7 Key Points to Consider When Choosing a Web Host

7 Key Points to Consider When Choosing a Web Host

by: Kyle Dusang

With literally thousands of web hosting companies in the industry all vieing for your business, carefully consider these key points to ensure you make the most well informed decision possible.
1. Server Space
First, think about how much space your site will take up on a server. Unless you are planning on running a software repository or an image gallery, the files that make up your website will probably only use between 1 and 5 megabytes of disk space. Many companies will offer several hundreds of megabytes of webspace for a very reasonable price in attempt to out perform their competitors, but ask yourself กDo I really need that much space?ก. Though itกs true that you should allow your site กroom to growก, don’t opt for what seems like a great deal on a massively sized account if youกll never use all of the space offered. Chances are youกll find an even better deal on an amount of space more suitable for your site size.
2. Data Transfer Allowance
This decision should be based on the same principal as above. Though you may be convinced that your site will be the next Amazon or Yahoo and receive a gazillion visitors a day, you really shouldn’t need an extremely high data transfer allowance unless, as stated above, you’re running a software download site or a large image gallery. Even heavily trafficked normal HTML sites usually only use a few gigabytes per month in bandwidth allowance. Don’t go overboard just because it seems like an awesome deal. You may also want to be wary of companies who offer กunlimitedก data transfer as there are usually some fineprint stipulations that make this claim not entirely true. Be sure to read their terms and conditions very carefully before opting for this type of account. A five or ten gigabyte bandwidth allowance is usually plenty enough for a small to medium sized business or personal site.
3. Technical Support
A very important point to consider when choosing a web host is the types of technical support offered by the company and how easy they are to contact when you need them. Ideally, a company should offer 24/7 tollfree telephone support and email. I have seen companies that do not even offer a telephone number on their website. You should look for a company that is very easily accessible in your time of need. Nothing is more frustrating than being in the middle of working on your site and needing an important piece of information to finish the job and not being able to contact your hosting company to find it out.
4. CGIBin Access
No matter what type of site you are planning on running, chances are you will eventually need to install some type of CGI script. Whether it be a mailing list management script, contact form processor, or maybe even a fancy credit card processing script, your hosting account will need to allow you to install and run them. This requires access to a special folder on your server called กCGIBinก. Some hosting accounts will only allow you to use กpreinstalledก scripts as a security measure. These are scripts that the owners of the company have installed and configured so that they know that they will work properly and not adversely affect their serverกs performance. That may be all you need, but if you have the knowledge, itกs always nice to have the ability to install your own scripts and configure them to suit your individual needs. You should also be sure that the account you choose supports the language in which your scripts are written, such as PHP, Perl, etc.
5. UpTime Guarantee
Another very important issue in determining the value of a hosting company is how often and for how long their servers กgo downก. No matter how good a deal you get on server space or bandwidht allowance, or how wonderfully the companyกs tech support takes care of you, your site can’t receive visitors or produce revenue if the machine on which it is hosted is not up and running. Naturally you want a company who can guarantee the highest uptime percentage possible. Servers are taken down briefly from time to time for maintenance or upgrading, so no company can ensure 100% uptime, but you want your site to be hosted on dependable, well managed machines that are not constantly having problems which require them to be down for long periods of time.
6. Email Accounts
Again, like data transfer allowance and server space, some companies will offer you loads more email accounts than you will ever use. Some offer hundreds or even unlimited email accounts as a selling point. This is an important factor if you are Bill Gates and have thousands of employees, each who need their own email box, but not such a big deal if you’re just one person or a small company. You should be okay with 10 or 15.
7. Reputation
This is probably the most important factor to consider when choosing a web host. Do your homework. Pay attention to any negative feedback you may hear or read about a particular hosting company. There are several sites arount the Web that feature discussion forums that allow people to discuss and critique various hosting companies. Ask specific questions about any company you might be interested in using to see if anyone else has had any negative experiences with them. As a beginning webmaster, I had initially contracted the services of a particular web hosting company to host my first site, who promised very good, dependable service for a very cheap price. Then one day, for no apparent reason, decided to delete my entire site without warning or explanation. Only then did I visit some hosting forums and find that many others had similar negative experiences with that company. Don’t make the same mistake I did, find out for sure from the start that your hosting company is not going to let you down.

About The Author

Author: Kyle Dusang

Webmaster of http://www.verybesthosting.com

Looking for a web host? Compare plans, features, and pricing from several of the Webกs most reputable hosting companies all in one place at eryBestHosting.com.

[email protected]

This article was posted on July 28, 2004

by Kyle Dusang

Marketing Via Messageboards & Email Discussion Li

Marketing Via Messageboards & Email Discussion Lists An Alternative View

by: Sean Burns

One of the most suggested means of getting traffic to a site in the early stages is to get involved in messageboard and email discussions on your topic of choice. The idea is that you can show your expertise and therefore get traffic to your site via your signature file (most discussion lists allow you to include your signature file with your post a few lines with your name, site address and maybe a very brief description). Whilst this is a valid tip, I don’t believe that the real reason for why you should do this has been investigated far enough previously.

Firstly, if you post an ad for your site on a discussion list, your are spamming and will create a bit of a fiasco. This does not make good business sense. So, the way to do it is to look for people asking questions and answer them. The issue here is your reasons for doing this. If your reason is purely to drive traffic to your site, you probably won’t be terribly successful and, sometimes, people will work out what you are up to. Therefore, your goal should be to be seen as an expert in your field, not to get traffic to your site.

Even if you don’t include a signature with your posts, you can still make a name for yourself and, in the long term, this will prove to be a far more profitable approach. I have visited many discussion lists in my time and it is easy to see the people that have gained respect. From a business point of view, they are the ones who will benefit from this approach, not the people who post simple answers to try to get an immediate effect.

Your goal must always be to achieve success in your online venture and your personal credibility will play a major role in this. So, when looking at marketing on messageboards and in Email discussion lists, establishing your credentials as an expert in your field must be your number one priority, not short term traffic generation methods.

About The Author

Sean Burns is the author of the WebmastersReference.com Newsletter http://www.webmastersreference.com/newsletter. More than five years of experience in site design, marketing, income generation, search engine optimisation and more is passed on to subscribers hype free. Sign up today to get real information of real value to webmasters.

[email protected]

This article was posted on January 06, 2003

by Sean Burns

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

Starting an OnLine Home Business

Starting an OnLine Home Business

by: John Baker

When looking for a business on the internet you should consider a number of things. One thing is stability with many scams on the internet you should look for a business that has been around a few years. Another is to see how many members they have. Is it free to join, or how much to join, before you invest to much time and money? Also will they offer free support and training?

Next, you will want to invest in your own website. There are many businesses that offer domain names, websites, and hosting accounts free, or for a small fee. Once you have your site up and running, you will want to submit your website to a search engine.

Then you will want to add link pages to your site, this will help your rank with the searchengines. This will take some time, but it is free. You will want to exchange links with at least 100 sites that are similar or related to your site. This will help you move up the searchengine page ranking, giving you more traffic, which equals more signups and more sells. Most websites have a link to us or similar page making it fairly easy to do. Also articles like this, related to your business, will add content to your site. The search engines love content, thus sending visitors directly to your article pages. Those visitors may then visit the rest of your site that makes you money.

You may then want to signup with an affiliate program, like ClickBank or Commission Junction, so that you have more than one source of revenue. Be careful to balance the affiliate programs without taking away from your main initial business. Be patient. Youกll work the hardest the first few months. Nothing great happens overnight! With some work, planning, and learning, you are on your way to success.

This article may be reprinted providing it is published in itกs entirety, including the authorกs bio and link to the URL below.

About The Author

The author, John Baker, is the editor/owner of besthomebusinessideas.net A website dedicated to making money and starting a home business. For more free info please visit: http://www.besthomebusinessideas.net

[email protected]

This article was posted on March 06, 2004

by John Baker

They Didn’t Think I Could Earn A FullTime Income

They Didn’t Think I Could Earn A FullTime Income Online, But I Proved Them Wrong!

by: Al Martinovic

When I first attempted to make money online I was so naive just like any newbie. But I learned from the school of hard knocks. I learned by trial and error and by just doing.

In the beginning I submitted my site to every search engine under the sun. I tried traffic exchanges, banner exchanges, FFAกs, safelists, online classified ads etc. and not surprisingly I got zero results. If anything… I was very good at getting spammed.

I wasted weeks and even months of my time with stuff that didn’t work. But little by little I started to head in the right direction. I dropped all the stuff that didn’t work and looked for other ways to bring traffic to my site.

I subscribed to a whole bunch of ezines and started posting free ads. The results weren’t great but at least this time I was getting some results. My confidence started to build and I knew I was heading in the right direction.

Then I started to spend a little money on my business and used pay per click search engines and things really started to take off for me and my confidence grew more.

Then I started writing articles and press releases and and in the middle of all this I would spend time learning how to optimize my site for the major search engines to get a high ranking.

The sales started coming in regularly. But I didn’t sit back. I wanted to convert more of my visitors into customers.

I added an optin form on my site to capture email addresses and set up an autoresponder to automatically follow up with my prospects. Eventually I added an alert box to capture email addresses which really exploded my mail list.

I started learning more about copywriting and experimented with different copy and headlines etc. on my site to get maximum results until eventually I had a consistent sales machine over at http://www.ineedsmokes.com

And when I had a sales machine that was on autopilot I then started pursuing other projects to make additional money.

But you know, it took alot of work to get to this point. It is a constant learning process and I still try to learn as much as I can because you never กknow it all.ก

If you think you กknow it allก you are finished because the internet changes so rapidly youกll quickly get left behind.

If you’re new to online marketing… it won’t happen for you overnight. It will take work, dedication and even sacrifice.

You need to keep working your business, be consistent and learn as much as you can about this internet marketing game and most importantly apply what you have learned.

Some techniques and tactics will work great in one business… but not in another. You won’t know unless you try. Find the things that work for you and build upon it.

And eventually… youกll get there too.

About The Author

Al Martinovic publishes the Millenium Marketers Newsletter featuring powerful internet marketing concepts, killer strategies, useful tips, and no bull business advice. Subscribe Free Today: http://www.milleniummarketers.com

This article was posted on November 18, 2003

by Al Martinovic

Testimonials Can Increase Your Web Traffic

Testimonials Can Increase Your Web Traffic

by: Elizabeth McGee

Weกve all seen and read product testimonials. They’re a very valuable tool for merchant sales and can often tip the scales in determining a customerกs decision to buy. But testimonials offer another superb benefit. Itกs the benefit to you and your marketing strategy.

When Iกm on a site offering a product or service I like to click on customer testimonials because they are generally short and easy to read. People typically point out exactly what they like about a product and how they used it to their benefit. Testimonials come from real users, they’re not some ad written by the company.

Now, letกs take the testimonial concept and think about it as a marketing strategy for you and your business.

Website testimonials describe how buyers feel about the products they have purchased and used. If you, as a buyer, offer your testimonial with your name and website address this now becomes a very valuable marketing tool for you. It will expose you and your business to everyone looking at that merchantกs website. If the merchant site happens to be a wellknown site offering a high demand product, this could mean huge exposure for you.

Note that many merchant sites will display your website address but will not put an actual link to it. While itกs ideal to have a link to your site itกs not always necessary. I often investigate sites of testimonial givers whether there is a link attached or not. As long as your website address is displayed, that is good enough.

Testimonials can also double as a great linking strategy as well. If your testimonial includes your link and is displayed on the front page of four or five high ranking merchant sites this can increase your link popularity tremendously. By doing this you have also just eliminated the concern of linking to competitor sites and youกve avoided the hassle of reciprocal linking.

Testimonials don’t only need to be addressed to merchants you buy from. You should also send your testimonials to ezines or free online services that you use. Send them in the form of complimentary notes. Compliment their products or services and describe how you find them useful. Websites interested in boosting sales will often use them and you are much more likely to get printed if you are delivering a compliment.

About The Author

Elizabeth McGee has spent 20 years in the service and support industry. She has moved her expertise to the world wide web helping businesses find trusted tools, enhance customer service, build confidence and increase sales. You can contact Elizabeth at [email protected] or visit her website at http://www.promarketingonline.com.

[email protected]

This article was posted on October 20, 2004

by Elizabeth McGee

Been Burned, Scammed, Taken for a Ride…

Been Burned, Scammed, Taken for a Ride…

by: Rachel Gawith

BEEN BURNT, SCAMMED, TAKEN FOR A RIDE……..
Well don’t worry, we have all been there. I doubt there is a single network marketer or homeworker out there who hasn’t at some point in their career fallen for an envelope stuffing scheme, been talked into selling potions and pills, tried chain letters etc. But the important thing is to learn from your mistakes and take something from every experience.
My first venture into working from home came when I answered an advert in a local paper which stated I could be earning £2000 a week part time, all I had to do was call. So I did and ended up trailing along to a meeting about how much money one could make from selling herbal diet supplements and how easy it all was. So I signed up and paid the £200 for the starter pack. Full of enthusiasm I started my 68 year old gran off on the diet. Well the first week she lost a few pounds and all was going well. I paid out another £100 to have a load of leaflets printed and spent hours putting these on car windscreens. By the second week, gran had given up on the diet as the stuff ‘tasted funny’ and she was bored with a milkshake three times a day!
Then I decided to try selling the products via the internet. It was a slow process but I taught myself html coding and built my first website. Then came the hard task of trying to market my site and get people to visit it. This is when I discovered that you could apparently make thousands very easily and with no effort online, simply by signing up for a website and placing a few free classifieds. So I joined every ‘next big thing’, every site promoting untold riches, only to find that the program disappeared after a few weeks, along with my money. But along the way I learnt what I should look for in an online business, the best ways to market online and my web design skills improved drastically. At times I became very disillusioned and felt like giving up when yet another program folded, or sponsor failed to get in touch and offer support but I learned valuable lessons. And after one such online opportunity disappeared and having convinced a number of people to join me in this, I thought enough was enough and started my own online program. Even that involved a steep learning curve, the site had to be revamped numerous times, parts of the program changed but I put the knowledge I gained from being a ‘newbie’ into building a good stable program. People need support, they want to see proper products and a realistic and achievable pay plan.
So don’t give up, from every bad experience you will learn something, be it a new skill, what to avoid next time, what advertising works or doesn’t and so on…Like life home based business, especially on the internet, is a learning experience which you must embrace.
© 2004 Rachel Gawith

About The Author

Rachel runs her own online business at http://www.earnmoneyhere.com as well as publishing a weekly newsletter at http://www.freedailycash.com Other opportunities can be seen at http://www.computerincome.net You’ll also find a vast array of free tools there to help you market any business effectively online and you can post your classified ad free for 7 days.

[email protected]

This article was posted on July 03, 2004

by Rachel Gawith

How to Build a 1,000Page Content Site in Mere Sec

How to Build a 1,000Page Content Site in Mere Seconds!

by: Rosalind Gardner

Building an affiliate web site that sells between 5 and 20 products is relatively quick and easy to accomplish.

An experienced webmaster can put a site like http://101Date.com, which has only 11 services, together in a day. Someone else might spend a week signing up for the programs, designing a template, and adding product information and affiliate links.

Spending a week or even a month on a site that delivers big rewards over the years is a relatively minor investment.

But how much time and effort is invested by affiliates who sell items like magazines, garden products, posters, tshirts or lingerie? Or, how difficult would it be to place links to music CDกs, or movie DVDกs on your site? Merchants in those categories typically carry hundreds or even thousands of items.

Sure, a MoJoSounds.com affiliate might want to promote only adventure movies, but his state of mind might be a ?horrorก by the time heกs input more than 500 descriptions, links and graphics!

If the same affiliate planned to let his visitors know about the latest and greatest discounts by listing prices, would he ever get any sleep?

Sure he would!

By using the MoJoSounds.com product datafeed, that affiliate could build a 500+ item site in less than an hour. He could even build a 10,000 item site in less than an hour!

So whatกs a product datafeed?

A product datafeed is a spreadsheet or text file which typically lists product names along with their categories and subcategories, descriptions, coded affiliate links, product graphic image URLกs, prices and even applicable keywords.

Affiliates can manipulate datafeeds in various ways to display content on their sites.

Those with programming knowledge may insert the feed into databases on their servers.

Other affiliates prefer to use dynamic website templates that some merchants offer. These templates are completely customizable and the resulting site automatically updates itself.

One company that offers a dynamic website template is ShareaSale merchant, Nature Hillกs Nursery. Shawn at Nature Hills sent me a zipped package containing their template files, and I discovered that setting up a dynamic template on my site was incredibly easy to do!

Using my HTML editor, Homesite 5.0, I simply added my affiliate I.D. to the config.pl file, and uploaded the files to the /NatureHills/ directory that I created at Rosalinds.com. The site then looked and worked exactly like it does at the URL below, but with my affiliate ID coded into the links for all 1295 products!

Nature Hillsก Template

http://www.naturehillsaffiliates.com/templatesite/index.php

After making a few design changes to the template, this is how it looks now at:

Rosalindกs Nature Hillกs site

http://rosalinds.com/NatureHills/

Unfortunately, dynamic templates generally work only on servers running PHP and MYSQL. However, affiliates whose hosts do not run PHP and MYSQL can still profit from product datafeeds by building static pages on their computer using Richard Gaskinกs WebMerge.

Here is a site that I built using a 593product datafeed from Candy Crate (another ShareaSale merchant), Webmerge, and the same template that I used for the Nature Hills site:

Rosalindกs Candy Crate Site

http://rosalinds.com/CandyCrate/

Iกm terrible at reading instructions, so Webmerge posed a bit of a challenge for me to use at first. However, after reading the tutorials, asking Richard a few questions, and spending some time on the Datafeeds forum at ABestWeb.com, the software was easy to figure out.

Now, with a site standard template and Webmerge files, I can build a 10, 20 or 30,000 product site in mere seconds with the push of a button.

An alternative to ?Webmergeกis Mark Hendricksก and Frank Sousaกs ?Secret Money Generatorก software. ?Secret Money Generatorก makes product datafeeds even easier to manipulate. SMG allows you to build thousands of content rich, search engine friendly, static web pages which come complete with graphics and order links with your affiliate IDs embedded in them all in just a few seconds!

So, to save time and make more sales, be on the lookout for merchants with product datafeeds. My daddy always said, ?Work smarter, not harderก, and affiliate marketing doesn’t get much smarter or easier than this.

© Copyright Rosalind Gardner, All Rights Reserved.

About The Author

Article by Rosalind Gardner, author of the bestselling กSuper Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other Peopleกs Stuff Onlineก. To learn how you too can suceed in Internet and affiliate marketing, go to: http://NetProfitsToday.com.

This article was posted on March 30

by Rosalind Gardner

Top 10 Reasons to Use a Blog to Publish Your Ezine

Top 10 Reasons to Use a Blog to Publish Your Ezine

by: Denise Wakeman

Blogs are the hottest thing going these days when it comes to marketing on the Internet. A blog is a delivery medium. Here are 10 reasons why you should deliver your ezine articles via a blog.

1. A blog is web based so you can update and post new articles anywhere, anytime. Itกs a dynamic medium that can be updated on a momentกs notice.

2. Subscribers can subscribe to your RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed and have your content delivered straight to their desktop. This delivery system bypasses spam filters and readers get exactly the content they want.

3. No web site to mess with. Itกs very inexpensive way to set up a web presence for your ezine. There are several sites where you can set up a free blog and others are very reasonably priced for the massive exposure you can get.

4. You can set up links for ads and your affiliate programs in side columns so you don’t have to include them in your ezine format.

5. You can set up a subscription form and send emails to your subscribers when new content is added.

6. Blogs link to other blogs which helps you create a viral marketing system and increases your exposure in search engines. Search engines LOVE text based, fresh content that is highly focused (key word rich).

7. You can use your ezine blog to become a trusted expert for your subscribers, by filtering content for them so they don’t have to visit hundreds of web sites.

8. You have an instant archive of all your articles. When you post an article, a new page and permalink is created. People can share that link with others and be sent directly to the article being referenced.

9. Readers can comment on your articles, which creates rapport and trust between you and your subscriber. Comments also add rich content to your site and again, helps your ranking in the search engines.

10. The bottom line is this: using a blog can help you attract more visitors who become subscribers and then eventually become clients.

For an ezine publisher, a blog compliments and can significantly ease the delivery of your ezine content. Essentially, like any web site, you have to promote it and encourage people to add your site to their RSS feed (thatกs another subject) or subscribe for updates through a subscription form. Thatกs why I put a subscribe form on my site – subscribers and get updates in anyway they want. You still need to submit to search engines and directories to drive traffic. If you already have an ezine subscriber database, my advice would be to post everything on the blog and then send a weekly email, or whatever your normal publishing schedule is, informing your subscribers when new content is posted.

Marketing is done in a conversational way and via the links on your blog. Announcements can be posted on the blog and to oneกs list. I see the blog and ezine database as complimentary…working together to increase your exposure and make it easier for people to get your information and build relationships.

About The Author

Denise Wakeman is Chief Implementor of Next Level Partnership, a company dedicated to partnering with you to take your business to the next level. Denise has nearly 20 years experience in small business administration and management. She has specific experience in leveraging Internet marketing systems to create awareness, build customer loyalty and increase the bottom line. Visit Deniseกs blog at http://www.biztipsblog.com to get tips and tactics for taking your business to the next level.

[email protected]

This article was posted on November 07, 2004

by Denise Wakeman

Easy Content Building For The Lazy Webmaster

Easy Content Building For The Lazy Webmaster

by: JP Lafferty

Free content builder.

Articles are the best way to add free content to your site. Thereกs hundreds if not thousands of article sites out there on the web that can be searched for free information.

The only problem I have with free articles is that you have to add the writers resource box to your site. Now this in itself is not a major problem. You could read several articles and then make your own in your own words.

This works well and is a quick and easy content building strategy that I would recommend to anybody. Also if you write your own content this way you should definitely consider posting a few of your own articles to the free article submission sites. This generates oneway links to your own site and over time can really build traffic to your site.

Just google กfree article submissionก or กarticlesก or anything of that nature to start building a list of article sites. The more you have the better.

Building content with ebooks

Free ebooks are a great source of free content and there is no shortage of them out there. Most free ebook sites have ebooks that were at one point being sold across the web. These are generally an excellent quality source of information.

To really benefit from ebooks you must first read them and take note of the main topics discussed. One way I find that works well is to write up a short report after reading the ebook and then building on that as I go through the ebook a second time. When I find something interesting I add it to the report in my own words. This is great for developing a better understanding of the material.

Of course after all this you may want to write a few articles about what you just read. As always you should share these articles with the rest of the web by submitting them to article sites.

This isn’t as tedious and time consuming as you might think. After your first or second go you will find yourself becoming more confident and this may well lead to you taking a more creative approach to your writing. In time you will be very efficient at writing your own reports and using them to create more articles and content for your websites.

I would advise you save every ounce of work you do. The more you write the more content and personal resources you have to pull from this makes it quicker and easier to create your own material. After a while you may realize you could put all your work into a ebook of your own and sell it:)

What should I write?

In short anything you want. Every human on this planet is a powerhouse of information. Even if your young you still have alot of experience to pull from.

Some people find that coming up with ideas of what to write about is quit easy but actualy writing it is the hard part. Others find the writing the easy part and the brainstorming the hard part.

If you fall into either camp then there is still hope for you, due to the fact that most humans will fall into either camp! Your not any different from me or anybody else out there. The best way to over come either problem is to get comfortable and just start writing. It is not hard!!

Pick something and start writing about it. What did you learn after a tragic event in your life is a great way to get your brain setup in the right direction. Pulling from personal experience realy helps to get you thinking and once that starts you will find it hard to turn your mind off.

Keeping it fresh.

The only way to keep information fresh is to write it in your own words. Add your persona to your material. Play with it before you publish it. Try to write as if you were explaining something to a friend. It comes across more respectful and easier to understand.

Also no matter what your writing about make sure you explain everything down to the letter. You may understand what your talking about but your reader wont always be as interested as you might think.

Always remember no matter where it is you can generaly go back and change it later. For instance if you have published a 5 page report to the web and your not happy with certain aspects of it well then you can take it down later and add in or delete whatever you want.

About The Author

JP Lafferty

To gain a helping hand in building content for your site head to http://imcontent.blogspot.com/

New content added daily. All content free of copyright.

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 12

by JP Lafferty

Free Article Use on Your Web Site

Free Article Use on Your Web Site

by: C Brackney

If you are trying to drive traffic to your web site and have researched your options, you have probably reached one conclusion. Content is essential.

They say content is king and that mantra is oftrepeated for a reason. It’s true.

Content is a key component in driving topnotch search engine placement. Content attracts visitors and keeps them longer. Content can help to reinforce your sales message. For those involved in affiliate marketing, content can fill space and increase the perceived legitimacy of a site.

You want traffic and you need content. You have three means of acquiring it. You can author it yourself, purchase it from someone else, or cull and use free articles widely available on the internet.

Selfauthorship offers some appeal. After all, who knows your business the way you do? However, the significant amount of time and energy required to develop the written content you need may very well be disproportionate to its benefit—especially when you remind yourself that you are an entrepreneur, not a writer.

Odds are that you would prefer to leave the monotonous process of authoring articles to someone else while you made better use of your time finetuning the other aspects of your business.

You would prefer to have content authored by a genuine writer—someone who knows how to use the written word to maximum effectiveness.

The decision between purchasing materials and using free content may seem relatively simple. Free articles have many benefits.

They don’t increase your overhead. They are easy to find. They cover topics related to your site and products. There is no delay—you can access them immediately. Free content has some immediately visible advantages.

However, free articles have a significant and oftenoverlooked downside.

Initially, the competitive arena of the internet is populated by thousands like you who are looking for a content edge. Those who may be in direct competition for your traffic are thinking about content and may be reaching for free content, too.

The result? The same free content appears over and over again at site after site.

The reason content is so important is because it gives you an opportunity to attract surfers and keep them at your site. They are attracted to content that provides them with information they cannot readily find elsewhere and materials that are engaging and unique. A chief component of content’s power is diluted by its repetitive use in hundreds of locations.

Additionally, free content is generally advertising in disguise. Unfortunately, it’s not your advertising. Authors of free content are not writing out of love—they are writing for their own profit.

Take for instance, this free article. I am seeking to provide you with information about free materials and their weaknesses. However, I am not performing this function out of a sense of civic duty. I write custom content for web sites. My URL will appear at the bottom of this article. I am seeking to persuade readers to consider purchasing unique content and, of course, to consider using me as their supplier.

All free articles are advertising copy, in a sense. Do you really want to use someone else’s advertising on your site? If your visitors read the content, and the content is wellwritten, it should spur them to at least consider leaving your site to find out more about the author, the ideas the author mentions, or the products and services to which the author alludes.

Content should serve to make your site sticky—keeping surfers on your site. Free content may perform the opposite function by drawing them to other venues.

Third, free articles are not written with you in mind. Free articles may have been written with particular keywords or concepts in mind, but they were not constructed for your site with your specific needs under consideration. Their tone and content are unlikely to be a perfect fit for your needs, further decreasing their effectiveness.

Using a custom content provider allows you to receive all of the benefits of great content while avoiding the pitfalls associated with free materials.

You can hire a professional writer to produce entertaining and informative content that is completely unique to your web site. The result is better search engine placement and a reason for visitors to come back again and again—and to stay longer when they do.

Custom articles also promise a complete commitment to your site and your needs. The author can produce exactly what you need and do so in a way that reinforces your message and your objectives. It can blend seamlessly with your site and help presell your product or service in ways free articles never could.

There are costs, of course. You will need to pay your writer and you will have some period of brief delay before your content is ready. However, if you work with an effective content provider who understands the nature of internet business, costs should be reasonable and turnaround quick.

Free articles seem like a wonderful solution to the content gap from which so many sites suffer. Unfortunately, free articles fail to deliver the full advantage of great content and may actually reduce the effectiveness of your site. The alternative, a professional internet content provider, is the best way to insure your content will do what you need it to do.

About The Author

C. Brackney is an internet content provider. Content One provides unique custom content of all types for web sites.

http://content1.bravehost.com

[email protected]

Copyright 2005 C. Brackney/Content One. All rights reserved.

This article was posted on February 05

by C Brackney

New Google Adwords Policy Benefits Affiliates

New Google Adwords Policy Benefits Affiliates

by: Rosalind Gardner

Until recently, if you did a search on the term กsatellite dishก at Google, and then surveyed the URLกs in the Adwords listings, you were bound to see that most of the ads linked to just one company. Youกd also note that most listings ended with the กaffก (affiliate site) designation.

Eight ads all linking to the same site. How useless and frustrating was that?

Well, Google has just introduced a new affiliates Adwords policy that finally addresses that problem.

However, the new policy has been met with much whining on various affiliate and Internet marketing forums.

Why?

กCause affiliates who link directly from Adwords to their merchant partnersก sites will have to get to work or go home.

Well, maybe.

There seems to be a loophole in the new policyกs wording.

Hereกs how the new affiliate policy reads:

กWith this new affiliate policy, weกll only display one ad per search query for affiliates and parent companies sharing the same URL. This way, users will have a more diverse sampling of advertisements to choose from.ก

กAffiliates or advertisers using unique URLs in their ads will not be affected by this change. Please note that your Display URL must match the URL of your landing page, and you may not simply frame another site.ก

Did they mean to say กdomainก, not กURLก?

If Google did indeed intend กURLก, then there is no problem for those who engage in the กGoogle Cashก method of affiliate marketing, as each affiliate URL is unique.

Hereกs an example.

These are URLกs for 3 affiliate marketers promoting the กFriendFinderก dating service.

http://friendfinder.com/go/p1234

http://friendfinder.com/go/p5869

http://friendfinder.com/go/p3468

Each URL is unique, ergo it should be no problem to for affiliates to link directly to Friendfinderกs site with their affiliate links.

However, if in fact Google meant กdomainก, thatกs quite a different kettle of fish.

Because each URL above points to the กfriendfinder.comก domain, only one listing will be displayed, and chosen on the basis of Ad Rank.

Hereกs the official wording from within the policy.

กFor instance, if a user searches for books on Google.com or anywhere on the Google search and content networks, Google will take an inventory of ads running for the keyword books. If we find that two or more ads compete under the same URL, weกll display the ad with the highest Ad Rank.ก

Ad Rank is determined by a combination of an adกs maximum costperclick and clickthrough rate.

Less competition is great news for affiliates who have always linked back to their own sites… as Super Affiliates always do.

One more benefit to affiliate marketers in Googleกs new Adwords policy is that you no longer need to identify yourself as an affiliate in your ad text. That means no more กaffก at the end of the ad… and 4 more spaces to add content to your listing.

I figure consumers had no idea what กaffก meant anyway, so Google just wanted to get rid of what looked like garble in the listings.

However, your current ad text will continue to display your affiliate status until you change it.

Assuming Google DID mean กdomainก, this new policy is good news for affiliates… genuine affiliate marketers.

Iกve always taught that affiliates with content sites enjoy much higher conversion rates.

Itกs simple. Spend an hour writing an endorsement, upload it to your web site, then advertise that link on Google Adwords.

Why waste advertising dollars on a .5 percent conversion, when it only takes an hour to double or even quadruple that rate?

© Copyright Rosalind Gardner, All Rights Reserved.

About The Author

Article by Rosalind Gardner, author of the bestselling กSuper Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other Peopleกs Stuff Onlineก. To learn how you too can suceed in Internet and affiliate marketing, go to: http://NetProfitsToday.com.

This article was posted on March 30

by Rosalind Gardner