Free Content for Individuals

Free Content for Individuals

by: Ron Tower

Free content added to Web pages using an HTML fragment is usually intended for Web sites. But why can’t individuals also use it? It will be useful for them as well as promoting the Web site of the content provider.

There is a lot of free content available. You can get headlines, weather, search forms, jokes, cartoons, a word or quote of the day, tickers, and much more. For examples of free content available as HTML fragments, see Free Sticky (http://freesticky.com). Webmasters can paste the HTML into a page on their site, but what can an individual without a Web site do?

One approach is to have a simple HTML file on your machine that acts as a container of the free content. For example, see the Free Content Container (http://www.sugarloafsw.com/ia/freecc.html), a simple HTML file that already includes some free content and explains how to add or replace that content with content you like. You can just save it to your computer and then access it from your disk to create your own very simple information aggregator.

Go to http://www.sugarloafsw.com/ia/freecc.html. Click on Modify Me to see how you can modify the file. Save the file to your computer using File Save As from your browser being sure to use the กHTML file onlyก option. Edit the file with a text editor such as notepad and you will see that it is a simple table. HTML from free content Web sites can be simply pasted into the file at the places indicated by the comments.

Once you understand the basics of your container, you can do searches on the Web for กfree contentก and create different HTML files with different content. You can use this yourself or send the HTML file to friends as an email attachment and they can also use what you found from their computer, no need for a Web site.

Another approach is to get an information aggregator that supports HTML fragments. The HTML fragments can be placed on personal portal pages along with other content such as RSS feeds. See http://www.sugarloafsw.com/ia/ia.html for more on the use of information aggregators to allow individuals to use free content.

The final approach is to take the plunge and get your own Web site. There are several free options available, such as GeoCities (http://geocities.yahoo.com). You can add your modified Free Content Container to your site along with your other content.

About The Author

Ron Tower is the President of Sugarloaf Software and is the developer of Personal Watchkeeper, an information aggregator supporting a variety of ways to summarize the Web.

http://www.sugarloafsw.com

This article was posted on December 08, 2004

by Ron Tower

Making Money Online: What You Really Want To Know

Making Money Online: What You Really Want To Know

by: Sopan Greene

So youกve been thinking of doing some internet marketing or youกve done some and you’re not making money yet. What does it really take? Even more importantly, how long does it take and how much does it cost? Isn’t that what you really want to know?

The problem with this question is that there isn’t a black and white answer. Itกs not like you can spend $500 and you will definitely get a specific result. For some reason though thatกs how people think it works.

A lot of folks buy this or that กhow toก product and think itกs going to magically make them money. The key ingredient to making money from these products you buy is to take action and do what they tell you to do.

Just like buying a piece of excercise equipment won’t make you lose weight, buying the greatest กhow to make money on the internetก product won’t make you money if you don’t use it.

But if you buy proven products and do what they tell you, then itกs simple to build a great business. It can happen for you though it probably won’t happen overnight.

We all know the internet is full of hype and also has a lot of genuine success stories. The biggest truth or lie, depending on how you see it, is that you can make good money fast. Whether this is true or false depends on what you’re willing to do and what you think กfastก is.

Internet marketing is not a get rich quick scheme. Itกs a business which means there is time, money and work involved. If you think becoming rich in 3 to 5 years is quick then I guess this can be a get rich vehicle for you. If you don’t think 5 or even 10 years is quick for getting rich, then think about how many people you know who have done it in 5 years. Or in 20? Or in their lifetimes?

The only people I know who have done this have done it through internet marketing, direct marketing, network marketing or through owning their own company. None of them are just employees. The cheapest and fastest way to get there is through internet marketing.

FACT: 74% of the wealthiest people in America own their own business. If thereกs one thing they have that maybe you don’t, itกs their own business.

Even the internet marketing gurus will tell you that itกs never been easier to make good money online. If you listen to the folks who are the biggest successes today most of them started at least 3 years ago. Some of them started back before the internet was called the internet. It was a lot rougher then. Even 3 years ago they didn’t have the advantages we have today.

You can buy subscribers to build your ezine lists. You can use payperclick search engines. You can read hundreds of ezines for great free tips. You can make money through free affiliate programs. You can swap for free ads that reach over 10,000 people at a time. You can make a lot of money from ebay and online auctions. You have a lot more potential partners for joint ventures than they ever had.

Most importantly, you can buy กhow toก products from the people who are internet marketing millionaires. You can follow their directions to get where they are. They had to make it up from scratch when times were harder and now you can do it faster with fewer mistakes.

So if you really want to make good money online what do you do? Research the big dogs. Do whatกs been proven to work. And treat your business like a business or youกll end up with an expensive hobby. If you’re just kicking the tires to see whatกll happen, nothing will. This is true with anything you do in life, not just internet marketing.

Internet marketing is a tremendous vehicle for making great money. Like any vehicle, it won’t go down the road if you don’t gas it up, turn the key and push on the accelerator.

How long it takes to get to the top of the hill at the end of the road depends on how much gas you put in, how hard you press the accelerator, how well you steer and how good your map is.

The first year you drove a car did you drive as well as you do now? No. Youกve gotten better with experience. So don’t expect money to fall out of the sky the first year you do internet marketing. Can you make good money the first year? Sure. But it depends on how much work you do to pay your dues and get some experience.

Like driving a car, the longer you do it the better you get (which means the more money you make).

If you’re a tire kicker I suggest you put your money in your pocket, walk away now and spend your time on something you love to do. If you’re driven to build your own business I suggest you invest your time, energy and money into internet marketing. The payoff can be priceless. See you at the top of the hill at the end of the road.

About The Author

Sopan Greene, M.A. is a marketing & life coach & editor of the Net Profits newsletter. Get 2 FREE eBooks & a FREE report: กMillion Dollar Emailsก,กHow To Start Your Own Traffic Virusก & ‘the 13 Deadly Internet Marketing Mistakes Almost Every Business Is Making…ก

mailto:[email protected]

www.NetMarketingMastery.com

This article was posted on December 05, 2003

by Sopan Greene

5 Power Tips To Double Your Sales

5 Power Tips To Double Your Sales

by: Michael Southon

กHow Can I Double My Sales?ก that must be the silent prayer of thousands of webmasters.

There are two ways to do it: you can either double your traffic or you can double your conversion rate.

Letกs say you have a conversion rate of 2% (1 sale for every 50 visitors) and you get 100 visitors a day you’re getting 2 sales a day. You could get 4 sales a day by increasing your traffic to 200 visitors a day.

But you can get the same result with your existing traffic by doubling your conversion rate (2 sales for every 50 visitors).

Here are 5 ways to double your conversion rate:

(1) Direct Response: Make sure your website is a กDirect Response Websiteก. A DRW is a site where the only options are to Buy, Bookmark, or Leave. The more options you give your visitor, the less likely they are to buy.

(2) Free EBooks: Include Free EBooks as bonus gifts with your product. This can easily double your sales especially if the Free EBooks are genuinely useful. Here are some places you can find Free EBooks:

http://www.freeebooks.net/

http://www.ebookdirectory.com/

http://www.ebooksnbytes.com/download.html

(3) Testimonials: Make sure you have plenty of testimonials on your website. Preferably, they should be from customers who have achieved results from your product (e.g. more traffic, more sales, saved time etc).

(4) Follow Up: Youกve probably heard this over and over again but itกs worth repeating people have to see you your message about 7 times before they buy. The biggest mistake you can make is to try and sell your product on the first contact alone.

It just doesn’t work, and the statistics bear this out: the 1st contact produces 2% of sales, the 5th to 12th contact produce 80% of sales.

So in your ezine ads and at your website, offer something free in exchange for an email address. And then follow up with sequential (or followup) autoresponders.

Here are some sites that offer free followup autoresponders:

http://www.autoresponders.net

http://www.informationbyemail.com

http://www.getresponse.com/orderfree.html

http://www.rapidreply.net/free_features.htm

(5) Backend Sales: Itกs no secret that successful businesses make up to 80% of their sales from previous customers. Why? Because people who have bought from you before are much more likely to buy from you again (they know you, they trust you, they were happy with your product).

The hard work in marketing is getting a customer. Once you have a customer, theyกll buy from you over and over again.

Contact your previous customers and let them know about another product that compliments the product or service they bought from you. Experts reckon that the value of กa lifetime customerก lasts about 3 years make use if it.

If you follow these 5 tips, you may well find that you can double your online sales with the traffic you already have.

Wishing you every success!

(c) 2001 by Michael Southon

About The Author

Michael Southon has been writing for the Internet for over 3 years. He has shown hundreds of webmasters how to use this simple technique to get massive free publicity and dramatically increase traffic and sales. Click here to find out more: http://www.ezinewriter.com

This article was posted on August 30, 2002

by Michael Southon

Detect and Remove Spyware

Detect and Remove Spyware

by: Mitch Johnson

The increasingly common computer and internet threat known as spyware is designed to gather information about personal and business computer users. The private information spyware is capable of obtaining about you can include your click stream, usage habits, passwords, credit card number and social security information. It is almost guaranteed that all PC computers have been infected with spyware.

A spyware infection is not primarily intended to alter a computer’s function but as a ขside effectข your computer will begin malfunctioning in obvious ways when some types of spyware invade. Possible signs include continuous pop ups, browser crashes and unauthorized start page changes. Users who have downloaded music and game programs are likely to have been infected as well as those who use shareware and/or freeware.

To clear your computer of malicious spyware computer users must download or purchase one of the many spyware scan tools. Proven and effective spyware tools can scan your computer and catch spyware, adware, keyloggers, dialers, Trojans, malware and more. Once the infected files are identified the spyware scan tools can safely remove them while keeping a back up of the file in case restoration is needed later. Spybot Search and Destory has become one of the most advanced and used free spyware scanning tools. Spy Doctor can be purchased and begin actively protecting against future spyware infections.

You computer should be scanned for spyware infections on a regular basis so as to avoid serious problems that could arise from deep infection. Nearly any of the many antispyware programs include free updates that will bring the program’s database of spyware definitions to the latest known for ultimate computer protection. Finding and using a good antispyware tool will help protect your private information from being snatched and used against you. Spyware removal tools will also stop annoying and intrusive advertisements from interrupting your internet activity.

About The Author

Mitch Johnson is a successful freelance author that writes regularly for http://www.spywareremovalmadeeasy.com/, a site that focuses exclusively on spyware removal software, as well as tips on how to prevent spyware from popping up on your computer. This site articles on has spyware guard, http://www.spywareremovalmadeeasy.com/spyware_guard.htm as well as spyware scanner, http://www.spywareremovalmadeeasy.com/spyware_scanner.htm

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 02

by Mitch Johnson

Free Marketing = Effective Marketing

Free Marketing = Effective Marketing

by: Brandon Milford

According to Google.com there are over three billion web pages online today. So what are you doing to separate yourself from the crowd? How are you targeting your customers? How much capital are you investing in marketing? Is it working?

I hear many business owners complaining about the inability to successfully drive targeted customers to their website. I listen as they tell me about purchasing email lists and buying advertising spaces on related websites. While these methods may work there are free and effective ways to drive targeted traffic to your site.

The first is the ever popular search engines. There are a number of ways to successfully optimize your website for the search engines and subsequently receive better rankings. Search engine optimization is an enormous topic and there have been many books written on the subject and businesses specializing in this service, but I will give you a few important pointers on optimizing your website. First, be sure to have a great deal of relevant content on your website that is no more than three levels deep (the search engine’s crawler does not typically search more than three levels down). This content can include articles, white papers, case studies etc. Second, be sure to have a large number of websites linking to yours. Trade links with other website owners and place their links in a ‘Resources’ section on your website. One of the important variables, among many, that Google will use in your ranking is the number of relevant websites that are linking to yours. So be sure the majority of incoming links to your website are from businesses that provide similar offerings. Third, be sure to include accompanying text links to all of your pages if your current page links are buried within images. This is important because the crawler cannot see images, but it can find text links.

The next way to drive free targeted traffic to your website is to include a link to your site and small ‘hook’ in your email signature. I’m surprised at how many business owners still do not do this. This hook will be one sentence that tells your audience what you do. This ขsmall adข of sorts will be on every email you send out. Example:

John Smith

President

ABC Company

ขProviding communications solutions in a technology driven worldข

Next, get involved with various online message boards/discussion forums that discuss topics that are relevant to your business and provide a link to your website in your signature. You’ll be surprised at its effectiveness. Be sure to participate in relevant discussion forums so that you can learn and contribute the most by participating in knowledgeable topics and at the same time receive targeted clicks. Do not spam any discussion forums, this is not effective and will kill all credibility in your business and your product/service.

The next way to receive free targeted traffic is similar to exchanging links, but even more effective. Seek out partnerships with companies that offer complimentary product offerings and agree to place a prominent link to their site if they will do the same for you. You can set up a ‘Partners’ section on your homepage and display the company’s logo, link, and information.

It is important that we not forget about marketing offline as well. If you are just starting and need customer referrals don’t be afraid to give away products/services for free or at least in exchange for another company’s services. For instance, let’s say that you design websites. Offer a lawyer a free website for their company if in return they will give you free legal advice for a limited time. Also, offer a limited number of businesses free products/services. After you have provided a few businesses with your products/services and they are happy ask them to write a testimonial for you and display this testimonial prominently on your website. Also, give them a few of your business cards and ask them to send any of their friends your way as well. You’ll be surprised at how many people will hear about your business via wordofmouth through satisfied customers.

I hope this condensed list of suggestions have helped you in formulating ideas on how to better market your website. Use your imagination and get creative in your marketing efforts. Get out there and tell the world about your website!

About The Author

Brandon Milford is the President of Pimil.com, a web solutions company based in Georgia, and the Marketing Director for Email Marketing Software Center, a website devoted to providing knowledge and product recommendations on permission based email marketing.

[email protected]

This article was posted on April 02, 2004

by Brandon Milford

Get High Quality Traffic by Writing Articles

Get High Quality Traffic by Writing Articles

by: Mario Sanchez

One of the best ways to promote your website is by writing articles that you can post in ezines, and sites that provide free content to ezine publishers. This will help you develop credibility and, with time, build a solid customer base. There are a few things to take into account to maximize the effectiveness of this sometimes overlooked marketing technique:

Your article should be short and to the point. It must act as a free sample that entices your reader to go to your website for more.

To maximize its effectiveness, you should present it as a tip, a solution to a problem.

Write in easy to understand ขlayman’sข terms.

Whenever possible, write from personal experience. People love to hear other people’s experiences (how did they do it?). This approach also tends to hold their attention longer.

Be extracareful to avoid spelling and grammatical errors. They will make you loose credibility.

Don’t make your article sound like a sales pitch; offer honest, valueadding advice.

Don’t include links to your affiliate programs in the body of your article. It will make your advice seem biased.

Finally, don’t forget the most important part: always include a resource box at the end of your article. A resource box is a small paragraph (no longer than six lines) with your name, the name of your business, a short tagline, and that allimportant link to your website. If your readers like your article, they will follow your link and you will be getting instant, high quality traffic to your site.

About The Author

Mario Sanchez publishes The Internet Digest (http://www.theinternetdigest.net) a website and newsletter that gives you free advice on web design and Internet marketing.

This article was posted on June 10, 2003

by Mario Sanchez

Four Tips For Getting More Mileage From Your Artic

Four Tips For Getting More Mileage From Your Articles

by: Bonnie Jo Davis

It has become common knowledge that the smartest and most effective free method of advertising your business and services is to write and submit articles to the over 400,000 ezines currently on the กnet. There are even several ebooks written on the topic, including mine, that will help you take advantage of this effective technique. What do you do next after youกve invested the hours necessary to research, write, proofread, edit and submit your article to thousands of ezine publishers?

I recommend several methods of recycling articles to clients who utilize my article submission services that Iกm going to share with you today:

1. Publish each of your articles on a separate page on your web site. Then take the keywords from that article that you used in the title and text and create a set of meta tags for that page. Use a free meta tag generator like http://www.anybrowser.com/MetaTagGenerator.html to make sure your meta tags are properly formatted and all inclusive. Next, submit the article page to all of the free search engines. Once that page is indexed those keywords will attract searchers to visit your site where you can convert them to loyal customers.

2. Take the article youกve written and customize it for an industry you want to target. For example, I have a client who writes internet promotion articles. After submission she customizes her articles for real estate agents, accountants, ophthalmologists, home health care companies, etc. I then offer the customized articles to the industry associations representing those groups. This tactic has resulted in hundreds of thousands of fresh, new visitors to her web site when an association prints her customized article in their newsletter or magazine.

3. Choose an article youกve written that outlines several key points on a particular topic. Write an in depth, expanded article on each key point. Contact all the publishers on your list and offer them the expanded key point articles and ask them to run them as a series. A series of articles is much more effective than a single article because each potential customer needs to be exposed to you and your business several times before becoming a customer.

4. Take the original article and the expanded key point articles and offer them as an ecourse to people who visit your site and sign up for your ezine. Use a free autoresponder like http://www.sendfree.com to deliver the articles in sequence. This gives you the opportunity to capture email addresses for your ezine and allows you to use a different byline highlighting your services and products with each article delivery.

Use these four tips every time youกve finished submitting an article and you will get thousands of additional targeted visitors to your web site with just a little extra effort!

(c) 2003. Davis Virtual Assistance. All rights reserved.

Permission to publish online or in print is granted so long as the article and byline are printed intact.

About The Author

Bonnie Jo Davis is a Virtual Assistant who specializes in inexpensive marketing promotions for herself and her clients. For more information about Bonnieกs article submission package visit http://www.DavisVirtualAssistance.com and lick on the กpackagesก button.

This article was posted on May 30, 2003

by Bonnie Jo Davis

Marketing Your Website Inexpensively

Marketing Your Website Inexpensively

by: A.M. Wilmot

There are a number ways you can go about marketing your website, many of which are quite inexpensive. Effectively marketing your Home website is vital to your ultimate success. In fact, the key to growing a business, and particularly a new Home Business, is marketing. Once you have a domain name (which can be bought for as little as $7 these days) and a reliable host (as little as $5 a month for reasonable one), you can get going on promoting your business on the Net. This can be done for free in some cases if you are willing to spend the extra time on the project. If you are unwilling to do this, you can pay someone to optimize your site and promote it for you, which is generally cost effective.

It is possible, however to promote your business online with no marketing budget. The key is to market it aggressively, guerilla marketing style. This means using every free marketing resource at your disposal, such as free classifieds, newsgroups, search engine promotion, niche directories, freeforalls, blogs, email signature lines, message and bulletin boards and free mailing optin lists and ezines, to name just a few. Just don’t spam, whatever you do. There are many free resources throughout the web covering these free methods. You can sign up for their free newsletters or look for their websites using your favorite search engine. Speaking of search engines, most of the traffic on the internet still comes from the free engines such as Google, despite a recent influx of pay per click or pay per performance search engines such as Overture.

Offline methods includes distributing newsletters with your product or service and contact number listed inside, trade shows, brochures, flyers, stationary, advertising in either local or regional newspapers and/or กfree shoppersก, and passing out audio cassetes about your product or business to others who might be interested. The potential marketing techniques are almost limitless and it may be best to look to your กstarter kitก or starter guide as it will probably go into great detail about which offline marketing methods have been proven to work best in that particular product or line of business. The bottom line is, action always beats inaction, as you gain experience and create a synergy that push your Home Business to your goals.

About The Author

A.M Wilmot is a writer and researcher on a number of topics and has been marketing on the internet since 1996. For information on a quality home business go to http://www.homebusinesszone.com/

This article was posted on October 26, 2004

by A.M. Wilmot

Home Business Itกs for Free?

Home Business Itกs for Free?

by: Gert Ljungqvist

Most people realize that when you start a business offline it will cost money. But, when it comes to online business most people don’t want to pay anything to get started. The bottom line is you can’t start any business with out some costs. The difference between online and offline business are that online business can be done with a tight budget.
When you first start your online business there are some tools you must have. You must have an autoresponder, now you might wonder what is a autoresponder? This is a form of email where you store prewritten follow up sales letter, newsletter or articles depending of what your business are. These messages are sent out to your customer at time you decide.
There are free autoresponders and there are autoresponders that will charge you a monthly fee. The free autoresponder have less features. And some of the autoresponder will put ads in your follow up letters, and that is not an good idea for you. You don’t want others to promote there products or services in your letters where you are promoting your own product or service. Therefore a paid autoresponder is much better, there will only be your own promoting in it.
You have to build an optin list with customer, itกs here the autoresponder show its greatness. To get interested customer to your list you have to place an ad and from that ad you will have your customer to visit your web site. When the customer subscribed they end up in your autoresponder and will be send your prewritten follow up letters at time you set up.
There are lots of places where you can put your ad in.
Here are some examples:
Google Adword
Overture
There are more, just search the Internet.
There are also company where you can buy leads for your list. Some examples:
Cutting Edge Media
Lead Factory
For more just search the Internet.
When you buy leads this will go directly to your autoresponder they will not be directed to your web site, but thats okey you will have your link to your web site in your follow up letters.
Itกs also important to have a website, you use the web site to promote your business. Itกs in the web site you place your sales letter to convince your customer of your product or services greatness so they will subscribe to your list.
If you are involved in affiliate programs they will some times provide you with a web site, often you will have several web sites depending of there products. The problem with these web sites are that you can’t build your optin list.
You have probably heard that the success is in the list, and I have to agree. Itกs much easier to promote products or services whit customer in a list then try to get new customer all the time.
Optin list are a database where all of your customer are gathered when they subscribe to your list. Itกs from these list your autoresponder gets the email address to your customer.
So what I suggest you to do is to build your own web site and from this you promote your affiliate programs and let people subscribe for your prewritten follow up letters in your autoresponder.
If you don’t know how to build your own web site there are several on line that will help you with this, of course they will charge you but if you don’t know how, these will be well spent money.
There are also some business partners who will build your web site for free with ready to go affiliate programs as long as you join them with these affiliate programs. This is a good idea if you have none or little knowledge in Internet business, you will get started in a easy way, and some of them will also have stepbystep guides how to run your business.
How about affiliate programs are they free of charge? It depends on what product or service they are offering. For example if they offer a software product that can be used on web sites, they will almost certain charge you with a monthly fee, and that is understandable, if they don’t you could use it on your web site and promoting some one Elseกs product and get to use the software for free. There are also other reasons for a monthly fee, there are administrative costs, they may provide you with a web site and follow up letters and they have to track your sales so you get paid properly, won’t you agree that this is important.
So now you will understand that running an Home Business is not totally free of charge. But itกs much More affordable than an offline business. You don’t have to spend that much money to be successful.
I spend about 100 to 150 $ a month on advertising, autoresponder and affiliate fees. But thats me you can spend more or less it depends on your budget.
To your success.
Gert Ljungqvist

About The Author

Gert Ljungqvist publishes Home Business Tips, a fresh and informative newsletter dedicated to supporting people like YOU! If you’re looking for home business opportunities then grab your own Free subscription today at: http://www.marketingbusinessteam.com/biztipspop.html
Get your Free stepbystep how to run your business ebook here: http://www.marketingbusinessteam.com/30daystosuccess.exe

[email protected]

This article was posted on July 09, 2004

by Gert Ljungqvist

How To Fail… Faster Then a Speeding Bullet!

How To Fail… Faster Then a Speeding Bullet!

by: Troy Pentico

Hello, I am getting married. Want to pay me $798 dollars to come? Yes, this is the theme in the latest marketing campaign from the infamous Corey Rudl. Now before I give you the wrong idea here it really doesn’t cost $798 dollars to attend. In reality it will cost you only $97 dollars and Corey has promised to give everyone that attends a $97 dollar credit towards any of his products. So really Corey is only going to make $97 dollars per person that attends his wedding. Pretty Good Deal, huh?

The $798 dollars is for the one day finally. What someone could actually learn in a seminar environment in one day that is worth $798 dollars is beyond me. But, I am sure even some of you have bought into it. If you are thinking about it but, have not committed to it, I would consider spending the money on some oneonone time with a consultant if you feel you must pay someone to learn about your business.

This really is not what this article is about though. It surely made me think about writing this but, would make for a pretty bland article unless I was promoting Coreyกs Wedding wouldn’t it? No, you see Corey is in the Internet Marketing Information business which in my opinion is getting way out of hand lately. And that is the basis of this article.

So I give you กHow To Fail… Faster Then a Speeding Bullet!ก

As all of you know one of my favorite past times and really the whole กNicheก of my online business is testing new marketing tools, and resources and then sharing those reviews with my subscribers and customers.

Through all of the years of doing this I have gained some serious in site on what makes the online entrepreneur tick. Most of the กinitial successesก these marketer have, as well as most of the failures are attributed to many different things.

This list of reasons people fail is enormous but here are the five most common and how to avoid them:

#5 Bad Guidance

Through out life people are used to being taught how to do things. Their parents teach them how to tie their shoes, and talk. In school they learn how to read, write, and perform arithmetic. In college or trade school they learn how to perform the tasks they are going to use at their job for the rest of their lives.

Then one day they decide to start a business on the Internet. Most of the time that is exactly what happens. They decide to start กA BUSINESSก. Not just any business mind you. But, กA BUSINESSก. These would be entrepreneurs want to make money that all the SPAM mail promises can be had on the Internet. But, there are now a few road blocks. They don’t have a product sell. They don’t have a web site to promote. They don’t have any friends that are successful making money on the Internet to help them. So in pure haste they go to the nearest search engine and type in กHow to Make Moneyก or something a long them lines.

A lot of them won’t be to picky when it comes to choosing. They jump onboard every free to join program out there. Some are กsmarterก. They know that if every body is selling this or that product it must be the one people want and therefore they need to sell it to. Luckily for them they will inevitably end up on the mailing list of a very successful online marketer who will provide them with all the guidance they need.

Generally this will consist of them telling their prospect that to succeed they need to buy and follow the strategies in a particular book they wrote. Once they spend their money and read the hype in the book they find out to make money with these strategies they will need to utilize a particular software program, or service that luckily for them is provided by the same person that sold them the book! And then thankfully that same marketer is throwing a seminar that you can pay an arm and a leg to attend so that you can actually figure out these strategies that so far you haven’t had any luck with. All the while nobody is working on your business because you are to busy reading, learning new software programs, and attending seminars to build your own business.

Avoidance Strategy:

When looking for guidance find a professional with a telephone that they answer when you call. If at all possible find someone near your location that you can work with face to face. Demand a free consultation to see if this person truly knows what they are talking about. Demand a money back guarantee. If this Guru is flashing sales copy that you can make Millions selling this or that surely they can guarantee that you will be profitable with your business following their strategies in X amount of time.

Do not buy any products at all dealing with Internet Marketing until you know what your business is going to be. Don’t spend hundreds of dollars trying to figure this out. You will find your own Niche without the help of a $137 dollar digital book.

#4 Playing the FREE Game

Why should I pay to advertise on Google when I can join that FREE Safelist and mail my ads to millions? Why should I for advertising on ClickBank when I can join CBClicks for FREE? Why should I pay for ads on Google when I can use this free click exchange program to generate traffic?

There are an endless amount of free programs on the Internet that promise to make you successful. This game started years ago with a service called a Free For All Links Page. Here is how they all work and why you can get them for FREE. When you signup for a FREE service you will need to provide some information to the provider. This can range from just your Name and Email to a more extensive survey that includes questions about your monthly income level, your physical mailing address, your phone number, etc. A small price to pay for using these services for FREE right?

WRONG!

If you didn’t catch on yet these services can guarantee you what ever they want. But, the truth is they rarely work because they were not designed to! These services are for the provider to obtain your contact information and your permission to contact you with advertising anytime they want. Many times your contact information is sold via a leads service. In the end you find out that you wasted your time joining the program and all you gained out of the FREE deal was in inbox full of junk!

Avoidance Strategy:

Do not utilize FREE Traffic or Lead Generation Strategies with very few exceptions (like submitting your URL to Google for FREE for example). Find a service that is pay to play by a known provider of successful strategies. Like Google Adwords for example. Use the service that you can afford to and when you can afford to utilize another move into it. Don’t make any exceptions to this no matter what anybody tells you!

#3 No Focus

This one is closely related to all of the other causes for failure. The normal scenario goes something like this. You are selling a book you wrote about cross stitching. You have made a few sales and things are going nicely for you as your business is starting to grow. Someone that you respect sends you an email. It says, กHey my Google PR just shot through the roof because I am using X productก. You quickly move into action and purchase the product. You follow the directions and spend hours, sometimes days applying the strategy.

When you are finished you decide to stop by one of your favorite marketing forums and find everyone talking about this out standing new book by X marketer where he reveals all his top secret marketing strategies. You move into action and purchase the book. You spend days reading it and then weeks applying the strategies.

This is a never ending chain for some people. They never spend one day completely devoted to working on their business because, they are to busy being distracted by the next big thing.

Well I got news for your folks. There is always going to be a next big thing. Some things do not change and will provide you with much more success.

Avoidance Strategy:

FOCUS your time on YOUR Business. The Top of you Todo list should always be Provide Outstanding Customer Service, Market Your Product Continuously, Build Strong Relationships with your customers, Improve the Content of Your Web site, etc.

Don’t start another business if the current one is not successful! Why put yourself through the mental challenges of failing at two businesses? When you have made one business successful you will have the know how and the resources to successfully expand it to include another.

If you do this you will laugh as you watch your competitors chase their Internet Marketing Dreams in Circles.

#2 No Creativity

You decide for your business that you are going to market X product as part of their affiliate program. This one has to be the easiest business to start in the world! They provide a web site template, prewritten ads, banners, articles, and graphics! All I have to do is use these items and I will make Millions!

WRONG!

Having no creativity is a killer. Especially, in the affiliate sales world. Think about it if everyone of the affiliates in X program are using the exact same sales materials for every aspect of their marketing program who do you think a prospect is going to buy from?

If you answered กI have no ideaก, you are correct. And a lot of the times the prospective customer has no idea either. If you don’t successfully close the deal on the first visit from this customer you are probably not going to. Your prospect wakes up the next morning and decides to buy the product. They forgot to book mark your site so they type the name of the product into a search engine and come to a page that looks exactly like yours and they buy.

The scenarios for not having creativity are endless. They go from something simple like using canned sales materials from an affiliate program to creating a software product that is exactly the same as 12 others on the market.

If you do not put some creativity into your business. You will fail.

Avoidance Strategy:

Only join and market an affiliate program if you have purchased the product and used it yourself? Why? Because, if you don’t you will have no choice but, to used the canned sales materials. You cannot extend any creativity into it and write your own sales copy, give a testimonial to your prospects or anything of that sort because, you will have no idea on what you are talking about.

Always, write your own sales copy, advertisements, web pages, etc. Even if you only change a few graphics, and include a few of your own paragraphs into a canned version you are way above the heap. When modifying web pages include testimonials (if you don’t have any when you sell some ask the customer for one). Always include your contact information including a phone number that you answer. Always change the headline. If the headline is just to good to change then change the sub headline. Do what ever you can to make your sales materials unique.

When creating your own product research the hell out of it. Don’t create something that can be had elsewhere. And definitely don’t create something that people can pick up at the local WalMart. If you can’t come up with your won idea hold a survey with your ezine or mailing list subscribers asking them what they wish they had to improve any aspect of their life or business.

Apply creativity throughout your business from product creation, to sales, to good customer service at all time.

#1 No Determination

What am I doing wrong? I have created a unique product. I have an awesome sales page. I am getting tons of hits from my Overture PPC Campaign. But, nobody is buying! The heck with this.

I have a ton of ads inserted for my Google Campaign but nobody is clicking on them. The heck with this.

I just can’t get people to buy my product. I guess I will just give it away.

I see this all of the time. People try everything that they can to make their business work but, nothing seems too. They give up and never really tried. Folks, the Internet is not a get rich quick environment no matter what you may think. Yes, it is easier to target your customer base and actually make contact with them. But, it is no different then selling off line. If you don’t provide a compelling reason to buy then no one will. And just because you think it is compelling and all your marketing friends said the same thing does not mean it is going to work.

The failure rate of online business due to No Determination is astronomical. People actually believe that whatever they do is going to work and when it doesn’t they give up without a fight.

Avoidance Strategy:

Expect failure and LEARN from it. Write the underlying cause for each failure down and refer to it when ever you can so you don’t make the same mistake twice. Research and analyze your marketing methods. Write at least two versions of a sales page for a particular product and run a splittest on it. Always ask your current customers why they bought a particular product. Make them be specific. Apply copy cat strategies with your products. If it worked once it might work again. Just don’t go word for word. Ask for help from an Internet Marketer that you respect by offering them a cut on sales. If you can’t make it sell maybe they can provide you with a way it can. Above all DON’t GIVE UP, DON’t GIVE UP, and DON’t GIVE UP.

If you are the average everyday Internet Marketer you probably found at least one failure strategy that you are following right now. This does not mean your business will fail. If just means you got a head start in start in that direction.

Keep in mind that I could not possibly list all the scenarios, or avoidance strategies for each of these as it would have created a volume of information and this article is already long as it is.

You must learn to identify failure strategies and cut them off before they have an adverse effect on your business. I have provided you with a good start it is up to you from here on out.

So I challenge you from here on out to remain determined, be creative, stay focused, avoid free things with big promises, and seek out and find good guidance if you need it.

Copyright © 2004, Troy Pentico

About The Author

Troy Pentico is the Editor of the FFAMall Gazette eZine and has been a successful Internet Marketer since late 1997. Are you tired of reading Internet Marketing Tips eZines packed with advertising and marketing fluff? Subscribe Today and learn the Truth! http://gazette.ffamall.com

This article was posted on August 14, 2004

by Troy Pentico

SEVEN tips on Submitting Your Ezine articles to co

SEVEN tips on Submitting Your Ezine articles to content sites and Publishers.

by: Radhika Venkata

1. Make sublists from Your ezine publishers list:

If you have an ezine publishers list, seperate the list based on the topic of the ezine. Send only specific content to specific ezines. For example if you write ezine articles on self improvement, don’t send it to search engine based ezines. The more specific you choose your ezine publishers, the more chances of getting published.

2. URLs in Your ezine articles:

Always check the urls in your ezine articles. After all, one of the purposes of writing and submitting articles is to get some prospects. Right?

3. Offer กWin and Win Situationก to the publishers:

If you are promoting your product through the ezine article, offer the chance of inserting affiliate link for the publishers. Or provide any free service to them or to their subscribers.

4. Automate the process:

Use some sort of software to automate this submission. So you don’t have to go through each email address and send one by one. Autoresponder that sends Your articles to your ezine publishers at specified intervals of time:

http://www.scripts4webmasters.com/arpproadv/index.shtml

Automatic and targeted submission software:

http://www.webmasterscentral.com/cgibin/resourcelink/resource.cgi?id=4

5. Ezine publishers Instructions:

Some ezine publishers send some specific instructions like short articles, or a link back from your web site etc. Feel free to follow them to get more chances of publishing.

6. Ezine + Online publications:

Some ezine publishers send ezines to their subscribers and also they publish their ezines on their web sites as archives. Tell you what… This is a big plus point for your link popularity and also it brings you visitors all the time.

7. How many and how often to send the ezine articles:

Give a minimum of one month gap to send a second article again to a publisher. Ezine publishers receive many articles every day and following these tips increase your chances of getting published

Well formatted article

Clean subheadings for the articles

Only one article per email

Thank you note for their time

Shouldn’t be like a sales letter

Topic oriented and simple explanations

No spelling errors

No broken Urls

Radhika Venkata (c).

About The Author

Radhika Venkata

Subscribe to กiNet Marketing Ezineก which is completely focused on Internet Marketing. Receive FREE Ebooks with Resale rights!

http://www.webmasterscentral.com/subscribe.shtml

FREE Ecourse :: 30 days Solid work out to increase your online profits!

http://www.ebooksworld.com/ecourse/index.shtml

This article was posted on October 16, 2004

by Radhika Venkata

Ten Awesome Ways To Incease Your Sales In Holidays

Ten Awesome Ways To Incease Your Sales In Holidays

by: Radhika Venkata

Everybody thinks that the businesses will slow down a bit in holiday seasons. Ofcourse everybody thinks that people don’t want to start new ventures in holidays too.

But that is not true. People do spend money… a lot in holidays. On gift items, special discount goods, coupons etc.

The only thing is to know how to do business in the holiday season using this attitude.

Here are 10 tips to maintain or maximize your sales in Holidays:

1. Put a paragraph on your webpage that related to the particular holiday. Like chrismas greetings for Chrismas, Happy mothers day greetings for Motherกs day etc.

Then put a picture of your product under it with a discount price for that particular day.

Advertise about this discount product on your home page from a month before the actual selling day.

2. Send discount coupons to your old customers and subscribers and tell them the offer lasts for one or two days.

3. If you use pay per click engines, change your ads a little bit to give the essence of holiday season.

If your ad is like

กGarden tools for gardenersก

Change this to

กGarden tools for Gardeners.Price reduced to half for the first fifty people. Limited for Thanks giving.ก

OK…OK…You get the idea. Right?

4. Install some greeting card cgi scripts on your site. Use them at holiday seasons. So with every greeting card your website link goes to other people. This is very cheap and affordable advertising.

5. Tell your affiliates that they will receive more commission on their sales through their affiliate links in this holiday season.

6. Always submit two or three pages of your website to search engines with holiday discount prices. So if anybody search in the search engines about discount products, your pages will show up.

7. Offer free shipping and handling to your customers.

8. Put a special pop up window that closes with in a particular time. So you can encourage your visitors to buy the product at discount price or with special bonuses through the link in that pop up.

9. Use your Autoresponder to offer special courses or tutorials for holiday seasons. Send the links to your discount products, samples of your product as a special holiday delivery. Encourage them to buy with a holiday discount.

10. Holidays means parties, get togethers and massive sales. You can do offline advertising about your product and website by keeping banners or free brochures at the reception tables, sales centers etc.

About The Author

Radhika Venkata Subscribe to กEbookBiz Magazineก which is completely focused on ebook business and Internet Marketing. Receive FREE Ebooks with Resale rights every month!

http://www.ebooksworld.com/freetosell.shtml

Webmaster Resources: List Your product, ezine or web site free! http://www.webmasterscentral.com/

This article was posted on November 14, 2003

by Radhika Venkata