Build Your Marketing Muscle

Build Your Marketing Muscle

by: Sopan Greene, M.A.

During a saxophone lesson the other day I realized how much regular practice can help a part time internet marketer. My teacher taught me a long time ago to just play for 15 minutes a day to progress. I was shocked when I first started doing it, but it works. And it works fast.

As Iกve applied that theory to my business Iกve seen the same rewards. If you have a tight schedule, itกs actually better to work on marketing for 15 minutes a day than it is to come up with a block of hours to get a lot done.

The reason why is that a habit to make a little time a day to focus on your business keeps the ideas flowing and consistently builds your marketing muscle. Itกs also a lot easier to find 15 minutes every day than it is to find an hour or more.

Think about it. In 15 minutes you can send out some articles, work on an article or send some emails for ad swaps. All of these activities are building your exposure and your list.

Most internet marketers are part timers for at least 6 months to year depending on how much time they spend on their business. If you can go for a half hour or an hour or more a day go for it. But most newbies are struggling to put in 5 hours on weekdays while juggling a full time job and a busy family life.

The key is to pick an amount of time you know you can do. Commit to spending that amount of time every weekday with longer times on the weekend. If you can do it at the same time every day it works easier. Treat this time like itกs an important appointment with an important person. (You are an important person aren’t you? No one else will build your business.) Don’t let anything break your date with your business.

Too many folks fail because they simply don’t treat their business like itกs a business. A hobby is something that costs you money and you work on when you feel like it. A business is something that makes you money and you work on it even when you don’t feel like it. You deserve to reap the rewards that an online business brings.

The profits are bigger down the road, but treating your business with a business attitude will get you there faster. A 15 minute a day habit can build your marketing muscle and accelerate your progress.

Give it a whirl. What have you go to lose?

About The Author

Sopan Greene, M.A. is a marketing & life coach & editor of the Net Profits newsletter. Grab Your 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 mail to: [email protected]

http://www.NetMarketingMastery.com

This article was posted on December 05, 2003

by Sopan Greene, M.A.

How Professionals Everywhere Are Gaining New Clien

How Professionals Everywhere Are Gaining New Clients Through The Search Engine Google Anytime They Want And Now You Can Too!

by: Rod Beckwith and Jeff Alderson

You might call it the new gold rush for professionals… because all it takes is five dollars and only five minutes and anybody can advertise their business on the world’s most popular search engine Google.

Ordinary folks from around the globe, from those in insurance sales to web design, are now able to gain new clients whenever they want, anytime they want…

…Simply by tapping into the thousands upon thousands of searches taking place for the services they offer every single day.

Even a real estate agent in mediumsized area can gain local clients searching for a new home by placing their ads on Google.

The advertising program is called ขGoogle Adwords.ข

What makes it so effective for professionals is not only the lowcost to get started, but you can cutoff your campaign with the click of a button when you’ve got more work than you can handle… and turn it on just as easily when you need new clients.

There are 3 components to creating your campaign:

First, you must open up your new account. This only takes a few minutes to do.

Second, brainstorm keywords (or search phrases) your ideal customer would type in to find what you have to offer.

Third, create ads to pull the searcher in over your competitors and attract the type of customer you want.

Then, in only 5 minutes, your ads will start showingup for those searchers looking for what you have to offer, flooding your website with new, potential customers.

Of course, the more keywords you have and the better your ads, the more effective your campaign will be.

To learn more about Google Adwords and grab your account so you can start gaining new clients today visit: http://www.adwords.google.com It may just be your quickest, cheapest, and easiest solution to generating new customers off the web!

By Rod Beckwith and Jeff Alderson

© All Rights Reserved

About The Author

To make getting started easy for folks, you can pickup your completed campaign with recommended products, to start earning money almost immediately… so you can avoid the mistakes most beginners make when getting started. Inside, you will get completed ads and researched keywords for hot markets done by a pro that will save you a lot of headaches. Just visit http://www.AdwordsThemepacks.com TODAY, as you will be glad you did tomorrow!

You have permission to reprint this article as long as you do not change any of the content and include the resource box. If you would like to make mo!ney from the article feel fr1ee to include your affiliate url in place of กhttp://www.AdwordsThemePacks.com.ก

This article was posted on March 04

by Rod Beckwith and Jeff Alderson

Coping With Information Overload

Coping With Information Overload

by: Jim Edwards

Itกs been said that the average New York Times Sunday edition contains more information than a person in 15th century England was exposed to during their entire lifetime.

In the information age, our minds get bombarded daily with so much data that we start filtering it out as a self defense mechanism.

On the Internet, the information overload gets so severe that it seems to bring out the ADD (attention deficit disorder) in all of us.

To make things worse, expect the avalanche of information we must all deal with online to start coming faster and harder and to never, ever stop.

Unlimited amounts of information available online represents a truly doubleedged mental sword.

On the good side, you can find out virtually anything you want about any person, place, thing, fact, problem and more. On the bad side, since you can find anything, many people get lost and caught up in กeverythingก and never accomplish much.

In fact, most people end up drowning in a sea of information when all they wanted was a simple drink of water.

To help you effectively deal with the neverending torrent of online information, let me offer 3 simple solutions that will profoundly affect your ability to get things done.

First, operate with a clear purpose for what you plan to accomplish online.

Many people start out with a vague idea of what they want to accomplish on the Web and end up wasting hours surfing aimlessly.

One simple solution: write down your purpose for going online on a sticky note and put it on the side of your monitor.

Simple purpose statements like กCheck emailก or กFind map to Detroitก or ‘research where to advertise my blogก can save countless hours by reminding you of your true purpose for sitting down at the keyboard (and keep you from wandering off to explore Britney Spears or The Simpsons).

Next, if you do want to go off on a sidetrack away from your original purpose, set a time limit.

Kind of like recess in kindergarten, give yourself a set amount of time to run free, but then get back in the classroom and get back to business.

Typically, I give myself anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes to roam, but only if I think it will bear fruit for my purpose in the end.

I also force myself to honestly answer the question, กDoes this really fit with my purpose for being online right now?ก

If not, then I goof off for about 5 minutes and then write down the idea, website, or topic for future investigation.

By the way, a simple egg timer works great for this.

Finally, if you ever find yourself online without a purpose, but can’t seem to stop surfing or searching, simply get up from your computer and walk away for a few minutes to clear your head.

Often this represents the fastest way to stop yourself wasting countless hours in meaningless activity online.

Bottom line, implementing simple strategies for dealing with information overload online now will pay huge dividends in peace of mind and time savings in the future.

About The Author

Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the coauthor of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use fr^e articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links…

Need MORE TRAFFIC to your website or affiliate links? ‘turn Words Into Trafficก reveals the secrets for driving Thousands of NEW visitors to your website or affiliate links… without spending a dime on advertising!

Click Here> http://www.turnwordsintotraffic.com

This article was posted on January 04

by Jim Edwards

I Spy…Something Terribly Wrong (In Your Computer

I Spy…Something Terribly Wrong (In Your Computer)

by: Andrew Wroblewski

I Spy…Something Terribly Wrong (In Your Computer)

This really chapped my lips…

I recently bought a new computer. Mine was getting old, had lost its whistle, and the few remaining bells didn’t ding a nicely as they had in the past. Yep, it was time for a new stateofthe art dream machine with CD burner, DVD player, a bazillion gigabyte drive and more RAM than Rambo has. I whipped out my trusty credit card and told my local CompUSA to ring it up.

Well, needless to say I was enthralled. Blazing speed, working whistles, and bells that were more like the Big Ben gong! I could tear through spreadsheets with one CDROM tied behind my back. One day, about three months later, my Son came home from college. Having heard all about my new pride and joy, he sat down behind the keyboard and fired that puppy up. He put it through its paces for about 30 minutes and then turned and said กItกs nice Dad, but I thought it would be fasterก. HE THOUGHT IT WOULD BE FASTER? What was he, crazy? This box was so hot that it came with itกs own fire department.

Then he started poking around the hard drive. กDadก, he said, กYou need an exterminator. Your PC is infested.ก กInfested with what, bugs?ก. กNopeก, he said กSpywareก. กSpy What?ก. กSpywareก, he replied. And then he explained.

Even thought I had a good virus prevention utility installed, it didn’t protect me against Spyware. Spyware, it seeks, are nasty little programs that get downloaded in similar fashion to the way a virus does. It can be attached to an email, or even one of those new talking ECards. it can hide in one of those กClick Here to close this windowก boxes, or in any of seemingly a hundred other secret ways.

There are essentially two types of Spyware. The less dangerous type either causes lots of ads to pop up every time you go on the Internet, or records your shopping and surfing habits in order to report them back to Big Brother somewhere. Of course, these steal your PCกs clock cycles, and cause your hard drive to get bloated, which ends up slowing your entire system down. The problem is, the loss of speed is gradual and you don’t even know itกs happening until Mr. Big Shot college kid comes along and tells you that your PC is slow.

OK, thatกs bad enough. But then, there is the second kind of Spyware. They are used by real spies, or at least the kind that want to steal your credit card and personal information so they can clean out your bank accounts and assume your identity. You know, the scary stuff that you’re starting to hear about more and more.

So, what should I do? Did I need to reformat my hard drive? I hoped not because THAT was no walk in the park. Fortunately my college geek was up on the subject and took me to a website that specialized in safely removing Spyware. We downloaded and installed the software in just a few minutes and then fired it up. Holey Schmolie, I was infested. After about 15 minutes of chunking and plunking, the software pronounced me fit and clean. Well, at least my PC was. We rebooted and Boom! All of the speed and performance that had gradually been lost slammed right back into life. Even my Son was impressed.

Folks, this Spyware is serious stuff. You can’t afford to be wiped out by some cyber terrorist half way across the world. Protect your PC and your identity. You probably already are infested. Thereกs only one way to know for sure, you need to check it out for yourself.

About The Author

Steve Robichaud and Andrew Wroblewski have been involved in online sales and marketing since 1996. For more information on finding and removing spyware from your PC, visit: http://spyware.pcwash.com/main/

email: [email protected]

This article was posted on May 05, 2004

by Andrew Wroblewski

Prepaid Wireless: Is It Right For You?

Prepaid Wireless: Is It Right For You?

by: Edwin Mazanke

Just about every leading mobile phone provider now offers some sort of prepaid calling plan in order to fit their customersก budgets. But is is right for you?

The first question youกll need to ask yourself is how often youกll use your wireless phone?

Since the biggest benefit of a prepaid wireless phone is there is no monthly contract, youกll pay a little more for the prepaid minutes you purchase. But if you plan on using your phone strictly on an asneeded basis for emergencies, etc., a prepaid wireless program could be just what you’re looking for.

The biggest mistake most people make when choosing to go prepaid is not reading the กfine printก of the providersก terms and conditions.

In most cases, the prepaid minutes you purchase will expire after a certain period of time, usually two or three months down the road. What this means is, if you buy 300 minutes today and fail to purchase more minutes anytime during the next few months, the unused portion of those 300 minutes will be unuseable!

This is sort of a convenient way to force you to keep on purchasing minutes even if you don’t actually need them.

Another thing to watch out for is a daily minimum. Many providers will charge you $1.00 for each day you use your wireless phone. So if you get a prepaid wireless phone with the intention of making one twominute call every day of the month, in addition to using 60 minutes of airtime, some providers will also charge you an additional $30 for the month, since you used the phone all 30 days.

Not a very good deal.

Out of all the prepaid wireless deals out there, TracFone seems to have the most competitive prices and terms of service. Although TracFone minutes expire after three months unless you purchase additional minutes (just like all the other companies), they also have a oneyear activation service which is perfect for people just needing a wireless phone for emergency purposes. The deal changes from month to month, but usually provides for one year of activation, without requiring you to purchase additional minutes for a whole year. Thus, your monthly cost should average about $8.00 and youกll have a wireless phone with a few hundred minutes that will be good for the whole year.

The choices seem endless, but it pays to educate yourself about prepaid wireless phone plans.

About The Author

Edwin Mazanke

For more information on prepaid wireless phones and service, visit www.PrepaidWirlelessHelp.com.

This article was posted on September 05

by Edwin Mazanke

How To Make Affiliate Sales In 15 Minutes

How To Make Affiliate Sales In 15 Minutes

by: Dan Farrell

If you are one of the 98.6% of affiliate members that never make one cent from affiliate sales or make small $5.00, $10.00 commissions, then this article is for you. Even if you are making nice checks, this will interest you.

You really can start to make affiliate sales in 15 minutes with Google Adwords.

Your ads will start appearing with 15 minutes for the keywords you have selected. If this has you scratching your head :o) I don’t blame you. I was totally new to Adwords until I read about Chris Carpenterกs experience in making $3,405 with just one ad in his very good ebook http://www.adalyzer.com/727/google You know those ads on the right side of the page of Googleกs search page? Well those are Adwords. You pay per click with the minimum at .05, which is less than Overtureกs .10 PPC. Placement of your ad is based on two factors, the Cost Per Click and your adกs Click Through Rate (CTR).

I have set my maximum CPC to .06 and the daily budget $5.00 until I see that the keywords Iกve selected are working and the affiliate program is making sales. To cut through a lot of learning curve you should find a niche keyword with Good Key Words or Word Tracker. The first is free and the second has a free trial. You can Also get some high paying Adword keywords (some Keywords pay $up to $80 per click! You can get a free Sample from TopPayingKeywords at: http://www.adalyzer.com/727/adsense

The other is a software tool, Adword Analyzer. http://www.adalyzer.com/727/adwords It will find a list of related keywords, the number of searches per keyword and the number of advertising campaigns per keyword. Boy, do I love this software! I enter a keyword, say, mortgage, and it gives me all of the above in minutes. So you can find high traffic search terms that no one is buying Google Adwords for. Another use is to identify niches that are too competitive to enter. As you can imagine it will save money, time and most importantly find the search terms that you line up an affiliate for and start making money in minutes.

You see, that is the very essence of success with any affiliate program, finding a product that is hot, has little or no competition and developing an ad campaign for it.

The strategy that I use now is to find high paying keywords, buy a domain name with that keyword in it, create a simple landing page, add three Google Adsense ads (they allow up to three per page and don’t forget to create Adsense channels for tracking) then I optimize the page with the keyword in the title, spread throughout the body (top, middle and bottom), add articles for content to other pages and create a new Adwords campaign to get some traffic started.

Then I will either buy or request reciprocal links from high relevant websites. With PR4 and above. You buy links with PR5 and above for a reasonable amount. Do a search for Then watch my Adsense income build!

Google loves relevant content on your site or sites linking to it.

Another way to get listed in the top 10 or Google is writing articles. This is another article coming soon!

With Google Adwords you can get clickthroughs within minutes and if targeted to the right prospect, sales in minutes.

About The Author

Dan Farrell is the owner of 1staffiliatemarketing.biz. You can get more affiliate marketing articles, tips and ecourses that will show you exactly how to make money online with affiliate programs. Find Out at http://www.1stinaffiliatemarketing.biz.

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 26

by Dan Farrell

How To Make Affiliate Sales In 15 Minutes

How To Make Affiliate Sales In 15 Minutes

by: Dan Farrell

If you are one of the 98.6% of affiliate members that never make one cent from affiliate sales or make small $5.00, $10.00 commissions, then this article is for you. Even if you are making nice checks, this will interest you.

You really can start to make affiliate sales in 15 minutes with Google Adwords. http:www.adwords.google.com

Your ads will start appearing with 15 minutes for the keywords you have selected. If this has you scratching your head :o) I don’t blame you. I was totally new to Adwords unitl I read about Chris Carpenterกs experience in making $3,405 with just one ad in his very good ebook GoogleCash. http://www.adalyzer.com/727/google You know those ads on the right side of the page of Googleกs search page? Well those are Adwords. You pay per click with the minimum at .05, which is less than Overtureกs .10 PPC. Placement of your ad is based on two factors, the Cost Per Click and your adกs Click Through Rate (CTR).

I have set my maximum CPC to .05 and the daily budget $5.00 until I see that the keywords Iกve selected are working and the affiliate program is making sales. To cut through a lot of learning curve, there are two fantastic products, one is the ebook GoogleCash which is a step by step overview of Chris Carpenterกs experience with proven income results. And he has made a ton of money doing only this. http://www.adalyzer.com/727/google

The other is a software tool, Adword Analyzer. http://www.adalyzer.com/727/adwords It will find a list of related keywords, the number of searches per keyword and the number of advertising campaigns per keyword. Boy, do I love this software! I enter a keyword, say, mortgage, and it gives me all of the above in minutes. So you can find high traffic search terms that no one is buying Google Adwords for. Another use is to identify niches that are too competitive to enter. As you can imagine it will save money, time and most importantly find the search terms that you line up an affiliate for and start making money in minutes.

My experience is very new, I have only been doing this for a couple weeks, off and on, and the results aren’t anywhere as good as Chrisกs. But Iกm learning and tweaking, deleting, adding and researching for that กhidden pot of goldก. A product that has a ton of searches with no competition :o)

The best results Iกve had so far are for an allergy/asthma affiliate. I have had over 250 clicks and a few sales for less than $9.00. Thatกs only .03 cents a click, not bad at all. I found through Adword Analyzer that these keywords and keyword phrases for allergy and/or asthma had some nice term searches with few adwords on Google. So for the .05 CPC I was able to get my ads listed on the first search page for most of the keywords.

You see, that is the very essence of success with any affiliate program, finding a product that is hot, has little or no competition and developing an ad campaign for it.

With Google Adwords you can get clickthroughs within minutes and if targeted to the right prospect, sales in minutes.

Iกll update you with more of my personal results in the next issue as well as more tips that I find or learn about.

About The Author

Dan Farrell publishes กBuild An eBusiness On A Shoestringก a unique newsletter with fresh, hardhitting information …guaranteed to put money in your pocket. And as a bonus get 3 fabulous ebooks. http://buildanebusinessonashoestring.com or mailto:[email protected]?subject=as

If you have any questions about this article or anything else give me an email! mailto:[email protected]

This article was posted on October 13, 2003

by Dan Farrell

Alltel Wireless Cell Phones At The Cutting Edge

Alltel Wireless Cell Phones At The Cutting Edge

by: Martin Smith

Unlike many other cell phone companies that have several calling plans, Alltel Wireless offers only three plans. The Total Freedom Plan is ideal for those who travel extensively on business and need to keep in touch with clients and the home office, as well as family. It provides coast to coast coverage within the United States with no long distance or roaming charges.

You can get between 200 and 3000 anytime minutes, 1000 night and weekend minutes and 1000 mobile to mobile home minutes. The cost for this Alltel plan ranges between $39.99 and $299.99 a month depending on the amount of anytime minutes you choose. The cost per minute for calls over your plan minutes is between $.40 and $.20, again depending on the level of anytime minutes chosen.

Alltel relies on its National Freedom Plan to provide subscribers in most medium to large cities with coverage. However subscribers in smaller cities and rural areas or making calls to these places may incur unexpected charges. The benefit, however, is more anytime minutes in the same price range as in the Total Freedom Plan. For instance the National Freedom Plan gives 450 minutes for $39.95, while ขTotal Freedomข gives only 200 for the same amount.

The ขGreater Freedomข plan is Alltelกs offering to the casual user who doesn’t do a lot of traveling or who is considering replacing their standard home phone with an Alltel cell phone. For under $30.00 a month you can get 300 anytime minutes. At $39.99 a month you get 700 anytime minutes, 1000 night and weekend minutes and 1000 mobile to mobile home minutes. Alltelกs mobile to mobile home minutes refers to calls placed from one Alltel cell phone to another Alltel user.

Alltel cell phone plans all offer the same basic features such as voice mail, caller ID, 3way calling, call waiting, call forwarding and 411 information. Be cautious about these features, some of them are not covered by all levels of the plans and these charges can add up quickly. Recent research by Consumer Reports show that these seemingly minor add ons can add significant charges to your monthly bill. You need to make sure you know what your coverage area is, what is considered roaming and what the charges for these services are.

If you go prepared, know what type of service you need, make sure you understand all of the features you want and the associated charges, you will be sure to get an Alltel plan that is right for you. Alltelกs corporate philosophy is that simplicity or ease of understanding, means sales. This has allowed them to become and remain a viable contender in the confusing world of cell phone carriers.

With approximately 12 million customers and an estimated 8 billion dollars in annual revenues, Alltel has fine tuned their calling plans to insure that they are easy to understand. This simplicity has been a strong catalyst for the sales and longevity of this company.

Phones offered by Alltel are among the best on the market. Alltel cell phones are made by Nokia, Kyocera, and Audiovox. They have one of the largest selections of cell phones available today. You can get all the new ขbells and whistles.ข Do you want web access while on the road? Alltel can provide you with a phone that has that capability. Interested in voice dialing? They can give you that. You can also get speaker phones, color displays, stock reports, picture phones, cell phones that can be used as walkie talkies, advanced graphics and a collection of Alltel ring tones including hip hop, country, classical, movie theme songs, and fight songs. Before signing any cell phone contract you should investigate the available plans thoroughly to make sure that the Alltel cell phone plan you choose will suit your needs.

About The Author

Martin Smith is a successful freelance writer providing advice on purchasing a variety of Cell phone plans and more! His numerous articles are a resource of interesting and relevant information. http://www.mobilencellphone.com.

This article was posted on August 27

by Martin Smith

At&T Wireless What Have They To Offer

At&T Wireless What Have They To Offer

by: Martin Smith

In the confusing world of cell phone carriers, finding the right carrier and the right plan to fill your needs can be a daunting task. One carrier that stands out, and has nationwide name recognition is AT&T Wireless. A major problem for cell phone users is poor coverage outside of major urban areas like Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, New Orleans or Washington D.C. However AT&T uses a new Technology Time Division Access (TDMA is also used by Cingular). Analog roaming services are available almost everywhere in the U.S.

Calling plans with AT&T start as low as $39.95 s month. This plan allows 450 daytime minutes and unlimited night and weekend minutes. What AT&T customers really seem to enjoy are such features as the AT&T Connect or Teleconcierge. Operators quickly find numbers for anyplace, anywhere in the U.S., make reservations for you, get local movie times, and call back to confirm your dinner reservations. Other unique services include stock quotes, event listings, weather reports, and daily horoscopes.

One increasingly popular type of cell phone plan is prepaid calling plans. AT&T offers the Go Phone with prepaid plans, free unlimited night and weekend minutes, no contracts to sign, no credit check or activation fee, or deposit. They also offer Free 2 Go Wireless Solutions, also prepaid with no contracts or credit checks. However the Go Phone plan gives you the unlimited free off prime minutes, lower per minute prices, wider choice of AT&T cell phones, and more choices of AT&T ring tones, and choices in payment options. For instance you can even set up a plan to have your credit or debit card to automatically add to your account when the minutes get low. The AT&T Go Phone plan also offers lower international dialing rates to its Go Phone customers.

Recently AT&T began to offer a new type of digital phone service known as GSM/GPRS, which provides a true 56 kilobyte per second internet connection speed for lap top computers hooked up to the GSM phone line or that use a GSM plug in cord. Remember though that the rates for this service is high with 400 voice minutes and one megabyte of data transmission can add $50.00 to your regular monthly bill. AT&Tกs numerous plans, versatile payment options and TDMA and GSM technology have helped placed AT&T near the top of successful cellular phone carriers.

About The Author

Martin Smith is a successful freelance writer providing advice on purchasing a variety of Cell phone plans and more! His numerous articles are a resource of interesting and relevant information. http://www.mobilencellphone.com.

This article was posted on August 27

by Martin Smith

How to Get Started Blogging in 5 Minutes or Less

How to Get Started Blogging in 5 Minutes or Less

by: Linda Bruton

I put off starting a blog for a long time because I thought it would be hard. I thought it would be technical. I thought Iกd have to install scripts and tear my hair out getting them to work. At that point, most of what Iกd read about blogs and RSS was just so much geekspeak.

Was I ever wrong!

When I finally got the courage to give it a go, I went to blogger.com and signed up for an account. To my amazement, I had a blog set up in about 5 minutes. My first post was uploaded to my site about 10 minutes later.

The only thing even remotely technical I was required to do was enter the FTP settings for the website my blog would be published on. But even that wasn’t a requirement. With Blogger, you can set up a blog on their site, Blogspot, and not even worry about FTP settings.

Since then, Iกve started 3 Blogger blogs on different sites. Blogger remains one of the most popular blog applications in the world simply because it is so simple to use and set up. If you’re a technophobe or don’t have the time to learn something completely new, I would urge you to drop by Blogger.com and take a look. You could be blogging and enjoying the benefits almost immediately.

Another very simple blogging tool is WordPress. This blog is my first WordPress blog, and Iกm very impressed with how powerful it is as well as simple.

WordPress is installed on your own website, but don’t let that stop you. Most hosts that have Cpanel already have WordPress ready for you to install. Look in your Cpanel for the Fantastico application, click it open, and then choose WordPress to install. It will automatically install it on your site for you, and you can start blogging right away.

If your host doesn’t already include WordPress in the scripts on your server, you can still pick it up at:

http://wordpress.org/

Then go to the WordPress Wiki for instructions on how to install it in 5 minutes:

http://wiki.wordpress.org/?pagename=5MinuteInstallation

WordPress is free, opensource software. It is very simple to install, even for technophobes, and has a lot of online documentation. There are also many sites with free WordPress addons and templates. Iกm using a template for this blog that I picked up at Alex Kingกs site:

http://www.alexking.org/index.php?content=software/wordpress/styles.php

The WordPress Wiki is a wealth of information on all things WordPress, including installation instructions, help files, a long list of template sites, and all kinds of hacks and extras you can use to modify your blog and make it original.

If you’re a WordPress user, another place to visit is the WordPress discussion forum:

http://wordpress.org/support/

If you’re a new blogger, both WordPress and Blogger are very user friendly. There isn’t a long learning curve. And you won’t have to learn any new technical tricks. Why not give one of them a try?

About The Author

For more tips and ideas on how to make money blogging, be sure to visit my กWhy Marketers Should Blogก weblog at (what else) http://www.WhyMarketersShouldBlog.com.

This article was posted on January 11

by Linda Bruton

The Hidden Cost Of Cheap Hosting

The Hidden Cost Of Cheap Hosting

by: Sanjib Ahmad

We often see server uptime statistics when looking for hosting providers, for example 99.8%, 99%, or 99.99% server uptime guaranteed. Though 99% server uptime may sound good, but is it really and what does it mean?

99% server uptime means that in a year of 365 days, your server will be up 99% of the time, which is 361.35 days (365 days x 99%). This is not really good, because even with 99% uptime your site could be down for 4 days. It would be disastrous if you owned an online store because even an hourกs downtime would cost you. Imagine, not only lost revenues, but also customers who switched to your competitors while your site was down.

Here are some server uptime examples with calculations showing what various percentages mean.

100% server uptime

Up = 365 days

Down = 0 days = 0 hours = 0 minutes

99.999% server uptime

Up = 364.9964 days

Down = 0.0036 days = 0.0876 hours = 5.256 minutes

99.99% server uptime

Up = 364.9635 days

Down = 0.0365 days = 0.876 hours = 52.56 minutes

99.9% server uptime

Up = 364.635 days

Down = 0.365 days = 8.76 hours = 525.6 minutes

99.8% server uptime

Up = 364.27 days

Down = 0.73 days = 17.52 hours = 1051.2 minutes

99% server uptime

Up = 361.35 days

Down = 3.65 days = 87.6 hours = 5256 minutes

Initial hosting offerings of very low prices bundled with a lot of disk space and server features may be lucrative, but when it comes to server uptime, you could be paying a heavy price.

You can use other tools like ping and traceroute to measure server response times and hops required to reach your server.

About The Author

Sanjib Ahmad Freelance Writer and Product Consultant for Business.Marc8.com (http://business.marc8.com/). You are free to use this article in its entirety as long as you leave all links in place, do not modify the content, and include the resource box listed above.

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 14

by Sanjib Ahmad

The Powerful eBay Bidding Strategy That Claims A 9

The Powerful eBay Bidding Strategy That Claims A 99% Success Rate

by: Ian D. Major

Don’t you just love it?

Youกve found that special item on eBay that youกve just got to have!

No Ifกs Ands or Buts, youกve got to win that item.

Youกve checked and double checked the กEnd Of Auctionก time and date and you’re at your computer, signed in and raring to go at least 30 minutes before the auction ends.

You’re happy to beat the latest bid and with nervous fingers you tap in the amount you’re willing to pay.

Then you read those dreaded words

!You Have Been Outbid!

Now you remember, there are sneaky eBayers out there who use deviously cunning tricks, like placing high hidden bids and proxy bidding.

You heard somewhere that you should wait untill the closing minute of the auction before placing your bid.

Great, theres still 20 minutes to go, time to grab another cup of coffee.

Back at your computer you count down the final minutes, how can 5 minutes seem to last so long?

You constantly hit the refresh button so that you can check how long thereกs left to go.

At last the final minute of the auction arrives.

You tap in the next highest bid and hit กPlace Bidก. You’re waiting for that page. The one that saysก

!Congratulations! You Won The item!

But your heart sinks when yet again you see those dreaded words

!You Have Been Outbid!

This cant be right! They cant do this to you! Itกs just not fair!

But wait, theres still 15 seconds left to go.

You frantically type in a higher bid and you’re greeted with

!Listing ended!

No. No, It cant have ended.

But it has.

Does this scenario sound familiar to you?

I think every eBayer has experienced this at some time or other.

I know I have!

There has to be a simpler way. And there is.

Enter the Sniper.

SniperWare, as it has become known, is a program that will place a last second bid on your behalf.

Many of these types of AutoBid Programs claim a 95% to 99% success rate at placing the winning bid.

No more sitting staring at your computer counting down the minutes to try and place that winning bid because with Sniperware you simply enter the details of the auction you want to bid on, the maximum bid you are prepared to make and thatกs it.

You don’t even have to be at your computer. You don’t even have to be at home come to that.

SniperWare generally comes in two flavours.

1. Web Based

With a Web based program you will usually pay a small fee per use (although you are not usually charged anything if you fail to win the auction). Most of the online programs will allow you to make the first few Snipes at no charge.

2. Downloaded Sniper Software.

In this instance the Sniper Software Program is downloaded onto your own computer.

The upfront cost is more but there are no ongoing fees and many of these programs can be downloaded on a trial basis for free.

There are many Sniper programs to choose from. Just go to your favourite Search Engine and type in กSniper Programsก.

My personal choice, having tried several, is PowerSnipe and I have won some great auction using this particular program.

You can try PowerSnipe for free for 30 days and more information on PowerSnipe can be found at the end of this article.

So if you don’t want to see those dreaded words

!You Have Been Outbid!

Get Sniping.

About The Author

To get your free trial of PowerSnipe visit:

http://www.powersnipe.com/?af=majorian

Ian D Major is the creator of www.eBayArticles.com, the one stop resource for information, reports and articles about all things eBay.

To subscribe for free to eBayArticles and get Articles, Reports and Bonuses delivered to your inbox weekly, just send a blank email to:

[email protected]

CopyRight 2005 Ian D.Major

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This article was posted on August 03

by Ian D. Major