. can be placed anywhere in your web pages, but there are specific areas in your web pages that are recommended by Google which have been found to generate more clicks.
According to Google and our own experience:

Ads placed above the fold tend to perform better than those below the fold.

Ads placed near rich content and navigational aids usually do well because users are focused on those areas of a page.

Ads placed at the top of the page and at the left generally perform better than others.

Ads at the bottom of long articles and those that are integrated or merge with the content too perform very well.

Of course there are other strategies, such as creating high paying keyword content pages to suit individual sites and also generating more traffic to your site. These have to be implemented too, to ensure success.

The Google Adsense Program has come to stay. It is a great way to earn an additional income for most webmasters and a big income for some who have made the Adsense Program as the main source of income. Which ever way you look at it the Adsense Program is a happy hunting ground for all and these Adsense Tips can help you get started.

Copyright © 2006 Kanaga Siva

About The Author
Kanaga Siva has a wealth of experience in Manufacturing, Marketing and also operating a successful Home-Based Business.For quality Articles,Ideas,Advice and recommended Affiliate Programs, visit his Business From Home website http://www.business-fromhome.com/

Google Adwords - Manipulating Keywords For Success

2007-06-03T12:46:00.000-07:00

By - Halstatt Pires

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As you probably know, Google Adwords is a pay-per-click solution offered by Google. As with other PPCs, you are given the ability to place your small advertisement on various platforms controlled by Google. While the platform provides you with a large audience, you must manipulate your keywords to generate success.

Matching Options

When running an Adwords campaign, you can and should define when your keywords will appear in search results. To do this, you can select matching options for each of your keywords to either reach a broad audience or target a niche.

The Google Adwords platform allows you to select four matching options:

Broad Match

Broad match is the default setting for an Adwords campaign. Broad match means your ad will appear in search results when any combination of the words in your keyword phrase search. Many an advertiser has learned expensive lessons using this setting. Let’s look at an example.

Assume I am selling travel writing diaries and using “travel journals” as my keyword phrase. Any time a person enters any combination of “travel” and “journals” in a search, my ad will appear. The ad will also appear for plurals and relevant variations. While this may sound great at first glance, a broad match setting can result in low quality hits and poor conversion rates. A person searching for travel journal stories is going to see my link. While a decent percentage will click my link, they are far less likely to buy because they are just browsing. Using broad match, my costs go up and my conversions go down.

Broad match isn’t necessarily a bad option. If your product makes a popular Christmas gift, you definitely want to use the broad match option in November and December. You prospective clients will be motivated to buy. Even the “browsing” surfers will convert well.

Phrase Match

Phrase match is a matching option that gives you a bit more control over your ads. Phrase match tells the Adwords platform to only show your ad when a search is conducted for the particular order of your keyword phrase. Using the phrase match option for “travel journals”, my ad would appear when someone search for a phrase with “travel journals” in it, but not “journals travel”. To use phrase match for keyword phrases, you simply place quotation marks around them.

Exact Match

Exact match is…exact match. It is the most targeted option. You should use it only if you want your ad to appear in searches for the exact keyword phrase as written. For instance, if I want my ad to appear in searches for “travel journals” and nothing else, I will use the exact match. To select the exact match option, simply place brackets (“[]”) around the keyword phrase.

Negative Match

No, the negative match option doesn’t involve cussing, insults or adult sites. Instead, it allows you to designate which keyword phrase search results you do not want your ad to appear in. For example, I may not want my travel journal product to appear in search results for “Amazon travel journals”. I would simply list the keyword phrase with a dash (-) in front of it and my ad will not appear. The negative match option is a tremendous option for eliminating junk traffic from your Adwords campaign.

The Google Adwords platform is a tremendous advertising platform. Effectively manipulate your keywords and it can be a highly profitable one as well.

About The Author
Halstatt Pires is with http://www.marketingtitan.com - a San Diego Internet Marketing Company.

Flipping Houses the Sexy Way to Real Estate Riches

2007-06-02T11:43:00.000-07:00

By - Wilbur Corncob

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It seems to be everywhere, the hype makes you think that flipping houses for profit is as easy as flipping a pancake! At first I couldn't understand all the excitement. Maybe I am just old but it finally dawned on it. Flipping houses isn't new at all. It's just a new name for an old way of making a lot of money in real estate with a LOT of HARD work; fixer uppers.

That's right fixer uppers. Now, that does sound like a lot of work. Who would want to sell you an ebook explaining how to make a lot of money in real estate that involves a lot of hard work? It's better to call it something spiffy and new so the ebook and course profits are increased; without any hard work!

Now comes the question.. what exactly is wrong with flipping houses or buying fixer uppers and fixing them up and selling them? The answer is of course absolutely nothing and it might be the best way to the best profits in real estate.

You need to know what you are getting into though. If you are already making mega bucks with fixer uppers, oops, I mean house flipping, you probably aren't searching the Internet for information. If you're looking to get started you probably ended up here and with a half dozen courses and ebooks purchased.

Now your at the difficult part. Actually doing it. If you were just investing in a simple rental property it would be easy. Buy the property, rent the property, possible resell the property. When you purchase the property you just have to decide on its value once, the rental price (possibly easy if its already rented), and determine if it is easily rented for your desired price.

For the flipper you'll need to decide on some prices. Actually "guess" might be a better word until you have some considerable experience. First you have to decide on the price you'll purchase the house it, then and more importantly you'll have to guess what price you'll be able to sell it at once fixed, and you'll have to guess at what the repairs will actually cost (and how long they will actually take). Guess wrong on any of these 3 prices (or what the repairs will actually involve) and your easy profits with no work may just be dreams digging a hole in your wallet.

Chances are you won't have the benefit of any cash flow from rental income until your fixer upper has been fixed up! If you misjudge the repairs or how long your contractor will take to finish the project you could be paying the mortgage out of your pocket.

Of course your always told to just go after the properties that need minimal work like one coat of paint and the lawn mowed. Good advice. You might ask why the person offering the property dosen't do that work. There are many possibilities and one might be that for some other reason the property is a dog.

Now, of course I've seen the formulas. For example you can purchase a beat up little house for $140,000 or us. It will cost you another $20,000 to have it fixed up to be the spiffiest little house on the block (OK, make that $40,000 cause your contractor forget a few details). Now the more important part of the formula is that this house is not ready to be sold for $349,000 or so. That means after a month of two of fighting with your contractor you can sell your $180,000 house for $349,000 and pocket a cool $169,000.

Who wouldn't be first in line for that? I suspect there are only two problems with this formula. Remember above I talked about guessing. Well, I guess that a house that needs $20,000 in work to be worth $349,000 will be offered on the market at something like, well, you guessed it $349,000 not $150,000.

The second problem is how we guessed this house should be worth $349,000 in good condition. In my neighborhood there are over 500 condos for sale. One web page lists 494 of them! Some of these are brand new and some are older buildings (some much older). Now this should present some excellent condo flipping opportunities. A little paint, new bathroom or kitchen fixtures and a cheap condo is ready for a millionaire!

The problem with the idea of flipping condos in my neighborhood is that a new building is going up on almost every street corner. Many of the old condos have asking prices as high or higher than a brand new condo. Now, I buy an old beat up one, fix it up, and when I'm ready to sell it I have to compete again brand new condos!

That is a sales job I don't want. Every purchaser will ask the same question, I can buy a new condo for the same price.. why do I want your old one (fixed up or not)?

For now, I think I'll stick to flipping hamburgers

About The Author
By Wilbur Corncob. For plenty of domestic and international real estate opportunities check out: realestate.classifieds1000.com. For the latest real estate news. Copyright (c) 2007 GLR Sales LLC. Permission is granted to reprint this article in whole or in part provided that links to realestate.classifieds1000.com are included as standard links.

Writing Effective eBay Auction Listings

2007-06-02T11:16:00.000-07:00

By - Gary Hendrickson

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Once you've created the best possible title for your item, you will move on to writing your auction description. Here, you have more space to give a detailed description of the item you are selling in the body of your auction. While the photo and title are what get a person interested in your auction and bringing them to your listing, it's your description that is going to have to induce them to actually bid on it.

Free eBay Seller's GuideThe sole purpose of your description is to get people to place a bid by presenting them with an honest and factual description of what you are selling.

It has been shown that the chances are high that if a person doesn't place a bid the first time they view your auction, they won't come back and place one later. Furthermore, if you can get someone to bid on your auction early, this in itself will attract more possible buyers to your auction. There is an inherent curiosity when searching listings to see why someone has bid on a particular item, so auctions that already have bids stand out from those that don't. This brings even more potential bidders to your auctions.

When writing your auction description, you want to list every attribute that will make it sound as appealing as possible. However, you must also be careful to be as accurate as possible in your description. Details are extremely important.

The more detailed you can be about what you are selling, the better. Potential bidders want to know as much as possible about something before placing a bid on it.

Even things that may seem obvious should be included. Take a few minutes and ask yourself if you were considering buying the item you're listing, what details would you want to know about it? Your description should paint a picture of the item in the persons mind. Write your auction description as if your auction didn't have any photos attached to it.

If there is an imperfection or a flaw with the item, be honest and upfront about it. Ask yourself if you were the buyer and the seller left out the imperfection in the description, how would you feel when you received the item? By making your description as accurate as possible, stressing the attributes, but also giving all the details about any imperfections, you will greatly reduce the chance of having problems when the sale is completed. Your honesty will also quickly gain you a reputation for describing your items accurately.

Your descriptions are also another way of attracting buyers to your auctions. While the main way people search eBay is through the search engine that uses the item titles, they can also refine their search to include words or phrases found in auction descriptions. By writing a thorough longer description, you automatically create more words that in return increase the chances of your auction being included in someone's search criteria.

If there is a story that goes along with the item, include it. The buyer just has your photos and descriptions to make an informed decision with. The more flavor, detail and warmth you put into your listing, the more likely the person looking at your auction will be to bid on it.

Free eBay Buyer's GuideUse adjectives freely and play on any unique attributes the item has. Take the time to create a description that will make the buyer feel completely comfortable with placing a bid if it is something that he or she is interested in.

Also be sure that you include all your after auction information in your description. Don't leave potential bidders in the dark concerning the shipping cost. List all shipping options and the cost of each. List the types of payments you accept. Include a definite date by which payment must be received. The clearer your instructions, the more comfortable the bidder will be and the less likely you will run into problems at the end of the transaction.

Naturally all the items you sell are going to be the same. However, there will be portions of your description that can remain the same for virtually every product you sell. Once you have created a description you like and seems to get people to bid, save it and make it your template for auctions.

Then simply change words and add extra information where needed. This will not only guarantee that each of your auctions will have a quality description, it will also allow you to list more auctions since you won't have to write a completely new description for every auction you list.

About The Author
Gary Hendrickson has been making his living selling on eBay for more than six years. He's the author of two eBay related ebooks, has a The Auction Rebel Blog for eBay sellers, and is the owner of ColdItems.Com.

How To Maximize Your Profit Promoting Affiliate Programs

2007-06-01T09:48:00.000-07:00

By - Ken Hill

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Promoting affiliate programs can provide you with a good extra income or even a full time income online.

To help you maximize your profit promoting affiliate programs, I've provided the following tips to help you successfully market your affiliate programs more effectively to your site's visitors.

1. Publish an e-zine.

Running an e-zine will allow you to run prime position ads for your affiliate programs in every issue you publish, and is the #1 way for you to follow up with your site's visitors.

You can also easily increase your commissions by sending out special announcements to your subscriber base whenever one of the affiliate programs you promote is offering a special bonus or a special limited time offer.

Once you build up your circulation you can further increase your profits by charging for ad space in your publication.

2. Use a pop up on your site that promotes your e-zine.

Using a pop up as a well as a subscription e-mail or form on your site can substantially increase the number of your visitors that subscribe to your publication.

Your pop up will draw your visitors' attention right to your e-zine, and if you offer your visitors free bonuses for subscribing to your e-zine such as free ebooks or free ads you can further increase the number of visitors who subscribe to your publication.

3. Offer free e-mail workshops (e-mail courses) to your visitors.

Making e-mail workshops will enable you to effectively promote one or several affiliate programs that offer products that relate to the subject of your workshop.

Many affiliate programs provide their affiliates with articles to post on their sites or run in their e-zines which you can use to successfully form the different parts of your workshop.

If you already write articles, you can easily use your own articles to form the different parts of your workshop and transform your articles into yet another powerful marketing tool.

To get the most out of your e-mail workshops, offer your workshops both on your site and by using a pop up, and use your workshops to increase subscriptions to your e-zine as well as repeat visitors your website.

4. Publish your articles on your site.

Posting your articles on your site is a great way to continually add content to your site and draw more repeat visitors.

To successfully use your articles to promote affiliate programs offer a free e-mail workshop in your resource box or use your resource box to promote your e-zine.

This will provide you with an effective way to successfully follow up with your prospects when your articles get published as well as when your visitors read your articles.

5. Offer free ebooks on your site.

Many affiliate programs provide their affiliates with ebooks they can rebrand with their unique affiliate URL and these can be used as an effective marketing tool.

The best way to promote your affiliate programs with ebooks, however, is to make your own ebooks.

If you write your own articles, you can create a unique promotional item by making an ebook compilation of your articles with links to affiliate programs you promote.

You can also create a best of compilation of your e-zine's top issues to drive more subscriptions to your publication or if you make e-mail workshops you can transform these into your ebooks content.

To further increase your profits, offer your ebooks as a free bonus or part of a free bonus for subscribing to your e-zine, and/or allow your visitors to rebrand your ebook with a link to their own business, affiliate program or opportunity.

About the Author
Article © 2002 by writer, Ken Hill. Discover proven strategies to generating more profit promoting affiliate programs. Get your FREE 10 Part Guide To Success With Affiliate Programs marketing course now at mailto:affiliatecourse@zipresponse.com

Organize Your Adwords Account to Get More Visitors, Lower Your Cost Per Click and Increase ROI

2007-06-01T09:17:00.000-07:00

By - Robert Walter

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This article features techniques that increase your traffic, visibility, CTR, and ROI while lowering your cost per visitor.

Keeping your Adwords account organized is very important. It can make it easy for you to find your Adgroups, keywords and your ads. This can help you save time whenever you need to adjust your bids, ads, or keywords. Being organized can also help you achieve a higher clickthrough rate (CTR) which means getting the searcher clicking on your ad and becoming a prospect.

Organize your account by starting with a campaign name relevant to your product or service. If you were selling inkjet cartridges you could use that as the campaign name or the name of your website as the campaign name.

Set up your ad groups so that they are themed. If you were advertising inkjet cartridges and one of the products you are selling is canon inkjet cartridges you could create an adgroup titled “Canon Inkjet Cartridges” and then place relevant keywords in this group.

Ad Group Name: Canon Inkjet Cartridges
Keywords: canon inkjet cartridges, canon ink, canon cartridges, canon inkjet cartridges online

Two reasons for keeping your adgroups organized and themed like this are it is easy to find and adjust the keywords as necessary. It is easy to to put the keyword in the title and body of your ad.

It is important to put the keyword in the title and ad because you will achieve a much higher click through rate (CTR)

Canon Inkjet Cartridges
For huge savings on Canon inkjet
cartridges visit us.
http://yoursite.com

If you used the above ad with the keywords in the example your ad would be relevant to the searchers and the keywords in the ad would appear bold to the searchers catching their eye.

For Example, The searcher types in the search term "canon inkjet cartridges". This is how the ad above would be displayed.

Canon Inkjet Cartridges
For huge savings on Canon inkjet
cartridges visit us.
http://yoursite.com

Let's recap what you just learned. The bold text catches the eye of the searcher. The keyword is relevant to what they are looking for thus increasing the chances of you getting the visitor to your website instead of your competitor getting the visitor.

One thing you need to be careful of however is using a trademarked word in your title, description, or as a keyword. Some companies allow you to do this while other companies don't. When in doubt either don't use the trademarked term or contact the company and ask them for permission.

One other advantage of having themed adgroups is that Google rewards relevancy. This can improve your quality score and actually reduce the cost that you pay for the click. Your Ad’s position will improve. You will get a lower cost per customer acquisition (CPA), a higher clickthrough rate (CTR), more profit and a higher return of investment (ROI).

About The Author
Robert Walter has been marketing online for 5 years. He has successfully marketed products in competitive and niche markets. Find out how you can master Google Adwords http://hot-product-reviews.com

Blogging for SEO

2007-05-31T19:06:00.000-07:00

By - Paul Bliss

<)))

Using frequent posts to drive the search engines to your site.

It's no secret that blogs are great for helping to boost your seo rankings. You can use a blog to get a new site ranked quickly and ahead of your main site if you are dedicated to posting on a frequent basis.

While the main goal of your blog may be to express your thoughts, talk back to your customers or as a vehicle to promote your product or services, there is another critical element to blogging.

Search Engine Optimization & Marketing.

Because of the frequency of active blogs (daily - or at least 5 times a week) the search engines have put high weight on blogs that are focused and tend to stay on topic.

It's the freshness of content (in a perfect world) that a search engine is craving and rewarding to the blogs. The ideal situation is that the blog would provide for tiny snippets of information that over time build up to a greater whole. (Almost like a blook)

But the most overloooked element of a blog is that once you've established a frequent pattern of posting and you have the Googlebot coming to your site every few days, you can then use that to link to other sites, sub-domains or any deep links that you need to get crawled. While most blog postings may not have direct links to any sites in particular, you could always format your blog with some permanent links on the side.

Another mistake made by the amatuer blogger is that they don't realize that you can optimize your blog. True, most blogs only have a few areas, namely the "home" page and the "archive" page. But depending on the tool being used to post the blog, there are some places where you can take advantage seo-wise.

The title of your blog should be thought of as a headline - grab the reader's attention - but also be sure that your blog title is also what gets archived - that way your titles can become search queries as well.

While the main objective of a blog should be to get your message out, don't forget to take a little time for SEO and you should see your efforts payoff in the search engine results pages.

-To your online success!

About The Author
Paul Bliss
www.SEOforGoogle.com

Deep Linking Strategy for Content Sites

2007-05-30T17:07:00.000-07:00

By - Jack Humphrey
<)))

Linking - what a mess if you don't know what's going on. Either linking is "IN" or it's "OUT" according to what you read these days.

Here's the good news: Linking Works.

Here's the bad news: HOW It Works Has Changed!

The good thing is you are going to pick up a linking tip today that will put you light years ahead of most webmasters who think a reciprocal link directory is all you need to gain link popularity in Google and traffic from other sites.

Link directories are still ok, but the key is moderation. Directories with thousands of links are a dark ages website promotion tactic.

Today there are many people focusing on content again, thank god. And that means you have a lot more real estate than just a home page and a link directory to work with.

People have written to me to completely disagree with me on what I am about to show you, but believe the expert, it works!

Say you have 500 pages of article and resource content on your site. If you are publishing articles on several categories you could have many more pages than that.

But even if you only have a 30 page site right now, it should be growing all the time and will be large eventually. (If not, forget about Google staying excited about your site if it never changes.)

Each of those articles and resource pages is a link to your site waiting to happen.

There are two ways to get links to your site here:

Ask for a link to your main page in exchange for a link on one of your relevant article pages to the site you are requesting an exchange with.
Deep Linking: Ask for a link right back to the specific page on your site you are going to link to them on. Again, find relevant pages of content to the sites you are going after. People respond well to this, especially if you say you are limiting your outgoing links to "further resources" to 5 per page. (The number is up to you.)

What does this do for your site?

1. It gets webmasters WAY more excited about linking with you because you are putting them ON your site, not in some cobweb-ridden part of your site that no one ever visits.
2. It lets other site owners know you have ACTUALLY taken the time to review their site enough to know where they would best fit on your site according to the topic of the page you want to link to them on. Again - this is a way different message to them than the "Let's swap links" letter we all trash these days.
3. You start building link popularity and traffic direct to pages within your site other than your index. (If you choose to direct swap with them.)
4. It gives you leverage to ask for a better link from other sites than just being thrown in their link dump (link directory) where, again, far fewer people ever visit. You command the power to ask for a similar link of importance from the pages their visitors actually see. Win-Win
5. You increase the value of your links page because you are not loading it down with any and every person who will link with you. You can go back to old school linking to sites that you HONESTLY do recommend and that list can be far smaller and really fit on 1-2 pages. All the sudden you have traffic to your links page again and can truly reward webmasters who are on it with some traffic.
6. The links you get this way are going to be some of the first links you have probably ever gotten that actually send you significant traffic. The same goes for your link partners.

"But Jack, I don't want to send traffic away from my site!" Yes you do, in fact. Because you are asking your link partners to do the same. Links like this are just as profitable in the long run as Google Adsense ads because you are finally engaging in a real traffic exchange and leveraging your eproperty for what it's really worth. Trust me - this works. Send some traffic out and see what happens to your referrer stats.

Never give more than you get. Many people won't understand this form of linking for another year or so. They will try to shove your link in a dark hole on their site. Don't let them do it!

If someone doesn't understand the power of deep linking from their content pages, send them this article as a last ditch effort and tell them Jack said so. Otherwise, move on, take their link down, and find someone smart enough to see where linking is headed.

Overall, you are going to find it is much easier to get links this way, even from sites bigger than yours. Telling people "I want to link to you as a recommended resource on (name of article) page..." tells them that you are a pro and not some schmuck who has a linking program that spits out cookie cutter emails.

Too much work? Hire someone and pay them per link they secure in your name. Write the letter and have them fill in the blanks for specific sites. Teach them how to go through your site, learn the content, and go out and find RELEVANT recommended resources for each page.

You'd be surprised to find out how cheaply you can get good work done these days on Elance.com and other "for hire" sites.

Sit back and watch your incoming QUALITY links soar from month to month!

About The Author
Jack Humphrey is the author of Power Linking 2: Evolution at http://power-linking-profits.com> and marketing consultant for http://webfoxmedia.com.

4 Ways to Get Your Prospect's Attention Fast

2007-05-30T17:02:00.000-07:00

By - Bob Leduc
<)))

Can you remember the last dozen advertising messages beamed at you today? Can you remember even one of them? Most people can't.

This illustrates the biggest obstacle you need to overcome to successfully promote YOUR product or service. You must capture your prospect's attention in the first few seconds or your sales message will be ignored. This is especially important on the Internet where a visitor can simply click away from your website -- forever.

Here are 4 proven techniques you can use to quickly capture a prospect's attention. They apply to all media including the Internet.

1. MAKE A DRAMATIC STATEMENT
Did you ever write a headline for an ad, web page or other sales message? You probably used a dramatic statement. It’s the most obvious way to get someone’s attention. For example:

"Lose 8 Pounds In The Next 2 Weeks Without Dieting"
"My Doctor Uses These Nutritional Products"
"Double Your Sales And Reduce Your Advertising Expenses
TIP: Your dramatic statement will be most effective when it describes a major benefit for your prospect.

2. SURPRISE THEM WITH SOMETHING UNEXPECTED
Unexpected surprises always attract attention. It’s often negative attention caused by something going wrong. But you can also use an unexpected surprise to attract positive attention. It happened to me last week.

The office supply company I use sent me a letter announcing an automatic $50 deduction off my total bill for this month. I immediately placed an order for items I wasn’t planning to buy for another month or two. I even stocked up on several items I normally buy elsewhere. Their unexpected surprise got my attention and generated a large order during a month I hadn’t planned to order anything.

3. ASK A PROVOCATIVE QUESTION
I once saw a direct mail letter that began with the question, "If you’re such a smart executive why aren’t you making a six figure income?" Not many executives could resist reading that letter, especially if they weren’t making a six figure income.

Provocative questions startle your prospects and compel them to find out more. Here are 2 more examples of provocative questions:

"Why are you paying so much for your health insurance?"
"Do you really expect to get rich working for somebody else?"
4. GET PERSONAL
Personalization also attracts immediate attention. Your personalization can be individualized or group oriented.

Use INDIVIDUALIZED PERSONALIZATION when you’re communicating directly with one person by email, postal mail, telephone, etc. Use your prospect’s name. It’s the number one attention grabber. Merge it into the subject line and the opening line of your email message. Do the same in your postal mail. Include other personal information you know about them. But be careful not to overdo it.

You can personalize with a name when you’re communicating directly with one prospect. But how can you get personal with a prospect visiting your web site, reading your ad or listening to your radio commercial?

Use GROUP ORIENTED PERSONALIZATION when you’re NOT communicating directly with one person. You can get personal by referring to known characteristics of prospects in your targeted market. For example, use phrases like:

"When you started your business..." for business owners.
"Your favorite NFL team..." for sports fans.
"Every mother knows..." for women with children.
Group Oriented Personalization isn’t as effective as using a person’s name. But it still attracts attention because your prospect can react with, "that’s me".

Take some time today to plan how you can use these four proven techniques to attract more attention to your sales messages. The results will probably surprise you. So will the increase in your sales and profits.

About The Author
Bob Leduc retired from a 30 year career of recruiting sales personnel and developing sales leads. He is now a Sales Consultant. Bob recently wrote a manual for small business owners titled "How to Build Your Small Business Fast With Simple Postcards" and several other publications to help small businesses grow and prosper. For more information... Email: BobLeduc@aol.com Subject: "Postcards". Phone: (702) 658-1707 (After 10 AM Pacific time) Or write: Bob Leduc, PO Box 33628, Las Vegas, NV 89133

Evaluating Affiliate Programs

2007-05-30T16:58:00.000-07:00

By - Sarah Coles
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Affiliate programs, also called partner or associate programs, have become one of the most popular ways to earn money with a website. Participants earn money by receiving commission for clicks, leads, and/or sales generated through a website. But, some affiliate programs are more rewarding than others. Knowing what to look for is the first step in choosing which affiliate programs will be most effective.Commission and Earnings per Click (EPC)

The commission an affiliate program pays can help you choose between similar affiliate programs, but it is not always the most effective measure of how the affiliate program will perform. Some affiliate programs get a lot of clicks, but very few sales. You may make more income from companies that pay a lower commission, but are easier to sell. The Earnings per Click (EPC) is the average earnings per 100 clicks and is often a better measure of how much success you will have with different affiliate programs. Many affiliate tracking programs provide the average EPC?s for their participating companies.

Third-Party Tracking
Although most companies with affiliate programs are honorable and will not try to stiff you on your commissions, it is generally a good idea to choose affiliate programs where sales and clicks are tracked by an unbiased third-party. Companies that specialize in tracking commissions normally have much more reliable systems and have no incentive to miss-track your sales.

Website Reporting
If you have a website, you most likely have some sort of program that tracks the traffic to your site, but most site statistics scripts cannot track affiliate links. In order to fine-tune your site to generate the most income, choose affiliate programs that provide free software for tracking which banners or text links are getting the most traffic.

Minimum Check Requirements
Minimum check requirements are the amount of commission that you must be owed before they will send you a check. Ideally, this should be in the $25-$50 range. Much smaller and you could end up cashing dozens of $2 and $3 checks, much higher and it could be quite a while before you receive a check.

Repeat Business and Deferred Sales
Often visitors will click on an affiliate link but not purchase a product during that visit or will return later to make additional purchases. Some affiliate programs will not pay commission even though the customers were referred through your site. When possible, choose affiliate programs that will pay you for repeat business and deferred sales

About The Author
Sarah Coles is a Web Developer at Jumpline.com Web Hosting

A Home Based Business Modeled After Google

2007-05-30T16:44:00.000-07:00

By - Gobala Krishnan
<)))

Probably the most exciting company to not only survive, but come out strong out of the dot-com crash of the late 90's is Google Inc (http://www.google.com). Having started out small as a company operated in the garage of a friend and employing a staff of three, Google's meteoric rise to a top name on the Internet is not really that perplexing when we analyze the core strengths and policies of this company.

I am a super-fan of Google. I am also a fan of studying success so that I can learn from it. Here are a few key points that you, as a home based business entrepreneur, can learn from Google:

1) Capital Isn't EverythingIt may be hard for the newcomer to the home based business scene to swallow this fact. After all, more capital investment would mean more money to spend on advertising and building a home business. Its tempting to think how your business would be right now if you had, say $100,000 to start with, instead of the meager $1000 you scrambled to get from selling things around your home.

But here's one thing more important than capital - ingenuity. Ingenuity involves making the best of the resources available to you, making every advertising dollar count, and treating every customer or prospect invaluable to your business.

Capital in the wrong hands, in the hands of an inexperienced entrepreneur or marketer, is just a waste of money. Ingenuity, on the other hand, can turn a $1000 capital into a thriving business. And yes, when you get the ingenuity part right, then whatever extra capital you get would be worth so much more.

2) Differentiate and Win - Think Outside the Box
Innovation, ability to think outside the box and a willingness to test ideas and make mistakes is the trademark of any truly successful company, especially in Google's case. Recently when Google's Gmail (http://www.gmail.com) was launched, many ISPs and email providers were scrambling to offer more space to their free email accounts, simply because Google offered 1G of space. What they didn't get, however, was that Gmail was more that just about space.

So how did Google differentiate? They turned what would otherwise been just another email service into something much more. It is, as any user would be able to testify, the best way to store, organize and find information contained in emails. Keeping track of business responses and follow-ups is a breeze with Gmail. Try it yourself if you cannot believe that statement.

Many home based business entrepreneurs, especially the ones involved in network marketing, shiver at the word "saturated". In a network marketing environment it may dawn upon every person, at one point or another, that there are many others with products and opportunities that are similar to theirs, and the products that they are expected to sell may be in the highly competitive industries. I felt that way once too, but here's the real question - what can you offer?

Not too long ago a friend of mine, after completing her course on cosmetics, offered free facials and beauty consulting to promote cosmetic products sold by her network marketing company. By doing things most people were not doing at that time, she simple blew the competition away.

So what can you contribute to your home based business to make it different, to make it stand out from the crowd?

3) Give Your Customers Exactly What They Want
The success of Google's AdWords (http://adwords.google.com) and AdSense (http://adsense.google.com) is due to this simple fact - they gave advertisers exactly what they wanted. Marketers wanted a quick, results based, and dynamic advertising tool, and they got Adwords. Website owners wanted more advertising revenue, but did not want the hassle of maintaining it over the hundreds of pages that they have, and they got Adsense.

Its a pretty simple strategy - understand what your customers want and give it to them!

My ex-sponsor in my old network marketing company used to say that in order for me to move their nutritional supplements, I had to teach people that supplements can prevent many hazardous illnesses. Prevention is better than cure. But here's what I learned in a few years - the majority of people are looking for cures, not prevention. Most of the people I met in Malaysia are looking for a cure to sleeping disorders, a cure for fatigue, a cure for arthritis, and so on.

Sure, it may be a noble deed to educate people about prevention, but the world does not always work that way. The majority of people look for a home based business only when they get retrenched, when they run out of savings, or when they retire. So why not make your recruitment efforts match this need? Why not develop your niche market based on this category of people?

Instead of teaching them about residual income and the power of duplication which they are not interested in, wouldn't your message be more effective if you taught them how to earn a comfortable retirement income, or how to replace their current income instead?

The point is this - as a home based entrepreneur you must understand your target market's need, and serve them well. You should focus on being the best in providing the cure, not the best in preaching about the prevention. Focus on customer needs, and they will flock to you.

4) Are You Having Fun?
Everything about Google spells fun. But don't get me wrong. They are probably the most innovative company at the moment.

The fact that they can present their complicated technology in such a simple way to end-users is an act that every company can envy. Have you ever heard anyone complain about Google search being too complicated to use? Yet as an Internet marketer I can go crazy trying to understand the complexity behind the simple white page and squiggly logo.

Leave the complexity of a home based or network marketing business behind the scenes. Teach people how to have fun, while achieving goals and building their business. Show them that you are having fun yourself, and they will buy, they will join, or at least tell someone else about you, and your exciting business.

When you're having fun, it will not seem like work at all. Everyone could use a little fun in their lives, don't you think?

5) Focus on Your Core Competency
Yes, this is another phrase that is thrown around in the business world, but how many entrepreneurs actually practice it? As a home based entrepreneur, you may find the need to explore other sources of income. There's nothing wrong in that, but here's the catch - don't go where the money is, especially if it's not related to what you're doing.

Many people tend to find other sources of income that is totally unrelated to their main home business. As a result of that, they become an expert in nothing, and they become the best in nothing. If you make custom furniture at home, why take a job at a fast food chain to make ends meet, when you can explore other ways to make money out of your core competency? Having woodworking workshops, writing a 'how to' book on woodworking, or even a sales job at a furniture outlet can make good sources of additional revenue, while building your name and expertise on your core competency itself.

Starting out as a search engine, Google pretty much maintained their core competency until today. When they explore other sources of revenue or develop new products, you can be pretty sure it's related to search technology. And the undisputed result of that is that there is simply no other better alternative when it comes to search and information retrieval.

Therefore, we have much to learn from the success story of Google. Just as much as the age old story of entrepreneurs who drop out of school, and go on to develop multi-million dollar businesses armed with nothing more than guts and ingenuity, Google's success story is inspirational to say the least.

A tale of humble beginnings with extraordinary endings. Maybe that will someday be the story of your life, and your home based business...

About The Author
Gobala Krishnan is an internet marketer and home business owner. Visit his site at http://www.sfidreamteam.com to start your own Internet based home business today, and get a free kickstart package, one-on-one coaching and a clear, proven system to earn a six figure income.

Create Monthly Cash Flow Without any of Your Own Money or Credit

2007-05-30T15:36:00.000-07:00

By - William Bronchick, Esq.
<)))

A profitable, yet easy-to-learn method of creating cash flow is to buy and re-sell properties in back-to-back closings. However, flipping properties in this manner requires you to KEEP WORKING. When you stop working, the cash flow stops coming in. Rather than flip properties for all cash, flip them for some cash and a promissory note that pays you monthly income with interest for years and years.

The "Wraparound" Transaction

Obviously, you need the cash to buy the property. Most people buy properties using a mortgage loan, which means you need enough cash flow from the sale of the property to pay off the loan you borrowed.

Enter the wraparound formula. A "wrap" is a transaction that involves leaving the first mortgage in place and creating a new loan to a buyer which is secondary to the first mortgage. The payments come in from the buyer, and you make the payments on the underlying loan still in place. There is a "spread" between the two payments which equals cash flow to you. Most agents equate a ?nothing down? offer with a buyer who is not serious.

Example: Buy a property worth $100,000 for a discounted price of $90,000. Put 20% down ($18,000) and finance the balance of $72,000 at 9% with a conventional loan. Your principal and interest ("P&I") payment is about $580.00 per month. Resell the property for $110,000, taking a down payment of $15,000 and a $95,000 note at 12% interest. You collect about $977 per month. Your cash flow is almost $400 per month ($4800/year), with just $10,000 invested (figuring $5000 in closing costs.) That's 48% annual interest on your money!.
This deal is definitely "cookie cutter" and easy to do, but I said "no money or credit." Here's the solution: find a partner to put up their money and credit.

Step 1: Locate an open-minded investor who has good credit and provable income.

Step 2: Form a limited liability company ("LLC") of which you are both the members, 50/50.

Step 3: Locate properties in nice middle class neighborhoods available for 10% or more below market.

Step 4: Execute a resolution from the LLC that your investor member will purchase a particular property in is name, for the benefit of the LLC. Have the investor purchase the property in his name, using his credit and down payment.

Step 5: Advertise the property for sale by owner "no credit required." Find a buyer willing to pay at least 10% more than the appraised value of the property with 10% or more as a down payment. The investor gets the cash to recoup his investment

Step 6: Execute a land contract to the new buyer.

Step 7: Collect monthly cash flow and split it with the investor.

In the above example, you so all the legwork and you split the cash flow with the investor. When the investor is unable to obtain any more loans, find another investor, rinse and repeat

Copyright 2000 All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be copied
or reprinted without the express written permission of the Author.

About The Author
William Bronchick, Esq.
Legalwiz Publications
==================================
E-mail bronchick@legalwiz.com
Website: www.legalwiz.com

SEO for Digg

2007-05-30T15:18:00.000-07:00

By - Paul Bliss
<)))

In case you haven't been on the Internet for the past year or so, there has been a tremendous amount of attention being captured by socially-powered sites such as digg.

So, what does this have to with the world of Search Engine Marketing?

There is something called the Digg effect, which essentially brings a ton of traffic to your site in a small amount of time. (Usually within minutes of a posting).

While digg readers despise seo-planted stories, if you do have something topical or free to use or even something that's just "cool", you won't feel the wrath of the digg community, and end up with your post getting buried.

So how can you leverage this site?

One of the key elements of getting a story on the home page is to have either a ton of people who have "dugg" your posting, or if you happen to know some of the top users on digg to vote for your story, you'll have no time reaching the front.

For the rest of us, we need to work harder. While there are sites that sell services to "digg" stories for you, at some point in time, digg will wise up and stop that.

There is another site that allows you to alert any of your friends when you have posted on digg, called Digg Alerts.

But despite all the "gaming" that goes on, at the end of the day, you need to have a compelling story to have the readers interact with what you're saying.

As for the SEO coding and copy writing element of digg, you need to have a great title and summary to get any reader to even bother checking out your site. Another course of action you need to take is to review all of digg's categories - if your story would not fit on the site, don't waste your time.

The expectation set forth when using digg in as part of your marketing strategy should be to create buzz, build brand name and drive traffic to your site. To expect digg users to click on your Adsense ads is non-sensical - digg readers are tech-savvy and can smell that technique a mile away. Be patient, post often and become part of the digg community by also submitting great stories you find - often times it will already be posted, but every once in a while you can beat them to the punch, and you gain a little bit of credibility on the site.

-To your online success!

About The Author
Paul Bliss
www.SEOforGoogle.com

AdWords Campaigns? Avoiding the Mistakes

2007-05-28T16:19:00.000-07:00

By - Adriana Iordan
<)))

How to avoid the most common AdWords errors. Some of the most common AdWords campaign mistakes come from superficiality or insufficient knowledge about the targeted market and the way the Web works.

With the emergence of Google's AdWords service, online marketing has changed. It is now possible to target potential customers more accurately than ever, taking into account that Web search is the second most used online application after e-mail.
What is AdWords?

AdWords is Google's tool, meant to help you advertise your business. It can be used to create simple, yet effective ads that will be displayed to people performing online searches for information related to businesses such as yours. Basically, a Google AdWords campaign is one way of doing online keyword-based advertising.

At the core of any pay-per-click campaign lays the commercial links (the ads) associated to keywords, displayed on the right side of the result page when a Google search is performed. What Google offers is actually placing certain Web sites on top of all the results for a specific search (i.e. keywords). Against a fee, naturally. These sites are placed systematically on the right on the right side of the result screen and marked as "commercial links" so that the user is not mislead, since Google's goal is, above all, to maintain the credibility of its search engine.

The AdWords ads are very simple. They come in a verity of formats, amongst which the most common are the text format and the image format. There can also be animated ads, video ads, mobile ads, etc. The text ads usually consist of:

An ad title (up to 25 characters, including spaces): must attract users that may have an interest in your products or services

Two description lines (up to 35 characters each, including spaces): should be clear and compelling enough to convince the user to visit your site

The display URL (up to 35 characters, including spaces): this is where the user will be directed when clicking on the ad.
15 Most Common Errors in an AdWords Campaign

Don't assume that this is an easy task. It's not. Remember that Google is a tough nut to crack, but with the right set of tools and a lot of hard work and dedication, it can be done. Therefore, it is good that before creating a pay per click campaign, you have a clearly established goal. According to this goal, begin creating your AdWords campaign.

As with Search Engine Optimization, AdWords campaign management is a must and must be done properly. There are many aspects that can be overlooked. Some of the most common AdWords campaign mistakes come from superficiality or insufficient knowledge about the targeted market and the way the Web works.

Among the worst mistakes being made in such cases are:

Bidding too much in order to be placed on the top position
Even if this seems like the best choice, being "Number One" in this case is not necessarily the best. Keep in mind that Web users are accustomed to searching, and they usually don't stop at the first ad. And, since they are first prospecting the market, it is highly possible that you only get an unqualified click. It seems that being no. 3 in paid search is one of the best (i.e. profitable) rank.

No geo-targeting
Try to relate to the potential customers in your area first. They are more likely to take their business to a local company. Add, for example, the name of the town or of the area where your company is in your ad and the effects will be noticeable.

Bidding on broad keywords
Broad keywords are very likely to take your CPC (cost-per-click) to a very high level. Therefore, try to brush the keyword list that you wish to use for your PPC campaign and retain only highly searched-for keywords. Those are worth bidding for.

Boring content
Don't say what others have already said. Be creative. Be fresh.

Non-relevant landing pages
Make sure that when the Web user clicks on the URL in the ad, it will take him/her to a relevant page. You don't want the user to get frustrated by not finding the desired product/service advertised in the ad.

Directing users only to the home page
Unless you have a really cool Web site that will captivate the users and make them browse through it for endless minutes, they will get frustrated if they have to search throughout the site for what the need, starting from your home page. You should send them directly where they will find what was advertised.

No keywords in the ad text
Do insert your keywords in the title and description of the ad. Nevertheless, remember to keep an eye on the clarity and relevance of the ad. The visitors must understand exactly what they will get when clicking on it.

Not tracking the results
You should monitor the keywords that you use in your Google AdWords marketing campaigns. The most at-hand tool is Google Analytics, built into the AdWords interface. You should be able to see and rule out the keywords that are not helping you get the desired ROI (return on investment).

Same bids for the content network
AdWords gives you the possibility to have two separate campaigns, one for the content network, and the other for the search network. You should set different bids for the content network. Otherwise, the CPC will be much higher than anticipated.

Suggesting that what you offer is free
Don't try to lure the visitors with false statements. All you'll get is irrelevant traffic, but no conversion (or not significant enough).

Not identifying the uniqueness of your product/service
Identify what makes you and your product/service unique, what makes you stand out from the large crowd of competitors. Find the keyword(s) that supports this uniqueness.

Failure to create multiple ad groups and ad campaigns
Don't fall into that trap. Unorganized campaigns will fail to produce the expected results. Group all the single ads that target related keywords. If you're advertising more than one product/service, it's best to have the ads grouped by category. Also, don't use just one campaign. Split your ads into separate campaigns. You will be able to see which of them gives you more satisfaction in terms of conversion rate.

Failure to test with more that one ad
Don't limit your advertising campaign to just one ad. It may not contain the best keywords. Create more ads and see which one works best.

Not using targeting options for keywords
Broad matches may or may not improve your conversion rate. But if you use the keyword targeting options, you may notice significant improvements. The targeting options are the square brackets - [blue tulip] - and the quotation marks - "blue tulip". Also, you can use the negative character (minus sign) in order to specify certain keywords for which you don't want your ads to be shown: -tulip. This will also prevent you from paying for such words. A penny saved is a penny earned, they say.

Not using company/brand name keywords
Don't leave out the name of your company or of a brand you've created. You wouldn't want the competition to make profitable use of it, would you?
So, when you plan on creating an AdWords campaign, try to keep an eye on the aspects mentioned above. There is too much at stake to afford bad internet marketing campaigns.

What's In It For You?

To make it short (taking into account that your Google AdWords campaign is a good one): an improved conversion rate. After all, this is what you were aiming for. If you only take a look at the possible AdWords campaign mistakes mentioned above, it is easy to figure out the disastrous consequences of a poorly managed advertising campaign.

Ultimately, it can put you out of business. On the other hand, a well-directed and properly instrumented pay-per-click campaign can go a long way. You gain notoriety and make a profit.

There are so many ways in which you can save money when creating an AdWords campaign. If you manage to avoid the above-mentioned mistakes, you will surely notice an increase in your sales or amount of contracts for your services.

About The Author
Read more free internet marketing articles. http://www.avangate.com/articles/internet-marketing Copyright © 2007, www.avangate.com, all rights reserved. This article was written by Adriana Iordan, Web Marketing Manager at Avangate B.V. Avangate is an eCommerce platform for electronic software distribution incorporating an easy to use and secure online payment system plus additional software marketing services and sales tools.

A New System Of E-Commerce?

2007-05-27T16:15:00.000-07:00

By - Terence Tan
<)))

A MLAP, short for a multi level affiliate program, is a relatively new type of affiliate program offered by some innovative web merchants.

In addition to referral commissions for their direct sales, affiliates of MLAPs also get paid commissions when their sub-affiliates at multiple levels sell affiliate products.

Unlike MLM programs, which charge "recruitment" fees, "starter kit" fees, "product testing" fees etc, there is never any money needed to join a MLAP...Which means that there is never any money to be made by simply recruiting sub-affiliates.

The power of MLAPs lies in their ability to unlock the huge potential for increased earnings that lie in the "wasted traffic" that websites receive.

For example, out of 1000 visitors to a website, perhaps a maximum of only 5 might eventually buy any affiliate products that the webmaster would recommend. The other 995 become "wasted" as they do not contribute in any way to the affiliate's earnings.

However, many of these "wasted" visitors, would see enough value in these products to sign up as affiliates themselves and sell the products to their own contacts and web visitors.

When this happens in a single level affiliate program, the original affiliate earns nothing. In a MLAP, the original affiliate would also be paid a referral commission on the sales made by these sub-affiliates.

Depending on the number of levels the MLAP uses, commissions from sub-affiliate sales get multiplied at each level, resulting in greatly increased affiliate earnings.

For the affiliate, MLAPs provide a way to maximize the value of their "wasted traffic" using the viral power of "word of mouth" marketing, without the risks associated with MLM programs.

For the MLAP merchant, an MLAP allows his affiliate program to sign up affiliates more effectively by standing out from the crowd of single level affiliate programs.

Because they are relatively new, certain issues, (such as the ideal number of levels a MLAP should have, and the percentage of referral commissions that should be paid at each level), are still open to debate.

What has become clear though, is that MLAPs have become an important option for both merchants and affiliates, to increase their share of the ever-growing size of E-Commerce.

About The Author
Terence Tan is the project manager of HugeAffiliates.com, a website dedicated towards the development of Multi Level Affiliate Programs as an alternative system of business.

Google TrustRank

2007-05-26T10:09:00.000-07:00

By - Paul Bliss
<)))

There has been an ever increasing awareness to the value of Google's "TrustRank" algorithm. While there are many factors that are "Off-page", there are a number of simple actions you can take to make sure your site earns the trust from Google by employing these easy techniques.

The best way to think about Trustrank is to compare it to if you were to purchase a product or service in the real world. There are many built-in factors that we use to pre-qualify a business to see if we are willing to part with our cash for their goods or services. This is the same approach Google takes in order to measure the quality of a site, and doing this will get you out of the so-called "Sandbox" much faster than the typical 4-6 months.

While in no particular order, some are most costly than others, but all are worth doing.
Register your domain for 10 years. If you can't afford the $70 it costs at GoDaddy then are you really serious about your site?

Buy a SSL certificate - this tells Google that you are a legit business since they know you have to have a verified checking account to get a SSL cert. (And buy it for as many years as you can at a time, at the very least for 2 years)

Have a privacy policy that tells in exact detail what happens to the information about the visitor that is collected from the site.

List a mailing address (no P.O. Boxes) - Just as in real life, you feel better purchasing a service or product from a place that has a physical location.

List your contact information - telephone, fax (if needed), email & name.

If you have a bigger budget, use any of the "Hacker Safe" services and place those icons on your site. Again, this tells Google that you are seriously committed to protecting your visitor's experience on the site.
Those are simple techniques that you can directly apply to your site, and are signals to Google that you take your online presence seriously.

As far as the "Off-page" factors, it's really about linking to quality sites that are relevant and sometimes considered "authority sites" by Google. Also, getting links from those trusted sites will help re-enforce the quality of your site in the eyes of the Google spiders.

-To your online success!

About The Author
Paul Bliss
www.seoforgoogle.com

Can you succeed marketing an affiliate based program?

2007-05-25T08:17:00.000-07:00

By - Ian Bosworth
<)))

Internet Marketing can be an enjoyable and profitable
experience, but it can also be very frustrating, time consuming,
money draining and anti social.

So why do we keep putting ourselves through all this pain?

Well, I’m sure that for everyone there is a different answer
depending on your driving force, but for me it’s the thought
that one day I’ll succeed and make a tidy income. God knows how
many ‘Get Rich’ schemes are out there but experience has taught
me that 95% of them are simply schemes for making the owner rich
and not the affiliate. On the plus side, they do teach you the
pitfalls of Internet Marketing and hopefully move you that
little further down the line towards your ultimate goal. You may
think that this article is simply a moan about the chaos which
is ‘Internet Marketing’ but I assure you that’s not the case. My
aim is to pass on the good and bad of this type of venture and
to hope that I can help someone to avoid the many obstacles and
reach there goal reasonable unscathed.

Can you make money from a program which doesn’t sell a tangible
product?

Time and time again you’ll see these type of programs – They’ll
say pay $5 as a one off payment and we’ll give you thousands in
return. The word that comes to mind is ‘Pyramid’. Logic tells
you that $5 can never become $1,000 without you sponsoring
thousands of people and then they’ve got to sponsor thousands of
people and so on. At some point you run out of people and the
system fails. You loose your money but the owner makes a tidy
sum. Maybe the answer is to invent your own ‘Get Rich’ scheme
but then, how do these people sleep at night? Personally, these
schemes should be outlawed because all they do is serve to
undermine the ethics of Internet Marketing. So, can you make
money from these types of programs – My experience tells me ‘No’
Should you avoid them? Most certainly ‘Yes’

What about programs where you pay a monthly fee but again there
isn’t a product?

These are very much the affiliate based programs and do have
some merits. They tend to offer the same, old same old, free
resource tools, safe lists to join and a type of ad co-op
guaranteeing leads and/or sign-ups. Of course, the tools are
usually obsolete in today’s market, the safe lists are more
geared towards the owner making an advantage by you joining
using their affiliate ID and the guaranteed leads are too old to
be of any use. I’m sorry for being a cynic but I’m sure there
are people out there who are reading this article and nodding
there head because they’ve been there.

On the plus side these programs do have a sustainable growth
because of the monthly income and so getting personally
sponsored affiliates can recoup your loses over time. The
problem however, is that people tend to be reticent to join
because of the fees and then become despondent when they
struggle to get affiliates for themselves. Most of the programs
offer free membership and ‘Yes’ you will get tens to hundreds of
people joining the free program but the ratio from free to paid
is very poor.

People enter these programs believing, that by simply joining,
they will be given thousands of Dollars for doing zilch! Like I
said these programs do have there merits and if you stick in and
spend loads of your money on advertising, hours of your time
promoting to rotators and safe lists then you may come out the
other side breaking even or with a small profit. Don’t get me
wrong I still have some involvement with these types of programs
– Why? – Because I believe the hype that I can be the one
success story and come out the other side, a rich man!

What about the programs where you pay a monthly fee and promote
a product?

If the product is unique in some way, affordable to the masses,
useable and needed and you can get in on the ground floor then
you could be onto a winner. In my experience, it’s the product
which brings in the serious marketer not the affiliate program.
Think back to the early days of mobile phones, when they use to
be very bulky and expensive and people were saying “They’ll
never catch on” However, the marketer with vision saw the mass
potential and stuck in. Oh how I wish I’d been in this game then
because now I wouldn’t be here typing this article, I’d be on a
beach somewhere and my secretary would be typing this article.
There are other types of product based affiliate programs out
there which will also give you a chance for success, but finding
it is like crawling through a minefield. Don’t simply sign up
because it’s free membership or the site looks professional,
read all the pages and understand the ethics of the owner.
Consider the product(s) on offer and think about your target
audience. The product(s) should be affordable, useable,
sellable, exciting and hopefully unique in its market. The
affiliate program should be affordable and sustainable. Look at
the Compensation plan and consider how feasible it will be for
you and your potential team, to reach the profit line. Some
plans may look impressive but sometimes they dazzle you with big
Dollars. Look at the amount of paid sign-ups required together
with the percentages paid and compare this to the cost of the
program and the cost of advertising needed to reach those
required sign-ups. Work out how long it will take you to break
even, for instance, if the cost of the program is $20 a month
and you spend $20 a month on advertising you may get 1 or 2
sign-ups a month. If the comp plan pays you $5 a sign-up you’ll
need 8 sign-ups to break even but it may take you 4 to 8 months
to get to that point. So it could cost you between $160 and $320
to get there.

Do your sums or you may never really break even?

You should look at the make-up of the down line and how it fits
in with the matrix/comp plan. Some down lines have legs, in that
you build so far down and then the line splits off and begins
again. This usually happens when you reach another level in the
comp plan, but the resulting effect can make it hard to progress
to the next level. Some have a straight down line so everyone
who joins will be in your line. This can be misleading in that
you believe that it’s your sign-up and you’ve earned money.
However, it does allow you to assess the popularity of the
program and help you decide if you should continue.

Now Image you’ve come across an affiliate site (Not hard to do
with today’s Internet) Ask yourself the following questions:-

Does the site look impressive? Does it make you want to read on?
Does it have a product that excites you? Could you use the
product? Could you sell the product? Would you buy the product?
Is the product affordable? Do I get the product as part of the
affiliate program? Can I afford the monthly payment? Do they
have a worthwhile Compensation Plan? Do they have a matrix or a
straight down line? How quickly will I break even? Can I make a
profit?

SO CAN YOU SUCCEED BY MARKETING AN AFFILIATE BASED PROGRAM?

Find today’s ‘Mobile Phone’ with an affordable affiliate
program, offering you a good compensation plan, workable matrix
and responsive down line and the answer is undoubtedly

‘YES’

Thanks for reading my article. If you want to subscribe to my
newsletter then go to

http://www.profitmashine.com/biztipspop.html

About The Author:
The author is Ian Bosworth who has 2 years experience in
Internet marketing. He has put together a website and newsletter
designed to help other marketers looking for a home based
business http://www.profitmashine.com

The Down Side Of Using Drop-Shippers On Ebay!

2007-05-25T08:03:00.000-07:00

By - Robert C. Potter
<)))

Ok, let me just say right up front that I am not against drop-shipping! I love the concept. If you are dealing with a particular wholesale drop-shipping distributor that is serving your Ebay ambitions well, then hold onto that company with bonds of steel, for truly good drop-shippers are hard to find!

Drop-Shipping sounds like the utopian business model. No up front investment in inventory. You don’t have to carry packages to the Post Office, United Parcel, or Fedex. All you have to do is set up your own business, auction, or retail website and advertise the products that the company provides. Once the orders come in, you forward it to the drop-shipper and they send the product directly to your customer.

Free eBay Seller's GuideBut, the devil is always in the details. Dropshipping is best suited for a stand alone E-Commerce website, mail order, or catalog advertising venue. If you are considering using a wholesale drop shipper for your Ebay auction, then you might want to take a step back and let me provide you with some “points to ponder.”

Back ordered products..The reality is that drop-shipping companies run out of product and will be back ordered. Ebay bidders purchase product in “real time.” They are under the impression that the item you auction, is the item they bought, not a product that is subject to shortages.

One or two customers might be understanding about the situation, but most will not. If you happen to run out of product on a regular basis then your negative feedback rating will go through the roof, and your reputation will suffer.

One way to combat shortages is to buy a pallet of product in advance, and have the drop-shipper store it in their warehouse so that you are assured of an ample supply. This method sort of goes against the idea of Drop-Shipping (buying the product in advance) but if you are selling on Ebay, you would be best served by employing this method.

Also, if possible, find a drop-shipper in your area, or within a comfortable traveling distance. If you run into any supply or shipping problems, then you could be on hand to visit the facility, should any shipping or logistic concerns arise.

Fees..Some dropshippers will charge you a sign up, or entry fee of about twenty five to fifty dollars just for the privilege of selling their product. You are also charged a “processing fee” for sending the product to your customer.

The “price for processing” can range anywhere from seven to twenty dollars per item, depending on the type of merchandise you are selling. These expenses, plus Ebay fees, can take a big chunk out of your bottom line. Finding a product that can bring you a profit, as well as offseting these types of expenses, can be a delicate balancing act.

Circumventing your customers..While I do not believe that this is a pervasive practice among drop-shipping companies, anecdotal evidence has suggested that some unscrupulous enterprises can cut you out of the sales loop. They could they easily substitute your return address for their company logo, selling directly to your customers.

Market saturation..One of the largest wholesale drop-shippers in the county is the B&F System, BNFusa.com. A lot of Ebayer’s started selling their products, one in particular, called Giovanni Navarre leather jackets. At first, it was a profitable item. After a while, everyone started selling the same product. Too much of the same supply, creates market saturation, ultimately destroying profit potential for the seller.

The Giovanni Navarre leather jackets are still being sold on Ebay today, but I doubt that they still provide a very profitable return for the seller. Even though B&F carries over 500 products in 14 different categories, they are intimately familiar to the Ebay community. You could probably make a great profit from just about any B&F product if you were to sell them off line, and out of the auction arena.

When a company becomes too well known to the general public it becomes almost impossible to make money from products that have flooded the marketplace. In addition to finding a drop-shipper who is close to home, it might be a good idea to find a DS company that is not well known to the Ebay market, or who’s products have not been scattered all over cyberspace.

These days however, it is hard to find drop-shippers that will cater to the smaller seller. Most will find it more profitable to sell in volume than by the piece. The larger wholesale dropshipping distributors are used by retail catalog operations. To get involved with the larger operations, you would have to be doing a tremendous sales volume.

If you still want to pursue drop-shipping as a source of supply for your Ebay auction, then I would suggest that you read other opinions, and become as educated as you can about the drop-shipping company you do business with.

Remember, when it comes to Ebay auction selling, “own what you sell.” Never leave customer service, or your feedback rating in the hands of other people!!

About The Author
Robert C. Potter is a wholesale and retail surplus products specialist. He is the author of “The Ultimate Guide To Products For Resale!” Over 300 Wholesale & Surplus Supply Sources For Ebay Auction Sellers, E-Commerce Websites, Flea Market Vendors, and Retail Store Owners! You can find his 160 page ebook at: http://www.productsforresale.com

How To Sell Lease Purchase Deals To Landlords & Sellers

2007-05-24T16:02:00.000-07:00

By - James Gage
<)))

People sell their homes for various reasons. Some of which include, but are not limited to:

Job transfer.
Making two mortgage payments.
Trade up to a bigger home or better neighborhood.
Tired of managing properties.
Moving in with a significant other.
Divorce.
Lost job or income and can not make the payments.
Physical problems with the property that they do not have the ability or time to repair.
Etc...
MOTIVATION is the key when dealing with Landlords/Sellers. If you can find out what motivates people, you can strike a great deal with them. Your goal is to find out what needs they have and satisfy them.

If they are a landlord and are sick of renting out that house and fixing leaking toilets at two in the morning, you can offer them something that will fill their needs. You can offer them a friendly way of selling that property over time for a price they can live with and with none of the landlord hassles. I spent the last nine years as a landlord and to be honest, there were plenty of times that if one of you called me up and offered to take all of my properties off my hands I would have jumped at the chance.

Landlords are a key source of deals. Many landlords are not as sophisticated as you might think. Many of them inherited their properties or just have homes that they had trouble selling so they decided to rent them out. The key when dealing with landlords is to let them know from the beginning that you just want to help them solve their problems and make some money in the process. Make them understand that it is a one-sided partnership. You are agreeing to do their work and still give them the money that they want for the property. If it doesn't work out in a year or two, they can have their property back plus keep the option money. If they rent it out, they will still have to worry about replacing the carpeting and painting when it turns over. They really are in control of the process.

Let them know the advantages available to them. The reality is that what you are doing is limiting the landlord's risk and at the same time accomplishing what a real estate broker and property manager would. You are taking a small part of the monthly rent and making a small percentage of the total sales price at the end of the deal. If the house doesn't sell, they get to keep what you have into it.
No real estate broker in the country would do for them what you can.

I define selling as the art of fitting a persons needs to a product or service and educating them on its utility. I suggest that when you approach a Landlord/Seller that you project a sense of confidence that you know that this is what will work for both them and for you and that you explain the benefits. I find that in order to build trust between the person I am selling to and myself, I need to discuss the drawbacks. If you do not talk about the drawbacks, the Landlord/Seller will spend hours trying to find out how this deal might be bad for him.
You want him to know right up front what the drawbacks are and then you can discuss these issues together and work out solutions.

We are all in this business to make money, but you will find that if you come off as trying to make a buck, you will look like a swindler. I like to think of myself as a creative problem solver. I do take pride in helping other people solve complex problems and so far have been able to make some cash in the process. When people call me on ads or signs that I have out, I immediately go into a mode of discovery. What does this person need? What do they have? What is keeping them from getting what they need? What do I have that can help in this situation. Sometimes I talk to someone and find out that their best answer does not involve me. In those cases, I let them know what I would do if I were them. I know that I probably lose deals that way, but I know that I have built some good will and will get referrals down the line from some of these people.

You know what they say about integrity, once you loose it, you can never be whole.

About The Author
http://www.jgage.com
James Gage
Coach@jgage.com

Want To Be Profitable In This Real Estate Bubble?

2007-05-24T15:44:00.001-07:00

By - Chris Anderson
<)))

I’ll Show You How In Just Three Easy Steps.

This is a question I get almost everyday from either our web site www.GetPreconstructionProfit.com or from my individual investment activities. The question is “How Can I Be Profitable When We Are In A Real Estate Bubble”?

STEP#1. First you have to recognize that in order to make money in almost any market (i.e. stocks, commodities, real estate, etc.) you need to have the market in motion. In other words, the prices or value have to be changing substantially, either up or down, for you to make money. Did you know that many traders back in the NASDAQ bubble made millions by adopting a style that made perfect sense for the type of bubble market that was being experienced? Of course this was financially devastating to buy and hold investors who bought at the market top. So what is the difference? The answer is a difference in investing/trading style and risk management.

STEP #2. Now throw a little reality into the picture. Specifically, you need to realize that nobody can consistently predict the turning point of a rapidly moving market. People who pay attention to value (which is always a wise move) can tell you when things are out of whack with the market, but they cannot tell you if the market will turn in a week, a year, or a decade! Warren Buffet correctly predicted that the stock market was way over valued LONG before it actually corrected. Since Warren is a value-type investor, it made perfect sense to stay on the sidelines. In contrast, many active traders became multiple millionaires during that period and then rapidly adapted to the market downturn. Both were “correct” for the type of style that they employed.

STEP #3. You have to realize that there are many ways for an overvalued market to correct. For example, in the real estate markets, many people are claiming that the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is out-of-balance; that is the price you can collect for rents in a year relative to the purchase price. Typically this should be around a ratio of 100 to 150 for a good cashflow investment. In some areas of the country, this ratio is over 400.

You need to realize that this imbalance can be corrected by the price dropping (as many claim), rents escalating, or combinations of both. In addition, it may not correct as demonstrated in many markets for over 20 years! So your choice becomes “do I sit on the sidelines” or “do I learn how to invest safely in this fast moving market.” This is a personal choice that you have to make in regards to your own personal style.

Want to know an additional little secret? Like in stock trading, the secret to any successful investing is learning how to control your risk relative to your potential gain. It’s that simple! As an example, there are preconstruction real estate deals out there where an investor can risk less than $2,000 and can still make a potential reward of $50,000 or more. If the investment does not work out, then all that investor is out is the $2,000 initial risk. Knowing that little piece of information can potentially save you hundreds of thousands of dollars! For investors that participate in real estate investments on a continuous basis, they always try to educate themselves on the risk potential first followed by the potential for gain.

The bottom line is that if you follow these simple steps, you can also learn how to invest in markets that other people perceive as dangerous bubbles!

About the Author
Chris Anderson is a leading authority on preconstruction real estate investing. Get his 4 day e-mail course and a 33 minute video free today! Visit http://www.GetPreconstructionProfits.com

Chris Anderson, PhD

14 Ways to reduce your eBay & PayPal Fees-Non HTML

2007-05-23T12:16:00.000-07:00

By - Trevor Ginn
<)))

One of the top complaints against eBay is the level of fees. It is therefore surprising that many large eBay sellers make unnecessary and easily avoidable payments to eBay. This article lists 14 easy-to-implement ways to reduce eBay fees and improve the profitability of your eBay business.

Strategies for all eBay Sellers

These fee-saving strategies can be implemented by all eBay sellers, no matter what items they sell or their listing strategy.
1. PayPal Merchant Discount

If you are a volume seller on eBay, then you are probably eligible for a merchant discount on PayPal fees. The merchant fee structure is as follows:

UK PayPal Fees
£0.00 to £1,500.00 - 3.4% + £0.20
£1,500.01 to £6,000.00 - 2.9% + £0.20
£6,000.01 to £15,000.00 - 2.4% + £0.20
£15,000.01 to £55,000.00 - 1.9% + £0.20
above £55,000.00 - 1.4% + £0.20

US PayPal fees
$0.00 to $3,000 - 2.9% + $0.30
$3,000.01 to $10,000 - 2.5% + $0.30
$10,000.01 USD-$100,000 - 2.2% + $0.30
above $100,000 - 1.9% + $0.30

To receive discounted fees you must log onto your PayPal account and apply. This can be done from PayPal’s fees page.

Potential saving - up to 2% (1% on PayPal.com) on all PayPal transactions.
2. Relisting Credits

Insertion Fees are generally non-refundable. However, eBay will automatically credit the Insertion Fee for an unsuccessful auction if:

You relist the item by clicking the "relist your item" button on the item page for the ended listing (or any other relist feature on the website) and the relisted item is sold the first time you relist it.

Potential saving: Up to £2 ($4.80 on eBay.com) per relisted item.

3. Reclaiming Non Paying Bidder Fees
If a buyer does not pay for their item, you can claim back the eBay fees via eBay’s unpaid item process. An unpaid item can be reported up to 45 days after an item closes.

See http://pages.ebay.com/help/tp/unpaid-item-process.html for more details.

Potential saving: Listing and final value fees on unpaid items.
4. Host Your Own Photos

If you need to use more than one photo to describe your item, eBay will charge per additional picture. However, it is simple to host your own photos, and avoid this extra cost.

If you have an eBay shop, eBay provides 1MB of free picture storage. In addition, there are many free photo hosting services such as http://www.theimagehosting.com or http://www.pictiger.com/

Potential saving: £0.12 ($0.15 on eBay.com) per additional picture.
5. Tweak your Starting Prices

Be careful when you choose your starting price, as a very small difference in price can lead to a large increase in insertion fee, especially if you are selling multiple items. For example, an item with a starting price of £29.99 incurs an insertion fee of £0.75, whereas a starting price of £30 would cost £1.50.

On eBay.com a staring price of $49.99 incurs a fee of $1.20 where as a starting price of $50.00 would cost $2.40.

Potential saving: Up to £0.75 ($1.20 on eBay.com) per listing.
6. Pay for Your eBay Fees Using a Cash Back Credit Card

Several credit cards give cash back on money spent. By using an American express credit card to pay your eBay fees, you can receive a small rebate for your eBay fees. Bear in mind that this only works if you pay your credit card bill in full each month.

Potential saving: Up to 1.5% cash back on eBay fees.
7. Teach Yourself HTML

Many sellers use eBay’s listing designer service to improve the look of their listing. If you are listing multiple items, this cost will soon add up. By learning some simple HTML or employing a designer, you can develop your own template and save on the extra listing fee.

Potential saving: £0.07 ($0.10 on eBay.com) per listing.
8. Open an Ecommerce Store

Potentially the best strategy of all is to expand your business beyond eBay. By setting up your own ecommerce store you can upsell to customers you have acquired through eBay, and pay no fees at all. Channel Management software such as eSellerPro, Marketworks and ChannelAdvisor enable eBay sellers to run an ecommerce store off the same inventory as their eBay sales.

Potential saving: You pay no eBay fees on items sold off eBay!
Savings Fees on Listings

The following fee-saving tactics involve changes to your eBay listing strategy and should therefore be considered in the light of your business objectives. For each of these tactics, run a limited trial and compare the conversion rates (% of listings that sell), average sales price (sales total/number of items that sold), take rate (% of sales that eBay takes as fees) and margin against your current listing strategy.
9. eBay Shop Listings

Despite the recent rise in shop listing fees, eBay shop fees are still on the whole cheaper than core listings. The best use of shop listings is for upselling commodity items and for unusual items that require a longer listing period.
10. Sell More Expensive Items

eBay has a sliding scale of fees, taking a higher percentage of the sale price (take rate) of less expensive items. By selling more expensive items you can reduce your take rate. For example, the take rate of a £5 item is 9.25%, whilst for £200 item it is 4.55%.
11. Reassess Your Use of Listing Upgrades

Listing upgrades are expensive, and should not be used unless they are improving sell-through rates and average selling prices. eBay research products like eSellerStreet (http://www.esellerstreet.com), Hammertap (http://www.hammertap.com ) and Terapeak (http://www.terapeak.com/ ) will allow you to investigate the effectiveness of listing upgrades for products in your categories. You should also conduct your own trials.
12. Second Chance Offers

eBay’s Second Chance Offer feature allows more than one item to be sold from a single listing, saving on the listing fee for each additional sale. When using second chance offers, you should be aware that you are making a trade-off between price and sales volume, as second chance offers are inevitably lower than the item’s final price.

Potential saving: Up to £2 ($4.80 on eBay.com) per sale.
13. Lower Your Starting Prices

eBay’s insertion fees are linked to the starting price of an auction, by lowering your starting price you will encourage bidding and lower your listing fees.

Potential saving: up to £1.85 ($4.60 on eBay.com) per listing.
14. Dutch Auctions

Dutch auctions, like the Second Chance Offer, allow you to sell multiple items off a single listing, saving on multiple listing fees.

Potential saving: Up to £2 ($4.80 on eBay.com) per item.

About The Author
Trevor Ginn is Head of Consulting at Auctioning4u (http://www.auctioning4u.co.uk) the UK's leading eBay service provider. Previous to working at Auctioning4u, Trevor ran the eBay drop-off shop Auction Partner. Trevor's eBay blog, eBay, ecommerce, life can be found at http://www.trevorginn.com.

Making Adsense Work In The Smart Pricing Era

2007-05-23T12:09:00.000-07:00

By - Jean-Philippe Schoeffel
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Smart pricing has changed Adsense. Publishers are seeing lower per click payouts and are lamenting the inability of their old methods and systems to produce a profit under the current circumstances. The old guard of Adsense gurus, meanwhile, continues to hold tight to a perspective born before smart pricing became a reality. They continue to encourage new publishers to follow their methods for Adsense success. Others have overreacted, announcing that Adsense is no longer a viable moneymaking opportunity. Some have even argued that smart pricing killed Adsense.

The old guard gurus are merely protecting their own best interests. As long as they can pretend nothing meaningful has changed, the longer they can continue selling their systems and software. Those tolling death bells for Adsense are stirring up controversy for the sake of promoting click-flipping and other wealth-production strategies. The only people who seem to have it right are those publishers who have noticed that the old Adsense gravy train has run out of steam and who have discovered that the future of Adsense lies in treating it differently than before.

Instead of proclaiming the death of Adsense, savvy users are taking a different approach to the changed environment. Adsense still has a place and can still be a valuable part of a successful overall strategy. However, the previously embraced strategies that were premised on constructing lower-quality sites en masse and monetizing them exclusively with Adsense are no longer tenable.

Instead, Adsense can be used as one of a multiplicity of revenue-producing tactics on smart sites designed to provide visitors with real value. Earlier Adsense techniques were based on sending mass traffic to a site and collecting ad clicks exclusively. In many cases, the sites were actually designed in a way that aimed to make people want to leave rapidly, using Adsense ad blocks as an “escape route.”

Smart pricing has decreased the per click payout of such prices by such a substantial margin that one cannot hope to profit from those strategies in any meaningful way. Instead, smart publishers will create better sites that really interact with visitors in a meaningful way. Relevant contextual advertising fills the role of one many services offered to visitors. Instead of being the “only way” to make a dime, Adsense can be used as part of a full roster of moneymaking opportunities.

Not only does this strategy allow webmasters to effectively tap into to other revenue sources (some of which are more valuable than Adsense ever was in its heyday), it also comports with Adsense’s own recommendations for improving per click values in a smart pricing environment. There are more ways to make money and one can make more money with Adsense at the same time. Regardless of what some might be announcing, there is no reason to give up on Adsense. You just need to use it differently.

Adsense did not change in a vacuum. While it lumbered toward smart pricing, web access, technology and user expectations were also in a state of flux. Today, the old methods of top-down site design premised on the old publication model is outmoded. The arrival of what many are terming “Web 2.0” reflects the convergence of several different trends. Those who will successfully use Adsense as a monetization strategy today and in the future are aware of those trends and how to approach them to effectively generate a substantial income.

Adsense has changed. Do not believe those who tell you that “business as usual” will still work like a charm. Adsense is not, however, dead. It is still a strong and vibrant means by which to earn. The old Adsense business models are dead. They just do not do the trick anymore. You can make money with Adsense, but it will require the use of strategies that merge appropriately with the current environment and trends. Sites that seek to provide real value to visitors can make use of multiple revenue earning strategies including Adsense and will succeed regardless of smart pricing adjustments.

About The Author
JP Schoeffel ( http://www.nichesinabox.com )has created a "site building system" unlike any in the world, focusing on multiple income streams and interactions with visitors. He now runs a membership delivering a complete business each and every month : http://www.nichesinabox.com

Tips For Maximum Adsense Content Relevancy

2007-05-23T11:56:00.000-07:00

By - Jean-Philippe Schoeffel
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One of the most essential aspects of getting the most out of your involvement with Google’s Adsense program is to be certain that Google serves up the most relevant ads possible on your site. The concept is easy to grasp--visitors travel to your sites in search of certain content on their topic of interest. If they see advertisements directly related to those content desires, they are far more likely to click on the ads than if they encounter only tangentially related material or, in a worst case scenario, ads that are not even related to their interests. As such, it is in your best interests to make sure your site displays relevant ads. Here are few tips for improving your content relevancy to produce more accurately targeted contextual advertising from Adsense.

FIRST THINGS FIRST. Before you even begin to use Adsense as a monetization tool, make sure there are relevant ads for your site or pages. In most cases, you will have determined this long before you even embarked on site design or content development. However, if you are thinking of adding Adsense to an existing site built with other monetization strategies originally in mind, you may not have bothered checking to see if other advertisers were going after that particular market. Be sure you are addressing a topic for which ads exist in sufficient quantity. If related advertising is sparse, it will difficult to avoid irrelevant ads.

KEYWORDS MATTER. You do not want content that is overstuffed with particular keywords to point of destroying readability and value, but you do want to make sure your materials make liberal use of on-topic keywords likely to spawn the most relevant possible ads. Experts maintain that using keywords with your titles and H1 tags is an excellent way to assist in getting the most relevant possible ads. This has added advantages in terms of search engine optimization, as well.

METATAGS. Once upon a time, metatags were a critical aspect of search engine optimization in general. Although the engines rely upon metatags far less than they once did, there is some evidence to suggest that using ad-triggering keywords in your pages’ meta-tags may increase the relevance of the advertisements displayed. This strategy may help, and it certainly cannot hurt.

LOOK FOR LACKLUSTER CONTENT. Many sites to a great job of supplying content related to particular themes or keywords in the main portion of a page, but have sidebars, headers and footers filled with less targeted terms and material. Take a long look at your navigational elements and other “side of the page” text and remove keyword terminology that may be leading to irrelevant ad service. Alternatively, you can use Adsense’s section targeting tool to remove those areas from Adsense’s consideration completely, so long as you do not plan to display ad blocks or ad link units in those areas.

TIGHT THEMING. You want to keep content tightly themed. That means you do not want to feature long, rambling articles that cover multiple topics. Instead, rely upon materials that address singular issues. You also do not want to feature multiple chunks of content on disparate matters on the same page for that very same reason. The value of tight theming may extend past individual pages. Many publishers argue that Adsense tends to reward tightly-themed overall sites with more relevant ads, as well. Even though this aspect of theming is not as well researched and proven, it makes sense to follow the practice, because of the search engine optimization advantages of having a focused site.

BLOCK THE BAD ADS. Monitor your site regularly and take note when irrelevant ads appear. Then, take the time to add them to your blacklist for the site. Google does give you the ability to block individual ads via the Competitive Ad Filter. If you block out commonly served irrelevant ads, you may improve your chances of featuring more ads upon which your visitors will actually click.

The more contextually relevant the ads appearing on your site are, the more clicks you can expect to see. As such, it is important to make an effort to use a combination of proven SEO methods that also work well with Adsense and some program-specific maneuvers to secure the best possible ads on your site.

About The Author
JP Schoeffel ( http://www.nichesinabox.com )has created a "site building system" unlike any in the world, focusing on multiple income streams and interactions with visitors. He now runs a membership delivering a complete business each and every month : http://www.nichesinabox.com

5 Ways To Increase Your Adsense Earnings

2007-05-23T11:47:00.000-07:00

By - Jerry Franks
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If webmasters want to monetize their websites, the great way to do it is through Adsense. There are lots of webmasters struggling hard to earn some good money a day through their sites. But then some of the “geniuses” of them are enjoying hundreds of dollars a day from Adsense ads on their websites. What makes these webmasters different from the other kind is that they are different and they think out of the box.

The ones who have been there and done it have quite some useful tips to help those who would want to venture into this field. Some of these tips have boosted quite a lot of earnings in the past and is continuously doing so.

Here are some 5 proven ways on how best to improve your Adsense earnings.

1. Concentrating on one format of Adsense ad. The one format that worked well for the majority is the Large Rectangle (336X280). This same format have the tendency to result in higher CTR, or the click-through rates. Why choose this format out of the many you can use? Basically because the ads will look like normal web links, and people, being used to clicking on them, click these types of links. They may or may not know they are clicking on your Adsense but as long as there are clicks, then it will all be for your advantage.

2. Create a custom palette for your ads. Choose a color that will go well with the background of your site. If your site has a white background, try to use white as the color of your ad border and background. The idea to patterning the colors is to make the Adsense look like it is part of the web pages. Again, This will result to more clicks from people visiting your site.

3. Remove the Adsense from the bottom pages of your site and put them at the top. Do not try to hide your Adsense. Put them in the place where people can see them quickly. You will be amazed how the difference between Adsense locations can make when you see your earnings.

4. Maintain links to relevant websites. If you think some sites are better off than the others, put your ads there and try to maintaining and managing them. If there is already lots of Adsense put into that certain site, put yours on top of all of them. That way visitor will see your ads first upon browsing into that site.

5. Try to automate the insertion of your Adsense code into the webpages using SSI (or server side included). Ask your web administrator if your server supports SSI or not. How do you do it? Just save your Adsense code in a text file, save it as “adsense text”, and upload it to the root directory of the web server. Then using SSI, call the code on other pages. This tip is a time saver especially for those who are using automatic page generators to generate pages on their website.

These are some of the tips that have worked well for some who want to generate hundreds and even thousands on their websites. It is important to know though that ads are displayed because it fits the interest of the people viewing them. So focusing on a specific topic should be your primary purpose because the displays will be especially targeted on a topic that persons will be viewing already.

Note also that there are many other Adsense sharing the same topic as you. It is best to think of making a good ad that will be somewhat different and unique than the ones already done. Every clickthrough that visitors make is a point for you so make every click count by making your Adsense something that people will definitely click on.

Tips given by those who have boosted their earnings are just guidelines they want to share with others. If they have somehow worked wonders to some, maybe it can work wonders for you too. Try them out into your ads and see the result it will bring.

If others have done it, there is nothing wrong trying it out for yourself.

About The Author
For more information on how to find the Start Small Business try visiting Small Business Start located at http://Small-Business-Start.com where you will find valuable information on internet marketing, making money and other information..

Can You Deduct Expenses for Your Home Business?

2007-05-23T07:41:00.000-07:00

By - James Martell
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Deduct part of your electric bill? Write off refrigerator repairs? Depreciate your house? Such tax advantages aren't easy to sustain but you can enjoy them if you spend at the right time in the right place.

Suppose you live in a 10-room house and set aside one room exclusively for business use. You may be able to write off 10% of your utility bills, deduct 10% of home maintenance costs and even take depreciation deductions based on 10% of your home's value.

However, you must follow the rules carefully if you want to avoid a disallowance.

The IRS has established a two-part test for approving home office deductions, and your deduction will depend on the amount of time you spend in that office and the relative importance of the work you do there.

The key question the IRS asks is whether your home office is your "principal" place of business. If it is, and it's only used for business, you're entitled to home office deductions. However, you won't be allowed any write-offs if your home office is not your principal place of business.

To qualify for these deductions, you must show that you spend more business time in your home office than anywhere else. You also must show that the functions performed in the home office are the most significant events relative to that business.

If you're a graphic artist, for example, you might work at home but also spend time meeting clients. As long as the at- home work is the most significant part of your business, you can qualify for home office deductions by showing that you spend more time working at home than at other locations.

On the other hand, if you're a consultant who spends time at home doing paperwork but generally performs services at your clients' premises, you won't be entitled to a home office deduction. Your on-site work will be considered more important than your at-home work. For an individual who performs services at customers' job sites, the use of a home office for management and planning won't be deductible.

Some savvy strategies may help you get the rules on your side. The tax code permits home office deductions for separate structures. An office in a room above your garage will likely qualify. Another technique is to set up a separate business, limited to home-based activities. Then, you can take home office deductions for that business, up to the amount of income generated by those activities.

For example, suppose you're a consultant who travels to various companies, presenting seminars. The administrative work you do at home won't qualify for a home office deduction. However, if you create a separate company to prepare a manual that you sell to your clients, and do this work from home, the revenues from that company may be offset by home office deductions.

Keeping good records is always crucial to sustaining a home office deduction. Don't be reluctant to take the deductions if you're entitled to them. Establishing a home office may also enable you to take more auto-related deductions. If you have a home office that's your principal place of business, daily transportation expenses incurred in traveling between your residence and other work sites are deductible.

According to FindLaw on the web, if a taxpayer's use of a home office qualifies as business use of the home, the taxpayer can deduct an allocable portion of depreciation, insurance, rent, repairs, security systems, and utilities and services paid with respect to the home. The amount deducted is limited to the amount allocable to the home office.

Example: If a taxpayer pays $10,000 total for expenses related to the home and 25% of the home is used for business purposes then $2,500 of the expenses are deductible. Similarly, if depreciation on the total structure is $5,000 per year, $1,250 (25%) is deductible. Although home mortgage interest and real estate taxes are deductible in any case, the amount attributable to the home office should be reported as an expense for business use of the home.

You can get more information on deducting your home office expenses by reading IRS publication titled, Business Use of Your Home. Call 800-829-3676 to order. You can also get some more tax tips from the IRS Web site (www.irs.ustreas.gov). To hear a tape recorded message on the subject, call 800-829-4476, and punch in No. 509. Finally, to speak to an IRS representative, call 800-829-1040.

About the Author
James Martell is a successful author for hire, stay-at-home father of four, husband and a seasoned work at home entrepreneur who provides valuable insight and advice for those looking to extra money in a homebased business of their own using a computer and the Internet. His numerous articles offer real-life tips and techniques for getting the most out of a homebased business.

Selling to the Bottom Line

2007-05-23T07:31:00.000-07:00

By - C.J. Hayden
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"Every person who has ever started a business, I imagine, thought he had a good idea. It's the smart person, and the rare person, who tries to find out the most important thing: do other people think it's a good idea?"
-- Bernard Kamoroff, author of "Small-Time Operator"

If you've ever wondered why more people don't respond to your sales attempts and marketing messages, here's the first place to look -- are you selling something that people are willing to spend money on?

It can be hard enough to get your marketing message heard and work your way toward closing a sale when you're offering a product or service that prospects already know will help them. But if you also have to educate prospective customers about why it's worth their while to buy what you are selling in the first place, you are fighting an uphill battle.

A student in one of my classes proposed an idea to sell financial counseling services to college students. He reasoned that more and more young people were incurring massive amounts of debt and declaring bankruptcy. Obviously, the need in the marketplace was there, right? But when I asked him if students thought they needed financial counseling, his immediate answer was no. They had other concerns and ignored their finances, which was why he thought they needed him.

Right there is the catch. He thought they needed him; they didn't think so. The vast majority of buyers -- whether they are individual consumers or buying on behalf of a business -- only purchase products and services that solve a problem they have already defined. If you are the one who has to tell them that they have a problem in the first place, you have a pretty tough sale ahead of you.

In fact, your customers not only have to know they have a problem, they have to be willing to spend money to solve it.

A client of mine was marketing her services to companies to help them build community partnerships. She knew that many corporate donors were choosing to sponsor one nonprofit instead of spreading their donations around. But finding the right fit for a sponsorship was hard. She tried to sell companies on her ability to locate appropriate nonprofits and help establish relations. But they weren't buying. They knew they had a problem, but weren't willing to pay to fix it.

So it's not enough that people want what you offer, it has to be something they will spend money to get. And very importantly, they must also be able to justify that purchase to themselves and others. This is where you can provide exactly what your prospective clients need to make a buying decision.

Let's take as an example a life coach who tells clients he can help them find more passion in life. The prospect tells a friend: "I'm thinking about hiring a life coach to help me discover more passion in my work." The friend is skeptical, and says: "Sounds a little vague to me. If I were you, I'd spend my money on taking those art classes you keep talking about." The client has been unable to justify the purchase and she is now having second thoughts.

But what if the same coach told the prospect he could help her find a new job? When the friend asks for details, the prospect, briefed by the coach, responds: "He says he can partner with me to help me seek out the opportunities that match what I'm really looking for, and stay motivated while I'm looking." A much more likely response from the friend now is: "Sounds like it could be helpful. What's the coach's name?"

What the coach has done in the second case is sold to the client's bottom line. He has offered a result that not only the client, but her friend, seem willing to spend money on. He has also given her the language to explain his solution and justify the purchase to both her friend and herself. In fact, the nature of the work he ends up doing with this client may be exactly the same as it would have been when he offered her "passion." The difference is that the sale just got much easier.

The more concrete you can be about the results clients can expect, the more likely they are to buy. And the closer your offer is to a result that is already in their budget, the easier your sale becomes. When selling to organizations, these factors become even more critical. Every purchase has to be justified to a boss or a board, and if it's not in the budget, your sale may have to wait for next year.

One of my clients was marketing herself as a facilitator. In her sales pitch to corporate clients, she talked about her experience and produced glowing testimonials. But all her hard work produced only a few contracts. Then she began marketing her facilitation in the form of team-building retreats. All of a sudden, organizations that had no need for "facilitation" were eager for "team-building," and in some cases already had that need defined in their training budget.

The key to selling to your client's bottom line is knowing what that is. Ask the people in your target market not just what their problems and goals are, but where they have spent money in the past. A client who has worked with a massage therapist is a likely prospect for chiropractic. A company that has hired graphic designers is probably a good target for communications consulting. Get to know your market's spending habits and you will know better how to sell to them.

In every communication, talk about the specific results you deliver and the amount of value you provide. When you can assign an economic benefit to making a purchase, you increase the likelihood of a sale. This is why finding a new job sells better than finding passion, and helping a company make teams more productive attracts more buyers than helping them run a meeting. If clients believe you can either help them make money or save it, working with you can pay for itself.

When you are selling a product or service with no definable value -- for example, you can help to improve a person's quality of life or a company's work environment -- be aware that you may have a tougher sale than when your offer can be translated into currency. Look for how you can describe your value in the most tangible terms possible, and be prepared to spend some time educating your customers before they will become willing to buy.

Selling to the bottom line may require no changes at all to what you do, just a change to how you talk about it. "Nice-to-have" products and services may generate interest, but "got-to-have" ones generate sales.

About The Author
C.J. Hayden is the author of Get Clients Now! Thousands of business owners and salespeople have used her simple sales and marketing system to double or triple their income. Get a free copy of "Five Secrets to Finding All the Clients You'll Ever Need" at http://www.getclientsnow.com

Advantages of Using CSS in SEO Campaigns

2007-05-23T06:29:00.000-07:00

By - Adriana Iordan
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Good tips about how to use CSS for effective SEO campaigns

Nowadays, when everybody is interested in getting the highest rankings possible for their sites with the search engines, it seems that the era of tables-based web sites is getting closer and closer to its end. CSS programming appears to hold the upper hand in this race for SEO, and it gains more ground as its popularity increases.

What is CSS?

Cascading Style Sheet is a web tool that can be utterly necessary if you want to give a professional, qualitative look to your site. It is recommended by W3C, who manages the standards for the Internet, in order to add style (e.g. fonts, colors, spacing, padding, alignment, etc.) to web documents.

The style sheet is more and more used presently due to its usefulness and its advantages that are far from minor: it mainly allows to dissociate the content and the presentation of web pages, which makes them compatible for various browsers, and also accessible to people with disabilities (who must use accessibility readers), to PDAs or to WAP.

Benefits of Using CSS for SEO

Among the most common examples of CSS usage there are the modification of the colors of hovered links, text placement, establishing the spacing between words, and the modification of border size and style. The style sheets can be inserted directly into the HTML code of each page, but they can also be written on a different page, in an external file (.css).

This second solution is by far the best one, primarily because it holds undeniable advantages such as:

The HTML code on each page is much cleaner
The CSS file is cached from the very beginning, and this speeds up the load time for the next pages
The update process can be performed much faster: it suffices to modify a single file to change the entire site, no matter the number of its pages.
It is quite easy to see the close connection between search engine optimization and CSS. Style sheets will help you decrease the file size of your web pages, and will give you the opportunity to use more text and links than regular HTML, without being constantly afraid of spamming the search engines.

Here is what you can achieve with CSS:

1. Reduced file-size

While "traditional" HTML is overcharged with tags that offer to search engine spiders both the content and the presentation on the same page, CSS actually allows you to clean up your code and separate these two.

By including the styling of the text in a separate file, you can dramatically decrease the file-size of your pages. Also, the content-to-code ratio is far greater than with simple HTML pages, thus making the page structure easier to read for both the programmer and the spiders.

It is also possible to avoid using JavaScript for rollovers and mouseovers. With CSS you can define the visual effect that you want to apply to images, instead of using images per say. The space you gain this way can be used for text that is relevant for spiders (i.e. keywords), and you will also lower the file-size of the page.

2. Less load time

If you have a web site with lots of traffic, slow-loading pages will not make your life easier. The benefit of having low file-size pages translates into reduced bandwidth costs.

CSS can help you save some money by offering you the following advantages:

If the presentation information is placed in an external CSS file, this will be accessed only once, when the homepage is loaded. The CSS file will be cached on the user's computer, and the other pages of the site, that use the same CSS file, will load much faster.
Images can be set as backgrounds. They will load faster than images placed between HTML tags.
As opposed to tables, CSS needs less code, which means that browsers will read and display page content faster than they would in the case of tables-based pages.
3. Faster update

Since CSS brings forth a simplification of the code on each page, they are much faster to read and changes can be performed easier. HTML code that needs to be modified is easier to track, and a simple change in the presentation of an element in the CSS file will reflect in all the pages where that particular element is present, without being necessary to update each and every page separately.

4. Increased browser compatibility

CSS-based web sites are compatible with PDA and mobile phone browsers. Also, people with various disabilities (mainly visual) use what are called "accessibility readers", that translate the HTML code into various formats that contain no HTML tags.

When translated, traditional, pure HTML stands many chances of being turned into something that does not make much sense to the impaired visitor. CSS, on the other hand, properly combined with HTML, can render useless the elimination of the HTML tags, and therefore make the reorganization of the content for readability unnecessary.

5. Higher rankings with the search engines

CSS improves the readability of your pages. Search engines spider will be able to index your pages much faster, as the important information can be placed higher in the HTML document. Also, the amount of relevant content will be greater than the amount of code on a page.

The search engine will not have to look too far in your code to find the real content. You will be actually serving it to the spiders "on a platter". CSS will help you create highly readable pages, rich in content, which will prove extremely helpful in your SEO campaign. As you very well know, better site ranking means better visibility on the web, and this can translate into more visitors and, ultimately, into increased sales or number of contracts.

The Caveat of CSS

CSS and SEO make a good pair when it comes to potentially gaining more income, based on a clean, well-built web site. Nevertheless, there is a very important matter that you should consider when using CSS in order to optimize your web site: never use CSS in order to hide text.

It is quite common practice to attempt to offer different versions of text on a web page: one that is harder to read - to spiders, and a friendlier one - to human web readers. Most of the times, search engines will perceive this as cloaking, and even if it's made with the best intentions in mind, it could actually pass as spamming. Consequently, your site can be penalized and even banned for such practices.

Conclusions

The bottom line would be that CSS is much easier to understand and to optimize than simple HTML. It simplifies both the work of the SEO professional, as well as that of the programmer. CSS programming means providing the site with the ability of faster updates in the future, of faster information transfer, and brings along the advantage of a simple code for search engines.

If we think only about the fact that keywords can be highlighted on a page without negatively affecting its look, the page file-size decreases, the code becomes cleaner and more readable, and the bandwidth costs are diminished by lowering the page load time, then it would be safe to say that there is virtually no limit in the series of advantages of using CSS in SEO campaigns.

About The Author
This article was written by Adriana Iordan, Web Marketing Manager at Avangate B.V. Avangate is a complete ecommerce provider for shareware sales incorporating an easy to use and secure online payment system plus additional software marketing services and sales tools.

Why You Need Outbound Links

2007-05-22T07:32:00.000-07:00

By - Paul Bliss
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Just in case you've forgotten, an outbound link is a url that you have on your site that points to another website.

In today's Google PR obsessed Internet world, everyone is completely focusing on getting in bound links to your site. While you should always be on a mission to get more sites to link to yours, you must not forget their polar opposites.

Remember, by having outbound links from your site, you are in essence "voting" for the site you link to. This is part of the entire ranking algorithm process for all the search engines. The idea is, that if two sites are similar in content and design, a site with more links pointing to it would be considered more important by the search engine.

So then, why should you help out any other site? Actually, by carefully linking to other relevant sites, you are increasing the relevancy of your own site.

Pretend I have a pizza shop, and I am located in Anywhere, USA. It's a typical site that displays types of pizza, store location, hours, and coupons. I also know the power of outbound linking. For this case, I am going to link to 10 sites: Domino's, Pizza Hut, Little Ceaser’s & Papa Johns. Next, I link to 6 sites that are physically located in Anywhere, USA. (And their physical addresses are listed on their sites.)

Now, I will switch roles and view the site as a search engine spider. I navigate through the site, and determine that this site is about pizza. Then I find a resource page and discover some well-known links (Domino's, Pizza Hut, Little Ceaser’s & Papa Johns - and as the spider I know that these are major players in the realm of pizza). Next, I find 6 links to sites located in Anywhere, USA.

So, as a happy spider leaving the site, I now know that the site I just visited is about pizza (site content and links to the major players of the pizza industry), and that it is located in Anywhere, USA.

Next, I visit one of the 6 sites listed as a resource in Anywhere, USA. I find the local address, and it has the same zip code as the pizza site I was just at. Now I know how these two sites are related to each other.

Taking into account the fact that this local pizza shop has also linked to the major pizza chains, as the spider, I am lead to believe that this shop has relevancy to the zip code of Anywhere, USA.

So, as the spider returns the information to the database to be processed in the algorithm, it has pre-sorted some search results based on the links your site points to.

Another benefit of outbound linking is Geo Targeting, or Local search. There is a lot of speculation that local search is the next big trend in Search Marketing. While only time will tell, it won't hurt to have your physical address listed on your website for those who will be embracing local search.

As an experiment, I created a site with a very unique url (to avoid the possibility of people finding it by accident), and I made it only 1 page long. The only thing the page consisted of were 80+ outbound links to relevant sites in the SEO industry, tools, forums and some tutorials. When the PageRank was first updated for the site, it came out of the box with a PR of 3. It has since fallen to a PR of 2 (now that I’ve pointed a few sites to it!).

The whole point of this experiment was to see how outbound links affect your own rankings of your site. I was able to generate a PR of 2 based entirely on linking to authority sites in the SEO industry. So, take the time to link to some relevant sites, the big names (if any), and enjoy the power of the easy, outbound link.

-To your online success!

About The Author
Paul Bliss
www.SEOforGoogle.com

Marketing Your Amazon aStore

2007-05-21T13:23:00.000-07:00

By - Adrian Brown
<)))

Researching some stories for my new news website eWizy I found some highly ranked Amazon aStore’s. These Amazon aStores were all on major search engines and all well ranked. After a little research I have discovered how this was achieved and in this short article I will show how to effectively market your Amazon aStore, I will be using Amazon UK but this will work for all Countries.

First we need to sign up or sign in to our Amazon associates page so off to your local Amazon scroll down until you see “Associates” on the left hand side and login or register. Next we need to decide what our aStore is going to be about?

Now we need to be sure there are enough products on Amazon to fill our aStore so do a quick search on your chosen product set / store theme within Amazon.

Great we have products and we know what our aStore is going to be about, now the most important bit, naming your aStore. To help clarify things I have created an aStore selling the Apple mac mini which I will be using to guide you. Choosing the name of your aStore is all important because it needs to be your main keyword in my case “Mac mini”.It’s a good idea to make a list of names in order of preference in case your first choice name (Keyword) is unavailable.

Ok we have our aStore subject, products found and aStore name discovered lets see if it is available, go back to your Amazon associates page click “aStore” in the left hand menu and then click the “Add an aStore” button last click on the “Add a new Tracking ID” hyperlink and enter your chosen name into the box, if its not available choose another from your list and keep going until you find one.

At last we can create our aStore click the continue button and follow the instructions on screen populate your store with categories and products ensuring they are relevant to your main keyword (your aStore name) add some custom text to each category and even to the products, make sure it’s all relevant to your keyword.

I found these two aStores ranking very highly, one about Paris Hilton and for the more cultured among you, one for the legendary cellist Mstislav Rostropovich ok so Rostropovich may not be the most popular search in the world but Paris Hilton is pretty good going I think. Personally I would stick to things you can sell whilst Paris Hilton may be searched a lot I think you could make lots more money using a good product keyword.

Last but certainly not least you need to get the spiders round there are many ways to do this, writing an article such as this is one way, another is to link from an existing established website using your keyword as the anchor text. The Amazon domain name that forms part of your aStore URL should carry plenty of weight and help your site rise through the search rankings.

About The Author
I have made a few Apple UK related aStores now as well as the mac mini one featured above I have macbook pro, iPod video, iPod nano and iPod shuffle aStores. Why apple? I hear you ask, I am writing this on my macbook pro and that’s what inspired me to create the Apple computer aStores. It is early days as far as revenue is concerned but I am confident they will make a fortune and you can to.

Thanks for reading.

Navigating the Amazon Sales Ranking

2007-05-21T13:11:00.000-07:00

By - Brent Sampson
<)))

First, the disclaimers: Since the algorithm Amazon uses to generate its sales ranking is proprietary, the details contained herein are extrapolated from research and field tests. The resulting consensus finds Amazon’s system to provide marginal sales data at best.

To whit, read Amazon’s own definition of its system, slightly paraphrased from their FAQ: “The Sales Ranking system exhibits how books are selling. The lower the number, the higher the sales. The calculation is based on sales and is updated each hour to reflect recent and historical sales of every item sold. We hope you find the Amazon.com Sales Rank interesting!” This last sentence seems to indicate Amazon’s own perspective on the importance with which the sales rankings should be viewed.

You’re not supposed to find the sales rankings informative or helpful. You’re supposed to find them interesting.

In actuality, the process is somewhat more convoluted than they let on. Only the top 10,000 books are updated every hour and the ranking does not depend upon the actual number of books sold, but rather, on a comparison against the sales figures of the other 9,999 books within that same hour. Simultaneously, a trending calculation is applied to arrive at a computerized sales trajectory. So, hypothetically, a book that held a ranking of 2,000 at 2pm and 3,000 at 3pm, might hold a 4,000 ranking at 4pm, even if it actually sold MORE books between 3-4 than it did between 2-3.

Books with rankings between 10,000 and 100,000 are recalculated once a day, rather than once an hour. Current projections, as well as historic sales information play a key role in these calculations. In fact, the predictive nature of the Amazon ranking system is what makes it possible for a newly-released book to outrank an older established title, even though the actual sales figures for the latter far exceed the former.

Books with rankings over 100,000 are also recalculated every day and applied with historic sales information and projections, although in the case of these books, history takes a back seat. Sales projections and trending take an active role here, which is why a book’s ranking can leap from 900,000 to 200,000 in the span of 24 hours or less. Does this mean the book has sold 700,000 copies in 24 hours? Absolutely not! What it does mean is that recent activity (i.e. purchases) for that book is trending higher than those 700,000 books it just surpassed. But, don’t get excited just yet; since the activity of those 700,000 other books range from slow to stagnant, one or two orders are sufficient to catapult a ranking.

If a book’s ranking breaks into the top 100,000, the sales history calculation starts to rear its head, which is why a “phenomenon” book has a hard time maintaining a high, legitimate ranking. A phenomenon is defined by a book that leaps from the high hundred-thousands into the lower thousands (or better) in the span of 24 hours or less, usually due to some concentrated marketing initiatives. Since Amazon’s sales history for that title doesn’t support the leap, the spike occurs and then quickly drops again.

HOW DOES ALL THIS TRANSLATE TO ACTUAL SALES FIGURES?

Since the data is recalculated every hour and/or every day (depending upon a book’s current ranking), it’s impossible to get cumulative sales figures, although those figures are applied to the algorithm during the calculation. No, to get a very rough idea of the actual number of books being sold, the sales ranking has to be dissected dynamically, with the same immediacy as the ranking being calculated, (hourly for top 10,000 books or daily for top 100,000 books). Chart the ranking of a top 10,000 book every hour for 24 hours and divide by 24 to arrive at its average daily ranking. In the case of a top 100,000 book, take its ranking every day for 7 days and divide by 7 to arrive at its average weekly ranking.

Bear in mind that this next piece of information is extremely arbitrary, based upon sales ranking/sales figure comparisons and data received from third party sources. In other words, it's probably completely wrong. But rather than disclaiming this chart until the cows come home, I'll just say this: It is difficult to make sense of something that doesn’t make sense. But it sure is interesting, and now, perhaps, even slightly helpful.

If the book’s average ranking is: 2,000,000-plus, then perhaps a single inventory/consignment copy has been ordered.

1,000,000-plus, the current trends indicate total sales will most likely be under 40.
100,00-plus, then current trends indicate total sales will most likely be under 200.
10,000-plus, you can estimate between 1 – 10 copies are being sold per week.
1,000-plus, you can estimate between 10 – 100 copies are being sold per week.
100-plus, you can estimate between 100 – 200 copies are being sold per week.
10-plus, you can estimate between 200 – 1000 copies are being sold per week.
In the top 10, you can estimate over 1,000 copies are per week

About The Author
Brent Sampson is the President & CEO of Outskirts Press Publishing at OutskirtsPress.com and author of Publishing Gems: Insider Information for the Self-Publishing Writer. Information at http://outskirtspress.com/publishinggems

How to Take eBay Photos That Sell

2007-05-21T07:19:00.000-07:00

By - June Campbell
<)))

Do you want to take eBay photos that sell your item?

Taking eBay photos is easy, especially if you have a digital camera.

First, you will do best with natural lighting. If you can, move your item so it is close to a natural light source, such as patio, balcony or window. Incandescent or fluorescent lighting tends to create a “color cast” that distorts your article’s color.

Your digital camera could have a special feature that adjusts your white balance so you get good color when using artificial lighting. However, natural lighting is your best and simplest option.

Turn your camera’s flash to “off” if your camera permits you to do this. Indoor flash lighting can cause an unwanted glare in the photograph. Also, the color is less satisfactory than you get from natural light.

If your picture is too dark or if the automatic flash comes on, then add a second light source. For example, place a lamp or light bulb to one side, or on two sides. If you plan on doing a lot of eBay selling, you might want to invest in a special photography light. If you plan to sell on eBay only occasionally, then you can make do with simple arrangements.

Set your digital camera to take the smallest size picture possible. Many cameras call this the “email setting.” Alternatively, they could call it the “640 by 480” setting.

Larger settings are suitable for pictures that you intend to print. Pictures that you will display on a computer, especially from a web site, can and should be small sized. Computer monitors display pictures at a low resolution called “72 dots per inch”. Higher resolution photographs will still display online at 72 dpi, but will take much longer to download when a potential customer clicks on your eBay sales page. When you’re taking photos that sell on eBay, you don’t want to lose customers by making them wait too long for a picture to download.

Digital cameras are highly sensitive to vibration or movement. For best results, use a tripod to stabilize the camera. You might also try setting the camera on a table or stand and using the Self Timer to take the picture. If you must hold the camera in your hands, holding it with both hands affords the highest stability.

When taking eBay photos that sell, you don’t want a blurry image.

Take a selection of photos with your digital camera. Upload them to your computer for editing. Use photo editing software to resize your photos to meet eBay’s requirements. Photo editing software may have come bundled with your camera. If not, software such as Adobe Photo Elements is a popular choice. eBay’s Basic and Enhanced Picture Services will also do the trick.

About The Author
Imagine Taking Great PicturesWith Your Digital Camera...In Less Than 30 Minutes!http://www.startmydigitalphotography.com/

Develop Your MLM Downline With High Quality Guaranteed Sign Ups

2007-05-20T19:51:00.000-07:00

By - Joseph Then
<)))

In a world full of scams, it can be hard to find an honest opportunity to grow your MLM business. Guaranteed sign ups is one of those incredible opportunities when offered by legitimate companies but so often a scam when offered by about eighty percent of them. Given these odds, how can you take advantage of guaranteed sign ups without risking your reputation, your money and your business, all of which can be lost as a result of unscrupulous practices.

A lot of so called guaranteed sign ups aren't sign ups at all. They are names and email addresses (sometimes even more information) obtained from the internet in a variety of ways and stored in a database. Programmers write a script that enables these contacts to be entered onto your website as signups, even though they are no such thing. This means that when you email information to them, you are actually spamming and are at risk of losing your website and your business as a result.

Researching companies who offer this service to sort the genuine from the frauds can be extremely time-consuming and you still might get it wrong. The answer for many is to forget the idea altogether, however, many very successful multi level marketers use guaranteed sign ups to build their downline. What is their secret?

The secret to achieving success with guaranteed signups is to find a company that provides genuinely motivated signups. Personal recommendation goes a long way but if you do not know someone who has successfully used a guaranteed sign up service, you will need to do a lot of research yourself. Firstly use a company which does not pay or offer any incentives for these sign ups. They should be the result of genuine responses to advertisements placed across the internet by the provider. In fact, it is not uncommon for these companies to each distribute millions of advertisements across the internet every day.

Another important aspect to successfully using guaranteed signups to develop your MLM business is to understand how to use them properly. Many people misunderstand the purpose of guaranteed signups. Guaranteed sign-up providers only guarantees signups for free to join programs. Since most, if not all, MLM programs cost money to join, you can see that you are really paying for qualified leads which you must convert to memberships. So you cannot purchase guaranteed signups without a marketing strategy to convert your prospects to members. You could have them sign up to a free correspondence course on some aspect of MLM and use it to sell them on the idea of joining your downline or perhaps a newsletter or free ebook would be a better vehicle for you.

The beauty of genuine guaranteed sign ups is that they can save you a great deal of marketing time and money to obtain the initial interest. The sheer size of many of these companies' advertising campaigns enables them to guarantee you whatever number of sign ups you desire usually within a thirty day period. Used correctly, guaranteed sign ups can give your business a kick start and allow you to spend time on building your actual downline. You can take the program for a test run by simply initially purchasing a small number of guaranteed sign ups.

Once you have fine tuned your marketing and conversion strategy you can purchase larger quantities of sign ups with complete confidence in the integrity of the company and in your own ability to convert the sign ups to memberships.

About the Author
Joseph operates a guaranteed sign ups website that offers you a chance to build your MLM business. You can check out his Guaranteed Signups website.

The One Simple Trick that can double your Adsense revenue

2007-05-20T13:25:00.000-07:00

By - Brad Bahr
<)))

I've been working with Google's Adsense program for a while now. If you're not already in the program, why not take a look at it now at https://www.google.com/adsense. I really like Adsense. It makes me money and it's easy to work with. Just some simple copy & paste into your webpage and you're done. Right?

Wrong! You can do it that way if you want. Who knows? Maybe you'll get lucky and get a lot of clicks. But if you're really serious about making a lot of money with the program, you're going to have to tweak it a little.

I've invested quite a bit of time experimenting with the program. When I first signed up, I got some clicks and made a tiny bit of money. That wasn't good enough. I knew there must be a way to get more of my visitors to click on the ads.

Google has a strict policy about not pointing to the ads in any way or asking people to click on them, so there were two things I couldn't do. What else was there?

Then I remembered reading an article once that discussed the psychological impact of colours on the human mind. I started researching everything I could find on the subject.

After a lot of reading, many tests and periods of watching my clicks go up and down, I found the one colour combination that seemed to work the best.

Testing previously done at supermarkets had revealed that the same product could pull more sales from just changing the colours of the label. What were these colours? Red and yellow! The combination of these two colours has an immediate impact on the person who sees them. They make your eyes stop and focus. They pull your eyes right to that part of the page. They grab your attention! I'm not sure exactly why the combination of red and yellow does this, but it does. On one of my sites, I changed my Adsense ads to a bright red border and a yellow background with black text and URL.

My click through rate more than doubled with just that one simple change. That's what worked on my site. Your site's colour scheme may work better with a slightly different colour combination. Try lots of different colour variations. Make a change in the morning and let it ride for the whole day. The next morning, try a different set of colours. Change the border, background, text. Change everything you can. Most importantly, keep detailed records of the colour scheme you used, click ratio and revenue generated.

After you've done all the experimenting you want to, go back to the most profitable one and let it run for a week or so and see how it does. I'm always trying different colours even after my run of good clicks with red and yellow. There are a lot of colour combinations to choose from. You never know when you'll find just the right one.

About the author
Brad Bahr is the author of the NEW e-Book: "How to "Really" Make Money on the Internet". It's filled with no nonsense, practical information. To get your FREE copy of the book, go to ==> http://www.no-nonsense-internet-marketing.com/

Ten Tips for buying Rental Properties

2007-05-20T07:06:00.000-07:00

By - Brian Ankner
<)))

Buying rental properties is a good way to increase your assets. However, choosing the right rental property will be challenging. Here are a few things to check for prior to buying rental property.

1. Location - Most people don't want to live in the boon docks. The location of your rental property will determine how easy it will be to rent. If you have a lot of vehicle traffic, you may receive a greater response from a sign at the location than you will from a newspaper add.

Tenants want to live in nice neighborhoods close to all the amenities. They want to be close to the schools, stores, recreational locations, hospitals, and work.

I haven't met anyone who wants to live in an undesirable neighborhood or drive 15 minutes for a gallon of milk.

2. Numbers - When buying rental property you want to check the numbers. Make sure you have all the expenses associated with that property and make sure it still has a positive cash flow.

Take into consideration the maintenance issues, any utilities not covered by tenant and amortize the cost of the big projects like furnace replacement, new roofing, siding or landscaping.

These projects only happen once every 15-20 years but you may be coming in to this in the 10th year of that cycle. Remember to calculate your expenses high and your income low. This can save you some surprises down the road.

Expect the unit to be empty at least one month per year due to turn over. You will have to repaint and clean the carpets the first 2 weeks, then advertise and show the next 2 weeks. You should only count on 11 months of rent per year.

3. Lower Maintenance Buildings - You want to avoid homes that will require expensive routine maintenance. Some examples would be homes that have cedar-shake shingles or siding, wood sided buildings, wood frame windows, brick driveways, cedar decks, etc.

Try to look down the road and determine the future maintenance needs. Remember the lower the maintenance the less headaches and larger profits.

4. Higher Home Prices - Check in towns with higher home prices, because this increases the demand for rental property. Look for the ugly house on the block that has a lower price, enabling you to purchase within the margins.

After some interior and exterior paint, a little light landscaping and new curtains, viola', a house that will get premium rent because of the class of neighborhood.

If people can not afford to buy a home in this class they will have to rent. This will create a demand for rental property.

5. Below Market Rent prices - When buying rental property, look for rental property which has rent prices that are below current market rents. This will allow you to raise the rent and increase the value of the property. As per above, this may just need a little fluff to enable raising the rental price.

Rental property market value is determined by the amount of income received by the rental property. However keep in mind, if the rental property has renters when you purchase it, they may not like it when you raise the rent. Also check to see what type of lease is in place. The lease goes with the sale.

If the current renter is paying a substandard price and has 1 1/2 years left on the lease it could turn out to be a losing proposition.

There is only one way to cut a lease short as a new owner. You must remodel the place. Check with the local housing commission to see what the minimum cost requirements of remodeling are for immediate eviction of current lease holders. It is usually as little as $10,000.00 in remodeling cost to get a remodeling eviction. By the way, you didn't hear this from me!

6. Good Rental History - Whenever buying rental properties, you must check the rental history. Check to see on average how long tenants are staying and do they pay their rent on time. Some areas of town are naturally quick turnover times. Near airports, loud bars or nightclubs, near military bases, etc.

7. Complies with Zoning and Fire Codes - Make sure you check to see if there are inspections required by local officials for rental properties and does this property pass those inspections. You never know the real reason the current owner is selling the property.

It may need extensive repairs to pass the inspections. A quick red flag would be if the electricity has been turned off for over 90 days. They will usually require an inspection before restoring power, especially if it is a known rental.

8. Less Than Twenty Years Old - This is self explanatory, if you restrict your selection to buildings that are less than twenty years old, you will limit the chances that the building will have any building code or maintenance problems.

The building could be near the maintenance cycle for roof, paint and possibly furnace but the structure will be sound and not needing upgraded windows, siding or cement repair.

9. Out of State Owners or Managers - When buying rental property, look for properties that are owned by out of state owners. It is hard to manage rental property from out of state and when these come up for sale, the owners are usually more concerned with selling quickly than getting top dollar.

In order to rent a place quickly you must live near by so you can show it at the caller's request. Often times they will ask to see it in the next 20 minutes or so. Cater to their requests and show it quick. Most renters need a place within the next week or so and will not wait to see your place until next week because you are busy.

Most times they will make a decision before tomarrow when it would be more convenient for you to show it. This has happen to us to many times.

Never give out the address for drive bys. Prospective renters will ask for the address to do a drive by and just look at the place. Don't waste your time with these folks. Insist on showing it in the next 30 minutes or you will not give out the address as a courtesy to the neighbors.

10. Neighborhood is stable or improving - obviously avoid neighborhoods that are declining, look at the writing on the walls and stay out. Although these may look good due to the low purchase price, they are very difficult to collect the rents.

By finding neighborhoods that are stable or improving, it will be easier to rent the property and you will be able to increase the rent. The general consensus is, the better the neighborhood the higher the purchase price and the higher the rent prices, therefore the margin for profit is greater. The poorer the neighborhood the lower the purchase price and lower the rent prices reducing the profit margins.

Do not be afraid to buy nicer places for rental properties. The people that can afford $1000.00 a month are more likely to be able to come up with the rent on time versus someone that can only afford $350.00 a month. One little upset in the latter case and you will not get your rent on time, if at all. There is far greater stability in renting high end places versus being a slumlord!

Copyright (c) 2007 Brian Ankner All Rights Reserved

About the Author
Click the link below and sign up for a FREE 11 part Ecourse jam-packed with information on buying rental properties, getting home equity loans, mortgages and the tricks lenders use against you! The info you need to succeed! http://www.loan-tricks.com/home-equity-free-guide.html

The 3 Sins of Affiliate Landing Pages

2007-05-19T07:37:00.000-07:00

By - Jason Hulott
<)))

Does your affiliate program have enough working affiliates? We can all do with more affiliates right? Are you advertising for these affiliates? Are you buying advertising to attract these affiliates? If you are then I think you may want to read this article to help get your more affiliates and stop you throwing money down the drain.

Put yourself in the shoes of an affiliate for a minute. You see a new program that fits your website or niche, the payouts look good and the creative / brand looks good too. A Perfect Match. But before you get too excited by things you decide to visit the site.

All looks good here too. You are taken to the program homepage.

Then you sign up.

You get your nice little affiliate signup with your trackable links.

You test the link and visit the page. Then you look at the site landing page.

Something is different but you can't quite put your finger on it. Then suddenly several things leap out all at once.

Is that an Adsense block? Why is there huge Call Free number plastered on the top of the page? Why are there banners advertising other products?

As an affiliate you would leave and never ever come back! As the merchant your ears would be burning as the affiliate calls you all the names under the sun.

The affiliate will not be back....

If you had just had that affiliate sign up via an advertisement or Pay per click listing - you have just wasted an awful lot of money!

You could have also just lost a huge potential income earner for your business! You really need to look at your affiliates landing pages to make sure you are maximising trust and motivating affiliates to use you.

Why would I give you traffic for free that you can turn into Adsense or contextual ad revenue? You think it is a shrewd move to do this to offset your costs but trust me this will bite you in the ass!

Here are our Top 3 Affiliate landing Page Sins, avoid these 3 sins and you will be well on the way to more affiliates, more sales and therefore, more income.

Adsense / Contextual PPC AdBlocks

Adsense / Contextual ads such as Kontera, Blog Ads, and the others out there are a great tool for generating revenue. However, they should not be used on affiliate landing pages.

Affiliates will spend time, effort and money driving traffic to their affiliate links so they can earn income. Why would you steal from them? Get caught doing this and not only could you lose the affiliate you could damage your affiliate program irreparably. Is it really worth that for a few clicks!

Phone Numbers

Now this one I can understand, you copy your site template onto a new page so you can design a landing page, the header has always had the phone number on it so you just leave it there. Well, time to design a new header. Unless you have way of tracking telephone calls to the affiliate then lose the number.

An affiliate will not like you getting FREE business of the back of his efforts. Don't give the site visitors using affiliate links ANY method of purchasing your product without affiliate tracking.

If you can't track that phone number and accredit the sale to the affiliate, then pull the number!

Affiliate Ads

This is one I have seen quite recently and makes the mind boogle. Sites that have landing pages with product links using affiliate networks promoting OTHER Companies products.

So you have a mobile phone site and you give affiliates an affiliate landing page that has advertising banners for car hire, or loans....

What on earth are you thinking about?

Think about the affiliate landing page in the same way you would (hopefully) a Pay Per Click landing page, i.e. there is ONE call to action and that is to buy the product.

Make these changes to your affiliates landing pages and your program will gain some much needed credibility.

Good Luck!

About The Author
Jason Hulott is an Author, Affiliate Program Manager, and creator of “Affiliate Communicator”, a new tool which allows the user to create Affiliate Marketing newsletters at the push of a button. Auto loaded with articles, products tips and useful Resources, Affiliate Communicator is THE tool affiliate marketing managers can’t live without! To receive a free course on the best ways to attract new affiliates and get them to put your links live click here

SEO Tips: Ways to Get Backlinks to Your Website

2007-05-19T07:18:00.000-07:00

By - Alan Liew
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Backlinks or inbound links are the key to achieving high rankings in search engines. So to get your website to the top you not only need to optimize your webpages for your targeted keywords but also have to build as many backlinks as possible. There are several ways to get backlinks to your site. Here's how......

Send Link Exchange Requests to Potential Links PartnersBefore starting a link exchange campaign. You need to create a link directory that will be used to provide a link back to your potential link partners. Your website is ready to exchange link with other webmasters once the directory created.

You can find your potential link partners by searching on major search engines like Google and Yahoo for your targeted keywords and then visit each website in top 100 or top 200 listings. Make sure that the site you are requesting a link exchange related to yours. When a potential link partner has been found, you will want to go ahead and add your potential partner's link to the appropriate category in your site's link directory and then send an email to the potential link partner stating:

a) That you have linking to your potential link partner.b) A direct link to the page where the potential link partner listing can be found.c) How it would benefit to the potential link partner's if linking to you.d) Your linking details.

To achieve better result, you should not get backlinks to your home page only. Try to get links pointing to your other webpages too. Also use more than one keyword anchor text.

Article MarketingWriting several articles and submitting them to article directories for publication is a great way to build one-way links. By including a link to your website in your articles resource box, you not only gain quality one-way links but also drive free targeted traffic to your site. Your articles may drive truckloads of traffic if they are impressive. There are hundreds of article directories if not thousands. You can find them by going to Google and entering the search term 'article directories'.

DirectoriesSubmitting your website's link to directories is another way of getting backlinks. Directories normally offer 3 types of listings:

1) Paid listing 2) Free listing3) Free listing but require a link back from you.

If you choose the first or third option and your website meets the submission guidelines and rules of the directories, your link will usually be listed within days. If you select the second option, you have to wait longer and your website's listings aren't guaranteed.

Getting listed in quality directories with Google page rank 7 or higher such as DMOZ and Yahoo directory can be more beneficial for increasing your rankings than a lot of links from smaller and newer directories. But it is not easy to be accepted by these quality directories.

Press ReleasePress release is simply an announcement of an important event for your business. Just like article marketing, you can gain one-way links by writing a press release with a link pointing to your site and submitting it to other websites. To find websites that accept press release, you can go to Google and enter the search term 'submit press release'.

Affiliate ProgramIf you are selling a product or a membership service, launching an affiliate program is a good idea to increase both your inbound links and online sales. Webmasters that are interested to market your product will place your link on their websites and you get free one-way links.

About The Author
Alan Liew is the webmaster of online4income.com which provides information, tips and ideas of how to make money online. You can also visit his blog to find out more ways to make money online.

Lost in Translation: It Takes More Than a Currency Converter to Sell Successfully Overseas

2007-05-19T07:08:00.000-07:00

By - Julia Hyde
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Given the ease in which technology handles fulfillment and currency conversion between countries, you'd be forgiven for thinking that all it takes is the virtual press of a button and you're able to sell your products or services overseas.

But nothing's ever that simple.

As Nike discovered when it launched its "Air" line of shoes back in 1996, marketing your products to a foreign market, is not only complicated but can land you in big (and potentially expensive) trouble.

The Nike shoes in question sported a logo that was meant to suggest a flame. But, what Muslim consumers saw was a shape that suggested the Arabic-script spelling of Allah. To add insult to injury, the shape was close to the sole of the foot - an area of the body considered unclean in Arabic culture.

Of course, after a brief boycott by Muslims, Nike made amends -- apart from removing the offending logo and apologizing profusely, they donated $50,000 for a playground at an Islamic school. Nike learned the hard way that before you market products or services abroad, you first need to brush up on your knowledge of local customs and cultures.

This is especially true if you're planning to open a website in a foreign market where the temptation may be to duplicate your successful U.S. site and set it up abroad. But a marketing campaign style that works well in the U.S. may be lost in translation overseas and could even cause considerable offense to your intended customers.

So while the Internet may appear to make it easier to tap into international markets, launching a website in a foreign country is fraught with difficulties.

But let's suppose you get it all figured out - culture, logistics, delivery, each country's individual business rules, customs and on...and on...and on.

And let's suppose you're ready to press that button and venture into foreign territory when you start to wonder how consumers will find your website in the search engine results of the geographic area you are targeting?

Huh?

OK. Let's put that another way.

If your company is based in the U.S. and you have a website with a .com domain extension, how can you make sure your website pages show up for relevant keyword searches in the geo-specific search engine results in, say, the U.K, (google.co.uk) Ireland (google.ie) or Canada (google.ca)?

Hmm...

Of course, the logical solution would be to have three different sites with three different country specific domain extensions each targeted to the market they're trying to serve. For example, you'd have your original .mysite.com, then a separate mysite.co.uk, mysite.ie, and mysite.ca.

Sounds simple enough, right?

Ur...well not necessarily. Remember we're dealing with search engines here!

Putting aside the additional costs you'll incur by having three or more websites selling the same products or services, country-specific domain names may not work well for you for the following reasons:

1. IP Address Location.

Google uses the hosting IP address and not the domain extension to determine a website's location (don't ask!) So, unless you host your .co.uk website in the U.K., your .ca website in Canada and your .ie website in Ireland, you don't stand a chance of ranking in Google's country-specific search results.

Google is the only search engine to use IP address location in this way. As far as I know, it is possible to get a .com domain extension associated with a different country in Yahoo and MSN as long as the site has country-specific links pointing to it.

2. Non-country specific .com

Most international companies want a .com domain -- .com domains, along with .org and .net are non-country-specific and stand for commercial, organization and network in that order.

3. Geo-specific domain extensions

It can be difficult to purchase a domain name with a country-specific extension unless your company is incorporated in that country or you are a citizen there. For example, Canada's .ca extension can only be assigned to Canadian companies or Canadian citizens.

4. Duplicate content

And then there's the duplicate content issue. Will your sites be penalized (or filtered) if you have three sites, in three countries, each with identical content? Probably.

So, what do you do?

I'd love to be able to tell you there's some magical workaround that will achieve success in the country-specific search results, (especially Google) but that's not the case.

And while there are things you can do that will help, the only real solution -- until the search engines address the problem -- is to bite the bullet, purchase country-specific domain name extensions if possible, (remember some countries only allow you to purchase their country-specific domain if you are a citizen of that country or your company is incorporated there) and build each site with different content on each targeting cultural and language differences associated with each country. Then host each domain in the country it belongs to and build country-specific incoming links to each site.

That's it.

So given all the difficulties you'll encounter is it really worth trying to market your products and services overseas?

If you have the time (and the money) to manage and develop an international website or two, then the answer is most definitely yes. Just don't expect to press a virtual button, sit back and watch the sales roll in!

About the Author
Julia Hyde is an advertising copywriter and consultant specializing in search engine optimization, search engine marketing, and traditional advertising. She's the founder of Creative Search Media, a full-service advertising and search engine marketing agency. You can contact Julia via her website at http://www.juliahyde.com/

Online Home Based Business Proven Success Strategies

2007-05-18T07:52:00.000-07:00

By - Cynthia Minnaar
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Is your online home based business profitable? Give yourself the greatest chance of success in the online business world by applying these basic proven success strategies to produce a profitable online home based business.

It is a fact that a great many online home business opportunities on the internet sell you on the lifestyle benefits and I am sure most of us have fallen for it once if not twice. They are very convincing in their sales pitch and use of images to make you believe that you are able to retire in 6 months, become a millionaire in 1 year, able to quit your job next month and buy a huge mansion and own the trendiest sports cars.

There is also the very attractive sales line of starting an online home based business that is fully automated, which implies that you, the business owner, do not have to do very much in order to earn a huge amount of money. This is far from the truth. There certainly is a great deal of work to be done if you seriously intend building a successful and profitable online home business.

It is due to the above that so many people fail in their online business endeavours. They have been misled into believing that owning a profitable online home based business is the easiest thing in the world without having to apply any basic business principals. They have been duped into believing that they can actually earn vast amounts of money with very little work.

The most important success strategy that you can adopt is to treat your online home based business like a real business, not a hobby. There are basic proven success strategies that the highly successful online business owners put into practice on a daily basis and you can implement them too.

Even though you have probably started your online home based business while still working a day job you need to try and get rid of the "part-time" attitude and work the business in the few hours you have available with a "full time attitude".

In order to have a successful and profitable online home based business you need to apply basic business principals with a full time attitude to everything related to the business i.e. internet marketing, ad tracking, cash flow management, product testing, customer service, website updates and maintenance, email marketing, etc.

You really need to be firm with yourself and make the decision to either get into business or get out. Once you have decided that you are in business only then can you move up a gear or two to accept the challenge and take on the responsibility of building a profitable online home based business.

Just because a business is online does not mean that it is exempt from these basic business principals. You need to be sure that you are selling something that has value and you need to market the product in such a way that you attract the right potential customers to your website. You need to meet your potential customer's requirements and expectations in order to turn then into actual customers.

Make sure that potential customers visiting your site have some way of contacting you, by email, fax or phone - this builds trust and gives you the opportunity to get to know your customers. It is only natural that they may have doubts or need questions answered prior to placing an order. Can they easily find their way around your website? Put your customers' needs first. Answer queries promptly. Put yourself in your customer's shoes and ask yourself if you had a good business experience.

It is good to put a face to a name, so if you do add a photograph to your website use a good professional head and shoulders shot as opposed to one of you lounging on the beach with your laptop and cocktail. Project a professional image of a real business - don't hide away. Your business should be designed to fulfill a need and you will start making a profit when you put your customers' needs first.

Internet marketing requires discipline and hard work. You need to know what is and isn't working and why. You need to track every possible means that a potential customer has of finding your website. Conversion rates are important, especially if you are using PPC or other paid advertising. You need to constantly monitor and check and adjust where necessary.

You need to know your opt-in and opt-out statistics - at what stage are they opting out - find out why. What traffic sources generate the highest opt-ins? Track, test and monitor everything you do. If you make changes to your website, make one change at a time and when you get different results you will then know exactly what caused the new result. Know what your top performing keywords and keyword phrases are and at what position in the search engines do they perform best. Know your click through rate to sales conversion rate.

The internet is a very fast changing environment and you need to break down every single process in your internet marketing chain and know exactly what is happening so that you can quickly make adjustments to keep up with the trends. The beauty of the internet is that you can track everything; it is just a matter of being disciplined and avoiding the guessing game.

Good cash flow management is essential. Time management is of utmost importance especially if you are only able to put in a few hours a day. Decide what is important and what is urgent. Have a daily task list with time limits on each.

In summary, provide something of value that solves a need or a problem. Show your potential customers, by projecting the right image, that you are a real professional business that cares. Attract the right customers by using the right keywords and keyword phrases in order to get targeted prospects. Never ever stop marketing your business you can never get enough exposure. Set aside a portion of your profits to invest back into the business.

These are the very basic business principals and online business success strategies that will form a very solid foundation to an online business. Combine these with your decision to "get into business" with a "full time attitude" and you are on the road to building a highly successful and profitable online home based business.

About the Author
Cynthia Minnaar is the owner and webmaster of http://www.cyns-home-biz.com/, the online home based business site for residual online income ideas, internet home business opportunities, ideas to start an online home business, internet income training and more. Get your own Complete Home Business with free website setup.

Creative Tips For Success With Your Home Business

2007-05-18T07:22:00.001-07:00

By - Jonathan Lee
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Would you like to find out what those-in-the-know have to say about home business? The information in the article below comes straight from well-informed experts with special knowledge about home business.

There are many things that you can do with your home business that will help you find success. There are also lots of things that you could do which will not bring you to success but which might hurt your chances of being in business for very long. The things that you do are much more important, so focus on the positive things that you can do to make sure you have a business for a long time to come.

First of all, in order to have success it is important that you always feel like you are running a business. Set office hours for yourself, and make sure you stick to them. However, you should also make sure that you dress each day as if you are going to work. Even if you aren't dressing as formal as you would be if you went to work, if you get up and get dressed each day you will feel more like you are going to work, and a more positive attitude is a great way to get things done when it comes to your home business. Remember that when you are running a home business you want to be sure you are giving everyone the chance to see what you have and what you can do, so you should always have a portfolio ready to send to customers of your previous work and what you can do for them.

Think about what you've read so far. Does it reinforce what you already know about home business? Or was there something completely new? What about the remaining paragraphs?

There are other things that you can do to enhance your home business experience. First of all, try to come up with a fun and unique blog that you can write on a regular basis that has something to do with your business. People like to read the thoughts of someone they are doing business for. Remember thought that you have to keep in mind that you are writing for your business, so try to stay professional. Maintain a professional attitude no matter what you are doing, even if it is fun.

There are some other things that you can do to make sure your home business has a great chance of being successful. For one, try your best to always have a good attitude. Remember that you are in charge of your business, and whatever attitude you have is going to carry over into your business as a whole. That means that you should try very hard to make sure you are able to do all of the appropriate things to create a good situation in which you have a good attitude. This will truly enhance your business, and it will give your customers something to smile about as well.

The day will come when you can use something you read about here to have a beneficial impact. Then you'll be glad you took the time to learn more about home business.

About the Author
Jonathan Lee has a website promoting work at home business opportunities - work at home job, affiliate program, data entry job, home based business and more. http://www.work-at-home-update.info/

eBay Selling - Use Good Customer Service To Get A Better eBay Seller Rating

2007-05-18T07:20:00.000-07:00

By - Elaine Currie
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Anyone hoping to make money selling goods on eBay should be aware of the eBay quality of service ranking system. Sellers are rated through feedback from customers who have bought goods from them previously. There are thousands of sellers competing on eBay and potential customers will naturally gravitate towards the sellers who have a positive feedback rating. Developing a good customer service policy and maintaining it in all your eBay dealings is vital to your success.

The first thing to do before you plan your customer service strategies for selling goods on eBay is to read the rules. The regulations and policies that govern eBay transactions are clearly set out on the eBay website. There are a lot of them but it is worth spending time to get acquainted with any rules that will apply to your eBay sales. Once you have a fair grasp of the rules, you can develop your own customer service policy.

Your customer service strategies for eBay sales should start with product description: eBay is not the place to use hype or exaggeration. A clear photo of the item for sale is a great aid. You must be completely honest and accurate when describing items for sale. If applicable, include the manufacturer's name and model identification number. The provision of a full description is doubly important when you are selling used goods. If an item has a flaw, describe it fully. For instance: if you are selling an article that has sustained a minor scratch, don't describe the damage in words such as "minute" or "insignificant". State the exact position and dimensions of the mark. Your customers will not receive goods below their expectation and, if the merchandise exceeds what was expected, the customers will be satisfied and give you postive feedback. If you try to minimise the extent of any defects in your description of the goods, people will be less likely to purchase; if the goods are sold, you are more likely to receive complaints, requests for refunds and negative feedback.

You must keep up your eBay customer service strategies during the time people are bidding in the auction. Prospective buyers often want more information than you have provided in your description of articles on sale. If a potential customer contacts you to ask for further details of goods you are selling, make sure you reply without delay and give clear answers to any questions. An enquiry that seems immaterial to you might be the one factor that persuades a purchaser to buy from you rather than a competitor offering an almost identical article.

Good customer service levels must be kept up right through to the delivery stage. This means despatching the items as soon as possible (this should be the same day unless it is a weekend or public holiday). To ensure a high level of customer satisfaction, make sure you never ask for an inflated sum to cover postage and packaging. Your customers will know how much the postage and packaging materials cost you and they won't mind being asked a fair price to cover those expenses. It is not unusual for the cost of postage to exceed the price of the goods and people don't mind this because they still feel they are getting a bargain. One thing nobody likes is the feeling that someone is trying to rip him/her off and that is the impression you will convey if you ask an excessive amount for postage.

Customer service policy on eBay should be no different from good customer service in any online transaction. The key is to be honest, act promptly and be transparent in your business activities.

About the Author
Want to work from home? There are hundreds ways to make money working from home, eBay selling is just one of them. To see a selection of the best work from home ideas visit Elaine Currie's Work At Home Directory: http://www.huntingvenus.com/

How to Setup a Wireless Merchant Account

2007-05-18T07:17:00.000-07:00

By - Caitlina Fuller
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A wireless merchant account can really help your business run as smoothly as possible. While this wasn't an option in the past, you can now accept payments wirelessly to make payments as convenient as possible for both you and your clients. Setting up your merchant service can be very simple if you follow just a few simple tips. Going wireless will open a whole new world of opportunities for your ecommerce business because you can accept credit cards online any time including online, at a trade show, or even out of your car or home office. You will have no limits as to how and where you can make money, which can supplement the money you make online.

One of the most important things to think about when looking for an Internet merchant account is the relevancy of the product or service that you are buying. As you probably know, computers and many other devices are extinct by the time they hit the market. You may want to avoid wireless credit card process known as CDPD as this is going the way of the dinosaurs and will not provide you with the service that you need for very long. Going with an older service or extinct service provider will limit what you can do as when, and may also limit the success of your clients transactions. When purchasing a wireless merchant account credit card service you want the most mobility possible.

When setting up your Internet merchant account you will first want to choose a company that will provide you with the coverage that you need. Generally all companies provide good coverage, but you want to work with a company that favors your area. Companies can provide you with maps so you are sure to choose the one that benefits you most. When you do this remember that most banks actually outsource their merchant accounts, so you can save time by bypassing the bank and simply going to the merchant account service provider.

The most important thing you can do when setting up an Internet merchant account is to plan ahead for the setup. If you need the merchant service up and running by a certain date you won't want to wait until the last minute. Sometimes it takes awhile to get these accounts set up do to fraud that often takes place on the service, so give yourself plenty of time to get the account set up to avoid the stress. You should also be prepared to pay deposits and meet the demands of the merchant account service that may require a lot of proof about who you are and what your business is.

About the Author
Caitlina Fuller is a freelance writer.

Learn How Viral Marketing Could Be The Most Powerful Traffic Generation Tool In Your Arsenal!

2007-05-16T18:38:00.000-07:00

By - Cedric Licuanan
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What is 'Viral Marketing'?

Well Viral Marketing is a buzz phrase that refers to the promotion of a company's message by promoting their products or services 'like a virus'.

When you think of the term 'viral' it probably disturbs you somewhat. Personally when I first heard the term 'Viral Marketing', I literally thought it was some new piece of 'software' that blasts your offer to a million people. I automatically judged it as a 'risky' strategy from which no one would ever benefit.

Boy was I wrong!

What I did not realize back then was that I was already a prime example of viral marketing - and I didn't even know it.

I didn't even realize that I was ALREADY using viral marketing as I was first introduced to a 'free email service' called Hotmail by a college buddy back in 1996. As I started using it, my other internet colleagues took notice and started utilizing the service themselves as well!
What's more, it kept growing and growing and growing.

So by late 1997 I noticed that almost ALL of my colleagues, friends, family, even co-workers were 'buzzing' about 'free Hotmail email'. Subsequently this was happening all over the entire country, and all over the world in the months ahead.

And we didn't even realize it was happening.....

There were no TV commercials, radio spots, or newspaper articles I can remember about Hotmail or free email.

No advertising whatsoever other than the FREE viral 'word-of-mouth' that subsequently created a MASSIVE EXPLOSION of Hotmail's business and services.
So the bottom line is this:

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE POWER OF VIRAL MARKETING!!

Just to let you know, if you are not currently using viral marketing in your business, just be aware that you are leaving an incredible amount of sales and profit on the table untouched. Remember, Viral Marketing is POWERFUL!!! Take full advantage of the power of viral marketing!

If you are curious as to an example of the sheer power of viral marketing, read on about 'The Power Of 2'.

The Power of 2!

With regard to Viral Marketing, I did the math....

If you had a website to promote and you gave that site to just 2 people at lunch time around Noon, and subsequently those people gave the site to 2 people each an hour later, and so on - by 4pm about 30 people would have seen the site, not too bad.

Assuming that each person decides to take just 1 hour to refer only 2 of their colleagues to your website - by 8pm about 510 people would see your site, and by midnight a whopping 8000 people would theoreticially see your site! This was accomplished WITHOUT SPENDING A DIME!

I know this only occurs in a perfect world, but these numbers are achieved by everybody only forwarding the site to just 2 people each. Not too shabby.

Also imagine that the people who visited your site were targeted visitors - in other words, they were not just visitors from the general populace, but instead they were visitors that fit the exact profile of a person that would want what your website has to offer.

The simple prospect of having 8000 targeted visitors to your site in a 12-hour time frame usually excites most webmasters - and this is all accomplished with the 'power of 2'!
Let's try to analyze this together: The numbers are staggering for a complete 24-hour time frame, but for the sake of simplicity let's just stick with the 8000 targeted visitors in the 12-hour time frame scenario.

Imagine if out of those 8000 targeted visitors, your website system was able to convert 1% of those targeted visitors to actual sales.

1% of 8000 is 80 sales that day.

Let's say that whatever it is you're selling costs $37.

80 sales at $37 each comes out to a whopping $2960!! Pretty nice for one day!!

But let's get a little bit more realistic.

Let's say that you really did not get 8000 targeted visitors that day, instead we'll cut that figure in half - to 4000 targeted visitors.

In addition, let's also cut down the sales conversion percentage in half - we'll go from 1% to 0.5%.
And finally let's cut down the price of your product from $37 to $17.
That means that a 0.5% conversion of 4000 targeted visitors equals 20 sales.
At $17 each, 20 sales would equal $340 that day. Still not too shabby for not spending a penny on advertising!

Don't forget that the average U.S. employee makes $50,000 a year in annual salary - after working for 12 months at 40-hrs a week, this boils down to a gross daily income of about $208!
So as you can see as an Internet Marketer, it is in your best interest to learn to do everything you can to take full advantage of the power of viral marketing.

Learn How To Maximize The Power of Your Warm Market!

One amazing way to create an avalanche of free traffic to your website involves the creation of a website that your warm market would visit frequently.

The common theme amongst most family, social and coworker groups involves entertainment. Most 'outside of work' topics of conversation at work involve fun, leisure, comedy, humor, live entertainment, movies, music concerts, sporting events, etc.

When you create a small fun website for your peers, family and friends (preferably a blog as mentioned above) that is full of content that would compel them to visit time and time again, you are realizing the EASE and FUN of one of the greatest business skills in this century - driving targeted traffic to a website!

For example you can create a website that showcases funny jokes or pictures that make your friends and family laugh and smile.

Why would you want to do this?

As your friends and family start forwarding your website or emails to others, maybe people who you don't even personally know (as described by the power of Viral Marketing above), a good portion of these people may click on your link that directs them to your website showcasing what you have to offer by way of your products or services!

If you're looking for a FUN way to promote your products and services, this is it!
The New Social Network Trend!

Here's ANOTHER fun viral marketing idea: Did you know that social networking websites like MySpace.com and Ryze.com are one of the most heavily trafficked sites on the web? Did you also know that MySpace offers a section where members trade-swap and cross-promote their products and services to each other?

MySpace offers you a way to actually promote your products and services through your website link on your MySpace profile. This way your WHOLE LIST of MySpace contacts or 'friends' are able to be exposed to your offer!

Why not give it a shot? If by chance you make that ONE contact that you meet on MySpace that helps you revolutionize your internet business, wouldn't it be COMPLETELY worth it?
Click below to enter the MySpace world, drive traffic to your website, and have fun!
http://www.MySpace.com

Your Action Step for driving massive amounts of targeted traffic to your website using viral marketing TODAY! Brainstorm and create your first viral marketing campaign - even if it's simply sending out a fun and informative email to your closest colleagues, or simply forwarding jokes with your new Forum/Marketing signature on the bottom, to maybe even creating your own fun entertainment website for all your colleagues to enjoy! (Don't forget to include your product or service website link as well!!)

About the Author
Cedric Licuanan is a thriving Chicago-Based Internet Marketer. He has focused on helping people achieve what they want out of life and currently maintains several success-driven websites.
Learn How to Drive Massive Amounts of Targeted Traffic to Your Website! http://www.DynamicOnlineSuccess.com
http://www.dynamic-wealth.info/

Keep Affiliate Marketing Simple

2007-05-16T18:28:00.000-07:00

by David Cooper
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Affiliate marketing is an incredibly popular way of earning money online. It avoids the pains and hassles of product creation and allows Internet entrepreneurs with a streamlined means of lining their pockets. Unfortunately, too many affiliate marketers fall into a trap. They turn their backs on simplicity and make the process complicated. As a result, they experience diminished returns and frustrations instead of fast moneymaking and excitement.

Making money online isn't rocket science. There are many good ways to combine solid effort with a little know-how and some skill to generate revenues. That doesn't mean it's easy--it can take a lot of work. It does, however, mean that it's simple.

Affiliate marketing, for instance, is simple. You drive potential clients to a product's sales page. When one of those prospects makes a purchase, you receive a hefty commission. It's an incredibly simple model.

Too many affiliate marketers "gunk up" that elegant system by complicating matters. They worry about pre-selling. They worry about showcasing the product as they drive traffic. They're preoccupied with a million and one different details they believe will produce record sales and giant commission checks.

Many of them develop a vision problem. They stop seeing the forest and focus almost exclusively on a never-ending collection of individual trees. Some of them even lose trace of the trees because they're busy studying individual pieces of bark! They start worrying about things they shouldn't even think about. Remember, the attraction of affiliate marketing is that it makes things easier for the entrepreneur. When you start biting off more and more, the efficiency-robbing complications start to take center stage.

The key to affiliate marketing is simplicity. Deviation from that basic tenet is the easiest way to decrease both your efficiency and your sales.

There is such a thing as pushing too hard, you know. Prospects can grow weary of too much salesmanship. If you're pre-selling and pre-selling and even doing a little selling, that means your pouring your effort into jobs the affiliate program should be handling. It also means you aren't spending your resources where they can provide maximum payout.

If you know how to choose a good product and how to drive traffic to an affiliated sales page, your home free. That's what it's all about. Finding the right product and driving traffic are what really matter. A good product is going to have a good sales page. If you can deliver targeted traffic, people will buy and you will get those fat checks.

About The Author
David Cooper was shocked to learn that more than half of all affiliate marketers surrender before they cash a single check! There is a way out. Affiliate marketing is a serious business moneymaker when you know how to do it the smart way. Affiliate Avalanche is the one-of-a-kind guide to joining the moneymaking minority of highly successful affiliate marketers.

A message from Cathie

2007-05-16T14:02:00.000-07:00

Hi,

My name is Cathie. Welcome to ANFE.

I'll be adding articles on a regular basis. I will only add articles that are well-written and contain useful information for my visitors. You won't find any fluff or keyword ridden articles here. They annoy me as I'm sure they do you.

Please bookmark my blog so you can check back for new articles, news and opportunities. I'll be updating my blog regularly, so there will always be new content for you when you return.

Thank you for visiting my blog.
I hope you find the articles and news useful to you.
Good luck in whatever you do and I hope to see you return soon.
Cathie.

Submit Your Article To ANFE

2007-05-15T18:28:00.000-07:00

Have you written an article that fits our site? Did you find a great article that should be on ANFE? If so, you can submit it for review. It make take a few days but we will review it.

1- Please completely fill out the form.

2 - If you are not the author, please make sure that the author allows the article to be re-published. If the author does allow re-publication be sure to include the correct spelling of the author's name.

3 - Authors, please be sure to add promotional links to the "About The Author" or resource field. Articles with promotional links in the article body will be rejected.

4 - Limit the number of resource links. We may reject an article if there are too many resource links.

5 - Please only submit articles that fit the categories on ANFE. Here are our categories...

Affiliate Programs

Amazon

eBay

Google Adsense

Google Adwords

Marketing / Sales

Multi Level Marketing

Search Engine Optimization

Work At Home

If the article does not fit into one of those categories, please do not submit it.

6 - Please spell check you article. Articles with excessive spelling errors may be rejected.

7 - Please use proper punctuation. Improper punctuation, like using excessive exclamation points may cause your article to be rejected.

8 - Articles that contain a large number of keywords may be rejected. If there are so many keywords in your article that it becomes obvious and annoying to the reader, the article will be rejected. Please only submit articles that flow well and sound good to the ear.

All articles published on ANFE may be listened to if the reader chooses that option. Articles with spelling errors, punctuation errors or that are loaded with keywords sound terrible to the listener.

9 - Only submit well-written articles that contain useful information to the reader or listener.

Fluff articles that only deal in generalizations will not be published. Those kinds of articles are worthless to our readers and will not be published on ANFE. They are usually just written to get links to a website and are worthless.

10 - Articles that are very short may also be rejected. Longer, informative and well written articles with few spelling mistakes will find a home here.

New - Registered ANFE users that write their own articles and submit them to ANFE will also receive a link in the authors section (coming soon). Every article they submit will carry the category tag and an author tag. This way a user can view all articles from a specific author and they will be linked from our home page and every other page on the site. To become an ANFE Author simply write an article and submit it to us. We will also place a link to your ANFE profile so be sure to fill it out.

Thanks,
Cathie