Building an Opt In List and Your Business: An Ideal Business Partnership

In any kind of business, marketing is such an important tool in the growth and development of a business or any kind of financial venture.

For this reason, even with the technology that covers online businesses, still, it need highly revolutionized and very effective marketing strategy in order to boost their productivity and sales.

Basically, since the advent of the Internet, people started to flock this new medium of information without even knowing its fundamental principles, how it works, things that are needed to survive in it, etc. Many people literally bombarded the Internet thinking that life would be a lot easier if they will invest on online businesses.

Indeed, it is a well-known fact that you can find money online, but only for those who know their way around and employ the best marketing strategy there is online.

What people do not know is that online marketing does not have to be very complicated. It just needs the right stuff to keep you going.

Take for example the use of mailing list, particularly opt in list. Before, no one ever dare to use opt in list thinking that it will not do any good for their business. Most entrepreneurs think that building an opt in list is just a waste of time and money. What they do not know is that, according to the “golden rule of the Internet,” money is in the list.

It has probably been mentioned before, and is worth mentioning again, money is really in the list.

Why? Because with opt in lists, you get to keep your readers on the hook by providing them with information, promotion, and other campaigns in order to entice them to buy again from you.

Basically, opt in lists are lists of email addresses of customers with their consent. This means that after the customer had closed the transaction in a particular web site, there is an option on whether or not they wish to subscribe to the mailing list of the online business for any future promotions, newsletters, or campaigns that they would like to be informed of.

And because it is an option, the customers are not compelled to provide their email addresses to the web site. Plus, the web site owners will not be accused of spamming because emails that will be sent to the customers have the consent of the customer.

Creating an opt in list can be very beneficial to your site. In fact, it has been proven that in the two-step concept of selling, follow-ups are important to sustain the interest of the consumers. The other step is to obtain the interest of the buyer.

Hence, in order to sustain the interest of your buying public, it is best to create an opt in list so that you can always give your buyers the chance to remember your products, your business, and your services, in which they have been satisfied with.

To know more of the advantages of creating an opt in list for your business; here is a list that would tell you the reasons why it is beneficial.

1. Opt in lists are the business’ most valuable asset

If you were to ask the owners of some online business about their most valuable asset, they will tell you that it is their opt in list. This is because opt in lists are customers’ lists that can provide higher probability sales in a more consistent and stable condition. Because with opt in lists, all you have to do is to follow up orders or sales through promotions and ad campaigns.

2. It is always available

The best thing about opt in list is that it never grows old. As long as your customer needs something to survive, your contact with them will never grow old. This means that you can always have a fresh, new transaction wit them every time you inform them that you have new products or services. Every transaction is a new way of increasing your sales. Simply put, no opt in list = no sales (at the most).

3. Bigger opt in list would mean bigger profits

The more customer’s names and email addresses you have on your list, the more chances you have in increasing your online sales. Every name, every email address can be worth a hundred dollars that can be accumulated with each transaction

Hence, the bigger your list, the more money you will have.

Boiled down, opt in lists are not just ordinary mailing lists. It is the very core of an online business’ existence and survival. That is why for people who value most their businesses, they extend the same value they give to their opt in list. No wonder why most people regard it as the best partnership available online.

This free report is brought to you by Christopher Bankole

https://digitalproductsstore.selz.com

https://gumroad.com/bankychris

Blog Software For All Your Blogging Needs.

Today anyone who has writing ability or is dreaming to be a writer has written a blog in the net. There are blog soft wares that are simple and easy to use and a technically inclined and challenged individuals can easily acquire a blog online.

For some individuals, blogs are their projects of every day living, as they talk about their daily episodes as well as make tribute to friends and family. Furthermore, blogs assume a profound meaning written to compose and assemble political statements, endorse a product, supply information on research, and even offer tutorials. Any subject that are of your interests, you can be sure that someone has written a blog about it.

Blogs are now being written by musicians, politicians, sports figures, novelists, newscasters as well as other known figures. It is this blog fever that has raised controversy. The fact that anyone can compose and regarding any subject matter under the sun, complaints about certain write-ups are an issue. In a lot of blogs, names are being mentioned; do bear in mind that although you are entitled to write anything that interests you in a blog, you have to be very careful and take in a lot of responsibility. Do not make any statements which can become controversial; or else, be very prepared.

Why a Blog?

1. For personal acquaintances, relationships and hobby. A person can write a blog about his daily activities, what’s going on with his life as his way of telling his family and friends the things that goes on in his life. Likewise, one may also write a blog just so he can express what he feels about himself, or about a certain subject matter that is of interest to him.

2. Topical. Some blogs are committed to a precise topic, like computer hardware or politics. These are frequently read like magazines.

3. For marketing.  Corporations are too, into blogging; when well written and implemented, this kind of blog can be a powerful instrument for business communications, forming eagerness and anticipation regarding their products and services offered, or used as tool within the company, keeping employees well informed about company issues and news.

Why someone else's software?

A lot of Web designer and creators will laugh at the belief and idea of utilizing the software of someone else. This is can be correct especially when each software greatly differs from the particular requirements that a client may have. Yet on the other hand, when it refers to a Weblog software, there is no reason for apprehension in the use of a package that is pre-written, as most packages were developed through years of study; not just knocked together over a couple of days.

In addition, one may study its feature set. For a developer, it would take a lot of time and effort to write and compose from “nothing at all” every single feature in the Weblog software packages of today. For most people, a blog is there for the main reason that chooses to publish or make known your literature and texts on the Web, so you want to spend your time more on writing than coding.

Hosted Services

If one wishes to start broadcasting on the Web, yet does not have web hosting, one can consider looking into a hosted service, which includes Blogger, TypePad, Live Journal, and more.

These services are operated or handled for an individual, so there is no need to concern one about technical upkeep of one’s Weblog; instead, one can concentrate on his blog's appearance and content. In just minutes, after signing for an account, one can readily start his own blog.  Many such services are offered free, such as blogger.  TypePad charges a minimal amount for monthly service fee.

Self-Hosted

When one has Web hosting on hand, or is eager to buy hosting, in which one feels that the advantage will prevail over the problems of keeping up your own blog connection and installation, then you may want to take into account a package that is self-hosted, which includes Movable Type, Textpattern and WordPress.

Other hosting companies did construct the process of installation easier, permitting installation with just a click from a control panel that is browser-based. It is important that you check with a hosting company so you can view if this function is offered. Similar to hosted services, some self hosted packages are made available either for free or for a certain fee which is dependent on the type of package that you choose as well as the basis why you are using it.


This information is brought to you by Christopher Bankole
https://digitalproductsstore.selz.com
http://chrisban.savingshighway.com

The craft of Listing

Owning a list is the most profitable online marketing tool out there today.
As an affiliate marketer, you are going to have to get used to listing. In fact, there's
not a time when you can send out your mailing to the A+ Marketplace where you
won’t make $300.00. You can build your list with little to no effort to over 6,800
subscribers within five months and have over 35,000 subscribers by using some highly
effective tactics. Let’s take a look at some of those tactics now.


This method is 10x as easy to get once you visit the Opt In Lightning site or any other
site that Opt In Lightning is installed on. When you do this, you'll notice that it
captures the visitor's email address without the visitor having to fill out a form when
they sign on for it. They just have to click “OK.” Instead. This is commonly known as
Auto Info Capture, and makes it 10x easier for people to subscribe to your mailing list.
The basic principle here is that the easier you make it for people to subscribe the
quicker your list grows.

When you use Optin Lightning programs, you can nab any email address from the
visitor's client browser. The number of Hotmail and Yahoo addresses is that you can
pick up is practically zero. The few Hotmail or Yahoo addresses you do capture are
those that they configured in their browser, and will go right into their main inbox
anyway instead of them having to retrieve them over the 'net.
This is commonly referred to as your "Pull Ratio."

When you use a regular or "traditional" subscribe box, what you are doing is subject
your list to what can be called pollution. What I mean by this is that, nothing is
stopping people from populating your list with FFA confirmation email addresses, Auto
Responders etc. If you ever decide to sell ads, your advertising clients are going to get
very angry as your list grows because they will expect that their own ads that they
paid good money for to pull more.

Using the old method over an extended period of time will eventually hurt your
business. This is why Internet Marketing experts all agree that Ezines that get larger
lose all or most of their pull. Now you know why. Someone using the traditional
subscribe method can put all their friends etc. on your list, and force you to deal with
spam complaints. This is called "List Bombing" and by using Popup Email Capture only,
you will be able to avoid this completely.
If you can avoid these problems from the start, you'll slowly and steadily grow a solid
clientele hungry for your products and services.

Personalizing email
You should always personalize each and every email that you send out because this
gives people who are on the list a feeling that you’re not just another newsletter
editor, but their friend and that you truly care about their success. Doing this can
increase your sales by at least 200%. You have to think like a marketer as well as a
consumer. If you start to think like a salesman, you will loose customers. The
competition here is fierce but if you work on it, you will succeed. You want to shoot
for the feeling where you actually become one with your list. By personalizing your
emails, I mean that you can write as if you were sending a note to your friend. That's
when you know for a fact that you will have a following.

Send Emails on Friday
I always send my newsletter on Friday at noon because it reaches the
East Coast at 3:00 p.m. This way your readers will have the entire weekend
to read it, when they are relaxed and comfortable. During the week, your consumers
have to work, deal with family and home matters etc. They simply do not have the
time to really give your emails much thought. When you wait till the weekend to send
the mails, you can take the weekend off and come back Monday to find a stack of
orders just waiting for you.

Offer Incentives
Offering incentives like free bonuses just for subscribing with no obligation to remain
a subscriber can really boost your orders. Doing this builds a level of trust with new
people who don't know you. You see when you start by offering freebies, you will
attract a whole new crowd of consumers.

Follow up your Emails
By using an AutoResponder you can deliver your follow-ups without effort. Each follow
up should be a sales letter to a residual income product you’re selling, an MLM
program you’re promoting or a product you’re selling. There should not be any free
content and these sales letters don't beat around the bush. I make thousands per
month using email follow up alone. You can get an occasional flame and some
unsubscribes, but this is exactly what you should want.
You want to be building up your client list and the follow-ups actually WEED OUT
people who aren't ready to make some kind of monetary commitment which will make
your job a great deal easier.

No free content
Do not offer any free content because this gives the reader nowhere to go. They
either get involved with what you’re doing or they get off the list. Besides when you
are offering free content, all that you are really accomplishing is you owing more
money and having less bandwidth to work with.

Don't accept any form of paid advertising
By accepting paid advertising, you only succeed in polluting your list and
This takes attention away from whatever your newsletter's main theme is. You want
to keep your readers informed of MLM and Residual Income
Programs because this just another way of building and keeping their trust in you.

Don't put copyright on it
Some lists add copyright information and I really don't know why. It is best to simply
forward this information to anyone that might be interested. It's a lot easier than
using a script and it's been working for me. In any case, most people generally don’t
care anyway.

Purchase Subscribers
Every email address that you could possibly get is like potential gold to you so if you
are going to purchase any email addresses from the many lists that are available for
purchase, however, you have to be very specific in who you choose to buy from so
watch out. You can purchase 1,000 subscribers for as little as $197.00 with some
companies. It helps to be on the lookout.

Talk about yourself a bit
This may sound a bit strange, but people like to do business with people
they know and trust. When you include SOME personal information about yourself,
people will get to know you as a person. This helps break the ice and makes it a lot
easier to do business with people. I don’t know about you, but I always respond better
to a business person that is willing to be a bit more friendly and personal with me.


Courtesy:  Christopher Bankole
https://digitalproductsstore.selz.com
http://chrisban.savingshighway.com

Getting Started As an Affiliate Marketer

If you are a beginning Internet Marketer and you do not actually have any money to
work with the best way to start marketing is by using the payperclick
search engines. The truth is, when you are a marketer products are not the things
that actually sell, it is the traffic that sells. However true this is you still want to
promote the programs that meet certain criteria. If you are wondering what the
criteria are they are listed below and are as follows:

1. Look for programs that offer to pay you over $10.00 per sale. If not that then at
least search for programs that pay you $50.00 per month or more in residual income
because just one customer can be worth $1,200.00 to you in 10 years.

2. Look for products to promote that don't have more than one or two external
links to that connect to other programs. If you're going to pay good money to send
people to a web site, you should at least make sure that you're sending them to a
good money resource and not a resource that has with 50 holes in it.

3. Look for products that have limited ordering options because you don't want to
send people to a site if you only get credit when they pay by credit card. The result
will be that you will lose people because the site also accepts payment via PayPal and
the average person doesn’t know how to integrate PayPal with their current affiliate
software or some other more complicated payment method like direct checking.

4. Try to find sales sites. You can check out associateprograms.com and find five
programs that meet the criteria. It will take some digging, but they are there if you
look for them. Let's say you're promoting sneakers, for example. What you are going
to want to do now is find as many applicable keywords as you can that are directly
relating to sneakers. You can find lists of keyword variations for any products or
services by going to jimtools.com and clicking the 'keywords' button at the top.

How this works is that you can do keyword searches and find every variation of the
word sneakers that you can think of. If you save all your keywords in a text file you
can place bids at all the major payperclick search engines. Here is a list of some of
them:
http://www.overture.com They are very critical and will bring you the most leads.
http://www.findwhat.com delivers pretty good traffic
http://www.bay9.com
http://www.ahha.com
http://www.kanoodle.com
http://www.sprinks.com
http://www.searchandconquer.com This one is Free
http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com

There is a trick to making huge profits with payperclick search engines and one of
them is to bid on as many keywords as possible. How it works is that you bid on a 100
keywords and it is the exact same thing as getting 100 links back to your web site.
When you are submitting your listings, you must always be sure to put the price there
as well. The key factor here is that you want everyone who clicks through your site to
be prepared to divvy up some cash.

If you don't do this, you'll loose a lot of money from the people who are always
seeking freebies every single time. With this in mind, say you submitted 350 keywords
that are relating to sneakers to each and every one of the search engines above. If all
of them are totaled together they will give you a combined total of 150 clicks per
day. This is assuming of course that only one out of every 300 people make their
purchases because this is a particularly popular item.

If you sell one pair of sneakers and make $10.00 per sale that's one sale every two
days. If your average bid is 10 cents per lead, it's costing you $3.00 in
advertising costs just so that you can make $10.00. So each month you could average
$800.00 from just this one product in net profit per month. That is pretty good, but if
you are pushing 5 different products you will have $4000 in one month’s profit.

The next thing that you have to do is try to find five products that are just like the
first one. If a company/website doesn't have an affiliate program setup, try calling
them and asking if you could strike a special deal with them. The best part of using
this marketing technique is that after you set up one income stream using this
method, and you've tested it and it's working, you can start on another one right
away.

You can promote one or 100 companies if you want to it is really up to you. You can
literally set your own desired income this way. Plus, by doing this, you get the chance
to build long lasting working relationships with the owners of these programs most of
the time. It is like out of nowhere, you suddenly have a network of people you're
working with.

If you follow this article closely you'll be drawing more targeted traffic to programs
that you promote than most of the high traffic sites that just have a simple link to the
product in question. You can do all of this with little to no money at all in the
beginning.

Once you start making enough money with the payperclick search engines, you can
start investing some of your money in your own idea or business on the Internet that
you want to start; which when you think about it just makes sense. You can simply
take the easy way out and make more and more money promoting other people's
programs. As Internet marketing gets more sophisticated in the next few years, there
will be more and more companies that are offering solid moneymaking opportunities
to experienced resellers, so it is best that you do your homework and learn this stuff
while you can because eventually everyone will be trying to cash in on this ‘then
ancient’ method.


This report is made available by Christopher Bankole
https;//digitalproductsstore.selz.com
http://chrisban.savingshighway.com

Email advertising as an affiliate marketing tool

Direct promotion that are using email has boomed over recent years, but has brought
with it mountains of spam. If you intend on using email as a method of advertising
products and services, you have to be sure that you stand behind the products you're
promoting and make yourself available to answer any questions that may be asked. If
you hide from people, they will wonder what you are hiding.

An effective promotion technique that I have found is to combine email with the ad
article strategy. This generally means creating an ezine or newsletter promotion that
visitors can sign up for that goes directly to their email inboxes. You can occasionally
put a summary of a product or service, however, you should include just enough
information to stir the curiosity of your readers in an ezine. The summary then
contains a link to the ad article on our site. The benefit of this is not only that you
have a good opportunity to promote the product or service, but while visitors are on
your site they may also look at other sections at the same time This way you as the
advertiser benefits through having highly targeted potential clients visit their site.


Yours Sincerely
Christopher Bankole
https://digitalproductsstore.selz.om
http://chrisban.savingshighway.com

Successful affiliate marketing requires patience

If you are sure that your web site can get a lot of traffic and generate fantastic sales
for a certain company, you have to contact them to negotiate a tailored arrangement.
If they aren't too enthusiastic to begin with, be patient because companies are
approached every day by affiliates wanting to cut a "better deal".

The reality of it is that many affiliates cannot deliver what they promise, and the
companies are extremely aware of this. For you as a potential affiliate marketer, you
need to implement their links and banners, go the extra mile with ad articles and
other unique strategies, generate some sales and then approach them again better
prepared. You'll probably find that they'll have a change of heart. Finding good
affiliates is very difficult and if you are performing for these companies they will keep
you.

Most forms of advertising take some time to kick into gear. Putting a link up for a
couple of days and then pulling it down because it is not generating any interest may
not be a reflection on the product, but just in the way that it is being presented to
your web site visitors. You know how fickle they can be.

If you have run successful campaigns before, try to remember the elements that made
it a success and implement them again. Of course, you need to remember that what
works for one product may not necessarily for another, but it's worth a try. Again, if
you are having problems with promotion, contact the company. They will more than
likely have thousands of affiliates and will know what strategies are working. A good
advertiser may even go to the trouble of reviewing your site and provide you with
some tips and hints based on their observations.


This report is brought to you by Christopher Bankole
https://digitalproductsstore.selz.com
http://chrisban.savingsway.com

Using Affiliation as a Mass Promotion Tool

There are Hundreds of thousands of affiliate programs out there that you can choose
from and all of them are claiming to be the best. Some of them will give you the
impression that all you have to do is implement their banners and links and wait for
the money to start rolling in. This CAN be the case at times, but this scenario usually
only applies to very large sites that have massive web traffic already. For most of us,
being a successful affiliate requires a little more work than that!

When you are selling your wares through a website, you will be needing as much help
as you can get and that is why affiliation is such a good deal. It gives you and like
companies the chance to market your wares in more than one spot. As the marketing
affiliate, it is your job to get you and other companies together to do it. Most
affiliates use their own sites and combine marketing strategies with others. Your
website is likely not geared toward one thing in particular so affiliate’s who come in
will gain a lot more from your services.

As the variety of goods and online services offered over the Internet has grown at an
incredible rate over the last few years, and in response, so has the competition. Web
site visitors need to have a very good reason for clicking on a link or banner. In most
affiliate programs, you are offered a wide variety of banners that you can place on
your site; all of them will be effective in getting attention from your target audience.

If you can gather a click through rate of at least 2%, then you are doing very well. It
has been my experience, that highly colorful and picture filled banners do not
perform as successfully as their simpler counterparts. The main reason for this is the
time it takes to download it. If a banner is the last thing to load on your page and the
banner ad is excessively byte "heavy", by the time it has loaded your visitor may
already have scrolled down the page already and miss it entirely.

Heavy banner ads can also slow down the loading of your pages, or even some of the
critical elements of your page and you can lose your visitors altogether. This is why A
graphically rich banner can also confuse the actual message because the artwork and
marketing blurb can be imbalanced. For these reasons, I would recommend that
banners you implement be no more that 15kb wherever you possibly can.

Banners that have a lot of animation in them, such as rapid flashing, are also
something to consider very carefully before setting them up. While these do achieve
high click rates, they are also highly annoying to the average visitor. If you do decide
to implement this form of banner advertising, you have to use it very sparingly.

Whenever you begin selecting any form of advertising that requires graphics you
should try and keep the theme of your site in mind. In general, while graphical ads
are meant to stand out and catch a visitor’s eye, it shouldn't be to the point that
everything else on the page is ignored. Whenever you can, you have to make sure that
all banner ads or advertising that you use uses a link that opens in a new window.
That way, if a visitor does choose to visit one of your advertisers it is easy for them to
return to your page and review what they actually came to your site for.


A lot of companies are now offering their affiliates the options of using pop up and
pop under ads. However, the fact is they annoy most visitors and are usually closed
before they even have a chance to load by automatic program blockers. It is for this
reason that you should use pop-unders instead and preferably those that only display
once per visit. I will talk more about pop-unders in a later section.
Successful affiliate marketing requires patience.

If you are sure that your web site can get a lot of traffic and generate fantastic sales
for a certain company, you have to contact them to negotiate a tailored arrangement.
If they aren't too enthusiastic to begin with, be patient because companies are
approached every day by affiliates wanting to cut a "better deal".

The reality of it is that many affiliates cannot deliver what they promise, and the
companies are extremely aware of this. For you as a potential affiliate marketer, you
need to implement their links and banners, go the extra mile with ad articles and
other unique strategies, generate some sales and then approach them again better
prepared. You'll probably find that they'll have a change of heart. Finding good
affiliates is very difficult and if you are performing for these companies they will keep
you.

Most forms of advertising take some time to kick into gear. Putting a link up for a
couple of days and then pulling it down because it is not generating any interest may
not be a reflection on the product, but just in the way that it is being presented to
your web site visitors. You know how fickle they can be.

If you have run successful campaigns before, try to remember the elements that made
it a success and implement them again. Of course, you need to remember that what
works for one product may not necessarily for another, but it's worth a try. Again, if
you are having problems with promotion, contact the company. They will more than
likely have thousands of affiliates and will know what strategies are working. A good
advertiser may even go to the trouble of reviewing your site and provide you with
some tips and hints based on their observations.

This report is made available by Christopher Bankole
https://digitalproductsstore.selz.com
http://chrisban.savingshighway.com

How to Deal with Online Merchants—Creating Partnerships

When you decide to become an affiliate marketer, you are basically just asking 

another web host to add a link to your website to theirs which will bring your website 

more traffic and hopefully generate more sales for them, which gives you a 

commission sale. Of course, there are some things that affiliates look for in a website 

before they will sign you on as an affiliate. Before you even consider signing on as an 

affiliate, you should make sure that your website has something to offer that theirs 

doesn’t. 

To be more specific, even if you are going to a “like” website as an affiliate, you 

don’t want to approach a site that is selling the exact same thing as you because that 

makes you direct competition with you. For example, if you are selling designer 

clothing of a particular label, you do not want to try to go to a site that is selling the 

exact same items as you, but a like site that may offer the same brand, but not the 

same items. That way, both sites are selling the same label, but can push each 

other’s sites for the items that they don’t carry. 

Once you know exactly what type of website you want to run and which web 

companies are actually offering you the right revenue sharing opportunities for 

products and services that complement your web site genre, you can’t just offer to 

put up banners and buttons on their behalf. It is best to begin by writing up a review 

page of the product or service and how it will definitely help boost sales, especially if 

you are recognized as being knowledgeable in your field. 

One of the best ways to show that you know what you are doing is to offer articles 

and reviews on your website about your items for sale. Keyword articles are best for 

getting search engine to come calling. You can also put in a brief history of the 

product’s inception etc. Basically just put in as much information as you can about 

your product or service so that visitors and merchants will know that you are on top of 

things and know what you are doing. Here are some more things that you should do 

when dealing with potential affiliates that you are trying to get in with. 

Talk to People 

Talking to people could not only increase your sales, but also save you some 

heartache in the long run. It is very easy to talk to an affiliate company, and you can 

start by contacting the merchant, let them know what you are doing to promote their 

product and ask their advice as to how you could improve your marketing technique. 

Think about it, it is always best to approach a potential affiliate with a standing 

technique in mind as well as an outline of what you plan to do to help them. If you 

have the means, try it out for a while so that you can approach a merchant with solid 

facts backing you up. 

When you ask the merchant for advice you are setting yourself in great standing with 

them and showing them that you understand their knowledge. After all, the merchant 

knows their product best right? They would also have a very good idea of the 

strategies that are used by other affiliates to boost sales. Don’t bother checking for 

this information on an affiliate site because you will not be getting to the nitty gritty 

of it. 

By contacting the merchant yourself, you are also showing your enthusiasm for 

marketing their products and services and that you are working to become known as a 

"power" or "super" affiliate! Any merchant who understands affiliate marketing knows 

that over 90% of sales are generated by less than 5% of their affiliates. A good 

merchant will see your efforts and give you further information and resources and 

may even boost your commission fees as a result of your efforts and success. All of 

this means more money for you both! 

Dealing with merchants directly: 

When you are dealing directly with a merchant, there are some things that you have 

to realize. You need to know how to deal with them but also what to expect to 

encounter from the as well. That is what this section is going to help you with. Let’s 

take a look at some of the various things that you can expect to hear and deal with 

when going through a merchant. 

a) If you are going to go to the trouble of emailing a merchant and they don't respond 

the first time, do not worry about it, be persistent because many merchants receive 

countless numbers of emails daily and take time to sift through them and weed out 

the spam. If they still fail to respond to your, think twice about continuing promotion 

on their behalf because a lack of communication can also be indicative of other 

problems such as payment or just plain disinterest. You should also bear in mind that 

some merchants work on the shotgun principle. What this means is that they make big 

promises, set a high payouts knowing full well that few affiliates will ever reach it. 

Next thing you know, they get as many affiliates promoting their products and 

services as possible which will give them the maximum exposure, with the minimum 

cost and effort on their part. It's not a good business model for them to use in the 

long term and after a while affiliates drop away, but not before the company has 

raked in thousands. Many MLM (multi-level marketing) programs also work on this 

principle and only the guys at the top generate any serious revenue so you need to 

expect this and watch out for it. 

A good way to protect your payments from merchants is to sign up for affiliate 

programs that are extremely well established ad networks such as Offers Quest or 

FastClick if you want to get paid for your work. When you are working with a major ad 

network means that even if you only make a few dollars from each program, those 

dollars that are generated will all feed a common account, accumulate rapidly which 

will allow you to reach the payout threshold in a shorter time period. Most ad 

networks work with merchants on a "money up front" or monthly "pay as you go" basis 

because this decreases the risk of those merchants who are suddenly disappearing 

with your hard earned commissions. 

For this to work, you need to demonstrate your web marketing prowess 

b) Unless you have a web site that already generates high traffic, don't ask the 

merchant for higher commissions in the first communication. So many affiliates do 

this and end up being totally ignored because most affiliates probably can't deliver on 

their promises due to the fact that too many of their claims are unachievable. If you 

don't have a solid sales record for the product or service you are promoting, you'll 

need to prove yourself to merchants off the bat and put some thought into your 

promotion and rack up a few sales before attempting to secure higher payout rates. 

Be professional in your communications 

c) When you are communicating with merchants, you have to make sure that you use 

a professional manner not the laid back style that you use when talking toy our 

friends. If you have suggestions of how a merchant could improve an offer that would 

convert into more sales, let them know, but be very polite and constructive in your 

feedback –not insulting by saying things like: "Your banners suck" because this will 

alienate them. 

d) You have to remember that the Internet as a trading place is still very new in 

comparison to the business platforms of the last few millennia like regular advertising 

through television or newspaper ads. Some of the quality companies that are offering 

an affiliate program may be just breaking into this side of marketing and will 

appreciate any feedback you can give them. 

e) A smart merchant understands that good affiliates can’t be found everywhere as is 

often assumed and hoped. Merchants need someone that acts business like and treats 

them with respect, assists with resources and provides prompt payments. Smarter 

affiliates understand that a merchant wants quality promotion and sales performance 

for minimum outlay. Successful merchant/affiliate partnerships happen when both 

parties understand these points and work together because that is when the money 

starts rolling in. 

Nowadays, you can get millions of different goods and services on the Internet, 

advertisers look to individuals and companies to help them sell their products by using 

webmasters and others to spread the word. These advertisements can come in the 

form of banner advertising on affiliate sites, text links, reviews written by affiliates, 

direct email, blogs etc. 

How it works is that the advertisers pay webmasters for displaying the ads, or for click 

throughs that are sent to them, (Called pay per click) which is a commission that is 

paid on any sales that happen as a direct result of a referral from their web site or 

email message or during each visit. I will explain more on this in a later section. 

The fact of the matter is that you will likely not need to be bothered with a merchant 

at all if it weren’t for the money involved. The fact that affiliations can be used as a 

mass promotional opportunity for both sides that results in more money for both just 

adds icing to the cake. That is why the next section is about mass promotion through 

affiliation. 

This free report is brought to you by Christopher Bankole

https://digitalproductsstore.selz.com

http://chrisban.savingshighway.com

GUIDELINES FOR DOING A COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

The competitive analysis section works best when it follows a format like the one that
is shown below. In general, I would recommend that this report would be made about
each of the major competitors. While most of this report is intended to focus on the
overall analysis of the competitor, you should recognize that you are primarily
interested in how this information may impact your company and, specifically, a
product or product line to you affiliates.

For this reason, you should make sure, where possible, to focus your information on
how it impacts the markets in which your products will compete with theirs. That is
how your report will stand out among the other marketing affiliates in a merchant’s
eye. It should be included in your proposal whenever it is possible. I have listed the
guidelines in sections to make it easier for you to read and then furthered the report
guidelines for you as well for easier reading.

Please note each sub-section within a section will contain 1-5 sentences that
explain the sub-section.
•  General Company Information which includes name, location (headquarters,
other locations of importance), website address
•  Summary of the Business which includes a section that will summarize the
company, business units and the general nature of the business
•  Business Overview should include sections on the history, ownership structure,
types of businesses, mission, strategy/objectives, and key executives
•  Recent News/Developments such as important company developments within
last 6-12 months (e.g., reports from news sources, press releases, financial
statements)
•  Financial and Market Share Analysis – includes sections on corporate
performance, trends, market share for product
•  Marketing in general should include sections on products and services that are
offered, target markets, positioning, customers/users, pricing model,
promotional efforts, sales force, and distribution
•  Other Miscellaneous Issues like adding sections on technology capability,
partnership arrangements, and intangible issues
•  A list of your Competitors where you will list key competitors facing this
company
•  SWOT – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
Below, I am going to actually pin point what should be included in the market study
like I did above, however in more detail and with explanation on how to write it. I am
listing them in steps rather than points to make it easier.

1.  The information that is provided in a market study should be based on the
research that you have collected AND NOT on one’s own perceptions,
guesstimates or other unsupported statements. This information should be
based on fat alone! The only exception to this may be within the SWOT
analysis; however, even most of this should be supported with some evidence.

2.  If you are unable to find any specific bit of information it is probably a good
idea to make this known so that the person reading the report would know of
this potential limitation of the market study and be ready for it. Obviously you
need to collect good research so you do not end up having too many of these
statements.

3.  It is generally a good idea to define the most important terms and concepts
when you first introduce them so as not to confuse the reader. This will
benefit those reading the report who may not already possess knowledge in this
area. Alternatively, you can create a glossary or definition section in the
End notes area of the report.

4.  Wherever it is necessary you should explain how the research was conducted or
how data was collected (e.g., explaining how survey was done). This just helps
the reader to understand your methodology so that they can decide how
trustworthy the information is.

5.  Make note of any limitations of secondary research (research you obtained from
other sources) that you used. Unless there are very any significant limitations
you can generally include this as an end note.

6.  If you are investigating a new/different way of doing something with present
customers, then you will need to provide a discussion of the cost/benefit of
alternative options. That is, what will customer give up to use something new
versus what they will get from using the new product?

7.  Remember to reference as much stuff as you have to in order to get the best
information. I would suggest using end notes instead of footnotes of texts
because this gives you the most accurate account. End notes appear next to the
sentence, word, quote, number, etc. but usually not as a superscript and
usually in parenthesis like this (1). The full reference would appear at the back
of the report in an End notes section.

Once you have completed your market analysis and target audience, you will want to
present it to the companies that you are looking to affiliate with. That is what the
next section deals with. It is going to show you how to create partnerships with the
merchants.


Brought to you by Christopher Bankole
http://chrisban.savingshighway.com
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Marketing Study Outline—What you need to know

In order to be able to conduct a decent targeting and marketing campaign, you must
first understand the fundamentals of finding out who they are. They only way to do
this is to follow a specific guideline for you to follow. Check out the guideline below.

1. Your Objective to the Research
•  Explain in one paragraph why the research is being done, what you hope to
learn and for what purpose the information that you attain may be used
2. Description of the Market
This should be general like one paragraph
Who is your Target Market(s)
•  Why you chose this particular market
•  Get a complete profile of your market (e.g., demographics, psychographics,
behaviors)
•  What benefits does your market seek (i.e., what points-of-pain or problems are
being solved)
•  What factors can affect their decision to purchase or use your product/service
•  What attitudes do they have about the products/services that are currently not on
the market
•  How is the product used
•  Products and Services that appeal to the target market
•  In general terms, what is currently so appealing to this market
•  If there are no current providers, what types of products/services may appeal to
this market in the future (i.e., what is used now to solve the problem).
3. Market Metrics
Get many Size estimates (current and future) for all of the following:
•  Overall market
•  Current size as it stands
•  Potential size for the future
•  Actual penetration of current products/service within the entire market
Individual market segments
•  Current size
•  Potential size
•  Actual penetration of current products/service within the total market
•  Usage rates
•  Frequency of product purchases
•  Growth estimates (current and in the future) for:
•  Overall market
•  Individual market segments

Competitive Analysis
You must include a Summary of who your Current Competitors are
Listing the competition by market share ranking (by each target market if
possible) is a good way to size them up. You can also be more specific by searching
for individual points listed below.
Current Competitors - full analysis of top competitors including:
•  Products & Services (e.g., description, uniqueness, pricing, etc.)
•  Their Market share at current
•  Current customers (targeted audience)
•  Positioning and promotion strategies
•  Partnerships/Alliances/Distributors
•  Recent news

SWOT Analysis - Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats
It is extremely important to focus attention on the SWOT section of this report. While
most other information in this report can be gleaned from company and secondary
materials, much of what appears in the SWOT section is based on the researcher’s
own opinions of the competitor based on the information that is collected.
Consequently, this is often one of the hardest areas of the report to write as well.

Potential Competitors(any competition in the future)

•  You will need to get an explanation (though it need not be as detailed as
Current Competitors) on who they are or maybe and why they are seen as
potential competitors
5. Additional
•  Extraneous Variables
o  Discuss factors that may affect this market (e.g., technological, social,
governmental, competitive, etc.)
•  Market Trends and what is expected to happen in the future.

If you can follow these basic tips for finding and selecting your target market, you
should be ready to search online and check out the competition and their rankings in
the search engines. Below are some general guidelines for you to follow in creating
your competitive analysis which is the most important factor in being an affiliate
marketer. Knowing your competition just as well as your audience is the key point
which is going to keep you on top of the competition.

This free report is made available by Christopher Bankole
https://digitalproductsstore.selz.com
http://chrisban.savingshighway.com

Looking for the best affiliate programs

The best way to try to explain this to you is to give you some of my personal
experiences when looking for an affiliation program.

“When I first started searching for and implementing affiliations with various
companies; it was one of the largest parts of time wasted during my day when it
came to managing my website. I spent a disgusting amount of hours searching for
suitable affiliate programs, implementing the links and then keeping track of what
they did”.
If you are hoping that marketing a website affiliation is going to get you rich
quickly, forget about it. You will have to spend a lot of time in your project if you
want to make it work for you. Then again, all money making ventures do, just ask
Donald Trump.

“Of course, the income that was generated from each program was actually pretty
low at that time because at that time the number of visitors to my site was not high
either. With this in mind, it was not particularly uncommon for companies to
disappear on me without warning me about it and since most affiliate programs only
pay out at around the $25 mark, I would lose a lot of revenue in the end.

The other part of affiliation that I was not happy with was the idea of another
companies banner’s being plastered all over my site, if you place too many of them
on any given page it only serves to confuse and irritate your visitors. think about it;
how do you like it when you visit a site. Any more than one animated element on a
web page can be very distracting which leaves you with nothing gained at all, and
many affiliate programs insist upon this type of bargain when signing on. By now, you
must realize that I learned a lot just by trial and error.

Affiliate tracking can also a problem. After you have successfully applied to become
an affiliate for a company, they will usually supply you with some personalized code
or link. It is very important that this code is implemented correctly into your page;
because otherwise you may be sending the company visitors without being
reimbursed. Most snippets of code contain a unique user id; which is used by the
company to distinguish which site sent traffic. Even if you do implement this code in
the right way, it has been my experience on occasion for it not to function
correctly”.

Having heard of my experiences, you can see why I would not really recommend that
you hunt around and sign up without much research and thought first when finding a
good affiliate program. Your time is too valuable and could be better spent creating
content and updating your site. But there are some excellent individual companies
offering affiliate programs out there.

What I have discovered to be very successful is to take advantage of companies like
Offers Quest or Google for text link advertising. Text links are a great resource as
they are bandwidth friendly, and when they are implemented properly add valuable
content to your site which can also assist in search engine rankings.

When it comes to website affiliation, you will also need to know how to conduct a
market study because this is how you will find your target audience. Without a
targeted audience, your marketing campaign will not be effective. Below I have
begun to give you an outline of what you should include in your market study. It is
best to write it down; especially if you are hoping to entice someone else into
investing in your marketing venture. That and it is a good way to keep track of your
objective and provides a good guideline of what needs to be done.

Brought to you by Christopher Bankole
https://digitalproductsstore.selz.com
http://chrisban.savingshighway.com

The Fundamentals of Website Affiliation

As you can imagine from the above section that spends a great of time focusing on the
basics of internet marketing, you must realize that it was all just an informed lead in
to the affiliation, which is the whole reason that we are here. The first thing that you
have to think about when getting into the affiliation game is how to go about it. In
order to understand this, you will need to know exactly what it is and get basic
knowledge about it.
Affiliate programs are an excellent way to generate income for your site or someone
else’s, and it is a pretty good introduction into ecommerce, however but it's a
numbers game. Basically, the more people who visit your site, the greater your
chances become for creating a good income, especially if the programs you
participate in are related to your site topic. Chances are you have probably come
across many commercial sites that claim to offer the best affiliate program. What you
will often learn is that this is simply not true.
So what exactly is an affiliate program, you might ask? An affiliate program is where a
company offers to pay you a certain amount of money for either a click through from
your site, or a fixed amount for a lead (where the visitor signs up for a newsletter,
etc.) or a percentage of a purchase made by a visitor as a result of a click through.
Even if the visitor does not make a purchase on the advertiser’s site right away, most
programs will offer “cookie duration” of usually around 30-90 days.
What this really means is that as long as the visitor has the cookie in their cache;
even if they return to the advertisers site one month later, you will still receive the
commission from the sale however, as in all things that are business related, cookie
duration is not a guarantee when you sign up for an affiliation program and is
something that you need to check for before signing on.

This report is made possible by Christopher Bankole
https://digitalproductsstore.selz.com
http://chrisban.savingshighway.com

Search Engine Basics

Search engines are computer programs that are used to explore the internet in search
of web pages. They do this by using "spiders," "crawlers," or "robots" which are used to
search for the most up to date information on any given search request. This may
seem like an odd place to introduce you to the search engines, but I can assure that
this section is well placed. Giving you the basics here will help you to understand
what I am saying in the later sections. Anyways….back to the basics and explanation
of search engine spiders.
These spiders (like those that are used by Google) are able to follow the links present
on web pages that are located by specific keywords. When spiders are searching for a
new webpage, they copy all or parts of the text present on the page into their search
engine database. Other spiders revisit these pages on a regular basis so that they can
register changes or dead links. The wait time varies greatly from search engine to
search engine. It is for this reason that your website should stay current.
The search engine will have hundreds of millions of web pages in its database. In
order to deliver relevant results, the search engine companies have developed special
ranking algorithms that calculate the order of search requirement results. The
keyword or keyword phrase the visitor enters into the search form of the search
engine will determine which web sites get picked up by the query. The pages the
search engine find most relevant will be listed first. This will determine where you
will be listed upon search requests.
For instance, if you are searching for "Beethoven," and the search engine finds a main
headline on that page containing the phrase "Ludwig von Beethoven," it will assume
that this page is fairly relevant to your needs. If, on the other hand, it finds the
phrase only once, and it is buried in a long text, it will ignore it because it will
assume that this is not important. That is why so many websites use special keywords
more than once in a particular article or webpage, because that is how the spiders
pick them up and place them higher in the results of a search.
What does this mean to you as a business person? Well…..this means that in order for
you to even consider affiliation; you must first have a website. If you want your
website to get attention, you have to appeal to search engines first. Many potential
affiliates will not want to associate with just anyone prefer a site that gets traffic.
Knowing about search engines and how to appeal to them will get you this traffic. I
will offer more on traffic in another section later. Right now I would like to get you
started with website affiliation because that is what this book is about and I have
already given the basics about marketing in general.


Brought to you by Christopher Bankole
https://digitalproductsstore.selz.com
http://shareca.sh/r/L6H60

About Online Marketing

Your first interest in any type of marketing campaign is to start developing a
marketing strategy that is going to be focused on who you will need to determine your
target market is. This is exactly who you think will be your consumers. For starters,
you need to know how to break down your consumers.
Target market is the group of potential customers that will be selected for the
reception of your marketing strategy. It certainly makes it easier to develop your
strategy if you know exactly who/how old/where people live when trying to sell
things to them. If you are looking to segment the market, you need to determine the
different target markets for each segment. For example, if you are selling tires,
(which everyone needs) you will need to divide your market by knowing how people
shop for tires, and who they are.
If you are selling high cost/quality tires, you have to market to a market that is likely
to buy them such as middle aged and established consumers as opposed to teens and
twenty-something’s who may not be able to afford them.
There are different means that are used by professional marketers that help you to
find your target audience. You can use both of them that are within your means.
Some of these methods include:
1.  Researching the market through surveys, interviews, and setting up shop in a
mall to see who questions you the most etc. to see who would benefit the most
from your product and be most likely to buy.
2.  Host experimental sessions for people to try out your product and give their
opinions for improvements etc. so that you can ensure that you giving the
people what they want or need.
3.  Host trial websites that are geared toward finding the market by letting the
market come to you. You can best do this by utilizing keyword centered
articles that will let you know who is coming toy our website.
It really doesn’t matter if you stand on your front porch and just ask people what they
want in a product or service like yours or not, as long as you get a good handle on who
your market audience is. If you are selling T-shirts, you will likely want to appeal to
younger people who are more likely to wear them; which means that you should
market your wares to those people. To do this, you will have to begin your strategy
where you know you will find them….on the internet.
When you are using the internet to market any product or service, you must
understand the basics of what internet marketing is. When you are marketing on the
internet, you are looking to reach a larger audience and therefore, you need
something that will catch their attention and bring them to you. In order to do this,
you will have to bring these people to your website.
Once you have your website built, you have to work on getting people to visit not just
once, but over and over again. You can start this by using your website to do more
than just sell stuff. You should always try to host a website that is also informational.
It is generally the website’s that offer up to date information as well as sell wares.
It is through the information that you establish yourself as a trustworthy authority to
your consumers. Doing this establishes trust with your consumers and brings them
back again all of the time. Nobody wants to visit a website that is profiling outdated
information in a month. It is the up to date website’s that get and keep clients. These
are also the website that the search engines find relevant during a query.
A nice tip for keeping your information up to date; especially if you are selling a
product or service that is rarely updated is to keep a weather program or stock ticker
program running on your website because the search engine spiders and robots will
view this as new content and still return to your site on a regular basis.
If you are running a website that can sell things directly or order services and make
payments there etc. you will want to generate as much sales as possible.
What this means is that you need to make search engines come to your site for a
particular product or service before others. It is because of this need that search
engines have to become your best friend, which I will explain what these are below.


This free report is brought to you by Christopher Bankole
https://digitalproductsstore.selz.com
http://shareca.sh/r/L6H60

Becoming A Master Affiliate Marketer( Introduction)

Introduction
If you currently own a business or are thinking of starting one up, chances are, you
are going to need some information about how to get the word out about your
product or service. That is when you need to think about marketing and building a
marketing strategy.
With the World Wide Web being the major source of information sharing and
communications in the world, it is natural that you would want to use this as a major
focus for building your marketing strategy. That is what this e-book is for; to teach
you how to become a major player in the field of business that you choose by taking
advantage of the internet and using affiliation as your marketing strategy’s
foundation.
Of course, before I can show you how to become a master affiliate, I think it would be
best to begin with a basic introduction to marketing in general. So in this introduction
to becoming a master affiliate, I will give you a basic explanation into marketing
because this will help you to better understand how an affiliation can be done with
expert precision.
Most people are aware of what marketing is, but most do not realize everything that
is involved in marketing. Marketing is not a temporary thing. Marketing is more than
sales. Marketing is actually an entire process of activities that is used to:
1. Get your potential customer's attention
2. Motivate them to buy
3. Get them to actually buy
4. Get them to keep buying
Marketing is how you define your product, promote your product, distribute your
product, and to maintain a relationship with your customers. All of this is important if
you want to run a successful business. When you become an affiliate, you are just
gaining access to a world of customers instead of just being available for a local
customer base. It simply allows you to reach millions of potential customers instead of
hundreds. With this kind of potential, is it a wonder that so many people are relying
on the web as their marketing hub.
In order to get the consumer’s attention, you will need to know who they are and
where they are. When you use affiliation, you can cut some of that work in half.
When you are an affiliate, a lot of your customers will find you. This is a business feat
that is just too good to be true, and if you know what you are doing, the benefits are
simply awesome!

This Free report is brought to you by Christoher Bankole
https://digitalproductsstore.selz.com
http://shareca.sh/r/L6H60

Read this if you are looking for an MLM company

The growth of the Internet and people looking to earn some extra money from home, paved the way for MLM companies to double over the last decade. With this growth in interest in network marketing, many new companies have sprung up to join the ranks of the time-tested, older MLM companies. 

If you are thinking of starting a side career in MLM, or just want to see how your current company measures up, take note of the critical things to look for when choosing an MLM company.

The first thing to look for is stability. It would be best if an MLM company has been in business for 2 to 5 years. There is really something about companies that have already “stood the test of time”.

The longer the MLM company has been around, the more chance of it staying around. There are enough things to worry about in network marketing, such as sponsoring and advertising, without having to wonder if your company will be around next year. 

Even if you were able to build the biggest downline and become the highest earner in the MLM company, it would not matter if they suddenly shut down. There are never any guarantees, but a company with a longer track record generally has more chances of longevity.

The second thing to look for is the one in charge of the company. Who is the president, and who are the directors? What is their track record? Have they spent time in the network marketing industry, or are they new to it all? What businesses have they been involved with in the past? 

If you do not know the answer to these questions, call or email the company to find out. It is critical to know the answers to these questions from the outset. If you plan to spend many years with the MLM company, you would want to be dealing with people who are honest, savvy, and have integrity in and outside of the business world.

Third, is the product being marketed.  Generally speaking, the more products the better. The fewer products you have, the more chance your prospects or potential customers might not be interested. 

There was one MLM telecommunications company that recently went bankrupt. They basically only had a few products in the industry. Perhaps if they had added some nutritional products, they could have survived.

In addition to this, the products should be competitively priced, and somewhat unique.

Fourth, know if it is easy to start in that MLM company. Can people join online, or do they have to fill out paper forms? 

Having the option to join online makes the whole process a lot easier. On the same note, having the option to join free will open up your opportunity to many more people. 

Your MLM company should let people join free and allow them to market the products to earn income. Once someone has joined free, they have partially committed to the business. This makes it easier for you and your company to follow up with them, via mail or email.

Lastly, the more automated the MLM company is, the better. They should give you a personal company website that you can refer prospects to. A prospect should be able to contact you from that page. 

And the MLM company should have a series of emails that follow up with your prospects.


This piece of information is made available by Christopher Bankole
https://digitalproductsstore.selz.com
http://downloadsafe.org/file/b5969658

Mapping Your Way to a Good HTML Site Map

Ever wondered what site maps are for?

In any internet marketing endeavor, the best thing to do is to maintain a good linkage and to always stay indexed. There many ways available to you online to have your web site indexed and spidered. Using HTML site maps is a way you can utilize to make sure that your site is up to date in the internet and search engine database. 

What is a site map?

A site map basically is a page that features or lists the links you have on your web site. This will make it easier for search engines to proceed and spider your web site. It is usually found near the bottom page of a web site. 

Why are site maps important?

An HTML site map is important. It should contain the top level pages. In one page, there should be just about the right amount of links in it. The link should not exceed 100 for more favorable views. 

There are certain benefits in having a good HTML sitemap. This generally would assure any potential customer to easily navigate the site, find exactly what they came to look for. The site map page will serve as a tool for your visitors. This way they will opt to visit your site more if they can easily browse and find their way in your web site. It can also ensure that your visitors can very well stay in your web site. 

Good links will also ensure you that spiders will locate your web site easily each week. This will make your site indexed by the important search engines online. This will also avoid your site from being dropped.

However, HTML site maps may serve more important purpose than merely as another link to click on. The specific purpose you should consider in having a site map is to make it easier for search engine robots to ‘crawl’ in your web site. Pages are located by search engines through ‘crawling.’ It is a process that goes through the index of a page, following the links and adding the pages to the database. 

The problem would come in when search engines fail to locate the page because links are not that accessible. It is the site map that will address this dilemma. Search engines will be given access to the different links in your web site simply by following the site map in your home page. 

Here are some important pointers in creating your HTML site map.

1. Get tutorials on how to make your site map. There are available pages online that can give you a step-by-step guide in coming up with a good website. 

2. You can also ensure that your site map looks good, to make it more pleasing to the eye of your visitor and to make navigation easier. You can get ideas for a properly designed site map online too.

3. Make sure that your site map will provide also the links to the important pages in your web site. This way your visitors will not get lost. At the same time you can ensure that your guests will still be able to get the general idea of your web site structure. It is advisable that you make links as simple as possible.

4. Make the link to your site map as visible and obvious as possible in your homepage. Visitors should not spend too much time in locating it or else you might end up losing them.

5. A site map serves more like a table of contents of your website. It should provide all of the different sections of your internet site with all the information and data that may be found in each section. 

6. Each of the contents in your site map must have a hyperlink to its respective URL.

7. If you will have to give way to numerous links, you can make use of several pages. You could numbers each site-map page or you could also make use of the contents in naming each site-map.

Having an HTML site map will furthermore help you in maximizing traffic to your web site. Just make sure that your homepage as well all the internal pages are properly indexed. Creating a site map will definitely make things more efficient for you. The links to all the pages in your website will be directly connected to your homepage.

Aim high for your internet marketing endeavors. The more links you have to your site, the higher is the possibility of getting a good rank among the major search engines, so don’t hesitate to learn the rules of the game and make yourself a sure winner.

This is brought to you by Christopher Bankole

https://digitalproductsstore.selz.com

http://downloadsafe.org/file/b5969658

Learning the Basics of RSS

What is RSS?
You probably have seen this three-letter acronym in the course of your internet surfing. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary; syndicating means republishing an article that comes from another source such as a website.

An RSS is a means of publicizing updates about websites. It may or may not include a summary and photos of the latest posting. But those that provide summaries (thus Rich Site Summary) allow users to skim through the article so that they could decide later on if they want to access the website source. The RSS feed usually contains the title of the update originating from the website. It is also usually the link to the website source.

What are the benefits of RSS?
RSS gives benefits to both readers (users) and web publishers.
1. It gives you the latest updates.
Whether it is about the weather, new music, software upgrade, local news, or a new posting from a rarely-updates site learn about the latest as soon as it comes out.

2. It saves on surfing time.
Since an RSS feed provides a summary of the related article, it saves the user’s time by helping s/he decide on which items to prioritize when reading or browsing the net.

3. It gives the power of subscription to the user.
Users are given a free-hand on which websites to subscribe in their RSS aggregators which they can change at any time they decide differently.

4. It lessens the clutter in your inbox.
Although your email address will be required to enjoy the services of online RSS aggregators, RSS does not use your email address to send the updates.

5. It is spam free.
Unlike email subscriptions, RSS does not make use of your email address to send updates thus your privacy is kept safe from spam mails.

6. Unsubscribing is hassle-free.
Unlike email subscriptions where the user is asked questions on why s/he is unsubscribing and then the user would be asked to confirm unsubscribing, all you have to do is to delete the RSS feed from your aggregator.

7. It can be used as an advertising or marketing tool.
Users who subscribe or syndicate product websites receive the latest news on products and services without the website sending spam mail. This is advantageous to both the web user and the website owner since advertising becomes targeted; those who are actually interested in their products are kept posted.

What are the drawbacks of RSS?
The disadvantages of RSS use are brought about by its being a new technology and some user-preference concerns.
1. Some users prefer receiving email updates over an RSS feed.

2. Graphics and photos do not appear in all RSS feeds.
For conciseness and ease of publication, RSS feeds do not display the photos from the original site in announcing the update except for some web-based aggregators

3. The identity of the source website can be confusing.
Since RSS feeds do not display the actual URL or name of the website, it can sometimes get confusing on what feed a user is actually reading.

4. Publishers cannot determine how many users are subscribed to their feed and the frequency of their visits. Moreover, they would not know the reasons why users unsubscribe which could be important in improving their advertising.

5. RSS feeds create higher traffic and demands on the server.
Most readers still prefer the whole update over a brief summary of the entry, thus they still access the site.

6. Since it is a new technology, many sites still do not support RSS.

How do I start using RSS?
There are two things needed: an RSS feed and an RSS aggregator or reader. The RSS feed comes from an RSS-supported website. There are also websites that provide a list of RSS feeds of different websites. An RSS aggregator is used to read the RSS feed from the source website. It scans and collects data on latest RSS feeds from the worldwide web.

An aggregator comes in two forms: a downloadable program also known as desktop aggregator and an online or web-based aggregator. Downloadable aggregators may require payment before they can be acquired, while internet-based aggregators are usually free of charge. All you need to do is to register an account then you are ready to use their services. Both versions allow you to customize or choose which RSS feeds to enter. Paid aggregators are usually chosen by more experienced users and they usually allow more freedom in customizing feeds.

1. Choose an RSS aggregator to use. For beginners, web-based aggregators are recommended since they are usually user-friendly

2. Scan the homepage of your target website for the RSS or XML button. It contains the RSS code you need to enter in the aggregator. Copy this code. Syndic8 provides a directory of websites that support RSS.


3. Paste the code (which contains the URL of the website) in your aggregator. There is a space provided for pasting the code.

After you have done these three easy steps, you can start reading the RSS feeds coming from the website. New postings appear as they are published real time at the source website.

RSS and Internet Marketing

The original idea of RSS came from Netscape, where their intention is to provide a means for users to customize their personal homepage to contain links to websites that interest them, similar to bookmarking websites.

The application of RSS to internet marketing was an unforeseen development to RSS technology developers. Since users are given the freedom to add RSS feeds to their aggregators, those who are interested in particular products and services available in the internet can now be notified real time. Marketing becomes more specific to interested people and not a hit-and-miss operation.

Those who intend to use RSS for marketing their products and services should consider linking up with email account providers, (e.g. Yahoo, MSN, Google mail); networking websites (e.g. Friendster, Multiply, My Space, Hi5); websites of newspapers and television network websites (e.g. New York Times, CNN) for medium to big-scale companies. Small-time industries can also look into networking websites as well as personal blog websites (e.g. Blogspot) and websites of clubs and organizations that would probably make use of their products or services e.g. a fishing supplies store can look for the website of their local fishing club for possible RSS marketing.


Clearly, RSS is an innovation in information management in the worldwide web as well as online marketing. We can expect better RSS technology in the not-so-distant future as its popularity increases among users and website owners alike.

This is made available by Christopher Bankole

https://digitalproductsstore.selz.com

http://downloadsafe.org/file/b5969658

Increasing Sales Through Strategic Internet Marketing

The Internet has now become an important medium for product and service advertisements.  Almost every company that can afford print, radio and TV advertisements have also ventured into placing ads on the Internet.

But with millions of websites out there being visited by millions of computer users, how can you make sure that your ad can be seen by your target customers and that your leads will be followed by these users?  Here are a few tips.

1.  Place an ad on the websites frequented by your target customers.  Before doing this, you need to define who will be your target customers.  Placing an ad on sites that they usually visit will increase the possibility that your ad will gain the attention and will be followed your target customers.  

Also, consider the website's search engine placement, traffic, external linking and the other ads placed on it.  External linking will determine if there are other sites that link to this site.  This will mean that people can get to the site where your ad is placed, even if they are browsing a different site.  Check if many of your competitors have ads on this site.

2.  Placing ads on some sites cost some money.  However, there are also sites that can place a link to your site, product or service in exchange of having their link being displayed on your site.  This is also true about the newsletters sent by site owners to its mailing list members regularly.

Also, having helpful links placed on your site and having sites link to your pages help in boosting search engine ranking.  This is similar to making a statement that your site's content is important that other sites have links to your web pages.

3.  Pay-per-click (PPC) is also a good method in Internet marketing.  You will only need to pay for the ad if the link is clicked.  If you prefer this method of advertisement, make sure that you are using services that set limits on daily expenses.  There are also services that help you determine effective keywords and monitor the PPC results.

4.  Choose your domain name wisely.  It is still being debated if domain names matter when it comes to search engine placement.  Whether it does or not, having product related domain names help consumers remember your domain, that they can go back to your site even without the links.

5.  Make sure you have useful content on your sites.  While keyword density is important in search engine placement, having useless information or annoying repetition of keywords will not increase your customer's confidence in your site.  It may even affect your sites traffic and can get your site removed from search engines.  So make sure that keywords are used strategically.

6.  When thinking of keywords, think like your target customers.  What do you think are they going to search so they can get to your site?  Also, use specific keywords or key phrases.  Submitting a single word or a very general phrase to a search engine will not get you to the top of the search results compared to submitting specific keywords that describe your product and services perfectly.

7.  Track your ads.  Always check how much you have spent on placing links on frequently visited sites and on PPC.  There are services that allow you to monitor PPC transactions and how many of these end in sales.  You always need to consider if the ads that you have placed on these websites are getting you to your target consumers and if these ads can lead to revenue.

One final tip on marketing products and services, sell the benefits.  It will help your marketing strategies a lot if you highlight the benefits of choosing your products and services instead of merely discussing the product specifications.  Product specifications may not mean much to customers, unless they know what these stand for (how these specifications affect the quality of the product or service).

Many people say getting to the top of search engine results is difficult since millions of websites exist, which can be using the same keywords.  While this is true, this doesn't mean that your website has to stacked under your competitors' websites when presenting search engine results.  Strategic advertising and linking, together with useful content, can also get you to the top of the search results.


Presented by Christopher Bankole
https://digitalproductsstore.selz.com
http://downloadsafe.org/file/b5969658

Building and managing an opt in list for a website

Building and managing an opt in list for a website provides a seller direct access to a wide number of potential customers. Building and managing an opt in list makes use of a system that makes it possible for website visitors to fill up an online form in order to sign up for the latest products and services offered by an online site.

Building and managing an opt in list is commonly practiced by numerous sites on the Internet to maximize their visibility on the world wide web. Building and managing an opt in list is also a proven marketing technique that many business websites use again and again to keep loyal visitors updated on the latest products available from their favorite e-store. 

Building and managing an opt in list is also useful for websites that provide news, technology and various forms of information on different subject matters. Visitors that sign up at their favorite website's opt in list can receive updates on products and services offered by the site. In addition the subscriber gains access to the site's regular ezine or newsletter. 

The opt-in mailing list provided by a website is not spam, it is a legitimate sign up program for individuals sincerely interested in a website's products and services. No one is included in the opt-in mailing list without prior consent. 

Gathering email addresses for building and managing an opt in list

A number of free listing services are available on the Internet to gather email addresses for a website's opt in list. However many of these free list services cannot be personalized to suit a specific site. In addition, the free service list has the option of shutting down a website's list at whatever time they choose to do so. 

A better method for building and managing an opt in list begins with a good script for form processing. The script allows a subscriber to fill in a form and send it in to a specific address. The information is then processed and included in a database file. 

After that, the website can send a personalized reply to the subscriber to thank them for their subscription to the site. 

The online form to be filled up by a customer can also be customized to fit the format of a specific site. There are a number of websites that offer form-processing scripts wherein the generally cost price of a good script is about $30. 

A pop email account should be created on the website's server in order to accommodate the influx of subscription requests. Email templates will also make the process of handling subscription request easier and faster. This will include an email template for subscription requests and possible requests from subscribers that want to unsubscribe from the Website opt in list. The option to unsubscribe helps build trust between the site visitor and the website.

Building and managing an opt in list database

Creating a database is essential in building and managing an opt in list for a website. There are a number of database programs offered on the Internet that can help process the information sent in for subscriptions. Once the database is set up, a mailing list needs to be generated. This process is essential to building and managing an opt list that will continually process subscription requests from site visitors. 

A database program will automatically enable a website to attend to all the details involved in building and managing an opt in list. At the same time, easy access to a subscriber's personal information allows a website to send personalized messages to a specific subscriber at any time. 

Building and managing an opt in list subscriber base

Websites can employ a number of methods for building and managing an opt in list subscriber base. Putting up incentives are a great come on for building and managing an opt in list. Offering a free gift as well as providing free services with each subscription is a great technique for building and managing an opt in list. Online contests are also a very popular way of getting people to join a website opt-in list. In addition, prizes that are related to the website's content also help generate interest in the other products and services offered by the site. 

Remember, building and managing an opt in list is the ideal and simplest option to increase website traffic.

This free report is made available by Christopher Bankole

https://digitalproductsstore.selz.com

http://downloadsafe.org/file/b5969658