Internet Marketing

The continuous and rapid revolution in the advancement of modern era has made every thing so comfortable for everyone and that is the reason why most of the people are fancy to use Internet because of its reliability, speed & performance. Along with message delivering through e-mail, seeking information through searching and browsing, a lot of people are using Internet for online shopping or ecommerce, which have evolved the field of Internet marketing and internet marketing exporters have found an proficient way to find their potential customers.

“The dot.com world was about coming up with an interesting idea and finding unknowledgeable investors to throw at them. But we are now back to live in the practical world, where technology can provide business with an edge over their competition” (Richard Greenwood)

Marketing is actually the craft of connecting different producers (or potential producers) of product or service with prospects, both existing and potential. Marketers basically use four variables while writing marketing plans and making market strategies. They are sometimes referred to as the four P’s (which are Project, process, people & product). The combination of these variables is referred as Marketing Mix. A marketing mix is the combination of these four variables in a way that will meet or improve organizational objectives. A separate marketing mix is usually crafted for each product offering. Whenever a strategies or plans are build it engages a blend of these four combinations. A strategy of selling expensive beneficial products in discount stores has poor coherency between distribution and product offering.

Drawbacks of Internet Marketing The actual size of the market is usually not available Difficult to get demography and penetration figures Coverage is not consistent There can be lack of authority There is no certain control, which causes lack or reliability

Benefits of Internet marketing · Easy, less expensive and comfortable access to the information · Most of the information is free · There are numerous web sites available through which the required subject can be covered efficiently. · Contains a lot of background information · Information can be found in a very short time · Has a broad geographic scope · Briskly improving and increasing · Many companies are interested to add their own web pages

Non-stopping development of business online has also augmented the field of online marketing. Before starting any business the most important element, which have the most considerable influence of the success or failure of the business is the initial business idea. For the success of any business there must be a proper business idea along with appropriate techniques to run the business accordingly.

The precise approach towards the Business The business plan for any organization consist of three main parts which are

1. Product 2. Targeted Market 3. Unique Selling proposition (USP)

Product The product is any thing for which you are going to charge your customers. These are the things which you are selling and it can be any thing like books, e-books, electronic items, software to download, it can also be a membership of any online community, a professional service, or any thing else which you are interested to sale. The ‘value’ of the product is its most valuable feature. The product you are selling should have the following characteristics · It should be beneficial for the customers · It should be good enough to solve the customer’s problems · Full fill their requirements · The product should satisfy the customers

Targeted Market The Targeted market for any business is the audience and the customers to whom the product is being sold.

Even if their analytics provider doesn’t partner with a search or e-mail provider, many marketers are now using their Web analytics package to make decisions about their overall marketing plan-and their business in general. (Karen J. Bannan)

Following are some essential points to keep in mind while selecting the targeted audience · The targeted market should have an appropriate size · It should be large enough to generate a good profit · It should be small enough to fit in the total resources of the business · If the business is small then it should avoid contending with comparatively large business · The targeted audience should be easily reachable on the internet through the particular websites.

USP (Unique Selling Proposition) The USP is basically the market strategy or the motive of the business through which the corporation is connected with the targeted market. It is the most important part of the business idea in which the corporation decides how to persuade the customers and letting them know that how our product is different from any other item on the shelf waiting to be sold. It should influence the customers and provide them with the reasons that why our product is the best solution for their requirements. When we talk about the profit margin, then it may not necessarily be the financial profit only; there can also be many side advantages, which are essential for running the business smoothly.

Establishing your business on Internet Nowadays Internet is not just a source to get information but it is also a very effective place to run you business. Many people are doing their business on internet and even more people are willing to join them. But unfortunately all of them do not get success and there are also many dot-bombs or fail e-commerce startups. This is because of the lack of awareness about the self-education before starting the business.

The best thing about establishing an internet business is that, there is no big investment required to start an e-business, so if the business is don’t in a proper way so you can get a good profit without investing too much.

Understanding of Customers For the progress of any business, it is essential to have a good understanding of the customers. This issue becomes even more vital when we talk about the online business, where we mostly have no idea about the customers.

Due to this fact, large corporations are spending millions of dollars on marketing research to get as many information as possible about their customers, which allows them to improve their product and make them according to the appropriate requirement of the customers. Although this research is help full but if the business is so this expense can be avoided. “They will try to replicate the in-store experience on many levels, developing applications that enable users to see how something will look on someone. The challenge is to develop applications that simulate the in-store experience while still maintaining the speed, convenience and efficiency of the Internet” (Speicher, GCI) It is important to have a sound knowledge of different ways by which customers buy their products. Few points are important in this regard

· Vendors should design their offerings to meet the appropriate needs of their customers. · Venders can persuade buyers at decisive steps during the buying process. · Venders can provide the additional offers for further business.

Trends & Strategies to boost sale in Internet Marketing

Vivid Word Pictures When developing the advertisement of your product, web pages or other or other sales tools, some vivid word pictures should be used to give a pleasant feeling to the customers. It exaggerates their desire to have it and prompt them to buy the product.

Use of appropriate advertising and marketing methods There should be a continuous observation to the advertising and marketing method of the business which ensure the use of latest advertising methods and some old methods which have not been tried.

” eBay says it reaches 56.1 million active users. The obvious drawback: A vast majority of those users aren’t in the real estate market. But to reach those who are, eBay is a tool–like direct mail or news-paper advertising–that some practitioners are using to market listings, drive traffic to their Web sites, and attract new prospects.”

Cost of the ads If there are some ads allied with any business then it should be carefully examined that if the size of the ads is bigger then it should be reduced to run more ads for the same cost.

Some times the short ads can provide even more response then longer ads and can provide with a bigger return of the cost.

Postcards advertisements There can also be another effective way of advertising by printing a good small ad on a postcard and then send it to the targeted market. People often read postcards if the message is nice and short. This small ad on a postcard can be very effective at times and can make a very rapid change on the sale of the products.

Inspiring words & phrases Lively words and phrases in the advertisements and sales copies make people interested in the product. Try to find some dull sentences and replace them with some active and lively words to obtain the involvement of the prospects.

Eradicate the fear of lost In the manner of revealing the benefits of your product to the customers the other important aspect is to tell them what they lose if they do not buy that specific product. Consumers want any product because of the benefits it offers and on the other hand if they have been told the downside of not buying the product so it will persuade them even more for purchasing that product.

Use of surprise strategies To remove the last minute hesitation, any surprise or pleasant announcements regarding the product also helps influencing the customers to buy the product. The surprise can be any unexpected bonus or additional benefits just before the completion of concluding action of the sale.

Use of special packages For getting a boost in any business the vendors can also introduce some special packages, which combines two or more related items and set a lower prize as compare to each item. These sorts of packages leave a good impact on discount hunters and procrastinators.

Promoting the business sales to new prospects and existing customers Every business always hunts for new customers for intend of improving their sales. But the auction from the existing customers of the business should not be overlooked. It is much easier to get further business from them rather then depending on new prospects. Additional benefits, products and services should be offered to the current customers to get more sales from them.

“As a result of our exposure on eBay, we can attribute two sales, one listing, approximately three good prospects per month, and about 700 visitors per day to our Web site,” (Christopher Walker)

Receiving appreciation from the customers is always good for the motivation of any business. The same sort of respond should be provided for such customers, which induce them to do more business.

Hype the product by the help of customers Often the existing customers of your business can be an important asset for capturing a better market of your product. Incentives can be provided to the customers to let them introduce your products to their friends. Assistance from them can increase the sale of the business in a great deal with out wasting much of the money in ads.

Internet Marketing Through E-mails Email marketing is one of the most influential marketing tools accessible to businesses of all sorts and sizes. No matter how you define success, you can achieve outstanding results with Email marketing while investing only a small amount of time and an even smaller amount of money.

“54% of small businesses surveyed rated Email as the top online promotion to drive site visitors and customers to their web sites and storefronts.” (Experts of small business) Following are the key benefits of Email marketing

1. Economical Email marketing is a reasonable & affordable way to stretch a limited marketing budget. Unlike direct mail, there is virtually no production, materials or postage expense.

“This information has been only available to big businesses who had research and marketing departments, companies like American Express, Now any business can have it.” (Bill Chasse)

2. Effectiveness Email marketing allows active communication with existing customers and prospects instead of passively waiting for them to return to your web site or storefront. Emails can easily be targeted by source, interest, or list. In general, Email communications sent to the prospect and customer lists, and it improves the ROI of all lead generation and customer relation programs, single-handedly.

3. Instantaneous response Email marketing has two great advantages over other marketing vehicles. First, with the existing and easily obtainable self-service tools, anyone can generate and send compelling Email newsletters, promotions, announcements or more in hours or days. No agency or production time is necessary to create and send professional communications. Second, Email marketing generates an instantaneous response. The call to action is apparent: “Click here to take advantage of this offer”, or “to learn more about this service”, or to “attend this event”.

4. Quantifiable results Unlike other vehicles for marketing, results from Email campaigns are easily measured. Results are reported in terms of “opens”, which report the number of people saw your offer or newsletters, Click Through Rates (CTRs), which measure how many people actually clicked on the links in your Email, and in a many cases, who actually clicked on those links.

5. Uncomplicated For small and medium business there are web-based Email marketing products. Most of them include professional HTML templates, list segmentation and targeting capabilities, as well as, automatic tracking and reporting. So, you are free to concentrate on your unique message while the rest has already been done.

Conclusion and Evaluation Internet marketing is no doubt the most effective and efficient mode of communication with the customers and prospects. But unfortunately in some of the developing countries the scope of Internet marketing is not so wide because organizations still relay a lot on advertising through the other channels, as a result spending a lot on conventional marketing.

Apart from some of the developing countries most organizations around the world have found the Internet marketing as the most easy, cost effective and efficient way of marketing.

Alex Martin works as a staff writer for TermPapersCorner,Inc.
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term paper, custom essay, college term paper and thesis writing service to students and professionals. We are currently having a writing competition visit Writing Contest 2005

If your items aren’t selling, then you might have a bad pricing strategy. There as many pricing strategies in the world as there are buyers - if you look at two businesses selling the same thing, often the only difference you’ll be able to find between them is pricing.

The ‘Few Dollars More’ Strategy.

Here’s something you might not have thought of. If you set your auction’s starting price to what you would usually charge for Buy it Now, while setting the Buy it Now price a few dollars above, you can make a profit by setting off an interesting psychological reaction in the buyer’s mind.

Here’s what they’ll think. They want the item, but why should they bother bidding for it? After all, they could use Buy it Now for just a few dollars more, and be sure of getting it! Doing things this way makes the value of the Buy it Now option extra clear to the buyer, and makes them more willing to pay extra for the privilege.

The ‘One Dollar Less’ Strategy.

This is simple, but requires you to keep an eagle eye on your competition. As soon as they start a Buy it Now auction for an item you stock, start an auction for one of those items yourself. Match the title closely, but price your item one dollar less than theirs. This will mean that your auctions will sit together in the search results, and who’s going to see both and go for the one that’s a dollar more expensive?

The ‘Free Shipping’ Strategy.

Buyers really hate paying for shipping. With Buy it Now, you might find it easier to incorporate the shipping cost into the main price of the item, and then write “free shipping” in the auction’s title. You’d be surprised how many buyers would prefer to pay one price including shipping for the auction, instead of having shipping added on at the checkout. Again, this is psychological: they pay the same at the end, but it doesn’t feel like they’ve paid an unnecessary ‘extra’ cost for Internet shopping.

The ‘Go for It’ Strategy.

If you’d like a slightly more risky strategy, try this. List your item for the maximum duration (ten days), starting the listing on a Thursday so it goes across two weekends and finishes on a Sunday. Set the starting price to the minimum (one cent).

What you’re trying to do here is give bidders as long as possible to discover your auction, so that they push the price up themselves. Pay for a few upgrades like bold and highlight, to give them a helping hand. If you do this right, you can make a much bigger profit than you would have with any Buy it Now price, especially with a medium or high value item.

Paul is Head of Training for a major UK Charitable Organisation with a wealth of experience in personal development, management development, e-learning and operational management. In addition he owns PK eBooks (http://www.pk-ebooks.co.uk) two sites specifically aimed at those who want to successfully sell on eBay http://www.ebay-profits.co.uk and http://www.info-entrepreneurs.co.uk

What’s a Search Engine? Oohs.

It is a program designed to do basically three things.

1. Gathers copies of web pages from the world wide web.

2. Stores the copies of web pages in its index or database.

3. Looks up its huge database of web pages to find matches to search query, and ranks them in order of relevance.

For example if you go to Google search and type in the words ’search engine’ and hit the enter button. Immediately, the Google Search Engine starts to query its huge database and try to find web pages that matches the search term ’search engine’, and ranks them according to relevance.

Ranking according to relevance is determined by the Search Engine algorithm (specific requirements). Every Search Engine has its own peculiar algorithm.

Basically there are 2 types of Search Engines, human edited directories and crawler-based Search Engines. The operations of these 2 types of Search Engines are different.

What is a human edited directory?

As the term suggests, a human edited directory depends on humans to review, approve and compile its listings of web pages. The Yahoo Directory and Open Directory Project (DMOZ) are examples of human edited directories. You submit a short description of your website to the directory. Search results only show matches in the descriptions submitted. Changing your web pages does not have any effect on listing in a directory.

What is a crawler-based Search Engine?

First and foremost, let’s understand what’s a crawler? It is one component of a Search Engine that automatically ‘crawled the web’ to gather listings. The Search Engine ‘crawler’, which is also known as ’spider’ or ‘robot’ visits a web page, reads it, and follows links to other web pages. It gathers copies of web pages and stores them in the Search Engines index (database). When people type in a search term the Search Engine looks up its database of web pages, and uses its specific algorithm (specific requirements) to determine which pages closely match the search term.

Crawler-based Search engines, gathers and creates listing automatically. New web pages are automatically crawled and indexed, and changes made to existing web pages are also automatically updated. If you make changes to your web pages, the crawlers will find these changes, which in turn may affect the ranking of your web pages.

For a crawler based Search Engine, it is the crawler that does the work of gathering and compiling the listing. Google is one example of the many crawler-based Search Engines.

Practically speaking, you don’t have to submit your web page to Google. Google’s crawler, Googlebot will find your web pages. In fact, Google’s crawler does a more efficient job of finding and indexing web pages. Just for peace of mind, however, you could submit your web page to Google to be indexed and ranked.

For smaller crawler-based search Engines, you still need to submit your web pages for listing. Upon confirmation of your submission, crawlers are sent out to index your web pages.

Human edited directory like DMOZ, which is a free listing directory, depends on humans to review, approve and compile its listings of web pages. DMOZ is staffed by volunteer editors. There is a massive backlog because everyday thousands of new web sites are being submitted for listing. It used to take anywhere between 2 to 6 months to get your web site listed. It may take longer now. The backlog of paid commercial directories is smaller compared to DMOZ.

Recommended article for reading:
Who powers whom? Search providers chart http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/2156401,

Gerrick W - mailto:gw@1stinternetmarketingsolution.com
Information and Software Tools You Need
to Effectively Promote Your Online Business.
Visit: http://www.1stinternetmarketingsolution.com

I deal with many questions from curious website owners everyday. One question I have a new answer for is, “Should I use META tags on my site when do search engine optimization?” Old Answer: It couldn’t hurt, but don’t worry about them, the search engines ignore them for the most part. New answer? Read on…

Should I really use a META tag? Really?

The new answer is yes, you should use META tags on your site. The keyword META tag is still not used by search engines but when submitting to directories, a valuable use of time by the way, the META keywords are used in many cases to automatically fill in the keywords for your site in that directory.

Even more amazingly, the META description tag has soared in importance. How so you ask? Google has started showing the META description in its search results when certain criteria are met.

The criteria being used appears to be very simple, unlike many of the other things Google does. When the keyword or search terms appear in the META description, the META description is used instead of the snippet of text containing the keyword on your page.

For example, if you do a search in Google for ‘Big Oak SEO’ you will see our site in the first listing and the description used is our META description tag. All three words being searched for are also in our META description.

If you do a search for ‘big oak client’ you will see the first listing is pulling a snippet of text from the page itself. Since ‘client’ is not in our META description, it uses a snippet of text from the page where all three words can be found.

Where should you use a META description tag?

Every website should use a META description tag on the home page at the very least. This way you can say exactly what you want and not worry the snippet of text being used is not best choice for your message. What this really means is Google is giving us some measure of control.

And now that we have this knowledge and control, how best to use it? This allows us to take off our search engine optimizer hats and don our search engine marketer hats. Think of what you can say in the brief sentence that will entice a user to click your link rather than the one above or below. You can put your phone number in the META description for starters or how about being really creative and offer a discount or advertise a sale. Tell them your unique selling proposition. It should be a one sentence phrase already in your head. The only caveat to remember is that your META description will only show if the search term is in the META description. While this can be tricky, it can be done with some forethought. You can do this for all of your targeted pages and have dozens of marketing messages.

Use the META description wisely: target your market and entice your customers. Do not abuse this control and put outlandish, untrue or slanderous statements as I am sure Google will be watching; and if this technique is abused the META description may have seen it last search result this time.

Shell Harris is a Search Engine Marketing Consultant and SEO Specialist. His company, Big Oak, provides proven results for Website promotion. More articles can be found at http://www.bigoakinc.com/seo-articles/seo-articles.php

This article may be freely reprinted as long as all links and author information remain.

These five indispensable tools will help you to compile, respond to, maintain, track and otherwise gain control of your marketing efforts online. All of them are even available for free or at a very minimal cost. While you might be able to function for an initial period without some of these, ultimately you’ll need them all if you’re going to grow an online business. The “fabulous five” essential online tools include:

1. An E-mail account

The first essential tool is an e-mail account capable of handling large quantities of mail, large attachments and file sizes. Most free e-mail accounts aren’t really suitable and many sites and group lists don’t accept them. Google has by-invitation-only e-mail accounts that house a stunning two gigabytes of storage. (gmail.google.com/) Hotmail now offers 250 megabytes of free e-mail storage which in itself isn’t too shabby either. There are so many others that just typing in “free e-mail” into a search engine will yield scores of sites including those from Netscape, Yahoo, Hotmail, Google, and Lycos among others.

2. An auto-responder

Initially, you also may be able to self-respond to the incoming messages to your e-mail account, but eventually, if your marketing campaign is working, you won’t be able to manage all your inquiry traffic without assistance. That’s where the auto-responder will come in handy. It will acknowledge incoming mails as they arrive with your pre-determined message, saving you, your business and your sanity. There are numerous good ones available at no cost online. Here are some for starters:

• http://www.freeautobot.com/ allows to follow-up on e-mails. The program is free with no ads

• Another free auto-responder is downloadable at: http://www.macurious.com/free/

• A tutorial on auto-responders and auto-reply e-mail services as well as free software downloads is provided at: http://www.creatingonline.com/site_promotion/auto_responders.htm

• A free autobot is available at: http://www.talewins.com/FREEbot.htm

• http://www.webmasterfree.com/software/E-MailTools/E-mailNotification/free_auto_responder.html is yet another good free auto-responder downloadable from the web.

3. A List server

Another essential tool for managing your soon-to-come throngs of incoming inquiries, requests and orders is your list server. As you build your opt - in e-mail list of contacts you’ll need a way of sending messages to all of them at once. Announcements, promotions and special notices along with your normal touch-base e-mails will need to be sent out in a reliable manner. Maintaining customer contact is a marketing essential. Without some form of contact management database, you’ll be swimming “upstream against the flow” in the management of your past, present and potential clients. It’s all too easy to be overwhelmed. Later you may opt to install a contact management database like ACT! or Goldmine, but while you’re growing your online network a list server will do nicely. Have a look at these:

• An overview of the principal list servers and their features as well as providing the download access pages for them is at:
http://www.serverwatch.com/tutorials/article.php/10825_1355051_1

• http://www.lsoft.com/download/default.asp?item=overview

• http://www.lyris.com/products/listmanager/

• http://server.com/communityapps/maillistapp/ allows users to create their own internet newsletters in plain text or HTML, create mailing lists, RSS syndication feeds and is *free* to use.

4. A PDF compiler

If your products and services include distribution of e-booklets, e-reports, e-books or other online info-products, you’ll need to put many of them into pdf format. This format helps protect your documents from copying and other pilferage and is an accepted industry standard for online document and e-book distribution. Free pdf compiler software, with tutorials, is available online at these sites:

• http://www.ebooks-made-easy.com/ebooksoftware.htm

• http://www.virtual-ebooks.com/compilers.htm

• http://www.hsinlin.com/software/pdf.html

5. A website

Although it’s quite possible to market services and products online without the associated costs, programming and hassles of a website, ultimately it is an essential tool that is highly effective in showcasing your wares, whatever they may be. Aspects of getting and maintaining a website are too numerous to be addressed here. Information on free website hosting, templates and site management is only a few mouse clicks away. Free website hit counters, website templates and even no-cost hosting services for a website are at: http://members.freewebs.com/.

Here are more for comparison:

• Free web hits counter
http://www.statcounter.com/free_hit_counter.html

• Free web hits counter http://freelogs.com/

• Free website templates http://freesitetemplates.com/

• Free website templates http://www.freewebtemplates.com/

• Free web site hosting and utilities are available from: http://www.bravenet.com/

Using these tools for building, maintaining, marketing and promoting online commerce at any level will be indispensable in marketing your products and services on the internet. This short list is certainly not to be considered all-inclusive. Whether you opt for these or other free or paid versions, you can use these five essential tools to boost your online presence and build your customer base. Hey, shouldn’t you be getting busy?

Larry M. Lynch is a writer and photographer specializing in business, travel, food and education-related writing in South America. His work has appeared in Transitions Abroad, South American Explorer, Escape From America, Mexico News and Brazil magazines in print and online. As an expert author he can ghost-write original articles for your articles marketing campaign and content for your website, newsletter, blog or e-zine. His fees are $98 for 10 articles or $24 for 2 articles of 500 to 800 words each. Please e-mail him now with details of the website, newsletter or blog you’d like promoted and how many articles or content insertions you’d like at: pentagon_elsb@hotmail.com

Being a seller is a lot of responsibility, and sometimes you might feel like you’re not doing everything you should be. This simple checklist will help you keep on top of things.

Have you found out everything you possibly could about your items? Try typing their names into a search engine - you might find out something you didn’t know. If someone else is selling the same thing as you, then always try to provide more information about it than they do. Do you monitor the competition? Always keep an eye on how much other items the same as or similar to yours are selling, and what prices they’re being offered at. There’s usually little point in starting a fixed price auction for £100 when someone else is selling the item for £90.

Have you got pictures of the items? It’s worth taking the time to photograph your items, especially if you have a digital camera. If you get serious about eBay but don’t have a camera, then you will probably want to invest in one at some point.

Are you emailing your sellers? It’s worth sending a brief email when transactions go through: something like a simple “Thank you for buying my item, please let me know when you have sent the payment”. Follow this up with “Thanks for your payment, I have posted your [item name] today”. You will be surprised how many problems you will avoid just by communicating this way.

Also, are you checking your emails? Remember that potential buyers can send you email about anything at any time, and not answering these emails will just make them go somewhere else instead of buying from you.

Do your item description pages have everything that buyers need to know? If you’re planning to offer international delivery, then it’s good to make a list of the charges to different counties and display it on each auction. If you have any special terms and conditions (for example, if you will give a refund on any item as long as it hasn’t been opened), then you should make sure these are displayed too.

Have you been wrapping your items correctly? Your wrapping should be professional for the best impression: use appropriately sized envelopes or parcels, wrap the item in bubble wrap to stop it from getting damaged, and print labels instead of hand-writing addresses. Oh, and always use first class post - don’t be cheap.

Do you follow up? It is worth sending out an email a few days after you post an item, saying “Is everything alright with your purchase? I hope you received it and it was as you expected.” This might sound like giving the customer an opportunity to complain, but you should be trying to help your customers, not take their money and run.

Being a really good eBay seller, more than anything else, is about providing genuinely good and honest customer service. That’s the only foolproof way to protect your reputation.

Paul is Head of Training for a major UK Charitable Organisation with a wealth of experience in personal development, management development, e-learning and operational management. In addition he owns PK eBooks (http://www.pk-ebooks.co.uk) two sites specifically aimed at those who want to successfully sell on eBay http://www.ebay-profits.co.uk and http://www.info-entrepreneurs.co.uk

Black Hat SEO

A fairly common black hat search engine optimization tactic is to build multiple websites on a general theme. The sites are then cross-linked to other sites in the same network, and would also include one-way links to the primary site with varying anchor text. The whole aim is to give one or more sites a huge boost in search engine results pages (SERPs), and for it to also benefit from additional traffic flowing from the various network sites.

People undertaking such methods generally create the websites with automated tools, use scraped content from other peoples websites, and most of the sites have no purpose other than to drive traffic to the primary site.

White Hat SEO

First it is important to understand a little about linking structure. I am not going to go into excessive details.

It is widely understood that internal linking on any website can represent as much as 50% of the page rank attributed to any single page within a site. How your pages are linked together, for which terms, and whether links are reciprocated all play an import role in the calculation.

If I told you that there are hundreds of websites on the internet, with very high page rank on multiple terms themselves, who would be willing to create a niche portal within their pages, highly optimized for your website, niche and keywords, it is something you would probably be willing to pay for.

We are not talking about a simple directory site. We are talking about high quality content pages, that will pass on pagerank to your site, plus a central hub, similar to a home page, that benfits from all the content pages linking to it, and that in turn also points directly to your website.

Of course:-

The practice of viral marketing can be very useful to
internet marketers. Viral marketing consists of giving
away FRE’E products or services along with your original a’d
copy such as links, contact information, and mailing list.
In return, those who receive your FREE products can pass it
along to their own customers and prospects. Viral
marketing is a great way to advertise for fre’e and without
a lot of effort on your part.

Internet marketers should be aware of the value of viral
marketing. The ability to advertise your products to a
large audience is of great value to you. You can increase
your sales and traffic to your web site through the sharing
of FRE’E information. Some of the more effective methods of
viral marketing are:

Ebooks. You can share your FREE ebook with all who visit
your web site. You should include an advertisement for
your most profitable product and links to your web site.
Make sure to inform those who receive your FRE’E ebook that
they are FRE’E to share it with their own customers and
contacts.

Software. You can offer a FREE trial version of your
software to your web site visitors. As with the ebook,
include links to your site and your contact information.
State plainly on your web site that all those who receive
it can share the software freely.

FREE web hosting. You can provide FREE hostin’g on your
server to small businesses or beginning internet marketers.

In return, place a banner a’d at the top of each site
advertising your products and web site. This is a very
effective means of advertising your site with little
expense. The potential increase in the number of visitors
to your web site is worth your efforts.

Templates. You can design your own web site templates,
including your own contact information in the design, and
offer them as FRE’E downloads. Make sure to expressly grant
permission for them to be shared with others.

Content. You can provide original content about your
particular area of expertise. Include your contact
information and web site in the text and allow others to
publish it as long as they keep your information intact.
As this information is shared and published by others you
will attract more traffic to your web site.

Discussion boards. Setting up a discussion board or forum
with your banner a’d attached is an excellent means of
advertising. Invite your web site visitors to join your
discussion board and make it available to the public.

Internet marketers should make themselves aware of all
means of FRE’E advertising. The more you spread the word
about your products and services, the more traffic you will
draw to your web site. Internet marketing is extremely
competitive and you should use all the avenues that are
available to you in advertising your web site and products.

Experiment with the various ways of viral marketing until
you find the ones that work best for you. Increased
visibility means more traffic to your web site and more
traffic will translate in to higher sales.

Successful internet marketers not only provide valuable
products and services, they use any means possible to
advertise to as many people as possible. The success of
your business rests on your ability to promote your web
site.

Eric White
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It’s surprisingly simple to get started posting your very first auction on eBay. Here’s what you need to do.

Step 1: Open an eBay seller’s account.

If you’ve bought things on eBay, then you already have an account - just log in with it and click ‘Sell’ in the toolbar at the top of the page, then click ‘Create a seller’s account’. If you’ve never used eBay before, then you’ll need to open an account first using the ‘register’ link underneath the toolbar, and then click ‘Sell’ and ‘Create a seller’s account’. The eBay site will then guide you through the process. For security, this may involve giving card details and bank information.

Step 2: Decide what to sell.

For your first little experiment with eBay, it doesn’t really matter what you sell. Take a look around the room you’re in - I’m sure there’s something in there that you’re not all that attached to and could put in the post. Small books and CDs are ideal first items.

Step 3: Submit your item.

Click ‘Sell’, and you’re on your way to listing your item.

The first thing you need to do is choose a category - it’s best to just type in what the item is and let eBay choose for you. Next, write a title and description. Include key words you think people will search for in the title box, and all the information you have about the item in the description box.

Now set a starting price. A low price £0.01 or $0.01 is the best starting price, as it draws people in to bid who otherwise wouldn’t, and items will almost never finish at such a low price. The next thing to set is the duration of the auction: 3, 5, 7 or 10 days. This is up to you: longer sales will usually get more bids, but will also seem to drag on forever. If you’ve taken a picture, add it now - items with pictures always sell for more. Finally, tick the payment methods you will accept (just PayPal is best for now), and where you will post to (limit yourself to your own country to begin with). Submit and you’re done!

Step 4: Wait for it to sell.

This is just a matter of sitting back and letting eBay do its thing - buyers will find your item and leave bids on it. Some bidders might email you with questions about the item, and you should do your best to answer these questions as quickly as you can.

Remember that if your item doesn’t sell then you can list it again for free once.

Step 5: Collect payment and post it.

eBay will send your buyer emails guiding them through the process of sending you payment for the item. Make sure you have the money before you send anything.

Once you’ve got the payment, all you need to do is pack the item for posting (make sure to use some bubble wrap), take the buyer’s address from the confirmation email eBay sent you, and write it on the parcel. Put some stamps on, post it, and you’re done!

Paul is Head of Training for a major UK Charitable Organisation with a wealth of experience in personal development, management development, e-learning and operational management. In addition he owns PK eBooks (http://www.pk-ebooks.co.uk) two sites specifically aimed at those who want to successfully sell on eBay http://www.ebay-profits.co.uk and http://www.info-entrepreneurs.co.uk

Many internet marketing entrepreneurs are struggling to earn a decent living with their online businesses. They work hard to develop quality products and services, design effective websites, attract traffic to their sites through targeted advertising, and convert those visitors to customers. Does this sound like you?

If you are like most of these people engaged in internet marketing, you are overlooking a simple activity that would dramatically expand your business and substantially increase your profits!

Imagine an activity that enables you to do these things - for free - whenever you wish:

Search engines index millions of web sites to generate the search results they return for key words. They do this using “spiders”.

Most search engines have their own spider that crawls around the web looking for web pages. Spiders are also known as “robots” because they are simply tiny little programs that run automatically, looking for web pages and recursively traveling through the embedded text links to index them.
Most robots look for a robots.txt file in the top-level directory of your web site, also known as the “root” where your home page is located on the web server.

The robots.txt file is a simple text file created in a basic text editor, like Notepad. It allows you to control what the spider is allowed to access and what it is not allowed to access or index.

The format of the basic robots.txt file is pretty simple:
User-Agent: [Spider Name]
Disallow: [File Name]

For example, to allow ALL robots complete access to your web site, your robots.txt file will look like this:
User-agent: *
Disallow:
The asterisk is a “wild card” character that represents ALL robots. Leaving the Disallow line blank indicates to the robots, that nothing on the site is disallowed.

The next example bars all robots from the cgi-bin (where your scripts are typically located), images directories, and the portfolio directories:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /images/
Disallow: /portfolio/
Note: You should use a separate Disallow line for each directory or individual file.

In this example, you may wonder why you would want to disallow a robot from indexing your portfolio directory.

If you are a photographer and you have thumbnail images on a portfolio page that link to enlargement pages launched in a pop-up window, you may not want those pop-up pages indexed. These are called “dead-end” or “orphaned” pages because only the enlarged image appears on the page with no contact info or menu links back to the main site. If the visitor entered your site on one of these pages, they would have nowhere to go and no way to contact you.

For a live example, check out www.AnJPhotography.com and look at her wedding portfolio. When you click on an image, it opens in a new window. The page in the new window is a “dead-end” page. A robots.txt file can keep search engines from indexing these “dead” pages so you don’t leave site visitors stranded.

This example keeps googlebot (the Google spider) from getting at the
private.htm file:
User-agent: googlebot
Disallow: private.htm

When you create your robots.txt file it is extremely important that you use a basic text editor (like Notepad) and NOT a word processing application like Microsoft Word. Applications like Microsoft Word can insert hidden characters that may make your robots.txt file unreadable. After you post your robots.txt file to the web server, you can validate it to make sure it is properly formatted. There are several free validators on the web. Here is one:
http://www.searchengineworld.com/cgi-bin/robotcheck.cgi

There are several advantages and some disadvantages of having the robots.txt file in your root directory. Protocol requires that all search engine robots start indexing your web site with the robots.txt file. This is the default entry point for robots if the file is present. Major search engines will never violate the Standard for Robots Exclusion. This is the primary reason it should be there. Beyond that, it can help with your search engine rankings when used correctly, and it can keep dead pages on your web site from being indexed. The primary disadvantage is that the robots.txt file may be viewed by nefarious individuals on the web, so you never want to use the robots.txt file to try to hide sensitive pages or directories on your web site (like passwords or private information).
For more information about the robots.txt file and complete list of robots, visit the following web site: http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/robots.html

Sandra Waggett is the founder and principal designer of MSW Interactive Designs LLC (MSW-ID) major products and websites. MSW-ID provides custom website design, hosting, ecommerce and online marketing solutions to nearly 400 small business clients nationwide. MSW-ID helps small business professionals achieve an effective Internet presence.

Prior to founding MSW Interactive Designs LLC, she spent nearly 5 years working as a Senior Engineer for BAE Systems on the Lockheed Martin Mission Systems Team in Colorado Springs, CO.

While with BAE, she was the training lead for the proposal phase of the Integrated Space Command and Control (ISC2) program. In this role, she authored the 10 year training plan for the proposal and developed web-based training prototypes for presentation to to the Government decision makers.
Sandy earned her Master of Arts of degree from the University of CO, Colorado Springs, in Curriculum and Instruction, Corporate Track. Her specialties include web design, interface design, instructional design, and computer-based training development.

When you sell on eBay, it’s important to know how to take advantage of the kinds of markets you encounter in the different seasons. As a rule, the summer months are slow and the winter period is fast, but there’s more to it than that.

It Depends What You’re Selling.

Your sales won’t necessarily be slower in the summer than in winter - they might just be different. If you’re selling sports equipment, for example, you’ll probably find that surfing gear sells in summer while skiing gear sells in winter. You should make sure you are aware of any seasonal variations there will be in your particular market, and plan in advance to take advantage of them.

Selling in Peak Season.

The holiday season is eBay’s peak, and the best time to be selling on eBay - the December rush is relatively short, but if you play it right then you could make half your year’s profit over those few days.

In the holidays, people are looking for presents, and eBay run more advertising than usual targeted towards buyers, not sellers. Target your auctions more towards new users than experienced ones, writing easy-to-understand descriptions. If you have any items that are in demand, try listing some at auction and some with high But it Now prices, to see what works best.

The chances are you’ll be surprised when the Buy it Now auctions go almost instantly and the auctions rack up bids like nobody’s business. It is important to remember, however, that most of these buyers will only buy from you once.

Selling Off-peak.

For the rest of the year, the market is far slower. Don’t worry though - you can still make money. It’s a little like being a stockbroker: you can make money whether the market is good or bad, if you know what you’re doing.

Remember that your target market is a little more ‘expert’: you’re mostly selling to people who know what they’re buying, and know what they want to pay. Cater to this by providing a service suitable for these customers. Show that you know what you’re selling and sell things consistently and you’ll have people coming back again and again.

Here’s one extra tip that you might try. If you know of items that have a consistent value, it might be worth buying up as many as you can cheaply in the summer, storing them for half a year, and selling them during the winter rush. If you’re willing to give over a little space for storage, you can make a lot of profit for little effort. After all, you don’t even have to take the items out of the packaging the last seller put them in.

Paul is Head of Training for a major UK Charitable Organisation with a wealth of experience in personal development, management development, e-learning and operational management. In addition he owns PK eBooks (http://www.pk-ebooks.co.uk) two sites specifically aimed at those who want to successfully sell on eBay http://www.ebay-profits.co.uk and http://www.info-entrepreneurs.co.uk

Too many people these days claim to have the best ” must have” information to market your products, or services, on the Internet, only wasting your time, money and effort, leaving you hollow and empty, ready to give up on the Internet, pack your bags and leave town.

So you ask, how do you REALLY know who’s telling the truth about what’s good, and what’s not, and who is just leading you down the garden path, taking YOUR money all the way to THEIR bank.

With today’s Internet moving so fast, “newbies”, and even experts are finding it harder and harder to find the info they need to help them get to where they want to be….. on a beach, knocking back chichi’s, watching all the sights, while listening to the sweet sound of, “you’ve got mail” resounding from their computer, informing them that they just made another sale.

It almost seems impossible today, and the “norm” seems to be that you spend hours and hours getting “lost” on the net, overwhelmed by the amount of info, confused by empty promises, and conned by the best of them. It seems like the Internet is just a huge money pit…. especially if you don’t know what you are doing.

If you don’t know what the “experts” know, or, even worse yet, how to find the “good ones”, you are DOOMED to Internet Hell!!! After all, who do you know that has 50,000 close friends that are going to immediately buy your products or service, just because you have a web page!

So what is a person to do?? Where do you go to find the “guru” you are looking for, that will help you through the maze, making sense of it all, without leaving you high and dry, and giving you just enough to line their pockets, and not get themselves sued.

News media can make it sound like a fairy tale, easy as “hot apple pie” to achieve. They feature some celebrity who has a “line of something”, that they are selling “millions of” on their “new” web site, and making millions of dollars within a few short months…..and they didn’t lift a finger!

Well for starters, you can see that if you don’t have the kind of cash it takes to hire a team of Internet experts to set up, run, and advertise your web site for you, which most people do not, it is not so easy.

Nor can you just lay back and think that just because you have a web page, that people are going to rush to “buy” what you have, just because you worked your tail off advertising for weeks and weeks on end, spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

It just doesn’t work like that!!!

Or does it…

So, you ask, does the “newbie” throw in the towel, hop in the car, leave town, and leave the business behind to the “experts” that know what they are doing!

Of course not!!!

If you do it the right way, with the right people, it can work for you, and work well.

There are ways to get the help you need, and not be scammed.

There are hundreds of people out there that are very successful on the net, and are more than willing to share their expertise with you so you can also succeed, because, in part, YOUR success is their success. For example a good resource can be found at: http://www.MarketingManuscript.com/g.o/bambazonkie

There are two ++’s with this, they get the joy of helping you, and you get……the chichi’s on the beach!

So relax, enjoy, and have fun being successful on the Internet.

You CAN do it, and it will be YOUR turn to “laugh all the way to the bank”.

Lorae would be amiss to pass up any chance to learn from the great information that Mark Joyner has to offer such as located in his marketing manuscript at: http://www.MarketingManuscript.com/g.o/bambazonkie

Lorae has more great and exciting info along with a free e-book just waiting for you to pick up at: http://get-me.to/bambazonkie

Spoofing

Spoofing is a new online fraud scam. Viewers receive emails that look
very official, seemingly from ebay, paypal, etc. with requests to
update your password or credit card information. Never… Ever…Ever
send personal information via email!

If you are in doubt, log onto the email sender’s website to see if
there are any notes or messages regarding the email you received. I have
been dealing with the internet for years, and this one almost got past
me!

Credit Card Scams

Criminals will often steal credit cards and use them to purchase
products at ebay or other estores. They will then have the merchandise
mailed to a post office box. After the products are picked up, the post
office box is closed and another box will be rented in a different
location. It is important that you only send products to the confirmed
address listed with paypal.com. A confirmed address is the address that
the credit card is issued to, and it is easy to verify this with either
the credit card company or paypal.

Important - Ebay Fraud Protection

Many people don’t know ebay will reimburse buyers up to $200.00 (less
$25.00 to cover processing costs) in cases of non-shipment or
significant misrepresentation of items purchased on ebay.

Payment Options

Paypal is a fantastic payment service. Ebay purchased this company in
2002. There is zero fraud risk if you follow their basic procedures.
You can send and receive payments in seconds.

www.bidpay.com also provides a great service. This is a division of
Western Union. I accept bidpay only for international purchases. You
receive an email confirmation and a check in 3-5 days; only then do you
ship your product.

Before submitting credit card numbers over the internet, ensure that
you are using a secure server. The beginning of the web address in your
browser window should be “https://” and not “http://” For secure
server pages, you should also see a “lock” icon at the bottom of the
browser.