August 11, 2006
No Software Needed?
Butterfly Marketing proves to be just as powerful in strategies then in the software itself. Below you will find a student and customer of the course.
Michael Cheney of "Adsense Videos" applied the the pre-launch strategies and affiliate tools and JV strategies outlined in Mike Filsaime's Butterfly Marketing Manuscript to the his launch.
Here is what Michael Cheney had to say about what he learned in the Manuscript:
"Mike - first off I just want to say thank you so much! The techniques I learned from Butterfly Marketing played a BIG part in helping me make $63,249 in sales in 24 hours!!
As I write this I'm still finding it hard to believe. It seems a lifetime ago that the BFM package landed on my doorstep and I started poring over it with my smile getting larger and wider with each new insight as I realized that as long as I APPLIED what I was learning
the principles were going to make something BIG happen!
Little did I know just HOW BIG it would be when I launched AdSense Videos...
AdSense Videos - 33 Hours After Launch..
The site went live. My life changed forever - seriously the results have been incredible Mike - we've grossed over $200,000 in 7 days!! The site got an Alexa ranking on Launch Day of 351!
AdSense Videos was ranked Number 1 on the ClickBank Marketplace in the Marketing category just 4 days after the Launch!
I've also been getting, on average, one new subscriber every minute of every hour for the past SIX AND A HALF DAYS!!!
So - What did I learn from you Mike and from Butterfly Marketing? Where to start! I think one of the biggest things was the step-by-step approach. Everything I created for Affiliates, Joint Venture partners and for people going through the videos themselves has been
step-by-step. I made everything as easy as I could and 'muppet-proof' as I like to call it!
I also realized that it's paying attention to the smaller details BEFORE launch that really pay dividends AFTER the Launch. And BOY am I seeing that!
You gave some absolute gems of advice in Butterfly Marketing which have, without a shadow of a doubt, contributed in a big way to the overall success of AdSense Videos.
Thanks again!
Michael Cheney"
----------------------------------------------------------
You too can have the same results as Michael Cheney by implementing the tactics and strategies outlined in Mike Filsaime's Butterfly Marketing Manuscript.
Learn why people are saying that this report changed the
way marketing is done on the internet for good!
To your success,
Bill Enross
Posted by OneWebCo at 07:39 PM | Comments (0)
May 25, 2006
How to Succeed with Google Adwords
Google Adwords is the most sophisticated and popular pay-per-click advertising system on the internet. Unlike regular search engine listings, which are listed for free according to "relevance," as defined by the particular search engine involved, Adwords are small text ads which usually appear to the right of the unpaid listings. Advertisers bid on specific "keywords", which determines where the ad is displayed. However, unlike other search engines, where placement is completely determined by the amount of the bid, Google uses a complex calculation which also takes into the account the popularity of the ad as well. Thus, an ad which gets clicked on a lot can end up in a better position than one with a higher bid. That's how Google rewards the ad for relevancy, so it pays to create an ad that will invite clicks.
The first step is to come up with the best possible list of keywords. This is extremely important, because if you bid on the same ones everyone else is bidding on, you will end up with very expensive clicks. You can use any of the many keyword search tools available (wordtracker.com has a popular one) to determine which keywords have lots of searches but not too much competition. If you bid on enough low-cost keywords, you can do as well or better than if you had placed an expensive bid on a popular term. You can also place a limit on your budget, so that you can control how much your total expenditure is per month. You can also specify certain words you do not want included, so that you don't attract a lot of clicks from people looking for something related that you don't offer.
The ad itself consists of four lines: a title of no more than 25 characters, a description with two lines of up to 35 characters each, and a line for your url, also limited to 35 characters. The title is what really attracts attention. It should include the keyword you're targeting, and should be as striking as possible so as to stand out from the crowd. If it's truly attention-getting, it could end up getting more clicks than other, duller ads higher up on the page. Some suggest that it should be in all caps, and include a price if possible.
The description should include the major selling point of your product, and also include enough information to discourage clicks by unqualified customers. Make sure they know what you're selling and what to expect, as well as what sets you apart from the competition.
Finally, make sure the URL listed takes them to the most relevant page in your site for what they're looking for. Make sure the link is up to date and functioning correctly.
That's it in a nutshell, although the nuances are quite a bit more complex than we can deal with here. Many resources are available on the net which go into greater detail. But now that you understand the basics, you should be armed with the information you need to explore one of the most potentially lucrative marketing tools on the internet.
Posted by OneWebCo at 09:21 AM | Comments (0)
May 13, 2006
How You Can Make Residual Income from Home
Would you like to make money even when you don't go to work? The secret is to have your work continue to pay you even when you stop. A machine that once started continues to operate even when you aren't there. It's called residual income, and you can make it too.
Residual income means that once you have set the wheels in motion you can continue to collect money - possibly forever! Who wouldn't want to have a business that puts money in your pocket day or night, whether you are working or not?
CREATE A PRODUCT FOR OTHERS TO SELL
Writing a book tops the list for one of the most popular methods of creating residual income, but you can also create other products such as software programs or even a physical product. The key is that you want the business as automated as possible so that once you've set it up you don't have to continue working as hard.
How does it work? Traditionally if you write a book you sign with a publishing company for royalties or sell your book yourself. The hardest work is creating the book. However, once the book was finished you can continue collecting profits on every sale.
The same is true if you choose to sell a product that is made and delivered by another company - often called drop shipping. By creating a sales page on the internet that will appeal to your audience you can continue to collect profits on the sales of your product or book without having to do the work each time.
If you have a special knowledge about a particular topic, or if you are skilled at research and writing, you can likely find a topic worth writing about. If you need to sell with little overhead you can even write a book in PDF format that can be downloaded rather than traditionally printed and shipped to the buyer.
If you choose drop shipping of a physical product, find something you can create an interesting website around. Share lots of information with the prospective buyer and create a professional sales page. With the proper combination of marketing skills and interested customers you can create a system that works even when you don't!
REFERRAL AND TIERED AFFILIATE PROGRAMS
Many online business use affiliate programs as an easy way to create a sales force. If you are good at promoting a program or product to others you may find that you can generate profits from a second tier sales force that you recruit.
This form of residual income is also common in other businesses including selling makeup, natural cleaners and insurance products. Whatever your passion there is likely a business that will appeal to you.
Bill Enross
InternetIncome
Posted by OneWebCo at 04:33 PM | Comments (0)
May 08, 2006
How on earth do you choose?
Just a quick note to let you know about a marvelous new free
online tool.
It helps you make really tough decisions surprisingly quickly and
easily.
I really like it.
Let's say, for example, you want to expand your Internet
business. You can't decide which project to do next from among
the following:
- Write an ebook
- Write a special report
- Build multiple AdSense sites
- Create autoresponder courses
- Build a large website
- Start a forum
- Learn PPC arbitrage
- Start a blog
- Build multiple blogs
- Outsource a project
You can go round and round in circles weighing these things up.
It could take you ages to make a decision - especially if you're
a perfectionist and worried you might make the "wrong" decision.
This new software comes to the rescue.
You simply use the problem solver, the decision maker.
There's no trickery. It doesn't force-feed you answers. You make
your own decisions, based entirely on the information you type
into the software.
Here's how.
- Go Here
- Type in the choices you're trying to sort out in your mind.
- Enter your own factors, weighting them according to your own
situation.
- Score how well each choice meets each factor. (It's easier to
do this than it sounds.)
This new software works like magic.
It can take an incredibly complex question and reduce the answer
to a simple bar graph, showing you which course of action to
take.
People are using it to solve all sorts of business and personal
problems.
Want to decide...
- Where to go for a vacation?
- Which web host?
- Which topic for your new website?
- Which career for your child?
- Which woman/man to wed?
- Which employee to hire?
- ...and almost any other decision you need to make
Try the decision maker for yourself.
What's really amazing is that it doesn't cost anything.
Try it NOW!
You'll love it...
Posted by OneWebCo at 09:26 AM | Comments (0)
May 04, 2006
Tips to Setting Boundaries: Making Your Office Your Own
One of the great American dreams is being able to quit a 9-to-5 job to start building a work at home business. More and more people are making their dream come true. But before you quit that job and set up your home office, there are a few issues to consider.
On the plus side, part of your home and related expenses are tax deductible. It's convenient to work while your kids are in school and then be home for them when they walk through the door in the afternoon, and let's face it, not having a boss to answer to is a major plus.
It takes a very dedicated person to work from home. There are always distractions to overcome such as the unexpected visits from family members who think you have lots of free time because you don't work a "real" job. It also seems like telemarketers prefer to call in the middle of the day, and don't forget the neighbors dropping by to see if you'll babysit while they run errands. It's very important to let family and friends know your working hours. Tell them in no uncertain terms that your business is your income and you need to block out regular working hours. Also let them know when you are available.
Along those same lines, it is crucial that you explain to your own family that, although you are home, you are not always available to them. This can be confusing to kids. Set some basic rules for them to follow. Let them know your work hours and tell them you expect not to be disturbed. But occasionally, surprise them by quitting early and doing something fun with them!
Here are a few basic rules that will help you and your family handle the new working situation.
* Make sure everyone knows not to answer your business phone. This will save you in a number of ways. You'll be sure to always get your messages. Kids are never good at getting all the details. You'll create a much more professional business image if you answer your own phone.
* If you're children are typical kids, they will want to "borrow" your office supplies. Give them their own office supply center elsewhere in the house! Otherwise, you'll start losing your much needed supplies.
Bill Enross - Home Internet Business Consulting
Posted by OneWebCo at 09:59 AM | Comments (0)
February 04, 2006
Automatic Money
How to Magically Force the Internet to Make You Rich Starting Just 30min from Now! In this eye-opening
brand NEW ebook, Internet entrepreneur
and multimillionaire Howard L Moreland reveals
precisely how you can build your very own
website to make money for YOU "automatically,"
around the clock 24-hrs a day, Howard provides every single resource he's personally made use of (over 600 to boot!) and holds nothing back! |
Posted by OneWebCo at 01:10 PM | Comments (0)
January 28, 2006
How To Get Free Advertising
My SUPER Free Ads Secret -
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Posted by OneWebCo at 01:41 PM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2006
The Benefits Of A Home Based Business
Taking advantage of a home-based business opportunity can afford you many benefits. There are not only the monetary benefits, but lifestyle benefits as well. Whether lifestyle or monetary, these benefits can be far greater than the benefits you receive working for an employer. If you are already working in your own home-based business or just entertaining the idea, be sure to evaluate your options and consider the value of the benefits you will receive. Home-based business opportunities can provide you with independence and financial freedom if you make smart decisions.
Parents with children in school often think about what home-based business opportunities may be available to them. Teacher conferences, after school activities and the ability to be home when the children are out of school are strong motivators in making the decision to start a home-based business. Working from home gives you the benefit of flexible hours and the freedom to adjust your schedule according to the needs of your family.
Stress reduction is another benefit of operating a home-based business. Any business will likely produce its own kind of stress, but certain stressful factors can be avoided when you take advantage of the more promising home business opportunities that are available to you.
You will have no daily commute, you will save money on gas and automobile expenses, and you will have the extra time in the morning and evening to relax and interact with your family instead of spending that time getting to and from work. If you plan properly and budget your time wisely, being your own boss can reduce the stress you feel due to constant demands and co-worker interruptions.
Posted by OneWebCo at 07:11 PM | Comments (0)
January 15, 2006
The Perfect Home Based Business and How to Start
Day by day people scour the internet looking for a home based business to set them financially free. What happens more often than not is that people end in worse shape than when they started. Why you ask? The answer is not so simple.
The next thing you need to know is the product or service that you will be offering. The more you believe in your product or service, the more you will sell. Now before I go on there is a handful of people in the world that could sell ice to an Eskimo or sell water to a fish but these people are the exception rather than the rule. For most of us if we do not believe in what we are doing we will not reach the level of success that we desire. People will be able to tell if you believe in your product or not. So if you are looking at a network marketing company try being their customer for a couple of months before you join the business. Once you try the product or try the service then you will know how you feel about it. On top of that you will be more prepared to answer question about it because you have become familiar with it.
Once you picked a business that relies on your strengths and a product or service you can believe in you have to choose what your budget is going to be. Remember that most home businesses take at least months before you really start seeing results off so it is important to keep within a budget until then. If you decide to join a mlm you may have the type of sponsor that says you should buy this or buy that it will really help your business. Remembers that you need to stay within your budget. If the recommended items are out of your budget ask your sponsor to rank the items by importance. This way you can stay in budget and get the items most needed first.
OK now you have your business, our product, and your budget now you are ready to start your business. Just remember that it is a business and should be treated as such. Running a home based business can be more difficult than running a traditional business. Running a business from home offers many distractions; Kids, TV , your bed, etc. You could have followed this guide perfectly but mess this up and you will not succeed. If you do not take it seriously you will just be wasting money and wasting time and since how most people start up home based businesses to have more time and more money you would be defeating the purpose. Make sure the home office is secluded so that when you are working you cannot be distracted.
Diversify your marketing as much as possible, and remember... the more people that see and know your business the more business you will do.
Posted by OneWebCo at 07:04 PM | Comments (0)
January 12, 2006
Faster Home Business Profits
Way too many people believe the Internet is a place to get rich quick with no effort or sweat needed. You just publish a web site and poof you have a home business. Please do not hold your breath waiting on results from an Internet business started with that thought process. Home business owners turning blue or choking are signs that they did not read this article.
Imagine being able to sit down at your computer and find your home business already built in a box just waiting for you. By using content sites and article sites, you can easily find ready to go ebooks, software, products and even complete web sites, ready to build a business with. They just do not include the marketing any business requires.
Take a tour of sites like Infogoround, Surefire Wealth, and SiteSell. You will find ideas and solutions for any home business. None will be successful overnight. Success takes considerable effort and motivation and it all starts with you and a great idea.
And do not overlook your greatest asset which is the skill and knowledge you already have. Business online takes passion and chances are passion on the job got you many years of experience that you can easily share for profit. The book "Make Your Knowledge Sell" can be found on any search engine. Get a copy of it and see just how much money your knowledge can make.
In all cases however, the lack of an action plan is the fastest way to a home business failure. "Look before you leap" is a well known phrase and the answer for faster home business profits.
Posted by OneWebCo at 06:51 PM | Comments (0)
January 10, 2006
The Internet Is Going Local
The late, great Cory Rudl once said:
"...the biggest change I see heading our way is a shift from the global market to the local market....the Internet is going local! Here is the secret: If you realize this and the power it will have on society... can you find a way to capitalize on this? If you have ideas and position yourself now, you will be an incredibly wealthy person!" (excerpt from The Internet Global).
Cory's prediction has come true -- the Internet IS going local. The question is, when will small business owners realize it?
The search engines have laid the groundwork and put some incredible tools in place. Google Local Business Center lets business owners add or edit their company information to Google Local. MSN & Yahoo have their own Local Search offerings. Most of them are free (for now), just there for the taking.
Tell that to small business owners. Try talking to them about local online advertising and this is what you might get:
- "Oh yeah, the Internet. That's for selling stuff to the world, but all of my customers live here."
- "I tried the Internet, it didn't work for my business."
- "I have a website but it gets no traffic - what a waste of money!"
- "The Internet is for products - I have a service business."
...and so on. It may be hard to believe, but many of them have no clue how much the Internet could help their business.
Yet they will pay exorbitant prices to advertise in those heavy 20 pound behemoths known as the Yellow Pages.
If you think about it, Yellow Pages are ridiculous: a teeny tiny rectangle's worth of information that you can't change for a year, on the SAME page as your competitors' ads. And for that they charge you hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year.
But the Yellow Pages are familiar, so small business owners stick to it. And since most of the Yellow Pages are online now, many will get basic online listings by default.
Still, it's a shame that so many small business owners have such misconceptions about the Internet. A lot of that is a due to all the hype and craziness of the early Internet days, when they got sucked into paying huge sums of money for worthless websites that they thought would magically bring customers through their doors. Those experiences left a bitter taste in many a business owner's mouth, which still lingers today.
Okay, well that was then. It's time to turn the page and move forward. How can we help small business owners wake up and smell the coffee?
A little bit at a time.
Help your neighborhood businesses get the message. Even if their eyes glaze over when you mention it, tell small business owners some of the ways you use the Internet in your life. If you have family or friends who own businesses, make sure they get their business online.
Encourage every business owner you meet to get an Internet presence -- not a glorified brochure, but something that helps them to connect and build relationships with visitors and customers.
Don't try to convince them, just inform them in a friendly, non-threatening way. Forget the hard sell, especially if you're in the web design business.
Posted by OneWebCo at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
January 08, 2006
You Can Make Money With A Home Based Business
Would you like to earn money by starting your own home business? People choose to work from home for several reasons including the desire to stay home with their children, the need for extra income, or simply being dissatisfied with their current job. A home-based business will provide you with an exciting way to earn money and be your own boss. Numerous opportunities are available to internet marketers.
When making your business plan, include both short and long term goals. Determine how you will achieve those goals and put your plan into action. Affiliate programs are excellent home-based business programs and there are numerous other internet marketing offers that will create steady income if you are willing to make the effort. Some of these opportunities may require an initial investment from you and others are advertised as free. Research all internet marketing opportunities carefully to make sure you understand the terms and conditions.
As an internet marketer, you will have to distinguish yourself from the competition if you want to succeed. You should know your target audience and know your competition even better. Do not let self-doubt stop you from accomplishing your goals. Every successful internet marketer gives their business the very best effort possible. Hard work and determination will make your home-based business a success and provide you with a steady stream of income.
Posted by OneWebCo at 06:46 PM | Comments (0)
January 05, 2006
Is a Home Business Right For You?
Copyright © 2003, Stone Evans, The Home Biz Guy
Is a Home Business Right For You?
Every morning as people wake up and make the commute to work, many dream of the day when they will finally work for themselves. Every time the boss lets someone know that they must give up their weekend plans for the good of the company, people contemplate the benefits of being the owner of their own business.
Are you one of these people?
If you are, it is important to ask yourself some very important questions before you make the uncertain leap into self-employment.
Many dream of the benefits of home business ownership, but few take into account the sacrifices that must be made to bring the dream to fruition. Please don't make this mistake yourself.
You must approach home business ownership with your eyes wide open. Ask yourself the important questions, and more importantly, answer your own questions openly and honestly.
An Important Consideration
Are you the type of person who relishes every chance to gather around the water cooler for social interaction?
If so, then home business ownership may not be the right decision for you.
Instead, if you feel that you can be quite content sitting alone at your desk; speaking only to clients and really minding your own home business, then you might have what it takes to succeed as a home business entrepreneur.
If you feel at ease with your own company and don't need a dozen coworkers milling around your desk, then you, too, could savor the freedoms that will allow you and your family, to live the lifestyle you know you want and deserve.
The Key To Home Business Success
Self-motivation is the key to success when you start a home-based business. You need to possess the ability to push yourself ahead. Your drive and determination will be reinforced with every new sale.
The level of success that you will achieve greatly depends on the time and effort you are willing to plow into your new home business. Your organization, planning and marketing skills, will all be put into practice when you embark on your liberating journey from employee, to being your own boss. In fact, you will be the wearer of many hats and gain a wealth of business experience along the way, when you finally make that commitment to work at home.
Your Success Rests Entirely On Your Shoulders
You will now be the boss. Are you truly able to work independently? Do you have the drive; the tenacity, to persevere with your home based business? Will you be able to invest the necessary time to nurture it, to watch it grow and see it through, from germination to full, glorious bloom? When you're the boss, you are responsible for the success of your home business, from A to Z, from disappointments to victory.
When you work at home, it will empower you to achieve many things you were unable to do when you were stuck working for that tyrant boss. Remember him? He's the guy that wouldn't let you take time off when your baby was sick...the same guy that called you in to work on Thanksgiving Day.
A home business means that you can take good care of your family and make money from home, simultaneously. You will have the best of both worlds! Just think--no more dirty laundry piling up--you can do it while you work. No more scurrying around at the last minute searching for a babysitter either. And no more worrying about getting fired; you'll be the boss!
In Conclusion...
Stay positive and focused on your home based business, even if, when sales aren't up to par, you get occasional negative remarks or derogatory comments from people with stuffy, dead-end jobs. Ignore their cutting words and bear in mind that success is the best revenge! Keep your admirable, positive attitude at the forefront and show them what you're made of!
P.S. I can help you launch your very own money making website today that's 100% ready to take orders and pull in massive profits for you right now ... guaranteed! Start Working From Home NOW!
Posted by OneWebCo at 09:51 AM | Comments (0)
January 03, 2006
Can You Handle the Stress of an Online Business?
Are you looking to the Internet as a possible avenue of creating income and relieving you of your present burdens? You are not alone; many individuals see the potential for building their own business from wherever they are on this globe by means of the Internet. The Internet provides a level playing field and appeals to men and women of all ages as a prospective means of conducting business from the comfort of home.
However, despite the fact that running a business through the Internet can often be less expensive than a traditional business AND allows you access to a worldwide market at any time of the day, the truth behind starting a business online is that it can be as stressful as any other business. How can you prepare yourself for this obstacle?
PUT ON YOUR 'GAME FACE'
Yes, it IS a tough game to start a business. You are guaranteed to experience times when your self-confidence is shaken, you feel the task is beyond your abilities and you beat yourself up for making mistakes.
Know this - and move on. It is part of creating business and you will have to face these issues whether it's your first attempt or if you've been in business for years. Changes happen fast on the Internet and that includes changes to businesses. One day you will be amazing yourself and the next day you'll think you've been beat.
The best solution to this is to EXPECT it and plan to move on despite those feelings.
DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE
Are you bringing a small business to the Internet in order to expand your market? Good for you. Nearly every business can benefit from online exposure. Or are you inspired by the many programs that claim "instant wealth - easy to learn!"? Don't believe it. Regardless of if you've been in business for a long time or this is your first attempt - business done through the Internet has it's own methods and you'd better be ready to learn them if you want to make money.
The Internet is fast - people expect instant gratification when doing business online and can be incredibly fickle when all they need to do is click a button to check out the competition. If you are basing your Internet business on a traditional model that depends on walk-in traffic and personal referrals you will have to adapt your methods to an online business. If this is your first online business you will need to learn the nuances of obtaining customers and keeping them.
The learning curve can be steep and some individuals find it daunting. The good thing to remember is that it is possible for nearly anyone to operate a business online no matter what their previous experience - just be prepared to learn and have patience with your attempts.
DON'T BLOW ALL YOUR MONEY
It is easy to forget the need for a budget when you can spend money so easily online. Don't buy into every business opportunity or training program. Visit online forums to acquire a feel for the best systems available. Make friends on these forums that will support you when you are overwhelmed or needing advice.
The only thing worse than finding out you made a mistake is finding out that it cost you money. Remember that every experience is a learning experience. Try to stick to a budget but don't permit yourself to dwell on mistakes when they happen - learn and move on.
Taking steps to prepare yourself for the stress and rejection that all new business owners face will enable you to build on that knowledge and create a successful business. Thankfully for you there are many who won't make it that far which leaves the field wide open!
Bill Enross - Home Internet Business Consulting
Posted by OneWebCo at 06:55 PM | Comments (0)
December 29, 2005
How to Make Use of Cheap Internet Banner Advertising
For years now, internet banner advertising has captured the World Wide Web for it has become a large help in saving an amount of money while reaching beyond territories. Banner advertising played a major part in market trafficking all over the internet and many individuals and companies have bought themselves these cheap internet banner advertising. Some made use of it financially; others have no idea on what to do with it.
With your cheap internet banner advertisement, would you just sit in front of your computer and wait for people to notice you? Would you let your company get trampled by other company’s marketing strategies?
Okay, so you admit you bought internet banner advertising, but does that mean you won’t do anything about it because it costs cheap?
These following steps will help you get up on your feet and make your cheap internet banner advertising priceless. With these simple instructions, there will always have traffic on your website.
First, to be able to capture the attention of your target audience, your title and topic should be thought of with concern. You have to make the people believe that your cheap internet banner advertising is worthy of their time. The advertisement has to meet the audience’s need.
For the people to bring attention to your internet banner advertising, you should be able to raise the curiosity and convince the people. You should be able to deliver your products or services with strong words that may lead the target audience at deciding.
You should be able to constructs words on your advertisements that could lead the target audience that you are directly talking to them to give a sense of familiarity on your services.
As you persuade the people by calling for them and directing them to buy or entail your services, they give importance to your business proposal. Your cheap internet-based banner advertising will become one of the sought for ads there are.
Make sure to present your ads to the global community repeatedly to get them familiar with you and your services.
Always remember that having a website doesn’t mean it could sell products by itself. You must be sure to accompany it with marketing strategies. By buying banner advertising, you or your company would save time and money while achieving market sales. These internet banners advertising may come cheap, but it could lead you or your company to riches.
Bill Enross can help YOU start your own profitable business
on the Internet within the next 24 hours! Learn more...
Posted by OneWebCo at 02:33 PM | Comments (0)
December 26, 2005
How to Acquire Free Web Site Promotion
You have finished making your own website. You have introduced your company and presented your products and services. You have added propositions and promos to catch your target audience’s attention. You have achieved the dos and don’ts of building a company web site. But why isn’t your website a major success?
Maybe you’re not planning the key to the best promotion of your web site. Here are some guidelines on how to acquire free web site promotions for your company’s success.
If you have started to promote your web site, keep it constant. If you promote your site with persistence, it will catch your audience’s attention.
Be patient. Try each method in promotion until you acquire the best, free promotion there is. You have to accept trial and error for your web site to reach the top.
There are many ways for your web site to be seen. Here are some free web site promotions you could try until you find the most effective.
*Free promotions such as search engines and directories would give your web site the deserved traffic you always wanted. Make sure to check your web site’s ranking to know whether or not this type of free promotion is right for you.
*Make a deal with other web sites on trading links which could help both web sites. Make sure to use words that could easily interest the audience.
*Find free classified ads that could boost the promotion of your web site. These ads could be seen by other people who you are not targeting for, but may as well be interested in your services.
*Free and low-cost internet banners are spread all through out the World Wide Web. Banners that pop-up at the top of a page or in a separate window would automatically catch your target audience’s attention.
If your web site and its free promotion did not work even after accomplishing these methods, analyze your web site. Track down all visitors, advertisements, and transactions. Then locate errors in your web site. Upload new files to your web site continuously for audience to return for new products and services. Monitor your own web site if it’s up in the market or down.
Then be ready to try the methods again and surely it will work.
It has always been said that the best things in life are free. Yes they are. And as soon as your free web site promotion proves to the audience its worth, then you’ll believe it’s true.
Bill Enross can help YOU start your own profitable business
on the Internet within the next 24 hours! Learn more...
Posted by OneWebCo at 10:52 AM | Comments (0)
December 23, 2005
Free Internet Marketing Methods that will Save your Internet Business
Best things in life are free, as many would say. This especially holds true with efforts in advertising one's products or services. With free Internet marketing services, one can save a lot. Instead of shelling out for the marketing aspect of your product or services, that chunk of money could be put to other important elements of your business since many information websites now offer knowledge regarding Internet marketing services that comes with no price tag at all.
This is not to tell you that better focus on plain Internet marketing. It still will do your business a lot good if you mix traditional advertisement efforts such as traditional and new marketing media.
Here are few of the free methods that you could employ to make your products and services be in their most visible, thus saleable, form.
1. Promote your business through free search engine submission and optimization.
Submit your website to various search engines monthly. This will make many more people know that your website actually exists. Aiming for the top search engines will help a lot in this endeavor.
2. Improve your articles.
Remember that information on articles with good content as traffic-bringer of websites? This time it's about making these articles serve your website better by using keyword suggestion tools that are offered for free. Update your web site's content by regularly checking the standing of your keywords with the current market.
3. Acquire free content.
If you have no time to increase the SEO or search engine optimization-friendliness of your articles, you can look for free content from article directories. All you need to do is retain the resource box of those write-ups.
4. Avail of free comprehensive web traffic analyzers.
These are tools that you can make use of without costing you a cent. Your website's hits statistics will be produced by this kind of Internet marketing tool for your own analysis.
5. Learn to manipulate web design templates.
You don't have to be too techie-geeky to be able to design your web site. Oftentimes, web design templates or custom-made layouts are available for the Internet marketer to use.
6. Monitor your website's visibility.
Tools such as search engine position trackers may be used to see your website's standing.
These processes are very convenient to use as long as you keep in mind that you use and try to master their use for your own benefit. Just don't get obsessed with your achievements when you finally learn how to use them and incorporate them in your Internet marketing feat.
Bill Enross can help YOU start your own profitable business
on the Internet within the next 24 hours! Learn more...
Posted by OneWebCo at 05:47 PM | Comments (0)
December 19, 2005
The Best Internet Advertising is Free Internet Advertising
Free internet advertising is one very important method for promoting your products and services to thousands of free classified ads.
Most of these free classified ads web sites give you the power to facilitate marketing with features such as classified ads submitter forms. Features like this give free Internet advertising an extremely fast way of getting your products or services on line. It is accessible 24/7 allowing you access anytime, it's very effective and efficient and most of it comes free. No downloads. No sign-up fees. No hidden charges. No annual or monthly fees. No sales fees. It is absolutely free.
Free internet advertising makes it easy for you to put free ads on several of the premier quality web sites whenever you want, for free. This kind of benefit you get from free internet advertising can only do, to say the least, miracles for your business. Most of these free internet advertising companies give you 3 slots to advertise any product or service for free.
Free internet advertising is the perfect way and best way to make your products or services known to the millions of prospective consumers in the Internet and make your web site start producing money. There is an enormous audience for free internet advertising that is present in the Internet, that the probability of anyone needing your services or wanting to buy your products is very high. There are free services out there that may suit your services, products and web site. Browse the internet for the best free internet advertising for assessment on their amenities and features how to advertise or join your web site for free internet advertising.
Most web sites promoting free internet advertising have features like classified ads submitter – where you can get a enormous exposure with instant results and expand your sales by large volumes over night, opt-in email lists – non spam bulk emailing program, guaranteed 100% legal. Opt-in email lists are created by people who have volunteered or ‘opted-in’ their email addresses to these lists. These lists are very effective for creating personalized email to prospective clients.
Free internet advertising provides a great technique for building traffic. People constantly search on online free internet advertising ads for specific services or products. Free internet advertising target clients inclined to buying a particular kind of product or service in mind.
And the best reason to advertise in free internet advertising is because it is absolutely free.
Bill Enross can help YOU start your own profitable business
on the Internet within the next 24 hours! Learn more...
Posted by OneWebCo at 02:43 PM | Comments (0)
December 17, 2005
CB Mall
I know I'm always on the lookout for a new income stream
that can generate profits without a lot of work.
When I ran across CBmall, I knew I had found a program that
hits the nail on the head.
Most affiliate programs have only one way you make money. You send them traffic, and they close the sale (hopefully).
The best of them will add another stream with some
follow-up emails. That's much better.
But CBmall actually has 15 different ways to make you money.
This is one powerful revenue engine.
And here's the beautiful part. CBmall does virtually all the work. All you need to do is drive some traffic. The mall does the rest.
The CB in CBmall stands for ClickBank. The mall sells thousands of the top-selling, most popular products on the ClickBank network. These are the best of the best. They got there because they convert browsers into buyers. And they are all available in one place. You get the power of this system by promoting one simple URL.
CBmall's automation is amazing:
- No html required - you don't even need a web site
- TONS of support and marketing ideas to help
- They do all the support
- ClickBank handles all the credit card processing
- Newsletters and eCourses that make YOU money from your traffic
- Automated income streams all over the place
I could go on, but a better ideas is to sign up for an eCourse called: 15 Powerful Ways CBmall Makes You Money.
This course details the power and sophistication behind CBmall. Understand this, and you'll see why CBmall represents a new trend in affiliate programs.
You'll also see some major names in Internet Marketing on the testimonial page at CBmall.
Terry Dean actually called CBmall, "the perfect second stream of income". Pretty high praise.
So if you're interested in more profits, check out the CBmall.
I did, and I am loving the extra income it is making me.
Bill Enross
OneWebCo.com
Posted by OneWebCo at 08:16 AM | Comments (0)
December 14, 2005
Why Do Great Ideas Fail To Make Money
(c) Charlie Page
RealWorldTactics.com
Does this sound familiar?
You have a great idea - one that you think will really succeed and help you achieve your goals.
- You tell your spouse or friend about your great idea.
- You make some notes about your great idea.
- You even check out what it will take to do the idea.
But then life gets in the way, and soon your great idea is just another set of notes, a fading memory that becomes harder to recall ... until ...
You see someone else "doing" your great idea!
And sure enough - they are succeeding with YOUR idea!
If that sounds familiar, take hope. Almost every successful business person has had that experience.
If you have ever had a great idea, only to see someone else reap the rewards, there is both good news and a challenge for you today.
The good news is that you had the idea. And you can rest easy knowing that you will have another.
The challenge is that you'll need to change a few things to stop the situation above from happening again. But take heart, the changes are not overwhelming.
So ... why do some great ideas fail to make money?
1. Too Much Thinking - Not Enough Doing.
We have probably all been guilty of thinking a situation to death, then never acted on those thoughts. I know I have, and it's cost me dearly.
One way to avoid this situation is to make a list of what needs to happen for your great idea to become a reality. Make the list quickly, simply writing downwhat comes to mind.
Then, without any further refinement of the list, take action on the most important item.
For people who want to sell things online, but are not succeeding with that now, the first thing might be learning how to create a web page, or registering the domain name.
No matter what the item is, do what you can on it now, then do something every day. You will soon be farther ahead than you imagined possible.
2. Trying To Get Others To Do Most Of The Work.
Here is a myth that needs busting. I know you have heard how easy it is to succeed online. I know you have heard that making money on the Internet is like "falling off a log". But that's not true, and it's time
that someone stood up and told the truth.
The fact is, if you want an online business you are going to have to do most of the work yourself.
At least in the beginning, you will need to know how to create web pages, upload them to a web server, write some sort of copy, and more.
I know the gurus keep telling you that you can succeed online by being a "broker" or building a big affiliate army, or using joint ventures - and that doing these things means you will work little but profit big.
But they are not telling the whole truth. They are telling you what *can* work after you have established yourself online, not what will happen if you are a beginner.
NOTE: I'm sorry if that sounds negative, but I think more people have been hurt by the "it's so easy" lie than almost any other.
3. Ignoring The Basics.
Vince Lombardi was right. In any endeavor of life, mastering the basics will take you farther than trying to be on the 'cutting edge'.
Ignoring the basics online means running a site that does not have an email follow up system. It means limiting yourself to one or two advertising methods, without trying the others even once. It means selling only one product, and not offering customers a chance to buy more from you.
Here's a fact that I've seen proven time and again. A simple site that offers a good product, uses email to follow up, has a simple Clickbank affiliate program, and consistently advertises will outperform a site that is expensively built, uses video and audio, and has a super-long fancy sales letter.
Simple sites that do the basics well sell more than super-portals that have thousands of pages, period.
4. Stopping Too Soon.
We've all heard stories about the gold miner who stopped five feet short of a major vein, only to sell his mine for pennies, when only a little more effort would have yielded millions.
And those stories have a measure of truth.
If you have a great idea, one you really believe in, then nothing should stop you from achieving your goal.
Remember this: There was a time in the history of every great idea when things were not going well. But persistence, mingled with common sense, caused the great idea to become a great reality.
In the beginning days of the space program, there were far more failures than successes. But persistence put Neil Armstrong on the moon.
Persistence can do amazing things. Is your great idea worthy of persistence?
5. Perfectionism.
Ah, perfectionism. The killer of so many great ideas. I'll bet we have all fell victim to the same thought process ... I'll wait until it's just right to unveil my great idea.
Here's my advice - don't wait.
Don't wait a day. Don't wait an hour. Don't wait a moment.
I had a client once who wanted to create a powerful follow up system using an autoresponder. But he waited until the message sounded just right. Then he waited while he evaluated autoresponder companies. Then he debated plain text vs. HTML email formats. Then he considered how far apart the messages should be.
Know what happened?
He's out of business today, convinced that the Internet is not for real, and that it's all a scam.
What a shame.
The truth is this - if he had sent four messages to every visitor to his site who asked for more information, and those message said nothing more than "I want your business, please visit my site again" he *would* have made sales. I guarantee he would have made more sales with "bad" messages than no messages.
As you consider your business, and the great ideas you have had, let me encourage you to take action now. Not today, but right now. Take the next five minutes and make some notes, write a message, send an email, talk your idea over ... do something that moves you forward. Then do the same thing tomorrow and the next day and every day.
If you do that, you will make time your ally, and success will not be far behind!
==================================================
Charlie Page teaches real people how to succeed on the Internet at RealWorldTactics.com Want to know what works in the real world? Find out now by visiting Charlie online, or calling his toll free number.
Posted by OneWebCo at 04:54 PM | Comments (0)
December 08, 2005
How to Write an Effective Product Review
How do you choose the products you buy? Do you simply accept as gospel truth all the good things a merchant says about their own product? Or, do you ask your friends' opinions and look for independent product reviews before opening your wallet?
If you're a savvy consumer (which of course you are), then you put more stock in your friends' opinions and independent product reviews.
As affiliate marketers, we become much more successful when we approach our site visitors as friends and take the attitude that they too are savvy consumers.
From that standpoint, an affiliate's real work is to pre-sell our merchant partners' products by writing fair and balanced reviews, also known as endorsement letters.
Sure, writing a review for each product takes a little time and effort, but it's an activity that sets the super affiliates apart from their less-super counterparts in terms of rewards... read 'income'.
Product reviews can be either stand-alone or comparative. The first type focuses on a single product, while the second is an evaluation of similar items that allows readers to choose which product best suits them.
Before you begin to write a product review, you'll need to evaluate the product. (Nothing like stating the obvious, eh?)
I prefer to endorse products that I've actually used. However, buying a product isn't always feasible. If that's the case, affiliate managers will often grant 'proven' super-affiliates access to products for their review. That's especially true of information products and services that are delivered online, such as internet dating services.
But what if you're not yet a super affiliate, and can't fathom a basement full of treadmills to review for your exercise site?
Well, do what your customer would do if product reviews didn't exist on the Internet - go to the store and test those treadmills out!
And how do you review acne medications for your skin care site if you don't have acne? Surely, you have some friends with (previously) pimply-faced teenagers... ask them to tell you what worked for them.
If you can't find out that way, search Google for "consumer reviews" + "acne medications". Read as many as you can to come up with three to five effective products (that have affiliate programs).
Once you've collected information about the product, it's time to start writing that product review.
The structure for a product review is simple, containing an introduction, overview and summary.
The introduction consists of a few sentences outlining the problem and introduces a possible solution for the reader, without going into detail. The overview describes the product's promise, a description of how the product is used, as well as its effectiveness and value. The summary is almost a repeat of the introduction, and contains a strong recommendation for purchase based on your conclusions.
To simplify the review-writing process, I ask myself the following questions when writing product reviews for my own affiliate sites.
1. Who is my reader and what is their problem?
2. What does the product promise?
3. How well does the product solve the problem? What does it do? How does it work?
4. Does the product offer good value? (Would I buy this product?)
Let's look at each question in turn.
The first question asks, "Who is my reader and what is their problem?"
If acne is your reader's problem and your site visitors are adults, you probably want to avoid terminology like 'Zap those zits!' and use more age-appropriate language.
Remember too, that 'zits' aren't really the problem. The real problem is how your reader feels about having pimples all over their face and how that affects their life.
If you've experienced the problem yourself, say so. Describe your experience, and show understanding and compassion for the reader's plight. Speaking from real experience earns your readers' trust which always improves sales rates.
If you have trouble figuring out how your reader might be affected by his problem, then you can research that online too.
For example, I searched Google for "hate acne" and came across Acne.org, where one young woman lamented, "My sh%tty skin is seriously ruining my social life and my relationships with men. I'm avoiding it all just cuz I don't want to show my face. Its really sad. I also spend a lot of money on make up. I'm not even asking for the most perfect skin (even though it would be nice) but even if I was limited to just a couple zits....and then it would take me under 30 mins to get ready....I would never be home, and I would go back to living the life that I ohh so miss."
That gives you a pretty clear picture of how she feels, right?
Now address those concerns using emotive terms and you'll improve your conversion rates.
Here's an example.
Rather than say, "Product A will cure your acne", start with a question that appeals to your reader's emotion, such as "Is acne ruining your social life? Scared to leave the house - or even show your face? There IS a solution to your plight."
That introduction brings us to the next question which is, 'What does the product promise?'
Does the product cure the problem? Does it work faster, or with less hassle and expense?
You found answers to that question during your product research. In this section you simply summarize your findings.
Next, answer the third set of questions, "How well does the product solve the problem?", "what does it do?" and "how does it work?" based on your product research.
Results are the most important information, so it's not necessary to provide nitty gritty details about how you use the product or what it's made of or how it is packaged, etc. unless the merchant does not supply that information on their site, and you consider the information of importance to your reader.
Too, we're all aware that no product is perfect, so don't go overboard and write a completely glowing, one-sided review. To make the product review balanced and fair, detail what you do and don't like about the product. If you want to avoid negative statements when outlining your dislikes, try phrasing the sentence like "although I'd prefer a slightly less greasy formula..." or "although the bottle lacks a pump dispenser..." and finish on a positive note.
Lastly, make a value statement. For example, "While Product A and B both eliminate most acne problems in 30 days, Product A wins our 'best value' award priced at $20 less per bottle. Or, if you're writing a single product review, you could say something like, "Acme's Acne Product would be great value even at twice the price, but at this price it can't be beat!"
For even better conversions, be sure to include a product graphic on your product review webpage, and a testimonial or two from users that you solicit through your site or use with permission from your merchant partner's site.
In summary, tell your visitors what you would say to a friend if you were telling them about a product that you found and liked. That approach will make writing reviews easier and your friendly attitude will push your conversion rates through the roof!
© Copyright Rosalind Gardner, All Rights Reserved.
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Article by Rosalind Gardner, author of the best-selling "Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other People's Stuff Online". To learn how you too can suceed in Internet and affiliate marketing go to NetProfitToday
====================================================
Posted by OneWebCo at 01:37 AM | Comments (0)
December 06, 2005
How to Keep Your Affiliate Marketing Business Organized
© Copyright Rosalind Gardner, All Rights Reserved.
I'm fairly anal about keeping my business, and almost all aspects of my life, well-organized.
For example, open my closet and you'll see my clothes sorted by garment type and color (according to the spectrum from white to black).
Sick, eh?
How about a food cupboard sorted into soups, veggies, snacks, sauce mixes, pasta and rice, etc? Oh ya, and the labels ARE turned out.
Are you ready to have me committed yet?
Wait just a moment, please. There's method in my madness... really and truly.
Surely you know people who can't organize their way out of a paper bag. They come home and leave their keys in a different place each time. Then whenever they want to go out, they need to spend 5 minutes searching for their keys... and/or shoes, or jacket, or paperwork...
What a huge a waste of life!
I use the term 'life' because life is comprised of, and measured by, time.
Nothing is more precious than time and making each of your moments count. Spending time on trivial matters like looking for keys when you could be having fun with friends and family, helping others through your business, saving the planet, or even taking a nap - is a waste of time.
Likewise, looking for a merchant's affiiliate interface login and password when you want to install one of their links on your site, is a waste of time.
Scrap that... it's a waste of time to have to look for the link itself.
All the details relating to your affiliate marketing business need to be at right at your fingertips.
I stay organized by keeping everything in one big Excel file accessed from my desktop.
The file has a number of worksheets, each with its own set of information.
All the programs I'm affiliated with are listed on one worksheet, with headings for program name, username/login, password, network association (if any), primary links, my own redirect links, broker (2nd tier) links, link for the affiliate interface, manager's name and contact info, commission rate and other important info.
Another sheet logs all monies owed and received, and tallies income by program and category, as well as by month and year.
On another worksheet I've listed software information including purchase date, registration numbers and login details.
Still another keeps track of information for subscriptions such as forums and membership sites.
Everytime I come up with an article idea, it gets entered on the 'Article Ideas' worksheet. There's yet another sheet with a list of article submission sites.
I log interview, presentation, and teleconference dates and details in that file.
Testimonials and success stories have their own separate sheets.
The Net Profits Today newsletter is laid out in advance on another sheet, with suggestions for topics and articles.
Last but not least, my project (to-do) list is on another worksheet, filed by domain name and sorted by date due.
The 'Big File' is always open.
When I join a program, the details get entered right away. While reading my email, I cut and paste testimonials right into the file, and jot ideas for future NPT topics ... as they pop up.
My site files are organized by domain name - not generic terms like 'dating site', or 'book site', as I've seen some webmasters do.
As soon as I join a program I enter all the details on the relevant sheet, and create a redirect link, which I know I'll use if I promote the product via email.
I create email filters for every webmaster I do business with, and messages go straight into their personal folder. One quick filter - no more filing.
Setting up - and keeping up with - such a system may seem like a lot of work.
It's not.
Do it often enough and it becomes second nature.
Staying organized sure beats the heck out of wasting five minutes trying to find the email with that merchant's affiliate program login information just so you find your affiliate links.
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Article by Rosalind Gardner, author of the best-selling "Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other People's Stuff Online". To learn how you too can suceed in Internet and affiliate marketing go to NetProfitToday
====================================================
Posted by OneWebCo at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)
December 01, 2005
Email Marketing: Affordable Internet Marketing Technique
Email marketing is labeled as a killer method when it comes to effective low-cost Internet marketing endeavors. This is because it is the most widely-used and has the best reputation in bringing targeted traffic to websites. It is used to stay in touch with your customers or prospective customers, send out invitations, or make special offers.
It's as easy as writing an e-mail that may be in a form of a newsletter or a plain announcement, and sending that to as many targeted recipients as possible. However, there's an ideal way of going about it. Email marketing is not just about writing any email that you will be sending to anybody. To clarify that, here are some simple tips in doing email marketing the best way possible.
1. Join the "Can Spam" campaign.
Email marketing is not at any rate tantamount to spamming. You are not supposed to send information that your email list will not have any valuable use for.
2. Make your email list open it.
Your email might get lost together with the hundreds of emails that inbox owners are confronted with everyday. Improve your subject line by using extra white space creatively, adding text symbols, starting each word with a capital letter, asking compelling questions, not making any unbelievable claims, and not using the word FREE.
3. Keep it real.
Not including any too good to be true statements is not only applicable to your subject line. Your email content must never embody any promise your business can't keep. Make your offer genuinely of value to your recipients.
4. Don't go too low.
If you inform your customers regarding discounts, minimal discounts are not that effective compared with substantial discounts. But never offer discounts that are lower than your profit. It will defeat the purpose of this email marketing effort.
5. Make it eventful.
It's not about contradicting the advice that you should keep an email short and sweet. This tip is on including seminars, conferences and other events in your email. Businesses that require training benefit much from this method. With these RSVP-requiring emails, repetition is important. Just make sure that an ample interval is considered before sending out a reminder email.
6. Post news.
Sending newsletters and postcards provides useful information for your subscribers. These are the best forms of reaching out to your customers or prospects. You should keep the information short, simple and direct to the point for this feat to be effective.
With these simple ways of going about your email marketing endeavor, your business will prosper in no time.
Bill Enross can help YOU start your own profitable business
on the Internet within the next 24 hours! Learn more...
Posted by OneWebCo at 04:39 AM | Comments (0)
November 28, 2005
Make Your Own Software
The 5 Reasons Why You *Must* Get Into the Software Industry Today
by Mike Chen
No matter what industry you're in, it's absolute vital that you either sell software or offer free software to your customers.
By the time you are done reading this article, you will understand why.
1. "It's the Product, Stupid"
No amount of marketing "how to" is going to make up for not having a killer product.
People are sick of being told how to do it. They want something that will "do it" for them.
Software does just that ... It *does* things for people.
Stop trying to sell "how to" and start selling instant solutions. That's where the real money is.
2. Downloadable Viral Marketing Tools
OK, so you don't want to sell software. Fair enough.
You're crazy if you don't use software as a viral marketing tool.
Many of the largest lists on the Internet were built using free software downloads as an enticement for subscribing.
You can easily add viral twists to these tools and before you know it hundreds or even thousands of sites could be offering your free software - becoming virtual newsletter subscriber magnets.
What if you created just one new tool like that a week?
How big would your list be inside of 6 months?
3. Create Value-Added Customer Helper Apps
What if you were to create applications that simply added value to your existing products and services?
How much higher would your customer satisfaction be if you created various software tools to teach, train, support, or otherwise help your customers?
How many more sales would that added customer satisfaction generate for you without any additional effort year after year?
4. Upsell Products
As you probably know, selling new products to existing customers is the easiest way in the world to make money.
It's 5 times easier to sell to an existing customer than it is to acquire a new one.
Why not create new products using "Make Your Own Software" and sell them to your existing customer base?
Instant profits.
5. Highest Profit Margins in the World
Electrons are free.
If you're selling an instantly downloadable product, your product fulfillment costs are virtually nil.
Plus, in the software industry there is no inventory to manage, so it's probably the easiest business in the world to manage as well.
Create your own software program in 30 minutes or your money back
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Mike Chen was one of the pioneers of the software security industry and is a widely respected Internet Marketing expert. Mike's newest product, "Make Your Own Software," allows even those who don't know a single line of code to create software programs instantly. EDITOR'S NOTE: "Make Your Own Software" has our highest rating. It's a mission-critical tool:
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Posted by OneWebCo at 09:06 PM | Comments (0)
November 04, 2005
Send Out Cards
The Vision of SendOutCards
The vision of SendOutCards is simple. We are out to help millions of people become senders of cards. By doing so, we will help build relationships, express appreciation and touch peoples lives all over the world.
Making a difference is as simple as sending at least one unexpected card every day. By doing this we not only reach people when they need it, we also connect with something inside of ourselves. The simple habit of acting on promptings will guide a card sender to their true genius within. We believe we all have something unique to contribute to the world.
Making a difference is as simple as sending at least one unexpected card every day. By doing this we not only reach people when they need it, we also connect with something inside of ourselves. The simple habit of acting on promptings will guide a card sender to their true genius within. We believe we all have something unique to contribute to the world.
We believe that at certain times in life, there are people that only you can reach. It is during those times that you will receive promptings to reach those people and express yourself. SendOutCards not only gives you a daily mechanism to act on those promptings, it also creates an atmosphere that promotes the habit. We have conducted Treat em Right seminars all over the country. We will soon be crossing the border and conducting them in Canada. It is amazing to hear the card sending stories you all share. The Treat em Right event truly helps you to see the magic that is hidden in a card. It puts you in a room with like minded people who are positive, happy and simply want to make a difference.
We believe that we are a billion dollar greeting card enterprise. We believe that we will not only create card senders, we will create millionaires. We believe we have, bar none, the best opportunity in the world today. Why? Because the deepest emotional craving of all human beings is to feel appreciated. We have the system that can deliver the fix for that craving.
Our target audience is everyone from a 12 year old boy that sends a thank you card to his dad; to a 42 year old dad that sends a proud of you card to his son. It covers individuals of all ages that have personal experiences from sending cards who then see the vision of using it in their business. Every person in every type of business has a need for this service. Every family has a need to keep their connections alive and strong. Every friend has a need to stay in touch with those they care about.
We are part of a $7.5 Billion Dollar greeting card industry. That industry has been flat over the past 12 years. Consumers will buy, on average, 10 cards per year. Studies have shown those same consumers have a need for 70 or more cards. There are 3 reasons they don't buy 70 plus cards.
- Its inconvenient
- They forget
- Cards are too expensive
We make it convenient, we never let you forget and you can send a card for less than $1.00, stamp included.
The biggest secret lies in our marketing strategy. The only way to get millions of people to send a printed greeting card from the internet is to personally coach them. It is one person sitting with another person, face to face or over the phone and helping them send their first card out. Through gift accounts, we can create a new card sender. Through seminars and training programs, we can inspire, uplift and encourage people to be the best card senders in the world. We can teach the power of a prompting; we can create a system of self improvement that will help people always send out their very best.
What this tells me is we have a way to truly get consumers to send an average of 70 or more cards per year. We have the ability to single handedly grow the entire greeting card industry.
Now, the interesting part of this is that we have yet to even discuss a compensation plan. We have a plan that rewards the behavior of personal coaching and attendance to seminars. We have a plan that pays personal and downline coaching activity on a weekly check. It also pays for personal and downline greeting card use on a monthly check. This is a plan that shares the wealth and creates unlimited opportunity for those who simply want to help others become senders of cards.
All of our greeting cards are print on demand. What this means is we do not keep any inventory of cards. We do not produce a card until it is paid for and ordered from a user. On a daily basis, we print the ordered cards of the day, stuff them, stamp them and mail them out. This means our overhead is low so we have more to work with to keep our card costs under the competition. It also allows us to create and maintain a lucrative compensation plan.
This also means we can expand into other countries for a fraction of the cost that other companies can. We do not export any product. We simply set up facilities on foreign soil, hire foreign employees, use foreign postal services and create a worldwide network of card sending. There will come a day when you can be in California, send a card to someone in Japan, the card will deliver in a couple of days with a Japanese stamp. We currently have people living in 3rd world countries that send cards to family in the U.S. Their cards deliver within a couple of days with a 0.37 cent stamp.
So there you have it. This is a vision of where we are and a vision of where we are going. Make no doubt about it. We are a billion dollar company in the making. We hope you all stay on for the ride because it's a big one.
Your Friend,
Kody Bateman
SendOutCards.com
Posted by OneWebCo at 10:57 PM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2005
The Money King
You've just got to read this... I have recently come across a system for making money, so unbelievable, so simple, so extraordinary you'll be astonished it actually exists!
And I'm going to show you in all it’s Technicolor glory, right here, right now, how you too can have a great, fat, juicy chunk of the action!
Yes that's right... I don't care if you're black, white, yellow, pink or blue, I don't care if you're a young whippersnapper or an ageing silver fox; I don't care if you live in London, New York or Uzbekistan... Within literally minutes from now a stream of cash could be flowing... AND THAT'S A FACT!
You are about to discover an incredible CASH loophole, which has recently been uncovered... and what's more, it appears everyday in a certain business sector where YOU can cash in on it right now! An amazing opportunity, which is allowing a growing army of followers to create GUARANTEED PROFITS from what, until now, has been a firmly guarded system used by only those in the privileged position of knowledge.
This extraordinary loophole was originally discovered by a mathematician; a simple system that GUARANTEES risk-free profits each and every time it is implemented.
This Simple Loophole enables you to:
Always profit regardless of the outcome of the situation you take advantage of
Never make a loss! - Profits are GUARANTEED every time
Cash in with NO prior business knowledge whatsoever
A step-by-step process, which anyone with a modicum of intelligence can quickly learn and benefit financially from; a genuine, fundamental business discrepancy… a mistake that has shown to exist within a major worldwide industry accessible to all.
It gets better! Look at this now.
Posted by OneWebCo at 01:52 AM | Comments (0)
October 26, 2005
Writing Articles as an Affordable Internet Marketing Method
From Overture, a keyword suggestion tool, you will see the millions of searches done to a certain keyword. When these keywords are typed on search boxes of search engines, indexed websites containing articles with those keywords will be displayed. And this is what leads traffic to websites with keyword-rich articles. Yes, the magic word is articles.
Content is king. You can say that again. That is why writing articles is one of the most utilized Internet marketing media today. Internet surfers just can't get enough of information on various fields. Providing information through these articles is a surefire way to drive hot traffic to your web site.
Why is this so? Here are the benefits that writing articles can give your Internet business.
1. It's absolutely free.
Too good to be true? Not. Okay, you have to pay for your Internet Service Provider. That's it. All you need is your thoughts, your computer, and your hands. If you have those, nothing will stop you from typing words that will make you complete that article for your website. On which aspect of that process did you really shell out any cent? Maybe later when your electric bills come.
2. Your website will be noticed in a short period of time.
Submit that article of yours to article directories that get the most web traffic and in no time your web site will be crawled. That is if you don't forget including your resource box or byline.
3. Obtain back links automatically.
When you submit your articles to directories, surely, other websites will make use of your article too. With the copyright terms of your articles, the URL of your website will still be in tact and will subsequently direct more traffic to your website.
4. Improve your reputation.
As an Internet marketer, if you plainly display your products on your website, you will not gain much conversion rate. Conversion is when your traffic converts to sales. You have to show that you are knowledgeable on your field. And what better way to show that than by writing articles that will allow you some bragging rights, right?
Just make your creative juices flow and jot down or key in those ideas quickly to jumpstart your article writing momentum. With those benefits listed above, a writer's block is the last problem you will ever be able to surmount.
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Need MORE TRAFFIC to your website or affiliate links? "Turn Words Into Traffic" reveals the secrets for driving Thousands of NEW visitors to your website or affiliate links... without spending a dime on advertising! Click Here
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Posted by OneWebCo at 02:34 PM | Comments (0)
October 25, 2005
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing: Why is it One of the Most Cost-Effective Ways to Advertise your Business
Ever heard of affiliate programs? These are forms of Internet advertising that rewards the affiliates for driving traffic to the advertiser or for other transactions. The advertiser pays the affiliate to place a link on their website, and the affiliate sends traffic to the advertiser in return. Simply put, it's about paying commissions to people who help you make sales. It's that easy. NOT.
Affiliate marketing has its ups and downs. It could be draining if you are not armed with updated information and the technical how-tos. But this article's sole objective is to reach out to you and not to badmouth affiliate marketing.
Here are the following reasons on why web marketers go gaga over affiliate marketing as a form of Internet advertisement.
1. Low cost
Many are scared to go on a home based business because of the capital required. In affiliate marketing, you don't have to spend much to start raking in moolah.
2. Inventories not included
Product management fuss could be very stressing. An inventory is not asked to be maintained. The merchant does the maintenance required.
3. Unlimited income through leverage
When you have a paid job, your monthly income mainly relies on whether you go to work or not. With affiliate marketing, your affiliates could all just lead traffic to your site without having to lift a finger after providing them your ad copy and links. Though not every web marketer earns limitless, it still is a fact that all the necessary matters for the advertiser or Internet marketer are all there to be successful.
4. Go worldwide
With affiliate marketing, you are dealing with a global market place. All you have to do is choose a niche product and prepare all the necessary tools for your affiliates to lead traffic from just about anywhere to your website.
5. Low risk
The very main reason for Internet marketer's enthusiasm with affiliate marketing is its having a low risk factor. Especially for those with low budget set aside for advertising, affiliate marketing is just the way to do it.
6. No closing time
With affiliate marketing, your business works every single second of the day while targeting a worldwide market! What could be better than that?
But all of these will be put to waste if you don't have the right niche product and all the other important tools to make it big in affiliate marketing, i.e., well-SEO-ed website. So better work on this first before ever considering those benefits.
Read the amazing true story of how one woman, with no previous business experience, earns $435,000+ per year online... selling other people's stuff with affiliate programs!
Posted by OneWebCo at 02:03 PM | Comments (0)
October 21, 2005
How To Write Your Own eBook
Now You Can Create Your Own Ebook Without Ever Writing One Word
Here for the first time is specific information on the nuts and bolts of how to get your very own ebooks written for you that you can sell profitably.
Plus, all the basic questions you have about hot topics, where to sell, how much to charge, and how to market those ebooks.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner or pro internet marketer you are about to find out how you can you’ll have all the answers to your questions right at your fingertips – anytime you need them.
Here’s How This Easy Guide to Getting Ebooks Written Works
Let’s say you want to know what topics are hot right now, so that you can get an ebook out there that people will really want to buy.
No problem.
All you have to do is start reading on page 7, and you’ll learn exactly how to take the pulse of what people want to read about right now.
Easy, right?
That’s the power of having this incredible resource handy to walk you through the process of getting ebooks written.
If You have always wanted to be able to quit your day job and break into the Internet Marketing world but just never knew how to create your own product to do it now is your chance!
You see, instead of compiling everything into a thick book that’ll probably just gather dust on your shelf we’ve put everything in an electronic reference work that you can quickly and easily search for exactly what you need.
Anytime you’ve got a question about any stage of getting ebooks written and sold – this eBook guide has the answer.
Create Your Own eBook Without Writing A Word!
Posted by OneWebCo at 09:15 AM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2005
Podcasting For Fun And Profit
I have three exiting things to tell you today:
First, that podcasts are an exciting new medium that give you convenient, free programming that you will enjoy.
Second, if you’re looking for a way to share your interest and hobbies with others, this is a great way to do it. Did I mention that was free as well?
That’s right, it doesn’t cost anything to podcast, which is probably another reason why so many people are podcasting. Everyone has something to say and in many cases what they have to say is interesting to someone else.
For example, if you have a passionate interest in the stock market, there’s plenty of other people out there with the same interest who might be interested to hear how you’ve done so well in it. (In fact, there’s several of those podcasts already).
So podcasting is a way for you to share your interests and hobbies with other people. That makes it a lot of fun!
And I said there were three exciting things I wanted to tell you about. I’ve only mentioned two so far.
The third thing I wanted to share with you was that podcasting is also a chance for a person who runs a business, or a person who is thinking of starting a business to make some money.
Now for skeptical people like ourselves, you’re probably wondering how freely made and freely distributed podcasts can make money. I’m glad you asked.
Check Out Podcasting For Fun And Profit
Posted by OneWebCo at 11:51 PM | Comments (0)
October 13, 2005
Brigham And Women's Hospital - Boston
I've been ignoring my job lately, here's why
Tuesday night my wife had a blood vessel burst in her brain.
Life as we knew it ended, but there is good news here too.
Short version of a very long a scary story...
Thanks to the miracle workers at Brigham And Womens Hospital here in Boston (more specifically a brain surgeon named Dr. Dong Kim), earlier this evening she was sitting up in a chair, talking and laughing with us while she had some toast and drank some ginger ale.
This is less than 24 hours after she had a hole the size of a softball cut in her skull to work on the damaged blood vessels in her brain.
I've never been a fan of our professional health care system, or Doctors in general for that matter, but the people at this hospital were cut from a different cloth. They weren't just "better", they were on a whole different level.
Their whole focus, in addition to the obvious (it's the #3 hospital in the world), was on how they could make things the very best possible for the patient and the family.
Can you imagine if every 'business' behaved that way?
Wouldn't be too nice, right?
Raye and I have never been religious, but we do have very strong spiritual beliefs. We've always looked at our life and commented that there had to be someone looking over us and 'steering' the ship to insure the best possible outcome for all concerned.
This has never been in doubt, but probably never been so thoroughly tested either.
That being said, we're also eternally grateful for all the prayers and positive energy that so many of you sent our way.
And I promise to get caught up on my 'support' issues over the next few days.
All the best,
Bill Enross
OneWebCo.com
Posted by OneWebCo at 10:28 PM | Comments (0)
October 08, 2005
Forrester Research
US eCommerce Forecast: Online Retail Sales To Reach $329 Billion By 2010 Monday September 19, 8:00 am ET
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 19, 2005--The second decade of eCommerce will be marked by innovations that will make online shopping easier and more engaging. This will boost US online retail sales from $172 billion in 2005 to $329 billion in 2010, according to a new forecast by Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR - News). The increase translates to a solid 14 percent compound annual growth rate over the next five years. ADVERTISEMENT
Relying on new online shoppers to drive sales brings only limited opportunity; more and more mainstream consumers have already migrated to the Web. Instead, retailers are investing newfound profits in emerging technologies, such as sophisticated analytics and personalization tools, that enhance the online experience for existing consumers. The result: Businesses no longer view the Web as a low-cost sales channel but as a way of improving customer service and retention.
"Businesses are debating their online strategy. Many believe they became too focused on sales. Now they're looking at their Web sites as a way to drive in-store traffic and increase their engagement with customers," says Forrester Research Vice President Carrie Johnson. "This is a huge shift in philosophy as eCommerce enters a more sophisticated phase. But it's also creating tension as CEOs demand ROI for expensive Web sites with hard-to-define metrics such as loyalty and brand. "
Companies that illustrate this new philosophy include Target, which is using its Web site to promote and brand its retail stores; Gap, which is launching redesigned Web sites that ease the check-out process; and Nike and Timberland, two manufacturers that are exposing online shoppers to the idea of product customization. All are being forced to become more innovative online because pure plays such as Amazon.com, drugstore.com, Blue Nile, and Newegg.com have raised the customer experience bar.
The Forrester report includes a five-year forecast (with graphic) that breaks out online sales across 15 retail categories, including travel. Some highlights:
eCommerce will represent 13 percent of total US retail sales in 2010.
Travel remains the largest online retail category, growing from $63 billion in 2005 to $119 billion in 2010.
General merchandise (all retail categories excluding auto, food and beverage, and travel) will top $100 billion for the first time in 2005.
An increase in the number of women shoppers will contribute to 14 percent of jewelry sales moving online by 2010. Online sales of health and beauty products will grow at an annual rate of 22 percent.
Twenty-nine percent of small appliance sales will migrate online by the end of the decade as a generation that grew up with Internet access begins to get married and attend weddings.
Categories showing significant growth (growth above the overall 14 percent compound annual rate) include: apparel, consumer electronics, health and beauty, home products, food and beverage, and sporting goods.
The $329 billion represents a minor downward adjustment from Forrester's 2004 forecast of $331 billion for 2010. This is due to recent softness in overall consumer spending.
"US eCommerce: 2005 To 2010" is available to WholeView 2(TM) clients and can be found at Forester Research.
Posted by OneWebCo at 09:53 AM | Comments (0)
October 03, 2005
Computer and Internet Glossary
When you use computers and the Internet in your business, it's all too easy to start feeling like you're drowning in a sea of nonsense. Computer-related things tend to have a language all their own, and while you don't need to know all of it, there are many confusing words and phrases that you're going to come across sooner or later.
Here's a quick primer.
Bandwidth. Bandwidth is the amount of data that your website can send each second, as well as the amount of data that the visitor to your website can receive. If either one doesn't have enough bandwidth, then the website will appear slowly. For this reason, you should choose a host with plenty of bandwidth, as well as testing that your site doesn't take too long to download on slow connections.
Browser. A browser is the software (see below) that visitors to your site use to view it. The most popular browser is Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which comes with Windows.
Cookie. Cookies are data files that your site can save on the computer of someone who visits that site, to allow it to remember who they are if they return. You will find that problems people have in ordering from you will almost inevitably be related to cookies -- they will need to have them turned on.
Download. Transferring data from a website to a computer.
Favorite. A favorite is a website that a user has stored to look at again, by choosing 'Add to Favorites' in their browser's menu.
FTP. File Transfer Protocol. This is a common method of uploading (see below) files to your website.
Javascript. A common language for writing 'scripts' on websites, which are small programs that make the site more interactive. Another common cause of problems for visitors.
JPEG. Joint Photographic Experts Group. This is the name of the most popular format for pictures on the web, named after the group that came up with it. If you want to put pictures on your website, you should save them as JPEGs.
Hardware. Hardware is computer equipment that physically exists. It is the opposite of software.
Hosting. If you've got a website out there on the Internet, then you'll be paying someone for hosting. It is the service of making your site available for people to see.
HTML. HyperText Markup Language. A kind of code used to indicate how web pages should be displayed, using a system of small 'tags'. The 'b' tag, for example, causes text to appear in bold, and the 'img' tag displays a picture.
Hyperlink. A hyperlink is when a piece of text on a website can be clicked to take you to another site, or another page on the same site. For example, if clicking your email address on your website allows someone to email you, then your email address is a hyperlink.
Programming. This is when the computer is given instructions to tell it what to do, using one of many 'programming languages'. Programming languages for the web include PHP and Perl.
Server. The server is where your website is stored, and it is the server that people are connecting to when they visit the site. If someone tells you, for example, that your server is 'down', it means that your website is inaccessible. Note that server refers both to the hardware and software of this system.
Software. Programs that run on the computer, or that make your website work. Microsoft Word is software, for example, as is Apache (the most popular web server software). Opposite of hardware.
Spider. Don't be scared if a spider visits your website! Spiders are simply programs used by search engines to scan your site and help them decide where it should appear when people search. It is good to be visited by spiders, as it means you should start appearing in search engines soon.
Upload. Uploading is when you transfer data from your own computer to your website. For example, you might upload your logo, or an article you've written. Opposite of download.
URL. Uniform Resource Locator. This is just a short way of saying 'web address', meaning what you have to type in to get to your website. Sometimes pronounced as 'Earl'.
Bill Enross
OneWebCo.com
Posted by OneWebCo at 05:59 PM | Comments (0)
September 05, 2005
The Importance of St. Albans V ICL Case
By David Callan
The case of St. ALBANS CITY & DISTRICT COUNCIL v INERNATIONAL COMPUTERS LIMITED of the mid Nineties set the precedent for subsequent cases involving the sale of software, both off the shelf and bespoke custom developed software. The case effectively shook the legal side of the software industry to its core and left companies in the industry rushing to their lawyers for advice.
Classification of software
The problem with disputes brought to the courts related to the sale of and use of software prior to the St. Albans v ICL case was the presence of some very important questions: are suppliers of software systems supplying goods or services? Clearly computer hardware is "goods" but what about intangible software, what is the legal status of software - goods or services? The aforementioned questions are some of the most debated in computer law.
The St. Albans v ICL case answered these questions in a roundabout way. The court said that a program by itself would not be "goods" whereas software delivered on "hard media" was, i.e. a standard software system incorporating software was protected by the UK Sales of Goods Act 1979.
The protection meant that in effect, packaged software should not contain any bugs which would render it unfit for its purpose. If the software was faulty, buyers could recover the cost of the system and any losses suffered as a result of the software failing.
St. ALBANS CITY & DISTRICT COUNCIL v INTERNATIONAL COMPUTERS LIMITED
The case itself arose after International Computers Limited, a UK hardware and software manufacturer company agreed to supply St. Albans City and District Council with a computer system of both hardware and software which the council needed order to administer and collect the Community Charge ( poll tax ) which was then to be introduced. The computer system would maintain a reliable database of the names entered on the community charge register, accurately count the names, and accurately retrieve and display the figures resulting from the count. It had to be reasonably fit for the purpose of maintaining and retrieving a reliable register. The system was to calculate and dispatch bills for the Community Charge.
In early November 1989 the UK government instructed all councils that they were required to make a return of the relevant population by the 8th of December.
At an important meeting before the system was first used, ICL's project manager who was providing consultancy services to St. Albans assured representatives of the council that the figure to be returned to central government could be extracted from the transaction processing screen. At no point between then and the 8th of December was any indication given that the figures on the transaction screen could not be relied upon. This in fact was the case and in late February 1990 the council began to suspect the figure they had taken from the transaction screen and subsequently submitted to the government before the 8th of December of the previous year was incorrect.
The number submitted by the council to the government was 97,385. In fact, the number should have been 94,419 and hence the number used overstated the population by 2,966. This overstatement of the population resulted in an undercharging of each chargeable resident; therefore the council suffered a total loss of £1,314,846.
St. Albans council therefore sued International Computers Limited for these losses along with costs on the grounds that the software did not meet its intended purpose and was inherently flawed. In the end St. Albans was awarded £1.3 million.
Liability
Another important element to emerge from the St. Albans v ICL case was the fact that ICL’s limitation of liability clause which set their liability to £100,000 at most was thrown out. The judge of the original case (an appeal was launched by ICL) Scott Baker J said that the defendant had not justified the figure of £100,000 which was small both in relation to the potential risk and the actual loss, noting also that the defendant was insured for £50 million worldwide. If the loss were to fall on the council it would ultimately be borne by the local population. He did not think it unreasonable that he who stood to make the profit, who had been well able to insure and in this case was insured, should carry the risk and therefore awarded damages to St. Albans well over £100,000. This decision by Baker J caused a reaction in the industry which saw suppliers reviewing their limitation clauses to make them as effective as possible.
Conclusion
In the last paragraph the issue of liability relating to the St. Albans case is discussed this however is not the most important aspect of the case. The real importance of the St. ALBANS CITY & DISTRICT COUNCIL v INERNATIONAL COMPUTERS LIMITED is the fact that it demonstrates that software stored and installed from a physical storage ‘good’ can be classified as a good and hence protected under the UK Sales of Goods Act 1979 and other similar country specific acts. This caused a major review of standard terms and conditions of companies within the computer industry. Many cases have been interpreted on the precedent set in this case and hence St. ALBANS CITY & DISTRICT COUNCIL v INERNATIONAL COMPUTERS LIMITED is firmly a part of modern case law.
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Article by David Callan. David is an Internet marketing professional and webmaster of AKA Marketing.com webmaster forums. Visit his webmaster forums for the latest discussions on search engines, website authoring and Internet marketing related issues and topics.
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Posted by OneWebCo at 11:11 AM | Comments (0)
September 04, 2005
Marketing With eBooks
y David Callan
Ebooks are electronic books which can be downloaded from any website or FTP site on the Internet. Ebooks are made using special software and can include a wide variety of media such as HTML, graphics, Flash animation and video.
As a rule of thumb you should remember that almost anything that can be displayed or listened to on the Internet can be packaged into an ebook.
This means that an ebook can be interactive and can be very visually pleasing. This can be done without worrying about download times as once the ebook is downloaded the first time all the media and associated files are stored on the users computer.
What's also great about ebooks is the fact they can be updated with the click of a button so the user always has the most current version on his or her desktop.
Marketing with ebooks
Using ebooks when marketing and promoting your site or affiliate program can be a very powerful method, especially with free ebooks.
Let's say you wrote an ebook on your subject and offered it free on your website, people love free things and especially love free information about a topic they're interested in so they will download it.
Included in your ebook you're going to have links back to your website, product or affiliate program, since the ebook is on the users computer they'll have permanent access to it, if it's a good ebook with lots of information and one that you regularly update they'll use your ebook again and again constantly seeing a link or banner which directs them to your site.
The more of your website visitors that download your free ebook the more free exposure and repeat visitors you'll get.
The real power behind ebook marketing however is the viral aspect of it. Imagine that you post a little message inside your ebook and on your website saying that other webmasters can give away the free ebook too on their sites, they'll love this as it'll attract visitors and add value to their sites. Again the more times their visitors download it the more exposure and free traffic you'll get.
There are also lots of ebook directories on the Internet where you can list your free ebook, so it's not unusual for a good ebook full of information to be downloaded 10,000 times. This means every time one of the users read it they'll think of your website and see your banner or link. Using ebooks truly is a great way to get lots of free traffic in a short amount of time and to constantly have your message in front of lots of people.
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Article by David Callan. David is an Internet marketing professional and webmaster of AKA Marketing.com webmaster forums. Visit his webmaster forums for the latest discussions on search engines, website authoring and Internet marketing related issues and topics.
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Posted by OneWebCo at 11:08 PM | Comments (0)
September 03, 2005
Increase Your Affiliate Check
By David Callan
You've got a decent amount of traffic to your site and your signed up with some affiliate programs hence you want to know how you can make the most money from with these programs, right?. Well there are a number of ways in which you can increase your affiliate check at the end of the month, this article will try and educate you on these ways.
First I'm going to make sure your doing the most important thing necessary to being successful as an affiliate. That thing is of course to target your market. This means that you only join and promote products from affiliate programs that are related to the theme of your website and which your visitors are likely to buy.
If you sell teddy bears and promote an Internet marketing course you're not going to be successful because few if any of your visitors would be interested in the course. The moral of the story therefore is to always pick programs that fit into your site, this way visitors to your site will be interested in the products from the affiliate program and will be more inclined to buy them.
Most webmasters already knew that but I just had to make sure.
To start off then, don't just use banners. You've slapped that big banner across your main page and you wait for the money to roll it, but little or none does. This is because the Internet is saturated with banners and people tend to ignore them resulting in very low click-through rates and of course very low or no commission from sales. I'm not saying don't use banners, by all means do but don't rely on them alone because results are generally poor.
When you use banners to promote products always have them above the fold, either at the top of the screen or the middle, these are the places where people will see them most. The fold for those of you that don't know is the point on a webpage whereby you have to start scrolling to continue reading.
The banners which always get a higher click-through are ones that appear as though they're part of the website, these banners are commonly known as 'fake banners'. People think they're clicking on links to other parts of your website because either the banner graphic looks like a link with blue underlined text and the text has the words click here or the banner looks like a drop down navigation menu of the site, but in fact both are banners with a link to your affiliate URL.
The other banner type thing you could use to get click-through's to your affiliate URL is what's referred to as the HTML banner but in fact it's not actually a banner. It's a real drop down menu except every link goes to the same place, your affiliate URL. These work the best because people really do think they're just going to another part of your site, they've no idea it's an ad.
That covers the banner ad bit, don't however forget about simple text links as these guys pull in a lot more visitors than banner ads any day of the week. You may have a textual menu on your site, if you do simply add a link to your affiliate URL at the end, make the link sound as interesting as you can.
Other ways to integrate your affiliate URL into your site with text links include writing an article related to the industry of the product which your affiliate URL promotes and have links to your affiliate URL throughout the article. Don't forget about your links page, make sure you've your affiliate URL at the top of the bunch with a nice description of it too.
However the most powerful way to use simple text links is to put them in personal recommendations. Various Internet marketing professionals suggest that personal recommendations can increase click-through's to an affiliate URL by 400%, this in turns means a massive increase in commission.
It's best if you actually own and love the product your recommending yourself, this way your recommendation will seem more genuine. If you've a quality site with lots of valuable information people will value your opinion and check the product out. If you've an Ezine be sure to place a personal recommendation in that too. Imagine having 10,000+ subscribers all seeing the recommendation around the same time, your commission would surely skyrocket.
Another method which you can use on your website is the pop up window. Pop up windows are very powerful as they catch your visitors eye just as they're leaving your web site. In the pop up window you could place your recommendation of the product or a simple text link. Beware however that some people don't like pop up windows, so if you decide to use this method be sure to use it sparingly.
Most of the above methods can be done through either your website or Ezine, well except for the banner and pop up window bits as Ezines are just emails, but there's another method just for your Ezine or opt in list, it's the classified ad.
Classified ads are an easy but extremely profitable way to promote your affiliate URL in your Ezine this is because users value and trust you as the publisher of your Ezine and know that you won't allow poor products to be advertised in it. If you had an Ezine with 10,000 subscribers you could make hundreds of dollars just from that one ad.
Another excellent way to gradually increase your affiliate check is to place these banners, text links and personal recommendations in free ebooks that you give away. Allow other webmasters to give your ebooks away also and list it in all the ebook directories you can find.
The better the ebook the more people will download it. 10,000+ people could download your free ebook giving you almost unlimited free exposure of your affiliate URL. This of course will increase your commission check greatly, however it takes much more time to see the results of a campaign like this than to see the results from a new banner ad or recommendation you have put up.
A method that has brought some people success is one that uses pay per click engines like Google Adwords, Overture.com and Findwhat.com. Most PPC engines won't allow you to link directly to an affiliate URL, but you can easily get around this by having a landing page which links to the affiliate URL. I know you've to pay for visitors from these type of engines but they can be highly targeted and that means the people that click-through are highly likely to buy.
This strategy works best if your commission rate is high or very high. If you earn around $50+ a sale it's well worth experimenting with.
Let's say for example you bid $.10 cents on some detailed keyphrase related to the product your promoting which eventually takes the visitor to your affiliate URL, because it's very detailed your likely to make a sale from every 50 click-through's or so.
Now imagine you made $65 commission each time you made a sale. $.10 multiplied by 50 equals $5, this is what it costs to make a sale and $65 minus $5 equals $60. This $60 is profit, so in other words it costs $5 to make $60 in this case anyhow. The above figures are just general examples but they do illustrate what can be done with pay per click engines.
Remember to concentrate on affiliate programs that pay high commissions per sale. This will allow you to afford more clicks or higher bids while still keeping the majority of your commission per sale. More tips on using PPC engines to your advantage can be read in my article entitled Pay per click search engine guide.
The final method you could try to increase your check is time consuming. It involves posting in newsgroups and forums with your affiliate URL in your SIG file. You'll also want to watch out for posts where people are looking for others to recommend a good product or posts which give you a chance to direct others to your affiliate URL. Never spam newsgroups or forums though as other posters will report you and you'll be banned from your affiliate program for life, many programs will even withhold your current commission balance.
That brings to an end this article, in it you've learned what you can do to increase your income from affiliate programs with techniques such as fake banners and using pay per click search engines. I hope you can put these techniques into practice successfully.
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Article by David Callan. David is an Internet marketing professional and webmaster of AKA Marketing.com webmaster forums. Visit his webmaster forums for the latest discussions on search engines, website authoring and Internet marketing related issues and topics.
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Posted by OneWebCo at 08:00 AM | Comments (0)
September 02, 2005
What To Look For In An Affiliate Program
By David Callan
Affiliate programs have quickly become the most popular way for webmasters to use traffic to their sites to make money.
The amount of money however an affiliate earns depends on three main factors:
1. Level of traffic to the affiliate site.
2. Where / how the affiliate promotes the program on his site.
3. The quality of the affiliate program itself.
In this article I'll be dealing with point number 3 - "The quality of the affiliate program itself" and going through what you need to look for in a program before joining it. Remember if you join a poor program you mightn't be getting all the commission you deserve.
You should look for the following qualities when joining an affiliate program, nearly all good programs have these qualities.
Make sure the website has an established presence online. It's advised that you look for websites which have been online a while and are trusted before you join their program. This is vital as you want to be paid what your owed and paid on time. Many webmasters have signed up to untrustworthy programs because of promises the programs made and have waited months for checks which never arrived.
Next you'll want to check out an affiliate programs product line. Each of its products should be a quality high-value one which you'd use yourself. Don't ever join a program if its products are bad because it pays high commission. It'll damage your image greatly if you do and you'll not be able to recommend other products ever again because people won't value your opinion. Be sure also that the programs product list is regularly growing, this will enable you to update your visitors on new products which they might be interested in.
It's vital that the affiliate program has a good commission rate for all its products, if it doesn't you could be making much more elsewhere. What is a good commission? Well the answer to that is tough but generally 20% to 25% of the product price is what's expected of good programs. I know of programs offering up to 65% but programs such as these are rare.
Many good programs operate what's called a two-tier system, this means that you can create an extra stream of income without doing anything for the life of the program. It works like this, every time you refer another webmaster to the program and that webmaster joins he or she will be constantly acting like a sales rep for you. This means that every time that webmaster makes a sale you get what's called a sub-refferal commission because you were the one that recommended that person to the affiliate program in the first place. The more they sell the more sub-referral commission you get. With this in mind I recommend trying to look for programs with two tiers. Keep in mind however that the bulk of your affiliate fees will always come from your own direct referrals, having two tiers is merely an advantage, it's not something that's vital.
Above we've discussed qualities such as the website running the program, the product line, the commissions and two-tier programs, but none of the above will matter if the program hasn't got excellent tracking.
All good programs have excellent tracking systems, you want programs that track visitors to their site using both CGI and cookies so you always get accredited with sales that originate from your site.
You also want to be able to check your stats in real time, this will allow you to see what method of promoting your affiliate link is working best. Another point that you might want to check out regarding a programs tracking before signing up is this, how long do they track visitors for? Some affiliate programs like Amazon will track the visitor from your site only once and if they leave then come back the next day and then buy you don't get a penny even though your site was were the sale originated. Try to look for programs that track for 30 days or more.
Other things you might want to check out include: how often do they send checks out and do you've to earn a certain amount before a check will be sent out.
Well there you have it, if a program has all or most of these qualities then your on to a winner and it's worth putting effort into it. If it has few of them then don't bother, the chances are good that your going to be ripped of.
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Article by David Callan. David is an Internet marketing professional and webmaster of AKA Marketing.com webmaster forums. Visit his webmaster forums for the latest discussions on search engines, website authoring and Internet marketing related issues and topics.
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Posted by OneWebCo at 11:59 AM | Comments (0)
September 01, 2005
Affiliate Programs FAQ's
By David Callan
What are affiliate programs?
Affiliate programs also known as associate programs, referral programs and partner programs among others things are Internet sales systems whereby a website which sells products or services can have hundreds and even thousands of other websites helping them sell their inventory.
The webmaster of the helping website is called an affiliate and the website which runs the affiliate program is usually called the merchant.
The affiliates help the merchant by exposing the merchants products and services to visitors of their web site. This is done by the careful placement of banners and links, sometimes merchants even provide an actual page on their own server for their affiliates to promote.
Why would anyone want to promote someone else's product on the Internet? Well it's what the merchant offers in return to affiliates which makes affiliate programs attractive to webmasters. In return for promoting the merchants products and services the affiliate receives a percentage of sales that they've referred.
Imagine for example someone visits xyz.com and clicks on a link to abc.com and then buys product X on abc.com for $100. The webmaster of abc.com has in this case just created a sale for xyz.com and will receive anything from around $10 to $60 for creating it.
The percentages of commission that affiliates receive varies widely and depends on the price of the product and how much profit the merchant is willing to share with his or her affiliates.
There are two main types of affiliate programs, these are one tier and two tier. One tier programs allow only the direct referring affiliate to make a commission based on sales referred, whereas with a two tier affiliate program you as an affiliate receive a percentage of sales from any affiliates who join the affiliate program through you.
Affiliate programs are great if you've a medium to high traffic website but you don't have your own product. Nearly all products are catered for by affiliate programs so you can easily find one which your websites visitors will be interested in.
How do affiliate programs work?
In order for affiliate programs to work the merchant has to have specialized scripts installed on the same server that his website is hosted on, or use a third party service like clickbank.
Both the scripts and services provide each affiliate with an affiliate id which is unique to them, they then direct a new affiliate to a webpage or email them the HTML they need to place on their page, this HTML will contain the affiliates ID.
Whenever a visitor clicks on an affiliate link be it a text link or an image link they're immediately taken to the merchant's website. The merchant tracks where the visitor comes from by using cookies. If that visitor then buys from the merchant then the affiliate will receive a referral fee.
Usually every month the merchant will send all his affiliates who referred sales a check for all the commission they've made. The merchant is not losing money by sharing profits because without his affiliates he would not have made profits in the first place.
Can affiliate programs make me rich?
The simple answer if your an affiliate is no, you'd have to run a mega traffic website to expect to get rich through affiliate programs. You can however create a very healthy income through them if you've a medium to high traffic website. It's not uncommon for knowledgeable webmasters with 10,000+ visitors a month to make around $2000-$3000+ a month. In most cases however a $500 fee would be a successful month for any affiliate.
It's a different story altogether however if you're the merchant, in this case they can make you rich. Imagine 200 high-traffic sites recommending your product. Your bound to make hundreds of sales each month, this is hundreds more sales than you would have on your own. Next you give your affiliates their cut and you take the rest. It's a win-win situation.
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Article by David Callan. David is an Internet marketing professional and webmaster of AKA Marketing.com webmaster forums. Visit his webmaster forums for the latest discussions on search engines, website authoring and Internet marketing related issues and topics.
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Posted by OneWebCo at 10:54 AM | Comments (0)
August 31, 2005
The Rich Jerk
Have you heard about the Rich Jerk?
I'll give you a warning about him later, I wasn't even sure I should mention him.
He's an internet marketing millionaire who has developed a lot of tactics for creating income from web sites and affiliate programs. (He recently sold a web site of his on eBay for an amazing $369,000)
And like a lot of other "gurus" he just wrote an eBook about his methods.
That's where the similarities end.
Because the rich jerk's book talks about some very controversial tactics. Like "black hat" search engine cloaking. And questionable rebate tactics. Stuff I wouldn't personally use.
But...
He also reveals tips for Pay Per Click advertising that will work wonders in competitive keyword situations. He talks about how to structure "review" sites that promote ClickBank products for maximum profits.
He offers great advice for eBayers looking for quality drop shippers, and how to avoid scams.
I have to admit that I learned many tactics and ideas that I have never heard before in any of the seminars I have attended nor any of the eBooks and courses I have read.
He's got some great ideas on PPC arbitrage and using low-cost keywords and search engines to make money with AdSense.
He's also got some solid search engine optimization strategies to get any site ranked higher.
This is not a "comprehensive guide" type book. It is not for complete beginners who still need to learn the basics.
Consider it a "tactics resource", any one of which could pay back the cost of the book many times over. There is zero fluff in this book. Every page holds ideas that could help your sites do better, whether you have your own product or not.
-- The Warning --
And now here's the warning. The salesletter and the book are obnoxious. This guy is so full of himself and his success that it almost makes you want to find out who he is and cut him down a peg.
I don't know if this is part of his marketing schtick for the book or if he really is that way. (My guess is that it's the marketing because in a couple of emails to me, he came across as a normal, polite guy.)
Personally, I can separate the delivery style from the content because the content is that good.
But if you don't have a thick skin, don't bother to visit the link:
On the other hand, if you want to learn some secrets that are extremely effective, I can guarantee you will find them here.
The Rich Jerk is nor for everyone. In fact, it's appeal is limited to those who can get past the style and focus on the substance. But the fact is, there is a boatload of tactical knowledge in this book. I know it has already helped me.
Crank up your Ego Filter and have a look: The Rich Jerk
Jeff Mulligan
CBMall
SearchFeast
Posted by OneWebCo at 04:16 PM | Comments (0)
August 30, 2005
People Do Judge Web Sites By Their Front Pages
A successful Web site is an extremely effective sales tool since it has the ability to gain the attention of a captive audience. Like all direct response marketing processes, it must first hook a reader's attention and then move them to take some action. However, when the mechanics of that very first page are ignored, it often causes visitors to click out of a site from the moment they arrive. And such Web sites, although some of which get a large number of hits, never seem to produce the anticipated level of response let alone deeper traffic.
With just a few changes, you can turn your Web site into a more compelling and effective sales tool. Remember that, every single day, your customers are bombarded with a continuous flow of information and marketing messages, and that competition for their attention is exceedingly fierce. A Web site that captures their attention and stays active in your customer's mind will not only have them visit deeper into your site and generate sales but also have them visit your site again and again as well as refer your site to others.
Here are some basic rules to follow when designing a front page:
Be Focused
Target your market! As the adage goes, "You can not be all things to all people." You can, however, position your site effectively to meet the needs of a specific group. It's a paradox but you will indeed get more with less. This means understanding who your customers/visitors are and what motivates their buying decisions. Therefore, do your homework. Know your customer. Appeal to their specific needs and psyche. Focus like a laser on your niche, and your site will burn into their minds.
Web sites centered on a very narrow theme or idea will create visitors of greater interest, and especially leads that are much more pre-qualified and apt to buy. Look at it this way: When you narrow down your message and focus on a niche, visitors will be 50% sold the minute they hit your site's first page. Then, it is up to your content (copy, offer, and call-to-action) to take them through the remaining 50%.
Niche marketing on the Web is particularly important since people do not have the time to sift through an entire site -- let alone a search engine or even the Internet -- to find exactly that for which they are looking. If your site is unique, highly specialized, and focused however, people will be inclined to surf deeper into your site once they hit the first page.
When focusing on a niche, the content of your site's first page will be far more credible than the mere see-through puffery of one's own blatant promotional message. Nevertheless, if you cater to a particular audience, it will then be easier for your first page to lead visitors to a successful outcome because, once they hit your site, they are in fact pre-qualified.
Be specific
Answer this skill-testing question: "What exactly do you want your visitors to do?" Simple, isn't it? But it doesn't seem that way with the many sites I've visited. The KISS principle (that's Keep It Simple and Straightforward) is immensely important on online. An effective Web site starts with smart planning and it must have a clear objective that will lead to a specific action or outcome. If your site is not meant to, say, sell a product, gain a customer, or obtain an inquiry for more information, then what exactly must it do? Work around the answer as specifically as possible. In short, have a plan when you design your site's front page.
Don't be vague and be specific. Is your Web site meant to be like a resume or billboard that only advertises the fact that you are "open for business"? It shouldn't, unless you are intimately involved with that specific medium (i.e., you are a Web designer or host, or in other words your site is the product in itself). If not, is it to generate qualified leads? Is it to sell a particular product? Are you trying to persuade your visitors to switch from another company to you? Do you want them to call you on the phone for more information? Are you trying to have them subscribe to some membership program? You get the picture.
The mind hates confusion. If you try to get your visitors to do too many things, especially on the front page, they will do nothing. However, if you want to offer a visitor a variety of different options, then try to focus on one alone and create a secondary page (or more) that are each respective to a particular action, and then link them together at the appropriate locations for flow. In essence, keep your message focused. Do not try to communicate too much -- you will overwhelm the reader. Use one major theme and revolve your message around it.
Be clear
When you are in the process of buying a book, for instance, the one thing that has attracted you is the cover (if you're not aware of the author beforehand, and even then the cover plays a key role). If the proverb "Don't judge books by their covers" exists, it is because we, as humans, have the natural inclination to do so. Newspapers capitalize on that intrinsic human behavior, which is why front-page headlines and news articles are always carefully selected. In fact, the most read part of a newspaper is not only the front page but also the top section (or what is commonly referred as "above the fold").
Therefore, the front page of your Web site is "the cover of your book," so to speak. It should entice readers to surf further into the site and not lead them to take action right then and there (unless your web site is a single page). On the front page, keep the written copy short (or its major benefit "above the fold") and to the point, allowing the reader to easily see what's in it for them. Use bold, attention-grabbing headlines and subheadlines to emphasize the major theme and the core benefit that your site offers.
In fact, list the benefits. Why should a visitor surf your site? What's in it for him/her? In other words, focus on communicating to the visitor the reasons why they should browse further. A great technique for doing so is to use a bulleted list of benefits (such as when it follows the words "With this site, you get," "in this site, you will find," or "here are the reasons why you should browse this site").
Bulleted benefit lists not only give a visual break for the reader but are also effective since they are short, to-the-point, and clustered for greater impact. Remember that customers buy benefits not products. Therefore, your first page should focus on the benefits of your web site and not its features. It must give specific reasons for surfers to venture further.
Present a problem and emphasize it. Focus on an existing gap (the gap between a problem and its solution). And then show what your web site brings to the table by telling your visitors how, by surfing deeper, they will be able to fill that gap. In other words, the first page must confirm that there is a problem and how exactly you can solve it.
Be simple
Unlike the TV or radio, computers are still not considered as household items (not yet, anyway). While they are well on their way, the computer as well as the Internet are still in their infancy. Earlier, less-capable web browsers as well as slower modems are still the norm. If your web site includes too much background, Javascript, frames, plugins and dazzling but slow-loading graphics in an effort to impress it'll be counterproductive. Many potential sales are lost due to a slow-loading, unbrowsable site.
Your site should download fast. Research by an on-hold phone message marketing company found that people start hanging up when put on hold for more than 30 seconds. The Internet is no different. If they have to wait for more than 30 seconds for your page to load, visitors will leave.
In short, if they have to wait, they won't.
People often say our society has entered the "information revolution." Not so. It's the "access to information" revolution. The ability to retrieve information in nanosecond speed is the underlying drive behind the Internet. For instance, that same ability has caused entire layers of middle managers to be wiped out. Therefore, anything that slows that ability down (such as having a front page over 30-40k), especially when compared to other, quicker-loading competitor sites, will cost you.
Aside from load-time, you also have to deal with your prospect's very short attention span. In other words, you only have a few seconds to attract your visitors before they leave. As such, you must communicate and distill your message right down to the really important. Don't overwhelm them with so much information or glitz that they miss your central point. While your site may have entertainment value, if they do not take action you are still losing.
Be professional
They say that "you never get a second chance to make a good first impression." First impressions are therefore important to the degree to which visitors are positively impacted by the first or index page. It is where the selling process actually begins. Consistent color, well-balanced information, appealing and quick-loading graphics, and, most important, the right message targeted to the proper audience are the most important elements of a professional-looking, repeatedly revisited, and often referred Web site.
In fact, the site's front page message is the highest in priority. Don't let careless mistakes weaken the impact of your presentation, and always proofread -- and have others proofread -- your copy for typographical and grammatical errors. Use a language and project an image that your specific target audience can easily understand. In other words, are you trying to convey that you are informed, serious, professional, credible, fun, helpful, resourceful, or advanced technologically? The tone of your message should appeal specifically to a targeted market and help put visitors in a particular frame of mind.
A final caveat, though. The first page should not be the only one that follows the above rules. Applying most of these pointers to an entire site should be carefully considered. Needless to say, however, that if you are able to make them pass through that all-important first page hurdle, then persuading them to take action later on should be a cinch.
Posted by OneWebCo at 08:24 PM | Comments (0)
August 26, 2005
Internet Marketing Case Study
by Jay Abraham
Modestly speaking, one of the things I'm known in the business area for is using my business building principles, being able to see all the hidden assets and overlooked opportunities in almost any business or start-up situation.
If it's already a good opportunity, I can take it many rungs higher and make it great. If it's a bad situation, I can turn it around in relatively short order---usually making a proverbial silk purse out of a sow's ear.
Although the process I use is rather hard to explain, I have been able to teach these extremely valuable skills to business owners and entrepreneurs around the world. Below, one of my followers, David Kern writes about how, using my unconventional mindset, he was able to take the opportunity he was working on and make it a smashing success...
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Case Study Success Story from: David Kern, Pc3 Internet Marketing and Business Consulting
I was genuinely overwhelmed by my first contact with Jay Abraham, on a no charge conference call in mid-September 2004. I'm no dummy, (at least, that's what my mom says) but he seemed to be talking way over my head.
It was hard to get my mind around what he was saying. I went back to work on the project I had been developing, and didn't really feel like I took away much that was useful from that call.
WRONG! Two days later, something really amazing happened---the light suddenly went on! I realized that one of the principles that Jay introduced (identifying, analyzing, and improving the process by which a business gets new clients) was exactly what I had already been doing in my current project. Once I saw it, everything he said started to click.
I saw what I needed to do to make this project much more successful for my client.
I realized that Jay had exposed me to the "master principles"- universally applicable to my business, to my client's businesses, and to ANY business, anywhere.
WOW! I went back to work with a totally changed approach, and developed a killer USP and web site. The numbers are not all in yet, but gross sales for my client have exceeded $16,200.00- in under 3 weeks. His phone is ringing, he's very happy, and we're off on a second project.
It is a thrilling experience to have your mind opened to all the possibilities around you. It's worth even more to me than the money- and that's a close second.
Since that introductory conference call 5 weeks ago, I have put $3,812.00 directly in my pocket from web promotion and business development. I have secured a short term consulting contract worth an additional $3,750.00. That's a tidy little windfall of $7,562.00 so far.
I'm just getting started. I am also in negotiation on another deal that should generate larger, ongoing residual fees for Internet product sales. (I found a company with a large email list of loyal clients that they've never sent a single email to! I'll keep you posted, Jay.)
Jay Abraham has not only transformed my mindset about business completely, but has actually transformed my business itself. I've realized that I have so much more to offer my clients than I ever knew, and I see new opportunities, for myself and others, everywhere I look.
What's really refreshing, once you start seeing opportunities all around you, is that there's no need to sweat over one deal. There's another bus along every 15 minutes. That is truly exciting, and life-changing.
Since that no charge conference call 5 weeks ago, I have purchased 3 of Jay's books and 2 tape sets, and I will be buying more. If you're thinking about buying anything from Jay, just DO it. It will be worth way more than you pay for it, guaranteed.
Take some time to listen to him, as I did. His approach, and his excitement about what he does, is inductive. It will change you. The absolute best thing would be to sit at his feet for a few days. Books, tape sets, seminars, whatever- this is the greatest business education you are ever going to get, anywhere.
I used to drive down the street and see buildings, shops, and businesses. Now, I see goldmines! The most exciting part for me is this--Jay will teach you how to get control of existing assets, worth thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars, and help other people reclaim, improve and profit from those assets- and those people will thank you while you take a nice chunk for yourself.
It's win-win, it's lucrative, and it's fun!
But I'll warn you---give this guy a couple of hours, and he'll blow your mind.
From my heart, Jay Abraham, thank you.
David Kern, Pc3
Internet Marketing and Business Consulting
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No, it's not magic. It is not hard. It doesn't take a lot of time either. You may do better or worse than David did, but he's just getting started with my mindset and principles.
My hope for you, and I can't make it any plainer than this, is for you to see the tremendous opportunities you already have in your business and life. Let me help you see them. Let me help you leverage them.
Abraham Publishing
27520 Hawthorne Blvd. Suite 263
Rolling Hills Estates, CA 90274
Posted by OneWebCo at 11:08 PM | Comments (0)
August 12, 2005
Are you neglecting 70-90% of your Internet profits
By Terry Dean
At the very beginning of this article, I want to tell you about a horrible mistake I have been making lately. I have been neglecting the place where 70% - 90% of most Internet profits come from.
I would normally keep a mistake like this to myself, but I also recognize that probably 9 out of every 10 of my readers are making the exact same mistake. This just shouldn't be happening.
My business is extremely profitable, but by neglecting this one technique I have been ignoring tens of thousands of dollars in additional profits.
The direct marketing rule that I been neglecting to give attention to lately is that of backend selling. I know and have taught backend selling to thousands of Internet businesses, but in the past 6 months of my own business I have been letting it slide.
For my business this means that I am ignoring additional profit centers. For many Internet businesses which aren't as profitable as mine this one mistake could easily spell the death of their entire endeavor.
To give you a quick idea of just how profitable backend selling can be for your business, let's give the following example.
Let's say you are in an information business selling a low cost audio tape set and a larger video package. The first product you have sells for $50.00 (and costs $25.00 for drop shipping from the owner) while your second package sells for $300.00 (and costs $150.00 drop shipping from the owner).
If the first product you sell to customers sells for $50.00 and costs you $25.00 to fulfill, you have $25.00 potential earnings from it where you have to pay advertising expenses from. If it costs you on average $20.00 advertising expense for each new customer, you would only be earning a $5.00 profit on every new customer.
What would happen if you included a sales letter for your $300.00 course in every $50.00 package people bought?
If 1 out of every 5 customers you brought in on the first product would also buy your second product for $300.00, you would be earning an extra $150.00 off of every 5 customers. Your front end profits would have been $25.00 for these 5 customers and your backend profits would have been $150.00 without spending more than a couple of cents extra for the sales letter included in the packages.
You would only be earning $25.00 a day in your startup Internet business is you were selling 5 packages a day. Once you add in your backend product, your profits jump up to $175.00 a day!
For many businesses, having a backend product determines whether your business succeeds or not. You must have a specific backend in mind whenever you are planning your web site, choosing a product, or designing a product.
On the Internet, it is so easy to come up with backend products! If you don't own any additional products or services to place on a backend, then you can simply join an affiliate program with a high quality product or find a business owner who will drop ship products for you.
There are thousands of companies out there which have affiliate programs or who drop ship for you. All you have to do is search for "drop shipping" or "affiliate" and thousands upon thousands of sites will come up.
If you see someone who has a product you would like to sell, see if they will set up a drop shipping program just for you. This type would often end up being the most profitable for you since you wouldn't be competing with thousands of other affiliates.
The key to backend profits in your business is to actually start doing something. So, I have included 4 easy ways your Internet business can start profiting from backend selling today!
Four ways any Internet business can easily start making backend sales immediately...
1. Point of purchase
The absolute best point for a backend offer on any sale is right after the initial sale while the customer still has their credit card out. For example, whenever I go buy a pair of shoes it always seems like once you have the shoes picked out the salesperson will then ask you if you would like laces, polish, etc.
If you go buy a suit, then they ask if you would like dress shirts, ties, etc. Any smart retailer will figure out what other products they have that naturally go with the purchases most often being made. Then, they will offer an up-sell immediately at the point of sale.
How can you apply this to your Internet business? The easiest method and the most profitable is to offer the up-sell right after your customer has made their purchase and still has their credit card out. In other words, put the additional product or products on the thank you page right after the purchase is made through your secure order forms.
At that point, your customer has their credit card out and is in a buying mood. By listing one to three similar products on this page, you should be able to increase your overall sales by 10% - 30% immediately.
2. With product delivery
The second key time to send a backend offer is when the products are shipped. Wise marketers throw in a catalog of other products and services they offer with every order.
Possibly offer a 30 day special coupon in the package. If they order something else from you within thirty days they get $10.00 off or 10% off or something similar to this. Just remember that there has to be some incentive to ordering now.
If you have someone else fulfilling the order for you by drop shipping out the products, then just send out your own thank you letter with the backend offer enclosed.
3. Follow-up
You should send out follow-up sales letters to all of your current customers. Top direct marketers report that it is 7 times as easy to sell to an existing customer than it is to develop a new one. Put the odds to work for you instead of against you and start selling more to your current customers.
The correct time to send out this letter depends on what you sell. If you sell a consumable product such as food, nutritional, body care, etc., then you send out the letter whenever the average customer will run out of the current supply.
If you sell other types of products, then the correct time will often be around every 3 months. Newsletter publishers will often advertise a new product in each new issue of the publication that goes out. It all depends on your products and your customers. Learn the correct time frame for sending out letters based on testing.
4. Leads that don't buy from you
Here is an area that most Internet marketers don't even consider, but it could quickly become a new profit center for your business. What do you do with those leads who contact you but don't end up buying?
In most businesses, they just throw them away. The smart marketer who wants to get maximum profit out of every second of their time and out of every dollar they spend will put these leads to use also.
They are obviously interested in what you are selling since something you had caused them to originally contact you for more information. They didn't want to buy your product, but what if you offer another similar product or service to them instead once you have finished your regular follow-up system for your main product.
This is definitely an area that you need to start testing out. You could also try working with another marketer who sells a similar product and work out a lead trade. You will offer your product to his leads that weren't sold and he will offer his to your leads you couldn't sell. Since the cost of follow-up online is virtually nothing, this type of additional profit center is definitely something every business should look into.
The question I am going to ask you is, "Are You Going to Leave 70% - 90% Of Your Profits Behind?"
Above are four simple techniques you can use to start making more profits out of your online business. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to at least start trying out a couple of these techniques in your business...or are you satisfied with what you are making right now when there is so much more available?
About the author
Article by Terry Dean. Terry Dean is a 5 year veteran of Internet marketing, will Take You By The Hand and Show You Exact Results of All the Internet Marketing Techniques he tests and Uses Every Single Month" Click here to Find Out More
Posted by OneWebCo at 04:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 09, 2005
Write A Business Plan To Fast-Track Your Profits!
Need A Customized Blueprint For A Successful Online Business?
Write A Business Plan To Fast-Track Your Profits!
If you're serious about the success of your online business, then you need to find ways to give yourself every advantage you can over your competition. One strategy that I can almost GUARANTEE your competitors haven't tried is building customized blueprints that outline exactly how their businesses will succeed. The process of writing a business plan for your company can be a crucial step in getting your profits to where you want them to be.
If you're thinking, "But I'm just a one-person business working part-time out of my home... I don't need a business plan," think again! Unless you want your business to stay small and to keep your day job, you desperately need a business plan. It's one of the best ways to motivate yourself to drive your business to the next level.
And if your business is still just an idea in your head, and you've been wondering for months how to get started, here's your answer: Start planning! Clear your schedule this weekend, print off this article, and get down to business!
What's Your Purpose?
A business plan can serve a couple of main purposes: In the world of banking and venture capital, business plans play a huge role for people who are trying to secure start-up funding from banks or investors. The better the business plan, the better the chances of landing that big initial investment.
For smaller companies, who (luckily) do not need to rely on outside funding to get started, a business plan serves more as a company blueprint. It identifies the company's purpose, products, market, and goals, as well as the steps the company plans to take to reach those goals.
So before you start writing, you'll need to decide what purpose your business plan is going to serve. If you're writing a formal business plan to secure financing, you'll need to be far more concerned about detail and format than if you're just preparing one for your own personal use. No matter which approach you're taking, though, you need to know that there are 7 main sections that should be included in just about every business plan.
Section 1: The Executive Summary
The executive summary is basically your entire business plan condensed down into a page or two (at the most). If and when you show your business plan to others, this is the only part that 75% of them will actually read. For this reason, you need to make this section as clear, concise, and exciting as possible.
Your executive summary should contain a few key items. You'll want to start out with a brief description of exactly what your business does, who your market is, and what opportunity you've identified as the inspiration for your business. Explain what sets your company apart from others in the same field.
You'll also need to discuss financial information such as projected revenues and, if you'll be using this business plan to secure financing, how much money you need and what you will be using it for. Don't go into too much financial detail in this section. You'll just want to include the most important figures.
Also, be sure to mention your company's achievements, including all of the milestones reached to date. Even if all you've done so far is register a domain name, put together a web site, or file a patent application, be sure to include this information in this section of your business plan.
Section 2: Description of Business
This section will contain an in-depth description of your company, including what products or services you sell, who your customers are, what your operating structure is (Are you a wholesaler? A reseller? A manufacturer?), the legal details of your company (Is it a corporation? A partnership? A sole proprietorship?), and your distribution methods.
This is the section of your business plan where you will identify what makes your company unique and where you'll address the following questions:
- What are you offering that others aren't?
- What sets you apart from your competitors?
- Why will people choose to do business with you instead of other players in the same marketplace?
- If you've already been in business for awhile, you will also want to use this section to talk about the history of the company. Talk about what inspired you to start the company and how fast it is growing. Address the more concrete details as well, such as how much equipment you own or lease and where your office is located.
Section 3: Market Strategies
Think of this section as your marketing plan. This is where you'll want to go into detail regarding who your target market is and how you intend to sell to them. This section will contain information about how big your audience is, how fast it is growing, and how large you expect your market share to be.
Some great sites where you can start this research are:
- CyberAtlas -- http://cyberatlas.internet.com
- Nua Internet Surveys -- http://www.nua.ie/surveys
- MarketResearch.com -- http://www.marketresearch.com
In this section, you will also talk about how you intend to market your product or service to your target audience. Will you focus on pay-per-click search engine traffic? Banner advertising? E-zine sponsorships? How much do you expect to spend on advertising, and what sort of return do you expect from those advertising dollars?
Be sure to think carefully about which marketing strategies to include here. Don't just list off every single advertising technique you can think of. You need to realistically evaluate all the possibilities, and then focus on the two or three marketing techniques that will produce the biggest return on investment.
If you think this sounds like a lot of work just for a business plan, think again! This is the kind of legwork and research you should be doing anyway! And once you've figured out how much your marketing and advertising is going to cost, you can put together a schedule of how much you can afford to spend on various campaigns each month.
Section 4: Competitive Analysis
The competitive analysis section of your business plan is where you explain, in detail, the strengths and weaknesses of your main competitors. This will allow you to realistically determine where you can position your business in the market in relation to your competition.
Make sure to do an honest appraisal of who your competition is. If your site is selling board games, your main competition is NOT Toys 'R' Us. Instead, your biggest competitors are other niche sites that focus on selling board games. These are the sites that you can realistically expect to compete with for customers interested in buying your products online.
Nevertheless, you should still pay attention to the "major players" in your competitive analysis. Take a look at how they are marketing to board game buyers, and what areas they are lacking in. Based on your research, you should be able to capitalize on the weaknesses of others in your market space and snatch customers away from them by positioning your offer to meet a need that everyone else is neglecting.
A great tool for doing competitive analysis is http://www.alexa.com, which allows you to discover how much traffic your competitors are getting in relation to your site and see who they are linking to. Compare your own traffic ranking to your competitors' traffic rankings in Alexa every month or so. This way, you'll be able to gauge your progress against your competition. Spend some time getting familiar with this site -- it will become an invaluable resource tool for you!
Section 5: Development Plan and/or Operational Strategy
If your company is still in the developmental stage (with no product and/or no revenues), this is the section where you will explain how you are going to bring your company into the marketplace. The best way to do this is to write out a development timeline with the projected completion dates for various milestones your company will need to reach before it can start making sales.
This is the section where you must plan to profit! Failing to do so is one of the most common mistakes made by businesses. All too often, people just set up shop without ever really planning exactly HOW they are going to become profitable!
If your business is already up and running, but is not currently generating a profit (if your revenues are not enough to cover your operating expenses), then this is where you will need to identify how you will make up the shortfall until you become profitable. For many home-based businesses, the difference is drawn from the owner's savings or income from another job.
Regardless of what stage you're at, you should still include a table of projected milestones for your business in this section. Estimate the month and year of the important milestones that you plan to achieve over the next 1 to 2 years. This not only looks great, it also reminds you of your goals every time you refer back to your plan.
Section 6: Management
This section is especially important if you are going to be using your business plan to secure funding. I can guarantee that after a prospective investor reads through your Executive Summary, they will flip directly to your Management section before reading anything else. They'll want to get a clear idea of "who" your company is -- after all, a business idea is only as good as the people behind it!
So this is where you introduce your management team or, if you are the only person involved in your business, explain why you are qualified to be running the company. Focus on your strengths and achievements from your previous ventures or jobs, and explain in detail how those qualities transfer to your business.
Make sure to go into detail about what makes you uniquely qualified to operate this sort of business. What special skills do you bring to the company? How do your areas of expertise give you a distinct advantage over people operating similar companies?
If you have accountants, lawyers, or consultants advising you in an official (paid) capacity, you can mention their names, duties, and qualifications here as well. However, you need to be sure to get their permission before putting their names in your business plan.
Section 7: Financials
If you've had a chance to look through a few business plans before, you'll have noticed that the last half of these documents are filled with balance sheets, earnings projections, capital requirements, depreciation estimates, and dozens of other highly detailed financial statements.
Don't let all these numbers put you off! If you aren't going to be using your business plan to solicit capital from outside sources, you won't need 90% of this stuff. Instead, focus on your monthly income and monthly expenses. The best way to do this is to put together a simple 12-month cash flow forecast.
Here's how to do it:
First, estimate how much your business will earn on a monthly basis. Include all your sales, cash you'll be drawing from your savings, or money your business has been loaned. This is your "Total Cash In."
Next, determine what your monthly expenses will be. This should include things like advertising costs, office expenses like phone bills and stationary, the cost of your inventory, equipment purchases, loan repayments, as well as whatever cash you'll be drawing out of the business for your personal living expenses. This will be your "Total Cash Out."
Now, simply subtract your "Total Cash Out" from your "Total Cash In" to get your monthly "Net Cash Flow." If you see that your Net Cash Flow is a negative number, you're losing money! If that number stays negative for the entire 12 months, you're going to need to re-evaluate your business plan... and figure out a way to increase sales or decrease expenses!
IMPORTANT NOTE: You can see why it is so important to be honest with yourself when writing your business plan! If you exaggerate the sales you think you'll bring in, your whole business model will be damaged when those sales don't materialize. So much for that hefty advertising budget you planned, as well as the generous salary you hoped to pay yourself!
Do-It-Yourself vs. Hiring Out
If you are going to be using your business plan as a tool to attract capital from banks or investors, then your business plan will need to be MUCH more detailed than if you are preparing it for personal use. If you need some extra help preparing a highly detailed plan, you have a few choices. You can:
- Hire a professional business plan consultant to work with you,
- Hire an accountant to help you prepare the "Financials" section of your business plan, or
- Purchase a full-featured business plan software program.
- If you do decide to have a professional write your business plan for you, be aware that the costs vary tremendously! A basic 15-page business plan could cost you anywhere between $500 and $5,000, depending on who you hire. (And a detailed business plan, which can often exceed 100 pages, can easily cost as much as $25,000 -- but these are for companies looking for millions of dollars of start-up capital.)
To locate someone to write your business plan for you, just type "business plans" into any search engine -- you'll find tons of companies that specialize in this sort of thing. You can also have professional writers bid on your business plan project at http://www.elance.com. The going rate for a business plan here seems to be between $750 and $1,500.
There are quite a few business plan software programs out there. One of the best seems to be Business Plan Pro 2003, available at http://www.bplans.com for $99.95. Other options are PlanWrite, located at http://www.brs-inc.com/pwrite.html for $129.95 and BizPlan Builder, priced at $99.99, at http://www.jian.com.
If you are running a one- or two-person company out of your home or small office, you probably won't need to hire a professional to work on your business plan. This option is really more for people who will be using their business plans to attract investors or secure bank loans. Most small business owners should be able to write their business plans themselves.
And unless you are going to be trying to land big investors, I really don't recommend hiring a professional to write your business plan for you. You'll learn so much about your business and your competitors doing it yourself that it would be a shame to let someone else go through the process for you!
Business Plan Resources:
I've hand-picked a few of my favorite online business plan resources to share with those readers who might be looking for a little more information:
- The United States Small Business Administration has an excellent resource online at http://www.sba.gov/starting/indexbusplans.html. They provide an online tutorial to help you write your business plan, and their site also contains all the information you'll need if you plan on trying to get a Small Business Administration loan or grant.
- The Yahoo! Small Business Center has a good section about business plans at http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/business_plans.html
- The Annual Moot Corp Competition challenges top MBAs from around the world to submit their business plans to be evaluated by a panel of investors. The winning entries from the past few years are online at http://www.businessplans.org/MootCorp.html
- Palo Alto Software has developed a program called Business Plan Pro 2003 (priced at $99.95) that will walk you through the creation of your own business plan. But even if you aren't interested in their software, check out their site at http://www.bplans.com for a huge archive of sample business plans that you can read for no charge.
- You can also find a wealth of information about business plans at your local library or bookstore. The Business section will have tons of books explaining how to write business plans, as well as books with hundreds of sample business plans for you to look at.
Final Thoughts:
Once you've written your business plan, you'll be amazed at how often you refer to it. It will become your "battle plan," as well as the tool you'll use to measure how close you are to meeting your goals -- or by how much you're surpassing them! You can even show your business plan to prospective joint venture partners, potential employees, or advertisers. Believe me, a professional-looking business plan will give you a TON of credibility simply because most businesses never take the time to prepare one.
If you're thinking about starting a business, but you're not quite sure how, writing out a business plan can be a great way to get things moving. It's also a great way to evaluate how good that idea of yours really is. For many people, the process of writing a business plan shows them that their business can make even more money than they originally thought! Now that's motivation!
If you're already running an online business, the process of writing a business plan can help you decide exactly what aspects of your business are succeeding and which areas could be improved upon. When you do an in-depth analysis of your marketplace, your customers, and your competitors, you'll be amazed by how much you can learn!
And be sure to make your business plan a perpetual "work in progress." Go back and review it every three months, and make changes where necessary. If your sales are twice what you expected, go back and update the figures in your business plan. This ensures that your map to profitability is always right up to date.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Cory Rudl specialized in teaching real people how to start profitable Internet businesses that make $100,000 to $2.5 Million (or more) per year. To get instant access to all his most profitable marketing campaigns, strategies, tools, and resources that he's used to grow $25 into over $40 Million in online sales, Click Here
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Posted by OneWebCo at 07:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 08, 2005
It Truly Is a "World-Wide" Web
- by Jim Edwards
(c) Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved
http://www.thenetreporter.com
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Let me tell you a quick story that started way back in 1962...
An Idaho farm boy stepped off an airplane in the Central American country of Belize (then colonial British Honduras) as one of the first Peace Corps volunteers. He carried little more than the clothes on his back and his prized possession - a tennis racquet.
There he met a Missouri school teacher, fell in love, got married, and 5 years later yours truly appeared on the scene.
Fast-forward a little over 4 decades and see just how much the Internet has impacted the entire planet. ** Last week my family took a cruise for our summer vacation.
Since the itinerary included Belize, my parents planned to take the opportunity to renew friendships and show us their old haunts.
On the surface it seemed simple enough, but as the week progressed I realized just how much the Internet permeates our lives, no matter which part of the world we call home.
Once a day for the entire week I checked my email onboard ship. Despite the $.50 a minute cost to use their satellite connection, it never ceased to amaze me that I could instantly communicate with business associates via email from the middle of the ocean.
But the most amazing thing happened when my father got an email onboard ship from one of his old friends, who also happens to be the first Prime Minister of Belize, Mr. George Price.
Before we left on our trip, my dad let Mr. Price's office know he would visit the country briefly and wondered if we could stop by for a few minutes just to say hello.
On Tuesday my father got an email through the ship's office that Mr. Price wanted to meet us at his office on Friday. Just think about that for a second...
One man in another country tracked down my father hundreds of miles out to sea on a ship simply by knowing how to use the Internet. ** Upon arriving at Mr. Price's office we met not only with Mr. Price, but also with the editor and senior reporter of one of the nation's two major newspapers, The Belize Times http://www.belizetimes.bz
Apparently my parent's return after 40 years rated quite a news story since the Peace Corps and similar organizations played a vital role in helping the fledgling nation take hold.
When I asked if we could get a copy of the article, the reporter told me it would appear on the Internet next week!
It turns out they not only publish their newspaper in print, but also publish most of each edition online so friends of Belize all over the world can keep up with current events.
These dedicated newspaper people manage to publish an entire weekly newspaper and distribute content not only nationally, but internationally via the Internet.
They literally use the power of the Internet to influence the course of an entire nation.
Even more amazing, information technology allows them to do it all without a huge staff or massive budget.
But to bring it back to a more personal level, upon arriving back at the port to catch our ship, our tour guide handed me her card and said, "Here's my card. When you or your friends come back to Belize, email me and we'll make all the arrangements for you."
Wow!
Now that's the power and reach of the Internet to impact people's lives on so many levels and draw us all closer together as one global community - one person at a time.
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Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use free articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links...
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Posted by OneWebCo at 10:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 07, 2005
How to Eat, Sleep, and Breathe like an Internet marketing Genius
"What I Learned from My Good Friend and
Colleague, Corey Rudl -- Genius Internet Marketer,
Inspirational Leader, and Mentor to Thousands."
By Derek Gehl
Since the announcement of Corey's tragic car-racing accident a couple of weeks ago, our office has received over 16,000 e-mails of support and condolence... and easily over 1,000 phone calls.
The entire IMC Team has been working overtime, responding to every e-mail and phone message, one at a time, so we don't miss any of your questions or comments. In fact, I've had to throw some of the gang out of the office late at night and send them home... We've all found it hard to stop reading your e-mails.
"Thanks" doesn't seem an adequate response to the overwhelming support and caring you've shown us. (It's been rather humbling, really...) So I hope you don't mind, but I've decided to write this very special edition of our "Marketing Tips" Newsletter -- and dedicate it to my good friend and mentor...
You see, over the last couple of weeks, a question that keeps appearing in e-mails from everyone is, "How can I be like Corey?"... "How can I think like Corey?" It seems many of you are interested in learning MORE than his secrets to Internet marketing -- you want to learn how to be "like" him.
So I'm going to give you a bit of insight into Corey's philosophies for business, success, and life.
These are a collection of the five most profound lessons I learned from Corey over the last eight years, some of which he loudly expressed to me (Corey talked loud and fast when he got excited)... and some he quietly but effectively shared through living example.
Lesson #1: Failure doesn't "happen"; it's a choice.
In Corey's mind, there were only two ways you could "fail." You could give up and quit. Or you could decide not to learn from your mistakes. Corey believed failure was a choice. So Corey never failed.
He tested new ideas. He learned from what worked, and what didn't. Then he applied those lessons to his next test or idea, and he kept doing this until he got results he was satisfied with.
Sure Corey made mistakes... Yeesh, I still cringe when I think of a $90,000 mistake we made two years ago. And sure, Corey would get really ticked off when stuff went wrong. But Corey was also always the first person to seek out the positive in every bad situation and say, "Well, what did we learn from this?" ... And, more important, "Will we do it again?"
Corey firmly believed every costly lesson was going to result in exponentially greater success in the long term. And he was right.
Lesson #2: Assume nothing, test everything.
Corey had zero respect for people who were content to assume. To him, it was a mark of laziness. So something everyone quickly learned when working with him was to deal in nothing but the facts.
If Corey asked a question, and you didn't know the answer, it was one thousand times better to say, "I'll look into it and get back to you," than "I think this might be the answer," or "I assume this is right."
Theories, assumptions, and guesses were the enemies of success as far as Corey was concerned. He believed you should either go straight to the source for the answers (even if that means paying thousands of dollars in consulting fees) or test it yourself.
And as Corey taught me, sometimes you even need to test the "facts."
For example...
... A marketing strategy that you tested and proved to work as little as a month ago may be a complete dud today. (Retesting is ALWAYS worth the effort.)
... The customer demographics you collected through a survey last year may have drastically changed. (Are they buying your products for DIFFERENT reasons now?)
... And some of the most interesting statistics may be based on flawed data. (Always read the "fine print," and if there isn't any, ask for it!)
Before you make decisions, ask questions. Assume nothing. Test everything.
And don't be afraid of offending someone -- even an "expert" -- by questioning their logic. The true experts will applaud you for this. And your questions will expose the imposters for who they really are -- wannabes.
Lesson #3: Make opportunities to learn, and take notes.
It would be difficult to calculate exactly how much Corey spent on educational materials each year... but I've done the math and know it was roughly in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Corey was constantly reading... On airplanes, on holidays, in between meetings -- he was absolutely relentless. He would read every business book, article, course, and marketing campaign he could get his hands on.
And Corey didn't just read material related to Internet marketing; he made a point of studying OTHER industries, too -- both online AND offline. He was always looking for new strategies and marketing ideas that he could pluck from other industries and apply to his businesses.
It was all this reading that would frequently spark his "genius" ideas...
But I think the key to this secret is that Corey made TONS of notes about everything he read and kept all his thoughts in a couple of "master project documents" that he'd refer back to every month, looking for new ideas (they were literally hundreds of pages long).
That way, even if an idea didn't work today, he had record of it so he could refer back to it sometime in the future.
Corey knew that "genius" doesn't just happen -- you need to look for opportunities to learn, and keep track of your thoughts. Your best ideas will frequently be sparked by new information, or new approaches to old information.
Lesson #4: Seek out great teachers, and be a great listener.
Corey firmly believed that if you want to fast-track your success, it's critical to learn from those who have gone before you... even if you just have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes. So Corey made a point of seeking out teachers and mentors, and asking for their advice whenever he had the opportunity -- even if that meant paying hefty consulting fees for their guidance.
As far as Corey was concerned, you should always learn from the best. Find people who are getting the results YOU want to achieve, and ask them to mentor you.
And Corey was never afraid to ask "great people" for advice... He was never concerned about looking dumb. And he never needed to be the smartest guy in the room. Corey was always focused on learning. So he was a student of everything... and almost everyone.
Corey was always asking people around him for feedback... What mistakes was he making? How could he improve as a leader? As a marketer? How could he be a better public speaker?
It takes guts to ask the people around you for feedback. But it takes wisdom to openly listen and learn from it.
Lesson #5: Define your own success and live with passion.
Corey's biggest frustration was that so many of his clients and subscribers just let life "happen" to them. I can't tell you how many times I heard him rant over the years, "They have dreams... but they don't set GOALS! Why don't they set goals and take action???"
One of the most inspirational things about being around Corey was his belief that absolutely anyone can be successful.
You just had to meet Corey once to know he wasn't just spouting the "anybody can start a profitable Internet business" line because it sounded good. His enthusiasm... his actions... every word he spoke demonstrated his core belief that absolutely anyone can be successful.
You can learn anything... be anything... do anything.
If you decide that your age, background, and education limit your potential, they will. But if you decide that you can do anything, you will...
Corey really believed that you just need to set goals that you're excited about, and then take persistent action. It's absolutely shocking what ONE step a day... just 10 minutes a day... one hour a day... can accomplish over one month... three months... six months. Just imagine where YOU would be in six months if you dedicated even 20 minutes a day to working on your business... learning new strategies... or building a "swipe file" of marketing ideas!
Success isn't determined by genetics. It's about persistent, consistent action.
And Corey really got that.
Final Thoughts:
Honestly, I could write a book about what it was like teaming up with Corey for the last eight years... and perhaps one day I will. It was one helluva ride...
Today, though, I wanted to give you at least SOME insight into Corey's personal philosophies for business success because I'm hoping they will inspire you to:
- Choose success.
- Test something new today.
- Make opportunities to learn.
- Seek out great teachers.
- Define your goals, and take action to reach them.
These are the philosophies that Corey inspired the entire IMC Team to run his company with... and these are the philosophies that we are continuing to move forward with.
Corey's legacy wasn't just cutting-edge marketing strategies or industry leading software -- it was the inspiration he shared with thousands of "real people." And that's the legacy I personally plan to continue.
With that said, keep an eye on your inbox next week; we're going to be doing something really special in memory of Corey. And be sure to watch your e-mail in July, too, because we're going to be releasing a mind-blowing interview recorded in late May between genius offline direct marketer Dan Kennedy and Corey...
Until the next issue of "Marketing Tips", I wish you success.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Derek Gehl specializes in teaching real people how to start profitable Internet businesses that make $100,000 to $2.5 Million (or more) per year. To get instant access to all his most profitable marketing campaigns, strategies, tools, and resources that he's used to grow $25 into over $40 Million in online sales, Click Here
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Posted by OneWebCo at 02:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 05, 2005
How to Prevent Online Identity Theft
- by Jim Edwards
(c) Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved
http://www.thenetreporter.com
Identity theft rates one of the fastest growing crimes in America today and the Internet can make it even easier for some criminals to take your good name and drag it through the mud.
Identity theft involves criminals stealing your personal information such as credit card numbers, social security numbers and other information, usually to buy things on credit or to empty out your bank accounts.
Through your financial liability with your credit cards may be limited to $50 to $500, it can take years for you to clean up the mess online identity thieves leave behind.
As with any crime, an ounce of prevention may just cause the would- be identity thieves to leave you alone and move on to an easier target.
The following tips can help you avoid having your identity stolen.
1. Never give out your social security number, online or otherwise. No company you buy things from needs your social security number.
If you do business on the web, obtain a a Federal Tax ID number to use instead of your social security number.
Once criminals have your social security number, along with your birth date and address, they have virtually everything they need to start wreaking havoc in your life.
2. Use a good anti-virus program. One of the ways criminals get your credit card numbers, passwords and other sensitive information is through "Trojan horse" viruses that log your keystrokes and transmit information to the evil doers.
The "Bad Trans" virus that has caused so much havoc is just such a virus.
3. Always use a "secure" server when transmitting credit card information over the web and know something about the company before handing over your information.
You can feel pretty confident that you are using a secure server if a little lock displays in the status bar on the bottom of your web browser.
4. A popular new way to pay for goods and services online is to "use your checking account just like a credit card".
Be extremely cautious about paying this way through the web. By giving a company your checking account numbers you give away much of the information necessary to empty your bank account!
5. Never give out information such as your birthday, marital status, education level or other personal information.
This additional information makes it extremely easy for criminals to make themselves appear legitimate when they pose as you. Websites should ultimately only require you to provide your name, email and billing information for a purchase.
You should avoid any site requiring more information than that.
These criminals prey on people's ignorance and you can usually defeat them simply by making it too hard for them to get your information.
If you do find yourself a victim, immediately contact police and get legal help. Do not wait because you feel embarrassed or "stupid" over what happened.
Waiting only lets the trail grow cold and limits how much law enforcement can do to help you.
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use free articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links...
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Posted by OneWebCo at 11:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 31, 2005
Coping With Information Overload
© Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved
http://www.thenetreporter.com -
It's been said that the average New York Times Sunday edition contains more information than a person in 15th century England was exposed to during their entire lifetime. In the information age, our minds get bombarded daily with so much data that we start filtering it out as a self-defense mechanism.
On the Internet, the information overload gets so severe that it seems to bring out the ADD (attention deficit disorder) in all of us.
To make things worse, expect the avalanche of information we must all deal with online to start coming faster and harder and to never, ever stop.
Unlimited amounts of information available online represents a truly double-edged mental sword.
On the good side, you can find out virtually anything you want about any person, place, thing, fact, problem and more. On the bad side, since you can find anything, many people get lost and caught up in "everything" and never accomplish much.
In fact, most people end up drowning in a sea of information when all they wanted was a simple drink of water.
To help you effectively deal with the never-ending torrent of online information, let me offer 3 simple solutions that will profoundly affect your ability to get things done.
First, operate with a clear purpose for what you plan to accomplish online.
Many people start out with a vague idea of what they want to accomplish on the Web and end up wasting hours surfing aimlessly.
One simple solution: write down your purpose for going online on a sticky note and put it on the side of your monitor.
Simple purpose statements like "Check email" or "Find map to Detroit" or "Research where to advertise my blog" can save countless hours by reminding you of your true purpose for sitting down at the keyboard (and keep you from wandering off to explore Britney Spears or The Simpsons).
Next, if you do want to go off on a sidetrack away from your original purpose, set a time limit.
Kind of like recess in kindergarten, give yourself a set amount of time to run free, but then get back in the classroom and get back to business.
Typically, I give myself anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes to roam, but only if I think it will bear fruit for my purpose in the end.
I also force myself to honestly answer the question, "Does this really fit with my purpose for being online right now?"
If not, then I goof off for about 5 minutes and then write down the idea, website, or topic for future investigation.
By the way, a simple egg timer works great for this.
Finally, if you ever find yourself online without a purpose, but can't seem to stop surfing or searching, simply get up from your computer and walk away for a few minutes to clear your head.
Often this represents the fastest way to stop yourself wasting countless hours in meaningless activity online.
Bottom line, implementing simple strategies for dealing with information overload online now will pay huge dividends in peace of mind and time savings in the future.
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use free articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links...
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Posted by OneWebCo at 11:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 30, 2005
We Are the Web
If you (like me) become slightly jaded by the Internet from time to time, take heart! We haven't even scratched the surface according to this stunning article by Kevin Kelly, read on and stay focused!
The Netscape IPO wasn't really about dot-commerce. At its heart was a new cultural force based on mass collaboration. Blogs, Wikipedia, open source, peer-to-peer - behold the power of the people.
By Kevin Kelly
10 Years That Changed the World from Wired
Ten years ago, Netscape's explosive IPO ignited huge piles of money. The brilliant flash revealed what had been invisible only a moment before: the World Wide Web. As Eric Schmidt (then at Sun, now at Google) noted, the day before the IPO, nothing about the Web; the day after, everything.
Computing pioneer Vannevar Bush outlined the Web's core idea - hyperlinked pages - in 1945, but the first person to try to build out the concept was a freethinker named Ted Nelson who envisioned his own scheme in 1965. However, he had little success connecting digital bits on a useful scale, and his efforts were known only to an isolated group of disciples. Few of the hackers writing code for the emerging Web in the 1990s knew about Nelson or his hyperlinked dream machine.
At the suggestion of a computer-savvy friend, I got in touch with Nelson in 1984, a decade before Netscape. We met in a dark dockside bar in Sausalito, California. He was renting a houseboat nearby and had the air of someone with time on his hands. Folded notes erupted from his pockets, and long strips of paper slipped from overstuffed notebooks. Wearing a ballpoint pen on a string around his neck, he told me - way too earnestly for a bar at 4 o'clock in the afternoon - about his scheme for organizing all the knowledge of humanity. Salvation lay in cutting up 3 x 5 cards, of which he had plenty.
Although Nelson was polite, charming, and smooth, I was too slow for his fast talk. But I got an aha! from his marvelous notion of hypertext. He was certain that every document in the world should be a footnote to some other document, and computers could make the links between them visible and permanent. But that was just the beginning! Scribbling on index cards, he sketched out complicated notions of transferring authorship back to creators and tracking payments as readers hopped along networks of documents, what he called the docuverse. He spoke of "transclusion" and "intertwingularity" as he described the grand utopian benefits of his embedded structure. It was going to save the world from stupidity.
I believed him. Despite his quirks, it was clear to me that a hyperlinked world was inevitable - someday. But looking back now, after 10 years of living online, what surprises me about the genesis of the Web is how much was missing from Vannevar Bush's vision, Nelson's docuverse, and my own expectations. We all missed the big story. The revolution launched by Netscape's IPO was only marginally about hypertext and human knowledge. At its heart was a new kind of participation that has since developed into an emerging culture based on sharing. And the ways of participating unleashed by hyperlinks are creating a new type of thinking - part human and part machine - found nowhere else on the planet or in history.
Not only did we fail to imagine what the Web would become, we still don't see it today! We are blind to the miracle it has blossomed into. And as a result of ignoring what the Web really is, we are likely to miss what it will grow into over the next 10 years. Any hope of discerning the state of the Web in 2015 requires that we own up to how wrong we were 10 years ago.
1995
Before the Netscape browser illuminated the Web, the Internet did not exist for most people. If it was acknowledged at all, it was mischaracterized as either corporate email (as exciting as a necktie) or a clubhouse for adolescent males (read: pimply nerds). It was hard to use. On the Internet, even dogs had to type. Who wanted to waste time on something so boring?
The memories of an early enthusiast like myself can be unreliable, so I recently spent a few weeks reading stacks of old magazines and newspapers. Any promising new invention will have its naysayers, and the bigger the promises, the louder the nays. It's not hard to find smart people saying stupid things about the Internet on the morning of its birth. In late 1994, Time magazine explained why the Internet would never go mainstream: "It was not designed for doing commerce, and it does not gracefully accommodate new arrivals." Newsweek put the doubts more bluntly in a February 1995 headline: "THE INTERNET? BAH!" The article was written by astrophysicist and Net maven Cliff Stoll, who captured the prevailing skepticism of virtual communities and online shopping with one word: "baloney."
This dismissive attitude pervaded a meeting I had with the top leaders of ABC in 1989. I was there to make a presentation to the corner office crowd about this "Internet stuff." To their credit, they realized something was happening. Still, nothing I could tell them would convince them that the Internet was not marginal, not just typing, and, most emphatically, not just teenage boys. Stephen Weiswasser, a senior VP, delivered the ultimate putdown: "The Internet will be the CB radio of the '90s," he told me, a charge he later repeated to the press. Weiswasser summed up ABC's argument for ignoring the new medium: "You aren't going to turn passive consumers into active trollers on the Internet."
I was shown the door. But I offered one tip before I left. "Look," I said. "I happen to know that the address www.abc.com has not been registered. Go down to your basement, find your most technical computer guy, and have him register www.abc.com immediately. Don't even think about it. It will be a good thing to do." They thanked me vacantly. I checked a week later. The domain was still unregistered.
While it is easy to smile at the dodos in TV land, they were not the only ones who had trouble imagining an alternative to couch potatoes. Wired did, too. When I examine issues of Wired from before the Netscape IPO (issues that I proudly edited), I am surprised to see them touting a future of high production-value content - 5,000 always-on channels and virtual reality, with a side order of email sprinkled with bits of the Library of Congress. In fact, Wired offered a vision nearly identical to that of Internet wannabes in the broadcast, publishing, software, and movie industries: basically, TV that worked. The question was who would program the box. Wired looked forward to a constellation of new media upstarts like Nintendo and Yahoo!, not old-media dinosaurs like ABC.
Problem was, content was expensive to produce, and 5,000 channels of it would be 5,000 times as costly. No company was rich enough, no industry large enough, to carry off such an enterprise. The great telecom companies, which were supposed to wire up the digital revolution, were paralyzed by the uncertainties of funding the Net. In June 1994, David Quinn of British Telecom admitted to a conference of software publishers, "I'm not sure how you'd make money out of it."
The immense sums of money supposedly required to fill the Net with content sent many technocritics into a tizzy. They were deeply concerned that cyberspace would become cyburbia - privately owned and operated. Writing in Electronic Engineering Times in 1995, Jeff Johnson worried: "Ideally, individuals and small businesses would use the information highway to communicate, but it is more likely that the information highway will be controlled by Fortune 500 companies in 10 years." The impact would be more than commercial. "Speech in cyberspace will not be free if we allow big business to control every square inch of the Net," wrote Andrew Shapiro in The Nation in July 1995.
The fear of commercialization was strongest among hardcore programmers: the coders, Unix weenies, TCP/IP fans, and selfless volunteer IT folk who kept the ad hoc network running. The major administrators thought of their work as noble, a gift to humanity. They saw the Internet as an open commons, not to be undone by greed or commercialization. It's hard to believe now, but until 1991, commercial enterprise on the Internet was strictly prohibited. Even then, the rules favored public institutions and forbade "extensive use for private or personal business."
In the mid-1980s, when I was involved in the WELL, an early nonprofit online system, we struggled to connect it to the emerging Internet but were thwarted, in part, by the "acceptable use" policy of the National Science Foundation (which ran the Internet backbone). In the eyes of the NSF, the Internet was funded for research, not commerce. At first this restriction wasn't a problem for online services, because most providers, the WELL included, were isolated from one another. Paying customers could send email within the system - but not outside it. In 1987, the WELL fudged a way to forward outside email through the Net without confronting the acceptable use policy, which our organization's own techies were reluctant to break. The NSF rule reflected a lingering sentiment that the Internet would be devalued, if not trashed, by opening it up to commercial interests. Spam was already a problem (one every week!).
This attitude prevailed even in the offices of Wired. In 1994, during the first design meetings for Wired's embryonic Web site, HotWired, programmers were upset that the innovation we were cooking up - what are now called clickthrough ad banners - subverted the great social potential of this new territory. The Web was hardly out of diapers, and already they were being asked to blight it with billboards and commercials. Only in May 1995, after the NSF finally opened the floodgates to ecommerce, did the geek elite begin to relax.
Three months later, Netscape's public offering took off, and in a blink a world of DIY possibilities was born. Suddenly it became clear that ordinary people could create material anyone with a connection could view. The burgeoning online audience no longer needed ABC for content. Netscape's stock peaked at $75 on its first day of trading, and the world gasped in awe. Was this insanity, or the start of something new?
2005
The scope of the Web today is hard to fathom. The total number of Web pages, including those that are dynamically created upon request and document files available through links, exceeds 600 billion. That's 100 pages per person alive.
How could we create so much, so fast, so well? In fewer than 4,000 days, we have encoded half a trillion versions of our collective story and put them in front of 1 billion people, or one-sixth of the world's population. That remarkable achievement was not in anyone's 10-year plan.
The accretion of tiny marvels can numb us to the arrival of the stupendous. Today, at any Net terminal, you can get: an amazing variety of music and video, an evolving encyclopedia, weather forecasts, help wanted ads, satellite images of anyplace on Earth, up-to-the-minute news from around the globe, tax forms, TV guides, road maps with driving directions, real-time stock quotes, telephone numbers, real estate listings with virtual walk-throughs, pictures of just about anything, sports scores, places to buy almost anything, records of political contributions, library catalogs, appliance manuals, live traffic reports, archives to major newspapers - all wrapped up in an interactive index that really works.
This view is spookily godlike. You can switch your gaze of a spot in the world from map to satellite to 3-D just by clicking. Recall the past? It's there. Or listen to the daily complaints and travails of almost anyone who blogs (and doesn't everyone?). I doubt angels have a better view of humanity.
Why aren't we more amazed by this fullness? Kings of old would have gone to war to win such abilities. Only small children would have dreamed such a magic window could be real. I have reviewed the expectations of waking adults and wise experts, and I can affirm that this comprehensive wealth of material, available on demand and free of charge, was not in anyone's scenario. Ten years ago, anyone silly enough to trumpet the above list as a vision of the near future would have been confronted by the evidence: There wasn't enough money in all the investment firms in the entire world to fund such a cornucopia. The success of the Web at this scale was impossible.
But if we have learned anything in the past decade, it is the plausibility of the impossible.
Take eBay. In some 4,000 days, eBay has gone from marginal Bay Area experiment in community markets to the most profitable spinoff of hypertext. At any one moment, 50 million auctions race through the site. An estimated half a million folks make their living selling through Internet auctions. Ten years ago I heard skeptics swear nobody would ever buy a car on the Web. Last year eBay Motors sold $11 billion worth of vehicles. EBay's 2001 auction of a $4.9 million private jet would have shocked anyone in 1995 - and still smells implausible today.
Nowhere in Ted Nelson's convoluted sketches of hypertext transclusion did the fantasy of a global flea market appear. Especially as the ultimate business model! He hoped to franchise his Xanadu hypertext systems in the physical world at the scale of a copy shop or café - you would go to a store to do your hypertexting. Xanadu would take a cut of the action.
Instead, we have an open global flea market that handles 1.4 billion auctions every year and operates from your bedroom. Users do most of the work; they photograph, catalog, post, and manage their own auctions. And they police themselves; while eBay and other auction sites do call in the authorities to arrest serial abusers, the chief method of ensuring fairness is a system of user-generated ratings. Three billion feedback comments can work wonders.
What we all failed to see was how much of this new world would be manufactured by users, not corporate interests. Amazon.com customers rushed with surprising speed and intelligence to write the reviews that made the site's long-tail selection usable. Owners of Adobe, Apple, and most major software products offer help and advice on the developer's forum Web pages, serving as high-quality customer support for new buyers. And in the greatest leverage of the common user, Google turns traffic and link patterns generated by 2 billion searches a month into the organizing intelligence for a new economy. This bottom-up takeover was not in anyone's 10-year vision.
No Web phenomenon is more confounding than blogging. Everything media experts knew about audiences - and they knew a lot - confirmed the focus group belief that audiences would never get off their butts and start making their own entertainment. Everyone knew writing and reading were dead; music was too much trouble to make when you could sit back and listen; video production was simply out of reach of amateurs. Blogs and other participant media would never happen, or if they happened they would not draw an audience, or if they drew an audience they would not matter. What a shock, then, to witness the near-instantaneous rise of 50 million blogs, with a new one appearing every two seconds. There - another new blog! One more person doing what AOL and ABC - and almost everyone else - expected only AOL and ABC to be doing. These user-created channels make no sense economically. Where are the time, energy, and resources coming from?
The audience.
I run a blog about cool tools. I write it for my own delight and for the benefit of friends. The Web extends my passion to a far wider group for no extra cost or effort. In this way, my site is part of a vast and growing gift economy, a visible underground of valuable creations - text, music, film, software, tools, and services - all given away for free. This gift economy fuels an abundance of choices. It spurs the grateful to reciprocate. It permits easy modification and reuse, and thus promotes consumers into producers.
The open source software movement is another example. Key ingredients of collaborative programming - swapping code, updating instantly, recruiting globally - didn't work on a large scale until the Web was woven. Then software became something you could join, either as a beta tester or as a coder on an open source project. The clever "view source" browser option let the average Web surfer in on the act. And anyone could rustle up a link - which, it turns out, is the most powerful invention of the decade.
Linking unleashes involvement and interactivity at levels once thought unfashionable or impossible. It transforms reading into navigating and enlarges small actions into powerful forces. For instance, hyperlinks made it much easier to create a seamless, scrolling street map of every town. They made it easier for people to refer to those maps. And hyperlinks made it possible for almost anyone to annotate, amend, and improve any map embedded in the Web. Cartography has gone from spectator art to participatory democracy.
The electricity of participation nudges ordinary folks to invest huge hunks of energy and time into making free encyclopedias, creating public tutorials for changing a flat tire, or cataloging the votes in the Senate. More and more of the Web runs in this mode. One study found that only 40 percent of the Web is commercial. The rest runs on duty or passion.
Coming out of the industrial age, when mass-produced goods outclassed anything you could make yourself, this sudden tilt toward consumer involvement is a complete Lazarus move: "We thought that died long ago." The deep enthusiasm for making things, for interacting more deeply than just choosing options, is the great force not reckoned 10 years ago. This impulse for participation has upended the economy and is steadily turning the sphere of social networking - smart mobs, hive minds, and collaborative action - into the main event.
When a company opens its databases to users, as Amazon, Google, and eBay have done with their Web services, it is encouraging participation at new levels. The corporation's data becomes part of the commons and an invitation to participate. People who take advantage of these capabilities are no longer customers; they're the company's developers, vendors, skunk works, and fan base.
A little over a decade ago, a phone survey by Macworld asked a few hundred people what they thought would be worth $10 per month on the information superhighway. The participants started with uplifting services: educational courses, reference books, electronic voting, and library information. The bottom of the list ended with sports statistics, role-playing games, gambling, and dating. Ten years later what folks actually use the Internet for is inverted. According to a 2004 Stanford study, people use the Internet for (in order): playing games, "just surfing," shopping the list ends with responsible activities like politics and banking. (Some even admitted to porn.) Remember, shopping wasn't supposed to happen. Where's Cliff Stoll, the guy who said the Internet was baloney and online catalogs humbug? He has a little online store where he sells handcrafted Klein bottles.
The public's fantasy, revealed in that 1994 survey, began reasonably with the conventional notions of a downloadable world. These assumptions were wired into the infrastructure. The bandwidth on cable and phone lines was asymmetrical: Download rates far exceeded upload rates. The dogma of the age held that ordinary people had no need to upload; they were consumers, not producers. Fast-forward to today, and the poster child of the new Internet regime is BitTorrent. The brilliance of BitTorrent is in its exploitation of near-symmetrical communication rates. Users upload stuff while they are downloading. It assumes participation, not mere consumption. Our communication infrastructure has taken only the first steps in this great shift from audience to participants, but that is where it will go in the next decade.
With the steady advance of new ways to share, the Web has embedded itself into every class, occupation, and region. Indeed, people's anxiety about the Internet being out of the mainstream seems quaint now. In part because of the ease of creation and dissemination, online culture is the culture. Likewise, the worry about the Internet being 100 percent male was entirely misplaced. Everyone missed the party celebrating the 2002 flip-point when women online first outnumbered men. Today, 52 percent of netizens are female. And, of course, the Internet is not and has never been a teenage realm. In 2005, the average user is a bone-creaking 41 years old.
What could be a better mark of irreversible acceptance than adoption by the Amish? I was visiting some Amish farmers recently. They fit the archetype perfectly: straw hats, scraggly beards, wives with bonnets, no electricity, no phones or TVs, horse and buggy outside. They have an undeserved reputation for resisting all technology, when actually they are just very late adopters. Still, I was amazed to hear them mention their Web sites.
"Amish Web sites?" I asked.
"For advertising our family business. We weld barbecue grills in our shop."
"Yes, but "
"Oh, we use the Internet terminal at the public library. And Yahoo!"
I knew then the battle was over.
2015
The Web continues to evolve from a world ruled by mass media and mass audiences to one ruled by messy media and messy participation. How far can this frenzy of creativity go? Encouraged by Web-enabled sales, 175,000 books were published and more than 30,000 music albums were released in the US last year. At the same time, 14 million blogs launched worldwide. All these numbers are escalating. A simple extrapolation suggests that in the near future, everyone alive will (on average) write a song, author a book, make a video, craft a weblog, and code a program. This idea is less outrageous than the notion 150 years ago that someday everyone would write a letter or take a photograph.
What happens when the data flow is asymmetrical - but in favor of creators? What happens when everyone is uploading far more than they download? If everyone is busy making, altering, mixing, and mashing, who will have time to sit back and veg out? Who will be a consumer?
No one. And that's just fine. A world where production outpaces consumption should not be sustainable; that's a lesson from Economics 101. But online, where many ideas that don't work in theory succeed in practice, the audience increasingly doesn't matter. What matters is the network of social creation, the community of collaborative interaction that futurist Alvin Toffler called prosumption. As with blogging and BitTorrent, prosumers produce and consume at once. The producers are the audience, the act of making is the act of watching, and every link is both a point of departure and a destination.
But if a roiling mess of participation is all we think the Web will become, we are likely to miss the big news, again. The experts are certainly missing it. The Pew Internet & American Life Project surveyed more than 1,200 professionals in 2004, asking them to predict the Net's next decade. One scenario earned agreement from two-thirds of the respondents: "As computing devices become embedded in everything from clothes to appliances to cars to phones, these networked devices will allow greater surveillance by governments and businesses." Another was affirmed by one-third: "By 2014, use of the Internet will increase the size of people's social networks far beyond what has traditionally been the case."
These are safe bets, but they fail to capture the Web's disruptive trajectory. The real transformation under way is more akin to what Sun's John Gage had in mind in 1988 when he famously said, "The network is the computer." He was talking about the company's vision of the thin-client desktop, but his phrase neatly sums up the destiny of the Web: As the OS for a megacomputer that encompasses the Internet, all its services, all peripheral chips and affiliated devices from scanners to satellites, and the billions of human minds entangled in this global network. This gargantuan Machine already exists in a primitive form. In the coming decade, it will evolve into an integral extension not only of our senses and bodies but our minds.
Today, the Machine acts like a very large computer with top-level functions that operate at approximately the clock speed of an early PC. It processes 1 million emails each second, which essentially means network email runs at 1 megahertz. Same with Web searches. Instant messaging runs at 100 kilohertz, SMS at 1 kilohertz. The Machine's total external RAM is about 200 terabytes. In any one second, 10 terabits can be coursing through its backbone, and each year it generates nearly 20 exabytes of data. Its distributed "chip" spans 1 billion active PCs, which is approximately the number of transistors in one PC.
This planet-sized computer is comparable in complexity to a human brain. Both the brain and the Web have hundreds of billions of neurons (or Web pages). Each biological neuron sprouts synaptic links to thousands of other neurons, while each Web page branches into dozens of hyperlinks. That adds up to a trillion "synapses" between the static pages on the Web. The human brain has about 100 times that number - but brains are not doubling in size every few years. The Machine is.
Since each of its "transistors" is itself a personal computer with a billion transistors running lower functions, the Machine is fractal. In total, it harnesses a quintillion transistors, expanding its complexity beyond that of a biological brain. It has already surpassed the 20-petahertz threshold for potential intelligence as calculated by Ray Kurzweil. For this reason some researchers pursuing artificial intelligence have switched their bets to the Net as the computer most likely to think first. Danny Hillis, a computer scientist who once claimed he wanted to make an AI "that would be proud of me," has invented massively parallel supercomputers in part to advance us in that direction. He now believes the first real AI will emerge not in a stand-alone supercomputer like IBM's proposed 23-teraflop Blue Brain, but in the vast digital tangle of the global Machine.
In 10 years, the system will contain hundreds of millions of miles of fiber-optic neurons linking the billions of ant-smart chips embedded into manufactured products, buried in environmental sensors, staring out from satellite cameras, guiding cars, and saturating our world with enough complexity to begin to learn. We will live inside this thing.
Today the nascent Machine routes packets around disturbances in its lines; by 2015 it will anticipate disturbances and avoid them. It will have a robust immune system, weeding spam from its trunk lines, eliminating viruses and denial-of-service attacks the moment they are launched, and dissuading malefactors from injuring it again. The patterns of the Machine's internal workings will be so complex they won't be repeatable; you won't always get the same answer to a given question. It will take intuition to maximize what the global network has to offer. The most obvious development birthed by this platform will be the absorption of routine. The Machine will take on anything we do more than twice. It will be the Anticipation Machine.
One great advantage the Machine holds in this regard: It's always on. It is very hard to learn if you keep getting turned off, which is the fate of most computers. AI researchers rejoice when an adaptive learning program runs for days without crashing. The fetal Machine has been running continuously for at least 10 years (30 if you want to be picky). I am aware of no other machine - of any type - that has run that long with zero downtime. While portions may spin down due to power outages or cascading infections, the entire thing is unlikely to go quiet in the coming decade. It will be the most reliable gadget we have.
And the most universal. By 2015, desktop operating systems will be largely irrelevant. The Web will be the only OS worth coding for. It won't matter what device you use, as long as it runs on the Web OS. You will reach the same distributed computer whether you log on via phone, PDA, laptop, or HDTV.
In the 1990s, the big players called that convergence. They peddled the image of multiple kinds of signals entering our lives through one box - a box they hoped to control. By 2015 this image will be turned inside out. In reality, each device is a differently shaped window that peers into the global computer. Nothing converges. The Machine is an unbounded thing that will take a billion windows to glimpse even part of. It is what you'll see on the other side of any screen.
And who will write the software that makes this contraption useful and productive? We will. In fact, we're already doing it, each of us, every day. When we post and then tag pictures on the community photo album Flickr, we are teaching the Machine to give names to images. The thickening links between caption and picture form a neural net that can learn. Think of the 100 billion times per day humans click on a Web page as a way of teaching the Machine what we think is important. Each time we forge a link between words, we teach it an idea. Wikipedia encourages its citizen authors to link each fact in an article to a reference citation. Over time, a Wikipedia article becomes totally underlined in blue as ideas are cross-referenced. That massive cross-referencing is how brains think and remember. It is how neural nets answer questions. It is how our global skin of neurons will adapt autonomously and acquire a higher level of knowledge.
The human brain has no department full of programming cells that configure the mind. Rather, brain cells program themselves simply by being used. Likewise, our questions program the Machine to answer questions. We think we are merely wasting time when we surf mindlessly or blog an item, but each time we click a link we strengthen a node somewhere in the Web OS, thereby programming the Machine by using it.
What will most surprise us is how dependent we will be on what the Machine knows - about us and about what we want to know. We already find it easier to Google something a second or third time rather than remember it ourselves. The more we teach this megacomputer, the more it will assume responsibility for our knowing. It will become our memory. Then it will become our identity. In 2015 many people, when divorced from the Machine, won't feel like themselves - as if they'd had a lobotomy.
Legend has it that Ted Nelson invented Xanadu as a remedy for his poor memory and attention deficit disorder. In this light, the Web as memory bank should be no surprise. Still, the birth of a machine that subsumes all other machines so that in effect there is only one Machine, which penetrates our lives to such a degree that it becomes essential to our identity - this will be full of surprises. Especially since it is only the beginning.
There is only one time in the history of each planet when its inhabitants first wire up its innumerable parts to make one large Machine. Later that Machine may run faster, but there is only one time when it is born.
You and I are alive at this moment.
We should marvel, but people alive at such times usually don't. Every few centuries, the steady march of change meets a discontinuity, and history hinges on that moment. We look back on those pivotal eras and wonder what it would have been like to be alive then. Confucius, Zoroaster, Buddha, and the latter Jewish patriarchs lived in the same historical era, an inflection point known as the axial age of religion. Few world religions were born after this time. Similarly, the great personalities converging upon the American Revolution and the geniuses who commingled during the invention of modern science in the 17th century mark additional axial phases in the short history of our civilization.
Three thousand years from now, when keen minds review the past, I believe that our ancient time, here at the cusp of the third millennium, will be seen as another such era. In the years roughly coincidental with the Netscape IPO, humans began animating inert objects with tiny slivers of intelligence, connecting them into a global field, and linking their own minds into a single thing. This will be recognized as the largest, most complex, and most surprising event on the planet. Weaving nerves out of glass and radio waves, our species began wiring up all regions, all processes, all facts and notions into a grand network. From this embryonic neural net was born a collaborative interface for our civilization, a sensing, cognitive device with power that exceeded any previous invention. The Machine provided a new way of thinking (perfect search, total recall) and a new mind for an old species. It was the Beginning.
In retrospect, the Netscape IPO was a puny rocket to herald such a moment. The product and the company quickly withered into irrelevance, and the excessive exuberance of its IPO was downright tame compared with the dotcoms that followed. First moments are often like that. After the hysteria has died down, after the millions of dollars have been gained and lost, after the strands of mind, once achingly isolated, have started to come together - the only thing we can say is: Our Machine is born. It's on.
10 Years That Changed the World from Wired
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July 29, 2005
Is "Spyware" Watching You?
- by Jim Edwards
(c) Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved
http://www.thenetreporter.com
Imagine my surprise when I received a phone call from a friend who told me he'd been the victim of a "spyware" attack that left him shaking at his loss of privacy.
I listened to his horror story with a sympathetic ear, but I felt secure since I carry anti-virus software and a firewall (both by Norton).
At his suggestion - and to my surprise - I ran a program called "Spy Sweeper" and found a veritable minefield of dangerous and harmful programs lurking on my computer.
"Spyware" is software that gets onto your computer and literally "spies" on your activities.
The spying can range from relatively harmless use of cookies tracking you across multiple websites... to extremely dangerous "keystroke loggers" which record passwords, credit cards, and other personal data. That data then gets relayed to the person who put the
software on your computer.
Three primary types of spyware exist to complicate your online life, including:
1. "cookies" 2. "adware" 3. malicious programs like "keystroke loggers"
Cookies represent mostly a danger of lost privacy.
In theory, someone could use a "cookie" to track you across multiple sites, combine that data with several databases, and figure out a lot more information about you than would make you comfortable.
"Adware" tracks more than just your movement across sites, it spies on your installed software and computer habits to then serve up advertising, modify websites before you see them, and generally do things without your knowledge with the intention of trying to get you to buy things.
"Keystroke loggers" and other malicious programs exist for one purpose: to cause personal mayhem and financial damage.
Spyware gets on your computer in one of several different ways.
First, it rides along with software you download from the 'Net and install on your system.
Second, they come as email attachments (much like viruses) and automatically install themselves on your computer when you open the email message.
Third, hackers find an open port on your computer and use the "back door" to install basically anything they want.
And fourth, the more malicious types, like keystroke loggers, can even get installed by someone with direct physical access to your computer such as an employer, suspicious spouse, business competitor, or someone who wants to know exactly what you're doing.
Now, suppose you carry an up-to-date anti-virus program and a firewall - shouldn't that represent potent protection?
In a word: NO!
I can personally attest that even the most up-to-date anti-virus programs and firewalls will not (repeat, WILL NOT) catch all the spyware that can infest your computer.
You need a program that specifically scans your system for the tens- of-thousands of existing spyware programs along with the new ones appearing daily.
Check out "Spy Sweeper" from webroot.com - this is the program I used to discover the spyware on my computer.
One thing I noticed, however, is that this program is a memory hog, so once I scanned, I turned it off and then use it 2-3 times a week... not the best strategy, but I want to give you the "whole" picture.
I also got the following recommendations from numerous subscribers about 2 programs to specifically help identify and remove spyware from your system (PC):
1. "Ad Aware" from lavasoft.de 2. "Spybot Search & Destroy" from safer-networking.org
The overwhelmingly recommended firewall suggested by readers was Zone Alarm Pro from Zone Labs
The bottom line seems pretty simple (but lengthy) if you want to protect yourself against this growing threat.
~ Keep your anti-virus program current ~ Install a firewall ~ Carefully screen software before installing it ~ Scan for specifically for spyware weekly ~ Stay current on this growing threat.
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use free articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links...
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Need MORE TRAFFIC to your website or affiliate links? "Turn Words Into Traffic" reveals the secrets for driving Thousands of NEW visitors to your website or affiliate links... without spending a dime on advertising! Click Here
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July 27, 2005
3 Better Ways To Search Online
- by Jim Edwards
(c) Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved
http://www.thenetreporter.com
Nothing creates a more frustrating online experience than pulling up your favorite search engine to find something simple and coming away empty handed after an hour of searching.
Search engines - those sites that allegedly help you find what you want online - can cause no end of grief if you don't know some simple tricks that will vastly improve your search results.
Suppose you wanted to find information regarding 1954 Ford truck parts. Most people would search this subject by going to their favorite search engine and typing in 1954 Ford truck parts. The search engine would hopefully return results for sites that matched those keywords.
However, search engines usually also return results including sites containing only some of the words in your search. So in this example you would also get sites not only about 1954 Ford truck parts, but on 1954 Fords, Ford trucks, truck parts, and trucks.
Virtually everyone knows the frustration of typing keywords (the topic of your search) into a search engine, clicking the search button, and then facing the prospect of sorting through a million pages (literally) to find what you want.
For everyone experiencing search engine frustration, these suggestions should quickly improve your results.
Tip #1 - To aid you in searching more efficiently, most search engines allow surfers to perform "Boolean" searches.
This feature narrows the results to only those websites containing all the words specified, but not necessarily in the exact order.
Those searching for 1954 Ford truck parts would enter 1954 AND Ford AND truck AND parts into the search box to find sites containing all of those words.
Tip #2 - Using quotation marks around keyword sets yields even more specific results.
"1954 Ford truck parts" should produce only those websites containing this exact phrase somewhere in the website.
Tip #3 - The more specific you get right up front, the better.
If you want to look for antique car parts for your 1954 Ford truck, start your search with "1954 Ford truck parts" and work from there.
Don't start with "1954 Ford" because you'll probably just waste time sorting through everything from cars to magazines to collector clubs.
It would also help if you searched by the model and any other specific information.
If refining your searches doesn't get you where you want to go, several programs exist to help you search more quickly and effectively.
Copernic (www.copernic.com) examines multiple search engines then compares each engine's results against the rest to determine the best sites.
The program then ranks the resulting sites and displays them for the user. Copernic's free version allows users unlimited searches for websites.
Web Ferret (www.ferretsoft.com) also offers a free program that queries multiple search engines and displays the ranked results in the user's web browser for easy surfing.
With the addition of millions of web pages every week, continuously honing your search skills represents one of the smartest investments of time and energy any serious web surfer can make.
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use free articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links...
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July 26, 2005
2 PC Annoyances and How To Solve Them!
- by Jim Edwards
(c) Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved
http://www.thenetreporter.com
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
I have a love-hate relationship with my computer.
In fact, often I love to hate my computer!
It will do things I know even the great Mr. Gates didn't intend, and it usually does them at the least convenient time (like when I'm on a deadline or in a hurry).
Rather than the usual whining and doing nothing about it, I've decided to share a couple of things that previously annoyed the heck out of me and the solutions I found to help you avoid these same problems.
Disappearing Internet Explorer Status Bar
The status bar at the bottom of the Internet Explorer web browser serves many purposes.
It allows you to hold your mouse over a link to see where the link will take you.
It enables you to see a page's loading progress as you wait for it to download.
Most importantly, the status bar allows you to see the little gold "lock" symbol that lets you know you've made a connection to a secure server (very important to know before you input credit card data).
For some inexplicable reason, from time to time, this status bar disappears from my browser.
Also, the toolbars at the top tend to move periodically and mess up my "system" for surfing the Internet.
Now, it's not the end of the world, but it really ticks me off when things change and I didn't change them! If this ever happens to you, here's how to literally "lock" the toolbars and status bar in place so they don't disappear or move again.
First, close all your Internet Explorer web browser windows except for one. If the status bar doesn't already appear in the window, go to "View" and then click "status bar."
Also, make sure you have all the toolbars arranged the way you want them.
Next, place your mouse over a blank spot on one of the tool bars at the top of the Internet Explorer browser window.
Right-mouse-click and a menu will appear where you should check the option "Lock the Toolbars."
Then, while holding down the
If you ever need to change your toolbars in the future, simply right-mouse-click on the toolbar and uncheck the "Lock the Toolbars" option, make the changes, and then re-lock the toolbars to keep them from moving or disappearing.
Missing File Extensions
One of the biggest pains in the neck involves opening Windows Explorer, viewing a list of files, and not being able to see the file extension (.doc, .txt, .html, etc.) for each file.
For some reason, Windows considers this classified information!
To make the file extensions show up, click "Start" then "Control Panel." Double-click "Folder Options" then click the "View" tab. Scroll down the list and uncheck the box that says "Hide extensions for known file types."
You will now see the file extensions any time you open up Windows Explorer.
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use free articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links...
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Need MORE TRAFFIC to your website or affiliate links? "Turn Words Into Traffic" reveals the secrets for driving Thousands of NEW visitors to your website or affiliate links... without spending a dime on advertising! Click Here
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July 24, 2005
Why You Should Only Follow One "Guru" At A Time
By Michael Green
If you are out there trying to make money via Internet Marketing then you are not by any means alone. There are now tens-of-thousands of folks working part-time, trying to generate enough income to leave their 9-5 and live off their online income for good.
But sadly, for most of these people, the reality is that they will probably scrape by month-by-month, earning the odd commission check, but never really breaking thru' to the "Online Big Time"!
Now as someone who has been fortunate enough to translate that ultimate dream of making enough money 'while I sleep', to give up my day job (if I chose to), I've been troubled about why others work just as hard as me (or harder) online - but never seem to make it to the holy grail of internet profits.
So eventually I conducted a piece of research using the responses from people who have taken my internet marketing mini-course.
And the results were most revealing...
Too Many Experts - Too Little Time!
Something that I had long suspected and have even experienced for myself, turns out to be absolutely true.
There is a lot of excellent help and advice available out there for online marketers.
In fact you don't need to look very far and you'll soon be stumbling across internet marketing experts that'll tell you much about important subjects like:
- product creation
- autoresponders
- opt-in lists
- follow-up marketing
- choosing the right pricing
- running affiliate programs
- and so on...and so forth...
But, confusingly each and every one of these "experts" sets themselves up to be an authoritative "guru".
And now suddenly (for the average Joe trying to make a good living online) the marketplace in advice is overcrowded and very confusing.
Sure, a lot of the available information seems to be very good, but where should you start and who should you believe?
Worse still...one expert seems to be contradicting the next and everyone is SHOUTING so loud that you just don't know what to do for the best (or first).
And the result of all this?
Complete Paralysis!
Your online work lacks direction. One minute you're following guru "A", next you're dipping into guru "B's" advice, but then an email pops through from guru "S" and what they have to say looks simply irresistible. Suddenly you are being pulled in so many directions that you just can't think where to start!
One "Guru" at a time please!
So what should you be doing to build your own successful online business?
For me (and for those who I have tutored), the answer has been to select one 'all round expert' to follow. Find a marketing "guru" who you feel comfortable with. Someone who you've read a little about and believe can educate you in the rights and wrongs of online product creation and marketing.
Most importantly, take a look at the writing style of the "guru" you are thinking of learning from. And ask yourself?
- Is this a writing style that I can understand?
- Does this "guru" have a natural ability to put a lot of information across to me in a clear and readable fashion?
And most importantly of all...
- Has this so called "guru" really done this for themselves? Or to put it another way - do they know what they're talking about?
Now Focus On This One Person Until You've Achieved Online Success
Having answered the above questions and chosen your expert - follow them until you have become successful yourself.
If you've chosen wisely, then having purchased some of your gurus information, they won't mind when you come back to ask the occasional direct question.
For example, I frequently receive emails like:
"Michael, I read what you said about XYZ, but could you point me in the right direction to achieve this other important challenge?"
Follow a knowledgeable expert and they won't mind sharing a little extra information with you.
But, best of all if you concentrate on one person's advice at a time, you are far more likely to make a success of your own online business - if only because you won't waste loads of your time trying out a little bit from everyone, and being pulled in so many directions that you end up achieving nothing.
To your online marketing success!
Michael Green Developer of the "Create & Sell Products Online" toolkit.
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You can develop your own online business by following the step-by step advice of the above author, Michael Green. He has created a toolkit for anyone wanting to create their own successful online business. Michael's own range of online products are in the top 10 on ClickBank's marketplace, proving that he is a top online marketer himself. His latest toolkit shows you exactly how to follow in his footsteps, to create your own online business.
Click here to find out more
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July 22, 2005
Surviving Tough Times Online
- by Jim Edwards
(c) Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved
http://www.thenetreporter.com
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With economic problems dominating the headlines, all businesses, online and off, need to make the most of every single customer contact if they hope to stay in business!
Consumers want to hang onto every dollar and only spend money for things they feel they really "must" have. To put yourself and your business in the best position to survive and thrive in the current economy, follow these simple rules for making every website visitor count.
The first step in making every visitor count involves knowing exactly what people want from you. The vast majority of businesses never bother to ask what customers and visitors want, and therefore, they make fewer sales than they could with a little research.
Smart online business owners use surveys regularly to stay in touch with customer needs, tastes, and preferences. It costs next to nothing to ask a customer what they want and then simply give it to them. But, it may cost you everything if you don't take the time to ask first.
Next, businesses hoping to make it in these uncertain economic times must form alliances with other business owners who cater to the same audience. Other business owners have the traffic you need in order to grow your business.
For this reason, you must constantly look for creative ways to work with them. The easiest way to profit by working with other website owners involves endorsing each other's products to your own lists or, at a minimum, trading links to funnel traffic back and forth.
Creating traffic from "scratch" rates the slowest and costliest way to bring customers to your website. Persuading other people to send targeted traffic your way puts you on the fast track to profits.
The third step for triumphing in uncertain economic times entails building one-on-one relationships with your customers and prospects, even if you have thousands of them. They must feel as if you are speaking only to them in all of your communications.
The quickest way to accomplish this involves specializing in one highly specific area of concern for them. In other words, no matter what you sell, you'll never succeed as "Wal-Mart." To succeed, your online business must completely meet the needs of your customers in one, specific area.
Time to face facts: the Internet won't go away! In fact, despite the well publicized "dot bombs" of a couple of years ago, the Internet forms a more integral part of our lives than ever.
Even if you feel like your business, your job, or some other important aspect of your life doesn't depend on the Internet today, what about tomorrow?
Finally, everyone must stay current at all times with the ever-changing landscape of the Internet. At some point, virtually every one of us will find the Internet an integral part of our business lives.
As effective business people, we must develop the ability to adapt to change and give customers what they want - not in months or years -but in the space of hours or days.
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use free articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links...
============================================================
Need MORE TRAFFIC to your website or affiliate links? "Turn Words Into Traffic" reveals the secrets for driving Thousands of NEW visitors to your website or affiliate links... without spending a dime on advertising! Click Here
============================================================
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July 20, 2005
Crying For Help Online
- by Jim Edwards
(c) Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved
http://www.TheNetReporter.com
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Anyone surfing the Internet for more than a week eventually needs help from someone else. Whether regarding an online purchase, technical support on computer hardware, software support or some other type of help, sooner or later everyone needs assistance.
The way in which you ask for help has everything to do with how fast and how well you receive assistance. In the online world where email rules, the following tips will help you get what you need and get on your way quickly.
Remember the "person" on the other end
When something on your computer or a particular website doesn't function properly, irritation seems a natural reaction, especially when you have no clue why things don't work or how to fix them. A sense of helplessness often leads to feelings of frustration and anger. However, no matter how upset you get, you must always remember that a live person will receive your email communication and, in many cases, they didn't cause your problem directly.
Remember, those email "missiles" that make you feel better in the short term will almost always come back to haunt you over the long haul.
When first asking for help, never send notes with phrases such as "If you don't respond to me within two hours I'm going to contact my lawyer." or "I sure hope this isn't a scam." Rarely do such comments produce the cheerful help or assistance you actually want.
"Please" and "Thank You"
Common courtesy goes a long way towards getting what you want, especially regarding technical support. Notes with nasty comments put the person on the receiving end in a bad frame of mind. However, notes with a polite tone sprinkled generously with "please" and "thank you" will usually receive prompt and courteous attention. You can always get more severe later if you must.
Don't use ALL CAPS
Using all capital letters in an email rates the same as SHOUTING in someone's face! Ignorance of this custom online does not excuse the behavior.
Though you may think typing certain words in ALL CAPS merely shows emphasis on your part, to a "computer geek" you will seem rude and offensive. Once you have offended the person from whom you seek help, your chances of receiving that help diminish significantly.
Get to the point
Everything happens quickly online. Time ranks number one as the customer support person's scarcest resource and they don't have time to read long emails to figure out what you need.
When asking for help, always include your name, contact information, order information, specific dates and a clear description of the help or information you need.
Avoid including any extraneous information that won't contribute directly in assisting someone in giving you exactly what you need.
Though the Internet and email may seem like an instant solution to many problems, people still run the technology. If you need help from another person, don't treat the person like a machine. You'll get a lot further by doing it this way.
Jim Edwards is the co-author of a "paint by numbers" guide with step-by-step VIDEO that guarantees to teach you how to go from zero to making real money online in about a month!
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July 19, 2005
Get Valuable Computer Based Training Online - Free
Educating yourself about computers and software programs represents a very expensive proposition in both time and money.
Anyone who has ever seen those Video Professor advertisements on TV knows that a simple tutorial on CD-Rom costs $59 plus shipping and handling. Most people don't realize computer and software training is readily available online, some of it as good or better than the introductory courses that can cost you a lot of money.
Would you like to learn how to set up a web page? Do you want to learn how to use your word processor for accomplishing more than just typing simple letters? How about learning to use all the great "secret" features in your email program?
Log on to http://www.findtutorials.com to find yourself in a world of learning about things that really interest you! Many of the tutorials listed come free of charge since the sites hosting the classes contain the usual advertising most of us have come to expect online.
Some categories have more available classes than others, but the site rates a serious look and even a bookmark so you can check back for new jewels of knowledge on a regular basis. Check here first before spending money on training, especially for introductory and general information instruction.
The following sites also offer free online training, however, understand that many of them use the introductory courses as a lead in to get you to purchase additional books, classes or other advanced instruction.
http://www.computertim.com Offers an extensive collection of articles to help you learn how to operate various Microsoft Office programs more efficiently, including: Windows, Word, Outlook, Excel, and FrontPage.
http://www.lgta.org Land-Grant Training Alliance - teaches you how to use various software packages online and even has an interesting tutorial on how to use the Internet as a teaching tool to help others.
http://www.trainingtools.com Offers a variety of introductory training courses for software packages dealing primarily with website creation, installing scripts and making your website do cool things!
http://www.learnthat.com/courses/ Offers a variety of courses on everything from computer training and software packages to even dealing with some hardware issues and how to purchase the right digital camera.
http://www.elosoft.com/101/computer.htm Offers a wide selection of links to other sites that offer online instruction, books, classes and other learning resources. Looks like an excellent place to start your search for additional information when you need instruction or help.
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Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use free articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links...
============================================================
Need MORE TRAFFIC to your website or affiliate links? "Turn Words Into Traffic" reveals the secrets for driving Thousands of NEW visitors to your website or affiliate links... without spending a dime on advertising! Click Here
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