Friday, March 31, 2006

Introduction to Autoresponders

If you've reached the point of exhaustion trying to keep up
with answering the mountain of emails that threatens to
bury you alive every single day, you're ready to learn
about autoresponders.



The bad news is that people expect prompt replies to their
email inquiries. However, unless you can figure out how to
work continual twenty-four hour shifts, or hire enough
people to constantly monitor incoming emails (while they're
eating up your revenue), you have a problem. The good news
is an autoresponder is an inexpensive - or even free -
method of quickly responding to emails. What these programs
do is automatically respond to incoming emails as soon as
they are received.



Emails are essential to your business for many different
reasons. Most importantly, these invisible email voices
give you their feedback about your website - for free!
However, if you spend all your working hours answering
these emails, how are you supposed to run your business?
The answer is simple: use autoresponders. Autoresponders
are programs that automatically respond to your emails
without you so much as having to click on your mouse.



There are a number of good reasons why you need an
autoresponder besides just answering your email. For
example, autoresponders can be used if you need a way to
send information about your services or products, price
lists, or if there are repeated questions asked across
large numbers of emails. Maybe you want to offer your site
visitors a special bonus of some kind, such as advice or
relevant articles. All of this can be handled by an
autoresponder. Additionally, you can advertise your
business and then build stable relationships with your
customers by using autoresponders.



Autoresponder programs vary from software that runs with
your email program to a specialized script that runs on
your web hosting company's server. This kind of script may
use a web page form or simply operate with your email
account. This kind of script is programmed to send out a
standardized message whenever an email is received. The
message is sent to a particular script or email address.



Some autoresponders can do more than simply send out
standardized messages. They can send out an unlimited
number of follow-up messages sent at predetermined interval
of time. For example, you can set your autoresponder to
send out a new message every day for as long a period as
you desire.



There are numerous companies who offer autoresponders free
of charge. Your website hosting company often provides
autoresponders as a free service. If this is not the case
with your web hosting company, there are numerous companies
who offer this service for a small fee, or free of charge,
providing you attach an advertisement for their company to
your emails.



To personalize your autoresponder messages, you can attach
a signature. Signatures in this case are much like business
cards. You can include your name, company, all your contact
numbers and addresses, and a brief message.



It's a good idea to attach a signature to every email that
is sent out. This works as a repeated reminder of your
business identity every time a customer sees it. The more
they look at your signature, the more likely your company
will spring to mind when your particular service or product
is needed.



You can create a standardized signature that every employee
in your business uses, or you can go wild, and let every
staff member create their own personal signature. Of
course, like everything in life, there are some rules and
guidelines to creating a personal signature.



Keep the length of your signature between four to six lines
of text, with no more than 70 characters in a single line.
Make sure that your email program does not cut off your
text! The content should include your name, your company
name, your email address, fax number, and any other contact
details, such as 800 numbers. Lastly, always include a
short personal message about your company. It should be a
subtle sell of your services or your products, and possibly
your company's reliability and longevity.



Another specialized use of autoresponders is to create
courses that you can then offer your site visitors for
free. You must choose a topic in which you are an expert
and that precisely targets your potential customers.



Once you have carefully chosen your subject, divide it into
a number of different sub-topics. Then offer your site
visitor a free 10 or 15 day course, each day offering a
different sub-topic. The first topic should always be a
welcome message to your site visitor and an explanation
about what is to follow. Your explanation should be
enticing, getting the point across that you are offering
free, quality information that your target audience will
find of great value.



With every lesson, include the number of the lesson, the
topic title, information about your company and its
services or products. At the end, include a few blurbs
about the next lesson to entice the subscriber to continue
on.



Make sure each topic is packed with essential and valuable
information, and leaves the visitor lusting to know more.
Otherwise, you may lose them in the very beginning.



Of course, you have to write up your course before you can
offer it. Once you have done this, and gone over the
material carefully, employing a professional writer or
editor if necessary, you must transfer your text to your
autoresponder.



There are a number of free autoresponders you can use. Try
http:/www.getresponse.com, or http://www.emailaces.com. Or
go onto Google and you will find a long list of free
autoresponder companies. Then sign-up for your chosen
autoresponder. Once you do, you will receive instructions
as to how to set it up and transfer your text.



Email is an excellent marketing tool; it is inexpensive and
it is fast. Use it to advertise your business by choosing
your email address carefully. Your website should contain
different email addresses for different contact requests.
For example, use info@yourdomain.com for information
requests, or sales@yourdomain.com for questions about
sales. It's a good idea to set up one for the owner, such
as president@yourdomain.com. This presents your company in
a personal, approachable light and insures that direct
contact is provided.



Autoresponders are an effective and powerful marketing
tool, allowing you to make contact with thousands of
potential customers. This is an invaluable asset
considering how many potential customers you usually have
contact with before you make an actual sale. Essentially,
an autoresponser allows you to automate part of your
marketing campaign.

Monday, March 27, 2006

Pay Per Click Advertising

Advertising your services or products on the Internet is
both extremely effective and extremely competitive. There
are several ways to go about attracting traffic to your
website; Pay-Per-Click is one of the options you can choose
from, along with developing an SEO, or search engine
optimization campaign. Both pay-per-click and SEO are
targeted to get your website placed as close to the top of
search engine results as possible. One of the differences
is that it takes minutes to set up a pay-per-click campaign
versus months for a good SEO campaign.

Pay-Per-Click is a simple type of paid advertising that
most search engines, including some of the largest ones,
now offer. It requires a bid for a "per-click" basis, which
translates to your company paying the bid amount every time
the search engine directs a visitor to your site. There is
the added bonus that when a per-click site sends your
website traffic, your site often appears in the results of
other prevalent search engines.

As with all marketing campaigns, there are advantages and
disadvantages. If you understand the process and monitor
your pay-per-click campaign frequently, it can be very
effective. One of the greatest advantages is that you never
have to tweak your web pages to change your position in
search engine results, as you must do in a typical SEO
campaign. What you do have to do in a pay-per-click
campaign is pay a fee.

Another advantage is the simplicity of the pay-per-click
process. You just bid and you're up and running. It doesn't
demand any specific technical knowledge, though the more
you know about search engines and keywords, the easier -
and more effective - the process will be.

The downside is that pay-per-click is essentially a bidding
war. A higher bid than yours will lower your position on
search engine results. This means that you will have to
raise your bid to regain your position - which can
obviously become quite expensive, especially if you are
bidding on a popular keyword.

In order to determine if pay-per-click is a cost effective
form of marketing for your business, you must do some
computing to figure out how much each visitor to your site
is worth. You can compute this value by dividing the profit
you make on your website over a given period of time by the
total number of visitors for that same time period. For
example, if your site made $5,000 in profits and there were
2,5000 hits, each visitor would be theoretically worth 50
cents. The basic formula is profits divided by visitors.

The figure of 50 cents per visitor is the point at which
your business breaks even. The idea, of course, is to show
a profit, not to merely cover your costs. Therefore, you
are aiming at a figure less than 50 cents per click.

Be aware that the most popular keywords often cost
considerably more than 50 cents a click. The only way
around this is to bid less for these phrases or you will be
paying too much for each individual hit.

The key (pun intended) to success is to learn everything
you can about search engine keyword research. The good news
is there isn't a limit to the amount of keywords you can
add to your bid because additional keywords do not add
additional cost. This translates into a lot less hassle for
you because there is no need to optimize your site to index
a particular set of keywords.

Obviously, some keywords are much more effective than
others are, but they will not cost you anything except time
to set-up your account in your pay-per-click bid. Of the
popular search engines that offer pay-per-click, one called
Overture provides an online tool that will give you the
data on how often particular keywords are entered into
their search engine. They also offer suggestions for
keywords after you enter a description of your site.

In pay-per-click, this written description is crucial. You
must understand that the object of your description is not
to generally attract visitors, but to be as specific as
possible so that only those visitors who are likely to buy
your service or product go to your site. You must use
expert marketing copy to guarantee that your description is
both precise and enticing to attract the most ideal
candidates to your site. This description is your most
powerful tool to insure that your bid is profitable.

Another essential element of pay-per-click advertising is
that you constantly monitor your bid. It is very important
that you bear in mind that the results of the top search
engines providing pay-per-click advertising, which are
Overture and Adwords Select, usually appear on other
popular search engines. Because of this, the competition
for top ranking is intense, and very often you will find
that the bidding price balloons too high for pay-per-click
to yield a profit.

If this happens, it is advisable to withdraw your bid on
that particular keyword and try another one. Remember: when
you pay too much per click to make a profit, you are in
essence losing the bidding war.

Since losing is not acceptable, you must have a plan in
place to closely track the effectiveness of your keyword.
It is advisable to monitor your keywords on at least a
monthly basis.

Not only is careful monitoring important, but the analysis
of visitor behavior can produce invaluable knowledge about
consumer motivation, habits, and trends. Expert monitoring
and consumer analysis is essential to your overall business
needs, and will also insure that your pay-per-click
campaign is a success.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Effective Blogging - How to Get Wealthy Blogging

"THERE are two kinds of knowledge. One is general, the other is specialized. General knowledge, no matter how great in quantity or variety it may be, is of but little use in the accumulation of money."

Web Blogs are online diaries made up of short frequently updated posts. In addition, they are inexplicably popular.

Steve Pavlina's Blog, dedicated to helping you make conscious decisions in your personal development and courageously follow through on them is a good example of a very popular Blog. In February 2005, this site received about 86,000 visitors, in January 2006 about 715,000, and today Steve's Blog receives over 1 million page views each month and is ranked by Technorati as one of the Top 500 Blogs in the world.

It is listed in nearly every search engine because of spider food. New content is added almost every single day. We will discuss that later.


One key advantage of Blogs is that they are easy to update. The other side is that surfers will expect you to update your site very frequently. If you do not they will go somewhere else.

When you sign up for a Blog or create one on your own site use part of the name or a similar name to the name of the sponsor program you are promoting unless it is against the sponsors T.O.S.

This blog, http://www.Marketing-Tipps.blogspot.com, showed up in the Search Engines in 3 days. It is not even in the top 10 for most search engine terms yet it consistently produces income, mostly AdSense.

But when you create your Blog or Blogs it is really important that you pick a niche that you know and understand. Ask yourself: Would and does my Blog appeal to me? Is there something about it that excites me?
If not, you need to go back to the drawing board.

When you create your Blog, let us say about "mp3 players", and its posts use the galleries and Urls from your sponsors. If they come with a description, use them. If you have a choice between short or long descriptions use the long ones. This is your spider food.

However, do not add them all to the Blog at one time. Add them 7 to 10 at a time. Set you up a schedule. Every second or third day add more. If your sponsor does not have a lot of galleries to use you're going to have to use several sponsors for each of your Blogs to keep them updated on a regular basis. After 10-15 days when the first posts are buried well out of site repeat them. You are after surfers coming from Search Engines and you are laying down spider food. It is a lot like fishing. You are putting out bait both for the surfer and for the spiders or bots from the Search Engines

Moreover, it is very important that you think about Spider Food. Use descriptions for each of your content with your Blogs name in them. If for example you are promoting Asian content, use many related names in the entries you make on your Blog. This is very important.
Go to Google and type in for example "mp3 players"

Write down all the related key words you find on your notepad and as you make entries in your Blog weave these words into your entries. Over the next few weeks, when you do entries work these keywords into your posts. Repeat them. Yes, repeat them. Repeat them and often. When the search engine surfer comes to your Blog looking for an mp3 player he is not going to set there for the most part and read your posts. He is going to go for the links that lead to mp3 player. Therefore, what you really need to keep in your mind is getting him there.

The quality of Search Engine Traffic is high. Although at first you will not get a large quantity of traffic from Search Engines the traffic the quality of the traffic you do get is very high.

When you get your Blog up on the web, there are three places you need to submit it to. The two major search engines Google, Yahoo, and BLOGGERNITY.COM, which is a Blog Directory. Hand Submit your Blog to these three places. Once BLOGGERNITY listed your Blog, go there and vote for yourself. Sign up there for a free account and write a review of your Blog. It does not have to be anything fancy. Just write how you want the surfer to feel about and see your Blog.


Networking!

Make a list of the other Blogs at BLOGGERNITY and contact the owners of those sites (as many as you can). Write them a short email and ask them to do a link exchange with you. Most of them will.

It is very important that you use careful strategy and monitoring in promoting your blog. Use the referrers' script so that you will know what is going on. Keep a paper record of what you are doing.

By now if you have followed the examples I have given, you know how to set up your Blog and how to get traffic to it. If you follow it, you can make money.
Again Steve Pavlina: His Blog, http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/, is making $4,700/month with AdSense solely based on the following ten principles:

1. Create valuable content.
2. Create original content.
3. Create timeless content.
4. Write for human beings first, computers second.
5. Know why you want a high-traffic site.
6. Let your audience see the real you.
7. Write what is true for you, and learn to live with the consequences.
8. Treat your visitors like real human beings.
9. Keep money in its proper place.
10. If you forget the first nine suggestions, just focus on genuinely helping people, and the rest will take care of itself.

This business model is fascinating. I obviously did not invent it, but I am certainly enjoying the ride. It is incredibly simple, much simpler than running any other business is. The risk is virtually zilch, and there is no overhead aside from web hosting (assuming you already own a computer and have internet access). There is no selling, no products, no customers, no order processing, no fraud, no inventory, no shipping, and no deadlines. And yet you earn income 24/7.



As Featured on ArticleCity.com

Thursday, March 16, 2006

The Importance of Themed Content

How and why do you surf the 'Net?


Do you turn on your computer, open your browser, then scratch your head and wonder, "Hmm… what I should look for today?"


Hardly.


I'll bet you dollars to donuts you've got specific goals in mind when you surf the 'Net.


Imagine for a moment that you gained a couple pounds over Thanksgiving. You're concerned that the fast-approaching Christmas feast, may have you wearing a mumu on Maui this January.


There's no way you're going to let that happen, so you decide to research treadmills on the 'Net. Naturally, you start at Google.com, and type in 'treadmills'. You click on a link that reads 'Treadmill Buyers Guide - Unbeatable Low Prices & Expert Info, Buy Direct and Save 40% - 45%'.


Would it frustrate you to land on a page that has no information about treadmills, and no obvious way to get to that information?


What about when you have to click on several links?


First you click on 'Sports', then 'Running', then back up when you don't see 'Treadmills' under 'Running'. Finally after 10 clicks you find the 'Treadmill' page listed under 'Fitness Equipment', which for some reason has different stuff than 'Sports Equipment'. There are 3 treadmills listed on the page, so back you go to Google.


Fortunately, searching at Google gives much better results than depicted above.


Indeed, when searching for 'treadmills' at Google, the first page of search engine results all go to pages specifically about treadmills. Nearly all the natural and sponsored listings belong to sites that sell just treadmills, or are sports equipment sites.


So why is it that many newbie webmasters think that building an all-purpose super mall, that sells everything and anything, will bring them fame and fortune, and save them the work of having to build multiple sites?


The answer to that question is beyond me. Those sites just don't get found, unless their name is Yahoo!, Epinions, ConsumerSearch or About.com. And if a site doesn't get found, it certainly doesn't get famous.


As for saving time by building only one site – what a pipe dream! Building a 1-stop shopping directory site with universal appeal and umpteen hundred categories, requires umpteen hundred pages. That takes time - lots and LOTS of time… unless you've got a Yahoo!-sized staff and advertising budget.


Lacking that type of investment, your best bet is to focus on a single theme. A five-to-ten page site that is easy-to-navigate with excellent reviews and information beats out a willy-nilly mall site every day of the week.


So put yourself in your customers' (running) shoes, and give them treadmills when they want treadmills.


Author's Resource: Article by Rosalind Gardner, author of the best-selling "Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other People's Stuff Online". To learn how you too can succeed in Internet and affiliate marketing, please visit http://NetProfitsToday.com

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Where To Get More Information on User-Generated Content

If you want some powerful ideas on user-generated content (and
whole lot more magnificent stuff), I know just the place.

I strongly recommend to get the superb report and video which
John Reese is giving away.

It's unbelievable, thought-provoking stuff. It will set your mind
buzzing with ideas.

Getting other people to create your website content for you is
one of the main topics in the Reese report he's giving away.

John Reese is far from ordinary. It takes very special qualities
to organize a million-dollar sales day.

If you subscribe to his newsletter, you'll learn about something
even more intriguing - how he spent about 120 hours setting up
what he calls a "little side business".

In just over a year, it has generated 17.1 million page
impressions and $526,744 in AdSense revenue, with NO advertising.

He calls it "Virtual Real Estate". I call it mouth-watering.

His newsletter subscribers receive all the juicy details. This is
absolutely must-have information for affiliates.

John's newsletter is expensive. But so is getting your ideas and
information from people who don't know what they're talking
about. I regard his newsletter as an absolutely essential
investment.

Get a sample.

Try the report and video he's giving away...


http://www.AdContractors.biz/reesesecrets

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Google AdWords - 5 Killer Steps to Profit from Instantly

If you have never really considered running your own home business before, you should. There is no better way to make a living than working for one's own account. You set your own hours.
You work whenever you want. You can travel and vacation whenever you want.

Therefore, here are five killer steps to profit from Google AdWords that you will not find in any e-book, and that any AdWords expert will reveal to you. Apply these to your online business and succeed fast:

1. Target profitable two tiers or residual income niche
markets.
2. Use right tools for your Google AdWords keyword research.
3. Purchase a domain name and create a landing page for
each niche product that you promote with AdWords.
4. Capture email addresses of your landing page visitors.
5. Follow up with your subscribers and profit by pre-
selling your niche products. Plus, back end sell.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PROMOTE PROFITABLE NICHE TWO TIER OR
RESIDUAL INCOME PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First, the products, or services that you promote with Google AdWords must target niches where people have lots of money to spend.

Second, you can make much more money if you advertise two tier or residual income products.

Two-tier programs reward you for signing up affiliates. This way you earn commissions not only on your own sales, you earn commissions on their sales too.

A good example of residual income services are web hosting affiliate programs where you can profit from your sales lifelong!

Read more...

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

BANNED by Google Adsense?

Rosalind Gardner, famous SuperAffiliate and an amazing researcher, made a post yesterday that everybody has to read, who is interested in contextual ads.

She researched 39 other PPC programs that you can run instead of Google AdSense. Many people are demoralised because they have been removed from Google Adsense for various reasons.

BUT: There are many other programs!

For further information - Go to Rosalind’s blog - Contextual Advertising: Google Adsense Alternatives

These are the 39 reviewed by Rosalind:

1. Adagency
2. AdBrite
3. Advertising.com
4. AffiliateSensor
5. AllFeeds
6. AzoogleAds
7. BidClix
8. Bidvertiser
9. Buds Media Network
10. Burst Media
11. Casale Media
12. Chitika eMiniMalls
13. Claxon
14. Clickcent
15. Clicksor
16. ContextCash
17. ContextClick
18. contextWeb ContextAd
19. DynamiContext (Kontera)
20. Enhance Interactive
21. Fastclick
22. Hurricane Digital Media
23. Kanoodle Bright Ads
24. Mamma Media Solutions
25. MIVA AdRevenue Xpress
26. Nixie
27. Quigo AdSonar
28. RealCast Media
29. RealTechNetwork
30. Revenue Pilot
31. Right Media
32. Searchfeed
33. TargetPoint
34. Traffic Marketplace
35. Tribal Fusion
36. ValueClick
37. Veoda
38.Vibrant Media IntelliTXT & SmartAds
39.Yahoo Publisher Network

USE RIGHT TOOLS FOR YOUR GOOGLE ADWORDS

First, did you know that you could spy on your competitors

keywords by using an amazing tool called GoogSpy?

http://www.googspy.com/

Just enter a domain name of your direct competitor and see

on which keywords they are bidding. Just this little known

secret could make your AdWords profits soar.

Moreover, the best: It is FREE!

Second, since the competition in the pay per click

marketing is fierce never use only free keyword research

tools like Overture's Keyword Selector Tool:

http://tny.se/9L

You will miss many profitable keywords if you do so. To

succeed one of the best tools that works is Click Ad Equalizer:

http://tny.se/9M

This software literally shows you exactly what affiliate programs

you should sign up and exactly with which keywords to sell!

Click Ad Equalizer does all of the work for you by finding

the most profitable keywords and products in minutes

and delivers the cost per click on cheaper search engines!