Sunday, December 14, 2008
Inside AdSense: Extending AdSense for domains to all publishers
This is really dumb if you ask me?
I posted more here:
http://ixld.com/blogs/business/2008/12/14/google-extends-adsense-to-all-domain-owners/2827
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Wholesalers Dropshipping - Select The Right One For Your Business
The dropshipping business is touted to be one of the easiest to set up and best for earning a profit online, even for novices. All you need to master is internet marketing, as the products should catch the attention of the potential customers who surf online. When they place an order, they will send their payment to you at the same time, out of which you pay the wholesalers dropshipping supplier. The supplier then sends the product to the client. The growth and reputation of your business will often depend upon how efficiently the supplier handles the shipping.
This is the reason why you need to know how to select the best, wholesale drop shipping supplier, if you want to succeed in this business. The shipper must be reliable, as this is critical to your business, and the shipper must provide reasonably priced products, as this will determine your profit and sales turnover. The quality of the products is also very important, as this will build your reputation, and lastly, products should be well stocked so the dispatch of an order will be fast and efficient. The reliability of a company can be checked by referring their name to the BBA, as well as running a check on the internet for information. Unreliable dropshipping companies can be a source of great embarrassment, not to mention losses. The quality of the dropshipping products can be checked by asking them for samples.
Another quality that you will require in your wholesalers dropshipping supplier is the ability to accommodate small orders, along with large orders. Ideally, there should not be a minimum limit on an order. This will be critical if you are new to the business, since initially you likely will be dealing with small orders. Though it is often difficult to find such suppliers, the trouble to find one will be well worth your trouble. This is one thing that you should negotiate with the drop shipping company in advance, since once you have the order from the client, it should be honored by your dropshipping supplier.
The quality of the wholesalers dropshipping supplier will directly impact the success of your business. It is therefore in your interest to identify the best there is online and enter into a contract with them. Among the most critical factors is the honesty and dependability of the drop shipping wholesale company, as this will generally cover all other requirements in the business. It is also imperative that you connect to such suppliers that do not impose any minimum amount of orders, making it easier for you to set up your business initially.
Going into business for yourself can be a tricky proposition. There is so much that you need to know about the economy and business practices. Many businesses go under the first year because the owners did not do the research that was needed. Most small business owners do not even know what wholesalers dropshipping is or how it can affect their bottom line. If you are owning or running a business then you know that keeping an eye on finances is paramount to success. To get the knowledge you need: "Click Here"
Why So Many People Fail In Affiliate Marketing!
More and More people are lured into affiliate marketing and you might be one of them. Indeed, affiliate marketing is one of the most effective means of generating a full-time income through the Internet. It’s a fair deal between the merchandiser and his affiliates as both benefit from each sale materialized. Like in other kinds of business, a great deal of the profits in affiliate marketing depends on the affiliate’s advertising, promoting and selling strategies. Everyday, as affiliate marketing industry expands, competition heightens as well so an affiliate marketer must be creative enough to employ unique and effective ways to convince potential buyers to purchase or avail of the products and services offered.
Compared to traditional advertising practices, affiliate programs are more effective, risk-free and cost-efficient. But why do many people still fail in affiliate marketing? There are a lot of reasons and a lot of areas in the program to look into. The most critical aspect in the affiliate program is advertising. Many affiliate marketers fail in this aspect because they lack hard work, which is the most important thing in affiliate marketing and in all other kinds of business as well. Although it pays to be lucky, you cannot merely rely on it. Affiliate marketing isn’t as simple as directing customers to the business site. If you want to earn big, of course, you have to invest time and great amount of hard work in promoting the products. As earlier mentioned, the competition is very high and customers nowadays are very wise, too. After all, who doesn’t want to get the best purchase—that is, to pay less and get more in terms of quantity and quality.
Lack of preparation is also a reason why one fails in affiliate marketing, whether he is a merchandiser or an affiliate. Part of the preparation is researching. On the part of the merchant, he has to be highly selective in choosing the right affiliate websites for his affiliate program. In order to be sure he has the best choices, he must have exhausted his means in looking for highly interested affiliates whose sites are sure fit to his products and services. The affiliate site’s visitors must match his targeted customers. On the other hand, the affiliate marketer must likewise research on the good-paying merchandisers before he signs up for an affiliate program. He must ensure that the merchants’ products and services match his interests so he can give his full attention and dedication to the program. He can get valuable information by joining affiliate forums, comparing different affiliate programs and reading articles on affiliate marketing where he can get tips from experienced affiliate marketers on how to choose the best merchants and products with high conversion rate.
The website is a very important tool in the whole affiliate program. As an affiliate marketer, you should plan how your site is going to be, from domain name to the design, the lay-out, the content, and ads. Some users are particular about what they see at first glance and thus when they find your site ugly, they won’t read through the content even if your site has many things to say and offer. On the other hand, there those who want information more than anything else. Affiliate marketers with “rich-content” web sites are usually the ones who prosper in this business because the content improves traffic to the site. Websites with high quality contents—with relevant keywords and more importantly, right information about the product and not empty hyped-up advertisements—allow you to earn big in affiliate marketing even when you’re asleep. If you won’t be able to sustain the interest of your site visitor, you won’t be able to lead him to the merchants’ site. No click-through means no sale and thus, no income on your part.
Selecting a top level domain name is also crucial to the success of the affiliate program. Lots of affiliate sites don’t appear in the search engine results because they are deemed by affiliate managers as personal sites. Major search engines and directories would think of your site as transient ones and thus, they won’t list it in the directory. Before you decide on the domain name, know first what you are going to promote. Many fail because their sites are not appropriately named, so even when they feature the exact products the customer is looking for, the customer might think the site is not relevant and thus, won’t enter the site.
Above all, an affiliate marketer must be willing to learn more. Certainly, there are still a lot of things to learn and so an affiliate marketer must continue to educate himself so he can improve his marketing strategies. Many fail because they don’t grow in the business and they are merely concerned about earning big quickly. If you want long-term and highly satisfactory results, take time to learn the ins and outs of the business. Continue to improve your knowledge especially with the basics in affiliate marketing ranging from advertising to programming, web page development, and search engine optimization techniques. Likewise, study the needs and wants of your site users and how different merchandisers compete with each other.
Keep on trying; don’t get disappointed if your first attempts did not pay off. Thousands are attracted by the possibility of generating skyrocketing incomes through affiliate marketing and so they sign up in any affiliate program without carefully understanding every aspect of the business. When they don’t get instant results, they quit and sign up for another program and repeat the process of just copying links and referring them to others. When you sign up for an affiliate program, don’t expect to get rich in an instant. Work on your advertising strategies and be patient. You’ll never know how much you can get if you don’t persevere.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
The Updated Blogging to the Bank - top-notch Review for Bloggers
Blogs is around for many years now. Many people utilise blogs to record their creative talent and lives, while the select few use these for a cheap technique to make huge chunks of money.
One of the guys who follows this to his own good is Rob Benwell . Last year he cleaned the dirt on the uncovered secrets to make a fortune using blog posts. Afterwards as time passes the orthodox turn to be obsolete and new techniques wii be required. This is where his latest, cool not in print blogging to the bank 2 system comes into play. To those guys who seriously wishesblogging guides here’s the best bet.
In the past he was struggling to earn money online, had dropped out of college and was getting deep into debt. He was trying several techniques the so called bigdogs told him and wasn't getting anywhere effectively. Everything just lost in the dust and he started using his self techniques and ramped up earning huge chunks of money with informative blogs. In early 2006 he made his techniques to the internet and had a marvelous ebook named as blogging to the bank. Tons of newbies made money from using these strategies (including me). He after the huge success spoke at Online Marketing Legend Yanik Silver's underground maketing meet and here Benwell announced even more of his underground secrets.
It has been full of rare latest tactics which can profit using net right now.All of his strategies told in simple language garbage. I received an advanced copy of the book for a much better price than what it actually sells for and it has been worth every single buck I got hold of it during afternoon and by the evening I was creating excellent money making blogs. Just under a couple of hours of those being to the net I simply earned a easy little profit.
Blogging To The Bank 2.0 explains you Benwell’s latest interactive blueprint to owning highly useful long term niche blogs Using the SEO optimization secrets. Moreover a section on advanced Search Engine Optimization secrets. Usually newbies feel SEO is difficul but Benwell shows this nice and simply that even the blogging newbie could manage to use it.
I believe blogging to the bank review can help you in deciding if this book is for you.
Earn money with domain names
Domain business is indeed big money. To give you a taste of it, there was this guy who bought pizza.com for 2 million USD. Whooa..that’s quite a lot of money isn’t it?
So how can you make money buying and selling domain?
Domain business is like real estate business. While a real estate broker buys prime land and keeps it with him for years together, he’s actually growing his money. A growth is guaranteed, and there are no short falls. Similarly in domain business, the clever guys is the one who picks up “value domains”. Let’s discuss this further.
More info on blogging and search engine optimization here - Making money with digital photography.
Investment Required
- Time and effort
You have to be really clever and find out what’s a premium domain. Domains like pizza.com and three-four letter domains are almost unavailable now or are on high bids. So it takes lot of time and effort to find out the best domain, that you think is “sell able”. This is as complex as finding the prime property in real estate. Finding out a good domain requires you to hang around with the domain seller community and find out what’s the hottest domains there. Like for instance poker related domain names are much in demand and is big money. So it makes sense to book one today relevant to the poker keywords. Though you can guarantee that a domain name is completely sellable, it requires much calculation to find out if it’s acceptable.
- Patience
The guy who owned pizza.com registered it in 1994, and kept it with him until 2007/8 when he sold it for USD 2 million. So had he lost hope all those years, he wouldn’t have made so much money. So patience s a good virtue. Once you are sure that you have a great domain, keep it with you and watch the demand rise. Some people also make it a point to let people know of the domain and create demand. Though it can happen sometimes, it’s not necessary if it’s a great domain. But yes, keeping it with you for some time is sure good way to increase the price.
- Ensuring visibility
Once you have a great domain, ensure that you make it visible to the potential buyers. For example if you have a poker domain you can hang around at poker related websites and forums and make it known to buyers. This can create some hype over the domain too. Hanging around forums and discussion boards along with commenting on blogs and using the social media is a great way to increase the prize and demand for the domain.
Tools required
For great domain sell outs, you have to use the tools that are popular. Some are forums like Digitalpoint.com, and Sitepoint.com where lot of buyers and sellers hangout. Also there are marketplaces at DNSscoop.com where people hangout who are potential buyers. More info here.
Returns
Big money. If you have great domains that are much in demand or brandable, then there’s quite a lot that you can earn.
Risks
Well, if you pick up wrong domain names, then it’s a waste of money. Don’t pick up reseller domains that have been banned on google or have been doing something shady. It’s a risk buying them and keeping them with you.
How I Made My Blog Successful
When I first started blogging about 11 months ago, I was pretty clueless. Many bloggers starting out have no plan at all and they never get anywhere with their blog. They want to make money blogging because they see others "supposedly" doing it and it looks easy. They think they can write well, gain a following, start charging for ads, and build an empire. They are told that blogging is one of the new great ways to make money. All they end up with is an abandoned blog and no money.
Several months ago I was thinking of giving up and selling my blog as I was hardly getting any search engine traffic. You need Google search engine traffic to make money with a blog and anyone who tells you differently is lying. The only way you don't need it is if you are somehow able to become famous and make a name for yourself. But that is a 1 in 10,000,000 shot so good luck with that one. I will stick with Google.
Luckily, I decided not to sell and in fact I have just paid for another year of hosting. Maybe I should pay for 10 years because I think I can make some pretty effortless money with my blog for some time to come. When I started out I was just writing to be writing and writing to entertain. Write naturally, I read on other blogs, and readers will come. Well thanks for that misleading bit of useless information. Again, what you read on 90% of the other "work from home jobs" and "how to make money" blogs is either wrong, misleading, or useless information. Everyone seems to have advice and online, you just don't have to back it up.
Sometime early this year I did what I should have been doing from the start. I started targeting several search term phrases and if I had only done that from the start I would have easily been on the first page for several of those terms. For well over a month now I have been getting over 200 search engine unique hits a day. I used to have trouble getting 40 and it is because of the phrases I have been slowly targeting and the increased age of my blog. I have to think that things will only get better in the future.
My posting frequency has gone down dramatically and now I only post when I feel like it. I will have to continue to get some links but for the most part I think I can do very little and still get the hits from Google because of the work I have put in to getting ranked. That is the difference between getting Google search engine traffic because you are ranked well for many terms and worthless StumbleUpon traffic. StumbleUpon traffic is tons of fun but it goes away. Then you have to write another hit post and another. Who wants to do that? It is a lot easier to keep your blog ranked for your targeted search terms than it is to keep on pumping out hit posts. And it pays better too.
All this is basically the reason why I just paid for another year of hosting and will not be giving up this blog anytime soon. The more work I put in building links and writing posts that target certain keywords, the more of a chance it will have of earning even more every month. Blogging is, it turns out, one of the good money making ideas.
Spinning Articles: Why Do it?
Serious article marketers have developed a method of publishing different versions of the same article to multiple blogs and websites using what is called article "spinning". It works by replacing elements of articles, such as whole sentences, single words or even entire paragraphs within a article.Spinning article changes the original words to words with similar meanings to generate the new content from the same article. One key primary advantage of article spinning is you can target different niche keyword phrases within more broad keyword phrases. If you are crafty you can generate some quality traffic to your blog or website.
For example lets use the keyword phrase "website content". I am going to write a paragraph about "article content" but I am going to use article spinning to reach out to two different niche markets The keyword phrases I am going to target are "free hunting content" and "free Internet marketing content" I will illustrate first what a article spin would look like in one of the article marketing software packages i use. I enclosed the brackets with " " so you could see the spin code, otherwise this paragraph would automatically article spin for me.
"fishing Blog webmasters are you interested in getting 100% free fishing content to your website or blog automatically every single day?" There's a new article marketing software that distributes " free fishing content to your blog everyday." "All you need to do is sign up and add your setting to the article marketing blog robot and you are all set." Then all you do is review the daily free article marketing content that comes to your blog everyday! it's a win win situation for you.
You notice with just a simple modification in my sentence structure I was able to reach out to two different niches. If you are a bit confused , each time the software publishes to a different blog website it uses one of the phrases in the brackets. Now imagine if I had a 700 word article and i used article spinning on 70% of my sentences. I would have a almost completely new version of my article every time it was submitted to a new website or blog.
Recreation Website Webmasters , Need 100% Free Automated Article Marketing Content Instantly? Click This Link: Free Internet Marketing Blog Content
Mark Fleagle
The Poor Affiliate's Guide To Overbearing Amounts Of Free Website Traffic
Let's face it; nobody wants to pay for every single visitor they get to their websites right?
Sure, PPC is a powerful aspect of internet marketing, but also requires a lot of maintenance and higher risks.
However, with free traffic, all you're giving up is your time (presuming you're trying to get it yourself).
But time is not something we have an abundance of, so let's look at how to get plenty of free, targeted traffic to your websites as an affiliate...today!
1. Focusing on a huge market
The first piece of the puzzle is the demand. No matter what you do to promote your website, you'll always struggle if there is simply too little demand inside the marketplace you get involved in.
Don't be afraid to go after the big markets, as clearly there is so much demand going on, you can take a small cut off the side and still make a killing.
2. Articles that focus of huge demand topics
It's no secret that articles are still one of the best ways to drive traffic to any type of website that you desire. However, many people still make the mistake of writing articles that are not targeting the right people for their affiliate offers.
To avoid this, simply do your due diligence when picking out keywords to focus your articles on. Write the entire article around the keyword. The keyword itself must be a keyword that is closely related to the offer you're trying to promote.
For example, don't write an article on aerobic exercises and try to promote tennis shoes. Instead, write an article on a specific tennis training technique and then talk about how a good tennis shoe can help you in your game...THEN lead the visitor to your tennis shoes website.
To get lots of free traffic as an affiliate using articles, you do NOT always have to write hundreds of articles, you just need to write quality articles that people will link to, share and most importantly, click through to your website from!
3. Lots of inbound links
Another key to serious traffic from the search engines and referring websites is inbound links. The more you have the more listings you'll be rewarded with in the various search engines.
Sure, it's not always a quick way to get traffic, but boy is it worth it. Here's what you can do to get started:
- comment on other people's blogs
- submit your site to relevant niche directories
- write more articles
- write exclusive content for other websites to use with a backlink to your website
4. Jumping into large portal sites
Social networking sites are a haven for traffic, purely due to the large volume of people visiting them each day. Youtube, Digg, Myspace, Facebook, and thousands upon thousands of other sites are teaming with people who are interested in the products you are promoting.
Get over there and start dropping some links, adding content and getting involved. You don't need to devote your life to this, just dip your feet in and get some extra exposure to your website, leveraging the sheer volume of existing traffic on these websites.
These techniques will truly accelerate your online profits, so make sure you take note or bookmark this page so you can reference them when you start getting your hands dirty!
Affiliate Marketing: Why is it One of the Most Cost-Effective Ways to Promote your Business!
Ever heard of affiliate programs? These are forms of Internet advertising that rewards the affiliates for driving traffic to the advertiser or for other transactions. The advertiser pays the affiliate to place a link on their website, and the affiliate sends traffic to the advertiser in return. Simply put, it's about paying commissions to people who help you make sales. It's that easy. NOT.
Affiliate marketing has its ups and downs. It could be draining if you are not armed with updated information and the technical how-tos. But this article's sole objective is to reach out to you and not to badmouth affiliate marketing.
Here are the following reasons on why web marketers go gaga over affiliate marketing as a form of Internet advertisement.
1. Low cost
Many are scared to go on a home based business because of the capital required. In affiliate marketing, you don't have to spend much to start raking in moolah.
2. Inventories not included
Product management fuss could be very stressing. An inventory is not asked to be maintained. The merchant does the maintenance required.
3. Unlimited income through leverage
When you have a paid job, your monthly income mainly relies on whether you go to work or not. With affiliate marketing, your affiliates could all just lead traffic to your site without having to lift a finger after providing them your ad copy and links. Though not every web marketer earns limitless, it still is a fact that all the necessary matters for the advertiser or Internet marketer are all there to be successful.
4. Go worldwide
With affiliate marketing, you are dealing with a global market place. All you have to do is choose a niche product and prepare all the necessary tools for your affiliates to lead traffic from just about anywhere to your website.
5. Low risk
The very main reason for Internet marketer's enthusiasm with affiliate marketing is its having a low risk factor. Especially for those with low budget set aside for advertising, affiliate marketing is just the way to do it.
6. No closing time
With affiliate marketing, your business works every single second of the day while targeting a worldwide market! What could be better than that?
But all of these will be put to waste if you don't have the right niche product and all the other important tools to make it big in affiliate marketing, i.e., well-SEO-ed website. So better work on this first before ever considering those benefits.
Easy Profits Using PPC In Your Affiliate Marketing Business!
PPC is one of the four basic types of Search Engines. PPC is also one of the most cost-effective ways of targeted internet advertising. According to Forbes magazine, PPC or Pay Per Click, accounts to 2 billion dollars a year and is expected to increase to around 8 billion dollars by the year 2008.
Let us take a quick look at how PPC Search Engines work.
These engines create listings and rate them based on a bid amount the website owner is willing to pay for each click from that search engine. Advertisers bid against each other to receive higher ranking for a specific keyword or phrase.
The highest bidder for a certain keyword or phrase will then have the site ranked as number 1 in the PPC Search Engines followed by the second and third highest bidder, up to the last number that have placed a bid on the same keyword or phrase. Your ads then will appear prominently on the results pages based on the dollar amount bid you will agree to pay per click.
How do you make money by using PPC into your affiliate marketing business?
Most affiliate programs only pay when a sale is made or a lead delivered after a visitor has clickthrough your site. Your earnings will not always be the same as they will be dependent on the web site content and the traffic market.
The reason why you should incorporate PPC into your affiliate marketing program is that earnings are easier to make than in any other kind of affiliate program not using PPC. This way, you will be making profit based from the clickthroughs that your visitor will make on the advertiser’s site. Unlike some programs, you are not paid per sale or action.
PPC can be very resourceful of your website. With PPC Search Engines incorporated into your affiliate program, you will be able to profit from the visitor’s who are not interested in your products or services. The same ones who leave your site and never comes back.
You will not only get commissions not only from those who are just searching the web and finding the products and services that they wanted but you will be able to build your site’s recognition as a valuable resource. The visitors who have found what they needed from you site are likely to come back and review what you are offering more closely. Then they will eventually come back to search the web for other products.
This kind of affiliate program is also an easy way for you to generate some more additional revenues. For example, when a visitor on your site does a search in the PPC Search Engine and clicks on the advertiser bided listings, the advertisers’ account will then be deducted because of that click. With this, you will be compensated 30% to 80% of the advertisers’ bid amount.
PPC is not only a source of generating easy profits; it can also help you promote your own site. Most of the programs allow the commissions received to be spent for advertising with them instantly and with no minimum earning requirement. This is one of the more effective ways to exchange your raw visitors for targeted surfers who has more tendencies to purchase your products and services.
What will happen if you when you integrate PPC into your affiliate program?
PPC usually have ready-to-use affiliate tools that can be easily integrated into your website. The most common tools are search boxes, banners, text links and some 404-error pages. Most search engines utilize custom solutions and can provide you with a white-label affiliate program. This enables you, using only a few lines of code, to integrate remotely-hosted co-branded search engine into your website.
The key benefits? Not only more cash generated but also some extra cadh on the side. Plus a lifetime commissions once you have referred some webmaster friends to the engine.
Think about it. Where can you get all these benefits while already generating some income for your site? Knowing some of the more useful tools you can use for your affiliate program is not a waste of time. They are rather a means of earning within an earning.
Best know more about how you can use PPC search engines into your affiliate program than miss out on a great opportunity to earn more profits.
Monday, October 27, 2008
How to Become A Clickbank Super Affiliate!
Making money through affiliate marketing is one of the most rewarding careers one could ever have. What’s good about this business is that anyone can join and make their way to success. Affiliate marketing has been known to be cost-efficient, assessable method of conveying long-term results. In fact, you can start even with a shoe string budget. And with affiliate marketing, you can have the benefit of working from home and enjoying the freedom and flexibility of working for yourself.
But there are also some people who failed in this kind of business. It could be because they lack knowledge and tactics. If you are a web site owner and you want to join in an affiliate marketing business, you should know where to get good affiliate programs.
Clickbank is an ideal place to start. Here, you can find one of the largest affiliate marketing programs in the industry. You just need to visit their site, clickbank.com and secure a clickbank ID. From the Clickbank’s home page, proceed to “Earn Commissions” and look for the products and services that perfectly fit you and your site. These products are typically ranked according to their popularity.
Clickbank is one of the affiliate networks that serve as a 3rd party between the web merchants and the associated affiliates. It is responsible in providing the technology to deliver the merchant’s offers and campaigns. The affiliate network also do the job of collecting commission fees from the merchant and giving it to the affiliates involved in the program.
Clickbank provides you a large and increasing network of publishers or affiliates to tap into. To be more specific, clickbank has more than 100,000 affiliates who are experts in finding potential customers for your affiliate program. The reason why more and more affiliates are joining Clickbank is obvious – the process of gaining commissions in this network is absolutely fair and transparent.
For web merchants, joining Clickbank is so easy. You just need to sign up in their site for free and allow them to sell your products. Keep up a promotional web site that gives your potential customers detailed information about your offered product or services. At your website, you must also maintain a comprehensive technical support pages for your product. In return, Clickbank will promote and sell your product, give customer service for your product, allow their affiliates to pass on traffic to your web site, enable you to encourage new affiliates to advertise your web site, furnish real-time sales reporting for you and the affiliates and send you and all affiliates a paycheck twice a month.
If you’re a Clickbank affiliate wannabe, you surely won’t find it hard to be a part of this network. First, you are required to place their link on your website and if you don’t have a Clickbank account, you need to complete the Clickbank affiliate form and create your own account. Then, if you already have a Clickbank username, you are free to choose whatever marketing tools you want to use bring in more clicks and generate more sales. After selecting marketing tools, you can now get your affiliate link.
That’s how simple it is to join Clickbank. But being a Clickbank super affiliate is no minor achievement. It means you need to possess the ability to sell lots of affiliate products. You also need to have expertise in search engine optimization, email marketing, newsletter marketing, reciprocal linkage, link exchanges and other methods of promoting your merchant’s goods and services.
Among the secrets to become successful in affiliate marketing is to come up with good content based website and put your affiliate links in all your content. Your main purpose here is to give your visitors good quality content about the things they are interested in. Set aside the job of selling. It must be done by the sales letter page you are transferring them to.
3 Powerful Ways To Make Quick Money !
You are finding ways to make quick money? I know 3 ways that can help you, only if you are willing to listen... You don't have to invest a lot of money to start, all you need is your passion, time and hard work! Just do it consistently...
What do you prefer? Quick but little money or quick and a lot of money?
I think the answer is obvious, but I still want to share the quick but little money method:
1. Do the online survey? Fill out the form and get paid with a small amount of money, you trade your time for the money, and eventually you may lose you money buying products from the survey company!
2. Get pay surfing the Internet. Most probably the easiest way, but do you think you can make a lot of money by surfing...?
Well, those are the most slowest ways to make any money! You want to build your wealth fast, you must prepare to add value to the Internet!
Now, I am going to share the 3 best ways I know:
1. Blogging
2. Affiliate Marketing
3. Create Your Own Product
Yes, these are the quick ways to make money online, no doubt about it! Anyone can make 4 figures monthly after 3 months, but they must know the correct way.
The cause can be simple: If you want to make a lot of money over the Internet, 2 things you must experience:
1. How to get a lot of traffic
2. How to convert the traffic to money!
Use blog to build massive traffic and loyalty readers, promote affiliate product to your readers or create your products and get affiliates army to promte it for you. If you do it correctly for the next 12 months, you can make 6 figures a month, and many young online entrepreneurs has done it, so can you!
Are you still wondering the best ways to make quick money? Start taking action and do it, I assure you no other ways is quicker!
You can find more information regarding Make money over the Internet, just remember to focus on what you have learn and you will be successful!
Affiliate Marketing In 3 Easy Steps!
Affiliate marketing is a process where the merchant
will pay a portion of their sales revenue to an
affiliate if the sale is result of the affiliate's
promotion to the products and services offered by
the merchant.
Now days, it's one of the fastest growing industries
because it's cost efficient and quantifiable for
both the affiliate and the merchant. Other players
can profit as well, such as the affiliate network
or the affiliate solutions provider.
The best benefit for the merchant is the fact that
he will gain opportunities to advertise his
products to a much larger market, therefore
increasing his chances to earn. The more affiliates
the merchant obtains, the more sales he can expect.
With the merchant having affiliates market his
products and services, he will save himself time,
effort, and money in looking for markets as well as
customers. The affiliate marketer will benefit
from each customer that clinks on the link in his
website and who actually purchases a product from
the merchant.
If you have wanted to join the growing legion of
affiliate marketers and have an unlimited potential
for income, simply follow these 3 steps to start
an effective affiliate marketing program.
1. Identify something that interests you or you
feel very passionate about. Then, focus on a
specific area you know a lot about, as this will
help you bring out your best and give your
visitors who are possible buyers a demonstration
of your expert in this field. This way, you'll
gain their trust and encourage them to buy the
products that you endorse.
2. Search for merchants and products or services
that are related to your interest then creat a
web site with top level domain names and very
reliable hosting. When you choose the products
for your web site, you need to consider the
commission structure and the conversion rate.
There are many different affiliate networks and
affiliate solution providers where you can obtain
the information on most profitable products and
which merchants pay the best. Take your time -
and be sure you choose the right one.
3. Now, you are ready to promote. You've chosen
everything you need and even created your very own
website. You'll need to be creative, flexible,
and willing to embrace new ideas. By this stage,
you'll be well on your way to making more money
than you ever imagined - and enjoying every
minute of it.
How Many Affiliate Checks Do You Want To Receive?
Affiliate Marketing is by far, one of the easiest ways to make money online. It is a revenue sharing business relationship between the affiliate who agrees to promote the products or services, and the merchant who offers them.
The affiliate advertises the merchant's products and services and gets a commission for every successful referral. Every time a customer is referred to the merchant's site, through the affiliate's efforts, and makes a purchase, the affiliate gets a share of the profit. No payment is due to the affiliate until successful results are realized. Compensation is based on either number of visits (Pay-per-click), registrant (Pay-per-lead), or commission for each sale (Pay-per-sale).
Affiliate Marketers can earn a few bucks to thousands of dollars with affiliate programs. The opportunity to earn in affiliate marketing can only be limited by the affiliate's determination, creativity and strategy. It is a brilliant way to earn online, and you do not have to produce your own product or service to make a buck. By advertising your merchant's products passionately, you get more in return. Profits in affiliate marketing usually start small but can get larger as the campaign starts to build up steam.
There are many ways that an affiliate marketer can do to maximize their profits. If you ask any affiliate marketer how many affiliate checks they would want to receive, they will most likely want to get as many as possible. Some affiliate checks are small, amounting to nothing more than $25.
While others are large and can easily reach the thousands and even more. Over time, these affiliate checks may build up to a really impressive amount. However, making a fortune in affiliate marketing is not instant. You should put in enough work and effort as well. You have to use your imagination to find more ways to attract more web traffic that can convert to sales for the merchant and profit for you as well.
How many affiliate checks do you want to receive? Most affiliate marketers will enthusiastically reply that they want to receive as many affiliate checks as possible. However, is it as easy as it sounds? Does joining many affiliate marketers guarantee more affiliate checks that really amount to something? The answer is No. Most affiliate marketers assume that joining multiple affiliate programs is a wise option. Because, it is very easy to join affiliate programs and there is really nothing to lose, affiliate marketers are tempted to join as many programs they can get their hands on. Thus, they fail to give their affiliate programs enough attention and work that they ought to receive. The maximum potential of the affiliate programs are not realized and the resulting income from these programs will almost certainly be disappointing.
The best way to achieve multiple streams of income is to concentrate on one affiliate program first. Choose a product or service that you can promote passionately. Pick a product in which you have complete trust. The best products and services to promote are those that you use personally. Your prospects will be able to sense your sincerity whenever you promote a product that you have experienced. This will greatly enhance your credibility as well as your product's marketability and will really encourage your prospect to purchase or avail of the product or service.
As soon as your first affiliate program is making a reasonable profit then you can proceed to joining another affiliate program and repeat the process. "Too much, too soon" is a common pitfall in affiliate marketing. Joining too many affiliate programs simultaneously in the hopes of having multiple streams of income simply does not work.
Focus first on one affiliate program and work on it so that it makes a good profit. Then, go find another promising program and give it your best effort. The question should not be how many affiliate checks you want to receive, but how many "high-paying" affiliate checks can you receive. The answer lies in your determination to succeed and determination to maximize your earning potential. With the right tools, the right actions, and perseverance you can definitely make a good profit out of affiliate marketing.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Here's Why Using Camtasia Can Increase Your Affiliate Checks!
Since there are already lots of people getting into affiliate marketing, it is no wonder that the competition is getting stiff. The challenge is to try and outdo other affiliates and think of ways to be able to attain this.
There are also many tips and techniques being taught to these affiliate in order to best plan their strategy for their program to work effectively so that more earnings will be achieved.
What better way to wow your prospects and customers than to record and publish top notch, full motion and streaming screen-captured videos. Nothing like feeling your hard work getting paid by having your customers jumping up excitedly in great anticipation to buy your product right there and then.
This is Camtasia in action. It is a proven fact; giving your customers something they can actually see can explode your online sales instantly.
You do not need to have trainings and education to be able to know how this system can work for your affiliate program. Anyone can create stunning videos, from multimedia tutorials and step-by-step presentations available online. The process is like having your customers seated next to you and looking at your desktop, as you show them the things they need to see and hear. All this done step by step.
For those who does not know it yet, how does Camtasia works?
1. It can record your desktop activity in a single click. No need to have to save and compile all your files because it is recorded right there and then.
2. Can easily convert your videos into web pages. Once converted you can have your customers visiting that certain page. Videos are easier to understand and take in unlike reading texts which oftentimes is a trying thing to do.
3. Upload your pages. Publish them through blogs, RSS feed and podcasts. You may want your Camtasis videos to get around and reach out to other people that may be potential customers in the future. Nothing like being visible in many sites and pages to advertise yourself and get your message through.
There are other things you can do with your affiliate program using Camtasia. You can…
Create stunning multimedia presentations that are proven to increase sales because all the senses are engaged. This also has the tendency to reduce skepticism among hard-to-please customers.
Reduce refunds and other customer issues by demonstrating visually how to use your product and how to do it properly. Complaints will also be minimized because all the facts and the presentation are there for the customers to just see and hear about.
Promote affiliate products and services using visual presentations. This is an effective way of redirecting your viewers straight to your affiliate website after they are finished with the video. Make the most of the presentation by putting your site location in the end and make them go there directly if they want more information.
Multiple your online auction bids exponentially when you give your readers a feel of what you have to offer. Based from reports, auctions that includes pictures increases bidding percentage by 400%. Imagine how much higher it will be if it were videos.
Publish valuable infoproducts that you can sell for a much higher price. It will be all worth the price because of the full colored graphics menu and templates that you will be using.
Minimize miscommunication with your customers. Instantly showing them what you want they wanted in the first place is making them understand clearly the essence of your affiliate program. The good thing about multimedia is, nothing much can go wrong. It is there already.
These are just some of the things you can do with Camtasia that can be very helpful in your chosen affiliate program.
Note that the main purpose of using Camtasia is to boost the income that is generated from your affiliate program. Although it can be used for entertainment and enjoyment purposes, which is not really a valid reason why you choose to get all through that trouble.
Try to focus on the goal that you have set upon yourself to and achieve that with the use of the things that may be quite a lot of help in increasing your earnings.
Free Affiliate Tracking Software: Is There Such a Thing?
All around the world, there are an unlimited number of businesses that run their own affiliate program. Affiliate programs, if properly run, not only help a business to increase their sales, but they also allow participating webmasters to make money. Although an affiliate program is a great way to increase your business’s profits, it is a program that costs money to run. That is why many business owners, maybe yourself included, tend to look for cheaper ways to run an affiliate program. Many are looking for free affiliate tracking software.
Affiliate tracking software are programs that are designed to assist business owners who run their own affiliate programs. These software programs not only let a business know when an affiliate has generated a sale, but many also develop ways to make sure that the webmaster is paid for their part in the sale. This is important because without affiliate tracking software, many business owners would have a difficult time trying to decide who generated what sale.
Since affiliate tracking programs are vital to the success of an affiliate program, many business owners need to purchase them. If you are one of those individuals, you will soon find that affiliate tracking software, especially a quality program, does not come cheap. The cost of obtaining this ever so important software is difficult to estimate; different companies sell their software for different amounts of money. On average, an affiliate program starts out at around a couple hundred dollars, but can skyrocket into the thousands. For many business owners, especially small business owners, this cost is too much to afford, but that does not mean that you cannot still use an affiliate tracking software; however, it does mean that you need to find a low-cost alternative.
Before searching for a low-cost alternative, there are many business owners who search for software that is free. Despite the fact that many search for free affiliate tracking software, there are even more who do not. Unfortunately, many business owners believe that such a program does not exist. The reality is that free affiliate tracking software does exist and it is offered by AffPlanet. If you are interested in learning more about the free affiliate tracking software offered by AffPlanet, you are encouraged to examine their online website. Their online website can be found at affplanet.
The free affiliate software program offered by AffPlanet is just one of the software programs in which they offer. On their online website, you can easily compare the services and features of each software program. You will find that the free affiliate tracking software has a limited number of features. While these features may be able to provide you with what you need, you may also be looking more. If that is the cases, you are advised to keep on shopping.
If the free affiliate tracking software provided by AffPlanet was not what you were looking for, you will have to search for reasonably priced software. This is because, at the current moment, there are no other free affiliate tracking software programs available. As the need for these programs increase, there is a possibility that other free software will be developed in the future. However, until then, you will have to make do with what you can find.
Whether or not you can use the above mentioned free affiliate tracking software, you are still advised to give an affiliate program some thought. Thousands, if not millions, of businesses have benefits from the creation and the use of an affiliate program; there is no reason why your business can’t as well.
Creating Multiple Streams of Affiliate Marketing Income!
Have you ever heard or read the phrase “multiple streams of income” before? Do you know what this phrase means? For many businessmen, creating multiple streams of income online or offline is one way of securing themselves as well as their businesses in the future. They also believe that it can also save them from the so-called famine effect in the business industry. Once you are engaged in affiliate marketing business, it is advisable if you have multiple streams of affiliate marketing income so that if one of those income streams vanished, it will not upset you the way losing your sole stream would. If you depend on just one source of income and this single stream has been downsized or has lain off, you’ll surely find yourself bankrupted and hopeless. Try to ask the most successful online entrepreneurs, and you’ll discover that they have established multiple streams of online income.
There is a businessman that said and attested that the very first step you must take in creating multiple streams of income is to assess or evaluate your resources. Start by assessing yourself first. Jot down your answers to the following questions: What are the talents, abilities, strength and gears that you possess? Are you gifted with excellent and creative writing skills? Can you do well at sales? Are you good in communicating with people? Are you born with an artistic skill or unique ability that other people don’t have? Through this, you can determine the kind of business where can possibly excel.
Next, look around and write down you assets and physical resources such as computer, color printer, scanner, digital camera, cell phone, CD or DVD burner. Write these all down because it can be used as a resource. Consider also your friends and family. Find out what do they possess that you have access to. Remember that no man is an island. You can use the talents, abilities, knowledge and resources of everyone you know.
That’s basically the initial step if you want to create multiple income streams. But if you’re already a webmaster or a site owner, you definitely have an edge. Why don’t you join affiliate marketing business to help you gain extra income out of your own website?
Being involved in affiliate marketing is one of the most desirable ways to make multiple sources of income. It is because affiliate marketing programs come in various shapes and forms. There are a large number of affiliate marketing programs that you can sign on with and start gaining bucks right away. In affiliate marketing, you can make money by promoting and reselling your affiliate products and by recruiting new affiliates. What’s good about this is that you can find widest array of training materials that can enhance your marketing abilities. In affiliate marketing, you can be sure that there are genuine products to promote and sell and there is real income to make.
Either part time or full time, being an affiliate marketer is an excellent way to create multiple income streams by means of promoting products and services from web merchants. Here, you can get affiliate commission without investing big bucks in making your own product and without worrying about book keeping, customer support and ecommerce. All you have to do is to promote and resell the products and services in your site and pass on potential customer’s the merchant’s site.
In affiliate marketing, it is advisable to promote more merchants in your site so that your visitors will have variety of destinations to choose from. Using multiple merchants in the same site or niche means only one thing – you have multiple streams of affiliate income. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this business strategy because this is one of the best ways to protect your business and expanding your horizons. Through this, you can be assured that you won’t experience crisis if ever one of your web merchants closed his/her program.
However, you should choose only those affiliate programs that interest you so that you can effectively advertise and promote them. Don’t ever be tempted into signing up for numerous affiliate programs in the hope that one of them will bring income. Select wisely and don’t be engaged in selling products you know nothing about. Go with the stuff that jives with your enthusiasm; your passion can capture your client by the nose and guide him/her to your affiliate link.
You should also work hard to make your multiple streams of income more stable. You can do this by embracing some strategies and tactics and by developing within yourself, some traits that can help you become successful in any kind of business such as patience, persistence and thirst for knowledge.
Lastly, just remember the adage that says “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” So that if one of them is lost, you can still have some to make omelets. And what do these eggs have to do with multiple streams of affiliate income? Well, it goes without saying that the more streams of income you possess, the bigger and better your money lake becomes.
Secret Affiliate Code 2 Review
Secret Affiliate Code 2 will be launched on October 21, 2008 and I am looking forward to it with anticipation. Do you want to know why? Well, I was able to purchase the Secret Affiliate Code first edition and if this new one is anything like it or better, I can't wait to see it.
You see, it was because of Secret Affiliate Code first edition, that I was able to participate in some big product launch and make thousands of dollars. It even complimented some of the same methods that I had just discovered myself, but did not know how to implement. It was more detailed and gave step by step instructions on how to get to the front page of Google and compete with this internet marketing gurus who were raking in the big bucks on launch day.
I was able to learn more about Craig Beckta and realized that he was an ordinary guy like I was. I had to actually print the 158 page guide that had so much information, it took me a week to go through it extensively and utilize some of the tactics that really, really worked.
Most of the time when someone has a product launch, they will try to get some of the well-known gurus on board because these gurus have a big opt-in list. I had no list. I had to rely on the Secret Affiliate Code's instructions to guide me to compete with these massive list. I learned that you can make money without a list even though a subscriber list is more important.
I also figured out how to grow my list little by little and how to use the free resources online and let them work for me. I was no longer intimidated by these big internet marketers because I had an amazing ammunition called the Secret Affiliate Code.
I knew that Secret Affiliate Code 2 would by dynamite so I emailed Craig Beckta and told him what I thought about his first edition and told him that I really felt comfortable marketing this new product launch since I already knew that he would give something similar or better.
When I got a copy of the Secret Affiliate Code 2, I was certainly blown away. Not only was it good, but it was better.
What I preferred about this new product was that it had a 121 page ebook and mini guides that accompanied the ebook. When you read the main ebook guide, and you get stuck on anything, you would go to the guide and refer to it because it explained each item in the main guide within the accompanying mini guides. So the guide is similar to a text book that you would buy in college with an accompanying solution book that would give you the answers. I loved that about the Secret Affiliate Code 2. The mini guide was like a professor expounding on the facts that you would find challenging.
This would definitely be one of the best methods of learning for any newbie or anyone who wants to really make a living with Internet marketing.
In addition, that is not even all. Craig Beckta has certainly over delivered this time. He has included videos to make it a thrilling learning experience. Video marketing has been one of the most popular means of promotion online these days because people want to see exactly how something is done than trying to figure it out all by themselves. If you are like me, then that is true also for you. I like visual interaction and that is what Craig Beckta does. He takes the material in the guides and puts them in a video presentation to open up your understanding even more.
I am not allowed to reveal what is in the videos, but one thing I can tell you is that it shows you how to make more money as an affiliate marketer even in this bad economy.
After saying all that, I have one negative component of the Secret Affiliate Code 2 that you should know about. I am not going to short change you because I would not want anyone to do that to me. Craig may not like me telling you this, but not everyone who buys the Secret Affiliate Code 2 will make a substantial amount of money because some of the tactics are advanced and will take time to see results.
So what I am going to do is to give you a free report that I wrote, which fills in some of the blanks for you and helps to speed up the process. You can download this free money secret report at http://niche-resale.com/themoneysecret.html.
I also have a massive targeted traffic bonus package that will also give you an edge on the other people who will be buying Secret Affiliate Code 2. This bonus package is valued over $297 and will give some sneaky ways to get traffic to your website and not just any traffic, but hungry buyers who are anxiously waiting to swipe their credit cards to purchase your product. You can download these bonuses at http://www.squidoo.com/the-secret-affiliate-code2.
CLICK HERE to buy Secret Affiliate Code 2 and get your Free Killer Bonus Items.
Put a Professional Looking Store On Your Site
StoreStacker – The only tool that you'll ever need to become affiliate marketing pro?
Very often people don't realize that regardless of spending a huge amount of time every day in creating and then updating their internet marketing stores online, they're not able to make enough money to make it worth the effort. What the majority of these people don't realize is the simple fact that by using old techniques and antiquated software, they're just wasting their valuable time and traffic.
So what is the solution? What should you do if you too are facing a similar situation of expending too much time for too little an income?
Well, my suggestions are to be innovative, to be smart, and to discover what it is that's working. There are several approaches to earning an income through internet marketing and there are even more ways to lose that money. The biggest problem with most of the internet marketing stores is that the vast majority of visitors leave within just 30 seconds of arriving at your website. It's a hugely common problem.
What are the reasons for this happening? There's only one actually. You're not giving your surfers what they're looking for. Not enough content to read, not enough videos to watch and not enough products to browse and buy.
This is the reason why StoreStacker was created. StoreStacker is different from all other niche site building software because its creators have simply uncovered the secrets to keeping traffic on your site and aiding you in making more money from it at the same time.
StoreStacker allows you to easily and quickly increase affiliate income. It's a stand-alone piece of software that allows you to build a website, add articles, populate it with products and populate it with videos. It will also automatically insert your affiliate IDs and thousands of products from a variety of online stores onto your website. Site built with StoreStacker are automatically updated and are fully search engine optimized.
No other internet marketing tool has ever been able to help its users realize their dreams like StoreStacker.
StoreStacker Software Overview
Most affiliate marketing software and tools are big on promises but deliver little in terms of value. And the sheer cost of buying such a program is frequently not covered in the income that it makes that it produces. Most people incur a net loss after buying affiliate marketing tools. So does that mean you should avoid this billion dollar industry? Absolutely not! You just need to be smart and choose the correct partners to ensure you make huge, instead of measly profits.
Think about StoreStacker, not because you're being advised to, but because, like those using it currently, you can use it to truly make a difference in your online earnings. It's just not like any other product ever launched in the niche market.
The solution to the biggest issue online is StoreStacker - by turning visitors into customers. It is the only niche software that guarantees your traffic will grow, continue coming back and make purchases.
The software is easy to set up and will help you create a unique niche-based affiliate store. If you've ever attempted affiliate marketing you probably know how difficult it can be to create a store, add products, get visitors and then convert that traffic into sales. In fact this isn't even the end of the road - you also have to constantly keep on updating the content, spending time locating and writing content, listing new products, etc. It's a hard row to hoe.
But with StoreStacker it takes you only a few minutes to do all of this. You'll quickly build a niche store with thousands of products, videos and articles ready to be purchased. You can put your online store anywhere you want - on a new or existing website or even on a blog. Products on sale at Clickbank, eBay, RegNow, Overstock, Amazon and more, are automatically uploaded to your website. And your affiliate ID is automatically embedded in your affiliate links. This way, you're sure to get the commission for every sale made through your website. And every product comes with a full description, links, pricing and even pictures. And, all the search engine optimization is done for you.
So Why is StoreStacker Unique?
1. Easy To Load and Install – it was made to be usable with the barest of knowledge. To create a complete StoreStacker website, all you need to do is upload your files to your domain, fill out a form, tick a few boxes and pick a niche you want to target. It's that simple. Once you are done, StoreStacker takes control and handles everything else for you.
2. StoreStacker loads not a few, but hundreds and even thousands of affiliate products into your site.
3. It Saves Time – time is money and often in niche marketing, most people, in an effort to become successful, have a tendency to spend a huge amount of time on preparing their content. When they get around to actually selling something, it becomes irrelevant and therefore both time and money goes down the drain. With StoreStacker, all of your content is handled for you. Articles, videos, products, pictures, descriptions, etc. You name it, StoreStacker will do it for you.
4. Videos are a great way to get visitors to keep coming back. Also videos are a great tool for passing on information about a product and providing your visitors with topical information. As a rule-of-thumb, visitors leave within 1 minute of getting to a website, but with videos and for that matter, articles on your website, they're hooked.
5. Search Engine Optimized content – Your entire StoreStacker store is optimized for the search engines automatically.
6. Automatic Updates – Your site can be set to update automatically so you NEVER have to touch it again. Fresh articles, videos and products can be uploaded daily without you having to lift a finger.
StoreStacker is a truly amazing product which is more than just ‘worth a try'. It is a revolution. Don't miss this opportunity.
If you decide to order StoreStacker, use one of the links in this article and you'll be able to get a free StoreStacker plugin of your choice with your purchase.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Why New Bloggers Must Participate in Blog Carnivals (Part 1)
Let me just say that I'm a huge fan of blog carnivals. They're not without their drawbacks, of course, but the benefits completely outweigh the investment of time and effort that you give them.
That's why it shocks me that blog carnivals aren't more popular. Granted, the first few times that you participate in them, it might take you a little extra time to get used to how they work. And new carnival networks can sometimes be less reliable than you would like. But get connected with a solid group of bloggers in your market, and carnivals are great ways to:
- Increase your authority
- Quickly gain regular, profitable readers of your partner blogs
- Get an immediate surge of traffic to blog posts
- Get a longer term improvement in search engine rankings
Carnivals: What are They?
A blog carnival is a web event consisting of a group of bloggers writing about a specific subject. The articles created (or linked to) during a carnival usually end up looking like a magazine. The carnival has a title, theme, writers, editors, and consumers. Most carnivals are held on a regular basis with rotating hosts.
A carnival usually has an owner, who is the organizer of the overall carnival, deciding or collaborating on things like frequency, rules, how to blog in the carnival, editorial guidelines, and such. The owner also acts as the coordinator, determining the hosting schedule for the carnival.
Each carnival has one host, and the host's blog is where all the blog articles for that particular carnival are stored. In response to the submission call, each blogger involved in the carnival submits their post to the host, where it is reviewed, edited, and published in the host blog as one large linkbait post or a series of posts. Obviously, you'll need to know how to create blog posts that are effective and compelling to get the most benefit.
Carnivals usually draw a lot of qualified traffic, so bloggers participating in the carnival get a valuable one-way link from the host and the immediate traffic boost associated with the initial readers. The carnival host receives links from each of the participating bloggers who have teamed together to publicize the carnival, knowing that the better the carnival is, the more powerful the links will be when it comes time for them to host.
Now that you know what a carnival is, we'll review how you can maximize your carnival participation . . . in our next post!
What Platform is the Best Fit for your Blog?
There is no more common question or concern among both new and veteran bloggers alike: which blogging platform should I choose? Aside from learning how to blog, it's an almost universal concern.
And there is no stock answer. All bloggers NEED to own their URLs, but platform choice is largely dependent on the indivudal blogger's requirements. With that stated, I've compiled a list of disadvantages and advantages of the two primary platform options below.
Hosted Platforms
Hosted platforms refer to services whereby a service provider gives you access to their software, hardware, and network connection, and you register a blogging account for use on their platform. With a hosted blog, you have access to an administrative panel for your blog, and that's it.
Common hosted platforms include solutions like Blogger, TypePad, and LiveJournal.
Advantages of Hosted Platforms
- Inexpensive: most are free; some (like TypePad) are offered with multiple price points
- Easy to setup: just signup for an account and then quickly learn how to create blog posts
- Automatic updates: you don't have to concern yourself with keeping hosted software patched and upt-do-date.
Disadvantages of Hosted Platforms
- Rigid: there are fewer cusotmization options with hosted platforms.
- Limited design choices: you typically only get to choose from a limited number of standard designs, and you often can't make updates to them
- Generic URL: some hosted platforms don't offer the option to use your own URL
- Less control: you are at the mercy of the platform
- Migration issues: migrating from many free hosted platforms results in a lot of effort and often the temporary loss of search engine rankings
Self-hosted Platforms
Self-hosted platforms consist of your own web hosting account with a data center, and the blogging software you install on the data center's server. With a self-hosted blog, you have access to an administrative panel for your blog, but you also have access to a server account and the blog software where you can do almost anything.
Common self-hosted software includes Movable Type, Drupal, and WordPress.
Advantages of Self-hosted Platforms
- Design flexibility: you have full control over layout and design
- Great software: killer software exists on self-hosted platforms
- Custom URL: custom URL's are ubiquitous on self-hosted platforms
- Adaptability: you can change your blog as your needs change
- Easy migration: should you ever want to move to another platform or another server, moving is a snap
Disadvantages of Self-hosted Platforms
- Difficult setup: setup can sometimes be difficult, but this can be overcome with a good blogs how to
- Cost: while the blogging software is free, the hosting platform will cost you money
- Hosting issues: unless you choose a good host, you might have to suffer from down-time or poor support
- Upgrades: you will need to keep your software patched
The majority of my blogs are self-hosted, and it's what I usually advise anyone looking to create a professional blog. There are just too many advanatges to ignore, and you usually have the ability to host many blogs and domains on one account, driving the cost per blog down to a small amount.
Banner Advertisements
When you are trying to make money off of the articles on your website, it is important to effectively promote your site so that you will attract customers and they can see just what a good, quality site you have. There are several ways so market and promote your website, one of them being though banner advertisements.
What Banner Ads Can Do For You
Banner ads can help bring visitors from others sites to your own. Although monthly fees can be expensive to advertise on high traffic sites, in the end it may be cheaper and/or a faster way to start seeing significant revenue from your website efforts, rather than waiting for SEO techniques to bring your own site to the top of search engine results. Aside from paying to advertise on someone else’s site, there are also free banner exchanges to choose from. We will look at the pros and cons of each banner advertising method below.
Free Banner Exchanges
Free banner exchanges are when you and other sites exchange each others banners. Their banner will go on your site and your banner will go one their site. Although this option is free, there are two main problems with it. First, if you want your banner on a significant number of sites, it will mean cluttering your own site up with these banners. This could even shot you in the foot if you run an affiliate website because, instead of clicking on your affiliate links, your visitors may be clicking on your banner exchange links. Secondly, you have to be really careful about the types of sites that you exchange banners with. Some sites like to gather a lot of banners so that they can be a directory or portal site and not have to have any real content. These “banner farms” or “link farms” will do nothing positive for your site and, in the meantime, you will be bringing them potential traffic.
Paid Banner Ads
As we saw above, paid banner ads cost money, but they will eventually pay off if you choose the right ones. You need to ensure that the site produces the amount of traffic that they say and that they have your ad placed in a way that invites visitors to click without being too pushy. You also want to choose a site that does not house too many other banners on the same page as yours or that there are no competitor links on the same page.
All in all, banner ads can end up being profitable for you site if you go about it the right way. If you do decide to check out banner advertisement as a marketing avenue, be sure to keep the above tips in mind.
Becoming an Affiliate
If you can either write articles or have the promotion and marketing knowledge to publicize articles that others write, becoming an affiliate for several companies may be a great way for you to generate a good income right from your own home. You can do this by receiving part of the revenue off of sales that the company gets from people who “click through” from your website via the company’s links that are placed on your pages.
Since you will be promoting a product or service, you will need a killer sales pitch and website content to get your readers interested in the product, convince them that they cannot live without the product, and to keep them coming back to your website time and time again for more recommendations and your useful content, which will get them clicking on your links once again. Although many affiliate companies only give you money off of the first sale you make from each customer, you have the option of promoting a good range of companies so that you can still make a profit off of your returning customers.
If you cannot write this kind of content of your own, there are many ways to pick up free or paid content to place on your affiliate website. There are many reasons why paying for such articles would be to your advantage. First, you will be able to tell the writer exactly what you want, what product you are trying to sell, and what direction they can go in to keep your readers interested and informed. On the other hand, when you search for free content, you are limited to what is already out there. Secondly, you will own the copyright to this content. That means that no one else can reuse it without your consent. If you opt for free content, you will be sharing that content with an unknown amount of other affiliate websites, plus the original author will be able to place their byline at the bottom of the article which could result in them stealing your traffic.
There are many products that have nice affiliate commission rates for those who know how to pre-sale their product and deliver click through customers who are ready to buy. As long as you choose to promote a product or service that can be very useful to a wide variety of people, then pre-selling your chosen company may not be that hard at all. The key in this situation may likely be getting those customers to your website so that they have a chance to see your recommendations and click on your affiliate links.
Why Use Simple Landing Pages?
Are you just getting started in Internet Marketing and looking for some great money making ideas? You want to sell something but not having your own product, you decide to try affiliate marketing (selling someone else's product). OK, great...but how do you do it?
You can buy hundreds of ebooks all with different "systems" or strategies and you can find lots of free information as well. Eventually though, you are going to realize that you will need to make some landing pages.
What are landing pages? Landing pages are where you want your visitor to "land" and once there, you hope they click on your link to go to the sellers website where they will then buy the product.
Why not just link directly to the sellers website? Why do you need a landing page at all? Well, it depends on how you are going to get your visitor to the sellers site. A popular way is by writing articles, having them published, and having readers find those articles and click on the links inside them. The problem is that many article sites do not allow direct affiliate marketing links. They will allow links to your website or landing page but not directly to the seller.
You can learn a lot about landing pages by typing in "What are landing pages" in Google. You will find lots of useful information and tips galore on how to make great landing pages. But just like everything else on the Internet, after reading 10 or so different articles, you may be no closer to making one and confused about exactly what you should do.
I believe the best way to get started is by making simple landing pages that pretty much say to the viewer 'here is the product and here is where you get it". I don't do a lot of "pre-selling" on my landing pages and many Internet marketers would disagree with that. The common consensus is that you should warm your visitor up to the sale by reviewing the item and/or telling them how great it is.
The problem with that is that it is difficult to write convincingly about something you know little about. Another problem for beginners is that their writing skills may not be up to par...at least not yet. That is why I recommend setting up something simple at first.
My opinion is that it is my job (or you might say the landing page's job) to get the visitor to the seller's website. It is the seller's job from there to convert the sale. I sort of just open the door for customers to walk through and let the product and shopkeeper do the rest. If they can't do their job, then I have to at some time move to another product. Here is an example of a landing page for best ways to make money for free.
You might open up a free blog at Blogger and make your site as pretty and color coordinated as you can (some people will obviously be better at this than others) and do a lot of copying and pasting graphics and words from your sellers website. Only use one link to the seller's website though, as using free blogs for marketing is frowned on and if you overdo it they could suspend you. Ideally you should get your own domain and hosting but that can be done once you start making money.
Basically you are making a big advertisement that says "This is where you get so and so product". If the people you drive to your blog want that product, then they will click on the link to find out more. Once they do that, you have done your job. Making a landing page is the easy part: getting targeted traffic to your website or blog is much harder. There are many easy ways to make money online and this is only one of them. It might work for you though if you are just starting out.
Friday, October 24, 2008
How to stay update in blogging and technology
When there are too many blogs out there, it's difficult to make an impression on the visitors. It's a truth. You have to be different and exclusive to impress the visitor who may be only spending 5 seconds or less on your blog. In some cases like technical blogs, the user spents onle less than 2 mins. The important thing is to keep them engaged for the five seconds. So how do you write those intersting topics coming in and how do you stay updated of the technology to deliver those exclusive up-to-date content ? Here are a few ways.
- Subscribe to feeds.
Almost every blog out there has feeds or RSS subscription set up. Feel free to subscribe to them on a reader like Google reader. Because when you read other blogs, you will understand what everyone is talking about and stay updated. - Yahoo answers.
Yahoo answers is a good place to start looking for questions people are asking. People asks all sorts of questions there. And the reason why they are asking the question is because they haven't found the answer on the internet. So if you are able to provide them with an answer then you are probably delivering quality with some exclusive content. - Participate in forums.
Forums are another place to check for questions and discussions. Unless like in Yahoo answers, you can get to know the discussion and find what people like and what not. Reply to them with a post on your blog. - Comment on blogs.
Commenting on blogs is easy and an effective way to start communicating with others. Also, it gives you the opportunity to stay updated and see how people are reponding to a topic or opinion. You can make use of these opinions in your blogs while you arite it. - See what's hot in Google trends.
Google trends is another tool that will help you find out what people are searching for on Google and what the trend is like. If a search term is hot it means more people are searching for it, so you may want to write an article on it.
So, it's all about finding what's hot and what's not by connecting with other people. If you follow these tools, you have a good chance of staying updated with topics on the internet. It might also be a good idea to keep you updated by following the SEO blogs around. They give regular updates on the tools available for blogging.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
The 3 Easiest Ways For Newbies To Start In Affiliate Marketing!
With the aid of the Internet, you can almost have everything right at your fingertips. With just a few clicks you get access to thousands and even millions of pieces of information and data on virtually any field of interest. As years pass by, the Internet continuous to effect radical changes in many facets of human endeavors, including commerce. Experts say that the information space, commonly known as the “world wide web,” grows by over a million pages everyday as more and more people utilize the Internet for information, education, entertainment, business and other personal reasons. It doesn’t take a business-oriented individual to realize that this phenomenon can bring about sky-high financial gains. The Internet’s fast-growing popularity in the recent years is surely an opportunity for business that any entrepreneur would not want to miss.
You might be thinking only businessmen can make much money out of the Internet, don’t you? Think again. You too can earn big bucks through the Internet even if you don’t have products to sell and high-profile and established company. How? That is through affiliate marketing. You might have come across these words over the net while surfing. Affiliate marketing is a revenue sharing between a merchant and an affiliate who gets paid for referring or promoting the merchants’ products and services. It is one of the burgeoning industries nowadays because it is proven to be cost-efficient and quantifiable means of attaining great profit both for the merchant and the affiliate and other players in the affiliate program, such as the affiliate network or affiliate solution provider.
Affiliate marketing works effectively for the merchant and the affiliate. To the first, he gains opportunities to advertise his products to a larger market, which increases his chances to earn. The more affiliate websites or hard-working affiliates he gets, the more sales he can expect. By getting affiliates to market his products and services, he is saving himself time, effort and money in looking for possible markets and customers. When a client clicks on the link in the affiliate website, purchases the product, recommends it to others who look for the same item or buys it again, the merchant multiplies his chances of earning. On the other hand, the affiliate marketer benefits from each customer who clicks on the link in his website and who actually purchases the product or avails of the service provided by the merchant. In most cases, the affiliate gets commision per sale, which can be fixed percentage or fixed amount.
If you want to be an affiliate marketer and make fortunes out of the Internet, you may follow the following three most basic and easiest ways to start an effective affiliate marketing program. First is to identify a particular thing you are interested in or passionate about so you won’t be bored and forced to develop your affiliate web site later on. Focusing on a specific area you know very well will help you bring out your best without much risks and effort. You can add a personal touch to your site and give your visitors who are possible buyers an impression that you are an expert in your field. In this way, you gain their trust and eventually encourage them to buy the products you endorse. Next is to look for good paying merchants and products or services related to your interest and create now a website. In choosing the products, you must also consider its conversion rate—the number of visitors-turned-buyers. There are various affiliate networks and affiliate solution providers that can give you info on the most profitable products and best paying merchants. The key here is, be wise enough to choose the right one.
Now that you have decided where to concentrate, have chosen the products to endorse and the merchant you are supporting and have created your own web site with top level domain name and reliable hosting, you are ready to promote. This is a crucial task, since it is through this that you would be able to increase traffic to the business website, sales and of course, profit. In affiliate marketing, it is possible to earn large sums of money in a short span of time especially when you’re endorsing high-priced items. Expensive products are hard to sell; however, with the right marketing strategies and sales techniques, you can draw visitors to the merchant’s site and make them buy the products. How to promote the products, though, would need a separate discussion. Continue to educate yourself by reading books or other articles online about the best advertising techniques.
Keep in mind, there is no facile and quick path towards success. Affiliate marketing may seem very tempting due to numerous encouraging testimonies of merchants and affiliate marketers alike who have benefited from it, but it entails great deal of hard work and persistence. Likewise, you need to be creative, flexible and willing to embrace new ideas to market your partners’ products until you find the perfect strategy that works for a specific market that you are targeting. Neither signing up for an affiliate program nor copying ads and leading others towards the merchants’ site doesn’t guarantee success yet. Many affiliate marketers fail to understand this, so when they don’t make sales, they quit, look for other programs and repeat the same mistake. In the end, they conclude that affiliate marketing is just one of those scams in the Internet. Even as you sleep, you can work your way to great financial success if you employ the right strategies in affiliate marketing. Be creative, be smart and surely, you’ll achieve your goals.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Choosing A Profitable Affiliate Program!
Affiliate programs are a great way to make money online; if you
choose the right affiliate program. That it why it is extremely
important that you carefully choose which affiliate program or
programs you want to join. When it comes to choosing an
affiliate program, do you know what to look for you? If this is
your first time joining an affiliate program, you are urged to
keep on reading. Below are some guidelines that you may want to
think about following.
Perhaps, the most important thing that you need to remember,
when choosing an affiliate program, is to not pick the first
affiliate program that you come across. This is a big mistake
that many affiliate program participants make. Unfortunately
for you, this can be a costly mistake. What many do not realize
is that the product you choose to promote will reflect on you
and your business. That is why it is important that you take the
time to thoroughly examine an affiliate program first. You will
want to choose an affiliate program that involves a product that
you can stand behind, one hundred percent.
One of the best ways to know that you are dealing with a
legitimate affiliate program and a quality product is to test
that product out. Although you are advised to do this, you may
not want to or you may be unable to do so. If that is the case,
you can still research an affiliate program or even the product
that is being sold. You can easily do this online. One of the
best ways to do your research is to perform a standard internet
search. Search with the name of the affiliate program or the
product being sold. You can also check out websites that are
known as scam websites. These websites tend to profile
companies, individuals, or business opportunities that regularly
scam consumers.
Before applying for or signing up for an affiliate program, you
are advised to read all of the rules, restrictions, or
guidelines associated with that affiliate program.
Unfortunately, you may find yourself disqualified from an
affiliate program right off the bat. For instance, there are a
large number of affiliate programs that prohibit their products
from being advertised on websites that display pornography, foul
language, and other offensive content. Familiarizing yourself
with an affiliate program’s rules and guidelines will prevent
you from being denied from a program or later dismissed from
one.
Perhaps, one of the most important things to remember, when
choosing an affiliate program, is the product that you will have
to sell. In conjunction with making sure that the product is a
quality one, you will also want to make sure that it is related
to your website or business, in one way or another. For
instance, if your own website focuses on computer programming,
you will not want to join an affiliate program that sells pet
products. Joining an affiliate program that is related, in one
way or another, to your own website may increase your chances of
making a sale; thus increasing your profits.
Although it is important to choose a quality product to stand
behind, you also need to remember that your goal is to make
money. One of the easiest ways to make a substantial amount of
money is to choose an affiliate program that pays their
affiliates decently. The average commission for affiliates is
three to five percent of each sale made. While this is a good
percentage to make, there are higher paying affiliate programs.
You may want to look for affiliate programs that pay around ten
percent. In fact, there are even a select number of affiliate
programs that pay around fifteen percent in commissions.
The above mentioned guidelines are just a few of the many that
you will want to take into consideration, when choosing an
affiliate program. Although the above mentioned points are
helpful, the most important thing to keep in mind is your
judgment. Using your best judgment is the easiest way to choose
an effective affiliate program.