By - Adriana Iordan
<)))
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.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Why You Need Outbound Links
By - Paul Bliss
<)))
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
<)))
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
Monday, May 21, 2007
Marketing Your Amazon aStore
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.
<)))
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
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
<)))
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
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/
<)))
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/
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Develop Your MLM Downline With High Quality Guaranteed Sign Ups
By - Joseph Then
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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.
<)))
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
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/
<)))
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/
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