Sunday, July 29, 2007

Sell Your Product Online

In today's business world, if you're not selling your product online, you're losing sales. If you have a product, make money online by selling online. There are simple ways to make money online.

Make sure your site is professional and easily navigable if you want to make money online. If you have a lot of product, a search feature is a necessity in order for you to make money online. If you have only one or two products, you can use a payment method such as PayPal to make money online. However, if you showcase more product in order to make money online, you'll want to open a merchant account to handle credit card payments. Some merchant accounts will also offer free features, all helping you to make money online. To keep from violating credit card rules, make sure that for Internet sales, you have an Internet account.

Consider paying affiliates to help you make money online. Affiliates are online "word of mouth" referrals and can increase the amount of money you make online. They link to your site from theirs, and all of their traffic becomes your traffic, increasing the likelihood of making money online. When it comes to making money online, affiliate marketing is a no-lose for the merchant, because commission is paid only on sales.

Consider making money online by selling your product through an eBay storefront. Bidding on items has become a hot way to make money online. Having your own storefront ensures that buyers can find you easily because your product is in one place. Through your storefront, you can make reports, track traffic and sales, and receive advertising through eBay. You can try a storefront for 30 days free, making it an attractive offer to make money online.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Five Knockout Affiliate Tips

Here are five “hook em in the jaw” affiliate tips that really
work. Implement them and see how well they work for you.

(1) Develop a positive and realistic mindset. Do you believe that
you can get rich quick or that your business will take time to
grow? Those who believe in the online hype are the ones who
normally lose. Think positive and know in your heart you can earn
an income from your efforts.

(2) Too much information or the lack of it can be dangerous. Not
using the knowledge that you have gain can stop your business
from getting off the ground and not having the right information
can have the same effect.

(3) Market your programs with Google Adwords. This is a powerful
strategy you can use and as long as you earn more in commissions
than your PPC costs, then you are getting something for nothing.

(4) Write your own ads, articles and reviews instead of the
pre-formatted ones offered by affiliate programs. This will set
you apart from all the other affiliates in the same program.

(5) Make sure your affiliate program matches the content of your
website or newsletter. If you have marketing content then you
should promote marketing products on that page. Think of it like
matching ads to the page content like the way Adsense does. There
may a few exceptions to the rule though, even Adsense does it
some time.

There you go. A few tips to help you with your affiliate programs
whether you are looking for your first check or to boost your
current earnings. Try them all or even a couple and test and
track your results. I am sure Lennox Lewis would be proud of your
hooks and jabs

Monday, July 23, 2007

Google Adsense Page Positioning

Correct positioning of your Google adsense ads can make or break your success with the Google adsense program. Why is this true? Some studies suggest that eye positioning on website gravitate to particular sections of web pages. And if you don’t have the necessary ads in these positions you will not get the clicks.

I talked to countless people that have great traffic, some with 300 to 1000 new visitors a day that say that they only make approx. at max $10 to $20 dollars a month on the adsense program. What a shame. But when I look at their websites the ads are either buried in wording that no one usually pays attention to or the ads are located in positions that just don’t call any attention to their presence.

So were the best locations for you Google adsense ads. Well, I have found the number one best place for the ads are near or in proximity to your main menu. Why near your main menu. Because you know that visitors eyes will and always look for the menu structure of your website. So the common places for placement should be to the top right, the very top under your menu, or the top left. These are the most common locations for you main menu.

But what about the color scheme of the Google adsense ads? Yes, color is very important. You have to make the ads looks as seamless as possible. Here is an example on one of my website http://www.pottery-barn-outlet.com. Here I decided to position the ads at the very top right under my main menu. In direct eye contact. Also, remove the borders; just these two changes will increase your adsense proceeds one hundred percent.

By using these tactics I was able to increase my adsense click through rate significantly depending on traffic level and people's interest.

Take my advice and give it try. I believe you will see a change and hopefully make adsense a more pleasurable experience.

Where's the best place to put Google Adsense Ads

Why, on your web pages of course. Ok, just kidding. The real question should be: “Is there really any truth to the rumors that where you place those Google AdSense ads can actually improve response?” According to my best information, the answer to that question is: Yes.

Google’s own AdSense experts say that that there is a direct correlation between the placement of the AdSense ads and the resulting clickthrough.

When ads are placed in “content zones”, rather than in “advertising zones”, response rates on Google AdWords goes up. There are also indications showing that ads appearing on the right side of the page get clicked more than ads appearing on the left side.

Advertising analysts with degrees in human behavior and psychology have spent thousands of man-years (people-years?) studying how people read printed and Internet content and what it takes to get them to respond to ads. While some of these studies are proprietary, or are only available to anyone with $10,000 or more to spend on a copy, other studies have been made public and can be read by anyone who is interested.

Google themselves has released some relevant information which is focused directly on increasing your Google AdSense response. You can read their findings here (https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html).

Of course, all of the studies in the world aren’t worth a hill of beans if the findings don’t work on your web site. That’s why it is important to test, test and test again. Experiment with your Google AdSense placement and track the results over a period of time. Google provides response tracking tools in your AdSense control panel. Learn how to use them. As you begin to see what may be only subtle differences in response, you’ll be able to determine what works best for your particular site. But don’t get complacent. What’s working for you now might not work next month if you change your site design or content.

One of the most important factors in determining placement of your ads is the type of content that your site delivers. If you are primarily an e-commerce site, and you have a lot of pictures and ad copy for your own products competing for attention against AdSense ads, then it is going to be a particularly tough challenge getting any kind of decent Google AdSense clickthrough. It is situations like this that require very thorough testing and a lot of trial and error.

Blogs seem to have a lot of success generating high response rates to Google AdSense listings. Perhaps it’s because blog readers realize that ad revenue is the only way that their favorite blogmaster can keep the lights on, so the readers think of clicking on ads as a way to make a donation.

Regardless of what the experts say, your best bet is to tailor your Google AdSense ad placement to what your own experience shows works best for you. In the end, you’re the only expert who matters.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Is Your Site a One Trick Pony?

Don’t know about you but I really look forward to watching The Apprentice on TV each week. Because it almost always offers a lesson in online marketing.

Take the recent episode where the two teams were charged by The Donald with making money any way they could selling services to dog owners.

Drama aside, the team that lost was a so called "one trick pony". They pinned their success on one thing - dog washing. A good idea but not quite good enough. Because the winning team not only offered dog washing but dog massage plus nail clipping too. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that by offering a variety of services they earned three times as much.

Income diversification is also a winning strategy online. One I mention to all who will listen. That’s because it’s dangerous to depend on one product’s cash flow for your site’s survival.

So here are three ways to avoiding the fate of most one trick ponies.

===== > Promote Your Own Product

I strongly believe you should have your own product to promote.

Ideally something digitally delivered like an eBook or software? This way your "bread and butter" can’t suddenly be taken away from you should the product owner decide to no longer use affiliates. Which happens you know?

Even better it’s smart to develop a higher priced back end product that offers even more help. Doing so knowing that if you offer a high quality product a certain percentage will want even more ideas and solutions from you. And these back end sales are the easiest kind.

Oh and don’t think I didn’t hear that groan two paragraphs ago. But anyone can develop a starter info product in 24 hours.

• Develop a list of 25 pressing questions those in your niche want answered.
• Have a friend interview you for an hour over the phone asking you those questions.
• You provide insightful answers while taping the call.
• Transcribe the audio tape and convert the text into a PDF file.

There you go - nearly instant product. If it sells flesh it out further and raise the price to reflect the added value. If not try again with another topic.


===== > Promote Related Affiliate Products

But what if your visitors don’t want YOUR product? Well, don’t let them slip through your fingers without a fight. In this case affiliate products ARE the perfect solution.

Because a site focusing on weddings can not only sell a wedding planning book it can also offer one on how to throw a bridal shower. Or another how to get the best deal on your honeymoon.

Now to find such related eBooks available at Clickbank I use Affiliates Alert. It’s time saving software that runs from your desktop. With it you can find top selling products by keyword or commission payout by searching the entire Clickbank Marketplace or just a selected category. Best of all you can download it for free from www.AffiliatesAlert.com.


===== > Cash in on Waste Traffic

Still not every visitor is going to buy from you no matter how many tempting solutions you dangle in front of them. In fact the vast majority won’t. But that doesn’t mean you still can’t make money off them.

The most common way to cash in on waste traffic is to use Google’s Adsense. That’s where you display Google Adwords ads on your site for some unspecified cut of the action.

The nice thing about Adsense is you can be up and running in no time. All I do is incorporate the Adsense code in my page templates using SSI or server side includes. That way every new page added gives me more opportunities to make money.

Now if the mystical and magical nature of Adsense is a turnoff, there are other services that offer similar revenue sharing programs. Even better some, unlike Adsense, let you specify the keywords you wish to target. Here's a short list of them.

Searchfeed www.searchfeed.com
RevenuePilot www.revenuepilot.com
AllPPC www.allppc.com
BidClix www.bidclix.com
Azoogle Ads www.azoogleads.com

Of course maybe you don’t want to settle for pennies and would rather shoot for dollars? Okay so what if the ads served up were for ClickBank products? Here are several ways to do that.

CBAdwords http://cbadwords.com
CB Clicks www.cbclicks.com
ClickAdWords www.clickadwords.com
CB Ad Generator www.procoversdeluxe.com/cbgenerator

The thing to remember about Adsense, or any of the alternatives, is visitors can’t click on the listings if they can’t see ‘em. So make sure you display the listings front and center. In the visitor’s face. If at all possible within the actual page content. For sure not at the bottom or below the fold somewhere lost in the recesses of the web page.

So there you have it. Three ways to diversify your online marketing efforts. Play your cards right and you won’t end up washing dogs for a living.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Things to post on your blog when you're running out of idea

There is no doubt that blogs are the “it” thing today in the online world. Wherever you surf, blogs are sprouting everywhere like mushrooms, whether they’re used for personal or business purposes. But for starters, what is a blog anyway? It is a diary where you can post your thoughts or feelings or whatnots, except that it is online and the public can read it. But enough of that. Gone were the days when they were used solely for personal reasons. On the business side, they can be a very useful tool to boost your business, and to keep your customers updated on the products and infos you have. But if you’re still struggling to catch up on the latest thing these days and you think you’re not much of a great writer either, let me give you some useful subjects you can write about to give your customers a lot of reasons to keep coming back to your site.

1. News. Okay, so maybe that’s basic. After all, your company or business is the reason you put up a blog, right? Write about the products you sell. Give them a bit of the benefits your potential customers might get for buying them, with a link back to your main site to read the entire sales letter. You can also write about updates to your product. Post news about the industry you’re in. If you’re selling products that help people get better search engine rankings, write about search engine news. Or, if you or your service has been featured on TV, papers, or notable websites, write about it. Don’t forget to post seminars or gatherings where you’ve been invited.

2. History of your business. Maybe this one has already been in your main website, but who cares? People forget it. They come and go and chances are, when they visit your site, they don’t read it. Write about how you began, the reputation and achievements you’ve earned, and the accolades or awards you received, with a link back your site. That way you’ll let them know why they should buy from you, and that you’re a real person who’s building a reputable business. Add some employee’s profile if you have someone working for you, too. If you have nice traffic or site stats, that’s also worth mentioning.

3. Customer’s feedback. When a raving customer emails you about how your product has helped him, share it in your blog. You’re giving your visitors a compelling reason to buy from you.

4. Site of the week / month. Mention a site that doesn’t compete with you but complements to your won. Explain to them why you like it, and why it deserves your accolade.

5. Contests, surveys, trivia, questionnaires. If you’re running a contest, post it in your blog to encourage visitors to join. Get their attention by including the prizes, a bit of the rules, with a link back to your site for more information regarding it. Or put a survey. That could give you information regarding the product you’re selling, as to how you could develop it further.

6. Tip of the day. Write about a new tactic you developed or something you learned and perfected.

So there. Whatever your business is, no doubt there’s always something you’ll definitely want to write about. Give it a try. And it will reward you soon.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

The Basics of Making Money with Blogs And AdSense

Google AdSense is undoubtedly the most popular Pay Per Click (PPC) program in the industry today. By enrolling your site under the said program, AdSense will display a series of ads on your pages. You stand to earn every time a visitor of your clicks on these ads.

They don’t have to buy anything, mind you. They just have to click on the ads and nothing more. These ads are by no means random. They are contextually relevant, meaning, they are assigned based on their relevancy to the subject of your site.

Could a blog substitute for regular sites when it comes to making money through AdSense? Yes people, blogs can also be provide an additional income stream through AdSense! In some aspects, a blog is a more efficient tool for this purpose.

There are people online today making six figures per month from Adsense alone. Unbelievable but true!

There are three determinative factors for the success of a site enrolled under the AdSense program.

1. The Cost Per Click (CPC) that is carried by the ads assigned to your site.

2. The number of page impressions, or simply put, the amount of traffic that passes through your site. If you garner a lot of page impressions, you have a better chance of acquiring a lot of clicks.

3. The Click Through Rate (CTR), which is the number of clicks your ads get per the number of visitors that visit your pages. The higher your CTR, the more you stand to earn.

CPCs are a given. If you’re dead set on a subject for your blog, then you will just be attracting a certain group of ads. But if you wish to make a blog for the primary goal of making money online, then you have to choose the right keywords before everything else.

Basically, your blog will be assigned certain ads based on the keywords prevalent in its entries. There are some keywords that will attract ads that pay high, and there are those that will attract ads that pay low. The trick is in finding the high paying keywords around which you will create your blog.

Here are some tips that will help you find those keywords with relative ease:

* Create an account at www.adwords.google.com . Adwords, of course, is the advertising partner of AdSense. When you become a member, you could take a peek at how much the going rates are for certain keywords.

* Visit www.adsensearena.com . This is one of the very few sites that give information about high paying keywords for free. It would rather be kept a secret by those who discovered it, so keep it quiet;-).


The number of your page impressions really depends on the traffic that you can generate for your blog. Blogs would have an easier time with this because, as we’ve previously discussed in past lessons, search engines love them. But of course, this is not set in stone. If your competitors, for example, are also using the blogging strategy, then you’re all in equal footing.

To get the edge, do try David Pankhurst’s special report on How To Conquer Your Niche With Wordpress. David will share some absolutely mind blowing techniques that will tremendously boost your blog’s page rank through a simple manipulation of the Wordpress software. Check out his report at http://www.malkeenan.com/top10tricks.

Increasing your CTR is an entire subfield in itself! There are a plethora of strategies dedicated for this purpose. We have discussed some of these tactics in my newsletter, as well as my own blog at http://www.malkeenan.com/blog . These include the choice of ad design, the placement of the ads, and the colors to be used, among other things. I’m telling you, increasing your CTR has become a science of sorts in recent months!

In the next article, I will discuss some really advanced strategies that will blow you away.

Google just can’t figure out which AdSense ads to deliver

No matter how hard you work to optimize your page, there are going to be times when Google just can’t figure out which AdSense ad to deliver, so it defaults to delivering a PSA (Public Service Ad) instead.

Now I don’t have any problem with charities, but I give to the ones that I choose to give to. Since I don’t have a non-profit license of my own, the goal of my web site is to make money and I depend on Google AdSense revenues to help pay my bills. Someday I want it to fund my retirement as well, so I can’t afford to have non-revenue PSAs showing up on my site.

The good news is the Google understands the human’s basic greedy nature, so it provides us with an alternative to donating our precious web real estate to charitable organizations. That alternative is known as AdSense Alternate Ads.

As strange as it seems, this feature allows you to let Google competitors into your site. Don’t worry, Google is allowing it with their eyes wide open. They even tell you how to set up the alternate ad code to work on your site and they let you do it right in your AdSense control panel.

Once you add the code to your site, Google will pull ads from whatever service you defined rather than serve a PSA. Google will do that even if those ads are coming from Yahoo, or Overture, or your grandmother’s attic.

This goes a long way towards ensuring that you never lose an opportunity to monetize a visitor’s time spent on your site. How nice it is of Google to gives us that opportunity.

Who do you choose?

Ah, now that’s the big question. Most people head straight for Overture or Yahoo, but there are other fish in the sea worth considering. In fact, some of these fish make their living almost solely by serving replacement ads for PSAs. Run this search (http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official_s&hl=en&q=google+psa+alternatives&btnG=Google+Search) on Google and you’ll have plenty of options to choose from.

Why bother?

Sometimes Google doesn’t have any ads in its inventory to match your site’s keywords. Sometimes Google gets confused and can’t figure out which ads to deliver, so it grabs a PSA ad.

Google also has a not-so-readily-available list of what it calls “stop words”. When the Google AdSense spiders detect these words on your page they automatically trigger PSAs. Some of the more commonly known words include severe profanity (think: George Carlin’s 7 Words You Can’t Say on T.V), as well as other words which may very be quite legitimate for your site such as pharmaceutical, drugs, death, dying, abortion, and the list goes on and on. At least we THINK that it goes on and on but no one really knows for sure outside of a trusted few Google staffers.

But no matter what the reason, you don’t want non-revenue ads running on your site. There’s no excuse when Google makes it so easy to keep the revenue flowing.

Friday, July 6, 2007

Winning the (r) Google AdSense War

Some owners of content sites are earning four and even five-figure incomes per month selling "nothing." They're doing this by selling their targeted traffic to other websites through Google's AdSense program.

If you're not familiar with (r)AdSense, it's where (r)Google pays website owners ("publishers") to run ads on their sites. Google accepts paid ads from advertisers, and then shares this revenue with the publishers who allow these ads to be displayed on their sites. They pay based upon clicks generated from the publishers' sites.

Many publishers have discovered that running Google AdSense ads is more lucrative, and less trouble, than marketing their own products or services. So an entire industry has sprang up around monetizing websites using AdSense and other pay-per-click programs.

The "industry" is mature enough that seminars are even held that teach how to best monetize your content sites. I'll be attending a seminar, in New Orleans, Louisiana, on September 9th - 11th, 2005, that has this very focus. You can read more about it at: http://WillieCrawford.com/new-orleans-seminar.html

Since MOST people I've communicated with aren't earning four or five-figure incomes per month, let's examine how you increase your chances of earning these amounts.

First of all, your website has to be on a topic (a niche) where people are spending lots of money. There are niches where advertisers often spend $40 - $50 per click... just to get visitors to their websites. Obviously, these visitors buy "things" on these websites that make it worthwhile to pay that much for the traffic.

In case you're wondering what keywords any "sane" marketer would spend $50 on a single click for, read on...

Certain visitors to websites, that later convert to customers, could literally be worth thousands, even millions, to marketers. These marketers know the lifetime value of their visitors, and have the conversion rates calculated! Markets where customers can be this lucrative include legal/lawsuits, medical, higher education, real estate, new and used vehicles, investments, travel, and products offering residual income. There are many others.

I actually have a list of over 9000 keywords that I consult when building a new site, or optimizing an existing site. Doesn't it makes perfect sense to create sites that attract visitors with a high value-per-visitor?

You can grab a copy of my list along with a few personal notes on how to monetize these high-value keywords at: http://9000TopPayingKeywords.com

The keywords on the list above range from 93 cents to $108 per click. There ARE higher priced keywords but you probably don't want to focus on them since the competition can be incredibly cutthroat. There are niches where your competitors will actually sabotage your efforts. Money does that to some people :-)

It makes economic sense to build a site around topics where people are actually spending money already.

It makes sense to target a market where people have money to spend - and they expect to spend it on products similar to yours. In that sense, you can even set up site designed to generate traffic for governmental agencies, foundations, charities, etc. It's all about getting in front of the traffic and then re-directing that traffic to those willing to pay for it.

When setting up content sites, it's important that you not violate the terms-of-service at the pay-per-click management firm that you plan on using. For example, Google actually tells you that you should not build sites just for their AdSense program. Yet, they need sites to display their customers' ads in order for their program to work.

It's a delicate balancing act. Google wants to deliver relevant clicks to their customers. They know that traffic coming from "junky" or "spammy" sites may not convert as well for their customers. This would lower their customers ROI, and lead to many unhappy customers. This would drive Google's customers to their ever-growing competitors.

Google wants webmasters that have quality, targeted traffic to run AdSense Ads. When you set up a free blog on Google's Blogger.com they even have the AdSense invitation "programmed" into the signup process.

So how DO you win the Google AdSense War and get your share of that multi-billion dollar advertisers' revenue stream? You build high-quality content sites that focus on niches where people are spending money. It's as simple as that. You let those already doing it teach you what works best - it's a easy as that!

Quadruple a websites revenue

Many website owners all too often give up on their website, even before their site has had time to shine. It can take months, or even years to reach the optimum for a business so why not expect the same out of a website? It is hard to find a business that finds the desired revenue within the first year. So why should a website be as popular as it should be within the first few months or years?

First of all just like any successful business you must believe that you'll
succeed and never give-up. To be successful with a website you must have the same mentality, never give up and always put time and effort in. Giving up is the single major problem, if you give up on your website too early it will fail.

I have built many website over the years and found that what I have set out for you in this article will work, and keep on working.

Secondly, you need to increase your traffic, or hits to the website. I advise you to read my previous article “Six Techniques To Triple Your Website Hits.” This article illustrates six functional ways you can increase the traffic to your website.

Thirdly on the list, make sure you have branded your site well. People want to remember you and believe your site is quality. So build a clean and functional website that is appealing to your potential customers. The more professional your site is, the more you will impress the visitors.

Fourthly, one of the most important parts to a website: Quality content. You must have quality content. Always make sure you are original and unique. By having quality and informative information on my websites has benefited me to no extent. I found one of my website advertised on eBay. Not only was my site featured in an auction, but they were referring to my website and the products I sold. This alone gave my website over 40-50 extra hits from the eBay website alone, per day.

Not only did I find my website in eBay, but I found it in many other websites. I took a look at my link popularity and found my link popularity had risen from 60 to 300 within six months. These links were from quality websites and all were talking about my website as an example. No wonder my websites visitor count was dramatically increasing!

Fifth. Now that you have a quality and possibly a very well established website, you need to advertise. Advertising can be very expensive, and often not rewarding. So why not allow people to make money reselling your product or service?
I have found that every successful website I have setup, has an affiliate programme. Not only does an affiliate programme allow you to receive more new customers but it also increases your link popularity. As you all know, increasing your link popularity is something we are all trying to do.

I have found that affiliate programmes are the most important part to any website that sells a product or service. There is no other way to beat the free link popularity and the added bonus of extra sales you would not have had earlier. I cannot guarantee that you will quadruple your revenue, but the above information given will ensure that your website has a positive future and will prosper into a successful website. I have used every single example in the implementation of my current websites, and has worked for me. There is no time limit to how long it will take, although I have found a six month old website can quadruple its revenue within six months!

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