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Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi No More In The Desert At The Moment

2011-10-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

Unconfirmed sources of media says, Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi has been wounded and is in the hospital while others say, Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi has been cornered and brought down to his end.

However, if you were the one what will do after it has been made very clear that; Muammar Gaddafi has been captured by the NTC and eventually killed.

While his brother that was Lieutenant Colonel has also been killed alongside his father. What will you do if you were in Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi's shoe?

To cut it short, Saif AL-Islam Gaddafi has fled to neighboring Niger where one of his brothers is seeking refuge under International law.

This truly marks the end of the Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's regime. It is now history. Thanks to the world powers expecially and namely Prime Minister David Cameroon, President Sarkozy and President Barack Obama.

The above mentioned heads of government are the "Three Wise Men" for Africa. They are the saviors talked about in the Bible. It takes bravery and courage to do it.

This is the end of the chapter. Let's wait and see what happen next. At the moment, Libya is a free nation presumably. Who know what happens next.

Let's not forget that, the people ruling today in Libya are the very same people that caused atrocities with Gaddafi. They were part and parcel of Gaddafi before the uprising. As Minister of Justice, you will probably be one of Gaddafi's best friends to earn that job. Therefore he is another criminal in disguise. He could be a potential candidate to give full information about the Lockerbie Bombing in Scotland/

How To Get Started In Dropshipping

2011-10-19T09:57:00.000-07:00

How to get Started in Dropshipping

It really is very easy to get your dropshipping business up and running. The main pieces of equipment that you will need are a good computer, and also a good quality internet connection.

But not only is it fairly easy to get your business up and running, you will find that there are very few barriers which will prevent you from getting started, and the cost for starting out is very low, so you should not need to invest much money up front initially.

However, below these are the steps that you will need to take in order to get your dropshipping business up and running.

1. Set yourself up an online shop, either using one of the many online shop builder programs available, or by building your own site, or setting up an account with an auction site such as eBay (if you choose to use eBay as your primary selling place, I recommend getting a good auction template that you can simply plug your information into to save time).

2. Find your wholesale supplier who has the product that are looking to sell, and who offers a dropshipping service.

3. Once you have found the company that you want to deal with, you can open an account with them.

4. Next thing you need to do is start building your site, using both content and images that the dropshipping supplier has provided, or that you have produced yourself (I recommend the latter, as it will distinguish you from other sellers who may be utilizing the same dropshipper).

5. Set up a system on your site so that you know when an order has been placed for a particular item, and so payment can be taken.

6. Pass on the details of the order directly to your dropshipping supplier. Once they receive the order, they will then bill you at the price that you have both agreed upon, and then they will arrange for the item to be dispatched. In most cases, the dropshipping supplier will provide labels which refer to the business or website where the order has come from, rather than from their own business.

The Advantages and Disadvantages Of Drop Shipping

2011-10-18T01:04:00.000-07:00

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Drop-Shipping

Although drop-shipping today is a very hot topic being discussed among many retailers, and it does have many benefits, it may not be the best option for every business. However, in this chapter we will take a closer look at some of the advantages, as well as disadvantages to be had from running an online dropshipping business.

First, if you are just starting out in setting up an online business, and do not have much operating capital, then this may be the best option for you to go with. The great thing about this particular type of business is that you do not need to hold vast stocks of the products that you are selling. Instead, this is all done for you by the dropshipping supplier you have gone into partnership with. This results in you eliminating a significant cost in order for your business to be set up and to get it running.

The site you set up can be produced very quickly, and so be providing the product to those people you are targeting.

As you are getting the customers orders before you actually order the goods from the supplier, this means that you have little or no initial investment to make.

Because you are not actually holding any of the inventories yourself, then you do not need to pay either for storage facilities, or having to invest in expensive merchandise which you may not in fact sell.

Setting up an online dropshipping business provides you with the chance to diversify what you are actually offering to your customers. In fact, you will only be limited by not being able to find the right dropshipper for the product or items that you wish to sell.

Although there are plenty of advantages to setting up a dropshipping business, there are many disadvantages as well.

First, as you do not own the inventory that you are selling, then you will usually find that you have no control on how the product is packaged. Also, you will not be able to include any coupons or offers in to the package which can help in increasing the amount of return business you get.

Every company which offers their dropshipping services will have a different fee structure, so carry out as much in depth research as possible. In fact, you do not want to end up with high shipping costs, as this will only make people less reluctant to purchase their goods from you.

With dropshipping, because you are only ordering one item at the time rather than bulk amounts, then you will not expect to get the same kinds of discounts.

If you decide to sell multiple products that are supplied by multiple dropshipping companies, then you will also see a significant increase in the fees that you pay to the dropshippers, which, in turn, will need to be passed onto your customer in order for you to make a profit.

There are many suppliers who will be able to provide you with dropshipping services that you can use to integrate their products into your website. However, you may find that you will be charged a fee for using a particular service through them, so be sure that you carry out your research thoroughly before opting for one particular dropship supplier.

One major drawback to be had from setting up a dropshipping business is that not all manufacturers allow for dropshipping. This is because they will need to employ more staff (extra costs) in order for them to process these individual orders, and could result in delays in their normal shipping and receiving system. There are other companies who will only supply in bulk, so this means that it is impossible for smaller outlets to get custom orders provided for them for select numbers of items.

However, when dropshipping is available, certainly many small as well as internet based businesses find that it can solve many more problems than those it may create.

Things To Consider When Starting A Drop-shipping Business

2011-10-16T23:20:00.000-07:00

Things to Consider When Starting A Drop-shipping Business

As you will soon discover, dropshipping is an extremely effective business model for anyone who wants to start an online retail business. You can either run it through your own website, or through some other outlet, such as an auction site.

However, because this form of online business has become so easy to do, and because of its increased popularity, many prospective dropshipping businesses have become targets for the less reputable people online, such as scammers.

Unfortunately, many people who do not really understand what dropshipping is about only see it as a way of getting rich quick. Because of this, there are plenty of people out there who are ready to exploit them. In this article, we will look more closely at the things you should consider before you decide to go ahead and set up a dropshipping business for yourself.

1. You need to carry out plenty of research with regard to dropship sources. It is best if you avoid using search engines when doing this, as they will also offer up a list of the less reputable companies around, as well as providing you with page upon page of links which are completely useless. However, once you have found a reputable source for the information that you require, and then the real work begins.

2. Avoid any companies which expect you to pay them an up front fee (membership or monthly). Also avoid those which offer you a fully featured dropshipping solution that provides you with a website and everything else that you need in order to get your business off the ground.

3. Ensure the dropshippers you are looking at require a valid wholesale certificate from you. You will gain this through a business license, so avoid any that don’t have that requirement at all costs. Unfortunately, most of the companies which are willing to do business with an illegal business will usually be middlemen, who then send your order through to the wholesale company, and will end up taking a cut of the profits that you are trying to make.

The best way to find a legitimate dropshipping company is as follows:-

a. If you have seen a product which you are interested in selling, then contact the company producing it direct. Enquire if they have a dropshipping facility, and if they don’t, then they are likely to be a light bulk seller. This means that they will only normally sell their products wholesale with a minimum of say around $200 or so (in many cases, the minimum number is much higher).

b. Another way is looking at such directories that have been set up and deal directly with legitimate dropshipping companies only. One such directory is WorldWideBrands. Such directories offer you an extensive searchable list of products, and which companies supply them. So if you are looking for a way to save yourself time in searching for good quality products to sell through your online business, then these directories are certainly the right way to go.

4. However, once you have found a company that does offer dropshipping facilities, you will need to get a valid reseller/wholesale certificate. Yet, what the exact requirements are in order for you to obtain this certificate will vary from state to state. But the minimum requirement for starting any dropshipping business online is that you have a business license.

5. Now you need to contact the dropshipping company in question and set up an account with them. Unfortunately, you may find that because your business is new, and you are not able to supply any references, then you may find that you need to set up a pre-paid account with them. Normally, this means that they will charge your purchases to a credit card instead of providing you with a line of credit. In order for this to be done, you will need to fill out a credit card form, an account application and provide them with your wholesale certificate. Once this has been received, they will then provide you with a wholesale catalog and anything else that you need in order to get your business up and running with their products.

6. Also, do not be fooled by those sites offering you a dropship directory for a fee (normally around $5 to $15). Unfortunately, these are normally copies of the more legitimate lists provided by reputable directories, and will often be out of date. So really, you are better off going to one of the more reputable directories and paying them a little extra in order to get a regularly updated list.

7. Now that you have found the product which you are interested in selling, and you have made arrangements with the dropshipper in question, it is time to get your site up and running, or your account set up with one of the more reputable auction sites, such as eBay.

Why You Should Start A Drop-Shipping Business

2011-10-16T02:27:00.000-07:00

Reasons for Starting a Dropshipping Business

If you are looking for one of the best opportunities to be had today for running a business from home, and cost little if anything to set up, then a dropship business is probably the answer for you. Not only can you run this business from the comfort of your own home, you will not have to worry about keeping large amounts of inventory in stock and you will not have to worry about getting the products shipped to your customers. Plus, you can still run this type of business while working in your normal day to day job. However, if the business really does get off the ground, then you can become a work from home mom or dad instead.

In order to get your dropship business started, you will need either your own website, or you can sell your products on eBay. Then once an order is received and has been paid for by a customer, you send the order over to your dropship supplier and they then send the order directly to your customer while you still make a profit. Also, you will need to set up an electronic payment system such as those provide by PayPal.

If you were to carry out a search of the web today, you will be amazed at the number of people who are making money through a dropshipping business. There are even some who are actually earning a 6 figure salary from theirs, and others who are just doing it part time in order to earn a little extra cash to provide them with a better way of life. In fact, many people often start their dropshipping business as a part time business, and it is only after the business has really taken off do they decide to do it full time instead.

The great thing about setting up dropshipping business is you do not need any special skill sets in order to get it started. All it really needs is a person who is willing to dedicate their time to ensure that the business succeeds, as well as having a computer and this being connected to the internet.

But the first thing you need to do once you decide to set up a dropshipping business is to form a good relationship with your dropship supplier. Once this has been formed, then you can start selling their products online, either through your own website, or on one of the many auction sites such as eBay.

What you are actually doing is acting as a middleman and bringing together those who want to buy a particular product and those that are selling it, while still collecting a profit for you. The greatest benefit to be had from setting up this type of business is that you do not have to worry about inventory or paperwork as with a normal retail business, as this is all the worry of your dropship supplier instead.

The other great thing about setting up a dropshipping business is that you should find yourself almost making money instantly. If not today then tomorrow or the next day, but it certainly will not be long before you should start to see your first profits.

All you need to do is find a product that you feel people will buy, find a reputable dropship supplier, and then start advertising the product on eBay. By using this method, you will find it costs very little in order to get your business up and running.

However, as with any business, it is best that you ensure that the products you are supplying are of the best quality possible, and also provide the best customer service that you can. So if you are selling your products through an auction site, then make sure you keep in touch with what is happening. If any of your customers have a question, then make sure that you respond as quickly as possible and follow up afterwards to ensure that they are satisfied with the information you provided to them.

Also, always select products that there are not thousands of them selling on the internet. By doing this, your business will not only be much more fun, but will also be much more profitable. So before you start selling any products through a dropshipping business, you should do as much research as possible first. Look for those products which have not saturated the market, or that has very few people competing for the customers, and therefore, the sales.

But what you do need to remember is that starting a dropshipping business is very easy, and you can run it from anywhere, especially out of your own home. Also, such a business can be run from anywhere in the world, and will cost you very little in getting it started.

The Golden Rules Of Drop Shipping

2011-10-16T02:26:00.000-07:00

Five Golden Rules to Drops-hipping

If you want to ensure that your drop shipping business is profitable, there are a number of things you need to remember. In this chapter, we will look more closely at these five golden rules to ensure that you can run a profitable business.

In order to make your business as profitable as possible, you need to find a product which will sell in sufficient quantities, as well as one which will provide you with a good mark up, in order for it to be truly profitable. Therefore, it is important that you try to determine what the demand for the product is, and also what competition, if any, there is for this particular product. Also, if you can, take a look at what your competition is charging for it. You may find that some businesses will have a much lower profit margin than others, including you.

It is best when first starting out selling products using dropshipping, that you only sell a select few. Plus, also that those that you do select are related, or can be targeted and sold to the same market set. It is important that you do not try to sell every drop-shipping product that you find, as this will help you concentrate more on marketing your goods, as well as keeping your own costs to a minimum. Plus, you are more likely to make an impact in the market place as well.

Due to its increased popularity, it is important that you find a reputable dropshipper for your business. Unfortunately, over recent months there have been many scams that have come to light in this particular industry. Avoid those people who are offering to sell you lists of dropshippers for 100’s of dollars, unfortunately many of these are middlemen who are posing as dropshippers themselves, and will then charge much more than you actually should be paying. Remember, the whole idea of using drop shipping is to keep your costs down rather than raising them, but also still be able to make a profit at the end of the day.

Also, if you are able to, avoid the “turnkey” internet businesses which are willing to sell you a package of products, e-commerce and marketing for an exorbitant membership fee or charge you a monthly fee. These types of businesses, you will soon find, do not actually help, but rather hinder, and you will soon find that you are not making any profit whatsoever, while they are.

However, do not let what we have written above frighten you off, instead just be aware of these pitfalls. However, one of the best ways of finding a reputable dropshipper is through looking at such directories as “Chris Malta’s Worldwide Brands”. This provides you with a whole list of legitimate, as well as reputable, dropshippers that you may wish consider using.

You will still need to deal with the problems associated with back orders and returns. Unfortunately, not all the hassles associated with running a normal retail business can be eliminated from a business that is run online. There will be times when you find that a product your customer has ordered is not in stock, and so will not be available for dispatch immediately. Therefore, you will need to work out these matters with your dropshipper ahead of any of these problems occurring. This will then provide you with answers that you can provide to your customer should such an event occur.

Finally, it is important that you treat your business just like any other business, so do not spam people. Also, do not use either a personal or free web page address for your online store, and also ensure that you register the business with your County Clerk. It is also important that you register with the Tax office so that you have a Tax ID number…and be prepared to file taxes each year.

As long as you start off by expecting that your business is going to make a decent profit, then the chances are that you will automatically see an increase in this.

What Is Dropshipping?

2011-10-13T21:24:00.000-07:00

What is Dropshipping

Dropshipping is a type of retailing where, instead of the retailer (meaning you) actually keeping the goods in stock at their own location, they instead pass the order, along with the shipment details from a customer, to a wholesaler. It is then the job of the wholesaler to dispatch the goods ordered directly to your customer for you. The great thing about this method is that not only do you not need to have a large warehouse for storing all the goods you are selling, but also you make a profit through the price you pay for it wholesale, and the price that you sell it to your customer for.

In fact, where dropshipping is concerned, you are actually acting as the middleman for the product that your customer receives and the manufacturer who produces it. This particular type of system is extremely beneficial to both small retail shops, as well as internet based stores, or those people who use mailing catalogs in order to generate sales for their companies. In fact, many customers who purchase their products in this way seem to not be too bothered that there is a delay between the time when the products are ordered and when they actually have them arrive.

But the biggest problem that is being addressed by dropshipping is that retailers no longer have to worry about controlling their inventory, as this is done for them by the wholesaler instead. Unfortunately, in a more traditional retail setting, the products a store owner orders will be ordered in bulk, and they will then need to be kept in a secure location until they can be displayed and sold. What this means is that you are adding costs to an already large budget, as you will need to have storage space available, along with hiring staff to maintain the storage area and ensure that the goods are ready for delivery to the store and to know what levels each product is at. You will also need to spend money investing in a good quality security system in order to prevent the goods from being stolen. However, if you were to use dropshipping instead, then you do not need to retain a large stock of your inventory on site, and also you no longer needed to employ a large team of staff.

Also, you will find that a large number of manufacturers now find the idea of dropshipping as a good investment, as it is also lowering their costs as well. Plus they are gaining an additional sales person who they do not actually pay a wage to. They are also saving themselves money as they no longer need to arrange for the delivery of large quantities of their goods to a retailer, so they are cutting down on their handling and fuel costs this way. Instead, they can use the more inexpensive shipping methods that are now readily available by using either UPS, FedEx or a locally based delivery company to ensure that their products are delivered directly to the customer. Plus, as many manufacturers have spent vast amounts of money ensuring that their warehouses are completely secure, they know that their products are safe until the day that they are dispatched, rather than them sitting in the back room of some retailer’s shop with very little or no security on the property.

Yet there are some drawbacks to running a dropshipping business, and these we will look at in more detail later on in this book. Through this book, we will provide you with how you need to get started in the business of dropshipping, along with what you will need and the benefits, as well as the drawbacks.

Be Happy Always When Writing Copy.

2011-10-13T01:00:00.000-07:00

Be Positive from Beginning to End of Writing Your Copy

When starting any copywriting, it is important that you are positive from the beginning to the end.

You need to grab their attention at the beginning, and make them want more when they have finished. It is vitally important that you use your best material at both the beginning and end of your work.

So if you produce a weak finish, then your customers will walk away feeling disappointed. They will also have forgotten the strong opening that you had produced, as well as the great stuff that followed after. All they will ever remember is what a let down the end was.

So, just how do you apply this to writing copy for the web?

What you should do is to think of your web page as a story, show or performance that you are presenting. It is important that you think about the structure, and any messages you are presenting on your web pages in order to have that all important stronger ending

Text Links Should Look The Same On Your Copywriting Efforts

2011-10-13T00:59:00.000-07:00

Make Your Text Links Look the Same

During the very early days of the web you would find all the text links were both blue and underlined. Even today, this still holds true…just take a look at Google, eBay, Yahoo or MSN, and all their links are blue, and are either underlined, or become underlined when the cursor is placed over them.

But just what is the point of this? When visitors are first entering any site, they are expecting the links to look like this. Remember, it is important that any visitors to a site can figure our how it works so they can find the pages they are interested in the most. So one element in this process is for them to figure out what text links look like. So if yours are blue and underlined, then you have nothing to worry about, as everyone will know what they are.

But if yours happen to be orange and underlined, then a new visitor will have to spend time figuring out just where your links are. But if your links are just orange, then they will need even longer to work it out.

Unfortunately, there are too many sites out there today which have no set appearance to their text links. Some may be underlined, others may not, some may be blue, and others may be orange. In some cases, they may be bold and others not. So now you are getting the picture.

If you do not provide your visitors with a unified look to your text links, you’re placing a huge burden on them. This is because it makes it significantly harder for them to get where they want to be, and find what they need.

Where the web is concerned, people’s interest in a certain subject can vanish in an instant. So you need to figure out ways in which you can minimize the “loss of their attention”. The only really simple way that this can be achieved is by making sure that all your text links are immediately recognizable, which isn’t difficult to accomplish at all.

Inside AdWords: +1 button to start appearing on display ads today

2011-10-12T16:45:00.000-07:00

Inside AdWords: +1 button to start appearing on display ads today: Starting today, if you’re running display ads through the Google Display Network, you may begin seeing the +1 button and annotations with y...

Testing Your Headlines Copy

2011-10-12T02:36:00.001-07:00

Test the Tone of Your Headlines Copy

When writing any copy, it is important that the headline you have at the top will set the tone for your whole site. In fact, this is the most powerful text on any page.

So if it should fail to do what is required of it, then nobody is likely to even bother reading the body text. But no matter how many times you write and then rewrite the main heading for a page, you should test it.

The best way of doing this is by writing the best headline you can at first, and then write some alternatives instead. There are plenty of services on the web, such as Vertster.com, which can help you to test for the winner.

The headline on any web page is the key to engaging both the attention and interest of the visitors to that site. It only takes a few selected words, which can result in a huge impact on page conversion rates.

So keep testing what you have with alternatives until you find the right one.

How To Write Good Headlines

2011-10-12T02:36:00.000-07:00

How to Go About Writing a Headline

So just how you go about writing a great headline? It’s quite simple really. What you need to do is spend less time stressing about how to write your headline, and more time on figuring out what it should say.

Even if you say the wrong thing beautifully, it is not going to do you any good, but if you happen to say the right thing with poor wording, then this will help you much better in the long run.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of copywriters out there today who will give way to their own egos. These are the types who want to show everybody else what wonderfully talented copywriters they are. So, it is important that you put your ego aside and spend time deciding what your headline is going to say.

So just how do you know what to say?

It is more important that you focus your mind on the desires and wants of your target audience, rather than on the product or service that you are trying to sell.

Why use hundreds of words when 1 or 2 will suffice?

It should also be deeply engaging and interesting so that it excites those that come to your site. It should actually make them sit up and say “yes” to what you are offering.

So if you keep all of this in mind, then you are on your way to producing a great headline.

Good Copy Needs A Headline That Grabs Attention

2011-10-11T06:13:00.001-07:00

Develop a Headline that Grabs Attention or Curiosity

The home page of any site is the key web page, especially if it is where you want a person to take some action, such as buying something or subscribing to something.

So, one of the great ways of building momentum, and also increasing the number of people who act on this, is by creating some urgency. There are many different ways in which this urgency can be created, and below are just a few:

1. Provide them with an offer for a limited period of time.

2. Offer limited supplies of a particular product.

3. Offer them seasonal specials.

4. Why not offer them a free gift when they subscribe or pay for a particular item.

5. Daily deals – this is a great way of bringing in customers.

However, just a word of caution when using these types of tactics: It is important that you are both credible and honest with the visitors to your site. So if you are saying that an offer expires on a particular date or at a particular time, then make sure that it does. Just imagine how bad it would look if someone came back to your site the day after, only to find the offer still in place.

But there are other ways in which you can imply urgency on your site. You could show a page with prices that are the best online prices to be found at that particular moment in time.

With this method you are not providing a time limit or a limit on how much of the product is available. But by using a time stamp, you are also implying that the prices on these products could increase at any time.

The whole idea of this method is so that you get people moving. So those who would normally be sitting on the fence will actually do something and make that all important purchase.

But above all, you can sell with urgency as long as you do it with integrity, or you may do more damage than good.

Other Excellent Ingredients For Power Pulling Copy-Writing

2011-10-11T06:13:00.000-07:00

Other Essential Components for Good Copywriting

It is ever so easy to become a little sloppy with the vocabulary on your website, as well as the look. You may find it so easy that you become inconsistent in the terms and phrases that you use when describing a particular product, service, tool or feature on your site.

So it is vital that you go through your site regularly and make sure that the terms you are using are used consistently. Also, ensure that you are clearly communicating what you are trying to express to those visiting your site.

Therefore, you should always be aware of the spelling, grammar and formatting of any copywriting that you produce. Many sales efforts have amounted to nothing just because of a simple spelling or grammatical error in the copywriting. So spend time using a spell checker to ensure that everything is correct. It will save a lot of time later on.

Try to avoid using lots of capital letters and exclamations marks in your work, as it does not look very professional. But use bold text and color in order to highlight any important points you wish to make.

Another important thing to have is an understanding of the written language. Creating website copy is different from that used when writing an article in a newsletter, composing a custom essay, a book, a report or even a research paper.

The language that you use must be very deliberate. It is important that you understand the language and how it exactly influences people’s buying behaviors. It is important that you know which words are strong, and which words are weak, and which words should be avoided at all costs.

However there are plenty of ways in which a site can be made more appealing without having to use graphics and animated gifs.

1. By formatting the text on a page, you can break up large chunks of information. So wherever possible, use bulleting, numbering, emboldened text, colored text etc., in order to make important information stand out.

2. Break up your paragraphs into easily digestible pieces of information. This will help to make your content stand out more. It will also help to make those important facts or sections stand out more also.

3. At all times, refrain from adding two spaces after each full stop. Not only will you save time, you will also save space also.

4. At the end of each paragraph, make sure that you press the return key twice and do the same after each section title.

If, however, you need to write long copy, then it is important that you should use some of the following formatting rules.

1. Keep the column width reasonably narrow. The human eye finds it more difficult to track from the end of one line to the beginning of the next if the column is wide.

2. Use plenty of subheads, as this helps those who would rather just scan a page before they commit to actually reading the whole thing. These subheadings should lead your visitor through the key points.

3. Indent any key elements in your copy. This will help to add emphasis where it is needed. It also helps to break up an otherwise scary block of text. So, the longer the copy on the page, the more important it is for you to use sub headers and indents.

As you can see formatting is essential to any good copy.

Keep Your Copy For The Web Short And But Sweet.

2011-10-10T03:27:00.000-07:00

Keep Your Web Copy Short and Sweet

You are looking to keep your visitors coming to your site and also get them to return. There are a number of points you should consider when copywriting for the web.

Keep your copy short and simple

What you should remember is that unless a visitor has been directed to a particular page on a site, more often than not, they will only read 1 or 2 lines of the text. So the longer your text is, the less likely they will want to read it. So if you can, do not add any long copy to any pages where visitors are not expecting it to be.

Also keep your copy simple. This is just as important as the length of your copy. It is important that your visitors are able to understand what has been written on their first reading. They do not want to have to spend time thinking about what you have written.

In most cases, you should be able to convey one key idea effectively in just one or two lines of writing. By writing any more than that, you are most likely to ruin the chances getting your initial message through.

So by anticipating that your visitors will be willing to learn more about something, then they will look for the page that has more copy on it. So provide them with a link to another page of your site where they can get hold of the information that they need.

What if you do need to write long copy?

If you do need to include some longer copy, then organize it. Even if your visitors are expecting to find a page heavy with text, they may not actually be willing to read it. So in order to help them, divide any distinct ideas you have into separate paragraphs. Provide them with useful headings, sub headings and bulleted lists. This is a great way of introducing key ideas to them deliberately.

It is best to assume that not all visitors to your site will read long pieces of copy. So write copy that’s easy to skim through.

Although longer copy does not need to be as direct as short copy, it should still be easy to read. You will find that those visitors to your site who have difficulty understanding what has been written, will stop reading it.

Make your Copy Lively

Keep your copywriting clear and write vividly. You should be aiming to write in a light, unassuming tone of voice. If what you have written is boring or overbearing, this will in turn affect the reader, and what you are trying to convey will not get through to them.

So use a consistent voice throughout your copy. By doing this, visitors quickly recognize it and so become familiar with it. The more familiar a site or subject is to them, the more effective it will be.

Introducing How To Find Good Keyword And Keyword Phrases For Your Copy

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How to Find Effective Keywords and Keyword Phrases for Your Copy

Search engines are the most important tool on the web for bringing new customers to a site. Many people who have never heard of your site will use a search engine to find what they are looking for, at your site or at someone else’s. But unfortunately, a search engine is not psychic and not very intuitive either. They will not be able to find what people are actually looking for but rather what they are asking for.

But just how do you know what people are looking for? There are a number of different ways in which you can get ahead of the competition in relation to people’s search habits. There are many effective programs around and one of these is Word Tracker, which can be found at WordTracker.com. You are able to license this program either by the day, week, month or year. What this program does is provide you with feedback in relation to key phrases that you submit to it. It will also make recommendations in relation to similar key phrases, and you are then able to test them against the most important search engines and directories on the web.

What it then does is tells you just how many people are searching for a particular phrase, and how much competition there is from other sites. Once this is done then Word Tracker assigns each phrase with a Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) ranking. So by using the phrases that attract the most interest, but the least competition, throughout your site in both copy and page titles, it will make it more receptive to the search engines and directories. So when it comes time for people who are looking for a particular product or service, then your site should be one of the first they see in their search results.

The best time to do any keyword searches is when you are first building your site. This will then mean that you do not need to rewrite your copy later on. But really, it can be done at any time. It is important to remember that if you are not researching what your customers need, then your competition will be

Introducing How To Write Effective Copy For The Web

2011-10-09T03:02:00.000-07:00

How to Write Effective Copy for the Web

In order to write effective copy for the web, there are two primary areas that you should look at. It is the page title and the META descriptions. Both of these are usually the first two things that a person will see when searching the web for a particular product or service.

However, this does not actually apply to all search engines or directories as some will not show the META description at all. In some cases, they will show a snippet of the content from your site.

Below we provide a list of particular areas that you should focus on in order to write effective web copy.

1. Page Title – This is the first thing that any visitor will see when carrying out a search on the web.

2. META Description – Usually the second thing the visitor will see when carrying out a search through a search engine or directory.

It is important to remember that both of these are likely to be produced on the Search Engine’s Results Page (SERP’s).

3. Heading Tags – This will relate to specific subjects within your site.

4. Visible Content – This is another area of importance that you should focus on in order to produce effective copywriting for the web. These are provided below in order of importance.

a. Hyperlinked Tex and Title Attribute – This is frequently displayed as a “tool tip”. Which is a short message that will appear when the pointing device (cursor) pauses over a particular object?

b. Alternate Text Tags – This should be for an image and is not to be used for stuffing with keywords that do not apply to it.

c. META Keyword Tags – Unfortunately, due to abuse by unethical marketers and uneducated consumers these are not as strong as they use to be. In fact, most search engines will no longer be looking at these as a relevancy factor during their search. So it is important that you make sure the keywords you use in this tag are to be found in the visible content for the page.

So effective copywriting for the web can only be achieved if you carefully research your keywords and keyword phrases. What is the point of writing any copy, if you do not know what it is actually that your target audience is searching for? By targeting the correct keywords and keyword phrases you are taking one of the most important steps in writing effective copy

Failing To Plan Is Preparing To Fail In The Field Of Copywriting

2011-10-09T03:01:00.000-07:00

Planning your copywriting in Order to Succeed

It is vital that during the planning stage of your copywriting for the web, you understand what it is, exactly, you hope to accomplish.

You have already determined that you need to increase direct sales, build a subscriber base, circulate information, as well as provide technical support. But in order to do this, you must make sure that your web copy can help you to achieve these goals.

It is important to decide who your ideal customer is and just what it is that they really want. Then find and craft the words that will most effectively bring these people to your site.

It is also important to remember that without a detailed plan, it will become impossible to know who you are targeting. Without a target, you are likely to miss out on those people who are willing and eager to pay for your help and expertise.

So when planning your web copy, it is important to know that your target audience is normally smarter and more knowledgeable than the typical visitor to a site.

Now that you have started planning, you need to start looking at whom to target.

Targeting is used to figure out which customers will have any problems that can be solved by using your particular product. It is therefore vital that you become an expert in relation to every single benefit that your product offers. Then, once you are able to determine who you need to target, you can begin to search them out. So start building a profile of those people who will benefit from your help the most. Once you know who they are, then begin by repeatedly using strong web copy, and the most magnetic of the benefits your product can offer as bait.

At last, you have found your target audience, and now you must develop a strategy for writing your copy. In order to do this, the best way is to do the following:

1. In the first part, write about what exactly the customer wants.

2. Match the tone of your writing to those that you are targeting.

3. When executing your copy it is important that you are able to present your idea to them in an easy way.

What is most important is that you think about all three of these things in equal amounts, and do not allow any one of them to overshadow the others

How To Create A Targeted Placement Campaigns With Google Adwords

2011-10-07T17:12:00.000-07:00

Good Copy Should Pull In Visitors

2011-10-07T07:49:00.001-07:00

Good Written Copy Should Pull-in Visitors

If you fail to plan, then you are likely to fail in your endeavor of producing great copy. If you wish to achieve your goals, it is important to gather all the facts.

First, you should anticipate the users’ of your sites questions. Normally, there are four questions that a user will have that will need to be answered.

1. What am I doing here?

2. How do it?

3. What is in it for me?

4. Where do I go from here?

So if your site’s design and navigation can not provide an obvious answer to these questions, then you should look at using copy in order to explain them. It is important that the answers to these questions should be obvious to all your users, and not just those visiting your site for the first time.

What is important to remember is that half the visitors to a site will not try to bother with working things out for themselves, and the other half may not even succeed.

Next, when planning, focus on your core audience. Remember, you will not be able to reach everyone, so make sure that the copy you produce addresses your site’s most important visitors directly. So, spend time explaining what the site can do for them in particular. If you want to make it more effective, then do not use words which would only be looked at by people you do not need.

However, if you are targeting more than one type of visitor to your site, then make sure that you can direct them to different pages. What you should remember is that a visitor will go somewhere else if they do not feel your site has something of value to offer to them in particular.

So when providing them with facts, let the facts speak for themselves. It is important that you make your descriptions compelling, although not excessive. Many visitors to sites will skip a site if they feel it is too full of hype (just bear in mind that some hype will almost certainly be necessary in order to excite your visitor).

Is Copy Writing For The Web Different?

2011-10-07T07:49:00.000-07:00

Why Writing Copy for the Web is Different

One of the most important reasons as to why copy-writing for the web is different is that the mindset of those who are going to be reading is different.

More often than not, most web pages will be found via a search engine. This is very significant, as it means that the person reading your site has been looking either for you or someone like you. So that puts them in control. This is because they will be focused on finding a particular product, service or piece of information.

So anyone visiting your site for the first time and has found it via a search engine will have a few questions in mind. “Have I come to the right place?” also “Will I find what I’m looking for at this page or site?” Finally, they would be asking themselves “Do I feel able that I can complete the task at this point?”

So what is vital is that you answer these questions in both your headline, and any sub-headlines you may have. It needs to be able to secure a response from this first time visitor immediately.

In order for this to happen, your writing needs to provide answers so that the visitor knows exactly what they are looking for.

What is important when writing any copy for the web is that you reassure any visitors that they are in the right place, and that they should continue to read on.

Heard Of Copy Writing For The Web Yet? Then Keep Going

2011-10-06T01:57:00.001-07:00

Although many people seem to think that writing effective copy for the web is easy, it isn’t. So if you want to ensure that your readers and your customers understand how your website works and what it can do for them, you need to produce good copy-writing for it.

In this course, we will look at the basics of producing good copy-writing for the web. But before we start there are a number of things that you should remember.

First, people do not read a website in the same way that they would read printed material. In fact, there are three characteristics which affect how a web user will react to the online content of a site.

It is important to remember that web users are active, not passive. So if they don’t find a reason for staying on a site, then they will leave it. Sometimes a person will leave 15 seconds after they have actually gotten there. So if your text is too long, then they are less likely to read it. So if you want a web user to believe what you have to say, you must be able to back up the hype.

In order for any web copy to be effective, it must take into account the characteristics mentioned above.

What is most important of all when looking at copywriting for the web, is not to underestimate the importance of the basics. If you just jump straight into it you may find yourself in trouble, and your site not being as effective as it should be

How To Market Your Online Business

2011-10-06T01:57:00.000-07:00

How do You Go About Marketing Your Online Business?

In the final chapter of this book, we will look at various ways in which you can market your online business. The reason for marketing an online business is in order to get that all important traffic to visit your site. This traffic consists of visitors, who will then become your customers and start purchasing your product or service from you.

The first thing you need to do is learn how to optimize your website so that it will start getting ranked in the top three search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN. The sooner you do this the faster it will get ranked and the sooner the traffic will start to appear at it. A great way of doing this is by investing in either a book, E-book or Ecourse on how to optimize your site, or you could try some of the following methods instead. The best way in which you can optimize your website is by ensuring you have back links to your site. This is where you have links to your site placed on other sites through various different methods. Below we provide you with some that are useful in order to get those all important back links to your website.

Link Exchanges

This is where you exchange links with other websites that have complimentary products or services to your own. It will not only give you direct traffic from the link, but will help to increase your pursuit for getting ranked higher in search engines.

Write Articles

It is important that the articles you write are interesting and full of useful information regarding your niche. This is probably one of the best ways around for gaining more traffic to your website. Not only is it free, as there are many article sites around where you can have your articles published for free, but each article you have published will be providing a link back to your site. This means that you are helping to gain even higher rankings where search engines are concerned. When writing an article, you should always include information about you, the author (this will usually be in a resource box at the bottom of your article), and do not forget to include that all important link to your own website.

By distributing to numerous article sites, you are not only gaining traffic (as when someone sees it on there, they will click on your link if they like what they saw), but also you get a link that points directly back to your site, which the search engines use to rank sites.

However, if you are someone who dislikes writing, then you could always look at using a ghostwriter. There are many sites around today who offer ghostwriting services, but when initially setting up an online business, this may not be an expense that you want to incur.

Online Forums

When using these, do not forget to include your signature line at the end of any comments that you make, as this will then provide a further link back to your site. The best bet is to stick to forums that are on the same topic as what you are trying to sell. Not only will you be learning about your potential customer’s desires, but you’ll be able to establish yourself as an expert in the field.

Blogs

Blogs are a great way of ensuring you get back links to your site. So why not start a blog on your website? But ensure that you post to your blog several times a week and think of it as news page for your site. Certainly blogging has become the in thing at the moment on the web. You only have to do a quick search to find out just how many there are.

Online Payment Portals For Your Online Business

2011-10-05T02:38:00.001-07:00

Is Using an Online Payment System a Good Decision for my Online Business?

There are many online payment services today which provide you with an alternative way to traditional payment methods. So unlike banks and credit card companies, services such as PayPal and CheckFree no longer require a business to have a merchant account. In fact, using services like this not only provides a quicker way for money to be paid online, but it is more secure than having someone sending you a check or cash. This is because the funds are electronically transferred to your account with them in order to settle any transaction made.

Such services have become especially popular among those who use online auction sites (such as Ebay), but also many other online businesses are now beginning to see the advantages of these services as well. However, what is important to know is how they work, and how to avoid any potential problems that may arise.

Such services use a relatively simple process in order to transfer money from one person to another. What you need to do is set up an account providing enough information which should include your real name, email address and credit card or bank account details (which are used to verify your identity). Then, in order for someone to pay you, they enter your email address and the amount of the transaction in question. This is then paid into your account, and can either then be transferred to your bank account, or a check can be sent to you.

However, many of the payment services will charge a small fee in order to transfer funds. For example, PayPal charges you up to 2.5% for each transfer that they make (but this all depends on the amount). But what should be remembered is that these fees are probably less than what you would normally pay for a credit card merchant account. Also, such services can be especially helpful when you need to arrange for small repetitive payments to be made to your account, such as affiliate rewards and commissions.

But there are some drawbacks to be had from using a payment service, and these are as follows:-

1. Many of them impose a daily or weekly limit on the amount of money that you send or receive. So if you want to exceed these limits you may find yourself incurring an additional fee for a “business account” or “premiere account”.

2. These services are not banks, and therefore are not subject to strict banking regulations or protected by Federal Deposit Insurance.

3. Often these services provide their customers with less protection against fraud and abuse than many credit card companies offer.

4. Also, they are sometimes quick to freeze a customer’s account if they suspect fraudulent or other criminal activities are taking place. They can be so quick sometimes that some customers have found that their account has been frozen for no apparent reason whatsoever.

It is important that before you sign up to any payment service, you read through their terms and conditions thoroughly. Plus, also read through their terms of service agreement carefully. It is important that you fully understand and accept the service’s dispute policy, limits on liability, their fee structure and any other rules or regulations that they may have. It is also important that you do not keep too much money in your account, rather hold in it enough to conduct a few days of business and any unused funds should be transferred over to your regular bank account.

Below are just a few more payment services that you may want to look at further when setting up an online business account.

1. Authorize.net. This service processes credit card and checking account transactions.

2. BidPay. This allows person to person payments, in which they accept a credit card payment from the payer and then send a money order through to the payee.

3. BillPoint. This also allows person to person payments, but from a credit card. Originally this system was being targeted specifically at Ebay customers.

4. E-Gold. This allows the payment in gold (silver, platinum or palladium) to be made from one customer to another using an account based system.

5. PayPal. This is probably the most well known of payment services, and it allows user to user payments. This is where a payer uses a credit card to pay money into another user’s account. Or, in fact, they can use money they already have in that account in order to pay for the goods they have purchased.

World Pay. This service provides both an internet merchant account, and payment processing service in one package

What Is Affiliate And Why You Should Join Other Affiliate Marketers

2011-10-05T02:38:00.000-07:00

Just What is Affiliate Marketing and Why Become an Affiliate Marketer?

Many times you will have seen previously in this book we have mentioned affiliate marketing as a great way of setting up an online business. During this chapter, we will provide a more in depth look at what it is exactly.

Affiliate Marketing is a method of promoting a product in which an affiliate is then rewarded for every visitor, subscriber, customer and/or sale provided through their efforts to the actual company selling the product. The compensation or commission that an affiliate gets may be based on a certain value for each exposure, visit (pay per click), new customer (pay per lead), sale which is usually a percentage of the item sold (pay per sale or revenue share) or it may be a combination of any of these.

Many companies like to use affiliate marketing because they do not incur any marketing expenses unless the desired result is realized.

There are also some e-commerce sites around today which run their own affiliate programs, while others use third party services. These provide intermediaries who will track traffic or sales that are referred to them from their various affiliates. There are many businesses online today who owe much of their growth and success to the use of affiliate marketing. It has been especially successful for small and midsize businesses on the internet.

We have now looked at what affiliate marketing is, now let us look at some reasons as why it is a good type of online business to set up.

No Production Costs

With an affiliate program, production costs are no longer an issue as the product has been developed and proven to be good. Best of all, it has all come out of the merchant’s accounts and not yours.

Do not need a lot of money to set up.

All you will need is a desk, computer, internet connection and word processing software to get started.

Costs Involved

Normally it is free to join an affiliate program, and all the set up costs and shipping costs will be met by the merchant whose products you are selling. Plus, as you do not need any where to store goods, this is another reason for joining an affiliate program. So even if you happen to live in a 1 bedroom apartment, you can still sell the biggest products going as an affiliate because all the goods are held by the merchant you are working as an affiliate for.

Choices

There are thousands of products and services that you can choose from. So finding the right products for either a website you have already or one that you are planning to build is immense.

No need to have a Merchants Account

This can be a time consuming and costly expense for anyone setting up a business for the first time. Certainly, it is even more so where an online business is concerned. However, as an affiliate, the merchant you are selling the product for will bear all costs, as well as handle the processing of all payments. So you never have to worry about any potential charge backs, fraudulent purchases or losing your merchant account completely as an affiliate. Plus, no longer will you be concerned with collecting and storing names and addresses of customers along with their credit card details, as this is all done by the merchant who you are affiliated to.

Plus, no longer do you have to worry about dealing with awkward or nasty customers and their complaints. This is down to the merchant to deal with.

Probably one of the best things about affiliate marketing is that you can make money while you sleep.

Another benefit to get into affiliate marketing is that if the product you chose isn’t making money, then you can just dump it. Remove any links to the product and then start promoting another instead. This is because there are no long term contracts which bind you to selling one particular product, so the risk to you is minimal.

If you work hard at affiliate marketing, then the potential to earn a good income is high. It really depends on just how much you want it and how much effort you are willing to put in to the products you are trying to sell.

For an idea of just what kinds of products and services offer affiliate programs, check out Clickbank.com or ComissionJunction.com. Both of these sites are generally at the very top of most affiliate marketers’ lists.

Setting Up An Online Business On A Budget

2011-10-04T02:40:00.000-07:00

How to Set Up an Online Business on a Budget

You have now decided to set up an online business, but your budget is very small, so how can you get going?

You could start off by looking for free domain names. Because there are so many companies around who are now selling domain names, the market has become quite competitive. But there are a few sites around that will register a domain for you at no charge. However, there is a catch with some of them in that they will set themselves up as the administrator for your domain and then only transfer ownership to you after a set period of time for free or will charge you a small fee.

If you are going to be setting up and launching a website, but do not want to pay the $20-$40 a month that you can typically charged for hosting, then don’t. There are plenty of places on the web today that will host your site for free. But before you get too excited about this prospect, it is important to remember that there is a drawback to be had from using such places. Most of these free host sites will place a banner at the top of your pages for allowing you to do this. However, there are some web hosts around who do not charge you a fee or force you to have a banner on your site either. While there are others who will remove the banners completely for a small fee each year, which is nothing compared to what you would pay to get someone to host your site for you each month.

What if you are someone who does not have their own product to sell, but still wants to make money online? Then look no further than becoming an affiliate marketer. This we will look at more closely in the next chapter of this book

How To Set Up Your Online Business

2011-10-04T02:39:00.000-07:00

How to Go About Setting Up an Online Business

The best way of setting up an online business today is as follows:-

1. Choose a niche and then specialize in it. Do not think that you are going to make big bucks by selling everything under the sun (unless you are using Ebay, but even this is getting more competitive today).

2. Choose or create a product. You can either use affiliate products or create your own.

3. Probably one of the most important things to do when setting up an online business is to find a good name. It should be short, easy to remember and reflect what your business actually does. Your domain name is the name by which your online customers will remember you by. A good domain name is one that is memorable, short and easy to spell. There are many websites around offering domain names, and prices can start for less than $1.

4. Get your own website. Do not go for a free page on some affiliate site, but get your own. It is much easier to do than you think. Get some hosting (there are plenty of companies on the web today offering their services). Then buy a template system if you can not program (again take a look around the web and you will soon find plenty of companies offering web templates). Now all you have to do is start learning how to use it. However, if you are not technically minded then you will need to hire someone to handle all the technical aspects of your online business. This could include such things as building your website for you, the handling of your website hosting and the setting up of any domain names that you may require.

5. Always look for a secure and reliable host service provider. It is important that you examine the “uptime guarantee” that each service provider offers. Also, analyze the physical infrastructure of where your online business will be stored. But probably most important of all is that you should scrutinize the hosting providers “Back Up” and “Data Security” systems. This includes calculating how much time would be required to reinstall your online business if there was a complete infrastructure failure on the part of the hosting provider. This will help you to calculate the least possible loss to your business if such a situation arises.

6. Build a list. This is important so that you are able to repeatedly talk with visitors to your site. It is important that you keep the visitors updated as to what is happening with your site. This also enables you to contact them numerous times regarding whatever offer(s) you wish to present them.

7. Look at the ways in which you will handle the payments made by your customers. If you are selling an affiliate product, then this will not be a problem as the affiliate program will handle the payments for you. However, if you are selling your own product, then you will have to set up your own payment processing system. This will be looked at more closely in another chapter of this book.

8. Look at the ways in which you will arrange for goods to be delivered to your customer if selling your own products. You must look at local courier companies, as well as the postal service and find out which will be more cost effective for sending goods to customers. Also, you will then need to decide on the pricing system for the sending of packages to your customer’s. But it is important that you choose a shipping company who you know is going to be reliable. Look especially at those companies who offer an online tracking system.

Types Of Suitable Online Businesses

2011-10-03T02:25:00.001-07:00

What Type of Businesses Can You Have as an Online Business?

In this chapter, we will look at some of the more common types of online businesses that people are running. Keep in mind, the decision is really up to you as to what type of business you want to run online.

Marketing Business

This is one of the most common types of online businesses around. You can either run this business by exclusively marketing your own products, or by marketing those of other big budget companies. But this needs you to produce a visually striking web page that has all the necessary information and purchasing options on it for the products in question. In order for this business to be successful, it needs to be promoted effectively to potential customers via search engines, email or other sources. We will look at marketing in more depth in another chapter of this book.

Turnkey Internet Business

This is a very trendy type of business to have online. This is where you would purchase a website from an already established sector and then run the business on a web platform that is provided to you by the established business. In order to promote such an online business, there are many different methods that you could use, such as promoting individual products or services to your online customers.

Internet Services

This is a business where specific services are provided to online customers at a reasonable price. Such businesses are often set up according to a person’s professional expertise and will provide services to their customers in relation to this. The types of businesses that will come under this umbrella are online consultancies, computer software assistance, and hardware trouble shooting and even such things as how to start an online business.

Medical & Health Care Facility Services

This is where someone will set up a complete online pharmacy and the services related to this type of business will be offered to online customers. Such businesses will provide customers with medical consultancy, selling of medications and other medical charges. If you look further into this line of business, you will find that there are several medical

institutes who can franchise a person to run a virtual medical and health care facility for them.

But besides the ones mentioned above, there are many other kinds of online businesses around, such as entertainment websites, home decoration, dating, article writing, fitness, allergies, online chat and interaction and email servers are just some. But no matter what type of online business (“niche”) it is you decide to get involved in, it is important to plan carefully and have the ability promote the business professionally over the internet.

Setting Up A Business Plan For Your Online Business

2011-10-03T02:25:00.000-07:00

How to Set Up a Business Plan for an Online Business

By setting up a business plan, you are road mapping your way to success. It will help you to develop your business goals and strategies, as well as providing you with a better understanding of the marketplace. It will also highlight any business strengths or weaknesses that you may have, as well as providing you with an opportunity to take a close look at your competitors. If you want, you can also include financial projections, historical data and growth expectations into your business plan.

With any good business plan, it should show who the target audience is, and just how the product or service that is being provided will meet or exceed their needs and expectations.

When organizing a business plan it is best if you break it down into sections such as:-

1. Business summary – The product or service you want to provide.

2. Market analysis – Research on the product or service and how the competitors are doing.

3. Product positioning – How to make it more prominent compared to your competitors.

4. Market strategy – How are you actually going to market it?

5. Customer analysis – Look at what the customer wants or needs.

6. Financial analysis – What you need to invest in order to set up the business and to keep it going while it is just getting started.

7. Overall business goals – What you hope to achieve in, say, a year’s time.

But what is more important is that once a business plan has been developed, it should not lay in the back of a drawer somewhere. It should be a working plan that you can refer to when you need to.

The best way to make a business plan is to keep it simple (one or two pages should be all you need).

Certainly one of the best things you can do when starting an online business is to create a plan then stick with it.

Things To Do When Setting Up An Online Business

2011-10-01T13:07:00.001-07:00

Things That Need to be Considered Prior to Setting Up an Online Business

During this chapter, we will look at things that you need to consider before you actually set up your online business.

What product or service will you want to provide?

For many people, they will start an online business based on knowledge and experience that they have already, while others may spot a gap in the market. But the most important thing that you can do is carry out research with companies and individuals that you do not know in order to get a more unbiased view.

Also, do as much reading and research on everything you can about particular areas of interest, as well as studying the pros and cons that this will have in relation to your overall goals. Plus, make yourself familiar with your competitors, as this will boost your confidence and enthusiasm for setting up an online business.

Where to work from?

You do not need to work from home, but this is an option that many online business people prefer. But others prefer to have an office away from the home, as they find it difficult to focus, as well as feeling isolated.

How to market the business?

It is important, if you want your online business to thrive, to ensure that you establish a web presence. The best way of doing this is by direct mail, networking, display advertising etc. But what approach works best for you will depend on the product that you are selling. The best way of finding out what will work, is by trying a different number of methods initially, and then go for it once you know which one is best. However, if you are unsure where to start, then look at how your competition is marketing their goods…if it works for them, it may work for you also.

Develop a Plan.

Without having a blueprint on how to reach your goals, you may find that not just your efforts, but the resources may well be squandered. Having a plan provides you with focus, direction and momentum to keep the business on track. We will look further at setting up a business plan in the next chapter.

Check Laws and Regulations

It is important that you check to see if there are any local laws or regulations in relation to setting up an online business from home. Also, you will need to get laws and regulations in regard to being self employed.

Setting up the Office

More often than not, an online business will be conducted from the person’s home. So it is important that you set up a home office prior to starting up the business. You should arrange to have all the necessary equipment that you will need such as computer, internet connection, printer, fax machine (but not essential) are just a few things that you will need if you want to be successful with your online business.

Why You Need To Start An Online Business

2011-10-01T13:07:00.000-07:00

What Reasons Are There for Starting an Online Business?

There are plenty of reasons as to why many people start an online business, and below we will provide you with just a few of them.

For many people, the main reason that they decide to start an online business is to earn an extra income. Usually, this is in addition to the income that they are already earning. However for others, what starts as a part time venture, soon becomes a full time one.

Another reason that people decide to start up an online business is that they have more control over their working life.

Also, it provides them with a chance to spend more time with their family and friends. Today much too much time is spent working, and many people find that they have little or no time to spend with those that they love.

Furthermore, there are other reasons as to why so many people now choose to set up an online business.

What rush hour?

No longer do they need to get up in the morning to rush off to work and get caught up in all that traffic. Now that time which would normally be wasted sitting in traffic can be used to their advantage. Plus, it is up to you when you work, so if you don’t want to start until late in the morning, you do not need to.

Prosperity

Because of the rapid advance in technology, many online businesses today tend be prosperous, and so getting involved in this type of business is a good way to make some money.

Costs of Starting Up

This is probably one of the biggest reasons as to why many people choose to start an online business. As many of the transactions are completed online, there is little or no need for lots of paper and documents. What one really needs in order to get an online business going is a computer, a high speed internet connection (ADSL), printer, fax machine and few other essentials that an office may need.

As you can see, these are just a few good reasons for why setting up an online business might be the ideal choice for you.

List Building Secret #37

2011-09-30T03:47:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #37 - Get Other Newsletter Publishers To Mention You Constantly

One of the best ways to get free subscribers is to get other publishers to mention you constantly. This build a relationship with their subscribers and when they join your newsletter they will already know a lot about you and be looking forward to receiving your emails.

So how do you get other publishers to mention you in their newsletters? Do something news worthy! Hold a contest, claim to know something no one else does, tell publishers a little tip that you learn and that they are free to tell their subscribers as well.

Build relationships with these publishers and become their friends!

List Building Secret #36

2011-09-30T03:46:00.001-07:00

List Building Secret #36 - Send Testimonials To Products You've Used

This is an easy way to get a trickle of new subscribers daily to your newsletter. Whenever you use a product or service you really like, send them a great, glowing testimonial and they will gladly put it up on their website and put a link to your website with it.

The trick here tho is to get as many people who read your testimonial to your website and to subscribe to your newsletter.

The best way to do this is to register a new domain name solely for catching subscribers from testimonials, something catchy, and put a name squeeze page as your main page.

You will slowly get a nice stream of new subscribers everyday for as long as the product or service is selling for.

List Building Secret #35

2011-09-30T03:46:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #35 - Give Permission To People To Use Your Newsletter In Their Own Works

Tell people who are already subscribed to your newsletter that they can pass the newsletter on to friends and also use parts or all of your newsletter in their ezine.

Of course you would get credit and a link back to your site. This is sort of like article writing, just with your newsletter issue in replace of your article.

List Building Secret #34

2011-09-30T03:45:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #34 - Setup A Continuous Thank You For Subscribing Page

This is something that no one is doing at all that I know of and I'm pretty sure no one is doing it at all or ever.

As you know, when someone signs up for your newsletter at your website, they are then taken to another page that confirms their subscription.

Most people just put something like "Thank you for subscribing to my newsletter, why not check out this product" and really don't make use of this extra bit of advertising that they have to use.

The idea I've been tinkering with is to setup a continuous thank you page. After your subscriber signs up for your newsletter and they go to your thank you page, why not offer them a chance to sign up for another newsletter or E-course you might have.

This way, you could possibly get the same subscriber on 3 or 4 of your lists. So everytime they subscribe to one of your lists, they are taken to another thank you page that asks them to subscribe to another of your lists, and so on.

I think this is a great idea and it's something I will be using a lot of.

List Building Secret #33

2011-09-29T00:38:00.001-07:00

List Building Secret #33 - Contact Previous Customers And Clients

This is just another simple method most people over look, but they don't realise just how powerful it is.

If you already have a list of customers or prospects, tell them your starting an ezine and let them know they can subscribe anytime they like and get all the information for free.

These people have already proven their interest in you or what your selling, so it makes perfect sense they would want to hear from you more often then they already are (if at all!)

List Building Secret #32

2011-09-29T00:38:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #32 - Start Your Own Forum

This is a great way to get new subscribers to your newsletter. Building a community within your website brings back repeat visitors, which means people will more then likely sign up for your newsletter if they keep coming back.

You can see an example of this at Howtocorp.com and go look at the forum. He has his newsletter signup form there and product recommendations. People love to help other people and answer their questions, so after awhile you won't need to be answering many questions yourself.

The best way to start your own forum is to do it yourself with software and host it on your own webhosting. Don't use a 3rd party service, especially free ones.

A good piece of forum software can be found at

http://forum.snitz.com/

List Building Secret #31

2011-09-29T00:37:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #31 - Setup A Free E-Course For New Subscribers

This step doesn't have to be difficult. This free course is the vehicle to promote whatever it is you want to promote, whether it be an affiliate program, your newsletter (which is a given) or your own product. It will also be the catalyst that allows you to contact these leads as often as you want.

I will warn you now, however, that you don't want to contact them everyday, maybe not every week, only when you have something substantial to email to them. This keeps your list happy, and not full of junk emails that no one will end up reading.

First off though, we need a title for your report. No one is even going to subscribe if it doesn't interest them.

This is where a lot of writers really wreck a perfectly good report. You have to make your title as exciting and straight to the point as possible.

Here are a few examples of very poor titles.

Make Money Online

Migraine Relief Report

Create Your Own Products Easily

Play Cricket Like A Pro

I might have been a little harsh to say that they are poor titles, they just lack any spark or imagination.

Here are a few suggestions I have to spruce those titles up, and these can be used in any other titles as well.

Make Money Online In 7 Days With Residual Income Affiliate Programs

Stop Migraines In 5 Easy Steps

Create Sizzling Digital Products Instantly, That Sell Like Crazy

Bat Like Border And Bowl Like Lee, Play Cricket Like A Pro!

So what is the easiest way to create your own free 5 day course?

The best way to create your free course is to write 5 or so articles yourself on the subject your promoting and putting it into a free course.

The problem most people have when they try and do this is that they try and write thousands of words all at once and they get tired and never complete it.

If you break it down into sections, it's a lot easier. For example, if I was to write a free course on creating your own fishing lures for profit, I would write something like this.

Article 1: Why fishing lures are so profitable

Article 2: How to create your own fishing lures from your table

Article 3: How to automate the whole lure making process

Article 4: How to market your lures offline

Article 5: How to market your lures on a budget online

And in each of these articles, I would weave an affiliate link into somewhere or mention my newsletter. The information has to be of high quality and not just a blatant plug-a-thon. If you do this, you will certainly get a lot of people unsubscribing from your list.

Of course you can't really just send your prospects a bunch of articles, you have to weave them together. For instance, the first email they get could be a thank you for subscribing email, with a don't forget to get your free gift line in there somewhere. This first email, you should try and hook your prospects, so if you have an article section that's better then the rest, put it in the first day.

List Building Secret #30

2011-09-27T20:42:00.001-07:00

List Building Secret #30 - Setup A Membership Site Just For Subscribers

Want to really boost your subscription rate? Start your own membership site solely for your newsletter subscribers. You can see a real example at Undergroundtraininglabs.com.

The key here is to make sure your content is fantastic, so much so that you could actually have paying customers for it.

Keep it updated constantly.

The problem with most membership scripts is their security features, or lack there of, and I've found one script that I'm really happy with and it's under $100. http://www.membershipclientpro.com

Another thing that can come in handy when running a membership site is an organizational tool. If you've had any experience with running a membership site, after awhile you get quite a lot of content and being able to organize that content for easy reading for your affiliates is crucial.

Article Manager - http://www.interactivetools.com

is a content management software tool designed to let non-technical users manage a news-oriented website. Manage articles and categories, multiple writers and editors. Upload images, create content with the WYSIWYG editor, syndicate your content, and more. It can save a busy webmaster hours of tedious HTML edits every day.

List Building Secret #29

2011-09-27T20:42:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #29 - Don't Buy Mass Email Lists

I was just reading a post on a well known marketing forum today and I read a post from one guy who said he had access to a list of 800,000 email addresses from people who were interested in making money.

He said his friend owned the list and was willing to let him use it for a mailing, but he said not to mention his name at all in the mailing.

This should have been the first alarm bell for this guy. Not to mention that this guy wasn't sure how the list was compiled or how the people subscribed to this list.

It wasn't even just one big mailing list, it was a bunch of lists stuck together.

If this guy does decide to mail to this list, he will be accused of spam, he will get into major trouble and he will NOT make any money worth the effort.

Never EVER send emails out to lists you don't know anything about EVER. Never buy bulk email lists.

List Building Secret #28

2011-09-27T20:41:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #28 - Make Sure To Keep Your Newsletter Off Spam Lists!

Here are some very useful tips to make sure you stay out of hot water when it comes to being called a spammer.

* Make Sure Your Email Message is Compliant with the CAN-SPAM Law.

* Make sure your list is double opt-in

* Keep detailed records of all subscribes and unsubscribes. IP addresses, when they subscribed when they unsubscribed.

* Don't ever purchase bulk email lists or harvest emails from the Internet

* If you use co-registration companies, make sure they are reputable and don't use shady methods of traffic gathering.

* If you have an Affiliate Program, make sure you include an "anti-spam" provision in your agreement.

* Avoid using spam trigger words like "spam, free, special, guaranteed" etc....

List Building Secret #27

2011-09-26T22:25:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #27 - Give Your Newsletter Personality

What makes you different from any of the other newsletters out there in your market? 1 thing and 1 thing only.

YOUR PERSONALITY.

Don't be a lifeless drone, add some spark to your writing, be funny, be witty, be controversial, just don't be boring!

Tell a story. Stories are a great way to get people hooked before they realize you are actually selling them anything at all.

Find below a story I used to promote a work at home affiliate program.

Are You Different?

I don't know about you, but I've always thought I was different to my peers. This is an amusing story that will probably strike a cord with most people who read this book.

When the kids at my school were playing at lunch time, like kids do, I was setting up shop just outside the main oval. The canteen at school never really sold much in the sweet variety, so I use to bring mine to school from the local store as they were much cheaper and had more variety.

I use to come to school with a bag full of lollies and let me tell you, I was one popular kid. Kids were always asking me for lollies all day and it was getting very annoying, so I had to do something quick.

I got sick of giving my hard earned pocket money lollies out for free, so I decided to set up my own little black market lollies trade. I use to buy all sorts of different lollies you could not get from school and I then raised the price 500%. I purchased lollies for 10 cents and sold them for over 50 cents. The market was so big, I had to actually double my supply. In one day I could make $20 just by selling lollies I brought for $5.

Of course, I had certain "high roller" clients that I would give cheaper prices to, which was only fair, as they brought in most of my business. I also had a few people that you gave free lollies too, just to keep the peace.

Eventually more people started doing what I was doing and I had a little competition on my hands.

I stopped selling lollies after a few months as the demand was getting to hectic and the local store had called my mother.

I knew I had a passion in life, but I didn't realise what it was until I was in grade 10 and I quit school to pursue a career in direct mail. Marketing was and is my life, I love it. I read everything I can get my hands on and I have a collection of books that resemble a bookstore. Of course back then I wasn't sure if I wanted to do anything seriously with marketing, but I knew I didn't want to work for anyone but myself.

Everyday I stop and think about what I would be doing if I didn't find out about the joys of working from home, and I never would have if it was not for my father who taught me there is more to life then working 9 till 5 everyday.

List Building Secret #26

2011-09-26T22:24:00.001-07:00

List Building Secret #26 - Press Releases: Not Dead, Just Evolved

Mark Twain once said the rumors of his death had been greatly exaggerated. The same may be said for the press release. It’s not dead, but its mission has evolved.

Those PR practitioners who are spreading these death rumors would have you believe that press releases should never be written, nor distributed. I take issue with this old-school thinking.

Now, inundating the media with press releases has not been a good practice since shortly after Edward Bernays opened the first PR firm in 1919. Any competent PR person has known for years that garnering media coverage almost never directly happens due to a press release. However, that is fodder for another article.

Let’s talk about the evolution of the press release into a solid tool for helping organizations deliver key messages to multiple audiences in the digital age.

In the not-so-distant pre-Internet past, press releases were aimed solely at trade and consumer media outlets. The media acted as the gatekeepers, taking your information and making decisions about how, or if, to use it.

Organizations today are able to bypass the media filter in a number of ways, thanks to the net.

Consider this: both journalists and consumers use the web for research. More than 550 million searches are done daily via the web. And, every month, US web-users conduct 27 million searches at Yahoo! News, Google News or other news search engines. According to recent surveys by Middleberg/Ross and the Pew Internet Project, we learn that:

- 98 percent of journalists go online daily

- 92 percent do it for article research

- 76 percent to find new sources and experts

- 73 percent to find press releases

- 68 million Americans go online daily

- 30 percent use a search engine to find information

- 27 percent go online to get news

But you need to think differently about writing your releases in this new age. You can extend the power of your press releases beyond the media by positioning them for search engine pick up. In effect, your press releases become a long-lasting, online, searchable database about your organization.

Once properly written with both readers and search engines in mind, you need to distribute the release. PR Web™ and PR Newswire are my two favorite ways to get the message out. Both services help you reach into the newsroom and beyond.

PR Web emails press releases daily to between 60,000 - 100,000 global contacts points.

Journalists, analysts, freelance writers, media outlets and newsrooms, as well as your average web users are signed up to receive this information. Also, it distributes releases via FTP, XML feeds and through a network of its own websites. PR Web-related sites are in the top 2,500 most visited sites. Every release sent out through PR Web is optimized for search engines, and PR Web guarantees your release will be picked up by Yahoo!, which is the number one most visited website on the Internet.

Does it work, you ask? Let me provide a recent example. I used PR Web to send out a release about my client Brent Dees and his Focus Four training for entrepreneurs. The editor of Leadership Excellence emailed me after seeing the release and asked Brent to write an article for his magazine.

The granddaddy of press release services is PR Newswire, which distributes directly into the central editing computers at daily newspapers, newsweeklies, national news services, trade publications and broadcast newsrooms.

It reaches a total of 22,000 media points in the US alone. All releases are distributed to and archived in more than 3,600 web sites, databases and online services. Additionally, PR Newswire’s website is in the top 2,000 most visited sites on the Internet.

Finally, let’s take a look at the online media room. Its primary purpose is to provide journalists with easily accessible data about the organization, such as executive bios, earnings figures, key contacts and other solid, factual information. An organization also should place news releases here, particularly those aimed at key stakeholders like employees, strategic allies, and investors.

Technology savvy consumers often visit online media rooms for the same reason journalists do: they expect to find factual information there.

Churning out releases and dumping them willy-nilly on the media is a dumb practice. But using releases as a strategic weapon to reach key audiences across the digital divide is smart PR. Practitioners who believe the news release is dead need to evolve, or they will be the moribund ones.

Harry Hoover is managing principal of Hoover ink PR . He has 26 years of experience in crafting and delivering bottom line messages that ensure success for serious businesses like Brent Dees Financial Planning, Focus Four, Levolor, New World Mortgage, North Carolina Tourism, Ty Boyd Executive Learning Systems, VELUX and Verbatim

List Building Secret #23

2011-09-26T22:24:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #23 - Create And Sell Ebooks With Reprint Rights

This is just a very quick overview, but if you want more information on creating Ebooks, I suggest you visit 2 sites.

My favorite site is Bryan Winters’ exclusive membersite at http://www.pushbuttonpublishing.com. It's full of the best information on marketing and the cost is very low compared to what you get from it.

The next product solely focuses on creating your own information products the quick and easy way and is by Ewen Chia. You can find it at http://www.clickbank.com. It's a one off fee for $47 and it comes in Ebook format ironically enough.

Now, back to my explanation.

Whether you like it or not, having your own product gives you more flexibility in your online advertising AND believe it or not, compiling an Ebook is no more then a weeks work part time if done correctly and IF you do it this way the profits will come in for life.

I have checks coming in still from work I did 2 years ago, thanks to the power of residual income affiliate programs and viral marketing Ebooks.

Ok, lets get down to the nitty gritty. What is a viral marketing Ebook and why should you create one?

A viral marketing Ebook is a book which sole purpose is to be spread around the Internet quickly, by any means possible. It's not meant to make you money on the front end. You want other people selling it and giving it away to as many people as possible.

Why?

Because the inside of that book is full of affiliate links to other peoples products and every time someone gives away your book or sells it, (depending on how you want to do it) more people will be seeing your affiliate links, and this is costing you what? NOTHING? Exactly!

The best examples I could give you of this process would be by Yanik Silver. He created 2 marketing books that spread over the Internet like wildfire. He gave everyone who purchased the book for $19 or $17 (depending on the book) the rights to sell it or give it away to their customers.

Needless to say, thousands of people starting selling it and promoting it all over the Internet. To this day, he is still earning good money from that book, plus he became one of the most well known Internet Marketers to date.

So how do you go about creating your own viral marketing Ebook?

Here are the steps.

1) Come up with a product idea based on your affiliate program you've already chosen and are already promoting.

Coming up with ideas isn't hard. For example, and I know I use this example a lot, BUT, If you are going to be promoting a sports betting affiliate program, why not create a book on becoming a successful punter. Then throughout the book, you can recommend your favorite sports betting affiliate program.

101 insider secrets to sports betting
How to bet with other peoples money

A good way to come up with ideas is to look at what others are already selling and mimic that. You don't need to recreate the wheel here, so PLEASE don't make things harder then they have to be.

2) Get the tools you need to succeed

You are going to need a few tools here.

A) A domain name

I register all my domain names with http://www.godaddy.com for under $9 a domain name, which to me is pretty darn cheap. You want a fairly short domain name that describes the content of your book fairly well.

Here's an example for you people promoting sport betting affiliate programs.

http://www.sportsbettingaffiliates.com
http://www.sportsoddbetting.com
http://www.101waystobeattheodds.com
http://www.betforfree.com

etc....

B) Webhosting

Let me say first, you get what you pay for. This has never been more true then with webhosting. YOU NEED a good reliable webhosting company with 24/7 technical support. If your site goes down and you can't contact anyone to help you get it back up, you will lose sales and a lot of them.

I recommend you use http://www.thirdspherehosting.com for the simple fact they offer all you need, plus a lot more for a reasonable price.

C) Autoresponder

You will need this so you can contact your prospects that don't purchase straight away. This is where you will give away your free course or someway to entice them to give you their email address so you can contact them periodically.

D) Credit card processor

Just use http://www.clickbank.com. This step is too easy. They will let you accept all major credit cards and start an affiliate program for a one time setup fee of under $50. They do take a percentage of every sale, but this is so much cheaper then getting your own merchant account.

Just about everyone selling Ebooks online is using Clickbank.

E) Ebook Software

You will more then likely want to create your book in PDF format so everyone can read it. Some Ebooks come in EXE format, but mac users can't read that format, so I find it best to use PDF. You can create your book with http://www.createpdf.com for a fairly cheap price.

F) Graphic Design Software

If you are anything like me, your artistic abilities peaked at age 7. So instead of busting my hump to create my Ebook covers and website graphics I use http://www.ecovergenerator.comand http://www.headergenerator.com for all my graphics. They are great pieces of software that you can use instead of hiring graphic designers.

I do however recommend one graphic designer by the name of Brian Terry. You can view his work at http://www.ebookwow.com.

3) Outline your book chapters into articles

Writing a whole book in one sitting is hard, and trying to write a book without outlining the chapters is nearly impossible. My first book I ever wrote took me over 6 months but now most of my books take me less then a week to finish and that is with a sales letter and website up.

All you have to do is think up 12 to 15 article topics in sequence and write about them. Each page should be around 700 to 1000 words, full of useful information, not information people could get for free.

4) Write your content

Like I said just before, you need original content. There are too many books out there now where people are just regurgitating information others can get for free and this lowers the value of your book, which means less people will pass it around and even less will read it.

If you are really stuck with your writing, I suggest that you do the following.
The best way to get a good amount of original information without writing it yourself is to interview experts in the field. For instance, if you were writing a book about improving your golf handicap, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to find some local experts who you could grill in person, over the phone or even via the Internet and you can then put all that information in the book. It's also a good selling point.

Also remember when your writing what the point of this book is. The point of the book is to earn you an on going commission with affiliate programs, so don't feel like you can't throw some affiliate links in, because you can, but make sure it's tactful and in place.

Another good idea would be to put a "Subscribe to my newsletter" section in your book as well, so not only will you make commissions on sales, but also generate leads without doing any extra work.

Make sure you clearly state in the front of the book, that the buyer can sell this book as his own. State that he has Resell Rights to the product and can sell it or give it away if he chooses.

5) Create your sales letter

This is where you will be selling your book from and is critically crucial to your success.

Creating a sales letter takes a lot of work, especially if your new to the whole thing. The best way and the way I use, is to mimic successful sales letters.

I recommend you have a look at the following sales letters selling Ebooks.

http://www.miniebook.com

http://www.stuffyourinboxwithcash.com

http://www.strikingitrichonline.com

http://www.resalerightssecrets.com

http://www.websiteconversionsecrets.com

If for some reason you think you can't do this by yourself, you have 2 options.

1) Use software that helps put together your sales letter

and

2) Hire a copywriter

Software is great and there a 2 options out there. The first one is http://www.instantsalesletters.com by Yanik Silver and http://www.saleslettergenerator.com by Armand Morin. They are just as good as each other.

However, if you want to hire a professional copywriter, your looking at thousands of dollars, plus royalties from your book sales.

Remember that your selling this book with reprint rights, which means when they buy the book they can sell it as well. This is a huge selling point for you. You will also be giving them your Ebook cover, website graphics and sales letter to use to sell your product.

6) Plug in your free 5 day autoresponder series

The best way to write your free 5 day course that your prospect get via your pop up window is to take chapters out of your book and put them in as a free teaser.

Remember to emphasize an urgency. You want to make these prospects who don't buy straight away, feel like they are missing out on an opportunity of a life time and considering the low price of the book, if they don't buy, more then likely they weren't really interested or were freebie seekers from the start.

7) Advertise!

Depending on your topic, you will want to target different people. However, no matter what topic your selling on, there is one market who will want your book for the sole purpose of selling it, and that's the Internet Marketing group.

Your book could be on Hippo's but all they care about is the fact they can sell it as their own. This is why this type of book always does well.

The key is to target people in your market and then the Internet Marketing crowd.

List Building Secret #25

2011-09-25T20:55:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #25 - Use A Dynamic Email Signature

This is so simple, yet people forget to even do it or do it properly. If you send out quite a few emails every day, this is a great method to pick up some new subscribers.

All you need to do, is at the end of each email you send out, have a 4 line ad for your newsletter. You could use a classified ad you've already written for ezine advertising.

You will be surprised how many people will sign up for your newsletter.

List Building Secret #24

2011-09-25T20:54:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #24 - Start An Affiliate Program To Promote Your Newsletter

If co-registration doesn't appeal to you, you could start your own affiliate program solely to promote your newsletter.

This has been done before with some success, especially if you know how much your subscribers are worth to you, money wise.

If you know that every subscriber to your newsletter is worth 50 cents to you, you wouldn't mind paying 20, 30, 40 or even 50 cents per subscriber to your affiliates, and that's a pretty good deal for you and them.

Another way, another less risky way is to do the following. Create an ebook, or some sort of digital product, with value, sell it for around $20 to $30 and give affiliates 100% of the sale.

You won't make any money selling the product, but you will get a huge mailing list of not only newsletter subscribers, but customers.

You can see someone doing this exact thing at DoubleYourDating.com or SecretAffiliateWeapon.com.

Affiliates are sending him thousands of new subscribers everyday and thousands of customers everyday, because he gives them 100% of the sale of his ebook.

List Building Secret #22

2011-09-25T20:52:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #22 - Network All You Can

Every where you go, network with people. You never know exactly who you might run into. Let as many people as you can know about what you do and that your the best at it.

Going to seminars and trade events is a great way to network with people in your markets and a great way to start building relationships with key online businesses.

You never know who might be able to help you with something down the track.

List Building Secret #21

2011-09-24T18:05:00.001-07:00

List Building Secret #21 - Use Top Sponsorship Ad's In Ezines

These ads are at the top of the newsletter and are usually the first thing people read. They usually cost about half the price of a solo ad, but they usually don't pull anywhere near as well.

They are also usually 5 to 8 lines long, and you should really concentrate on your headline, and leading them straight to your auto-responder

List Building Secret # 20

2011-09-24T18:05:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret # 20 - Use Classified Advertising In Ezines

These are small ads, usually four or five lines long that go out in the ezine itself. They don't work anywhere as well as solo ads, but they are cheap as chips. The secret here again is to write a very compelling headline.

The best way to use classified ads (the best way to use any advertising on the Internet) is to send them straight to your opt-in mailing list from the ad, where you might be promoting a free course via autoresponder all about your product. Once you have their email address, you can contact them over and over again until they buy or unsubscribe.

This is by far the best method of advertising with classified ads.

List Building Secret #19

2011-09-24T18:04:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #19 - Submit To Ezine Directories

The best ezine directories are paid for and they are:

Topezineads.com and Directoryofezines.com

Here are some free ones:

List Building Secret #18

2011-09-24T18:03:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #18 - Buy Ezine Solo Ads

When ever I advertise with ezines it's usually solely with Solo Ads. These are ads that are sent out by themselves, unlike classified and other ads that go out in the ezine itself.

This ad will go out by itself, so it needs to be a fairly good length. While some people say shorter ads work better for the simple fact the reader has less to read, in reality, a very well written longer solo ad will pull much much better.

There are usually word and length limits to these ads so when you are creating them, it might be good to check around at what the normal length of a solo ad is in your industry.

You might even check out the posting guidelines for other ezines so you can know exactly how long they like their solo ads.

The best bet to make a compelling solo ad is to work really hard on the headline. If you can write a very compelling headline for your ad, the rest of the ad should follow.

List Building Secret #17

2011-09-24T17:59:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #17 - Thank You For Subscribing Page

Simple enough. Get a group of publishers together and tell them you want to send new subscribers of your ezine to a page that recommends signing up for their ezine and that they do the same.

You see it all the time. You subscribe to an ezine you see on a website and once you subscribe you are taken to another page that recommends other peoples newsletters that you should join.

This is pretty much a localized version of co-registration, but it costs you nothing.

List Building Secret #16

2011-09-24T17:58:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #16 - Do An Article Recommendation

This is something I learnt from Aaron Wall and I only wish I was one of the publishers he joint ventured with in this deal, as it resulted in thousands of new subscribers for everyone involved.

What you do with this idea is get together 4 or 5 publishers again, they could be the same ones as before and get them to agree on running an article that you wrote.

That's it, nothing tricky, and if they agree to running this article they will get thousands of new subscribers virtually overnight.

What you do is you write an article about the best newsletters in your market, and those would of course be the publishers who agreed to run your article.

Make the article objective, don't just blatantly plug newsletters, write it like a news reporter would. Everyone who runs the article will get subscribers and you will get subscribers and everyone will be happy.

Sometimes you have to make things happen, especially with Internet Marketing, don't wait for people to contact you, YOU make it happen and you can do that, it's not hard, just think outside the box.

This method will also work for paid products aswell. You don't just have to plug newsletters, you could get all the publishers together and write an article about the best products in your market. This way everyone can make sales and affiliates sale just by running the article.

List Building Secret #15

2011-09-24T02:09:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #15 - Setup A Contest

This is my favorite method. Basically what it is, is you get a group of publishers all to agree on running a contest to their lists and you run the same contest to your list.

To enter this contest, these subscribers from your list must subscribe to the other publishers lists and vice versa.

The contest could be for anything, depending on your market. Perhaps the publishers you contact all have ebooks for sale, you could give a free copy of all your ebooks out to the winner. Anything with value with work.

You then setup a domain for this specific contest and put all the information needed on that. You then tell your list about the contest and where to go to enter and how. Everyone on your list who enters then gets subscribed to the other publishers ezine and you get their subscribers.

Here are the steps.....

1) Find 4 or 5 publishers in your market

2) Contact them and tell them your idea and that you are willing to do all the work, all they need to do is give you there signup information and something to offer for the contest

3) Setup a domain name and website/sales letter that tells people how to enter and all the information needed

4) Write a mailing piece that each of the publishers can use to promote the contest.

5) Get a firm date when these publishers will run the contest mailing piece and how often

6) Send these publishers the names and email addresses of subscribers

7) Add the subscribers to your list, make sure you check for duplicate email addresses so you don't add people already on your list

8) Pick a winner!

List Building Secret #14

2011-09-24T02:03:00.001-07:00

List Building Secret #14 - Trade Ads With Other Publishers

This is a simple method of generating new subscribers instantly. Basically, you place an ad for other publishers newsletters in your newsletter and they do the same for you in return.

It's not something I'm a huge fan of, but it does work. But there are a few tips you should know.

Trading ad's for ad's with other publishers works well when your mailing list is small and growing rapidly. It's very hard to find suitable ad swapping deals that are worth your while when you have 10,000 or more subscribers.

So how can you find publishers that are looking to trade ad's? Easy! Do a Google search for the following.

"your market here ezine"

"Gardening Ezine"

"Gardening Newsletter"

Then just contact all the publishers you can and ask them if they are willing to trade ad space in their newsletter for ad space in your newsletter.

Don't just spam these people. Actually sign up for their ezine, look at their website, personalize any contact you make with them so they know you're not just harvesting email addresses and you will do well.

Some of the time you don't even need to trade ad's with people in your exact market. Let's say just because you run a gardening ezine, that doesn't mean you can't trade ad's with landscaping ezine. Do you get my drift?

Getting Your Readers To Advertise Your Blog

2011-09-24T02:03:00.000-07:00

Swag, or Getting Your Customers to Advertise for You

On to coffee cups. In addition to selling access to advertisers, it’s profitable to sell items directly to your readers. Have you written a book, an ebook, or a research report?? Why not feature it prominently on your page? Is your brand becoming famous? Why not have a case of coffee mugs or t-shirts printed up and sell them on the site? If your readers identify with you and with your brand, selling swag is an excellent way to build upon that customer loyalty.

If you want to manage it all online, companies like Those Shirts will handle your sales and may even help design your swag. They can even sell your shirts to customers coming from other sites.

A more profitable way to sell swag is to either install your own store software (not recommended for the amateur) or to set up a store through Yahoo!, Ebay, or a similar online merchant. You promote your swag, passing your customers to your customized online store. When they purchase your swag, your store manager processes the payment, giving you the money minus commission, and you ship the item out. Your local printer can certainly create all the shirts and mugs you can sell this way, and he’ll surely appreciate the business.

Swag, for a popular Blog Empire, can be the most profitable of all financial endeavors. It builds customer loyalty; it gets your customers to promote your site; it tells you that your brand is valuable enough that readers want to become your allies. But like any profitable business, the costs involved must be managed carefully. It may be cheaper to bulk order T-shirts, but it will cost you more if they don’t sell. The best way to profit from swag is to start small and establish a clientele, even if your profit at first is less than it might otherwise be. Remember, think big but start smart.

Donations – “Ask and ye shall receive”

Have you ever visited a blog that displays your name in a banner ad? Maybe your eyes have snapped across the page when you caught the sight of your own name, preceded by “Hello,” and followed by, “please make a donation.” You’ve found a site that that is practicing the easiest way to raise money from satisfied readers: simply asking them.

One popular system for soliciting contributions from readers is the Amazon Honor System. The Amazon Honor System provides a secure process wherein your readers can make a discreet contribution by credit card to you for as little as one dollar or for as many as fifty dollars.

Once you sign up with the Amazon Honor System, you’ll receive HTML code to add to your blog. This code displays one of several non-intrusive banners with a button that allows the reader to get more information or make a donation (if your customers are Amazon customers, they’ll even display the customer’s name in the ad). If that customer makes a donation, Amazon will collect the money, deduct their commission, and pass the rest on to you with a note telling you who made the donation. You may want to make very occasional “thank you” posts (be very careful, however, about identifying givers and never reveal the amounts they donate). This is a nice way to thank those readers who donate while reminding others that bloggers have to eat, too.

A second popular site for collecting donations is Paypal. A Paypal button allows anyone who has a Paypal account to make a direct donation to your site. Like Amazon, Paypal allows the reader to make a donation by credit card. Paypal, however, can also be integrated into another donation-type project you may also want to consider, that of special reports for your readers and a subscription or pay-per-view basis.

Subscriptions and Special “Insider” Reports

Most people are willing to pay for information they find valuable. They buy newspapers, magazines, and books, so why wouldn’t they pay for your information? The first reason is that you are giving it away for free. While some readers will voluntarily make a donation to keep you warmed and fed, the vast majority will not.

But if the information you provide is valuable, especially if it is of a financial nature, you may consider holding some back, offering special “insider” or “in-depth” coverage for those who wish to learn more.

One way to do so is to set up a special, secure website to archive your individual special reports. When readers send you a subscription payment, you email them a password that will expire after a certain period of time. A good example of this is George Ure’s Urban Survival, a blog dedicated to unusual and unorthodox economic trends. Ure publishes a special weekly report, known as Peoplenomics, which lays out a weekly examination of one or more issues discussed in Urban Survival during the week. Back issues are cataloged on the site, so any subscriber has the right to go back into prior years, even when such reports are outside the bounds of their subscription period. When readers’ passwords expire, they are simply removed from the master database. Setting up and maintaining a separate list of passwords will not take a lot of time until you have dozens of subscribers. By that time, your revenue will certainly cover one of the many commercial database management tools on the market.

The second way is to provide the reports through an auto-responder or via email. With email, you simply create a list of email addresses and send your reports to them as they are written. While this is easier at first than establishing a completely separate site, eventually your readers are going to request back issues or are going to lose emails, necessitating you spend a lot of time re-sending information This manual process, if established, ought to be quickly transferred over to a dedicated site. It’s a good beginning, however, if you’re just testing the market to see how your readers respond to the offer.

There are two caveats to consider, however, before offering special reports and information. The first is that the commitment you are making must be kept, even if you have only one subscriber (and you will, at some point, only have one). You must decide if the extra time and effort to make a special weekly report is worthwhile. That subscriber is entrusting you with his money and expects that you will keep your end of the bargain by fulfilling your promises. There’s no easier way to alienate your most faithful readers than by not giving them what they pay for.

Other than the time you spend providing the information, the most important consideration is whether the content is really valuable enough to demand a subscription. If you have proven and useful insight that’s worth paying for, giving your readers access to it can be a paying proposition. If you give the same information away on your blog two weeks later, or if your “insider” information is readily available elsewhere, your reader will rightly conclude that you have tricked them.

Remember, the long-term success of your Blog Empire relies on your integrity. Keeping your promises, especially when they are directly tied to a financial contribution on the part of your readers, can make or break your reputation and your bank account

List Building Secret #13

2011-09-23T02:03:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #13 - Use Free Forum Posting

This is a great way to get not only more subscribers for your newsletter but recognized as an expert in your field. By posting helpful suggestions in forums in your market, you will get a lot of good attention.

I'm not going to get into a whole lot about this subject as it's pretty easy to get started.

1) Find forums in your niche

2) Read some of the back posts and see whos the boss, who posts good content and what the rules are

3) Start posting with informative information and include your little newsletter byline at the end of your post or in your signature file

What most people have a problem with is not writing good posts, but finding the forums to post in.

Now that work is done for you. Just enter the topic your newsletter is on into the website address below and you will find all the forums you could possibly want on those subjects.

http://www.link-advantage.com/search/

List Building Secret #12

2011-09-23T01:59:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #12 - Use A Paid For And Well Known Auto-responder

I can't stress this enough. Don't use free Autoresponders or mailing lists! These services can go down at anytime and are not professional looking at all.

Plus they also get used for spamming and are abused badly.

I use Aweber.com and never had any problems at all. They offer all I need.

List Building Secret #11

2011-09-23T01:57:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #11 - Archive Your Newsletter Copies

Sometimes people are hesitant to give any sort of information away over the Internet, especially there email addresses even if what you are offering is free, due to spam.

But if you allow people to read your back issues without having to signup for your newsletter, this will show them what type of content you do write and will make them want to join.

You would think having your newsletter issues archived would cut back on subscribers wanting to subscribe because they can get it without giving their email address away, but this is not true.

What you do is tell them on the website that newsletter subscribers get each issue 2 weeks before non subscribers.

List Building Secret #9

2011-09-21T16:57:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #9 - Use A Sales Letter To Get Subscribers

This is something I've seen a lot of lately. People using direct sales letters to get new subscribers for their newsletter. They are actually creating a sales letter like they would for a product they are selling, and at the end of it, instead of an order button, they have a subscribe here button.

You wouldn't even know by reading the sales letter that its not for a product until the very end.

This gives people the WOW factor. You make your newsletter sound so valuable that when they find out it's free, they go "WOW, I can't believe they are giving all this information away for free".

This is pure marketing at it's best, and it's exciting. Marketing is meant to be exciting, just like life.

List Building Secret #10 - Using Mp3s To Get More Subscribers

Doing audio interviews with experts in your field also is a great idea to get more subscribers. I'm not going to get into how to create audio products as that's a whole other book, but interviewing experts over the phone and recording it on mp3 will get your newsletter splashed all over the Internet, especially in fields other then Internet marketing where people don't expect to get this much quality information for free

When you take marketing tactics from the Internet marketing field and apply them into other niche markets where they have never been seen before, you will get noticed more. Everything has been done in the Internet marketing field, we are all immune to even the most brilliant marketing tactics as we see them almost everyday, but other niche markets eat these things up.

Creating audio interviews isn't hard at all equipment wise and finding experts to interview is a piece of cake.

Do you know how I find experts in any field almost instantly?

Well most FAQ pages at FAQS.Org/faq/ have who its written by and an email address for them. These guys are obviously knowledgeable in their fields, and they would make great experts to interview.

Tell them you want to interview them because you've read information they've written and it was great and you think your subscribers would appreciate the information.

Most will do this without charging you a cent if you are outside the marketing field, they will just get a thrill out of being interviewed.

Once you have these interviews, tell all the publishers you've been in contact with recently that you have this great set of mp3's just completed and you want to offer them for free to their lists.

Setup a section on your website with the download link to these mp3's and also put a subscribe form near them for your newsletter and you will be surprised how many people will sign up AFTER they listen to your mp3s.

Don't make is so these people have to sign up for your newsletter before they get the mp3s.

List Building Secret #8

2011-09-21T16:56:00.001-07:00

List Building Secret #8 - Write Free Articles

While it's a given you will put your newsletter subscribe address in your resource box at the end of the article, this is not the best way to get people to subscribe to your newsletter.

The best way is to write a few free E-courses that people can subscribe to via an autoresponder and weave the links into your article.

Here is what I mean, and I can tell you now, HARDLY ANYONE is doing this.

Let's say you have a newsletter on Ice Fishing and you're in the middle of writing a few articles to send out for publication. Here is what I would do.

I would go to Aweber.com, buy a monthly subscription to their service and then start writing up 2 or 3 free e-courses on all things to do with Ice Fishing and plug them into my autoresponder.

Now why would I want to do this if I really want people to subscribe to my newsletter? Well, article writing has come under attack by people who believe cutting peoples article bylines out is acceptable. They just steal the content as their own. So instead of trying to fight these people everyday of the week, I've accepted this is going to happen and I made provisions for it, and infact, it probably works in my favor.

So in my article while I'm writing it, I would let the readers know there is this great E-course for free they can sign up for. I wouldn't mention it was mine. I would just weave it into my article and it looks like I'm providing them with a great free resource.

I would then provide them with the autoresponder link and how to sign up.

Also remember that when you write your resource box for your article, you don't have to get them to go to a webpage to sign up for your newsletter.

You can put your newsletter subscribe information in your resource box like this....

"To get more information on how to catch more bass on a weekly basis, sign up for our newsletter by sending a blank email to youremail@address-here.com"

List Building Secret #7

2011-09-21T16:56:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #7 - Buy Leads With Co-Registration

Quick and easy way to get subscribers, but not the best way. That's how I describe Co-registration.

Some marketers swear by it and have great results, others fail and have to throw out the entire list they brought because it's riddled with fake addresses, spam complaints and basically freebie seekers.

So what is Co-registration?

Basically its building lists by buying subscribers from a 3rd party service.

Here is how Dr Raplh Wilson put it.....

"Co-registration is a widely-used approach to increase the size of your e-mail lists. Co-registration works this way: After completing a subscription form or upon leaving a website, visitors are invited to subscribe to one or more e-zines. If yours is listed among these and the site gets a substantial amount of traffic, you'll begin to receive a number of subscriptions. "

Have a look at the two best Co-registration companies to see what I mean.

http://www.worldwidelists.com

http://www.profitinfo.com/leadfactory/

What you do is you pay a fee to these companies per subscriber. So everytime they supply you with a new lead you pay them a fee. Usually around 15 cents to $1 depending on the niche market and if you want double opt-in or single opt-in.

Always go for double opt-in if you can.

The best way to make money from these types of subscribers is to first give something away for free. Build trust with your subscribers. Sign them up for a free course, give them some bonus products like you created before and remember if anyone asks to be removed from your list, just do it! Don't argue with them ever!

That's the quickest way to get your newsletter shutdown.

List Building Secret #6

2011-09-20T04:02:00.000-07:00

List Building Secret #6 -Use Name Squeeze Pages

Name Squeeze is a big buzz word lately and it's something people having been beating to death, but it really does work.

Name Squeeze is nothing new, it's just that Jonathan Mizel gave an old technique a new name and new appeal. Good marketing on his part.

The best way to explain a name squeeze page is to show you a good example.

http://www.scrapbookingprofits.com

This is a great name squeeze page. Basically, what a name squeeze page is, is a simple subscribe form that then leads them to either a free report or a sales letter.

http://www.doubleyourdating.com

http://www.scrapbookingprofits.com

http://www.fireyourweddingplanner.com

Notice how these sites have nothing to do with Internet marketing? But they are ALL pulling in tens of thousands of dollars monthly. Doubleyourdating.com is pulling in hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly.

Selling Banners And Joining Affiliate Marketing

2011-09-20T04:01:00.001-07:00

Selling Banners by the Impression and also Affiliate Marketing

A final type of banner ad is sold by “impressions.” Less popular than pay-per-click ads because the advertiser is simply paying for his ad to be seen and not acted upon, they can still be a profitable way to sell ad space once your readership grows. Let’s say, for example, that your blog is dedicated to investments in the natural resources sector. Your readers are also potential investors in the companies that inhabit the market you talk about, but there is no way to know if a reader buys (or sells) stocks or investigates companies based on your writing.

In this case, selling ad space directly to a company that will pay you to simply feature their banner can be worthwhile. You promise the company that a certain number of people will view their banner or that it will remain on your site for a certain amount of time, and they pay for the link. You’ll know how much revenue to expect every month and you won’t have to share it with an agency that takes a cut for bringing advertisers to you.

While potentially more profitable than pay-per-click programs, selling banners by the impression has several drawbacks, the most difficult of which is convincing advertisers that you are worth their money. That’s why your expertise and contacts are so important in choosing your blog topic. Once you become a clearinghouse for information, you can be sure that companies – especially small ones in small industries – will know you. If you have a million readers a month and are an acknowledged expert in their industry, they may be happy to pay to have their name in front of their readers, especially if they can measure the number of people of visit their site as a result of your ads. It can be compared to "How to use articles to make profits from affiliate products and service."

But watch out for conflict of interest, real or perceived. When you feature a company’s ad, you may feel (and will be perceived by your readers to feel) pressure to treat your advertisers with kid gloves. It’s a part of the deal: your advertisers are not paying you to have you bad-mouth their company on your pages. So it’s essential that you be upfront with your readers when mentioning companies, informing them if you are a shareholder or that the company is an advertiser. It’s often best for your reputation to never mention a customer company or its main competitors directly, and while this can reduce your ability to sell these profitable ads, it can also help you avoid the reputation of being a shill and can help keep your commentary (or at least readers’ perceptions of your commentary) independent.

Making Profits From Your Blog Empire

2011-09-20T04:01:00.000-07:00

PROFITING FROM YOUR BLOG EMPIRE

Generating Profits

Your Blog Empire, in order to be profitable, must generate sufficient income to cover not only your actual costs, but to pay you for your time and expertise. The costs you can keep under control by intelligently managing the money you spend on promotion and bandwidth. Potential customers you manage by attracting and keeping interested readers. But to make a profit, you’ve got to make a sale, and there are two ways to accomplish that: selling clicks or coffee cups. Building a blog empire can actually become an interesting hobby.

The first method, selling clicks, means placing ads, like banners, on your site. When your customers click the ads (or occasionally when they simply view them) you collect a payment from the advertiser. In this case, your customers are companies to whom you sell access to your readers.

The second method, selling coffee cups, is not limited to ceramic drinking devices, but to anything you sell directly to your readers. In this case, your readers are your customers, purchasing from you products that advertise your site or information only you can provide.

Selling clicks is the easiest and most popular of the two methods, so let’s take a look at it first. But first, let’s take a look at your readers.

Readers don’t love ads. They don’t love banners. They don’t love intrusive, flashing distractions and you’re not going to please them by placing ads on your page. Thus you must take the advice Machiavelli offered his prince six centuries ago: “While it may not always be possible to be loved, it’s critical to avoid being hated.” That advice, delivered in a political context, holds true in an advertising one. It’s critical that if your ads do not attract readers to your site (and it’s a guarantee that readers are not coming to admire your banners), you should at least make an effort not to drive them away.

That’s a problem, because those ads which are most hated by readers are those which are most profitable to you: popups and java applets.

Popups we all know and hate. They are ads that open a new browser, usually displaying the advertiser’s own site or an ad with a link to it. They cause your page to load more slowly (especially if your reader is on a dialup connection) and they aggravate a reader who is not interested in the object advertised. Multiple popups on a single page should be avoided at all costs – if you open 6 browser windows on your reader’s desktop, it’s virtually guaranteed that reader is not one you’ll see again. Of course, most modern browsers and several specialty software products are available to banish popups altogether, and if your readers have them, your popup campaign will probably be strangled in its cradle.

The second hated ad-type is a java application that floats across the screen, necessitating that the reader close it before he can read your page. It’s an aggravation (most of them scurry around the screen, making them difficult to close) and an aggravated reader is not one receptive to your content. He may even decide your page is not worth reading before you have an opportunity to make a good impression.

Avoid the temptation of featuring these kinds of ads. The reason these ads are more profitable than unobtrusive pay-per-click ads is that they are more effective – your reader must interact with the ad in order to get to your content. But the reader’s reaction may be to avoid your content altogether. In that case, you have lost both a reader and a potential customer

Free Speech And Freedom Of Expression

2011-09-19T03:14:00.001-07:00

What About Free Speech, Freedom Of Expression?

If and when you ban someone – or even credibly threaten to do so – you’ll certainly be attacked with the Free Speech argument. Doesn’t everyone have the right to say what they want?

Sure they do, but not in your home, and your blog is your home. It’s your property. You provide the service, you set the rules, and just as no one has the right to come into your home and abuse your family, no one has an absolute right to enter into your forums, push fraudulent medicine or imitation watches, and abuse your guests.

That’s why periodically publishing the forum rules is a must. While it might become necessary to remove someone from the discussion, it is only fair that you set expectations and enforce them fairly and consistently. The value of the forum is not in the cathartic (or financial) benefits it provides your readers, but in the information and conversation they share. Allowing your forums to become an abusive free-for-all will alienate the very readers that you want to keep. Putting out a few obnoxious and abusive guests is a small price to pay to allow the vast majority of your readers, who will have valuable input and discussions, to enjoy their visits to your virtual home

Using XML And RSS Feeds

2011-09-19T03:14:00.000-07:00

Using XML and RSS Feeds

As a blogger, you want everyone to have access to your content. One of the more popular ways to “step out” of the blogosphere is to provide your readers an opportunity to get your headlines without even having to visit your blog. This is important for one reason: you may not post something that interests them, and after a few days, they may forget you exist. It can’t be helped: everything you write is going to interest someone, but few will be interested in everything you write. An RSS feed gives these casual or occasional readers a chance to see your headlines and visit only when they are interested in a particular subject.

If you’ve visited many blogs, you’ve probably seen a small banner like this: If you click on the banner (and if you have a My Yahoo! page of your own) you’ll find that the blogger’s headlines will appear on your “My Yahoo!” page, allowing you to quickly scan their news without having to go to the blog. You’ve discovered a blog that provides an RSS feed. It’s written by a blogger who wants to keep his blog in front of readers.

If you want to really dig into the technology behind RSS/XML, a good place to start is XML.com, but the important information is not how RSS and XML work, but rather the work they do. An RSS feed allows you to syndicate your content, like a syndicated columnist provides content to many newspapers, allowing other bloggers to provide real-time links to your information. The ability to syndicate your content, moving it out of your blog and onto the blogs of others, is one of the most important features of whatever blog software you use.

There are many sites which will publish your RSS feeds. Here are a few easy ones to get you started:

Blog Comments And Input

2011-09-19T03:13:00.001-07:00

Blog Comments and Input

In order for your readers to return again and again, it’s important to make them feel like your site is their site. You need to make them feel at home in your Blog Empire. One way to do that is by allowing them to make comments, ask questions, and provide information through timely feedback. This can be done either through the blog-supplied comments, through special free add-ons such as Haloscan or by adding an attached forum through a free service such as ForumUp. Be aware, however, that on the internet as in life, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Free service providers are actually providing the same service to advertisers that you are by putting ads in front of your readers. If you send your readers to a forum on someone else’s server, you will generally not receive the advertising revenue that traffic creates. That’s their payment for providing the service to you without cost.

The comments sections of popular blogs are “where the action is.” Arguments can last for days, even weeks, and provide consistent fodder for updated or pointed entries. If you’ve stated something controversial on the front page, your readers will certainly let you know what they think, providing the perfect opportunity to clarify, modify, or expand your argument. If you’ve listed ways that a certain software package can be modified, knowledgeable readers can provide additional information, making your blog that much more valuable to your other readers. Comments can also provide valuable feedback to you, and what is sometimes more important, encouragement to let you know that your efforts are appreciated and worthwhile.

If you decide to allow comments and feedback, it’s important to decide how much time you want to spend monitoring the traffic it generates. If discussions get “off track,” you may need to publish (and enforce) forum rules, which may be as simple as editing content for bad language or as complicated as ensuring – if your blog is related to the stock market, for example - that information presented is not in violation of a myriad of SEC regulations. Remember, your readers, like the author they read, always come with their own agendas. If your comments section gets wild and crazy, that’s great for your traffic. If it becomes a haven for spammers or stock manipulators, you may have to spend more time reading and editing than that traffic is worth.

Banning Readers And Spammers

Once your comments section takes on a life of its own, you’ll certainly meet a lot of well-informed and interesting people who will make your job easier and your content more valuable. You will see relationships develop and blossom and you’ll get to know your most faithful readers as far more than just words on a screen. Getting to know your readers will provide encouragement as you see how the content you provide them helps them in real life. It’s one of the finest pleasures of the job.

But you’ll also attract those readers whom you would rather not deal with. They may be spammers who use your forums to promote their own sites. They may be ne’er-do-wells who simply show up to gainsay everything and abuse their fellow readers. And that means that you may have to ban readers, making it impossible for them to post on your site.

Banning readers is not something that ought to be done lightly. However, for your forums and comment sections to succeed, they must conform to the goals you have set for your overall site. If after several warnings, a reader insists that the rules do not apply to him, it may be best for the rest of your readers to remove that reader from the discussion.

Get Noticed Through Public Comments

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Letting Others Put Your Name Out There

A final way to generate interested traffic is to send your entries to blogs that talk about blogs. Slate Magazine features a column dedicated to blog entries about hot topics, and the Wall Street Journal’s “Best of the Web” daily column provides a daily look at newsworthy and amusing online content. Sites like these can introduce your content to readers that might never find you otherwise. As you travel the blogosphere, be on the lookout for anyone who might need your content. Then provide it to them. Don’t get discouraged if they don’t feature you every time. Remember, all your fellow bloggers (the serious ones anyway) are competing for the same attention.

Keeping Readers Interested With Expertise And Humour

You’ll draw your readers, for the most part, by promotion - by letting them know you exist. But you’ll keep them, if you keep them, by giving them value for their time. Remember, your readers are ‘paying’ you a visit. They are ‘spending’ time on your site, and they expect to get something in return. If your site is an opinion or news site, that something is your valuable opinion on a posted subject. If your site is an art site, that something is quality content and commentary.

You’re the expert here, or ought to be. You will be expected to know more about what you post than anyone else. Being the expert means that you’ll have to work harder and longer than any of your readers. It means you’ll have to dig and cull and study. It means you’ll throw away 10 stories or articles for every one you post. It means you’ll know what your readers expect and you’ll give it to them every time. That’s the price you pay for readers who value your opinion enough to come back day after day and week after week.

Writing And Publishing Unique and Valuable Content

Your readers expect you to write what no one else is writing – that’s why they’re on your site and not another. This should not be difficult if you decided wisely when you designed your blog originally. You’ve got to make every entry a masterpiece: something worth reading and something worth linking to. Just posting part of a story with small commentary works in small doses, but everyone can read the news themselves. Unless you have something worthwhile to say about a story, some valuable insight to present or relevant commentary that ties this story to other stories, it may not be worth posting. Your readers return because they value what you have to say. Don’t disappoint them by giving them too much unexpected fluff, and don’t simply rehash the opinions of others without giving your readers the satisfaction of your own.

Writing And Publishing Timely Content

Valuable content is content that’s both relevant and timely. If you comment on the news, re-hashing an article from 2 years ago is not going to cut it. If you present the sports, talking about a game from last fall – unless you tie it into the next game – is going to leave your readers uninterested. Whatever you write, you need to tie it to today, right now, this minute.

That means, unless your blog is a reference site, at least daily updates. It usually means several updates a day. Remember, you are a member of the new media, and the new media is on top of the news. When your readers return, they expect that you’ll be ahead of them: that’s why they are coming in the first place. You’ll have to set an update schedule that will keep you ahead of your readers

Search Engines And News Portals

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Search Engines and NewsPortals

There are a million sites out there that promise to submit your site to hundreds, even thousands of search engines. Before you choose one - giving them your money or email address - think for a moment about how many search engines you use. You probably have a favorite or two, as do most people. And in many cases, they are the same ones. That means that so long as your site is listed in the major engines (Yahoo! and Google and MSN, to name a few) there’s really no need to pay for someone to submit it to a search engine no one uses or to give them your email address (which will coincidentally be deluged by spam from that day forward). It’s worthwhile to manually submit your site – ONCE – to the bigger engines, but once you have a few blogs linking to you, search spider programs find you anyway by following from another site.

A second way to avoid paying for others to submit your site to search engines is to pick a blog host or software that features a blog ping, an automatic submission engine that tells blog search sites that you have updated. Many of them allow you to choose which sites you’d like to submit your blog to (choose them all, of course) though there may be a restriction on the number of times you may ping the engines per day (e.g. Blogspot has a once-per-12-hours limit) because over-pinging, like multiple submissions to search engines, can result in your blog being blacklisted. It’s far better to err on the side of caution and let the search engines do their own work.

News engines are a different story. If you do a search of Google News for any specific subject, you’ll find a number of blogs listed right along with the major media outlets. Some of these independent outfits, like the Blogger News Network may even beat the major news outlets to a story. If what you write is original and newsworthy, submitting your site as a news source will ensure that someone looks over your content for inclusion along with CBS and the New York Times as a source of news. In this case you have little control – other than to ensure you entries are newsworthy – over whether blog is included as a news source. However, a successful listing is worth its weight in gold and is definitely worth pursuing.

Some of the more popular news search engines are:

A site’s FAQ will often tell you how to suggest a news site. Suggesting your own site can result in hordes of traffic reading your blog for the latest.

Letting Others Put Your Name Out There

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Letting Others Put Your Name Out There

Keeping Readers With Expertise

Writing Unique and Valuable Content

Writing Timely Content

Traded Links For Your Blog

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Traded Links For Your Blog – a Valuable Asset

Here’s a little lesson in supply and demand: your demand for links will be insatiable but your supply will be limited. The best possible world for you as a blogger would be to have every blog in the world sending traffic to you, but your blog will have only room to send traffic to a small percentage of them in return. As a result, your links are valuable, and you should treat them as a treasured commodity: hoarded until needed and then spent with the attitude that you must squeeze the most value out of each one.

As you begin building your Blog Empire from a small duchy on the outer edge of the blogosphere to an empire covering much of its virtual continent, you will, to be honest, not have a lot to offer other bloggers. Your traffic will be small. Your brand will be unknown. The big blogs will ignore you and the little ones will do you no good. However, that’s no excuse not to start trading your links for whatever you can get for them.

Do an occasional internet search for pages that link to you. Many times, your control panel will pick up any page that links to one of your entries, but much of the time it will mean using Google, Technorati, or MSN searches to see who is linking you. Then check out their blog to see what it might have to offer. If it’s a teenage girl’s rant blog that seems to have 3 visitors a day or if it’s a blog that is updated monthly, it may not be worth a reciprocal link. However, if you discover that it’s a popular destination for people who might be interested in what you have to say, then it’s probably worthwhile to drop in, thank the blogger for the link, and join in the discussion. Those readers who are interested in your entry will probably pay you a visit.

Just remember, your links are valuable! Check them constantly to ensure that each one points to a blog that is earning its keep on your front page. Those blogs that have gone into hibernation or that have dropped you should be eliminated. Cull your links repeatedly and mercilessly and always be on the lookout for opportunities to upgrade.