Say More Than ‘thank Youก

Say More Than ‘thank Youก

by: Akinori Furukoshi

Most Websites are gathering email addresses. When you submit your email address, you will be redirected to a thank you page. There is nothing wrong with it, but that page can do more than saying ‘thank you.ก
The Result
A while ago, I added some affiliate links to my thankyouforsubscribing page. (You can see it at http://www.thatswise.com/popups/redirect/thanks_subscribe.html .) Even though you can close the window or go back to the home page, 98.8% of viewers of that page have clicked one of the links listed. This is astonishing when compared to the clickthough ratio of banner ads on my site, which is about 0.9%. And, 98% is not a stat of one lucky day. Itกs an average of one year.
They Will Listen
98% sounds unrealistic, but it makes sense. Visitors subscribe to your newsletter because they liked your site in some way. So, they will listen to you as they listen to their friends. When you recommend some places to go, most people will go.
Additionally, you will get better results if you link to a page with one product rather than linking to a page with a lot of products. People who have submitted to you an email address are open minded. This is the time to tell them your recommendation (your favorite product), not to show them options (list of your products).
Note
However, do not use this technique on a thankyouforORDERING page. If you send buyers to another Web page asking them to buy more things, visitors will feel you are trying to suck all the money they have. You may add links on this thankyou page, but be selective which pages youกll send buyers to. I am not saying upselling won’t work. Upselling does work. You have to upsell before receiving payments, not after you received payments. Chasers at McDonaldกs ask, กWould you like to have French fries with that?ก when you order a burger, not after you have paid for your order, don’t they?

About The Author

Though his Web site, http://www.thatswise.com Akinori Furukoshi has been providing ecommerce related information since 1998. His unique way of thinking has helped online businesses to improve their performance. More detailed bio is available at http://www.thatswise.com/about_us.html

This article was posted on June 29, 2004

by Akinori Furukoshi

Creative Ideas To Profit With Autoresponders

Creative Ideas To Profit With Autoresponders

by: Zamri Nanyan

An interested visitor who has been strolling through your site has finally come to just what she is looking for and is about to make a purchase. Itกs a sunny afternoon, and her cat, who happens to be sitting on the moss under the visitorกs large fiftyyearold snowrose bonsai tree, suddenly jumps down, and the priceless tree topples over.

In the blink of an eye, your visitor exits your site, and your sale is dust unless you have had the foresight to utilize an autoresponder that has captured her email address. If you have installed an autoresponder, you can then followup with her, and in all probability, make the sale when the poor woman has finished repotting her precious bonsai.

Autoresponders are remarkable, versatile programs that do so much more than just automatically answer your email. Here are a few ideas that will help you to creatively and productively use your autoresponder to transform the casual visitor into a profitable customer. Use your autoresponder to:

1. Publish a newsletter. Certain quality autoresponders will manage subscriptions and followup with interested prospects. Your newsletter can keep your visitors informed about your services or products, while building your reputation as a credible expert in your particular business.

2. Publish a newsletter only for your affiliates. Inform them of current sales you are running and of promotional material that your affiliates can use themselves to increase their commissions. Include tips, advice, and techniques that your affiliates can use to successfully go out and promote your business.

3. Write reviews. Cover books, software, music, ebooks, movies, etc., and put each review in an autoresponder. Review your affiliate programs, using a link to your affiliateกs page in your autoresponder.

4. Distribute your articles. Writing and distributing targeted articles is a powerful tool to build your business credibility, bring traffic to your site, and increase your sales potential. If your articles contain valuable information, many editors will print what is known as a resource box for you. A resource box contains your bio and a brief description of your service or product. It can also contain your autoresponder address. Letกs say youกve written fifty articles. Put them on separate autoresponder accounts and create a master list that contains the titles of each article, the autoresponder address, and a brief abstract. Then promote your master list. Additionally, include your publishing guidelines so your affiliates can add their articles to your list, increasing the number of writers who are represented in your article list.

5. Create mailing lists. Inform subscribers to your articles when youกve written new ones that they may want to publish in their own newsletter or website.

6. Automate your sales process. Use an ad to insure repeated exposure of your message, which has been proven to effectively increase sales. In your ad, put your autoresponder address where a visitor will be exposed to numerous marketing materials. This multiplies the chances of converting visitors into customers. For example, if you’re selling a particular product, put testimonials about how spectacular it is on your autoresponder, and add a detailed, enticing description of your product.

7. Distribute advertising. Letกs say you sell advertising on your website or in your newsletter or ezine. Set your autoresponder to send the information about rates and how to place an ad automatically to all prospectsก email addresses. Then have your autoresponder followup. It can also send notification of any special deals you are currently offering.

8. Distribute an email course. Each day, have your autoresponder send out another lesson. Just be sure that each lesson has quality content not a sales pitch. Your content will do the selling for you, and will do it much more effectively. You can include tips centered on a different topic for each lesson, illustrating how your product will benefit the reader. Include the tangible benefits the visitor will reap by purchasing your product. Make sure to include a paragraph or two at the end of each lesson enticing your prospect to consider making a purchase.

9. Automate a reminder about your service or product after a visitor has completed your course. This will increase the possibility of sales from visitors who have taken your course but are dragging their feet about actually making a purchase. You can also use these reminders to promote new products or services, and the products and services of your affiliate programs.

10. Distribute free reports. This gives your visitor an idea of the type of information you can provide and the quality of your product or service. Make sure these reports are not sales letters or you will more than likely lose a potential customer than gain a sale.

11. Create trivia quizzes on your site and place the answers in an autoresponder. Your visitor will then be motivated to request your autoresponder, and you will have a record of the visitorsก email addresses who took your quiz. Or create a contest and have any visitors that enter send their responses to your autoresponder. Your autoresponder can be setup to send them a confirmation of their entry.

12. Offer a trial version of your product. Give your prospects a sample of your ebook, course, software, membership, etc. People who are exposed to a little taste often end up wanting the whole pie. You can also capture their email addresses when you offer them a free trial from your website. Set up your autoresponder to give instructions on how to obtain their free trial, and then make sure to followup to try and close the sale.

13. Link to hidden pages on your autoresponder. For example, a hidden page could be your affiliate page that contains graphics, promotional articles, and text links that interested affiliates can make use of. Inform visitors that they may have free access to your affiliate page by simply requesting your autoresponder. You will then gather a list of visitors who may be interested in becoming your affiliates.

14. Use an autoresponder on your order page. Post a request form for visitors to be notified of special offers or discounts in the future. This creates a very effective mailing list that contains the names of people who are already your customers.

15. Put your links page on your autoresponder. It should contain up to fifty links that would be of particular interest to your visitors. Make sure to add your own promotional copy at the top or bottom of this page.

Now that you have proof that autoresponders can be used creatively, see if you can come up with some brilliant ideas of your own!

About The Author

Zamri Nanyan models a lowcost, highprofit concept to build successful internet businesses, as mentioned at www.LowCostHighProfit.com. He now owns and operates several moneymaking websites from the comfort of his own home. Read more about Zamri Nanyan at www.ZamriNanyan.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 17

by Zamri Nanyan

Top Things You Must Realize When Searching

Top Things You Must Realize When Searching

by: Andrew Malek

For the uninitiated, searching for web pages can seem a slow, obscure process. Unless you have a highspeed Internet connection, web pages may seem to take days to load. And the searching itself – you have to admit it looks weird typing in bunches of plus signs, asterisks, parenthesis, and other funny symbols and operators to find what you want.

To help you in this process and show that you are not, I’ve compiled a top five list of things you must realize when searching the web for information. No pencils will fly, no drums will roll, but you just might learn something.

5. Search Engines Have to Make Money

Before you grumble over the growing number of advertisements and sponsored links that appear in search engine results page, remember that most search engines are free. You’re not paying anything for a very costly service. Thus, these sites have to earn income somehow to stay afloat (computing power and bandwidth isn’t cheap!) So, to put it bluntly… live with it.

(Yes, I know some types of advertising are much more obtrusive than others. Popup ads, dancing animations, and other larger advertisements may make it harder to use some search engines that support these types of ads. If you don’t like it, vote with your mouse clicks and move to another search engine).

4. Sites Go Down

Worse yet, you’ve entered in your perfect search query, looked at the results page, and the first site you see no longer exists!

The Internet changes all the time. Unfortunately, search engines and directories are not able to constantly query every site on the Internet to see if they are still online. Occasionally (in other words, probably frequently) you will find links to web sites that no longer exist. It is just a part of life. Especially with the dotcom bust, many web site owners can no longer afford to host free resources. If they could not convert their traffic to paying customers, they just took their sites down

So when you find a link that is dead, don’t pump your fist in anger … just go back to the results page and move along. Or, better yet, if you’re using a search engine that caches pages, such as Google, just look at the cached version of the now defunct pages and find the information contained therein. It’s like stepping through a time machine!

3. Your Web Browser Will Crash

On a related note, not only do web sites go down – but so may your web browser. Sometimes it will be due to visiting a multimediaintensive web site. Sometimes it will seem to happen for no reason. But it will happen, and when it does, don’t go blaming yourself saying that you did something wrong.

Web browsers, like just about any other type of computer software program available on the market, are not infallible. They can and usually do contain bugs. These may predictably rear their ugly heads when visiting sites containing a lot of multimedia and advanced interactive elements, or they may appear completely at random.

If your web browser crashes, do what I do. Just restart it. Don’t say you did something wrong. Don’t think that you must be so bad with computers that you crashed the Internet. Just restart your browser, and if you have to restart your computer to do so, then do it as well. Most likely the crash is not your fault.

2. The Internet Can Be Slow

No matter how fast your onramp to the Internet may be, there will be times where it seems to take forever to load a web page. This is just the nature of the beast.

As the Internet is a loosely connected network, if certain connections go down, computers may not always be able to route information via other networks. Thus access speed will suffer and your web browser will start to crawl. If this seems to be happening often, step away from the computer, go outside and take a nice, long walk (unless it’s 30 degrees below). You can run your search another time when the speed is back to normal.

And the #1 thing you must realize when searching…

1. The Best Result Just May Be On Page 10

Most people only look through the first page of search engine or directory results, usually the top ten listings. Others may visit the second page, but relatively very few people venture to the higher numbered pages.

This is a shame – sometimes the best results to a search engine query are not in the first ten listings as they may only contain links to commercially driven sites or sites run by web owners who know how to manipulate listings. In some cases web sites containing perfectly good information may not be listed in the top 10, 20, 50, or even top 100 results.

Obviously searching through the many pages and pages of resulting sites will take extra time, especially if you do not have a highspeed connection to the Internet. But, this time spent may well be worth it if you find some gems in the rough! So if you have the time, speed, and patience, browse through the deeper results pages. You never know what you may find!

And that’s it – my top five list of things you must realize when searching. This covers slow access time, results not on page 1, browser bugs, web sites popping up and down and changing management, and the need for sites to make money, causing advertisements to become more obtrusive. Gosh, that just makes you want to go out and search right now, doesn’t it? .

About The Author

This article was written by Andrew Malek, Internet Search Guru and author of Find Stuff On the Net, an ebook that can show even beginning computer users how to navigate the Internet without fear. Gain confidence using your web browser. Master search engines. And more! For further information and free snippets of the book, visit http://www.findstuffonthenet.com/

[email protected]

This article was posted on May 1, 2002

by Andrew Malek

FFA/Reversed Marketing

FFA/Reversed Marketing

by: Thomas Grodem

Have you ever submitted your ad to an FFA page? most likely you have. Did you get any results from it or did you just get a ton of emails in your inbox?

FFA pages are gaining popularity popping like bombs everywhere!

What is an FFA page? It is a free for all page.

How it works is quite simple: you place a line of text on the FFA site for free…like thousands of other advertisers each day.

The problem with FFA pages is that everybody is submitting their ad to it. So each time a new ad is submitted, all the other ads roll down one rank and the oldest ad is dropped of. What originally gave an exposure of days per submission, today only gives you about 30 minutes. This means you have to submit at least 3 times a day. You can do this automatically by using an auto submitter, which claims to submit your ad to a zillion websites. You must understand that this is not regular websites, but search engines, Directories and FFA pages.Still it is a lot of ads, and someone might see it.

The lack of results from these ads is because:

your ad is mixed in with hundreds of other ads

Have you ever visited an FFA page and looked at the ads? Today most people use automated submission tools, so they never visits the site.

If someone does visit the page, your ad could be gone within a few hours or less.

Fore those of you that has submitted your ads to FFA pages, you must have noticed all the emails you receive back.

How would you like to be the one sending out those emails?

What i am saying is that you shouldn’t POST to FFA pages… You should HOST your own FFA page!

There is several ways to approach hosting your own FFA page.

You could create it yourself if you know how. Or, there is someone willing to help you for free. Go to http://ratesaver.com.au/lp.htm

The next step you have to do is notifying URL submission services.

The manual way: use search engines like google to find URL submission services and notify them of your links page

The automatic way: go to http://ratesaver.com.au/tsalintro.htm

Enter your links page title and address. Press submit and you will notify over 140 URL submission services about your page.

This service costs us$19.95.

Now you are the one sending out all those emails with your info in them. It’s called ‘reversed advertisingก. And it’s the most effective way to market yourself on the internet today!

About The Author

Thomas Grodem publishes Home Business Tips, a fresh and informative newsletter dedicated to supporting people like YOU! If you’re looking for the best rated home business opportunities, the latest time saving tools and helpful support from an honest friend in the business come by and grab a FREE subscription today at: http://prosperconnection.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on September 06, 2003

by Thomas Grodem

Website Marketing 101

Website Marketing 101

by: Scott กGearsก

When it comes to website marketing and promotions, you need to start here…

Every website, whether new, old, or just a thought needs to consider the marketing that will be put that website in front of itกs targeted audience. Sounds easy huh? It just takes time, perseverance, and the will to succeed! A budget will help too!

The hardest part is sorting through all the crap thatกs available to (supposedly) help you. Yes, I said crap.

There is a mountain of businesses out there making incredible claims about FREE traffic generation, FREE hits, Mega sales, $20,000 in 3 hours, or worse, for a small fee of $29.95 we can… blah, blah, blah.

Save your money! I have spent enough for all of us.

Following through with our suggestions offers you the most lucrative, ethical, and professional ways to achieve substantial results and still sleep at night. No, you don’t have to go for your wallet, I will tell you about these programs in this article (for no charge). A good education will assist you the most.

If you already have a site, we recommend a Website Analysis.

Before You Build

#1 Have a plan Not just a good idea. Take your idea and formulate a complete plan around your goals. Highlight any USPกs you may have.

#2 Build Metatags into every category page! This is crucial to targeted traffic success with the Directories and Search Engines. You need to be found, not by your company name (only) but by กkeywordsก that the general public would use to find your type of business or service. DO NOT just pick any words, this is critical!

#3 Use those keyword phrases throughout your site or particular page. Reinforce what topic you are addressing within that page (content).

#4 Publish an article or newsletter that shows you are an authority on the topics you cover (or try to sell). Just a spiffy sales letter is not enough. This is also critical in acquiring the email addresses of prospective customers.

#5 Create some banner ads with impact for future partnership advertising. You will use these on your site as well as banner partners you can swap impressions with.

#6 Begin considering what types of businesses or partners would or could compliment your offerings. Start a list.

#7 Important: Create a budget for marketing your website. Yes, there are many things that you can implement for free, however, successful websites HAVE spent money wisely to get them to where they are. Don’t be fooled, you WILL spend money on marketing your website it could be potentially more than what your website costs you to build. The verse goes like this… กBuild it and they won’t comeก. You may have already learned this, and that is why you’re here.

Good luck with your promotions!

Copyright © 19962003

SS and Hyperformance Media

http://www.hyperformancemedia.com

[email protected]

About The Author

Scott is the Founder and Sr. Project Manager for Hyperformance Media.com, a Technology Marketing Company serving online businesses since 1996. His 23+ years of experience in the computer industry will help you succeed. Their website offers free education & resources that will assist any business in successfully marketing their company online.

[email protected]

This article was posted on March 03, 2003

by Scott กGearsก

Why You Should Learn HTML

Why You Should Learn HTML

by: Debra Hamer

Do you have a website or are you planning on creating a website in the near future? You owe it to yourself to at least learn some basic HTML (HyperText Markup Language). Even if someone else is creating and maintaining your website there are some basics you should know. What if that person is not available and you need to add or make changes to your website? I’ve always believed if you have a business, computer, website, or whatever, you need to know how it works. Don’t depend on someone else. Besides why pay someone else when you can do it yourself free of charge.
In this article I will explain some basic HTML formats for you. Believe me it will come in handy at one point or another. I, myself, have only learned some of the basics and I have been able to add, change, and make corrections on my own website by myself.
When you come across a website you like and would like to use a similar layout or text pattern, look at the page in HTML code. You can do this by clicking on ขViewข at the top of the screen, then choose ขDocument Sourceข or ขSourceข and you can see the page as a HTML document. If you are using AOL then right click on any area on the page without any text or images, then select ขView Sourceข. At first it will look like Greek to you but after learning some basic HTML it will start to make sense.
First you will need a word processor program such as Windows ขNotepadข or any other word processor you might have. You are working with simple text. You will need to save your document using the ขsave asข command and give it an html suffix, ex: Mynewdocument.html or Mynewdocument.htm (you can use either suffix html or htm).
HTML works in a simple, logical format. It reads top to bottom and left to right. What are used to set sections apart like bigger text, smaller text, bold text, underlined text are tags. Tags are commands. If you wanted a line of text to be bold you will place a tag at the point you want the bold text to start and a tag at the end of where you want the bold text to stop.
All tags start with the lessthan sign , always. What is between these signs is the tag or command. You will need to learn what tag does what. Let’s first learn the bold command. The following is an example of making your text bold. The tag for bold is ขBข. You can use uppercase or lowercase, it doesn’t matter. Here is an example:
Note: Due to the HTML codes in the article being formatted and possibly not showing up on the page in normal view I have replaced the signs with the bracket characters [ and ]. Just remember to use the signs and not the [ and ] signs in your document.
This is how it will look in HTML format [B]This text needs to be bold[/B]
Here is how it will look when converted to normal view – This text needs to be bold
Did you notice the slight difference in the ending tag? There is a slash / before the B. That means it is the end tag. Only the text between the start and end tags will be in bold. Now let’s add a twist by putting one of the words in italics.
This is how it will look in HTML format [B] This [I]text[/I] needs to be bold[/B]
Here is how it will look in normal view – This text needs to be bold
There are some tags that are an exception to the rule about having to have a start and end tag. You don’t have to have an end tag when using these tags. Here are some examples.
[HR] this command places a line across the page. HR stands for ขhorizontal referenceข.
[BR] this command breaks the text and jumps to the next line, like the return key.
[P] this command stand for ขparagraphข, it does the same thing as the [BR] command but skips a line.
Every page you create with HTML will need the HTML tag [HTML] which denotes it is an HTML document and the end HTML tag [/HTML] will be at the end of your document. The next tags will be your start Title tag [TITLE] and your end Title tag [/TITLE]. The title of your document will go in between these two tags. The title will show up in the title bar on your browser when you are looking at the page in normal view.
The following are some tags for Headings (there are 6 heading commands) and Font size (there are 12 font size commands):
[H1]This is Heading 1[/H1] – H1 is the largest heading
[H6]This is Heading 6[/H6] H6 is the smallest heading
So, by using H1 through H6 you can change the size of your heading. Same applies to your font size. You will use [font size =ข+1ข] through [font size=ข+12] and don’t forget your end tags!
You may notice that your text always starts at the left of the page. If you want your text to start in the center or to the right you will need to specify where you want your text to start. Here are some examples of aligning text:
[CENTER]Center this Text![/CENTER] your text will be centered on the page.
Center this Text!
To align to the right you need to set the text as a paragraph unto itself by using the [P] tag and adding an attribute to it.
[P ALIGN=ขrightข]Text here will align on the right of the page[/P]
Text here will align on the right of the page
Why did I put an end tag [/p] since the paragraph command does not require an end tag (remember exceptions to the rule?) Anytime you use an attribute tag, as in the above example, you will need to have an end tag, whether you’re using the paragraph command [P] or the return command [BR]. Using the [P] or [BR] command by itself does not require an end tag, but if you are adding an attribute then an end tag must be used.
Adding an image to your page would require the following tag:
[IMG SRC=ขimage.jpgข] you would replace ขimage.jpgข with your own image file. IMG stands for image and SRC stands for source. You’re telling your browser where to find your image file. Your image file could have a gif, jpg, or a bmp association.
Ok now let’s get a little more complicated and create a hyperlink on your document. This creates blue underlined words on the page that someone can click on and go to another location. An example is you’re creating a link to another website.
[A HREF=http://www.profitfromhomebiz.comก]Profit From Home Biz[/A] this is what in looks like in HTML code. Note you are adding a description of the link that will be underlined, see the example below.
Profit From Home Biz – what it looks like in normal view. When someone clicks on this link they would be taken to my website.
This is a very important HTML format for when you need to add links onto your webpage. You may already know or will learn that reciprocal linking is very important in promoting your website and obtaining a higher page rank with the search engines. Sometimes the HTML code is provided for you and all you have to do is ขcopy and pasteข the code into your webpage. Often it is not, so you have to figure out how to put the information into HTML code yourself. Just learning this HTML command has been a timesaver for me.
I hope this article has helped you learn some basic HTML and how it can benefit you. I know, I know there are HTML text editors out there you can use and they can do all of this for you. I have used a couple myself, but I still like to know how to do things on my own. I bet you do too! Sometimes it’s just faster and easier to do it yourself.
I’ve just given you some very basic formats in using HTML, but you can find a lot more resources and information about learning HTML on the internet. Just do a search and I’m sure you will be overwhelmed at what’s out there. To view this article with the correct HTML formats please visit www.profitfromhomebiz.com/articles.

About The Author

Debra Hamer is the owner of the http://profitfromhomebiz.com website where you can find lots of tips, tools and resources for starting your own work at home business. Visit her PlugInProfitSite at http://www.pluginprofitsite.com/main4256 to have your own website setup and ready to go within 24 hours, complete with everything you need to start making a profit.

[email protected]

This article was posted on July 30, 2004

by Debra Hamer

New Medium, New Rules

New Medium, New Rules

by: Dave Collins

Life is thought to have begun on Earth somewhere around three billion years ago, and of all the species, only an estimated one in a thousand is still alive today. Academics continue to debate over whether this is a natural part of the evolution process, or a direct result of the changing environment. Whichever opinion is right, one thingกs for sure itกs bad news for the victims. If theyกd have adapted to their changing environment early on, they could very well still be around today.

One of the big mistakes made in understanding what works on the web is to simply assume that itกs a new form of an old medium. From parchment to paper to the web. The fact is that the web is much more than an updated version of paper, and applying the same set of rules to both is a recipe for extinction.

Your Monitor Is Not a Newspaper.

Letกs start with the absolute basics. The common newspaper has to be one of the most popular formats for gathering information in the modern world. Do you read yours at arms length, hold it at eye level, or hold it above your head? Of course not almost everybody holds or places the newspaper lower than eye level, usually around 30 to 40 cm away from their eyes. When is the last time you read data from your monitor like that?

Reading from a screen means staring straight ahead, focusing a little further away than usual, usually accompanied by very little blinking and consequently quite dry and often uncomfortable eyes.

One Click And The Visitor Is Away.

So this is your starting point for your site visitor when they read your site. Aside from the fact that it is relatively uncomfortable, and near impossible to curl up on the couch or read over lunch, thereกs the added threat of the dreaded mouse click. One click, taking around a third of a second, will take your visitor away out of site and out of mind. Itกs a whole lot easier and quicker than turning over a page.

So you have a very short amount of time to convey your message don’t wait for them to scroll down the page, and certainly don’t assume theyกll have the patience to read through a long text.

Use bullets, tables and lots of space these three methods will aid the fight against the click. Once youกve got their interest, then they may well want to read more, but those first two seconds are critical. Grab them.

Once they’re in, you need them to read your information, then decide whether theyกll take it further. The words you choose and how you write them will be the single biggest factor in their making the decision. Make them short, snappy, and easy to read.

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind.

Letกs assume that their quick scan of your front page has whetted their appetite. Now what? Go back to the basics. ORDER NOW should be very visible, or at least GET MORE INFO, BUY etc. The big thing is to force them to act right now, this very second. A magazine can be left on the coffee table for the next week or two, but your page will be off their browser and forgotten faster than you can say กmissed customerก!

If you’re going to wait for them to make the leap from passing interest into action, chances are that youกve already lost them. Grab them, show them your message and help them go for it now. Your call for action should be strong, clear and decisive. กPlease click here to orderก is bland. BUY is better, and I WANT THIS NOW is best of all.

At this stage, there could be any number of worries holding them back from placing their order they may want to know about your refunds policy, they may be worried about ordering online. Help them and make it clear where they can find this information. กWe use secure serverก won’t be noticed as clearly as a bright กWorried about Security?ก button.

Give Them What They Want.

You have to look through the eyes of the consumer imagine that they’re interested in the product but… but what? They may worry about the safety of using a credit card, ordering online, privacy, system compatibility, getting unwanted junk mail and so on. A significant advantage of being online is that unlike the newspaper ad, you have the ability to place all the information they need right in front of them. All they have to do is click on it.

And make sure you put your message across with the right tone. Business users have very different needs and ways of expressing themselves from the average home user. Make sure you don’t throw streetslang at the IT guy, or CPU usage patterns at the young game player.

Another universal technique that works is the use of testimonials. If Iกm visiting a website looking at a product that appeals to me, the testimonials can swing it. But make sure they look genuine, or you’re wasting your time. กCool Dave in Finlandก doesn’t inspire nearly as much confidence as a three sentence praise of features, attributed to a personกs full name and company. Keep them short, to the point, and lots of them!

Once you have the sale, you’re in there. But even then you could be letting further opportunity pass you by. I recently purchased Macromediaกs DreamWeaver online. I wanted the downloadable version, but when it came to the order form, I was offered other additional options such as having the manual mailed, a copy on CD, courses in using the software, additional licences and so on. Once someone has decided they’re going to part with their cash, you already have a significant psychological advantage, and they may well be receptive to getting one or two additional items as well. Make sure the opportunity is there for them.

Impulse Clicking.

Once the sale is in the bag, the offer of a reduced price on further purchases of your other software can’t do any harm, and who knows, you just may end up getting some more sales. Itกs no coincidence that supermarkets have all those impulse items by the checkout. It works.

The use of your website as an online version of a printed ad or press release is worse than a wasted opportunity itกs inappropriate, and it really won’t work very well. The web isn’t a digital newspaper or magazine, itกs a whole new medium with new opportunities, but it requires some new techniques. Don’t let your products or company join the dodo be seen, be sold.

Copyright 2004 Dave Collins

About The Author

Dave Collins is the CEO of SharewarePromotions Ltd., a well established UKbased company working with software and shareware marketing activities, utilising all aspects of the internet. http://www.sharewarepromotions.com and http://www.davetalks.com.

This article was posted on December 05, 2004

by Dave Collins

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

AOL Browser BETA A Major Contender?

AOL Browser BETA A Major Contender?

by: Pete Crewdson

To me, AOL Browser .68 Beta is what a browser should be. Relatively lightweight, easy to install, and most of all, it works how I want it to. Iกve been using for one day, and Iกm already converted.

Based on Internet Explorer 6 technology, the new AOL Browser has taken what is good with browsers such as Firefox and Opera, and incorporated it all into one browser. With features such as tabbed browsers, quick search and an all inclusive desktop search facility, could this be the browser that puts a dent into Firefoxกs golden run?

Perhaps, but lets not look too far ahead. As with any beta software, AOL has a long way to go with their new browser, and it has lots of features lined up and raring to go. Some of the key features to the browser include:

Tabbed Browsing: Everyone loves it, it saves space, and it saves memory. Tabbed browsing is the future of internet browsing, and AOL have found a solution that works just fine. Itกs nothing innovative, no, but the tabbed browsing is fast, efficient, and easy to use. Hovering over a tab will display a screenshot of the page which lies beneath, so no more having to flick through browser tabs to find the page your looking for!

Website Snapshots: The idea of a snapshot has been around for a while, but AOL have made good use of it this time around. Hover over the back and forward buttons to see the webpage you just left behind, hover over a tabbed window to see what is on it, and hover over quick favourites to see where exactly where they are going. It couldn’t be simpler!

Quick Favourites: In addition to normal favourites, AOL offers quick favourites. Simply add a webpage to a specified folder in your favourites, and it will display a small textlink in the browser window, just under the address bar. Click it, and your browser zooms off to the webpage you specified. Quick, easy and effective.

Power Browsing: All in good fun, AOL serves up a series of กPower Browsingก methods, these include zooming in and out, highlighting links, listing all the links on a specific page, mirrors and flips, and even changing to a high contrast version of the page, which inverts the style sheet!

Builtin Desktop Search Facility: No more having to download a Google or Yahoo! addon, the new AOL browser comes complete with a built in desktop searching facility which indexes your harddrive as you are browsing. Itกs not quite as competent as other desktop search utilities out there, but it gets the job done, it finds what you want, and it couldn’t be simpler to use.

And what features are still to come?

AOL Smartbox: Find what you are looking for with this search facility. It will find, navigate and organise your search results for you, to make sure you get only the most specific results for your search terms.

Designer Skins: Completely customise your online experience by customising the browser to fit your mood. Choose from a range of AOL designed skins, or make your own. Your browser, your choice!

For more on what AOL Browser beta has to offer, take a look at this page: http://beta.aol.com/aolbrowser/help.html

Could the AOL Browser give Firefox an unwelcome challenge, or will it be fogged off like its predecessors? No specific date is set for a full launch, but AOL need to make their move now, whilst thereกs still a chance.

About The Author

Pete Crewdson is the owner of the Forfeit The Game Network (http://www.forfeitthegame.co.uk), and runs the Forfeit The Game Media Weblog (http://www.forfeitthegame.com/weblog/) For all the latest Music, TV, Film, Computer and Internet and Sports articles, look no further than Forfeit the Game.

This article was posted on February 14

by Pete Crewdson

Who Else Wants a Shot at 16,000+ Links Partners?

Who Else Wants a Shot at 16,000+ Links Partners?

by: John Gergye

Sick and tired of wasting hours tracking down link partners?

Sure links can work wonders for search engine ranking. But after awhile all the dead ends can get to you, right? Maybe even leaving you ready to chuck this whole link trading thing right out the window.

I know the feeling. Then I discovered link trading directories.

Now if you believe the hype you may begin hyperventilating. Or feel you’ve died and gone to linking heaven. I know I did since these directories are basically lists of eager link traders. Which should cut the time to find tons of sites to trade links with. While landing you lots of links. Especially since all of these directories tout the quality of the sites listed.

Okay to me high quality to means higher page rank (PR) and decent traffic. But is that what these directories deliver?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Mostly I found a few cherries hidden in a bowl of pits.

Yes, you will find decent linking partners.

Yes, you will pick up some PR.

But this is probably not a shortcut to a PR 6 web site. That causes traffic to pour over you like maple syrup. While bringing your server to it’s knees.

But hold on. Let’s not throw this idea under the bus just yet. Because it might be just the ticket for newer sites looking to get into the linking game. As long as you’re willing to put in some time to eliminate the riffraff.

Anyway having duly alerted you to the downsides, let me give you a list of the five best link trading directories I found. Along with a game plan to tease the best linking candidates from each fairly quickly.

The Directories

After compiling a list I eliminated those with sparse listings. Or that let people submit multiple times to any category they felt like. Or charged for submission. Which left me with 5 keepers totaling over 16,000 potential link partners.

http://www.123exchangelinks.com/browse.htm

Link to Links Page: Yes

# of Listings: Over 1300

Shows Date Added: Yes

http://www.webmasterlinkexchange.com/

Link to Links Page: No

# of Listings: Over 450

Shows Date Added: Yes

http://www.linkmarket.net/link_directory/index.php

Link to Links Page: No

# of Listings: Over 10,000

Shows Date Added: Yes

http://www.linkexchange.ws/linkexchange/index.php

Link to Links Page: No

# of Listings: Over 800

Shows Date Added: Yes

http://alllinksite.com/

Link to Links Page: No

# of Listings: Over 4,000

Shows Date Added: No

Now you’re ready for

The 6Step Game Plan

So hitch up your wading boots and wade on in.

Step 1) Know Your Site Types

You have to know what types of sites you’re looking for. So come up with a list of the types of sites you’re willing to swap links with.

Step 2) Set Minimum PR.

I’d recommend you ferret out link partners that can give you at least a PR 3 link back. Since most run of the mill webmasters can offer that with just a modest effort.

Step 3) Engage Tools

Access each directory in Internet Explorer with the Google toolbar activated.

Step 4) Pick Your Poison

Pick a category matching one of your target link partner niches.

Luckily one directory, www.123exchangelinks.com, links directly to the site’s links page. At least most of the time. Just run through those listings looking for PR 3 or better.

With the rest click to the site. Typically sites that have at least PR 3 links pages have PR 5 or better home pages. So click as fast as you can seeking sites that come up PR 5 or higher. Just don’t expect to be overwhelmed with the possibilities.

Another trick? If the directory shows the date added go for the older listings first. Reason being older listings are more likely to have more PR. Assuming the webmaster has done more than sit on her hands.

Step 5) Attempt to Link Up

If it passes PR muster find the Add URL page or an email to send your linking info to. I use the linking info found in the link exchange directory as their linking info to put on my site.

Repeat steps 4 and 5 for all appropriate categories.

Step 6) Add Me

Finally you can add your site. With the five directories I gave you the price of admission is a link back. Otherwise I wouldn’t pay to play. Just don’t think it’s worth it. Because most of the requests from your listing won’t have at least PR 3 links pages.

Anyway there you have it another way to find linking partners. Use the five link exchange directories, follow the game plan I’ve laid out, and you should be able to separate the wheat from the chaff fairly quickly. Making link trading directories another tool in your linking tool box.

Copyright 2004 John Gergye

About The Author

John Gergye shares more ideas like this in his recently updated eBook ‘traffic From Google in 35 Daysก. Find out more here: http://www.traffictesttube.com/j/tfg35cl.shtml/ Or test your search engine IQ by taking his seo quiz http://www.traffictesttube.com/searchenginequiz.shtml/ and get the free special report กComing Out On Topก.

This article was posted on December 21, 2004

by John Gergye

web page building for beginners 2

web page building for beginners 2

by: Ted Dupuie

A search engine robot actually reads the wording on your web pages and places a certain amount of importance on what the content says, but not quite like a human does. A human will place the words together in their head and try to decipher the relevancy to them personally and decide within a few seconds whether they will continue reading or click to another site, whereas a robot counts words and places all relevancy in the numbers it finds. It also gives extra credit to the size of the type and title of each page. What a webmaster should consider, is every word connecting to a keyword and not wasting words, for the public and the robots. This can be difficult to do when writing about certain subjects, but not impossible. Take diets for instance. Saquoyah Publishing writes diets and uses www.freediet.biz to promote them, but nobody wants to read pages full of the word diet just bandied around with no oomph in the article that should teach the reader about diets. So a happy medium must be reached to get the website placed high in the search engines database, yet allow the articles to inform the reader of the subject written. Remember, the information super highway is called that for a good reason. Most people just want to learn something about a subject, not necessarily buy something. So if you are selling, the first thing you will want is to get the reader to find the pages you have written, and that means search engine optimization, or SEO as it is called.

SEO should be a major consideration as the page is written, and a concentration on keywords should be the main concern of the page writer. Take diets as an example of page writing. The word Diet or Diets should be placed in the title of each page on the website if at all reasonable, and each page should utilize those words as many times as possible without deterring hopeful customers. The title of the page is the most noticeable attraction to your website from the searcher’s perspective, and the few words you have to say everything about your site. Free diet is a two word search that will get you over twenty five million pages on Google or Yahoo, and the competition is fierce. Just the word free will get you over a half billion pages and the competition is downright crazy. So stick with keywords that you can compete in, and use those words wisely as you write your pages.

Simple, free, healthy diet are the four keywords that describe the title of my index page, and they are the best way to describe what I hope the searchers will be looking for, as well as what I have to offer. This is the most optimistic I can be when writing my title to help people learn about diets and to help my website get a good placement with search engines. Also, a four word phrase has less competition than a two word phrase. So make sure your title is something that the searcher is looking for as well as something you provide or you will never get customer satisfaction, and maybe never get customers.

The contents of the page can be categorized into sections to help keep your keywords alive without pushing them on the reader. For instance, free diets, beer diets, funny diet jokes, potato soup diet, pineapple diets, Beverly Hillbilly Diet foods, and many other strange things can be written without being insensitive to the reader, if they are titles of some of your other pages or just paragraphs on each topic. The contents close to the top of your page should also be the same words you have in the contents meta tag that the robots will copy to be placed under your title in a web search. In this way, the reader will also get a fair chance at what you really have to say on your site and can make a better judgment call on whether to open your index page or some other. This is how you select customers instead of wasting everyone’s time. This article can be copied and reprinted anywhere as long as it is intact and includes the author’s bio.

About The Author

Ted Dupuie owns a home based publishing company that only publishes his work, which includes diets, an investment strategy, and 8 websites, plus a family newsletter. He is also a writing critic with top ten placement on Google and Yahoo!

www.saquoyah.com www.homewriters.com www.freediet.biz

This article can be copied and reprinted anywhere as long as it is intact with the author’s bio.

This article was posted on August 21, 2004

by Ted Dupuie

Googleกs New SEO Rules

Googleกs New SEO Rules

by: John Metzler

Google has recently made some pretty significant changes in its ranking algorithm. The latest update, dubbed by Google forum users as กAllegraก, has left some web sites in the dust and catapulted others to top positions. Major updates like this can happen a few times a year at Google, which is why picking the right search engine optimization company can be the difference between online success and failure. However, it becomes an increasingly difficult decision when SEO firms themselves are suffering from the Allegra update.

Overoptimization may have played the biggest part in the dropping of seoguy.com from the top 50 Google results. Filtering out web sites that have had readability sacrificed for optimization is a growing trend at Google. It started with the Sandbox Effect in late 2004, where relatively new sites were not being seen at all in the Google results even with good keyword placement in content and incoming links. Many thought it was a deliberate effort by Google to penalize sites that had SEO work done. Itกs a few months later and we see many of the กsandboxedก web sites finally appearing well for their targeted keywords.

With 44 occurrences of กSEOก on the relatively short home page of seoguy.com, and many of them in close proximity to each other, the content reads like a page designed for search engine robots, not the visitor. This ranking shift should come as no surprise to SEO professionals as people have been saying it for years now: Sites should be designed for visitors, not search engine robots. Alas, some of us don’t listen and this is what happens when search engines finally make their move.

One aspect of search engine optimization that is also affected in a roundabout way is link popularity development. After observing the effects of strictly relevant link exchanges on many of our clientกs sites recently, weกve noticed incredibly fast #1 rankings on Google. It seems Google may be looking out for links pages designed for the sole purpose of raising link popularity and devalues the relevance of the site. After all, if a links page on a real estate site has 100 outgoing links to pharmacy sites, there has to be a lot of content on that page completely unrelated to real estate. Not until now has that been so detrimental to a siteกs overall relevance to search terms. It goes back to the old rule of thumb: Make your visitors the top priority. Create a resources page that actually contains useful links for your site users. If you need to do reciprocal linking then keep it relevant and work those sites in with other good resources.

Keeping up with the online search world can be overwhelming for the average small business owner or corporate marketing department. Constant Google changes, MSN coming on the scene in a big way, and all the hype around the new Become.com shopping search function can make heads spin. But just keep things simple and follow the main rules that have been around for years. Google, as well as other search engines, won’t ever be able to ignore informative, well written content along with good quality votes from other web sites.

About The Author

John Metzler is the cocreator of Abalone Designs, Inc. www.abalone.ca, a Search Engine Optimization company in Vancouver, Canada. He has been involved in web design and web marketing since 1999 and has helped turn Abalone Designs into one of the top SEO companies in the world.

[email protected]

This article was posted on February 28

by John Metzler